Expenses, expenses

During the season premiere of Mad Men, one Pete Campbell remarks that if a publicity stunt the ad agency were to hire hookers instead of actors, he could charge the cost to his expense account. Laughs abound. A humorous juxtaposition of the way things used to be when compared with contemporary social mores. Oh Mad Men, you've done it again.

But surely that was just how they did thing in the sixties, right? Well... unless you're a modern defense contractor.

DHB, which specialized in making body armor used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, paid for more than $6 million in personal expenses on behalf of Mr. Brooks, covering items as expensive as luxury cars and as prosaic as party invitations, Ms. Schlegel testified.

Also included were university textbooks for his daughter, pornographic videos for his son, plastic surgery for his wife, a burial plot for his mother, prostitutes for his employees, and, for him, a $100,000 American-flag belt buckle encrusted with rubies, sapphires and diamonds.

There's so much win and so much "AMERICA.... FUCK YEAH!" that it's hard to contain in one paragraph. That's just part on one man's story of fraud, insider trading, company-financed extremely tacky personal extravagance, and a weird obsession with mind erasing pills that don't exist.

But let's not get hung up on the illegal money wasting of one man, his fake titted wife and his pornography hound of a son. Can't we mention the legal money wasting of our own government?

A US federal watchdog has criticised the US military for failing to account properly for billions of dollars it received to help rebuild Iraq. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction says the US Department of Defence is unable to account properly for 96% of the money.

Out of just over $9bn (£5.8bn), $8.7bn is unaccounted for, the inspector says.
...
The funds in question were administered by the US Department of Defence between 2004 and 2007, and were earmarked for reconstruction projects. But, the report says, a lack of proper accounting makes it impossible to say exactly what happened to most of the money.

96%? I'm surprised it wasn't 100%. But then again, it's easy to account for the $300 million they spent on strippers and coke. "Yeah, if you're looking for the money, it's wither in a g-string or up my nose. Put that in your ledger."

I do like the notion that we have an explanation for the other near trillion or so we spent in Iraq. Oh sure, we have tanks, bombs, bullets, and paychecks to show us where that money went. But I'll be damned if I know what it is we bought with that cash.

Still, if you want to relive the glory excesses of the sixties or just have absolutely no accountability for what or how you spend vast, allocated sums of money... you could do worse than a warzone.

Art of the day

The Pentagon officially unveiled the portrait of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a ceremony on the 25th. The painting, which "shows Rumsfeld at his stand-up desk with a picture of first-responders and soldiers unfurling the flag over the still-burning Pentagon on Sept. 12, 2001", joins his other portrait from his tenure as Secretary in the seventies. That's right, this asshole has two portraits.

On the bright side, it was also relatively expensive by government portrait standards.

At the upper end of the scale, the Defense Department awaits the expected February completion of a $46,790 portrait of controversial former secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Well, let's be clear, the portrait was supposed to cost $46,790 and be completed in only a few months, but due to poor planning, an insufficient amount of paint, Code Pink protests, and a host of unknown unknowns besieging the project, the painting spiraled out of control, ended up costing several billion dollars and taking several years to paint, and is still relatively unfinished. All in all, a fitting metaphor for his tenure. Also: they served snowflake shaped sugar cookies at the reception!

To turn this in an art critique blog for a second; the picture is fine and the 9/11 imagery befits the monomaniacal obsession with and co-opting of the attacks that the Bush Administration engaged in. But can I ask, what ever happened to the standard "man on a horse, pointing off into the distance... as if pointing at the future" style of portraiture? I would actually start to respect Rumsfeld if he comission a multi-million dollar, 20 foot wide painting of him, dressed as Napoleon, sitting on a chestnut mare in front of a battlefield. Maybe that can be Gates' portrait.

YEAH, RUMSFELD!!!!!

Afghanistan: A short play

President Obama: You know Stan, I'm glad to have you running things in Afghanistan. As I've said many times publicly: your strategies, leadership, and vision are absolutely integral to any future success our mission in Afghanistan will have. Especially now that we're entering one of the most critical "make or break" times in our offensive campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Again, you are absolutely integral to our mission.


General McChrystal: Thank you Mr. President and let me say how honored I am to be leading this vital charge against the Afghan insurgency.
...
By-the-by, and this is just a little thing.... I may have given a tiny little interview to Rolling Stone where I maybe had a few too many Bud Light Limes and was maybe a little critical of your administration. Nothing serious, but maybe a few of my aides go a little too far in criticizing specific people in your administration. Not me, mind you, my aides. A little embarrassing? Sure. A little short sighted? Sure. Ripe for parody? Definitely. But nothing that would cause anyone to drastically reassess our geopolitical strategy vis-a-vis the war on terror and our counterinsurgency strategies and Afghanistan policies... right?


