That's Odd;

Gone From NPR, Williams Begins Bigger Role On Fox

... I thought Juan Williams was a Muslim.

("When I get on a plane," he said, "I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.") Juan Williams, on Fox News



I mean, look at that complexion. Look at the little moustache. Look at the Arab-Doing-Business-With-The-West suit. Juan looks to me like he'd be a lot more comfortable wearing a Galabeeya.
Or, considering his name (Juan?); maybe he's one of those furriners who's been sneaking across the border to steal jobs from honest hard-working Americans. I wonder: has he ever been carded by an Arizona cop?
OK; I guess that's enough stereotypes from me for today. Sorry - I guess I've been watching too much Faux News.

History Lessons

A while back, I took a trip; spent a few days in Georgetown. No, not the one in DC. The Georgetown in Malaysia, at the North end of the Malacca Straits.

It's a pretty ramshackle place - a leftover from the colonial days of the British Empire, set there to protect the shipping in the straits. Named, I presume after The Mad King George. Not much to see, and seems like everybody smokes incessantly, so eating is a bit of a challenge. Probably the most interesting place was Fort Cornwallis (1786). Yes, named after that Cornwallis. Awarded a fort, I guess, for coming in second at the Battle of Yorktown (1781). It occurred to me later that the General would probably never have been so famous if he had won the battle. Enduring fame would have come to a later commander, the one who finally lost the last major battle of the Revolutionary War. In the course of that war the British Army won most of the battles but, as predicted early by Sir Edmumd Burke, they could have won every battle and still lost the war. You cannot win a war if the other side won't stop fighting. Unless, as I've probably mentioned a few times before, you simply exterminate them (Carthagos Est Delenda).
What a terrible shame, isn't it, that Tony (The Poodle) Blair couldn't convince our own Mad King George (The Blunt Instrument) Bush? He was so intent on invading other countries, and putting them to rights, that he couldn't be bothered to check his history books.
So Now, here we are, with two lost wars, trying to find a graceful way to exit, carrying our dead with us as we go.
In Afghanistan, the warlords have never paused except to reload. Our miniscule military force on the ground has been kept rushing from pillar to post trying to find some key leader of an essentially leaderless resistance. Our wonderfully learned West Point Generals seem unable to concieve that they're fighting warriors who never even went to college.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, the various factions, having been well paid, well armed, and well trained by the U.S. military and assorted CIA cohorts, are waiting for us to leave, at which time the Potemkin Government they've put up for show will disappear, and they'll set about deciding whose Man-on-a-White-Horse will become the new Brutal Thug Dictator, replacing Saddam Hussein.
Let me dedicate this to our very own American Mad King George: Masters of War

Of Course, There's Another Way

To deal with this: "In quotes: Koran-burning threat". The good pastor Terry Jones (another Reverend Jones; Oh My!), if he would reflect for a moment on the violence, the destruction, and the out and out atrocities committed by those who have professed Christianity over the last millenium or so, might wish to toss a few Holy Bibles on his bonfire, as well.
Though, truthfully (as if that has anything to do with human motivation), every kind of person of every kind of social or religious background, is sometimes given to mindless acts of violence.
Of course, it can be fun to do something that you know will provoke the ersatz outrage of those who make a profession of being outraged. Like the staffers at Fox News, in the case of those who claim to be more-Christian-than-thou. Or, of course, the ADL cadre, who troll through the news seeking any taint of anti-semitism. And then, as here, with this little piss-ant church from Florida, there are those who like to get an expression of outrage from the Muslim guardians of righteousness. As the faux outrage spirals ever higher, so to does the pay scale of the demonstrative savers of their respective societies.
I do like some of the very predictable quotes gathered in the above very modest compendium of BBC News.

Who Authorized This?

Or, How did the CIA end up such a power unto itself? How does it get to wage war, complete with war crimes, with no adult supervision? Why does nobody ever ask questions like this? Is J. Edgar Hoover still alive (or something resembling life), and working across the street from the FBI?
Report: Blackwater Created Shell Companies. Lost in the report (well, almost lost): "Last year, Panetta [CIA Director - ed.] canceled a contract with Xe that allowed the company's operatives to load missiles on Predator drones in Pakistan, and shifted the work to government personnel ." My question: Just what the hell is the CIA doing loading missiles on RPVs?. Apparently, having sowed land mines over large swathes of Southeast Asia, pretty much destroying Laos and Cambodia, where people are routinely blown up still today, the ever-vigilant CIA is working hard to create yet another toxic dump in a foreign (read, not-like-us) part of the world. Isn't this sort of activity supposed to be the purview of the military?
Oh, well; I don't suppose the dead really care much whose finger pushed the button.
It's just that I take great offense that such crimes are perpetrated in my name.
It's madness! It's madness!

