Open thread

I'm off to an early bed, then wake up and catch a plan to France. It's my Christmas gift to myself - going to spend New Years in Normandy. Yes, it's cold and likely rainy, but it's France. I'll be checking in in the morning, then throughout the day via my new smartphone thingamajiggy. Read More......

Something you didn't find under this year's Christmas tree

Someone mentioned this game in the comments. It was my generation, I'm thinking late 60s, maybe early 70s. I remember the ads. Milton Bradley had such a pre-9/11 mentality. Read More......

New US military recruiting ads tell kids to ignore their parents' wishes, don't go to college

I'm sorry, but the new US military TV ads strike me as extremely offensive. They involve kids talking to a parent and explaining to that parent why the kid shouldn't go to college, but rather, should go join the military.

Excuse me, but in what universe does the US government, or anyone else for that matter, try to convince our kids NOT to go to college? And spare me the "the commercial says they can go AFTER they finish their military service. Yes, they can, if they're still alive and not one of the growing number of US troops suffering from post-tramautic stress disorder.

I can deal with recruiting ads, no matter how immoral this war and how inept our commander in chief. But the federal government trying to recruit kids by telling them this is a good way to escape your parents' wishes that you go to college, is wrong in so many ways. Read More......

Just watch this

It's funny, political, and not even close to work safe. This would be an R-rated funny. Read More......

Another bad milestone in Iraq

The Iraqi population surely hit this sad milestone a long time ago:

The U.S. military on Tuesday announced the deaths of six more American soldiers, pushing the U.S. military death toll since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003 to at least 2,978 - five more than the number killed in the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

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Debunking the remaining Iraq myths

The end of the year is always a retrospective time, and Juan Cole has an excellent post that debunks several myths about Iraq in 2006, including the idea that military sweeps can uproot the militias, the supposed efficacy of the 80% plan, and the lie that a timeline would be necessarily counterproductive.

Of course, most of what you need to know about Iraq in 2006 is demonstrated by the fact that this information . . .

Iraqi police found 40 bullet-riddled bodies in the capital Monday, an Interior Ministry official said. Most of the bodies showed signs of torture; their hands were tied, and they were blindfolded. None of the bodies has been identified.

. . . isn't even a lead news item. Such events have become so commonplace that this was in the "other developments" section at the end of the usual Iraq update article. Yikes. Read More......

NY Times asks: How is Bush coping with the stress?

Yesterday's NY Times ran an article titled, "Bush-Watchers Wonder How He Copes With Stress." Ms. Stolberg apparently wants to find some sign that the Iraq war he started and has mis-managed is getting to him:

Can the president really believe, as he said on Wednesday, that “victory in Iraq is achievable,” when a bipartisan commission led by his own father’s secretary of state calls the situation there “grave and deteriorating?” Is he truly content to ignore public opinion and let “the long march of history,” as he calls it, pass judgment on him after he is gone? Does he lie awake at night, as President Lyndon B. Johnson did during the Vietnam War, fretting over his decisions?

But, unfortunately, the President seems completely oblivious to the carnage he's created. He takes pride in the fact that the war's not bothering him:

Mr. Bush addressed the sleep issue in a recent interview with People magazine, saying, “I’m sleeping a lot better than people would assume.”

Of course, he sleeps well. George Bush thinks he's right. Remember, he talked to God about this one. Bush told us that himself. He's on a mission from God so he can't be wrong.

What's amazing to thinking people is that despite the elections, despite the strong opposition from Americans, despite the concerns of the Joint Chiefs, Bush is going to escalate, not end, the war in Iraq. That says everything. Reporters and pundits can keep looking for that introspection from Bush, but they will never found it. Read More......

Bush AIDS programs for poor countries and the familiar accountability gap

As in, a complete mess and no organization. For a group that really liked telling everyone how superior they were and that promoted their wealth of professional experience, their incompetence scans the globe. Whether the issue is Iraq, Katrina, foreign aid, you name it, the stories are always the same and always include failure, lack of a plan, disorganized and often money being skimmed.

Investigators found the three-year-old, $15-billion program has overcounted and undercounted thousands patients it helped or was unable to verify claims of success by local groups that took U.S. money to prevent the spread of disease or care for AIDS victims and their children.

The Bush administration says it has worked to fix the problems that were found in multiple countries and outlined in several audits reviewed by The Associated Press.

"It's not good enough for the auditors to hear from the mission that we did A, B and C but we can't prove it to you, or there's no documentation to prove that we did it," said Joe Farinella, a top watchdog inside the U.S. Agency for International Development.

So tell me again how the Democrats just throw money at a problem but the GOP somehow does it right. Another myth goes down the drain as the GOP shows us again why they can't be trusted with anything. Bring on the hearings and investigations, please. Read More......

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Okay. we've had a little break from the news of politics. Of course, there was no break over in Iraq. The death toll continues to mount on both sides. Remember, though, your President is going to be busy this week learning more about the quagmire he created. Bush must be so irritated that the Iraq mess is ruining his Christmas vacation. But, he is the decider and he's got some deciding to do. No doubt he'll make the wrong decision.

What else is happening? Read More......

Inhabited tropical island disappears

Maybe 2007 will be the year when we start to take the threat of global warming seriously.

Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.

As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities.

Eight years ago, as exclusively reported in The Independent on Sunday, the first uninhabited islands - in the Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati - vanished beneath the waves. The people of low-lying islands in Vanuatu, also in the Pacific, have been evacuated as a precaution, but the land still juts above the sea. The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.

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Happy Boxing Day

OK, I still have no idea where the name comes from and I only find a few theories online. What a Christmas weekend this year. Starting with a gathering of friends (including a few Americablog readers from Paris) at our place on Saturday, followed by an intimate dinner with my wife on Christmas Eve - a lovely turbot and a bottle of Boschendal Chardonnay reserve - only to be capped off with a Franglo Christmas dinner last night with close friends who are originally from the Midlands in England but are now based here in Paris. Fresh oysters from Le Dome, smoked salmon, turkey and the works with a traditional English Christmas pudding and the always important buche de noel. The entire family pitches in and does something for all of their important meals and they're all quite gifted, from the parents down to the youngest, who this year made the buche. It's time to get started with the 2007 exercise program after all of this eating.

So did anyone else receive or give one of those cool round globe puzzles? One of the kids received one last night and we spent hours getting started and didn't stop until well after 2AM, but what an absolutely fantastic puzzle. Lots of ocean blue pieces to make things tricky but it's great fun and helps bring everyone together for hours. Read More......