Subject: U.S. Department of Defense

• Spreading Democracy... or something

  Regardless of whether or not the Bush administration will succeed in its plan to introduce democracy into Iraq through an armed invasion and years of chaotic violence, it now appears that the administration has succeeded in bringing to Iraq something the country has had very little of since the British were kicked out many long decades ago: white supremacists. As the New York Times reports this morning: "We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," the [Southern Poverty Law Center] quoted a D

  July 7, 2006

• Dancing around a great problem at The Great Park

  The El Toro Shuffle? The Great Park Gavotte? The Irvine Ranch Water District Toxic Waltz? We should come up a name for the little dance. It's a simple four step dance, and very familiar one. Scientists point out a looming environmental threat and call for government action. The Bush administration, refusing to act and attempting to dismiss the scientists as panic-mongers and tree-huggers, calls for even more scientific study before it will even consider acting. The further study is completed, a

  July 28, 2006

• Numbers (Five Years Later)

  From a list compiled by the UK newspaper, The Independent: 2,973 Total number of people killed (excluding the 19 hijackers) in the September 11, 2001 attacks 72,000 Estimated number of civilians killed worldwide since September 11, 2001 as a result of the war on terror 2 Number of years since US intelligence had any credible lead to Osama bin Laden's whereabouts 2,932 Total number of US servicemen and women killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since September 2001 0 Hours of intelligence training

  September 11, 2006

• Fun with Computers (Friggatriskaidekaphobia edition)

  If your plan for getting your taxes done before the looming deadline involves using Turbo Tax's online service, you may want to reconsider. According to NBC 4 in Washington D.C., a customer wanting to check her tax info Turbo-ly, discovered something big and bad by accident. ""I knew immediately how big this was," she said. "This is very, very bad."" A Turbo Tax customer herself, the woman attempted to access some past filings and the route she took online opened returns for several others w

  April 13, 2007

• Benford Tools, er, Toils

  Sci-fi writer and UC Irvine physics professor and Woodrow Wilson Fellow and Cambridge University visiting fellow and Lord Prize winner and American Physical Society Fellow and NASA consultant and blah-blah-blah Greg Benford has joined forces with UCI environmental biologist Michael Rose, whose list of credits has nearly as many impressive blah-blah-blahs, on a new web venture: www.benford-rose.com. Among other things, the site neatly presents the eggheads' co-essays, which can be purchased and d

  January 12, 2006

• Ear Splitters

  A federal judge has temporarily forbidden the Navy from using high-intensity sonar in war-game exercises off the coast of Hawaii, ruling that environmental groups had provided "considerable convincing scientific evidence that the Navy's use of ... sonar can kill, injure, and disturb many species, including marine mammals." The Defense Department last week granted the Navy a six-month national-security exemption from the Marine Mammal Protection Act, despite anecdotal evidence collected over the

  July 5, 2006

• Monday's Headlines & Surprises

  Democrats flip-flop on SoCal bribery case report: Greg Miller at the Los Angeles Times says an internal investigations report by the House Intelligence Committee continues to remain off-limits to the public. The politicians don't want the masses to see even a declassified summary report on the embarrassing activities of disgraced Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham. When the Republicans ran the House, the Dems screamed bloody murder that the report should be released. They changed their

  July 16, 2007

• Saturday's Headlines & Surprises: Head Butting Cars Isn't Healthy

  Not Sure Why His Head Continued to Slam Into My Baton: Norberto Santana, Jr. at the Register reports that an unidentified “28-year-old inmate at the Orange County jail died Friday after deputies used a taser gun to subdue him.” Damon Micalizzi, the taxpayer-paid flack assigned to get Sheriff Michael S. Carona good ink, claimed, “Deputies tried to do what they could to remove him from other inmates. A confrontation ensued, a taser was deployed and then he was taken to the nursing station f

  October 13, 2007

• Wake Up and Suck the Orange 1.31.08

  POORMAN SUES KDOC: LA Times - Dana Parsons covers the Poorman with typical dollops of smarminess. No genital warts mentioned whatsoever. I'd wax moronic but Luke Y. Thompson already covered this like a month ago (Exit Poorman, Feb. 3). So will he be a Richman? Do fiddlers play on roofs? DEBBIE #1 GETS A BREAK: OC Register - Deborah Carona, wife of former Sheriff Mike Carona, will not be charged with inappropriate behavior while a member of the Orange County Fair Board, although the prosecution

