You know them. The self-appointed vigilantes of the KOS. They strut through diary after diary and feel compelled—like an old male dawg—to heist a leg and leave a puddle wherever they go. Dogs do that, you know, to mark their territory. Dogs can’t help themselves. Usually the piddle target is some poor schmuck of a fire hydrant who snatched some time to share a thought or insight. "THIS is a diary??" queries the vigilante, "Hardly!!!" Note the derogatory number of exclamation marks in this insightful critique. Well, actually, yes it IS a diary but one that obviously did not meet your posse standards. The vigilante post, however, has its desired effect of cutting off what may have been, until then, a moderately productive thread of comments. The vigilantes thrive on derision. You know them. They are purging the KOS of what, in their opinion, are superfluous diarists. Those of us who write about stupid things in life and our dogs.

Ladder climbing as you get older.  This is a cautionary tale, not a Minneapolis bridge collapse. So there is no film at eleven. Thank Gawd.  Hey, I'm fifty so I'm still invincible, right?  I've rappelled, climbed rock walls, biked 200 miles in three days, walked miles over Civil War battlefields, and tried to seduce young women (with admittedly limited success). And I KNOW better.  For Chrissakes one of my first jobs was putting gutters up on barns on forty-foot ladders.  The first rule of the job (the only one actually I remember other than don't show up to the job stoned)was never climb a ladder without someone to hold it.  NEVER.  Sooo, I had on my to-do list nine-volt batteries cause the gawddammed smoke detector was beeping at odd hours in need of a fix ... (more if you want...)

It was bad enough that Putin was "distinctly unimpressed" by the President's dawg when first they were introduced as reported in WaPo today.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Then when our beloved President visited Russia, Putin trotted out his own animal and announced "Bigger, tougher, stronger, faster, meaner, than Barney." Talk about a dis. ...  Barney's self-image was in flux for months. He was only trying to recover ...

Reading my local newspaper this morn, the WAPO, I was pretty much freaked by all the sh*t leaking out of the Bush portajohn.  Could barely turn a page without some new seepage from the bureaucracy.  In some ways its scary.  In other ways its nice to know that a layer of "underachieving" bureaucrats are sitting back on their asses and doing their patriotic duty.  Who are these people who think they were elected as czars, anyway?

Edwards was only one who had the reality-based cojones to say so in the debate.  The rest of our candidates bought into the RoveMeme and contributed to Bushdom.  Hillary disappointed me most.  She knows better but can't say it.  Just say it, if you want to be president. Edwards is right.

My apologies to the Reality-based Kos Community, but I know this for a fact.  God has a pointy little head.  A few months before my grandmother Ada (bless her soul) "crossed over," as they tend to say in central Tennessee, she told me so.  Ergo, it is true.  How could Granny lie on her near-death bed? I listened intently.  Then she said, "you know those things they call flying saucers?"  Yes, I said.  She paused.  Thought about it.  "I saw one," she said.  After the fold, my Granny's last words on the subject...

War on Terror.  A clever phrase devised by Dick Cheney while high on blood thinners.
War on Terrorists.  An attempt by his politico-spinners to narrow down an impossibly broad conflict to something "human."
War on Terrists.  Our president's translation of Cheney's concept into pseudo-Texanese.
War on Turrism.  The Florida Chamber of Commerce up in arms against the influx of penniless northern furriners in the neighborhood.
War on Turrists.  Carl Hiassen's take on a visit to Florida with a side trip to Crawford.  Disney World, any one?
War on Terra.  Heinlein's prediction come true.  Want some more?

Article in the WAPO 1 March 2007.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
One of the first attempts by a reporter to get inside of the new "surge" strategy in Baghdad and very telling.  

As counterinsurgency intellectuals, Gen. Petraeus and his band of merry military PhDs have no equal.  Here is brain power (sorely lacking thus far) at work.  Petraeus wrote the book on counterinsurgency, which would be FM 3-24.

http://www.fas.org/...

Petraeus is behind the "new" security plan in Baghdad.  I wish him and the troops success.  If anyone can do it, perhaps he can.  But a small detail in this WAPO article has bothered me and gives me pause ...

Libby's defense counsel is offering the argument that Libby is being made the scapegoat for the Wilson-Plame issue.

Thank gawd, I served my jury time last year.  In DC, you get called up every two years.  On the other hand, this would be an interesting trial to sit in on.  I'm sure Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and the 'ites expected Libby to do the hari-kari thing.  Looks like it going to be more complicated than that ...

Defense lawyers said that Libby did not lie to investigators and that any misstatements were the product of faulty memory. They also offered a new theory about the case — that Libby and his then-boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, were concerned that Libby was being made a scapegoat by administration insiders in order to protect White House political operative Karl Rove.

A few "bipartisan" sources.  They're mushrooming ...

The pillars are mountain peaks in the south of Jordan.  They also form the title of T.E. Lawrence's classic book on guerilla warfare in Arabia.  "Lawrence of Arabia" was the profound individual who nearly singlehandedly organized the revolt of Arabs against the Turkish empire during WWI.  He handed out a lot of gold and used up camels.  The tribes did the rest.