If I Were Glenn

I'd be leery of setting myself up to be compared to Dr. King. The lachrymose, saccharine, Glenn Beck is just not a very dynamic figure, except, of course to the persistently and insistently uninformed sort who "Just Sorta Know" when something's not right. I refer, of course to Sarah Palin, the leader of the Know-Nothing Movement, masquerading as the Tea Party patriots, or some variant thereof. I do confess, in these uncertain times, it can be a great relief to be absolutely certain of your (and your leader's) righteousness. Still, Faux News and its stable of odd comentators seems an unlikely place to find a fair and unbiased evaluation of the day's events. Herewith, Glenn's plan for August 28: Restoring Honor, or "Beckapalooza", according to some naysaying critics.

Absurdities In The News:

... John Boehner

"Sees ongoing economic uncertainty" (In a speech to the City Club of Cleveland, Boehner said Obama needs to act immediately on several fronts to break what the Republican describes as "ongoing economic uncertainty." ) AP, August 24.
"...called on President Obama Wednesday to fire his economic team." (House Republican leader John Boehner Tuesday called on President Obama to extend the Bush tax cuts, fire his economic team, and listen to the fears and “entrenched uncertainty” that is stalling job growth on Main Street." ) Christian Science Monitor, August 24.
His reasoning for the latter? Apparently it's because the President's economic team sees an unusual level of uncertainty in the economy. In other words, either they stole Boehner's forecast, or he stole theirs!

ALSO:

PepsiCo, maker of carbonated soft drinks and oily-salty potato and corn chips, is launching a marketing campaign to convince people that they sell healthy food (PepsiCo, largely known for junk-food brands such as Doritos and Pepsi, is setting out to triple its sales of healthier products in the next decade.) AP, August 24.

ALSO:

"Vonage Mobile"is a free app that lets you make "free phone calls": (http://apps.facebook.com/vonage-talkfree/). Apparently, if you opt for this, your Smart Phone, your WiFi, and your 3G services will no longer cost you anything. Its all Free!. (But I wouldn't make book on this last claim).

I leave additional examples (of which there is no lack) as an exercise for the reader.
Enjoy!

There's Too Much

Outofdate stuff on this blog. It is, after all, six years old. My thesis, that "I Could Be Wrong" has been well demonstrated. However, I do think that some of my more {ahem} inspired Maunderings have stood the test of a short period of time. Therefore, I've gone back over the rambling discourses; if you can call them that, and reposted a few of them here: The Best Of Frank Maunder .
Take a look, if you've a mind. It's a lot easier than trying to sort through all the odds and ends on your own (unless you'd really rather do that). Enjoy!
F. Maunder, Prop.

The Cynics Among Us

..., Including me, might simply say there's really no point in spending time and money gathering current information about the earth's meteorological state, if you have no intention of using it (Dimmer view of Earth). Ultimately, it can only be used by others as ammunition to illustrate how deeply and completely you abandoned your duty to properly care for the welfare of the country. And the planet. Best to just cripple the ability for the EOS (Earth Observing Satellite) system to measure state-of-the-earth data.
Or, a more earthy person might point out that, since politically and culturally there is absolutely no will whatsoever to do anything about the devastation of the planet, You Can't Fatten a Steer By Weighing It. So why waste the effort?

More Proof

..., If any were necessary, that Society has evolved much faster than Mankind: A hundred years ago, when people used a wall-mounted phone to make a long distance call, they tended to speak louder, to overcome the dissipating effects of distance. Today, however, everybody has a Mobile Phone (Cell Phone, in the USA). Even with a SmartPbone though, people still shout when they talk at long distance. Wouldn't a truly evolved talker know that his phone was smart enough to make the needed amplification adjustment for the distance involved?
No, even the smartest of smart phones is actually not much more than a shiny can-on-a-string to its proud (but unevolved) owner.

