Saturday, October 24, 2009

Around the Moronosphere 10/24/09 - The Triumphant Return

I don't know what to say other than it's good to be back. Let's get to this -

Doubleplusundead - Mr. Rogers leaves his neighborhood to take on government run health care

Hot Air - Did Dems just put ACORN in charge of financial regulation? -

From the pages of Government Doesn’t Listen, Part MMXLVII, we have this stunning example from the House Financial Services Committee. Yesterday, Reps. Maxine Waters, Barney Frank, and the rest of the Democrats decided to grant community organizers governing powers by giving them a role in shaping and enforcing new regulations on the American financial industry. That seems to include, although not explicitly, ACORN:


Well they do seem to know a lot about non-traditional entrepreneurship and tax law, and the founder and his brother seem to be up on their accounting skills so maybe this isn't a bad thing.

Little Green Footballs - GOP Website cost a million dollars to set up - For once mad King Charles has a point. A million bucks for that. Jeez GOP pay me 20 bucks an hour and I will blog all day and you will get better results.

memeorandum

Slashdot - The obligatory weekly Hulu is going to start charging for content post - Very first comment "new headline: Hulu may begin loosing viewers next year." I have to agree. I like Hulu but not enough to pay for it. If I am going to pay for an episode it will be through iTunes so that I can carry it around on my iPod.

No Sheeples Here opens her Saturday reach around with a pretty funny pic

I've posted this video before but it's always funny - Traction Control

BBC - Pakistan takes key Taliban town -

Pakistani troops have captured the key Taliban town of Kotkai in South Waziristan, security officials say.

...

Kotkai, home to top Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, has seen fierce fighting since Pakistan launched its South Waziristan offensive last week.


Good. Now what are they going to do with it.

Fox News - White House moving towards hybrid Afghan strategy -

The emerging strategy would largely rebuff proposals to maintain current troop levels and rely on unmanned drone attacks and elite special-operations troops to hunt individual militants, an idea championed by Biden. It is opposed by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Kabul, and other military officials.

One scenario under consideration, according to an official familiar with the deliberations, calls for deploying 10,000 to 20,000 U.S. reinforcements primarily to ramp up the training of the Afghan security forces. But Gen. McChrystal's request for 40,000 troops also remains on the table


I am not one of those who believes the Generals are always right but I don't see this ending well. Split down the middle plans rarely do. Combine that with the fact that McChrystal has only been in country for 6 months and has been requesting troops since essentially day one and that he is Special Forces and Special Forces main mission is working with indigenous forces so you are ignoring him on an area in which he has some expertise and it's clear this is going to be a fucking disaster.

memeorandum

LA Times - Surprise another corrupt Alaskan politician -

A court filing points to 'United States Representative A' as a recipient of thousands of dollars in gifts. The state has only one U.S. congressman -- Rep. Don Young.


NYTimes Books - The Army You Have -

The story of that transformation, and of the generals at the heart of it, is the subject of “The Fourth Star” by David Cloud, a correspondent at The New York Times from 2005 to 2007, and Greg Jaffe, the Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post. (Cloud and I met once while he worked at The Times, and we contributed to two articles together and shared a byline on a third.) This book is about four generals — David Petraeus and Peter Chiarelli, who led the transformation, and George W. Casey Jr. and John Abizaid, who were ultimately left behind by it. As “The Fourth Star” makes clear, it was only the efforts of Generals Petraeus and Chiarelli, and other like-minded officers, that saved America from a cataclysm in the Middle East.


Sounds interesting. Maybe someone should buy a copy for President Obama.

Sydney Morning Herald - Make way, USA: fast-growing economic rivals eye top spot -

THE United States may have less than half a century left as the dominant global economic power before it will share top billing with China and India, former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew has predicted.

''The first half of the 21st century, a large part of it, will still be the American,'' Mr Lee, 86, told the US PBS network. ''But I believe the second half you'll have to share top places with China and also with India. Make space for them, too.''


With the economic team we have leading the country now I would say we have more like a week.

Yahoo - Al-Qaida and the Taliban: Knowing your enemy - al_Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban may be forming ties? Who would have guessed?

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