Should McChrystal Resign? I'm Not So Sure

I read the Rolling Stone piece on this whole McChrystal talks shit to the President mess and I just don't see it. Itis mostly his unnamed aides that are ripping the White House Afghanistan people. The only true anti-Obama thing was this part:

Even though he had voted for Obama, McChrystal and his new commander in chief failed from the outset to connect. The general first encountered Obama a week after he took office, when the president met with a dozen senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known as the Tank. According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" by the roomful of military brass. Their first one-on-one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after McChrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didn't go much better. "It was a 10-minute photo op," says an adviser to McChrystal. "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his fucking war, but he didn't seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed."

Hell, I would be uncomfortable and intimidated by the first meeting with a room full of career military men some of whom are 10 years or more his senior as well. I guess McChrystal like most Americans was expecting more out of the man he voted for and was disappointed. He then levels criticism at some of the civilians "helping" him.

McChrystal reserves special skepticism for Holbrooke, the official in charge of reintegrating the Taliban. "The Boss says he's like a wounded animal," says a member of the general's team. "Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he's going to get fired, so that makes him dangerous. He's a brilliant guy, but he just comes in, pulls on a lever, whatever he can grasp onto. But this is COIN, and you can't just have someone yanking on shit."

COIN is supposed to be the counter-insurgency program that pretty much won the war in Iraq. He then rips Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador:

McChrystal and his team were blindsided by the cable. "I like Karl, I've known him for years, but they'd never said anything like that to us before," says McChrystal, who adds that he felt "betrayed" by the leak. "Here's one that covers his flank for the history books. Now if we fail, they can say, 'I told you so.'?"

In other words he is just being truthful about a guy that leaked deep concerns without telling them. In other words a person that cannot be trusted that is only trying to cover his ass.

So basically he is "telling truth to power" and should be commended for being honest about the people he is working with. I think he maybe should have saved this stuff for a memoir or something but I just don't like changing horses in the middle of the stream like this.

Knowing Obama though he is going to shit-can McChrystal and have some idiot run the show. In other words we might see us lose the Afghan war on Obama's watch. Well I guess it will be yet another mess that President Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, or (hopefully) David Petraeus will have to take care of after Obama has finally left office.

Read More

Does Obama Want to Be President?

Now this is one interesting question that Roger Simon poses.

I am not being metaphorical here � I am quite serious. The more I have thought about this, the more I am convinced Barack Obama no longer wishes to be president. The degree that he admits this to himself, I am not sure. But I rather suspect that in the small hours of the morning he fantasizes he were anywhere but 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And who could blame him? By almost any measure, he is doing a terrible job.

The more I think of the line "indecision masquerading as coolness" I think of the Obama White House. They are said to be weighing the issues and looking for the best plan but end up running after the story trying to get ahead of it. I have to agree with this statement as well:

The media claque that put him in office is getting disaffected and now his party allies in Congress are beginning to disregard him, sometimes for the better. One of the early symbols of Obama�s disconnection was his remarkably unemotional reaction to the democracy demonstrators in Iran. His Iran policy continued to be a phony concoction of non-existent dialogue and toothless sanctions, right up to the latest round at the UN.

I have to point to this as the first chink in the armor. You would have lost nothing if you sided with the democracy demonstrators from the very beginning. Instead he hemmed and hawed and lost his opportunity to take care of the Iranian nuclear question forever.

If the Iranian government fell you would have been negotiating with a fellow democratically elected leader and if they brutally repressed the demonstrators you could have had proof that they are an illegitimate regime. They cannot trust a government that slaughters their college kids in the street.

Almost any other President would have quite easily sided with the protesters and helped them to differing degrees. Truman would have recognized them while JFK would have had CIA assets assisting a government overthrow. Instead Obama just sat there and mouthed some mealy mouthed crap. It was almost like he was annoyed that these demonstrators were getting in the way of his "talks with Iran without preconditions" pledge.

The more I think about it the more I agree that he will not run for a 2nd term and might even resign after the Dems get trounced in November.

Read More

Federal Judge Steps in and Strikes Down Drilling Ban

Too bad the White House is going to appeal it.

Several companies that ferry people and supplies and provide other services to offshore drilling rigs asked U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans to overturn the moratorium.

They argued it was arbitrarily imposed after the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 workers and blew out the well 5,000 feet underwater. It has spewed anywhere from 67 million to 127 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.

It is like grounding every airplane in the US because one of them crashed. If there is an imminent danger then the Department of the Interior needs to point it out. Or just write new temporary regulations that force any new deep water driller to not cut corners like BP seems to have done. In any case a retroactive punishment on companies that have stellar safety records is asinine.

Read More

German World Cup Team Finally Allowed to Leave their Quarters

Who is their minister of sport, Hans von Tschammer und Osten, Reichssportf�hrer under the Third Reich? I mean it seems pretty bad to keep them confined for so long.

Manager Oliver Bierhoff told reporters Sunday they had let the players out of their World Cup base the previous day for the first time for a social occasion.

