Gone, but not forgotten

The Mandarin is taking a little holiday and will return in mid-October.

Shrub seeks clarity on torture

The Mandarin is relieved to see actual Republicans developing backbones on this issue. For chickenhawks like Rumsfeld, draft-dodger Cheney, the raft of Neo-Cons who never wore a uniform, and of course AWOL Shrub to say that we need to "clarify" the Geneva Conventions to make sure that abuses like "waterboarding," for example, are not considered torture, well, Shrub, here are two simple tests.

One: when a former POW (Senator McCain) who has been totured himself says the Geneva Conventions should not be watered down, that should be a hint.

Two: if by some unimaginable twist of fate your daughters someday followed in their grandfather's footsteps and fought in a war, and were captured, anything you would be outraged to learn they had suffered at the hands of their captors, well,... get the picture.

When the Mandarin was a young officer back during the previous pointless overseas quagmire (think rice paddies), he and his fellow soldiers were trained in the Geneva Conventions. The Mandarin even was issued a little wallet card with the key provisions printed on it.

And we were taught that if we were captured, we should hold out if at all possible for twenty-four hours, and after that tell the enemy whatever they wanted to hear. The assumption was that after twenty-four hours, anything useful a captured soldier knew, the enemy knew, so plans and codes, etc., could be changed to take advantage of what the enemy thought they had learned of value, to turn it against them.

If Shrub and his chickenhawks start interpreting the Conventions to permit abusive interrogations in the name of protecting Americans, American soldiers will pay the price in blood, sooner or later. Perhaps on a waterboard....

We need to live up to our ideals as a country. As a wise old man (whose initials were B.F.) once said, "The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either." The same will be true of a country who trades the long-standing protections of the Geneva Conventions for a temporary political advantage.

Original photo caption: President Bush pauses during a Rose Garden news conference, Friday, Sept. 15, 2006 at the White House. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

Movie Description of the Week

The Mandarin was flipping through the on-screen cable guide this evening and came across this little winner. Unfortunately, he was drinking from a glass of water at the time and the professional-quality spit take that followed (never laugh out loud and drink water at the same time) was fortunately not caught on film.

"When Night is Falling." A bisexual mythology professor has an affair with a circus performer she met at a laundromat.

Well the Mandarin thought it was funny. Maybe you just had to be there.

If Shrub wants a Constitutional amendment banning flag-burning, this little trick ought to get him a serious spanking at the very least....

Talk about being made of teflon! The Mandarin wonders what the right-wing blogosphere would make of a picture of Hillary Clinton pulling this little trick.

Plus he did it on September 11th of all days, defiling a date that is sacred in the hearts of all Americans: the Mandarin's birthday.

And to my loyal readership, despite Shrub's callous insensitivity, thanks again for making it a memorable day in Mandarin-land.

Original photo caption: U.S. President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush stand on a carpet commemorating the date of the attacks of September 11, 2001 near a mural depicting those attacks outside the Ladder Company 10 firehouse opposite the site of the World Trade Center in New York, September 10, 2006. Bush lay a wreath at Ground Zero before visiting a chapel for a memorial service. REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES)

Condi channels Travis Bickle

"You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well, I'm the only one here."

The Mandarin is fairly sure Condi doesn't have a gun up her sleeve, like Travis Bickle did in Taxi Driver, but she sure does have that "I'm practicing my mean face in the mirror" look, doesn't she.

Note: Sharp-eyed readers will recall the Mandarin has used the Travis Bickle bit once before, but this one was just too good to resist.

Original photo caption: In this photo provided by CBS, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appears on CBS's 'Face the Nation' in Washington, Sunday, Sept. 10, 2006. (AP Photo/CBS Face the Nation, Karin Cooper)

The Mandarin Supports the President in the Fight Against Terrorists - President Clinton, that is....

Shrub is right - politicians who don't want the President to have the tools he needs to fight terrorism should be thrown out of office.

The Mandarin suggests we start with those Congressional Republicans who were "soft on terrorism" ten years ago.... click me.

Pluto Demoted!

The Mandarin was saddened to learn that Pluto has been demoted:

Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.

