I picked this off of google cache, written post election, Nov 18 2008, marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives
Obama Wants Orszag At OMB
18 Nov 2008 03:05 pm
Barack Obama has tapped CBO director Peter Orszag to be director of the Office of Management and Budget, my collegues at National Journal report today.
He's a youngish overachiever, just 40, and subscribes to the theory of what he once called "cool-headed, warm-hearted" economic policy. Judging by his blog, Orszag has smart and interesting things to say about the intersection of psychology and economics, the long-term vs. short-term effects of climate change legislation, honest budgeting and accounting, and lots more.
OMB is the executive branch's budgetary arm and management oversight evaluator. The director serves as a key presidential adviser on the economy and is responsible for projecting the fiscal consequences of any presidential decision. OMB would figure out how much Barack Obama's health care plan will cost, for example, as it gets introduced in Congress. It'll score every bill that Congress sends to Obama. It's the repository of policy, responsible for official statements. More to the point, though, is that OMB will administer Obama's transparency agenda. Regulatory reform will originate at OMB.
This is going to be an action packed weekend in DC and around the nation. On Friday, there will be protests of Yoo. On Saturday, there will be a massive antiwar demonstration (there will also be demonstrations in Philly, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and South Dakota, among other places). On Sunday, there will be a large march for immigration reform. And there will be other related events around the country, along with the small protests and events that happen all the time.
So join me below the fold to see how you can effect change this weekend.
John Horton Conway's game of "Life" is just about the simplest representation of organic processes which captures anything of their complexity, and it's essentially unpredictable.
No one has ever discovered a general description of the sort of structure which will generate relatively simple patterns like a "reddit alien." The folklore of "Life" evolved by trial and error over millions of hours of computer animations in math and physics and computer science departments all over the world, and the sort of people who are better at understanding this sort of thing than anybody else only slowly, slowly developed a few rules of thumb for designing simple structures whose evolution we can more or less predict, but only after observing the still unpredictable outcome of microscopic variations in initial conditions, all of them exquisitely sensitive to the alteration of even one pixel on the screen, where almost anything that you and I would call a pattern rapidly dissolves into disorder.
Now imagine a game of "Life" where the rules vary radically across the screen, external factors constantly impinge upon the game, and you don't know the rules.
This is a picture of the American "game" in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
"People who heard what Biden said [to Israeli officials behind closed doors] were stunned," the centrist Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported. "'This is starting to get dangerous for us,' Biden castigated his interlocutors. 'What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us, and it endangers regional peace.'"
"In language that could only have been finalized shortly before he delivered the speech, Biden reiterated that it was Israel's perceived breach of trust that had been so galling - at a time, with the fragile proximity talks just getting under way, when trust was at a premium," Jerusalem Post editorialist David Horovitz wrote Thursday.
Ackerman:
http://attackerman.firedoglake... Today Secretary Clinton got in the act. Netanyahu is an obstructionist and it's good to see the Obama administration remind Israelis that its interests are not abstract things. The truth is it's not "starting" to get dangerous for us.
My friend Daniel Levy has forgotten more about Israeli politics than I'll know and he writes that Netanyahu may be the last best hope for the two-state solution. For the life of me I just don't understand the logic. As best as I can understand, Daniel believes Netanyahu's obstructionism, combined with statebuilding efforts from Salam Fayyad in the West bank, will strengthen international support for... what? Imposing a solution on Israel?
Catch the commenter #8 on March 14th 2010 at 11:09 am, at FDL
Roll out the sternly worded speeches.
Did Biden really say the U.S. troops are fighting in Pakistan? And there weren't headlines on that?
"undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan."
Aye yup. When one pits one Muslim country after another, against another non Muslim country, one who is already small in size but mighty in power, with a history of justified paranoia because of World War II, it can get dangerous for the perpetrator. But who ever thought it would be .... us ?
Four War on Terra stories for a Wednesday afternoon:
1. The House of Representatives just voted No on a resolution to direct the President to remove the United States Armed Forces from Afghanistan within 30 days, or by Dec 31, 2010 if a later date is safer. 65 to 356. H Conn RES 248 was sponsored by Dennish Kucinich of Ohio and had 19 co sponsors. http://clerk.house.gov/evs/201...
