From the "well duh" file

War strains U.S. military in tackling new crises
Admiral: Risk to capabilities remains significant, 15-month tours too long (full story)

I'm glad the Pentagon is on top of this one. I NEVER would have guessed that an endless, unpopular occupation would have an adverse impact on the military, or that repeated 15-month tours of duty were too long.

Good work there, fellas.

We've lost our Mittens...

Hair Dye Futures Plummet After Romney Withdraws

(AP) Stocks of several makers of men's hair coloring products plummeted in the wake of Mitt Romney's withdrawal from the presidential race. "We had hoped for a return to those halcyon never-gray Reagan days," said one company representative, "but what good does McCain do us?"

The American Society of Vacuous Empty Suits issued a statement expressing their regret over Romney's decision. "One of our own came so close," said the Society's release, "but despite this setback, we remain committed to our platform of being shallow and insignificant."

In a related development, Michael Dukakis is expected to deliver the traveling trophy for "Biggest Tool to Run for President from Massachusetts" to Gov. Romney later today.

The S.S. Mittens

Ah, the S.S. Mittens sinks to a watery grave, darker than even Willard's hair coloring. As Alex Koppelman reported in Salon this morning

we now have an estimate of exactly how much it's cost Romney to win each delegate he's earned so far, and the results aren't pretty for anyone still hoping to get a piece of the Romney estate. The Washington Post's Jonathan Weisman reports a calculation done by Alex Vogel, a Republican strategist, showing that Romney has spent $1.16 million per delegate at this point in the race. At that rate, it would cost Romney $1.33 billion to become the Republican presidential nominee. And remember, a lot of the Romney campaign's money is coming from Romney himself -- in the fourth quarter of 2007, the campaign announced over $27 million in total receipts; $18 million of that was Romney's personal money.

Great moments in political oratory

From Mittens Romney:

"All of us on this stage are Republican. But the question is, who will be able to build the house that Ronald Reagan built - who will be able to strengthen that house, because that's the house that's going to build the house that Clinton Hillary wants to build."

Wow, that's inspiring.

Off to do some judging

Yippie, 3:45 AM alarm! Off to do the election judge thing again. You kids play nice. I've got an uneasy feeling about today's results, but we will have to let it play out. If your state votes today, make sure you get to the polls, and if you can, help others to get there too.

One person's guess

On Daily Kos, a diarist named poblano has been making predictions as to how Super Tuesday will go. Here's the most recent breakdown (the work put into this diary is impressive):


Who knows how it will actually go, but wouldn't that be fascinating? I'll be safely ensconced in a polling place all day, judging all who come before me (or working for the county), but I can't wait to come home and see all those results coming in. This is the first time in my life that neither party has had either an incumbent President or VP running, and it should be a fun show.

Obamania/Hulkamania!

From CNN.com's Ticker: "Florida resident Terry Bollea –(Hulk Hogan’ to millions of wrestling fans) announced his own presidential pick: Democrat Barack Obama.

During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Bollea was asked who he would like to see in the Oval Office. "If I had to step out, and say who I really believe in — that catches my ear, that makes sense, that really can make a change — I would say Obama," he replied."

At least Rudy's gone!

Rudy Giuliani, pictured below, plans to withdraw today.

Hello, I must be going

A couple of quick hits before I'm gone again (unfortunately, my brother's wife died from cancer at the far too young age of 48 earlier this week so I'm off for a few days.)

First--Damn you Schmidlap. A White House I thought already reclaimed is back in serious play again. You predicted a President McCain if HRC bears the Democratic standard.

I would have loved for any Dem to run against Romney. What a ridiculous man. besides his lack of core principles and disaffection for the truth, he is just a boneheaded empty suit. Any decent campaign could fill even this dreadfully long season with ads of his lies about pops marching with King and "varmint hunting." Almost topping those though was that splendid video of the well-coiffed bonehead with "who let the dogs out" and "bling bling," That made Dukakis in the tank and windsurfing Kerry look quite reasonable by comparison.

Or Huckabee, that would have been fun mocking the "earth is 6000 years old" crowd.

Or Rudy, with his mob connections and alley cat morals.

But McCain? That is a different story entirely, especially against HRC.

SO--here is what I would like to see happen.

1) Romney sweeps Super Tuesday and wins the nomination;
2) Obama MUST win
3) If McCain wins, he is dumb enough to pick Huckabee for veep (a long shot, sure, but there are rumors that McC and Hucklebuffoon have cut a deal for Mr. Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a dinosaur to stay in long enough to split the votes of the "my religion is wackier than you" crowd.

Next--from my Mexican sojourn last weekend, it looks like the uneasy truce in northern Baja between the drug gangs and the authorities (we don't care if you kill each other, but we'll get ugly if you mess with the tourists) is collapsing. I saw a heavy armed police presence in Rosarito, my little beach spot 20 miles south of Tijuana, and the usual college party crowd was nowhere to be seen. Just what a struggling economy heavily dependent on tourism needs.

And how do any Californians deal with all those campaign ads for your various referendum propositions?

Clinton's Florida stunt was nauseating.

Pats 27
Giants 6

Edwards drops out

So my early vote for Edwards wasn't as useful as I'd hoped. Oh well. Obama will win Illinois easily anyway.

Re: Hillary in Florida

You conniving, win-at-all-costs harridan. What are you, a Republican? I have no choice but to support whoever's opposing the GOP this year, but yegads, she annoys me.