Lawrence was in-theatre for more than seven years.  He was there.  He did not rotate in and out.  He had an advantage.   He immersed himself in the Arabic language and had an obsessive desire to master the numerous dialects.  He could match phrase for phrase among the isolated Bedouin tribes.  He had an eye for good camel flesh and was willing to pay for it.  He knew the Brits were not about to grant the Arabs independence, yet he pretended otherwise to the Arabs.  Sounds familiar...  He did not kick out translators because they were swishy. ....

I am Dub’ya Bush and I’m here to say
That I’m gonna win this war in Iraq some day
Ozzama bin Laden is an evil scourge
And my new battle plan is about to emerge
When you talk to the generals like I do
A new battle plan is likely to accrue
We snuffed out Saddam and we’ll snuff out Bin
When we snuff’em all out, then we’re bound to win

Do the surge. [Hands clasped overhead, in a circular motion, with slow, rhythmic pelvic thrust.]
Do the surge. [Republicans join in.]
Do the surge.

Our good friend's brother died suddenly of a broken ticker.  Hell, he was only in his fifties.  I had to work, so the wife thought she would drive from DC to Philly for the funeral to put the best face on us both.  She was up early--7 am--while I lingered in bed with the pup.  I vaguely heard the familiar noises of hair-drying.  

I dozed.  About 8 I heard an "Oh shit!"  "What's up?" I asked.  The dawg groaned.  "I just did a MapQuest and it says it takes three hours to get there!" "Yeah," I said.  "It takes you an hour or so to get to Balmer.  What did you expect?"  "The funeral's at NOON!"  "Well, ya got time."  I began to stir, scratching my head and heading for the head.

Then a scream.  "The funeral's at eleven.  I just rechecked the email." I began to sense a melt-down and was instantly alert.  "You need to help me zip up this black dress!"  Shit, I said, its not working.  The zipper, that is...

Please check out David Hardt in Iraq, 30 Nov. http://blog-ah.typepad.com/...

The man writes like a dream but doesn't pull any punches.  I worry about him every day.

As we turned down the first of various tiny allies, a lady flagged us down. The truck came to a screeching halt, and the ramp thudded to the ground. I looked at Ray confused. "What the hell is going on," I said.

Their training said NO.  Their instinct said YES.

What followed was fear, attempted suicide, trust ...

Sad as it may seem, Barney, the President's black Scottish terrier, was seen roaming dejectedly up an alley in NW Washington.  At 4:45 pm (EST) a young woman sipping a vodka and tonic on her balcony noted the unaccompanied animal sniffing its way up the alley.  She said, "It appeared to be an abandoned animal." She went to investigate and found the dog very compliant but was shocked to read the tags.  "Barney.  1600 Pennsylvania Ave."  She examined the animal and found no evidence of fleas and brought it inside.

It was hell.  He came out of combat a confirmed pacifist and suffered from bouts of malaria for ten years after the war.  

My brother and I growing up only ever heard the funny anecdotes.  The crazy colonel with the riding crop and a fondness for hiding in the edge of the woods in his camouflage uniform and shouting out "can you seeeee me now?"  Dad was the star catcher on the regimental baseball team on New Guinea and, therefore, was absolved from any odious duties such as KP or sentry.  In India, he and a dozen of his buddies went AWOL for two weeks in New Delhi.  Getting their fill of carousing (having spent all their money), they bluffed their way onto a train to get back to camp.  Approaching the MPs at the gate, they fell into order, started chanting the cadence, and marched their way right onto the train.  But it was hell.  

Murtha was the first Democrat to tell the truth about Iraq.  He  is hotwired with the military.  He is pissed off about the current situation.  He was among the first to come up with an alternative plan for Iraq. He's smart.  He cares.  He doesn't apologize for his opinions.  The White House doesn't like him. Why hasn't his name come up for presidential candidate in 2008?  Remind  me why we don't much care for him? Come on.  Y'all know so much more than I do.

"a day of death." http://blog-ah.typepad.com/...
Shades of Six-Feet Under.
I have been webblocked by the Dept. of Interior from viewing any diaries or blogs from our active military.  First I am a military historian and I think it my personal duty as well as professional duty to keep track of our soldiers under fire.  I have appealed to the third-party vendor 8e6 only to get an automated response.  8e6. Anyone who ever worked in the restaurant industry should appreciate this "clever" corporate brand.  Second, I think its unpatriotic to block our soldiers who are under fire.  I'm still in there kicking but every time I log onto an "inappropriate site," my computer location is loggged into a list somewhere and I am denied access.  BTW Dailykos is blocked. BTW Bluestate.com is blocked.  Redstate.com is unblocked.    

My recent obsession with the explosions at Camp Falcon, 10-11 October, led me to two websites that I think many Dkossers might overlook and might find interesting. My initial passion over the dramatic TNT event has cooled somewhat, not because I think it less important.  It is important.  The blood cools.  The brain finds detachment.

I am now informed that REAL reporters are on the job.  That helps.  I am also almost convinced that there are legitimate security reasons for clamping down on and even scrubbing reporting on the event.  Almost.  There are arguments in both directions.

But during my research I encountered David Hardt at Blog-ah.  I listened to family members at Stryker Brigade News.  These are our boots on the ground in Iraq and at home.  Details below with update.