Patrick Kennedy (D, RI) is down as a NO vote inspite of this story on HuffPo where he yells at the MSM for not paying attention to this national debate. "We're talking about war and peace, $3 billion, 1,000 lives and no press! No press !" WTF? No vote, dude! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
The Yes on withdrawal votes were as follows. We thank the 5 Republicans who also voted for this (marked with ••).
Baldwin
••Campbell, John, CA 48
Capuano
Chu
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Crowley
Davis (IL)
DeFazio
Doyle
••Duncan John TN- 2
Edwards (MD)
Ellison
Farr
Filner
Frank (MA)
Grayson
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hastings (FL)
Jackson (IL)
Jackson Lee (TX)
••Johnson Timothy (IL- 15)
Johnson, E. B.
••Jones Walter NC -3
Kagen
Kucinich
Larson (CT)
Lee (CA)
Lewis (GA)
Maffei
Maloney
Markey (MA)
McDermott
McGovern
Michaud
Miller, George
Nadler (NY)
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Obey
Olver
••Paul, Ron, TX 14
Payne
Pingree (ME)
Polis (CO)
Quigley
Rangel
Richardson
Sánchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Schakowsky
Serrano
Speier
Stark
Stupak
Tierney
Towns
Tsongas
Velázquez
Waters
Watson
Welch
Woolsey
And not only as to those leaders who send our Military to wars of choice but also the war profiteers who reap wealth from the huge defense budgets spent and these wars!
This weekly diary takes a look at the past week's important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.
When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:
1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?
2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?
3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?
The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist's message.
:: ::
Chris Britt, Comics.com, see reader comments in the State Journal-Register
In that parallel world from the reality around them and elsewhere, you'll get some as you go down but the kicker is the last report.
This type of thought process by the hawkish must end, unless the rest of the world communities want perpetual war and criminal terrorism as we've experienced over the last decades and now the chances of even more have been greatly enhanced with the death and destruction wrought by the so called mighty who followed same thought process into the creation of greater hatreds and enemies!
I have been trying to post up, as time permits and doing other issues, on the Inquiries, and related, especially as the number grew as well as the possibilities of more coming. Have them at a stand alone site here if interested.
Most people think Britain's military involvement in Iraq is over. But for the forgotten Royal Navy and Royal Marine teams that remain in the country, the truth is very different indeed
Royal Marine Danny Cole, of the Iraqi Training Advisory Mission at Umm Qasr, reflects: 'It is sad to think that the rest of the world doesn't even know that we are here'
His forehead furrowed with concentration, Sajad grips the wheel of the Defender twin-engined boat as he spins it into a perfectly executed turn at speed, sending out a swell of seawater and spray. Triumphantly, he looks to his boyhood friend from Basra, equally resplendent in his new Iraqi Navy uniform, and the pair share the laugh of lads who have just discovered an exciting toy. >>>>>
We've all heard from the Obama WH about the fact the the Great War on Terror, sometimes called The Long War, ended shortly after Obama took office in 2010, as was evidenced by the renaming of it to "Overseas Contingency Operations" last year.
Now after seven bloody years and by some counts over a million Iraqi deaths the Obama Administration has announced that Operation Iraqi Freedom is, according to the White House and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, finally over as well.
...the Obama administration has decided to give the war in Iraq -- currently known as Operation Iraqi Freedom -- a new name.
The new name: "Operation New Dawn."
In a February 17, 2010, memo to the Commander of Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the "requested operation name change is approved to take effect 1 September 2010, coinciding with the change of mission for U.S. forces in Iraq."
You can read the memo -- a copy of which was sent to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen - HERE [.pdf].
[snip]
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell had no comment on the memo, saying it speaks for itself.
The move has met with some criticism. In a statement, Brian Wise, executive director of Military Families United said, "You cannot end a war simply by changing its name. Despite the Administration's efforts to spin realities on the ground, their efforts do not change the situation at hand in Iraq. Operational military decisions should not be made for purposes of public relations, as the Secretary of Defense cites, but should be made in the best interests of our nation, the troops on the ground and their families back home."
