A letter has come to light, written by the American ambassador to Korea in 1950, which details the American intention to shoot Korean refugees should they approach American troops. This letter not only led to the next day’s massacre of hundreds of civilian at No Gun Ri, but documents what can now be understood as a systemic policy of shooting civilians. The US Army shrugged off such accusations at the time. This letter was declassified thirty years later, and was overlooked in the department review fifty years later.

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Here’s an unfortuante byproduct to what may have begun as an earnest environmental action. McDonalds was encouraging the recycling of aluminum cans. To offer credit for each can, to calculate a donation they intend for the Ronald McDonald House, McDonalds asks that you detach the flip-tops and collect them in a cute Ronald McDonald cardboard house.
 
Here’s what happened. People began recycling just the flip-tops. “They’re more important to recycle than the cans, apparently. Must be something about the density of the aluminum in the flip-top.” Uhuh.

On Sunday Pope Benedict paid a visit to Auschwitz and asked “WHERE WAS GOD AT AUSCHWITZ?”
 
Why didn’t he ask where was the POPE at Auschwitz?!
 
We’re certainly asking where is the Pope now? Why is he touring sites of past atrocities when there are current crimes which the Pope could be trying to impede?

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We’ve had a spate of vandalism at Camp Casey of late. It’s usually the same thing: lights broken, cinder blocks smashed, chairs upturned, fire pit stolen, banners torn and taken. They’ve taken STOP THE WAR, END WAR, WHAT NOBLE CAUSE, DEMOCRACY DEMANDS NON-VIOLENCE and many others. We simply make more. But they always leave the banner that reads SUPPORT OUR TROOPS - BRING THEM HOME NOW. What self-serving ninnies!

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I spotted this schematic on BagNews. He put it together to suggest what thoughts might be foremost in a GOP legislator’s mind right now.
 
I’m wondering how many others are speculating about the chances that the lockdown at the Rayburn Building was orchestrated to cover for the removal of office files into the parking deck.
 
Let’s see: congressman thinks he hears gunshots and suddenly policemen are pointing their guns at everyone, including reporters.

Senator McCain was commencement speaker at Jerry Falwell’s school. He stressed his support for the war in Iraq, but urged opponents of the war to be more vocal.
 
This is not leadership. Build me a parade and I’ll march at the head? Lead the parade and we’ll march behind you. Otherwise you’ll simply stand with those who want nothing? Those being the majority so we are told?
 
McCain represents the imaginary masses which media polls tell us want nothing.

There’s a local drive to round up soccer balls to send off to the children of Iraq. And they don’t want new ones.
 
An eight year old friend of mine came home from school and explained the logic. “Iraqi children want soccer balls that have been played with by American children. Just like when I go to the ballgame and catch a ball that’s been hit into the bleachers. American kids are excited to have a baseball that’s been used by professional players. Iraqi kids are excited to have soccer balls used by American kids!”

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The kingdom of non-aligned animals should move to extradite Michael Crichton for his piece o’ crap novel which denied global warming. Not because he denied anything, nor fabricated a parallel non-ailing planet, but because his work was propaganda made to incite support for the fuel and chemical barrons who have still plenty of poison to sow. Crichton was lauded as having been a gifted scientist before he became a best-selling author. It suggested by the talking heads that Crichton was perhaps a more talented scholar than he was a novelist, to give his poohpooing of Global Warming more credibility. This statement addressed really the fact that his books are by no means literary. Crichton’s successful, he’s rich, but by no means brilliant. He takes home $60 million a year from publication and movie rights to his string of so popular novels. Apparently that’s not enough.

200,000 Kalashnikovs collected from the streets of Bosnia by US forces were recently shipped off to Iraq via the usual arms dealers/contractors. It’s said the shipments were intended for the Iraqi-coalition soldiers but the guns have disappeared and it’s feared they are being used to fire at US troops.

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The Colorado Springs Gazette recently reported on developments at Fort Carson. With improvements to its infrastructure, Fort Carson will be prepared to ship out over 1,200 soldiers a day. It sounds wonderously efficient. Is anyone asking why we would need to scramble that many soldiers per day? What kind of plans are afoot to suddenly require large contingents of soldiers?
 
Fort Carson was the primary shipping off point during the Vietnam War. Are we looking at that kind of operation?

NPR’s Daniel Shore was talking recently about the rising oil prices. He was asked about what factors affect the price of oil. I think Shore’s answer refined punditry.
 
Shore suggested to use the news of Iran as an example. He explained that “oil prices” would look at developments in Iran and say “Oh my! Iran is creating trouble with its nuclear ambitions!” And as a result the price of oil would rise. (Shall we leave aside this attempt to blame Iran for America’s rising prices at the pump?)
 
Oh my! Punditry began as political opinion-giving. It became of late an opportunity for the media to give voice to what politicians would not say. Tired of receiving “no comment” from goverment authorities, reporters summarized for themselves. Soon pundits were speaking for the public or “some people” or entire populations or cultures or countries. “Christians” think this, or “China” says that.
 
Now apparently oil has a voice.

Not mob rule as in democracy gone awry. Not lynch mob. The mob mob. To borrow what Serbs used to say about their country:
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Freakonomics co-author Steven Levitt gave a lecture at Colorado College about how economics can explain everything and credited the inspiration for his book: Jerry Seinfeld. Which explained perhaps why Levitt was stuck in the minutia.
 
The Colorado Springs audience spilled over two venues to hear the author because economics presents a particularly galling mystery as Americans face the plunging dollar, joblessness and a real estate bubble. A good deal of the audience left before the question and answer period perhaps as they realized that this trust fund tenured professor’s thesis was the equivalent of bizarro theory proving irrelevancies.
 
Levitt linked legalized abortions to decreased crime, instead of linking abortions to less poverty to less crime. He demonstrated how criminal hiearchy in the hood mirrored the management structure of McDonalds, instead of pondering which was a mirror and which was the model.

Stephen Colbert bombed. We know this because there was no laugh track.
 
I watched Colbert’s verbal pie-throwing at the Washington Correspondents Association Dinner. The press corps though it wasn’t funny big time.

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A Meal-Ready-to-Eat is what we feed to our soldiers in the field. It’s a self contained meal, descendent of the C-ration. An MRE features a meat, vegetable, bread, dessert, choice of drinks, and plenty of packaging. Here’s what’s left after you consume the edible bits:
 
Heavy plastic MRE bag
cardboard box enclosing meat
plastic/foil heatable bag for contents
cardboard box enclosing side dish
plastic/foil heatable bag for contents
plastic bag enclosing heat pouch
cloth/chemical heat pouch
plastic bag for spoon
plastic spoon
plastic/foil bag for crackers
plastic/foil bag for cheese
plastic/foil bag for dessert
plastic Fresh Pax pouch
plastic/foil bag for drink mix
clear plastic bag for condiments
clear plastic bag for mint gum
brown paper wrapper for napkin
paper napkin
clear plastic Tobasco bottle
red plastic bottle top
cardboard matchbook
paper/foil bag for tea
tea bag
paper/foil bag for coffee sweetner
paper/foil bag for moist toilette
cloth/paper toilette
3 paper bags for sugar, salt and pepper

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