Also-

Suffering under a whopping .82 inches of snow and frigid 34 degree temperatures (hey, with the wind chill it feels like 28!), in an annual celebration of prospective greed and scandal, people in Stamford are happy that the 21st Big Balloon Parade happened last Sunday under clear, blue 60 degree skies.

In another ‘in your face’ move, this year the organizers sported a full 16 balloons!  This proves that the Finance/Insurance/Real Estate sector of egregious ass hats (sorry, I meant assets) has eclipsed the retail minions of the consumer class who are expected to volunteer with no wages to shepherd giant gas bags through the canyons of what we call “the City” but which is really a $24 worth of beads, trinkets, and iron ax heads island on what should be their day off which can merely muster the same with 33 lesser ‘Novelty’ Ballons to cover it’s naked shame.

All hail Capitalism!

I have a lovely Nutmeg to sell you-

The sobriquet, the Nutmeg State, is applied to Connecticut because its early inhabitants had the reputation of being so ingenious and shrewd that they were able to make and sell wooden nutmegs.

We had Babar & Badou, Big Bird, Billy Blazes, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Cookie Monster, Elmo, Fred Flinstone, Kermit (the Frog), The Lorax (making an ironic appearance), Maiden London (which, although sponsored by Richard Branson and Virgin did not deploy its atmospheric braking system too early and explode in a fireball, much to spectator’s disappointment), Mr. Potato Head, Paddington Bear, Popeye, a generic Smurf (but really, aren’t the all generic except for Papa, Brainy, and Smurfette?), and  two characters from Yo Gabba Gabba, Foofa and Plex, whom I can only guess are much more popular in Scotland than they are here (being UBS sponsored and all).

We also had 10 bands and 23 ‘Marching Units’.  Way to go Kim Jong-un.  Sorry you missed it.

In a shameless bit of mockery and copyright infringment today’s 90th Macy’s Parade will feature Paddington, Pikachu, the Pillsbury Doughboy, the Red Mighty Morphin Power Ranger, Skylanders’ Eruptor, Thomas the Tank Engine, Finn & Jake, Diary of A Wimpy Kid, The Elf on the Shelf, Hello Kitty, Papa Smurf, Ronald McDonald, Snoopy and Woodstock, Spider-Man, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Toothless of How to Train Your Dragon.

CBS is positioned uptown at Times’ Square and will see everything first.  NBC is at 33rd Street and will fill the first 30 minutes of it’s 9 am ET broadcast with show tunes and celebrities.  If you have a favorite band that garnered an invitation look quick, they won’t be on long.

Ferguson and the brokenness of America’s “Justice” System

Ian Welsh

2014 November 26

At this point, in America, calling the police for anything short of a murder is more likely to make your situation worse than better if you aren’t solidly middle upper class or better, and white.  If you are black or Muslim, you might not even want to call them for murder.

Police can beat your, rape you or kill you, and the odds are very high they will get away with it.  In far too many cases they are nothing but the strongest gang.

The police are so militarized that they amount to a domestic army, stationed in every city.  The civil forfeiture laws, RICO statutes and the cost of an effective defense, plus the removal of most judicial discretion and the fact that the vast majority of cases are plea bargained, not tried, means that for most accused of a crime there is no justice.

The police have huge incentives to charge people with crimes, because they can seize the assets of those charged (well, strictly speaking, they can seize your money without ever charging you, and do.)  For profit prisons and prison guard unions support prosecutors and judges who will imprison more people, not less.   The incentives in the system are almost all towards incarcerating more people and seizing more assets, because that’s how police and prosecutors improve their personal situation.

Prisons are rural support projects where poor whites are paid to lock up poor blacks.

Ferguson: It is Right to Resist, By Any and All Means Necessary

Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report

Wed, 11/26/2014 – 16:44

The Mass Black Incarceration State, or the New Jim Crow, as Michelle Alexander calls it, has methodically criminalized a whole people. When Walking, Talking and Breathing While Black is punishable by death – a sentence carried out daily in the United States – then organizing for genuine social transformation is beyond the pale of civil protections. The only defense is a militant people’s movement that exacts its own consequences when the state exercises its claims to, essentially, limitless powers. There must be some kind of payback; otherwise, as we have witnessed over the past 40-plus years, the people succumb to self-destructive diversions, demoralization and despair, while the state steadily expands its machinery of social and physical death.

You know the state is worried when it suddenly starts assuring the oppressed that they have certain, limited rights that will be recognized. President Obama, who early in his first term succeeded in legislatively abolishing due process of law, has responded to the threat of a genuine people’s movement by endorsing peaceful protest – by which he means protest within parameters of time and space and behavior laid down by the very same police against which the grievances are directed. This constitutes “ways of channeling your concerns constructively,” says the president.

…

Six years into the Age of Obama, it has finally dawned on Black people that Frederick Douglass was right when he said: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will.” Douglass did not say: “Power concedes nothing without the consent of the legislature and a nod from Democratic Party hack in the Oval Office.” Had Obama not been sharing the screen with the youth of Ferguson, few would have watched his speech. It has required a mass movement in-the-making to focus Black people’s attention on the war waged against them by the state, rather than living vicariously with the family in the White House.