If Gates was hoping that "Operation New Dawn" would convey a new period in the US-Iraq relationship, it's not clear that was the best choice of name.
After all, Operation New Dawn was the name for the bloody and grueling 2004 battle for Fallujah.
"Look around," the drill sergeant said. "In a few years, or even a few months, several of you will be dead. Some of you will be severely wounded or so badly mutilated that your own mother can't stand the sight of you. And for the real unlucky ones, you will come home so emotionally disfigured that you wish you had died over there."
"I think about why I'm fighting this war and my eyes tear up. I think of all the people we've killed. I think of all the people's families - mothers, fathers, siblings - and how they'll never see them again ... I think about the war and I feel nothing. I think about life and death, mine and everyone else's, and I feel nothing. I think about myself and I don't care if I live or die. On these nights, mortars go off and I won't get out of bed. I'll lie in bed as the bombs go off. I tell myself it doesn't matter if I live or die, nothing matters - I like it when I feel nothing."
"I had a friend who didn't want to go to Iraq so he purposely failed five drug tests in a row (smoking pot and doing coke) he still got sent to Iraq. There was one guy in my unit who didn't want to go to Iraq, he told our commanders he was suicidal, they said he still had to go. The soldier then went and got a swastika tattooed on his shoulder, he told the commanders that he was racist and hated everyone except white people; commanders said he still had to go to Iraq. The next day he takes a bottle of pills and tries to kill himself - and I'm sure if he were physically capable of it, he still would have had to go to Iraq. There was a guy in my unit who was on anti-depressant medication; our commanders said they couldn't deploy him on that medication that he should stop taking it. The next day he tries to stab someone and is put in jail, he still went to Iraq with us. There are more and more of the same stories ... There's literally nothing you can do to not go to Iraq and I think that's why suicidal and homicidal patients aren't getting the care they need because before it's time to go overseas, you're going no matter what, and after you get back, the government doesn't care."
Meanwhile Fox News is screaming about "human shields" supposedly deployed by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
In an effort to create hostility between coalition troops and local Afghans, insurgents are also reportedly using civilians as human shields - deliberately trying to force coalition troops to fire upon non-combatants.
This very emotive phrase, "human shields," was even solemly echoed by some dim-witted fourth-tier bloggers on usually progressive sites like firedoglake, where the in-house "expert" about Afghanistan Jim White wrote...
New reports are now suggesting that the largest civilian casualty event so far in the offensive may not have been due to improper targeting, but instead resulted from the use of civilians as human shields by Taliban fighters.
And the miserable Mr. White also quotes this steaming pile of horseshit...
The ISAF later suggested that the coalition's initial apology (for killing 10 or 12 civilians including 6 children) had been in error. Coalition investigators now think that the rocket hit its target and two insurgents died in the strike in addition to the 12 civilians, ISAF officials said. They're trying to determine whether those Taliban were holding the civilians prisoner.
White only adds that "it should not require pointing out that the use of civilian hostages as human shields is a war crime."
So let's retract that apology, because along with 6 children and 4 other civilians, maybe we also killed 2 Taliban!
And even supposing that the Taliban really were holding thoise civilians hostage, why is it supposedly okay, inevitable, no apology required, to kill ten civilians just to take out 2 Taliban? Ordinary policemen encounter hostage situations all the time, and it's never okay, inevitable, no apology required if cops killed 10 civilians to take out 2 bank-robbers.
So what's the tremendous, all-changing difference that somehow excuses civilian casualties in combat, no apology required?
In this particular instance, instead of making do with idiotic hand-waving about the "heat of battle" from some no-combat shit-head apologist for all things Obama, we actually have a specific explanation from an honest-to-God soldier in the combat zone, General Mohiudin Ghori.
