Chase Utley and Placido Polanco hit the DL today. That isn't good news. Even with their recent surge, which has them back to within 2.5 games of the Braves, the Phillies have more to worry about now than three weeks ago. Can they survive without Utley and Polanco in the order? Who will step up? Why the hell don't we still have Cliff Lee? Will I work late every day? These are the questions keeping me up at night.

Until Utley meets with a hand specialist in Philadelphia, we won't know how long he'll be out. Hopefully he's back right after the All-Star break. If not we're kinda screwed, unless we bring back Tad Iguchi. As far as Polanco is concerned, well, his head is so big and I still don't understand why. His huge dome-ness aside, he's been this teams most consistent hitter all year so losing him isn't something I take lightly. There is talk the elbow will probably bother him all year and that he'll need surgery in the offseason. Double ugh.

Anyway, unless Howard and Werth both get hot and Ibanez remembers how to hit more than once a week, it looks like the Phillies might need a trade or two to keep them in World Series contention. While all I expect them to add is a bullpen arm, if Happ doesn't come back strong they will need a starter. If Utley is going to miss an extended period of time, they will need a second baseman. And if Polanco can't come back for a while, we would be stuck with Greg Dobbs and Juan Castro as our third basemen. That's about as uninspiring as a Nicolas Cage movie.

So, what should they do? Well, the most important thing is figuring out how long Utlanco will be out. Knowing that will clear a lot of things up. But, to really push for a World Series (which should be the goal) they probably need another very good starter. I'd love to see them make a push for Dan Haren, whose stock has dropped but is signed for a few more years. They'd have to increase payroll to do it, but he'd help through 2012 AND probably wouldn't cost Brown or Cosart due to his subpar year. There have at least been rumblings that Arizona might shop him and if those are true Ruben Amaro better at least give it a shot.

Ultimately though, they probably will aim for someone in the same ilk of a Joe Blanton from a few years ago. So what does that mean? Try these names on for size:

Jeremy Guthrie? Yuck.

Eric Bedard? I'm not even sure he has a shoulder.

Ted Lilly? Reminds me a Cory Lidle, minus being a terrible pilot. (He doesn't remind me of Cory Lidle at all. Lilly is actually pretty good. I just figured no none had made a Cory Lidle joke on this blog. Consider this the first and probably the last.)

Ben Sheets? He'd be on the DL upon arrival, I have no doubt.

There simply isn't much out there (which might be a good thing because the Phillies don't have much to give up anyway). But they are going to do something, they always do.

So, needless to say, it should be a riveting month of July for the Phils. After playing much better during interleague play than we could have hoped for, they sit within stricking distance of first place. If Utley and Polanco come back in mid-July AND Happ comes back strong AND Danys Baez is deported, we stand a good chance of making the playoffs. Shake in some luck and a big time move by Rubes and we got ourselves another champion.

Or Utley misses the rest of the season, Polanco's head explodes, Baez gives up 589 more HRs and we trade for Kevin Millwood. Let's hope for the former.

This is a screen-grab of an article I saw on Yahoo this afternoon.  You can see it in its entirety HERE.  You can also see that it's completely retarded. 

I don't know what's worse - the Knicks 'source', or the SportingNews for quoting something from 'zagsblog.com'.

How anyone thought this was legit news is beyond me.  Doesn't common sense kick in at some point?  Shouldn't someone have said "Wait... this 'source' is full of shit.  That didn't happen." 
The best part is when the source continues to try and rationalize the reasoning:

“I don’t care what most people think. I’m not saying that LeBron is not a good player but other stuff comes with it. LeBron’s friends want jobs. You’re gonna lose running your organization. As time goes on you gotta hire this guy, you gotta hire that guy.”

The Source then asked everyone to "move their feet" as he had to "mop the rest of this shit up." Sigh...you poor delusional bastard. 

The Source went on: "I'm not saying the iPhone 4 isn't a fantastic device, but a pink RAZR with rhinestones on it is what we wanted all along."

Alright commenters, your turn.  Come with your best.

(Image courtesy Liberal Vision. Click for expanded view.)

Maybe we should all move to Afghanistan. At least that's one country Obama is interested in rebuilding.

Bob Herbert of the NY Times reminds us in his usual understated way of the failings of the Obama administration. And with so much that's wrong with our country, with so much at risk, perhaps it would behoove us to be querulous and see the glass as half empty. It's getting more and more tempting to resurrect that old HW Bush bumper sticker and whisper it in the current President's ear from time to time: "It's the economy, stupid!"

An even guiltier pleasure is to appropriate for our own means and our own reasons Sarah Palin's sing-songy, head cheerleader bitch-like, "How's that hopey, changie thing working out fer ya?" Indeed, when one remembers how Obama got elected in November 2008, on a platform that was entirely supported on a mantra of hope and change, it's hard to see where the change is (and, please, no cheap and obvious puns about pocket change).

When one recalls that Obama had based his sartorial and initially quixotic presidential campaign as an antidote to the preceding eight years that were the most ruinous in living memory and at the lack of change that's actually taken place in the first 17+ months of his presidency, one sees yet another political opportunist, a man who saw his small window of opportunity and dove through it with the adroitness of an acrobat.

But one has to squint harder than a nerd at an optometrist's office to see where the change is. The health care reform bill, on which the Obama administration had foolishly staked much of its domestic policy capital, is a massive giveaway to the HMO's and Big Pharma. The other major domestic "accomplishment", the financial "reform" bill, is another massive giveaway that refuses to close some very lucrative loopholes for the banks that helped get us into this economic quagmire.

Meanwhile, a jobs creation bill has been hijacked in Congress under the tyranny of the minority Republican Party, and there's fading hope of Congress, before its summer recess at the end of the week, voting on much less passing a standalone bill that will extend unemployment benefits to the unemployed until the end of November 2010.

But the only time the President is moved to tell Congress to get off its ass is when he wants another insider or crony installed or to pass another massive corporate welfare bill. No such exhortations are heard from the conditionally hands-off executive branch when it comes to job creation or extending UI and COBRA benefits.

Corporations setting up their shingles abroad and taking all the manufacturing jobs with them are still given huge tax subsidies and breaks, 67% of our corporations pay no income tax at all and murderous corporations like Blackwater and BP are being given one free pass and huge contract after another while people are being displaced from their homes at the rate of 2.5 million a year. The unemployment rate is holding steady at double digits with no signs of going down soon and the debt ceiling has been raised higher than Bristol Palin's ankles.

When Obama warned us in his inaugural address that our nation's recovery would depend upon shared sacrifice, many Americans who weren't blinded by tea bags dangling from the brims of their Stetsons and ballcaps were willing to do whatever it took and to stand behind our bright, shiny new President, this velvety avatar of change.

