Davos Meets the Blogosphere

In this pithy analysis, Billmon reacts to a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that discussed the impact and future of blogging upon journalism and information dissemination in general. His demand and mine: Hands off the blogosphere, corporations!

Outsourcing: The uneven playing field

This article is one of hundreds lately addressing the enormous impact on the US labor force of "outsourcing" of relatively well-paying jobs abroad. Ireland makes the most money from such jobs, followed closely by India. As I know from having recently called the 1-800 number to get a fixit for this laptop, New Delhi is the early-morning center for HP customer-service reps. (Who were polite, knowledgable and almost intelligible.)

So--Bush complains about uneven playing fields in manufactured goods, and as a result imposes tariffs to protect US manufacturers (read contributors). But meanwhile jobs flow abroad by the thousands, with not a peep from this Administration. It's part of the globalization of all forms of capital and labor, it is claimed; a natural result of the world being shrunk by quick and ready transport and communication. The American worker (not a Bush contributor) can suffer, but not a corporation. No siree, not when they save money by having their phones answered in India for one-fifth the expense. And we wonder why this is a jobless recovery.

A view from across the pond and a view from this side

A fine survey of the recent spate of books reviling Bush's foreign policy has been presented in the NYT, by an American residing now in France, with this conclusion:
"Though I have lived abroad for many years and regard myself as hardened to anti-Americanism, I confess I was taken aback to have my country depicted, page after page, book after book, as a dangerous empire in its last throes, as a failure of democracy, as militaristic, violent, hegemonic, evil, callous, arrogant, imperial and cruel."

I'm an American residing in America and I'm here to tell ya, I'm taken aback that the reviewer's taken aback. And it doesn't take book learnin' to know whazzup in America. It just takes a few afternoons.

As I've said before, I do an hour-long "peace march" on Saturdays with a handful of like-minded folks, and then about three afternoons a week I station myself at a well-traveled intersection here in SB with my protest sign that contains on one side an anti-war chant and on the other (recently revised) an anti-Bush message. I receive an equal number of favorable honks (including furtive displays of "peace signs") and furious glares accompanied, sometimes, by middle-finger signs.

The most troubling reactions, however, are those where the driver hangs out of the window and yells (this happened twice today, about average for an hour), "God Bless American and George W. Bush." I shit you not.

I'm not taken aback at how America is perceived abroad. Just like Nazi Germany was perceived.

Let's see if this story has legs

The United States Comptroller General--also head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office--has expressed alarm at the budget deficits that this administration is incurring and projecting. His report is a direct contradiction of the Bush/Cheney policy that "deficits don't matter," and he predicts an economic cataclysm if the tax cuts are made permanent, as Bush sought in his State of the Union message.

This isn't a political hack speaking. It's the man what holds the purse.

Worthy of a whisper in a major news outlet, this alarm? Let's see.

The ace in the hole: Dick Cheney

As I was out at the Dolphin Fountain in SB this afternoon with my protest sign, one side of which reads, "Anybody -- Absolutely Anybody -- But Bush!", I had a thought. Since the opponents are presenting a fear-based campaign, why not equalize it with our own?

The target wouldn't be Bush, scary as he is, because too many duped Americans think he's a nice, stupid guy. But Cheney. He's pretty much conceded to be the power behind the throne and he's not only scary, he's unlikeable as hell.

So, I think (in addition to a wealth of positive campaigning) the Democrats should tee off on Cheney with slogans like, "I'm scared of Dick Cheney. Aren't you?" and "Cheney runs this country. Four more years?" and "Cheney will give us four more wars." And "Cheney/Bush: Four more wars." I've just begun to spin slogans, but I think I'm onto something.

Finally, a syndicated writer understands

This article, by a British writer, is the first I've read that tries to get at the core purpose of bin Laden's activities. Step one, make the Muslim nations mad at us; step two, unite them in a holy war against us. With Bush in the White House, bin Laden has an administration that furthers his aims. He'll attack our soil again before the November election if he feels it will further Bush's re-election, and won't if he feels it won't. In that sense, Bush and bin Laden are allied. While we watch them destroy us.

Am I the only one

who's noticed Bush's hypocrisy in calling for numerous "faith-based initiatives," and for a constitutional amendment to disallow same-sex marriages in his State of the Union Address, while at the same time demanding that the "democracies" in Afghanistan and Iraq be entirely secular? Apparently, to the "religious right" religion in government is all right so long as it's the correct religion.

From the mouths of babes

My fellow AOL subscribers are hardly a sophisticated lot, and many of them are unabashed right-wingers. Thus, most "Members' Comments" aren't worthy of quoting. But tonight's is a beaut, a comment on Bush's State of the Union Address: "The best part of his speech was when he said that the Patriot Act would expire in a year."

World without end, amen

One cartoonist's take on Armageddon. (Takes a while to load.)

Somehow this Madness ...

Somehow this madness must cease. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam and the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop must be ours.

Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam
Delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
April 1967
At Manhattan's Riverside Church

Partly Cloudy

Look, it's partly cloudy in Baghdad. The weather is very much like it is here in Santa Barbara . I guess the difference here is a must less chance of thunderous midmorning explosions. Which is good, because I just don't have the clothes for it.

