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On Sunday afternoon, I was on a White House conference call with American officials in Haiti, and what stands out from the call is the sheer logistical nightmare it is dealing with their airport. We've all seen and heard reports of complaints that Americans were "not letting the aid in," and now I understand why.

Col. Buck Elton, who was given the mission to open up airfield and assist with airlifts, says they have controlled 600+ takeoffs and landings in an airstrip that normally sees three takeoffs and landings a day.

Because the air traffic control tower has collapsed, all of this is being done by radio, on the ground - in a place that only has one runway/taxiway for planes, set directly in the middle of the airport and thus making it difficult for other planes to take off and arrive.

Col. Buck talked about how they have to "stack the aircraft until we have space for someone else to come in. " The maximum number of aircraft that can fit on the ground: one wide-body, five narrow-body planes. and three smaller aircrafts that can taxi in on the ground, filling that spot as necessary. (It sounds like a game of Tetris.)

"The volume is similar to running a major airport without computers, radar or other equipment," he said.

So now you know.

When I heard that "The Brady Bunch" turns 40 this Fall, I knew I couldn't bring myself to post the "Marsha Marsha Marsha," "Ow, my nose," or especially the "It's a Sunshine Day" musical number. Then I found this Jamie Foxx tribute to the theme song. Watch to the end: Jamie Foxx doing Prince doing the Brady Bunch theme? Priceless.

Open Thread below...

The Jed Report: I like Russ Feingold, but WTF! And I thought this guy, or maybe this guy, was the the Douchebag of the Week.

Balloon Juice: How the politicization of that patronage mill we laughingly call the Department of Justice could hurt Obama in November.

David E's Fablog: At the International AIDS Conference, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged nations “to follow Mexico’s bold example and pass laws against homophobia.”

Whiskey Fire: And you shall know us by the rolling of our eyes

TPMCafe: Somebody should drive a stake through the heart of the WaPo's coverage of economics, especially the Federal budget. The atrocities continue below...

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: Pedaling stupid...They love the 'elitist' meme but only for the black guy...WaPo calls out uppity Obama, later admits bungling his quote, but won't run retraction...Broderella mistakes Ted Stevens for the Prince of Peace...Media stenos gobble up 'Race Card' spin...Poli-tech 'reporter' for the Moonie Times...FBI obtained reporters' phone records...Things they didn't report...What you should know about the Associated Press...CNN anchor (Mrs. Dan Senor) scoffs at hearings critical of her husband's former employers....The Scum Also Rises...CNN uses selective breeding advocate as a source for "Black in America" series...MoDo hits bottom, keeps digging...The Real News Network...

Tsk, tsk, tsk...

The 23-year-old prince was posted in mid-December to the restive Helmand province of southern Afghanistan under a cloak of secrecy following an unusual agreement reached between the media and the army.

However, the arrangement collapsed after news was leaked on the US website, the Drudge Report, yesterday.
The ministry said the decision to withdraw the prince, who is third in line to the throne, was taken primarily because “the worldwide media coverage of Prince Harry in Afghanistan could impact on the security of those who are deployed there, as well as the risks to him as an individual soldier."

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File this one under Prince Harming. Apparently, Matt Drudge thought he had an exclusive on Prince Harry's whereabouts serving in the military in Afghanistan. It turns out that he didn't get the exclusive, but as Keith Olbermann points out on Thursday's Countdown, he does get all the blame - the blame for endangering Harry by revealing his location which had been kept a secret. More from The Independent UK:

An American website, the Drudge Report, broke a news blackout yesterday by revealing that Prince Harry has been serving in Afghanistan for more than two months.

To the fury of the Ministry of Defence and condemnation from the head of the British Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, the website announced a "world exclusive" and proclaimed: "They're calling him 'Harry the Hero!".

The article brought to an end an agreement with the media that the Prince's deployment to Helmand be kept quiet in the interests of his safety and that of the soldiers with him. [..]

"I am very disappointed that foreign websites have decided to run this story without consulting us. This is in stark contrast to the highly responsible attitude that the whole of the UK print and broadcast media, along with a small number of overseas outlets, who have entered into an understanding with us over the coverage of Prince Harry on operations," General Dannatt said. Read on...

Why does Drudge hate the troops and want them in harm's way?

Bill Moyers meticulously documents Erik Prince's exhaustive spin campaign over the last week, offering a crystal clear picture of how professional deceivers operate.