After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. The new definition of what is — and isn't — a planet fills a centuries-old black hole for scientists who have labored since Copernicus without one.

However, all is not lost for Mickey's pal:

[Pluto] will be reclassified in a new category of "dwarf planets," similar to what long have been termed "minor planets."

We may have lost a planet, reducing the total in our solar system from nine to to the classical eight, but -- looking at the bright side -- Snow White has gained a dwarf.

How timely! As the Mandarin read recently, "three quarters of Americans can correctly identify two of Snow White's seven dwarfs while only a quarter can name two Supreme Court Justices."

So, the Mandarin proposes -- to avoid cultural confusion -- we keep the number of Snow White's dwarfs constant at seven, and improve the name recognition of Supreme Court Justices by 50% with one simple step: Pluto will join the Seven Dwarfs, replacing Dopey, at which point Clarence Thomas will officially change his name to Dopey (which the other eight Justices already call him anyway).

"Have I turned blue yet?"

The Mandarin found Shrub's session with the press yesterday fascinating.

This is from the Associated Press report:

[Shrub] said Monday the Iraq war is "straining the psyche of our country;" but leaving now would be a disaster.

[He] served notice at a news conference that he would not change course or flinch from debate about the unpopular war as he campaigns for Republicans in the fall congressional elections.

Then, as evidence of how much the war has strained his own psyche, he told reporters that he was going to hold his breath and turn blue unless they stopped asking him negative questions about Iraq, about his low poll numbers and especially until veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas stopped looking at him with her "evil eye" all the time.


Original photo caption: US President George W. Bush listens to a reporter's question as he conducts a press conference inside the White House Conference Center across the street from the White House in Washington, DC. Bush called for urgent deployment of a peacekeeping force in Lebanon to salvage a UN-brokered truce that halted 34 days of warfare between Israel and Hezbollah.(AFP/Paul J. Richards)

Better air travel through chemistry

The Mandarin was in Mexico on holiday when the latest gang of crackpot British al Qaeda wannabees were rounded up for talking about thinking about plotting to blow up airliners with binary explosives made in the air by combining carried-on liquids disguised as a Starbucks Venti Latte and a bottle of lip gloss.

Beginning the return trip with more than the usual trepidation, the Mandarin found the luggage searching process at the Guadalajara airport to be quite manageable, as it turned out. So, happily, the Mandarin managed to return to the land of the Red Threat Level in one large piece. Thank you, Mexico's Michael Chertoff, whoever you are -- you're doing a heckuva job.

Anyway, now the Mandarin reads an article that explains just how binary explosives, in this case the versatile TATP (triacetone triperoxide), would be assembled in, say, an aircraft lavatory.

It makes fascinating reading, and the Mandarin for one, will be ever vigilant from now on in case he sees someone sneaking an ice bucket, a thermometer, a large beaker, a glass stirring rod, a medicine dropper and bottles of acetone, hydrogen peroxide and (you guessed it) sulfuric acid into the first class lav and then staying in there for several hours with nasty-smelling toxic fumes coming out from under the door now and then.

Money quote:

Once the plane is over the ocean, very discreetly bring all of your gear into the toilet. You might need to make several trips to avoid drawing attention. Once your kit is in place, put a beaker containing the peroxide / acetone mixture into the ice water bath (Champagne bucket), and start adding the acid, drop by drop, while stirring constantly. Watch the reaction temperature carefully. The mixture will heat, and if it gets too hot, you'll end up with a weak explosive. In fact, if it gets really hot, you'll get a premature explosion possibly sufficient to kill you, but probably no one else.

After a few hours - assuming, by some miracle, that the fumes haven't overcome you or alerted passengers or the flight crew to your activities - you'll have a quantity of TATP with which to carry out your mission. Now all you need to do is dry it for an hour or two.

The genius of this scheme is that TATP is relatively easy to detonate. But you must make enough of it to crash the plane, and you must make it with care to assure potency. One needs quality stuff to commit "mass murder on an unimaginable scale," as Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson put it. While it's true that a slapdash concoction will explode, it's unlikely to do more than blow out a few windows. At best, an infidel or two might be killed by the blast, and one or two others by flying debris as the cabin suddenly depressurizes, but that's about all you're likely to manage under the most favorable conditions possible.