Sen Biden of Delaware says that a lot of Iraqis are pissed at America because, while they were so amazed that we could blow away Saddams regime, we can't get the power on and the water flowing, etc. And we didn't stop the looting until it was moot. I'm not suggesting that these are the same Iraqis blowing stuff up, just that the Bush Administration was abjectly unprepared to follow through after the Shock and Awe was over.

A new site

The Columbia School of Journalism has just launched CampaignDesk, a new website/blog that will track news stories during the upcoming election. They'll comment on poor or unfair stories, do followups, and otherwise act as ombudsman of the media. If this first day's entries are an indication of its worth, it's worthy.

It's still the debt and the jobs

Okay, so I may have misperceived the impact of the recent drop in the value of the dollar against the euro. It turns out that the same folks--in the 1980's called arbitragers, now unnamed but equally amoral--who manipulate the world's currencies have lately stemmed the dollar's decline. The dollar may resume its descent based on fundamentals--the wild US trade imbalance, its massive budget deficits--but currency traders are most attuned to day-to-day hints, hedges and speeches such as those by members of the Federal Reserve Bank and international agencies that are bound to protect their nations' currencies, speeches that have lately caused the traders to predict an upward blip of the dollar against the euro, softening its decline, averting a pre-panic alarm.
But the dollar is bouyed even more solidly by the purchase of American companies' stock and US debt instruments by foreigners, mostly Japanese and Chinese, who own an incredibly huge amount of these securities. They have little long-term interest in America's financial wellbeing, except as it may support their ownership of dollar-based debt and assets.
They're not fools, however. Even though, as holders of trillions of dollars in US currency, treasury notes and corporate stock, they surely don't relish a decline in the value of their holdings, they also don't want to be the last passengers off the Titanic.
If it should occur--as might happen if the US economy continues to waddle through months of unemployment and underemployment--that the dollar is confirmed to be fundamentally weak (that is, truly the currency of a failing national economy, overly beholden to the support of others) these dollar-based-asset holding nations might decide to sell their dollars and debt all at once to beat the decline that they see as inevitable. At that point, all bets are off, and we could well see a global dollar massacre.
It could happen any moment. All it takes is for the world to realize, as the next few months' figures might well reveal, that the potency of the American economy is a borrow-based fiction. Once the first foreign investor sniffs that out, watch out. Time to move to Canada, Sweden or the proverbial desert island and leave the rest of the world to fight over scraps.

Spin, spin, everywhere spin

When reading the news these days, I must remember to bear in mind the motivation of the entity that disseminates it. Faux News, of course, has an ideological bent that renders its "news" tainted, a taint readily discernible. More difficult to remain aware of, however, is the spin that is applied even by so-called "hard news" outlets, such as those that report economic developments.
Take for example, this story from today's Dow Jones wire, reporting the status of inflation as recently reported by the Labor Department.

The "gist" of the story is stated in the opening paragraphs thus:

"The consumer price index rose a scant 0.2% in December, reversing 0.2% decline in November, the Labor Department said Thursday. The closely watched core index, which excludes food and energy prices, rose 0.1%. In annual terms, consumer prices rose 1.9% in 2003, the smallest rate in two years."

An upbeat development, it would seem, until one reads to the final paragraph of the story, where the truly significant statistic--the fact that impacts most Americans--appears.

"In a separate report, the Labor Department said average weekly earnings of U.S. workers, adjusted for inflation, declined 0.6% in December as a 0.2% increase in average hourly earnings was more than offset by a 0.6% decline in average weekly hours and a 0.2% gain in the CPI for urban wage earners and clerical workers. Over the course of 2003, average weekly earnings rose 1.7% on a seasonally adjusted basis."

So, what really happened in December was that there was a tiny uptick in the price of consumer goods (the CPI), an identical increase (0.2%) in average hourly earnings--a wash--but a decrease in workers' weekly earnings because of fewer working hours. The result: A net loss of workers' purchasing power over the last month of 2003. This decline capped a year in which workers' earnings grew a "scant" (to borrow the word from the opening paragraphs of the article) 1.7%, which is actually one-tenth of one percent less than the increase in consumer prices (1.8%) over the year. So the working consumer ended the year with a worse month than the year as a whole, and the year was one in which the worker consumer lost ground against prices for consumer goods.

The upbeat tone of the article can be accounted for by Dow Jones' bias. It's in the business of business, of trading in stocks and commodities, of benefiting from borrowings and investments and of reporting same. If the news is downbeat, its various functions lag. Moral: Read the entire article--including the bottom "graph"--and more than one article, on any subject. Or--don't read anything. Just look around you and see what's happening.

Do you remeber your Al-Gebra?

Not only is the Administration on the lookout for the dreaded Al-manac, now there's an even deadlier source of terror. Enjoy.

Imagine Our Surprise

President Bush, whom we all thought was a sure thing for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, has been Accused of Waging Unnecessary War in Iraq. Of all the unmitigated audacity. It's those irrepressible Kennedys again. They just can't help but poke fun at the kids from Skull & Bones.

Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy said Bush had capitalized on fear from the September 11 attacks to put a "spin on the truth to justify a war that could well become one of the worst blunders in more than two centuries of American foreign policy."

Aw come one, Ed. The president's gotta cowboy up once in a while, open him up a barrel or two of good old down home Texas Whupass. What good is being president if you can't find you some terrists, flush 'em outta their holes, head 'em up and round 'em up and run 'em to ground and such? As long as he takes care of the economy, the enviroment and health care, let's just let him have some fun.

U.S. Soldiers' Suicide Rate Is Up in Iraq

Erik and I were discussing just this afternoon what we perceive to be a decline in readership for this blog. One possibility, we said, might be that an anti-war blog isn't a lot of fun. We'll this damn sure isn't going to help. If we could oppose this war with Michael Jackson jokes, we'd do it, but the truth isn't quite that bizarre. The truth is that The Suicide Rate for U.S. Soldiers' in Iraq Is Up.

Support our Troops: Bring them home from that hellhole.

Comments function fubar

It seems our need comments function isn't working. I checked the site for BlogSpeak, which provides that function, and found the following message:

BlogSpeak is currently down because the bastards that host it decided to suspend my account. I do not know as of yet when this situation will be resolved. If you don't want any JavaScript errors on your pages, take the code off for the time being. Thanks for your patience.

So I guess we'll give it a little time and see what happens. If you want to send a comment in the mean time, use one of the e-mail links (our names) in the left hand column. Thanks.

blogspeak

Bush buck passing

In Southern Iraq, the Shia "Pope"--al Talibani--is demanding popular elections instead of the local caucuses that the US has decided will choose the members of the group that will draft the constitution and proceed to "democracy." He has threatened violence if his call is not heeded, and the US isn't heeding it, so far.

In the north, the Kurds are demanding autonomy, including control over Tikrit and its oil, while the US is demurring, deferring, hoping they can get the hell out of Iraq before the place catches fire--and hoping it won't catch fire until after the November election.

In the central Sunni section the US is hoping to suppress the populace enough to stifle dissent and insurgency until July 1, so that they can announce a relinquishment of political power, with trumpets and CNN coverage, while maintaining the hundred-plus thousands of soldiers on the outskirts of Baghdad to enforce US interests and prohibit anti-US activities.

We, Bush opponents, can only hope that one or all of Bush's plans goes awry, and that it does so far enough before the fall election to reveal what a fraud this invasion and occupation actually is.

Come to the party, NYT

Three months ago (so long ago that the post isn't still available in our archives), I pointed out the likely illegitimacy of the Iraq Coalition Provisional Administration's privatization of the nation's industries, as well as other acts it decreed in furtherance of "economic reform." There was a spate of analyses at the time, including a detailed essay by Naomi Klein, that questioned the legality, under international law, of such broad alterations of the laws of the occupied country, based on the provisions of the Geneva Convention, and otherwise founded in international law.

Now, finally, the NYT has seen the light. It has interviewed a handful of international lawyers and professors who agree with Naomi Klein and (I say this with all humility--not) me.
Soooo--Tribune Bremer has once again screwed up. Any deal the CPA makes now to attract outside investment in Iraq is subject, say these experts, to being rescinded by the duly constituted government of Iraq, should one come into existence.

Would you buy a car from this man? Would you invest your bucks in Iraq? Yeah, maybe, but not while the US is in charge. So much for Bush's plan of bringing economic prosperity to Iraq. Turns out they've got to do it themselves. It's the law.

It's jobs, stupid

December's numbers are out, and it's clear that whatever impact the tax cuts may have had on GDP and other features of the nation's economic picture, the employment figures reveal that jobs are in the toilet. Not just the pitiful number of jobs created, but the quality of jobs in terms of security and pay and benefits. We're talking about an economy that's adding temp positions and burger-flipping jobs in the stead of solid employment--full-time, responsible, vested and well paid. A large segment of the American workforce has become transient, migrant workers, and the rest of them have no jobs at all.

Yes, the GDP will get another blip-boost when hefty income tax refunds are mailed out to taxpayers, the result of the lower rate that was applied to the last several months of their wages. But that will translate, as did the one-time refunds in May, into retirement of their astounding personal debt or into a brief consumption bounce (of products made in China or Korea however).

And then? A dramatic downward slide of the jobs figures, and personal income figures, through the summer until the November election. And there's nothing Bush can do about it.

I can't wait.

The beat goes on and on and on

Iraqi police kill six protesters in southern Iraq. American troops shoot two Iraqi policemen by mistake. A taxi full of Iraqis is killed when the cab attempts to pass an Army convoy on the highway.

No wonder the Nazis didn't occupy southern France in World War Two. It's a pain in the ass killing all these people.

"There's always something..."

In the ensuing weeks (if not already) we'll understand that Bush's "immigration reform" proposal wasn't meant to ease the plight of immigrants but to massage Latino voters and provide cheap labor to agribusiness. His "moon, then Mars" announcement, already seen as a silly "hid the weenie" ruse (the weenie being all of his other failings), will turn out to be the first step in the use of the moon as a launching pad for weapons.