"Some of us went for a meal in a restaurant," he said. "It's nice to dress in your civvies and go to another place."

It turns out iguanas might be the reason:

Even a walk close to the swamp-like Hennops river, which runs through the camp, is out of the question.

"Normally nothing should happen walking there but if you go too close to the river then the iguanas, and they are quite big, can swing their tails and have been known to break several bones. Luckily nothing of that sort has happened yet."

I guess the headline : "Miroslav Klose's Leg Broken by Run-away Iguana" must be avoided at all costs.

Read More

New Orleans Ad Should Not Have been Scrapped

I think they should have kept the ad. I think it is topical and funny as well.

The print ad, a play on the city's history, was part of an effort to dispel perceptions the spill in the nearby Gulf has closed the "Big Easy" and its famed restaurants and music to tourism.

"This isn't the first time New Orleans has survived the British," it read alongside a photo of Jackson Square in the French Quarter.

The square is named for former President Andrew Jackson, who as a general led forces that defeated a British invasion during the War of 1812.

Or they could have had a picture of the oil spewing well being plugged up by the Andrew Jackson Statue that read "BP hasn't tried this yet. I mean it worked the last time"

Read More

North Korea Airs World Cup Live: Portugal Hammers Them 7 - 0

I blame fearless leader Kim for failing to properly motivate the North Korean team. If Kim did his job they would have only lost by 1 goal like the Brazil game. Instead they have had too much of the decadent Western luxuries like food and shelter and it has made them soft.

North Korean state television aired full live coverage of the team's 7-0 World Cup loss to Portugal on Monday in what is believed to be a first for a North Korean football game taking place abroad.

I'm willing to bet that the next game North Korea plays in is taped delayed and then PhotoShopped to show the Koreans actually winning the game.

Read More

Democrat Candidate for Congress Wants Obama Impeached

You read that right:

Unlike South Carolina's Greene, Rogers ran a high profile campaign, staking out a corner on a major intersection in the district to appear almost daily with a large sign: "Save NASA. Impeach Obama." She garnered 7,467 votes, 53% of the vote, in a three way race that included a local information systems analyst Doug Blatt, who gained endorsements from local Democratic clubs and labor groups, and Freddie John Weider Jr., a preacher and onetime Libertarian candidate; Blatt came in second with 28% of the vote and Weider won 20%. "The people of the 22nd district voted for me," she said. "They recognized the party is not acting in the interests of the people."

Wow, she won in a landslide. Too bad the Dems are distancing themselves from her similar to Alvin Greene the guy that won the nomination in South Carolina. They will both probably get trounced by the GOP nominee in that area but it shows how ineffectual the National Democratic Campaign Committee is in America.

Read More

All the Ways the Feds have Screwed up the Oil Spill Clean-up

Yup that red tape is a bad deal when it comes to preventing a slow-motion disaster.

Federal regulatory red tape has gotten in the way of the cleanup, including: 1) missed opportunities to burn off more of the oil because of overblown air pollution concerns; 2) holdups in the use of dispersants; 3) permit delays in allowing the state of Louisiana to create artificial barriers against the encroaching oil slick; 4) failure to waive reg�ulatory prohibitions against foreign assistance; and 5) failure to approve barges and booms in time to block oil from reaching Alabama�s Magnolia River.

Here is all the crap the White House has engaged in that did nothing to clean up spilled oil or cap the leak:

Instead of providing leadership and properly coordinating the response, the Obama administration has chosen to shift blame and politicize the disaster, including: 1) �not-at-all veiled shot[s] at the Bush Administration� for the state of the Minerals and Management Service; 2) vague threats of criminal prosecution from Attorney General Eric Holder; 3) a moratorium on offshore oil drilling which could kill 120,000 jobs in the Gulf alone; and 4) pushing caps on carbon dioxide emissions which have no hope of cleaning up a single drop of oil spilled.

I guess you can chalk all this up to the fact that government can't solve certain problems and if a blame-shifting neophyte is at the helm things can only get worse. I have to agree that the "Get BP" mentality is getting old and doesn't do anything to stop the leak or clean a pelican.

Read More

Great Article on Turkey's Overreach on Iranian Nuke Issue

I have to agree that whenever the Ottomans tried to do anything in the east and south of their countries they always ran into trouble. Now they are trying to meddle in the Middle East and it might come to their own grief.

Their joint intervention on the Iranian nuclear program gives an impression of naive over-eagerness. If the two countries had wanted to play a serious and constructive role (and there was room for them to do so) they would have needed to inform themselves more fully about the state of play, build confidence among the current group of six countries who have been handling the issue (the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany), and take a proposal to Iran that had a realistic chance of being accepted by both sides. The proposal they submitted to the Iranians was sloppy and ill-advised, clearly doomed from the start. Even very casual conversations with Russia and China would have told the Turks and Brazilians that this was a non-starter.

