It seems Iraq has learned more about American democracy than I’d thought (my emphasis):
A department of the Iraqi prime minister’s office is playing a leading role in the arrest and removal of senior Iraqi army and national police officers, some of whom have apparently worked too aggressively to combat violent Shiite militias, according to U.S. military officials in Baghdad.
Since March 1, at least 16 army and national police commanders have been fired, detained or pressured to resign; at least nine of them are Sunnis, according to U.S. military documents shown to The Washington Post.
Although some of the officers appear to have been fired for legitimate reasons, such as poor performance or corruption, several were considered to be among the better Iraqi officers in the field. The dismissals have angered U.S. and Iraqi leaders who say the Shiite-led government is sabotaging the military to achieve sectarian goals.
Learnin’ from the master, baby.
I would love, love, love it if Maliki described the generals’ firings as an “overblown personnel matter.”
ABC News’ Brian Ross revealed tonight that the list of customers of an alleged Washington-based prostitution service includes White House and Pentagon officials as well as prominent attorneys.
“There are thousands of names, tens of thousands of phone numbers,� Ross said. “And there are people there at the Pentagon, lobbyists, others at the White House, prominent lawyers — a long, long list.� Ross added that the women who worked for the service, potentially as prostitutes, “include university professors, legal secretaries, scientists, military officers.�
On Friday, Ross broke the news that U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias had frequented the escort service. Ross added new details to that story tonight, recounting how he asked Tobias in a telephone interview “if he knew any of the young women, their names. He said he didn’t remember them at all. He said it was like ordering pizza.�
Let’s read that last part of the second graf again:
Ross added that the women who worked for the service, potentially as prostitutes, “include university professors, legal secretaries, scientists, military officers.�
What clown in DC decided to hire PZ Myers* for a night of fun, huh?
*OK, so he’s not technically a woman, but I’m sure he’d pretend for the right price. I know I would.**
**In my case, “the right price” is a bag of chips. This is probably why I couldn’t get hired as an escort by the DC Madam- I’m just too cheap of a date.
I’m wasted. Or, as we say around here, wassive (= massively wasted). Oh, you don’t like our neologisms? Go fuck yoursefl!!!
Few can write while drunk. Drink ruined Hemingway and Faulkner. On the other hand, it invigorates the already vigorous Roy Edroso, and one is told it sustained Edmund Wilson, who ate hard candy whilst drinking and wrote like a fiend. Me, I suck regardless — but especially when drunk.
You don’t like it? FUCK YOU!!!1!
By the way, if I’m something of a liberal insult-comic to my wingnut targets, it’s only because I’ve followed the excellent example of my representative Mari0n B3rry (D – Barfansas), who called this wanker a “Howdy Doody looking nimrod“. Sweet, huh?
I learned it from watching you!!!
Anyway, I went out to the bar tonight, for the first time in a long while. Now, look, I can remember back in the day when I was told I looked like Eric Stoltz in ‘Killing Zoe’ or a red-headed Kurt Cobain or — best of all, that was a fortunate period — a near-David Beckham. That was a lucky epoch, believe me. But what did I hear tonight? “Hey, you look like that guy from Cross Canadian Ragweed!!” “Whuh?? Really?” “Yeah.” Losing my sex appeal. Blargh! I Am a TRICK CreaTure!!!
Anyway, vids to follow because I like, quit blogging and I’m crunk (God, Sol is such good Mexican beer) and I suck an’ stuff:
I accidentally left the channel on Glenn Beck’s show here at work, thinking it might be where the Reds game is on, and he’s hosting the authors of the Left Behind series with a font across the bottom of the screen that reads: “END OF DAYS?” Anyway, after this low-budget special effects segment that shows major cities of the world with ominous backlighting, Beck goes on a brief rant about how all these signs are piling up, etc., to suggest that the earth’s present inhabitants are, in fact, going to be the audience that gets to see the dramatic conclusion of this epic movie called History, and Beck indignantly concludes by saying, “But nobody’s talking about it!”
