Tag: The Stars Hollow Gazette

Gettysburg.

When I was but a lad one of my few enjoyable experiences in Boy Scouts was camping one weekend in Gettysburg Pennsylvania.  Among other memorable events I got to take a wizz on Ike Eisenhower’s fence.

That was not the main program.  Mouldering away in some dusty storage box is my uniform shirt with my “Blue and Grey” patch.  This was 2 days of structured hiking and lectures covering salient features of the Union and Confederate lines from all three days of conflict as well as some visits to local tourist traps like the Cyclorama.  We might have visited the Cemetery for a recitation of the Gettysburg Address but if so it did not make that strong an impression on me.

Little did actually, because of the structure.  First you did the Union line, all three days, and you started out in Gettysburg and worked your way down to Little Round Top visiting each monument in line, listening to the lecture from the Scout Guide Book read by the Scoutmaster or designee (suck ups) and copying the appropriate phrase from the monument into your proof book that you turned in at the end of the hike so you could get a passing grade for not being a slacker.

It’s not very hard walking, about 10 miles a day, but it does take about 10 or 12 hours because of lectures and breaks and it kind of goes Day 1, 2, and 3; Day 3; Day 2.  The next day you do the Confederate line.

About early afternoon, on the second day of your stay, when it’s hot and the sun is high in the sky, you arrive on the edge of the wood on Seminary Ridge across the field from Emmetsburg Road and the monuments you visited the day before and you visit the monument of Edward Porter Alexander.

Then you walk across the field, climb over the fence (probably don’t let you do that now), cross the road (looking both ways as good Scouts are trained) and visit the monument of Lew Armistead (if you are as lazy as I am you have already copied down the magic phrase the day before so you can kind of ignore this part).

And then you walk back and continue your tour.

I frequently wish that I could visit again now that I am no longer 14.  I would surely structure it differently and pay more attention.

After July 3rd, 1863 the Army of Northern Virgina was no longer able to conduct offensive operations in Union territory.  Until April 9th, 1865 all they could do was retreat with occasional local counterattacks until they were destroyed in a trench warfare battle of attrition in front of Petersburg.

On July 4th, 1863 John C. Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg.  People who don’t understand that Generals study logistics and not tactics sometimes argue about the relative importance of these 2 events.  I say this-

PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR,

Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.

Too weird not to blog.

We interrupt your regular lefty and ultra lefty radical common sense for some topics that are just too weird not to blog.

Our Complicit News Media-

George W. Bush and his Cabinet Personally Authorize Torture-

The high-level discussions about these “enhanced interrogation techniques” were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed — down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding, sources told ABC news.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Dick Cheney, former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.- ABC News

Pentagon Illegally Engages in War Propoganda-

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.- David Barstow

Presidential Debate Moderators Attack Democratic Candidate-

I can’t remember a debate in which the only memorable moment was the audience’s heckling of a moderator. Then again, I can’t remember a debate that became such an instant national gag, earning reviews more appropriate to a slasher movie like “Prom Night” than a civic event held in Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center:

• “Shoddy, despicable!” – The Washington Post
• “A tawdry affair!” – The Boston Globe
• “A televised train wreck!” – The Philadelphia Daily News

And those were the polite ones. Let’s not even go to the blogosphere.

… The trashiest ads often bumped directly into an ABC announcer’s periodic recitations of quotations from the Constitution. Such defacing of American values is to be expected, I guess, from a network whose debate moderators refuse to wear flag pins.

Ludicrous as the whole spectacle was, ABC would not have been so widely pilloried had it not tapped into a larger national discontent with news media fatuousness. The debate didn’t happen in a vacuum; it was the culmination of the orgy of press hysteria over Mr. Obama’s remarks about “bitter” small-town voters. For nearly a week, you couldn’t change channels without hearing how Mr. Obama had destroyed his campaign with this single slip at a San Francisco fund-raiser.- Frank Rich

Just in the last week.

“Some will call this a backward-looking distraction, but only by fully understanding what Mr. Bush has done over eight years to distort the rule of law and violate civil liberties and human rights can Americans ever hope to repair the damage and ensure it does not happen again.”- The New York Times

Not just W.  Only by fully understanding what our Complicit Beltway Media Traitors have done over the last 30 years to distort the truth can Americans ever hope to repair the damage and ensure it does not happen again.

We know who you are and what you are- liars, cowards, and fools.

Your audience hates you and won’t buy your bullshit anymore.  That’s why you’re dying.  Good luck when the money stops losers.

I’m bitter.

What drives me nuts is that they think we’re stupid.

Too stupid to see what vacuous gas bags they are.

Too stupid to remember what they said.

So stupid that we’ll continue to buy their crap and vote for them.

They’re wrong.

Everyone gets the same TV and we can see them strut and preen and lie all day and you know what?

We hate them.

I don’t know why any of them thinks I haven’t spit in their coffee.

Because I have.