And now the formal announcement of POW status for Saddam Hussein. To protect his rights? Hardly. The significant protection might have been freedom from interrogation, but they've already had him in their grip, incommunicado, for a month, thereby either getting what they wanted from him or learned that they weren't going to.

No, my hunch is that such status is solely for the US to retain control over his prosecution so that his defense can't raise at his trial those nasty tidbits of US's manipulation of his regime over the last two decades.

Apparently, the Iraqi Governing Council is miffed that the CPA didn't consult with them before making the POW determination, but it plans nevertheless to go forward with its trial of him this summer. I wouldn't be so sure they'll get their way. To be sure, the Bushies would like that ongoing drama during the pre-election period, but without US control? That could be dangerous, feeding out too much information about our cynically corrupt policies in the Middle East. I think, rather, the Iraqi trial will be postponed until after the 2004 election (as will Saddam's POW-War Crimes Trial), or the Iraqi trial will be somehow controlled by the US to avoid embarrassing Bush during the pre-election period.

[Update: The Iraqis react to the US announcement of Saddam's POW status. They're onto Bush.]

POW

Depending on who's spinning him, Saddam may or may not be a POW. Wait! I see a screenplay fermenting here. Saddam could play the Christopher Walken role in a ripoff of the Deer Hunter -- "The Yak Hunter." Soundtrack by Travis Tritt. Think we'd get sued? Bring 'em on.

I'm sold

I've been following, with some diligence, the Democrats' quest for the best candidate to beat Bush. I've now decided. It's Howard Dean.

Because I don't have a TV I haven't seen much of the candidates or their debates. But lately I've been tuning in on them through internet casts and I've gotta tell ya, Dean's smart, eloquent and, most important, direct and forceful in his ideas and his presentation of them. In short, he "tells it like it is" and that, to me, counts for everything.

I was treasurer of Bobby Kennedy's campaign in Southern Arizona in 1968--the campaign was brief, of course, because the vote followed California's by only a few weeks--and felt the same surge of energy then as floods me when I hear Dean speak. Now, Arianna explains why.

Call me irrepressible, I'm now a fan, a Deanfanatic.

Summertime, summertime

It just occured to me that the slumping dollar could mean that Europeans will be attracted to the United States in droves this summer, because of the favorable exchange rate of their currency to ours. Think of it: Compared to last summer, a hundred euros will buy a night at a $130 motel instead of an $80 one. The tourist influx could spark our economy bigtime.

Too bad it will take them all summer just to gain admittance past the sniffing dogs, the fingerprinters and the rectal probers.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but...

I'm confused. All I've ever heard from the US press, including dispatches from the Pentagon, was that Saddam was captured as a product of glorious US intelligence--and, I recall, that the $25 million reward wasn't going to be disbursed for some undisclosed reason. I also remember murmurs of a leading role played by the Kurds in the capture. I believe there was a mention that Saddam was, or appeared to be, drugged when he was dug out of his hole.

Now there's this report, muddled as it is. Do we have another Jessica Lynch story/fiasco in the making? Maybe so. Check out these posts.

And then there's this

The briefest, clearest exposition of the Bush Administration's attack on the "lock box" of Social Security to fund its deficit spending. Scary, scary. And the main reason I decided to start taking my social security benefits early.

More about the Labor Department report

Not only did the December report show an anemic gain in jobs (1,000), it also revised downward the previous month's job growth, from 57,000 to 43,000. (Bear in mind that Bush told us in April 2003 that his tax cuts would cause the creation of 306,000 new jobs per month!).

So over the last two months of "recovery" we've gained a total of 44,000 jobs, far below the number of new entrants into the labor force by reason of our population growth. We are therefore suffering a steep net loss in the ratio of jobs to workers, not gaining at all. And yet the unemployment rate declined to 5.7%, showing how inaccurate that measurement truly is. The sites I linked to below show this, as does the exlanation that the Whisky Bar provides here.

To add insult to insult, the jobs that are being created aren't in the lucrative fields of high-tech and manufactuing, which are showing net losses each month, but in the service sectors (food delivery and such) and in temporary jobs, both of which are notoriously low paying and insecure.

As a result of this report, the analysts predict that the Fed will leave interest rates at their present record low level, to continue to spur the economy. But of course that will cause a further weakening of the dollar, which will inevitably drive up the price we have to pay for imports, such as Japanese cars and TV sets, so that US consumers will face higher prices with less money. But business will benefit because the weak dollar will open the export market to them since their dollar-priced products will be cheaper abroad. And now Bush, with his "immigration reform" notion, wants to re-institute the Bracero program, the evil system that Congress finally discontinued after years of allegations of enslavement of Latin Americans in back-breaking, physical toil.

If this isn't greed-driven exploitation of the masses in favor of corporate wealth, I don't know what is.

La la land

I've finally got it! The explanation for Bush's behavior. He's nuts! Wacko! 'Round the bend! He's goddam delusional.

Check out this news item:

"President Bush, speaking after [italics mine] a report showing an unexpectedly small gain of 1,000 U.S. non-farm jobs in December, said on Friday all signs pointed to strength in the U.S. economy. 'I'm optimistic,' Bush told a forum on small business. 'All of the signs in our economy are very strong.' Bush's comment was in sharp contrast with the Labor Department's report that said U.S. payrolls outside the farm sector grew a mere 1,000 in December, far less than the 130,000 projected by U.S. economists in a Reuters survey."