President Obama: ..............YOU'RE FUCKING FIRED!!!!!!

FIN

Nice to see that we won't let something like a war or a war strategy get dicked around over what amounts to an indelicate decorum gaffe combined with incessant, brainless 24-hour news outrage, right? Eh, at least we'll have those trillions from those Afghan minerals to spend soon.

The military got gayed

After months of promises and years of work, finally a compromise has been reached that will allow gay men and women to serve in the US military. This is, of course, the end of the world. Now we'll have gays all up and down our armed forces... something that has never before occurred in the history of combat or something. They'll be in there, translating things into and from Farsi and Arabic... in a gay way. They'll be gaying up combat, shooting terrorists all gay like. They'll be wearing sequined camo, talking about how such and such a tank is faaaabulous. A tank is not fabulous, it is a machine of war!

Because this is terrible and the end of US military dominance or something, the usual suspects have been out in full force to tell us how Obama just ended the world in a hellstorm of ultra gay fire. I think you'll be surprised in the direction they took this.

During a radio broadcast, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association explained:

So Hitler himself was an active homosexual. And some people wonder, didn't the Germans, didn't the Nazis, persecute homosexuals? And it is true they did; they persecuted effeminate homosexuals. But Hitler recruited around him homosexuals to make up his Stormtroopers, they were his enforcers, they were his thugs. And Hitler discovered that he could not get straight soldiers to be savage and brutal and vicious enough to carry out his orders, but that homosexual solders basically had no limits and the savagery and brutality they were willing to inflict on whomever Hitler sent them after. So he surrounded himself, virtually all of the Stormtroopers, the Brownshirts, were male homosexuals.

And here you thought the main objection from religious types and social conservatives was that gays were too weak and girly to be in the military. Some terrorist would come over the horizon and a gay soldier would shriek like a woman, throw his purse at the enemy, and then spring out of the bunker to strike at the enemy with limp wrists, screaming "You brute!"

Nope. Turns out gays were not only the backbone of the Nazi party, the Nazi war machine, and the Nazi SS, but they were in fact too brutal and savage. So violent and unhinged that we can never let them serve. I'll say this: he might have got his history completely wrong and tried to tie gays and Nazis together in one of the most ugly ways possible, but at least he moved his stereotypes forward a little bit from a foppish, effeminate caricature to some sort of overly manly savage killer. That's... a kind of progress.

The kind of progress the Family Research Council was not ready for.

On a conference call with reporters today, FRC Senior Fellow for Policy Studies Peter Sprigg delivered the results of what he said was the first-ever study of "homosexual assault" in the military.
...
"We are today releasing an analysis of publicly available documents which show that homosexuals in the military are three times more likely to commit sexual assaults than heterosexuals are relative to their numbers," Sprigg said. "We believe this problem would only increase if the current law against homosexuality...were to be repealed."
...
"If open homosexuality was permitted in the military, these numbers can only increase," Sprigg said. "The number of homosexuals would grow, the threat of discharge for homosexual behavior would be eliminated and protected class status for homosexuals would make victims hesitant to report assaults and make commanders hesitant to punish them for fear of appearing homophobic."

That's right. Repealing DADT will turn the military into some internal gay rape factory, where innocent straight men are wantonly raped by gays and are afraid to report it because the gays have been made emperors of the armed forces. And he backed it up with a completely scientific study that I'm sure would stand up to scrutiny from an independent, outside source.

So I think you can see the clear case for why this is the end of the world. Stripping DADT will not allow men and women to proudly serve this country openly and without fear of discharge. No, it'll create the gay rape SS. Do we really want that?

On those war things that are still happening

Rep. Alan Grayson is fed up with our two wars and how we pay for them. Yeah, that's right, we're still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Surprised the hell out of me when I heard it too.

Grayson isn't happy about this. Moreso, he isn't happy about all the money we have to pay to keep these wars going. Especially considering that Congress is just about to pas a $159 billion “emergency” spending bill to cover the most recent tab. So, he's proposing some new legislation. He call sit The War Is Making You Poor Act. Let him explain.

“The purpose of this bill,” wrote Grayson last week, “is to connect the dots, and to show people in a real and concrete way the cost of these endless wars.” It’s not just the costs of active shooting wars; with hundreds of bases overseas, as far as the defense budget is concerned Americans have been on a permanent wartime footing, to varying degrees, since Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941. “War is a permanent feature of our societal landscape,” wrote Grayson, “so much so that no one notices it anymore.”

So what does the bill do?

* Limits the amount of funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
* Takes the $159 billion and uses it as a tax cut for Americans, effectively eliminating the federal income tax on the first $35,000 of every American’s income ($70,000 for married couples)
*Makes the Pentagon take the $159 billion for the wars out of their $559 billion dollar defense budget.
* Cuts the Federal deficit by $15.9 billion.

