Two time losers; wanna make it three?

 

How many times do we have to learn this lesson?

 

Once upon a time

Telling the tale of Syria's civil war and how it began.

Record-sized ozone hole.. but nothing to worry about here.

Proof that animals are plotting to take over the world... unless we kill them all first.  Or maybe they'll take themselves out...

The Rude Pundit is rude about Kentucky.

This and that

Because reasons.

Ted Rall for president ... of France!

What fracking does.

Who owns your food.

Transparency in corporate campaign cash.  And Congress sells out again for cash.

The Civil War was about slavery.  No matter how many times you try to revise history.

Speak to the hand... Dr. Hand.

Taking away women's right to vote.  Because women can't be trusted.

Hillary Clinton answers a question about abortion.  Anti-rape garments for women because US men can't control themselves?

How many days the Congress plans to 'work' next year.

How to disappear completely.

Celebrating more of the Era of Stupid

How dumb are the Americans?  Are Republicans stupid?

The Reign of Morons.

Idiotic testing for eleven year old students.  Who the hell thinks up these questions?

Starting the Civil War all over again... or maybe trying to finish the last one...

Update 10/15:

Why people believe Fox News.

Why fundamentalists want the End of Times to happen.

From belly buttons to Jesus.

I never thought I'd be able to write that sentence....

The science of belly button bacteria.

Beijing rejects North’s envoy request

BEIJING - Pyongyang has allegedly asked Beijing to send them an envoy in order to improve their soured relations, but Beijing turned it down, seen as a warning regarding the regime’s recent warmongering rhetoric.

Because small government means being able to insert it into your private parts.  Republican Attorney General: Oral And Anal Sex Should Be ‘Crimes Against Nature’ In Virginia

Remembering Roger Ebert.

Reaping What You Sow: Are White Supremacists Preparing to Fight a new Civil War?

The Very Smell of Olive Oil is Good for You

Demotivational cat

Breakthrough in hydrogen fuel production could revolutionize alternative energy market

Gulf Of Mexico Dolphin Deaths Point To Continued Effects Of BP Oil Spill, Group Alleges

How much does going solar actually cost you and how long does it take to pay for itself.

Tennessee GOP’s Plan To Shove Jesus Down Our Throat Goes Hilariously Wrong

Back to the past

Sounded a bit silly...

Southern values revived

How a brutal strain of conservative American aristocrats have come to rule America

Until I saw this:

NRA board member Nugent:  America might be better had South won the Civil War 


 My husband always says we lost the Civil War....


Update 7/8:  Marceelina found a link:  Racism Against White People by Ta-Nehisi Coates:

In that environment, the idea of race had to be really important--indeed the future of your country hinged on it. With that said, what I like about this article is it, again, points out the stupidity of using race as a broad classification to reveal abstract, and ill-defined, characteristics. Moreover, it shows that the idea of race in American life has never been a rock, but clay fashioned as the racists of every generation need it to be.

Here's a question for future study--Is there any relation between the mass casualties in the Civil War and this idea of ethnicity and "race" among white people? 

One lap around the net

“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.” Mark Twain

Rick Perry is a thug. Digby discusses.

The Great Prosperity vs the Great Regression and Why Inequality is the Real Cause of Our Ongoing Terrible Economy by Robert Reich.

10 Things Conservatives Don’t Want You To Know About Ronald Reagan

By Alex Seitz-Wald

Apocalyptic GOP Is Dragging Us Into a Civil War

by Matt Taibbi

The All-Time 10 Worst Military Contracting Boondoggles
By Adam Weinstein

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye!

As we leave 2010 in the rear view mirror....

Amazing photos.

Wild weather.

Wingnuts rant about DADT.

Hissy fits and mean girls.

Finally losing the Civil War.

The funniest signs from December.

Pattycake cats:

Just forget that slavery stuff for Confederacy Month

Eugene Robinson for Truthdig:

It amounts to much more than “diddly” that so many Americans try hard to avoid coming to terms with the reality of slavery. It wasn’t just “a bad thing.” Littering is a bad thing. Slavery was this nation’s Original Sin, and yet many people will not look at it except through a gauze of Spanish moss.