Boys and girls, it's just that easy.... Don't you feel safer now?

While the Mandarin is on holiday for a week or so.....

Perhaps one of his loyal readers can explain what the hell is going on in this picture. The Mandarin knows that Katherine Harris, both a proponent and an example of intelligent design, is fighting for her political life in the Florida Senate race, but what does paying $400 for a possum have to do with it?

The press description wasn't completely enlightening on the point:

You're not likely to catch Katherine Harris doing this in her hometown of Longboat Key. But she was a long way culturally and geographically from her well-heeled seaside community. She was in the middle of the Possum Palace holding a scruffy-looking marsupial by the tail, adroitly shaking it to prevent the creature from crawling up her arm. She paid $400 in an auction for the privilege.

And the U.S. Senate candidate was impressing the locals with her possum-handling skills. "That gal knows how to shake a possum," the auctioneer drawled.


Original photo caption: U. S. Congresswoman Katherine Harris, R-Florida, holds up a possum she purchased at the Wausau Possum Festival, Saturday, Aug. 5, 2006, in Wausau, Fla. Harris is a candidate for the U. S. Senate.(AP Photo/Phil Coale)

Boob descending a staircase

The Mandarin imagines that whenever Shrub is going up or down the Air Force One stairs, photographers must just put their cameras on rapid fire. They know sooner or later they will get a money shot like this one. The upper middle frame is a particularly fine example of the "Curious George" genre.

The Mandarin's apologies to all the teen-aged blog crawlers who thought the "boob" in the title meant the more usual kind. For them, there is an ample endowment of Pam Anderson shots bouncing around on the web this week.

"Curious George takes a tumble" was the Mandarin's runner-up caption, but sometimes life must imitate art. So, apologies also to Marcel Duchamp for stealing the title of his iconic 1912 paining "Nude Descending a Staircase #2."






Original Shrub photo caption: In this combination photo, President Bush reacts as he stumbles while walking off Air Force One after returning to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Monday, July 31, 2006. (AP Photos/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

Oh, lovely....

Oh, lovely. Israeli military are firing Dual-purpose ICM artillery shells at civilian villages in southern Lebanon.

ICM ("Improved Conventional Munitions") are commonly called cluster bombs. Back in the stone age of 1970-71 when the Mandarin was an artillery officer, we called ICM "popcorn" because of the popping sound of the little bomblets going off in a cloud over the target area. Each 155mm DPICM artillery shell releases 80 or so little bomblets that are supposed to bounce up a couple of feet after hitting the ground and explode at a pre-determined hight most effective against both people and military equipment (hence "Dual-Purpose").

Unfortunately, 10-20% of the bomblets usually fail to explode, and are sometimes picked up later and detonate themselves in the hands of curious children thinking they are some kind of little toy. For that reason, use of them against civilian areas is prohibited by normal military doctrine, and is considered by some to be a war crime. We even stopped selling them to Israel twenty years ago or after they fired them into,... you guessed it, Lebanon. Israel now makes DPICM itself.

Thank goodness there is no such thing as global warming

Thank goodness there is no such thing as global warming, because if we had global warming on top of the record-breaking heat wave hitting Los Angeles for the last few weeks, our goose would really be cooked.

The Mandarin was over in Burbank yesterday and the temp display on the Mandarin's Saab read 117 degrees. And that was the actual air temperature. In the car, after sitting for a few hours, it was pushing a Baghdad-like 140!

Perhaps the Mandarin should blame his lack of postings recently on the unprecedented hot weather we've been having. But the news has been exceptionally depressing lately - not much to make jokes about as Israel destroys Lebanon while Shrub and Condi sit on their hands.