No sooner had the fires and looting commenced in Ferguson, than Obama henchman Al Sharpton and the entire multigenerational cadre of handkerchief heads and New Age opportunists sprang into action, to delegitimize the youth and funnel Black peoples energies into official channels that go nowhere.

CNN’s Van Jones denounced the “small number of knuckleheads” that “are causing the problem.”

Local Black clergy met with the white mayor of Ferguson and tried to shame the youth involved in Monday night’s rebellion. Then they bowed their heads and asked God to solve the problem, as always.

Congressman William “Lacy” Clay, who misrepresents the district and was among the 80 percent of the Congressional Black Caucus that opted, back in June, to continue the Pentagon’s transfers of weapons to local police departments, denounced The Race as a whole for the destruction of 12 businesses, the night before. “It hurts me to my heart to see what we have turned into,” he said.

…

The burned-out businesses, some of them Black-owned, are collateral damage in a grossly asymmetrical struggle – one in which the insurgents must battle a murderous state, a pervasively racist white society, plus the most backward, opportunistic and comprador elements of their own community. It is true that, in a small town like Ferguson, the loss of jobs, investments and amenities associated with these small “martyred” businesses is significant. In comparison, however, the costs inflicted on African Americans by the Black Misleadership Class since the demise of the last mass people’s movement, in the late Sixties, have been catastrophic. Black family wealth is one-twentieth of median white family wealth, the lowest since slavery. Great Black metropolises have been turned into wastelands, bare of employment, affordable housing, recreation, adequate education, cultural enrichment, and even healthy food. One out of every eight prison inmates in the world is an African American – an arguably genocidal outcome arrived at with the full collaboration of much of Black elected officialdom and the preaching class. Absent a fundamental change in power relationships in America – which can only come about through mass action, within and outside the law – the destruction of the Black social and physical environment can only escalate.

By attempting to delegitimize Black youth – who definitely will break the law and destroy property in their enthusiasm for immediate payback as well as lasting change – the Misleaders seek to corral and, ultimately, kill the movement.

In the coming days and months, activists must be diligent in drawing lines between those honest elements that counsel against violence for moral or tactical and strategic reasons, and those who, like Sharpton, Van Jones and Rep. “Lacy” Clay, seek to destroy the budding mass movement by ostracizing and alienating its youthful core.

Us Scandinavian Bachelor Chefs (h/t CompoundF) frequently find ourselves in the position of needing a last minute substitute for real food because planning ahead is not one of our strengths (if it were we probably wouldn’t be Bachelors anymore).

Here’s a recipe that is not too fussy and can be thrown together at the last minute and great expense as a cheap imitation of inferior quality.

You will need-

• Ground Turkey
• Dried Cranberries
• Onion (chopped coarse)
• Bread
• Butter
• Garlic Powder
• Bell’s Poultry Seasoning
• An Egg

• Dry Packaged Instant Turkey Gravy

Optional (of course the more you add the better it will taste)-

• Walnuts (chopped coarse)
• Canned Mushrooms (stems and pieces, chopped coarse)

The goal is simple, to create a reasonable taste facsimile of a Turkey dinner with stuffing and gravy without days of defrosting and hours of cooking time.  It is somewhat pricey as ground Turkey often costs as much as ground beef or more.

The primary problems to overcome are cohesion and dryness.  I’m going to recommend what seems like a lot of fat but Turkey is quite a lean meat.  I’ll be working with approximately 2 pounds of Turkey as a base (that’s how much the local Super Market puts in a package), you adjust the other ingredients for taste and volume.

The most labor intensive part of preparation is chopping the onion(s).  Depending on how strong the flavor (in decreasing order- yellow, red, sweet) you’ll want to prepare about half the volume of your meat.  If you use yellow and are sensitive to onions (I am) you may want to saute them a little to take some of the harshness out.

The most time consuming part is the bread.  Toast it a bit (hey, if you have enough time to stale it you most likely don’t need this recipe), smear generously with butter and shake quite a bit of garlic powder on top.  Cube.  You need about 3/4 of the volume of your meat (6 slices or a little more).  Crusty European breads work much better than Balloon breads because the goal (as with meat balls) is to lighten the texture of your finished dish.

Mixing–

I put the other ingredients in the bottom of the bowl with the meat on top but I don’t think it makes any difference.  The important thing is not to over mix because the loaf will get gummy and dense.

A cup or more of Dried Cranberries (I like them), Onion, Garlic Toast, 4 Tbls Butter (chopped), Ground Turkey, 1 – 3 Tbls Bell’s Poultry Seasoning (the primary flavor is Sage in case you can’t find it), an Egg or 2 to bind.

Mix gently, completely, and not too long with your fingers.  Now is the time to add your optional ingredients, if using Mushrooms include the liquid too.

Cooking–

I like loaf pans, others mound on a sheet.  Grease for clean release.  It leaks a bit so you’ll want a lip to catch the drip.  In any event at least an hour at 325 – 350 until the internal temperature reaches the recommended level for poultry or brown on the top and gray through the thickest part.

Rest 5 – 10 minutes while you prepare the gravy, slice and serve.

