“Turning it over on downs”

I don’t think that phrase means what Bryant Gumbel thinks it means.

And who was doing all that belching on air?

NFL Network subscribers, you have my deepest sympathies.

Technorati Tags: Bryant Gumbel, NFL Network

An eclipse in the season of light

Last night found M and I at the house of a friend, a minister, along with another couple who were long-time friends of the hostess. It was a warm and congenial evening in a comfortable room with a wood fire, a brightly decorated Christmas tree, a sleepy cat, good company.

At one point, the husband in the other couple paused to answer his cell phone. He listened for a bit, then spoke briefly before hanging up. He looked up at us.

“They hung Saddam,” he said.

We were silent for a moment, but only for a moment. We remarked on how the timing of the execution was at once both a surprise and completely expected; we agreed that Saddam’s death would change nothing substantially in Iraq and would likely provoke a short-term spike in violence; we argued over the degree of culpability that individual American citizens, folks like ourselves, might feel regarding the execution in particular or the Iraq debacle in general. It was the kind of conversation that was doubtless repeated million of times elsewhere, and so was not terribly unique in that respect. I don’t think any minds among us were changed last night regarding America in Iraq, and that probably was likely reflected elsewhere as well and so is not very remarkable.

The discontinuity between the news of Saddam’s hanging and the warmth and humanity of the holidays - the season of light, as they say - did strike me then, however, and resonates with me now as a perfect exemplar of what George Bush has done, of his own choice and for his own ends but in your name and in mine.

It seems to me that if the president had tried consciously and with all his effort to get it precisely wrong in Iraq, in both essence and in form, he could not do better (or is it worse?) than he has done to this point.

Mission accomplished, I guess.

(Cross-posted with minor editing at AlterNet.)

Technorati Tags: Iraq

Fair trade, suckers

Over fifty thousand Iraqi civilians dead, nearly three thousand American soldiers slain, a nation on the brink of total collpase, and a region plunged into instability, all of this with no remedy in sight…in exchange for the fulfillment of George Bush’s daydream.

Sound like a fair trade to you?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Josh Marshall spells it out for the slower amongst us.

Technorati Tags: Iraq

Fourth down. Goal to go.

Many weeks ago, as I wondered aloud whether anyone could defeat my then-unbeaten fantasy football team, I received this bit of upbraiding from friend diatriber:

oh get over your bad self. you’re just gonna lose in the first round of the playoffs anyway!

My response:

Boy, that would be a terrible shame.

But it’ll never happen. :-p

I am pleased to report that I was correct. But not by much!

The first round of the playoffs are complete, and my fighting Purple Stallions edged out the second-seeded Hometown Heroes in a victory that shocked the world - well, it shocked Hometown Heroes’ world, anyway. You can see the slim margin o’victory for yourself, a mere 2.46 points. Here’s the drama behind the numbers in a nutshell: My opponent had used up all his players and trailed me by a point and a half. I still had QB Chad Pennington and DB Kerry Rhodes yet to play in the Jets-Dolphins game. I immediately benched Pennington and played no QB in his slot. I’d earn no points that way…but with my other QB having cost me six points in a negative score, there was no way I would risk having my usual bad QB karma cost me a victory in hand.

(Incidentally, Pennington wound up scoring nearly 12 fantasy points. Still, I’d bench him again in the same situation.)

The owner of Hometown Heroes was none too pleased about his fortunes:

Purple Stallions - you squeaked by thanks to Phillie’s D and Hasselbeck picking his butt.

Such bitterness is music to the ears of the victorious. But it’s time to look forward. I’ve won three games in a row to bring me to the edge of the champeenship, but there’s still one game left to play. And who will my opponent be?

Why, it’s the fourth-seeded HM’s Fins, who managed to topple the juggernaut known as the luniz scoring machine! This must be driving luniz nuts; I’m sure he thought he would ride Chargers RB LaDainian Tomlinson through the playoffs. But Tomlinson had a merely mortal day for him, and HM’s Fins enjoyed an unexpected points explosion from the Rams’ Marc Bulger and Isaac Bruce. I don’t think he’ll catch lightning in a bottle two weeks in a row…but in the end, I can only worry about my own lineup. We shall see!

Technorati Tags: Fantasy Football

Merry Christmas from Casa Waveflux

That’s from me and M and the four beasties. Feel free to translate our festive wishes into the appropriate holiday for your individual observance, or into a general non-religious call for peace and joy. That should just about cover all bases, I think.

Long in the tooth

The blogocracy churned along without much participation from Waveflux today, as my day was largely devoted to dental care and recovery from same. It was just the first of a couple such encounters; that’s what happens when you’ve been long afreared of drills and needles and bad magazines in waiting rooms. It turns out, however, that the magazines are much better these days. Additionally, the practice of conscious sedation is just the ticket for us dedicated cowards.

Anyway, we’re back and we’re playing the main stage all this coming holiday week, without the interruption of employment. I cannot tell you how good that makes me feel.

The Sistani supremacy

One of these men will determine the future of Iraq

There was once a time - seems a lifetime ago - when Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s foremost Shiite cleric, seemed the most indispensable man in all of that tortured land. He forced the United States to accept one-person, one-vote elections in Iraq, making his case by bringing thousands of protestors to the street; he compelled wildcard Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to agree to a peace plan that would force armed fighters and foreign forces from the cities of Najaf and Kuba.