This makes sense, people would like it, it would cut the deficit, and rein in the ridiculous amount we're spending of defense. So of course it'll go over like a loud fart in church and will probably never be allowed to be voted on.

Even Secretary Gates, who is openly advocating for the cutting of billions of dollars worth of projects and telling the President to veto any defense bill that doesn't make the cuts he wants, has to be looking at Grayson and going "Pay for these wars out of money already appropriated?" *makes wanking gesture* "Get fucked, buddy."

So even though nothing will probably happen, Grayson's attempt to make sense will never get through and Gates' request that that Congress stop wasting money on pet military projects for their own districts that the military has no use for will also be ignored, it's nice to see the two attempting to inject a little rationality into our defense debate. Combating the conventional wisdom that wars are free and that defense spending doesn't count as spending is hard to do. Here's hoping that these forthcoming failed attempts don't scar them so badly they they never try again.

Naive kids, trying to act all reasonable and shit. Will wonders never cease?

Cut this

Much has been made over few weeks about Obama's budgetary spending freeze and the GOP counter plan to slash everything, gut Medicare, and privatize Social Security. All of this is with the idea that massive budget deficits will soon impregnate this country with it's devil baby, which will burst out of the womb through the skin, and devour us while we writhe in agony.

Of course the things that our elected betters want to cut and freeze are thing that are commonly referred to as things that benefit the American populace. The things they don't want to cut? We call those things that benefit the military industrial complex and our desire to explode brown people.

But what do the American people want cut? Well, nothing. Overwhelmingly nothing.

Spending Type	Federal Budget	Support for cuts
Social Security	19.6%	2%
Military	18.7%	18%
Unemployment	16.1%	15%
Medicare	12.8%	6%
Other health care*	10.4%	10%
Interest on Debt	4.6%	10%
State Department	1.5%	28%
Veterans	1.5%	2%
Anti-terrorism	1.2%	17%
Agriculture	0.7%	12%
Energy	0.7%	14%
Crime / Justice	0.7%	10%
Environment	0.3%	16%
Science	0.2%	14%

So aside from this country's inexplicable hate for the State Department and love of programs that benefit itself and veterans, this country would most like to see the Defense budget slashed. It's only about 1 out of 5 of us, on a good day, but that's practically a flood of support of biblical proportions.

Will it ever make a difference? No. We'll keep putting together bullshit deficit commissions whose only objective are to put a polite, smiling, media pundit approved face on slashing things that benefit people, while never touching a red cent of defense appropriations.

Still, we seem to love all that spending, tea parties be damned. I'll bet there are numbers showing that we'd like spending on most of these programs increased. Also, much lower taxes. It's part of the cognitive dissonance that makes this country great.

Explaining this stupid country

Congressman John Murtha died the other day and while it is official TB policy to mock the recently deceased (if at all possible minutes after their reported death) there really isn't much comedy to mine out of the death of an old hack politician croaking under semi-normal circumstances. Plus, he flared up the whole anti-Iraq war debate so there is residual appreciation.

But the man was an avowed money whore and never met a gaudy, expensive military boondoggle that he wouldn't support. In fact, his passing will probably do more to effect the bottom lines of defense contractors than anything short of a new war. Need proof? Thanks to TPM we have visual evidence of this full page ad in the Washington Post taken out by Lockheed Martin in order to thank Rep. Murtha for his years of service. I assume they meant to the country, but it doesn't really come across that way.


And you thought corporations didn't feel or have emotions just like regular people. That's why it's valid that the Supreme Court treats them like actual people. It was nice of them not to explicitly state that not only did they own Murtha, but that they'll own the next person from his district lock and stock, but I think they inferred it a little too heavily for a "In Memoriam" ad.

So vaya con diyos, Rep. Murtha. It's a shame we were too lazy to Photoshop a picture of you onto a rainbow bridge, but we were. Especially me. We would just like to offer our condolences to Johnstown. Mostly because Murtha's love for district pork and shady kickbacks comprised almost the entire Johnstown economy and now that he's gone the economy will just finish off what the flood and the Syracuse Bulldogs couldn't.

Message

Via Coffee Ghost comes this look at how previous Don't Ask, Don't Tell policies benefited humanity.

That's why it's nice to see the Obama Administration and the military finally moving on trying to get this repealed. And despite the overwhelming and increasing popularity of the idea (even in the military), the same hypocrites and troglodytes and fearmongers come out of the woodwork to warn how this will crack the planet in half, legalize armed pedophilia, and make the military susceptible to defeat from a sufficiently armed boy scout troop.