Instead, less than a year and a half in, the only shared sacrifice is one collectively shared by working class proles. Corporations and the executives who run them haven't had to sacrifice anything. BP, a foreign oil company, didn't even have to sacrifice even the minimal time it would have taken to write environmental impact statements or even an oil spill plan that wouldn't be widely ridiculed on the internet. The second round of corporate bailouts is owned by Obama, which is to say we own it to the tune of $14 trillion.

But the good news is that Obama isn't insensible to nation-building. While last year's stimulus bill fell far short and didn't meet expectations, Obama is willing to sink hundreds of billions more into Afghanistan, a nation characterized by arid desert and rubble, one ruled by warlords and drug lords like the brother of our puppet, Hamid Karzai. Obama's surge and our COIN strategy is ridiculed by Gen. McCrystal's own staff tasked with implementing it and for some damned good reasons.

Yet we think that throwing money we don't have into a festering money pit like Afghanistan deserves a higher priority than job creation and nation-building here at home.

George W. Bush was the most spectacularly inept, incompetent leader under whom this nation ever suffered. Afghanistan is Obama's stepchild but it has Bush's DNA running through its collapsed veins. Yet while we criticized Bush for essentially forgetting about Afghanistan and keeping troop levels year after year at around 15,000, in retrospect the Bush administration wasn't too crazy about throwing literally tons of money into what was plainly a losing cause (that's what Iraq was for).

And spending decades and trillions of dollars into rebuilding a national infrastructure after having already blown a trillion and nearly a decade to that end with no discernible result before actually rebuilding the government is something even a high school social studies student would nowadays call "whacked."

Bob Herbert reminds us:

By nearly 2 to 1, respondents to the most recent New York Times/CBS News poll believed the United States is on the wrong track. Despite the yelping and destructive machinations of the deficit hawks, employment and the economy are by far the public’s biggest concern. Mr. Obama is paying dearly for his tin ear on this topic. Fifty-four percent of respondents believed he does not have a clear plan for creating jobs. Only 45 percent approved of his overall handling of the economy, compared with 48 percent who disapproved.

He follows this up with the hopeful but naive sentiment that it's not too late for Obama to turn things around and give us reason to hope again. He will not. It may be true that Obama is hoping to reelected to a second and final term and enact a truly progressive agenda not beholden to corporate interests.

But we elected him to do that now. The man who made a show of eschewing lobbyists and corporate campaign contributions from his campaign had now loaded Washington with the same people who were told to wait at the door, many of them the very same people who helped get us into the aforementioned economic quagmire.

So maybe we all ought to just pack up, go to Afghanistan, burn our passports and hold out our hands to be heard and helped. That tactic seems to work for the Afghanis.

From McClatchy:

The security contractor Blackwater Worldwide tried for two years to secure lucrative defense business in Southern Sudan while the country was under U.S. economic sanctions, according to current and former U.S. officials and hundreds of pages of documents reviewed by McClatchy.

The effort to drum up new business in East Africa by Blackwater owner Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL who had close ties with top officials in the George W. Bush White House and the CIA, became a major element in a continuing four-year federal investigation into allegations of sanctions violations, illegal exports and bribery.

The Obama administration, however, has decided for now not to bring criminal charges against Blackwater, according to a U.S. official close to the case.

Instead, the U.S. government and the private military contractor are negotiating a multimillion-dollar fine to settle allegations that Blackwater violated U.S. export control regulations in Sudan, Iraq and elsewhere.

Same old story. Corporation breaks laws, one administration investigates, another decides against pressing charges, everyone settles on a fine that's worth far less than the aggregate wages of the investigated sins, everyone's happy.

Because how embarrassing would it be if we decided to enforce federal law on a crooked contractor to whom we've just given almost a quarter of a billion dollars worth of contracts on top of $200 million more, especially when the $200 million contract to train Afghani security forces became a mere front for a massive gun-running operation?

Bottom line: Four years ago, the Bush administration actually tried to do the right thing and the Obama administration decided to derail four years of hard work for an undisclosed pay off and money keeps changing hands until it falls apart.

What was it that someone said about there being honor among thieves?

This is the entirety of Sarah Palin's speech at CSU Stanislaus a couple of days ago. Note how she tries to deflect criticism of herself from the very beginning and even insults the "lamestream media" in attendance for accurately reporting on her contract demands and the possible illegality of the contract that, yes, included demands for bottled water and bendy straws. Now, if you can listen to this entire speech that was delivered in a catty head cheerleader tone of voice without your ears gushing blood (I couldn't get past 1:03 but the transcript is here), pay careful attention to this immediate criticism from that same "lamestream media" that was caught on a live mic:


"Now I know that dumbness doesn't come with just soundbytes."

That pretty much says it all. In a less than perfect world (Hell, I'd settle for one that makes a modicum of sense once in a while), this woman would have a neverending laugh track dogging her every step while she turns tricks on Hollywood Blvd. to keep from starving in her post-political career.

This is my 1000th post here at Welcome Back to Pottersville. Since I started it in early July of 2008, that means I've averaged, even including the occasional hard drive frying and loss of access, over 500 posts a year. It's been a wild ride in this, my third go-round. In posts ranging from the soberly journalistic to the snotty, sarcastic and snarky to the outright abusive, I've helped expose some of the biggest outrages ever posted on the internet. But this one story may perhaps take the cake.

Rather than try to reinterpret this unbelievable outrage and violation of the 4th and 14th amendments, I'll just let the attorney for the plaintiffs do his own talking in the most alarming part of a complaint that was filed on the 21st in Canadian County in Oklahoma:

On or about December 22, 2009 the plaintiff Lona M. Varner was in her apartment at 1955 S. Shepard Ave, Apt. 703, El Reno, Oklahoma, in her hospital-type bed. She was also connected to a portable oxygen concentrator with a long hose.

13.A severe winter storm was moving into the area and Ms. Varner’s grandson, Lonnie D. Tinsley, came to the apartment to check on her at the request of his father, now deceased; because Lona Varner is 86 years-old and in marginal health, she takes several prescribed medications daily; Lonnie’s grandmother was unable to tell him exactly when she had taken her meds, he was concerned and called 911 to ask for an emergency medical technician to come to her apartment to evaluate her.

14.As many as ten El Reno police, John Does Nos. 1 - 10, including Thomas Duran, Frank Tinga, and Joseph Sandberg, came to the apartment and pushed their way through the door. Ms. Varner told them to get out of her apartment. Instead, the apparent leader of the police (Duran) instructed another policeman to “Taser her!” He stated in his report that the 86 year-old plaintiff “took a more aggressive posture in her bed,” and that he was fearful for his safety and the safety of others.

