Wednesday’s Mini-Report

November 29, 2006

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* It’s hard to believe how ridiculous the Pentagon’s new war-spending plan is.

* Right-wing blogs were apoplectic yesterday, but the AP is standing behind its story about Shiite militiamen who dragged six worshippers from a Sunni mosque, doused them with kerosene, and set them on fire.

* To his credit, pastor Rick Warren says he’s heard the criticism, but he’s not going to rescind his invitation to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). He noted, however, that a) he disagrees with Obama on reproductive rights; and b) Obama is addressing a conference at the church, not the church’s congregation.

* Speaking of Obama, his middle name may apparently cause some heartache for the media. It’s “Hussein.”

* Brandon Mayfield was the Oregon man who was arrested in 2004 and held for two weeks for allegedly aiding the terrorist bombings of Spanish commuter trains — which he had nothing to do with. Today, he won a $2 million settlement from the U.S. government.

* Good post from Publius on the “Antichrist Superstar.”

* Good post from Ron Chusid on “losing the enlightenment.”

* Now Newt Gingrich believes that “unless the Bush administration admits that the war in Iraq is a ‘failure,’ it will never develop a strategy to leave the country successfully.” The last time Newt talked this way, he quickly backed off the next day.

* Bush’s far-right appointments continue, this time for the Office on Violence Against Women.

* About $2 billion worth of Army and Marine Corps equipment — from rifles to tanks — is wearing out or being destroyed every month in Iraq and Afghanistan.

* How to force a new election in Florida’s 13th congressional district.

* Great, another Roy Moore-like fight over the Ten Commandments. That’ll be fun.

* The “war on penguins” continues unabated.

* And finally, the peace/Christmas wreath that sparked a national controversy? As it turns out, the threatened fines have been dropped, the board of the homeowners’ association has resigned, and the wreath will apparently stay in place through the holidays.

If none of these particular items are of interest, consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

* Great, another Roy Moore-like fight over the Ten Commandments. That’ll be fun.

This new one weighs in at 12,000 pounds, (what’s with the multi-ton carved rock deal?) As I recall the original tablets were brought down by Moses,one in each arm. So they couldn’t have weighed any more than a couple of cases of beer. Can’t they ever just put up the Ten Commandments with those plastic letters inside a glass display case they use for other announcements?

  • Speaking of Obama, his middle name may apparently cause some heartache for the media. It’s “Hussein.”

    Why does Barak have Middle Eastern sounding names. I thought his folks were from Haiti or Jamaica, mon. Is it his African heritage?

  • Here’s an idea for the Pentagon—Get yourselves a copy of “Bake Sales for Dummies.” And keep your grubby paws out of my wallet!

    But as for Michael (*crack addict*) Medved and his (*barrel-o-meth induced*) phobia of small polar-region creatures somehow being a presumed (*reefer-madness-esque*) agenda against the (*toked-to-the-gills pot freak*) righteousness of (*no such thing as christian*) American (*agents of the antichrist*) values, I wish the (*fried-like an egg dope-fiend*) well with his (*LSD flashback*) storytelling (*anything-for-a-buck, flea-infested, journalistic whore*) profession….

  • Thanks Taio.
    I finally got up off my mental butt and did some research too.

    Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya, and Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas.

    They met a the East-West Institute of which I have fond memories. Cool place, so his parents were definitely mellowly intelligent like he turned out to be. He lived with his Grandparents from age 11 on. Sounds like he did the appropriate amount of drugs and inhaled. Then he went to Columbia which I also have fond memories of. Then to Harvard Law which I think is a bit more challenging than Harvard B-School.

    Sounds like he really was a kind of Tiger Woods trained in public service. A prodigy of sorts. Hmm, I’m leaning toward voting for him now.

  • As regards the Pentagon’s war-spending plan, the thing to do is take the Hair Farce proposal – more F-22s and F-35s that do squat for this war and would have been “nice to have” when the Red Army came through the Fulda Gap, and just cancel those programs outright as a complete waste of anything and everything you can think of other than socialism for the defense industry and pork for the losers of the elections. If they need more fast little jets to drop bombs on the wrong target with, they can refurbish the F-16As sitting out at Davis-Monthan. If they really wanted to do something useful and worthwhile, they’d refurbish all the A-10s there, and bring that useful airplane back into production. But the FlyBoys can’t stand the thought of flying something that’s actually useful in battle for more than great video and public relations.

  • Hey Tom Cleavers back. #8. Hope you’re doing well.

    Good post from Ron Chusid on “losing the enlightenment.”

    That was a good article, but I’m worried about Friedman Inflation. It seem Friedman is now a 10 month or 10 year increment. We’ll soon be carrying Friedmans to the bank in wheelbarrows.

    He wants to be in the reality-based community but he keeps guessing wrong.

  • * Speaking of Obama, his middle name may apparently cause some heartache for the media. It’s “Hussein.”

    Hussain is an incredibly common name. It’s also the name of the Jordanian king that Bush is currently visiting.

