War On Terror - Somali Warlord Edition

Just read an article in today's New York times about Somalia. So now we are said to be supporting Somali warlords. We say we are not supporting warlords but fighting the war on terror and helping the new "democratic" goverment.

Did anyone see "Black Hawk Down"? I know it isn't the same warlord. Still it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I would argue that this is one country we should just carpet bomb and turn into a big parking lot.

" ... In interviews, American officials declined to detail their relationship with the warlords, and said only that their goal was to support both the fight against terrorism and the recently formed transitional government that is struggling to gain a foothold.
But the president of that transitional government pointed his finger at the United States and said American counterterrorism efforts would work better if they went through Somalia's fledgling government, not through individual warlords.
"They really think they can capture Al Qaeda members in Somalia," President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed said. "But the Americans should tell the warlords they should support the government, and cooperate with the government." ... "

Alliance of Somali Warlords Battles Islamists in Capital - NYT

Retreat From Iraq - Update

Here is the link to the transcript of Scarborough Country on Tuesday.

"Does the White House have a secret plan to withdraw from Iraq? The Pentagon‘s announcement this week that it‘s canceled the deployment of thousands of U.S. troops headed to that country brought about a flurry of speculation and Pentagon denials that a retreat is beginning, a retreat that many Americans would like to see in time to save the president‘s party from disaster in this fall‘s mid-term elections."

'Scarborough Country' for May 9

This Is Classic Rock!

Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon" has now been on Billboard's sales charts for 1500 weeks. That is 281/2 years! Congrats are in order here. Drink your first cold one tonight for Pink Floyd.

Life Is Precious

This is one the sadder post I ever will make. My son's class graduates from high school in less than a month. High point of their young lives. Indestructible. Than we find out last night a boy in his class died in a car accident. Rolled over ... No seatbelt ... Thrown from the car.

To make it all worse today we find out he was drunk. His friends got out of the car. Would not drive with him but didn't think to take the keys. What a waste. I didn't know him and he wasn't a friend of my son's but I can't even imagine getting that call.

What it all comes down to is tell your kids, or anyone else you love, that you love them every chance you get. You never know when it could be the last.

Retreat From Iraq ?

In a biting commentary leading off his show Joe Scarborough questions whether current Pentagon moves are the beginning of a retreat from Iraq. This to help Republicans retain the House and Senate majorities in the fall.

Scarborough said Bush will do anything to win in November. Otherwise he faces Speaker of the House Pelosi and possible impeachment or centure.

Monica Crowley argued that this wouldn't be true because Bush's entire legacy is tied up with Iraq. While I think this is true I also think the Republicans will do whatever it takes to stay in power. Maybe I watch 24 to much.

The specter of investigations into everything that they have done wrong for five years must haunt the White House. Soon we will hear of the vast left-wing conspiracy that is to blame for it all. One always must remember.

What goes around comes around!

I will edit this in the morning and add a link to the show transcript. If not here is a link to the transcript main page.

MSNBC TV Show Transcripts

Race For The White House - 2008

And so we begin the search for an unlucky man or woman to replace an all but failed President. There is an article in the new issue of Wired magazine titled "The Resurrection of Al Gore". It is a little long but worth the read.

Even before I read it I realized big Al was on the comeback trail. And maybe that isn't a bad thing. As much as I like Bill Clinton I am beginning to think Hillary isn't the way we should go. Just a feeling I get.

On the other hand Gore is looking better and better. A return to an environmentally friendly administration isn't a bad thing either. Before it is to late ... Unless it already is!

The Resurrection of Al Gore - Wired
Wired Magazine

Immigration ... One man's opinion

I just received this as a bulletin on my MySpace page .......

10 Principles for Immigration Reform=if you care please read
1. The purpose of U.S. immigration policy is to benefit the citizens of the United States.
2. Since immigration policy can profoundly shape a country, it should be set by deliberate actions, not by accident or acquiescence, with careful consideration to ensure that it does not adversely affect the quality of life of American citizens and their communities.
3. Immigration policy should be based on and adhere to the rule of law. Immigration laws must be enforced consistently and uniformly throughout the United States.
4. Non-citizens enter the United States as guests and must obey the rules governing their entry. The U.S. government must track the entry, stay, and departure of all visa-holders to ensure that they comply fully with the terms of their visas, or to remove them if they fail to comply.
5. The borders of the United States must be physically secured at the earliest possible time. An effective barrier to the illegal entry of both aliens and contraband is vital to U.S. security.
6. Those responsible for facilitating illegal immigration shall be sought, arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law and shall forfeit any profits from such activity. This applies to smugglers and traffickers of people, as well as to those involved in the production, procurement, distribution, or use of fraudulent or counterfeit documents.
7. U.S. employers shall be given a simple and streamlined process to determine whether employees are legally eligible to work. Employers who obey the law shall be protected both from liability and from unfair competition by those who violate immigration law. The violators shall be subject to fines and taxes in excess of what they would have paid to employ U.S. citizens and legal residents for the same work.
8. Those who enter or remain in the United States in violation of the law shall be detained and removed expeditiously. Illegal aliens shall not accrue any benefit, including U.S. citizenship, as a result of their illegal entry or presence in the United States.
9. No federal, state or local entity shall reward individuals for violating immigration laws by granting public benefits or services, or by issuing or accepting any form of identification, or by providing any other assistance that facilitates unlawful presence or employment in this country. All federal and law enforcement agencies shall cooperate fully with federal immigration authorities, and shall report to such authorities any information they receive indicating that an individual may have violated immigration laws.
10. Illegal aliens currently in the United States may be afforded a one-time opportunity to leave the United States without penalty and seek permission to reenter legally if they qualify under existing law. Those who do not take advantage of this opportunity will be removed and permanently barred from returning.

