Great daze ahead

Great daze ahead of appalling campaign coverage. Does Tucker Carlson really have a castration complex? He sure seems to whenever he’s talking about Hillary Clinton on the air. When the topic is Hillary, Carlson admits to shielding his crotch. One way or another, that boy's gots problems with his boys.

This is from his Thursday night, just-a-couple-of-white-guys-talking-about-Hillary discussion with Bill Press.

CARLSON: I mean I think whenever [Hillary Clinton] appears tough, I think it‘s good for her. I think she actually is tough. But the one thing we learned from the Lorena Bobbitt case is there‘s a great deal of resentment among women aimed at men. That‘s why Oprah is huge. I mean women are angry...
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: I‘m serious. Women are angry at men in a lot of ways.
(LAUGHTER).
CARLSON: They don‘t say much about it, but they are.
PRESS: Wait a minute. Whoa.
CARLSON: And she‘s pandering to that resentment and anger. And it‘s wrong.
(LAUGHTER)
PRESS: I think men have a reason to be angry at women based on what Lorena Bobbitt did.
CARLSON: Well, I couldn‘t agree with you more.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: No man would ever defend the corollary. But women are like, oh, I understand why Lorena did that.
PRESS: I know what...
CARLSON: I mean they‘re really mad and she‘s taking advantage of it.
PRESS: I wouldn‘t—that‘s not the analogy I would make.

Well no, that’s not an analogy any emotionally healthy and/or competent political analyst would make. But then again, Tucker Carlson is neither.
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Great daze ahead in Defense Reutilization and Marketing. Don’t tell me Rumsfeld didn’t think of that term. From Stars & Stripes comes this little gem.

Camp Victory, Iraq, Oct. 31, 2007 – A signing ceremony at the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office here yesterday marked the start of a Multinational Force Iraq initiative to improve the living standards of area citizens through increased employment opportunities.

The Iraqi Business, or I-BIZ, program aims to engage local contractors by hiring local Iraqis to perform supervised work on bases throughout the country.

“This is a great effort to employ local Iraqis and support our ‘Iraqis First’ policy. It combines our desire to appropriately demilitarize and dispose of items that are no longer economically repairable with our intent to put more Iraqis to work,” said Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson, deputy chief of staff for resources and sustainment, during the kick-off ceremony.

A big ceremony and a kicky moniker for “the first great effort” to hire some Iraqis for bulky waste disposal. Oh, and I-BIZ already is the name for Israel Business Information Services Ltd., which, according to its website, is “Israel's leading supplier of value-added intelligence and analysis on the Israeli and global economies and financial markets.” Apparently, commissioned officers don’t know how to google.

And here’s the photo from the kick-ass kick-off ceremony. Note the presence absence of Iraqis.


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Great daze ahead in trying to get the fuck out of Iraq. Mother Jones takes a hard look at the moral dilemmas of leaving -- or staying -- in Iraq that features conversations with more than 50 experts, from General Petraeus' advisers to antiwar activists.

There are no good options in Iraq, but the options narrow to the horrific the longer our leaders dawdle…. So what is to be done? First and foremost, anyone running for or holding national office must be forced to answer these questions: What's your schedule for withdrawal, and what consequences do you foresee? Which comes first—withdrawal, a functioning Iraqi government, or a solid international peacekeeping force? What concessions would you make to get Iraq's neighbors to help? What degree of bloodshed are you prepared to stand by and watch?

[Mother Jones] put such questions to five dozen military men, think-tankers, peace activists, academics, and politicians. Some of their responses follow….[Some] refused to respond—including the architects of the war, leading presidential candidates, and the congressional leadership. Some, it should be noted, begged off because they were taking a summer break, even as Iraqi politicians were being criticized for doing the same.

We hope that if we can't force them to reckon with reality, you can.

Definitely worth a read.