Pentagon's New Big Talking Head, GOP Merry Prankster Strikes Again

David Broder
Fara Warner
Obama's Tax Returns

"We are beginning to learn that the Obama presidency will be an era of substantial but deferred accomplishments -- perhaps always to be accompanied by a sense of continuing crisis." - David Broder

Here is a link to a taped interview with the head of Iran's nuclear program. It's about 5 minutes in length and pretty interesting viewing. If he can be believed, Iran is ready to immediately swap uranium for nuclear reactor fuel, and willing to let the IAEC monitor its use. If that is true, then what is the information that the US is using to convince Russia and China that Iran is being recalcitrant? There is not enough transparency of information in our world, too many secrets are being withheld from us for the sake of political one-upmanship.

Take the case of Israel complaining that Syria has obtained some long-range SCUD missiles for Hezbollah. They complained to the US and France after the missiles were delivered, yet never shared any information to verify their claim. If they had given the info to either the US and France ahead of time, some backdoor diplomacy may have stopped the shipment, much in the way Russia stopped sending missiles to Iran after Netanyahu went there and convinced them not to. Just like on the Internet, information needs to be shared. The more information shared, the better decisions can be made.

More distressing to me, is the Pentagon's creation of an Office of Cyberwarfare, and the load of crap that it's proposed director is telling Congress. Lt General Keith B Alexander acts more like an Army intelligence bureaucrat than someone who is intimately familiar with network security.He told Congress that: "... computer network warfare was evolving so rapidly that there was a “mismatch between our technical capabilities to conduct operations and the governing laws and policies. As he prepared for a confirmation hearing on Thursday as the first head of the Cyber Command, he pledged that the White House and Pentagon were “working hard to resolve the mismatch.”

It used to be that the computer technology developed by the DOD was at least ten years ahead of what was released to the public, but now that time lead is much shorter. Still, Gen Alexander is concentrating on securing laws and policies that will give him the OK to attack anywhere at will, if it is needed. This would include a neutral country or even any network inside of the US. Hey, if a mistake was made, we're sorry and you can't legally hold us responsible for your losses. At least families in Iraq and Afghanistan are given $50 if we kill someone in their family... We already have computer security departments in every military branch, the FBI, NSA, and Homeland Security that monitors constantly for cyber-attacks, adding an office in the Pentagon that won't coordinate information with these other groups, and is a recipe for disaster. The General is just a big talking head passing out more paranoid sounding threats to members of Congress. Jeez, they barely got Twitter figured out...

and how do you like your blue-eyed boy...

We can all be proud of that Tennessee woman and her mother, who bravely sent an adopted 7 year old boy on a plane back to Russia with a note pinned to his chest, saying that he has too many problems for them to handle and they are giving him back. Of course, it might have been better if any one of the myriad social service groups involved with the adoption, from the county social services department, to the company that helped facilitate the adoption, to the State department, had been given the tiniest inkling of what they were about to do.

Headlines in Pravda read: Woman Throws Away Russian Boy Like An Old Shoe... An international incident has ignited, and even today Russia has said that all adoptions in progress of children bound for the US have been frozen, yet the US State Dept said that it is not true. Oh, who to believe? What is true, is that 3,500 current adoptions are being put in jeopardy, and our source for blue-eyed, blond haired children may dry up. And, what's worse, Russians are asking, why haven't we adopted our orphans?

Russia is the second largest country for adopted children for couples in the US, popular even before Angelina Jolie and Madonna made it cool. Taking first place is China, then Russia, and then is Ethiopia, which caught me by surprise. So far, I haven't heard if any charges will be brought against the abandoner, but the blogs have been heating up in trashing her. Another person who used the same agency to adopt a child from Russia, said that explicit warnings were given to parents that there may be psychological problems, especially with older children who experience a parent dying or were a product of an orphanage. There are an estimated seven million homeless children in Russia, and right now, none of them will be coming home to America...

the merry prankster strikes again...

TPM has a story about the latest problems of Michael Steele, that probably answers a question I had, namely who has been orchestrating the embarrassing leaks about Michael and his organization? It seems that it is Karl Rove! The GOP Merry Prankster himself: "Republicans told me in interviews that Rove's team got cozy at the RNC during the eight years of the Bush presidency, and feathers were ruffled when Steele was elected and cleaned house. They admitted Steele has dug himself into a deep hole, but the spate of recent death watch stories on national television and gracing the nation's front pages seemed like a calculated effort to trash the chairman as revenge.


The GOP universe isn't huge -- consultants who worked with the RNC decades ago are bound to pop up again and hop from campaign to campaign. But some people tied to Rove, George W. Bush's right-hand man, were "badly, badly hurt when Michael came in," an RNC member told me in an interview. "It's no surprise he's got a collection of enemies." Good to know that Karl has jumped back on the horse after his divorce, writing those boring articles for the Wall Street journal wasn't cutting it for him. His mentor, Lee Atwater, apologized for all of the people he hurt on his deathbed. I wonder if Karl has enough conscience to ever look back in remorse? NAHH, party on, dude!


I guess I should say something about the tea party rallies now that the NY Times has a latest poll out saying that they are mostly my age and better educated, just a lot more conservative than I am. Ok, enjoy your day in the sun, you angry, latent hippies. This is also the age group that is mostly taking advantage of medical marijuana, but if the tea partyers did partake, they wouldn't be so angry and would be shouting for the speakers to play White Rabbit!