At first I thought this headline might explain Jonah Goldberg.

I can’t really add much to this:

‘I Don’t Think This Place Is Worth Another Soldier’s Life’

A bomb crater blocks one lane, so they cross to the other side, where houses are blackened by fire, shops crumbled into bricks. The remains of a car bomb serve as hideous public art. Sgt. Victor Alarcon’s Humvee rolls into a vast pool of knee-high brown sewage water — the soldiers call it Lake Havasu, after the Arizona spring-break party spot — that seeps in the doors of the vehicle and wets his boots.

“When we first got here, all the shops were open. There were women and children walking out on the street,” Alarcon said this week. “The women were in Western clothing. It was our favorite street to go down because of all the hot chicks.”

That was 14 long months ago, when the soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, arrived in southwestern Baghdad. It was before their partners in the Iraqi National Police became their enemies and before Shiite militiamen, aligned with the police, attempted to exterminate a neighborhood of middle-class Sunni families.

Next month, the U.S. soldiers will complete their tour in Iraq. Their experience in Sadiyah has left many of them deeply discouraged, by both the unabated hatred between rival sectarian fighters and the questionable will of the Iraqi government to work toward peaceful solutions.

Asked if the American endeavor here was worth their sacrifice — 20 soldiers from the battalion have been killed in Baghdad — Alarcon said no: “I don’t think this place is worth another soldier’s life.”

Actually, I can add this: some stupid fucking wingnut asshole, who didn’t have to serve in Baghdad and see his buddies killed, thinks it was worth it, and attacks the Post for publishing the views of soldiers who fought and bled on the subject.

Who needs softball questions tossed by professional fluffers like Steve Sammon when you can just have actual government-paid lackies ask the questions:

FEMA has truly learned the lessons of Katrina. Even its handling of the media has improved dramatically. For example, as the California wildfires raged Tuesday, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy administrator, had a 1 p.m. news briefing.

Reporters were given only 15 minutes’ notice of the briefing, making it unlikely many could show up at FEMA’s Southwest D.C. offices. They were given an 800 number to call in, though it was a “listen only” line, the notice said — no questions. Parts of the briefing were carried live on Fox News, MSNBC and other outlets.

~~~

He was apparently quite familiar with the reporters — in one case, he appears to say “Mike” and points to a reporter — and was asked an oddly in-house question about “what it means to have an emergency declaration as opposed to a major disaster declaration” signed by the president. He once again explained smoothly.

FEMA press secretary Aaron Walker interrupted at one point to caution he’d allow just “two more questions.” Later, he called for a “last question.”

“Are you happy with FEMA’s response so far?” a reporter asked. Another asked about “lessons learned from Katrina.”

“I’m very happy with FEMA’s response so far,” Johnson said, hailing “a very smoothly, very efficiently performing team.”

“And so I think what you’re really seeing here is the benefit of experience, the benefit of good leadership and the benefit of good partnership,” Johnson said, “none of which were present in Katrina.” (Wasn’t Michael Chertoff DHS chief then?) Very smooth, very professional. But something didn’t seem right. The reporters were lobbing too many softballs. No one asked about trailers with formaldehyde for those made homeless by the fires. And the media seemed to be giving Johnson all day to wax on and on about FEMA’s greatness.

Of course, that could be because the questions were asked by FEMA staffers playing reporters. We’re told the questions were asked by Cindy Taylor, FEMA’s deputy director of external affairs, and by “Mike” Widomski, the deputy director of public affairs. Director of External Affairs John “Pat” Philbin asked a question, and another came, we understand, from someone who sounds like press aide Ali Kirin.

Fake news perfected, even to the point of cutting out the middle man. Jeff Gannon, you’re obsolete.

(via atrios)

Suit Says Baby’s Seizure Violated Rights

Shake, rattle and roll? Why are they picking on epileptic babies? They’re not bothering anyone.

Oh, wait:

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska couple sued state health officials Thursday, arguing their rights were violated when their newborn baby was seized by sheriff’s deputies so a mandatory blood test could be performed.

Speaking of the v-word and others - these stories always have great names and related words: Moore, horse barn, Wolfe City. Poor Angie - everyone knows that if you hitchhike, you gotta pay!

FANNIN COUNTY, Tex. — One man is in prison after allegedly stabbing the driver he hitched a ride with over the weekend. The victim is recovering, but it’s the details of the case that officials say make it unlike any they’ve ever seen.

Fannin County Sheriff’s Deputies received the original call at 2:40 on Saturday afternoon about a suspect involved in a stabbing located at the intersection of County Road 3830 and Highway 11. When deputies arrived on the scene they found that the case they were working on involved a lot more than they had planned.

Fannin County sheriff Kenneth Moore says he was shocked when he heard what happened this past Saturday just west of Wolfe City.

When deputies arrived on the scene they found James Wayne Evans, 43, a hitchhiker who confessed to stabbing the person who gave him a ride and apparently expected something in return.

“Whenever the individual that picked up the hitchhiker wanted more intimacy and that was about to happen, he determined at that point the intimacy would stop,” said Fannin County Sheriff Kenneth Moore.

Officials say Evans was hitch hiking down Interstate 30 in Arlington when a white female known only as ‘Angie’ picked him up. Soon thereafter, the 42-year-old driver invited Evans back to her horse barn just outside of Wolfe City.

When they arrived, the two became intimate, and officials say ‘Angie’ asked Evans to perform oral sex on her.

That’s when they say Evans got quite a surprise. “(When he did) comply with the female subject, he found out it was in fact not a female, but a male,” Sheriff Moore said.

Officials say Evans pulled out a knife and stabbed ‘Angie’– who is a man– multiple times.

‘Angie’ was flown to Parkland Hospital where he was treated and released.

Authorities warn regardless of the situation that picking up hitch hikers is never a good idea.

“You don’t know that individual walking down the highway. Why in the world would you stop and pick up someone you don’t know because in today’s environment that’s just not a safe thing to do,” Moore said.

Evans was taken into custody and taken to the Fannin County Jail where bond has been set at $50,000.

Source

Let’s have a war:

Tucked inside the White House’s $196 billion emergency funding request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is an item that has some people wondering whether the administration is preparing for military action against Iran.

The item: $88 million to modify B-2 stealth bombers so they can carry a newly developed 30,000-pound bomb called the massive ordnance penetrator, or, in military-speak, the MOP.

