Your sunshine and smiles of the day

The Afghanistan NGO Security Office takes a look at our Afghanistan surge, how our new policies are working, what our chances for success are, and the general state of things in the graveyard of empires. They're glass half empty people.

The US military build-up in Kandahar is likely to further strengthen the hold of the Taliban over the vital southern Afghanistan city, a highly respected security organisation said today in a bleak report warning of record Taliban violence and rising civilian deaths across the country.

The report by the Afghanistan NGO Security Office, which monitors trends in violence on behalf of aid organisations, said Nato's counter-insurgency strategy was not showing any signs of succeeding amid rising violence, the unchecked establishment of local militias and a huge increase in attacks on private development workers across the country.
...
"We do not support the [counter-insurgency] perspective that this constitutes 'things getting worse before they get better', but rather see it as being consistent with the five-year trend of things just getting worse," the report said.

Come now, as long as we're able to get enough security forces and military trained up the we can have them take over the fight for us, we need to prop up the main and local governments to give them the support they need, our new strategies and counter-insurgency tactics need to be given time to work, we have to get the tribal leaders and people to understand that they have to come together to stand against the Taliban, know that we're in this for the long haul for the safety and security of Afghanistan as well as America, and other various statements, we'll get this thing won.

So buck up and don't listen to these naysayers, because this, and anything and everything that happens in Afghanistan, just shows that we're taking the fight to them and slowly turning the tide. As long as you don't note that we've been saying things like this for almost a full decade without any signs of discernible progress or an end in sight, then you can pretend that the end is just over that next insurgent infested mountainside.

So keep up with your naysaying, highly respected international observers and NGO's, this is all just part of a complex plan of success that smarty pants experts like you are completely unable to discern. Seriously, just as soon as we get those police, security, and military forces trained up, things will get better. I know that has turned into a sort of Escher painting where they're always being trained yet never finished training, but once we get that done, all these things that look like a slowly dawning failure will, in actuality, flip and become successes right at the end.

Just a couple more years, we just need a couple more years.

Health care: run away!

It should be of little surprise, really. It was expected. I don't know why I thought that this time might be different. Health care reform is effectively dead for a while, which might just mean it is effectively dead. Why? Because Democrats have decided to assume their familiar position, one of grabbed ankles, pants around ankles, and a look that says "don't harm the plumbing too much back there." The Senate feels the health care issue, namely putting through reconciliation measures they were already going to vote for, to be too extreme a measure. Why? Because they can apparently see a future where not passing health care reform was a great idea.

So instead, because they can't do more than one thing at a time and literally every Senator is going to be working on this new priority, they've decided to pivot from health care to anything that anyone will throw at them in order to plausibly provide them with an excuse to get them away from health care. That thing is jobs, which they've decided is kind of important now after a year of not doing anything about it.

The White House on Thursday signaled the outlines of its strategy for breaking the partisan logjam holding up President Obama’s agenda, saying Democrats would move quickly to underline their commitment to fixing the broken economy and to build an election-year case against Republicans if they do not cooperate.

With Mr. Obama’s health care overhaul stalled on Capitol Hill, Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said in an interview that Democrats would try to act first on job creation, reducing the deficit and imposing tighter regulation on banks before returning to the health measure, the president’s top priority from last year.

Yes yes, sure sure, good good. I'm sure the Republicans will hop on board to help you with an important priority. If there's one thing we've learned about the GOP it's that they certainly aren't interested in yanking the country down on itself if there's a slight chance it'll benefit them politically. Gee I wonder how the first attempt at this this year, where you tried to pass a measure the GOP supported, namely pay-as-you-go rules for the budget? What, they opposed in en masse? Including several GOP Senators who explicitly expressed support for the measure? Shocking.

I wonder what there contribution to the jobs debate will be. How does the New York Times phrase it? "[I]nstant Republican resistance to the jobs plan", a jobs plan which hasn't even been articulated. I'm sure this will go well.

So good job, Democrats. I'm sure that running shrieking from health care to the issue of jobs, because two things at once is hard, is going to work out for you. Hell, I foresee a future where both health care reform and an actual, working jobs bill are passed with enough time to be enacted before the election. The election being your only real concern at this point. This, like all your plans and legislative strategies, will totally work. Why shouldn't people trust you? You're the Democrats! Things things always go well for you and, by extension, the American people.

Broken News: High School Reunion Completely Disappoints

MADISON, WI -- Last Friday night, 193 West Haven High School graduates from the class of 1999 convened at Finkle's Bar & Grill, a mere stone's throw from their alma mater, filled with hope for long-simmering drunken confrontations, unwise sexual congress, and transparent exaggerations of lives that would best be described as abject failures.

Instead, the West Haven alumni managed to stage perhaps the least-interesting reunion on record in the western hemisphere. Apart from a single vomit-filled ficus outside of the women's bathroom and a pair of D.U.I.'s, the event ran its course with a sadly remarkable lack of horrible behavior.

"Fuck me!" said Gregory Zemelman, former Math Club president who is now a civil engineer living in Chicago. "I'd been waiting years. Years! I got through grad school on the promise of heaping derision on some morbidly obese ex-cheerleader types who laughed at me for almost half a decade. All they did was plump up a little after they had kids. Not a single meth addiction amongst the entire goddamn squad."

"One of those cheerleaders even apologized for being mean to me 'Way back then'! What the fuck?"

Much of the disappointment with the reunion seemed to come from those who might have been considered less-than-popular in their high school years, but wound up finding no small measure of success later on in life.

