On the Concept of Old, Frequently Insane, Oft-Times Alcoholic, Occasionally Senile Geezers Sending Younger and Lesser Affluent Men Off to Die in Idiotic Wars

It's kind of a pet-peeve of mine. I'll admit it.

On the Fact that Medicare Sees Errors in Billing as De Facto Fraud

They should just make Joseph K. the next Secretary of Health and Human Services and be done with it. Fucking assholes.

On the Insanity of Medicare

According to a 2002 GAO study, Medicare customer service representatives were wrong 85% of the time when providing answers to billing questions (hardly surprising in that the regs are so confusing) that had been posed by physicians (in a 2004 follow-up, that number had risen to 96%). So, yeah, being that a doctor can literally go to jail for billing incorrectly, it is hardly surprising that so many doctors are now either restricting services to Medicare patients or refusing to accept new Medicare patients. Nice, huh?

The FDA's D Being Short For Death

According Nobel Prize winning physician and scientist, George Hastings, the 5 year delay in introducing the antibiotic drug, Septra, resulted in approximately 80,000 preventable deaths in the United States. It used to take less than 3 years for the FDA to approve a drug (back in the mid-60s) and now it takes close to 10 years and a billion dollars (per drug!!). To say that we need to streamline this process is about as self evident as it gets...................................................................................P.S. The reason that it takes so long for the FDA to approve these drugs (i.e., those drugs in which various members of the FDA don't have a financial stake in) is because the agency has gotten so paranoid about type 2 errors (the act of approving a drug that has costs greater than its benefits) that its actually taken the precautionary principle to idiotic (not to mention, deadly) extremes....And I'm telling you here, if we had had this level of inertia 200 years ago, we'd probably still be breaking sod, breathing in horse manure, and croaking at 40.

Well it Certainly Cured Their Bank Accounts

According to a 2005 article by Dale Steinreich entitled, "Playing God at the FDA", 10 members of the FDA panel who ended up voting for Vioxx and Bextra in 2005, not only had ties to the makers of the drug but as it turned out it was their votes which proved critical in securing the drugs' approval. Can you say, yet another example of crony capitalism and why we really need to drain the swamp?

On Auschwitz and the Firebombing of Tokyo

According to the official camp records from Auschwitz (which had been buried by the Soviets and only recently uncovered by researcher Carlo Mattogno), approximately 60,000 Jews perished in that facility (58,000 of them from typhus). According to the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey for the Pacific Theater, approximately 80,000 Japanese died from the U.S. firebombing of Tokyo. One of these events is considered genocide and the other is not. Guess which, and then guess why.

From People Who Was There

“The hyperhistorical complex [of survivors] may be described as judeocentric, lococentric and egocentric... This is the reason why most of the memoirs and reports are full of preposterous verbosity, graphomanic exaggeration, dramatic effects, overestimated self-inflation, dilettante philosophizing, would-be lyricism, unchecked rumors, bias, partisan attacks and apologies.” Jewish historian and Holocaust survivor, Samuel Gringauz, Quarterly Journal of Jewish Social Studies, 1950.............
"The record is rotten to the core. On one hand a considerable amount of fantasies, inaccuracies, obstinately repeated (in particular concerning numbers), heterogeneous mixtures, generalizations and, on the other hand, very close critical studies that demonstrate the inanity of those exaggerations." - Professor Michel de Bouard, former inmate at Mauthausen

On Polk, Hitler, Mexico, and Europe

The way that I see it, folks, Hitler had a much greater justification for taking the Sudetenland, Moravia, Bavaria, Danzig, and the Polish Corridor than President Polk did for taking what ultimately became Arizona, New Mexico, California, and sections of Utah from Mexico. a) Those territories were never a part of the U.S.A. and b) there weren't a lot of English-speaking people residing there who were being persecuted....................................................................................And then of course there's the other side of the equation. Even granting that the Mexican-American War was a hugely immoral one (and I believe that I've made the case here), what kind of sense would it have made for Portugal, say, to give the Mexicans a war guarantee pertaining to the Americans? None, right? And, yet, we (the Americans and Brits) continue to argue that what Chamberlain and Churchill (Dumb and Dumber) did regarding Poland was not only wise but courageous. Totally unbelievable.

