Admiral Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has discovered (surprise! surprise!) that we're killing large numbers of civilians with our bombing campaign in Afghanistan : Two weeks ago, a US air strike in Afghainstan’s Farah Province killed around 140 civilians, making it by far the deadliest single incident since the 2001 American invasion. Such incidents, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen today conceded, are putting America’s strategy in the seemingly endless war in jeopardy. “We cannot succeed in Afghanistan or anywhere else, but let’s talk specifically about Afghanistan, by killing Afghan civilians,” Admiral Mullen declared today at a talk at the Brookings Institution. “We can’t keep going through incidents like this and expect the strategy to work.” The toll sparked protests from local civilians, and a demand from Afghan President Hamid Karzai to end all US air strikes inside the nation. Admiral Mullen insisted that rules had been in place f...

I am not much on symbolism, much less "pledges of allegiance" (oaths are a different story). The fact that we formally have an allegiance pledge to a "flag" (much less any inanimate object) is absurd, a vestige of 'flag-waving' purism lingering from a more simplistic antiquity. But if we're going to have it in this nation, repeated by millions - drone-like, I would propose the Pledge of Allegiance be changed to : I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America And to the Republic by which it stands One nation indivisible in liberty and justice for all. ADDENDUM : Commenter Miko got me thinking. Here is a possible alternative : I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America And to the freedoms for which it stands One Republic, indivisible in liberty and justice for all.

Neocon, Bush-loving, big government too-long-incumbent warmonger Republican Senator Lindsey Graham gets it all wrong. What a shock!! : "I'm not a libertarian...we're not gonna build the party around libertarian ideas." Yeah, Graham should know. He is quite the expert at how not to build, or in his case how to destroy a party (in 8 years or less). Boy, it's mighty white of Lindsey to tell us how we in the GOP will best deal with the national statist onslaught he and his buddy W ushered in for America, as a prelude to Obamanation. Graham takes on Ron Paul using a well-worn trick of lying politicians : falsely put words in an opponent's mouth and take phony offense from it. Graham falsely accuses Paul of saying that not only Bush policies but Bush himself "brought the attacks on the United States". This would be a "straw man" argument were it not directly attributed to Paul. It is a lie. Paul has never accused Bush of such a thing and on...

And these are only examples of incidents that are publicly reported : May 18 : Across the river, nuclear reactor shut down after air line leak May 17 : Explosion rocks Sunoco chemical refinery near Claymont; evacuations averted May 16 : Delaware City Valero Refinery Releases Sulfur Dioxide Due to Equipment Failure May 10 : Delaware City Valero Refinery Releases Hydrogen Sulfide - Cause Unknown April 15 : Wilmington has big (coal fly ash +) sludge problem "The collapse of a long-troubled sewage sludge recycling program could double Wilmington's disposal costs to as much as $4 million yearly as early as December, officials told a City Council committee Tuesday. State regulators recently ordered the city and a subcontractor to plan for cleanup and monitoring of the current recycling site, near the plant at I-495 and East 12th Street. As much as a million tons of sludge -- mixed with power-plant coal ash, incinerator ash and other industrial castoffs -- have accumulated at the pr...

... from its eight-year engagement with the Clinton administration . It some days seems that President Obama sees his foreign policy and civil liberties decisions as a basis for keeping his political opponents from successfully opposing his economic policies : With President Obama’s policy shifts of the past week, he has found a new cheering section: Republican Congressmen. Senator Lindsey Graham (R - SC) in particular cheered the moves, lauding what he called “intelligent, well-reasoned decisions about trying to clean up the old system but not throwing it out.” If one was to go by the amount of problems the president had with the old system during the campaign, the paucity of real cleaning is nothing short of remarkable. His pledge to leave Iraq within 16 months went up in smoke just days after he took office. At this point he seems determined to leave as many as 50,000 troops in the nation indefinitely. But the moves of the past week were nothing short of monumental. His pledge of ...

First, the one who howls describes the current pending legislation to prevent banks from capriciously changing the interest rates charged on existing credit card balances, and then he goes on to make a point as politically incorrect as it is critical to understanding how the economy actually functions: There is legislation pending in Congress to restrict the ability of lenders (e.g. credit card issuers) from changing rates on existing debt. They ask if it is fair for someone who took on a debt thinking it would be at 15% to suddenly find it is at 25%. But how are tax increases any different. I make 10-20 year investments in my company, and the expected tax rate is a hugely important assumption in whether it makes any sense for me to put my capital in a particular venture. How is a large increase in taxes on returns from my past investments any different than changing the interest rate on an existing debt? Then Coyote discusses the fact that huge new regulatory skeins ostensibl...

This is being represented in many places as President Obama changing his strategy toward Iran: President Barack Obama says the US has not taken military action against Iran over its nuclear program off the table ahead of the Israeli premier's trip to Washington. In an interview with Newsweek on Saturday, Obama made it clear that he did not take any options off the table when asked about war with Iran. "I've been very clear that I don't take any options off the table with respect to Iran. I don't take options off the table when it comes to US security, period," said Obama. In point of fact, agree with him or not, Barack Obama is being completely consistent on the matter. Here's what I quoted him as saying in a post on September 8 last year : Speaking on other national security matters, Obama said he would not take military action off the table in dealing with Iran, but diplomacy and sanctions can’t be overlooked. The Islamic republic is a “major threat” an...