What America Needs

Yes! According to the new Mouth of the South, Newt "No Mosque Near Ground Zero Til Churches & Synagogues in Saudi Arabia" Gingrich, what America needs is to be more like Saudi Arabia. Perhaps Mr. Gingrich would prosper in such a toxic society; at least he wouldn't have had to divorce his cancer-stricken wife while she was hospitalized, just to take a new wife. He could have had four wives all at once, instead of serially.
Something America doesn't need: an Amphibian-American President.

Mission Accomplished

Now, Years Later... After the immediately previous president, the now notoriously maladroit George W. Bush completed his own personal mission in Iraq; that is, he killed Saddam Hussein, we find a curiously inept semi-non-government in that sad country, apparently unable to accomplish even the simplest of tasks: Top Insurgents Escaped Prison Days After Iraq Took Over. Of course, an actual functioning society was never in the sight of the former president. In fact, I suspect he wouldn't recognize a functioning society if he were to actually live in one. Which he doesn't. However, feeling pestered by his Secretary of State Colin "You Broke It, You Bought It" Powell, the president embarked on a course of Nation Building.
Doesn't seem to have worked.
Turns out, Bush was a wizard at Nation Destroying, but all his horses and all his men never managed to put any of them back together again.
It's left to the new president, Barack H. Obama, to try to put Humpty back together. Thus far, eighteen months into his term, he hasn't managed it with Afghanistan, the United States, or, apparently, with Iraq. I think the current president, a seemingly intelligent man, is devoutly hoping that what we would see in a game of chess as stalemate will look enough like success to satisfy the warlike instincts of the ordinary U.S. citizen, so he can, as president Richard M. Nixon did, simply declare victory and walk away.

Nothing Could Be Easier

Than getting the government of Israel to make itself more enemies. Here, Nadav Tamir (a Consul-General for Israel in the USA) Hamas, Israel, and the Gaza flotilla: seven facts you need to know explains how Israel was defending itself from the well-known terrorists in Gaza. Unfortunately, the world at large doesn't see things exactly in the same way.
This is not at all an unusual occurrence. The state of israel seems to be almost wierdly tone deaf when it comes to the view of people who are actually sympathetic to the Palestinians. OF COURSE the "Aid Fleet" was intended to make Israel look bad. Thanks to the actions of Israel, it succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of the instigators. Haaretz, the pretty-much mouthpiece of the Israeli government, op-edded that the United States acted like a turncoat for not unconditionally supporting any- and every- thing Israel does. It's one of the hazards, of course, of being a client state of the US. Eventually, the boss will decide you're interfering in it's agenda, causing too much trouble. And it's not as if Israel wasn't warned. But, in their resolute tone-deafness, they didn't hear the warning.
Conclusion: the Israelis are a bunch of knee-jerk chumps: Pavlov would be pleased.
Conclusion 2: the terms Middle East and Peace should not appear in the same article.
Unless you're telling a joke.

The Dastards!

The Democrats in the Senate are plotting: Coburn warns against majority-vote tactic in weekly Republican address
Yes; they're planning to pass legislation with a Majority Vote. Imagine! allowing a measly majority to determine the outcome of a legislative process!
Well, it's true, in these benighted times, that we really don't want our government to function.
Actually, in this case (Health Care Reform), I blame the President.
One of the things being said against him in the campaign was that a "community organizer" was a poor reccomendation for the presidency. I disagreed. It seemed to me then, silly fool that I was, that someone whose expertise was in getting the various stakeholders in a process to meet and negotiate was exactly what a President ought to do.
Well, I am so out of date here. The President's job today is to roll over the opposition and rule autocratically.
Observe, if you will, the relative efficiencies of George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama. It's no contest. By trying to be collegial in the face of absolute opposition, the President has frittered away his mandate. Mandates are nice, but such limited things. Bush started with one, but 6 months into his presidency, he was accorded a failure. Then he "hit the Trifecta". Remember? Pretty much ruled by fiat the rest of his administration. Pretty much dismantled the federal government in the process.
All the king's horses and all the king's men are unlikely to restore it in our lifetime (well, mine. If you're very young you might eventually see a functional government).