Yup.  That “Surge” sure is working-

Anxiety Rises Over Vulnerable Housing In Iraqi Green Zone

By Sholnn Freeman, Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, April 8, 2008; Page A08

BAGHDAD, April 7 — A little after sunrise on Easter Sunday, a mortar shell or rocket crashed into Paul Converse’s trailer inside the Green Zone, the rigorously defended seat of U.S. power in Iraq. Converse, who once told his brother he felt safer in Iraq than on American freeways, died the next day.

Converse’s death has underscored the vulnerability of housing facilities in the Green Zone to artillery and missile attack, spreading fear among thousands of security contractors, interpreters, American soldiers and embassy personnel.

A 56-year-old government auditor, Converse was the first of four Americans to die in Green Zone shelling in the past two weeks. Four days after Converse’s death, Mazin Zwayne, a 62-year-old American civilian working for the Defense Department, was killed in a shelling attack. On Monday, shells killed two American soldiers and wounded 17 others. It is so far unclear whether the others were also killed in trailers, in part because the U.S. Embassy, citing security concerns, generally refuses to give details of where shells and rockets hit.

Crackdown on Militias May Add to Instability in Iraq

By JAMES GLANZ and STEPHEN FARRELL, The New York Times

Published: April 8, 2008

BAGHDAD – A crackdown on the Mahdi Army militia is creating potentially destabilizing political and military tensions in Iraq, pitting a stronger government alliance against the force that has won past showdowns: the street power wielded by the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

…

But the badly coordinated push into Basra has unleashed a new barrage of attacks on American and Iraqi forces and has led to open fighting between Shiite militias.

Figures compiled by the American military showed that attacks specifically on military targets in Baghdad more than tripled in March, one of many indications that violence has begun to rise again after months of gains in the wake of an American troop increase. Overall attacks on Baghdad more than doubled, to 631 in March from 239 in February, reflecting new strikes against the Green Zone, the fortified headquarters for Iraqi and American officials, as well as renewed fighting in Sadr City between the Mahdi Army and American and Iraqi forces.

So let’s bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran-

Next Hot Topic In U.S. Campaign: The Iran Question

^{Sharp Differences In Viewpoints Echo Discord on Iraq Issue}

By YOCHI J. DREAZEN and LAURA MECKLER, The Wall Street Journal

April 8, 2008; Page A3

WASHINGTON — Iran might end up sharing center stage when Gen. David Petraeus and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, testify Tuesday before Senate panels featuring the three presidential candidates.

Iran is emerging as a hot-button campaign issue, with the candidates differing sharply on what approach to take toward Tehran and its hard-line leadership. Likely Republican nominee John McCain, who has been delivering warnings on Iran, told reporters ahead of the hearing, “I think you’re going to hear more about the Iranian influence, the arms they’ve provided, the money, the training, particularly the extent of their influence in southern Iraq. It’s pretty extensive, and I think he’s going to be talking about that.”

…

The three candidates differ over Iraq, but the disagreements about Iran are just as striking. Sen. Barack Obama has offered to negotiate with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions. His rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, has described Iran as a threat to U.S. interests across the region and voted in favor of labeling Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist force. Sen. McCain favors tough sanctions against Iran and has hinted that he would use force to prevent the country from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Sweet dreams.

Bush aides put upbeat spin on summit

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

2 hours, 31 minutes ago

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE – White House officials waged an extraordinary campaign during an 11-hour Air Force One flight to put a positive spin on the outcome of Sunday’s summit talks between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Four times on the long flight back to Washington from Sochi, Russia, Bush aides trooped back to the press cabin to make the case that the summit had turned out well, particularly on missile defenses.

It was the heaviest lobbying campaign veteran reporters could recall ever occurring on the president’s plane. Press accounts of the summit had been sent to Bush’s plane and administration officials thought they were too negative. Clearly, Bush’s aides were disappointed.

Because of course, it’s only the lipstick that matters.

The Blithering Idiocy of the DC Establishment

by dday, Hullabaloo

Sunday, April 06, 2008 05:34:00 PM

We’re going to hear a lot of crap in the next week out of the Administration and their spinners, and robots like Cokie are going to lap it up because, you know, “Americans would prefer to win.” That’s just an ignorant and dismissive remark, and it sadly represents the depth of understanding of the tragedy in Iraq inside The Village. Of course, Cokie’s just repeating what “real Americans” think; that it happens to line up with establishment opinion and helps provide cover for their epic mistake of going along with the initial invasion is just a nice perk.

St. McSame?  Beltway Media darling?

He Didn’t Mean What He Meant

by digby, Hullabaloo

Saturday, April 05, 2008 12:51:00 PM

On the best of days, John McCain’s fanboys rival 12 year old girls screaming themselves faint in the front row of a Jonas Brothers concert, but this rush to ensure that that mean Barack Obama didn’t “get away” with using McCain’s own words against him on the stump was a profile in Xtreme Flyboy-love. Once again, McCain is excused for saying something completely shocking because his scribbling sycophants are sure he “didn’t really mean it.” One can only imagine what it would be like if all candidates were given the benefit of the doubt on such matters.(I’m sorry Jay, but this proves once again that they have not learned any lessons from their irresponsible behavior of the past few years.)