Thanksgiving on a stick.

Black Lives Matter: Ferguson Erupts After Grand Jury Clears Officer in Michael Brown Killing

“It is Officially Open Season on Black Folks”: Legal Expert Decries Handling of Wilson Grand Jury

Riot as the Language of the Unheard: Ferguson Protests Set to Continue In Fight For Racial Justice

With A The Real News Bonus

“Democracy on Fire”: Protestors Respond to Grand Jury’s Failure to Indict Mike Brown’s Killer

Killings by Utah police outpacing gang, drug, child-abuse homicides

By ERIN ALBERTY, The Salt Lake Tribune

Nov 24 2014 09:30 am

Over a five-year period, data show that fatal shootings by police officers in Utah ranked second only to homicides of intimate partners.

In the past five years, more Utahns have been killed by police than by gang members.

Or drug dealers. Or from child abuse.

And so far this year, deadly force by police has claimed more lives – 13, including a Saturday shooting in South Jordan – than has violence between spouses and dating partners.

As the tally of fatal police shootings rises, law enforcement watchdogs say it is time to treat deadly force as a potentially serious public safety problem.

Dead Of Night: The Ferguson Decision

By Charles P. Pierce, Esquire

November 24, 2014

There is something gone badly wrong in the way police are taught to look at civilians these days. This is the logic of an occupying power being employed on American citizens. Ever since 9/11, when we all began to be told that we were going to have to bend a little bit, and then a little bit more, to authority or else we’d all die, the police in this country have been militarized in their tactics and in their equipment, which is bad enough, but in their attitudes and their mentality, which is far, far worse. Suspicion has bled into weaponized paranoia, especially in the case of black and brown people, especially in the case of young men who are black or brown, but this is not About Race because nothing ever is About Race. Even the potential of a threat requires a deadly response, Dick Cheney’s one-percent idea brought to American cities and towns until Salt Lake City, of all places, winds up with cops who are deadlier on the streets than drug dealers. This is how you wind up with Darren Wilson. This is how you wind up with Michael Brown, dead in the middle of the road. This is how Darren Wilson walks, tonight, for the killing of Michael Brown. This is how you end up with an American horror story.

After Vowing to End Combat Mission in Afghanistan, Obama Secretly Extends America’s Longest War

Democracy Now

11/24/14

In a Shift, Obama Extends U.S. Role in Afghan Combat

By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT, The New York Times

NOV. 21, 2014

President Obama decided in recent weeks to authorize a more expansive mission for the military in Afghanistan in 2015 than originally planned, a move that ensures American troops will have a direct role in fighting in the war-ravaged country for at least another year.

Mr. Obama’s order allows American forces to carry out missions against the Taliban and other militant groups threatening American troops or the Afghan government, a broader mission than the president described to the public earlier this year, according to several administration, military and congressional officials with knowledge of the decision. The new authorization also allows American jets, bombers and drones to support Afghan troops on combat missions.

In an announcement in the White House Rose Garden in May, Mr. Obama said that the American military would have no combat role in Afghanistan next year, and that the missions for the 9,800 troops remaining in the country would be limited to training Afghan forces and to hunting the “remnants of Al Qaeda.”

…

The internal discussion took place against the backdrop of this year’s collapse of Iraqi security forces in the face of the advance of the Islamic State as well as the mistrust between the Pentagon and the White House that still lingers since Mr. Obama’s 2009 decision to “surge” 30,000 American troops to Afghanistan. Some of the president’s civilian advisers say that decision was made only because of excessive Pentagon pressure, and some military officials say it was half-baked and made with an eye to domestic politics.

Mr. Obama’s decision, made during a White House meeting in recent weeks with his senior national security advisers, came over the objection of some of his top civilian aides, who argued that American lives should not be put at risk next year in any operations against the Taliban – and that they should have only a narrow counterterrorism mission against Al Qaeda.

…

“There was a school of thought that wanted the mission to be very limited, focused solely on Al Qaeda,” one American official said.

But, the official said, “the military pretty much got what it wanted.”

…

In effect, Mr. Obama’s decision largely extends much of the current American military role for another year. Mr. Obama and his aides were forced to make a decision because the 13-year old mission, Operation Enduring Freedom, is set to end on Dec. 31.

Afghanistan Quietly Lifts Ban on Nighttime Raids

By ROD NORDLAND and TAIMOOR SHAH, The New York Times

NOV. 23, 2014

The government of the new Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, has quietly lifted the ban on night raids by special forces troops that his predecessor had imposed.

Afghan National Army Special Forces units are planning to resume the raids in 2015, and in some cases the raids will include members of American Special Operations units in an advisory role, according to Afghan military officials as well as officials with the American-led military coalition.

That news comes after published accounts of an order by President Obama to allow the American military to continue some limited combat operations in 2015. That order allows for the sort of air support necessary for successful night raids.

…

American military officials have long viewed night raids as the most important tactic in their fight against Taliban insurgents, because they can catch the militant group’s leaders where they are most vulnerable. For years, the Americans ignored Mr. Karzai’s demands that the raids stop.

