I'm watching the worldbankpresident.org site and they've just posted this:

WB Action Wednesday at Noon - Wolfowitz Pack Your Bags!

Missed the opportunity to participate in last Saturday's action in front of the World Bank, calling for the dismissal of Iraq war architect Paul Wolfowitz? Feel up to another fun event, connecting US interests to the policies of the World Bank? Then read on...

Code Pink, the 50 Years Is Enough Network and other local organizers will be doing an action in front of the World Bank tomorrow at noon. Organized at the last minute, this action will take advantage of Wolfowitz's current scandal to call for his resignation, greater transparency, and reparations for damage done.

What: Join us for guerrilla theater, singing, in front of the World Bank Building.
Theme: "Wolfowitz Pack Your Bags!" We will be rolling around suitcases. Enlarged bagage tags will hold slogans.
When: Tomorrow, April 18 @ noon.
Where: Gather at Murrow Park opposite the Bank's Main Complex (18th and H)

The PS is below the fold.

This is depressing. Bush's budget cuts funding for hurricane research flights. Living in SoFla the hurricane information has been very important and useful.

From Jeff Masters:

For the first time since NOAA began flying research aircraft into hurricane in the 1950's, there is no money to fund airborne hurricane research for an upcoming hurricane season. NOAA's state-of-the-art flying weather research laboratories, the two P-3 Orion hurricane hunter aircraft, may sit idle this hurricane season due to a lack of funding. NOAA's Hurricane Research Division (HRD) usually receives several million dollars each year to perform hurricane research using the P-3's. However, funding for HRD has steadily declined over the past decade, forcing HRD to reduce staff and cut back on hurricane research.

I picked this up via a link at TPM and it's so logical and so in line with my perceptions that I think it deserves a wide audience.

Strategic Errors of Monumental Proportions
What Can Be Done in Iraq?

It's hard to excerpt so I'll just quote the first part and encourage you to follow the link to the rest.

Strategic Overview

The role that US military forces can play in that conflict is seriously limited by all the political decisions the US government has already taken. The most fundamental decision was setting as its larger strategic purpose the stabilization of the region by building a democracy in Iraq and encouraging its spread. This, of course, was to risk destabilizing the region by starting a war.

This is for people who may have seen the post about aide Todd Shriber to U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) over at TPM but can’t access the server with the emails. The server is slammed and will probably get worse but I managed to get in early.

Here's part of the TPM post:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/...

According to Network World’s Paul McNamara, the communications director for U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT), Todd Shriber, hired two ‘hackers’ to break into the computer of his alma mater, Texas Christian University, and change his college grades.

[...]

But the correspondence is just too good in comedy terms and shows that not only does Shriber probably lack the ethical fiber to serve in Congress (I guess that can mean more than one thing) but may also be the stupidest person on the planet.

The complete correspondence follows after the jump.

Again... I'm only doing this because many people will have difficulty accessing the server.

Most of our resources aren't going to fight terrorists but to maintain a smattering of mini-Americas in the Middle East. As one Special Forces officer pungently put it to me: "The only function that thousands of people are performing out here is to turn food into shit."

How to explain this seemingly counterproductive behavior? My theory is that any organization prefers to focus on what it does well. In the case of the Pentagon, that's logistics. Our ability to move supplies is unparalleled in military history. Fighting guerrillas, on the other hand, has never been a mission that has found much favor with the armed forces. So logistics trumps strategy. Which may help explain why we're not having greater success in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This Sunday's sacred ritual of Mass, bagels and tea with the Grumpy Old Men's Club was rudely disrupted by the headline of the day's Washington Post: "U.S. Airstrikes Rise In Afghanistan as Fighting Intensifies." Great, I thought; it's probably cheaper than funding a recruiting campaign for the Taliban and lots more effective at creating new guerrillas.

Getting into the story just made the picture worse:

more follows...

Nice thought I thought. The back is a solicitation for funds. We're all supposed to chip in and send money to http://www.americaswetland.com .

Out of curiosity I went to opensecrets.org to see if the McIlhenny family made any political donations. Have a look for yourselves...

http://opensecrets.org/...

Yep, you guessed it, all republicans. Why are they sending money to the guys who want to destroy our environment?

it isn't going as smoothly as Bush and his crew portray. Today we watched footage of Iraqi soldiers in Anbar graduating. The whole ceremony was quite ordinary up until nearly the end- their commander announced they would be deployed to various areas and suddenly it was chaos. The soldiers began stripping their fatigues and throwing them around, verbally attacking their seniors and yelling and shoving. They were promised, when they signed up for the army in their areas, that they would be deployed inside of their own areas- which does make sense. There is news that they are currently on strike- refusing to be deployed outside of their own provinces.

I'm sure other people keep a watch for new posts by River but in case anyone's missed it this one is not to be missed.

SURPRISE!!! Free registration codes
Get it from CNET Download.com

Party favors: Get a free Opera registration code by clicking the "go free" button below. We're giving away registration codes for as long as the party lasts!

Here's the link: http://my.opera.com/community/party/

Hmm, 300 characters? So consider this to be a public service for the dKos community and every damn word counts.

Did I get there yet? Ok, some people don't know what Opera is. It's a browser and usually not a free one like FireFox or IE.

Firefox, Sahara, Opera, and Internet Explorer are just some of the many web browsers jostling for user attention. People are praising RSS, tabbed browsing and better security, but are any of the browsers new or old going to see off Microsoft?

Now that I have your attention...

Some people will remember that I posted a diary some months ago with an editorial from Body Magazine, an industry trade journal.

I this is another good and timely one, it touches on several areas we're thinking about these days.

The best bit is at the end.

more after the break...

http://jotter.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/29/151522/437

But I found that thread hugely entertaining for a Saturday night so I'm going to post this diary looking for more fun reading.

Here's only one goodie from last week:

One or two readers suggested that it be formatted and placed into a diary for future reference. So that's what I did.

If I goofed on the formatting I'll go back and fix it (I used a coding editor). If someone has a suggestion for making it more clear feel free to offer one.

None of this content is mine, it's just a copy and paste + format job.

I've seen plenty of issues where campaigns were started to target Dem Reps and Senators about one issue or another, or in the case of F911 the theater owners.

But, has anyone ever tried to target the republicans? I mean emails, phone calls or faxes in the form of "Shame on you, how can you support this <initiative or bill here> when it clearly goes against the best interests of the people you're supposed be representing?" "Stand up and do the correct thing, not just what you're told to do."

I'm not suggesting emails to DeLay or his ilk, that would be pissing in the wind. But how about identifying the more moderate people and shaming them for being cowed by the DeLays?

Is there a list of people that might fall into this category?

Some of the Iraqi policemen wear masks because of the danger they might face if they're identified with the occupation forces. This makes sense. For them. However, what's to prevent a bad guy or bad guys from donning masks and police uniforms and doing what they please?

How would you feel if a masked "policeman" knocked on your door? We have created a total zoo over there, how long will it be before the average, non political, Iraqi is again as safe as he was under Saddam?

"I find it amusing that opinions disturb Rush Limbaugh,'' Sears said.

I think we all do, lol.

So far there's been at least a half hour devoted the Republican chest beating over the fact that they "Armed the Predator".

What's the big deal? Now Colin Powell is going on and on about it.