January 2008 archive

Families gathered at the 5th Marine Regiment Memorial Park at Camp Pendleton, Calif.,(right) to spend their last few moments with loved ones before they left for Iraq. Regimental Combat Team 5 left Camp Pendleton on January 3 for their one year deployment to the Al Anbar province of Iraq.– USMC Photo.

While my old regiment ships out again,I have to ask:

Are we headed, as many in the antiwar movement have feared, into an Iraq-free zone during this election season?  Have the Dems decided to wait until next year to try to do anything?

Noah Feldman, in last Sunday’s NY Times magazine:  

What if the United States were at war during a presidential election – and none of the candidates wanted to talk about it? Iraq has become the great disappearing issue of the early primary season, and if nothing fundamental changes on the ground there – a probable result of current policy – the war may disappear even more completely in the new year…

… elections demand that candidates differentiate themselves, yet various plausible front-runners’ positions on Iraq are not all that far apart. There are subtle differences regarding the completeness and timing of withdrawal: John Edwards, for instance, says he would remove even the troops who are training the Iraqi Army and police. But basically, the leading doves say they want to leave, but not too fast; while the hawks claim they want to stay, but not too long.

This week’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas highlighted what Feldman said.  Clinton, Obama and Edwards all offered their nuanced positions, including this clarification of an old question about whether they would have all US troops out by 2013:

(Follow below the fold- ek hornbeck)

This is an Open Thread: Let the sunshine in

Thursday’s Headlines:Republicans are losers as Romney win leaves the race wide open : Outrage as US accuses Britain of inexperience in Taleban conflict: Democrats go deep to court Latino vote :Dry, polluted, plagued by rats: the crisis in China’s greatest river: Battle of the blogs in Kenya: British Council chief detained as Russia steps up diplomatic dispute: Bad Reviews for Bush in the Mideast

Judge: U.S. gets Texas land for border fence

Feds succeed against city, could file 102 lawsuits against landowners

WASHINGTON – A federal judge has ordered a small border city in Texas to temporarily turn over its land to the federal government so it can begin to build a border fence.

U.S. District Judge Alia Moses Ludlum ordered the city of Eagle Pass, on the border about 100 miles southwest of San Antonio, to “surrender” 233 acres of city-owned land. The Justice Department sued the city for access to the land.

Richard Knerr, 82; co-founded Wham-O, maker of the Hula Hoop and Frisbee

Richard Knerr, co-founder of Wham-O Inc., which unleashed the granddaddy of American fads, the Hula Hoop, on the world half a century ago along with another enduring leisure icon, the Frisbee, has died. He was 82.

Knerr died Monday at Methodist Hospital in Arcadia after suffering a stroke earlier in the day at his Arcadia home, said his wife, Dorothy.

With his boyhood best friend, Arthur “Spud” Melin, Knerr started the company in 1948 in Pasadena. They named the enterprise Wham-O for the sound that their first product, a slingshot, made when it hit its target.

A treasure chest of dozens of toys followed that often bore playful names: Superball, so bouncy it seemed to defy gravity; Slip ‘N Slide and its giggle-inducing cousin the Water Wiggle; and Silly String, which was much harder to get out of hair than advertised.

Muse in the Morning

The muses are ancient.  The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them.  Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward.  In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.

It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse.  Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets.  Others have been suggested throughout the centuries.  I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts.  And maybe there should be many more.

Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…