Fake [?] Anti-Troop Email Making RW Rounds [Updated]

UPDATE: I updated this at DKos shortly after putting it up with the [?] after "fake" and the explanation: [***And I amended the title, adding the "?". The email may be real - just misused.] That seems to be the case. My objection - and it was obvious - was the use of the email by certain people to make this some kind of "anti-troop" thing, and, inexplicably, an anti-troop thing by the Left. Most hilariously they attribute this to the city of Oakland - which they deem a troop-hating Liberal hotbed. End update.

Michael Ledeen has never seen a "spitting on the troops" story he didn't like. In this post, entitled "Spitting on the Marines," he tells us about an email he received:

Spitting on the Marines [Michael Ledeen]

Here is an e-mail from a Marine chaplain recently returned from Iraq. The story speaks for itself—lousy treatment of our troops at our own airports. He writes about Oakland, and while checking around I find that this is a common experience. I hope that one of our leaders will find a way to put an end to such behavior.

Marines and Soldiers Returning from Iraq not allowed into Oakland terminal...

The email goes on to document how a group of Marines returning from Iraq were not allowed to enter the terminal at Oakland International Airport. It ends with this:

It felt like being spit on. Every Marine and soldier felt the message loud and clear, "YOU ARE NOT WELCOME IN OAKLAND!"

You know what's strange? Someone else got that same email:

This morning I received an email from the brother of a Marine in the unit referenced below. The email speaks for itself and raises some disturbing questions. While outside OC, it's an issue that is worth sharing. The text below is unedited, although I have removed the name of the Marine who authored the email:

Marines and Soldiers Returning from Iraq not allowed into Oakland terminal...

Now hold on: Is it a "Marine chaplain" or the "brother of a Marine"? Because they're the exact same emails. Complete with the "It felt like being spit on" finish.

And look! CNN is on the case too!

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Two lawmakers asked Friday for a Department of Transportation investigation into a Marine's allegations that he and 200 other military personnel returning Thursday from Iraq were not allowed into the terminal at Oakland International Airport, but instead had to deplane 400 yards away.

"It felt like being spit on," the Marine, who was not publicly identified, wrote in an e-mail to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. "Every Marine and soldier felt the message loud and clear, 'You are not welcome in Oakland.'"

Spitting on soldiers. Of course it's not the old Right Wing "Dems hate our troops - they spit on vets returning from Vietnam!" thing because, well, it's obviously an airport rule, or a military one. And there isn't anything about spit...except the word "spit." Check that: It is about Dems hating the troops. As long as it has "spit" and "soldiers" in the story, Michael Ledeen, and the rest of the Right Wing nuts-o-sphere, can feel that they've done their job: Smear (Democratic) Americans by any means necessary. Lie if you have to. And if you can find a way to use the words "spit" and "soldiers" - awesome!

Extra:And according to a commenter on this site, it's a noise rule at Oakland International Airport.

John Bolton to Get "Valiant Freedom Award"

No, it's not from some obscure mustache society, it's from some obscure economic foundation:

The U.S. Asia Economic Foundation announced today that it will honor Ambassador John R. Bolton, former U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, with its first annual Valiant Freedom Award.

Who the heck is the "U.S. Asia Economic Foundation" you ask?

The U.S. Asia Economic Foundation was established in 2007 to underscore the importance of Asian democratic capitalism as a key to global economic prosperity, and to transcend public policy debates in Washington by bringing this subject directly to communities around the United States

Wow! 2007? They're practically as old as the Nobel Foundation! Give or take a century, anyways.

Oh look: put "U.S. Asia Economic Foundation" into Google and you get exactly...four entries. And they're all about John Bolton getting the Valiant Freedom Award.

Congratulations, John. Next up: the Awesome Superheroness Award...from a foundation to be named a later date.

“It is not a good idea to be in a state of war."

CentCom Commander Admiral William Fallon should talk to Dick Cheney, George Bush, and most Right Wing bloggers:

“This constant drumbeat of conflict is what strikes me which is not helpful and not useful,” he said. “I expect that there will be no war and that is what we ought to be working for,” said Fallon. “It is not a good idea to be in a state of war. We ought to try and to do our utmost to create different conditions.”

Plain truth from a military man.

Real conservatives ARE Liberal

At least in some imporant ways.

[Justice John Paul] Stevens, however, is an improbable liberal icon. “I don’t think of myself as a liberal at all,” he told me during a recent interview in his chambers, laughing and shaking his head. “I think as part of my general politics, I’m pretty darn conservative.” Stevens said that his views haven’t changed since 1975, when as a moderate Republican he was appointed by President Gerald Ford to the Supreme Court. Stevens’s judicial hero is Potter Stewart, the Republican centrist, whom Stevens has said he admires more than all of the other justices with whom he has served. He considers himself a “judicial conservative,” he said, and only appears liberal today because he has been surrounded by increasingly conservative colleagues.