Sistani was the most revered figure in the Shia sphere and the closest thing to a national figure to be found in Iraq - but his rather deliberate style and non-violent approach did not sway the embittered young and poor among the Shia who desired vengeance against their Sunni rivals and the American occupier. The star of the firebrand Sadr was bound to rise in such an environment, favored as he became by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. In comparison, Sistani receded from view, his comparative influence waning - until now.

Middle East scholar Juan Cole wrote yesterday on a New York Times story positing that Sistani had given his blessing to a new parliamentary coalition that would freeze out the Sadr Movement. This ostensible new Iraqi order - to include the Sunni fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front, the Kurdistan Alliance, the Shia fundamentalist SCIRI, and the National Iraqi List headed by once-interim PM Ayad Allawi - would theoretically manage enough seats to be able to name a prime minister and leave the Sadrists on the outs. Professor Cole expressed considerable skepticism that such an alliance of disparate forces (a measure preliminary to an American/Iraqi military move against Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia) could actually succeed, and suggests that Sadr might just as easily manage to block the formation of a new government.

Still, the very notion that the nation’s most prominent cleric would lend his authority to such a plan may have prompted Sadr to rethink his position, according to the AP:

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is considering a one-month unilateral cease-fire and may push his followers to rejoin the political process, three weeks after they walked out of parliament and the Cabinet to protest the prime minister’s meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush, officials close to the anti-American militia leader said Wednesday.

Al-Sadr’s call for a halt to fighting could come after Thursday, when a delegation representing the seven Shiite groups that form the largest bloc in Iraq’s parliament is to travel to the holy city of Najaf to meet separately with al-Sadr and the country’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Shiite officials said on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the talks. Officials from several factions confirmed the planned trip to Najaf.

The visit is intended to allow the bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance, to work out some of Iraq’s biggest political obstacles in front of al-Sistani, and to pressure al-Sadr to rein in his fighters and rejoin politics — or face isolation, participants said. Until the walkout, al-Sadr’s faction had been an integral part of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s governing coalition.

It turns out that Sistani is not yet as toothless as some might have thought, and that there are political forces that even Sadr must take into consideration. This reassertion of authority by Sistani comes at a critical time, and rational participants can only hope that it has been taken in time. Sadr’s Mehdi Army has grown to perhaps 60,000 members, and it is not at all clear that Sadr exercises firm control over all of them. Should Sistani succeed in drawing his fellow cleric back into the tent, he may yet have to contend with Sadr’s more intransigent followers.

Update: Well, we all know how that turned out. Steve Gilliard, God rest him, had the right take on this after all - Sadr became the more influential figure after all.

A draft blowing through the White House?

As M and I rode in to work this morning, the announcer on NPR intoned that George Bush would hold his traditional end-of-year presser in the Indian Treaty Room of the White House. The expected main topic was, of course, Iraq.

“Great,” M said of the venue. “The Room of Broken Promises.”

Indeed. Let’s set unintended ironies aside for a moment, though, and listen to the latest dictates of the Decider:

We have an obligation to ensure our military is capable of sustaining this war over the long haul, and performing the many tasks that we ask of them. [...]

I’m inclined to believe that we need to increase the permanent size of both the United States Army and the United States Marines.

Bush then handed off the actual work of policy on raising troop levels to new SecDef Robert Gates, who is currently meeting with military commanders on a “give me the facts tour” in Iraq. This avowed “inclination” from the commander-in-chief, so markedly diffident that it borders on the craven, is not surprising. Everyone outside of the Oval Office has long been aware that the American military is in danger of breaking under the burdens of Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s not a simple matter of numbers and never has been; rather, the concern centers on maintaining an armed force that is fresh and properly trained and equipped - and ready to handle as-yet-undeclared engagements (see Iran, North Korea, Syria, etc.).

So how do you increase the permanent size of American ground forces, anyway? George Bush didn’t utter the D-word, but he’ll be forced by events to publicly own up to the consequences of an open-ended, “long-term global struggle against terrorists.” Half-measures and rearrangements will certainly be attempted and eventually found wanting, but the outcome has already been determined. Once enlistment rules have been further bent as far as is practicable, once already-strict stop-loss retention policies have been toughened to the edge of outrage among military families, once our domestic military reserves - the National Guard - has been strained to the point of exhaustion, our only option will be to admit that the volunteer military is no longer viable.

Not feeling a draft yet? Just wait.

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Draft

The second season begins

Short and sweet, fantasy sports fans: I won my matchup and claimed third place in the regular season all to myself.

More importantly, I’m in the playoffs. Two more wins makes the fighting Purple Stallions world champeens.

Granted, it’s a small world, but still.

Technorati Tags: Fantasy Football

Now appearing at AlterNet

Starting today, I’ll be posting occasionally at AlterNet, thanks to a way-cool invite from Evan Derkacz of that site, and a very gracious word to him by Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare’s Sister.

The initial post in the PEEK column is titled ‘When “truths” become inoperative,’ and concerns today’s official demotion of al Qaeda and the ascension of the Mehdi Army on the list of bad things in Iraq. I’ll post alerts here of new content at AlterNet as they spring into being.

Addendum: The title of the post has been changed to ‘Worse than Al Qaeda?’ Editors. You gotta love ‘em. :-D

Technorati Tags: Iraq

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