Breakfast with Bwana

The Afghanistan Conundrum

2009-11-08T21:27:00.002-05:00

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THE AFGHANISTAN CONUNDRUM - A LOOK INTO BWANA'S McCHRYSTAL BALL:

A few days ago, I exchanged emails with one of my right wing yahoo redneck friends. He was all gung-ho about General Stanley McChyrstal's recommendation that President Obama should send more troops, a lot more, to Afghanistan. He pointed out, as the right wing yahoo media types will, that President Obama said Afghanistan was a "war of necessity." I said that simply because the General said we need more troops doesn't mean that it is a good idea. My RWYRN friend was aghast that I would diss the General.

When I pointed out that in every war, there is a losing General on one side, and perforce, a 50-50 record at best, he became quieter (you can NEVER silence a RWYRN type).

Of course, my RWYRN friend gets his talking points from Fux Newz. I asked if he had read the McChrystal report. Of course not. Well, I have, and here it is if you want to read it, but trust me, it's a waste of time. http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/09/mcchrystals-report.

Now, I'm not going to presume to advise President Obama as to what his decision should be. Even if I were to make the decision, I would have to have far more information than is available to me. Indeed, some sections of the McChrystal report are redacted and there has to be much classified intelligence behind the scenes.

On the other hand, the entire exercise of airing the McChrystal report and the public discussion about what to do in Afghanistan has a component of PR vis-a-vis the American public. In fact, jerks like Dick CHEstpaiNEY said President Obama was dithering. I recall his words about Iraq: "we must be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in." I think it is fair to ask what questions we as the American public would like answered before the decision is made. I recognize that ultimately, when a General airs in public his request for additional troops, the President must either fire him or give him the troops.

Having read the McChrystal report, I am left without an answer to one basic question: Who is the enemy? From what I can gather, the "insurgency" is the enemy and most insurgents are Afghans, according to the General.

The second point about the report that troubles me greatly is whether we need more troops to do what troops do which, I understand, is fight an enemy. Well, it turns out that General McChrystal has a different role for the troops. It's going to be a touchy-feely force that is going to cuddle the Afghan population so that they will not be intimidated by the Taliban, other insurgents and will feel good about our occupation.

Well, in my opinion, this is pure, unadulterated rubbish.

But then, I didn't come to give my opinion but to suggest what questions should be answered.

As I read about Afghanistan, two points seems to stick out. The suggestion is made that if we do not "win" then the Taliban will re-establish themselves as the governing force and Al-Qaeda will gain a foothold in Afghanistan as a base for future terrorist attacks on the US.

On the other side, I read that the Taliban are not a threat to the US and Al-Qaeda is now no longer based in Afghanistan, but has bases in Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan.

I'd like to have some answers about all this.

I also understand that the Taliban are Afghani people, perhaps mostly Pashtuns. If so, how do we tell them apart from the rest of the Afghanis who are our "friends" and if we cannot do that, how do we define victory?

If we do send more troops, do we have the manpower to secure every village or valley in which the Taliban threaten people. If not, how do you define victory? If the Taliban are a part of the culture of the place, how do we change that culture? And is that our role anyway?

What is the cost of this adventure? I have read that every 1,000 soldiers will cost $1 billion per year. So, McChrystal's venture will cost an additional $48 billion to $60 billion per year. Is it worth it? His report says neither success nor failure is guaranteed.

If we go into Afghanistan, will we end up fighting the culture war with the Taliban only to see Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen yield more terrorists? If so, are we going to invade those three countries also? Do we have the manpower and resources to do this?

The Taliban originally gave shelter to bin Laden. We missed the opportunity to get him. We got Karzai instead. It was acknowledged that he stole the election and a runoff was set without changing the people who declared him the winner so the main opponent threw in the towel. So Karzai is Prezzie. His brother is said to be corrupt. So we have a government giving shelter to corruption.

Is this what America is all about?

Tough questions. I suspect, we'd be better off getting out and saying to the Taliban that if they ever get into power in Kabul, we'll drive them out again.

In the long run, that may be cheaper.

Cheerz...Bwana
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Here I am at Barajas

2009-10-13T11:58:00.002-05:00

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Here I am at Barajas:

October 11, 2009

I wrote this at Barajas airport yesterday while waiting for our flight. Back home safely now, but still wondering why the soft drinks on the plane and the 187.5 ml bottles of wine are okay.

Here I am at Barajas, Madrid’s sprawling steel and glass airport monstrosity where getting from point to point seems entirely to miss the point.

This is our fourth encounter with Barajas, arrival and departure last year being the first encounter, arrival and departure about ten days ago en route to Italy the second, arrival from Italy yesterday to find that it is not unusual for your bags to take thirty minutes to get to the carousel after you have already taken thirty minutes to get to the carousel and, that our flight back home did not leave yesterday, but the following day.

On our way to Italy my wife was interrogated about a wine opener, a corkscrew, you know one of those cheapo plastic ones that you can buy at supermarkets and liquor stores and which hotels proudly emblazon with their names and place next to the emblazoned ice buckets. Of course, they confiscated it. Why, you ask? Well, maybe an Afghani cleric, blind in one eye, who has befuddled the United States military and allied forces might have commissioned this diminutive blonde to make an IED out of a bottle of Mouton Cadet, er… wait a minit, we’re on Iberia, dummy, you meant a bottle of Rioja.

Last year when we came through security on the way home, I had a bottle of Diet Coke® (notice how I cleverly included the symbol for a registered trade mark? Hmmm, I wonder if Coke, the company that is, which likes to be known as The Coca-Cola Company has a secret process for making IEDs out of Diet Coke® - more likely all that chemical crap will cause Instantaneous Erectile Dysfunction and then they’ll name it Cokagra® - I have the rights to that name!)

I mention all this because last week Muhtar Kent (CEO of Coke) wrote a lengthy piece in the WSJ saying that Coke’s soft drinks have not caused obesity but that his company bears responsibility for being part of the solution to this issue. Well, it’s nice of him to be a part of the solution to a problem he denies having created. A worthy answer to Bill and Melinda Gates who have committed considerable wealth to solving problems they did not create, eh?

But what of Mr. Kent’s enterprise that makes a fortune from drinks bought by unsuspecting consumers who surrender them to security screeners who must destroy the unconsumed drinks? Well, the consumer, of course, buys a replacement. And where do you suppose the replacement is to be found at Barajas? Why, at the vending machine on the other side of security! Now, gimme a break! The bottle of Coke® or Diet Coke® you bring to the airport is dangerous but the bottle they sell to you is not!

It isn’t just Coke® but Pepsi® too. Pepsico CEO Indra Nooyi announced recently that her company will start offering lower priced snacks in view of cutbacks in consumer spending. I guess she’s going to take the 500 cc bottle of Pepsi® and shrink it to 150 ml (same thing as “cc” but I want to make sure you are confused) and then sell it for $0.20 or €0.20 (which is worth considerably more since Paulson, Geithner, Bernanke, et al. began their bailout binge and debt diarrhea).

It may seem as if I digress but that 150 cc thingy is a big deal at Barajas. Today, as I went through security, I had my two-thirds used tube of shaving cream (mango lime from Trader Joe’s®) and my 58% or so used tube of toothpaste (from Crest®) in my carry-on bag. They were confiscated and “destroyed.” Great news TJ and Procter & Gamble, I’m going to have to buy replacements for the IED (Idiot Efficiency Department) that is airport security to confiscate next time I go through Barajas or Logan.

And why was I carrying this stuff at all in my carry-on bag? Well, when we learned yesterday that our flight was tomorrow i.e., today, we checked our large bags in yesterday and kept overnight stuff, including tooth paste and shaving cream.

Now I know how to defeat the IED – don’t brush your teeth and don’t shave. We know Mulla Omar doesn’t shave and I bet when he bares those deadly fangs, the stench is something to behold. At least, it seems to keep our military off the scent.

It seems to me that with all the money we spend on airport security, confiscating soft drinks, water bottles, shaving cream, corkscrews, toothpaste and hairspray (oh, I must mention, on peril of being accused of not being sympathetic, that Memsahib’s ultra-expensive hairspray of about 5 oz – it used to be 6 oz until Indra whispered softly to the CEO of Phyto® Volumizer her secret strategy to increase profits by making hairspray more affordable for Memsahibs by reducing the size from 6 oz to 5) if we could simply put all the money saved into a big jar – you know like those water bottles at the office into which fellow workers drop pennies for 9 years until they have enough to start a blood drive? – and buy one fooking big Daisy Cutter and drop it on Mulla Omar we might at least knock out his other eye (see these big devices are not precision guided) and see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I know I don’t feel any safer, just a whole lot more annoyed. And then, of course, some ass like CHEstpaiNEY will come along and say: “We haven’t been attacked by any Coca-Cola bombs, and what do you suppose is the reason for that?” Well, the reason, dummy, is that Coca-Cola will rot your teeth especially if you swish before you drink (my dentist told me that) but I sure as heck don’t know how to make it explode.

Yours ever with Cheerz….Bwana

Free Internet As A Tool Of Foreign Policy

2009-06-22T15:08:00.003-05:00

SHOWING SOLIDARITY WITH THE IRANIAN PEOPLE (AND CHINESE PEOPLE TOO?)

June 21, 2009

There has been much discussion about how much President Obama should speak out in favor of the protestors (and hopefully revolutionaries) in Iran. Recently, on the anniversary of the Chinese crackdown in Tiananmen Square, there was nary a whimper from the world about Chinese repression.

About a week ago, I read a story about an American company seeking an injunction against use of its protected software code in computers shipped to China. Apparently, the Chinese government has issued an edict that as of certain date, all computers are to be equipped with a filter that allows certain web sites to be blocked and some say, may allow tracking of what people are doing. The US company complains that its software codes have "mysteriously" appeared in the system being prepared for compliance with this edict.

It goes without saying that shutting down the Internet, cell phone networks, telephone systems and TV and radio broadcasts is inimical to our notions of freedom.

In the past the US broadcast via Radio Free Europe and the VOA.

Now, it's time to enter the modern age.

I think one of the best policy initiatives the United States could implement is to use our Satellites to provide free Internet access for all Iranian and Chinese people to counter government shut downs. Whether this should be expanded to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and be 24/7/365 are issues to be determined.

The United States should also provide access to a free cell phone network allowing calls and text messages by Iranian and Chinese citizens whenever their governments shut down local networks.

We should also provide free relay broadcasts of TV and radio news and information broadcasts under these conditions.

This is a heck of a lot cheaper than military force or economic sanctions, would frustrate the piss out of the Chinese and Iranian governments, and demonstrate the power of freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

Cheerz...Bwana

Bravo Sarko!

2009-06-22T15:07:00.001-05:00

MONDAY MORNING SPECIAL TO CELEBRATE THE FIRST EVIDENCE OF COMMON SENSE SINCE Liberté, égalité, fraternité

June 22, 2009

I have said it often, and I will say it again - the problem with Muslim fundamentalism, Christian right wing yahoo fundamentalism, Hindu fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism, Mormon wackoism, and all other funnymental-isms is that people conflate asinine practices and acts with faith or religion.

When someone declares that stoning an adultress or beheading an infidel, or bombing a bus with women and children is an act of religion, and the rest of the world stands by and equates what these wackos do with being a "part" of some aspect of the religion, we simply foster the notion that they are entitled to some modicum of recognition and tolerance.

This is wrong. Even the US Constitution, one of the few written declarations on the subject, does not endorse or condone wacko practices but is aimed at allowing people to believe or not to believe.

Put this in perspective for a moment in terms of almost any problem involving secular politics that is addressed by religious people. Whether it is Osama bin Laden or a Catholic Bishop interfering in politics, it is wrong.

Some day, in a Bwana world, we'll limit religion in a sensible way -- one simple rule: you can believe or not believe as you wish, but do it on your own time and don't try to impose it on anyone else.

There is only one TRUE religion - and that is TRUTH.

Bravo Sarko!

Cheerz...Bwana

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a4kami0kotl0#

Sarkozy Says Burqa Violates Dignity, 'Not Welcome' (Update1)

By Helene Fouquet

June 22 (Bloomberg) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the country's National Assembly should debate a ban on the burqa, the Muslim garment that conceals a woman's face and body, saying it was "not welcome" in France

"The burqa is not a religious sign, it's a sign of servitude," Sarkozy said today in a speech to both houses of parliament at the Versailles Palace on the outskirts of Paris. Calling it a violation of women's "dignity and freedom," Sarkozy said the burqa "will not be welcome on French soil."

A group of French lawmakers have called for a total burqa ban. Sarkozy asked them to "open a debate" on the matter. Only a small minority of women wear burqas and the Opposition Socialist Party would favor a ban "of the burqa or the nikab," Benoit Hamon, its spokesman, told Le Monde newspaper today.

The clothing rule would come five years after France outlawed head scarves and other "ostentatious" religious symbols, including large Christian crosses and Jewish skullcaps, in state offices and schools. The 2004 law prompted protests in France and criticism from some Muslim groups, including the second-in-command of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Sarkozy's speech today marked the first time a French president has addressed lawmakers since 1875 after a law preventing such direct communication was overturned last year.

Budget Minister Eric Woerth said yesterday the Burqa "should not exist in France." Sarkozy characterized it today as a "fence" in front of women's faces.

Mohammed Moussaoui, president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, the government-recognized representative of Muslims, called the use of burqas in France "extremely marginal."

In a statement today, he expressed "profound preoccupation" about "stigmatizing Islam and French Muslims."

To contact the reporter on this story: Helene Fouquet in Paris at Hfouquet1@bloomberg.net.

The Ultimate Credit Default Swap

2009-03-24T08:41:00.001-05:00

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MARCH 24, 2009

BREAKFAST WITH BWANA:

THE ULTIMATE CREDIT DEFAULT SWAP

Well, hello from Tel Aviv again. It's past lunch time here and probably past breakfast time in the US, but what the heck, I can't write a message titled "Afternoon Snack With Bwana."

First, something positive. If we believe Ken Lewis of BAC, the guy from WFC, Jamie Dimon from JPM and Vickram Pantsuit from Citigroup, these companies are all now profitable, at least in the first quarter. Since the market is a discounting mechanism of future expectations, you have to pick the point at which it is safe enough to jump in.

Now something negative. GE projected some 2-3 months ago that their Credit arm would earn $8 billion in 2009. Then they said it would earn $5 billion. Last week, the number dropped to $2 billion. By the way, they are projecting huge losses in the portfolio, to the tune of $6-8 billion or more, so the $2 billion projected earnings don't take portfolio losses into account. OKAY, so what's a little voodoo accounting between friends? Someone asked me why I continue to be negative on GE and the simple reason is that you cannot trust a single word from the management. Immelt said that they had enough money to pay the dividend and two weeks later cut it. He also said that he was prepared to run the company with both a dividend cut and as a lower than AAA company. That told me he believed it was lower than AAA. I'm still very chary about this company.

Getting back to the banks mentioned above, the fact that they are profitable is good in the sense that it means they won't likely go under. Of course, we've already heard that Citigroup will fracture itself into more than one company. But it doesn't mean that their stocks will rise because in order to do that - in a meaningful way, that is - they have to show the ability to raise capital internally. That will happen eventually - Meredith Whitney who is pretty skilled at this sort of stuff projects about two years. So, if you have a long, long-term horizon and can stand another drop in the market, you can consider buying this kind of stock.

However, keep something in mind. The Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal bought into Citibank when it was last in big trouble. In connection with the story about the call by Vickram Pantsuit to the Prince and one of the Sovereign funds (Singapore? perhaps) about converting preferred to equity, I read that his princely basis was about $2. So, here is a guy who literally made BILLIONS in Citigroup stock and forgot the basic reason for buying stocks -- to make money and rode it all the way back down. At some point, if you make a huge profit, you have to ask whether it is time to take it. I know this goes against the Warren Buffet school of thought, but then he has sold positions in companies, so I'm not totally off.

Okay, back to Tim Geithner's plan. The basic problem that I have with it is that it is a deceptive and fraudulent plan - no, I'm not suggesting that Geithner is deliberately trying to defraud, but I think he is a victim of circumstance and not being able to think out of his sandbox.

Geithner and President Obama come into the extant situation knowing that much is expected of them -- Wonder Boy Treasury Secretary and Messiah riding to the rescue. How deflating would it be to say "My fellow Americans, we really don't need to do anything about these big banks because we have done enough and they are now making money" - I mean, how deflating? So, wonder boy has to come up with a plan. Nobody seems to like deflation.

Timothy Geithner is a creature of Wall Street -- Repugnos should take note that he and Paulson crafted much of the pre-Messiah Burning-Bush infusions of public monies into the coffers of AIG, JPM (Bear Stearns and WAMU or Wachovia), WFC (WAMU or Wachovia - JPM got one and WFC the other and it doesn't matter which is which), BAC (Merrill), Citigroup, etc.

They cannot stand the idea that one of these "pillars" of the financial system should go under - while they manipulated the salvaging of the above-mentioned. A lot of this comes from the Wall Street legend of recent vintage that allowing Lehman to fail was a major mistake. Oh, you didn't notice that they actually allowed Lehman to fail? Makes you wonder where the logic is for saying the rest of the bastards shouldn't be allowed to fail.

So what does Geithner do? Why, he says that we need to have these banks get back to a position of being able to lend again. Never mind that these institutions will not lend on any scale without getting a credit default swap, the very thing that brought AIG and us to this state of affairs. Never mind that the credit markets are still frozen after trillions of infusions. What if the feds had simply made a trillion dollars of credit available without going through these banks? Never mind...

And is Geithner's plan anything other than one GIGANTIC CREDIT DEFAULT SWAP? I don't think so. Here's the deal. As the Treasury (or the FDIC) explains it, they will finance purchase of the "legacy" (nee toxic) assets on a 6:1 basis. So, if a bidder were to offer $84 for a portfolio nominally face-valued at $100, the FDIC will provide a loan of $72 and the bidder and Treasury will each put in $6 in cash to make up the $84. Folks, those numbers are from the Treasury's or FDIC's explanation - even a Bwana couldn't make up something that stupid.

If the "legacy" assets work out, i.e., pay back, the private bidder gets 50% of the profit for its $6 investment and the taxpayers get 50% of the profit for their $78 investment. If the deal doesn't work out, the private guys lose at most the $6 they put in.

In effect, the feds are guaranteeing that the credit will work out. This is actually better than a credit default swap. It allows a private bidder to gamble that an asset on which yields only 6% of face value will produce a breakeven situation and anything above that is gravy.

One obvious question beyond whether this plan will work or is a good plan, is simply this: Is it necessary?

If the objective is to free up credit, why not just take the $500 billion to $1 trillion and make loans? Oh, and buy Credit Default Swaps against default -- just don't buy 'em from AIG because that is our own money!

No, the real deceptive and fraudulent reason is that you have to pretend that these institutions really want to make loans in a low-interest environment and further pretend that they are not doing so because they have legacy assets preventing such loans.

This is just pure poppycock.

It won't work because the premise on which it is based is flawed. It is more than flawed ... it lacks intellectual honesty and practical soundness.

And, I haven't mentioned whether on default, the feds will have a physically settled transaction (in fact, we don't even know if the feds will be the owners of the purchased "legacy" assets) or a cash settled transaction. I'm betting on the latter and will sell you a credit default swap that even the $6 is not at risk!

But then, if you are a white knight riding with a lance in the Messiah's cause, you have to stick that lance into something, even if you perhaps just sat on it. Just be careful you don't poke Messiah in the eye. One-eyed Messiah's can become much to focused.

Cheerz....Bwana
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The Scatology of Geithner's Legacy (Toxic) Assets Plan

2009-03-24T08:39:00.001-05:00

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SUNDOWNER WITH BWANA

March 23, 2009 - Tel Aviv 7:30 PM

THE SCATOLOGY OF GEITHNER:

Well, here I am in Tel Aviv at cocktail hour -- otherwise known as the "Sundowner" in Colonial Brit strongholds like Kenya where there was sun -- and watching the market soaring by some 300+ points. Now, before you get all excited, with the Dow divisor being about 10+ a bit, that means the average Dow stock has gained $1. Yes, 'tis true, if all 30 Dow stocks go up $1 each, the DJIA is up 300+ points!

This morning, while those of you in the US who get these messages were asleep, I watched the futures soaring ahead and read an op-ed column in the WSJ by Treasury Secretary Geithner setting out his plan.

After reflecting on this for a few hours, I began to wonder what effect this will have on the mark-to-market argument. Simply stated, that argument posits that although bank and financial company assets are currently valued at less than face value, they should not be marked down to current market conditions because given time, they will recover. It is grossly unfair the anti mark to market forces say, to force companies to mark assets down to what they are actually selling for because this makes the the companies appear to be worth less because marking everything to market means they are worthless.

So, Timothy Geithner's plan begins with the recognition that banks are loaded up with so-called toxic assets. You can analogize this in scatalogy as observing that a house with four bedrooms and five bathrooms has become virtually unusable because the septic tank is full and the bathrooms cannot handle any more.

A reasonable person might conclude that the solution is to pump out the septic tank and let the process of refilling it start anew. This appears to be Secretary Geithner's preliminary approach to dealing with the toxic assets. He is treating them as waste that needs to be hauled away.

The problem of course, is that Secretary Geithner's plan is similar to saying in the case of the house, that since the bathrooms are unusable, they need to be ripped out. "But," yells the homeowner, "if you rip out the bathrooms, the house is worthless."

Precisely.

The fundamental argument has been that banks should be allowed to hold these toxic (that really means worth a lot less than what one paid for them) assets until they recover in value. However, the problem with this idea is that it still leaves the septic tank full. We have to empty the septic tank without ripping out the bathrooms.

One way to do this would be for the federal government to buy the toxic assets from the banks at a reasonable value - meaning something that would not affect the banks with a punitive loss. Ah, a punitive loss -- well, you see, if the banks were to 'fess up that the junk they are holding is really what should be in the septic tank, they would be deemed insolvent and have to raise more capital -- is to be avoided. And, of course, you have to ask who would pay full price for the contents of the septic tank (other than the federal government, that is)?

Why cannot the federal government just do this? After all, they've been spending willy nilly to bail all sorts of boats. The reason is that it has become politically unpalatable - the Repugnos and Democraps alike want to make sure the taxpayers don't get stuck with bad assets and suffer losses. What about AIG, Bear Stearns, Merrill, Bank of America, JP Morgan/Chase, WAMU, Wachovia, Fannie, Freddie? Be quiet. You ask too many questions.

Now, cross-eyed Timmy is a smart guy. So, he says, let's get private parties -- this means people with money, like PIMCO, hedge funds, etc. -- to bid at auction for these toxic assets. Now, there is a great marketing plan -- ask people with real money to declare how much they are willing to pay for poison. But it gets better. Timmy thinks this means a fair price. But a fair price for what? My Bwana nose tells me that these private guys will bid only on the best quality stuff and then underprice it because they want to make a profit. What's wrong with that? But Timmy is not through. Even though we have a "fair" auction, and ergo a fair value, the feds are going to subsize a portion of the price.

As I see it, there are two problems with the plan. First, how do we force the banks to sell? And if they do sell and get market value, isn't this the ultimate mark-to-market scenario? And second, if private parties bid on only the high quality assets, what price does the government pay for the stuff that should be in the septic tank?

I said "two problems" but there is a third which is more a consequence than a problem. That consequence is simply this: if the banks sell the toxic assets at auction prices, meaning distress prices, they have essentially not only marked to market, but eliminated ANY POSSIBILITY of recovering any additional value for those same assets. This means they are effectively declared insolvent.

Okay, okay, a fourth problem: what if Citigroup and Bank of America, JP Morgan/Chase, Wells Fargo --- omigosh, even AIG and GE -- decide these bargain-priced toxins are worth a gamble and decide to bid on them? This is like having OPEC buy North Sea Crude or the Mexican Drug Cartel buy Afghani opium.

Folks, I may be missing something big here, but if this market doesn't crash in a week as soon as the dummies have figured out what is going on, I may just flush the toilet and see if it works.

Timothy Geithner's new plan is full of $$$$hit.

I don't think I've heard more nonsense so highly concentrated in a long time.

Cheerz...Bwana

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REQUIEM FOR A LIGHTWEIGHT

2009-01-12T21:50:00.001-05:00

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January 12, 2009

The fighter came into the ring, his last fight on a stage he had commanded for oh so long. Yet, he seemed unsure, he had aged, the lines of fatigue accentuated every wrinkle as he winced or tried to feign a smile. His shorts were ill fitting, the band pulled too tight, the cod piece much bigger than necessary for what they covered for it is said that the cojones of a bully shrink with each confrontation.

It marked the last few days, a sad and sorry tale of a man ill-equipped for the task and in way over his head. This was the last round, as he bobbed and weaved, not deftly, almost like a rodent surveying a room from a corner. Just as Harlan "Mountain" McClintock exhibited Dementia pugilistica or "punch drunk syndrome" this one exhibited Great Windbag Syndrome (GWB) or Dementia Politica.

He had steered this great ship that we call our home for the last eight years and found shoals, tax cuts into the biggest deficits of all time, Katrina, a Mission heralded as Accomplished before it had fired its sorry afterburners, every child left behind. Yet, these shoals were not enough to mark the pitiful ineptitude of this man. For he had steered the ship as if he had the GPS coordinates of every iceberg and was determined to hit it. There was the dishonesty about WMD, weapons of mass destruction. He would say today when asked what mistakes he had made: "Not having weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment."

One has to pause and shake one's head. Not having your lie vindicated was a disappointment? How many thousands killed? How many tens of thousands wounded? A disappointment? Indeed.

If Iraq were not the biggest iceberg, the biggest foreign policy mistake in the history of the world, each new iceberg was of no less stature for he managed to ruin the entire economy and Wall Street itself. Sure, the ice cubes that got chipped off that iceberg were big enough: Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, AIG, Citigroup, Fannie, Freddie ... may I stop for the list is long? The Constitution itself was not worthy of respect: torture, warrantless surveillance. No act was low enough, ask Scooter Libby.

As he moved in the ring, no float of a butterfly, no sting of a bee, one wondered what could have been for this nation without this has-been? Reflect back on the day we heard the Supreme Court's decision that he was to be anointed. Dies iræ, dies illa? No, we did not see it that way. But neither was this last flailing exhibition a day of rejoicing, only of relief that the end is nigh.

And speaking of being anointed, for a man who claimed to have been placed in that position by God, the plaint of the requiem "Absolve, Domine!" might have been fitting.

But this is a man who does not see that the nation needs to forgive, he has learned nothing. When asked what he had learned from his time in office, not from a policy perspective, but as a person, he told Kimberly Strassel, "I've learned that God is good. All the time."

Indeed, if God were, and God were good, and as we reflect on God's role in this folly and go back to that somber and fateful morning in 1999 when God was contemplating who the next President of the United States should be, and as we wonder whatever might have possessed HER to tap the shoulder of the nincompoop of Crawford, we might also reflect that we tapped his shoulder, not once but twice.

For this exercise in power transition, we pat ourselves on our collective back but that pat is not the same as the tap on the shoulder which is a call to arms. His arms were unworthy, never able to cradle the nation's desires nor to turn the helm through the shoals or away from the icebergs. Reflecting on his Presidency, one sees a man who forgot to steer the ship, who tried too hard to be President of the World and forgot to be President of the United States.

So we are left to blame ourselves for allowing this to happen.

Others will write about the pieces that define the wreck that he created. I expose the central failing of a man who learned, not to think, but to mouth mantra and shibboleth of the right wing. He did it because it won him applause in the confined halls where people of shared illusions met. Mired in denial, he sought venues where captive audiences of cadets or soldiers or political contributors flashed obedient smiles and clapped audible but soulless applause. If there is no sound to one hand clapping, there is no substance to only the RIGHT hand feigning applause.

Thus, we got tax cuts in the teeth of a tottering economy and swelling deficits. We got sucked into war by Cowboy bravado about a doctrine of preemption. Never once did he pause to think that the strength of the doctrine of preemption comes not from declaring its existence, but demonstrating its use only when really needed.

It was fitting that the clapping should be soulless for he was a man without a soul. The irony still rings from the time he professed to have looked into the eyes of Putin, another soulless dog, and declared that he had "seen" his compatriot's soul. This vision was recorded by the eyes of the same person whose ears heard the call of a higher power guiding his hand to the helm of this great ship we know as our home. A common illusion was augmented by unyielding delusion. A man who professed to be motivated by the joy of spreading democracy formed a bond with the antithesis of democracy.

The course he followed might make a movie - except that it has already been made - The Titanic. We have seen the collapse of our economy, of Wall Street, of standards of justice and common decency, and lost the innocence of a nation firmly believing that it was based on justice and decency and fairness.

His parting shot was to say: "In terms of the economy, look, I inherited a recession, I am ending on a recession." No, you are ending on a near depression and if it is not an economic depression, you have certainly left us depressed.

But what this soulless twit did not take from us is the soul of this nation. It is fitting too, that in his exit, we should celebrate the achievement of that fundamental truth first stated in the Declaration of Independence - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."

So, this is our requiem for a lightweight. He leaves us but he cannot take away hope that better things are in our future. No lightweight has a punch strong enough to knock us out.

For him, we might all say Kyrie Eleison.

Cheerz.... from a not so cheerzful Bwana

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THE YEAR IN REVIEW – 2009

2009-01-01T14:09:00.004-05:00

JANUARY 1, 2009

HAPPY NEW YEAR all! Since everyone is writing a review of the just dead annus horribilus 2008, or worse, producing an inane video discussion of it, I thought I would, as a change of pace, (p)review the coming year for you.

It will all start easily enough with President-elect Barack Obama walking across the Potomac for his inauguration. The Pope will suggest that the new President, like the Popes, should take on a different name (Obamadict XVI? - no, I don't think so) and the idea of President St. Barry will come to mind. However, after the inauguration, Obama will try to walk across the water on his way to the White House and instantly be submerged and the populace will shout "Look, he's all wet!"

Talking about being submerged, Vice CHEstpaiNEY will reveal that he had the CIA secretly train Michael Phelps for the Olympics by having him waterboarded twice a day for two years. The IOC will attempt to revoke Phelps' gold medals only to find that the Chinese medals were not real gold.

President Bush will be at the swearing-in of Obama and Barack's daughters will jointly shout: "Look, King George 43 has no clothes!" And the populace will wonder how they missed his nakedness for eight years - Bush will be holding the Bible upside down to follow along. Just as the nation utters a thankful "Good riddance," Dick CHEstpaiNEY will announce that he is not ready to give up being Prezzie and henceforth, the country will be run by Halliburton of which he is once again the Supreme Commander and the company will be renamed Warburton.

So, January ends. In February, Barack will attempt to walk cross the Delaware River to celebrate Washington's birthday. He will fall in and Michelle will announce that she buys her towels at J. Crew.

GM and Chrysler will announce they have spent their bailout billions and determined that American consumers prefer full-sized spare tires to the mini wheels now found in their cars. As Americans continue to refuse to buy GM's and Chrysler's lousy cars, Michigan will announce incentives for Honda and Toyota to relocate to Detroit and offer to rename the state Michihonda. Barack will show up for the ribbon-cutting ceremony but find himself all wet as he attempts to walk across Lake Michigan.

The credit crisis will continue unabated but in an effort to declare that it has been solved, newly appointed Treasury Secretary Geithner will announce that the credit crisis is over and we now have a Debt Crisis - it's the same thing but with a change of name. They did promise change, didn't they? This will give newly appointed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the idea of renaming Iraq to create the impression of victory. In honor of Barack, it will be renamed Hussainistan. Many Iraqis will think that this is a tribute to Saddass Noosein the former President, but Barack will attempt to walk across the Tigris to quell the crowds and fall into the water again.

The nation's health care crisis will continue unabated and Barack will announce a new health care plan. The 43% of Indian doctors in the US will protest, forming an organization known as Lashkar-e-Ilaj and refuse to treat patients unless they are paid as much as Detroit auto workers. Barack will announce a bailout and attempt to walk across the Hippocrates River. This time, he will not fall in (the bed is dry), but will dislocate his big toe and be flown to Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany for treatment at the US Army Field Hospital. German engineers will confer with him secretly and reveal that they have been working on a solution to his walking-on-water attempts. They will outfit him with swimmies on each arm. Joe Biden will ask why the German engineers cannot design a decent cup holder for Mercedes, BMW, Audi or VW. Angela Merkel will tell him to be quiet and massage her back like George used to.

We will now find ourselves in July and to celebrate Independence Day Barack will announce that he is accepting Pakistan's application to be the 51^st state. Indian PM, Manmade Singh will go on a hunger strike to protest and start wearing a red turban instead of his Carolina blue one. This event will re-energize the Republican Right Wing Christian Yahoo Society who will announce that Caroline Kennedy has decided to change her party affiliation and become a Repugnican. She will attempt to walk across the Hudson River and almost make it to New Jersey only to be told that her attempt was successful up to a point because she was walking on the waste that Exxon has dumped into the river for the past 40 years.

Speaking of Exxon, the nation will come to realize two truths about alternative energy: 1. It costs more than the alternative, and 2. It only works on alternative devices. As a result, a clamor will rise to force Saudi Arabia to apply for the slot Pakistan seeks and Supreme Commander Dick CHEstpaiNEY will announce that Warburton has a plan. The cost will be $60 trillion which is more than the Credit Default Swaps that have been issued. AIG will offer insurance for the endeavor. Bank of America and JP Morgan will offer to take over the federal government.

By now we will be in October and the country will feel more comfortable with Barack's 9-months of experience as President. He will announce that "Yes we can" is being replaced by "We must change again." He will attempt to walk to Hawaii for his Thanksgiving holiday and Michael Phelps will be forced to swim 1200 miles to rescue him. Barack will award Phelps the Presidential Medal of Honor but Phelps will suffer neck strain from the weight of all the medals hanging off him.