On the Soviets Invading Poland in 1939

Yeah, I guess that the "war guarantee" didn't apply to the greatest mass murdering regime in all of recorded history.

Shots on the House

According to Wofford University economist, Timothy Terrell, one member of the CDC's committee which ultimately recommended that the Rotavirus vaccine be added to the Vaccines for Children program a) currently holds a patent on the vaccine, b) was paid a huge sum of cash by a large pharmaceutical company to develop the vaccine, and c) failed to recuse himself from voting on issues surrounding the vaccine. If THIS isn't an example of crony capitalism then I really don't know what to tell you...................................................................................And, no, I'm not against vaccines (though, yes, the efficacy of this one does appear dubious). I'm just against having people with financial interests being in the driver's seat relative to their approval, that's all.

Crony Capitalist/Robber Baron Yes/No?

1) John D. Rockefeller - no.......2) Steve Jobs - no.......3) Robert Fulton - yes.......4) Ken Lay - yes.......5) Dick Cheney - yes.......6) Cornelius Vanderbilt - no.......7) Andrew Carnegie - no.......8) Edward Collins - yes.......8) Al Gore - yes.......9) The Cornells - yes.......10) Bill Gates - no.......11) Thomas Durant - yes.......12) Leland Stanford - yes.......13) Andrew Mellon - no.......14) Grenville Dodge - yes.......15) The Scrantons - no.......16) James J. Hill - no.......17) Jeffrey Imnelt - yes.......18) Charles Schwab - no..................................................................................And the criteria is very simple, folks. The real capitalists (those that were awarded with a yes) created hundreds of thousands of jobs, innovated (bringing new goods and services to the market), brought the cost of living down for everyone, and did all of these things without government assistance. The phony/crony capitalists (political entrepreneurs is what historian, Burton Folsom, calls them) - well, let's just say that they basically made themselves wealthy while ripping off both their customers AND the taxpayer........................................................................................P.S. The guy on the bottom - he's actually reaching for YOUR wallet, bra.

On the Crazy and Circuitous Routes of the Union and Central Pacific Railroads

Yeah, this is what happens when you mix business and politics, a shitload of greedy and asinine politicians trying to bring home the bacon (in this instance, having a railroad traveling through your district)...................................................................................P.S. This of course stands in sharp contrast to the Great Northern Railroad of James J. Hill in which no government involvement occurred and in which the route was relatively straight.

On Winston Churchill's Post-War Lies

He had to lie. a) Britain had just bankrupted itself while losing its entire empire and b) the stated purpose of the war, the liberation of Poland, had crashed and burned like nothing else in human history in that, not only did Poland become a slave state of the Soviet Union, so, too, did Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The fellow literally had to say that a) Hitler was the devil-incarnate and b) this same Hitler was an existential threat to the whole British empire BECAUSE, if the dude had told the truth (that Hitler had never once stated that he wanted to destroy the British empire and actually admired England, that Hitler had made numerous peace overtures to both Poland AND England; even consenting to withdraw from those parts of Poland and Czechoslovakia that weren't historically German and German speaking, and that it was England which started the bombing of civilians, not Germany), everyone would have concluded, rightfully, that 60 million people needlessly died from his drunken stupidity. And we couldn't have had that, now could we?

On the Fact that Ava Gardner's Autobiography Doesn't Have Any Hot Pictures of Her

Yeah, I'm not so much interested in Ms. Gardner's prose....................................................................................P.S. And, yes, she was a plutocrat, folks - live with it!!