…

On Saturday a White House official responded to an article in The New York Times that said that President Obama had issued a secret order continuing combat operations in 2015, after their planned end on Dec. 31. The official reiterated that “the United States’ combat mission in Afghanistan will be over by the end of this year.”

The American mission in 2015, the official said, would primarily be training, advising and assisting the Afghan National Security Forces. “As part of this mission, the United States may provide combat enabler support to the ANSF in limited circumstances to prevent detrimental strategic effects to these Afghan security forces,” the White House official said.

“Combat enabler” is military jargon for functions like air support, transportation, intelligence gathering and communications – functions for which Afghan forces are underprepared. The Afghans have relatively few combat-ready helicopters, for instance, while nearly all night raids are carried out by helicopter to achieve surprise.

Top U.S. General Says He’s Open to Using Ground Troops to Retake Mosul

By HELENE COOPER, DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and RICK GLADSTONE

NOV. 13, 2014

Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee that Iraqi troops – who initially fled under the onslaught of Islamic State militants – are now doing a better job of standing and fighting. But he added that he could not foreclose the possibility that as operations against the Sunni militants move into more complex phases of clearing out cities and other areas by the Islamic State, American troops might have to help their Iraqi counterparts.

Continue reading the main story

“I’m not predicting at this point that I would recommend that those forces in Mosul and along the border would need to be accompanied by U.S. forces, but we’re certainly considering it,” General Dempsey said. Defense officials said that American Joint Tactical Attack Controllers could be used to call in airstrikes from tactical positions on the ground, most likely behind Iraqi forces. The tactical attack controllers often deploy in positions like hills and other high terrain so they can see operations and call in strikes.

…

The congressional testimony on Thursday underscored the challenge facing Mr. Obama as he continues to insist to a war-weary public that the United States is not returning to ground combat in Iraq. He has maintained that American ground troops will not be used, even as his generals have increasingly hinted that there may not be a way to defeat the Sunni militant group without at least some American forces, particularly to call in airstrikes.

Think any of that has something to do with this?

Hagel Submits Resignation as Defense Chief Under Pressure

By HELENE COOPER, The New York Times

NOV. 24, 2014

Administration officials said that Mr. Obama made the decision to remove Mr. Hagel, the sole Republican on his national security team, last Friday after a series of meetings between the two men over the past two weeks.

…

Mr. Hagel, a combat veteran who was skeptical about the Iraq war, came in to manage the Afghanistan combat withdrawal and the shrinking Pentagon budget in the era of budget sequestrations.

Now, however, the American military is back on a war footing, although it is a modified one. Some 3,000 American troops are being deployed in Iraq to help the Iraqi military fight the Sunni militants of the Islamic State, even as the administration struggles to come up with, and articulate, a coherent strategy to defeat the group in both Iraq and Syria.

…

Mr. Hagel, for his part, spent his time on the job largely carrying out Mr. Obama’s stated wishes on matters like bringing back American troops from Afghanistan and trimming the Pentagon budget, with little pushback.

Chuck Hagel forced to step down as US defense secretary

Spencer Ackerman and Dan Roberts, The Guardian

Monday 24 November 2014 12.11 EST

Hagel was out of step with the administration on Isis, having urged the White House to clarify its stance on ushering Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad out of power and bizarrely inflating the threat Isis posed, calling it “an imminent threat to every interest we have” in an August press conference. While the administration has publicly ruled out using US ground forces in combat in Iraq, Hagel and particularly the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, floated precisely that as an option in testimony earlier this month.

…

(T)he strategy has come under criticism from hawks as well as doves. Hawks want a deeper US commitment of air as well as ground forces to beating Isis back, while doves are alarmed at the shifting of US war aims and commensurate resources. The next chairman of the Senate armed services committee, Arizona Republican John McCain, wants a more forceful US response to Isis and had long fallen out with his former friend Hagel.

In the five months since Isis seized Mosul, Obama has authorized 3,000 new troops to advise and train Iraqis, and expanded an air war into Syria. Pentagon efforts to field a Syrian proxy force have barely begun and are expected to take a year before yielding the first capable units.

Mr. Obama’s decision, made during a White House meeting in recent weeks with his senior national security advisers, came over the objection of some of his top civilian aides, who argued that American lives should not be put at risk next year in any operations against the Taliban – and that they should have only a narrow counterterrorism mission against Al Qaeda.

…

“There was a school of thought that wanted the mission to be very limited, focused solely on Al Qaeda,” one American official said.

But, the official said, “the military pretty much got what it wanted.”

When Is a War Over?

By ELIZABETH D. SAMET, The New York Times

NOV. 21, 2014

Ascertaining the logical limits of a campaign presents not merely a strategic but a psychological challenge to its architects and its participants. The longer an expedition’s duration, the harder it becomes to know precisely what constitutes the end, as our wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate. But campaigners with a shifting purpose can derail even a comparatively short war. Disagreement over the conflict’s proper scope led to the breach between President Harry S. Truman and Gen. Douglas MacArthur over Korea. Truman fired the popular general, a decision for which he was initially vilified, to prevent a limited war from becoming a third world war.