In early December, we will realize that nothing has been accomplished in eleven months but that we feel decidedly better about things since the stock market will be closed for the day as soon as the Dow drops by more than 10 points.

GM's management will announce that they have hired Alan Greenspan as a consultant and he has come to the conclusion that it is irrational exuberance to hope to make a profit by continuing to manufacture cars nobody wants to buy. He will recommend that GM convert its factories to making typewriters that nobody wants to buy as a means of lowering overhead.

Barack will announce that although his Administration has spent all of the $800 billion of infrastructure money, none of the Wall Street MBA's (Mediocre But Arrogant) has shown any ability for manual labor and, therefore, all road and bridge building has been subcontracted to CHEstpaiNEY and Warburton.

Mercifully, 2009 will end and the campaign for the Presidential election of 2012 will start so that we can talk about how new leadership will bring change.

Cheerz . . . Bwana (a/k/a Bwanadict XVI)

IMUS AND THE MOHAMMED CARTOONS

2007-04-13T21:59:00.000-05:00

BWEST OF BWANA

AN OCCASIONAL BREAKFAST WITH BWANA FEATURE

It was many moons ago that we witnessed outrage, on both sides of the Islamophobia divide, on the one hand at the publication and republicatoin of the Mohammed cartoons, and on the other hand at the violent reaction to those cartoons among Muslims and to the supposed upholding of the exercise of “free speech” by western news publications standing in so-called solidarity with the misguided fool Flemming Rose of Jyllands Posten.

I commented then that the essence of the problem seemed to lie in the falsity of the content of the alleged speech which was, after all hate speech. In reflecting on this, I mentioned the oft-repeated example of the man shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Then I pointed out that Mr. Justice Holmes never mentioned a crowded theater at all and what he actually wrote in Schenck v. U.S., the 1919 case, was: “We admit that in many places and in ordinary times the defendants in saying all that was said in the circular would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”

This past week, Don Imus was dumped first by MSNBC and then by CBS from his simulcast TV broadcast and radio talk show. Obviously, the outrage of many played a big part in the decision as did the financial impact of advertisers pulling their sponsorship dollars.

What strikes me about this situation is that a certain maturity was displayed by the American audience. There were, at best, only a few isolated bleats that Don Imus should be allowed to speak freely.

Americans, it seems, have come to understand what Mr. Justice Holmes articulated in 1919 – there is no unfettered right to make false statements.

When Imus joined with his producer McGuirk in describing the Rutgers Basketball team’s members in derogatory terms laden with sexist and racist overtones, the sense of falsity was not palpable although the sense of political incorrectness was evident. By the time the members of the Rutgers team and their coach stood up and showed the nation how rotten to the core Imus was, the verdict of the court of public opinion was all but sealed.

Now, let us reflect back to the ease with which we accepted Flemming Rose’s protestations that he was standing up for free expression. While one cannot condone the incitement to violence by many clerics and other leaders in the Jyllands Posten debacle, perhaps we can also understand now that those cartoons, like Imus’ hate speech, were not in any way, shape, or form, related to freedom of speech.

Cheerz…Bwana

INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW - 5

2007-03-02T17:41:00.000-05:00

Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey resigned today amid a burgeoning scandal over the treatment of wounded outpatient soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and President Bush ordered a "comprehensive review" of care for the nation's war wounded, as the administration sought to deal with growing anger in Congress and among the public over the issue.

A visibly angry Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced the resignation in a brief statement this afternoon, saying he was "disappointed" by the Army's response to disclosures of inadequate outpatient care at Walter Reed and bureaucratic inertia in dealing with wounded soldiers.

Inquiring minds want to know: Why has the Commander-in-Chief not resigned?

INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW - 4

2007-02-12T21:46:00.000-05:00

February 12, 2007

The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that former NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani appearing at a Republican convention in Sacramento California, "praised President Bush's war leadership ..."

The report states: "Drawing parallels between Iraq and America's Civil War, Giuliani compared Bush's political troubles to Abraham Lincoln's. When the Civil War was unpopular, Giuliani said, Lincoln 'kept his eye ahead.'"

Referring to the attempts to pass a non-binding resolution opposing the "surge" he called the concept "a comment without making a decision." America, he added, is "very fortunate to have President Bush."

The newspaper report did not miss that Giuliani, who takes liberal stands on abortion, guns and gay rights, avoided those issues in his speech to party delegates, many of whom are staunch social conservatives. Giuliani praised Bush for his decisiveness and said ""Presidents can't do nonbinding resolutions. Presidents have to make decisions and move the country forward, and that's the kind of president that I would like to be, a president who makes decisions."

I didn't make this up - click here for the LA Times report
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Okay, just so we understand: Giuliani wants to be like Bush except in the areas in which he disagrees with Bush which he did not want to mention.

Inquiring Minds Want To Know: Does Rudi Giuliani think that this country is on the right track with the war in Iraq when he praises President Bush's war leadership?

Inquring Minds Want To Know: Does Rudi Giuliani know that 71% of the American people think that President Bush is not doing his job as President successfully? Is this what Rudi Giuliani intends to emulate?

Finally, Inquring Minds Want to Know: Will Rudi Giuliani's campaign fizzle before or just after Groundhog Day next year? Will Rudi see his shadow and look forward to a bleak six more weeks of spouting stupid statements?

INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW - 3

2007-02-10T14:04:00.001-05:00

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Check out this article in The WSJ about one auto dealer trying to get US car companies to build cars that people want to buy rather than cars built to specs and with accessories that do not sell.

Car Dealers Would Like US Auto companies to make cars people want to buy

One of the gems in the article is this:

“But there are limits to how far Detroit is willing to go. Adopting a system in which market intelligence drives manufacturing would represent a profound and wrenching change for the industry. And many industry executives say they're comfortable with the current inventory levels. "It's not like we have some crisis," says Mark LaNeve, GM's head of North American sales and marketing. GM has more than one million unsold cars in the pipeline. By contrast, Toyota Motor Co. has 320,282.”

Is there any wonder that these people in Detroit look like clowns without a clue?

Inquiring Minds Want To Know: How is it possible that in 2007, using market intelligence is viewed as a "profound and gut wrenching change for the industry?" Put it another way, for whom are these people making cars if not for buyers?

Inquiring Minds Want To Know 2: If near collapse of all three major American auto companies, and their inability to maintain market share in their home country, with tens of thousands being laid off and massive losses in the multiple billions are not a crisis, just how does Detroit define the term "crisis?" Put it another way, what will it take for them to feel the sledge hammer that has been knocking on their heads for the past 20-30 years?

http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB117098933533703281.html
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INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW - 2

2007-02-08T17:11:00.000-05:00

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February 8, 2007

At the recent gathering of Democrats, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY, nee Ark.) said she disapproves of the President’s plan to escalate our involvement in Iraq. She would like to get a large bipartisan vote to disapprove the President’s plan. She declared that this would be the first time Congress had begun to reverse the President’s policies.

She went on to say that she proposed capping the troop level, threaten the Iraqi government that we are going to take money away from their troops. (NB What troops? Inquiring minds would like to know.)

Then she said: “And let me add one other thing, and I want to be very clear about this.

If I had been president in October of 2002, I would not have started this war.”

Hmmm … Inquiring Minds Want to Know: So how come you voted to let the President start it and have repeatedly refused to say your vote was a mistake?

Sen. Clinton ended with a sound bite: “If we in Congress don't end this war before January 2009, as president, I will.”

Double Hmmm … Not If the PRESIDENT doesn’t end the war, but the CONGRESS!

Inquiring Minds Want to Know: What does Sen. Clinton know that says it is okay to end the war in January 2009 but not right now? And why has she not offered a resolution to do just that? After all, if she thinks that Congress can end it by January 2009, she should be making that happen - nyet?

Double Inquiring Minds Want to Know: Is there any other reason why you would like to be President?

INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW - 1

2007-02-06T21:10:00.000-05:00

Today, Bwana inaugurates what I hope will be a new series of posts under the title “Inquiring Minds Want To Know.”

If history does repeat itself, there will be no end to the fodder particularly with about 22 months worth of exploration-nomination-campaigning-election ahead.

Last week, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., President Bush’s nominee to be the Army chief of staff, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee. General Casey has been the top U.S. commander in Iraq over the past 30 months.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.): "You'll need to explain why your assessment of the situation in Iraq has differed so radically from that of most observers and why your predictions of future success have been so unrealistically rosy. I question seriously the judgment that was employed in your execution of your responsibilities in Iraq. And we have paid a very, very heavy price in American blood and treasure because of what is now agreed to by literally everyone as a failed policy."

Inquiring minds want to know: if Sen. McCain thinks we have a failed policy, (i) why has he supported it and (ii) why does he want to commit more troops to it? Oh, and (iii) why does he want to commit more than 25,000 troops after being told by Gen. Abizaid that we do not have the manpower to make that level of commitment?

At the same hearing, Gen. Casey said: "I do not agree that we have a failed policy."

Inquiring minds want to know: If Gen. Casey does not see what has been going on as a “failed policy” why is he all but certain to be confirmed as Army Chief of Staff.

Inquiring minds want to know: if this man has been responsible for 30 months as the implementer of a failed policy, but has not said that things need to change, why is he being nominated for Army Chief of Staff?

The President's Secret Message On Global Warming

2007-02-03T14:47:00.000-05:00

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BWEST OF BWANA
AN OCCASIONAL BREAKFAST WITH BWANA FEATURE
February 3, 2007
THE PRESIDENT’S SECRET MESSAGE ON GLOBAL WARMING

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, in a photo op event designed to rally support for the war on global warming appeared in polar bear costumes on glacial ice in the Bering Sea. The President’s helicopter, waiting nearby to carry them back to Air Force One, created the choppiness of the waves in the background.

President Bush may be a slow learner, but he is a learner. No longer is global warming on the back burner. No Sir, he is not going to let Al Gore score an Inconvenient Triumph at this late date. How do I know? Bwana has come into possession of a still secret draft of the President’s message on GLOBAL WARMING. It was dropped off to Bwana by a courier riding a scooter which was leaking a little oil and spewing a lot of exhaust gas, and it – the secret draft, I mean – is HOT HOT HOT.

The President’s message begins with the declaration: “My fellow Americans, I am here to announce that there is another war to be fought. First, I want to say that I appreciate the pleasure with which Vice President Dick Cheney has assisted me in making plans for this new war. In fact, he has forgone two hunting trips, much to the relief of some trial lawyers. Second, I want to express my appreciation to the Vice President for agreeing to go to Oklahoma on a personal visit to Senator Jim Inhofe to deliver my strong admonition that ignorance in the face of information is the trait of a closed mind.

The President’s message continues:

My fellow citizens of America, members of the Democrat Party, and leaders and citizens of the free world, and I must say my message is also for the benefit of those who are not a part of the free world, whether they are part of the axis of evil or part of the fledgling new democracies that our brave soldiers and troops and armed forces, who are in harm’s way, have been taking the lead in creating.

I have concluded that it is time for us to act. Although I do not read the newspapers, Laura has been reading some of the reports on Global Warming to me. Sometimes, when Laura is busy, Barney will go on the paper to highlight a particular story that I should read. You see, I sometimes feel that Laura and Barney are the only ones who care about me. And then, when Laura is not around, it’s just Barney. But, I digress.

This realization came to me when I discovered that Crawford is no longer the cool place it once was. Even Condi asked if we could meet in Palo Alto, closer to her old stomping grounds at Stanford and Don Rumsfeld – my, I do miss my old friend – wanted to meet at his new multi-million dollar waterfront estate in Maryland, rather than coming to Crawford for Christmas dinner. Then I looked around for reasons why Crawford is no longer a cool place and I noticed that Barney was dribbling all over The Nyoo Yawk Times. Barney is good about that, he has NEVER liked The Nyoo Yawk Times and its liberal bias. Sometimes I think they are throwing little neeyukiller barbs at me when they pick on me. Actually this time, Barney was drawing my attention to the article about the UN panel’s report on Global Warming. Thank the Lord that Kofi “Cupcake” Annan is gone and we have a South Korean Secretary General who understands that the axis of evil regime in PingPong (ed. he meant Pyongyang) cannot be allowed to have neeyukiller weapons of mass destruction, including The New York Times. But I digress. I did not have to look at The Nyoo Yawk Times since Laura had already read the story to me from Wapo (ed. he meant The Washington Post) and you can see it here. Far be it from me to put a link to the liberal rag out of Nyoo Yawk. Not that Wapo is much better, if you ask me, although I kinda like that Krautwhacker (ed. he meant Krauthammer) guy and that Flip Wilson fellow is on the right side (ed. he meant George F. Will).

So, my fellow Americans and members of the Democrat Party and members of the world, in whatever party or axis you may be. We need to bring this to a halt. We are going to have to take Global Warming off the back burner and turn up the heat in the kitchen. The first thing is that we have asked the CIA to conduct an intelligence audit of all known information. I have called on former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell, to present our case to the United Nations that China cannot be allowed to have any more automobiles because they are weapons of mass destruction in this war. Our first goal is to ensure that General Motors and Ford which elect their directors by a democratic vote of shareholders who appoint the officers – much like our electoral college which I sincerely appreciate – can survive the onslaught of claims brought on by runaway entitlements programs and benefits created by undemocratic forces in the union movement. In order to overcome the effects of this axis of laborers, we must see the need to allocate all future automobile quotas to GM and Ford. Hence, China cannot have any more automobiles. This will help cut down fuel use emissions for these cars from China so that we may safely use them for transportation in the United States.

Some might ask how and why we came to this conclusion about the need to take action against China. Well, as former Secretary Colin Powell was preparing a speech to be given to the United Nations, he said to me “You know Mr. President, the first part of ‘Global War-ming’ is ‘Global War’ so we may have a case for turning up the temperature here, so to speak.”

Well, I almost could not contain myself as I saw a revelation almost as if God was talking to me. So I turned to Henry Kissinger and said “Henry, what was one of the famous Chinese dynasties?” Henry almost peed his pants, right there in the oval spot in the Oval Office. Gosh, he reminds me so much of Barney. He practically shouted, “Mr. President, are you thinking what I am thinking? Why it is ze Ming dynasty! Mr. President, say you are thinking what I am thinking?” And I said, “Yes Henry, it is a sign from God that we need to take a strong stand against the Chinese and that this emission of methane and carbon dioxide came from the Chinese since the Ming dynasty … I mean ‘Global War MING’ Henry – could there be a clearer message from God?” Henry said, “You have got it, Mr. President, GLOBAL WAR MING!!! Hahaha, hahaha, Mr. President,” he roared. Henry went on: “Mr. President, it is shocking to think of how much methane and carbon dioxide a billion Chinese must fart everyday! Even Nixon never got that far.” And my friends, Henry laughed and when Henry Kissinger laughs, even The New York Times should report that.

My fellow Americans – and this is not for the rest of you to listen to – I have my legacy to protect and I don’t want to go down as the first President who couldn’t stand the heat in Crawford.
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That my friends, is how decisions get made.

Cheerz…Bwana

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ANNUS HORRIBILIS

2007-01-01T14:15:00.000-05:00

January 1, 2007

ANNUS HORRIBILIS

2006 is drawing to a close, a truly annus horribilis for many.

Some of you may recall the description “annus horribillis” from HM QE II’s annual mumbling – a sort of State of the Union Jack speech she chirps out around Christmas: "1992 is not a year I shall look back on with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an 'annus horribilis'". Koficupcake Annan also used those words to describe 2004 without confessing whether the greasy look came from corruption in the oil for food scandal.

Yes, 2006 was an annus horribilis for George Bush who got his knickers in a knot over Saddam Hussein. And it was an annus horribilis for Saddam Hussein who got his neck in a knot as a result. Some days, you get up thinking it’ll be Sunni but you end up feeling like Shiite.

It has been reported that Saddam’s farewell letter to the Iraqi people, included (according to the translation in The Washington Post) the touching sentimental words: "I say goodbye to you, but I will be with the merciful God who helps those who take refuge in Him and God won't disappoint any honest believer."

Ah, but what of Dubya who believes that God put him here to fight this war at this time in this place? Does an honest believer have to surge once more to prove his belief?

Or is God just laughing her head off, having disappointed Saddam notwithstanding his claim to be an “honest believer?” Is God also laughing her head off at Dubya, having put Nancy Pelosi ahead of Condoleezza Rice in the Presidential succession line up?

Wouldn’t it be a gas if Nancy Pelosi, through some quirk of fate were to become the first woman President? That’d sure get Hillary’s knickers in a knot who has had her own Annus Horribilis with Barack Obama’s having sprung a charisma leak.

On the international stage, Tony Blair is hearing the blare of truth as his unintelligent twisting of intelligence makes him look like a Union Jackass. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is holding the whole world at bay as if they think he is radioactive. Come to think of it … hmmm.

So many people of note passed – some of advancing age, but altogether too many killed by violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and elsewhere.

2006 is not a year we will miss. I remain optimistic. Things can’t get worse, can they?

Well, in wishing you (and myself) well in 2007, I just pause to reflect that the country is being run by an anus horribilis.

Happy New Year!

Cheerz … Bwana.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA OR PRESIDENT HILLARY CLINTON ?

2006-12-10T11:23:00.000-05:00

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Today, The NYT has an article – mostly fluff – asking whether the country is ready for either a woman (Hillary Clinton) or an African-American (Barack Obama) to be President.

Someone other than a white male as President?

A friend in England asked me how realistic it is to expect a Hillary presidency. Here is my answer:

I think the issue of how realistic her potential Presidency is, has to be answered in two parts.

1. Given the way the US political system works, the two major parties will nominate their candidates for the Presidency. Barring some cataclysmic change – never happened before – one of these two will be President. (NB - these points are obvious to Americans but not a part of everyday awareness for people in UK).

So, the real question is whether Hillary can win the Democratic party’s nomination. The answer to that is clearly yes. She has ENORMOUS support and ENORMOUS money. The liberals will find her completely acceptable and Bill Clinton has built a HUGE reservoir of goodwill among the African-American and Hispanic communities. Three roadblocks for her are

i. her unyielding support for the war in Iraq (she’s tried to distance herself by saying it was poorly executed) is going to become a big negative and I don’t see much forgiveness in the American people unless it is managed carefully from a PR perspective (i.e., a big splash about how it was “Patriotic” to support the President, the Troops, AND the concept of America’s goal to improve the lot of mankind by opposing oppression and tyranny. – You can see how delicate this is and how easily it could blow up in her face.);

ii. she is a polarizing figure even within the Democratic party and part of the debate is going to be whether she can win on the national stage – my guess is that the Democrats are so used to putting up weirdos in the context of the national stage that this is not as big a problem as Republicans and more rational people think;

iii. Obama – this guy is taking off like a rock star and could easily capture the minds and hearts of the Democrats voting in primaries. The Governor-elect of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick had a similar rock star experience and sailed in with well over 60% of the vote. His victory shows how dangerous it is to dismiss candidates based on race or gender.

2. On the national stage, if McCain is the Republican nominee, his support of the war will cancel out Hillary’s. My guess is that the country is more likely to vote in a “moderate” republican than an ultra liberal Democrat, but much of this depends on how remote the memory of Republican corruption and bungling is and how things turn out in Iraq – for example, if we have withdrawn and left Iraq to smolder, while it may be occasion for a lot of “tut-tutting” there may be little impact on who the NEXT president is going to be. The mid-term elections showed a lot of voter dissatisfaction with Republicans over Iraq, but the closeness of many of the elections suggest that the voting populace does not see a shift to the Democrats as a panacea. If Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama can ignite the American imagination with a desire to see serious progress on social issues the Democrats can win easily. The days of Republican fear mongering seem to be over.

In short, I think the question of whether a woman or an African-American can win are national election issues and while there will be a few die-hard right-wing yahoos who will vote no for those reasons, the country has evolved substantially and I really don’t see this as an issue. It’s perhaps not safe to hold Massachusetts up as proving how the American people at large will vote (after all, this is the only state McGovern won) but Massachusetts has been at the forefront of much of what is positive change in American thought and a precursor for political change (after all, this is the only state that voted against Nixon – same election as McGovern!).

Cheerz ... Bwana
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PRESIDENT REVOKES PARDON OF TURKEYS

2006-11-22T21:51:00.000-05:00

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BWEST OF BWANA

Earlier today, President Bush went about the annual ritual of pardoning the Thanksgiving Turkey. Actually, consistent with his practice, he pardoned two turkeys, Flyer and Fryer, and also announced that they were going to be sent off to DisneyLand in California to be honorary grand marshals of the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Unfortunately, a strange thing happened during the Turkeys’ flight to California. The President received a frantic telephone call from Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts in which Romney asserted that he had received intelligence reports that Fryer and Flyer had joined forces, in a manner of speaking, and had been the groom and groom in a same-sex marriage on the flight to California. Romney called the President demanding that the pardon be revoked and the birds called back to active duty. “After all, Mr. President,” he said, “we are sending army and marine reservists back for second and third tours of duty, and I see no reason to treat the gay turkeys any differently.”

The President asked: “Well, how do you feel about Warren Jeffs marrying all those women?” Romney replied: “Well, Mr. President, I think he’s a turkey and I have never supported polygamy.”

The President called Senator John McCain to seek counsel and heard the familiar refrain: “Well, Mr. President, I’m opposed to gay marriage but I believe we should leave it to the states, so the question is what state were they flying over when it happened? I mean, if they were flying over Massachusetts, what the heck is Romney complaining about? Even New Jersey allows this sort of stuff.”

The White House operator called Romney back only to be told that the Governor was busy with the PSG – Polygamy Study Group. “Oh, I thought it would be a good counterpoint to the ISG – Baker’s Iraq Study Group” the scion of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints explained. “Besides, I think that McCain is disingenuous on this gay marriage stuff. You can’t have it both ways. I’m against it even though I was for it before I was elected Governor.”

“Sheesh, you sound a lot like that Ketchup … er, Kerry fellow,” the President said, as got on the phone.

The President thought long and hard and decided to revoke the pardons.

“We can’t have people running around behaving like turkeys … or turkeys running around behaving like people,” White House Press Secretary Tony Snowjob said. “The President is rescinding the pardon heretofore granted. Those turkeys may be off to Disney Land at taxpayers’ expense, but this Administration is not going to have any goofy turkeys on our watch,” Snow quoted the President as saying.

Just then, Vice President Cheney stuck his head in the door. “Yeah, right,” the President said. “What’s that, Mr. President?” asked Cheney. “Oh, I was just talking about goofy turkeys. By the way, I hear that Lynne’s book is selling well since people found out that it has a description of a lesbian sex scene,” the President said. “By the way, Dick what is a Lesbian? You wouldn’t know, would you?”

“Well, Mr. President …” began Cheney.

“Oh, never mind,” said Bush, “I need to pardon somebody in lieu of the turkeys. I need another turkey or two to pardon.”

“Well, Mr. President, you could pardon me … you know, for shooting that lawyer in the face,” said Cheney. “I’ve thought about it” said Bush.

Laura Bush came in just then. “You know Bushie, you could pardon Mark Foley and George Macaca Allen,” she said.

“Well now, honey, I can’t pardon George Allen for denying that he was Jewish even though his mother is. The Jewish lobby would go berserck.”

“No, no, silly” Laura said, “you’d pardon him for calling that Indian kid a Macaca,” she said.

“Yeah, he is a big turkey, ain’t he?” said the President.

“Come to think of it Mr. President, you could pardon Saddam Hussein,” chirped Cheney.

“What’s that!!?” the President asked.

“Well, Sir, you know we accused him of killing Iraqis but come to think of it, Iraqis kill Iraqis,” so maybe we shouldn’t have blamed him.

“Dick, I don’t think I’m going to pardon you after all,” the President said. “By the way, when did you last get your pacemaker battery checked?”

Laura said, “Honey, I’ve made a list of people you can pardon. Let me see, Karl Rove, O.J., Haggard, Richards, Santorum, DeWine …”

“Stop, stop!” yelled the President. “This sounds like a turkey roast.”

Happy Thanksgiving all.
Cheerz…Bwana

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BAKER CANCELS WAR, BOOK, MOVIE AND ALL

2006-11-20T23:37:00.000-05:00

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BWEST OF BWANA

AN OCCASIONAL BREAKFAST WITH BWANA FEATURE

November 20, 2006

BAKER CANCELS WAR, BOOK, MOVIE AND ALL

Less than a week after the newly elected Democratic majorities romped home in the elections, the Baker Commission has issued a Fatwa canceling the forthcoming book and movie by Vice President Cheney titled “If I Had Won The War This Is How I would Have Done It .“

Baker Issues a Fatwa

The book, with an introduction by Senator John McCain featured a commentary on committing hundreds of thousands of additional, but nonexistent American troops to the fight in Anbar Province and to capture the remaining functioning electric power plant serving Baghdad.

The movie, loosely based on the book which was previously published under the title “The Yellow Cake Chronicles” was to star a dyslexic cowboy wannabe from Texas who despondent over his own success at avoiding military service, was bent on playing a macho warrior and destroying as much of world’s oil production capability as possible. “I always wanted Texas to be number 1 in oil” he said. Senator George Allen of Virginia said that the protagonist looked like a Macaca.

Macaca

"I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project. We are sorry for any pain this has caused the families of Iraqi people and American servicemen," Commission chairman James A. Baker, III said this afternoon in a statement about the incursion into Iraq for which Halliburton and Bechtel were paid billions in advances for publishing rights to the stories.

By the end of last week, at least 13 TV stations affiliated with the Fox broadcast network had told Fox they would not carry any more stories about the war.

In an interview that was to have been broadcast, Cheney talks about how he persuaded the President to issue orders to invade Iraq and, joined by outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, discusses how the war would have been won with a lighter, swifter army. “Ever since my days with getting Aspartame approved, I have believed that less is more,” Rumsfeld said. It is a tragedy that this war is being canceled just as we are getting to the sweet spot. Asked if he were hallucinating, Rumsfeld declined to comment, but Baker allowed as how “This guy is so wacky, he doesn’t know his saccharin from his sugar.”

By the time Baker put out his statement, Rupert Murdoch who had announced cancellation of the O.J. Simpson “confessional” saw returns from booksellers returning copies of "If I Did It," rivaling those of Cheney’s book.

On Thursday, when the storm of criticism of the war reached a crescendo, Cheney issued a rambling statement about how he intended to proceed full speed ahead with the Iraq locomotive even though the rail bed had been so fragmented that the train was off the tracks. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow sidestepped questions about Cheney’s mental health, stating that Cheney’s pacemaker battery had been among those recalled by Sony in the great laptop battery snafu.

"Our Commission feels very strongly that there is no beneficial interest to the continuation of this war except to bail the President out of what is the biggest foreign policy gaffe in American history” Baker said.

Baker said the Commission is still considering whether to allow former Secretary of State Colin Powell to broadcast a prime time special titled “If I Had Told The Truth At The UN, This Is What I Would Have Said.”

The Powell special is to be preceded by a duet performed by former Congressman Mark Foley and disgraced former Pastor Ted Haggard who was President of the National Association of Evangelicals, singing “If I Were Straight I Wouldn’t Have Eyes Only For You.”

Senator John Kerry reached for comment said he had watched an advance copy of the movie “but then, I watched it backwards in fast reverse, so that I could say I unwatched it before I watched it.” As Cheney watched and tried to bite his upper lip which kept getting away while it maintained its perpetual sneer, Kerry explained, “If I hadn’t voted for the war, I would have voted against it.”

Cheney Unsuccessfully Tries To Bite His Sneering Upper Lip

First Lady Laura Bush traveling with the President said she was less than thrilled to have to stop in Moscow for refueling. “I think at this point, Barney is the only one supporting him” she said.

Meanwhile, Judith Regan head of ReganBooks denied rumors that she intended to publish a book by Saddam Hussein titled “If I Had Hidden WMD, This Is Where I Would Have Stored Them.”

Cheerz…Bwana

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THE GENERAL IDEA

2006-11-18T11:25:00.000-05:00

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BWEST OF BWANA

AN OCCASIONAL BREAKFAST WITH BWANA FEATURE

November 18, 2006

THE GENERAL IDEA

Last Wednesday General John P. Abizaid, the chief wearer of brightly colored ribbons and stars bedecking a drab olive uniform testified before the Senate and House Armed Services Committees. You know instantly from looking at his freshly starched shirt and his perfect collar, that this man has his tie in a knot. Pretty soon, he ended up with his knickers in a knot. You also know instantly, that this guy, a General, described in the press as “the top American military commander for the Middle East” is not a fighting type. After all, you don’t go off to combat in a Windsor knot – you generalize (Popes pontificate, Generals generalize) about whether you need or don’t need more or less troops and whether it will or will not make any difference and whether or not you should stay in or get out or stay in partially or get out partially … or all of the above.

When I sat down to try to make sense of all this – yes, I did laugh at myself for even suggesting to myself that I might or might not make sense of all this, or part of it, or all of the above – I came away with a feeling of bewilderment suffused by dread. Pretty soon, I had my bewilderment and dread in a knot.

The General started by saying that he did not believe we needed more troops in Iraq and also that to begin a significant withdrawal of troops over the next six months would lead to an increase in sectarian killings and hamper efforts to persuade the Iraqi government to make the difficult decisions to secure the country.

The first part is easy enough. It is reflective of Administration policy and, led by the gently leading questioning of Senator Joseph Independent Lieberman, (I {nee D} Conn.) he restated what we have heard over and over again. I would expect nothing less … and indeed, nothing more … from the General. After all, President Bush says that troop levels are based on what the commanders have requested, so General Windsor-knot might have to give up a star if he said he did not ask for more even though he felt he needed more.

The second part, however, gave me a jolt. Does this mean that the Iraqi government is not already making decisions about securing the country? Does this mean that the Iraqi government has to be persuaded to make those decisions? Does this mean that somehow, if we begin pulling our troops out over the next six months, the Iraqi government will stop making such decisions as it has or may make?

How did this guy get to be the top American military commander for the Middle East?

General Multiribbon-Windsorknot Abizaid then said that we don’t need fewer troops in Iraq. Okay, I got that, we have enough troops. Then he said: “We can put in 20,000 more Americans tomorrow and achieve a temporary effect. But when you look at the overall American force pool that’s available out there, the ability to sustain that commitment is simply not something that we have right now with the size of the Army and the Marine Corps.” So, we need 20,000 more troops?

But then, our armed forces are so depleted that we cannot even commit to putting 20,000 more troops and sustaining that commitment.

That scares me. What scares me even more is that he has now confirmed to the entire world that America does not have a reserve of even 20,000 additional troops. How did this guy get to be the top American military commander for the Middle East?

Under questioning by other Senators, General knickers-in-a-knot Abizaid came up with a few more gems. He said that while more American troops are not needed, more Iraqi troops are necessary to quell the sectarian violence. Huh? Does it not follow, as the night the day, that American troops who are training Iraqi forces are perforce better trained themselves and more capable? Okay, okay, I’ll allow that one could argue that Iraqi forces are less likely to be viewed as targets by the Iraqis. But is that really true? If the Iraqi forces are not truly reflective of Iraqi society, i.e., Shia, Sunni, Kurd, then will not they too be viewed as allied with one sect? Indeed that is one of the problems now.

Senator Jack Reed, D-R.I., asked how much time the U.S. and Iraqi government have to reduce the violence in Baghdad before it spirals beyond control. General Knotted-knickers said, "Four to six months."

Hmmm… that sounds suspiciously like the four-to-six-month timetable suggested by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan.

How did this guy get to be the top American military commander for the Middle East?

Does all of this sound suspiciously familiar? Well, it should. Reproduced below is my Breakfast with Bwana piece from January 2005 (you can also find it in the archived posts on this blog). What have these guys been doing since January 2005? How did this guy get to be the top American military commander for the Middle East?

Scary, isn’t it? It sounds like the Democrats will now give the Administration 4-6 months since that’s what General Ribbons-in-a-knot asks, and it seems like the Administration will give the Democrats 4-6 months since that is what Senator Carl Levin and the leading Democrats ask. And, in the first slap at outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald “Strangelove” Rumsfeld, Abizaid also said that General Shinseki had been right in saying that a larger force was needed ab ovo but that egg came before the chicken that has laid the egg that is Iraq.

Whether Senators McCain and Levin are correct that more troops are needed, is moot since we don’t have more troops. The President’s continued posturing over military action against Iran may also be moot since we don’t have the forces to mount anything other than an aerial or technology war.

Cheerz…Bwana
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Luck Is Out Of Iraq

Breakfast with Bwana

JANUARY 29, 2005

LUCK IS OUT OF IRAQ:

At the beginning of this month, we took note of the commission given to General Gary E. Luck ("Luck-E Gary") by our Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, to go to Iraq and assess what was needed vis-à-vis the training of Iraqi troops and security forces.

As I pointed out then, Luck-E's report was to be "CONFIDENTIAL" for Rummy's ears only. Of course, they've leaked his preliminary findings. So, what else is new?

Before we get there, it bears noting that the spinmeisters at the Pentagon haven't stopped having conversations with themselves. They claim that Luck-E "knows the operation in Iraq well, having been a senior advisor to Gen. [deaf, dumb and blind] Tommy R. Franks" the video pin-ball wizard, at his wartime HQ in Qatar during the Iraq campaign in 2003.

Whoa, Nellie! Back in 2003, when Pin-Ball Whiz Tommy was conducting his video game war by remote control, there were no US troops (other than isolated Special Ops forces) in Iraq. And Luck-E was NEVER actually in Iraq. Now, he went there to assess what was needed to train IRAQIS. How could he possibly have had any expertise in that subject sitting in Qatar while an aerial bombardment campaign was being conducted?

