Shooter/Babs would give the poor bear severe indigestion.

An interesting blog:

http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,166077,00.html

Helicopters following a bear through the suburban back yards of NJ.

Rye Whiskey, Rye whiskey...

It's two bears!

Steven Colbert will be so excited and he's got ten minutes of program for a future show.

Bears are omnivores. (Like us.)

The impact of promoting Petraeus, however, may be even greater in the national security establishment than on Capitol Hill. It's a wake-up call to old-school Army officers and their vanishing dreams of massive tank battles and artillery skirmishes, some of whom privately call Petraeus "King David" for his high self-regard and chumminess with reporters. Gates has made clear that wants commanders able to carry out the messy, irregular kind of combat championed by Petraeus that the Defense Secretary envisages the U.S. fighting for years to come. The promotion reinforces the message he delivered to young Air Force and Army officers on Monday, when he criticized their leaders for devoting too much time and effort to future potential wars, and not enough to the real wars now under way.

"The kinds of conflicts that we're doing, not just in Iraq but in Afghanistan, and some of the challenges that we face elsewhere in the region and in the Central Command area, are very much characterized by asymmetric warfare," Gates said.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1734509,00.html?xid=newsletter-daily

I would hope, but not expect, that long range plans and money go to irregular kinds of combat with the political-military goal of never again engaging in large scale conflict and increasing our involvement in humanitarian causes.

Protection against MANPADS, close air support and other tactics such as predators for surveillance and very accurate targeting used in irregular combat, need to be part of the planning, but to insist that you need 1,700 fighter aircraft when other needs are of a much higher priority, is stupid and a direct result of the much too powerful military-industrial complex and the fighter jock mentality that infects Air Force leadership.

How ever will Cocktailhag be able to mix her evening Manhattan without a bottle of rye? (Yes, I know that Les Modernes often use bourbon, but they're probably Republicans and as such would prefer to drive their SUVs rather than drink bourbon anyway. Besides, they're so déclassé; Cocktailhag would never have them over for drinks.)

You'd better hope that Gates and Petraeus don't get their way:

Planet of Slums, by Mike Davis, a guy I worked with over 40 years ago. He's one of those folks who've consistently looked into a future which shooter and his soulmates can never seem to see coming.

http://www.versobooks.com/books/cdef/d-titles/davis_m_planet_of_slums.shtml

Thanks for providing that link. The conclusion sums up a lot of what we have been discussing:

By an odd coincidence, the article comes approximately two years after the so-called "Revolt of the Generals", where several senior retired officers publicly called for then-Secretary Rumsfeld's ouster. I was unimpressed then, as I wrote:

Welcome to the party, boys. Where ya been? ... I know, I know, you were still holding out hope for that third or fourth star. And after all, there was that cushy board of directors gig for General Dynamics or Lockheed Martin or KBR hanging in front of you - can't very well do that if you're biting the hand that feeds them, now can you?

You know, there's been a series of pieces over the last few months about how junior officers are leaving the service in droves. Many familiar reasons are cited: the hamster wheel of continuous deployments, lack of an ability to meet family needs, frustration with a well-entrenched bureaucracy. I would humbly add the above episode to the list. I think more and more junior officers see the kind of political and moral compromise that seems to come hand-in-glove with the attainment of senior rank, and want no part of it. What these men did is probably not illegal, and is almost certainly not abnormal, but it is unacceptable in a Republic where military institutions are supposed to be subordinate to civilian ones in every respect.

Last comment I said, 'fazed' but that was okay. I meant "faxed" republican chit chant's that are faxed prop-info. to make Glenn unbearably cranky.

A curiosity killed the beer drunk bear?

I saw a black and yellow salamander.

Ask a Pentagon "military analyst this~

Do the PX-base exchange at DOD's,

have mannequins with nipples? Wall mart and the Dollar Store does. The Proprietor of the Pentagon's PX store needs to dress them mannequins in monk robes and nun habits. okay. Mannequins have no veins, heart, bones, and blood. Why does the mannequin have nipples?

I believe mannequins should be designed to resemble a bare beer? A bear on a beer binge is a dangerous military puppet.

DOD mannequins wear stars.

Why not a bow-ribbon in hair?

Dress the dead decently. err.

Dress a bear in a turkey suit?

Nipples on hairy bears is silly.

The problems Petraeus poses pale in comparison to the future war between the haves and have nots. The Iraq War and the war on terrorism has diverted us from the major challenges we face from economic globalism and global warming. As Barack has warned many times, the next president faces a myriad of enormous challenges. On one hand, if you can afford it, modern medicine is going to extend life and health to degrees that approach the fountain of youth. On the other hand, we will have far too many people on our globe fighting for too few resources, including water, and I don’t see how we will avoid large scale suffering and death.

When we spend far more time planning how to kill people with our military than we do on how to save people, our common sense is woefully lacking. The people from the bottom up are the only ones that can save the corporatists from so much human and natural resource waste and destruction. The haves will not take care of the have nots unless they are forced to change their ways.