“Now, many persons, even some who applauded our decision to defend Korea, have forgotten the basic reason for our action,” the president explained in April 1951. Truman “considered it essential to relieve General MacArthur so that there would be no doubt or confusion as to the real purpose and aim of our policy.”

In 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld used different language to address essentially the same problem when he asked, “Are we winning or losing the Global War on Terror?” in a memo in October of that year. “Today, we lack metrics to know.” The metrics of 2014 are hardly more definitive.

Americans are uncomfortable with the prospect of an endless war yet deeply uncertain about the natural scope of the campaigns launched by the Authorization for Use of Military Force, signed into law by President George W. Bush on Sept. 18, 2001, against those responsible for the terrorist attacks a week before. This uneasiness and confusion have dominated the new century. Afghanistan was eclipsed by Iraq, Iraq by Afghanistan, and then the entire effort by what we have taken to calling war weariness on the part of a spectating public. A periodic revival of interest in Libya, Syria and elsewhere notwithstanding, much of that public long ago wearied even of watching, while a small percentage of Americans have been commuting to the wars.

…

In their 10th year on the march the Macedonians told Alexander they would go no farther. They had conquered Persia, endured three years of enervating guerrilla warfare in the mountainous terrain of northern Afghanistan and Iran, crossed the Hindu Kush, and reached the banks of the Beas River, in the Punjab. The campaign’s sense of purpose had begun to drift. The army’s march had taken it off the map into territory heretofore known to the Greek world only through rumor and legend.

Initially billing his campaign as one of Panhellenic vengeance against the Persians, Alexander united the Greek city-states, restored territories lost in the Greco-Persian Wars and liberated Greeks living under Persian control. By the time his army mutinied in India, however, this goal – only partly the stuff of spin – had been accomplished while the initial clarity of the campaign evaporated. As the second-century Greek chronicler Arrian reports, the Macedonians had wearied of watching Alexander perpetually “charging from labor to labor, danger to danger.” Faced with the prospect of an apparently endless quest, they turned their thoughts toward home.

…

Alexander informed his disgruntled troops, “As for a limit to one’s labors, I, for one, do not recognize any for a high-minded man, except that the labors themselves should lead to noble accomplishments.” He assured them that “those who labor and face dangers achieve noble deeds, and it is sweet to live bravely and die leaving behind an immortal fame.”

To which Coenus, reputedly one of the most faithful Macedonians, replied, “If there is one thing above all others a successful man should know, it is when to stop.” Persuaded to turn around despite his fury at the mutineers, Alexander meandered with his army through India’s Gedrosian Desert and Iran for another three years before dying of fever in Babylon.

…

Alexander is sufficiently self-aware to understand the vanity of his quest but unable to turn back: “I see that I’m to be / Hurried about the world perpetually, / And that I’ll never know another fate. / Than this incessant, wandering, restless state!” Asked repeatedly by the rival rulers he encounters what he wants in the end, Alexander finds it increasingly difficult to come up with an answer. There’s an insight here into the psychology of long campaigns, which tend to exhaust our ability to make sense of them.

Just keep digging because with piles of broken crockery and great steaming heaps like this, you just know there’s a Pony in there somewhere.

US to arm Sunni tribesmen in Iraq to bolster defence against Islamic State

Reuters

Saturday 22 November 2014 15.31 EST

The US plans to buy arms for Sunni tribesmen in Iraq including AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar rounds, to help bolster the battle against Islamic State (Isis) militants in Anbar province, according to a Pentagon document prepared for Congress.

The plan to spend $24.1m represents a small fraction of the larger, $1.6bn spending request to Congress focusing on training and arming Iraqi and Kurdish forces. But the document underscored the importance the Pentagon places on the Sunni tribesmen to its overall strategy to diminish Isis, and cautioned Congress about the consequences of failing to assist them.

“Not arming tribal fighters will continue to leave anti-[Isis] tribes reluctant to actively counter [Isis],” the document said, regarding the group which has seized control of large parts of Syrian and Iraq and is gaining territory in Anbar despite three months of US-led air strikes.

…

The document also noted Iraqi security forces were not “not particularly welcome in Anbar and other majority Sunni areas”, citing their poor combat performance and sectarian divisions.

Graft Hobbles Iraq’s Military in Fighting ISIS

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, The New York Times

NOV. 23, 2014

“I told the Americans, don’t give any weapons through the army – not even one piece – because corruption is everywhere, and you will not see any of it,” said Col. Shaaban al-Obeidi of the internal security forces, also a Sunni tribal leader in Anbar Province. “Our people will steal it.”

…

“If each soldier is supposed to get 100 bullets, he will only get 50, and the officer will take and sell the rest,” Colonel Obeidi said. As he showed a reporter the Austrian-made Glock handgun he obtained from United States forces years ago, he added, “If the Iraqi Army had supplied this, the barrel would explode in two rounds.”

…

Many Sunni tribal leaders, deeply mistrustful of the Shiite-dominated military, are urging the United States to provide salaries and weapons directly to the tribes, much as it did during the so-called Awakening movement against Al Qaeda in Iraq seven years before.

But officials of the Shiite-dominated government say any American attempts to work directly with the tribes would violate Iraqi sovereignty and exacerbate sectarian divisions.