Make Up Your Fucking Mind, Asshole

Do you want the cops to enforce these fucking laws (that brain-diseased, greedy, knuckle-dragging leftist politicians like you have instituted to fill the coffers) or do you not want them to enforce them? Please, let us know. 'Cause if you don't, I am positive that the police would be more than willing to spend their time doing something else; anything else.

My Solution to Inner-City Policing Problems

As the inimitable Super Snooper would put it, "Ah, it's elementary, Blab." a) Remove all the cops from high crime neighborhoods. b) Conscript a whole bunch of these bleeding-hearted politically correct leftist morons to patrol the areas instead....You see, that way we could institute all of these kinder and gentler approaches to policing and the planet would be sooooooooo much better.................................................................................P.S. And you can relax, I'll send you the bill.

On the Czech "Solution" to the German Problem

Yeah, it was basically the same as the German solution to the "Jewish problem"; expulsion and deportation, with a whole bunch of dead people (hundreds of thousands, possibly millions) in the process.

On Patty Loveless's Vocals

Patty could sing dialogue from "My Mother, The Car" and make it sound convincing................................................................................P.S. And, yes, I went with one of the more vintage photographs and, so, sue me.

On Compassion

It is to society what turmeric is to Indian cuisine; important, vital even, but when you use too much of it, you ruin the entire dish (cardamom is kinda like that as well; bitter when used excessively).

On A.C. Grayling's Assertion that Bomber Harris "Was Not a Man of Culture"

YA' THINK?

On wd and Biff Loman

Have you ever seen these guys in the same room together? I haven't, folks.......I'm just sayin'.

On the "Dean of Mean", Keith Jardine

The man's been knocked out 6 times in mostly brutal fashion (the loss to Houston Alexander being especially hard to take), and, yet, he continues to fight. Surely, there must be somebody out there who cares about the fellow and who is capable of dissuading him from further punishment. THERE HAS TO BE.

On the Celtics, 76ers, Knicks, and Lakers (Four of the Most Storied Franchises in the Sport) Currently Being a Combined 28-85

Yeah, that's not a good situation for the league; lower attendance, shittier ratings (compounded by the fact these are big markets), etc..

On Fred Leuchter

Prior to his experiment at Auschwitz, Mr. Leuchter was a) a strong believer in the traditional Holocaust narrative and b) considered by many to be the country's foremost expert on executions (gas chambers seemingly being his specialty). After his experiment (in which he concluded that the alleged homicidal gas chambers could never have been utilized as such), the man was viciously attacked by various Jewish groups and his career was essentially ruined (he also spent seven weeks in solitary at Mannheim Prison on trumped up charges related to Holocaust denial). Look, I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I'm definitely not anti-Israel (I've probably supported Israel at least 95% of the time), but this doesn't not look good at all, people.

From the Archives of Unheralded Hottie Pottaties

1950s and '60s actress, Patricia Crowley. Known mostly for her roles in the sitcom, "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" and the Dean Martin Comedy Hour, Ms. Crowley also went on to guest-star in pretty much every series on television from the late '50s to the early '70s and, yes, I had a monumental crush on her.

On British and French World Hegemony (1918 to 1939)

In the years between WW1 and WW2, the empires of Britain and France eventually grew to the point where these two counties were lording over close to a half a BILLION black and brown skinned people, often with excessive brutality (concentration camps, forced famines, etc.) and, so, please, if you're going to bitch-slap German leaders like Bismarck (considered by many to be the father of the modern welfare state, as an aside), Kaiser Wilhelm, and Hitler, could you at least give a tip of the cap to this little ditty (that, and the fact that the British hunger-blockade of Germany in WW1 caused the death of over 700,000 civilians) as well?

My All-Time Favorite Robert Novak Story?

Probably when some douche-bag from the Young Republicans called him a "slimy Jew" and Novak (aka, the Prince of Darkness) cold-cocked him....I just wish that I was there to see it.

Note to Fat Asthmatics

Ixnay on resisting arrest.

