Steve Darnell, writing to Pravda and thereby constituting this week’s visit, has to go all the way back to the winter of 1777 as the basis for this piece lauding Secretarissimo Rumsfeld and his catty response to PFC Wilson’s inquiry as to why American vehicles in Iraq aren’t properly armored (one fact which accounts for around, oh, half of American combat deaths in that theater). General George Washington, you see, had to endure privations at Valley Forge, and American infantry men always bitch. No point in noting that the American military, at Rummy and Dubya’s directions, geared up for an...

Welcome to the Republic of Gideon, baby. Yes, your Social Security Administration refuses to accept proof of marriages performed in New Paltz, New York (thanks to the village’s Mayor West performing, heaven help us. same sex marriages…) The SSA won’t accept proof of any marriages performed in New Paltz– straight or otherwise. Via No Capital. It just so happens that Mrs. TD and I were married some thirteen years ago… in… New Paltz… New York… We’re filing for our tax refunds immediately… We’ll try to break the news to the Loquacious Pup gently… After having lived through 9-11-01 from a...

Big Pharma superstar Pfizer’s arthritis pain drug, the heavily advertised Celebrex, was found responsible for a signficant increase in heart problems, according to a Pfizer study of other applications for the drug. Well, well, well. What we have is just part of the vicious cycle now operating in America’s so-called health care apparatus: big pharma develops a drug for some use, then advertises the &^%$ out of it, people go to their doctors demanding the neat new drug they saw on t.v., doctors are under pressure to satisfy their patients (and as an added benefit, the insurance companies are much...

Contracts to develop a couple of minor Iraqi oil fields were let to Canadian and Turkish bidders. The contracts, totalling under $500 million, were notable for their smallness, i.e., no major oil companies (or Bechtel, Halliburton or the usual favored suspects) seemed to have an interest in them. The contracts are of note because they are, of course, the first “post-war” contracts let by “the sovereign” (albeit illegitimate) government of Iraq. The announcement of these contracts comes just as former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was allowed to meet with his defense lawyers (for the first time). Relationship between the two?...

One of the funniest television shticks I’ve ever seen was but a moment: on an NBC television special hosted by Don Rickles in the early 1970’s, the network decided to feature another of its stars, and asked Rickles to point him out. Rickles did so, as follows: “Ladies and gentlemen, its Mr. Bob Hope! I guess the war must be over!” [It wasn’t.] Fast forward to a less funny moment in what has now moved into the ranks of bloodiest American military adventures, and what now passes for “entertaining the troops”, an event attended by around 1,000 service personnel (same...

Amidst reports of successive attacks on gates leading to the protected American suburb in the center of Baghdad affectionately (and, interestingly, accurately so) called “the Green Zone”, interim premier (and, I suppose, the front runner in next month’s show elections in Iraq) Iyad Allawi has announced that starting next week, proceedings will commence vis a vis trials of former members of the Saddam Hussein Tikriti regime. Now, those irritating defendants and their irritating attorneys are kvetching about things like not being able to have counsel present during interrogations and proceedings, or having, you know, formal charges and shit for like,...

This week’s visit to our friends at Beijing’s People’s Daily gives us this account of the PRC having joined the big boys, with over one trillion U.S. dollars worth of annual international trade. That would put China up there with only the United States, Japan, and whoever is in third place (Germany, maybe… the EU as a whole?). To put this in perspective, the entire American annual GDP is in the ten trillion dollar range. China holds over $500 billion in foreign exchange reserves (mostly yankee dollars, mostly in funny paper like T-bills). Further, China observes that it employs around...

This week’s visit to Pravda discusses this week’s NATO-Russia summit at Brussels, and how both sides have no intention of returning to the Cold War, and how the Ukraine “disagreement” does not signify a return to prior rivalries, etc. and so forth. Hugs and kissees all around. No mention, of course, is made of the poisoning of Ukrainian opposition candidate Victor Yuschenko, which has just been confirmed by doctors in Austria. I mean, just because an autocrat in the Kremlin really wanted the other guy to win, doesn’t make you think that… Bygones…

Almost on cue (commenter Miss Authoritiva questioned if “the corporatists” who run the world might want to knock the Bushmen down a notch or two lest they take the nation over the edge, and hence, be bad for business) Homeland Security Secretary nominee Bernard Kerik abruptly withdrew his name from nomination. The stated reason is that he was a middle class person who had children. Therefore, he had domestic help, and therefore, said domestic help was (1) off the books and (2) of “questionable” immigration status. And therefore, Kerik can’t be a cabinet officer. Kerik becomes the first man of...

The President continued his policy to destroy the financial underpinnings of this country (see “mandate”) more or less unabated, today “taking payroll tax increases off the table” to fund his (insane) social security privatization scam… scheme. Obviously, if we (1) won’t raise payroll taxes and (2) won’t reduce social security (or medicare) benefits, and (3) won’t increase other federal taxes, then that pretty much leaves (4) massive borrowing as the only available option to fund proposed increased costs of social security administration envisioned by the private account gifts to Wall Street… er, younger workers. The issue, of course (the real...