The Labor Department is part of Bush's cabinet, for God's sake! Doesn't he read its reports? (Well, we know he rarely reads the news, but don't his minions at least read them to him?)

And check out this article, refering to the same report:

"American employers hardly took on any new workers in December, a disappointing government report Friday said, indicating the economic recovery has yet to translate into sustained jobs growth. The unemployment rate fell to 5.7 percent, the lowest in over a year and down from 5.9 percent in November. But this was mainly because people dropped out of the work force....
"The poor report is a headache for President Bush as he seeks re-election in November with the economy -- specifically job creation -- expected to be a key issue in the campaign. But Bush, speaking to a small business forum, was upbeat, saying all economic signs were 'very strong'. He said the drop in the unemployment rate was a 'positive sign' of an improving economy.
"Economists disagreed. 'It's a shocker. The one ray of sunshine, the decline in the unemployment rate, is ironically a sign of weakness,' said Cary Leahey, senior U.S. economist, Deutsche Bank Securities, New York. 'The only reason it declined is that fewer people were looking for jobs in December.'
"The dollar and stock market fell and U.S. Treasury bond prices rose after the report."

The other explanation is that Bush (and/or his minions) make an announcement--any announcement, regardless of its relationship to reality--to cover up, or cancel out, an unfavorable news item with a headline of their choosing. This makes sense, because Bush no doubt knew of the unfavorable Labor Department report before it was published and chose to make his "upbeat" remarks anyway.

It had the desired effect, too: The two items from AOL News that I refered to above, reporting the same news, carried these two headlines: "December Jobs report worse than expected" and "Bush says US economy 'very strong'." The result, given the level of readership, would be a non-news item, a cancelling out, just as Bush's handlers intended.

And so it goes, all the way to November.

[For accurate analyses of the "job creation" resulting from Bush's tax cut, check out this site.]

GW, there's bad news...and bad news.

The Carnegie Foundation for International Peace concludes the Bush Administration "systematically misrepresented" the evidence of the presence of WMD in Iraq. The US-dominated International Monetary Fund reports that the "US budget deficits threaten world economy." Thirty-four soldiers are wounded and one killed in a mortar attack, while nine more are killed in the crash of a Blackhawk helicopter. US soldiers scoff at the offered $10,000 re-enlistment bonus, while the Army issues "stop loss" orders to prevent existing troops from ending their enlistment periods.

To Bush, how distant must seem the refrain of Reagan's re-election slogan, "It's morning in America."

35 Personnel

Yahoo! News - Iraq Mortar Attack Wounds 35 U.S. Soldiers:

Well, insurgent personnel on the ground engaged 35 of our personnel with mortars. Translation: Angry people in Iraq hurt 35 of our guys with bombs. This brings two questions to my mind tonight. I'm tired, so I'll be brief.

Why didn't we send anyone along to Iraq who can speak to the media without sounding like a wind-up GI Joe? Personnel means a group of people working in a particular place, such as an office, and the department within a company concerned with them (e.g., Personnel Department). It is not interchangeable with the word people. ... "The building was searched and no weapons or personnel were found. Upon questioning, civilians in the area reported two dead personnel were taken to a nearby hospital." Translation: We searched the building we blew up, but didn't find any weapons or people. But their neighbors said they took two dead people to the hospital.

What in the wide world of sports are our troops doing in Iraq now? Searching for what or whom? Neutralizing what regime or WMD? None of the reasons that Mr. Bush and his flying monkeys cited for this war still exists, except bringing lovely democracy to the forlorn Iraq people. News flash: they don't want it, can't use it, thank you very much but scram.

Time to get out of Dodge, because no matter what reason they think they still have for our people being there, it's not worth human lives.

speak now

Behold! This blog now offers Comments functionality, thanks to an html class I once endured, and a site that offers the code for free. So now all our friends can join us in our intrepid ascent to the icy altitudes of free speech. "Bring 'em on."

Bursting the bubble

This article in the Christian Science Monitor about the myth of the populist stock market says it all: Capitalism is for people with capital. The rest of us are its victims.

Now for something completely different

I usually reserve non-political stuff for my other blog, but I thought the readers of All That Arises could use this. It's one of those stories that tends to restore one's faith in people.
Puppy receives a new home and mobility

An indigestible digression

I don't think about war/peace/politics all the time. For example, I found irresistible the list of requested menus of last meals of 301 Texas death-row prisoners, salvaged by The Memory Hole from the Texas Penitentiary website.

Go ahead, fellow ghoul, scroll down the list. What fascinated me: (1) Not a filet mignon to be found; (2) the prisoner who ordered only a jar of dill pickles (#235); (3) the prisoner who asked that his meal be given to a homeless person (#123); (4) the one who wanted the eucharist (#160); and (5) the one who asked for "justice, equality, world peace" (#209).

The list also shows the criminal history, complete with mugshot, of each prisoner. Are we seeing the origin of a new board game here?

Why didn't I think of that?