The British and French foreign ministers, quoted by Kevin Drum at "Political Animal", said it well:

Speaking to a BBC reporter before travelling on for talks in Israel, where he will also visit the missile-hit areas of Haifa and meet his Israeli opposite number [British Foreign Office Minister Kim] Howells said: 'The destruction of the infrastructure, the death of so many children and so many people: these have not been surgical strikes. If they are chasing Hizbollah, then go for Hizbollah. You don't go for the entire Lebanese nation.' The minister added: 'I very much hope that the Americans understand what's happening to Lebanon.' -- The Guardian

"It is obvious that there were a certain number of hits where one did not exactly see the point," [French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie] told reporters on board the French frigate Jean Bart, which has been shuttling between Beirut and Larnaca, Cyprus carrying evacuees to safety. "One cannot ask the Lebanese national army to disarm the militias and at the same time bomb the main Lebanese barracks." Alliot-Marie also raised doubts about the strategic sense of bombing factories that produce powdered milk for infants. "And unfortunately, more and more, we are seeing a number of bombardments that are hitting civilians, even convoys of people who were simply seeking to reach Beirut to find shelter have been hit by bombs." -- The Lebanon Star

Whether enervated by the heat, or depressed by our powerlessness to force Shrub and his neo-Con Mafia to condemn Israeli agression in Lebanon, the Mandarin is at a loss.


Original photo caption: An injured Lebanese woman and her daughter from the southern village of al-Tiri sit in the hospital following Israeli air strikes on a convoy of people fleeing their villages in the southern city of Tyre. The UN relief chief condemned Israel for "violating humanitarian law" over its blistering raids on Lebanon as the Jewish state and Hezbollah killed more civilians in another wave of attacks.(AFP/Hassan Ammar)

Where has the Mandarin heard that before?

As the Israeli military invades Palestine and Lebanon trying to recover three captured soldiers, Shrub -- visiting Germany -- weighs in:

[Shrub] voiced concern about the fate of Lebanon's anti-Syrian government, but offered no direct criticism of the punishment Israel is meting out.

"Israel has the right to defend herself," he said in Germany. "Secondly, whatever Israel does should not weaken the ... government in Lebanon."

Sustained air strikes in south Lebanon killed over 50 civilians and wounded 110 people, security sources said. Ten family members were killed in Dweir village and seven family members died in Baflay. A Lebanese soldier was also killed.

Hmmm. Take one of ours and we kill fifty of yours. That tactic sounds familiar.... Where has the Mandarin heard that before? Maybe here? Or here?

No. The Israelis would never, ever do something like that. Definitely the wrong guys. That can't be it.

The Mandarin must have been thinking about something else.

In fact, never mind. Forget the Mandarin even mentioned it.

Pick your sponsor

The Mandarin has been off-line lately doing some rush work on a book manuscript for a publisher who wants to see a full draft by the end of the summer.

Also, politics hasn't been that funny lately.

But, a couple of things in today's TV listings caught the Mandarin's eye. There are probably a dozen jokes here about flexible shafts and going the distance (not to mention golf games lasting longer than four hours being dangerous to your health), but you loyal readers can handle that on your own.

But considering which products sponsor which sports, the Mandarin can definitely see some method to their madness:

PGA Golf - The Cialis Western Open

NASCAR stock car racing - Nextel Cup USG Sheetrock 400

If those are the sponsorship choices, the Mandarin would have to give the nod to golf....

A young Iraqi woman writes a blog....

I ran across this blog today, and highly recommend reading it. Her recent posts give a vivid and heartbreaking picture of exactly how "Freedom is on the March" in Shrub's Pottery Barn Iraq.

Her take on the death of Zarkawi: (June 10, 2006)

How do I feel? To hell with Zarqawi (or Zayrkawi as Bush calls him). He was an American creation- he came along with them- they don't need him anymore, apparently. His influence was greatly exaggerated but he was the justification for every single family they killed through military strikes and troops. It was WMD at first, then it was Saddam, then it was Zarqawi. Who will it be now? Who will be the new excuse for killing and detaining Iraqis? Or is it that an excuse is no longer needed- they have freedom to do what they want. The slaughter in Haditha months ago proved that. "They don't need him anymore," our elderly neighbor waved the news away like he was shooing flies, "They have fifty Zarqawis in government."

