ARRR! Avast, ye hearties!

The salty seadogs among ye know already: 'Tis International Talk Like A Pirate Day! For the lubbers among ye, haul yer poop deck to the web site and make smartly with the 'Arrrr's!

[Later: Capn Silverbeard reminds of this classic instructional video]

The Nero From Crawford, TX

Steven Weber in The Huff Post:

What's left to be said? The only scenario that hasn't been played out by This Bush of Ours is the burning of Rome portion of the program, the collapse of the very country upon which he and his cynical cohorts have grown swollen as ticks.

"New England Patriots to claim Executive Privilege in eavesdropping case"

Got this hilarious parody via Bruce Schneier's security blog:

The New England Patriots, accused of stealing signals its blowout win over the New York Jets last weekend, will be using an obscure section of the Patriot Act to avoid being punished for what many around the NFL are calling "cheating."

"Mainly, the signal stealing was about preventing an attack on our homeland," said Patriots coach Bill Belichick. "I don't think anyone, not even those that would gladly see our defenses destroyed, can complain about keeping Americans, and Tom Brady, safe."

[...]


Still, Goodell was forced to admit that no terrorist attacks have occurred on American soil since the Patriots have begun winning Super Bowls.

A Big Thumbs-Up for "No End In Sight"

Longtime readers of this blog (both of you) will hardly be surprised that I applauded "No End In Sight", Charles Ferguson's exceedingly watchable documentary about the bungling that led directly to the current mess in Iraq.



Conducted largely through interviews with people who were (or are) there, the movie doesn't stoop to the sensational, doesn't lampoon the Bush administration, and doesn't ascribe any malign motives to the folks in charge.

It's worse. It details what went wrong and how. If you buy the "Who knew?" line, the idea that the freefall into chaos came as a shocking surprise despite the best intentions and efforts of the Administration...well, you won't anymore after you hear from the people who told them in no uncertain terms it would happen, detailed the consequences, were brushed off, and how many of them were left to deal with the carnage when their expertise went unheeded.

It tells the story in phases, from the invasion and Rumsfeld's obsessive focus on keeping the troop levels low, the initial good relations with the Iraqis, the looting, the loss of basic services, and the advent of L. Paul and his disastrous three-fer that tipped the country into full chaos: Yanking the rug out from under any hopes that the Iraqis could have a voice in running the country, disbanding of the Iraqi Army (thereby dumping hundreds of thousands of men on the street who could have -- and offered to -- help keep order), and "de-Baathification", which gutted the public sector of the Iraqi economy.

There's plenty more. The waste and bungling by American contractors sucking at the reconstruction teat, for example. Or the lawless predators infesting the private security teams; one chilling sequence shows a contractor's own home movies. "The music", notes the caption, "is in the original footage." And you see the view out the back window of a moving vehicle, normal city street scene, other cars driving behind...and an assault rifle pokes into frame and just shoots the crap out of one. And again, on another street. And again. Or the rise of the Mahdi Army, fueled chiefly by despair, poverty, and humiliation...you get the idea. It's a solid case, laid out in terms neither simplistic nor abstruse, for what most Americans suspect: America made the mess, and now it is beyond our power to clean it up.

Just go see it. It's the least you can do for the people your country has turned into hunted, fearful paupers and refugees.

Or corpses.

Now THAT'S Security!

Guns don't work. Fences don't work. If you want peace...work for justice.

clipped from www.smh.com.au IF ONLY the police had stopped to read the fine print on the "APEC 2007 Official Vehicle" sticker. "This vehicle belongs to a member of The Chaser's War on Everything. "This dude likes trees and poetry and certain types of carnivorous plants excite him." It took a comedian in an Osama bin Laden outfit to rouse Sydney's APEC security monster into action after the convoy assembled by the ABC TV program passed two police checkpoints to pierce the sniper-ridden "ring of steel". The much-vaunted protection for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit was peeled away with embarrassing ease yesterday by satirists armed with hire cars, Canadian flags and a colour printer. Eleven people were charged last night with breaching APEC security zones after the fake motorcade with bonnet-mounted flags sailed past the checkpoints to drive within metres of the InterContinental hotel, where the US President, George Bush, is staying. The charges carry a maximum sentence of six months in jail.

Smoking Gun for Bush and WMD

He wasn't just ignorant. He didn't just have underlings slant what appeared. He saw hard intel from a high-placed source that Saddam possessed no WMD, and ignored it.

clipped from www.salon.com Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction Salon exclusive: Two former CIA officers say the president squelched top-secret intelligence, and a briefing by George Tenet, months before invading Iraq. Sept. 6, 2007 | On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.