The Pentagon is contemplating adding another layer of military bureaucracy in Iraq: a four-star general on top of the mere three-star general who's presently in charge.

Never mind that the madness is the product of our warmongering ways. This additional star will fix it, no doubt.

Am I becoming a Libertarian?

I'm finding myself in startling agreement with Libertarian essays and satire. I've always (for four decades, anyway) been distrustful of government, more than most of my liberal friends, I believe. But now that the Farther Right is taking on Bush's monstrous-government mentality, I cannot help but agree with much of what their best pundits are writing. Take this piece on Stupid Vogue. Brilliant. And The Borowitz Report on a Bush plan to "catch-and-release" Saddam Hussein. ROTFLOL.

Krugman quoting Rubin quoting Mankiw

Okay, it's an obscure headline, but the NYT article isn't. Krugman, the Times' financial columnist, details a scholarly piece published over the weekend by Robert Rubin, former Treasury Secretary, which warns of an impending "crisis of confidence" in the American economy if Bush's profligate spending/unfair taxation policies aren't abandoned. Rubin, in turn, quotes a previous article by Gregory Mankiw, who's presently chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, to the same effect.

The synopsis of Krugman's essay is that, like other countries, notably Argentina, the US policies are headed toward such a disastrous climax--with no end in sight as Boomers begin to retire in four years--that other nations, as well as US citizens, will come to doubt the viability of the US economy, and when doubt sets in, look out. The effects of such loss of confidence in an economy as dominant as ours is unknown, but frightening--just as the effects of our present spending/income differential are unknown--and frightening.

Rubin's no left-wing nut, Krugman points out. As Clinton's Treasury Secretary he was Mr. Sharp-pencil, whose policies turned the economy around from its woeful state in the early 1990's.

If Rubin's worried, so should we be.

What's the problem?

Syria's president says he won't consider acceding to US demands that he account for and abandon all WMDs, unless Israel does so. They are bordering countries--Israel still occupies the Golan Heights, part of Syrian lands--and Israel is known to possess nuclear-weapon capability. Makes sense to me.

Not just 1984, 1987!

Forex, a foreign exchange reporting site, has this to say about the declining dollar:


"Recall that an orderly decline in the dollar turned ugly was the very backdrop in 1987. Only this time the US is the world's largest debtor nation, not a net creditor, which means the downturn could be worse as it requires $2 billion in foreign financing a day. In the near term US deficits may continue to be funded by Asian central banks, but it may eventually take a sharp rise in bond yields (wanted or not) to stop the dollar's decline."

I was in the stock market, and in real estate, in 1987. What a gross debacle on both counts. You couldn't give away a house or vacant lot, didn't dare put your money in the market or in an S&L. And this decline could spell worse? Ouch.

News - Army Forcing Troops to Stay in Harm's Way

This kind of makes one view those "Army of One" commercials in a different light. And it's a dandy way to boost morale.
Yahoo! News - Army Trying to Keep Troops From Leaving

Dropping dollar

Atrios, blogger of Eschaton, displays an illuminating chart of the daily decline of the value of the dollar against the euro.

Here's what it comes down to: Will the US be spared the effect of its profligate spending (against declining income) by other nations' forebearance from support? Will they fear the debacle the US is approaching sufficiently to keep from acknowledging it?

I'm sure it doesn't occur only to me that while we hold military hegemony over the other nations on the planet, we're handing them economic power over us. A new form of MAD--mutually assured destruction.

The "S" word

This guest editorial in a Seattle paper dares to explore the reason why Bush's popularity remains high, even though a factual investigation of his administration would cause outrage.

More good job news

As we know, "outsourcing" jobs to lesser-paid workers in foreign countries hasn't, for some time, been limited to sneaker-stitching child-labor sweatshops in Southeast Asia. Tech jobs are fleeing to India, factory jobs to China and Korea, all because of low pay and low-cost transport and communication. Now, however, some new twists that take advantage of the lower cost as well as other factors available in foreign lands:

Medical research, pathology and even billing is being outsourced abroad to utilize the time-change differential, thereby allowing constant activity, round-the-clock results without paying overtime. Accountancy too, and similarly time-sensitive occupations may find practitioners in foreign lands flooded with demand from American businesses as we become more dependent on speed in our culture and the communication revolution is able to deliver on a world-wide basis that which one could only obtain from the local business in the old days.

The finest irony? Bush's massive tax cuts, meant to stimulate the economy and create American jobs, will be calculated by a category of newly-outsourced foreign employees. You guessed it: Tax-return preparers.

Journalists Take Flak in Iraq

Media people covering the war are being confronted by American troops, hassled, and their film erased or destroyed, according to this article in The Nation.

"Our journalists in Iraq have been shoved to the ground, pushed out of the way, told to leave the scene of explosions; we've had camera disks and videotapes confiscated, reporters detained," says an official of the Associated Press.

One good thing about Bush

He's given us plenty of delicious fodder for anti-administration ads. You can vote for your choice of the fifteen finalists but the decision is up to the judges, including Michael Moore.

Sinatra's tribute to Saddam

An entertaining collage of fifty years of Iraqi history, set to music. Enjoy.