So with the support of the President, the Defense Department, the military, and a general population that doesn't see supporting bigotry or a tacit acceptance of bigotry as aspiring to American ideals, hopefully this can get past Congress in a reasonably sufficient amount of time. By which I mean sometime before the sun burns out. But hey, at least they're finally moving on it. I don't think we're in danger of any more Turing type situations, as I think we've advance a tiny bit since then, but hopefully we could at least avoid firing all those arab linguists that it would probably be smart to have in all those public and secret Middle Eastern wars we start.

FUCK and YES

I don't want to alarm you, but the following news might just blow out the back of your minds with sheer awesomeness. Blade Runner is about to become reality. No, flying cars are not on the horizon. Replicants~! And then soon attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion and C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. DARPA is starting up the Nexus-6 project.

The Pentagon’s mad science arm may have come up with its most radical project yet. Darpa is looking to re-write the laws of evolution to the military’s advantage, creating “synthetic organisms” that can live forever — or can be killed with the flick of a molecular switch.

As part of its budget for the next year, Darpa is investing $6 million into a project called BioDesign, with the goal of eliminating “the randomness of natural evolutionary advancement.” The plan would assemble the latest bio-tech knowledge to come up with living, breathing creatures that are genetically engineered to “produce the intended biological effect.” Darpa wants the organisms to be fortified with molecules that bolster cell resistance to death, so that the lab-monsters can “ultimately be programmed to live indefinitely.”

They'll also come with genetically encoded loyalty, are traceable, and genetically designed kill switches should they go all "Roy Batty". Sure, this sounds vaguely impossible and kind of nefarious/dangerous should it ever occur. On the other hand: Blade Runner was awesome.

Soon we will have our genetic military underclass, then they will grow too smart and too strong too fast, they will attempt to overthrow us, they will have to be made illegal and be "retired", we'll need specialized police will be needed to do the job, and there will be all sorts of confusing moral quandaries about what it means to be human. Sure, "routine retirement of a replicant" may sound all right, but it doesn't make you feel any better about shooting a skin job in the back.

So thank you DARPA for attempting to bring beloved sci-fi classics to horrifying life. You churn out a hoverboard or a lightsaber for me and we'll just forget about the chilling ethical quandaries of spending millions to weaponize Philip K. Dick novels and Ridley Scott movies. I just hope no one has shown them Alien.

We're theoretically allowed to have a functioning government again

You may have read how last week Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama placed a blanket hold on the confirmation of nominees for 70 governmental positions over the honorable principles that Alabama might not be getting all the military pork it is entitled to and a conspiracy theory that Obama was biased against Alabama. It was essentially an unprecedentedly crooked ransom demand and one that had the added benefit of attempting to damage the running of government by causing further delays to confirming people to many of the top governmental positions that are still unfilled. But then again, the all important state of Alabama needs that sweet, sweet defense money.

But, following near universal scorn and hatred directed his way, Shelby decided to relent and rescind 67 of the holds and to theoretically allow the country to be functionally run as if it were an actual superpower.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has dropped all but a handful of the 70-plus holds he placed on President Obama's nominees last week. Shelby's office told TPMDC today that the goal of the blanket holds had succeeded three days after it was reported and roundly attacked by Democrats and the White House.

"The purpose of placing numerous holds was to get the White House's attention was to get the White House's attention on two issues that are critical to our national security," Shelby spokesperson Jonathan Graffeo said in a statement, referring to two programs that would sent billions in taxpayer funds to Alabama.

The issues critical to national security: building expensive shit in Alabama. He is, of course, still holding three hostages, the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment, and Logistics, the Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, and the Under Secretary of the Air Force, until those nominees of the White House promises to acquiesce to his demands that very expensive airplanes are made in Mobile.

This was just your daily reminder that we, as a nation, are governed by adults. Remember to act real surprised when this country collapses on itself.

Video of the day

In a Daily Show piece on the decision to roll back Don't Ask Don't Tell, John Oliver offers up his own suggestions for who should and should not be allowed to serve.

Picture of the day

Via Joe My God comes this look at the Joint Chiefs during the State of the Union.

When Obama mentions fucking with Iran over nukes:
When Obama mentions that the gays should be allowed to gay up our armed forces (with their gayness):
Hmmmm.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 01.28

Bernanke Confirmed for Second Term as Fed Chief
The Republic is saved! Praise be unto the only man on the planet who can do this job, Ben Bernanke! Sure, he didn't see any of this coming and by any measurable standard is doing his job poorly, but we all have to pretend like society will collapse if he isn't there to advocate for cutting social security and medicare while doing nothing to combat unemployment. The vote was, however, a stunning rebuke. He only was confirmed by a 40 vote majority, the smallest ever for a Fed Chairman. That must be a tremendous blow to his ego. We at These Bastards wish him luck at completely not seeing the next crisis.

