Quiz time!

Why is the LOVE Park fountain green?

1. To commemorate Earth Day by showing Philadelphians how much we pollute
   
2. Its green for "Go", as in "Go For It!", the marketing slogan for the 2008 Phillies. It narrowly beat out two of my submissions to the Fightin's, which were: "Fucking Go For It" and "Hurray Phillies!"
3. To symbolize the blood of innocent Iraqis on our hands
4. Cute ploy for our attention by the Eagles, who are cranky because the Sixers, Flyers and Phillies are all winning and thus no one is paying attention to the draft this year.
5. Ecto Cooler is making a comeback
   

Correct answer: fuck this quiz, I just got thirsty for Hi-C

Get the fuck off my Internets, Pyle!!

This is a tad depressing, yet not surprising in the least:

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.

Military officials have been wrestling for years with how to handle troops who publish blogs. Officers have weighed the need for wartime discretion against the opportunities for the public to personally connect with some of the most effective advocates for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the troops themselves. The secret-keepers have generally won the argument, and the once-permissive atmosphere has slowly grown more tightly regulated. Soldier-bloggers have dropped offline as a result.

The new rules, obtained by Wired News, require a commander be consulted before every blog update.

But then there's this response from the folks living under this new regulation:

The soldiers who will attempt to fly under the radar and post negative items about the military, mission, and commanders will continue to do so under the new regs. The soldiers who've been playing ball the last few years, the vast, VAST, majority will be reduced. In my mind, this reg will accomplish the exact opposite of its intent. The good guys are restricted and the bad continue on... Operational Security is of paramount importance. But we are losing the Information War on all fronts. Fanatic-like adherence to OPSEC will do us little good if we lose the few honest voices that tell the truth about The Long War.

So, I guess it whittles down to this: towards the beginning of the war, military bloggers were viewed by the Pentagon and the White House as being generally good sources of P.R. Now that things are getting dragged out, tours of duty are getting extended indefinitely, and the mighty United States military seems to be losing hearts and minds (literally and figuratively) by the hour, this phenomenon is suddenly something the top brass has to crack down on.



Basically, we're seeing a large portion of the unfiltered first-person reports from Iraq get the muzzle because their stories no longer jell with what the Administration would like the American people to hear. Shitty in theory, but impossible to enforce 100% as has been mentioned. It's like photos of Alycia Lane in a bikini; if the information is out there, it will get onto the internet somehow.

Link via [Crooks & Liars] & [Wired News]

"One signature away"

It is amazing how some people can take something that is widely viewed as a negative, spin it around, and have it come back out sounding like the best thing in the world:

“We are one signature away from ending the Iraq War. President Bush must listen to the will of the American people and sign this bill so that our troops can come home.”...
“All of us have been touched by the heroic sacrifices troops have made in service to our country. With the stroke of a pen, President Bush can bring them home to the families who love them and to a country ready to give honor them for their service.” -- Barack Obama

If that doesn't take your breath away, I don't know what will. Thinking back on four long years of this war and what it's done to not just this country but the whole world, thinking about how much longer it has the potential to drag on and on, and then stopping to consider that, yes, one little scribble of ink now has the power to bring it to a close -- that is some perspective for you right there.

Unfortunately, we'll all come crashing back to reality when this ends up getting vetoed anyway. It was nice to get just a taste of this in the meantime, however. And we will be coming back for seconds.

Link via [TPM Cafe]

T-Shirt Heck

I suppose this is to be taken as a sign that we've learned absolutely nothing from our time in Iraq. Beautiful.

Hey, let's make one for liberals that says "I {noose} America!"

The "C" in C-SPAN is for "Candid"

It is amazing that this type of frank, open discussion has taken nearly four years to reach the Senate floor, but that's the fact. Who would've guessed that the person to speak up would've been a Republican from Nebraska?

And I want every one of you, every one of us, 100 senators to look in that camera, and you tell your people back home what you think. Don't hide anymore; none of us. That is the essence of our responsibility. And if we're not willing to do it, we're not worthy to be seated right here. We fail our country. If we don't debate this, if we don't debate this, we are not worthy of our country. We fail our country.

...

These young men and women that we put in Anbar province, in Iraq, in Baghdad are not beans. They're real lives. And we better be damn sure we know what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder. We better be as sure as you can be.

That is the voice of Chuck Hagel, Republican Senator from Nebraska, speaking to the rest of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Refreshing to hear such candor coming not just from liberals, but from conservatives as well in the largest legislative body in the country. How many more politicians have to have this "Come-to-Jesus" moment before we find a way to stop what we're doing in the Middle East?

Link via [Crooks & Liars]

Surge into '07

The discussion in Washington and on your television once again strays away from issues and policies and into the muddy territory of semantics. Do we call it a "surge"? Or do we call it an "escalation?"

From Crooks & Liars:

Nicole Belle gets the nod in the LA Times: "Storm rises over "Surge" by Johanna Neuman.

I've noticed a complete acceptance on the part of most of the MSM [mainstream media] (and Congress) to accept the White House nomenclature," blogger Nicole Belle wrote in a complaint posted on crooksandliars.com.

"After six years of this, I think we all know that he who frames the debate and chooses the vocabulary wins from the beginning. Let's be sure to not accept the White House framing, no matter how wimped out the MSM is."

As Jon Stewart pointed out last night on The Daily Show, the additional 21,500 troops heading to Iraq represent only 15% of the more than 130,000 soldiers currently deployed there (funny how they throw in the occasional hard fact every now and then, eh?). Said Stewart, "That's not a surge; that's a gratuity! That's a tip!"

If you want to play the word game, neither "surge" nor "escalation" fits the bill. "Surge" would mean that these additional troops would fill the streets of Baghdad tomorrow. "Escalation" would mean taking the conflict to another level by doubling or tripling U.S. forces, not topping off the glass to bring us back to 2004 levels. In fact, the announcement of the additional troops was hardly worthy of a word, much less a prime-time presidential address. This is business as usual for the Bush White House, only now they're making moves to cover their asses so later on they can say "well, at least we tried!" Unfortunately, it looks like more people are still playing their word games with them instead of actually discussing the feasibility and cost of such a maneuver.

Link via [Crooks & Liars]