Washington Babylon — July 21, 2008, 8:52 am
SIGN IN to access Harper’s Magazine
ALERT: Usernames and passwords from the old Harpers.org will no longer work. To create a new password and add or verify your email address, please sign in to customer care and select Email/Password Information. (To learn about the change, please read our FAQ.)
Not a subscriber? Subscribe today!
Create a login here. Forgot password? Forgot email? More help here.
From the Project on Government Oversight (POGO):
While elements of the Air Force brass were bickering about color coordination for their new comfort capsules, troops have sat for hours on long flights in mangled seats and on netting inside cargo aircraft, POGO has learned. Last Friday, POGO revealed that numerous Air Force generals wasted time and taxpayer dollars on frivolous changes for new “world class” accommodations for themselves while they fly on cargo aircraft.
“No one disputes that senior Pentagon leaders need space, but contrast the time and money wasted bickering over the color of leather with what the troops go through,” said Nick Schwellenbach, POGO’s national security investigator.
Also see this previous statement from POGO, which originally reported on “two little-known programs to build ‘world-class’ luxury aircraft accommodations for the military and senior civilian leadership…Requirements documents emphasize the need for “aesthetically pleasing” accommodations. Emails obtained by POGO state that Air Force generals upgraded the leather, carpet, and wood choices, adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to the program cost.”
More from Ken Silverstein:
Commentary — July 25, 2012, 2:20 pm
Washington Babylon — September 29, 2010, 11:37 am
Ratio of the number of cicada eggs per square mile of southern New Jersey to the number of stars in the Milky Way:
Jeffrey Lockwood, University of Wyoming (Laramie)/American Museum of Natural History (N.Y.C.)
A Singaporean company unveiled Kissenger, a pair of plastic lips mounted on a large plastic egg, which transmits real-time interactive kisses to a distant lover. “I am not interested in the sexual uses for it,” said the device’s inventor. “We’ve taken several steps to minimize the creepiness.”
The practice of sexualized eyeball licking was causing conjunctivitis in Japanese sixth graders.