Ghori, the senior commander for Afghan troops in the area, accused the Taliban of placing civilian hostages in the line of fire. "Especially in the south of Marjah, the enemy is fighting from compounds where soldiers can very clearly see women or children on the roof or in a second-floor or third-floor window," he was quoted by Associated Press as saying. "They are trying to get us to fire on them and kill the civilians."
His forces were having to choose between not returning fire and advancing much more slowly in order to distinguish militants from civilians, Ghori said, echoing comments by British commanders in the area about Taliban tactics.
Choose between not returning fire and advancing much more slowly in order to distinguish militants from civilians!
Choose between not returning fire and advancing much more slowly in order to distinguish militants from civilians!
The fiendish Taliban might force our forces to slow down and "distinguish militants from civilians!"
This will be, in the proper blogotoobz vernacular, a short diary.
Simply put, I DEMAND media coverage of America's wars NOW!
If these wars are NOT worth media coverage, they are not worth fighting. If the threat America faces from it's enemies is so great that it is absolutely necessary that we go to war, than it is absolutely necessary that the "free" press gives it ample coverage.
Since the Presidential Primaries back in the Spring of 2008 coverage of America's wars have almost entirely disappeared from the traditional media. With the exception of a few intrepid journalists the traditional media has given us NOTHING as far as details of what is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan except for the times when Dick Cheney emerges from his crypt, when President Obama sent more troops to Afghanistan, when an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at George Bush's idiot of a son and when Rudy "9/11,9/11,9/11" shows up to collect his royalty fee.
In short, I want DETAILS, and if you're not in the mood you better GET IN THE MOOD, Mister.
A two part series, from Time magazine, of a total breakdown of a platoon and especially one soldier's descent into madness in Iraq. The leadership vacuum, moral and the chain of command not recognizing what was happening. {I added 'abeers' photo's}
I'm sure we'll be hearing much more about this book in the coming weeks!
Catching this, not much up yet, gives me a chance to catch up on the Brit Iraq War Inquiry, still ongoing.
First the Brits with theirs, next the Dutch and theirs and now some very prominent Aussie's are calling for their own! Could the pressure start mounting on the Power that controlled the whole extremely failed policies of the previous decade? Time will tell but most residents of this country are apathetic and arrogant as to most everything especially baring their guilt and guilty in mass, as the The pitbull in lipstick said at the no American Flags tea gathering, "We don't want to look back'"!
Fort Stewart, Ga. - The US military plans to extradite a stop-lossed Iraq war veteran to Iraq "within a few days" to face a court martial for allegedly threatening military officers in a protest rap song he made.
Spc. Marc Hall has been jailed in the Liberty County Jail near Fort Stewart, Ga., since Dec. 11 because he wrote a song called "Stop Loss" about the practice of involuntarily extending military members' contracts.
"It is our belief that the Army would violate its own regulations by deploying Marc and it would certainly violate his right to due process by making it far more difficult to get witnesses. It appears the Army doesn't believe it can get a conviction in a fair and public trial. We will do whatever we can to insure he remain in the United States," said Hall's civilian attorney, David Gespass. >>>>>>
The first thing to go out the window when an aggressive, warlike nation starts a war (other than the truth) is whatever culture understanding may have existed before.
For instance: what was the American pop culture 1960's view of middle eastern culture? Belly dance and music, beautiful architecture, snake charming, funny hats. Even children's story's like Ali Baba.
Conversely, what was the 1960's view of Vietnam? Sub human dirty gooks.
Today, there's a piece in the NYT about the beautiful ancient art of Vietnam, which surely never would have occured in the war years:
Before we blew up all the minarets in Bagdad, it was necessary to remove them as objects of beauty, as expressions of humanity -- we had to remove the ME from our cultural radar. How many American children today know about Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves? And how many worry about hook nosed terrorists?
To know a culture --even a Mickey Mouse pale imitation of the real thing -- is to understand the humanity, that there are real children, real families there at the other end of the gun-sights; different from us, yes, but real nonetheless.
Reform Immigration -
March on Washington
Royal Marine Danny Cole, of the Iraqi Training Advisory Mission at Umm Qasr, reflects: 'It is sad to think that the rest of the world doesn't even know that we are here'