The U.S. establishment media in a nutshell

by Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com

Saturday April 5, 2008 08:11 EDT

Needless to say, these serious and accomplished political journalists are only focusing on these stupid and trivial matters because this is what the Regular Folk care about. They speak for the Regular People, and what the Regular People care about is not Iraq or the looming recession or health care or lobbyist control of our government or anything that would strain the brain of these reporters. What those nice little Regular Folk care about is whether Obama is Regular Folk just like them, whether he can bowl and wants to gorge himself with junk food.

Our nation’s coddled, insulated journalist class reaches these conclusions about what Regular Folk think using the most self-referential, self-absorbed thought process imaginable. The proof that the Regular People are interested in these things is that… the journalists themselves chatter about it endlessly.

You realize of course, this means war.

What a bunch of whiny Ass Titty Babies our Beltway Bozos are.  Their egos too fragile to stand up to the rough and tumble of the internets.

You morans.  You bet we are laughing at your vapid Village Idiot insights, your breathless discovery of the obvious.  It has been a staple of deconstructed entertainment for years how hackneyed and formulaic our sitcoms and dramas are and your reductionist telepromptered “newscasts” are no different.

We’re not only on to you, we’re smarter than you are.

You’re a bunch of blow dried brainless buttkissers who’s only special talent is for being relentlessly wrong!

Oh, and mutual mental masturbation you feces flinging lice grooming primates.

Well, Richard Gilmore will not be so happy about this and neither am I since we’re both Formula 1 fans.

Actually me not so much, since I’ve really always been partial to American open wheel road track racing, especially during the glory years of CART when their turbocharged 8s kicked the ass of the effete normally aspirated 10 and 12 cylinder sewing machines that powered the effeminate aerodynamic computerized robo-cars of Formula 1.

Those days are gone and all that remains is turning left bumper cars to amuse the tailgating brain dead beer drinking NASCAR bozos who think professional wrestling is a real sport.

Well goodbye dinosaurs and your petroleum polluting global warming antics.

Gone the way of polar bears and penguins you no longer amuse me.

(h/t Atrios)

Are you still trapped in High School?

What puts me in mind of the subject is this post by digby.

Are you so psychologically damaged by not being the inner jock/cheerleader/prom queen you deserved to be?

GROW THE FUCK UP!

I was Ferris Bueller and what took me 10 years to get over was that there was never again such a system I could so totally scam out here in the cold harsh world of reality.

If our Whiny Ass Titty Baby Beltway Buttkissing Bozos can’t find anything better than to pine in envy when the dude wearing a Duck’s Ass (that’s what DA means you terminally unhip losers) walks down the hall between the lockers they DESERVE their toilet bowl swirlies and atomic wedgies.

Get a job you lazy bums!

Go work for someone who won’t listen to your sniveling excuses and only pays for results you snot nosed brats.

Oh wait- you don’t have any.

What makes you better than me you miserable failures.  Mummy and Dada will protect you?

Not in my neighborhood.  Here you’re nothing but meat.

Welcome to the jungle.

It’s hard to know how to really direct my anger at this moment because the media is failing on so many levels.

Where is the outrage that says- Timmeh?  So do you agree with the position of the Catholic Church on birth control?  Why didn’t you walk out of the pews then?  Timmeh?  Do all blacks look alike to you?  Then why only ask Colin Polwell and Barack Obama about Harry Belefonte?

You couldn’t possibly be a racist any more than John McCain could misspeak about Foreign Policy or prostitute himself for the endorsement of a preacher who calls your church a “Great Whore”.  No more than a “maverick” who wrote campaign finance reform could commit a felony by violating his own law because laws are for the little people not great fat respected Village Idiots like you.

No more than this “maverick” fighter pilot senile old gas bag of a lying panderer could have sold out to any of the lobbyists who run his campaign because he has the “guts” to stand up to Boeing and offshore another 20,000 jobs and stand tall in Iraq and condemn another 4,000 American soldiers to death so he can bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran and involve us in yet another war WE WILL LOSE!

I am disgusted.

Ok this is like my fifth try at this-

One of my favorite Easter traditions is Onion Dyed Eggs.  The recipe is really simple.  Collect some Onion skins, more is better, it helps if you plan early so you don’t have to do Onion Soup or something like that to get rid of the Onions.

You put the skins in with your eggs and boil them until they’re brown (less skins = boil longer).  I always use the skins from at least 3 pounds of onions.

Ideally they’ll turn out a dark shade of mahogany and have a faint oniony aroma when cooled.

For a variation you can use Bermuda Onions which, if you use them alone, will create a rich deep purple.  Otherwise you can add them to your regular yellow onion skins and it will make the brown darker and richer.

Sigh.  That’s much better.  All the rest devolved into rants against the religious hypocrites criticizing Reverend Wright and upbraiding Obama for not spiting on him in the handshaking line outside Church on Sunday- the most segregated hour in America.

Thank God I’m an atheist.