This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Zero Ponsdorf

  • The Right Man in the Right Place?

    Via Joe Galloway and FB. Just me proud enough to share here. Unfortunately the story is via Those people?
    Last U.S. base in Iraq prepares to turn out the lights

    CAMP ADDER, Iraq — The young Army officer who’s in charge of logistics at the last U.S. base in Iraq is a Sudanese refugee, one of the “lost boys” who fled their war-ravaged homeland in the mid-1990s.

    His staff sergeant survived a deadly improvised-explosives attack during his third tour here in 2005, then returned for two more.

    (…)

    “We are the ones that are going to sort of turn out the lights and close out Iraq,” said Capt. David Moses, 30, who was born in South Sudan and fled the civil war there as an adolescent, eventually landing in Utah.

    ETA: Joe busted my chops some about McClatchy and Dakota Meyer. I still think that story was , at best,  “damning with faint praise”. Gonna keep me skeptical.

     

  • Is THIS Joke Funny or Just Silly?

    Congressman begins 24-hour hunger strike in solidarity with Occupy DC protesters

    A Congressman started a 24-hour hunger strike Thursday evening as a sign of solidarity with four Occupy DC protesters who have fasted for more than a week.

    Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison announced on his Twitter page earlier today that he’ll forgo food or drink for one day to support the demonstrators who haven’t had a bite to eat since 8 December.

    ‘started my 24 hour solidarity fast last night. May the DC vote and budgetary independence prevail!,’ Ellison tweeted.

    I doubt that the Occupy DC folks are actually starving themselves, but even if they are – who cares?  I don’t mean that in any cruel way, just sincerely curious, who gives a shit?

    Regardless, this congress critter is demonstrating how to seize the high moral ground indeed. For 24 hours anyway…

  • And Then..

    A pal of mine in Nashville put this together,

  • There. It. Is.

    The closest I came to a Bob Hope show was underway, and rearming from the carrier he was on.

  • Hmmm… Sheriff Joe is in Trouble?

    Seems to me he’s in trouble for enforcing FEDERAL law, but we have several actual lawyers here that might explain this?
    Justice Department: Arizona Sheriff Arpaio violated federal law

    The Justice Department, following an often hostile three-year investigation, said Thursday the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) in Phoenix under the leadership of Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio violated federal law and the Constitution in its handling of persons arrested and inmates held in its jail system.

    Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez, who heads the department’s Civil Rights Division, said investigators concluded there was reasonable cause to believe that sheriff’s deputies engaged in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conduct and violations of federal law that jeopardized the agency’s commitment to fair and effective law enforcement.

    The not-unexpected decision said investigators found discriminatory policing practices including unlawful stops, detentions and arrests of Latinos; unlawful retaliation against persons exercising their First Amendment right to criticize the agency’s policies or practices, including its discriminatory treatment of Latinos; and discriminatory jail practices against Latino inmates with limited English proficiency by punishing them and denying them critical services.

    The language aspect is an interesting twist. My highlight.

  • Is THIS Joke Funny?

    Okay, so it really ain’t a joke?
    Ron Paul: Iran wants to disrupt world oil supply because we are provoking them

    There is a video at the link, but here’s a transcript:

    How would I deal with the threat or the so-called threat of the Iranians, that they are going to disrupt the oil supply?

    Well I’d be provoking them a lot less because they’re reacting to the provoking of the West saying “we’re gonna put on sanctions”. We have them surrounded with nuclear weapons and we’re claiming that they’re gonna build a nuclear weapon and there’s no evidence for this.

    So we’re just looking for trouble. We’re building the war propaganda against Iran just as we did against Iraq.

    And it’s the march on. You know it’s Libya and it’s in Egypt and now we’re involved in Syria, now we’re sending troops into Africa. And also, of course we’re still in Iraq, we’re into Pakistan and we’ve been in Afghanistan for a long time.

    And people want to go to war against Iran. And I think they’re reacting to the provocations of so many other people saying that “we’re liable to bomb you because you are building a nuclear weapon.” But our CIA doesn’t confirm that nor does the UN confirm that.

    So they’re acting actually in a rational manner because they’re saying “they’re gonna attack us and start bombing us”. They have to say “well, we don’t have any nuclear weapons, we can’t really defend ourselves. So we might sink a boat, sink a ship out there in the Persian Gulf”, hoping that we might back off.

    I just think we’re treating the whole thing wrong. …

  • NOT Just Another Day.

    Commenter Doc Bailey and I have been swapping emails about this and that. I was rather surprised to learn that we have some things in common even though shifted 40 years in time.

    But he mentioned a coupla things I couldn’t directly relate to so I asked him to expand on them.

    Here is the first, in his words. Thanks Doc.

    —————————-

    Here is my account of 25 June 2007, and the events that happened to me that day. I have to put it out there because people have to know. please understand these events are painful for me to recount.

    It was a normal day like any other. We were all excited to be getting back, but i was exuasted having pulled a 6 hour gaurd shift right before getting off. We all sat around and joked. I could hear people laughing about the game “company of heroes” that Craig and WillieBo had played. They’d gone for 5 hours only to get their asses kickedby the germans. I was fretting over Jubi. I was a little upset, because he was supposed to have been evaced the night before for (what i would find out later) a slipped disk. I had given him morphine right before i thought he was going to go, he didn’t and i was bracing for the ass reeming i was going to get. I had spent all night fretting about a patient, and in the end i was pretty damm tired, everyone else on the otherhand were lively in a way only the loose cannons can be.
    Like always we had details to do, and things that needed to get done. Clean the pisser, sweep and mop, make the “gym” look pretty, Mop the mats, sweep the sleeping bay, and of course pick up cigarette buts. we did these, with the usual amount of bitching complaining and griping. It came time to load up and off we went.

    (more…)

  • I’ll admit it. I Thought Ron Paul Was Crazier Than Me!

    I try to always offer a sort of balance til now. WAPO again, and this time a genuine OPED piece.

    Five myths about Ron Paul

    Sorry folks, you will have to read the whole thing, but I’ll give you this bit:

    Unlike his fellow, er, top-tier candidates Gingrich and Romney, Paul served his country in uniform, as an Air Force captain. However, his opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his insistence that military spending can be cut without endangering U.S. lives, have led some to conclude that his foreign policy non-interventionism equals unilateral disarmament.

    Oddly,  I have read much of what Ron Paul has actually said. If I had to position this piece I’d  suggest that some folks are raising him up to be a spoiler.

    Back to singing Kumbaya…