15.Lonnie Tinsley told them, “Don’t taze my Granny!” to which they responded that they would taser him; instead, they pulled him out of her apartment, took him down to the floor, handcuffed him and placed him in the back of a police car.

16.The police then proceeded to approach Ms. Varner in her bed and stepped on her oxygen hose until she began to suffer oxygen deprivation.

17.The police then fired a taser at her and only one wire struck her, in the left arm; the police then fired a second taser, striking her to the right and left of the midline of her upper chest and applied high voltage, causing burns to her chest, extreme pain and to pass out.

18.The police then grabbed Ms. Varner by her forearms and jerked hands together,causing her soft flesh to tear and bleed on her bed; they then handcuffed her.

19.The police freed Lonnie Tinsley from his incarceration in the back of the police car and permitted him to accompany the ambulance with his grandmother.

20.Lona Varner was transported by paramedics to Parkland Hospital in El Reno where the burns to her chest and the torn flesh on her arms were treated.

21.Ms. Varner was transported in the early morning hours of December 23, 2009 from Parkland to St. Anthony’s Hospital in Oklahoma City where she was placed in the psychiatric ward at the direction of the El Reno police; she was held there for six days and released.

22.As a result of the wrongful arrest and detention, the plaintiff Lona M. Varner suffered the unlawful restraint of her freedom, bodily injury, assault, battery, the trashing of her apartment, humiliation, loss of personal dignity, infliction of emotional distress and medical bills.

23.As a result of the wrongful arrest and detention, Lonnie D. Tinsley suffered the unlawful restraint of his freedom, assault, battery, humiliation, lost of person dignity, negligent infliction of emotional distress by witnessing the physical abuse of his grandmother and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

24.By the actions described above, the defendants deprived the plaintiffs of clearly established and well-settled constitutional rights:
a.Freedom from the deprivation of liberty without due process of law;
b.Freedom from the seizure of theirs persons without due process of the law.

25.The individual defendants subjected the plaintiffs to these deprivations of their rights either maliciously, or by acting with a reckless disregard for whether the plaintiffs’ rights would be violated by their actions.

26.As a direct and proximate result of the acts and omissions of the individual defendants, which were intentional, or done with gross negligence, Lona M. Varner and Lonnie D. Tinsley were forced to endure great pain, mental suffering, fear and humiliation, were deprived of their physical liberty, were forced to incur legal and medical expenses, and suffered personal injury and mental injuries as described above.

You don't need to be fluent in legalese to understand what the plaintiff's attorney is saying here.

Lonnie Tinsley was told by his late father to check up on his grandmother during a bad snowstorm. He calls 911 and asks for paramedics to assess her condition. Instead, at least 10 cops show up, force their way in the house and then tase an 86 year-old, bed-ridden woman in ill health because she told them, understandably, to leave her house.

Then, under the pretense of fearing for their safety, these peace officers then tase the old woman not once but twice, step on her oxygen hose until she began suffering from hypoxia, handcuff the grandson just for saying, "Don't tase my granny!", throw him in the back of a cruiser, then handcuff the old lady, tearing her flesh in the process then stick her in a mental ward for almost a week...

...all because "she showed a more aggressive posture in her bed"???

Believe it or not, this isn't the first time an elderly person, not to mention pregnant women and even the blind, had been tased recently.

So what are we to glean from this incident in Oklahoma last year?

That there's no such thing as adequate back up even when a bed-ridden 86 year-old woman hooked up to an oxygen tank is involved.

That police officers should always be used in lieu of medical professionals such as paramedics and EMT's who are rigorously trained to assess emerging medical conditions.

You can never tase an 86 year-old woman enough times if she resorts to harsh language.

Telling the police to leave your house during an inexplicable home invasion is grounds for having your sanity doubted.

Lastly: With these big bad police officers tasing little kids, old women, and the handicapped, why do we keep calling our emerging police state a "brave, new world"?

...Blackwater is here to protect us all, no matter what the cost.

Triple Canopy and DynCorp International must be getting sick and tired of being the Washington Generals to Erik Prince's globe-trotting thugs in the "bidding" that we've seen going on. Because on the heels of a highly criticized State Department contract that gave $120,000,000 to Blackwater Worldwide for work in Afghanistan comes the news that the CIA just gave these lawless thugs another $100,000,000 to, get this, protect them and their facilities in, once again, Afghanistan.

So let's take a look at some of the best reasons the CIA had for hiring Blackwater for this latest unofficial no bid contract:

On December 30, two brave Blackwater operatives managed to keep the CIA body count down to eight when they let a suicide bomber in their midst at Khost. CIA director Leon Panetta pre-emptively did a Ken Salazar and played the tough sheriff by ordering a review of his agency's contracts with Blackwater. During this time, Panetta privately briefed Congressional leaders to admit the Bush administration misled Congress about Blackwater contracts.

However, in the last 6 months, I guess they passed review.

The very next day, five Blackwater murderers were suddenly absolved of all sin and culpability by Judge Ricardo Urbina for their role in the September 16th 2007 massacre at Nisour Sq. that left 17 innocent Iraqi civilians dead. Thank God they'll be on their best behavior when it comes to innocent Afghani civilians, right? Uh, right?

Again, they passed muster.

Early last month, Blackwater founder Erik Prince, soon to become Dubai's newest war criminal at large, was caught boasting on a tape that his company called in NATO airstrikes in Afghanistan (as well as insulting the people of Afghanistan). It was also revealed since the Obama administration took office that a Cheney-directed CIA/Blackwater assassination ring was put in place though not actually activated.

Still, CIA spokesman/Blackwater shill Paul Gimigliano told theWa Po that "We have a very careful process when it comes to procurement, and we take it seriously. We've also made it clear that personnel from Xe do not serve with the CIA in any operational roles."

Such as in Khost and during NATO airstikes and assassination missions and in Najaf, for instance.

.

Oh, did I mention that Blackwater is already chowing down another $200,000,000 contract to train Afghan security forces?

And speaking of training Afghan security forces, did you know that Erik Prince's shell company Paravant actually hung on to a lot of the weapons intended for the Afghanis they were training then lied about to the Senate in a scheme eerily similar to gun-running?

And this is just a partial list of some of the very best reasons why the Central Intelligence Agency of the Age of Obama feels the need to stuff hundreds of millions of more taxpayer dollars down Erik Prince's throat to have Blackwater protect them. Because, Lord knows, we can't expect our intelligence community and our own military and fighting force to, you know, actually defend themselves.


So you see, Dorothy, nothing to get excited about, nothing to see here. Blackwater will protect us all... for the right price. Now sleep, sleep, poppies, poppiiiieeeeesssss....

We took the best player available. Let's hope that lucky ball from Heaven that mysteriously handed the Philadelphia 76ers the #2 overall pick pays off. As long as Derrick Favors doesn't turn out to be Dwight Howard*, we should be extremely happy to have Evan Turner on this team. 

