Awakening Problems

For a while now, we've been basing our strategy in Iraq on independently arming tens of thousands of Sunnis, many of them previously involved in the insurgency. This policy always struck as a mark of how desperate the situation had become, so I'm not surprised that we're now hearing stuff like this:

In the past two months, [Awakening leader Rafah Kassim] said, 20 of his fighters have quit. Many felt their monthly salary was no longer worth the risk of fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq. His men also have not received their salaries in two months, he said. "We'll all be patient for another two months. If nothing changes, then we'll suspend and quit," Kassim said. "Then we'll go back to fighting the Americans."

It doesn't look like there's a way to square this circle, either. The US military just isn't able to effectively supervise these Sunni units forever, and the Shiite-dominated government won't integrate them into security forces. I fear that in the end, all the US will have managed to do is the make sure both sides in this simmering civil war are more heavily armed and less willing to compromise than ever.

Basic Math

John McCain was elected to the Senate in 1986. That means he's been in the Senate for just over 21 years.

In today's Washington Post story about McCain's relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman, however, a campaign adviser talks about McCain's "24-year record." Four paragraphs later, the article's authors state he's spent "almost 30 years in the Senate."

What's up with that?

Update: Mary points out that if you count his two terms in the House, McCain has been in Congress for 25 years. That's closer to the campaign's oft-repeated figure of 24 years, but it doesn't let the story's authors and editors off the hook, since they were specific about Senate service.

A Night Out

Contrary to the earlier forecasts, it was clear as a bell last night. I went up to the roof periodically, both to look at the eclipse and to see if I could get any half-decent pictures.

And half-decent is an accurate way to describe this picture, taken just as the eclipse began. And, sadly, it's the best of the bunch. My pictures of the moon fully eclipsed didn't come out at all — far too underexposed to be of much use. In the end, I just didn't have a long enough lens to properly focus and judge exposure. Oh well, I'll have another chance in three years.

Total Eclipse Tomorrow

Once upon a time there was light in my life, but now there's only love in the dark. Nothing I can say, a total eclipse of the, uh, moon.

It's supposed to be mostly cloudy in Charlotte tomorrow night, but hopefully the odds of getting a good view will be better where you are.

Friday Cat Blogging

Nothing's better than a snuggly sleeping bag.

OHMIGOD!

Apparently, Donald Wildmon and the AFA have run out of things to be seriously outraged about, so they're just going to be outraged at, well, this.

Do Anything

You hear about it all the time, the candidate who will "say or do anything to get elected." Usually that hyperbole indicates that a politician has just made a particularly obvious pander to some group, but in case of McCain's torture vote yesterday, I think it's absolutely spot on.

McCain, of course, is a former POW and victim of torture who has, naturally enough, spoken out against torture on numerous occasions in the past. But Wednesday he voted to effectively allow the use of torture by the CIA because that's what the Republican base wants. It's a rather shocking flip-flop, and if McCain is willing to cave on something like this, which bears directly on what has to be the most horrifying experience of his life, then it's no hyperbole to say he really will say or do anything.

It Begins Now

I know that Mike Huckabee hasn't been mathematically eliminated from the campaign just yet, but still, it's time to start thinking about McCain as the Republican nominee. And since the rest of the Democrats haven't figured out which candidate I'm supposed to vote for this fall, positive campaigning just isn't possible yet. So it's time to go negative, and this being a blog an all, it's time to go negative by showing the same anti-McCain YouTube videos that everyone else is showing. Going viral, baby.

There, that ought to do it.

How the Mighty Have Fallen

I took part of my lunch break today to meander over to the National Review's Corner for a little schadenfreude in the wake of McCain's primary victories last night. And while there was plenty of that, it just served to remind me that the Corner is populated by total idiots these days. This isn't a judgment based on policy disagreements (which are infinite), but based on the fact that their hive-mind can't seem to be bothered to make a coherent argument most of the time. Any group that spends the morning debating the merits of George Allen vs. Phil Gramm as Treasury Secretary should not be taken seriously.

At one time, the National Review was the intellectual center of movement conservatism, racist warts and all. Now it's just a bunch of really dumb hacks. Sad, I guess, but I can't seem to muster a tear.

Conflicted

Super Tuesday primary results are on CNN, but Enter the Dragon is on AMC. I hate this kind of counter-programming. Why couldn't AMC show some crappy straight-to-DVD movie instead, like they do most of the time? Why does AMC hate America?

Friday Cat Blogging

What's going on down there?