So now that Zarqawi is dead, and because according to Bush and our Iraqi puppets he was behind so much of Iraq's misery- things should get better, right? The car bombs should lessen, the ethnic cleansing will come to a halt, military strikes and sieges will die down… That's what we were promised, wasn't it? That sounds good to me. Now- who do they have to kill to stop the Ministry of Interior death squads, and trigger-happy foreign troops?

Ver-Klimt

Yikes!:

A 1907 portrait by Gustav Klimt has been purchased by cosmetics magnate Ronald S. Lauder for $135 million, the highest amount ever paid for a painting, The New York Times reported.

The price tops the $104.1 million paid for Picasso's 1905 "Boy With a Pipe (The Young Apprentice)" in an auction at Sotheby's in 2004, the paper said in its Monday edition.

The portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, the wife of a Jewish sugar industrialist, is considered one of Klimt's masterpieces.

The Mandarin has a set of drink coasters with Klimt's most famous paintings (bought at the Belvedere Museum in Vienna a few years ago), and he is going to be extra careful with this one from now on.


Original photo caption: The 1907 portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Gustav Klimt. The portrait has been purchased for $135 million, the highest amount ever paid for a painting, The New York Times reported. (Handout/Reuters)

Too bad they didn't point the camera at Shrub

It could have been another of those watershed "Dukakis in the tank" moments.

For the Mandarin's younger loyal reader(s), Michael Dukakis lost the 1988 Presidential election to Shrub's dad (a/k/a "President Bush").

Here's a snippet from Wikipedia about "Dukakis in the tank."

In September 1988 Dukakis visited the General Dynamics plant in Michigan to take part in a photo op in an M1 Abrams tank... Filmed wearing a safety helmet that seemed too large for his head, Dukakis looked awkward, out of place, and decidedly uncomfortable in a military setting. Footage of Dukakis was used by the Bush campaign as evidence he would not make a good commander-in-chief, and "Dukakis in the tank" remains shorthand for backfired public relations outings.

To see killer "tank" photo, the one that came to the Mandarin's mind when he saw the shot above, click here.


Original photo caption: White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, left, and White House Counselor Dan Barlett, ride in a military helicopter wearing helmets and flak jackets for a trip from Baghdad International Airport to U.S. Embassy in the Greenzone Tuesday, June 13, 2006 in Baghdad, Iraq. Snow and Bartlett traveled with President Bush who made a surprise visit to Baghdad. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Inconvenient, but true

No joke: see this movie. As soon as you can. Take your friends and family. Go to the web site.

As the Mandarin was watching this film today, the phrase, "tanned, rested, and ready" came to mind. Except Al Gore isn't rested. He's tireless. Think how different things would be with a Democratic Congress and Al in the White House where he belongs (eight years late, but who's counting).

Shrub, al-Zarqawi, and the Legend of the Hydra

Shrub’s crowing over the killing of al-Zarqawi (another “Mission Accomplished”?) shows how deeply he still misunderstands the rifts in Iraq, not only among the Shia, Sunni and Kurds, but also among various factions of the Iraqi insurgency and the wider Islamic fundamentalist movement.

Bin Ladin and al-Zarqawi were never allies, and often rivals. Bin Ladin strongly condemned al-Zarqawi for killing Muslims. While al-Zarqawi claimed the use of the “Al Qaeda” brand in Iraq, he never submitted to Bin Ladin’s leadership or attained Bin Ladin’s stature in the Muslim world.

An early informed view of the impact of his death (Juan Cole, Ivo Daalder, Juliet Kayyem, among others) is that the US has cut off one of the hydra’s heads in Iraq. Another one will certainly grow in its place.

The Mandarin was particularly struck by this expression of that fundamental idea by Mary Anne Weaver in The Atlantic:

Before leaving Amman, I had asked the high-level Jordanian intelligence official with whom I met whether al-Zarqawi, in his view, was a potential challenger to Osama bin Laden.

