on the bright side, think of it as global trickle-down

It's not like we were gonna need it anyway...

$13 Billion in Iraq Aid Wasted Or Stolen, Ex-Investigator Says

A former Iraqi official estimated yesterday that more than $13 billion meant for reconstruction projects in Iraq was wasted or stolen through elaborate fraud schemes.

Salam Adhoob, a former chief investigator for Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity, told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, an arm of the Democratic caucus, that an Iraqi auditing bureau "could not properly account for" the money.

While many of the projects audited "were not needed -- and many were never built," he said, "this very real fact remains: Billions of American dollars that paid for these projects are now gone."

Wishing Senator Lieberman would go sell used cars...

So I'm at Huffington Post while I eat some Cap'n Crunchberries (the best version of that cereal, I believe) and I come across this asshat:

Lieberman Rips Obama: His Lack Of Conviction Puts Nation In Peril
July 15, 2008 02:23 PM

Despite rumblings that his advocacy for John McCain could lead to his ouster from the Democratic Party, Joseph Lieberman continued on Tuesday to take broad swipes at Barack Obama.

In a speech before the Center for U.S. Global Engagement, Lieberman described the presumptive Democratic nominee as a politician who was consistently wrong on foreign affairs and whose policy proposals -- had they been put in place - would have put America at great risk.

"I've been following Sen. Obama's comments in this campaign and particularly in the last months since the primaries were over," said Lieberman. "And I wish he would just say that the surge has worked. He doesn't have to give credit to John McCain or anyone else. He can give credit to General Petraeus and the troops who have carried it out. I wish he would acknowledge the surge is working, rather than changing his position on how and when we should exit Iraq, without acknowledging that these are changes of positions that are understandably based on conditions on the ground. A president's credibility is based on the courage of his or her convictions, his or her acceptance of reality, and consistency of views are critical elements of national leadership. A president who squanders those does so at our nation's peril."

Lieberman's remarks came just hours after Obama had delivered a foreign policy address of his own, in which the Illinois Democrat reiterated his desire to see a responsible phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq and a greater emphasis on the conflict in Afghanistan.

Working off of Obama's address, Lieberman accused him not only of being unwilling to acknowledge the success of the troop surge, but also for being inconsistent in his foreign policy approach. The 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee then offered nearly half a dozen direct questions to the Illinois Democrat that mimicked, in large part, talking points that the McCain campaign has been using with great frequency.

"Sen. Obama said this morning that he wants a foreign policy that is tough, smart and principled," said Lieberman. "This afternoon I want to ask my colleague who I respect and like a couple of direct questions: Was it tough when Sen. Obama voted to order U.S. troops to retreat from Iraq on a fixed timeline regardless of the recommendations of our military commanders or conditions on the ground? Was it smart when Sen. Obama opposed the surge and predicted that it would fail to improve our security? ... Was it tough and principled when Sen. Obama said he would be open to changing his plan on Iraq after going there and talking to General Petraeus, which I think was the right position, only to change that position hours later after being heatedly criticized by organizations like MoveOn.org? I say respectfully the answer to all those questions is, no."

************

I wish I could say I was at a more intelligent site, or more obscure, to keep up my indiecred - but whatever - I was so pissed off (I'm listening to Elf Power! And The Only Ones! - really really indie) - I just wanted to scream about this asshat, and maybe watch as a cosmic hand of higher order slapped off the idiotic sense of right he wears on his face like a lapel pin. All I could do was write his office. I feel weak and annoyed right now. He just deserves to have shit thrown on him. Everyday.:


Sen. Lieberman,

I just wanted to let you know what a poor Senator you are and how typically shallow your stances are in the McCain campaign. Lack of convictions? Do you mean like the tax breaks McCain now favors? Or his views on gays?

And your "I told Obama I was in the Civil Rights" - could you be more condescending?

I used to hope that Senators might be a little smarter than the average guy in the street - used to believe that just perhaps we elected those among us we felt best represented us - you disprove that theory so spectacularly that it depresses me.

You're a political opportunist who picked the wrong time to switch sides and is stuck now out of pride. I wish I could use stronger language about you, but my respect for your office prevents me.

I will only say, I pray that one day you will have no reason to regret your stances, only that they were yours, and to be thankful that smarter, braver voices prevailed.