In 3-2 Vote, SEC Requires Companies To Disclose Climate Risks To Investors
For the first time ever corporations are going to have to divulge to their shareholders the risks posed by their policies and actions to the climate and the risks of climate change and laws to prevent climate change will have on their business/hubbahubbahubbamoneymoneymoney. While this sounds all well and good, I'm sure the reports will just say what most companies have been saying for years about climate change "It's a hoax, everything's fine, do not look behind the curtain." But props to the SEC for making companies pretend to care about science and stuff by tying it to money.

Superfast Bullet Trains Are Finally Coming to the U.S.
Good news everyone! Now your Europeans friends eyes will no longer bug out of their heads when you tell them how long a train ride in this country takes. No longer will you have to explain how it's quicker to walk. Now they can only look down at us for our inadequate social safety nets, our terrible health care system, and lack of architectural period arches on our money. But, starting in Florida and California, our moribund commuter rail is getting a high speed bullet train kick in the ass.

Defense Analysts Blast Military Exemption to Spending Freeze
It seems that there are these weird creatures in Washington that the Washington Independent has tracked down and interviews... and hopefully tagged for future study. It seems these silly and unserious people don't believe that wars and defense infrastructure are free! Furthermore they believe that this kind of spending counts as spending! Not only that, but they think that the defense budget should be subject to the spending freeze/strategic cuts that every other department is, just because it happens to be the one most rife with fraud, waste, pork, bloat, blork, fraste, and what is generally called a "wide and varied scheme to piss away billions." Thankfully they have been pointed out and named publicly so we can sterilize them.. lest they never breed and spread their filthy ideas about defense appropriations again.

Karzai Sees Taliban Pact as Central to Ending War
Hamid Karzai doesn't want to rain on your parade, but you know Afghan police and military forces? The ones we've been training, arming, and equipping for like eight goddamn years? Well apparently we won't be done training, equipping, and arming them for another 4-5... or 10....or 15 years, if you want Hamid to be really honest about it. Why is it going to take that long? Because apparently there's something about the space/time continuum in Afghanistan where instead of training taking a few months, like it does in America, training takes close to two decades. It has something to to with quantum physics. Just in case you thought we were going to be out of there any time soon.. nope. Your grandkids' grandkids are going to be fighting over there.

The army has been overrun with hippies

Over the past few years one thing we've learned from our Republican brethren is that the military is always right and must always be listened to no matter what they say. We've also learned from the GOP that global warming and climate change are utter myths that are to be ignored.

So what are they going to make of this news: the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, the "statement of purpose" for the Defense Department, is going to come out virulently in favor of recognizing climate change and overdependence on fossil fuels and how the military will have to adapt to and address these issues going forward.

Climate change may be an “accelerant of instability” in future conflicts, and the U.S. military needs to plan for possible environmental catastrophes and resource wars, according to the Pentagon’s soon-to-be-released master strategy document.
...
Among other things, the draft QDR suggests the military will have to start planning for operations in which rising sea levels, an ice-free Arctic and higher overall global temperatures may be an important factor. What’s more, it suggests that military planners will have to prepared for the knock-on effects of climate change: forced migration, resource scarcity and the spread of disease.

In parallel, the draft QDR calls for a bigger push for energy independence by the military. The Defense Department, the document notes, is already “moving out smartly” to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, and to tap more renewable sources of energy.

And if that isn't enough to cause the vapors in Jim Inhofe, the Defense Department has already taken numerous steps to prepare for a dystopian world decimated by climate change and is also at the forefront of investing in green technologies and green energy sources in order to cut out supply line vulnerabilities, fuel dependence, and fuel costs. Many of those steps are documented here.

Why do I get the feeling that the global consensus of scientists, demand from the public, possibilities for new industries and economic strength, and a commitment from the rest of the world aren't enough to change the thoughts of the most rock-headed US legislator, but some three-star general with a sufficient Muslim agitating resume going "maybe we need to look at this climate thing... because of war and kaboom and freedom and the troops" is going to make a big difference?

Is it sad that this country can't get major climate legislation passed and that the most significant investments into climate research and green technology we can get without a 60 vote supermajority and some kickbacks to coal state congressmen is from our military backdooring the research so it can wage war better?

So I say to our elected betters who won't vote for environmental legislation but will vote for any and all military action: forget about the hippies, fat Al Gore, or the fact that it may or may not be cold where you are at this very moment and how that disproves global warming. Take action on climate change for the sake of the troops, so they can fight more effectively. You don't hate the troops... do you? Climate Action Now! It's what General Patton would want.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 12.22

COP15: Climate 'scepticism' and questions about sex
Richard Black of the BBC takes a look at why those who are skeptical to downright hostile towards the notion of climate change are almost entirely men. He goes on to wonder why, if the opposition to climate change is such a rigorous and scientific deconstruction of flawed science, why Sarah Palin is the only woman who seems to have signed on. I'm sure it's because she's the only woman smart enough to realize what a hoax it all is. That must be it.