  • * Brandon Mayfield was the Oregon man who was arrested in 2004 and held for two weeks for allegedly aiding the terrorist bombings of Spanish commuter trains — which he had nothing to do with. Today, he won a $2 million settlement from the U.S. government.

    This is a question I’ve long pondered: does a settlement equal justice? No one knows the circumstances of the settlement, or whether it’s fair deal, the case is withdrawn from the court so no one is allowed to rule on it, and in nearly all cases the terms of the settlement include that the parties involved may not discuss it further. For example in this case, there is (once again) no ruling on the President’s abuse of power.

  • About “Hussein”:

    The boy’s name Hussein is pronounced hoo-SAYN. It is of Arabic origin, and its meaning is “good; small handsome one.” Variants include: Husain, Husayn, Husein and Hussain.

  • “Now Newt Gingrich believes that “unless the Bush administration admits that the war in Iraq is a ‘failure’…”

    Blah, blah, blah.

    I forgot how much I disliked this guy, but reading about him lately has brought the old contempt back with a vengence. Where has he been? I mean, more than a few of us have been going nuts about Bush’s failed adventures for longer than it took to win WWII. Now Gingrich says something — after the public officially rendered its opinion — and this makes him some kind of visionary? Some kind of leader? More like some kind of opportunistic, windbag of a coward.

  • Dale (#9) – thanks. Yeah, I keep working on recovering from the accident. Finally went to the last dental appointment I need to for a year, no more 2 hours each way on the bus for a 90-minute session.

    Allow me to tell you all (in case you haven’t had to deal with the legal/insurance system lately) that you do not want to get in an accident in the United States. Even when there is no controversy (the guy who was responsible for my problem claimed responsibility at the scene and hasn’t changed his story) even the insurance company that’s theoretically on your side (the one you gave all that money to) will do all they can to stretch things out and avoid paying you what you claim. They do things like you send in six bills, they question one, and don’t pay any, and then it takes a month to get another answer to your response to that, which is most likely another question. Yes, this is seriously frakking depressing. Going on 5 months without a car in Los Angeles is “cruel and unusual punishment.”

  • By the way, that is a good post from Publius, particularly for those who like the feel of a cold child running up and down the spine. If the Bush he portrays is the Bush we get, things will get a whole lot worse before they get better.

  • Barack Obama was given his FATHER’s whole name:

    “Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya, and Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas….

    “‘That my father looked nothing like the people around me – that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk – barely registered in my mind.’

    “When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced and his father returned to Kenya. His mother then married an Indonesian foreign student, moving to Jakarta with Obama when he was six years old. Four years later, Obama returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents.” — wikipedia

    I believe his father is a Muslim. Along with 1.2 billion other folks, including something like 8 million Americans.

  • * The “war on penguins” continues unabated.

    I haven’t seen it, but apparently it is quite the subversive movie. This is from the discussion at The House Next Door (a very cool movie/film criticism blog):

    “It’s also loaded with weird signifiers and subtexts, as the little penguin who is born different and thus can’t participate in his species mating rituals, but is a fabulous dancer (gay maybe) is ostracized by the stringent religious order and accused of causing the fish shortage by offending their God with his threatening, unnatural practices. After the little guy brings back actual empirical evidence regarding their environmental problems, the elder churchy folks still stubbornly refuse to believe him and just pray even louder and harder, thus setting up a nice critique of our current, depressing science vs. religion debate aimed at the pre-school through Kindergarten set.”

    So it’s very predictable that the Wingers would be going after this movie. I’m going to have to check it out now myself.

  • The only thing more galling to the right wing than Barack Obama’s middle name being Hussein (hey, it coulda been Saddam) is that a whole bunch of the brown people crossing our southern border in search of work have the name Jesus.

    Dale, an excellent post that shaves off Friedman’s latest Mustache of Understanding op-ed in the Times is at http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=943&Itemid=135. The comments are a ton of fun as well.

  • From ANTICHRIST SUPERSTAR:

    All of this is a way of saying that Bush no longer internalizes the costs of continuing failure in Iraq. Other people do. The troops and their families (and the Iraqi public) always have. And the GOP will too, but not Bush. He and his people are gone in two years — with war crimes immunity to boot.

    What does this mean? I thought that Bush and Cheney were sitting ducks for war-crime prosecutions after they leave office but not before then. Wasn’t Pinochet prosecuted by Spain in 1998 for human rights violations that occurred between 1973 to 1990?

  • Hello, people, come back to earth. I’m sorry, I know I am in a grumpy mood tonight, but Bush turning over the enforcement of the Violence Against Women Act to an Ashcroft protege whose claims to fame are support for the Patriot Act, anti-pornography crusades, and spending $12 million to convict 55 people for selling bongs is a HELL of a lot more important that a Senator’s middle name or the looney, homophobic reading of an animated film by a not too bright movie critic.

  • A the “war on penguins” continues, the SCOTUS case Massachussets v EPA is getting real fascinating… it seems like Justice Kennedy could decide the whole thing (As he probably will in several future cases)

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