Author Archives: Al Swearengen

bQuoteBazaar – Iraq War

“Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever, when we are, in fact, working for the day when Iraq … Continue reading

Posted in Military, Words | 1 Comment

Riding On Old Yeller

The Bush Doctrine of pre-emption was outdone on its own terms yesterday, as at least three hours passed in between Iran’s release of the British sailors they had detained and any sort of reaction from the White House. As damning … Continue reading

Posted in History, Military, Words | 14 Comments

bBlogBouillabaisse – For the Benefit of Mr. Kite

Chuck Missler debunks that evolution is real: “If the theory of evolution is viable, then when I open this jar of peanut butter, not often, but on occasion new life will come out of there”. – This is otherwise known … Continue reading

Posted in Words | 3 Comments

bList – Opening Day

75/1 – Odds on the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series this year (Vegas) 12/1 – Odds on the Boston Red Sox 4/1 – Odds on the Evil Empire 7 – Months of state-side recovery time given to HQ 4th … Continue reading

Posted in Words | 5 Comments

John Ashcroft: Filthy Whore

John Ashcroft leaves government to become a lobbyist, and with the inherent credibility boost that comes with having once been the Attorney General, he aimed to score clients that were looking to cash in on the Homeland Security bonanza using … Continue reading

Posted in Words | 6 Comments

House Judiciary Passes Article of Impeachment Against President Bush

How’s THIS for a Sunday morning! I might even skip my coffee today…as a sacrifice to the Gods. From The Largest Minority: WASHINGTON – The first article of impeachment against President George W. Bush was passed by the House Judiciary … Continue reading

Posted in Words | 1 Comment

…and another thing

Semester #7 out of 10 is in the books as of 3AM last night, and I’m feeling free-range at the moment because of it. The list of topics I wanted to post on, but simply ended up filing away over … Continue reading

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Speaker Pelosi’s Website/Blog

As useful as a site of this kind can possibly be, Speaker Pelosi’s blog ‘The Gavel‘ (which I have linked to under ‘Politics’) utilizes YouTube a great deal by posting clips of CSPAN in a very short amount of time, … Continue reading

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Army deployed seriously injured troops

by Mark Benjamin – Salon.com – Soldiers on crutches and canes were sent to a main desert camp used for Iraq training. Military experts say the Army was pumping up manpower statistics to show a brigade was battle ready…Salon recently … Continue reading

Posted in Al Swearengen, Military | 6 Comments

Our Siberia (published in June 1873)

Charles Nordhoff (1830-1901) wrote this essay for Harpers Magazine, and below the fold you will find the complete text, along with the source. Highlighted below is one paragraph that I especially liked, but the entire piece is a great read, … Continue reading

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Heady Nuggets

‘How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits‘ – by Joshua Kors – Sample: They say the military is purposely misdiagnosing soldiers like Town and that it’s doing so for one reason: to cheat them out of a lifetime of disability and … Continue reading

Posted in Words | 2 Comments

MIA – Tangled up

The story about Georgia designating April for ‘Confederacy History and Heritage Month’ must have really got under my skin, because I’ve been jousting over at Control Congress exclusively these past few days, with a number of posts and comments that … Continue reading

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More I.R.S. Shenanigans

There was a hearing today on this – no video posted on CSPAN yet, but the House site has something up here. The number of auditors on staff to handle the highest wage bracket has been cut, with a news-worthy … Continue reading

Posted in Words | 1 Comment

Jamison’s

Hope I didn’t catch you dozing on me…the demands of life in general aren’t the kind of devil grease splatters one can simply pour water over or ignore, so the ‘blog’ takes a backseat to the slumber-sucking reality of this … Continue reading

Posted in Words | 2 Comments

Georgia makes April “Nigger-Hating History and Heritage Month”

Is John Rocker considering a run for office in Georgia? After being quoted years ago saying, “I’m not a very big fan of foreigners…how the hell did they get into this country(?)”, his baseball career took a bad turn. Clearly … Continue reading

Posted in Words | 32 Comments

Is Harry Reid a gamer?

I’ve never been impressed by Reid, and him being the senate majority leader at this stage has been annoying me for some time now. Dick Durbin is a better fit for that role, but I’d still rather see someone like … Continue reading

Posted in Words | 11 Comments

Sibel Edmonds

I’d never heard of this woman until today. I think someone should check into this. Perhaps someone like Henry Waxman or Patrick Leahy even. The short version is that this woman speaks several languages, and was working for the FBI … Continue reading

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Looking Back

The amount of time it takes to read up on everything that’s going on is prohibitive when it comes to relating what I think about all of it here. First is the task of taking it all in and having … Continue reading

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Groundhog Day

From the same issue of the Washington Post, you’ll find that our President is on top of his game.  It feels like 2005 all over again:   Progress in the ‘war on terror’ can be explained in many different ways, … Continue reading

Posted in Words | 9 Comments

Lennie love his dead puppy

   Hey – we were embarrased about all the foreign people our government arbitrarily detains and kicks around, but to think that even powerful Americans can get wraped up over nothing by that same government…in fact, was there even a … Continue reading

Posted in Words | 8 Comments

Lennie pets the puppy

What fun is being able to say you’re in charge of something important if you can’t obstruct a little justice now and then?

Posted in Words | 4 Comments

Confessions of a Torturer

I encourage everyone to read this entire piece by John Conroy in the Chicago Reader. Here is an Army interrogator telling us about everything. It is the first full account from an actual soldier that I have come across that … Continue reading

Posted in Military | 4 Comments

Bill Hicks – Robert Randolph – Noam Chomsky

Here are three torrents currently active on trackers today that I highly recommend. My preferred BT client is Azureus, but it was eating up too much of my processing speed and memory, so although it yields lower upload speeds on … Continue reading

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bBlogBouillabaisse

Gorilla’s Guides is a great blog from within Iraq that I lurk around on regularly, and this postcard came from there. The point of view you’ll find here is very “man on the street”, and being an American, what that … Continue reading

Posted in Words | 5 Comments

The Greg Oden Strategy – RIP DJ

Four games of his I’ve seen so far, and to pretend that there’s a small difference between the value of a 2007 #1 pick and a #3 pick is ridiculous. This guy has the size, hustle and talent on both … Continue reading

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Shamrock Banks $100K

If John Brown had won, I’d have figured it was good luck to be whacked in the head with a dildo several times before a competition. As the last couple episodes of ego trip’s White Rapper Show (VH1) clearly showed … Continue reading

Posted in Words | 2 Comments

Jeb in ’08 – Numbers – Obama in ’02

I want to come out and predict that Jeb Bush emerges as the candidate poised to gather up the majority of Christian conservative votes at some point in this race, and perhaps winding up with the nomination. The Romney people … Continue reading

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Portfolio B – Transaction Log

Update: NTES is really the stock I’ve liked most for a long time, and it is part of my holdings in both portfolios. I increased my stake in it today and it currently accounts for about 15% of the entire … Continue reading

Posted in Economics | 1 Comment

Dizzy

The US Army’s Chief of Staff is asked (2/23/07) about the importance of capturing Osama Bin Laden: “I don’t know whether we’ll find him…I don’t know that it’s all that important, frankly.” – Gen. Peter Schoomaker Dick Cheney in 1991: … Continue reading

Posted in Words | 3 Comments

Walk It Off

Predictably the media has completely missed the point of this Walter Reed story (Part 1, Part 2). Everywhere I turn, the emphasis is on the rodent infestation and mold, yet the important detail they’re ignoring is that thousands of veterans … Continue reading

Posted in Military | 15 Comments