Every once in a while, George Will gets something right. His review of Shelby Steele's "A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win," is one of those times. Of course, that's just my opinion.

Nevertheless, for his comparison to Fred Astaire alone, Will deserves credit:

So far, Obama is the Fred Astaire of politics -- graceful and elegant, with a surface so pleasing to the eye that it seems mistaken, even greedy, to demand depth.

See why over the fold.

It was a rather peculiar diatribe by the Secretary of Defense, especially considering that, oh so many ages ago, he'd been a member of the Air Force himself. Even more puzzling, considering that the Air Force is running at least four mega bases in Iraq, including the Balad Air Field, which rivals O'Hare in traffic, was Robert Gates' assertion that the Air Force is not pulling its weight in the Iraq and Afghanistan endeavors.

What was he thinking?

If you agree that we organize governments at all levels to deal with (prevent and/or mitigate) the vagaries of man and nature we don't want--i.e. man-made and natural disasters, which may be categorized under the seven Is:

incineration

inundation

invasion

infestation

incarceration

injury

ignorance

--then it seems fair to conclude that, since every one of those conditions has been promoted and exacerbated in Iraq, that benighted land is a prime example of government gone wrong. And, though it doesn't get much coverage, the United States Air Force is largely at fault.

If the human species has one unique characteristic, it may well be the propensity to kill things it doesn't like or that simply displease. Other species destroy to sustain themselves; humans just do it because they can.

Now there's big money in it.

One of the biggest money makers is Monsanto, the organization that brought us Agent Orange, dioxin, RoundUp and, most recently, acquired the company, Delta&Pine Land, that developed, together with the Department of Agriculture, the terminator gene.

Like the other monopolistic clients (Walmart and Tyson Foods) of the Stephens Group of Little Rock, Arkansas, Monsanto is not flamboyant and not keen on random publicity. Which is probably why they declined to be interviewed for the French documentary on their achievements.

Video below the fold.

Let me start with the observation that I did not invite the missive from the Jeanne Shaheen campaign to be dropped in my in-box, nor did I forward my address in anticipation of getting either policy missives or requests for donations. So, in a sense, this is the internet version of the robo call and the extension of the opt-out policy to this medium of communication is not welcome, since it's the strategy spammers rely on to validate that the addresses they have purchased are active.

Analysis of the communication follows after the break.

There's a reason why witnesses called to testify in a court of law are required to pledge to

Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Things left out or embellishments stuck in pervert the truth and turn it into a lie. We recently saw that happen with Hillary Clinton's sniper fire in Tuzla and it's also been apparent in the stories told by the twenty-two dirty pensioners--perjurers in the court of public opinion--who spread half-truths and snippets of mis-information about the invasion/occupation of Iraq to deceive the American people and enrich themselves.

And yesterday Secretary Robert Gates joined them. Or maybe he just decided to do his own dirty work. Because the dirty pensioners were a Department of Defense operation.

This past Sunday, the venerable New York Times published a lengthy screed in which it was revealed that some twenty-two high ranking retired military men and one still on active duty in the Pentagon had been suborned to give false evidence, about the conduct and progress of the aggression against Iraq, to the electronic and print media.

That's probably why the Air Force, the entity most favored by our flyboy Presidents and president-wanna-be McCain, has committed itself to a fleet of stealth fighters and bombers, despite the fact that they're hard to land and don't do well when there's salt in the air. But, that's not my topic today. Rather, alerted by Laura Clawson to the fact that Huckabee had set up a new PAC in support of Republican long-shots, I was prompted to take a look at what else the fellow, who supposedly gave up on his quest for the Republican presidential nomination in early March, has been up to.

Washington + Hollywood = Wallywood

Which is worse, stringing someone up by his wrists and beating him to death, or dispatching a crowd with a bomb from thirty thousand feet?

As you may have noticed, it's my impression that the Air Force is an agency in search of a mission. Playing baby-sitter for our nuclear weapons is turning out to be a drag and "driving" drones carrying bombs and missiles over Iraq from consoles in Nevada doesn't seem to be particularly exciting either.

But, there's a new venue on the horizon. Cyber space. The Air Force is going to extend its dominion over land, sea, air and outer space to cyber space. And, the headquarters may be coming to a base near you, soon.

The New Hampshire High Technology Council is one of the regional groups working on the Hanscom proposal.

“The New Hampshire High Technology Council would welcome the center as another indication that New England is the premier technology sector in the country,” said Fred Kocher, president of NHHTC. “Right now, we are competing with Silicon Valley, the Triangle in the Carolinas and Austin, Texas, for that honor.”

Somehow I think when I post diaries here they ought to be connected to New Hampshire. So, in response to a question the other day about why I focus on the Air Force, let me explain why I pay attention to what's going on up in the air.

When we lived in NH year-round back in the '70s, Pease was still a SAC base, the "Peace is our Profession" guys who took a mushroom cloud with wings as an icon of their mission. Once a year we took our kids to the open house at the base so they could get a closer look at the planes that seemed to consider our fields as the landmark where they turned for their practice landings, especially on the weekends.

While it's possible that the debts have been paid, each month's filings with the FEC isn't available until about the 20th of the next, so the February numbers are about all we have.

h/t to tpmcafe

From: Cafe, Election Central

Hillary please pay these debts first

By - April 4, 2008, 12:16PM

We've all heard the stories about Hillary Clinton's debt. The small businesses left to pick up the tab after Clinton came, saw and left an unpaid invoice.

Let's talk about the other folks she's stiffed.

The school districts, universities, cities, towns and non-profits.

It seems that Hillary made a "funny" about the snipers on Leno last night.
When George W. Bush famously went "looking" for WMD in the Oval Office, his audience laughed along with him but the ultimate consensus was that this was an exercise in really poor taste. What was generally overlooked was that the entertainment presented a literal truth. The weapons of mass destruction that were supposed to be located in Saddam Hussein's Iraq were, truth be told, a figment of the imagination, created out of whole cloth by the occupant of the oval office. So, that's where the WMDs were and the comedic schtick was a distraction from that truth.

Technically speaking, as a member of the United States Senate, John McCain is a law-maker. But, while it's been clear for some time that he's keen on writing laws that primarily regulate the behavior or ordinary people (the spending limits on individual contributions to political candidates, rather than limiting the behavior of the future office holders themselves, are a good example), that the Senator considers himself exempt hasn't been as obvious. Now it is. At least from where I sit, John McCain is a lawbreaker.

Right. An email from the NH State Library announces:

As in the past, the N.H. State Library will be traveling to Washington, DC for NH Librarians’ Day on Thursday, September 18^th , 2008. Senator Sununu will be hosting this year’s program. This program is, as in the past, is (sic) a non-political trip.

2006 was a good year for New Hampshire Democrats. We had Carol Shea-Porter headlining electoral successes all over the state and for almost no money.

2008 looks to be not quite as good. The end of the quarterly fund-raising reporting cycle has brought missives to my mail box, suggesting it's all about the money again.

Some Americans don't want to know the truth, ,

others don't see it through their prejudice. They simply don't see what the rest of the world sees in a video llike this.

Well, this is just great!

Hannaford Bros. supermarket chain yesterday said a breach of its computer system potentially exposed 4.2 million credit and debit card numbers and has led to about 1,800 fraud cases to date.

The data breach affected customer cards used at more than 270 stores in states including Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont, Hannaford said, and lasted from December until early March.