The Atlantic slave trade was one of the last millennium’s greatest horrors. An estimated 17 million Africans, most of them teenagers, were snatched from their families, stuffed into the holds of ships and brought to the New World. As many as 7 million of them died en route, either on the high seas or at “seasoning” camps in the Caribbean where they were “broken” to the will of their masters.

[snip]

What “doesn’t amount to diddly” is the revisionist notion—which Confederate History Month celebrations perpetuate—that the Civil War was about something other than slavery. The “lost cause” die-hards insist that the treasonous rebellion was a fight over freedom or the Constitution or states’ rights. But the “right” that was being fought over was the ability to own human beings, compel their labor, buy and sell them as if they were livestock, exploit them sexually and torture or kill them if they tried to escape.

McDonnell’s apology, at least, recognized that slavery was nothing to be proud of. It should be noted, however, that Virginia’s previous two governors—both Democrats—did not feel the need to proclaim Confederate History Month. McDonnell’s original proclamation, before he amended it, seemed designed to appeal to a fringe group for whom the Civil War is still an open question.

This is a free country—for black people, too, thanks to the defeat of the Confederacy—and so if some white Southerners want to celebrate the “heritage” of slavery, they are welcome to do so. But while they’re entitled to their own set of opinions, they’re not entitled to their own set of facts. I’d say that Haley Barbour’s studied ignorance was “a bad thing,” but that would be a gross understatement.

Damn right. I'll quote Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic again:

What undergirds all of this alleged honoring of the Confederacy, is a kind of ancestor-worship that isn't. The Lost Cause is necromancy--it summons the dead and enslaves them to the need of their vainglorious, self-styled descendants. Its greatest crime is how it denies, even in death, the humanity of the very people it claims to venerate. This isn't about "honoring" the past--it's about an inability to cope with the present.

Headlines

The Republicans Are Like Frat Boys in 'Animal House'. Quote:

However, they soon fall in line after the fraternity's leader, the far more respectable, presentable, all-round-cad, Otter (Tim Matheson), backs Bluto's call to arms against the university authorities. "Bluto's right," he says. "Psychotic, but absolutely right. We gotta take these bastards … I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part."

The Republican party, in particular, and American conservatism in general, have taken to operating in a similar manner to the Delta fraternity – increasingly reckless, anarchic and strident. Faced with defeat they respond with desperation. Only where the Deltas were motivated by ribaldry, conservatives are driven by rage.

Budget deficit shrink. Quote:

You know that staggeringly huge budget deficit bequeathed to the Obama administration by George W. Bush's and the rotten Bush recession? Don't look now, but that deficit is getting smaller.

The Ghost of Bobby Lee. Quote:

What undergirds all of this alleged honoring of the Confederacy, is a kind of ancestor-worship that isn't. The Lost Cause is necromancy--it summons the dead and enslaves them to the need of their vainglorious, self-styled descendants. Its greatest crime is how it denies, even in death, the humanity of the very people it claims to venerate. This isn't about "honoring" the past--it's about an inability to cope with the present.

Report: Palin Has Earned An Estimated $12M Since July. Quote:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's speaking engagements may have earned her $12 million since she resigned in July, ABC News estimates.

Palin has been making the media rounds for the past few months, and is raking it in from her estimated six- to seven-figure appearance fees, according to a "conservative estimate" by ABC News.

Aside from becoming a Fox News contributor, Palin also toured the country to promote her book, "Going Rogue: An American Life."

The cash flow won't stop there, either: She will reportedly make $1 million for each episode of her Alaska travel show.

ZAZI PLOT DETAILS EMERGE. Quote:

I realize conservatives don't want to talk about this story, which is probably why major media outlets aren't paying much attention to it.

But that's a shame because when it comes to counter-terrorism, this is a big f'in deal. Here we had a serious terrorist threat -- arguably the most important since 9/11 -- and an al Qaeda recruit who was poised to kill a lot of people. Obama administration officials thwarted Zazi's plan, took him into custody, read him his rights, and gave him a lawyer.

