Yeah, don’t everybody?

After all, “Jones” is the most common last name in Wales, the second-most common last name in Britain, and the fourth-most common last name in the United States. These facts were apparently known to Gethin Jones, Cardiff-born TV presenter, who took it upon himself to host a…Jones extravaganza.

This event, properly entitled “Jones, Jones, Jones,” was a successful attempt to beat the world record for a gathering of people with the same family name. The record had been held by the Norbergs, who brought 583 people together in Sweden in 2004, but after Friday, November 3, the Jones had doubled the number and won the record. From as far away as Australia and the United States, 1,224 Jones gathered in Cardiff, Wales. Guinness World Record officials were present and made all the Joneses prove their identity to confirm the breaking of the record.

The event was watched closely by the Norbergs, but alas, they were not to keep their place in the book of world records. But then, who knows? Perhaps they have another get-together in mind.

A new Pentagon report says that the U.S. Army has become a “thin green line” that is in danger of breaking if no help comes soon.

How thin, how dangerous, and how soon?

It is likely, the study says, that the army literally won’t be able to outlast the insurgency in Iraq:

Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency. He also suggested that the Pentagon’s decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended.

Interestingly enough, on Monday Army Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno asserted that U.S. forces must prepare for a long war spanning a minimum of two decades:

“This generation of servicemembers will be in what we’re calling the Long War,” the general said. “Our estimate is that for at least the next 20 years, part of our focus will be on how do we deal with the extremist networks that will continue to threaten the United States and its allies.”

Saddam defiant as ever. Sick.

When I originally published material on this blog suggesting the Iraq war hurt the relief effort in New Orleans and the surrounding area, many people scoffed.

But a new AP article on CNN makes the idea a little harder to scoff at:

BAY ST. LOUIS, Mississippi (AP)—The deployment of thousands of National Guard troops from Mississippi and Louisiana in Iraq when Hurricane Katrina struck hindered those states’ initial storm response, military and civilian officials said Friday.

One of those military officials is Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, who is chief of the National Guard Bureau. According to him, “arguably” an entire day or so of response time was lost due to the absense of these National Gaurdsmen.

Democrat Rep. Gene Taylor “told reporters the absence of the deployed Mississippi Guard units made it harder for local officials to coordinate their initial response.” And before you attack Taylor as some Bush-hating filfth-spewing traitor to America, remember this: Taylor’s home was completely washed away in the hurricane.

In other news: Colin Powell has admitted that his speech to the United Nations accusing Iraq of harboring weapons of mass destruction was a “blot” on his record. The most interesting part the article is this:

Powell in the TV interview also disputed the Bush administration’s linking of Saddam’s regime with terrorists.

He said he had never seen a connection between Baghdad and the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. “I can’t think otherwise, because I’d never seen evidence to suggest there was one,” he said.

Bush must know something Powell doesn’t, I guess.

Speaking of which, the President’s job approval rating has slipped, for the first time, to below 40 percent.

And a new analysis by the Congressional Budget office indicates that even before you include the cost of Hurricane Katrina, President Bush will fail to keep his promise to cut the deficit in half by the time he leaves office.

The study predicts that the $331 billion budget deficit projected for the current budget year would rise to $370 billion by 2009, the year Bush has promised to cut the deficit to at least $260 billion. Bush promised to cut the deficit in half from a projection in February 2004 of a $521 billion deficit for 2009.

Instead of actually taking a little responsibility and maybe making an effort to not outspend every flippin’ president (Democrat or otherwise) since LBJ, the Bush administration has started playing the blame game:

In response, the White House asked for congressional action instead of rhetoric.

“Instead of complaining about the deficit, how about doing something about it?” said Bush spokesman Trent Duffy, noting that Spratt opposes Republican efforts to trim just $35 billion from federal entitlement programs over the next five years.

This is truly pathetic, coming from a spokesman of the President who has yet to veto a bill after nearly six years in office.

So-called conservatives [Two term Bush supporters] should hang their heads in shame. We do not have anything close to a conservative president in office; instead, we have a war president who throws money around like a Democrat.

Two new, separate Gallup polls strongly indicate that Americans favor withdrawing some or all troops from Iraq:

Perhaps most revealing was a new poll which asked 1,007 Americans, “If you could talk with President Bush for 15 minutes about the situation in Iraq, what would you, personally, advise him to do?” The poll taken in late August found that 41% said they would tell him to pull troops out of Iraq and end our involvement there.