The Pentagon goes on talking to itself and suggesting that Luck-E has a "degree of independence as a retired general" to recommend adjustments in policy. Sure, an inattentive, casual observer might think that a retired general has no axe to grind and would call the shots as he saw them. However, if the Pentagon is trying to talk itself into believing that this is truly a no conflicts, independent, hard-headed assessment, why would they have picked a guy who is currently a senior advisor to the military's Joint Forces Command?"

Now, if you are attentive and focused, you might think that Luck-E doesn't want to get UN-Luck-E and have his "senior advisor" consulting contract canceled. But, if you think that way, you are just plain cynical and probably giving comfort to the enemy - the enemy of waste and nonsense, that is.

Of course, back in early January, I had the temerity to suggest that the whole exercise was a waste of time and unnecessary. But, I guess if I were to say that Luck-E got a lucrative additional contract, probably with a "combat conditions" booster, then I'd be called cynical and an aider and comforter of the enemies of waste and nonsense too.

So, what did Luck-E "tentatively" report?

1. American troops must speed up training of Iraqi security forces.

How? By assigning more American trainers to work directly with the Iraqis being trained.

2. Shift the US military's mission after the January 30 elections, from fighting the insurgents, to training the Iraq's military and security forces to take over those security and combat duties.

How? By a step-by-step approach that would take months, if not years, proceeding at different paces in different parts of the country, depending on performance of the Iraqi troops.

Oh, and Americans would work closely with Iraqis in the most dangerous parts of the country, but would still take the lead combat role there.

No kidding. You don't say.

I think I've figured out why things are not going well for our troops in Iraq. Look at the leadership and how they spend their time.

If you were making decisions up front to implement a program of training Iraqi troops and security forces, wouldn't you know that you needed an adequate number of trainers? And would you wait for almost a year and a half before trying to assess why the program was not working?

But, I do feel safer, knowing that Pin-Ball Whiz and Luck-E are retired generals so we don't have to depend on them. I wonder though, who replaced them. Come to think of it, the guys in charge now continue to look to Luck-E for advice. Suddenly, I don't feel safer. Luck is really out of Iraq.

Cheerz....Bwana

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DUCK SOUP

2006-11-12T21:39:00.000-05:00

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BWEST OF BWANA

AN OCCASIONAL BREAKFAST WITH BWANA FEATURE

November 12, 2006

POLITICAL CANARD, CANARD PRESSE AND CANARD SAIGNÉ
OF LAME DUCKS, WOUNDED DUCKS AND DEAD DUCKS

Karl Rove declared that the Republican setback was occasioned by the failings of a corrupt few, thus putting a gloss on the “thumpin’” that the President recognized. It is as if Rove believes the canard that disinformation is as easy as duck soup. This political canard seems to miss the point.

Many years ago, still bubbling with the inexperience of youth, I learned that a post-prandial cognac following on the heels of a single malt taken as an aperitif, followed by a first course complemented with a soft Charmes Chambertin or its neighboring Mazoyères-Chambertin, and in the tradition of getting skins or nachos “loaded,” topped off with a Pauillac (my favorite), or Margaux (my favorite) or a lovely Saint-Estèphe (also my favorite) was not necessarily the most politic of courses along which to course. The canard that adding a goodly dose of alcohol in fortified form on top an established base and a heavy meal was good for you, disproved itself by its results.

Sobered by my own experience, I am not inclined in this post-election interlude, to treat the Democratic “victory” as a post-prandial that is judiciously savored. This was more a defeat than a victory, albeit a well-earned and well-deserved defeat for many of the toadiest and vilest people who have deigned to call themselves Republicans. What I am concerned about is that they not be followed by toady and vile Democrats.

President Bush, in an almost immediate outpouring of feigned charm, said: “I'm open to any idea or suggestion that will help us achieve our goals of defeating the terrorists and ensuring that Iraq's democratic government succeeds.” Speaker presumptive Nancy Pelosi made noises about cooperation and bipartisanship similar to what we heard from Newt Gingrich and Dennis Hastert before they embarked on their clubbiness rivaling in exclusivity only the bond of brotherhood that a street gang can forge.

The President’s words seem to suggest that as long as the Democrats agree with his “goals” he will listen to them. Congresswoman Pelosi’s words leave one with the feeling that if the President agrees to change course as the Democrats dictate, she will cooperate.

As bookends to this mix, we saw in the pre-election hype, Vice President Dick Cheney declaring that we would proceed full-speed ahead in Iraq, and in the post-election sacrificial gesture, Donald Rumsfeld sent to pasture but definitely not with stud fees attached.

The Vice President, like his boss, seems not to know the difference between a goal and a strategy for he declared that he thought the Administration had the “basic strategy” right. What is the “basic strategy” that he touts? Well, it is that the Iraqi government can be a self-sustaining democracy and in charge of its own security. It seems as if nothing has changed but the words surrounding the words. A goal is not a strategy. But neither is declaring that the Administration’s strategy is not working equivalent to a workable Democratic alternative.

If the blood had been drained from the Republican Party and it were now officially qualified as Halal meat (a fitting fate for an Islamophobic party) we might look at the various forms of duck left, the lame ducks, the wounded ducks, and the dead ducks and think of a dish I have conjured up – canard saigné – or exsanguinated duck, a sort of Halal Republican.

Yet, with its basic policy of disinformation and damn-the-torpedos-full-speed-ahead attitude, this is more like a Republican canard à la presse. That dish is described in vivid terms, thus: the duck is first strangled but not allowed to bleed – this is decidedly not halal. The duck is then partially roasted. The liver is ground and seasoned. The carcass minus breast and legs which are removed, but including residual meat, bones, and skin is then put in a press akin to a wine press. The pressure applied extracts blood and any other fluids from the carcass/bones/skin input. The breast is sliced and cooked in a reduced red wine sauce and served together with the liver. The juice extract from the carcass is thickened cooke in butter and Cognac. All this stuff is then cooked with the breast and liver. Not to be forgotten, the legs are broiled and served separately.

In other words, all the parts are intact, but this duck has been bled, wounded, dismembered and is definitely dead.

There is no question but that Donald Rumsfeld and Senator Macacawitz Allen are dead ducks. There is no question that Vice President Cheney is a wounded duck. Perhaps his shooting incident when he got poor Mr. Whittington, was an omen – perhaps, if the Republicans had sacrificed a duck at the feast of Lupercal and checked its entrails, they might have seen that the fault was in their underlings that they are no longer stars.

As for President Bush, what shall we say? Well, he has a choice between a danse macabre with Nancy Pelosi or a Tango with Nancy Pelosi. As the old saying goes, it takes two to tango.

That said, I want to remind you all that the lame duck is a position in tango. The dancers slightly separate, clasp hands, and face forward. The man steps forward with his right foot and the lady with her left, dipping with their right knee as they take the next step. The steps are repeated.

I found this nice little picture descriptive of the position.

And I also want to remind you that a lamer is someone in a strategy, combat, or other style of multiplayer competitive game who uses tactics which are either unskilled, particularly cowardly, or ludicrously easy to pull off (compared to their effectiveness). That is, someone who is being cheap or lame in a game. e.g. What a lamer strategy. (n) That guy's such a lamer.

It will be interesting to see who lands on two feet in this dance to come. For ballet aficionados, the Assemblé is apropos, literally meaning to assemble, a movement where the first foot performs a battement glissé/degagé, "swishing" out. The second foot then swishes under the first foot, thereby launching the dancer into a jump. The feet meet together in mid-air and the dancer lands with both feet on the floor at the same time.

On whom am I betting? Well, I’m not telling, but to be honest, I’ve seen a lot of cowboy boots, and a lot of fancy footwork when it comes to masking the truth, but a truthiness-filled glissé/degage? That remains to be seen. But I think I know who the lame duck is.

Cheerz….Bwana
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FROM SCRYING TO CRYING

2006-11-09T11:16:00.000-05:00

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BWEST OF BWANA

AN OCCASIONAL BREAKFAST WITH BWANA FEATURE

November 9, 2006

FROM SCRYING TO CRYING:

When I wrote The Worst Day Of The Year on October 17, obviously I was not writing from the Republican perspective, else I’d have waited until yesterday.

Well, what happened? I mean, why did the election turn out this way? Here are some statements for you to consider:

1. “I believe Iraq had a lot to do with the election, but I believe there's other factors as well.”

2. “And in terms of the election, no question, Iraq had something to do with it.”

3. ‘The amazing thing about this election, and what surprised me somewhat, which goes to show I should not try punditry, is that this economy's strong. And, a lot of times, off years are decided by the economy.”

4. “And yet, you know, obviously there was a different feel out there for the electorate. The economy – the good news in the economy was overwhelmed by the toughness of this fight and toughness of the war.”

5. “You know, again, I think when you really look close at the results – first of all, there's a lot of close elections. No question Iraq had an impact.”

6. “And my only point to you is I'm sure Iraq had something to do with the voters' mind, but so did a very strong turnout mechanism in those two important states. (New York and Pennsylvania)”

7. “I recognize that many Americans voted last night to register their displeasure with the lack of progress being made there.”

If you have not guessed by now, all 7 statements were made by President Bush yesterday in the space of less than one hour during his post-election press conference.

The most charitable thing one can say is that he finally gets it. Surely, Rumsfeld’s resignation tells us at least that much. The President said that he and Rumsfeld “after a series of thoughtful conversations … agreed that the timing is right for new leadership at the Pentagon.”

However, his comments about surprise at the results suggest that it took this "thumpin'" as he labeled it to produce reality sweats.

The big question for me now is whether the Democrats get it. Will they operate under the assumption that the American people are going to greet them as liberators who have come in and cast off the yoke of arrogance, stupidity, and incompetence that has marked this Administration’s implementation of its foreign and domestic policy? Or will they get down to real business? After all, it was the promising of righting the ship of state - more than junking the drunken skipper of the SS Valdez - that got them here. Or was it?

This is of concern because all one needs to do is hearken back to Vice President Cheney’s scrying back on March 16, 2003 when he gazed into a fuzzy crystal ball or perhaps a peloid pool of water and had this exchange with Tim Russert on Meet the Press:

VP CHENEY: Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.

MR. RUSSERT: If your analysis is not correct, and we’re not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?

VP CHENEY: Well, I don’t think it’s likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. I’ve talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House. The president and I have met with them, various groups and individuals, people who have devoted their lives from the outside to trying to change things inside Iraq. And like Kanan Makiya who’s a professor at Brandeis, but an Iraqi, he’s written great books about the subject, knows the country intimately, and is a part of the democratic opposition and resistance. The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to the get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.

Now, if we get into a significant battle in Baghdad, I think it would be under circumstances in which the security forces around Saddam Hussein, the special Republican Guard, and the special security organization, several thousand strong, that in effect are the close-in defenders of the regime, they might, in fact, try to put up such a struggle. I think the regular army will not. My guess is even significant elements of the Republican Guard are likely as well to want to avoid conflict with the U.S. forces, and are likely to step aside.

Now that Cheney’s scrying has led to crying, one has to ask if the Democrats will think they have license to investigate how things went awry, to pry into every facet of decision-making, leave the legislative well dry, or will they say we have many problems to address so we should get together and try? If not, any Democratic scry who thinks, as the Republicans did, that you can take the American electorate for granted will have a good cry.

Cheerz...Bwana

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BUSH DECLARES WAR ON POVERTY

2006-11-02T22:30:00.000-05:00

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On Final Campaign Swing, Bush Visits Deep Red Territory Declares War on Poverty

BILLINGS, Mont., Nov. 2 -- President Bush warned Thursday against the dire possibility that a Democratic Senate might emerge after next Tuesday’s elections. “Not only is it clear that they will not confirm my nominees to the Supreme Court, should I have that opportunity to redenominate a straight thinking Justice to the highest judicial office in the courts of this great land, but they might even try to put a stop to other things” the President declared in a stump speech.

Bush flew to Billings to help Sen. Conrad Burns stage a comeback after trailing Democratic challenger Jon Tester over the preceding many months. “The only poll that matters is the one that the voters do on election day” Mr. Bush said.

The visit to Montana was the start of a six-day pre-election, 10-state final campaign swing for the president as he left the White House. He went to Elko, Nev., and plans to campaign Friday in Missouri for Sen. James M. Talent, who is locked in one of the closest Senate races. The President also plans to campaign in his base-rich constituencies in Iowa, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Florida, Arkansas and then to return to Texas, where he will vote before stopping to clear some brush at his ranch and returning to the White House to watch returns Tuesday.

In a surprise move, with his approval ratings remaining mired in the high 30s, the President decided to reveal a new initiative. Aides said that he has been frustrated for months that despite the strong performance of the US economy, he is not being recognized for having led the policy initiatives that have resulted in growth. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, stated that the new policy initiative was crafter after an intensive planning session with Vice President Cheney, Treasury Secretary Paulson, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Rice, World Bank President Wolfowitz,

In two rallies Thursday, Bush stated: “The time has come for this great nation to declare a formal war on poverty. In the past, that term has been used, but the root cause of this evil has not been addressed. The true cause of poverty is the growing number of poor people. If we are not careful, they will increase in number and place even greater strains on the capacity of this great nation to meet its pressing needs. In this time of war, we cannot afford to divert resources that would otherwise go to supporting the brave men and women who are placed in harm’s way in fighting the war on terror.”

The crowd cheered in unison and Mr. Bush pressed on: “We are now engaged in two wars at the same time, the war on terror and the war on poverty. Now, there is nothing more important than the war on terror, but we will not let those who are responsible for poverty take over the resources of this great nation. The poor people are the enemy combatants in the war on poverty and I have ordered that they be detained for the indefinite future. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has his staff working on legislation that will eliminate the need to provide counsel for these detainees. If they cannot afford to pay for their own lawyers, the government should not have to provide counsel. After all, the charge is that they are poor and it seems – at least it seems to me quite clear, that if they say they cannot afford to pay for a lawyer, then we have proved the point to begin with.”

At a press conference, the President was asked if these detainees would be given a hearing. He responded: “We are at war. Congress has recently passed legislation to allow enemy combatants to be tried by special commissions. We believe that any poor person who can afford counsel should have the opportunity to overcome the presumption that he or she is living off the resources of this nation. In that case, we will provide a hearing. If they continue to be poor, we will house them in a portion of the fenced area we will be erecting between Mexico and the United States. I have ordered that holding pens be constructed on the Mexican side, and sent a message to the Mexican government that if they continue to allow their poor people to come into the United States, we will send our poor people to Mexico.”

Senator John Kerry asked for comment said: “I want to apologize to the poor people for saying that they are without resources but I want you to understand that I was for the war on poverty but now I’m against it.”

Cheerz...Bwana

__________________________________________________________________________________

The Worst Day Of The Year

2006-10-17T21:43:00.000-05:00

BWEST OF BWANA

AN OCCASIONAL BREAKFAST WITH BWANA FEATURE

October 17, 2006

THE WORST DAY OF THE YEAR

We have a head house above the fourth floor of the house – yes, it’s a walk up, but then Victorian townhouses are that way. The heat in the summer time can get fierce up there and fight the air-conditioned space below. Some years ago, I discovered that a simple two-fan air-exchange unit set to “Exhaust” on both sides works as well as a ventilator fan. That double-barreled unit was taken down two weeks or so ago as chilled breezes from the Northwest brought reminders that Canada is our neighbor to the north.

That wasn’t the worst day of the year.

This week and last week, the MLB Championship Series games were twice rained out – those weren’t the worst days of the year.

Today, I stopped at a store and bought Halloween candy – we get about 400 or more kids every Halloween (Tuesday, the 31st of October) coming by the house. The younger kids start off on a march around the Bunker Hill Monument – all led by a bunch of guys in fairy costumes. The Bunker Hill Monument is on Breed’s Hill but that is another story – the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on Breed’s Hill. For the British troops, that was indeed, one of the worst days of the year.

Halloween is not the worst day of the year, unless it happens to fall on what is the worst day of the year.

Pretty soon, I’ll have to turn on the heat in the house … that means turning on the furnace and setting the thermostats to the winter schedule. This probably should have been done a few days ago, but with bonus days in October, we are being stubborn about accepting the inevitable.

Pretty soon, along will come the day when we have to check the batteries in the smoke detectors. It makes sense to replace them, but we have hard-wired smoke detectors, so this is mostly a mnemonic ritual – some genius at Duracell or Energizer thought it up and should get a bonus. On the other hand, checking the batteries in the thermostats and changing them a week or two after firing up the furnace is a sort of cheat on the inevitable day. But, it does pay homage to the worst day of the year.

Then, down come the storm windows. As I’ve explained before, for the benefit of my friends who live outside the US in milder climes, our regular windows have outer windows to protect them. Well, actually, they provide an added layer of insulation sometimes rendered unnecessary by double glazed thermopane (that may be a brand name) style windows.

That is THE WORST DAY OF THE YEAR – the day on which the storm windows come down!

Not only does it spell the end of any plausible argument that summer is not over, and not only does it spell the end of the golf season save a bonus day here or there, but it actually forces us to give back the hour that we thought we’d stolen from TIME.

Yes, the day that we end Daylight Savings Time and go back one hour is the WORST DAY OF THE YEAR.

Not only do we give back the hour, but inevitably, the declination of the sun steals more and more of each day without so much as an opportunity for declension on our part.

One might suppose that as a corollary, the best day of the year is the first Sunday in April when we Spring forward. Not quite, as the best day is more appropriately measured by the condition of the teeing ground.

But, the first Sunday in April is to be replaced by an earlier Sunday in March as by a stroke of the pen, Congress has changed the dates during which Daylight Savings Time will reign.

The Worst Day Of The Year will, as of next year, be postponed a wee bit, until a Sunday in November, but for now, I must offer this lament as we look forward to darker days ahead – at least until the Winter solstice brings the promise of an ever-lingering twilight hour.

And one additional benefit from the Wizards and Witches who inhabit Congress and pass such laws? Well, the WORST DAY OF THE YEAR will never again fall on Halloween unless … unless they change the law again!

Cheerz…Bwana

STATE OF DENIAL - THE GRAPES OF WRATH

2006-10-08T21:30:00.000-05:00

BWEST OF BWANA

AN OCCASIONAL BREAKFAST WITH BWANA FEATURE

October 8, 2006

STATE OF DENIAL – THE GRAPES OF WRATH

Many, many years ago, we dined at Restaurant Lucas Carton on the Place de la Madeleine. This was an exceptional dining experience and the wine was a Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche. Okay, don’t ask, don’t tell. A few years later, my dear friend Eddie who since died and I had a wine experience.

However, before that, I will tell you that I was driving down the Mass Pike from Boston to Connecticut when this guy in a blue Mercedes 600 SEL (the old tank version) keeps pestering me. Well, it was Eddie! Later, he would yank my chain from his Aston Martin – only he could drive one of those with the super hard clutch.

Anyway, Eddie got a big raise – I mean a humumgous raise –and called me around 5:00 PM as I was sitting at my desk and contemplating another few hours of work before winding up for the night – contrary to popular belief, such is the life of a lawyer when you are handling trial work. The day is NEVER done as there is always another little bit to get finished.

So, I agreed to meet Eddie at the Four Seasons Hotel and when I got there, he called the waiter over and asked for the wine list. The waiter brought us the menu and Eddie said “Pick a bottle and get something good.” Well, with his raise, I could have ordered one of each and not worried, but I asked the waiter for the cellar list which he brought over. I ordered a bottle of DRC Grand Echézeaux. How much, you ask? Don’t ask, don’t tell, is what I say.

As we sat an enjoyed the wine and had a cigar – in those days, they allowed cigars (I”ve since quit anyway) – and had a snack, Eddie said: “Shall we get another one?” Before any more was said, he had called the waiter over and we had a second bottle!

The following evening, the doorbell at our house rang. There was Eddie and he’d had a couple of martinis. He opened his raincoat and flashed two more bottles of DRC Grand Echézeaux. “I went back and asked the stiff if he had any more and he had only two bottles so I said I’ll take them!” he proclaimed. Now, we are not quite talking Halliburton-level spending here, but four bottles of this stuff would make a decent dent in any wallet.

Two days ago, I stopped at Trader Joe’s to pick up some light groceries and also a couple of bottles of Napa River Cabernet. This stuff is $4.99 a bottle and it is pretty darn good, but it ain’t no Grand Echézeaux. Anyway, while I was in the store, there was an announcement on the PA system that they were having a tasting on macaroni and cheese and also of a California Sangiovese.

Well, I don’t touch macaroni and cheese and I’m not partial to wine tastings of Chateau Rotgut. The good stuff seems to sell itself. However, I did take a sample of the Sangiovese – mind you, they have tiny little plastic tasting cups that look like something in which you might collect a urine sample or dispense a terrible tasting medicine. If a standard wine serving is 150ml, these tasting cups are about 5-7ml.

As I got ready to sip, one of the guys dispensing the stuff said: “You know, they say this has the taste of blackberries but I can’t quite taste that. It’s more like blueberries to me.”

The other fellow said: “Well, I think it has a hint of spice, maybe clove and blackberry but that could come across like blueberry.”

“Sheesh!” I thought, “a $4.99 wine and it’s got all that!”

I tasted it. It was not particularly good. Actually, it was particularly bad. I mean, fuggedabout blackberries and blueberries and spice and cloves and all that stuff. This thing had nothing, nada, niente! I said: “Guys, it tastes like grape to me.”

There was a horrified silence and one of them said “No way!”

I said “Way, man! Wine is made from grapes. In fact, this tastes to me like Welch’s.”

Omigosh, I could have been engaged in the worst form of blasphemy akin to the Danish cartoons or Benny’s latest little quotation from the 13th Century. Wine tasting like grape juice? Man, you’ve got to be kidding!

One of the guys said, “I just don’t see that. It doesn’t taste like grape juice to me.”

I said: “In fact, it tastes like sweetened Welch’s grape juice. Don’t you think it is strange that you don’t think grape juice tastes like grape juice?”

He looked at me with this vacant stare.

It then occurred to me that I now understand why the President doesn’t think the sour grape juice that is Iraq tastes like sour grape juice. After all, grape juice, sour or not, doesn’t taste like grape juice to someone who doesn’t want to face the obvious.

In fairness to Trader Joe’s, it is one of the great stores around – so I’ll give them a plug or two. Their Irish Breakfast Tea and their honey mango shave cream are worth your time.

Cheerz….Bwana

The Courage Muscle by Monique Doyle Spencer

2006-10-04T17:10:00.000-05:00

FYI

Below is a copy of an entry that appears on Paul Levy's blog Running A Hospital.

___________________________

Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Monique's book
October is breast cancer awareness month, designed to help people understand this disease, seek early diagnosis, and inform folks of advances in treatment. In recognition of that, I want to tell you about something that can be very helpful to you, a friend, or a loved one.

A couple of years ago, we published a wonderful book on the subject by Monique Doyle Spencer, which is designed to help people who have the disease understand and cope with many aspects of the treatment process. We published the book because it is funny, and commercial publishers felt that it was inappropriate to have a humorous book dealing with cancer. We thought it deserved public exposure. It is called, "The Courage Muscle, a chicken's guide to living with breast cancer." After my mother-in-law read it, she said, "I wish I had had this book to read during my treatment." Many others have said the same thing, and the book's reputation has spread by word of mouth and occasional newspaper columns and Monique's interviews on television and radio.

You can buy it from Amazon, but if you buy it from the hospital instead, the proceeds go to support Windows of Hope, our non-profit oncology shop that sells wigs, scarves, and other supplies for cancer patients. Just send a check for $16.95 to Windows of Hope, 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, and we will mail you a copy. Or call 617-667-1899.

Mozart And The Taxi Driver

2006-10-03T22:48:00.000-05:00

BWEST OF BWANA

AN OCCASIONAL BREAKFAST WITH BWANA FEATURE

October 3, 2006

MOZART AND THE TAXI DRIVER

The Deutsche Oper in Berlin canceled a performance of Mozart’s Idomeneo. Well, it wasn’t Mozart’s Idomeneo but a variation-on-the-theme production, directed by Hans Neuenfels in which, according to reports, King Idomeneo is shown staggering on stage next to the severed heads of Buddha, Jesus, Poseidon (Neptune) and the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) which sat on a chair. Other reports had Kind Idomeneo pulling the severed heads out of a sack.

We have all read or heard that the production was canceled due to fears that enraged Muslims would commit acts of violence. Indeed, the Opera Company reported having received a telephone call threatening violence. No one can say if the call was made by a Muslim, a Buddhist, or indeed an enraged Mozartophile upset that the work of the great genius was being debased.

Some months ago, when the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten published the infamous cartoons, I called it a gratuitous insult to Islam. Of course, the cartoons specifically depicted the Prophet (PBUH) in a derogatory way as cartoonist entrants in the misguided contest were charged to do. My initial reaction to the Idomeneo variation was similar – a gratuitous offense and since the production was not true to the original, what was the need for this? Hadn’t we previously dismissed claims of freedom of expression by saying that one who yells “FIRE!” in a crowded theater is accorded no protection? I then thought a bit more on this and asked myself, “What if there really were a fire and someone yelled ‘FIRE!’ in the crowded theater and a panic ensued?” Does the truth of what is said make the difference? Well, in actions for libel and slander, truth certainly does. Do the results of the speaker’s words make a difference?

Something gnawed at me about this, so I looked up Mr. Justice Holmes’ opinion in Schenck v. U.S., the 1919 case in which he wrote: “We admit that in many places and in ordinary times the defendants in saying all that was said in the circular would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”

Aha! So it was the falsity of the words that made them objectionable. It seemed to me that banning the opera was akin to banning a false shout of FIRE! Was it not established that the opera was not true to the original and that it might have an incendiary character? Note that the phrase “shouting fire in a crowded theater” does not occur in the original and was never used by Justice Holmes. And the question whether the results of the speaker’s words make a difference was answered in the affirmative when Schenck was modified by Brandenburg v. Ohio when the Supreme Court of the U.S. stated: “Freedoms of speech and press do not permit a State to forbid advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”

But then I thought, what about freedom of art and expression? Does an opera have to be true to the original? This troubled me for a bit, but not long, as I pondered that musicians often write “variations” on a theme of another composer. Why, sitting in my own collection are many variations including Mozart’s own re-orchestration of Handel’s Messiah in which he replaces the English libretto of the original Oratorio with a German text (K. 572).

H.D.S. Greenway, a Boston Globe columnist writes in an October 3, 2006 column titled Censorship Through The Ages, that Mozart faced opposition from Austria’s Emperor Joseph II to the production of his Marriage of Figaro. Mozart was apparently able to convince the Viennese court that he had excised offending radical material and the opera was allowed to proceed. Similarly, he reports that Giuseppe Verdi too ran afoul of the censors in respect of his opera The Masked Ball. Verdi agreed to relocate the setting of the opera from Europe to North America and the murdered King of Sweden became the Governor of Boston – a sort of variation upon a variation, if you will.

So, perhaps there is nothing wrong with recognizing that, just as with opinions (as distinguished from facts as to which truth is ascertainable) art is art for art’s sake, variation or not. There is no truth standard applicable. Measured against this, the banning of the opera was a mistake of principle, but perhaps a good panic prevention measure.

On top of this, out comes form Minneapolis, Minnesota, a story that about three quarters of the taxi drivers at the airport are Somalis and Muslims. Many of them believe that the Qu’ran forbids transportation of alcohol and, ergo, they don’t want to carry passengers who have alcohol in their possession. Never mind that the Qu’ran only prohibits the consumption of alcohol, not transvection.

The city’s answer it appears is to require taxi drivers who will not carry alcohol to display special colored lights on their cabs. If they do not display the lights signifying that they will not carry alcohol, they must return to the back of the line, and face a three hour wait for another fare.

Now it seems to me this is turning common sense on its rear end – of course, keep in mind that for most people common sense resides in that area anyway.

A fundamental tenet of taxi service is that a taxi driver may not refuse to take a passenger wherever the passenger wants to go and the taxi driver may not refuse to take a passenger for discriminatory or other reasons unless the passenger is violent or evidences a refusal to pay.

The Minneapolis solution would make driving a taxi an inalienable right – life, liberty and the pursuit of non-alcohol carrying passengers. Doesn’t it make more sense to say that a Somali Muslim has a right NOT to be a taxi driver if he feels it infringes on his religious beliefs to carry persons with alcohol in their possession?

I recognize that an argument could be made that a person has the right to earn a living and in the course of that living should not have to do acts which violate his religious beliefs. For me, this does not answer the threshold question: why would you agree to do a job that entails activities that violate your religious beliefs in the first place? Perplexed by this, I asked a Muslim friend for her opinion. “Ridiculous!” she said, “does this mean that devout Muslims cannot be pilots [because passengers may have alcohol in their possession?]”

In May of this year, the Utah Supreme Court in State of Utah v. Holm, held Utah’s anti-bigamy statute constitutional against a claim that it infringed on the defendant’s religious right to engage in bigamy. That court rejected the notion that there is a fundamental liberty interest in engaging in such polygamous conduct. Parenthetically, readers might be interested that this claim was advanced on the basis of the Constitution of the United States as the Constitution of Utah expressly states: “polygamous or plural marriages are forever prohibited.”

It has long been held that matters of religious belief as distinguished from practices are at the core of the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion. Just as polygamy is not a liberty, refusal to carry passengers because their luggage may contain materials offensive to a taxi driver, is not a liberty. What if the taxi driver said it was prohibited to carry an infidel?

The opposing decisions, the one to ban the opera and the other to allow taxi drivers to refuse fares are wrong. One wonders what would happen if an opera company director carrying a sack with props to be used as the heads in question were to get into a taxi and be questioned by the Somali taxi driver as to whether he had alcohol. If he said “I have the heads of Buddha, Jesus, Poseidon, and the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH)” would he be justifiably evicted from the taxi? What about the fact that the claim is false? After all, the heads are not real.

I am pleased to report that according to Mr. Greenway’s column, with the consent of German Muslims, the production of Idomeneo may go forward in Berlin.

In Germany, Islamophobia kept an opera from being produced. In Minneapolis, phobia about being labeled Islamophobic kept a city from using common sense. Such is misguided political correctness, but it seems to me that the Germans reached out to the Muslim community to explain the difference between art and insult whereas the Minneapolis people simply came up with a variation on a theme.

Now, for another variation, a little breakfast music – Eine Kleine Frühstück musik.

Cheerz….Bwana

OF NIGHTMARES AND BAD DREAMS

2006-09-27T08:08:00.000-05:00

Bwest of Bwana
An occasional Breakfast with Bwana

OF NIGHTMARES AND BAD DREAMS:

September 27, 2006

Yesterday started simply enough, almost casually, with my usual earlier-than-thou wake up around 4:00 AM, just about in time to avoid the rush hour traffic in London, but not quite avoiding those coming home in Sydney or Melbourne. Well, it wasn’t the usual need to answer an empty-your-bladder command from the central nervous system, but I woke up after a bad dream or nightmare. I’m not sure exactly which category this fits, but, as you will see it doesn’t really matter because in the world of bad dreams and nightmares, the government can ruin a good day faster than you can on your own. Putting aside the realization that since I was neither in London nor Sydney, I had only avoided traffic problems in my dreams, let us continue.

I don’t usually remember dreams so this one is a stark exception. I dreamt that I had gotten a telephone call from a lab doctor – not my doctor, but a lab doctor informing me of the results of a blood test. Now, I have indeed had a recent blood test but the results are known and not what I dreamt. I dreamt that the lab doctor said that I had some form of blood cancer and could never play golf again!

Imagine the nerve of the doc – I couldn’t tell if it was a he or she (see below), but I was impressed at my own cool. I remember either saying or “thinking” (now, that is weird, when you dream that you are thinking) “Screw it, I’m playing golf.” I also remember reasoning in the dream: “If I play golf I’ll die. If I don’t play golf, I’ll die. So, screw it, I’m playing golf.”

Okay, I do have to go back for a blood retest – but it’s just to check cholesterol levels and LFT stuff following a change from one statin to another for the benefit of my health insurer so that they can force me to take a generic when the patented stuff I was using worked just fine.

The part about my doctor is simple: in mid-May, he told me that he was leaving in June for about three weeks and would return in his female persona. So, the statin switch was made by him, and the last blood tests were ordered by her. Him, her – same person, a wonderful doctor, just in different clothes and she wears a wig and purple colored glasses.

Okay, so given the early rise, it’s still a fairly fresh day when I start going over paperwork and come across this form titled: DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION – FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION: TRIENNIAL AIRCRAFT REGISTRATION REPORT.

Wow! I’m impressed that the Federal Government has seen the need to reduce paperwork and recognizes that a triennial registration report is perfectly adequate. I read the form and notice that it is already filled in with my name, the aircraft tail number, aircraft serial number, etc. So, I wonder what the need for all this is. Keep in mind that this is a heavy card stock measuring 8 ½ x 11 inches and designed to be cut in half and mailed back – so I’d be mailing a 5 ½ by 8 ½ card back. As I get ready to sign this form and send it back, I flip it over and lo, it says:

IMPORTANT NOTICE

The Triennial Aircraft Registration Report is used by the Federal Aviation Administration to update the Aircraft Registry files when no registration activity has occurred in the past 36 months.

Complete and return this form ONLY if the information provided on the reverse side is incorrect.

Hmmm… I wonder if they paid Halliburton $25,000 a pop to come up with that gem. You know, the more you think about it, since FAA regulations require that all aircraft be registered and each transfer be recorded with the FAA registry, the form is totally unnecessary, even every three years. I bet they paid Halliburton $3,000,000 to figure that out and come up with a triennial follow up.

Soon thereafter – or was it quite a while later? – I turned on the telly to see President Bush holding one of his “So You Think You Can Dance” press conferences with another head of state, this time, Kaptain Kryptonite Karzai of Afghanistan (well, of Kabul anyway) who is sort of a head puppet of state. There was Kaptain Kryptonite wearing his green cape and his tribal headgear, attempting to appear head-of-statish while President Bushbaby, smirk and all, was doing everything not to. I’ll say one thing about our Prez … he sure knows how to stay ON MESSAGE as he dodged a question about who was right, Bill Clinton or Condi, and launched off into the need to have secret tribunals and wiretapping authorization.