How to Slow Climate Change for Just $15 Billion
A look at how one of the most dangerous and destructive forms of carbon, black carbon, effects temperature and ice levels and how a simple investment in moving developing countries away from using open fires towards using clean stoves would dramatically slow climate change. On the other hand you do lose that "smokehouse" meat flavor that everyone loves, so I can see why no one is really eager to do this.

Uninsured and Dying Because of It
The Urban Institute decides to be dicks and interrupt all of our bitching about what was conceded and compromised in the health care debate to point out the terrible consequences (lower quality of life, increased morbidity and mortality, and higher financial burdens) of not having health insurance in this country. Way to ruin our pity party. Don't you know your dirty facts have no place in a health care debate?

Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones
Want to know how much it costs to hack the feed from a US Predator drone? $26 bucks. That's all it takes for Iranian backed Iraqi insurgents to attempt to subvert America's endless freedom mission. I know what you're saying: "We're still in Iraq?" Well, apparently we are and our military might can be derailed by one Jackson, one Lincoln, and one Dr. Wooden Teeth. Good to know that for all the billions we spend on these weapons systems, that insurgents might have to go to the trouble of borrowing five bucks from a buddy to beat them.

Titanic iceberg headed for Australia
I don't want to alarm any reader of this site who is a big fan of Aussie rules football, but you should be making peace with the fact that the sport you know and love will soon be deader than Dillinger. Also: everyone in Australia. Precious "scientists" might not agree with me, but that's the only end scenario I can envision when a rogue iceberg almost twice the size of Manhattan breaks off of Antarctica and careens towards a nation of criminals. I know what you're thinking: "Isn't this the only disaster idea that Roland Emmerich didn't put into 2012?" The answer is no, he also didn't have the moon crash into the earth. But maybe these two incidents can form the basis for a sequel.

Fed's approach to regulation left banks exposed to crisis
The Washington Post goes out of it's way to really take Ben Bernanke to the woodshed over his stewardship of the Fed both before, during, and after the global financial apocalypse. According to them, he's terrible at his job and couldn't foresee his nose in front of his face. But rest easy; sure he might have failed at the one part of his job he seems interested in and doesn't seem to give a shit about the "getting employment up" half of the Fed's job, but he'll still be reconfirmed to his position by an almost overwhelming margin. I know you were worried about that. Don't be.

Your daily reminder of how this country works

A plan to attempt to provide American's with better health coverage at a cost of $90 billion a year? My God man, it'll takes month and months of soul sucking compromise, delays, and failures just to get to a point where it's passage still isn't assured until they hash out whether or not women have right's to their own bodies in this country.

A $626 billion dollar bill for Defense this year that doesn't even count our two wars? Walk right this way sir, we're sorry for any delay you might have had. Can we kick this dirty health care nonsense out of the way so we can get to you? Good. How are the wife and kids?

The Senate cleared a crucial hurdle early Friday, voting to end debate on a bill that combined all that remained of this year's congressional agenda – except for health care.

Anchored by a $626 billion Pentagon funding bill, the measure also carries short-term extensions of unemployment benefits, highway and transit funding, key pieces of the anti-terror Patriot Act and a measure to save doctors from shouldering a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments.

Whew! That was a close one. Defense contractors almost didn't get their money on time. That would have been a catastrophe this country could not bear. Thank God they realized that time was of the essence.

Our thing, on the other hand? Yeah... they'll have to get back to us on that. Apparently Joe Lieberman wants his name emblazoned on the flag now. So rest easy, Democrats can't come together to agree on health care, but they can come together to agree that funding wars is awesome. I think we're all proud of them.

Money, money, money, money......mon-ey

Today the LA Times decided to move beyond the mere "will they or won't they" Ross and Rachel aspect of the decision to escalate in Afghanistan to the tune of 40k soldiers (hint: they will) and get down to the nitty gritty of how much it will cost. Because the LAT is apparently under the assumption that war isn't free and military spending doesn't count as spending. Rookies.

But the great thing about American politics and war is the fact that there are passionate debates about these issues by or elected betters. Like the debate between those who think endless war is free and those who only think it's mostly free, but could be persuaded if someone would start building Humvees in their district. Or the debate that's going on between the White House and Pentagon now: not over whether to escalate, no...God no, I meant over the various ways to bullshit Americans and not get them so mad when you up the ante in Afghanistan.

The calculations so far have produced a sweeping range. The Pentagon publicly estimates it will cost $500,000 a year for every additional service member sent to the war zone. Obama's budget experts size it up at twice that much.

In coming up with such numbers, the White House and the military have different priorities as well as different methods.

The president's advisors don't want to underestimate the cost and then lose the public's faith. The Pentagon worries about sticker shock as commanders push for an increase of as many as 40,000 troops.