Miscellaneous 180

1) I've examined numerous Adolf Hitler speeches from 1933 to 1940, and I have yet to see a single transcript in which he ever indicated that he wanted war with England, the U.S.A., OR EVEN FRANCE (never once did he ever say that he wanted Alsace Lorraine back, for instance).............2) Yes, he did want Bavaria, Moravia, the Sudetenland, Danzig, and East Prussia back but that was because these lands were historically German and the ethnic Germans residing there were being persecuted.............3) None of the gas chambers at Auschwitz had a heating system (an important feature if you want to activate Zyklon B) or a ventilation system (an important feature if you don't want to murder your own soldiers, the only ventilation being a couple of flimsy doors with windows) and the chimney (at the main gas chamber) was obviously added afterwards in that it isn't seen in any aerial photographs and isn't even attached to the damned building!!!!!

A Sadistic Syllogism

If the information that was gotten from torturing Kahlid Shaikh Mohammed was ultimately judged to be useless (and I'm willing to accept that point), then the information that was gotten from torturing Rudolf Hoess (probably worse) is seen as reliable HOW exactly?

If President Obama Had a Son...

...with a white chick, he'd look like Officer Ramos.

A Tortured Confession - Quick Addendum

Hoess's confession went on to say that they had crammed up to 4,000 Jews into the gas chamber at a time (an absurdity in that I've seen the room on Youtube), dropped Zyklon B cyanide tablets into the room from four holes in the ceiling (holes that even the curator of Auschwitz has now admitted were created after the fact - I refer to David Cole's documentary), and had commandos IMMEDIATELY enter the room to take the bodies (without a mask, without gloves, and with some of the folks actually eating and smoking) to the oven room. This, folks, is what Rudolf Hoess testified to the prosecutors at Nuremberg and they all believed it....Maybe they should have sent him to Guantanamo...via a time machine.......................................................................................P.S. And even if these commandos HAD been wearing masks, it still wouldn't have protected them in that the accelerated breathing involved in lifting human bodies would have easily overpowered the protection and left them quite vulnerable. That, and there weren't anywhere near enough ovens at Auschwitz to cremate thousands of bodies a day.............Now watch, somebody in France or Germany is going to read this and try and have me prosecuted. I cannot wait.

Churchill on Germany, Before the War

"Germany is too strong. We must destroy her." 1936.............So, before the Poland and Czechoslovakia invasions and after the Soviet atrocities in Ukraine, THIS was what Churchill was worried about (and, please, keep in mind here that Poles and Czechs were LESS free after the war than they were before it)?

On New York Mayor, Bill de Blasio

This asshole makes me sick to my stomach. He puts the police in the unenviable position of having to go around making sure that everybody is paying their cigarette taxes (for which he needs to pay off his cronies, build up his huge bureaucracy, etc.) and then when something goes wrong, instead of defending the police, he hangs them out by their ballsacks......................................................................................And I'm still not entirely certain what the cops were supposed to do with Eric Garner that day. Let the guy up, only to have to put him down again (yes, Garner was complaining but detainees always do and if you let them up you put yourself and others in danger)? The guy was resisting arrest, for Christ (that, and he was being a nuisance to the legitimate store owners, many of whom were black and many of whom had called the police for help).

On the Refrain, "What Do We Want - Dead Cops, When Do We Want It - Now!"

Yeah, that didn't take long.

On those Two New York Cops Who Just Got Assassinated Tonight

Yeah, I don't think that Sharpton is going to protest all that much....It doesn't fit his narrative.

On that Dullard From Sony Who Made those Racially Insensitive Remarks About President Obama and Then in an Effort Toward Damage Control Crawled on Her Hands and Knees to Al Sharpton For Absolution

Why would anybody go to this homophobic, race-baiting, lying, idiotic asshole FOR ANYTHING????? Certainly nobody with an ounce of self-respect, I would think. I mean, I know that these Hollywood idiots are politically correct to the point of political correctness being their God and all but you have to have a damned spine and you have to think for yourself EVENTUALLY, for Christ.