And the results couldn't have been better for the United States. Zazi will spend the rest of his life behind bars, but only after cooperating with federal officials and becoming a valuable source of intelligence.

If Republicans really want to debate the efficacy of Obama's counter-terrorism policies, we can start right here.

DNA On Envelopes Identifies World War II Sailor. Quote:

Gerald Lehman is going home to Michigan, 68 years after he was killed at Pearl Harbor. The young sailor's remains were thought to be among the hundreds trapped under the water when the USS Oklahoma was torpedoed. But his remains were recovered and buried with the remains of four other "unknowns." Lehman's remains were finally identified by using DNA collected from the letters he sent home — Lehman had licked the envelopes to seal them.

Michelle Obama Visits Haiti: First Lady Makes Unannounced Trip. Quote:

Obama and Biden's visit is intended to underscore U.S. commitment to the Haitian reconstruction effort and to thank American officials who have worked in the country for the past three months, the administration said in a statement.

It is Obama's first solo trip as first lady, and she will visit Mexico next, spokeswoman Katherine McCormick-Lelyveld said. Haiti was included when the trip was planned a month ago but not announced for security reasons.

Is the U.S. Army Losing Its War on Suicide? Quote:

From the invasion of Afghanistan until last summer, the U.S. military had lost 761 soldiers in combat there. But a higher number in the service — 817 — had taken their own lives over the same period. The surge in suicides, which have risen five years in a row, has become a vexing problem for which the Army's highest levels of command have yet to find a solution despite deploying hundreds of mental-health experts and investing millions of dollars. And the elephant in the room in much of the formal discussion of the problem is the burden of repeated tours of combat duty on a soldier's battered psyche.

RRS James Cook Voyage 44. Quote:

Join our team of scientists and engineers exploring the Cayman Trough, a three-mile deep rift in the seafloor of the Caribbean, in search of the world's deepest volcanic vents and new species of deep-sea creatures.

The White House Blog "An Opportunity -- Not Simply to Talk, But to Act". Quote:

Today the President and delegations from 46 other nations are working to address the most dire threat of our time: nuclear terrorism. It is the second day of the Nuclear Security Summit, following a first day during which several nations made significant commitments which will strengthen the global effort to maintain nuclear security and nonproliferation. For instance:

* Chile has shipped its highly enriched uranium to the United States; Ukraine has agreed to ship its highly enriched uranium out of the country within two years; and Canada has agreed to ship its used highly enriched uranium to the United States.
* The United States and Russia have reached an agreement on plutonium disposal, a deal that has been stalled since 2000, and which commits both countries to eliminate enough total plutonium for approximately 17,000 nuclear weapons.
* Recognizing the importance of this summit, and that its goals require a long-term commitment, South Korea has agreed to host the next Nuclear Security Summit in 2012.

We actually lost the Civil War

My husband often exclaims.

Proof... Governor Haley Barbour riding in to save Governor Bob McDonnell from his omission about slavery in his 'feel good remember when' Confederacy proclamation. Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly:

Barbour is currently the head of the Republican Governors Association, and a possible 2012 presidential candidate. He also described himself last week as a "fat redneck."

Josh Marshall noted this morning, "The Dems must be pretty bummed the Republicans have finally managed to put the Civil War, slavery and segregation behind them. Oh, right. Never mind."

And for the record, as Newsweek editor Jon Meacham explained over the weekend, the issue means a lot more than diddly: "Efforts to rehabilitate the Southern rebellion frequently come at moments of racial and social stress, and it is revealing that Virginia's neo-Confederates are refighting the Civil War in 2010. Whitewashing the war is one way for the right -- alienated, anxious and angry about the president, health care reform and all manner of threats, mostly imaginary -- to express its unease with the Age of Obama, disguising hate as heritage."

And a teabagger who is ignoring the kinder and less racist message tweaking. Josh Marshall of TPM:

A bunch of his emails have just surfaced with racist appeals, porn and even some good old bestiality thrown in for good measure. One email features video of an African tribal dance, entitled "Obama Inauguration Rehearsal."