Rebranding Bush

This article in the Guardian about the new Bush approach that appears to favor international diplomacy over war and multilateralism over cowboyism, contains this incisive (and appropriately cynical) comment:

"With elections 11 months away, Mr Bush does not want to be vulnerable to claims that he has presided over a warmongering strategy that has left Americans little safer than September 11 2001. His shift follows an established pattern in Washington of politicians moving to the centre during an election year."

Recall Bush's first campaign as the "compassionate conservative" and the "consensus builder"? It is the task of the opposition (among other Herculean ones) to make sure he doesn't get away with his rebranding now, because if he does and is reelected we face four years in which he has no incentive to do other than his worst, worse even than in his first four years, unimaginable as that is.

Happier New Year!

My take on 2003 in a nutshell.

Two thousand four has got to be better.

Iraqi police

This article in the Guardian describes the state of the Iraqi police force that the US has been training and recently deploying in Tikrit. To the US Commander's chagrin, the police often cover their faces on patrol to avoid identification; and are both poorly equipped and trained, occasionally firing at other Iraqi policemen by mistake.

"The good thing is they can't hit anything," remarked the US officer who's in charge of their training.

U.S. Not Worried About Dollar Drop

Whew. What a relief. Weakness is strength and Washington isn't worried. I should've guessed; the end of the major conflict wasn't the end of anything in particular, so why should weakness be weakness?

A kettle of fish/A walk in the park

Okay, let's see. A group of Turkomen (whoever they are) and arabs gathered yesterday in oil-rich Kirkuk (which once was a Kurdish city (whatever that is), from which Saddam some years ago drove the Kurds) to protest the Kurds' desire to include the city in an independent entity, not controlled by a central Iraqi government. The Iraqi police in Kirkuk (whoever they are) fired on the group, killing two and injuring several. The US Army wasn't directly involved apparently.

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, the Kurdish representatives to the Iraqi Governing Council (whatever it governs) are plumping for an independent Kurdish entity, including Kirkuk, to be recognized right away and to be spelled out in the governing law that is to be promulgated before the constitution is drawn up and voted on in 2005. The other Iraqi representatives don't want the Kurds to become a separate entity. Neither, of course, do the Turks to the north of Iraq, because that would likely cause the Turkish Kurds (whoever they are) to want to join their southern neighbors by severing themselves from Turkey.

The US is an ally of Turkey, and so the US probably doesn't want an independent Kurdish entity in Iraq, either. (Besides, there's all that oil!) But a decision would seem to be the province of the Iraqi Governing Council under the "democracy" that the US is supposedly promoting in Iraq. So do we take sides on this issue? Do we support the Kurds who are seeking autonomy (they were our allies against Saddam, and may have been responsible for his capture, recall)? Do we keep hands off? Do we use our troops to quell disturbances, thereby becoming embroiled in what amounts to a Middle-East civil war?

Compared to the latter, a land war in Asia is a walk in the park.

Boy oh boy, is 2004 going to be fun to watch!

Forex news

I had to emerge from my dialup-driven holiday hiatus to inform loyal readers (you'll learn it on this blog first) that the dollar's slide has become free fall. A telling chart of dollar/euro price over time may be found here, and shows that after hanging at alltime lows (in the $1.24 range) for several days, the dollar tested the $1.25 area for the first time on Monday and by this morning (early, early) had already dropped into the $1.26 range. A decline of a penny less than a day of trading!
I predict that the mainstream news, as well as the experts, will now address the reality of a plummeting dollar, which will in turn weaken the dollar further, which will in short order put the skids on the "recovery" because the fed will have to increase interest rates to maintain the buyers' interest in US debt instruments, which are, as we know, the only means by which the US is able to raise the money needed to feed its imbalance between spending and income.
I don't like to be the bearer of bad economic tidings; but my pain of doing so is balanced by joy watching Bush's buddies in the capital/corporate markets finally reveal that Bush's economic recovery has been a debt-fed fraud.

DKos presents an extended message board on the subject here.

Busting Ben Franklin

The FBI says local cops should be on the lookout for people carrying almanacs. 'Cuz dey got lots uh information, ya know. Like about cities an bridges an stuff. Morons. I swear, the practical intelligence of our Homeland Security folks is inversely proportional to the current terror alert level. Which, by the way is Ernie.

My grandfather liked the World Almanac. He gave me a lot of books, and the last one was a World Almanac. If it had been dangerous, I assure you he would have warned me. He was good at that sort of thing; always reminded me to check my tires.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
--Albert Einstein

FBI urges police to watch for people carrying almanacs

Despair Is Not an Option

A fine short essay by William Sloan Coffin, from The Nation. One of my favorite magazines.

Brutality of US Troops

Don't worry, this NY Times article is about atrocities committed by US troops in Vietnam. I'm sure nothing like this is going on now. War isn't this insane any more, so our young soldiers aren't so afraid, wouldn't be pushed to such stark regions of madness.

Report on Brutal Vietnam Campaign Stirs Memories

Warren Buffet and me

So, I'm not crazy, after all. This article summarizes my previous observations about the sliding dollar and its potential effect on inflation and the welfare of the US economy generally. If Buffet and Soros are snapping up foreign currencies, something's gonna give.