What are you going to do with your $600?

I'm not an economist, nor do I even pretend to understand how money works. On the other hand, I do try to observe how politics works, and I'm struck by how this process, rushed though it may be, is almost an example of our government functioning well. Everybody in Congress and the White House actually wants to accomplish something (or at least make it look like they're accomplishing something), so they're compromising, each side giving the other something they're asking for, neither side getting everything they want, and soon, there will be a bill. Weird. I didn't realize that our government could still, ya know, function. A little.

Although I am curious as to how, on the one hand, the members of the GOP can spend hundreds of billions on this, but when asked to spend $10 billion to help lower-income families keep their kids healthy (which would relieve a bigger burden on those parents than $300/kid), they go ape.

See you all next week

Off to a conference in (not very) sunny San Diego.

And now, in this corner...

Congratulations, Art Maurer of Crete (the hideously ugly suburb, not the beautiful Greek island). You are this week's winner!

This dimwit gives us

when I wrote this letter, it had been 2,313 days since the last terrorist attack in the United States--on Sept. 11, 2001. How many other countries can claim the same record for protecting its citizens? More than 1 million people jammed Times Square for the New Year's Eve celebration. None of them seemed concerned that a suicide bomber might be taking advantage of so many human targets in so little space. There must be a reason they were safe, and I, for one, don't want it changed.

Oh my God. Please tell me one thing Der Chimpenfuhrer has done to "make us safe" and

This one's for Schmidlap

From GOP caucus winner/freak Mike Huckabee

I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.

That's rich.

From our favorite Bush apologist

Bush apologist Mark Silva is following Der Chimpenfuhrer to the UAE and gives us this:

where my room was running somebody 1595 USD a night, and the amenities include a PDA to control all of the entertainment The NEC flat screen, I am estimating 60 inches. And a balcony with a view of the arches at the gate to the grounds, sort of L'Arc de Triomphe Vegas-style, lighted last evening in purple. Fine Australian wine yet only Moet et Chandon, no Dom, sits in the minibar.

That's right, Mark. SOMEONE was paying what most Americans would LOVE to see as a paycheck every two weeks for your room. And who was that "someone?" Taxpayers, do we fund your junkets? Your employer, which just raised its price to 75 cents a day? Or perhaps the UAE, that may want favorable coverage for perhaps, another ports deal?

This is good news...right?

(WASHINGTON)—The Democratic-led Congress is unlikely to block U.S. plans to sell $123 million worth of sophisticated precision-guided bomb technology to Saudi Arabia, despite concerns from some members that the systems could be used against Israel. The Bush administration on Monday notified Congress of its intent to sell the bomb-delivery systems as part of a multibillion-dollar arms package to bolster the defense of U.S. allies in the Gulf.

Nothing like giving one of the world's largest sponsors of terrorism a whole bunch of bombs.

That's just perfect

The Chimp continues his tour of the Middle East with a stop in Dubai, which is apparently throwing him a holiday for his visit. Of course they are - Dubai is a country run by people exactly like Bush and his ilk. They're way too rich and are ruled by their adolescent passions to play and be wasteful rather than in any way contribute anything. It's a giant mega-rich frat party. Surrounded by hardcore Islamic regimes, Dubai is a playpen. Not enough beachfront property? Hell, let's dig up the ocean floor and build our own, palm tree-shaped islands! We live in a desert? Let's become an international golf destination, where people with way too much money can hit golf balls off the tops of hotels (I wonder where they land). My only hope is that the giggling murderer will realize that he's found his kind and will stay there and leave the rest of us the hell alone.

A HUGE shout-out and God bless...

Forgive me for getting personal, but basically since Christmas my lovely wife


has been in Indiana taking care of her mother. It's a beautiful thing you're doing (despite the fact that I am living like a Cro-Magnon man)

Love you dear.

You don't

Pete, the simple answer is that you can't talk to people like that, at least not about any issues dealing with science. Science is inherently a rational process (assuming the scientists act, as a whole, rationally, which eventually the community of scientists does), and people who make "arguments" from the perfect literality of the Bible are not being rational. They're ruled by their faith, which is their choice, but it provides no avenue for discussion. Entirely too many people in that community believe that if any aspect of the Bible is demonstrably untrue, the entire text is faulty and irrelevant, and once one builds that rigid a foundation to base one's entire life on, one cannot be willing to explore any variations. These are people who diffuse cogent, well-thought out, complex arguments about inconsistencies in the Bible with a simple "If you truly believed, you wouldn't see that as a problem." What do you do with that? Obviously, you don't truly believe, so nothing you say can be relevant.

To believe as many of these people do, you have to accept God as a being which, given infinite power and knowledge, would choose to (a) create humanity as a curious, thoughtful, questioning species capable of understanding complex issues through the human creation of science and (b) produce a staggering amount of data which such a species would be inclined to accept, but which would really be a trick, designed to make us prove our faith. I'm not sure why so many are so devoted to a God which, in that model, is a complete jackass. "Hey guys, I'm going to give you the skills to use science to, say, cure diseases and travel to other planets, but if you try to use those same skills to explore anything about any of these fossils or quasars or black holes or anything like that, you'll burn in Hell, you blasphemous bastards." I mean, does that make any sense?

Of course, religion as a whole confuses me, so I may not be the best source for answers here.