~~~

There doesn’t appear to be any potential targets for a bomb like that in Iraq. It could potentially be used on Taliban or al Qaeda hideouts in the caves along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, but there would be no need to use a stealth bomber there.

So where would the military use a stealth bomber armed with a 30,000-pound bomb like this? Defense analysts say the most likely target for this bomb would be Iran’s flagship nuclear facility in Natanz, which is both heavily fortified and deeply buried.

“You’d use it on Natanz,” said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org. “And you’d use it on a stealth bomber because you want it to be a surprise. And you put in an emergency funding request because you want to bomb quickly.”

From a William Lind column last spring:

While dilettantes believe the attack is the most difficult military art, most soldiers know better. Carrying out a successful retreat is usually far harder.

One of history’s most successful retreats, and certainly its most famous, is the “Retreat of the 10,000.” In 401 B.C., 10,000 Greek hoplites hired themselves out as mercenaries to a Persian prince, Cyrus the Younger, who was making a grab for the Peacock Throne. Inconveniently, after the Greeks were deep in Persia, Cyrus was killed. The hoplites’ leader, Xenophon, the first gentleman of war, led his men on an epic retreat through Kurdish country to the coast and home. Surprisingly, most of them made it. Safely back in Athens, Xenophon wrote up his army’s story, cleverly titling it the Anabasis, which means the advance. It was not the last retreat so labeled.

If the above scenario sounds familiar, it should. America now has an army, not of 10,000 but of more than 140,000, deep in Persia (which effectively includes Shiite Iraq, despite the ethnic difference). We are propping up a shaky local regime in a civil war. Our local allies are of dubious loyalty, and the surrounding population is not friendly. Our lines of communication, supply and retreat all run south, to Kuwait, through Shiite militia country. They then extend on through the Persian Gulf, which is called that for a reason. If those lines are cut, many of our troops have only one way out, the same way Xenophon took, up through Kurdish country and Asia Minor (now Turkey) to the coast.