And JJ of Unrepentant Old Hippie has an interesting discussion going on who actually Palin appeals to and why.

Is Palin actually TRYING to start a civil war?

Telling her teabaggers to stop cars with Obama bumperstickers and demand answers?:

Or that bumper sticker you see on the next Subaru driving by, an Obama bumper sticker. You should stop the driver and say, "So how is that hopey, changey thing working out for you?"

If you read the comments, there are a lot of liberals hoping to have an excuse to imitate teabaggers and lock and load so to speak.... especially after the road rage incident involving an Obama for President sticker.

And that hopey changey thing is working out much better than having you a heartbeat away from the presidency, lady.

One more of the twenty civil wars being fought in Iraq

Obviously we need to stay in Iraq to prevent/help the sectarian vs. nationalist bloc from/to realizing we're stealing their oil/ unite in an United Iraqi democracy....

While the majority of Iraqis know that the current Sunni-Shiites tension did not exist before 2003, no one can deny that after five years of U.S. occupation, sectarian tension is now a reality. Sectarianism is another disaster that was brought to Iraq by the war and occupation of Iraq.

The U.S.-led invasion did not only destroy the Baath political regime, it also annihilated the entire public sector including education, health care, food rations, social security, and the armed forces. The Iraqi public sector was a great example of how millions of Iraqis: Arabs and Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites, Muslims and Christians, religious and secular, all worked together in running the country. The myth that the former Iraqi government was a "Sunni-led dictatorship" was created by the U.S. government. Even the Iraqi political regime was not "Sunni-led," let alone the rest of the public sector. A good way to debunk this fairy tale is through a close look at the famous deck of cards of the 55 most wanted Iraqi leaders. The cards had the pictures of Saddam, his two sons, and the rest of the political leadership which most Iraqis would recognize as the heads of the political regime. What is noteworthy is that 36 of the 55 were Shiites. In fact, the two vice presidents were a Christian and a Shiites Kurd.

Sometimes I feel like Iraqis and Americans are analyzing two different wars happening in two different countries. In one narrative, there is a civil war based on ancient sectarian hatred where a U.S. withdrawal will cause the sky to fall. In the other, there is a country struggling under occupation to get its independence back where the occupation is not welcomed and it is causing political, not sectarian, splits and violence.

According to the Iraqi mainstream narrative, the foreign occupation is the major reason and cause for violence and destruction. Foreign intervention is not only destroying Iraq's infrastructure, but it is also splitting Iraq's formerly integrated society. In addition, Iraqis are fighting among each other over fundamental questions about the future of their country, but the central conflict is not between Sunnis and Shiites, it is between Iraqi separatists and nationalists. Unlike other countries in the region such as Lebanon, the Iraqi sectarian tension is still reversible, because it just started five years ago. More importantly, it isn't main driver fueling the Iraqi-Iraqi conflict. This "hidden" conflict is between separatists and nationalists.

And the same to you, too, sir.

Understatement of the year

U.S. sponsorship of Sunni groups worries Iraq's government.

BAGHDAD — The American campaign to turn Sunni Muslims against Islamic extremists is growing so quickly that Iraq's Shiite Muslim leaders fear that it's out of control and threatens to create a potent armed force that will turn against the government one day.

The United States, which credits much of the drop in violence to the campaign, is enrolling hundreds of people daily in "concerned local citizens" groups. More than 5,000 have been sworn in in the last eight days, for a total of 77,542 as of Tuesday. As many as 10 groups were created in the past week, bringing the total number to 192, according to the American military.

U.S. officials said they were screening new members — who generally are paid $300 a month to patrol their neighborhoods — and were subjecting them to tough security measures. More than 60,000 have had fingerprints and DNA taken and had retinal scans, American officials said, steps that will allow them to be identified later, should they turn against the government. The officials said they planned to cap membership in the groups at 100,000.