Nice Euphemism Tom

Yes; When the United States "intervened" in 2003, apparently we didn't attack, or invade, or occupy, or Bomb The Snot Out Of Iraq. It was more like we faced them down and sent them to a 30 day rehab. Like Charlie Sheen. "Ok Iraq, we're taking you off to Betty Ford's for a nice little rest". "U.S. intervention in Iraq" . A few hundred thousand wounded/maimed/dead, and its an Intervention! For the rest, Thomas is, as usual, pretty perceptive regarding the miasma that is Iraq. But still, there are those little-mentioned elements that are so hard to sniff out, one might think there was some denial involved. Why is there such a uniform assumption that everybody loves an Election? In fact, most times most places throughout history, "Free, Democratic Elections" aren't how people select their leaders; or they've been pretty thoroughly corrupted. As for the outcome of such a process being welcomed, I have one example: USA 2000. Ok, another: USA 2008. Lots and lots of people did not consider the eventual selectee for President to be legitimate. The other rarely mentioned factoid about Iraq's elections: the various elective offices are not open to all citizens. There's a Religious Qualification for the office of President, Prime Minister, and, for all I know, Assistant to the Assistant Undersecretary of American Military Cooperation. For some offices, you gotta be Shi'te; for others, Sunni. I think there's a few slots for Kurds, also. Reservations Required.
We distorted our version of elections pretty mightily to get our Puppet Government installed. And looking at the historical record with regard to US Puppets, the next government won't hold up very long.
I personally am trying to decide which government to bet to beat the spread: Iraq or Afghanistan.

So, What's New?

I guess there really hasn't been any substantive change through the centuries: "Before he left Rome,Caesar, by proclaiming edicts and bending the will of the Senate, had set in place a program to shore up the faltering Roman economy. The problems were many and daunting. With the commencement of the war, money had grown increasingly scarce, even while prices soared. The treasury of Rome had been emptied to pay for Caesar's military campaigns. No taxes were flowing in...." A MIST OF PROPHECIES Steven Saylor, St. Martins Press, 2002, P. 55). Except, of course, that George W. Bush is certainly no Caesar, no matter how much he thinks he is. War(s) - no change. No taxes - no change. "Bending the will (hah!) of the Senate - No Change! It's all very discouraging isn't it.
Just another instance of Maunder's Corollary; "He who does remember his past is still doomed to repeat it".
Other than that, It's a pretty good mystery set in Rome, slightly-B.C.E.

Because It Works

So Well... Skelton opposes repeal of 'Don't ask, don't tell'.
Yes, as the redoubtable Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), from the Show Me State, notes, we are currently fighting not one, but two wars. For some reason, shooting, bombing, missling, killing, dying - these aren't problems. A faggot in the army - that's a problem!
Maybe Rep. Ike (yeah, I know, I'm probably confusing him with the Reverend Ike) thinks it ("Don't Ask, Don't Tell") is a suitable legacy for his tenure in office. I'd consider it an embarassment.
Myself, I wonder why anybody who's told so clearly that he (she) isn't fit to serve his country would still volunteer to do so. I am reminded here of a fellow sailor who served in a nearby office when I was in the Navy. Everybody knew he was Gay (OMiGod!). Nobody cared. He did his job. He bothered nobody. He planned on a career in the service. The Office of Naval Intelligence (aka the Elephant Trackers, on account of they never lost track of an Elephant) found him out! Sent him to the brig. Where a squad of lusty strong (and I'm assuming non-gay) U.S.Marines beat him into a coma. After a few weeks in the hospital, he was court-martialled, found guilty of whatever, and dealt a Dishonorable Discharge. Which, at that time, pretty much meant his life was over. No one would hire him, he got no GI Bill benefits. In essence, he was criminalized. One wonders who benefitted from this Inqisitorial process. The Navy lost a reliable sailor. The sailor lost a bright future. The United States was, however, saved from ... ?.

Unindicted

The Justice Department, working under the Bush Rules, did their job: Iraqis furious as Blackwater charges dismissed.
Mission Accomplished guys!
After all, we know the entire focus of the previous administration was twofold:
1. Eviscerate the federal government - render it wholly incompetent.
2. Transfer tax dollars with the greatest possible dispatch to business cronys.
On both counts, there can be little doubt. The administration of G.W.Bush was an unparalleled success!
Meanwhile, it just wouldn't do if the business cronys the attack on Iraq was intended to enrich ended up being prosecuted for their activities. It makes no sense, does it? And it's really very simple to fix any possible legal problems.
First, 'negotiate' a status-of-forces agreement with the puppet government of Iraq that gives American 'civilians' immunity. DONE.
Second, if the business buddies or their employees get caught out, make sure the US Justice Department violates the defalcator's Fifth Amendment rights during the investigation. All the evidence will become inadmissable in court. DONE.
As lower level corrupt government officials might say: "The Fix Was In"