*superman dunk = g.o.a.t.

Here we have Kobe Bryant and family celebrating the NBA Championship in Disneyland.

Is it me, or is Kobe committing a pretty big foul here? You can't go around wearing a t-shirt featuring a big picture of your OWN face. Didn't anyone tell him the lead singer can't wear a shirt with the name of the band on it? If nothing else, it just looks… uh, goofy (PUN INTENDED! HONK, HONK!)

Seriously though… come on Kobe, you're better than that.


[Pic via Ocean County Register thru 'Recommended Reading' at the700level]

So apparently Johan Santana was accused of rape last year. On a golf course. TMZ has the story, but it's only fair to note he has never been formally charged with any wrong-doing.

However - in light of this news, I'm starting to seriously think his other thumb IS up that girl's cornhole.

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari.)

Because there was no other place
to flee to,
I came back to the scene of the disordered senses,
came back last night at midnight,
arriving in the thick June night
without luggage or defenses...
- Anne Sexton, "Flee on Your Donkey."

Thanks to former Afghanistan/NATO commander Stanley McCrystal, President Barack Obama is now widely perceived to be exactly how liberals have appraised him: Weak, indecisive and with a Vietnam on his hands. Perhaps instead of studying the life and times of the 16th president, he ought to start studying that of the 36th president.

It's all too tempting to see into the resignation/ousting of Stanley McCrystal, a man who, just six years ago, was a mere brigadier general, a referendum on not just Afghanistan and our entire foreign policy but also on Mr. Obama's presidency. As Frank Rich tartly reminded us last Sunday, Obama cannot wait until after re-election in 2012 to set his agenda straight. He has many potential career-ending issues to deal with now.

By way of proof that Obama never had a clear idea of what to do about Afghanistan, he was forced to demote CENTCOM commander and Bush holdover Gen. David Petraeus, a man inexplicably credited in the MSM with the "Iraq turnaround", to cover for McCrystal. Meanwhile, another Bush holdover, career seat-warmer Robert Gates, is breathing a sigh of relief that these decisions didn't land on his desk and is vigorously endorsing Petraeus as the right man for the right job at the right time (even if only in a retroactive way).

Nothing extraordinary has happened in Afghanistan recently to delude one into believing that McCrystal's Rolling Stone interview provided the president with enough ammunition to blow McCrystal out of the water. This was a personal as well as a professional move, as much presidential damage control as foreign policy damage control. Whether by within or without, Obama almost surely was convinced that firing McCrystal served a manifold purpose: Re-establishing policy and his flagging authority by shuffling a deck chair for an older one.

McCrystal has been likened to Gen. Douglas MacArthur since the former is the first top general to be removed from his command during a major military engagement since the latter was fired by Truman, but this is a very reckless and misleading analogy. MacArthur was fired for defying President Truman's attempts at diplomacy with the Red Chinese during the Korean War, of wanting to engage Red China directly in an all-out war even to the point of using nuclear weapons. In that respect, MacArthur was following the lead of the late Gen. George S. Patton, who seriously suggested to top Pentagon brass at the end of WW II that he wanted to take on the Soviet Union while they were still war-weary.

There was nothing like that from McCrystal, a man revealed by Michael Hastings to be maddeningly contradictory. A big fan of COIN or counterintelligence counterinsurgency, McCrystal nonetheless was savvy enough to spot the flaws in Obama's excuse for a strategy. COIN is intended to change hearts and minds of the people whose lands we invade, by rebuilding their infrastructure from the ground on up. The problem, as even its proponents will admit, is that COIN is labor-, money- and time-intensive, easily involving decades and hundreds of billions of dollars.

While McCrystal never comes out and says it, his foolhardy if accurate criticisms of the office of the President and his entire National Security team will this week and for many weeks thereafter cause many more people than last week to wonder, "Is Afghanistan worth it?"

What isn't mentioned by either Hastings or his main subject is the fact that part of COIN may or not involve bribing tribal warlords into not attacking our convoys, money that's actually winding up in the pockets of the Taliban. We've already lost nearly 200 troops in Afghanistan within the first half of this year but one has to consider how much higher the body count would be if we didn't actually have to bribe murderous criminals into not killing us.

There seem to be two strategies at work in Afghanistan: COIN, a horrid palimpsest of the strategy of Alexander the Great or winning over hearts and minds, and the stepped-up unmanned drone strikes beloved of Obama, drone strikes that kill many more civilians than insurgents and Taliban, civilian deaths that immediately undermine COIN's stated objectives.

As proof of this, Afghanistan's "first female suicide bomber" killed two US soldiers in the eastern Kunar Province near the Pakistani border. It was discovered that she'd lost two relatives during one of the same house raids such as the one last February that resulted in the deaths of two pregnant women, a teenaged girl, and a prosecutor and police chief. One of McCrystal's last orders was to assign female Marines to inspect women at checkpoints, which immediately puts even more women in the line of fire in a nation without defined battle lines.

McCrystal, not the JSOC muscle-head that many may perceive him to be, is very mindful of the more than deleterious effects of these home raids. He calls it "insurgent math" and it boils down to this brutally simple equation: One innocent victim of a home raid = Ten insurgents to deal with later.

Anti-American sentiment is understandably growing by the day in Afghanistan, a native rejection of the Ugly Americanism that's characterized this needless war almost from the start. Ranging from suspicion of American motives and goals to outright jihad, we have long since failed to win over the hearts and minds of these people who view us as just the latest in a long series of tyrants who had tried and failed to tame their desolate, impoverished country. And the more they snarl at us, the more we snarl back and even begin to hate the natives for us being kept there and away from our families stateside, an Ugly Americanism that's inevitable when wars drag on for far longer than they should. Throw in the mix an understandable paranoia in a land in which the enemy wears no uniforms, could be male or female, young or old and it further exacerbates an already volatile and untenable occupation.

Alexander the Great, the first COIN strategist, had the right idea all along by insisting on not marching into conquered territories as conquerors and imposing language, culture and customs on the subjugated but to insinuate their way into the infrastructure, to become unto them.

It ought to be noted, however, that Alexander the Great was one of the first to invade Afghanistan and one of the first to fail.

As a result of his criticism of the Oval Office and the men who surround it, McCrystal comes dangerously close to being the next military Cassandra, a man, like Eric Shinseki and Anthony Taguba, fated to be ignored or disbelieved for the rest of his life. Regardless of the rallying round David Petraeus, Obama relieving McCrystal of command in itself is an affirmation not of his decisiveness but an unwilling and unwitting admission of the foolhardiness he'd displayed in installing McCrystal as top man in Afghanistan a year ago.