Far behind in second place (18%) was to finish what we started or be more aggressive. Another 7% advised coming up with an exit strategy.

A separate Gallup poll found that 53% of Americans favor a reduction of U.S. troops in Iraq. This includes 26% who prefer withdrawing all troops.

In the same survey, only 40% of Americans approve, while 59% disapprove of the way Bush is handling Iraq. Fifty-three percent of Americans think going to war in Iraq was a mistake, similar to the 54% who said this in early August.

This follows up numerous other polls, including a Harris Interactive poll where 58 per cent of respondents think the invasion of Iraq has not helped to protect the U.S. from another terrorist attack, up five points since last November; and an AP poll previously reported on here at Virtue.

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In his September 6th article, “The Tipping Point on Iraq,” Robert Dreyfuss writes:

John Warner, R.-Va., . . . warned that public opinion on Iraq is approaching the “tipping point,” after which support for the war in Iraq would no longer be sustainable. “The level of concern is, I think, gradually rising,” he told The New York Times. “I don’t see that the Congress is going to suddenly pull back like in the days of Vietnam. It is the desire of the Congress to continue to work with and support the administration. But there is always a tipping point.”

For those of us who are Star Wars fans:

Actor Michael Sheard, who played Admiral Ozzel in The Empire Strikes Back, has died of cancer at the age of 65.

Sheard also appeared in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, where he played the role of Adolph Hitler. Sheard played Hitler a total of five times in his acting career.

More on Sheard can be found here.

In Star Wars, he was memorably choked by Darth Vader – and said George Lucas told him it was “the best screen death I’ve ever seen”.

At the time, Star Wars was “just another part in a very busy actor’s career”, he said, but it has secured him a place in the hearts of Star Wars fans and an Admiral Ozzel action figure came out last year.

Not enough media?

More on Ms. Media Hog:

“When you read about the Camp Casey movement in the history books, you can say I met Casey’s mom.

— Cindy Sheehan

See the video.

. . . I’ll take it upon myself to update readers about the current situation in Iraq.

Which is, as usual, not good.

After missing three—count them, three!—deadlines set for finishing the draft of a new constitution, now people are already complaining about the draft that finally has been finished:

BAGHDAD - Five of the top Sunni Arabs in government spoke out Saturday against the draft constitution, a major blow to deadline efforts to craft a document that can win the backing of all Iraqi groups. Sunni negotiators sought changes in the draft on the eve of a parliament session to approve it.

U.S. diplomats worked furiously to mediate a deal among the Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni Arab delegations so that the National Assembly can receive a document accepted by all—enhancing chances for an easy approval by the voters in the Oct. 15 referendum.

More here.

Can you imagine four more years of this?

Pro-war pundits such as Michelle Malkin , who normally are very good at keeping readers up to date on the latest going ons in Iraq, have been strangely quiet about the constitution subject lately.

But conservative columnist Charley Reese points out what these pro-war drum-pounders seem to have forgotten. Here are some especially strong excerpts from his column:

The United States, which set up the rules for adopting the Iraqi constitution, has probably shot itself in the foot, as it usually does when it tries to play the imperial game. One of those rules states that the constitution is dead meat if it fails to get a two-thirds vote in three provinces. The Sunnis are a majority in four provinces. They call the draft constitution a plan for civil war.

. . .

Those who opposed this war have been proven right, and those who advocated it have been proven wrong. Those who now say we have to stay and see it through are saying we have to stay and participate in a civil war and the imposition of a theocratic state. So, what are we going to get if we do stay? Nothing any sensible American would want.

. . .

Those who say we have to fight the terrorists in Iraq to avoid fighting them in the U.S. will soon, no doubt, be disabused of that stupid idea.

In other news, a new AP Poll is showing that nearly 60 percent of people now disapprove of the way the Bush administration has conducted the war in Iraq.

So Pat Robertson thinks we should knock off Hugo Chavez and said so on the 700 Club yesterday.

Damage control on-deck.

Read the rest of this entry »

Interesting story in a recent issue of the Federalist Patriot (August 12th).

Basically, the environmentalists (specifically the EPA) during the Clinton administration decided that the U.S. Military shouldn’t be using gun oil that involved Freon CFC’s (which contain elements that harm natural ecosystems. As anyone who has handled an M16 or AR15 (the standard U.S. service rifle, for those who aren’t paramilitary experts) knows, it is a very dirty gun. Read the rest of this entry »