44 Days until Inaguration - Opus the Penguin has retired.

What does Barak Obama got to do with Opus the Penguin?

Not a darn thing, except, it was November 2, 2008 when the Opus comic strip was retired. The Presidential race was so intense and Bill Ayers had yet to address the nation that I dare not take a moment to remove attention from the soon to be New President.

So today we are within a week's reach of the half way point until the Obama Inauguration and it was time for a stretch.

I think Barak has been magnificent. He has accomplished more in a month than any President-Elect is expected to and he hasn't wavered in his ability to reach into the deep troubles of this nation with anticipation and longing for resolve. He is a magnificent patriot. I think he deserves a little time to enjoy 'the moment.' Thank you, Mr. President-Elect. Our nation is grateful. We are in dedicated and competent hands and we appreciate you.

But, for now. I'm going to take the time to say good-bye to Opus.

Goodbye Little Penguin: Berke Breathed Retires Opus (click here)
"I'll be leaving Opus in a way that it should be very clear that this time there's no going back home," says Breathed.


November 2, 2008
The Pulitzer-winning Breathed first burst onto the national scene during the Reagan years with Bloom County. That strip's little penguin lived on in Breathed's Sunday-only strip Outland in the 1990s and returned to the funny pages in 2003 -- his plump figure a little different, his color a little more saturated.

The Newly Elected Pakistan Government has turned on the terrorist networks within its borders in response to Mumbai attacks.

Karzai isn't equipped and hasn't been equipped to quell the unrest in the Afghan population which will favor the Taliban if they can deliver food to the hungry. The hungry will be easy to recruit. Supplies to Afghanis has to be airlifted in and the mountain regions need 'air drop shipments' similar to what was done at the beginning of the invasion in 2001. The air drop supplies need to be identified whom they are from and that they will continue throughout the winter.
The Afghan government is trying to align with the Taliban because they are able to deliver the people out of an impoverished state where Karzai continues to fail. Being a stateman is one thing, but, providing for the Afghan citizens from day to day is another thing. Just because Karzai is in power in Kabul doesn't mean the rest of the country is at peace.
Karzai needs clout with the people to reduce the influence of the Taliban. The impoverishment of these people has to stop, it puts 'stability' at risk.
These tribal regions of all these countries are tenuous all the time. The people of these villages will be loyal to those that can provide for them. Karzai is attempting to bring a peace to the country by allowing the Taliban to be benevolent caregivers. It will backfire and the Taliban will be in power as they will see no need for Karzai or any freely elected government.


Afghan policemen inspects the site of an explosion on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Nov. 24, 2008. Police said an improvised explosive device (IED) went off a few minutes after a member of Parliament's car went past the road, wounding one boy.(AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool) (click here)
Winter of hunger looms in Afghanistan
By HEIDI VOGT – Nov 27, 2008
NILI, Afghanistan (AP) — The farmer squats barefoot on packed earth in front of his two-room mud house. He has looked at his bags of wheat, he says, and counted the days.
Ghulam Sakhi, 50, says his family will run out of food in mid-January — only a third of the way through Afghanistan's frigid winter.
As the days shorten and the nights grow colder, this winter threatens to be Afghanistan's most desperate in nearly two decades.
Life has always been hard in this poor, war-ravaged land, but this year a combination of drought, high food prices and Taliban attacks on supply routes could leave a bigger shortage than emergency food aid can cover....


Pakistani employees inspect burned-out trucks at a NATO terminal. (click here)
...The attack came less than a week after Taliban militants destroyed a dozen trucks in Peshawar containing supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan, killing two people in the process....

They cannot do this alone. Where is everyone? Where is Bush/Cheney and Gates? There is a crisis brewing in Pakistan. These are the bad guys and they won't stop until the government is over thrown and their coup leadership is back in power. This will cause unrest in the country. Pakistan needs military advisors, foreign intelligence, not troops !



Rocket Fired At NATO Supply Trucks (click title to entry - audio)
PESHAWAR: Militants fired rockets at NATO provision supply trucks here early Sunday morning; no casualties were reported in the attack.
According to details at least ten rockets were fired on trucks laden with provision including oil for NATO forces, fighting in Afghanistan.
Rockets were fired at Al Faisal terminal in Peshawar; Al Faisal terminal is a place where all the trucks and containers supply go through for NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Sources also said that most of the rockets were landed in near by farm while fire also erupted at Al Faisal terminal, where after the attack heavy firing started, sources added.