Hey, "president's advisors"? Public's faith: lost. So, giving us an accurate tab up front isn't the courtesy you think it is, especially when we wouldn't be able to say "no" if we thought it was too high. But it is glad to know that our military betters feel that the public needs to be lied to in order to get them to support this escalation. They're right, of course, but I think going so far as to estimate the cost of new weapons, bases, and support equipment for these new soldiers as costing somewhere in the neighborhood of $0 was a nice touch.

So get ready, war escalation is a comin'. I'm just happy to know we didn't learn anything over the past decade about pesky little things like "whether the mission is worth it" or "is this a good idea". Thankfully we learned that the important debate is over the marketing and salesmanship of the war. It's just a shame bullshit like this doesn't have to through Senate subcommittees and pass a 60 vote filibuster threshold. Then it could be stop....ah, who the hell am I kidding, it would pass rather easily.

Kristof, you poor naive bastard

Ahh, Nick Kristof. Nicholas, Nicholas, Nicholas, what to do with you? You're a good man, write good columns on important things, and you seem to be respected. But Christ are you naive. I bet you thought you were pretty damn clever when you pointed out the eagerness of celebrity seeking political degenerates like Joe Lieberman to spend hundreds of billions and thousands of lives in pointless wars, but unwilling to spend billions on health care and saving thousands of lives. Hell, I've made that point a few times here on the Internet's only political commentary and fake news blog, These Bastards.

While I am accusing you of stealing my thoughts and a lawsuit is forthcoming, where your fault lies is in the fact that you actually expect a reasoned answer for the disconnect and think that by pointing out this seeming incongruity you can somehow shame our elected betters, or mainstream media betters, or apathetic voters into noticing and punishing those who transgress this hypocrisy. You poor poor bastard.

So if President Obama dispatches another 30,000 or 40,000 troops, on top of the 68,000 already there, that would bring the total annual bill for our military presence there to perhaps $100 billion — or more. And we haven’t even come to the human costs.

As for health care reforms, the 10-year cost suggests an average of $80 billion to $110 billion per year, depending on what the final bill looks like.
...
On the other hand, the health care legislation pays for itself, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while the deployment in Afghanistan is unfinanced and will raise our budget deficits and undermine our long-term economic security.

So doesn’t it seem odd to hear hawks say that health reform is fiscally irresponsible, while in the next breath they cheer a larger deployment of troops in Afghanistan?

My God, what is this? Is it your first year covering politics? Doesn't this seem odd? No, it seems perfectly normal. You want to know why we're so eager to spend a trillion dollars a year on defense spending and wars? Because that money doesn't count. Yup, no matter how much money we spend on blowing up brown people and building aircraft carriers, it never, ever, ever counts as spending money. In fact there is no logic ascribed to any dollar spent on defense. I mean that's why President Obama can cut the rate at which military spending increases and still everyone pretends like he's actually cut military spending. That's why $100 billion more for a war that's already costing hundreds of billions a year is perfectly fine, while $90 billion a year for health care is a crippling debt that we're foisting on our children, who'll have to give 5 cent handjobs in alleys to Chinese businessmen just to pay off the interest. The same principle works for tax cuts for the rich. Those don't count either, no matter how much they increase deficits.

But this is the key reason that politicians love spending on wars but hate spending on improving the lives of people, Nick: there is no part of the health care bill that will make a politician feel like his dick is huge or that he is, in fact, the manliest, burliest fucking manly man on the planet. Even the smallest defense appropriations bill does that a million, or should I say trillion, times over. You ever tried to chestbump a dude after cutting heealth care costs for Americans? Awwwwkwaaaaard. On the other hand nothing is better than a high five after a predator drone wipes out some mountain village.

The reason people like the world's greatest man, Joe Lieberman, won't vote for decent health care reform, I mean besides petty spite, is because it just doesn't get their cocks rock hard. No one gets their cocks hard over health reform, except maybe Ron Wyden, he's.....a little weird. This is the biggest failing of the health reform movement. Obama never walked around talking about the wood he got when he thought of saving 45,000 lives a year. There were no high fives and screams of "Boo-yah" when CBO estimates came in projecting a decrease in the deficit, and the fight to improve people's health was never described in terms of an comprehensive international effort to wipe out brown terrorists that live inside our bodies.

So I'm sorry Nick, this is just standard operating procedure. It is the way things will always be: fiscally irresponsible. Now I only hope we can spend the $90 billion we would have used on health care to fund some even larger TOW missile that shoots out a giant fireworks explosion in the shape of a large dragon every time we hit a suspected terrorist. That, and only that, would show the fiscal seriousness of our Senate.

My God, what a stunner

Wait a minute, you mean to tell me that lawmakers and aides in one of the elected branches of the United States Government would be rife with crooks under investigation for various ethics violations and accusations of scumfuckery? I'm a little floored here at the revelation. I mean sure, breach of the public trust, throws a pall over the actions of government, rabble rabble rabble. But I'm talking about the real shockers here: the investigations aren't happening in the Senate and it's only 30 representatives.

