The Age of (un)Reason

There’s been alot of speculation and rumor that the reason behind the resignation of CIA director Porter Goss was due to possible connections to whats been called ‘Hookergate’, which is tied to disgraced Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who was forced to resign and is serving time for accepting bribes from a number of people.  Anyways, at some point, a party was held at the, and you’re going to love this, Watergate Hotel and a defense contractor named Mitchell Wade supplied prostitutes for the shindig.

What does this have to do with Goss?  One of the individuals at the party was Kyle Foggo, the third highest ranking member of the CIA.  He recieved that position due to his relationship with Goss.  Supposedly, he refused to fire Foggo, even when John Negroponte, National Intelligence Director, told him to. As a result, its believe he was either forced to resign or was privately fired and told to publically resign.  Its possible that his connection to Hookergate goes further and he may just be tied directly to it.

Of course, this is just speculation and rumor and aside from the news networks, I’m having some trouble finding articles.  Apparently the Washington Post is going to release an exclusive about it tonight.  I’ll post the link when it comes up.

A nod to Wonkette for the WSJ link.

Good God.

The Iraq war has been the war fought on the cheap _ not enough body armor, not enough armor on vehicles, not enough night vision equipment.

It has been the war in which packages from back home have had to fill some crucial needs.

Now, we have chow call at the Greenwood Credit Union in Warwick, R.I. It’s the latest in home-front intervention. It’s partially in response to the unthinkable image of U.S. Marines approaching Iraqi citizens and asking for food because they do not have enough.

There’s a big barrel in the lobby of the credit union on Post Road in Warwick. It’s decorated with ribbons and it’s there because Karen Boucher-Andoscia’s son, Nick Andoscia, called and asked his mother to send food.

And why would a member of the most powerful military on Earth be asking his mom to send food?

Nick told his mother that he and the men in his unit were all about 10 pounds lighter in their first few weeks in Iraq. They were pulling 22-hour patrol shifts. They were getting two meals a day and they were not meals to remember.
"He told me the two meals just weren’t cutting it. He said the Iraqi food was usually better. They were going to the Iraqis and basically saying, ‘feed me.’ "

The very idea that our soldiers have to basically go out and ask the Iraqis for food, truly makes my heart sink.  We’re supposed to have the baddest military on the planet, yet we can’t even give our men and women in uniform three decent meals a day?  What the hell!?  During WWII, we had millions of soldiers deployed, yet they all got fed.  We went from being able to feed something like twelve million to not being able to fill the bellies of a hundred or so thousand?  Maybe we are declining as a superpower.  Maybe some of that recently approved money ear marked for the wars and Katrina should be further earmarked to get our boys some food?  Nonetheless, as someone pointed out at a forum, this won’t get any attention by the tv news networks.  Apparently they can report on soldiers and civilians being killed, but won’t report on soldiers going hungry.

Breaking news from Yahoo/AP.

Director Porter Goss has resigned,
President Bush said Friday.

Bush called Goss’ tenure one of transition.

"He has led ably," Bush said from the Oval Office. "He has a five-year plan to increase the analysts and operatives."

Bush said that Goos has "helped make this country a safer place and helped win the war on terrorism."

Emphasis mine.

Yeah right, more like he got caught in the White House shuffle.

From Yahoo.

The chance of salvaging a workable peace agreement for Sudan’s Darfur region after two years of negotiations appeared remote on Friday after two of the three rebel factions rejected a proposed peace plan.

This is the kind of situation where you make them sit down and accept the plan.  Sometimes the sword is needed to aid the pen.  If the US delegates were to imply that we might get involved (as in bring our airpower to bear on the rebels), then the rebels would be much more willing for a deal.  Anyways, I think this picture sums up the frustration that must be felt over there at this new development:

Ahmed Tugod, the chief negotiator for the Sudanese Justice and Equity Movement (JEM) covers his face at a meeting with Sudan government representatives during negotiations on a peace plan for Darfur in Abuja, Nigeria, May 2, 2006. (Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters)

Talk about a career change.

SDF girl drops the rifle for the pink pistol and joins the ranks of the adult industry

"Originally, I wanted to help people, and that’s why I joined the Self-Defense Force. But when I got there, I learned the job was tough, it literally stank, it was boring and the pay sucked. I enjoyed the car maintenance and classes on disassembling artillery, but the pay was only about 3 million yen a year. The most enjoyable part of living on base was the food and the sex. Perhaps it was those two things that inspired me to drop out of the force and move into the world of adult video," Airi Tojo tells Spa!

Why am I posting this?  Because a possibly hot Japanese female is going to do porn!  I’m a guy, what did you expect!? :P

Oh snap, did they find Captain Morgan?

Hungarian builders who drank their way to the bottom of a huge barrel of rum while renovating a house got a nasty surprise when a pickled corpse tumbled out of the empty barrel, a police magazine website reported.

Actually, it turned out to be the body of a man who was shipped home in the barrel from Jamaica by his wife, who apparently didn’t want to go through alot of paperwork. Yeah, that was twenty years ago.