On the Goal of Mad-Bomber Harris's Carpet-Bombing Campaign Being to Demoralize the German People and Bring About an Early Surrender

It was not even remotely achieved. a) The bombing did not demoralize the Germans and instead made them angry. b) It did not reduce German manufacturing production and in fact production went up (at the most it retarded the rate of growth). c) 55,000 British airmen lost their lives during these attacks. d) Nearly 8,000 aircraft were lost. And e) it did not divert German resources and manpower away from the front in that the anti-aircraft guns would not have been tactically suitable for that, the men who fired them were mostly over 40, and the emergency workers had never worked in factories..........................................................................................Look, I'm going to say it again, folks. Terror and mass murder do not win wars. Strategy does. Source - A.C. Grayling's, "Among the Dead Cities".

A Tortured Confession - Literally

It had long been suspected that the Confession of Rudolf Hoess (the final camp commander at Auschwitz) had been brought about by torture (the fact that the confession was laced with absurdities; 2,000,000 Jews gassed to death, 10,000 cremations a day, fat oozing from ignited bodies oozing over other bodies, etc.), and so when it was all but proven in a 1983 book by Rupert Butler (an anti-Nazi book), in which one of the interrogators, Bernard Clarke, not only confessed to torture but bragged about it, it hardly came as a surprise..................................................................................Of course, this wasn't the only example of the British trying to beat a confession out of a German. The "London Cage" over in London was routinely used and it's hard to think that any of the Nazis at Nuremberg escaped the rigors to one degree or another. Look, I don't have a problem at all in criticizing Hitler (whose views on German Jewery was borderline paranoiac) and the Germans but the when the good guys engage in evil acts and escape the scrutiny, I personally can't abide by it and nor should any of you folks.

My Own Personal Contribution to Race Relations

a) The most irritating white assholes; Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, Sean Hannity, Ed Schultz, Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, Rush Limbaugh, Mitch "the bitch" McConnell, Harry Reid, Nancy "my plan for Medicare is Medicare" Pelosi, Alan Grayson, Louis Gohmert, Newt Gingrich (Fannie and Freddie's "resident historian"), Bill Maher, Randi Rhodes, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Michele Bachman's husband (heal thyself, dude), Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Mike Huckabee, Pat Robertson, John Bolton, Colonel Oliver North, Bret Stephens, Richard Perle, Paul Krugman, Marc Thiessen, Eric Bolling, Ann Coulter, Nancy "everybody is guilty" Grace, Sean Penn, Vince McMahon, Linda McMahon, Markos Moulitsas, David Brock, Alex Jones, David Duke, Karl Rove, Michael Moore, Michael Mann, James Hanson, Noam Chomsky, David "I've lost my upper lip" Corn, Rosie O'Donnell, Ward Churchill, Richard Trumka, Donald Trump, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Colonel Ralph Peters, Bill de Blasio, Al Gore, Paul Begala, the Kardashian sisters, Norman Finkelstein, Francis Boyle, Monica Crowley, Stephanie Cutter, Melanie Morgan, Ted Cruz (though, yes, he does seem to have a tinge of Taino Indian in him).............................................................................................b) The most irritating black assholes; Toure', Charles Blow, Al Sharpton, Melissa Harris-Perry, Michael Eric Dyson, Cornell Belcher, John Conyers, Keith Ellison, Jesse Lee Peterson, Eric Holder, Samuel L. Jackson, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Harry Belafonte, Maxine Waters, Van Jones, Gregory Meeks, Franklin Raines, Marc Lamont Hill, Kanye West, Colonel Alan West, Cornel West, "The Idiot" Alan Keyes, Louis Farrakhan, Herman Cain, that entire posse of lawyers for the Michael Brown family, Michael Brown's mother and his step-father....I know that I've forgotten some but just couldn't hold back any longer. Enjoy!...And, yes, I've decided to give Matthews, (Jesse) Jackson, and O'Reilly a pass this time, and Mark Levin totally makes me laugh.