Revealed: UK ‘mercenaries’ fighting Islamic State terrorist forces in Syria

Mark Townsend, The Guardian

Saturday 22 November 2014 16.42 EST

James Hughes, from Reading, Berkshire, is understood to be in Rojava, northern Syria, helping to defend the beleaguered city of Kobani as a de facto “mercenary” fighting on behalf of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, the YPG.

According to his Facebook profile, Hughes served in Afghanistan three times and left the army this year after five years’ service. He appears to be fighting Isis forces alongside his friend Jamie Read, from Newmains, north Lanarkshire, whose Facebook page reveals that he trained with the French army. He describes having been involved in fierce gunfights against jihadists last week.

…

The Britons appear to have been recruited by an American called Jordan Matson on behalf of the “Lions of Rojava”, which is run by the Kurdish YPG movement and whose Facebook page urges people to join and help “send [the] terrorists to hell and save humanity” from Isis.

…

Although the Home Office states that taking part in a conflict overseas could be an offence under both criminal and anti-terrorism laws, it clarifies: “UK law makes provisions to deal with different conflicts in different ways – fighting in a foreign war is not automatically an offence but will depend on the nature of the conflict and the individual’s own activities.”

US air strikes in Syria driving anti-Assad groups to support Isis

Mona Mahmood, The Guardian

Sunday 23 November 2014 09.13 EST

Fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Islamic military groups are joining forces with Isis, which has gained control of swaths of Syria and Iraq and has beheaded six western hostages in the past few months.

Some brigades have transferred their allegiance, while others are forming tactical alliances or truces. Support among civilians also appears to be growing in some areas as a result of resentment over US-led military action.

…

A third man, Abu Zeid, the commander of an FSA brigade near Idlib and a defector from President Bashar al-Assad’s army, said: “All the locals here wonder why the US coalition never came to rescue them from Assad’s machine guns, but run to fight Isis when it took a few pieces of land. We were in a robust fight against Isis for confiscating our liberated areas, but now, if we are not in an alliance, we are in a truce with them.”

These and other Syrian fighters told the Guardian in interviews by phone and Skype that the US campaign is turning the attitudes of Syrian opposition groups and fighters in favour of Isis. Omar Waleed, an FSA fighter in Hama, north of Damascus, said: “I’m really scared that eventually most of the people will join Isis out of their disappointment with the US administration. Just have a look on social media websites, and you can see lots of people and leaders are turning to the side of Isis.

“We did not get any weapons from the US to fight the regime for the last three years. Only now US weapons arrived for fighting Isis.”

Abu Talha said he had joined the FSA after being released from prison in an amnesty Assad granted shortly after the Syrian uprising began in March 2011, and became commander of the Ansar al-Haq brigade in Ghouta, an eastern suburb of Damascus. He became disillusioned with the FSA, however, believing it was a tool of foreign intelligence services and poor in combat. After four senior fighters in his brigade were fatally wounded a few months ago, he defected to Isis.

“Since that day, I vowed not to fight under a flag bearing the mark of the FSA even for a second. I looked around for truthful jihadis, to fight by their side. I could not find any better than the jihadis of Isis. I told my fighters: ‘I’m going to join Isis, you are free to follow me or choose your own way’,” he said.

…

Only a small number openly declared their new allegiance, he added. “Large brigades in Idlib, Aleppo, Derra, Qalamoun and south Damascus have pledged loyalty to Isis in secret. Many senior leaders of brigades in Syria are in talks with us now to get together and fight as a united force against the US aggression,” he said. His claims cannot be independently verified.

Murad, a fighter with the FSA’s 600-strong al-Ribat brigade near Homs, said an offer three months ago by the US-backed Hazem movement to supply his unit with advanced weaponry if it joined the fight against Isis was turned down.

“We rejected this attractive offer, even though we are in great need not only of weapons but food. There is no way that we would fight Isis after the US military campaign against them,” he said.

…

Fighters from Islamic militias are also joining forces with Isis. In Idlib, in north-west Syria, the Jaish al-Mujahideen army, al-Sham brigade, Ahrar al-Sham brigade and al-Nusra Front were all in conflict against Isis earlier this year. Now they are calling for an alliance. More than 1,000 al-Nusra Front fighters in the area joined forces with Isis in a single week in August, according to Ali Sa’eed, a spokesman for the FSA revolutionary command in Idlib.

…

“There are senior leaders of al-Nusra Front who are waiting for the zero hour to unite with us. They are more conscious now of the great risks that lie behind the new US crusade against Muslims and jihadis,” he said.

According to those interviewed, civilians as well as fighters are turning towards Isis. The group is gaining support because it implements social measures and increases security, according to Abu Talha.

…

Isis does not have enough weapons for the number of foreign and local jihadis wanting to join its ranks, Abu Talha said. “Jihadis in Algeria, Morocco and Yemen are declaring their allegiance to Isis. Soon we will be in Gaza and then in Iran. People are starting to be aware that Isis is defending the Sunnis.”