I have to say I agree with alot of what he is saying. I also can see where most of it would not work. But it does go to show this is going to be a big issue in the elections to come.

Sports Update

Nothing like the sound of 35,000 sreaming fans ... booing every time Barry Bonds sets foot on the field. It's a beautiful thing! Ok ... so he did hit one out 450 feet. At least he didn't tie the Babe in Philadelphia.

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Finally this Tuesday .... Stadium Arcadium

Rolling Stone review

Early in the second hour of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' mammoth new double album, the guy who once yelped, "I want to party on your pussy!" whisper-sings a gentler, though not unrelated, proposition: "All I want is for you to be happy/And take this woman and make you my family." The delicate "Hard to Concentrate" is the most vulnerable Peppers tune ever -- a full-on marriage proposal from Anthony Kiedis, with Flea's muted bass and John Frusciante's layered guitars slow-dancing over Afrobeat hand drums.
The twenty-eight-song, box-set-length Stadium Arcadium isn't a middle-aged concept album about trading in your tube sock for a tux. But the band's ninth studio album is the most ambitious work of its twenty-three-year career -- an attempt to consolidate everything that is Chili Peppers, from their earlier, funnier funk-metal stuff to soul-baring "Under the Bridge"-style balladry to Californicating vocal-harmony pop. And unlike the Foo Fighters' similarly expansive but bloated double disc In Your Honor, and almost every other double album of the post-vinyl era, the band pulls it off. It's a late-career triumph that could pass for another, lesser group's greatest-hits collection.

Much of the credit for the album's depth -- and the swelling, ever-morphing, headphone-candy arrangements that boost every track -- goes to the band's not-so-secret weapon, John Frusciante. It's been clear since his return to the band on 1999's Californication that Frusciante came away from his near-fatal heroin addiction with new musical superpowers, and they're in full bloom on Stadium Arcadium. Take "Charlie," which sounds like a monochromatic "Give It Away" retread until it bursts into the rainbows of Frusciante's falsetto harmonies and dueling, simultaneous guitar solos. Also of note are the laser-gun funk riffing and nuclear-fuzz solo on the pulsing, supercatchy "Tell Me Baby" and the Art Garfunkel-like backup vocals on the eerie, droning ballad "If."

But like the Rolling Stones -- another rhythm-conscious act who started by ripping off black music only to dig much deeper -- the Red Hot Chili Peppers are a real band, where everybody counts and no one is replaceable (save for, perhaps, Bill Wyman). Flea has spent years whittling down his frantic popping and slapping to a Zen-like melodic minimalism, while melding ever more deeply with Chad Smith, who remains the swingingest rock drummer this side of Mitch Mitchell. But after 2002's By the Way, the band's least funky album, the bassist finally cuts loose again here, reasserting himself as the best non-hip-hop reason to buy a subwoofer. Flea's quacking, double-time lines on "21st Century" are a reminder that the Chili Peppers were recording Gang of Four-influenced dance rock back when Franz Ferdinand was just a dead Austrian. And then there's Kiedis, whose vocals keep improving at an age when many rockers start slipping their high notes to backup singers. He shows versatility throughout, from his dead-on impression of Jimi Hendrix (his biggest vocal influence) on "Hump de Bump" to a new country-rock growl on the chorus of the riff-o-rama track "Readymade." Kiedis is also, more or less, the inventor of rap rock, and he embraces his roots, dropping the most rhymes on any album since BloodSugarSexMagik. He hasn't updated his flow in a couple of decades, and most of his lyrics are still unrepentant nonsense ("Ticky ticky tackita tic tac toe/I know everybody's Eskimo"). But the very familiarity of the style makes it an appealing counterpoint to the band's latter-day melodic splendor, instead of a Durst-ian embarrassment.

Stadium Arcadium has too many midtempo tracks and, in the manner of U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind, is more of a summation of the Peppers' career than a step forward. But the band is still capable of surprises, as on one of the discs' many potential singles: the bouncy, four-chord "Make You Feel Better," a Sixties-influenced pop tune with Fifth Dimension harmonies and a Ringo Starr beat. A few songs later, Kiedis seems to confess some fears about the project at hand: "The risk, is it worth it?/The disc, is it perfect?" Perfect? Nah. But close enough.

Rolling Stone

High Price Of Oil

Everybody seems to be making a fortune on the high price of oil. That is except the poor working stiffs paying a larger and larger portion of their pay on gas. Over $3 a gallon in the US and over $7 in London. Not that I really care about London.

Check this out:

"But crude oil is not merely a physical commodity that fuels the world economy; powers planes, trains and automobiles; heats cities; and provides fuel for electricity. It has also become a valuable financial asset, bought and sold in electronic exchanges by traders around the world. And they, too, have helped push prices higher.
In the latest round of furious buying, hedge funds and other investors have helped propel crude oil prices from around $50 a barrel at the end of 2005 to a record of $75.17 on the New York Mercantile Exchange last week. Back in January 2002, oil was at $18 a barrel ....

"Gold prices don't go up just because jewelers need more gold, they go up because gold is an investment," said Roger Diwan, a partner with PFC Energy, a Washington-based consultant. "The same has happened to oil." ....

In the Canary Wharf business district of London, for example, the trading room of Barclays Capital is filled with mostly young men in identical button-down blue shirts, staring intently at banks of computer screens where the prices of petroleum products — crude oil, gasoline, fuel oil, napthene and more — flicker by. ....

Experienced oil traders are in heavy demand, and average salary and bonus packages are close to $1 million a year, with top traders earning as much as $10 million."

Trading Frenzy Adding to Rise in Price of Oil - NYT

And I thought it was just oil companies, arabs, and ex-oilmen politicians making the fortunes!