“Not at all,” he replied. “Zarqawi had the ambition to become what he has, but whatever happens, even if he becomes the most popular figure in Iraq, he can never go against the symbolism that bin Laden represents. If Zarqawi is captured or killed tomorrow, the Iraqi insurgency will go on. There is no such thing as ‘Zarqawism.’ What Zarqawi is will die with him. Bin Laden, on the other hand, is an ideological thinker. He created the concept of al-Qaeda and all of its offshoots. He feels he’s achieved his goal.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Osama bin Laden is like Karl Marx. Both created an ideology. Marxism still flourished well after Marx’s death. And whether bin Laden is killed, or simply dies of natural causes, al-Qaedaism will survive him.”

Until they understand who our enemy is and why they fight us, the Mandarin is hard pressed to have much confidence in Shrub and his Generals.

Déjà vu

The Mandarin was having déjà vu recently, reading about the military’s investigation into the incident at Haditha where a few Marines may have murdered a number of innocent civilians. The investigation is being led by an Army General named Bargewell.

The Bargewell investigation is likely to be explosive on Capitol Hill, because it focuses on questions that have haunted the Bush administration and the U.S. military since the scandal over abuse at Abu Ghraib prison emerged two years ago: How do U.S. military leaders in Iraq react to allegations of wrongdoing by their troops? And is the military prepared to carry out the long and arduous process of putting down an insurgency as part of the first U.S. occupation of an Arab nation?

One of Bargewell's conclusions is that the training of troops for Iraq has been flawed, the official said, with too much emphasis on traditional war-fighting skills and insufficient focus on how to wage a counterinsurgency campaign. Currently the director of operations for a top headquarters in Iraq, Bargewell is a career Special Operations officer and therefore more familiar than most regular Army officers with the precepts of counterinsurgency, such as using the minimum amount of force necessary to succeed. Also, as an Army staff sergeant in Vietnam in 1971, Bargewell received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army's second-highest honor, for actions in combat while a member of long-range reconnaissance team operating deep behind enemy lines.

In the Mandarin's eyes, Bargewell's "cred" is immmesurably enhanced by his having worn the Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol, or "Lurp" badge.

While then-Sgt. Bargewell was earning his DSC, the Mandarin was an Army Lieutenant at Ft. Sill, OK, teaching “Stability Operations” in the Tactics Department of the Field Artillery School.

“Stability Operations” was Army slang for the process of dealing with the local people in an area where US forces were occupying or conducting military operations. More broadly, as the Mandarin taught it, it concerned investigating the reasons some locals supported indigenous resistance movements, such as the Viet Cong at that time. The Mandarin also taught his Captains cases dating back to the Maoist guerrilla war in China in the 1930s and 1940s as well as lessons learned from the French occupation of Vietnam -- ending in their magnificent (or disastrous, depending on your point of view) defeat at Điện Biên Phủ at the hands of the brilliant General Võ Nguyên Giáp.

Even back in 1971, Stab Ops was only a two-week elective for Captains in residence at a nine-month course to prepare them to command units at the Battalion level and higher. But the Mandarin felt that those Captains who stayed awake in his two-week introduction to guerrilla warfare -- from the guerrilla (a/k/a “insurgent”) point of view -- went away at the very least with the impression that Stab Ops was something complex and difficult, needing forethought and planning.

Too Bad 1LT Shrub, Texas Air National Guard wasn’t cracking his gum in the back row of the Mandarin’s class when we were analyzing General Giáp’s approach to insurgency, or perhaps something might have stuck. Besides Shrub’s gum to the bottom of one of the Mandarin’s chairs, of course….


P.S. The head shot is General Giáp, who is apparently still alive and kicking at age 96. The Mandarin wonders what he would make of our latest adventure?

The Incredible Shrinking President

Someone forgot to bring the three phone books he usually stands on when he uses the "grown-up" podium....

Original photo caption: U.S. President George W. Bush speaks about immigration reform at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington June 1, 2006. REUTERS/Larry Downing (UNITED STATES)

War has many faces

The Mandarin is one of the few people who still watch the CBS evening news (when he gets home from work early enough to catch it). CBS rotates a couple of faces through its Baghdad bureau, and one of them is the excellent reporter Kimberly Dozier. Not long ago, after Bob Woodruff of ABC was wounded, the Mandarin had a premonition that something similar would happen to Ms. Dozier. Today it did.