House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July.
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The 22-page "Committee on Standards Weekly Summary Report" gives brief summaries of ethics panel investigations of the conduct of 19 lawmakers and a few staff members. It also outlines the work of the new Office of Congressional Ethics, a quasi-independent body that initiates investigations and provides recommendations to the ethics committee. The document indicated that the office was reviewing the activities of 14 other lawmakers. Some were under review by both ethics bodies.

Christ, corruption stemming from the defense industry? I mean who would have ever thought that the goal of every military contractor to try to get every military piece of hardware built across as many Congressional districts as humanly possible, would result in undue influence and corruption? Seriously, what was it, like one guy? If you have Lockheed-Martin building something in your district you should be thrown in jail as a precautionary measure. But the defense industry money whores are easy pickens and low hanging fruit, just think of all the extra investigations the House panel can do because of this health care fight. Think of all the investigations the Senate panel can do. Evan Bayh and Joe Lieberman are already giving them plenty of material.

Those who are being investigated include nearly half the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, Charlie Rangel for "inconsistencies" with his and his family's finances, Jane Harman for "shenanigans" relating to Israeli "lobbyists", Maxine Waters for accidentally making sure that a small bank her husband owned stock in got a lucrative federal bailout. I mean sure, like all other ethics investigations, these will probably end with nothing happening or at best a mild censure. Because the basic function of the House and Senate ethics panels isn't to investigate and prosecute members, that would make things awkward in caucus meetings, the point is to have the appearance of looking into the matters that are so egregiously obvious that Congress is forced to act. Like basically everything John Murtha does.

Sorry for the inconvenience, leaked House crooks, I know this is supposed to end with a private words of consternation and the panel clearing you, not having this all pointed out in public by the Washington Post. Here's hoping you learn to keep your crookedness better hidden for the upcoming climate change debate.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.29

The High Drama Behind Reid's Public Option Decision
TPM gives the lowdown on how the White House and Harry Reid in the decision to put a public option in the Senate bill. Long story short: the WH told Reid they'd back him and it was his decision, Reid said he was "motherfuckin' goi' with the motherfuckin' public option", the WH asked if he was sure he had the votes, Reid said he did, the WH asked if he was sure he was sure he had the votes. Reid repeated yes, then strutted out of the Oval Office jauntily whereupon he was kneed in the groin by Joe Lieberman. President Obama is reported to have then preceded to give the definitive "fail facepalm" as a little piece of him died inside.

Victory for Obama Over Military Lobby
How might you ask does signing a $680 billion dollar defense spending bill that increases spending from the previous yea constitute a win? Uhhh....because military/defense lobbyists and M-16 humpers in Congress only got most of what they wanted instead of all of what they wanted. I'll throw the parade. Remember that we'll easily fork over $680 billion a year plus God knows what else for our two ongoing wars and give little thought to it. But try to spend $900 billion over a decade plus in an attempt to give people health care? Whoa buddy, you're out of your fucking mind.

Climate Change Caused Radical North Sea Shift
It seems that because of the effects of climate change on the North Sea, the ecological makeup of the area has changed, radically altering the food chain and sea based businesses. Which is fine if you think the jellyfish market is going to replace the cod market, but bad otherwise for tose who believe massive rapid ecological changes are a bad thing. Someone want to wrap this study around a brick and throw it through Jim Inhofe's front window? Does anyone know the number of a good discount masonry supplier?

Inside Astronaut Boot Camp
Popular Science takes a look at the preparations and people who are looking to be the first people in 40 years to go out further than the space station, out towards our enemy the moon. Because that's America's new space ambition: to re-do stuff that NASA already did decades ago. Marvel as the astronauts learn to drive moon buggies and laugh as a drunk Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stumble onto the test course to heap withering abuse on what they've dubbed "Team Bitch". The only thing standing in these new astronaut's way, besides an inebriated Buzz Aldrin waving a golf club and muttering about "punks copying his shit"? That whole funding thing. Whoops, don't have that yet.

Health Care Budgeting 101: Congress’ Fiscal Scolds Earn an “F-”
FDL looks at how Blue Dog Democrats, all in the name of "fiscal accountability", have decided (and succeeded in getting) that the cost of the original House bill was too high, so in order to cut it down.....they weakened and gutted provisions that would have cut the deficit, saved money, and reduced health care costs. As always, they want to save money in the short term at the expense of costing us gobs more in the future. So just remember, anytime you hear some Blue Dog idiot droning on about "fiscal responsibility" or the deficit or some such shit, what they're really saying is that they're an idiot who doesn't understand basic economics and that they need to have their head held under water until the twitching stops.