On Stopping Hitler Before He Does X,Y,Z

Declaring war on Germany for what Hitler might someday do is different from declaring war on Iraq for what Saddam might someday do HOW exactly?...And, again, the Soviets invaded more countries and murdered more people (during 1939 and 1940) than the Germans did and not only did we not declare war on them, we embraced them! I don't know, I don't think that I'm being unreasonable here (simply asking for some consistency).

On "Cognac" Now Being a Part of the Color Spectrum

Speechless doesn't even begin to describe it.

On SONY Pulling the Plug on that COMEDY in Which Several Bunglers Try to Assassinate Kim Jong Un

You can relax, folks, my movie, a remake of Deliverance, in which the Ned Beatty character is Kim Jung Un (AKA, an actor who looks like him) and the hillbilly who butt-fucks him is played by a Truman Capote lookalike, will NOT be nixed.

On the Fact that FDR Would Only Negotiate With Japan (the Goal of Japan Being an Easing Up of U.S. Sanctions) if the Japanese Conceded to Vacate Manchuria

Totally unreasonable. a) It was unheard of for one country to dictate terms up front like that and b) it was exceedingly hypocritical in that, while, yes, the Japanese were engaged in atrocities on the Chinese mainland, so, too, were the British in India, the French in Algeria, and the Soviets in Ukraine. I mean, I know that FDR was itching to get us involved in Europe and that the dude probably saw this as a back way in but war is almost always bullshit (the Japanese in China - bad, the English in India - not so bad) and this, the "good war", was no exception.

On the Fact that We Now Know Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt that the Katyn Forest Massacre was Perpetrated by the Soviet Secret Police (the NKVD Which was Previously Known as Cheka and Subsequently Known as the KGB) and Not by the Nazis - Quick Addendum

"Use force and break the racial pride of these German women. Take them as your lawful booty. Kill! As you storm onward, kill, you gallant soldiers of the Red Army!" Soviet Commissar, Ilya Ehrenburg 1945. Nice fella', huh?

On the Fact that Germany and the Soviet Union BOTH Invaded Poland but it was Only Germany that the Brits and the French Declared War On

You see, this is what makes me mad; two identical acts of aggression and, yet, two different responses and no moral clarity. Add to that the fact that the Germans had at the very least a modicum of justification (the fact that Danzig and East Prussia had literally been stolen from Germany after WW1, the fact that numerous ethnic Germans were being brutalized by the Poles, the fact that many in Poland had dreamt of a greater Poland that extended all the way to Berlin, etc.) and it is even more hypocritical this moronic war guarantee of Chamberlain and Churchill.

On the Fact that We Now Know Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt that the Katyn Forest Massacre was Perpetrated by the Soviet Secret Police (the NKVD Which was Previously Known as Cheka and Subsequently Known as the KGB) and Not by the Nazis

This is just the tip of the iceberg, folks; the brutal rapes of thousands of German women, the wholesale slaughter of innocent German civilians, the sending of German prisoners of war to Siberian gulags where hundreds of thousands of them died, the ethnic cleansing of German citizens (after the war) from Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, etc. (where over a million of them perished), etc......................................................................................Look, I get it. Hitler was a thug, a cruel dictator, a nationalist, an anti-Semite, etc., but to say that he was in the same league as these animals (under the brutal auspices of Joe Stalin) is ridiculous and totally unsubstantiated. Stalin - he was the real devil.

On the Two Salvador Sanchez - Danny "Little Red" Lopez Fights

Sanchez battered him so mercilessly (both times) that I felt it sitting on the damned couch.

On Putin's Approval Ratings Being Higher than Mr. Obama's

Wow, I guess that the President needs to invade Juarez or New Brunswick and start brutalizing people....'Cause that's what it seems to take nowadays................................................................................P.S. Not that I necessarily approve of Obama, mind you, just that I'd take the dude over Putin.