  January 31, 2008

• The Few, the Proud, the Spies

  July 15, 1999

• The Death Ray

  October 7, 1999

• Victory Through Tote Bags

  October 31, 2002

• Santa Ana, Police Feted for Getting Their War On

  Parked on Civic Center?If you're scooting past Santa Ana police headquarters Thursday afternoon and notice a large contingency of uniformed members of the Armed Services, worry not. That portion of Downtown Santa Ana has not been declared a war zone. Yet.Nor is it a green zone signifying safety from threats real or imagined. Nope, it's just part of the Department of Defense's honoring of the City of Santa Ana and its police department Thursday for helping to make it easier to wage war or protect

  April 14, 2009

• Defense Contractor Airtech, a Big Rohrabacher Contributor, Is Under Investigation for Fraud

  October 23, 2008

• Spain, Chapman University Debaters Are Out to Get John Yoo

  So the big question when John Yoo speaks at Chapman University next week about presidential power is: Will he be shackled? Probably not, seeing as how this is not Spain, but were Orange within the Iberian Peninsula nation and NATO ally, he'd be under criminal indictment for sanctioning torture at Guantánamo. The Fletcher Jones Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law's presence at Chapman certainly has sparked debate, and not just the one he's participating in Tuesday morning.The National Lawyer

  April 15, 2009

• Gifts for the Starving Student

  December 14, 2000

• Rock Em, Sock Em

  Giant robot fights look better than ever in Transformers

  July 5, 2007

• Cocaine Airways

  September 14, 2006

• A Death in the Family

  August 10, 2006

• Only Pawns in Their Game

  July 13, 2006

• !Ask a Mexican!

  March 23, 2006

• a Clockwork Orange

  September 22, 2005

• His Brothers Keeper

  March 31, 2005

• About Face! Forward, Censor!

  July 22, 2004

• Mr. Taliban

  December 25, 2003

• Best Politics, Art, and Outdoor Sports

  October 30, 2003

• Cold Case at the Marine base

  September 11, 2003

• Force Of July

  June 26, 2003

• Colonial Capitalism

  May 1, 2003

• Leviathan Overlord

  January 30, 2003

• Human Rights and Wrongs

  May 16, 2002

• Toxic Company

  May 24, 2001

• The Skunk and the Worm

  May 24, 2001

• Tool

  May 17, 2001

• Slim Shady and the Second Lady

  February 1, 2001

• Spooks

  September 14, 2000

• Letters

  June 15, 2000

• Earth & Mirth

  May 4, 2000

• Earth & Mirth

  April 20, 2000

• Wavy Navy Gravy

  April 13, 2000

• Cancer Politics

  December 30, 1999

• Letters

  December 16, 1999

• Only the End of the World, Again

  December 2, 1999

• Letters

  October 21, 1999

• Ho-ing for Boeing

  July 29, 1999

• The Phantom Menace

  July 15, 1999

• Fill 'Er Up

  April 22, 1999

• The Heat is Back on John Yoo

  Photo by Christopher VictorioYoo before his Chapman debate.The April 21 morning "terror memo" lawyer John Yoo appeared at the Chapman University debate, President Barack Obama said it would be up to his attorney general whether to prosecute former Bush administration advisors like Yoo. Since that day in Memorial Hall, the heat has turned up on AG Eric Holder to push the case forward, the U.S. Senate is leaning toward its own probe and, as many believed would happen, Spain's top investigative jud

  May 1, 2009

• Santa Ana Police to be Honored by a Biden

  TheWhiteHouse.govDr. Jill Biden is scheduled to honor the Santa Ana Police Department and 14 other employers.​Santa Ana Police Department honorees will be praised in Washington, D.C., by a Biden.But it won't be Joe Biden.It'll be the vice president's wife, Dr. Jill Biden, who will do the honors, the Department of Defense has announced.Mrs. Biden will be the keynote speaker at the annual Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award Ceremony at the Ronald Reagan Building and International

  August 12, 2009

• Tuesday's Headlines & Surprises

  Top U.S. Secrets to Crooks, Idiots and Dopers: The Hill newspaper in Washington, D.C., reports this morning that the Pentagon, the guys running the Iraq War, now want Congress to allow national security clearances for government employees who are “ex-convicts, drug addicts and mentally incompetent.” Congress currently bans the practice. But Pentagon brass say the restriction “unduly” handicaps the Department of Defense and note that people should be forgiven for their sins—unless, of

  July 10, 2007