NATO has to airlift supplies. Doing it this way will only fuel the militants and support their efforts. They will eventually stop torching these convoys and simply capture the supplies if they haven't been doing that already.

Pakistani militants torch Humvees for western forces (click here)
Sun Dec 7, 2008 2:39am EST
By Faris Ali
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Hordes of Pakistani militants set on fire 96 trucks carrying Humvees and military vehicles for Western forces in Afghanistan in a raid in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Sunday, police said.
Security guards said they were overpowered by more than 200 militants who attacked two terminals on Peshawar's ring road, where trucks carrying Humvees and other military vehicles were parked.
"It happened at around 2.30 a.m.. They fired rockets, hurled hand grenades and then set ablaze 96 trucks," senior police officer, Azeem Khan, told Reuters.
Most supplies, including fuel, for U.S. and NATO forces in landlocked Afghanistan are trucked through Pakistan, much of it the fabled Khyber Pass that runs through the mountains between Peshawar, capital of North-West Frontier Province and the border town of Torkham....

Pakistan is under attack ! Opposing militants in Pakistan is difficult. Peace with India will demand action against the militants after the Mumbia attacks. This is only the beginning. It may well be we have rousted out the war that never took place before in Afghanistan against al Qaeda. Pakistan has always been their stronghold and Osama bin Laden and Omar among others are at stake. This violence should not be undersold as if 'just internal struggles' among people as there is in Greece today. The riots in Greece happen annually. This uprising in Pakistan is serious especially considering the Mumbai attacks.

Rocket attack kills 3 in Pakistan (click here)
Press Trust of India
Sunday, December 07, 2008, (Islamabad)
At least three persons were killed on Sunday when militants armed with rockets attacked a bus terminal in northwestern Pakistan that is used by trucks ferrying supplies to US-led coalition troops in Afghanistan.
Heavily armed pro-Taliban militants fired up to 10 rockets during the attack on the complex in Peshawar early on Sunday morning. A watchman and two others were killed in the attack, officials told TV channels.
The rockets fired by the militants sparked a fire that damaged up to 80 armoured vehicles and trucks parked at the complex, reports said. The attack also triggered an exchange of fire between militants and security forces though there were no reports of casualties among the rebels.
This was the second attack within a week on the terminal in Peshawar. On December 1, two persons were killed and over two dozen trucks were damaged when militants attacked the complex.

This violence and the attacks in Mumbai are all a part of the same war in Afghanistan. They cannot be treated differently.

Now this is what I call a coup !

General picked as US veteran boss (click title to entry, thank you)
07 Dec 2008 12:31 am
One of the truly nauseating moments in the run-up to the Iraq war was the humiliating public rebuke that Paul Wolfowitz, then Donald Rumsfeld's #2 at the Pentagon, delivered to Eric Shinseki, then a four-star general serving as Army chief of staff.

Shinseki, a wounded combat veteran of Vietnam, was by career and reputation a cautious, methodical person. Those who criticized his performance as Army chief mainly complained that he was too traditional and non-innovative in his approach. Thus, he was constantly at odds with Rumsfeld's crew, who viewed him as a passive-aggressive, fuddy-duddy obstacle to doing things in their new lean-and-mean way.

The showdown came just before the war began. Shinseki, who had direct experience with land warfare (in Vietnam) and post-combat occupation (in the Balkans), was urging that the U.S. go in with a force large enough to ensure that it could maintain order and genuinely control Iraq's sizable territory and potentially fractious society after it ousted Saddam. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz hated this whole idea....

The Real Bill Ayers

But. Will he be the next Secretary of Education?

I mean up to now Obama's choices are fairly lack luster and boring.

Ayers would definately get the job done !

No more Neil Bush in the USA Classroom !

I was really surprised when Marvin Bush didn't qualify for Homeland Security Secretary. That was a real set back for the country, I thought !


...I was cast in the “unrepentant terrorist” role; I felt at times like the enemy projected onto a large screen in the “Two Minutes Hate” scene from George Orwell’s “1984,” when the faithful gathered in a frenzy of fear and loathing....