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Prince's rehearsed answer about Blackwater not being a mercenary force -- "we're Americans fighting for America"/ "a mercenary force is hired by a foreign army" -- shows just how out of touch and clueless he is. From the Iraqi perspective, Blackwater fits perfectly the definition of a mercenary force -- a for-profit killing force hired by (our) foreign army. Does he really not see that?

The entire interview with Blackwater expert Jeremy Scahill -- who wrote the definitive book on the rise of the private army -- can be streamed from the PBS site. Scahill does a tremendous job of exposing Prince and Blackwater for what they are -- a taxpayer-funded, for-profit, private killing force that operates outside the rule of law.

Posted by Courtney at Feministing:

FOX and CBS have both recently refused to air ads for condoms that emphasize their use as a birth control method. When interviewed by the New York Times, a FOX rep said, that the decision was based on their policy that condom ads "must stress health-related issues rather than the prevention of pregnancy." In other words, it is okay to educate consumers about STDs, but empowering them to make reproductive choices is beyond the purview of two of our nation's most sex-saturated networks.

You can read Courtney's full take on this at Alternet:

It is inexcusable that television networks, one of the best public sites for widespread education about safer sex, is acting coy at the cost of young women's fullest lives.

The first time I met 23-year-old Marvelyn Brown at a Washington, D.C., luncheon celebrating young women's achievements, she reached for her lemonade and I noticed a tiny red ribbon tattooed on her hand. Marvelyn and I got to talking, and I learned that she had been diagnosed with HIV at the age of 19. She contracted it from unprotected sex with a boy she described as "prince charming" back in her hometown of Nashville, Tenn. Her mother, whose only attempt at sex education was "just don't get pregnant," begged Marvelyn to tell everyone she had cancer instead. Read more...

You can also pick up a copy of the book "Full Frontal Feminism: A Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters" by Feministing's Jessica Valenti here.

(Photo courtesy of British Army) CTV:

The head of the British army says he has personally decided Prince Harry will go to Iraq.

Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt told BBC News the decision will be kept under review, but says he hopes his statement will end media speculation on Harry's deployment.

The 22-year-old Prince's regiment, the Blues and Royals, is due to begin a six-month tour of duty in Iraq within weeks. British commanders had reportedly been reconsidering their decision to allow the prince to fight in Iraq.[..]

Meanwhile, the Guardian newspaper is reporting that Shiite militants have set up a special squad targeting Harry should he be posted to Iraq.

The British newspaper quoted a commander in the Mahdi Army -- the militia loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr -- as saying the group had informants inside British army bases who would tip them off about Harry's presence.

Normally, this is one of those quasi-celebrity stories that I could not care less about. But I think it's important to point out one thing: I don't know how the royal family feels about the occupation in Iraq, but it would have been no big thing for them to arrange for Harry to not be deployed. But they didn't.

So I put it out there to all those talking heads who are still cheerleading the war: The man third in line for the throne of England is willing to put his life on the line (with direct threats, I might add). When are we going to see the same sacrifice of those unwilling to question the President? When will Jenna and Barbara land in the Green Zone?

This should never have happened in the United States. We're becoming a third world nation before our very eyes.

WaPo: (h/t Pach)

Twelve-year-old Deamonte Driver died of a toothache Sunday.

A routine, $80 tooth extraction might have saved him.

If his mother had been insured.

If his family had not lost its Medicaid.

If Medicaid dentists weren't so hard to find.

If his mother hadn't been focused on getting a dentist for his brother, who had six rotted teeth.

By the time Deamonte's own aching tooth got any attention, the bacteria from the abscess had spread to his brain, doctors said. After two operations and more than six weeks of hospital care, the Prince George's County boy died.

Deamonte's death and the ultimate cost of his care, which could total more than $250,000, underscore an often-overlooked concern in the debate over universal health coverage: dental care.

I'm sure you all feel MUCH better now that they've isolated the problem...

WaPo

The maker of Maryland's electronic voting system replaced a flawed electronic component in several thousand touch-screen voting machines in 2005, state election officials acknowledged this week.

To eliminate unpredictable "screen freezes" that have occurred since the machines were first used in Maryland in 2002, Diebold Election Systems installed new system boards in about 4,700 voting machines from four Maryland counties: Allegany, Dorchester, Montgomery and Prince George's.

The screen freezes do not cause votes to be lost, officials said, but they confuse voters and election judges who sometimes wonder whether votes cast on a frozen machine will be counted.

The acknowledgment of the repairs came in response to queries from The Washington Post and sheds further light on Maryland's troubled transition to electronic voting. Critics said it raises concerns about whether the state and company officials have kept the public adequately informed about problems with a system that cost taxpayers $106 million. Read on...