Another Iraq Failure by Petraeus: Graft-Ridden Military

By Jim White, emptywheel

Published November 24, 2014

Back when the Bush Administration and their neocon operators were most proud of their “accomplishments” in Iraq, their poster boy for this success most often was my favorite ass-kissing little chickenshit, David Petraeus. As the public finally became aware of what a disaster Iraq really was and as Obama moved his focus to the “good war” in Afghanistan, I noted that Petraeus’ name was no longer associated with Iraq once it, and especially Petraeus’ multiple attempts to train Iraq’s military, had failed. Today we have further news on how Iraq’s military came to be in such sad shape that many units simply disappeared when it came time to confront ISIS. It turns out that while he was gaining accolades for training Iraqi troops, Petraeus was in reality creating a system in which Iraqi officers were able to siphon off the billions of dollars the US wasted on the whole training operation.

…

Isn’t that just peachy? We know without a doubt that giving weapons or financial support to the Iraqi military is guaranteed to wind up helping ISIS instead of fighting them. And yet Washington insists on throwing another $1.3 billion going down the same shithole.

Part of the reason that this can’t be stopped is that the US side of the graft is so organized and institutionalized. Moving out from just the efforts within Iraq to the entire campaign against ISIS, we see who really benefits.

Softs and Super Softs ok?

First of all you have to recognize that very little of what matters in Formula One right now is happening on the track.  While I’d be gratified by a Hamilton win if only because I think he’s the best passer in the sport currently and Rosberg is basically a cut throat asshole who has no respect for his team or his team mates, I don’t really care if he finishes 2nd (clinching a win for his 2nd Drivers’ Championship) or not.

Nope, as always the big story is the money.

CVC, the private equity group (think Bain Capital) that along with Bernie Ecclestone (who’d be the biggest sleazebag in sports except the competition is so fierce) who organized them, own a controlling interest in Formula One and have been looking to cash out by either floating an IPO or finding a bigger sucker for at least 2 years now.  What’s been holding them back is the barely disguised corruption that permeates it, from the sweetheart deals with some tracks and the extortion of others, to the flagrant bribery of the Big 5 (Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren, and Williams) 3 of whom (Ferrari, Red Bull, and McLaren) get the majority with Mercedes and Williams coasting on their “historic contributions” despite Ferrari, McLaren, and Williams having fielded inferior cars for nearly a decade, also conveniently packing the “Strategy Group” that is supposed to represent all the teams, to the ‘no bid’ contracts for well known companies like Pirelli (tires) and lesser known ones like McLaren (who provide all the engine control electronics), to the sponsorships bribes and kickbacks Drivers are routinely expected to provide their teams, to the fact that Ecclestone bribed a Banker to undervalue the shares held by a media company so that CVC could pick them up at a discount when the Banker’s Bank conveniently called the note they were collateral for.

Formula One is a House of Cards floating in a cesspit and the smart money is looking to get out while the getting is good.

So what’s really interesting is seeing which way they fall.

Take engines for instance- there are only 3 suppliers at the moment.  Mercedes rule, Renault drools, and Ferrari is an underpowered joke and has been for years.  The only reason for the Williams resurgence is that they inked a deal to use the tri-star.  McLaren will be debuting the new Honda which may or may not be a gamble, they hired away Alonso who made even the Scuderia’s bricks seem racy as insurance and they’d be fools to dump Button (who’s not quite as good at what Alonso does as Alonso is, but is better than most) in favor of Magnussen who has shown their hardware as the crap it inherently is.  Even Renault doesn’t think that new rules (which Bernie likes because… underpants) will be beneficial.  Ferrari of course longs to dust off a few of their old, good designs but the bottom line is that engines have gone from £5m to £25m and  changing the rules will simply result in another round of development costs that the Littles (Lotus, Force India, Sauber) can’t afford.

Here’s what they spend now- Ferrari and Red Bull around £250m (Red Bull also kicks in about £120m for Toro Rossa); Mercedes and McLaren around £200m; Lotus, Williams, Sauber, and Force India between £100m-£140m.  Marussia struggled along on £70m while Caterham (which will race this weekend because of a crowd-sourcing campaign Bernie likened to begging) has just fired everybody after 7 weeks with no pay so they can at least collect unemployment.

If the Littles leave, which they’re likely to do if all they can afford is “Customer Cars” built by the Big 5, Bernie is left with a field of a dozen.  Red Bull and Ferrari have indicated they’re willing to add a car which would make it 14.  Add Haas Racing (likely in a purchased chassis) and you have 16, but not until ’16 and while the threshold at Yas Marina is exactly that before contract default most tracks have a 14 car minimum so Bernie is just scraping by.

Hardly conductive to that big cash buyout he and CVC are anticipating.

So Bernie has back-tracked on the rhetoric a bit and in negotiations that have been happening this week the Littles have seen at least some encouraging signs.

Me?  I think he’s stringing them along.

Michael Schumacher is paralysed with memory and speech problems, Jules Bianchi is off a respirator and breathing on his own.  Romain Grosjean has signed again with Lotus, Perez will be staying with Force India.

Red Bull is starting from the back of the grid once again because of a non-compliant front wing.  Grosjean has a 20 grid penalty for engine replacement but will start 18 with a stop & go to serve.