Kaptain Kryptonite is invited to dinner at the White House along with Condi and Dick CHEstpaiNEY – there goes the appetite – to meet President Musharraf of Pakistan (minus Waziristan which has been turned over to the Taliban overlords or underlords or whatever they are). As you all may know, there is a spitting war – a sort of uncivil war going on between Kaptain Kryptonite and President Musharraf. The Pakistani President is, meanwhile, touting his book, a so-called memoir. He even appeared on The Daily Show with John Stewart to plug his book. So, this is what it has come to – US aid which used to go to foreign dictators now goes to Halliburton. And the poor dictator is left to fend for himself at amazon.com.

When it comes to commitment in the war on terror, perhaps President Bill Clinton is right – but on the other hand, he got a big book allowance too, didn’t he? And don’t you remember when Netanyahu showed up in the US immediately post-partum 9-11 having delivered his new baby, a book on terror?

We have a war-on-terror here folks, a civil war in Iraq, a Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, Pakistan has lost a chunk the size of New Jersey, and these guys are trying to peddle books!

Ah, it was fun when all we had to deal with was Senator Macaca (George Allen, R. Va.) and Senator Slurpee (Joe Biden, D. Del.) dissing on the Indians. Now, we find out that Senator Macaca has Jewish lineage and I suppose we’ll find out soon enough that Joe Biden’s grandfather cooked a mean goat curry.

I think I’m going to start a new business – outsourcing dissing on your opponents. My plan is to hire 10,000 Indians in Bangalore or Mumbai and they’ll create nasty commercials on demand. And we’ll get ‘em to say it with emphasis on the second syllable. Well, they do that anyway!

Okay, gotta go, I have a golf game and limited time to play it.

Shhhhhhh… don’t wake me up … I think it’s all a bad dream or a nightmare.

Cheerz...Bwana

Running a hospital

2006-09-20T22:02:00.000-05:00

Here is a link to a new blog on running a hospital.

This is special. It’s written by the CEO of BIDMC, a Harvard Teaching Hospital in Boston reputed to be one of the finest medical centers in Boston.

As the story goes, a fellow falls ill on a flight into Boston and asks the cab driver to take him to the best hospital. The cab driver winds through the tunnel, Storrow Drive, Kenmore Square, Brookline Avenue, and arrives at BIDMC. The fellow, now gasping, asks “Why have you brought me here? I thought that __ is the best hospital in the world.”

The cab driver says: “You are correct. __ is the best hospital in the world but this one, BIDMC is the best hospital in Boston.”

So, here’s the link.

http://runningahospital.blogspot.com

The blogger here is Paul Levy, CEO of BIDMC.

He is smart and self-effacing. He should not be self-effacing except about his golf game, but as a CEO, he is nothing short of terrific.

I think you will enjoy the stories he will tell over the years and the sense of caring and compassion evident in his approach to running an amorphous institution.

Feel free to comment on his posts and also to give him some golf tips.

Cheerz…Bwana

English Pronunciation in a Nuclear Age

2006-03-04T13:33:00.000-05:00

Every time the President pronounces the word "Nuclear" as "Newkiller" I cringe, although he may have a point!

It is interesting that Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter also could not pronounce the word properly.

Someone sent this to me. I wonder what Bushie might sound like if he read it aloud.

ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF
======================

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

-- Author Unknown

DUBAI PORTS WORLD AND ALL THAT

2006-02-21T13:48:00.000-05:00

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Breakfast with Bwana

February 21, 2006

GENERAL MOTORS, DEFICITS, CHINA, DUBAI PORTS WORLD, HOMELAND SECURITY – WHICH OF THESE IS GOOD FOR AMERICA? ANY CONNECTIONS HERE?:

It was many moons ago, in 2003, when I wrote about GM’s placement of a bond offering of $17+ billion (an increase from an earlier target of $16 billion or so) and expressed my astonishment that people would buy those bonds. My concerns then were twofold: (i) GM was immediately going to put $14.4 billion into its pension plan, thus putting that money out of reach of the very creditors who had made the loan (by buying the bonds) and (ii) GM’s market capitalization at that time was about $21 billion, based on a stock price in the low 40s. It seemed bizarre to me that people would think lending more than 80% of the value of a company and then seeing more than 80% of the proceeds immediately disappear was a sensible idea. Yet, that is what happened.

I commented then that GM could well end up in bankruptcy. In the more than two years since, GM’s market capitalization has plummeted to $12.6 billion and there are unanswered questions about its pension liability. Bankruptcy is now openly discussed in the financial world. In a November 10, 2005 piece at CFO.com, Stephen Taub wrote: “GM maintains that its domestic pension plans were fully funded at the end of last year, according to the Journal, but the PBGC believes the plans are currently underfunded by roughly $31 billion. Why the discrepancy? The PBGC estimates liabilities based on the cost of paying retirement benefits if the plans were terminated today, explains the newspaper, while GM uses generally accepted standards for valuing assets and liabilities that can make its plan look stronger.”

What has this got to do with China, control of ports, Homeland Security and so on?

Let’s take a look at some numbers. Last year, the trade deficit was about $726 billion. With China it was $202 billion. This means that the rest of the world has accumulated $762 billion in US cash and China has $202 billion of that in just one year. For fiscal 2007, President Bush requested $42.7 billion for the Department of Homeland Security budget.

Dubai Ports World is buying the British company P&O that managed six US ports, for $6.8 billion.

For our Department of Homeland Security budgets which have already run into hundreds of billions of dollars, we have had one Secretary, Tom Ridge, whose only two major contributions were (i) to take a traffic signal and add two more colors to it, and (ii) to tell the nation’s homeowners to buy duct tape. The present Secretary has been sharply criticized for his department’s incompetence in the response to Hurricane Katrina and other matters. We still have no secure means of tracking millions of containers coming into the US through our ports. Our airport security consists of a laughable system of x-ray inspection that the DHS considers not reliable enough that they have to specially screen selected passengers, selected either because of their names, their profiles, or some random criteria that results in grandmothers and four-year olds being picked out. I will write more about my experiences in this regard in another column. Our DHS designated people have confiscated millions of pocket knives, scissors, nail clippers, lighters, and assorted items used by Americans in their daily lives on some theory that this enhances our security. They waste their time scanning iPods and laptop computers with testers designed to detect explosives, but only for selected victims of screening. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of iPods and laptop computers go through with just the x-ray screening. If that screening is effective, why do we need more? If it is not effective, why are we doing it? More importantly, why are we relying on it?

The replacement of the confiscated items probably does more good for China’s economy than ours since most of them are manufactured there.

I did not see China rush in, with the hundreds of billions of trade surplus dollars it has accumulated, to buy GM. It could have had GM for a mere $21 billion two years ago and around $11-13 billion in recent months depending on timing. China didn’t buy GM because it does not make money.

Dubai Ports World wants to buy P&O because it can make money. Also DP World has the money or, at least the credit rating to borrow the money. And it won’t put borrowed funds into a pension plan. Part of our trade deficit also comes from high-priced oil.

But, there is a downside. And it is one we should have recognized when six US ports were operated by P&O, also a foreign company albeit British. What we should have recognized and now need to recognize is that a foreign company (P&O) has had and a foreign company (DP World) will have knowledge of every container shipment from those ports into and out of America, all shipping schedules, all manifests, all contents, all shippers, all recipients.

Do we have any mechanism in place to ensure that this database of information will remain secure?

Why don’t we have the common sense to take $6.8 billion out of the Homeland Security budget currently spent on the idiotic alert level system and idiotic airport scanning of iPods and laptops, and have the US Government buy P&O? Why not make sure that one of the areas of our greatest vulnerability is made more secure than it ever has been?

We have here stark examples of what happens when US companies are mismanaged, or produce inferior goods, and what happens when we make our assets vulnerable to loss of control. And we will see more companies, including critical technologies companies, being bought by those holding large amounts of US dollars. You can darn sure bet they won’t be buying companies with unfunded pension liabilities running into the billions.

We spend billions of dollars on fluff and have none to solve a problem with a solution staring us in the face.

Given our commitment to free trade and public markets, all the noise in Washington is not likely to get much done. But if we can put our ports under the control of a Government managed company (even if contracted out to private management with supervision, but PLEASE, not Halliburton) we might start making sense of the security issues confronting us.

Cheerz...Bwana

www.breakfastwithbwana.blogspot.com
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A Caricature of Free Speech - A Caricature of Religion

2006-02-08T21:54:00.000-05:00

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Breakfast with Bwana
February 9, 2006

A CARICATURE OF FREE SPEECH – A CARICATURE OF RELIGION:

My daughter constantly complains that her neighbors deposit their trash bags right by her window on the eve of trash collection days. What does this have to do with cartoons of the Prophet? Read on.

The story goes that Flemming Rose, culture editor of Jyllands-Posten, the Danish daily newspaper suspected that the western art world was self censoring out of fear of Islamic radicals. His suspicions grew out of removal of some works from British and Swedish museums deemed, by staff, to be offensive to Muslims. Also, he had heard from a comedian a Danish comedian that he felt free to desecrate the Bible but that he'd be afraid to do the same to the Koran. Then Rose read that a Danish children's book author couldn't find illustrators who dared draw Muhammad for a new book on Islam.

Based on this high-level research rivaling Merck’s studies on Vioxx, decided to hold a contest, challenging 25 newspaper cartoonists to draw Muhammad as you see him. Twelve responded with offerings, thirteen, perhaps exercising self censorship, self-restraint, or common sense, or sloth or worse, chose not to participate.

By the way, keep in mind that the “cartoons” were first published in September 2005.

Rose continues to justify his publication of the “cartoons” as an exercise of free speech. At first, I thought I understood that this was indeed free speech. Then I read about protests by many Muslims and I thought that they should be more tolerant of free speech. Then, I read that some newspapers in European countries decided last week, to republish the cartoons as a show of solidarity and support of the principle of free expression.

Then, I thought about this whole affair and, indeed, have wrestled with it for these many days. As Shakespeare wrote “vexed I am of late with passions of some difference.”

My final – at least of now – take on this is that while there is a component of “free expression” involved here, and mostly on the part of the newspapers that decided to show solidarity with Jyllands-Posten in view of the disproportionate hate-filled response by many claiming to be outraged in the name of Islam, the initial publication by Flemming Rose and Jyllands-Posten was an unforgivable error of judgment.

Let me interject that I am neither religious nor a Muslim. Not that it should matter for purposes of this discourse.

My objection is not to the idea that a Western cartoonist should not depict an image of Muhammad. After all, the right to do that is the essence of the right of freedom or speech and expression. Of course, one might ask if doing so is necessary to advance any purpose and, if not, refrain from doing so. Again, I emphasize that it is not fear of reaction, but RESPECT for the sensibilities of others that should be the guiding force. Somebody said that the right of free speech means nothing if not to give offense to others. One might well ask what is to be gained by a Danish newspaper in giving offense on this subject. But then, the reward of free expression should be in the expression itself, not in the degree of offense one might give.

As an aside, it is possible to interpret the cartoon showing Mohammed waving off suicide bombers and saying “Stop, stop, we have run out virgins” as not blasphemous at all, but highlighting the futility of the suicide bomber’s expectations of salvation. But that is way too subtle to attempt as a justification for something that may be funny to non-Muslims but is in pure bad taste to Muslims.

The more serious issue is that a larger battle has been lost. In his State of the Union speech last week, President Bush repeated his frequent assertion that some men rage against freedom: “And one of the main sources of reaction and opposition is radical Islam, the perversion by a few of a noble faith into an ideology of terror and death.”

The President did not start all this and in fairness has often referred to the idea that the noble tenets of Islam are being perverted by a few. However, it is fair to say that this President and much of mainstream America equates terrorism with Islam and with Islamic fundamentalism. Somehow the suggestion is that there is some part of the Islamic faith that condones this kind of behavior and that our battle is not only with acts of terrorism but with that aspect of the faith. Nothing could be more wrong.

Before we talk more on that, here is an interesting parable as reported by Mohamed Nimer, Ph. D., Research Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations: “There is a narrative in Islamic history that goes like this: The prophet had a neighbor who used to throw their garbage at his door. One day Muhammad comes out finding no garbage. He goes to check on the neighbor out of concern for him. Impressed by the great character, that person then converts to Islam. Obviously some Muslims need to be reminded of this lesson at this time.”

It seems to me that saying there is such a thing as “Radical Islam” or “Fundamentalist Islam” is to imbue the ideas that the nutcakes propagate with some semblance of legitimacy. If the ideas that are being pressed by the terrorists, agitators and the like are a “perversion” then they do not represent Islam. It seems incongruous to call it a “perversion” and still attach the label “Islamic” to it.

We need to get away from the idea that anything done in the name of religion is somehow protected expression. The corollary is that everything done to denigrate religion is not necessarily protected as free speech.

What I mean by this is that there are propositions we can all accept: encouraging someone to be a suicide bomber is NOT the exercise of religion; blowing oneself up as a suicide bomber in the name of Islam is NOT the exercise of religion; flying a hijacked plane into the World Trade Center is NOT the exercise of religion; killing doctors who perform abortions, even if the killing of the doctor is done in the name of Christ, is NOT the exercise of religion; Pat Roberston’s calling for the assassination of a foreign leader is NOT the exercise of religion.

So also, it seems to me, a cartoon showing the Prophet Mohammad with a bomb in his turban, is an expression of the idea that the entire religion is one of violence and terrorism. While one may be entitled to hold that view, it is undoubtedly false and profane. So, my objection is to falsehood and profanity, NOT to the idea that one may offend others. For me, such publication is NOT the exercise of free speech.

Now, perhaps the parable of the Prophet’s concern for his neighbor’s failure to deposit the daily garbage becomes more poignant. It is unlikely that a Prophet showing that level of concern for his neighbor would condone violence. He did not. And my daughter should take her neighbor’s regular deposits of trash as an indicator of continuing good health.

By taking this kind of approach, we do pit ourselves against Islam as the enemy … and yet, we say that Islam is not the enemy. If we are ever to get the leaders of the Islamic world to join with us in the battle against terror and the perversion of religion, we must be able to separate ISLAM from all of the other activities. Otherwise, in the delicate triangulation among the western world (read USA), the terrorists, and the Muslims (who generally reject violence) the common bond of Islam, as long as we allow it to be called into battle, will often tip the scales against us. It is only when we stop referring to terrorists with the label “Islamic” that we can say what they do has nothing to do with religion.

If we are ever to have the moderate leaders of Muslim countries and the moderate clerics speak with us, it must be because they feel WE are willing to understand that Islam as a religion does not condone the kind of violence we have seen. And they must understand that it is in their interest to condemn those who hijack ISLAM as a justification for evil.

The aforesaid Mohamed Nimer, went on to say:”The real offense here is not about the artistic depiction. It is the way the prophet was depicted -- a man of great violence.”

We have all read that for Muslims, ANY depiction of the Prophet is blasphemy. So I think Nimer is getting at what I said earlier – it is the falsity and profanity that is at issue.

I think Flemming Rose was wrong to publish the cartoons. They served no purpose and were akin to hate speech. I think that the violence and the protests in the Islamic world were way out of proportion and much of that can be traced to exploitation of the situation by radicals. I think that the republication of the cartoons by the European newspapers was a superficially valid gesture, by western standards, in recognition of the right of free expression. However, they failed to recognize that republication of hate speech is still hate speech.

What I do respect is the Danish Government’s response of apologizing for offense but saying that given a free press, they had no right to intervene. The subtlety might have been lost on those demanding apologies, but compare what Jyllands-Posten published to the statements that landed a Muslim cleric with a prison sentence for inciting murder in Britain.

Which all proves that given an opportunity to engage in bad taste, the press will take it. And yet, this poses a horrible dilemma for the rest of us who believe that they should be able to say and publish anything … almost. Anything but falsehoods and profanity.

Cheerz….Bwana

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HOW CREEPY IS WIRETAPPING?

2005-12-22T21:25:00.000-05:00

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Breakfast with Bwana
DECEMBER 22, 2005

HOW CREEPY IS WIRETAPPING?:

When I wrote “In Defense Of Bush And Blondes” I said: “No, I have not lost my mind. But, never fear, I am working on it.” Well, I am pleased (?) to report success.

My “defense” of the wiretaps provoked much comment, some supportive, some not. The most pungent was this from (identity withheld) who wrote:

“… just because the worse hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t. I can’t think of a group of yahoos I’d trust LESS with this kind of power. These people have shown so little regard for truth, reasonable dissent, due process, civil liberties and most sadly for the basic tenets of the Constitution that I simply cannot believe that YOU OF ALL PEOPLE! wouldn’t be more horrified that they’ve broken the law simply because they believe the result of breaking the law is more significant than the act of abiding by the law in the first place.

‘The danger is always there that such means and powers can be abused. However, I don’t think that there is any chance that Mr. Bush will refuse to surrender the Presidency in January 2009 when his term is over. Neither do I perceive that in the year during which The New York Times sat on this particular story before finally going public with it, there has been any erosion of our liberties.’

“Oh come on. The CIA was monitoring a group of elderly Quakers in Florida who were worried about military recruiting in their local high schools. Bushie likely won’t declare himself dictator in ‘09, but let’s see how funny it is when they come knocking on my door because I jokingly refer to myself as a socialist. Or because I’ve attended a rally for gay rights. Or because I once voted for Ralph Nader.

“The other day ___ was talking about the “file” the ___ kept on __. That’s creepy – and I don’t relish the idea of this administration (or anyone else) keeping a file on me.

“Anyway, now you know that I do read these things!!”

Well, I responded that there has not been any violation of law shown, at least as of yet, and I do not see that any Constitutional violation is shown. I do understand that people on both sides have advanced arguments and contentions to support their respective positions. Also, I am grateful that s/he reads these “things.”

Let me take a look at this issue in a different way. First, though, I must say that although I share concerns about this President and this Administration – concerns enhanced by the news that former Attorney General Ashcroft allowed the FBI to conduct surveillance on “activist” groups – I would have that same concern about a “moderate” as well as a “liberal” President and his/her Administration. It seems to me that if I contend there is Presidential authority for – or desirable for the President to be able to order – surveillance, then it should not matter who the President is.

I take it as a given that every American, since 9-11 if not before, has expected that our government is keeping track of foreigners who may be plotting to join the ranks of “evil doers.” I also take it as a given that if the government knows or has reasonable cause to believe that someone within the US (a Timothy McVeigh type or a terrorist with links to al-qaeda or any other such group) is engaged in plotting to commit an act of sabotage or terror, then the government is keeping track of that too. The entire purpose of this “keeping track of” to me is prevention of the offending attack and the damage, destruction and death that would follow. And note that I distinguish between “foreigners” and people within the US only because domestic surveillance may require different rules. I use the word “may” because I really wrestle with the issue when dealing with suspicion of a “criminal offense” vs. a terrorist type of attack for which prevention rather than prosecution is the key.

Whether this kind of activity is being tracked inside or outside the US, I expect that whatever laws are in place for such monitoring will be followed. But, I also have in mind that this “keeping track of” is being done in good faith and because there is some good (or good enough) reason to be doing so. The definition of “good” reason or “good enough” reason, for me depends on the circumstances and the exigencies of the situation. Perforce, this type of surveillance is not “unreasonable.”

Now, if the President, or Vice or any of their creepy friends should decide to use the surveillance for some other purpose, for political advantage, to collect information on American citizens, or to abuse people, then clearly the same would be prohibited by the Constitution and also by many laws already on the books.

It seems to me that some sort of safeguards need to be in place to ensure that the system is not being abused and those safeguards need also to be of the type that will not compromise “necessary” secrecy.

From everything I know, if the results of surveillance are used for prosecution (different from prevention) then there is ALWAYS judicial review of whether the surveillance was unreasonable under constitutional standards or otherwise unlawful.

For me, the distinction between prevention and prosecution provides the answer.

Cheerz… Bwana Claus

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IN DEFENSE OF BUSH AND BLONDES

2005-12-19T22:01:00.000-05:00

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Breakfast with Bwana
DECEMBER 20, 2005

IN DEFENSE OF BUSH AND BLONDES:

No, I have not lost my mind. But, never fear, I am working on it.

Recently, I have received two not-so-dumb-blonde jokes. I guess it must be something in the American sense of caring for the underdog that we seem to find compassion for the dog that we’ve been kicking. Of course, it’s more fun to watch the Top Dog take a tumble. I mean, didn’t you enjoy Bubble-Boy Manning being sent off the field with a loss while the coach looked like he was back in Peyton Place … or wanted to crawl under a dung heap? And won’t you eventually enjoy watching the Miami team of 1972 that knifed through a passel of weakened and injured teams finally lose bragging rights? But really, who cares?

Getting back to the blonde “jokes,” they cast the blonde protagonist as the super-intelligent one-upsmanship-capable winner. If anyone wants to experience these thrills of agony and defeats of victory, send me an email and I’ll shoot you a copy.

So, I come to the defense of Bush. First, a disclaimer is in order. I really do think he is, so far, the worst President in our history. And, no, I’m not coming to his defense because I think he is monitoring my emails or my telephone conversations. My principal reasons for labeling him the worst President in our history have to do with his handling of taxes and the deficit, and for fostering a culture of religious exclusivity and hate while pretending to be tolerant. Of course, the war in Iraq and particularly the way in which it was “sold” leave me cold. But you know my feelings about that. Incidentally, I will mention that Tom Friedman of The New York Times wrote a couple of weeks ago, as I had several months ago, the same thought, that this guy has the chance to go down as our worst President ever. I mean, if it’s printed in The Times, it must be true, no?

On the other hand, if it turns out that he is not only right on the magnitude of the al quaeda threat, but also right on the outcome in Iraq, he may well go down as one of the greats. Before you scoff, think of Ronald Reagan and what his squashing of the Soviet Union meant for this country.

What prompts all this is my feeling that on 9-11, we realized that something new was afoot. If a plan as complex as we saw could be engineered to commandeer civilian jets and wreak the kind of havoc we had not previously known, what was next? It was not just the physical damage but the profound blow to our national psyche lulled into the sense that we were protected by the oceans, our defense infrastructure, yea, by our essential goodness.

On that day, it was important to realize that something new and different lay as a possibility, even a likelihood, before us. If the same kind of people who commandeered the jets could harness biological or nuclear weapons modalities, we had better wake up.

I think that President Bush gets this. In the last election, I was never clear that everyone else got that he got it.

So, I am not troubled by the latest “revelations” by The New York Times that we have had clandestine eavesdropping of international communications between what are described as people with known contacts to al qaeda and the people with whom they talk outside this country.

Yes, I am troubled by the potential for abuse and await an explanation as to why they did not go to court to get approval. On the other hand, the Constitution simply says that there shall not be an “unreasonable” search or seizure. It does NOT say that the President or whoever is conducting a reasonable search, has to go to Congress or the courts.

It seems to me not a great leap to say that if we know that al qaeda is out to get us and they have contacts in the US with whom they communicate, it would be pretty stupid not to listen in.

The danger is always there that such means and powers can be abused. However, I don’t think that there is any chance that Mr. Bush will refuse to surrender the Presidency in January 2009 when his term is over. Neither do I perceive that in the year during which The New York Times sat on this particular story before finally going public with it, there has been any erosion of our liberties.

If the Iraqi elections lead to a stable government that evolves into a sensible tolerant democracy, we might find an ally and the President’s dream scenario will have materialized. He will then be a hero.

But, that does not excuse that as he has all but admitted, the reasons for going into Iraq proved to be wrong.

For the time being, in this context, he is like the proverbial dumb blonde … not as dumb as he looks and quite a bit foxy.

I also want to mention that on December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked in a sneak attack. It was 60 years plus until the next sneak attack. It would have been intolerable for this nation to conduct its affairs as a “closed” society for those 60 years. No matter how dumb or how foxy, we need to strike a proper balance between threat and risk.

Cheerz…Bwana

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ON FLAG BURNING AND WARRING ON CHRISTMAS

2005-12-19T11:41:00.000-05:00

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Breakfast with Bwana
DECEMBER 19, 2005

ON FLAG BURNING, and WARRING ON CHRISTMAS :

When I first arrived in this country, Lyndon Johnson was President. Growing impatience with an unpopular war built to a crescendo. Media coverage, technologically retarded by today’s standards, brought that war and those protests into our living rooms as never before.

One form of “protest” was burning the American flag. I remember my first reaction was one of outrage. When I saw the American flag being “desecrated” in other ways, I was offended and would often shake my head at the lack of respect and indeed, the stupidity of it all. In a sense, I felt that one should be proud of the American flag and NEVER let one’s political views be turned against that symbol of the nation. Of course, I have to confess that my views were somewhat colored by the realization that people had been deported from Kenya merely for criticizing the President, then Jomo Kenyatta, and burning a Kenyan flag was likely to get you jailed and beaten.

In time, my views have changed. While I personally find it abhorrent to desecrate the flag, I have no problem with other people’s exercise of their “right” (or perceived “right”) to burning symbols … or symbolic burnings.

This nation is strong enough to have its flag burned not only by foreigners, but by its own citizens. Remember when the King died and they would say “The King is dead. Long live the King?” I think we can say “That flag is burned. The FLAG flies on.”

Some people … the right wing fundamentalist yahoos, for the most part … will say that we have simply become numbed into accepting conduct that is wrong. This is the same argument they make about how the “gay lifestyle” and “gay culture.”

My response is that when the Constitution gives someone the right to freedom of expression or freedom or religion (or no religion) we need to make sure we are not numbed to the fact that the Constitution is our first defense against numbness. Ultimately, what difference does it make that some nut burns a flag? Or perhaps, he or she is not a nut and has a legitimate beef, the flag being a means of getting attention.

Just as some in this country rail against the emergence of anything they oppose as being evidence of a malignant cultural shift, many people outside the US decry the perfusion of the so-called “American culture” and western materialism into their countries. This is not just the cry of Islamic fundamentalists, it is heard in Canada, Britain, India, Australia, virtually everywhere.

Yet, the right wing yahoo fundamentalists denounce these “foreigners” for lopsided reasoning, the same kind of reasoning they use at home.

So it is with this nonsense about a war on Christmas. Ever since I was a kid, we wished everyone Merry Christmas (or Happy Christmas). Why? Well, for the simple reason, that it was Christmas.

It seems to me that much of this started with the entirely correct and oft-heard lament that Christmas was becoming too commercialized. The response of the right wing yahoo fundamentalists was to hijack the debate and turn it into an opportunity to advance their cause. The noble notion that the season celebrating peace and goodwill should be the focus of the holiday over commercialism should not evoke protest. But, when the right wing fundamentalist yahoos say that the true spirit of Christmas is to promote their religion, we should all take heed.

I remember their shouts that this is a “Christian nation.” When I commented to some friends that this was wrong, they said “No, this is a Christian nation.” I asked my friends, one a Catholic and the other an Episcopalian: “Do you realize that the people – the fundamentalist right wing nuts – who say this is a Christian nation do not include you or any Hispanic or Black person in their definition of ‘Christian?’” The silence was as palpable as quiet gets.

Enough said.

It is not surprising that the reaction of non-Christians to this attempt to hijack Christmas, a hitherto common holiday season for all, into some notion of exclusivity, should have been to take offense. Yet, there are now other characters in this debate and they want to treat the use of the word “Christmas” itself as inappropriate. Whether this comes from Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or atheists, it is just as offensive for them to say that Christians cannot celebrate Christmas, as it is for the right wing yahoos to say that this is a Christian nation.

For me the message of this season remains, as it was when I was a kid, one of inclusion.

Our nation is strong enough for people to wish each other Merry Christmas and no one should feel offended by that.

In fact, while the Constitution forbids government from establishing a religion, or from mandating prayer in schools, it also guarantees that people have the right to say “Merry Christmas.” See, it is your constitutional right to say “Merry Christmas.”

For me, it is also okay if you want to wish me Happy Eid (Eid Mubarak) or Happy Diwali (Shubh Diwali) or Happy Channukha (Octet for Dreidl) or Happy Kwanzaa (Salaama Kabisa) or Sunny Winter Solstice (May your days be longer).

Merry Cheerz and Happy Bwana Days to all!!

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LOOKING OUT FROM INSIDE THE CARAPACE - THE WHEELS ARE OFF THE PACE CAR

2005-12-15T12:32:00.000-05:00

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Breakfast with Bwana

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DECEMBER 15, 2005

LOOKING OUT FROM INSIDE THE CARAPACE
THE WHEELS ARE OFF THE PACE CAR:

My Republican friends – yes, I have many who are both, friends and Republicans – accuse me of getting perverse pleasure from picking on the President. Funny thing is, my Democrat friends used to say the same thing when Clinton was President! I can protest until I’m blue in the face that for the satirist in me, fair game is fair game and there’s nothing fair about it. It’s just the fare for my game. They don’t get it.

Actually, in this case, I am more interested in the prospect that the President seems to be realizing that, after all is said and done, God had nothing to do with his becoming President and, most likely, she did not and does not really care.

But, it’s hard to realize such things when one’s cocoon is also one’s carapace. Even the series of recent rah-rah speeches have been delivered in another kind of carapace … one military academy to another … one fort, another base … an aircraft carrier deck … occasionally, a right wing yahoo stronghold. One should not be surprised at enthusiastic applause when the Commander-in-Chief speaks at military gatherings. I mean, if I worked at a company and the CEO came in and said something idiotic, I’d applaud anyway. Why, if I had worked at GE and they showed a video of Jack Welch and Susie Leftover (or whatever her name is) in the GE Imaging Studies boardroom, I’d have applauded that too. Jeff Immelt must have applauded a lot to win out over the guys now running Home Despot and a host of other companies.

Permit me a minor digression. For my Republican friends who have been misled by the title of this piece into thinking that “carapace” has something to do with NASCAR, please get a Funk & Wagnalls. Say it fast: “Funk’nWagnalls” and you’ll get the idea. Say it fast enough, and the wheels come off. Say it soft, and it’s almost like racing. The NASCAR thing … another carapace of sorts … is a pace car.

So, anyway, Prez has been doing his speech-making routine – you know, make basically the same speech six times. Whatever happened to the old adage that if you repeat something three times, people will believe it? Well, let’s give him credit for trying. He’s up to six times and although it hasn’t worked, he is an enthusiastic sort, isn’t he? Some of the bravado and braggadocio are gone, but the there seems to be a new realism setting in.

Yesterday’s speech was outside the usual carapace, but only slightly. Three fourths of the cocoon – Rummy, Condi and Chertoff – were present. CHEstpaiNEY, trying to catch his breath, was in an undisclosed location and still SOB (short of breath). The White House Press Release notes that the speech was delivered at the The Woodrow Wilson Center, in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. Undoubtedly, history will record that it was given from the Donald Rumsfeld Lectern, spoken into the Condoleeza Rice Microphone, and read from the Michael Chertoff Teleprompter.

The President’s strangulating grip on his own self-righteously evident truth is slowly devolving into a soft grasp on reality. But, you have to be alert to catch the subtle loss of his pet squeeze. First, he said: “In the war on terror, Iraq is now the central front -- and over the last few weeks, I've been discussing our political, economic, and military strategy for victory in that country.”

Notice the Bushian slip (yes, it’s related to the “Freudian” slip, but since born-again Methodists don’t have dirty thoughts except about bombing the hell out of the enemy, a new term is in order) that Iraq is “now” the central front. Never mind that a front is a front and not a center. I’ll take “central front” to mean the “center of the front.” I’ll also take “now” to mean “not then.” It is heartening though that, at long last, we have a political, economic, and military strategy for victory.

Keep in mind though that people in carapaces often have convincing conversations with themselves.

Next the President said: “September the 11th also changed the way I viewed threats like Saddam Hussein. We saw the destruction terrorists could cause with airplanes loaded with jet fuel -- and we imagined the destruction they could cause with even more powerful weapons. At the time, the leaders of both political parties recognized this new reality: We cannot allow the world's most dangerous men to get their hands on the world's most dangerous weapons. In an age of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, if we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long.

We removed Saddam Hussein from power because he was a threat to our security.”

This is the first Bushian slip admitting that September 11 caused some change in his thinking about Saddam Hussein. Although we know of the reports that within days of that fateful attack, the President was asking if Hussein could be linked to 9-11, the Administration has steadfastly denied that they sought to manufacture a linkage between the Iraq of then and Al-Qaeda.

Well, now we have direct evidence of backwards reasoning. But then, think about it this way, Saddam backwards is “Mad-ass” or something close enough, so, what the heck, let’s not take a chance. There’s no percentage in getting your rear end caught in a mushroom cloud wringer now, is there? And if the events of 9-11 were mad-ass in the extreme, well then the connection to Mad-ass is not that far-fetched. Especially, not far-fetched if you are reasoning bass-ackward (or is it bush-ackward)?

And, the President also said: “When we made the decision to go into Iraq, many intelligence agencies around the world judged that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. This judgment was shared by the intelligence agencies of governments who did not support my decision to remove Saddam. And it is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As President, I'm responsible for the decision to go into Iraq -- and I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities. And we're doing just that.... Given Saddam's history and the lessons of September the 11th, my decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision. Saddam was a threat -- and the American people and the world is better off because he is no longer in power. We are in Iraq today because our goal has always been more than the removal of a brutal dictator; it is to leave a free and democratic Iraq in its place.”

Okay, so we have come full circle from denial to admitting that the intelligence was wrong. Eventually, somebody will recognize that a decision made on a false premise cannot be justified by recasting the premise into something it never was. But the first step is looking at the view from within the carapace and seeing that one of the wheels has fallen off. My Republican friends seem to believe that the President is riding in an 18-wheeler than can continue on 17, and my Democrat friends seem to hope that it is a tricycle that cannot afford to lose a wheel. All I know for certain is that SOB is not riding that scooter any more.

