OK, I promise that one of these days I'll sit down and actually write something, and maybe look up some interesting stories to try and entertain you.The thing is, I took advantage of the last two "days off" to pick up some corporate security work. I ended up spending 9 hours in a parking lot making sure an executive who'd just been fired didn't come back to the office. Turns out the guy was a total fraud and a nutcase. So, now that I'm done fattening my wallet by taking a break from representing the armed might of the state, and instead representing the armed might of corporate America, I can return to blogging. I started by letting the pod in the basement open up, and I switched over to new Blogger, promptly dehumanizing several commenters and rendering them anonymous. Sorry.
I know there's lots of newsworthy events out there that need my attention. Newsworthy stories like this:
People getting arrested in stolen cars because their girlfriends like to stand up through the sunroof, topless
and this:
Middle-aged Cialis freaks going wild in Myrtle Beach.
The Bears won their first playoff game. I was going to write tons of thoughtful sports commentary. Really.
I was near apoplectic after watching Bush's speech on his "new" plan for Iraq. Fortunately, Johnny Yen said most of what I would've said, only better, here, here, and here. Briefly, here's what really pisses me off about the Iraq "surge": according to the US Army's own Counterinsurgency Field Manual, (written by Lt Gen David Petraeus, newly-appointed Iraq commander) the desirable ratio of soldiers to civilians in a counterinsurgency campaign should be about 20 per 1,000. According to the CIA World Factbook, the population of Iraq is approximately 26,700,000. The population of Baghdad is approximately 5,700,000. By those numbers, then, an ideal counterinsurgency campaign in Baghdad would require about 114,000 soldiers. The ideal figure for the entire nation of Iraq would be about 534,000 soldiers. And Eric Shinseki got shit-canned for having the nerve to suggest as much to a Senate committee before the war started. For any of you military history buffs out there, here's an interesting article on "Force Requirements for Stability Operations" from the US Army War College.
So, in a nutshell, Bush's 20,000-soldier "surge" is just more bullshit.
Ok, what else. I got tagged by Katie Schwartz and I'm terrified that I'll look like a poor sport for not responding. Is it ok to wait a week or so before doing one of those things, or is there some expiration date?
Speaking of not responding, my procrastination seems to get worse lately. I have boxes of documents that I need to get rid of (one box of documents from a failed union organizing drive and another of old travel brochures and law enforcement magazines) and two other boxes of documents I desperately need to sort out. SOON. Because a lot of my 2006 tax records are in there, and got thrown in and mixed up with a lot of other crap during a round of frantic pre-holiday-let's-get-the-house-ready-for-company housecleaning. I plan on running in the Chicago Marathon again this year, but I haven't run since Thanksgiving and I'm now tipping the scales at 215 pounds. Did you know that the Chicago Area Runners Association has a category for runners like me? They call us Clydesdales.
I'm chock-full of vaguely formed big plans, yes indeed. Maybe I'll start working on them tomorrow.
4 comments:
I'll join you in procrastinating, when I get around to it.
I know people are kvetching about beta, but there are a lot of advantages. For instance, revisions of posts are much more reliable. I can't tell you how many times I edited a post, and reposted, only to find that older revisions had disappeared.
RE the troop numbers-- so basically we have would barely have enough troops there if Baghdad were the only part of Iraq we needed to secure. Brilliant.
A little ironic, isn't it? The really adequete amount of troops is a little over half a million-- right around the highest number of troops we had deployed during the Vietnam War.
I know I've mentioned that one of the regulars at the restaurant, my extra part-time gig, was Rumsfield's personal secretary when he was a corporate wank. She said that his style was "kill the messenger" even then.
I wish I could feel that these people were so thoroughly discredited that we'll never see them again, but they keep showing up again and again every time a Republican gets elected President.
Did you read the police report for the Cialis couple? What parent teaches their child that the appropriate word for penis is "front butt"?
Did you click on any of the other ones? Check out the woman who supplied booze for her 15-year-old daughter's slumber party. She had instructed the revellers to bring $5 each. To paraphrase Rick Blaine in Casablanca, "I don't mind someone who contributes to the delinquincy of a minor, but I can't stand a cut-rate contributor..."
Believe it or not Lulu, "front butt" is not uncommon. Hey, it was down south, at least she didn't refer to it as "cousin stick".
Johnny, I really appreciated your posts about the Bush non-plan for Iraq. If you had asked me in late 2003/early 2004 the best way out of Iraq, I would've said throw another 150,000 soldiers in there. Not now. Sadly, I think the time has long since passed, and now there is no good end to this mess.
And I think the parallels between Rumsfeld and McNamara are frighteningly appropriate.
Post a Comment