"I'd have to say my biggest let-down was seeing Tyler," explained Lauren Adams, a criminal defense attorney in Manhattan, in reference to former all-city quarterback and student council president, Tyler Murphy.

"Seriously, my face cleared up, I dropped seven dress sizes, and I make more money than any five of those mouth breathers combined. During that time, not only did Tyler refuse to drink himself into oblivion or go to jail, the bastard went off and started a reasonably successful landscaping company. I hope one of his kids gets caught in a fucking wood chipper."

When asked to comment on Ms. Adams' statement, Mr. Murphy replied, "Who? Oh, her... yeah, I hope she's doing well and stuff."

For some, the realization that a decade mentally fueled by petty high school sleights resulted in little more than terminally misplaced anger was too much to bear.

"Ten goddamn years of that 'I'll show them I'm not a clarinet playing dweeb' and 'What'll those bitches and assholes think now that I'm doing all this big, important shit', and for what?" West Haven graduate Josh Harriot said, throwing his hands in the air.

"Not only do I find out these people have mostly changed for the better and that we've all grown up emotionally, but I realized that all the shit I was doing to 'show everybody' isn't all that important, or even good, and that no one really cares. Unfuckingbelievable!"

"The middle! We're all average people standing in the fucking middle!" Harriot yelled out. "I'm not lording over shit!"

In fact, 'People growing up and changing for the better' was cited as the number one reason for disappointment, beating out 'No porn stars in the class' and the fact that everyone was generally pleasant to be around. Still, some had other complaints.

"Nah, I'm gonna have to go with 'Hot girls not as hot as you remember them' as my biggest complaint," observed Ethan Wallace, a former member of the track team and current marketing analyst.

"The way I remember it, Chelsea Garrett was, like, the hottest woman in the world. Supermodel level, easy. Now I look at her and she looks pretty much the same, but she only seems nominally attractive. It feels like someone is messing with my mind."

In the end, after the crushing realization that they were all average people with average jobs who had gone through a typical, average high school experience and typical, average reunion, some placed their hopes in the future.

"The 20 year reunion, man, that's where the shit will go down," hoped Harriot. "By then we should have separated out a little more career and wage-wise, our children will have had time to grow into unmentionable fuckups or stunning successes, there will probably be a few divorces and bad plastic surgeries, and we'll really be able to do some nose-to-shit rubbing."

He paused and sighed a bit, "At least I hope so. I can't deal with another one of these mildly pleasant evenings."

My God.....have they finally learned?

I'm about to blow your mind here, so sit down. On the first time in decades on an issue of any importance, it seems that Democrats are finally tired of playing the eager Charlie Brown to the GOP's football holding Lucy, and are willing to go it alone on an issue. As squadrons of pigs take to the skies, Democrats may have decided they're moving towards using their own numbers and ideas to pass a health care bill. To go it alone.

Given hardening Republican opposition to Congressional health care proposals, Democrats now say they see little chance of the minority’s cooperation in approving any overhaul, and are increasingly focused on drawing support for a final plan from within their own ranks.

Top Democrats said Tuesday that their go-it-alone view was being shaped by what they saw as Republicans’ purposely strident tone against health care legislation during this month’s Congressional recess, as well as remarks by leading Republicans that current proposals were flawed beyond repair.

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said the heated opposition was evidence that Republicans had made a political calculation to draw a line against any health care changes, the latest in a string of major administration proposals that Republicans have opposed.

Really Rahm? You're just coming to that conclusion now? I think anyone who reasonably pays attention to politics could have told you Republicans were going to oppose any and everything you came up with. But then again, we don't get paid hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars for our supposed political acumen.

But before we get too excited, let's just observe that all this does is set us up for a new kind of disappointment. Instead of the GOP killing a bill or making it worse, now we all get to contend with Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, Kent Conrad, and House Blue Dogs making the bill worse or eventually killing it if they don't get to make it worse. SO instead of shrugging our shoulders and saying "well at least they tried, but the GOP killed it", we just get to rage at the Democratic party as a whole once again as we wonder why Rahm Emanuel didn't bayonet Blanche Lincoln to show Arlen Specter the White House means business on health care. Have we just traded one bad outcome for another bad outcome? Say, a flupocalypse for a nuclear apocalypse? Possibly. But at least Democrats are going to make the attempt. Maybe. They might recant all this tomorrow.

EDIT: Like clockwork...

Broken In Brief: Yankee Candle to offer failure scented candles

SOUTH DEERFIELD—Concerned with flagging sales figures and with an eye toward capitalizing on the new financial realities of American life, today Yankee Candle announced a new line of scented votive candles designed to evoke the feelings and aromas of the world economic recession.

“We feel our new Scents of a Desolate Countryside series allows us to aromatically connect to Americans in a more honest and direct way,” said Jenni Parker, VP of Communications. “We’ve recently taken a hit as foreclosures and flagging home sales have all but wiped out our stranglehold on the housewarming gift market. Plus with less money to go around for luxury food items, many Americans don’t even remember what apple pie, almond cookies, or pumpkin actually are, let alone what they smell like. We hope that these new scents will speak to people and open us up to the emerging foreclosure consolation gift market.”

Consumer testing has yielded generally positive reviews. One customer opined, “Wow, this Spring Failure candle is really accurate. It smells exactly like my hopes and dreams for a brighter future are being laughingly set aflame… in a field of lilacs."

Yankee Candle plans on having the new series, containing such scents as Disused Train Station Bathroom, Ramshackle Motel, Key Lime Diminishing Sense of Pride, Vanilla Bean Vanishing Home Equity, Cinnamon Worthless Stock Portfolio, and Harvest Suicide in stores by the fall.