COIN will not win over hearts and minds and America in general has lost faith in an endless occupation of a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. Osama bin Laden, the only half-assed excuse we had for invading Afghanistan, had fled Tora Bora long ago thanks to George W. Bush. And it's becoming increasingly clear that the only countersinsurgent strategy that works is to not needlessly invade hostile foreign lands to begin with.

So I was at an off-site work meeting for most of this morning, constantly sneaking glimpses at my co-workers' Android phone-powered live feed of this match / trying not to get fired. What...OFFISDES!? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

[whispering]
"We just need to bomb every country with a FIFA ref, period."
"Oh, totally."

Second half was spent in the office, blatantly watching the shit en español on Univision's website. Then it happened. 91st minute stoppage-time goal by newly-christened American Hero Landon F. Donovan. The office exploded. Car horns and cheers coming from the streets. Full on Sparta.

Next up is Ghana. And even though I'm jealous that your country's name translates to "Warrior King," you're goin down like a 16-year-old hooker on Lawrence Taylor. THESE COLORS DON'T RUN.

In closing: eff England, eff Slovenia, eff Algeria, eff Mali...eff the world at this point. Hey France, hows my ass taste?

Although this picture was already featured before in a previous post, we here at TWW feel that it didn't get enough shine. PLUS, it was our first genuine user submission. So many thanks to TheWizWit friend Dave P. for giving us this masterpiece send-off to everyone's least favorite (ex) Sixer, Sammy Deez.

Oh Keanu, won't you ever cheer up?

Early on in my career as an aviation writer, I was amused by the insider characterization of airline passengers as “self-loading cargo” This was years ago, okay, maybe people were no longer dressing up for a flight, and meals were still being served - even on domestic routes - but this less than adoring view of passengers was in my estimation still far in the future.
Well ladies and gentlemen, the future is now.

Today I received a press release from SITA, the information technology company that focuses on providing the computer support that enables travelers to not only load themselves on the aircraft, but buy their own tickets, print their own boarding passes, check their own luggage and take responsibility for everything short of flying the airplane.

Here’s how the organization describes the hopes and aspirations of 129 airlines involved in the delicate process of migrating passengers to “do it yourself” …

“The airlines stated ambition is to reduce the number of passengers processed via agent check-in from 50.7% to 28.9% by 2013.” Checking in by airport Kiosk will remain at “just below 20%.” Web check-in will grow from one passenger in five today to one in three, three years from now, but the biggest movement to will be checking in via mobile phones. Twenty-eight percent do it today, 70% will by 2013, according to the survey conducted by SITA and Airline Business on trends in IT.

I’m pretty sure that there’s an entire field of psychology devoted to why some people use automated services and others prefer to be assisted by a real live human. But when it comes to the chaos at the gate when a flight is canceled or delayed, I don’t think there’s a passenger alive who wouldn’t be thrilled with the notion of having a kiosk handy to rebook them on the next plane when their flight is interrupted.

It wasn’t clear just how many airlines are involved in this “graduated move to new functionality” (Hey, I didn’t write it, I’m just reporting it!) and it’s the kind of statement that raises more questions than it answers. But that’s the kind of technology that fits right into the gee-whiz department. It’s downright next-gen, if you ask me.

I’m getting an image of the airport of the future filled with passengers and not an airline worker to be found. Oh, wait a minute; there they are, out on the ramp moving onto the airplane, all that cargo that isn’t self loading.

...because Petraeus did such a bang-up job in Iraq for Bush. I wonder if he fainted when he got the news that he was replacing Stan the Man? If so, who could blame him?


I wasn't too thrilled with what McCrystal said about Obama and his national security team (although I do not disagree with all of it) but Petraeus has fucked up everything he's ever touched since this war began, going back to when he was training the Iraqi security forces that still can't stand up on their own.

Sometimes hair of the dog is not the best remedy for a political hangover.

It has been confirmed that actor Kevin Spacey will portray England footballer John Terry in a BBC TV movie to be produced later this year. The movie will centre around Terry's World Cup campaign, specifically the recent machinations surrounding his short-lived revolt against manager Fabio Capello.

Saturday night I attended a “meet the congressman” gathering at the Greenwich home of Chicken Soup for the Soul publisher Amy Newmark and her husband Bill Rouhana. Amy was quite specific that this was to be a bi-partisian event to meet Congressman Jim Himes - though checks for the freshman’s lawmaker’s upcoming re-election bid would not be unwelcome.

This was my first opportunity to meet Jim Himes and I was impressed with his willingness to hear what was on the minds of his constituents. Unlike many politicians, he listened far more than he talked. Toward the end of the gathering he spoke for about 10 minutes.

In the interest of full disclosure, last spring, Cong. Himes sent a letter to the White House on my behalf when I was a potential nominee to the National Transportation Safety Board. But he already had my vote, because he is in the right place on so many national issues.

A question about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico launched a conversation about America’s oil dependence. Himes suggested our well-established taste for foreign oil, specifically Saudi Arabia’s, is unwise. He said that while artificially depressing energy prices seems like a good idea, it has the negative effect of removing incentives to conserve or create innovative alternatives to oil.  

Himes, speaking in affluent backcountry Greenwich did not hesitate to tell folks whose children attend one of the finest public school systems in the nation, that more attention needs to be paid to education in other American cities and towns, including more federal funding for programs that encourage local school districts to improve.

Between mortgage and banking scandals, health insurance reform, military conflicts and environmental and safety catastrophes these reforms have been sidelined.

I remember clearly Inauguration day 2009. My husband and I and our two younger children waited in the cold on the Washington mall connected via cell phone to our two college-aged kids as Barak Obama took the oath of office. The presidential race was their first opportunity to vote so it was a heady, emotional, hopeful event for our whole family and  many others.

Since then, our country has lurched from one national catastrophe to another and I am losing my optimism. That is why I was so impressed listening to this young, first-time congressman. Himes was confident enough to be frank - admitting that the process will be difficult and unpleasant. With his assessment of how hard it will be he has reinvigorated my belief that the change so many of us voted for in 2008, is achievable.

Greg Dobbs is no longer a Phillie.

I understand this is a sad day for all, especially since Dobbs was so goddamn terrible. I mean, the dude was batting .152 this year. He was absolutely useless considering he couldn't play the field (he was otherworldly bad at third) AND since he never got regular playing time he was struggling as a pinch hitter. Honestly, this might be addition by subtraction. (Granted, there is a chance he makes it through waivers and is optioned to Triple-A. However, he can simply refuse that assignment and go off on his merry way. I'm assuming a guy like him, who probably thinks he can contribute with regular playing time, will end up leaving and latching on somewhere. But who cares really?)