But, you know what troubles me is not the President’s latest ad lib but the failure to acknowledge that more than faulty intelligence was involved. We now know that al-Libi (Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi) was the apparent source of the President’s pre-invasion claims that Madass was training Al-Qaeda operatives in the use of biological weapons. Of course, now that he acknowledges there were no biological weapons, it should follow that Mad-ass could not have trained people to use something that did not exist. But, it’ll take time for such a complex concept to sink in and gel.

You will recall that al-Libi (and no, my Republican friends, he is not related to al-gore) is the guy who claims that his “revelations” about these connections were squeezed out of him while he was being tortured – after he was rendered (I assume that’s the correct word for when one is the object of a rendition) for interrogation by the Egyptians. On the other hand, “rendered” evokes images of being boiled in hot water until you lose a lot of fat. Gee, I’ll have to write about that torture stuff one of these days.

While I am heartened by the President’s slowly evolving ability to grasp what happened – he now takes responsibility, I cannot emphasize more strongly that what really troubles me is that the entire military campaign was based on the statements of one captured Arab that Madass was training Al-Qaeda operatives. Am I missing something or is it just common sense that you don’t go off to war based on what one guy – a fellow you have never met before until you just captured him recently – says?

Unlike some of my Democrat friends, I have been hesitant to say that the President personally misled us into war. I have always said that he made the wrong decision. He has not quite come to saying that much although, for the first time, he admits that the information on which the decision was based, was false.

It is difficult to understand how so many players in the Administration – Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice, to name a few of the biggies – could have gone off on an oratorio-like chant about WMD without the President’s involvement as the composer Handel of this particular messianic work. But, I suppose it is possible that he thought these people were being directed by God and doing her work.

There is hope though. Well over a year ago, I wrote a piece saying that it was time to withdraw from Iraq in a sensible way – by moving to the periphery. Congressman Jack Murtha has prompted discussion about withdrawing and the President has suggested that US troops should be pulled back from the cities. Maybe, just maybe, Carl Rover has been reading Breakfast.

Cheerz….Bwana

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Time to declare defeat? Get de-feet out of Iraq

2005-11-26T12:14:00.000-05:00

In view of the recent swell of calls by Rep. Murtha, followed by many other Democrats and then Senator Joseph Biden, I thought I'd republish something I wrote in September, 2004,-- 14 months ago:

Breakfast with Bwana

September 21, 2004

To Everything There Is A Season -- Time To Declare Defeat:

In Lovedale, there is a school that was once known as The Major
General Sir Henry Lawrence Royal Memorial Military School. It is now
knows as The Lawrence School. The School's motto is "Never Give
In." Lovedale is a tiny little hill station at an elevation of
7,000+ feet MSL, between Ooty and Coonor. In some ways, the change
of name was a declaration of defeat, it was a "giving in" of sorts.
The move was perhaps an accommodation to a new sense of brevity (not
one of my problems!) but more likely, was a reflection of a
politically correct approach in a newly independent nation whose
government had effectively "nationalized" the institution while
retaining its character as a public school. "Public" school in the
Indian (and British) context means a snooty "private" school. It
probably wouldn't have done at all to have a "Royal" school in a
newly independent nation. As y'all might have guessed, I didn't go
to school in Crawford -- I went to Lovedale. In the parlance of my
schoolmates, I am an Old Lawrencian, an "OL," a member of the "OLA"
(Old Lawrencians Association).

Putting aside the inevitable disclaimers about Alzheimer's and
arthritis that the term "Old Lawrencian" prompts, I have always been
intrigued by the school's motto "Never Give In" because, from the get
go, I thought it foolish.

Our President seems to be suffering a case of terminal Never Give In,
or, more likely, of Never Let Go.

For months, I have watched, as you all have, the unfolding horror in
Iraq and wondered just what do we think we are doing. Then it hit
me ... we really are not doing what we think.

For a moment, I'd like to look at the problem of Iraq from outside
the box of partisan politics, putting aside the question whether the
President misled the nation about weapons of mass destruction, or had
other hidden agendas, and putting aside the question whether we
should have been in Iraq in the first place.

The fact is, we are in Iraq. But the fact is that we should not be
in Iraq in our present capacity which is a sort of police presence
without police powers, a sort of military occupation without martial
law, and a sort of friendly invader without friends.

After the initial bombardment of Iraq designed to "soften" any
resistance, it was no surprise that the US and British forces had an
easy entree into Iraq. For a moment, despite some recusance, it
appeared that the Iraqi people did welcome the overthrow of Saddam
Hussein, or at least the toppling of his statue. I think our mistake
was to treat the Iraqi joy at being rid of Saddam Hussein as the
equivalent of joy at the prospect of having the US maintain a
presence as an occupying force.

I think it is probably reasonable that we tried to be an army of
occupation with the lofty goal of rebuilding the infrastructure and
setting the stage for democratic elections. Yet, on second thought,
it is clear that one of the purposes of our occupation was to prevent
the Shiite majority from gaining control and forming a fundamentalist
Islamic state. There is also no question that we sought to preserve
the territory of Iraq without having considered seriously how the
Kurds, Sunnis and Shia would get along without a supervening
dictatorial structure that was intolerant of autonomous leanings.
Although there are rumblings of a solution with three separate
autonomous regions, we have clearly not resolved how these three
factions will form a nation state of their own volition.

The eruption of violence -- disdainfully characterized by the
spinmeisters of the Administration as an "insurgency" has made the
rebuilding of the country's infrastructure a distant hope and
obviously cast doubt on the viability of even staging an election,
never mind having the election be an accepted declaration of the will
of the Iraqi people. President Bush even went so far as to suggest
that our initial overwhelming success allowed the insurgents to melt
into the populace, regroup, and come back at us. The Administration
has also suggested that the insurgents are outsiders sponsored by Al
Qaeda. Here's what President Bush said in an interview given to Time
Magazine:"Had we to do it over again, we would look at the
consequences of catastrophic success, being so successful so fast
that an enemy that should have surrendered or been done in escaped
and lived to fight another day."

"OK." Yes, I understand. It's perfectly clear. You don't get it?
You don't say.

It is clear to me that we have no prospect of control over the
insurgents given our extant view of how much military force we are
willing to deploy. Part of the reason may be that while most Iraqis
may not support the "insurgents," they certainly get some perverse
sense of satisfaction in tweaking the nose of the American military.
This all leads me to express what, at least to me, has been an
obvious point -- the American system of governance, with its checks
and balances for a free people, is not the kind of system that works
with a people not yet free and not cognizant of the value of checks
and balances. That will all come, we hope, in due time. Meanwhile,
there is, in my view, little hope that the US military can control
the violence without becoming a repressive, brutal and ruthless
occupation force. Not only is there no will in the US leadership to
have the military assume such a role, it is not in the psyche of this
nation. It just simply cannot happen that we will use military force
to impose martial law type of control. Moreover, we may not have the
forces to commit to such a course.

There is, however, in Iraq, as there was in Iran, a force that can
impose control and eliminate the violence overnight. That force is
the authority of the clergy. Oh yes, I know that everyone will
immediately shrink back in horror and say that we cannot let the
mullahs and the ayatollahs take control. Yes, we can. Let us go
back to our initial goals: a. get rid of Saddam Hussein, b. rebuild
the infrastructure, c. set the stage for a democracy while not
permitting a democratic choice to be a fundamentalist Islamic
Republic. Well, we have accomplished a, and cannot do any more of b,
until we have some sort of stage that is stable. I think that if the
military were to withdraw and we were to cease all work on rebuilding
the infrastructure until there is stability, the clergy would fill
the vacuum and bring about a sense of order. Our message would be
simple: 1. we will not work on rebuilding the country if our
soldiers and workers are being attacked, and 2. while we are ceding
control to the clergy, we stand by at the ready to take action if
there is any attempt to create a dictatorial fundamentalist Islamic
state.

This plan would get us out of the business of being a police force
without police powers, remove us as an occupying force, and give the
people a stake in promoting stability and tranquility without which
we cannot rebuild their country and its infrastructure. Without a
defined enemy -- the American soldier -- to attack, the insurgents
must attack fellow Iraqis or cease their destructive actions. It
seems to me that if the Islamic clergy can rally the populace to put
a stop to the violence, it will be stopped. There is little chance
that the clergy will exert such influence on behalf of American
occupation forces, but to protect the Iraqi people .... well, that's
a different story.

The problem is that President Bush likely won't do this and Senator
Kerry has not thought of it.

It's time to give in and declare defeat in respect to a portion of
the task we should never have undertaken. We should simply admit
that we have no business being a local police force and have no
ability to force the populace to cooperate with us in preventing more
attacks.

Do you all think it's hopeless? Well, don't give up just yet. There
is hope. As Sir Henry Lawrence said: "Never Give In."

Cheerz.....Bwana

___________________________________________________________________________________

Crepuscular and Feckless - Mean Jean and Cheney to get Thanksgiving Pardon

2005-11-23T14:12:00.000-05:00

__________________________________________________________________________________

Breakfast with Bwana
NOVEMBER 23, 2005

CREPUSCULAR AND FECKLESS –
MEAN JEAN AND CHENEY TO GET THANKSGIVING PARDON:

Happy Thanksgiving!

As Americans ungratefully anxious for the arrival of Thursday so that we might express our thanks that Black Friday is nigh upon us, we have the great tradition of the Presidential Thanksgiving pardon.

In a display of the essential kindness and nobility of the American spirit, the President – I mean no less than the President himself – grants a pardon to a turkey or two. See last year’s comment on this subject; I have included a copy below. Last year’s commentary came on the heels of the spat created by Vice who was then SOB (short of breath) having displayed his feckless tendencies – he told Senator Patrick Leahy to feck off.

The bird that Vice showed to Leahy was not a turkey or even one with Avian Flu, but he had his finger on it.

I have not seen this year’s pardon ceremony. Perhaps the President has been busy while off in Asia, with his open palm extended as if begging for acceptance of his world vision like some sort of latter day gaberlunzie. Why, even the Mongolians were fair game for the Presidential stopover.

Or perhaps, this latter day saint of Crawford sees the irony in pardoning the turkey as a show of conservative compassion even while Vice calls for torture, and even as John Bolthead the UN Ambassador gives formal notice that we are formally renouncing our obligations as a signatory to the 1988 Rome Treaty of Rome, the Rome Statute to set up the International Criminal Court. Perhaps Bolthead will have time for a cup of Kofi flavored with corrupt beans.

Whatever, the cause, it is clear that the President might need some help in locating a suitable turkey or turkeys. Last year, his pardon of “Biscuits” and “Gravy” set in motion the hope that multiple turkeys would be eligible for pardoning in the future. I mean, we have only four more Thanksgiving days under this President (2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008) – and thanks for that – so there is some need for expanding the scope of the pardon eligible.

The Republican right wing nominators have suggested Rep. John Murtha as an eligible Turkey for gobbling up a lot of media space. However, Vice had to backtrack and refer to him as a “friend, a patriot and a marine.” I mean, you can’t call a guy who is an “f, p, and m” a turkey now, can you?

Some suggested Senator Ted Kennedy for saying what many won’t or can’t – that Vice says with a straight face something that is boldfaced, or that the Administration and its cronies have trouble grasping the truth. They suggest that the Senior Senator from MassaBLUEsetts has no standing. The Junior Senator whose campaign left him with the blues but wishing there had been more of ‘em especially in Ohio, came to the rescue by suggesting that the Administration could make some croniesberry sauce for Thanksgiving. Apparently, it contains Ketchup (Heinz, of course) to simulate the red flowing from casualties and maiming and wounding and bombs and IEDs. (N.B. Heinz is Republican as all get out, but one does not bite the hand that feeds one).

As a digression, I might point out that a friend – 64 year old gynecologist – was called up with his Army Reserve unit and spent 5-6 weeks in Iraq recently. The female GIs are getting pregnant but not allowed to have abortions since Army hospitals cannot provide that service.

IEDs all over but no condoms for AIDS and no IUDs for maids.

Okay, back to Vice CHEstpaiNEY. I don’t know if you all remember that he recently had a minor surgical intervention for an aneurysm behind his knee. I was tempted to change his moniker to CHEkneEY but we might then miss the idea that he is still SOB (short of breath).

Other than that, he is usually in an undisclosed location, presumably in the torture chamber at Gitmo with that snarly upturned lip of his, grinning that rotweiler grin as prisoners are informed that John Bolthead just told the UN to feck it.

Of course, what the doctors missed was that the area between his chest and his knee, where his brain resides was in need of attention. Alas, he suffered a brain asseurysm (or, as the Aussies say in Oz, a brayn arseurysm) when he spouted off about revisionist history.

But last week, Vice made one of his crepuscular appearances even as the light at the end of the tunnel was getting decidedly dimmer for the Administration. Why, it looks like the twilight of the great campaign to make the “Great Campaign” sound like it really was a great campaign.

Here are excerpts from Vice CHEstpaiNEY’s latest – imagine, the SOB (shortness of breath, that is) allowing for some dramatic discharges of hissing air as he intones:

My remarks today concern national security, in particular the war on terror and the Iraq front in that war. Several days ago, I commented briefly on some recent statements that have been made by some members of Congress about Iraq. Within hours of my speech, a report went out on the wires under the headline, "Cheney says war critics 'dishonest,' 'reprehensible.'"
One thing I've learned in the last five years is that when you're Vice President, you're lucky if your speeches get any attention at all. But I do have a quarrel with that headline, and it's important to make this point at the outset. I do not believe it is wrong to criticize the war on terror or any aspect thereof.
What is not legitimate -- and what I will again say is dishonest and reprehensible -- is the suggestion by some U. S. senators that the President of the United States or any member of his administration purposely misled the American people on pre-war intelligence.

So, he apologizes, sort of. But, notice that he defended the President – he forgot to mention that he himself is charged with misleading the American people. He has not denied that. But then, after backing of the “dishonest and reprehensible charge” he’s right back repeating it in the same speech.

For being feckless once again (Feckless: Lacking purpose or vitality; feeble or ineffective; Careless and irresponsible) I nominate him as the first turkey for this year’s fecking pardon by the President.

My next candidate is Mean Jean. That’s Representative Jean Schmidt of Cincinnati, Ohio. She is one who used the word “coward” in an apparent effort to denigrate Rep. John Murtha’s call for an end to the presence of the US military in Iraq.

What was missed and got lost in the gloaming was his point that the military has done all it can do in Iraq. Of course, that is correct. Policing Iraq is not a military issue. Obviously, if we pull out now, there is the danger that Iraq will become a part of Greater Iran. But, more on that another time.

Jean, like Vice SOB CHEstpaiNEY also has a brain problem. It’s called Bird Brain Flu (foolish lips unleashed).

She is my second candidate for a fecking pardon by the President.

Cheerz….Bwana

__________________________________________________________________________________

Last year's comment:

Breakfast with Bwana
NOVEMBER 17, 2004
THANKSGIVING PARDON:
In a time-honored tradition, President Bush today pardoned the Thanksgiving Turkey named Biscuits. What was barely noticed, however, was that President Bush kept a pretty firm grip on the bird's neck while posing for photographers immediately after the announcement of the pardon. Those who pay attention to such things will recall that three years ago, a then less experienced Prez was the subject of a pretty good peck by that year's feckless recipient of the Rose Garden benediction.
The President dismissed speculation that the bird from three years ago was a Democrat but pondered, briefly, whether all Democrats are turkeys. In a show of goodwill, not to be mistaken for rapprochement, he pardoned another turkey named Gravy.
Dick Cheney, still short of breath (SOB) was at the President's side. Not a man to be impressed by shows of kindness to the enemy, he was seen hovering over Biscuits and overheard saying under his short breath "Feckless turkey, feck you." Upon being informed of this, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont promptly announced that he would support the nomination of Alberto Gonzales for Attila General. "But Judge Gonzales is no Attila the Hun; he's far from that, and he's a more uniting figure" said Leahy. It should be remembered that Senator Leahy had been the subject of a feck by SOB Vice earlier this season.
The Presidential pardon ceremony prompted other supplicants to emerge.
The Save the Skeets Foundation sent in a petition to save Ann Veneman's job as Secretary of Agriculture. Titled "PULL! for Ann" the scroll featured pictures of a soybean, a tomato, and a potatoe ... make that potato. Ann was off on a quail hunting trip, just to get away from it all.
Alan Greenspan lurked in the shadows holding a letter asking that the turkeys be renamed "Inflation" and "Hedge" but never had the nerve to present it. "It is increasingly clear that the lack of clarity of fiscal policy is clouding the effects of monetary policy as anecdotal evidence of confusing signals begins to emerge from the statistical data that are as yet unresolved," he said in a forceful show of Greenspeak. Vice spat and said "Feckin' hell. What was that all about?"
The senior senator from Pennsylvania sought to be forgiven for his trespasses. "I should not have waded into waters too deep to row" he said, in seeking a pardon. Senator Leahy, already the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee expressed indirect support for Senator Specter's bid to be the next to fall into the open hatch to the committee chairmanship. Vice said "Feck, that."
Meanwhile, the Prez, relieved of the national security problem of having to hold on to the Democratic turkey's neck, said to Vice, "You know, Dick, the problem with Allen is that he can't spell and we have the spectre of him for a long time. I think I'm going to have to get someone who gets the spellings right." Vice shook his head and said, "Mr. President, I think his name is Arlen, but you know, it's brilliant to appoint someone named Spellings to the education post. That'll serve 'em fecking right."
The pardoned turkeys are to spend the rest of their lives at a farm in Virginia or West Virginia. It is not clear whether that is the same location where Martha Stewart is ensconced. Her petition for a pardon, arrived just as Gravy let go on the President's sleeve and was hastily used to wipe up after him. See, if the petition doesn't get there when it absolutely, positively has to, that's what brown can do for you. Sorry, Martha.
Cheerz...Bwana

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Nightcap with Bwana - explanation/clarity/apology(?)

2005-11-04T22:19:00.000-05:00

_________________________________________________________________________________
NIGHTCAP WITH BWANA

This morning, I commented on a report from The Washington Post on the President’s poll numbers. My comments provoked the following emails from two friends who are both very bright (ergo not morons) and still support Bush (well, one wholeheartedly, and the other, up to a point).

The comments were:

__________

Bwana:

What makes you think that the “moron base” is not really the “smart solid based” and the so-called “smart” negative base is the “desperate crazy fringe?”

You undoubtedly recall (because you studied American history more than 30 years ago and don’t think the Civil War took place in the 1930’s in an early athletic arena called the Dust Bow) that Lincoln looked like an absolute political loser; but then Sherman took Atlanta, marched to the sea cutting the Confederacy in half and Democratic candidate Gen. George “let’s not fight, let’s just bugout” McClellan became the John Kerry of his times.

On the other hand, one can always be wrong and find that turning the country over to Chuck the Schumer, Barbara the Boxer and Ted the Great Swimmer is a winning idea.

______

To this, I replied:

It seems to me that when 70% of the country believes that we are on the wrong track it is pretty hard to sustain the argument that the “moron base” is a “smart solid base.” But, my Republican friends do take comfort in two out of three – (i) smart (ii) solid (iii) base.

As for Bushie, it is clear enough that he will see resurgence in the polls. That is the American way and many missteps by the modern-day McClellans are sure to follow. Of course, the modern-day McClellan has had the recommended sex change operation and renamed hisself Hillary.

On the subject of whether the country should have been or should be turned over, my friend Clxxxx, a right wing yahoo like yourself (!), reminds me that we don’t have choices, we have alternatives, and on that score, we probably chose the better alternative at the time.

Alternatives do, however, have pluses and minuses, so like an alternating current, we will see phases when the negative outweighs or overrides the positive.

______

and the second comment was:

as you read the following, please understand I agree with your assessment of the job of this President. But I take issue with your characterization of certain of his supporters.

Is not calling people morons harsh? Simply because you are in the 33.3% who are at the other end of the spectrum does not make you correct (though you may be) in your political views. I find it just as reprehensible for either extreme to vilify the other. As educated as you are, surely some other form of demeaning those who disagree with would be more fitting.

I enjoy your stuff!

_______

to which I replied:

No offense taken and I’m sorry you took offense.

I think, if you read carefully, I point out that he has support among “independents” and also among “Democrats” and “And when you consider that he has lost a substantial amount or Republicans while retaining but a handful of Democrats, it would appear that the more or less “guaranteed” one-third, is not guaranteed at all in his case.”

The point is not that everyone who supports Bush is a “moron” but that the guaranteed one-third on either end of the spectrum do tend to be morons.

One of my friends, whom I constantly rib by calling him a right-wing-redneck-yahoo, quickly assured me that he was not a moron although he still loves Bush – mostly because the “alternatives” were and remain horrible. I probably agree on that in many respects.

So, perhaps I’ll send an explanatory note and also point out that some of the reaction is understandable and predictable.

Hope this makes you think I haven’t totally lost objectivity. I am NOT a Democrat. I voted for Bush the first time around. I truly believe he has either taken a wrong turn or been misled, probably the latter. I do believe that he has set us back 50-100 years socially and economically. But, as these things go, terrorism remains the number one priority and he may be still the best person on that front because, at a minimum, he understands the problem.

_____

and my friend responded:

I do, indeed, note that you point his support form independents and Democrats. But that support, as you know, is weak for the most part. He is losing support on all fronts, it seems.

Like you, I think Bush has been misled. And like your friend, I think the alternatives to Bush were worse. I committed the sinful act of voting for him a second time, because I could not buy into Kerry at all.

I agree with your assessment that this President has set us back economically by at least 50 years. My support has waned because of the issues of economics more than any other. (Lately, the integrity issue has become one for me as well, but the cynic in me leads to pass much of that off as politics as usual.)

Anyway, your points as always well taken.

Thanks!

_________________

Okay, what is going on here? Well, first, I did not call anyone and everyone who supports Bush a moron. I was merely pointing out that, in my view, on any question one will find one-third on either end of the spectrum. Some might argue that these fringe elements are only 10, 15, or even 20% but not fully a third. My point is that these extremes, which I call the “moron base” on any subject, exist on ALL issues, Democratic Republican, Religion, Abortion, Sports, you name it.

What I was trying to emphasize is that George Bush has suffered a horrific erosion of his “moron base.” The fact is that the one-third who would have said yes to any question in support of Bush has eroded while the one-third who would have said no to any question about Bush remains steadfast and even imbued with a sense of righteousness.

It is important to recognize that of the 39% or so who believe that he is doing a good job as President, we have 78% of Republicans supporting him, along with 11% of Democrats and 33% of “independents.”

Not all of the Republicans, Democrats and Independents fit into the guaranteed one-third. Therefore, there has been erosion of his “moron base.”

As I pointed out to my friend, when 70% of the country believes we are on the wrong track, there is perforce erosion of the one-third in his guaranteed base, and surely, the 30% who believe we are still on the right track include many who are intelligent, thoughtful people. I disagree with them, but that is a different issue from the point I was addressing.

One other point to ponder is: I am prepared to bet that if my thesis is correct that one-third on each end forms the “moron base” for any proposition, 80% of Americans would, nevertheless say they fit in the middle third!

Ah well …

Cheerz….Bwana
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Inside the Polls - Erosion of the Base

2005-11-04T11:01:00.000-05:00

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I have long maintained that if you take a poll, one-third will say yes, one-third will say no, and the middle third will make the decision.

Therefore, if Bush were to hit 33-34% positive in whatever, it’s a pretty fair bet that anyone with a brain has recognized him for the disaster that he is for this country. And we still have almost 39 months of him left. That’s almost as long as some of those 39-month car leases.

Here is an article from TWP about the latest daily (!) poll.

Note that 39% “approve” of the job he is doing as President. So, of the middle one-third, we have about 5.67% (of the whole) still thinking goofy. 40% view him as honest and trustworthy – consistent with the foregoing.

What should be scary for him is that 58% question his integrity. So, putting aside the one-third who would have said so anyway, he has lost 2/3 of that middle group … and there was a 13-point drop in the past 18 months.

There is no comfort in thinking this is a recent phenomenon or related to Scootah.

To prove the validity of my first observation, the article reports: “Beyond the leak case, Americans give the administration low scores on ethics, according to the survey, with 67 percent rating the administration negatively on handling ethical matters, while just 32 percent give the administration positive marks.”

There’s your one-third hard core moron base. One cannot make too much of 1.33 percentage points, but even the one-third of the moron base has started to show erosion.

Who said there’s no hope for the morons?

The article also reports: “The dissatisfaction with Bush flows in part out of broad concerns about the overall direction of the country. Nearly 7 in 10 -- 68 percent -- believe the country is seriously off course, while only 30 percent are optimistic, the lowest level in more than nine years.”

So, there you have more evidence of erosion in the moron base.

Actually, things are a lot worse than even those superficial counts show: “Among independents, Bush's approval has plummeted since the beginning of the year. In the latest poll, 33 percent of independents approved of his performance, while 66 percent disapproved. In January, independents were evenly divided, with 49 percent approving and an equal percentage disapproving.”
As if to prove my point about one-third always saying “yes” on any poll, the number of independents approving of his performance is 33%. This tells us two things: first, he has lost the entire middle … a truly frightening development for any “leader” and well deserved in this case; second, since 39% overall approve of his job performance, either 33% of independents represents 5.67% of the total, or he has lost even more of his original moron base than we think. And when you consider that he has lost a substantial amount or Republicans while retaining but a handful of Democrats, it would appear that the more or less “guaranteed” one-third, is not guaranteed at all in his case. He has truly ventured into quicksand while denying that he is up to his waist in it.
In any organization, a CEO with this kind of performance would be fired, would have resigned, or had a sex change operation and renamed himself Carlton Fiorina.

Cheerz…Bwana

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Bush's Popularity Reaches New Low
58 Percent in Poll Question His Integrity
By Richard Morin and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 4, 2005; A01
For the first time in his presidency a majority of Americans question the integrity of President Bush, and growing doubts about his leadership have left him with record negative ratings on the economy, Iraq and even the war on terrorism, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows.
On almost every key measure of presidential character and performance, the survey found that Bush has never been less popular with the American people. Currently 39 percent approve of the job he is doing as president, while 60 percent disapprove of his performance in office -- the highest level of disapproval ever recorded for Bush in Post-ABC polls.
Virtually the only possible bright spot for Bush in the survey was generally favorable, if not quite enthusiastic, early reaction to his latest Supreme Court nominee, Samuel A. Alito Jr. Half of Americans say Alito should be confirmed by the Senate, and less than a third view him as too conservative, the poll found.
Overall, the survey underscores how several pillars of Bush's presidency have begun to crumble under the combined weight of events and White House mistakes. Bush's approval ratings have been in decline for months, but on issues of personal trust, honesty and values, Bush has suffered some of his most notable declines. Moreover, Bush has always retained majority support on his handling of the U.S. campaign against terrorism -- until now, when 51 percent have registered disapproval.
The CIA leak case has apparently contributed to a withering decline in how Americans view Bush personally. The survey found that 40 percent now view him as honest and trustworthy -- a 13 percentage point drop in the past 18 months. Nearly 6 in 10 -- 58 percent -- said they have doubts about Bush's honesty, the first time in his presidency that more than half the country has questioned his personal integrity.
The indictment Friday of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, in the CIA leak case added to the burden of an administration already reeling from a failed Supreme Court nomination, public dissatisfaction with the economy and continued bloodshed in Iraq. According to the survey, 52 percent say the charges against Libby signal the presence of deeper ethical wrongdoing in the administration. Half believe White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, the president's top political hand, also did something wrong in the case -- about 6 in 10 say Rove should resign.
Beyond the leak case, Americans give the administration low scores on ethics, according to the survey, with 67 percent rating the administration negatively on handling ethical matters, while just 32 percent give the administration positive marks. Four in 10 -- 43 percent -- say the level of ethics and honesty in the federal government has fallen during Bush's presidency, while 17 percent say it has risen.
Faced with its cascade of recent setbacks, the White House is hoping the latest court nomination can rally disaffected conservatives and score the president a victory akin to the one he enjoyed in the nomination of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Alito begins the confirmation process with the support of 49 percent of the public, while 29 percent say he should not be confirmed, the poll found. One in 5 Americans -- 22 percent -- did not yet know enough about him to make a judgment.
The dissatisfaction with Bush flows in part out of broad concerns about the overall direction of the country. Nearly 7 in 10 -- 68 percent -- believe the country is seriously off course, while only 30 percent are optimistic, the lowest level in more than nine years. Only 3 in 10 express high levels of confidence in Bush, while half say they have little or no confidence in this administration.
Just 35 percent of those surveyed rated the economy as either excellent or good, with 65 percent describing it as not so good or poor. Although the government reported last week that gross domestic product rose 3.8 percent in the last quarter, despite the effects of Hurricane Katrina, 29 percent of those surveyed said they regard the economy as poor, the highest recorded during Bush's presidency.
Attitudes toward Bush are sharply polarized by party, as they have been throughout his presidency. Almost 8 in 10 -- 78 percent -- of Republicans support the president, while just 11 percent of Democrats rate him positively. Republicans long have been the key to Bush's overall strength, but Bush has suffered some defections since the beginning of the year, when 91 percent approved of the way he was handling his job.
Among independents, Bush's approval has plummeted since the beginning of the year. In the latest poll, 33 percent of independents approved of his performance, while 66 percent disapproved. In January, independents were evenly divided, with 49 percent approving and an equal percentage disapproving.
The intensity of Bush's support has changed since his reelection a year ago, with opponents deepening their hostility toward the administration. In the latest survey, 47 percent said they strongly disapprove of the way he was performing in office, compared with 35 percent who expressed strong disapproval in January. At the same time, the percentage who say they strongly approve of his performance has fallen from 33 percent last January to 20 percent today.
Iraq remains a significant drag on Bush's presidency, with dissatisfaction over the situation there continuing to grow and with suspicion rising over whether administration officials misled the country in the run-up to the invasion more than two years ago.
Nearly two-thirds disapprove of the way Bush is handling the situation there, while barely a third approve, a new low. Six in 10 now believe the United States was wrong to invade Iraq, a seven-point increase in just over two months, with almost half the country saying they strongly believe it was wrong.
About 3 in 4 -- 73 percent -- say there have been an unacceptable level of casualties in Iraq. More than half -- 52 percent -- say the war with Iraq has not contributed to the long-term security of the United States.
The same percentage -- 52 percent -- says the United States should keep its military forces in Iraq until civil order is restored, and only about 1 in 5 -- 18 percent -- say the United States should withdraw its forces immediately. In the week after U.S. deaths in Iraq passed the 2,000 mark, a majority of those surveyed -- 55 percent -- said the United States is not making significant progress toward stabilizing the country.
The war has taken a toll on the administration's credibility: A clear majority -- 55 percent -- now says the administration deliberately misled the country in making its case for war with Iraq -- a conflict that an even larger majority say is not worth the cost.
The president's handling of terrorism was widely regarded among strategists as the key to his winning a second term last year. But questions about Bush's effectiveness on other fronts have also depreciated this asset. His 48 percent approval now compares with 61 percent approval on this issue at the time of his second inauguration, down from a 2004 high of 66 percent.
Bush also set new lows in the latest Post-ABC News poll for his management of the economy, where disapproval topped 60 percent for the first time in his presidency. And 6 in 10 are critical of the way Bush is dealing with health care -- a double-digit increase since March. On gasoline prices, Bush's numbers have increased slightly over the past two months but still remain highly negative, with just 26 percent rating him positively.
The survey suggests a rapidly widening gulf between Bush and the American people. Two in 3 say Bush does not understand the problems of people like them, a 10 percentage point increase since January.
Nearly 6 in 10 -- 58 percent -- doubt Bush shares their values, while 40 percent say he does, another new low for this president. For the first time since he took office, fewer than half -- 47 percent -- said Bush is a strong leader, and Americans divided equally over whether Bush can be trusted in a crisis.
Told of the poll results, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said Bush will rally support through such issues as education reform, changes to the tax code, and a new energy strategy to show the public that he "will continue to push for changes in our government to serve the American people."
A total of 1,202 randomly selected adults were interviewed Oct. 30-Nov. 2 for this survey. Margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus three percentage points.
Assistant polling director Claudia Deane contributed to this report.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company

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The Lame Duck-Billed Platytudepus

2005-09-21T20:03:00.000-05:00

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September 21, 2005

Breakfast with Bwana

The Lame-Duck-Billed Platytudepus:

“Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style.” – President Bush, November 4, 2004.

I know that President Bush does not believe in the morning-after pill, but when he uttered those words on the morning after the election, I couldn’t help but think it was one of the more stupid statements I had ever heard. A bitter morning-after pill whose taste he wishes he never had experienced. Coming from this candidate for the top prize in most stupid statements out of one mouth in the shortest span of time, that statement may not rank, at first blush, at the top of the heap. But think about it for a moment and you’ll get the picture.

Here we are, eight months post the inauguration for the second term. Mr. Bush just received a letter from the Bank of Political Capital. In pertinent part, it states: “Dear Mr. President: Your political capital has been exhausted and your account overdrawn. We can no longer honor checks without balances.”

Maureen Dowd, columnist for The New York Times seems to have achieved an orgiastic state in her Bush bashing. Tom Friedman too proves that Bush bashing is as fun as it seems popular.

What is lost, however, is the truth that this is probably the worst President in the history of the United States. Now, I know there are other candidates, but most of them have been ineffective, not desperately wrong. It seems that on virtually every issue of our time, this man makes a statement that defines a laudable goal: curb terrorism, cut taxes, fix social security, improve the education system – you name it – and then, on every issue, he stakes out the wrong position. No, not just the wrong position, but the WRONG position.