But that hasn't calmed mounting concerns among aides to Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, who charge that some of the groups include "terrorists" who attack Shiite residents in their neighborhoods. Some of the new "concerned citizens" are occupying houses that terrified Shiite families abandoned, they said.

It also hasn't quieted criticism that the program is trading long-term Iraqi stability for short-term security gains.

"There is a danger here that we are going to have armed all three sides: the Kurds in the north, the Shiite and now the Sunni militias," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who's now at The Brookings Institution, a center-left policy organization in Washington, D.C.

Brought to you by the people who are responsible for the war in Afghanistan.... what on earth could go wrong?

Meanwhile back in Iraq....

Life goes on... or not:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber on a bicycle killed 30 Iraqi policemen doing their morning exercises at a base north of Baghdad on Monday, in one of the deadliest strikes on security forces in months.

And:

BAGHDAD - Twenty decapitated bodies were found dumped near a police station on Monday west of the volatile city of Baqouba in Iraq, police said Monday.

Well, THIS war is going so well, I can hardly wait for us to attack Iran....

Repeat after Bush...

There is no civil war in Iraq! There is no civil war in Iraq! There is no... crap!!

The Sunni insurgency in Iraq is splitting, with loyalists to the old Baathist regime now fighting al-Qaida-backed Islamists. Could it be a turning point in the country's civil war?

There are two very different opinions about what happened. "One of our men was going around in the city painting over enemy graffiti," is the al-Qaida version of events. "The Islamic Army shot him and that started the battle."

The Islamic Army tells a different story. "We went to the Maluki mosque to take al-Qaida to task," they say. "It is no longer acceptable what these people are doing to our Sunni neighborhoods: They're ghost towns where nobody can live. That's why it came to a fight."

The battle in Amiriyah, currently Baghdad's most dangerous district, lasted two days. Afterwards, the dead littered the streets and even the last inhabitants of the Maluki mosque had fled. No one counted the actual number of casualties, since the Iraqi police, army and US military no longer come to this part of Amiriyah. Here terror, insurgency, murder and violence are left to fester undisturbed.

Still, the carnage in Amiriyah is a cause of hope for some. Until recently, the Iraqi branch of the global terrorist network al-Qaida had good ties to the Islamic Army, a homegrown radical Sunni outfit taking part in the country's insurgency. The two groups used to congratulate each other on their respective Web sites whenever they managed to blow up a US Humvee or a group of Iraqi police recruits.

(my bold.)

Update: massacre of Shiite villagers in Diyala by Sunni gunmen.

Civil war continues between the Sunni and the Shia

Goaded on by those who benefit from the two fighting each other:

BAGHDAD -- Militants blew up the two golden minarets of an important Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra today, evading tight security to again target a beloved site already damaged last year in a blast that unleashed fierce sectarian warfare.

Political and religious leaders scrambled to avert a repeat of the bloodshed, declaring indefinite curfews in at least four cities and issuing appeals for calm. But within hours, there were reports of revenge attacks against Sunni mosques and mortar strikes in Shiite-dominated parts of Baghdad.

Followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr, whose Al Mahdi militiamen were blamed for driving last year's surge in bloodshed, suspended their participation in parliament to protest the failure to protect religious sites.

There is not just one civil war in Iraq, there are at least four. (I've read there are up to twenty different fighting factions):

Defense Secretary Robert Gates:

Our strategic stagnation results from the fact that we are fighting four wars, not one. According to Gates: "One is Shi'a on Shi'a, principally in the south; the second is sectarian conflict, principally in Baghdad, but not solely; third is the insurgency; and fourth is al Qaida, and al Qaida is attacking, at times, all of those targets."

So when Bush and Cheney demand loudly that the Iraqi government do something

Just who is it that they are talking to?: (my bold)

Iraq faces the distinct possibility of collapse and fragmentation, UK foreign policy think tank Chatham House says.

Its report says the Iraqi government is now largely powerless and irrelevant in many parts of the country.

It warns there is not one war but many local civil wars, and urges a major change in US and British strategy, such as consulting Iraq's neighbours more.