Two members of a CBS News team, veteran cameraman Paul Douglas, 48, and soundman James Brolan, 42, were killed and correspondent Kimberly Dozier, 39, was seriously injured Monday when the Baghdad military unit in which they were embedded was attacked.

They were reporting on patrol with the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, when their convoy was struck by a roadside bomb.

CBS News Correspondent Kimberly Dozier, 39, sustained serious injuries in the attack and underwent surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Baghdad. She is in critical condition, but doctors are cautiously optimistic about her prognosis."


Shrub has already lost the support of a majority of the nation for his crusade in the Middle East. Very few people are buying his ever-shifting line on the war any more, whether to find non-existent WMD, or to avenge Saddam's attempt to assassinate Shrub's father (the Mandarin's personal favorite), or to "spread freedom" in countries where free elections will probably result in victory for Islamic fundamentalists who hate us for our support of Israel's actions in Palestine,...

The number of military dead and wounded in Iraq is approaching 20,000. To borrow an image from President Bush (Shrub's daddy), these casualties produce "a thousand points" of outrage and grief. Those points are gradually coalescing into a national will so strong that not even Shrub can ignore it. Public reaction to casualties among well-known people like Bob Woodruff, or Pat Tilman, or now Kimberly Dozier, may also help hasten the end of Shrub's not-so-excellent adventure in Iraq.

The Mandarin is grateful for free speech (without it John Ashcroft or Alberto Gonzalez would have jailed the Mandarin a long time ago) and especially a free press. But defending our freedoms has a price, both abroad and at home - where we should always remember the wise words of Ben Franklin:

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.

The Mandarin wonders if old Ben had a premonition, too.

What's wrong with this picture?

One of the Mandarin's favorite loyal readers (that small, elite group) passed along this picture. The Mandarin struggled with a few sarcastic captions, but eventually decided just to let the word speak for itself.

Intelligence

1: the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations; also: the skilled use of reason

2: the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (as tests)

3: the act of understanding

4: information concerning an enemy or possible enemy or an area; also : an agency engaged in obtaining such information

Antonyms: denseness, density, doltishness, dopiness, dullness, dumbness, fatuity, feeblemindedness, foolishness, idiocy, imbecility, senselessness, simpleness, slowness, stupidity.

A true believer breaks with Shrub

Richard Viguerie has been dubbed the "funding father" of modern conservative strategy, having pioneered important tactics in computerized direct mail strategy in the 1970s and 1980s. He is considered the direct mail titan of the right. (ex Wikipedia)

Well, at long last, Viguerie has finally had enough of Shrub's shenanigans.

The patriarch of US conservatives has urged his followers to halt their financial support of the Republican Party and start an independent movement, signaling a major political shift that could result in heavy losses for the US ruling party in upcoming elections.

Richard Viguerie, who was instrumental in cementing the winning coalitions behind Ronald Reagan in 1980 and George W. Bush in 2000, declared that conservatives were "downright fed up" with both the president and Republican-controlled Congress.

James Dobson, Patriarch of the Wingnut Christian Right has joined Viguerie and is singing the same tune:

"There is a growing feeling among conservatives that the only way to cure the problem is for Republicans to lose the Congressional elections this fall," said Richard Viguerie, a conservative direct-mail pioneer

Mr. Viguerie also cited dissatisfaction with government spending, the war in Iraq and the immigration-policy debate…. "I can't tell you how much anger there is at the Republican leadership," Mr. Viguerie said. "I have never seen anything like it."

In the last several weeks, Dr. James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and one of the most influential Christian conservatives, has publicly accused Republican leaders of betraying the social conservatives who helped elect them in 2004. He has also warned in private meetings with about a dozen of the top Republicans in Washington that he may turn critic this fall unless the party delivers on conservative goals.

The Mandarin feels their pain. The real conservatives deserve their own political movement, and if that means seceding from the Bush-Cheney-Schwarzenegger-Giuliani Republicans, forming a third party and giving Congress back to the Democrats in 2006, well, sometimes you have to break eggs to make an omelet (or should the Mandarin have said "egg foo yung" 芙蓉蛋?)