Now, in the wake of the devastation of our policy in Iraq, we hear platitudes about the “war on terror.” Iraq has become, in the President’s lame justifications, what it never was to begin with – a central part of the war on terror.

And talking about lame justifications, we have a lame duck President spewing platitudes on the Gulf Coast, in Mississippi, in New Orleans, wherever there is a chance that someone might want to know that this President doesn’t have a clue on how to fix anything. So, what does he say? He says to the people of Mississippi and Louisiana that they must tell the federal government what they want to do because the federal government won’t tell them. Of course, the federal government wouldn’t know what to say if asked. But, despite that, he says that he wants Congress to appropriate $60+ billion for the effort. Congress has already appropriated $73+ billion including supplemental bills. What’s another $10-15 billion when you have responsible contractors like Halliburton and Bechtel getting no-bid contracts?

The lame duck says that we will build a Mississippi and New Orleans better than ever. Really? At $200 billion, I sure hope it’s better than the $87 billion job we got in Iraq. Platitudes, platitudes, platitudes.

And he tells the American people and Congress that he will not raise taxes to pay for all this. So, what is Congress to do? Simple, says Mr. Platitude, you figure it out. Go cut something else.

What we got here folks, is a lame-duck-billed-platytudepus!

Three years and four months left. I hope nothing happens to this lame duck-billed mammal, or we could get Dick CHestpaiNEY instead. Why would a grown man call himself “Dick” anyway?

Cheerz….Bwana

P.S. For your souvenir collection, here’s a picture of the Commander-in-Chief at his November 4, 2004 press conference. Below is a more recent picture of him wallowing in the Gulf Coast shallows.
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IT’S NOT SCHADENFREUDE WHEN THE MISFORTUNE IS OUR OWN

2005-09-07T21:39:00.000-05:00

IT’S NOT SCHADENFREUDE WHEN THE MISFORTUNE IS OUR OWN:

schadenfreude \SHOD-n-froy-duh\, noun:

Pleasure or satisfaction derived from the misfortunes of others.

One definition suggest that it is a “malicious” satisfaction obtained from the mistfortunes of others.

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Schadenfreude comes from the German, from Schaden, "damage" +

Freude, "joy." It is often capitalized, as it is in German.

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I begin with the confession that in 2000 I voted for George W. Bush. Not that my vote made any difference since it was cast in Massachusetts, but I couldn’t stand Al Gore. Who knows if things would have been as bad under Gore? Certainly, they could not have been any worse.

In 2004, enlightened by evidence that the Republicans showed no signs of being venial, I voted for John Kerry. Not that my vote made any difference, since it was cast in Massachusetts. Who knows if things would have been as bad under Kerry? Certainly, they could not have been any worse.

Ever since 9-11, there have been occasional displays of Schadenfreude from people I know outside the US, suggesting that the attacks of September 11, while reprehensible, were almost understandable given US policy in the Middle East. Perhaps Schadenfreude is not an appropriate word to apply to mostly well-meaning people who thought their insight might help nudge this juggernaut of a country into a change of course. But there are enough people around the world who think that we have made our own misfortune.

With the President almost wetting his pants in his zeal to send the bombers over and the cruise missiles into Iraq, it was inevitable that the cup of Schadenfreude would spill over its brim as the signs of quagmire anticipated developed into quagmire accomplished.

For us at home, there could be no satisfaction in the stumble by Dubya. When our fellow citizens are being killed daily and when the number of young lost runs into the hundreds and the wounded number in the thousands, the fact that the President’s bravado is shown to be foolish, is not cause for joy. It’s not Schadenfreude when the misfortune is our own.

The devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast have highlighted the consequences of the Bush Administration’s policies and lack of policy vision. If anyone had suggested that an American city would be destroyed in its entirety, surely New Orleans would have been on the short list of cities that we all wanted never to be changed.

If two disgruntled Americans (remember the Oklahama City bombing?) or a few foreign terrorists had taken a boat or barge loaded with explosives and blown up the levees holding Lake Ponchatrain, would the President have hesitated in sending in the Army? Oh, I forgot, the troops were busy bringing democracy to the Iraqis. But think about that for a moment. Our systems are so ill-prepared and the country so vulnerable that the Department of Homeland Security might just as well not exist.

That a hurricane caused the rupture of the levees may lead foreigners to exult at the display of the Administration’s incompetence. That this President cut funding for strengthening and shoring up the levees surrounding Lake Ponchatrain was a death sentence for many. For us, it’s not Schadenfreude when the misfortune is our own.

The problem is not just this Bush. If we look back at the Presidency and the Congress since Lyndon Johnson, something frightening emerges. I go back to Lyndon Johnson because despite Vietnam, he had a vision for this country in terms of getting a Civil Rights agenda through Congress. That is an accomplishment for which he should be honored as much as Vietnam was his undoing.

Since then, we have had successively useless Presidents – Nixon, Ford, Carter – a Reagan interlude (see below) – Bush the elder, Clinton, and Dubya. Ronald Reagan, whatever his shortcomings, lifted a country out of its deep malaise and undid the Soviet Union. Other than that, none of the others has had any vision for the country or any sense of purpose to improve the lot of Americans as a nation.

The Congress is equally to blame. Senator George Mitchell as Majority Leader in the Senate and Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House, worked to polarize the nation and the parties. Since then, Trent Lott, Tom Daschle, and Bill Frist, have all viewed their job as one for settling scores and championing or opposing any Administration policy, no matter how meritorious or absurd.

The outpouring of special interest money makes one think that this group of leaders is a venal group. There is nothing venial about their conduct.

As we look forward, the Republican hopefuls – McCain, Gingrich, Frist – and the Democratic hopefuls – Hillary Clinton, Corzine, Edwards, Kerry, Bayh – promise more of the same, an empty leadership without vision or purpose.

We have lost a great city and many thousands of Americans. We would have been better off losing the entirety of our so-called leadership. Would things have been any better? Certainly, they would not have been worse.

It’s not Schadenfreude when the misfortune is our own.

Cheerz….Bwana

The Duchess of Back Burner

2005-04-08T23:11:00.000-05:00

One of the advantages of insomnia is that you get to watch stuff on TV as it is happening in Europe or Australia or the Middle East. For me, this means watching an occasional golf telecast from Australia or Dubai. You see, when the important stuff like Wimbledon or The Open Championship are to be shown, the TV networks arrange for coverage to begin at 9:00 A.M. Eastern time.

With funerals, the options are more limited. I mean, the guy is dead and you have the Cardinals and dignitaries and a huge crowd assembled and eventually, the Port-a-potties are not enough. Besides, if you are the President of the US, or even a former President and quite a bit older as George H. W. Bush 41 is, you don't get up to pee in the middle of the Pope's funeral.

So, the Pope's funeral was broadcast at 4:00 A.M. Eastern time. Mind you, we had already moves clocks ahead. The Spring Ahead day is my favorite day of the year and I love it when we have light early in the morning and late into the day. I never fancied being an eskimo in the winter. So, it was almost light and I didn't feel like I was up in the middle of the night although I was. That's how it is when you are wide asleep.

I woke up and turned on the TV. There was MSNBC with an outsize logo on the left reading "Funeral Mass of John Paul II" -- I was surprised that with their pretentions, it did not read "Ioannes Paulus Secundus" -- and on the right, a logo reading "LIVE MSNBC." Well, the "LIVE" was just to the right of the coffin in front of the altar in St. Peter's Basilica. It seemed incongruous. It was a funeral. The principal participant who made it possible was not live.

So, I switched to NBC. Sure enough, a sign saying "Live - NBC." Well, it's a funeral. The word "Live" doesn't belong.

Meanwhile, Katie Koorick (or however you spell the name) is making commentary. Wait a minute twit! This is a funeral ... not a sports event. We do not need a play by play or comments about how the crowd is well behaved and touched. Really.

So, I switched to C-SPAN. They had a logo: "Live - C-SPAN." Well, I figured there's no reason not to hope.

Then, I saw Chuck in the group of dignitaries. He was at the funeral rather than at his wedding to/with Camilla PB. He seemed quite chipper about it all so one wonders if it was okay with him.

CPB is, of course, to be the Duchess of Cornwall once the civil ceremony -- it would likely be decidedly uncivil if Mum attended -- is over. Meanwhile, she is the Duchess of Back Burner as Chuck postponed the wedding in favor of a funeral.

Good thing Prince Rainier's funeral isn't until next week or Chuck would have skipped a second DOC appointment -- er... that's Duchess of Cornwall -- DOC.

It turns out that Mum would rather be at the very important horse race, but she will attend the post nuptial reception. Actually, she could look at Camilla and see the horse that won.

Camilla was really quite sweet about it all. She called the Queen and said: "Hello Mum, it's Camilla." The Queen responded: "Ah yes, Mrs. Parker Bowles, what can we do for you?" Camilla persisted, "But Mum, Harry and William told me that HM in the family is code for 'Hello Mum' and told me you'd like that." The Queen was not amused, but then, these are her grandchildren.

"Oh well, Mrs. Parker Bowles, but do tell the Prince of Wales not to wear that ridiculous jacket with the red collar and the red cuffs. He looks like the doorman at the hotel in ... where was it ... Lagos, or Phuket ... well, somewhere. It's bad enough that Harry is dressing up in a suit looking like his uncle and now the Prince of Wales is dressing up like a defeated colonel from some North African army."

Camillas isn't too worried. The big argument is about who is going to wear the skirt in this family. Seems like Chuck is getting an assortment of kilts from Camilla as his wedding present.

Oh well, indeed. Here's the Duchess to be having her wedding sandwiched between two funerals. Chuck is definitely going to Monaco.

There isn't going to be little princeling out this union, is there? What an awful thought.

Cheerz...Bwana

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MORTALITY AND MORBIDITY

2005-04-01T22:43:00.000-05:00

This is the kind of comment one might expect on April 1, All Fools Day. But, even the April fool can fool us with some serious terminations.

Frank Perdue, the poultry magnate, crossed the road to the other side today. Rumor has it that he knocked on the Pearly Gates and Gabriel, ever playful, gave a toot on his trumpet and asked: "Hey Frankie, why'd you cross the road?"

Perdue might have asked "Have I made it to the other side?" However, St. Peter showed up and said "Hurry up Frank, this is getting to be a busy time. You better go get fitted for your wings."

Perdue moaned: "You're not serious, are you? I mean, you're not going to fit ME with WINGS?" Cluck, cluck.

And so it goes. A genius, the man was. He branded chickens. No mean feat. As he said, "it takes a strong nose to smell chicken shit all day."

I won't dwell on the passing of Terri Schiavo, but she is probably also admitted, an innocent manipulated by parents, husband, media and all, including sleazy politicians.

The Reverend Jerry Fatswell, was also said to have had breathing difficulties. Doctors seeking to do a tracheostomy type of procedure made another slit in his recturm so that this creator of the feral majority could breathe and talk at the same time. There's not much danger of his meeting Frank Perdue.

Prince Rainier of Monaco is gravely ill and his health said to be in precarious condition. I don't know that he did any particular good ... or bad. But they had good stamps, Monaco did.

Then, of course, there is the Pope. I am not a Catholic but I must say that despite my disagreement with his politics, I have been impressed by his piety, courage and pacific suffering. It does strike me, however, that his condition has worsened even as people pray for him. I suppose one has to be careful who is chosen to pray for one.

The near dead include Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, CEO of AIG. It is astounding that this man who was worth some $3 billion could not resist the impulse to cheat and steal. The WSJ has a story on him today. Two anecdotes bear mention. He would have meetings with AIG executives who were made to sit at the conference table without water or refreshments while he was served hot tea from a porcelain teapot by his butler. Also, in the corporate jet, executives were to use the small pilots' toilet at the front of the aircraft. The fancy bathroom in the back was reserved for Greenberg, his wife and his dog.

One of his sons was forced out of Marsh for bid rigging. The father's company was also accused of bid rigging. The other son heads Ace Group, another insurer also accused of bid rigging in the same scheme. The three played golf together according press reports. So, what do you think they discussed? Whether tea should be served at company meetings? Or, perhaps, whether the executive should be treated at least as well as the dog in terms of getting the proverbial key to the executive poop room? Was Warren Buffett the fourth or did he just not hear them yell "FORE!"?

Genetic stupidity.

Finally, President Bush's plan for Social Security seems to have been given its last rites by the last (and perhaps first but not Frist) of the Rights in Congress. Speaker Dennis Hasturd pronounced it dead by saying that there was no chance it would pass this year.

On the other hand, spring is springing. Baseball has its Opening Day on Sunday when the players, steroids or not, will try to let it RIP.

R.I.P.

Cheerz....Bwana.

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FUNG YOU

2005-03-29T20:57:00.000-05:00

FUNG YOU:

Sometimes, people insult you. Sometimes, they hurt your feelings. This morning I did not know whether to feel insulted or hurt. Or, should I feel both insulted and hurt?

Like the rest of you, I have received my share of spam emails touting everything from porn and erectile dysfunction remedies to Nigerian banking scams (of course, the Nigerians ain't got nothin' on AIG). I have received spam about winning TV sets, automobiles, vacations, and all kinds of propositions for dating services and auto warranties.

This morning took the cake. I received an email titled "Embarrassed by nail fungus." The absence of the question mark and the unlikely subject made me think it was one of my ding-bat buddies with another funny piece. So I opened it.

It was real. This was really -- and seriously -- an email about toe nail fungus. If I wasn't embarrassed before, I sure am now. Look, I don't mind the deflating innuendo about being asked if I want a hush hush prescription for an erectile dysfunction remedy. Indeed, I have never paused to consider that sending me those emails was anything but a random event. In other words, I didn't turn around and ask "Hey, honey, have you been doing any surveys about what makes women happy?"

Talking about what makes women happy, over the years, I've seen my share of Cosmopolitan Magazine covers touting stuff like "Six Macrame Projects You Can Do In The Jacuzzi." Why do women read that kind of stuff? Maybe that's why they don't get the science and math stuff. Pssst.... Larry Summers, pay attention ... we may be on to something.

In all the years, I have never heard an announcement from my wife like "Honey, hand me my needlepoint bag, I'm going to take a tub."

So, she's not a suspect for having gotten me on to the ED or, indeed, the toe nail fungus spam lists. Also, I haven't seen any magazines with cover stories titled "How to help your mate understand toe nail fungi."

No, I don't have toe nail fungus. In fact, I don't even like the subject. I am not one of those people who likes to go to the local nail salon run by our Vietnamese friends and have my nails cut or polished. I don't like manicures or pedicures because I don't like the idea of someone playing with my hands or feet. I use a simple toe nail clipper and that is that.

So, I get this email asking about toe nail fungus. The message began with: "What if we told you that there was finally relief for those suffering from the embarrassment of nail fungus?"

What if, indeed. I don't give a rat's patuzzi.

It is not clear what they were selling, but the email promises that FungiStat is the same formulation and strength as FungX.

Really? How charming.

But, why me? I'd almost rather get the ED emails -- at least they are suggesting that I might think that someone might want me to use the stuff.

I was so ticked off that I sent a reply to the email.

My message was simple. It said: "Fung You."

Cheerz....Bwana

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Prayer answered

2005-03-26T10:29:00.000-05:00

Just to lighten your day ---

Because he was going to inherit a fortune when his
sickly, widower father died, Charles decided he needed
a woman to enjoy it with.

Going to a singles' bar, he spotted a woman whose
beauty took his breath away.

"I'm just an ordinary man," he said, walking up to
her, "but in just a week or two, my father will die and
I'll inherit 20 million dollars and would like to have
someone to share it with."

The woman went home with Charles, and the next day
she became his stepmother.

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Chili Finger and Kentucky Fried Mouse

2005-03-25T12:32:00.000-05:00

Here's a heart warming, and hand chilling story:

washingtonpost.com
Fingertip Found in Wendy's Chili at Calif. Franchise

By Brian Skoloff
Associated Press
Thursday, March 24, 2005; 10:39 PM

A woman said she bit into a partial finger served in a bowl of chili at a Wendy's restaurant, leading authorities to a fingerprint database Thursday to determine who lost the digit.

The incident Tuesday night at a San Jose, Calif., Wendy's restaurant left the unidentified customer ill and distraught, said Joy Alexiou, a spokeswoman for the Santa Clara County Health Department.

Employees at the Wendy's were checked and the fingertip didn't come from any of them, officials said, adding that the well-cooked finger may have come from a food processing plant that supplies the company.

Denny Lynch, a spokesman for Wendy's International Inc., based in Dublin, Ohio, said there have been no reports to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of injuries at any supplier of chili ingredients to Wendy's.

"All of our chili suppliers report no accidents," he said.

Health officials said the fingertip was approximately 1 1/2 inches long. They believe it belongs to a woman because of the long, manicured nail.

Investigators seized the remaining chili and closed the restaurant for a few hours.

Alexiou said the woman, who asked officials not to identify her, is at minimal risk of contracting illnesses from the finger because the chili was cooked.

________

Now, this got me thinking that if you went to a fried chicken place and found a mouse instead of chicken (it's allegedly happened) would you rather have Kentucky Fried Mouse or get a chili finger from Wendy's?

What gets me is that someone is checking a fingerprint database. I mean, all fingers at Wendy's are accounted for. But, what if someone had six fingers? Been known to happen.

I think I'll write to Tom DeLay, Dennis Hasturd, Bob Frist, and the two Bushes, DC and Fla. to see if they can construct some idiotic legislation about the need to have OSHA make sure that all body parts are logged and inventoried and give customers the right to petition the federal courts to get an order to find out who gave them the finger. It's the least we can do for the digital age.

Cheerz....Bwana
______________________________________________________________________________

Ball Four -- Steroids and Hemmorhoids

2005-03-20T11:29:00.000-05:00

It had been a long trial. The presentations had been complex and tedious, the witnesses long-winded and even more tedious. The courtroom was still hot, and as is more true of public buildings than any other, there was an utter lack of humidity. The static electricity that this caused as one rubbed against anything at all, was the only electricity in the room.

The judge intoned: "Okay, Counsel, so you rest. Is there anything further? ... No? Very well, then. Members of the jury, counsel have rested. There is nothing further. Well, nothing further by way of evidence. Now, we will proceed to closing arguments. This is an opportunity for counsel to sum up the evidence and present their view of how they suggest you should see the case. However, while you should pay attention to the arguments of counsel, they are not evidence, but simply the attorneys' summation of the evidence from their point of view. Alright then, Counselor Bwana, you go first, you're at bat, so to speak."

I stood and walked to the front of the jury box trying to finish off the menthol-eucalyptus lozenge I had unwrapped in a desperate attempt to compensate for the dryness of the room and the dryness of the judge.

"May it please the court. Members of the jury ...."

"Er... Excuse me counsel, will you approach the bench?"

What is going on? I haven't done ANYTHING ... yet. I look at my shoes ... no, the laces are tied. I do a surreptitious check of my fly ... the zipper is fine.

I get to the side of the bench and opposing counsel sidles up, pouring out of his amply filled garment that once looked like a suit.

"Counselor Bwana, what were you eating just before you started?"

"Oh, your Honor, that was a throat lozenge, one of those menthol-eucalyptus ones."

"Counselor, there will be no performance enhancing products used in this courtroom. I don't want you having an unfair advantage over your opponent. I don't care if it is dry in here. What we want is a clean trial here, lawyers using their natural abilities uncluttered with artificial medications and over-the-counter products to make it easier to speak to juries and fool them into believing that your eloquence is not fostered by cough drops. Lozenges ... hmmm ... there'll be none of that in this court. We'll take a break for 15 minutes and let the effects wear off before we resume."

Oh Mercy! But hadn't the judge said I was up at bat, so to speak? Gee, I don't think menthol-eucalyptus lozenges enhance reasoning power or speaking ability. But, I suppose it's a bad influence on first and second year law students to let them think that cough drops will make them incipient Clarence Darrows.

So, here's a little something about those who really get up to bat:

Congressmen ask "Did you take steroids?"
Players squirm, inflaming hemmorhoids.

Each one disclaims - he's not like Jose:
"I'm sorry, Sir. My lips are sealed
I won't say who was juiced on the field
But I promise it didn't affect their play."

These guys shouldn't be counted heroes
So much money makes them go whacko
As role models, they are proved zeroes
Or maybe it's just the chewing tobacco?

For every question McGwire avoids
Bet he wishes he'd instead sucked Altoids.

You be the judge. So to speak.

Cheerz....Bwana

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Boeing, Boeing, Boing - Romancing the Stonecipher

2005-03-08T18:16:00.000-05:00

Breakfast with Bwana

MARCH 8, 2005

BOEING, BOEING, BOING - ROMANCING THE STONECIPHER:

"In retrospect," the independent investigator stated, "someone in Boeing management should have taken earlier notice when the posting appeared on the Company's internal electronic bulletin board." The investigator was referring to the "Personals" section of Boeing's main corporate email and communications system, not the encrypted e-mail facility used for exchanges with the Pentagon on sensitive matters.

"Well, since our code of conduct did not actually prohibit affairs between employees, we thought it was okay to let employees post personals, a sort of added benefit, if you will" said Lewis E. Platt, Chairman of Boeing.

When asked if setting up a listing section for "EXECUTIVES SEEKING EXECUTIVES" was an appropriate action for a company that had just gone through the ethical ringer, Mr. Platt snarled and tried to swallow the reporter's microphone.

So, what was the ad? Well, as best as can be reconstructed, it said:

"MWM Executive, spry 68, well heeled, in current relationship of 50 years which has had some stress (entirely of my own making) seeking a mutually enriching, enjoyable relationship with a woman of grace, intelligence, vitality, and preferably not located in company's Chicago HQ. Prefer executive level companion. Interests include company management, compliance, ethics enforcement, cleanup, and jet setting sexual adventure. Please respond via email to HatchetHarry@boeing.come."

Now, seriously folks, what is going on here? Harry Cipherbrains Rockhead, is 68 years old, has two kids, a marriage of 50 years, earns $1.5 million base, with an expected bonus of $1.5 million, gets pension payments of $638,000 from his previous stint as CEO, owns over $102 million worth of Boeing stock, and he's writing lurid and graphic emails on the company's open email system. And his response is: "I violated my own standards. I showed poor judgment." In what respect? By having an affair with a fellow employee? Or, was it the writing of the graphic email? What standards? No, it wasn't poor judgment. It was priceless stupidity.

I mean, has this feces-for-brains fellow not heard of AOL at $15-25 a month? Or, more appropriately, that he could have gotten stupidshit@hotmail.com for free?

Two positives here. First, Carly Fiorina will not be following Cipher. Why not? Well, Lewis Platt was asked by the Hewlett Packard board to step aside so that Carly Fiorina could succeed -- or should I say, "fail" -- him. Second, one might laud the Boeing board for taking swift action and not letting yet another ethically challenged executive cast a pall on its affairs. Not that Boeing is an outstanding or upstanding company -- the misconduct in which it has engaged is extensive and wide-ranging.

The real problem is not that Hatchet Harry is gone. The problem is that despite this nonsense, he'll be paid millions of dollars in a severance package, and no one stops to say that what is wrong with much of American business is that we have morons running companies and being paid way too much to do it.

The aforementioned Fiorina is fired and gets millions of dollars for having ruined a decent company. Then, they float a balloon saying she should head the World Bank. Give me a break.

In an ongoing saga, the Royal Dutch/Shell Group reported on its shell game -- it had overstated its oil and gas reserves by 41% which means falsely reporting some $150 billion of reserves (over $250 billion at today's prices) which it did not have. For this, the company fired 5 executives and paid $150 million in fines.

Scrushy, Ebbers, Haddock, Biogen, Kozlowski ... just a few of the names involved with fraud or other allegations of ethical lapses in today's news. An altogether unpleasant undertone to what we have allowed our business leaders to become.

Soon enough, the object of Mr. feces-for-brains Stonecipher's affection will be identified. When that happens, I sure hope she doesn't look like an airbus.

Cheerz....Bwana

___________________________________________________________________________

Luck Is Out Of Iraq

2005-01-29T13:17:00.000-05:00

Terminal Illness In Hollywood

2005-01-29T13:16:00.000-05:00

Breakfast with Bwana

JANUARY 29, 2005

TERMINAL ILLNESS IN HOLLYWOOD:

Last week, after nature's irrational exuding of more snow in one day than I cared to see in a whole Boston winter season, we were fortunate enough to get off to Florida for a few days.

The flight was scheduled to leave at 8:30 AM from Boston. We boarded at 9:15 PM (no, not a typo). When I called at 5:30 AM, the airline rep told me that Logan Airport was open. Turned out not to be so. When we got there, c. 7:15 AM (getting a taxi was another story, but never mind that) they said the airport would open at 8:00 AM and then we'd be off by 9:30 or so. Then they posted a departure time of 11:11 AM. Sounds convincingly accurate doesn't it? Reminds me of the story that someone sent regarding the height of Mt. Everest. The guy who first measured it at 29,000 feet, thought it would seem too much like an estimate, so he added two feet to make the "official height" 29,002 feet. But, that's for another day, when I'll explain how it got to be 29,027 feet and now may be shorter.

The point is that they kept stringing us along and we lost a day.

Florida for me was golf, golf, and more golf, golf. Four! Yes, four times FORE! Mrs. Bwana got to see a Bucellati exhibition at the Boca Raton Museum of Art. I got credit for having heard the show advertised on radio and "suggesting" the activity to her. Yes, looking at jewelry is an "activity." Keeps the iris in tone, not to mention the sparkle that it adds to memory. She got in some retail counseling and purchase training.

On our return, I learned from the insert in the car rental brochure, that the Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport had begun operation of its Car Rental Center -- all rental cars to be picked up or returned, as the case be, at that center. Sounds like a good idea, and a good source of concession fee tax revenue.

The rental company's reclaiming of its vehicle was efficient enough. However, to get from the center to Terminal 1, you have to take the elevator down a level to the second floor and walk across the bridge -- other terminals are reached by shuttle bus from the same level as the vehicle return.

No luggage carts in sight, so one has to drag one's luggage. We had wheels on the bags, but this was bad planning especially with my golf travel bag to add to the unwieldy mix.

When we reached the terminal, we were one level below where the ticketing and check-in counters are located. Why was the bridge not on the same level so that we wouldn't have to go up and down? So, up the elevator on that side.

After ticketing, we were told to go down one level to the gate. This time, we walked down the stairs since we had checked our bags.

I wonder if the idiot who designed this building is related to one of the commissioners of the County. I mean, if you are going to spend millions of dollars building these things, why not think about what the purpose is? And, how to accomplish it without inconveniencing your customers.

Talking about irritating your customers, there were four announcements over the PA system. These were repeated at random intervals.

The first was a welcome to the Ft. Lauderdale - Hollywood International Airport, described as "a service" of the county commission or some such thing. Who cares? I want the idiot who designed it, to provide skycap service. And, I don't want to be "welcomed" to the airport ... especially when I'm leaving 76º F weather to go to 15º F.

The second and third announcements were complementary, sort of. One said, that if you were looking to rent a car, you should look for the signs for car rental that would direct you to the rental center. The other said that if you wanted to get a shuttle bus to a different terminal, you should look for the signs directing you to the the shuttle bus in the ground transport area.

Sheesh! I wonder if the architect's son needed a job reading announcements. I never would have guessed that to find what I am looking for, I should look at the signs. Usually, I just follow my nose.

The final announcement said that the Transportation Security Administration advises passengers that camera film should be placed in their carry-on bags, not in checked baggage.

Now, there was a timely announcement. You are in the security area, at the gate, the bags are checked, and omigosh, you've made a mistake by leaving your camera film in the checked baggage.

Where do they invent these morons? Or, do they just have terminal illness?

Come to think of it, I might just get a digital camera like the rest of the world. Should I put that in the checked bag or in my carry-on bag?

Next time, I'm flying Air Bwana.

Cheerz....Bwana

GETTING IT WRONG, FIRST TIME

2005-01-21T18:34:00.000-05:00

Breakfast with Bwana

JANUARY 21, 2005

GETTING IT WRONG, FIRST TIME

About two years ago, fuming from one of my all too common frustrations about not being able to get things done, that is, not being able to get others to do what they have promised to do, agreed to do, even sworn to do -- and I'm not even saying what they should do -- I made the observation that things have gotten so bad in America that now, if you want anything done right, you have to give the doer, at least two attempts.

But I am an optimistic, jingoistic, sort and then said, "But, I suppose the difference between us and much of the rest of the world is that there, you have to do things at least three times AND bribe someone."

Lately, I have had an accountability moment in all this. I was way too optimistic and misunderestimated the incompetence of the doers. Now, in order to get anything done right, three or four passes seem to be necessary. If the evil-doers can get it right so often on the first try, what is wrong with just plain old doers? I mean, we don't hear of too many failed suicide bombings. Most of them seem to go on the first crack.

My experiences with getting the bumper on my car repaired, having a tire rim changed, getting heating system repairs completed, and, perhaps another ten or fifteen incidents, provide an unwelcome steady stream of recurring sorry examples. We'll get to those, but first, I'll mention that the bumper repair was needed because the manufacturer had misdesigned the car and then recalled the vehicle to prevent damage to millions of bumpers. It goes without saying, that mine had already suffered the predictable damage. Without saying. And this particular manufacturer has another recall because the throttle linkage could get stuck in temperatures below 15º F (minus ~10º C). The temperature in Boston has been below 12º F for the last week, so I'm glad that work was done.

But, truthfully, my brushes with those who eschew competence -- no, I'm suggesting that it is volitional -- pale in comparison to a recent intergalactic gaffe.

The European Space Agency is justifiably proud of the Huygens space probe that just landed on Titan. As part of the mission, University of Idaho Professor David Atkinson, designed an experiment to measure the winds on Saturn's largest moon. Atkinson spent eighteen (18) years designing the experiments and calculated that, all told, his team had invested 80 man years on the project.

On Thursday, Atkinson said that someone failed to turn on a radio receiver, and because of that error, data transmitted by the gear on the Huygens lander was not received by the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft for relay to Earth. There is hope that data recovery efforts will allow winds to be calculated, by capturing signals bounced from the probe off the moon, and to Cassini. Significant additional work and adjustments to account for the transmission delays -- 2 seconds from Huygens to Cassini, and 67 minutes from Cassini to earth -- must now be done to get reliable results.

Back to the terrestrial and mundane woes facing Bwana. Why wasn't the car designed properly in the first place? Don't know. The dealer ordered the parts and I kept my appointment. They said the work was finished. I pointed out a gap on both sides of the car. Went back a second time. They said that they were able to fix one side but to fix the other, a part was needed. So, why did the guy install it if he didn't have the part the first time? Don't know. They ordered the part. I went back. Turns out they returned the part because the parts guy couldn't figure out why it came in. One more try. Bumper replaced. Total four visits.

I got a bubble in the left front tire. Went to a warehouse chain and bought two new tires. They installed them and put the new ones on the rear. Two days later, the new tire, now on the left rear, is down. Four days later, it is flat. I pump it up. Back to the tire place. The guy informs me that the rim has a crack and needs to be replaced. I go to the dealer. They say the rim is fine and charge me $30 (the warehouse company charges $10 per tire to mount and rotate). Two days later, same problem. Four days later, same problem. Back to the dealer. "You need a new rim, Sir." I say, "Go ahead and put it on." They say "Sorry, we don't have it in stock." Back after four days to have it installed. I have a new rim. Did I need a new rim? Don't know.

The heating system problems involve burst pipes and radiators from last January's (2004) extremely frigid weather. They show up in November to install the new items. Turns out they need a 42 inch radiator in one area but have a 36 inch piece. Three weeks later, they show up with a 42 inch piece. After four hours of work, the installer tells me that he has a problem because the supply house sent the wrong brand of radiator and he did not notice that until after he installed it.

They came back last Monday and installed the radiator. Part of the deal was to put antifreeze into the system -- I'm leaving out how we had to change the system for that -- so we would avoid another burst pipe. I asked the guy what level of protection we would get. He said down to 20 below zero F (minus 30 Celsius). I asked if he had a way to test it. He said he did not bring the tester (hydrometer?). On further questioning, he said his boss had calculated how much antifreeze would be needed. I mentioned that his boss had never been to the house.

Sure enough, that night, it froze again. We were fortunate and managed to get it thawed and stave off a disaster. They have put in more antifreeze.

I could go on. The guy who towed the plane with a tractor and ripped off the tow hooks on both wings because he missed that the plane was tied down. The DSL installation that took six tries. You've all been through this, just as I have.

There was a time when we had one President for four terms. Now, the maximum they are allowed is two shots to get it right. Given that we have now established that it takes at least four tries, one wonders if we'll ever have a President who gets it right in two.

I just don't know.

Cheerz....Bwana

Change of Format & Printing

2005-01-19T15:02:00.000-05:00

CHANGE OF FORMAT AND HOW TO PRINT A SINGLE POST:

I'm experimenting with different formats and templates for the blog. It seems to me that print on a white background may be easier to read than on a colored background.

Any preferences? Let me know via email or by posting a comment below.

Some people have had trouble printing posts. Apparently, the blogger program prints the whole blog, including old posts and not just the current post. There are two ways around this.

First, in order to print a single post, click on the title of the post on the right hand side of the blog page where recent posts are listed -- that brings up just the one post that you have selected, and when you execute the print command (e.g. CTRL +P) only that entry is printed.

Second, you can also email a post to yourself and print it from your email Inbox. To email the post to yourself (or anyone else), click on the envelope at the bottom of the post and enter your email address as well as the address to which you want to send the message (this could be your own address). When you check your email box, you will find the email you sent to yourself and you can print it, just like any other message.

Thanks.