Jeff Stanley at the Sydney Opera House

Check the ad out via his MySpace page or his site.

Take it fom a complete stranger - the guy is special. Really special.

Transparent Frog

The name of my new Bluegrass band is definitely going to be Transparent Frog.

Boing.

Star Simpson

Someone had to take that other Simpson off our TVs. From Radar Online:

Star Simpson, the 19-year-old MIT student arrested at gunpoint in Boston's Logan International Airport today for wearing a fake explosive device with wires and Play-Doh, describes herself on her MIT Web page as "an inventor, artist, engineer, and student, I love to build things and I love crazy ideas."

The first thing I thought when I heard the story was: Nobody in Israel - or Baghdad - would be the least bit surprised to hear about someone wearing a bomb. Just another day. But this country, or large portions of it, is going to go apoplectic over this. Art? Art? You call that art?!!

Good thing she wasn't dressed as Jesus when she did it.

Look, she's a swimmer.

Bob Marley - War

Failed Suicide Bomber Fights Al Qaeda Recruiters

In Saudi Arabia.

Um, What? [Updated]

Marry our Daughter.org

Kyra A.
Age: 14 ½,
Location: Southeast

Bride Price: $27,995

Kyra likes the outdoors, more the open air of the beach or the desert than the woods. She would love to live somewhere away from it all. She is bright and funny and full of life and while she has little direct experience with the opposite sex we have made sure she is aware of everything she needs to know to be a good wife and mother.

Thanks to commenter Satchel Pooch, we know for sure that this is a hoax.

Hilarious.

Atlas Shrugs: Death to Jews Americans

One more time: Why do they hate America?

Spamela at AShrugs posts about a book, the name of which I missed, which claims that the terrorists have threatened to cut off the head of the "prostitute" Britney Spears. Spamela's response to that:

Sean, Rosie ("the terrorists have mummies and daddies too") 'Donut, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon - youse next! The night of the long knives awaits all the useful idiots.

A redo of the Night of the Long Knives, a 1934 massacre of political opponents by the Nazis, is wished upon - by a Jew - Sean Penn, Rosie O'Donnell, I don't know who the "Donut" is, Tim Robbins, and Susan Sarandon.

Ladies and gentlen - you're Modern Right Wing Thinker exemplitfied.

Petraeus: We're NOT Arming Sunnis

General Petraues said yesterday that we're not arming Sunnis in Iraq.

We've been over this before.

D.C. Madam Names Another John [Updated]

Jeane "D.C. Madam" Palfrey has named Ronald Roughead of the SAIC as a customer. A bit on Roughead from 1986 2006 with a conspiratorial bent to it - with Joe Wilson's name even popping up.

This is all in conjunction with a new defense strategy for Palfrey, the "Honey Pot" defense, in which (from an email release by her lawyer):

...she alleges that the United States Government has been directly or indirectly benefiting from the operation of her service by monitoring her customers and is thus equitably barred from prosecuting her.

In that Memo, Jeane identifies not only already-known customers of the escort service -- Senator Vitter, Randall Tobias of USAID and Harland Ullman -- but also confirms for the first time that another individual with very high government security clearance -- Ronald Roughead of SAIC -- was also a customer. This nexus of CIA backed USAID, Senator Vitter on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and two beltway bandits appears to be more than a coincidence.

She is keeping it interesting, isn't she?

And so is Larry Flynt.

UPDATE: If an internet visitor from the SAIC would like to leave a comment and shed some more light on this unhappy story, I'd consider it an honor.

The Theorbo

A mostly forgotten instrument born around the time the opera was born in Florence, in the late 16th century. The audio starts a bit late, but give it a chance. I'll find another video with more playing, as this one is mostly just an explanation of the instrument. (Though I don't understand why the first set of tuning keys is eight in number if the fretted set is only seven. Hmmm.



Here' a nice one:



Okay now let's get trippy...with the theorbo.

Bill Staines: River

Plays right-handed guitar left-handed, with the high-E up on top of the neck. Saw it with my own eyes years ago. He's a hell of a writer and a rock solid performer - Bill Staines.



And one of my old favorites, The Animal Song:

Anotonio Capel

Painting?



Or Photograph?

The Surge Blah Blah Blah

Something's surging:

In July, the civilian death toll was 1,753, and in June it was 1,227. The numbers are based on morgue, hospital and police records and come from officials in the ministries of Health, Defense and the Interior. The statistics appear to indicate that the increase in troops ordered by President Bush this year has done little to curb civilian bloodshed, despite U.S. military statements to the contrary.

Military statements like these ones:

Petraeus told the Australian that there had been a 75 percent reduction in religious and ethnic killing since last year, while the number of al Qaeda "kills and captures" was on the rise.

General Petraeus, our representative to the world.