I swear to God, some of these people don’t recognize themselves when they walk past a mirror.
Credit John McCain with one thing: When you’re 70 years old, are running for president a second time and have been stumping through the country for many months, it’s difficult to spring any surprises in your formal announcement speech.
The Arizona senator came up with one: He is running as the anti-Bush.
After years of cozying up to the man in the White House, and emerging (for better or worse) as the most eloquent defender of Bush’s current strategy in Iraq, McCain this week reverted suddenly and dramatically to his 1999-2000 role as the leading Republican critic of politics as usual.
Gee, why would McCain want to suddenly run as the anti-Bush? It must be out of some high priniciple of maverickin’ straight talk! Or, maybe it’s because Bush has a goddamn 28% approval rating.
David, from now on I’d like you to begin every column you write with the following words: “I am a chump.”
Now I happen to like Beinart, in a bacon and Play-Doh kind of way, and I’d hate to see such a young and foolish man lose his livelihood over something as trivial as pimping an insane and criminal war that has cost tens of thousands¹ their lives.
Unfortunately, Beinart has shown little aptitude for any sort of work beyond cleaning up Bill Kristol’s ravings and putting a boyishly concerned frown on them. (Although discovering somebody who is actually whiter than him to discuss hip-hop deserves some sort of grudging respect, I suppose.)
So, a gift for young Master Peter, the third-stupidest Rhodes scholar ever.² Here is the only thing that should ever come from your pen for the rest of your life:
I Don’t Know Shit About Shit And I’m Sorry
By Peter Beinart
Once I was young and stupid. Today I am older and I am still stupid. Nobody should ever listen to me because I am always wrong. I like my iPod and sleepovers at Jonah’s. I don’t like people pointing at me and laughing or calling me names. But that is what you should do when you see me. Because I am a miserable piece of shit who should never be allowed to live down the shame of my whorish dereliction of journalistic duty. It is up to you to decide whether my punishment should be collecting a gallon of sweat from Marty Peretz’s balls, or vice-versa. Or both, only it’s five gallons.
The dude is awesome. Get me my Gravel ’08 pin now.
UPDATE: OMG, OMG. Gravel just kicked Chris Matthews’ ass in a post-debate interview. Chris asked him why so many Dems were reluctant to challenge Bush’s basic view of preventive war, and he said, “Because they’re running for office and it’s politics as usual.” He then went on to say that “they’ll keep doing it because you in the media let them get away with it keep building them up.”
While making nervous fun of a stupid ABC ‘News’ article on how to tell if your husband is gay — he is a bit too emphatic, a bit too sarcastic with his ‘well, duhhhs’ if you know what I mean, and I think you do — Ace offers the following in an illuminating aside:
Best friend gay — okay, I can see that one going either way; one of my best buds is a homo. Turned off by cunninglingus? Eh, a lot of guys don’t dig that. Who the hell knows what’s going on down there. It’s like H.R. Geiger giving up ink and canvas to work in the avant-garde medium of Play-Doh and bacon.
I knew it! The vagina is a bio-mechanical horror made of clay and pork! It… it probably contains several sets of razor-sharp teeth and oozes a metal-eating acid that will even sizzle through George Bush’s Kevlar-titanium codpiece which is America’s sole defense against the Muslim Horde! The vagina is obviously such an abomination of anatomy that the only recourse for tough guys like Ace is to snuggle with other males in the Spartan lodge of Beleagured Masculinity — which is sooo not gay, dammit, NOT GAY AT ALL!!! — until some great Messianic PenisMan* arrives to penultimately cock-slap the vagina from humanity forever!!!
*Candidates are Rob Halford, Harvey Mansfield, and a resurrected George W. Bush, who was crucified by feminized, muslimized Liberals but will return, nailholes still in his codpiece, to bring not a piece of pussy but a sword, a porksword, dammit, which all will behold in its turgid glory.