If you’re totally into the horse race the groupings are these-

• 1 & 2, Hamilton and Rosberg
• 4 – 6 Vettel, Alonso, and Bottas
• 7 – 9 Button, Massa, and Hulkenberg with an outside shot.

In Constructors 3 & 4 potentially Williams and Ferrari could change.

We start racing again March 15th, just in time to totally deprive me of sleep during the NCAA Basketball Tournament, in Australia.  Mercedes will have 4 engines, Renault 3 (if Caterham survives), Ferrari 2, and Honda 1.

• Yas Marina
• Yas Marina Interactive

Pretty tables below.

Last week we discussed the British composer Gustav Holst and the week before that Mendelssohn (boffo in Britain, I’m telling yah), and this week we’ve had a really excellent parody of I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General (which is of course nothing new, patter songs, particularly the very popular ones lyricized by W.S. Gilbert, are often laced with satiric contemporary references that performers update to reflect their own environment).

All of which means that it must be time to mention Arthur Sullivan.

Ok, I can see you shaking your heads out there, muttering WTF?  It’s perfectly obvious to me.  Major General is from the famous light Opera (sometimes called Operetta or Musical Theater), The Pirates of Penzance composed by Sullivan in collaboration with Gilbert.  Holst idolized Sullivan until he changed his allegiance to (shudder) Wagner.  Sullivan was the first recipient of the Mendelssohn Scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music when he was 14 years old.

See, clear as mud (and remember, mud spelled backwards is dum).  The important thing about my jokes is that they amuse me.

I’ll spare you a recapitulation of my career as Ralph Rackstraw, let’s just say I’m big with captive audiences in school assemblies and relatives who are supportive of macaroni and glue pictures.

But let’s talk about Artie for a while.  In the first place, he would have hated that nickname because he always considered himself a serious and dignified member of the conventional “Art” Music establishment and certainly not a mere tunesmith writing ephemeral crap for beer soaked groundlings in a Music Hall (which everyone knows is the next thing to a brothel anyway).  He composed 23 Operas, only 14 in collaboration with Gilbert, 13 oratorios and other major orchestral works, and 2 Ballets.  This in addition to many pieces of chamber music, piano sonatas, and hymns of which probably the best known is Onward Christian Soldiers.

But he fell into the company of Richard D’Oyly Carte, this kind of sinister Brian Epstein/Tom Parker character who made him fabulously wealthy by forcing him to write wildy popular ditties hardly worthy of his talent.

Though that was not the cause of his split with Gilbert, nope, they broke up over a carpet.

Throughout most of his association with Gilbert they had quarreled over the plots and themes of their work.  Gilbert was a decided populist and Sullivan entirely bourgeoisie.  They both considered themselves better than their commercially successful Operettas.  It was most often Sullivan who would threaten to quit and eventually Gilbert would respond with a libretto that was at least not totally unacceptable to Sullivan’s refined sensibilities and aristocratic asprations, but in the end it was Gilbert who walked away.

D’Oyly Carte used a lot of the money generated by their partnership to build a theater dedicated to staging their productions, the Savoy.  At best he wasted a lot of it on maintenance, at worst-

In April 1890, during the run of The Gondoliers, however, Gilbert challenged Carte over the expenses of the production. Among other items to which Gilbert objected, Carte had charged the cost of a new carpet for the Savoy Theatre lobby to the partnership. Gilbert believed that this was a maintenance expense that should be charged to Carte alone. Gilbert confronted Carte, who refused to reconsider the accounts.

After all, the carpet was only one of a number of disputed items, and the real issue lay not in the mere money value of these things, but in whether Carte could be trusted with the financial affairs of Gilbert and Sullivan. Gilbert contended that Carte had at best made a series of serious blunders in the accounts, and at worst deliberately attempted to swindle the others. It is not easy to settle the rights and wrongs of the issue at this distance, but it does seem fairly clear that there was something very wrong with the accounts at this time. Gilbert wrote to Sullivan on 28 May 1891, a year after the end of the “Quarrel”, that Carte had admitted “an unintentional overcharge of nearly £1,000 in the electric lighting accounts alone.”

So Gilbert sued Carte and won.  Sullivan supported Carte during this dispute and for a while the former collaborators barely spoke and created solo works that were resounding flops.  They were eventually reunited by their music publisher Tom Chappell, but their new productions (Utopia, Limited and The Grand Duke) were not nearly as well received as their previous work.

Sullivan died in 1900, Gilbert in 1911.  Sullivan was considered by almost all his “serious” contemporaries a wasted genius.  Of course they all languish in deserved obscurity but you’ll find people like me performing H.M.S. Pinafore to this very day, partly because they are public domain (next time we chat about Sullivan I’ll try and concentrate on their copyright litigation).

The piece I have selected is not a collaboration with Gilbert but does have a connection.  It is a traditional “Grand” Opera, Ivanhoe.  It was originally staged at the Royal English Opera House which was built by Carte expressly for the purpose.  While moderately successful itself, Carte was unable to find enough suitable productions to make the Hall profitable and the Opera House was a commercial failure.

Unfortunately it’s in 13 parts so I’ll embed the playlist and hope that works-

Obligatories, News and Blogs below.