Happy Bastille Day!

I know Bastille Day isn't until Tuesday, and I know Lula doesn't eat things that used to have faces, but I think she gets a kick out of my cooking posts. Here is tonight's French feast, accompanied by Parisian jazz from the 30s (Django Reinhardt)

BASTILLE DAY MENU

Escargots Provencal
Snails in the Style of Provence

Salade Française du Marché avec Chevre
French Market Salad with Goat Cheese

Paquets de Veau avec de la Sauce à Vin Blanc
Veal Packets with White Wine Sauce

Gateaux Peter
Peter's Special Chocolate Cake

Yahoo's Demographic: 70% YAHOOS!

Seen on the Yahoo main page today:


I dropped the following comment in their electronic suggestion box for comments on how to "improve" their service:

Re: Judge Sotomayor confirmation survey

Do you realize that 70% of your users (or those who answered the survey) are ignorant YAHOOS? Is this something you people are particularly proud of? Just wondering … I don't know why such numbers surprise me, but they do. I suggest you post a follow-up survey:

"Have any of the 70% (morons) who voted not to confirm Judge Sotomayor actually READ any of her decisions?

- YES

- NO

- I'm a YAHOO (functionally illiterate); I just vote as I'm told"

Rove, aka Turdblossom, Testifies on Prosecutor Firings

Former Bush White House official Karl Rove was questioned by House Judiciary Committee lawyers Tuesday on any role he may have played in politically motivated firings of U.S. attorneys. - msnbc.com politics

Robert Strange McNamara, Butcher of Vietnam, Is Dead

He was so utterly reviled in his time that a meek hippie artist from Martha's Vineyard tried to kill him and nearly succeeded. The architect of the Vietnam war died with the knowledge that every attempt he made at redemption was met with ferocious pushback from those who had witnessed the ghoulish consequences of his folly. They would not permit him to rewrite the history of the men and women and children who perished in Vietnam. There would be no whitewash. And no sympathy for a broken, delusional apparatchik.

The commentary (excerpted below) by Joseph Galloway is an eloquent reminder that the strong feelings McNamara provoked in those who witnessed his role as the architect of America's tragedy in Vietnam have not diminished over the years, nor on the occasion of his death:


Reading an obit with great pleasure

Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." —Clarence Darrow (1857–1938)

Well, the aptly named Robert Strange McNamara has finally shuffled off to join LBJ and Dick Nixon in the 7th level of Hell.

McNamara was the original bean-counter — a man who knew the cost of everything but the worth of nothing.

Back in 1990 I had a series of strange phone conversations with McNamara while doing research for my book We Were Soldiers Once And Young. McNamara prefaced every conversation with this: "I do not want to comment on the record for fear that I might distort history in the process." Then he would proceed to talk for an hour, doing precisely that with answers that were disingenuous in the extreme — when they were not bald-faced lies.

Upon hanging up I would call Neil Sheehan and David Halberstam and run McNamara's comments past them for deconstruction and the addition of the truth.

The only disagreement I ever had with Dave Halberstam was over the question of which of us hated him the most. In retrospect, it was Halberstam.

Hitler Reacts to Sarah Palin's Resignation

"There is absolutely nothing I want to do in Indiana."

Johnny Depp as Dillinger gave us the title quote, but I have to agree with him!

While visting the mother-in-law in Fort Wayne this weekend, I went to the neighborhood bare bones fitness center/gym. They had 8 TVs in front of the treadmills. Four were tuned to Faux News and the other four to Nascar. I kid you not.

CNN's Castellanos Mired in 20th Century Cold War

Heard on CNN from their regular right wing Cuban-American contributor, Alex Castellanos:

"President Bush looked into Putin's soul, and President Obama blinked. The less Russia has to worry about nuclear deterrence, the more aggressive they will become on their Western Front."

What? In the space of a couple of sentences, this right wing agitprop talking head managed to interject three Cold War clichés: Obama "blinked" (Cuban Missile Crisis), "nuclear deterrence," aka MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction), and "aggressive on their Western Front," which conjures up all sorts of Cold War imagery of an aggressive Russian bear surrounded by a wall of satellite states. It's worth noting that Castellanos is an old school right wing Cuban-American. These types are UberHawks who still believe the U.S. would be justified in invading Cuba.

The neocons count on the short attention span of the American people. Lest we forget, this kind of talk is what got us into Iraq. Who can remember when the neocon lunatics were drafting white papers in the 90s calling for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, based on the flimsiest of pretexts? Despite their sometime halfhearted mea culpas, the neocons remain true believers. We're bogged down in the quagmire of Iraq, thanks to the neocons, and now Castellanos invokes Cold War fantasies of a resurgent Russia with the old battle lines drawn. Never mind that Russia and the U.S. concluded an agreement to allow U.S. military aircraft ferrying weapons and supplies to Afghanistan to fly over Russian territory.

Neocons such as Castellanos are certifiably insane. Haven't they done enough when they were making disastrous foreign policy in the Bush White House? Now Castellanos is sniping from the sidelines making absurd Cold War statements -- one more reason to hate CNN.

The last of the 20th Century Cold Warriors, Robert MacNamara, is dead. He spent his waning days a tortured, pathetic soul trying to justify his tragic mistakes in Vietnam.

Get with the program, Castellanos. In case you've been sleepwalking for the past 40 years, this is the 21st Century. Really, it is.