What is the chance that could happen? Higher than anyone in Washington or the senior military seems to think. Two events, separately or combined, pose a credible threat of severing our forces lines of communication. The first is an American or Israeli attack on Iran (Iran has publicly announced that it will respond to an Israeli attack as if the U.S. were also involved). Iran potentially could cut our supply lines by encouraging Iraqi Shiite militias to attack them, by infiltration into southern Iraq of the Revolutionary Guards, by attacking with the regular Iranian Army or by blocking the Persian Gulf with mines, coastal batteries and naval forces. Regarding the first option, a British journalist asked Mr. al-Hakim, leader of SCIRI and the Badr Brigades and a recent White House guest, what his militia would do if America attacked Iran. “Then,” he replied, “we would do our duty.”

The fact that the Pentagon’s request for funding a weapon with only one viable target — Iran — was made so publicly would normally lead one to conclude that the request was more saber-rattling than preparation for a surprise attack:

“It’s kind of strange,” Pike said. “It sends a signal that you are preparing to bomb Iran, and if you were actually going to bomb Iran I wouldn’t think you would want to announce it like that.”

Except this administration’s record for ineptitude and feckless aggression is unparalleled in our nation’s history. One hopes, for the sake of our 160,000 (give or take) troops in Iraq that the ramifications of an attack on Iran would be clearly thought out. But then again, this administration has repeatedly dashed hopes for sound decision-making.

That R-Kelly Impersonator bit was awesome.

In Wednesday’s Daily Breeze — the South Bay’s choice for 113 years — staff writer Andrea Woodhouse brings the news that barflies in Hermosa Beach are being targeted by political activists brought in by bar owners seeking to influence city council-hopefuls on issues related to boozing in the bay.

I actually love Woodhouse’s lead here:

The patrons at Hermosa Beach bars got more than wasted these past few weeks.

They’ve also been schooled on the local political scene from workers recruited by bar owners to register voters and collect contact information so they can be steered toward City Council candidates likely to fight for their right to party.

You’ve got to love any city where bar owners are a “powerful lobbying group” and local drunks are considered key constituents.

Here’s the ad campaign organizer John Gurrola wrote, according to Woodhouse:

To help advocate for bar and restaurant owners, Gurrola earlier this month posted an ad on an online classified service, craigslist.org, calling for “energetic, attractive, approachable and outgoing” people willing to talk to revelers outside Hermosa hot spots like Sangria, Blue 32, Dragon and Hennessey’s about voting in the upcoming election.

000

In other Hermosa Beach-bar-news, a second Woodhouse piece in Wednesday’s Breeze details the impending sale of the town’s landmark Mermaids bar. (If there is a better journalism job than covering bars in Hermosa Beach, California, I’d like to know what it is … )

The regulars at the Mermaid, the iconic, wood-paneled, Naugahyde-

upholstered watering hole in Hermosa Beach, must be be crying in their beers.

The Strand-front property housing the landmark bar in Hermosa Beach has hit the market for $27 million, nearly three months after longtime owner Quentin “Boots” Thelen died, said his stepdaughter, Diana Albergate.

Thelen’s six heirs, including Albergate, didn’t struggle with their decision to sell - with the estate tax man knocking, they didn’t have a choice, she said.

“We hate to have to do this, but the federal government demands its unfair share,” Albergate said.

Also for sale is an adjacent 6,900-square-foot building that faces Pier Plaza and houses four businesses - Mexican restaurant Cantina Real, Lappert’s Ice Cream, Avanti Jewelers and Pier Surf. The family is asking $6.5 million for the property.

Sipping a vodka tonic at his favorite drinking spot, Tom Barnett said he was stunned to hear the Mermaid’s land was for sale.

As change swirled through the city’s gleaming Pier Avenue during the last half century, the Mermaid has remained a constant, with good drinks and great people, he said.

“I just can’t believe they’re going to do this,” the 73-year-old said. “It’ll break my heart.”

“sorry about the door.”

In the nearby hard-hit city of Poway, Don and Susan Buckley, both 49, sneaked into their exclusive Highlands Ranch neighborhood and trekked up a long hill past a locked gate to see whether their Mediterranean-style house had survived.

When she caught sight of its roof, Susan, a sales executive at an advertising firm, let out a deep sigh and exclaimed: “It’s there! Oh my God, we are so lucky.”

Walking hesitantly through their smashed-in wooden door, they saw that the flames had come within 10 yards of the house and had decimated four large homes up the hill.

On their kitchen counter were empty Gatorade bottles and energy-bar wrappers, and a note from the crew of San Diego Fire Engine 12, Lincoln Park.

“House saved,” it read. “Sorry about the door!”