If I were playing the Great Game as Turkey I would partner with the other anti-Iran Gulf states in order to make their government fall. The idea of a nuclear armed power to your southeast should make you rethink your equation. I mean the Iranians could care less about Turkey in any other capacity then simply a "useful idiot" on the Security Council.

A Democratic Iran would be a far greater partner for Turkish business interests and trade then what you have now. Also close trade ties with a vibrant, growing, oil rich power (that is no longer encumbered by sanctions) would actually bring money into the dirt-poor east and south of your country. Just having more oil pipelines that pass through your country and into Europe would mean billions more a year.

These pipelines also strengthens your hand when it comes to joining the EU. You no longer enter as a country with a terribly poor east and south but an established oil player. You will also be the gateway to the emerging powers that a Democratic Iran and Iraq would be in 20 years time.

Also with prosperity comes complacency when it comes to the Kurds living in your country. A prosperous Kurdish population that you have built up with your ties to Democratic Iran will be less likely to rebel or form their own nation. You also counter Iraqi Kurdish money and influence in your southern regions as well.

Read More

BP Agree's to $20 Billion Shakedown

I have never seen the hubris of an administration that can impel a foreign company to put aside $20 billion dollars without any sort of court order.

President Barack Obama and BP reached agreement Wednesday on a $20 billion fund to compensate victims of the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the giant British company's chairman apologized to America for the worst spill in U.S. history.

BP is suspending its dividends to shareholders to help pay for the costs, said chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg.

Obama announced the agreement after a four-hour meeting with BP officials. He also said the company had agreed to set up a separate $100 million fund to compensate oil rig workers laid off as a result of his six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling.

That first line has Obama talking like a dictator and he is lucky that BP is playing ball. I think they might have a legal recourse to get out of this coercion. Also the idea of making BP pay for the salaries of their competitors who have been put out of work by the White House is ludicrous. Also no talk of suspending the Jones Act so we can get some state-of the art Swedish and Danish oil skimmers out there.

Read More

Al Gore May have been Getting a Little Side Action with Larry David's Ex-Wife

I guess you can't trust this guy around your friends ex-wife any more then you can trust him around your carbon.

In the June 28 issue of Star, on sale Wednesday, we report that Al and Tipper's breakup didn't come as much of a surprise to one Hollywood player � Laurie David. Star has learned that Al has been having an affair with Laurie, who divorced Seinfeld creator and Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David in 2007 amidst reports she was cheating with the caretaker of their Martha's Vineyard summer home.

�Al and Laurie went from friends to lovers," an insider tells Star. "It couldn�t be avoided

."

Read More

Mars Covered in Water?

It sure seems like it was the case a few billion years ago.

The ocean -- which likely covered about 36 percent of the planet and contained 30 million cubic miles of water, about ten times less than Earth's oceans -- was fed by at least 52 river deltas which were in turn fed by countless river valleys and tributaries. Half of those deltas were at similar elevations, most likely marking the ocean's boundaries.

The next questions to answer are where did the water go and if that ocean had any life living in it.

Read More

Colorado Man Goes After Bin Laden

Too bad he didn't succeed.

An American man has been detained in the mountains of Pakistan after local authorities found him carrying a sword, pistol and night-vision goggles on a Rambo-style solo mission to hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden.

Friends and family say construction worker Gary Brooks Faulkner is a devout, good-humored Christian who often talked about building a porch or framing a house � not taking down the world's most-wanted terrorist. They had few clues to explain his 7,300-mile journey.

I guess it is a pretty good deal that he was caught by the police. If the Taliban found him they would have tortured the crap out of him before cutting off his head. Instead he could be a minor celebrity if he plays his cards right.

Read More

Democrat Congressman Roughs Up Some Students

I guess this is what Congress really wants to do to the voters.

The video was posted on websites owned by Andrew Breitbart, the conservative Web entrepreneur who also released video of workers for the community organizing group ACORN counseling actors posing as a pimp and prostitute.

It shows two men approaching Etheridge with a camera on a Washington street. He swats at the camera and repeatedly asks the men who they are. When they say they are students, he grabs one by the wrist and quickly by the back of the neck before pulling him against his side.

A simple no-comment would have sufficed. Instead we have Congress-scum lashing out (literally) against the people who dares to take their picture. I think they should consider pressing charges against this guy.

Read More

Iranian Cleric Admits: Yeah we Want the Bomb

It seems like they are finally going to drop the pretext of "peaceful enrichment."

The hardline spiritual mentor of Iran's president has made a rare public call for producing the "special weapons" that are a monopoly of a few nations � a veiled reference to nuclear arms.

The Associated Press on Monday obtained a copy of a book written by Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi in which he wrote Iran should not deprive itself of the right to produce these "special weapons."

"The most advanced weapons must be produced inside our country even if our enemies don't like it. There is no reason that they have the right to produce a special type of weapons, while other countries are deprived of it," Yazdi said.

I'm sure Obama still would like to negotiate with these people "without preconditions." The Green Revolution just can't come fast enough.

Read More