On the Nazis and Reds Slaughtering Each Other During the Extended Battle of Stalingrad

Yeah, those were the halcyon days and right up there with the Persians and the Arabs smoking each other in the '80s....If only we had kept our own damned noses clean.

On the British Losing Singapore to the Japanese Despite the Fact that They Had Nearly Three Times as Many Men and Were Engaged in a Defensive Posture

Empire shmempire/complete and total humiliation (and Churchill himself said as much).

On Hitler, FDR, Jesse Owens, And the 1936 Olympics

"Hitler didn't snub me. It was FDR who snubbed me. The President didn't even send me a telegram." This, from Mr. Owens himself...................................................................................P.S. Of course, this isn't surprising in that Roosevelt wouldn't even support anti-lynching legislation during his Presidency (the fact that he didn't want to alienate the Southern racists who supported his statist, anti-business ideology).

On Bret Stephens (He, of the War Street, Err, I Mean, Wall Street, Journal) "Weighing In" on the Kelly File" Tonight

Yeah, I'm gonna skip that one, folks (Stephens being little more than a neocon version of Paul Krugman; always wrong and an absolute sissy).

On Churchill Conceding to the Soviet Union Control of Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, and Eventually Yugoslavia in Exchange for the Soviets Staying Out of Greek Politics

This is what constitutes victory in the Western mind? Really?

The 3 Most Important Rules of Warfare

1) Don't invade Russia. 2) Don't invade Afghanistan. 3) Don't invade Russia.

The Mushroom Cloud Romance

According to researcher, Ward Wilson (senior fellow at the British American Security Information Council), the Japanese surrender in 1945 had virtually nothing to do with Hiroshima and Nagasaki and everything to do with the fact that the Soviet Union had just declared war on Japan and were rapidly preparing for an invasion (they had already invaded Manchuria and several islands to the north of Japan).........................................................................................And the fellow makes a very persuasive case. a) The timing is much more proximate to the Soviet actions (a full 72 hours had passed since Hiroshima and it wasn't until the Soviet invasion of Manchuria that the Japanese council finally met). b) The U.S. had already destroyed over six dozen Japanese cities via conventional methods and so what was one more, really? And c) the Soviet declaration and invasion represented a much more strategic change in the course of the war and it is that which generally moves the needle and not a change in the method of carnage....I mean, I know that the U.S. has this visceral (not to mention, perverse) hubris that it was us who won the war in the Pacific (through our ingenuity, technology, etc.) and that the other countries were simply along for the ride but maybe this is a myth as well.

Strange/Fascist Bedfellows

From September of 1939 to June of 1940, the Soviet Union invaded Poland, attacked Finland, bombed Sweden, invaded the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), and forced Romania to surrender Moldavia. Please, explain to me one more time why we even considered coming to the aid (bankrolling them to the tune of $140,000,000,000 - today's money, providing air support at Stalingrad, etc.) of these assholes.

If Being TOO Anti-War Proves to be My Ultimate Downfall

I can live with that one - hands down.

On What to Do When You Accuse George W. Bush of Being a War Criminal and Then Ultimately Discover that Your Progressive Icon, FDR, Perpetrated Some of the Most Despicable War Crimes in All of Human History (the Targeting and Murder of Hundreds of Thousands of Civilians and in a Manner that Had No Strategic Value Whatsoever)

  Hm, let's see, a sane and responsible person would probably either modify the charges against Bush or have the power of his or her convictions and hold Mr. Roosevelt to the same standards....Of course I'm obviously not referring to a sane individual here.

Rapist?

While it's hard for me to believe that 19 (maybe it's more by now) women could all be lying, I also have to confess here that when that legendary publicity-monger, Janice Dickinson (maybe the ugliest and stupidest supermodel ever), jumped into the fray and claimed that she, too, was raped by Mr. Cosby, a little bit of doubt did creep in. Now, I'm thinking possibly (POSSIBLY, I'm saying) a bum's rush.