And how about that Al Gore? We're talking tanned, rested and ready. He was elected President once, so the second time should be a piece of cake. Especially with people like Viguerie and Dobson sitting on their hands, or supporting fellow wingnut Tom Tancredo in a right-wing splinter party in 2008.

I guess I'll have to call this blog "The English"

The Senate has voted to make English,... well, it got a little confusing:

The Senate first voted 63-34 to make English the national language after lawmakers who led the effort said it would promote national unity.

But critics argued the move would prevent limited English speakers from getting language assistance required by an executive order enacted under President Clinton. So the Senate also voted 58-39 to make English the nation's "common and unifying language."

Well, whichever, I guess the national melting pot, or ethnic salad, or whataver you prefer, may be getting a little blander.

Perhaps the first step will need to be translating all those foreign words on restaurant menus into English. Somehow "sauce" for salsa and "stir-fried leftovers" for chop suey just don't have that,... je ne sais quoi.


UPDATE: Stop the presses! El arbusto se opone a declarar inglés la lengua nacional. Or, perhaps the Mandarin should say: 灌木反對宣稱英語為國家語言. But, on second thought, maybe he opposes it because he's not fluent in English?

Great Moments in Presidential Ventriloquism

Dick Cheney has broken new ground in the highly specialized field of political ventriloquism. Some ventriloquists amaze audiences by throwing their voices while drinking water or smoking a cigarette. In his never-before-seen photo, Cheney has actually introduced two unprecedented innovations: 1) he has taken his left arm and hand completely out of the socket in Shrub's back, and 2) he is actually throwing his voice while sleeping.

Until now, when Cheney dozed off at Cabinet meetings, the others present had to endure extended pauses in Shrub's remarks until someone reached over and poked Cheney to wake him up. Now, it appears those days are over.

Talk about raising the bar! The Mandarin can only imagine what wonders are still to come from this circus act....


Original photo caption: U.S. President George W. Bush speaks during a meeting about the situation in Iraq with current and former U.S. secretaries of state and defense at the White House in Washington May 12, 2006. From left are Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The old 80/20 rule

Shrub's approval rating has sunk to 29%, so can the reverse of the 80/20 rule be far off now, a 20% approval rating?

Even at 29%, it means he is even losing part of the faithful bedrock: fiscal small government conservatives (what we used to call "Republicans") and the nutcase Christian right (what we used to call "the nutcase Christian right") who combined with five Supreme Court justices and Katherine Harris to put him in the White House in the first place.

The Mandarin was magically reading Karl Rove's mind last night during one of the commercial breaks on the "Colbert Report," and -- you're reading it here first -- he learned what Karl is cooking up for 2008. The plan now is in three steps. First, Dick Cheney will resign this year for health reasons and devote himself to the cause of homeless victims of hunting accidents. Second, Shrub will nominate his brother Jeb as Vice President. Third, (and shhh.... Shrub doesn't know this part yet) Shrub will be persuaded to resign ("abdicate"?) in Jeb's favor, thus setting up the battle of the titans in 2008: incumbent President Bush III vs. challenger Clinton II.

Actually, the Mandarin isn't sure what Rove was smoking at the time, but the odds of that happening are about, what... 20/80?


Original photo caption: US President George W. Bush, pictured here late on 11 May 2006 steping off Air Force One under stormy skies, according to a recent poll, only 29 percent of Americans now believe he is doing a good job.(AFP/File/Paul Richards)

Sometimes the Mandarin thinks news photographers do this on purpose

Creative cropping, that is. I'm sure the Shrubbites thought this one was funny.

Can we get some completely new candidates this time?

Original photo caption: U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) discusses the negative impact of the Bush/Enzi health bill and women's access to contraception and abortion prevention efforts while at a news conference in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, May 10, 2006.

Slow News Day

The Mandarin is under the weather for a few days, but couldn't resist sharing another "Curious George" shot.

Original photo caption: President Bush shakes hands after delivering a speech about taxes and spending to the American Council of Engineering Companies meeting on Wednesday, May 3, 2006 in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)