Ultimately though, we will remember Dobbs for his awesome 2008 season where he was the best pinch hitter in the history of time. He was a contributer on the World F-in' Champions, so for that we'll be forever grateful. And, of course, we'll always remember his grand salami against the Mets in '07. That hit helped the Phils sweep the Mets and moved them only 3.5 games back in early September. We all know what happened next.

Fuck the Mets. Love you forever, Lou Dobbs.

Jimmy Rollins was activated from the disabled list today and was immediately put back in the leadoff spot.

It's been said many times, but Rollins is what makes this team go. He may not be the ideal leadoff hitter, but this team just seems to perform way better when he's in there. This could be just what the Phils needed as they seek some consistency.

Prediction – Rollins propels this team to win 12 out of the next 15, saves a drowning cat, makes Paul O’Neil look like a bitch, and fixes that whole oil spill fiasco.

The fun begins tonight when the Cleveland Indians come to town and are promptly smothered to death by the swagger that drips off Rollins' shnuts.

What follows below are the last two exchanges between me and Molly Friedrich of the Molly Friedrich Agency. Friedrich had just yesterday rejected a little book I’m putting together of Twitter tweets “written” by my dog, Buddy. I just thought it would help me break into print so it could pave the way toward my publishing what I really want to publish, which are my novels.

The form rejection letter I got yesterday from Friedrich for the second time, lauded how “interesting” my “story” was but one, regrettably, we will have to pass on. Thank you for thinking of us and eat shit and die, etc. etc. etc.

I saw two colors, in this order: Red then black. I sent her the two links to my two part post about agents and what follows is her response. What follows is my final response.

“Dear Robert,
Can we please stop this exchange of letters? It's hurtful and counter-productive. Since you keep invoking John Gilstrap's name, why not query his new agent? And in what possible way was your query letter "personalized"? You never made reference to John Gilstrap. You refer to "countless hours of research". I think even a little bit of research would quickly yield the basic information that I'm fairly adverse to technology. I'm not proud of it, but honestly, I just went onto e-mail a couple of summers ago, among the last of the hold-outs in publishing. So submitting a series of tweets to me was seriously doomed from the beginning, I don't even have a cell phone, for crying out loud. You urge me to hire more interns, hire more agents--with no clue about how expensive it is to run a small business in Manhattan, starting with the costs of basic space. As for your talent, I'm sorry but there are lots of talented writers out there, half of the queries I get are from already published writers and there just isn't that much room for many more writers on my list. If you refer to my colleagues as "odious ilk", you're just going to get angrier and more exasperated, instead of trying to figure out what's not working with your query letter.

You're right, of course, that I do this for a living. I read from about 10:00pm until 2:00am every single night. A lot of that reading is transom--the last five novels I sold were all over-the-transom, debut fiction, submitted without connection or leverage of any sort. The system does really work but it requires patience and mutual respect. I'm sorry this submission of yours got off to a bad start and I hope you'll go forward and find the right agent. With best wishes, MOlly Friedrich”


Molly:

Did I or did I not address you directly? Yes, I did. My salutation:

"Molly Friedrich
The Friedrich Agency
136 East 57th St., 19th Flr.
New York, NY 10022
(212) 317-8810

Dear Ms. Friedrich:"

Sorry if that wasn't personalized enough. I'll try to include your DNA profile next time to prove I'm thinking of you.

I didn't mention Gilstrap in my cover letter because my talent should speak for itself (and I'm not talking about my little tweets in my dog's name, but my serious work, my novels, that you've also imperiously rejected). And besides, you don't represent him anymore. John Hawkins does. And, yes, I tried him already. Several times. And got rejected several times by one of his flunkies.

OK, I'll apologize for using colorful language. But please consider that I am 51 years old, currently unemployed for going on 14 months and get treated by employers and temp agencies exactly the same way I'm treated by those in your industry. I follow the rules, observe the protocols and guidelines and have a lot to recommend me for at least serious consideration. But neither lit agencies nor temp agencies give me any incentive for further compliance. At this point, it doesn't matter if I'm Faulkner reincarnated or Bill Gates.

I find it typically contemptuous that you would assume I'm not doing the requisite work on my end, combing through literally hundreds of agent listings, cherry-picking only the appropriate ones and personalizing each and every query letter, even to the point of quoting certain agents. I suppose it's also my fault because I never thought my query letters ever needed tweaking (I've written countless different ones and four prologues and as many synopses for American Zen alone, another brilliant book you've rejected).

And, as a personal note, I don't ever recall you saying anywhere that you're averse to technology (In your defense, saying what you rep doesn't give a writer more than a vague, abstract idea of what will actually fly or not). I saw that you repped nonfiction as well as fiction, so I threw the dice.

And then I snapped when I saw this one-size-fits-all rejection letter in my spam inbox geared for rejecting a novel. It just brought home to me once again of just how impersonal, how callous and how brainless your colleagues have gotten. When I get form rejection letters in my mailbox from agencies I've tried with multiple projects, I literally do not have any idea what they're rejecting since they don't think enough of me to reference the title of my book.

There was nothing wrong with my query letter regarding the Twitter book, not was there anything wrong with the other ones I'd sent out. I did everything I was supposed to, kissed ass for the umpteenth time and got farted in my face.

No more.

To tell you the truth, Molly, I forgot I'd even queried you with this book because I've stopped living and dying by my mailbox and inbox. I've given up on you and your... "profession."

Because I'm sure you don't need me to tell you the tide is turning, Molly. You're in the business and I'm sure you know about AmazonEncore, Cambridge House Books, Scribd, iUniverse and the "vanity" presses that you're still telling us will ruin our careers that, ironically, you've already ruined or at least stalled. That's because the current, dog-eared business model of the editor/publishing executive/agent as literary gate-keepers simply does not work any more.

Even publishers, such as Rupert Murdoch's Harper Collins, are sick of seeing you and your ilk getting brain transplant candidates like Sarah Palin $7 million for books they don't even write. They're showing enough agility to make writers partners and to share half the royalties with them as well as the risks. An agent even got Joe the Plumber, a man unqualified to write eye charts, a lucrative publishing deal. Another one got him a record deal all because he talked to Obama at a rope line.

The center cannot hold, as Yeats once wrote, and even your contemporaries are slowly coming to that conclusion. More and more writers are getting published and making money without your help and you siphoning 15% of their hard-earned money. Traditional publishing lost 1.8% of its revenue last year, knocking it down to just under $25 billion. At the same time, epublishing such as Kindle tripled their revenue to $313 million (still think I don't do my research?).

Coincidence? I think not.

You and your colleagues permanently blew any chance of signing me on. I really am much more talented than you realize, more than Gilstrap or most of the birds perching on the book shelves today. I know that makes you roll your eyes like inmates insisting on their innocence makes guards roll their jaundiced eyes.