On George H. W. Bush and Iraq

Bush got a lot of credit for the way that he executed the first Gulf War and with reason; assembling an international coalition, utilizing an overwhelming force, refusing to get bogged down by chasing Saddam into Baghdad, etc.. But his performance prior to and afterwards left much to be desired; the fact that his diplomatic team all but waved Saddam into Kuwait and the fact that he egged the Shiites into trying to overthrow the Baathist government and then did literally NOTHING to assist them (an action that obviously had major consequences down the road in terms of establishing trust). I mean, I know that this is still a better record than Bush 2 but in an attempt to grade the senior's overall foreign policy record I might have to demote him to a C.

On Marshall Quarterback, Rakeem Cato

What a career; 1,128 completions (a 62.6% completion percentage) for 13,798 yards and 128 touchdowns (compared to only 44 interceptions), 814 yards rushing and 13 more touchdowns. Add to that the fact that the guy's a winner, leading the Herd to a 12-1 season where the only loss was by one point (to Western Kentucky) in overtime. I'm not entirely certain that he has the size or the arm for the NFL but I wouldn't bet against him and there's always the CFL (where smaller guys like Doug Flutie quickly became legends). In the mean time, you will get to see him again when Marshall takes on a good Northern Illinois team (11-2 and MAC champs) in the inaugural Boca Raton Bowl down in Florida. Should be a good one, folks.

The Sincerest Form of.....

According to the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Summary Report from 1946, the firebombing of Tokyo on the nights of March 9th and March 10th, 1945 (again, when the result of the war was no longer in serious doubt) resulted in the deaths of more than 85,000 Japanese civilians. This is more than occurred at Hamburg, Dresden (though the actual death tally here may never be known due to the high number of refugees), Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, and I am still trying to wrap my mind around it.................................................................................P.S. The way that this level of carnage was achieved was two-fold; a) the fact that nearly 1,700 tons of incendiary bombs were dropped and b) the fact that LeMay and his fellow madmen specifically targeted only the most densely populated areas of the city....They imitated the British, in other words.

On the Allied Destruction of Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki

With the possible exception of Hamburg, each of these incinerations (and, yes, I'm using my words carefully) took place at the tail-end of the war when the conclusion of it wasn't even remotely in doubt.......Which leads me to query here; if the targeting of civilians is a war crime in the worst of circumstances, would not these much more gratuitous and vengeful acts be seen in an even nastier light? One could make the case, in my opinion.

"Why You Talk White, Uncle Jason?"

This is what The Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley's 7 year-old nephew recently asked him....So, do you think that maybe, just maybe, we could include THIS as a part of that "conversation"?

On Praying the Gay Out

I sure hope that there's a Plan B.

For the Love of Money?

Well, he certainly loves it more than victories.

On What Wins Wars and What Doesn't

Strategy - yes. Terror and Revenge - no.

A Good Tradition of Taking the Damned Gloves Off - Quick Addendum

They do kind of favor each other, no?

A Good Tradition of Taking the Damned Gloves Off

One of the incendiary bombs that the British ultimately used in Hamburg was something called an "X bomb"; it's unique feature being that it was designed to explode hours later (the Oxycontin of fire-bombs?) when the inhabitants (apparently thinking that the worst was over) were least expecting it....Leave it to the Brits, huh?...............................................................................P.S. These SOBs must have been the descendants of Lord Jeffrey Amherst, that psychopathic, fascist miscreant who sent all of those small-pox infected blankets to the Indians of Massachusetts and who afterwards ate like a pig and slept like a baby.

On the Gas-Tax Here in Connecticut

Let's put it this way, folks. I pay more for my gas than the Kennedys do for theirs in Hyannis. 'Nuff said?

On Water-Boarding and Mr. Cheney

Give me five minutes, some H2O, and a hand-towel, and I'll have this schmuck telling the entire world that he's Rupert Everett's sugar-daddy. Easy as pie.