That’s the code name that Iowahawk says we should use for the Iraqi operation. Maybe then the Germans and French will get the message.

I ask you, would protestors in favor of liberating Iraq be this stupid?

I’d like to flood the zone with this. It’s a significant development, considering all of the disparate groups that they got to this consensus, but unfortunately it’s really bad timing to get much attention. Once things start getting mopped up in Iraq, it would be nice to make a serious policy push for it, though.

Given the massive defections and surrenders already occuring, it was just suggested to me that we shouldn’t think of this as invading Iraq, so much as a huge hostage standoff, in which we’re trying to arrest or kill him before he can kill the hostages.

[Update, a few minutes before the sand runs out of Saddam’s forty-eight hourglass]

David Warren agrees.

Would that it were possible to temporarily remove the entire Iraqi civilian population, but Mr. Saddam won’t let them go.

For the war to come is likely to resemble the resolution of the largest hostage crisis in history. The task of the allies is to remove Mr. Saddam, and his fellow monsters, while sparing every possible innocent human life that he is holding for his protection. Mr. Saddam’s strategy, for the battle ahead, as revealed in everything from satellite imagery, to reports from special forces ensconced on the ground, to what is now a flood of information from defectors and even Iraqi general staff, hoping to preserve their own lives through the conflict, is to maximize the carnage and suffering, in the earnest expectation that the world’s U.S.-haters will blame it all on Washington, not Baghdad.

Read the whole thing–it has some interesting and, to me, credible speculation on Saddam’s brutal strategy and the course of the war.

BBC is reporting that B-52s, presumably loaded with JDAMs, just took off from an RAF base in England. Iraq is about seven hours away…

[Update at 12:44 PM PST]

I was wrong about the ordnance–it’s cruise missiles.

Walter Cronkite has weighed in. It isn’t pretty.

At a Drew University forum, Cronkite said he feared the war would not go smoothly, ripped the “arrogance” of Bush and his administration and wondered whether the new U.S. doctrine of “pre-emptive war” might lead to unintended, dire consequences.

…In response to a question about media bias, Cronkite said the press is not politically partisan but does tilt toward liberalism. He said that the smartest president he ever met was Jimmy Carter.

Pathetic. Somehow, I suspect that he’s no longer “the most trusted man in America.” At least, I hope not.

An anti-war idiot chained himself to the wrong building in Olympia, Washington.

Mason padlocked one end of the chain around his neck and the other to a door, which opens to a bottom-floor office. He told onlookers he was protesting Bush’s foreign and domestic policies. He had affixed a sign to the building reading, “Reduce Deficit.”

Grange employees explained that he was at the wrong building. The Grange is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that advocates for residents in rural areas.

“I don’t think that’s ever happened before,” said Larry Clark, Grange communications director.

No, it’s probably a unique event. They cut him off with bolt cutters. There was no arrest, but then, I guess it’s not clear what law he broke. It would have been entertaining to leave him there a couple days and allow the crowd to pelt him with decaying vegetable matter, though.

Here is the leading candidate for the stupidest (English-speaking) woman on the planet.

Here is one “liberal” (even a Bush-hating liberal, of all things) who has his head screwed on straight.

A few years ago, our local waste disposal service passed out nice new ample blue bins in which to put our recyclables. One was clearly labeled “glass, metal and plastic only” and the other was clearly labeled “paper only.” For years, I’ve been dutifully separating out the bottles and cans from the newpapers, and putting each in its assigned bin, and schlepping them down to the curb on Tuesdays.

Silly me.

Today, I happened to be down in the front of the house when the recycling truck came rumbling down the street. I decided to hang around until they picked up ours, so that I could carry the empty bins back up to the house. I watched, with mild interest, as they picked up the ones down the street. Then, I watched, with increasing horror as I realized what I was seeing. When they came to mine, my nightmare was confirmed. There was a single receptacle on the front of the truck, which would periodically empty itself into the main storage in the bed behind the driver. They nonchalantly took first the “glass, metal and plastic bin” and dumped it into that receptacle. Then they repeated the process with the “paper” bin.

Apparently, separating the stuff is as futile as sifting out the peas from the mashed potatoes in each mouthful–they all end up in the same place. If it ever gets usefully separated, it must be after it reaches the dump. Is my face red.

On top of the recent news that recycling doesn’t save any money or resources, I hope that we can simplify all of our trash collection in the near future.