Angus McBride' s passing

For those of you with an interest in military history, you may be aware of the renowned illustrator Angus McBride. His recreations of all periods of human military experience brought the past to life like no other artist. Much of the historical authenticity in today's movies can be attributed in part to his lively, incredibly detailed work for the Osprey book series.

If you are not familiar with McBride's work, go here to see a few of his pieces and read about a treasure in the world of military history.

McBride also did a great deal of work set in Tolkein's MIddle Earth. Check out some of his fantasy work here. (Scroll down a bit to the thumnails.)

If you have a child who thinks history is boring, show him or her some of Angus's work. It might just spark something in them like it does in us.

Bush's September Gambit

It's all about September now. Now matter what General Petreus says about the situation in Iraq, King George will claim victory and send in more troops. He will claim that we just need to "seal the deal" or "lock it down" or some other meaningless phrase.

And then, the GOPers who are up for election in '08 will freak. Iraq is the millstone around their collective electoral neck. They will react in one of two ways: either they will back W to the hilt and go on a full-on demonization campaign of any opposition to the Iraq quagmire, or they will abandon the Prez. Given the personal courage of most politicians, we predict abandonment.

No matter what choice they make, we think that the President will, if he has not done so by September, begin an air war against Iran. He will say it is for the safety of the world, but the real consideration is, as it was from the start with Iraq, domestic US politics.

An air war with Iran, as disastrous as it might be for US diplomacy, oil prices, and our already-abysmal world-cred, will provide the emotional leverage the GOP needs to bring the center-right and some independents back to the pro-war fold. If such an attack does bring about asymmetric counter-attacks from Iran, as it almost certainly will, the administration will use these events to say, "See, we were right to attack them!" And any US protest based on the logical merits of the new war will be labeled defeatism, treason, the usual Fox "News" litany of jingoistic drivel.

On the Iranian side, the leading clerics will use the coming attack to shore up their own weakening base. They know that we cannot invade Iran in our current state. Far from initiating regime change, the upcoming air war on Iran will only make the progressive element in that country more vulnerable to conservative attack. So long as the US is hyper-aggressive, the mullahs keep power and the Iranian Revolution continues.

We feel that this scenario is a near certainty. Our president is a life-long bully, and unfortunately, he has the US armed forces at his disposal to exercise some very strange demons. As we saw last week, the US Congress, while stronger, is still not willing to stand up to the frat-boy-leader. His use of the Troops trump card is still effective, even if morally reprehensible.

Hold on folks. The next few months are going to get (even more) bumpy.

Will Kraus almost kills Missouri Medicaid

The Missouri House is full of brain-dead right wingers, but Will Kraus is one of the biggest rock-heads to ever grace the State house. Playing to the "we hate the poor" crowd, he got an amendment passed that would have forced medicaid recipients to be drug tested. As if folks at that end of the income scale don't already have enough hoops to jump through to get help.

Then the legal beagles find out that the law would violate federal law and threaten the entire 4.3 billion dollar program. Will's weak defense was that he has to take a drug test when he goes to drill in the Guard. Well, yeah, Will, as you told us over and over in your racist, homophobic campaign literature, you fly multi-million dollar, TAX-PAYER-funded helicopters. The average medicaid patient does not.

Republican kooks like Will Kraus have no business running programs that help people, because Republicans don't care about anyone who does not live in a cookie-cutter suburb and go to a Protestant mega-church. Let's work to put Will Kraus back on the private job market in 2008.

Congratulations RDA!

At last night's Truman Days banquet, the annual gathering and fund-raiser for the Jackson County Democratic Committee, the Raytown Democratic Association was presented with the Harry S. Truman Democratic Organization Achievement Award.

For the last few years, the RDA has worked hard at every level to elect solid progressives to office. Let's hope that this recognition from the Jackson County Democratic Committee spurs them on to even greater efforts in 2008!

If you are interested in helping them out, go here to get their information.

The Pitch tells us about ourselves

This week's pitch questions the wisdom of the whole Wal-Mart will save Raytown fantasy. Read it here.

Falwell died today.

My mother always taught me that if you can't say anything nice...well, you know the rest.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far way....

...a massive star exploded. We just spotted the light from this supernova. The star was 240 million light years away. You don't have to be a scientist to understand the inescapable fact that the light from this event took 240 million years to reach our detectors.

The universe is vast, fascinating, and about 14 billion years old. Earth is 4 to 5 billion years old. Life on our planet is about a billion years old. All these cosmological facts are supported by the compilation of thousands of corroborating bits of data.

Comments, young-earth creationists? Push the cosmology of a bunch of bronze-age agrarian goat-ropers all you want, but the facts of the universe are spread out before us. Denying them will only make your movement look dumber and dumber as knowledge accumulates.

Kansas has a great governor.

Missouri, not so much. Governor Sebelius calmly, rationally, sensibly tied the lack of Guard troops and equipment required to deal with the tornado tradgedy directly to the failed Iraq policy of George Bush.

Can you imagine our own Master Blunt being so forthright in the same circumstance?

Kansas is hurting right now, but at least they have a governor who's up to the task.

Paris is a long way from Raytown

But you watch the GOP go into swoons for the the new French President. A triumph for Mom, soccer and baguettes, and all that. I can just hear Friedman now. But you can bet there will be no French troops in Iraq anytime soon. And Sarkozy's first speech called on the US to take the lead on fighting global climate change.

But it's a good thing we don't call 'em Freedom Fries anymore, eh George?

Well, look at the other schools that are "gun-free."

If you listened to the right-wingers simplistic solution to the V-tech killings, you would think that any right-thinking, red-blooded American institution of higher learning would be crawling with legal concealed-carriers. Especially those patriotic, 2nd amendment-loving evangelical colleges. Wrong.

Pat Robertson's Regent U.? Nope.

Jerry Falwell's Liberty U.? Negatory.

They may say and do a lot of stupid stuff, but when it comes to their own schools, they know that an armed campus is a dangerous campus.

Dailykos is on this. Time: 3:00 pm Central. How long until the policy pages are pulled down, ya think. Click on 'em fast, people. I say they'll will be gone by tonight.

Concern Troll Flip

There is an interesting tactic on the right, where a GOPer gets on a blog or a pundit show and patronizingly says that he's worried for the Democrats because of what so-and-so the nutty left-winger just said. David Broder is an example. The term for those folks has come to be "concern troll." They really couldn't care less about the Democratic party, they just want the cover of their "concern" in the cause of civil debate, yada yada....

So let's flip that on them. The subject could be...oh, say, climate change. Here's how you do it:

You know, (GOPer's first name here), I am really concerned for you guys on the Republican side. I mean, what if you're wrong about global warming? What if the scientists are right? And what if they've been holding back, and in a few years things are really bad? I mean, you guys have been so certain that things are fine, but if it all goes south, whose the electorate going to take it out on? It won't be Democrats. I really worry that you guys are so hard-line on this, and if you're wrong, it could kill your party. That's what I worry about....

See, concern trolling is easy. Try it out at your local right-wing blog today.