Cheerz....Bwana

DESPITE POTARMAC FEVER MOURNFUL DEMOCRATS HAVE A BALL

2005-01-18T13:35:00.000-05:00

BREAKFAST WITH BWANA

JANUARY 18, 2005

DESPITE POTARMAC FEVER
MOURNFUL DEMOCRATS PLAN TO HAVE A BALL

The Democrats are acting like sore losers. This is not to say that the Republicans are not sore winners. But, still licking their bleeding hearts, some Democrats have actually suggested that the Inaugural festivities be toned down. Sure, they make noises about such extravagance being inappropriate during a time of war and, if that were not enough, tug at your liberal heartstrings, by invoking the plight of the Tsunami victims. But their call to the President and Laura Bush to low ball this instead of having a ball just doesn't seem to be motivated purely by propriety and altruism.

And, the Democrats have got it all wrong. Once again, they have been outfoxed by Karl Rove and his strategic mastermind. The list of balls is staggering indeed: Bluegrass Ball, Black Tie And Boots Ball, Illinois Presidential Inaugural Gala, The Opportunity Inaugural Ball, American Indian Inaugural Ball, Commander-in-Chief Ball, Constitution Ball, Democracy Ball, eNaugural.com Ball, Free Republic Inaugural Ball, Freedom Ball, Independence Ball, Liberty Ball, National Coalition for Technology In Education and Training Inaugural Ball, Patriot Ball, Stars and Stripes Ball, Texas Wyoming Ball, The Ball After the Balls. The Entertainment Inaugural Ball, The Environmental Inaugural Ball, Michigan State Society Inaugural Ball, and the South Carolina Presidential Inaugural Ball.

It's too bad though, that they didn't combine the American Indian Ball with the Outsourced Indians Ball and just call it the Feathers and Dots Ball.

The point Rove wants to underscore is that this President, who is accused of being all things from a dummy to just plain rotten, can indeed handle a lot of balls in the air. In short, he knows how to have a ball.

The President is not easily fooled by Democratic chicanery. as we have seen over the years. In fact, he responded to the criticisms by yanking on a few strings himself, pointing out that he does care about the Tsunami victims, which is why, he asked his Dad and former President Clinton, to cheer on the fundraising effort. The President also said that he believes "it's important to celebrate a peaceful transfer of power . . . I'm looking forward to the celebration.''

Spin doctors who can diagnose Potomac gastritis, will note that lurking in that answer, is a theme about celebrating transfers of power in Afghanistan and Iraq. Hmmm... I wonder how he'll feel about peaceful transfers of power if the Brits give Tony Blair a blow in the gut in the next election.

But, I don't see anything wrong with the President's urge to celebrate. After all, you've got to start spending that political capital somewhere. Why not start in the Political Capitol? Chief Organizer, Burton I. Hall, who received a no-bid contract for providing food, entertainment, lighting, weapons grade fireworks displays, and worldwide logistical support, dismissed Democrats' complaints and suggested they should have their own Sour Grapes Ball. The Reverend Al Charlatan, was the only one to point out that "Burton I. Hall" was a not too obvious anagram of "Halliburton" and called for an investigation.

Representative Dennis Kucinich asked "What's an anagram?" Another former Democratic Presidential hoper General Weasely Cluck mulled over that a moment and said, "Well, Dennis, the best I can come up with is you 'Sinned Cuchi Kin' but if I say that, there might be confusion about my position on same sex marriage."

Most sensible Democrats have contracted the recently identified strain of Potarmac Fever, a delusional condition that causes them to seek the nearest highway out of Washington before Thursday's celebratory heraldry. Doctors advise them to avoid herds of elephants to prevent allergies and asthma-like attacks.

However, some desperate Democrats are still on a Phishing expedition in an effort to steal a part of the Republican identity and overlay it on their own. These diehards have suggested a few balls of their own.

The most prominent will be the combined Born Again And Resurrection Ball to rival the Black Tie And Boots affair run by the political pachyderms. This ball will celebrate a decided shift of the Democrats towards a more religious identity. Barak Obama will read from the Bible, and Quran, while simulating running a marathon on a treadmill.

The DISS (Democrats for Individual Social Security) Ball is designed to show that the political asses are willing to outdo the Republicans by transferring the Ownership Society's accounts to Wall Street money managers. An opposition group Prevent Individual Social Security (PISS) will have a protest ball.

To counter the balls representing an assortment of states, such as the Constitution Ball, the Texas Wyoming Ball and some individual state balls, the Democrats will have the Howitzer Dean Ball during which Dr. Dean will recite aloud the names of all states alternating between Red States and Blue States punctuated by whoops of delight and canon firing.

The Democrats, conscious of charges that they are soft on terrorists will have the Torture Ball during which Senator Kennedy will demonstrate deep underwater interrogation techniques and advanced waterboarding.

There is, however, one problem. The unsuccessful Democratic nominee, Senator Kerry, who was at the forefront of criticism of the planned Inaugural celebrations, appeared at a strategy meeting of prominent Democrats. "I really think that having a Democratic celebration is reprehensible. I mean, I was for the counter celebration before I was against it, but I really think we should drop the ball."

"Duh!" came a-thudding collectively out of the assembled group.

One of these days, the Democrats will learn how to have a real party.

Cheerz.... Bwana

Don't Monkey With Gravity

2005-01-17T15:13:00.000-05:00

Breakfast with Bwana

January 17, 2005

DON'T MONKEY WITH GRAVITY:

Don't ask me how it came about, but in the course of doing a search on the web, I found a link to a page detailing the departure of Shri Ramakrishna Paramhansa (also spelled "Paramahansa").

Now, I don't necessarily want to appear insensitive about an account of the burial of a "swami" but this narrative was far from a run of the mill obituary type of piece.

I have no idea who this guy Paramhansa was ... or . . . is. See, there is this little detail about reincarnation we have to take into account. As former President Bill Clinton said in a different context, "it depends on what the meaning of 'is' is." Anway, it seems that he went to the Great Beyond ... well, actually, into a pit lined with cowdung.

Not to worry, the pit was also filled with camphor and salt and sandalwood and all kinds of other deodorant stuff and then, topped off with soil. All this happened on a rainy day which makes you wonder why they washed the body first, if they were going to cover it with mud anyway. I'll have to ask someone about that one of these days.

Let me set the stage for you. In 1974, this Swami, in anticipation of his impending death, had arranged for a grave to be dug outside his own house. You see, unlike almost every other Hindu making a leap into the Great Beyond, this guy wanted to be entombed, not cremated. To that end, he had obtained necessary governmental permits, and also ordered a 1.5 ton stone that would eventually cover the grave, brought from a hillside quarry.

It turns out that this Swami had been living in someone else's house for forty years. As the narrative goes, we are told: "Swami was a person from a different plane. Still he was very much down to earth. For the last forty years he was living in Mr. Desai's house. He was aware that his end was to come in the same house. But in order to avoid inconvenience and the embarrassment for Mr. Desai's family, he had expressed his wish to be entombed opposite his house only."

Sort of a modern day Spruce Goose, I suppose, not capable of flight, but grounded. It seems to me a tad out of touch with reality to suddenly decide that you don't want to cause "inconvenience and embarrassment" to the family in whose house you've been squatting for 40 years as if it were your personal helipad. "Oh well, I don't want to inconvenience you by being buried in your front yard but I hope you don't mind if, after fory years, I lie myself down to sleep for the next two and a half weeks while I die in your front hall."

There is also the mystery of the monkey. But first, let me give you a link to the original so you won't think that I'm making all this up. http://www.datapointgroup.com/pawas/chapter18a.htm

For those who are not inclined to click on links or paste URLs into browsers I have pasted the entire article as a separate blog entry (better than pasting cow dung into a pit) under its original title "Swami Started For Final Abode." And, as necessary for this tale, I've quoted a fair portion of this in the discussion below.

On 28th July, the Swami announced that the end was nigh when he proclaimed: "My next journey has just begun.'' For about seven days, he appeared to go in and out of a trance as he lay on his bed. Well, sure, it probably was Mr. Desai's bed but let's not quibble about fine points at the threshold of a great exit.

During one of his moments of being in the present, rather than in a trance, the Swami spoke with a fellow identified as the "renunciant Satyadevanand." After a session during which the two stared into each other's eyes for a while, the renunciant "returned from the room and sat stiff in the Verandah in the front. He was seen to go into a trance that lasted four hours. Seeing this hitherto unseen kind of affair, people around were nonplussed."

I can relate. I remember as a kid when I saw hitherto unseen kinds of affairs, I would react in wonderment, yea, some would have said I was, from time to time nonplussed. I think being "nonplussed" is when you add 2 and 2 and get something other than 4.

After having the "vision thing" bonding experience with the renunciant, "Swami performed the incantational initiation for the people who were around. Initiatees included a barber and a postman; none was left out not even the children." I don't quite understand how the poor barber got into this close shave situation, but I suppose one does have to give the postman a forwarding address, doesn't one?

The monkey shows up:

"On the morning of 13th, a monkey came from somewhere and sat on the top of the tree in front of Swami's room. The monkey was sitting still and cold unmonkeylike. The domestic servant of the house tried to drive him away but he did not budge. He would jump to another branch and come back again to the original branch after sometime. For 3 days continuously, he was seen seated there. He was gone only after Swami's heart stopped on the 15th."

Hmmm.... this doesn't sound good. It's one thing to have a monkey hanging around waiting for your heart to stop, but why does he have to look "unmonkeylike" while doing so. Someone should tell the monkey: "Go on, be monkeylike, it's fun." But the domestic servant probably just spat out only the first part: "Go on!" At any rate, I am nonplussed as to what would cause a monkey to suddenly become unmonkeylike.

The Swami does his swan song:

Come to think of it, "Paramhansa" is probably German for "Swan Song" (compare Lufthansa as in "flying swan" for the German airline).

Now, some two and one-half weeks later, the fateful moment arrives.

"His soul went into an eternal trance leaving behind the body as it should be left. The time was something like half past eight. Dr. Deodhar was sent for. The Doctor certified him dead. With the permission of the Sanyasin Satyadevanand, the terrestrial body of Swami was taken out."

Well, it was thoughtful of Swanee ... er Swami ... to leave the body behind rather than taking it with him. That would have been very messy, calling, at a minimum, for an Inspector Clouseau to look into it. Okay, since the time was "something like half past eight" perhaps they would leave the body alone and let everyone get some sleep. After all, since Swanee's soul had gone off, there was little danger that the body would suddenly elope. But not these devoted followers:

"It was made to sit in the Yogic posture of Sahajasan. The body was smeared with fragrant materials and was given a bath. The body was then conveniently seated in a frame of banana-stem for the public to take a glance. The neck was adorned with a flower garland and a garland made of Tulsi stem cuttings. The forehead carried a smearing of sandal paste. On that was placed a Tilak of Bukka [a black powder composed of a fragrant substance]. The monkey-cap that Swami used to wear very often was of course in it's place. The room became fragrant by the heap of camphor placed on his camphor-complexioned body."

Aha! So, that explains the monkey ... he wanted his cap back. After all, that's probably why he was sitting on the tree branch for three days. I don't know if they got the banana stem from the same tree.

I pause to complain they did get the sequencing a bit messed up. Here we have a guy lying on the bed, going to the Great Beyond, and then getting a bath for the body. Somehow, Bed, Beyond, and Bath just doesn't have the same ring to it.

From banana leaf to chair:

"It was a great departure of a great being. Volunteers were trying hard to bring gravity, dignity and holiness in the atmosphere fitting to the great occasion. It took quite an effort to see that the people's sorrow is kept in check through restraint. Swami's body was then transferred to a chair bedecked with flowers. The procession was to begin."

Yeah, it is tough to bring dignity, gravity and holiness when you've got a guy smeared with all that stuff being shuttled from banana leaves to chairs and made to sit up, sit down, and then processed er... put in a procession ... all after the guy has been dead since about half past eight, and with a monkey sitting cold and unmonkeylike, ready to grab his cap at a moment's notice. Most of all, the gravity of the situation is that you are not letting gravity do its work as you contort his body into various positions, rigor mortis notwithstanding.

The weather was not cooperating either. The narrative first recounts that "the sun and the rain played see-saw." Now you see the sun, now you saw the rain, I suppose.

"As the people were walking through the narrow village-mud-road of the rainy season, rain did not forget to greet them from above. A rivulet was to be crossed too."

I hate crossing rivulets in the rain. Bing Crosby was good at that sort of thing, but the rest of us could use a stair. On the other hand, we've got to get this guy way down upon the swami river.

Okay, the race is over. It's time for the Pit Stop:

"As the procession was approaching, the volunteers preparing the pit hastened the work. The sides and bottom of the pit was given a wash of cow dung, the powerful disinfectant. Suwasinees [women who lead their lives in the service of their husbands] were busy drawing sacred artistic figures on the floor called Rangoli, to welcome the great soul to his new home."

This doesn't sound very efficient. After all, they've had 17 days or so to finish this pit stop as a final stop pit. I don't think that cow plop wash notwithstanding, this will measure up to six-feet-deep-sigma benchmarking. And, wait a minute, cow plops is a powerful disinfectant? I've got to send that in to Hints From Heloise, er Bossie. And pray tell me, where does one find a Suwasinee? We've received a whole lot of catalogs in the mail for Christmas and the sales for the New Year ... I'm going to look and see if anyone has a special on a Suwasinee ... maybe Bed Bath & Beyond carries them.

Benedictus Qui Venit In Cow Plops:

Friends, Romans (that applies only to Sonia in India), Swami Lovers, lend me your ears, I come to bury Swanee, not to praise him. The evil that men do, lives after them. Their good books are oft interred with their bones.

The procession arrived at the grave site and after assorted chanting, the body was lowered into the grave.

"Bit by bit the body of Swami was disappearing from sight. Bag after bag was being emptied in the pit. Level of salt and camphor was building up. When the level reached the chest, the two volumes of "Abhang Dnyaneshwari' of his personal use were placed in front. Then the remaining space was filled with layers of sandal dust, camphor, salt, Ashtagandh, Bukka, Kasturi. At the top came another layer of salt, some two-three inches thick. The entire body was thus covered. Then shawls sanctified by placing respectively at the tombs of Sant Dnyaneshwar and Sant Ramdas were placed on the top. A thick layer of soil was spread and flowers were offered. Then one more layer of soil was put."

You've heard the expression "everything but the kitchen sink." Well, take it from me, there is no way that they left any room for the kitchen sink.

Gravitas:

Ah, but there is still the aforementioned problem of gravity which I quote once more, in case you missed it: "Volunteers were trying hard to bring gravity, dignity and holiness in the atmosphere fitting to the great occasion."

Not to worry ... gravity still works!

"The 1.5 ton stone was then soundly placed on top of it. There was a shower of flowers again. And the remaining gaps were filled tightly with soil."

You now understand why the monkey was anxious. I mean, you're not going to retrieve your cap from under a 1.5 ton stone if you just hang around being monkeylike.

I hope all our funerals are this much fun ... I could pass on the cow plops though.

Moo!

Cheerz....Bwana

Sonorous Nonsense

2005-01-16T14:11:00.000-05:00

Breakfast with Bwana

JANUARY 16, 2005

SONOROUS NONSENSE:

It seems that I was a bit premature in crediting the President with having an "accountability moment" when he said: ``I speak plainly sometimes, but you gotta be mindful of the consequences of the words. What would you call that? A confession, a regret, a something?'' (See Genes Of Regret And Hope, from January 14, below).

The President has hastened to clear up any misunderestimation we may have had of what he said. In other words, he wanted to be sure that his words did not have any misunintended misconsequences.
The President's misclarification arose in the context of an interview he gave to reporters from The Washington Post (misPost?):

The Post: In Iraq, there's been a steady stream of surprises. We weren't welcomed as liberators, as Vice President Cheney had talked about. We haven't found the weapons of mass destruction as predicted. The postwar process hasn't gone as well as some had hoped. Why hasn't anyone been held accountable, either through firings or demotions, for what some people see as mistakes or misjudgments?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 election. And the American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me, for which I'm grateful.

Listen, in times of war, things don't go exactly as planned. Some were saying there was no way that Saddam Hussein would be toppled as quickly as we toppled him. Some were saying there would be mass refugee flows and starvation, which didn't happen. My only point is, is that, on a complicated matter such as removing a dictator from power and trying to help achieve democracy, sometimes the unexpected will happen, both good and bad.

Well, I would have settled even for the President's saying that the "bad" stuff that happened was "unexpected."

The President's Instant Spin -- retracting his apology while suggesting that the election results constitute ratification of his Iraq policy was outdone only by Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy. When the President's words were read to him and shown on the television monitor during his appearance on Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer, Senator Kennedy said: "That's ridiculous." He then went on to point out how Lyndon Johnson had been re-elected with a huge majority, but that was no ratification of his Vietnam policy.

When Schieffer asked Senator Kennedy: "Did you just call the President of the United States, ridiculous?" Kennedy backed off and said "The policies are ridiculous." This Instant Spin on what he had just said, may be taken by some as showing respect for the Office of the President while expressing disagreement with the positions taken by the occupant of that office.

I, for one, think that there is a time to point out the Emperor without clothes, that his nakedness, yes, even nakedness of logic, is showing.

For more fun on the subject of spin, readers might find Jim Baar's site, www.spinspeak.com and his book on Spinspeak interesting.

To change the topic, but only slightly, Tim Russert on Face The Nation, offered this from the Inaugural Address of President Warren Harding:

MR. RUSSERT: David Von Drehle, in The Washington Post, wrote a great summary of inaugural speeches way back in 1997. He referred to Warren Harding's speech, and this is amazing. I'm going to put it on the screen and try to read it.
"We have mistaken unpreparedness to embrace it to be a challenge of the reality and due concern for making all citizens fit for participation will give added strength of citizenship and magnify our achievement."

Mr. Russert then noted that H.L. Mencken said it was a "sonorous nonsense driven home with gestures."

Doris Kearns Goodwin chimed in: "In fact, he said it was so terrible, Mencken did, that it had a certain grandeur to it."

The President's protestations about the rectitude of his Iraq policy, coupled with his occasional lapses of reflection admitting he knows this not to be so (Dan Bartlett, his new counsel, offered a sort of apology, also on Meet The Press) are beginning to have a ring of sonorous nonsense. The problem is that for the families of the 1,300+ Americans and many thousands of Iraqis killed, and of the tens of thousands injured on both sides, it is so terrible that there is a certain sadness to it.

So, to the President's question: "What would you call that? A confession, a regret, a something?'' my answer is, yes, it's something. It's something else.

Cheerz....Bwana

Copyright © BwB 2005

President Bush Inherits Genes Of Regret And Apology

2005-01-14T14:32:00.000-05:00

Breakfast with Bwana

JANUARY 14, 2005

PRESIDENT BUSH INHERITS GENES OF REGRET AND APOLOGY:

You know, it's positively hereditary, or else, it must be infectious. I'm talking about the need to apologize and be kinder and gentler.

Consider that Harry, Prince of someplace or other in Her Majesty's Kingdom is now being told, by his father, to go to Auschwitz. Why? To be a kinder, gentler, Nazi? I mean, what are these people thinking? Of course, in fairness to the young man, he is trying to apologize, sort of. On the other hand, his father, Prince Chucky of Wails is wailing about the incident and apparently believes that a trip to Auschwitz will have a salutary effect on the young man's understanding of the Nazi horror, ameliorate his public humiliation, and, as well, mollify those who believe his Swastika-decorated costume was a gaffe. One wonders who, next to a Jew, should be more cognizant of Nazi horrors than a prince of England? Think of the thousands, upon thousands of Englishmen who died in the Great War to stave off the Hun. I mean, it may have been a mistake for the young man to wear the costume in the first place (although if it were a parody, that's another issue) but the handling of the PR makes one think that instead of being called PRince, these people should be called Wince.

Tom Utley wrote in The Daily Telegraph that the excuses amounted to saying that Harry was stupid. “But if it is true, then we are not talking about an average level of stupidity. We are talking about stupidity on an absolutely monumental scale” he said. Well, I'm not surprised given his genes. After all, if I were prosecuting Chucky for stupidity, I would rest my case after pointing out that he was bowled over by Camilla in preference to Diana.

Harry may have inherited more than stupidity. Chucky has apologized so many times for his own gaffes that it is probably a good bet that Harry got a bit of "I'd like to say I'm sorry" in his genes.

Closer to home, President Bush seems, after all, to be paying attention to rumblings from the people, or at least, feeling the roar of rumblings in the press. He has, apparently without any prodding from his Papa, apologized, or expressed regret . . . sort of. The President says that he was, perhaps, too blunt when he called for bringing Osama bin Laden to justice "dead or alive" and when he seemingly invited insurgents to attack American troops by his use of the "bring 'em on" challenge.

The President also revealed a newly found misenlightenment: ``One of the things I've learned is that words have consequences that you don't intend them to mean.'' See, he misunderestimated the repercussions and misrepercussions of his own words.

" 'Bring 'em on' was a classic example,'' he said. ``Those words had an unintended consequence. Some interpreted it to be defiance in the face of danger. That certainly wasn't the case.'' Now, some of you might interpret that language as coming pretty close to an apology. But, you have to give the President credit. He did not want to leave it to chance this time. I mean, it is not every day that you get misenlightened. So, perhaps a little too misclearly, he said: ``I speak plainly sometimes, but you gotta be mindful of the consequences of the words. What would you call that? A confession, a regret, a something?''

Can you believe it? He actually said: "I speak plainly sometimes. (italics supplied)

But, you see, inside those cowboy boots is, perhaps, lurking a sensitive, understanding, apologetic President.

Actually, I think it is important to recognize that the President's conscripting of two former Presidents, his father, George H. W. Bush 41 and Bill Clinton, was a master stroke of public relations. Some say that the idea originated with former President 42, but whatever, XLIII implemented it. Give him credit for showing a kinder, gentler face. And, the President has promised to be more diplomatic in the future.

That leads me to reflect that our President's genes may be coming into play. On the subject of being more diplomatic, his old man, in his Inaugural Address in 1989 said: "America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the Nation and gentler the face of the world."

The difference may be that this President is talking about a kinder and gentler visage shown to his enemies. His father's comment was with a different emphasis: "My friends, we have work to do. There are the homeless, lost and roaming. There are the children who have nothing, no love, no normalcy. There are those who cannot free themselves of enslavement to whatever addiction--drugs, welfare, the demoralization that rules the slums. There is crime to be conquered, the rough crime of the streets. There are young women to be helped who are about to become mothers of children they can't care for and might not love. They need our care, our guidance, and our education, though we bless them for choosing life."

It is fair to say that the President's leadership on the relief efforts in South Asia, are a reflection of some of these sentiments. It is fair to say, that a kinder, gentler President may have emerged.

The Senior President Bush also expressed his view of the role of faith. He prayed that God would help us to: " 'Use power to help people.' For we are given power not to advance our own purposes, nor to make a great show in the world, nor a name. There is but one just use of power, and it is to serve people. Help us to remember it, Lord. Amen."

For those who hope that this President's heredity might include some measure of the humility shown in those words, it is also well to remember that the senior President Bush expressed these thoughts too in that Inaugural Address:

"Great nations of the world are moving toward democracy through the door to freedom. Men and women of the world move toward free markets through the door to prosperity. The people of the world agitate for free expression and free thought through the door to the moral and intellectual satisfactions that only liberty allows.

We know what works: Freedom works. We know what's right: Freedom is right. We know how to secure a more just and prosperous life for man on Earth: through free markets, free speech, free elections, and the exercise of free will unhampered by the state. "

If these words were misunderestimated by the current President to mean that he should actively use the might of this nation bring freedom and free elections to the other nations of the world, then we have one of those situations in which words can have unintended consequences that you didn't mean.

However, there is hope. Merely stepping up to the edge of the pool of regret and seeing your reflection in the waters of apology is a good first step even if you don't jump in. Some day, he will learn that you don't drown in that pool merely because you acknowledge a mistake.

Meanwhile, we are left to see what manner of genes are lurking in those cowboy jeans.

Cheerz....

Showdown For Democracy At Haj-ullaf

2005-01-13T20:39:00.000-05:00

In celebration of the electoral victory of Mahmoud Abbas, also known
as Aba Daba Doo Mazzen, and in anticipation of the (no-they-will-not-
be-postponed) "elections" to be held in Iraq, or some portion
thereof, Bwana resurrects a piece written in October, just before the
short strokes phase of the US Presidential election.

I regret to inform you that since the US election is over, the
Complaint Department with respect to this piece is closed.

__________________________________

Breakfast with Bwana

October 24, 2004

SHOWDOWN FOR DEMOCRACY AT HAJ-ULLAF:

Nawab al-Khabari, a Kuwaiti journalist traveled to New York to work
on a story he was doing for Kuwaiti television. He met three
naturalized American citizens at the Haj-ullaf Conference Center at
the Permanent Delegation of the Organization of the Islamic
Conference (see www.oic-un.org) in United Nations Plaza.. Hassan bin
al-Hsub and Abdul ud-Yrrek are Iraqi immigrants who have led
prosperous, if undistinguished, lives in Detroit, Michigan and
Madison, Wisconsin, respectively. The third American, Mohammed ur-
Redan, the scion of a Lebanese family is a former school teacher now
curator of the American Institute of Democracy Museum in Rittenhouse
Square in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Nawab did not hesitate to engage his invited guests in a
discussion of their views on American foreign policy and the upcoming
election. Needless to say, the two Iraqi-Americans were quite vocal
about the war.

Hassan bin al-Hsub grew animated: "My family was tortured by that
murderer Saddam," he said, using the former dictator's first
name. "He even tried to kill my father. And what was the crime of
my father and my family? Nothing ... nothing ... they were against
the merciless attacks on Kuwait by Saddam. In the name of Allah,
the Compassionate, the Merciful, it is the right of people to be
free. But not for the PIG. And make no mistake, by the witness of
the Prophet, blessed be his name, I do not care if he had no nuclear
program or chemical or biological weapons ... regardless, that
Saddam was really a PIG." al-Hsub spat on the ground as he uttered
the ultimate insult for one Muslim to another. "The world is well
rid of him. The Iraqi people will be free in the name of Allah.
And, for the American people, there can be no greater mission than to
bring democracy to the Arab world and peace for all people. I am
with the President."

Abdul ud-Yrrek, pulled up his shirt to display a scar. "I have
been in battle my friend. When the Americans first came to Iraq
under the father of this President and launched the Gulf War, I was
there ... it was before I moved to America. We fought against the
American helicopters with our rifles. I have shrapnel in my side to
prove it. By the Grace of the Prophet, praised be his name, the
Americans left and did not march into Baghdad. I was decorated by
Rais Saddam Hussein twice for my sacrifice. But then I went back to
Baghdad and spoke against the torture of the Kurdish women and
children in the North. Saddam who brooked no dissent, turned against
me. Now, I am an American citizen but I am uneasy that my country is
attacking my country. Yes, my brother, Hassan" he addressed al-Hsub
respectfully, "he the Pig was a PIG. But, in the name of Allah, the
Compassionate the Merciful, what threat was he to the Americans?
Everyday, I see on the television that people are being killed ...
hundreds of Americans but thousands of Iraqis. My cousins have been
killed. The Americans talk about terrorists and insurgents. My
cousins are not insurgents. They are poor people ... they have
nothing. They are not terrorists. If the American government had
listened to the French and the German governments in the UN, they
would have waited for the inspections. That would have shown that
Saddam had nothing. In America and in Iraq, we need schools for
education and hospitals and health care for the society. This war
will not bring such things but only give the terrorists another
reason to be strong. The war has killed more Iraqis than Saddam
Hussein killed in all the years he was the dictator."

Mohammed ur-Redan who had been in the background looked almost
shy when Nawab turned to him. At first, he seemed recusant. Nawab
pressed: "What do you think of the situation in Iraq?"

ur-Redan paused, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped
his brow. "I am not an Iraqi. Yes, I am from a family with roots in
the Middle East, but I am American by birth. I hear the American
government leaders talk about bringing democracy to Iraq. But, at
home, we are a nation divided in two parts. It is not a democracy,
it is a demi-cracy." He laughed at his own weak joke, and then,
gathering himself, wiped his brow again and intoned: "If they bring
their kind of democracy to Iraq, it will be followed by corporations
who come to exploit the people and sell them cars that will pollute
their air. There will be special interest groups, the Shia and the
Sunni will split the spoils and exclude everybody else. If I were a
Kurd, I would be worried. I think this war is for the oil and the
big corporations. I have seen American forces in Lebanon, the
homeland of my ancestors. What democracy have they brought there?"

bin al-Hsub could not contain himself any longer. "No, no, you
do not understand the power of evil Those who do evil are evil
doers. We cannot wait for them to do evil to us. We must deal with
them firmly. The Pig Saddam had to go. I am grateful to America.
They are going to spend billions of dollars to reconstruct Iraq once
the fighting is stopped and my brothers will have the money of the
Americans for rebuilding and reconstruction so that there will be no
need for high taxes on the Iraqi people. That will stimulate their
economy and with the development of their resources, Iraq will be a
free country. I am happy that my new country America will do all
this for the Iraqi people and make it possible for other countries in
the Middle East to see the benefits of being protected by America and
democracy."

Abdul ud-Yrrek needed no prompting: "The Iraqis have no jobs.
We have destroyed the country and people have lost their jobs. They
have no hospitals and no health care,"

Nawab looked pensively into the camera. One could sense the
fatigue creeping over him. He had so wanted to capture the essence
of democracy for his audience back home in Kuwait. "So .... " he
paused, "you, bin al-Hsub, will vote for President Bush and you, ud-
Yrrek, will vote for the Senator from Massachusetts, John Kerry? bin
al-Hsub and Abdul ud-Yrrek nodded to signify their agreement. "And
you, ur-Redan, you will vote for neither?"

ur-Redan shook his head and said: "No, I cannot vote for them. One
is as bad as the other."

Nawab cleared his throat nervously: "If one of you votes for the
President and one of you votes for Senator Kerry, and one of you
votes for neither, how does this democracy work?"

"Ah, to know this, you must understand the electoral college," ur-
Redan said. "But, I warn you, they have hijacked the electoral
college so that only the big parties can win."

Nawab looked at the camera and said: "For you my countrymen in
Kuwait, next week, we will explain how the electoral college works to
make a divided country into a democratic one."

As the cameraman shut off the lights and put his equipment away,
Nawab asked of no one in particular: "Why didn't the Americans make
an electoral college in Afghanistan and Iraq?" Ur-Redan muttered
softly: "They have no judiciary to decide who will win."

----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------

For my readers:

The Organization of the Islamic Conference is real. Their Permanent
Delegation to the UN is in Geneva. The web site address is
authentic.

Haj-ullaf, Hsub, Yrrek, and Redan are "Fallujah" "Bush" "Kerry"
and "Nader" spelled backwards.

Some of you will have realized, by now, that "Nawab" is an anagram
of "Bwana."

Cheerz.....Nawab Bwana

© Copyright, BWB 2004

SQUATTER'S RIGHTS

2005-01-11T01:47:00.000-05:00

Breakfast with Bwana

JANUARY 11, 2005

SQUATTER'S RIGHTS:

Readers will recall my comment on the appointment of Gen. Gary E. Luck ("Luck-E" to us, if not for us) to review the situation in Iraq and submit a "confidential" report to Secretary Rumsfeld. Some of you may recall my suggestion that, notwithstanding bureaucratic palaver, the conclusions he should draw, sans blinders, are pretty obvious and foreshadowed by reality. I am not necessarily suggesting that I expect reality to trump the desire of the polyhedron of defense in terms of final conclusions.

It is not bad enough that the Ship of State seems to be running aground on multiple policy fronts. Here, I leave it to the reader, whatever your view is of the rectitude or foolhardiness of our policy, to fill in the blanks as to what ails the system. _____ _____ _____ ______. There you go. I trust that four blanks to fill in, will satisfy all of your childish urges.

But, what merits attention today, is a report of a different sort of grounding.

A United States nuclear submarine, the San Francisco, ran aground Saturday 350 miles south of Guam, in the Pacific Ocean, injuring about 20 crew members, one of them critically, the Navy said.

There was no damage to the reactor that powers the submarine and the ship's hull was intact, said Petty Officer Alyssa Batarla, a Navy spokeswoman.

The cause is under investigation.

Now, I rush to say that if one is of Bwanaian disposition, one is likely to say that the investigation is not necessary. The cause may quite easily be determined as:

i. the ocean bed was higher than the Captain (or his designee in charge at the moment) thought, or

ii. the water was not as deep as the above-mentioned person(s) thought, or

iii. they weren't where they thought they were, or

iv. Vladimir Putin put Dioxin in the Captain's soup.

Well, things are really not quite that simple when it comes to major investigations and major catastrophes. In other words, there is no such thing as Luck-E when it comes to cutting to the chase on these matters.

I want to digress here for a moment to say that the reason this particular incident is considered "major" is because we are dealing with a "new-killer" sub. For those of you who do not understand a Texas drawl from Midland, "new-killer" in normal English is "nuclear." I mean, if we were dealing with a mere container ship with unscreened cargo carrying shipments of contraband for possible use by terrorists, we wouldn't be nearly as upset. But, if it is a "new-killer" sub, wow, we better get antsy.

On another note of digression, you know this intuitively because even as we speak of the horror of the Tsunami, we measure its seriousness by the number killed, not by the number of living who are disaffected. That number is perhaps a hundred times the death toll. And, we measure our response, not by the compassion we show, but by the total dollars. But, that's for another day.

We have had other groundings. The Exxon Valdez is perhaps the most notorious because of the sheer magnitude of the damage it caused to Pristine William Sound. (Okay, okay, I know it is "Prince" William Sound, but Pristine Sounds better.)

