Bob Morris @ Dec 10th 2003 15:39 - Category: Unfiled ;
Cell phone pictures of Connecticut
The first is the sign on the barn where we bought maple syrup, which operated on the honor system. Walk into the sugaring shack, fill up a container with maple syrup, leave a check. $23 for a half gallon.
The aerial shot is of the Farmington River coming into Bradley airport near Hartford.
Bob Morris @ Dec 10th 2003 15:09 - Category: Unfiled ;
Pentagon fearing falling morale, enlistments, plans massive troop rotation in Iraq
The Pentagon is preparing to rotate a quarter of a million troops into and out of Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan early next year in a massive and risky undertaking that could leave them highly vulnerable to attacks during the changeover.
“They’re driven by the fact that though they claim this was a war of necessity, it’s really a war of choice,” said Lawrence J. Korb, who was assistant secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration. “Because it’s a war of choice, if they don’t get those troops out of there they are going to cause long-term problems for the U.S. military, because they will have horrible reenlistment rates.”
So, to prevent falling reenlistments, they will deliberately pull out troops, putting them at risk while doing so, replacing them with even less experienced forces. Sounds like a politically driven decision that is guaranteed to kill US soldiers.
Not that the Pentagon appears to care much about their troops anyway.
In an example of the kind of administrative logjam — and resulting soldier distress — that worries Army authorities, about 630 Army National Guard and Reserve troops at Ft. Stewart, Ga., were on “medical hold” for months this year awaiting medical or dental care. They were living in substandard barracks meant for short-term training, lacking climate-control systems and indoor toilets.
Unbelievable. Solidiers in Georgia for months with no air conditioning or flush toilets. Yeah, I bet those solidiers are just lining up to reenlist.
Retired Army Lt. Gen. William “Gus” Pagonis, who directed military logistics during the Persian Gulf War, said Army experts are preparing complex computer models and gaming out scenarios to smooth the obstacles of the move.
“Even if in the U.S. we tried to move 220,000 people out of one airport, it would be a nightmare,” Pagonis said. “The magnitude of all this happening simultaneously, there in Iraq, is just overwhelming.”
Can you say ‘disaster waiting to happen”? I knew you could.
Bob Morris @ Dec 10th 2003 14:08 - Category: Unfiled ;
Who would have EVER imagined this would happen?
Schwarzenegger retreats on key campaign vows
Retreating from two central campaign promises that helped make him governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday dropped his personal “guarantee” that cities and counties would be compensated for billions in lost car-tax revenue and reversed his pledge to safeguard spending for public schools.
Bob Morris @ Dec 10th 2003 14:01 - Category: Unfiled ;
President Chavez of Venezuela
From Greg Palast
In ten years of free market free-for-all, industrialization in Venezuela dropped from 18% of GNP to 13%. And Venezuela fared best. Elsewhere in Latin America, economies simply imploded. And NAFTA created employment only in a fetid trench along the Rio Grande, the ‘maquiladora’ sweatshops which suck down wages on both sides of the Mexico-US border.
We finished our conversation as the President walked in. Hugo Chavez is not one for subtleties. “FTAA is the PATH TO HELL,” said Chavez.
He meant this in the deepest theological sense. What is at stake for Chavez is Latin America’s mortal soul. “I have seen children shot to death,” said the president, “not by an invading Army but by our own nation’s soldiers.”
Chavez was referring to February 27, 1989. While the Northern Hemisphere was celebrating the impending fall of the Berlin Wall, “another wall was going up,” he explained, “the wall of globalization.” That day, the army massacred Venezuelans, young and old, during a demonstration against diktats of the International Monetary Fund imposed on that nation.
The President raced through a dozen more examples, from Bolivia to Chiapas, Mexico, where the miracle of the marketplace came out of the barrel of a gun.
Chavez is amazing. He’s survived a US-inspired coup attempt, has put Venezuela firmly on a Leftist populist path, counts Castro as a close friend and ally - and the right wing zealots in DC, try as they might, can’t depose him.
Bob Morris @ Dec 10th 2003 13:57 - Category: Unfiled ;
Bush the Craven
To conservatives, it was a shocking scene. President Bush sat chatting chummily in the Oval Office on Tuesday with the premier of communist China and harshly rebuked the democratically elected leader of the United States’ old friend and ally, Taiwan.
“The only word I can use is ‘appalled,’ ” said John Tkacik, a China specialist at the conservative Heritage Foundation and a staunch administration supporter. “The spectacle of the American president who just gave such an eloquent speech in Whitehall barely three weeks ago, saying the global expansion of democracy is a pillar of American foreign policy….”
His voice trailed off in disbelief. “This just simply belies that.”
Behind the jarring imagery, however, was a simple message. The Bush administration believes that it cannot afford a political crisis that could draw the United States into a war over Taiwan while it has its hands more than full with Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea.
a) Iraq, Afghanistan, and North Korea are problems Bush created or made vastly worse by his blundering machoism. b) Why should we invade ANY of these countries? How about we just leave other countries the fuck alone for a while and focus on the increasingly serious economic problems here instead? c) So, tough guy Bush turns into a compliant pussycat when faced with an opponent, China, who can actually fight back. He did the same with North Korea. Hey, seems like bullies often are cowards.
Bob Morris @ Dec 10th 2003 13:47 - Category: Unfiled ;
Damn
In a heartbreaking defeat for San Francisco’s progressive voters, Matt Gonzalez narrowly lost his first bid for mayor today. In a 52-48 vote, Supervisor Gavin Newsom won the highly contested election.
Still, Matt ran an amazing campaign, coming out of nowhere to nearly win. He’ll be back.
Bob Morris @ Dec 10th 2003 13:43 - Category: Unfiled ;
I’m (finally) back.
My six hour flight from Connecticut to Los Angeles took eighteen hours, after bad weather forced me to spend the night at a Ramada Inn at O’Hare airport after missing a connecting flight. Yow. However it was worth it to see family and sisters, and to discover I still like going for hikes in the snowy woods when it’s 25.
New England foodie tip: Use maple syrup in coffee instead of sugar or honey. It tastes great!
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