But in this case, it's true. Guys like me don't grow on trees. And, at my age, with a nursing home and CNA's telling me how to live the rest of my life in my future in 20-30 years, I refuse to be ignored and disrespected when I know I have what it takes to be a success in this business.

Now, I tear up form rejection letters and mail the pieces back to the agents. Because I've given up on you, all of you and no longer care about burning bridges. How can one burn a bridge when the trolls beneath it forbid you to cross it? There are options we didn't have four years ago, options that threaten to make you redundant.

And you guys can either be agile and go with the technological wave that makes you, Molly, shudder with disgust or you can, as all too many of us unfortunately still do, die by the mailbox.

Robert Crawford

or, What BP Learned From my Cat Popeye.

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari.)

We're kind to them, especially the loyal dogs on Capitol Hill. We take them in off the street, give them free run of the house, set few if any conditions. We let them get on the furniture, brush their dander and let them stick their asses and genitalia in our faces and we think it's charming. When they ignore the scratching posts we bought them and instead use the drapes and bed, we smile and shake our heads.

And despite there being no accountability and no oversight whatsoever, no matter how much we pamper them, these fat cat corporations like BP keep expecting more and are acting like, to quote Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, they own the place. If their cat litter isn't perfectly fresh, they piss in your sink, in your tub and shit behind your couch then look at you as if you're one of the "small people."

And, contrary to the stereotype of the combative canine/feline dynamic, our doggie politicians and bureaucrats like Ken Salazar just keep opening and closing the door for these aloof little fucks. Please remind me again who the superior life form is?

Loyalty is why we prize the real thing. A dog will anxiously await your return from the store and howl over your grave no matter how you treated it. They're so loyal, they're even willing to accept conditional and sporadic love. They're the antithesis of the demanding yet emotionally-removed cat.


But too much unconditional loyalty isn't a good thing, especially when the environment and economy of the entire Gulf coast is in a shambles now because of BP's arrogant negligence and the enabling of the blind, unswerving loyalty of the Obama administration. This is the second consecutive administration that has catastrophically failed New Orleans and the Gulf. They waived environmental regulations by the hundreds and even helped BP lie about the true extent of the oil spill.

As with the junkyard dogs of the Bush administration, the lapdogs of the Obama administration solemnly swore just days before the Deepwater Horizon blew up and sank that opening up offshore drilling would involve only the very latest technology and advanced safety and backup features, with multiple levels of redundancy.

The only thing that's proven redundant is Congressman Joe Barton reminding us of Capitol Hill's real priorities when he publicly fellated BP's CEO Tony Hayward on the floor of the House mere days before Hayward tacked his way back to England to engage in a yacht race. Meanwhile, back at the doghouse, Louisiana and Gulf coast fishermen in their own boats were engaged in a race of their own, this one a losing one, as they suddenly had to learn how to be environmental workers if they wanted to make any money.

The Gulf oil spill, as massive, destructive and unprecedented as it is, serves as a mere synecdoche of where the actual loyalty and fealty of the highest levels of political power lie: With corporations that are built to kill the average man.

We got a taste of that with Phase One of the bailout under Bush in September 2008, then again with Phase Two under Obama last year. We got another taste of it when tens of billions of the TARP money was given to two of the biggest automakers with no strings attached (such as an insistence on retooling the factories to make greener cars with rock-bottom emissions, which would've put tens of thousands of auto workers back to work). We got yet another taste of the Obama administration's true allegiance when we saw Obama taking Bush's cue in widening offshore drilling in the Gulf as recklessly as he expanded Bush's war in Afghanistan. We got yet another taste of it when Obama showed up at the climate change conference in Copenhagen with lukewarm, corporate-friendly compromises and a silent refusal to sign on the Kyoto Protocol shown such disdain by the Bush junta. We got yet another taste of what contempt Obama and our Democratic "led" Congress feels for the people when illiterate, incoherently screaming, brick-throwing teabaggers and Facebook and Twitter dispatches by Sarah Palin actually prolonged the health care debate that turned out to be a huge bonanza for the HMOs and Big Pharma. And we got another taste of it when Congress, with much fanfare, produced another "reform" bill exercising little if any actual oversight and regulation of the banking institutions that have helped bankrupt America both financially and morally.

Ken Salazar also promised more stringent oversight of MMS, the same sex-obsessed Interior entity that continued (after the Deepwater Horizon exploded, caught fire and sank, killing 11 people while BP executives were high-fiving each other over their laughable safety record) giving over two dozen offshore drilling permits for oil cartels like BP, Royal Dutch Shell and others who couldn't be bothered to write environmental impact statements.

And, as with the Bush administration too many times to count, we saw more unswerving, canine loyalty to the worst people in the best jobs at the worst times and an insistence on keeping these wingtip-lickers in the center of policy-making. As with the Bush administration, the Obama administration is a glorified kakistacracy, or a government run by the very worst in the land. Bush's Interior Secretary was the oil cartel-loving Gail Norton; Obama's is the oil cartel-loving Ken Salazar. The telling difference is, Norton didn't ride into Colorado to pretend to be a sheriff who was going to clean up the Wild West of the Minerals Management Service and the Gulf coast.

And every once in a while, if you cock your ear like a half-asleep dog, you'll hear a little fart of truth like Joe Barton apologizing for the Obama administration uncharacteristically showing enough backbone to get BP to pony up $20 billion for an escrow account. The fact that the penny-wise, pound-foolish BP so immediately acquiesced to this is proof that they knew it was the best bargain in town when it comes to comeuppance.

Otherwise, our government and the corporations lie to us when they're not whining about wanting their lives back and condescendingly referring to us as "the small people." And there are three reasons why people lie to you:

Either they like you, they respect you and, what is the real reason here, they fear you.

I think we can rule out BP or any corporation showing any love, loyalty and respect for the "small people" who keep them in yacht races on the Isle of Wight so the reason they lie to us is because they fear us. You'd think the British would be extra ingratiating to we the people considering what they've done to this part of their old empire.

The only respect they're showing to us is not individually but collectively. They respect our strength in numbers. This is what we keep forgetting.

Imagine what this country would be like if we all just stopped paying our bills and put the skids to this entire economy. Oh, sure, some would suffer in the beginning. We'd get our gas, water, phones and everything shut off. Then the infrastructure would start to collapse because even the biggest credit card, lenders and utility companies wouldn't have the time or resources to process over 200,000,000 outstanding debts.

Then we could make our demands known, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, progressives and teabaggers alike and everyone in between. And things would have to change. But that won't happen because you want your cable to stay on, because you've forgotten how to live without electricity for even five minutes, because things would literally come to a halt if you went one week without filling up at a BP or Exxon Mobil gas station. We've forgotten what it's like to truly suffer and that's the most intolerable thing in the world to a people that casually visits suffering-by-proxy on our fellow humans in central Asia and the Middle East on a massive scale.