Then, of course, there was the QE2, that magnificent oceanliner owned by Cunard which ran aground off the coast of Massachusetts. Here is what was determined about that particular lack of depth:

In August 1992, the QE2 had her taste of bad luck as well. While cruising in the Vineyard Sound off the coast of Massachusetts she ran aground, and damaged large parts of her keel and bow. . . . How could the QE2 have run aground in waters known to be deep enough for her? The answer came after serious investigation. The conclusion had been drawn and it was the so-called 'squat-effect' that was to blame. This phenomenon is created when larger vessels travel through water at higher speed. The shape and speed of the ship pushes the surrounding water away, literally digging a hole in the water for the ship. What was discovered during the investigation was that this effect was greatly increased while travelling at higher speeds, which the QE2 was doing at the moment of the grounding. The amount of water pushed away was simply larger than expected, and thereby the ship also had a lesser depth of water to sail in."

Well, as a lawyer, I have heard my fair share of BS whether from witnesses, experts, adversaries, colleagues, yea, even judges. I have not actually heard of someone delivering it while in "squat-effect."

But, there you are.

Now, you know why the cause of the grounding of the "new-killer" sub is likely to be more complicated than appears at first blush. You see, the rational mind that says the water was not deep enough, is treading in dangerous waters. We must let the experts squat and look the situation over, so they can tell us.

So, General Luck-E is going to tell us why things are not going well in Iraq. Maybe he'll conclude that there is a multi-sect "squat effect" going on. Iyad Allawi is trying to squat in the Presidential office. The Sunnis want to squat in front of the polling places and shoot anyone who tries to vote. Ayatollah Sistani wants to squat until power is delivered to him by the sheer weight of the Shiite majority. The Kurds have been squatting for centuries. They are accustomed to it.

And, our leadership doesn't seem to know squat.

Cheerz....Bwana

With A Little Bit Of Bloomin' Luck

2005-01-08T16:18:00.000-05:00

Breakfast with Bwana

JANUARY 8, 2005

WITH A LITTLE BIT OF BLOOMIN' LUCK:

Prefatory comment: My reaction to the drafting of General Luck to do a review in Iraq, inevitably led to thinking of the wonderful song from My Fair Lady. Herewith my adaptation.

The Lord above gave Dubya a war to fight
So he could go to Iraq and bring freedom
The Lord above gave Dubya a war to fight
But, with a little bit of luck, with a little bit of luck
Iyad Allawi will start to lead them
(With a little bit, with a little bit)
(With a little bit of luck Allawi will start to lead them)

The Lord above made Iraqis for saving
To see if they could be freed from Saddam
The Lord above made Iraqis for saving
But, with a little bit of luck, with a little bit of luck
When election day comes they'll give a damn
(With a little bit, with a little bit)
(With a little bit of luck they'll give a damn)

Oh you can unite the Shia, Sunni and Kurd
But with a little bit of luck they'll get the word

The Shiite sect was made to serve and pray
To share with Sunnis faith and money from oil
The Shiite sect was made to serve and pray
But, with a little bit of luck, with a little bit of luck
The Kurds won't bring it to a boil
(With a little bit, with a little bit)
(With a little bit of luck Kurds won't bring it to a boil)
(With a little bit, with a little bit)
(With a little bit of bloomin' luck)
The Lord above made America to spread freedom
No matter where on land or sea or foam
The Lord above made America to spread freedom
But, with a little bit of luck, with a little bit of luck
NOT FOR ISLAMISTS WITH A MOSQUE AND DOME!!
(With a little bit, with a little bit)
(With a little bit of luck not with mosque and dome)

They're always throwing insurgents at you
But, with a little bit of luck the US can win

Oh it's a crime for us to go nation buildin'
And fill the world with death and doubt
Oh it's a crime for us to go nation buildin'
But, with a little bit of luck, with a little bit of luck
Before the Shiite hits, we'll declare victory and pull out
(With a little bit, with a little bit)
(With a little bit of luck we'll declare victory and pull out)
(With a little bit, with a little bit)
(With a little bit of bloomin' luck)

A government was meant to support its troops
Providing bullets and armor for their tanks
A government was meant to support its troops
But, with a little bit of luck, with a little bit of luck
We'll manage not to deplete their ranks
(With a little bit, with a little bit)
(With a little bit of luck we won't deplete their ranks)

(He doesn't have a clue as to why we're losing)
(A retired General given lots of rope )
(He doesn't have a clue as to why we're losing)
(But, with a little bit of luck, with a little bit of luck)
(He'll dig up the same old dope)
(With a little bit, with a little bit)
(With a little bit of luck it's the same old dope)
(With a little bit, with a little bit)
(With a little bit of bloomin' luck)

Apologies to:

With A Little Bit Of Luck
Stanley Holloway, Gordon Dilworth, and Rod McLennan
Words and Music by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe

-From the Broadway musical "My Fair Lady."

Cheerz... Bwana

Getting Lucky In Iraq

2005-01-08T14:01:00.000-05:00

Breakfast with Bwana

JANUARY 8, 2005

GETTING LUCKY IN IRAQ:

The Secretary of American Defense (SAD) Donald Rumsfeld met, Thursday, January 6, with his top military and civilian aides, according to a report in The New York Times. SAD conscripted General (ret'd) Gary E. Luck, a former head of US forces in the Korean peninsula and now serving as an advisor to the Joint Forces Command, to go to Iraq. Gary, known to his friends as "Luck-E Gary" is to look at all areas of the operation, identify any weaknesses and report back in a few weeks with a confidential assessment.

I suppose it's okay to hire a consultant for such things. After all, it has not escaped Bwana's attention that everyday, American CEOs hire management consultants who don't know the first thing about their businesses to tell them how to go about fixing what they have fouled up. And, everyday, American investors listen to thousands of analysts, 99% of whom have NEVER run a business, telling them which company's business strategy will lead to what level of market share, growth, earnings, and -- mirabile dictu -- a higher stock price.

Now, if there is anything one can predict about the Armed Forces command, it is that they will outdo everybody else in finding determinable levels of incompetence. Unlike the rest of us "normal" Americans who are content with hiring a consultant who knows nothing about the area of consultation, the commanders and SAD will, inevitably find someone who has demonstrably already screwed up, as their man for the job. So what are Luck-E's credentials? No, not that ... he was not the inventor of the $10,000 toilet seat.

What we do know is that Luck-E was a senior advisor to General "Deaf, Dumb and Blind Pinball Wizard" Tommy Franks at his war-time HQ in Qatar. According to The New York Times, "a principal focus" of Luck-E's foray "will be to address one of the biggest problems facing the military in Iraq today: how to train Iraqi soldiers and police officers to replace the American troops now securing the country." This is the guy who advised Pinball Tommy on how to achieve what the President has called a "catastrophic success." That man has a way with words, don't he?

Did I read that correctly? Are American forces now "securing" the country? If you look at the same edition of the Times, the column right next to the one we are discussing has the headline: "SOME IRAQ AREAS UNSAFE FOR VOTE, U.S. GENERAL SAYS." This General, with a grasp for the obvious (for which he is likely to be fired - you see, having a reality-based view of the tactical situation rather than sticking to the goal-oriented military objective view - is a violation of the UCMJ, Uniform Cacophony of Military Jerks, a required membership unit for high command officers) is Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz.

Now, I pause to note that Metz, who, from the time that he revealed his ill-advised brush with reality, has come to be known affectionately to the rank and file as "General Mess" is only a Lieutenant General. To my Brit colleagues and readers, there is no "F" in "Lieutenant." Yes, if you insist, you may continue to say "LeF-tenn-ent" but if you had a $10,000 dollar toilet seat built by your command, you'd pronounce it "Loo-tenant" too, just as we doo doo here. See, etymology is fun, isn't it? But, I digress.

Luck-E was not chosen for the obvious fact that he also outshines former Democratic Presidential hopeful, John Kerry who has only three purple hearts and a bronze star. Together, those do not match Luck-E's four stars. Also, in addition to being Pinball Wizard's sidekick this time around, Luck-E commanded the XVIII Airborne Corps in the Persian Gulf in 1991. That, I recall, is when the Iraqi Air Force smuggled all its combat aircraft out of Iraq right under his nose and parked them in Iran. Not that it mattered, since we used so many cruise missiles before the laser guided bombs were launched from altitudes thousands of feet above the range of anti-aircraft fire. So, another video game jockey is now being sent to assess the situation on the ground.

We might well ask, what is the purpose for having Luck-E go to Iraq and what might we expect him to find and report? It is way below Bwana's standards to suggest that snagging of a bit of Luck by SAD is merely a subterfuge, so I will not do that. Let us indulge in the possibility that this is a sincere effort to find out what is going on.

Early last year, Major General Karl Eikenberry recommended that the Pentagon slow down fielding the new Iraqi army to focus on building militia units of what is now the Iraqi National Guard. Last April, Major General David Petraeus was sent to help step up the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces. American commanders have "expressed disappointment in the performance of many of the Iraqi forces" according to the Times. You guessed it -- yes, Petraeus was promoted to LeF-tenn-ent er... Loo-tennant General and put in charge of the training program.

Between Eikenberry and Petraeus, the Iraqi forces now providing security -- as for the projected election -- number 127,000 which falls far short of the 270,000 Iraqi officials have estimated would be necessary to secure the country on election day. Another comment in the newspaper's reportage, includes the comment by a Pentagon official that, although the current mix of US forces in Iraq is a 50-50 split between active-duty and reserve units, the active duty share in the next rotation will grow to 70% because the Army is simply running out of reserve units to call up.

So, Luck-E's report will say that the Iraqi training program has not worked; there is a short fall of more than 50% between what is needed and what exists; that US forces do not have enough manpower and there is no way to get reservists to go without extending the current limits of 24 months on their active service. It probably will not say that Eikenberry and Petraeus screwed up.

By the way, the Armed Forces are already looking for authority to increase manpower by 30,000 active-duty soldiers and contemplating a change in rules to allow reservists to be called up for multiple tours as long as each does not exceed 24 months.

Doesn't it sound like we already know what we need to know and what Luck-E will find? Now, before you leap to answer, go back to the first paragraph of this comment and you will note that SAD wants Luck-E's report to be "confidential." Bwana wants to expose this for what it is -- another episode in the belief of SAD and the UCMJ that if you take the obvious truth and put it in a "confidential" report, it somehow becomes a secret.

As for General Mess, in commenting on the impact of the inadequate security on the elections and the fear of voters, he said: "Part of democracy is the right to choose. If people choose to boycott the election, that is their choice."

Really, folks, General Mess really, really said that. I did not make it up. Did you ever think that the day would come when a country claiming to bring democracy to another would have one of its armed forces spokespeople say it is okay not to vote if you choose to stay away because you are afraid that by exercising your right to vote, you will be killed? Maybe General Mess won't be fired, after all. In the grand tradition of UCMJ, he said the right thing.

What a mess. I don't think we are going to get lucky on this one, even with Luck-E.

Cheerz....Bwana

Fat As A Fiddle -- from December 13

2005-01-07T20:50:00.000-05:00

Breakfast with Bwana

DECEMBER 13 , 2004

FAT AS A FIDDLE:
OK, we can all relax and breathe easier now, what with Vice being still SOB (short of breath) as we have noted. Doctors at the National Naval Medical Center pronounced the President to be in a "superior" fitness category for men of his age.

There were some minor problems and one major problem noted. The minor problems included a small lesion on his left shoulder that had to be removed. Doctors theorized that this came from repeatedly throwing salt over his shoulder during the run up to the election. Doctors suggested no salt while the wound is open. The President also was said to have "a mild high frequency hearing loss that does not affect everyday conversation and an optic condition that has the effect of farsightedness and causes him to occasionally use reading glasses." Doctors were at a loss to explain the high frequency hearing loss since it usually affects only those who listen well. However, one of the audiologists noted that the moral majority has been agitating at an even higher pitch than before the election, so that this may be the price of rallying the troops. A joint committee of Opthalmic experts and Optometrists concluded that the findings on farsightedness were illusory and advised the President to continue his avoidance of newspapers so as not to create undue reliance on outside aids for focus.

The major problem is, of course, that ... well ... the Prez is a bit chunky. It seems that he has packed on almost six pounds since his last check up. President Jacques Chirac, taking note of the 2.7 kg adornment, gleefully called Gerhard Schroeder and said "Tros gros. Il est horrible." Chancellor Schroeder, not known for his linguistic prowess, asked "was sind Sie Jacques sagend?" The conversation ended soon enough.

The President himself emerged somewhat sheepishly after this annual peregrination that all presidents must endure to be palpated and poked by physicians prior to the public pronouncement of physical well-being, and offered this excuse ``I obviously have gone through a campaign where I probably ate too many doughnuts, if you get my drift.''

Upon hearing this, Bernard Kerik called his broker to inquire whether he had any uncashed options in Krispy Kreme.

Now, we were not satisfied with the President's explanation, so we called the First Lady. Mrs. Bush, as you know is wholly supportive of her husband, but delicately, with her usual charming smile gave a somewhat different prandial assessment of the cause: "Well, my husband has been occupied with elections quite a bit lately. There was the Afghan election and we're awaiting the election in Iraq and, then, of course, there was that horrible thing with John Kerry. I don't know about the doughnuts, but a lot of Republicans are saying that George ate John Kerry's lunch. I didn't see that when they got together for the debates and I don't know if that would account for the 6 pounds. Some even said that he put blue ketchup together with the traditional red ketchup, but I never saw that. It would have looked purple and I don't think I would have missed that."

The President rejects the notion that God wants him to be tubby. He has vowed to jog to church for prayers. News of this has caused a support group, the Holy Coalition of Obese Worshippers (Holy "COW") to say their firm behinds strongly support the President. No. Wait. They said they are firmly behind and strongly support the President.

At any rate, the Commander in Chief is back on the job full of fitness and almost 3 extra kg. The first order of business as he told Condi is: "Condi, this Kerik thing is an embarrassment. We have to find a new S-H-I-T."

"A new S-H-I-T? Mr. President?"

"Yes, Condi. That's Secretary of Homeland Intelligence and Terrorism."

"Omigosh, Mr. President, that kind of describes the job, doesn't it?" purred Condi. "But, you know, it was something else with Kerik. That the guy was Commissioner of Police and didn't know she was illegal. I mean, you could have knocked me over with a feather. And I told Colin Powell right from the get go that I had a bad feeling about Kerrik -- the name sounds too much like, well, you know, the election all over again."

"Condi, I'm hungry. I'd like a Krispy Kerry ... er Krispy Kreme."

The President is fit for duty. He is fat as a fiddle.

Cheerz....Bwana

Krugman revives Christmas eve BwB memories

2005-01-07T12:26:00.000-05:00

Paul Krugman's column in The New York Times today, Jan 7, makes the point that neither Kerik nor Rudy Giuliani was a hero of 9/11 but each played one on TV and was quick to cash in afterwards. I'm posting the piece I wrote on December 24, making the same point, my way.
Bwana
January 7, 2005

Breakfast with Bwana

DECEMBER 24, 2004

MERRY TURBULENCE:
It has been quite a while since Prezzy told us of his first encounter with Putin, some four years ago: "I looked into Vlad -ee--mer's eyes and saw Dioxin." Two days ago, Vlad-ee-mer gave himself quite a Christmas present via Rosneft which, via Baikal Finans took over, Yuganskneftegaz, which will, eventually, all be wrapped up into Gazprom. After all is said and done, in a bid to continue its headlong tilt toward free market reform and to gain name brand recognition in the West, Gazprom will be known as Dioxin International.
Vlad-ee-mer is sort of reminiscent of T. Boone Pickens and his corporate raider stunts, isn't he? Oh, by the way, T. B. is not quite done; he's still spreading his infectious little self. Why, just this morning, The New York Times reports that he has given $250,000 to Prezzy's Inaugural Committee and that he gave about $5.5 million to the Progress for America Voter Fund and Swift Boat Vets and P.O.W.'s for Truth. T. B. is only one of many "donors" who have, so far, put up $8 million to ensure that Prezzy and Laura have a real nice dance party, y'hear. I am most impressed with his charitable spirit and willingness to put up so much money for the pursuit of truth.
On the subject of charitable spirit, I have no brief for Bernard Kerik, but Rudy Giuliani's desert-the-sinking-(friend)ship-like-a-scared-rat act is despicable. I know, I know, Rudy-the-Red-Nosed-Patriot conducted himself with poise and aplomb after 9/11. But, so did Mike Dukakis, after the great blizzard of 1978. I mean, it's not hard to stand up and tell everybody to be strong, keep their chins up, dig up the rubble and find the dead bodies without tears, and remember that we are all strong Americans and will not buckle, especially when you are the Mayor and don't have to do the digging or cleaning, and really have no responsibility about deciding what the nation will do to respond. Even Prezzy gave a speech that warmed the cockles of our stars and stripes after 9/11 about how we were going to kick derriers even if, after we did, we left our own exposed.
Rudy-the-Red-Nosed-Moneygrubber didn't hesitate to cash in on the 9/11 bonanza with his consulting firm. I don't begrudge Giuliani his success -- after all, if corporate America is willing to pay for his services, they must know what they are getting. They've put up $8 million so far for the Inaugural Committee and the total is targeted at $40 million -- yes, these folks know where to shop with their hard earned money. However, what gets me is that he pushed Kerik out and the way in which he did it. There was the obligatory save-face speech by Kerik in which he allowed as how the turmoil around him was affecting the company and Giuliani and how Kerik saw that as unfair to them. There was the obligatory corporate statement that Giuliani accepted-with-regret-the-resignation. However, it was also announced immediately, that the name of the firm will be changed from Giuliani-Kerick Bloodsuckers Group, to Giuliani-Solo-Pig, Inc. Giuliani, not one to abjure a kick-the-dirty-dog-while-he-is-down swipe that would make Pele or Beckham proud, said that he thought Kerik had made the "right" decision. Sure, "right" for Giuliani. But, why the hypocrisy of saying you accepted the resignation with regret, if you are going to say it was the right decision?
I know that Rudolph-the-Red-Nosed-Blue-Stater is said to have hopes of being President. It will be well for Americans to keep in mind that this is an exploiter, not a loyal guy, not a guy who stands up for his friends, and, well, quite frankly, not a charitable guy, given what I see here. It sure would have been a good friend to have let Kerik take a 3-6 month leave of absence to see what shook out. After all, we Americans have short memories and have forgiven larger transgressions. And I say all this, not really caring about Kerik, one way or the other. I just hope that Americans don't fall for yet another creep questing for the White House.
But it's Christmas, and I want to be charitable. I was thinking about Iraq and Iran when I heard of the release of the French news 'ostages. It struck me as funny, that Chirac was there welcoming them back almost as war heroes from a war he didn't join. But I was glad that their Christmas will be cheerful. Then, I thought about Jimmy Carter's botched attempt to rescue the hostages in Iran back in 1979.
And speaking of forgiving smaller transgressions, wouldn't it be nice if we could fire up a Black Hawk and see if T. B. or H. Ross Perot would finance a rescue attempt to free Martha Stewart who is being held hostage in West Virginia. I mean Christmas is not the same without her wonderful hints like "How to prepare your Christmas fruitcake batter while taking a Jacuzzi" or "how to make Christmas tree ornaments from Llegs panty hose packages." I say this because the other day, Prezzy didn't include Martha in his list of those pardoned this Christmas. Most of the people he pardoned seemed to have been bank embezzlers.
And I think we should be charitable to Dick (why would a grown man call himself that?) Cheney. Let's chip in and get him a defribillator. Let's get Rumpy a flak jacket. Let's get Condi one of those home hair cutting and trim kits so she get that wedge of hair out of her face. And let's get Prezzy a subscription to The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The L.A. Times, and The Guardian. After all, don't you think it's time he started reading the newspapers to find out what is going on?
Most of all, let's be charitable to ourselves and to each other. Merry Turbulence to all.

Cheerz.... Bwana Claus

The Year Of The Rat - Revisited

2005-01-07T02:35:00.000-05:00

Breakfast with Bwana

JANUARY 6, 2005

THE YEAR OF THE RAT - REVISITED:

Happy New Year to all. A little belated perhaps, but well timed for the Chinese new year which will occur soon enough, for us to be timely. In any event, I don't like those cards shamelessly proclaiming one's tardiness in sending greetings late, usually for the recipient's birthday. Not only has one succeeded in making the well wished feel neglected to begin with, but the well-wished is older than s/he would have been. The crime is compounded.
So, let's celebrate the Chinese New Year in the year of the RAT. Okay, okay, I know this is the year of the ROOSTER and I certainly know that Bill Clinton was re-elected in the year of the RAT the last time that rolled around. Oh, for those curious about such things, Bush XLIII was first elected in the year of the DRAGON and re-elected in the year of the MONKEY.
But it sure feels like the year of the RAT.
Out of Kenya comes the story that worker's at Nairobi's main fresh food market killed some 6,000 rats and trucked away 800 tons of garbage in the first major cleanup in 30 years. Officials deny that the cleanup was in celebration of BaRAT Obama's swearing in as US Senator. This story, out of Kenya, would probably have been titled Out of Africa if one were a movie producer. What? That's taken? You don't say? Amazing, isn't it, that in the electoral triumph of the Red states, all the Republicans could do was find Alan Keyless to run a ratty campaign in opposition.
The Nairobi story is interesting because the cleaner-uppers reported that garbage was piled some 7 feet deep and after 42,269 gallons of water were used for the cleanup, some traders were reportedly surprised that there was tarmac underfoot, beneath the 30-year old accumulation. If one is eclectic and cares about such things, the amount of water used was 160,000 litters.
The saga of the rats continued when Baseball's Hall of Rats nominated Wade Boggs on the first ballot. Now, I know Boggs played fabulous baseball in a Boston Red Sox uniform as well as in the pinstripes and much of his fabulous career was a well-honed display of how prima donna hitters should misbehave. But, how many of you know that Boggs, who earned millions for playing rat-a-tat-tat with the baseball bat, also plays rat-a-tat-tat against defenseless animals with firearms? And, I'm talking about big game and threatened species. After killing a hippo, he joyously recounted how the locals thought he was the Great White Hunter. What a miserable human being to get pleasure out of hanging trophies of animals he has killed. One wonders if this gutless jerk would have been willing to face a leopard (yes, he killed one of those beautiful cats which are an endangered species) with just a baseball bat in his hand. I'd take Roar vs. Wade on that one.
DemocRATS were terribly upset that President Bush nominated AlbeRATo Gonzales to be RATtorney General of the United States, particularly because he ostensibly sanctioned torture and opined that the Geneva Convention should not apply to enemy CombRATants. It's amazing, isn't it, how these guys get religion once they are under public scrutiny. It seems to me that somehow we lost sight of the fact that the Geneva Convention was designed to protect one's own prisoners of war -- a reciprocity gained by protecting the other side's prisoners. When Al-Qaeda and their ilk capture prisoners, they usually behead them. Does that excuse torture? No. But not because of the Geneva Convention. Rather, because decent human beings shouldn't behave that way and that was the genesis of the Geneva Convention in the first place. But, never fear -- Gonzales has proclaimed that he is a decent human being -- I mean what else would you expect from someone who has lived the American Dream?
The good news is RATS are not all bad. Again, Out of Africa comes another story -- rats bred in Tanzania, are being used in Mozambique to sniff out land mines. Rats have a very strong sense of smell which helps them sniff out the scent of the explosives used in land mines. Their light weight prevents the mines from setting off.
The bad news is that Out of Nairobi came the added observation that although 6,000 rats were killed, a like number escaped. Obviously, one of them ended up playing baseball in Boston and New York. I'd like to harness him to sniff out land mines instead of snuffing out endangered game.
Oh what a game is this baseball. Oh what heroes rats can be when they sniff out landmines. Oh what rats baseball heroes can be when they snuff out defenseless animals.
Rats!
Cheerz.....Bwana

Article from Feb 2003 - Is war intuitively right or intuitively wrong?

2005-01-06T17:02:00.000-05:00

Here is a piece I wrote in February 2003 before the invasion of Iraq.

IS WAR INTUITIVELY RIGHT OR INTUITIVELY WRONG? In the pantheon of living evil-doers Saddam Hussein yields top spot only to Osama bin Laden. Idi Amin of Uganda, long sent to a sandy Saudi pasture is a distant memory. Slobodan Milosevich, now begins the second year of conducting his own defense at his war crimes trial, in relentless confirmation of the adage that he who represents himself has a fool for a client. When the President promised to take the number one evil-doer Osama bin Laden down, to bring him to justice, or to bring justice to him, yea to get him "Dead or Alive" we were not troubled by his Texas Ranger bravado, we welcomed it.Yet, when it comes to taking Saddam Hussein out by force, there seems to be a disquiet about whether war is the right way to do it, at this time. Protests around the world against the impending war, a fracture in the seams of our carefully nurtured alliance with post-war western Europe, and questions about whether the United Nations is truly behind an American led adventure with support from Tony Blair and a handful of small European nations, have served only to confuse many Americans about whether they should support the President or not.How did this come about? In no small measure, the Bush Administration, starting with the President is responsible for sowing the seeds of confusion and leaving us with no clear answers as to whether this war is intuitively right or intuitively wrong.For starters, most Americans want to support the President and our troops, particularly our troops. To be sure, there are many who will always be opposed to any form of military action. It is easy to dismiss them as pacifists but many of those opposed to war as an instrument of foreign policy focus on the suffering of innocent civilians as well as the social and economic costs of armed conflict as the raison d’etre of their position. Then there are those who will say that it is about time America flexed its muscle as far as Iraq is concerned. Some of these Americans are concerned that we do not do enough to silence those who would attack American interests and promote terrorism against our country.A large segment of our populace, however, remains unconvinced, ambivalent or confused. This group is far too large and diverse for the President to ignore. A war said to be in the national interest must demonstrably be shown to the people to be in the national interest. An administration that fails to rally unequivocal national support from the majority, risks falling into the kind of alienation we saw arising from the Vietnam war.When Saddam Hussein’s forces invaded Kuwait, President Bush, the elder, declared: "This will not stand." America stood with him. The world came to stand with him. A similar stirring call to deal with Saddam Hussein by force has not been articulated … at least, not so far. Efforts to place him in the number one spot among evil-doers have not worked. He has not displaced Osama bin Laden.Now, almost a dozen years later, President George W. Bush has declared that it is time for Saddam Hussein to disarm or to be forcibly disarmed. There has been no explanation of why, after some eleven years of containment, this man should be considered an imminent threat. The Administration’s failure to make a case for urgent action on disarmament might be explained by the fact that its initially stated goal was to bring about "regime change," not simply to disarm Saddam. Americans, brought up to believe that regime change should take place by the democratic process of elections, recoil at the thought that we as a country would use military force to bring about regime change. There is something fundamentally antithetical to the idiom of American political thought in such a concept.Secretary of State Colin Powell, apparently urging the President to take his case to the United Nations, at first appeared to be a voice of moderation in the Administration. This was surely wise counsel. The threat that the United States would go it alone – with Tony Blair in tow – seemed to suggest that the Administration was ready to make Iraq the first target of its newly announced policy of preemptive action. Strictly speaking, that was not the case since the new policy was never officially linked to a contemplated action against Saddam Hussein. Indeed, the preemption doctrine was not even officially in place when President Bush went to the United Nations.Nevertheless, the perception of the United States as an arrogant bully and the President as a cowboy seems to have stuck both abroad and at home. Just last week, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia in a speech on the Senate floor declared that this nation is about to embark upon the first test of a revolutionary doctrine of preemption, the idea that we can legitimately attack a nation that is not an imminent threat but may be a future threat. He went so far as to declare this doctrine a contravention of international law and of the UN charter.The Administration’s case need not, however, have been so complicated. More simply stated, the case is this: Saddam Hussein wrongfully – and in contravention of international law and the UN Charter – attacked Kuwait. The United States, as part of a force sanctioned by the UN Security Council, drove him out of Iraq. He sued for peace and, among the conditions of his remaining in power, was that he would destroy all existing weapons of mass destruction under verification of UN inspectors. Thus, as Prime Minister Tony Blair has explained, UN inspections are not meant to be a hide-and-seek game with the inspectors looking for weapons. Rather, they are intended to be an exercise conducted with the full cooperation of the Iraqi government as it affirmatively demonstrates that it has indeed destroyed its stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and precursors used for their production, and that it is not pursuing the acquisition of nuclear weapons.The Administration’s contention, backed at least to that extent by Hans Blix, is that the Iraqi regime has not been cooperative and that it has failed to account for significant quantities of chemical and biological agents. "Significant quantities" means tons, not isolated samples, and enough to cause massive injuries and loss of life. The Iraqi regime’s 12,000 page Declaration of what happened to its weapons of mass destruction, does not explain adequately where its stockpiles have gone. The Iraqis continue to claim that they simply do not have such weapons. They cannot explain, however, what happened to them. Against this backdrop, there is the disconcerting dissonance of Iraqi troops being ordered to take precautions against chemical agents on the battlefield.Seeking a UN Security Council resolution did much to mitigate the idea that the entire Iraq adventure was the first strike in the new American policy of preemptive action. However, American reluctance to get a second UN resolution and threats to go it alone send exactly the opposite message. To the extent that the U. S. and Britain seek to foster the notion that they are acting under the mantle of the UN Charter and the sanctions imposed on Iraq for its ill-fated excursion into Kuwait, it is counter intuitive to shy away from a UN resolution now. Rather than making the obvious case that the necessary resolution has already been passed, the Administration waffles on the subject stating that a new resolution would be welcome. It seems much more consistent to reiterate the point previously made that if the UN is to have any meaning as a force for world peace and world order, it must back up its resolutions with force where necessary.It takes no great feat of analysis or logic to conclude that if Saddam Hussein does have weapons of mass destruction, he is not likely to suddenly declare where they are simply because UN inspectors have more time to spend in Iraq. Despite this, the French and German position that inspectors should be allowed more time, rests on the premise that, mirabile dictu, Saddam Hussein will come clean in due course.The logical inconsistency in the Franco-German position is that those countries do not deny that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. That seems to be a given. If so, disarmament would be the logical approach – if Iraq will not do it voluntarily, a coalition of the willing, as the Administration calls it, will do it forcibly. The French and Germans say that we should give diplomacy more time, a laudable approach in the abstract but likely to have no effect in the circumstances at hand. There is no reason to believe that Saddam Hussein will suddenly declare that he has been lying to us all along.Yet, it is precisely here that the Bush Administration’s position also faces its weakest logical link. The fact that the inspectors have not found weapons of mass destruction at least raises the possibility that Iraq has none. If so, military action would be unjustified and futile, at least in terms of disarmament. But it would likely bring about regime change. This inherent logical inconsistency, not explained by the Administration leads Americans to wonder whether the real goal is, after all, regime change and nothing more.It is here that the Administration has simply failed to connect the dots for the American people and to show why, despite the lack of objective evidence from the UN inspectors, there is a compelling case for military action. Until that case is made, the American President comes across as hell bent on doing it his way – the classic world picture of America as Imperialist. In fact, a prolonged period of observation by UN inspectors backed by a UN peacekeeping force may well be a sufficient check on Saddam Hussein, a check that will avoid an American led war, devastation of what remains of Iraq’s infrastructure, and civilian casualties. The case has not been made why this is not a better solution.In its effort to deal with the logical inconsistencies and lack of reasonable explanations, the Administration has proffered two ill-conceived responses. The first approach was to try and link the Iraqi regime to Al Qaeda. After September 11th it no longer is a matter of debate that preemption, at least when applied to terrorists is a valid, indeed the only sensible, approach. Our Secretary of State announced the impending broadcast, on Al Jazeera, of the alleged audiotape statement by Osama bin Laden as showing a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq. The connection was so tenuous as to be virtually nonexistent. Colin Powell probably lost more credibility by that ill-advised stretch than he gained by his forceful earlier presentation at the UN when he made a strong, if not compelling, case for military action.The second approach by the Administration is an exercise in the perverse. It hinges on justifying military action by emphasizing the risk that American and allied troops will face from Iraqi chemical and biological weapons. After all, if American troops are exposed to chemical or biological weapons during an offensive on Iraqi troops, we will have proved the point that Iraq actually has such weapons, won’t we?This particular effort started early with plans to vaccinate American troops. After all, if the Administration did not have reason to fear a smallpox attack, why would it have ordered hundreds of thousands of troops vaccinated? Why, the President himself was vaccinated against smallpox. Then the Administration in a show more of bluster than common sense, attempted to communicate to Iraqi soldiers and commanders in the field that if they followed orders to use chemical or biological weapons, they would be subject to trial as war criminals. This public relations effort continues. Now the Administration and the Pentagon have started to focus the media on the risk to American troops of being exposed to Iraqi chemical and biological weapons. Articles appear in the press about the new willingness of the Administration and Pentagon to discuss the risks associated with the contemplated military action.The Bush Administration, with the able assistance of an articulate British Prime Minister, has tried to make the case that Saddam Hussein is a threat, that he is a terrible despot, that he has already used weapons of mass destruction and, indeed, that the world would be better off without him.The real problem is that the Bush Administration has not done enough to counter the superficial logic of the Franco-German position that seductively urges more time for diplomacy to work. The Bush Administration, has failed to explain that more time will not accomplish anything since diplomacy has not worked with Iraq and there is no reason to suppose it will work. Whatever minor efforts have been made along those lines have been camouflaged by the rhetoric of belligerence and saber rattling coming out of Washington.Nor has the Administration done anything to help Americans and the rest of the world focus on the important question: "What if President Bush is correct that Saddam Hussein does have weapons of mass destruction that he will either use or put in the hands of terrorists?"It is not until the Administration can do this that Americans will feel the war is intuitively right. Until then, they will question whether it is intuitively wrong.
Copyright © 2003 BwB

Welcome

2004-12-31T13:05:00.000-05:00

Hi all.

I've decided to create this blog to post and archive my musings as Bwana.

Your comments are welcome.

Your suggestions and ideas for subjects to be covered are welcome.

Thanks.

Cheerz....Bwana