The takeaway message from this excellent ad? “The only way to end catastrophic oil spills is to end our dangerous addiction to fossil fuels.”

The Army Times reports here that, according to a high placed military leader, there may be no end in sight to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  “No one I know thinks we’ll be out of these kinds of conflicts any time soon,” said Marine Corps General and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, James Cartwright at a forum sponsored by Center for Strategic and International Studies. These kinds of conflicts, it’s an interesting choice of words.

It makes one think the vice chairman of the joint chiefs thinks there will not only be no end in sight, but also more conflicts.  And, reminds the Army Times article’s author John T Bennett, this comes after Gates said he doubted there would be more such conflicts due to the high cost of casualties.

Here’s more:

“There is nothing out there that tells us we won’t be wrapped up in these conflicts for as far as the eye can see,” Cartwright said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies-sponsored forum.

In coming years, however, the military might be tasked with fighting these kinds of wars “in different places and at different levels,” Cartwright said.

He did not point to specific nations into which U.S. forces or assets might be deployed over the next decade beyond Iraq and the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

(More below the fold.)

It was just earlier this week that we heard from the UK Guardian that the further reduction of troops in Iraq has been postponed for at least a month due to “escalating bloodshed and political instability” in recent days.  There always seems to be a reason for yet another extension.  

It’s getting to the point that one has to wonder if there is any hope for withdrawal at all.  And more to the point, can we have faith the president meant what he said as a candidate for president when withdrawal continues as a moving target?  Or is he not calling the shots on the subject anymore, as Seymour Hersh recently suggested?  

Meanwhile the Trillion-plus wars are merging with the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression to form a “Perfect Bush Storm” on the treasury.  At what point does President Obama finally cut the cord from Bush on this?  

The Army Times article continues, “Cartwright said this approach, unless corrected, has the military on a path toward lacking enough ships and aircraft to be in all the many places American presence is required.” Cartwright is concerned with whether we can afford this.  Indeed.  

However, one has to wonder how long we will be persuaded that the cost of this war is not defense industry welfare.  And, of course, we’ll have to replace everything lost in the war. More industry contracts.  But the lives lost cannot be replaced.  With the best of intentions, men and women served their country and our nation continues to both lose and misuse them.  One more time, bring them home.

This article is one of the first intelligent things I’ve read on Northrop Grumman’s decision to move its corporate headquarters to northern Virginia. As usual, the “mainstream media” (aka, the “corporate media”) has completely failed to explain what really happened here. Fortunately, Tom Bowden gets it.

… is the move to Virginia as monumental as the headlines lead us to believe?

Three hundred highly paid executives will move from California to northern Virginia. Some empty space will be rented, homes will be bought and the ripple effect of the spending by these new Virginia citizens will certainly be welcome. We win! Go team!

But just as the announcement of the move started to fade as the news cycle moved on, I read this: “Northrop Grumman to lay off 330 people” at Fort Eustis.

So what just happened? Did we gain 300 jobs only to lose 330? Is this Northrop’s way of saying “thank you very much for the $14 million in tax breaks” that were, no doubt, a factor in their decision? Does this mean that 330 people, who yesterday were happily employed by the state’s newest Fortune 100 citizen, are now or soon to be on the street?

Answer: none of the above. This is a “teachable moment” on the danger of reading too much into sound bites and headlines about job losses and gains. And it seems to me that the entire process by which economic development agencies lured the headquarters to Virginia was political theater playing out in newspapers eager for headlines.

Bowden then proceeds to explain the economic impact of Northrop Grumman’s move(s) on the country (nil) and on Virginia specifically (minimal at best), as well as “the net effect of the tax giveaway” and the opportunity cost entailed by Virginia doling out this corporate welfare (key line: “If Northrop Grumman and other heavily recruited corporations paid the same taxes that our homegrown companies pay, Virginians – both corporate and individual – could enjoy lower tax rates or more services or both.”).  

Essentially, to the extent this is a big deal at all (and Bowden argues strongly that it isn’t), this entire should make the following people less than happy: libertarians; anyone who cares about good government; conservatives, and anyone else who believes in the free market; anyone who opposes corporate welfare and/or states getting into bidding wars over large corporations; small businesses, which generally aren’t the object of these bidding wars; medium-sized businesses, which also aren’t normally the object of these bidding wars; taxpayers; and people who rely on services provided by Virginia state government. Other than all those people, who probably constitute 99.99% of Virginia’s population, the rest of us should be celebrating Virginia spending $14 million to gain 300 jobs lose a net of 30 jobs. Or, on second thought, not.

Dick Black is back!  For more on Black, click here. For instance:

In an extraordinary recent interview (click to listen to MP3) with the radical right-wing group Concerned Women for America regarding HB2921, Delegate Dick “Baby Pesticides” Black insults his colleagues in the Virginia Senate, claiming that they are “aligned with various elements of vice and so forth.”

[…]

Delegate Black also spends time in the interview repeating the discredited claims of one of his star witnesses, pseudo-sociologist Paul Cameron. Black said, “The fact [sic] is, in children that have a homosexual parent, approximately 29% of children are molested by that parent. That contrasts with .6 percent of normal parents….a 50 to 1 increase in risk for molestation.”  No reputable scientific study backs up these claims.  Black continues by saying, “No structure is more unstable than a homosexual relationship.”

[…]

One of the most stunningly twisted quotes from the interview was Black saying that the main issue is “whether we should favor the best interest of the child, or whether the children should be used as rewards for certain sex activists“.

And let’s not forget this classic: “Mr. Black said, aside from the morality of the issue, he is concerned that birth control is contributing to a low birth rate in the United States and called contraceptives ‘baby pesticides.'”

Now, it looks like this guy could be the Republican candidate for State Senate against Mark Herring. As I said in the headline, “just when you thought the Virginia GOP couldn’t get any crazier…”

P.S. The Crazy Cooch endorsement should be coming any day now!  Heh.

Instant classic.