These fat cats have no loyalty to anything but the Holy Dollar. That is the only God that matters to them, that is what inspires their reverence and unswerving loyalty. And we could continue getting kicked like the disgustingly loyal curs we've been for over a century or we could growl back and remind those in power who's really the alpha dog.

(Via Sensico.)

Oh, yes. Much better alternative to actively combing the beaches picking up tar balls and cleaning off oily birds. Let's all just drop to our knees and ask for some miracle from a sky wizard that, if he ever existed, surely would've given up on us by now like we would give up on a puppy that refuses to be house-broken and pisses and shits all over the house.

I'll bet Obama's sorry he didn't call her now for her suggestions on how to deal with a 100,000,000 gallon oil spill, what with these bright ideas that just popping off her head like fleas.

Here's a better idea, Sweetie: How about we pray that one day Obama will wake up, fire that red-assed, bouncy squeaky oil cartel love doll named Ken "Sheriff" Salazar and start regulating these world-eaters while there's still a morsel left for the rest of us?

So, how's that Drillie thingie workin' out fer ya, ya fucking douchebag?

Meanwhile, what about Bob?

Tony Hayward, thank God, got his life and his groove back.

Wake the fuck up, Obama. Can't you see they're not even trying, at this point? And, since you're heading up the second consecutive administration to fail New Orleans and the Gulf coast, people are starting to say the same thing about you.

(Update: I managed to get a new power cord for my Compaq, my one remaining computer, for cheap on Amazon and even tho I paid for 2 day delivery, it arrived barely more than 24 hours after I ordered it, which made Mrs. JP and me very happy. However, we got a quote yesterday morning from a local insurance broker that boils down to a cash outlay of well over $400 just to make the car barely legal. Here in MA, they actually charge you $75 just for a piece of paper, or the title, the sales tax on the car will be close to $100, then there's there's the $50 for the registration, the $10 fee for the insurance brokerage getting it for you, plus the initial down payment of the insurance policy. And that quote was cheaper than anything we were quoted by Esurance, Progressive or Geico.

We'll barely make the rent on July first so any help you people could give to get our car on the road would be greatly appreciated. I really do think I have this QC job nailed but it's about 5 miles away [I had to walk to the interview] and I'll need a car to get to it so I can work my way back to self-sufficiency and respectability.)

...life is thicker than a McDonald's milkshake that's been left in the freezer for a month.

Yesterday morning, I hiked it 4-5 miles to interview for a QC job and I think I nailed it. Hopefully, I'll be working again by the beginning of next month.

Yesterday afternoon, Mrs. JP and I looked at a car that we'll be buying for $1000 in an hour or so.

Then last night, the adapter cord on my final laptop (the Dell's hard drive got fried again a month or two ago) shit the bed and the battery can't hold a charge (So, no, it wasn't Popeye and his suicidal impulse to chew on cords that are still plugged in). It's either buy this car and put it on the road or a computer. I cannot do both. In the balance, the car wins, especially since I've already committed to buying it.

Obviously, I can't keep using public access computers. The auto insurance is going to be ridiculously expensive even with just one of us being insured on a compulsory policy. Then there's the registration, inspection sticker, blah blah blah. My second and final state UI extension will be kaput by the 26th and, with Congress dicking around with the federal extension bill, I'm pretending as if my income will be cut off by Tuesday the 29th.

Whatever you could kick in to the Paypal account would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully, if this new job pans out as I think it will, this ought to be my last public appeal. But for now, whatever help we can get from you guys would enable us to put our new car on the road and get at least one of our computers fixed while keeping ahead of our regular household expenses and would sure be appreciated.

And just when my uploads on Scribd are finally starting to get attention, too.

Who knows how the President will celebrate Father's Day and, frankly, who gives a shit? Considering that this is a guy who has ordered extra-judicial assassinations on American citizens and has ramped up an incredibly unwinnable, incredibly corrupt, incredibly bloody and incredibly cruel war in Afghanistan, I think it's pretty safe to say that Barack Obama won't give any more thought than did Bush to the fathers who can't be with their families today and those who never again will be with their families.

So let's take stock as to what's happening just this weekend, starting with Iraq:

27 Iraqis were killed and at least 42 were wounded in twin car bomb attacks in Iraq's capital of Baghdad.

In the energy-rich southern city of Basra, at least one Iraqi was killed by police yesterday when the citizenry protested lack of electricity after a US occupation that's in its eighth year (Personal note: What they used to say about Hitler keeping the buses running on time also applies to Saddam Hussein: At least Iraqis had regular electricity and basic necessities to sustain human life under their dictator.).

Also yesterday, more car bombs, roadside bombs and grenade attacks claimed more lives, including a car bomb attack that killed eight and wounded 63 in Tuz Khurmato.

That was just what was reported in Iraq in the last day and a half. Meanwhile, in the Other Wild West Show in central Asia...

Despite assurances from coalition flaks about us killing fewer Afghani civilians during the surge, "precision" missile strikes against the terrorist Haqqani network, reports NATO, resulted in the deaths of six civilians consisting of a woman and five children. 13 other civilians, claim Afghani authorities, were wounded.

Two push cart bombs killed another woman and child and an unidentified third person at a bank in southern Afghanistan.

A roadside bomb killed two policemen and three civilians in the nation's capital of Kabul yesterday.

Despite unprecedented corruption on the part of the US military and US contractors, Blackwater just received another $120,000,000 contract in Afghanistan courtesy of the US State Dept.

UN General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon says a UN report has discovered that in the first four months of 2010, IED use is up 94% in Afghanistan from that same time last year. In Iraq, IEDs have been the number one cause of death among US troops.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, two days ago we lost track of 17 Afghani troops who were studying English at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. They decided to go AWOL and haven't been seen or heard from since despite an APB throughout local law enforcement.

1124 US troops have so far died in Afghanistan, almost 500 of them in the deadly Helmand Province alone. Obama's 2009 surge in Afghanistan has had the opposite effect of Bush's 2007 surge in Iraq: Over twice as many troops died in Afghanistan in 2009 than in 2008 (and, at 177 official deaths, we stand to easily exceed 2009's figures this year) while Bush's surge resulted in US troop deaths being cut by almost two thirds by 2008.

That's a lot of fathers who won't be served breakfast in bed and get homemade cards and presents from their wives and kids. That's a lot of Father's Days that will be forever suffused with sadness from wives and children who'd love to be able to make a card and buy a present for their husband or father but can't.

And while Iraq and Afghanistan don't buy into the artificial card company-generated Father's Day, many more children will no longer be picked up and dandled by their fathers. Many more innocent fathers than US troops have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, nations with, respectively, populations 1/15th and 1/10th our own.