Andrew Decker

Attacks in Afghanistan are becoming more complex, intense, coordinated

I like how the draw down in Iraq is going to result in more troops to send to Afghanistan and to show that we have won the war there. And I thought we already won in Afghanistan too.

*

What kind of legacy is it to loose one war per term?

*

And I've often wondered what a majority of Americans would say if surveyed on whether we can achieve victory in Iraq if it remains a Muslim nation, but maybe I'm just too jaded.

turning the corner (cont'd)

Not-So-Horrible Thing Happens In Iraq
Status Upgraded From Terrifying To Awful

BAGHDAD—In a development Pentagon officials are calling not nearly as horrifying as usual, three car bombs ripped through a Baghdad marketplace Monday, killing fewer than 15 innocent civilians, severely injuring no more than 30, and merely maiming one U.S. soldier.

State of the Nation

Boys, other readers,

I have been in the Heartland of this country for the last week or so, and I have had occasion to notice many things happening in our fine country. I want to talk about some concerns I have about your tone on this blog.

First things first: there does not seem to be any sense that we live in the finest country in the world. There are articles about unwinnable wars, veterans being charged for hurting their equipment during war, corporations acting like anti-democratic regimes hell-bent on the destruction of soul in the blind pursuit of abstract dollar amounts and the fallacy of any kind of first amendment rights while apparent jackals run the government and monkeys campaign to lead it. In the midst of all this there are also articles about squirrelly Elvis impersonators, a birthday (a new year welcomed in smut no less), some baseball (but in such a cynical way! Apple pie my friends, is the taste we have for baseball), more baseball (again, quite cynical) and threats of calls to immigration made against Evanston-born citizens.

What about Great America?

Not the enjoyable amusement park just north of Chicago along I-94, peddling its wares to those speeding automobiles heading home after a long day in the office some 30 miles southeast. I'm talking about the good things happening in America. The fact that so many of our fellow citizens are able to find multiple jobs. Just think of an American economy so strong that many people can find two, three and in some cases, four (!) jobs!

I'm talking about an America able to lead the entertainment industry around the globe so that other countries take their lead from our collective imagination. An industry that has been so powerful as to teach our journalists even, how to do their jobs! Americans spend hundreds of millions of dollars on fine films like Norbert, Fantastic Four 2, and Spiderman 3, and it's a good thing too! There's a lot of stuff happening to other people that we need to take our minds off of. What minds! We have such an interesting and exciting educational system that is mathematically proving to make better and better students!

Let's not even talk about television! And the great foresight of our music industry!

We need more of the good news stories that otherwise might disappear off the peripheries of our consciousness. Like that story about the cat that predicts death and how he got an award. That was nice.

Here's a start. This is an article entitled, "At Last! Good News from Iraq", it's all about how troops are not dying in Iraq so often as they did in other wars from things like car crashes or disease, like dysentery. Like I know you will, when you read it, I feel a lump of happiness in my throat, a great rejoicing that our troops are so much better protected by God than those Islamic Fascists, or whatever they're called this week, who always seem to blow up in their cars or near the cars, as well, a lot of them seem to die from diseases and causes that we don't have to worry about so much over here because of our amazing access to health care.

Please try to find more of these happy stories. You can try the New York Post, it's run by an Australian, and Australians are kind of like Americans on steroids.

It's like that FOX guy said about anti-war activists when we took Baghdad back for freedom a few years back (and quoted in something Mr. McClure linked, or maybe it was Mr. Smiffy,) about anti-war protesters, "You were sickening then, you are sickening now." The reason he said they were sickening was not because he felt they shouldn't be allowed to say what they want, as long as they have a permit and nobody else is offended and they're not on private or public property and they have police protection so that if somebody doesn't like what they are saying they won't cause those other people to react violently and get in trouble, he said they were sickening because they make people worry about what's right and wrong when they can't control anything anyway. This is a democracy, not some free-for-all. People like him know the best way to have a democracy is to have everybody agree and support policy that protects our freedom and our way of life, which is freedom! It's like they say, if you don't support our president and his president, the vice president ("vice" is like the German uber but without any umlauts), you don't support our troops. I am telling you, there will be blowback against the way you think now. When people realize that people who start arguments are doing it because they want everybody to lose, they (the good people of our democracy) will not be happy.

I fear this is true. It will only take one crack of the whip, and they know that. And they are probably banking on it. They always end up being They.

best wishes,

fellow blog contributor,

and etc....