Whoa there, cowboy

SF Chronicle points out it's time for the Bush administration to stop trying to strip defendants of their constitutional rights to due process.
"Even during a national emergency, the executive branch doesn't have the right to a wholesale denial of rights."
Courts draw line on civil liberties

Defenseless Defenders

The Army deliberately decided not to equip Nat'l Guard units with defensive equipment, to save money. Your tax dollars at work, but on a break. [ News ]

Watching paint dry

I'm spending the holidays in Arizona, and my only connection to the internet is by dialup. The result is that I devote most of my online time watching a blank screen, waiting for the meter on the bottom to creep across before the image of a new page appears.
So, I won't be posting for a week or so, until I can get back to my DSL modem, which is surely no cable hookup, but it beats the hell out of sitting here doing nothing but grinding my teeth.

Meanwhile, I recommend you check out life in the new Baghdad, as told by Riverbend. From what she describes, my travails aren't worthy of complaint, not at all.

"Dishonest Dubya" Lying Action Figure

I'm getting ready to take off for Christmas. ... And by take off, I don't mean to land on the deck of an aircraft carrier. ... See y'all later. Thanks to Pete for this link to the #1 item on my Santa list:

"Dishonest Dubya" Lying Action Figure

"And when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace."
-- George W. Bush

Beat the clock

No less an authority than the Congressional Budget Office, the official surveyor of federal income and expense, predicts disaster for the nation's purse unless drastic steps are taken to decrease spending and increase revenues to the treasury (read higher taxes). The crunch is not far off, given the imminent growth of demand upon the federal fisc in the form of dramatically higher numbers of social security claimants as boomers begin to retire.

"Failing to act would drive the accumulated federal debt to unsustainable levels, said the study, released Friday. 'Taken to the extreme, such a path could result in an economic crisis,' including the possibilities that foreign investors would pull out, the dollar's value plunge, interest rates and prices soar and stock markets collapse.

"'The longer that lawmakers delay acting to counter an unsustainable budgetary situation, the larger the spending cuts or tax increases will eventually have to be,' the 60-page study warned."

I can just see the White House folks, praying they can put off the catastrophe until the election. For my part, I hope the slide into disaster starts soon, so the blame may be laid at Bush's feet, where it surely belongs, and so we have a chance to elect someone who will take steps to alleviate the inevitable pain of Bush's no-tax-much-spend policies.

Time to place a call to Yap?

About this war – the one in Iraq, you know – it’s worse than I thought it was going to be. I pictured running gun battles in the streets, with the Iraqis having a frustrating home field advantage. But I also thought it would have a beginning, a horrible process, and an end. I figured at some point, before too long, we’d beat them. Superior troops, weapons and tactics. I didn’t think it would linger on like this, so much like Vietnam.

I saw on CNN a day or two ago that the 200 mark had been hit. 200 American dead since the aircraft carrier speech. And I don’t think we’re much closer to neutralizing the insurgency than on that day – a day that will live in stupidity. Pulling Saddam from his lair won't do it, friends. They still hate us, and they're still willing to do violence.

This war has been an exercise in monumental arrogance. The aftermath of “major operations” has been an orgy of hypocrisy. We can start with the fact that Halliburton – and for that matter the U.S. Government – is just as guilty of dealing with Old Shaggy Bunkerbutt than the countries that have been precluded from rebuilding contracts for fraternizing with the dictator. If every country and company that ever dealt with Hussein were locked out of rebuilding deals, Iraq would get rebuilt by the Masai and the Federated States of Micronesia.

I guess it boils down to the obvious. Leadership is needed to end the insanity. And nobody currently in office is up to the job. … Dis-appoint Bush in ’04!

Democracy in Iraq, but not in US

The irony overwhelms.

A quote from a Shia cleric:

"We don't want a dictatorship of the majority to dominate," said Mr. Hakim. "But we do want to preserve the rights of the majority, which is the Shia, and the simplest right is to have the head of state come from the majority. Isn't that correct?"

Debt forgiveness

Since whiffs of it began to seep into the news, I've wondered what this "debt forgiveness" campaign by the US, lately through envoy James Baker, was about. Now I understand. (Click on the "press releases" link.)

"Creditors" who financed Hussein's regime, including the US, were unlikely to be repaid by the new Iraq, so in the guise of forgiveness, they may see some money through IMF sanction of new, albeit lesser, debt, saddling the new Iraq with the sums.

This, like so many other matters the US is "handling" for Iraq, such as the opening of Iraqi commerce to foreign ownership, is done without legal sanction from a democratically founded Iraqi entity, and is done in furtherance of US commercial and political aims, leaving Iraq's truly-constituted government with nothing to do but design the national flag and compose the national anthem.

my cat

Wanna see my cat?
Make sure your sound is turned on first.

Even if taken with a grain of salt, a grain of truth abides

This ezine may not be unbiased, but if just one-third of its reports approximate the truth, I am ashamed for our military, ashamed to be an American.

Freepers, creepers

I will likely use the word "Freeper" or "Freepers" hereafter in this blog. An exhaustive definition may be found here. Once you read it you'll appreciate how handy the word is in my parlance.

Oops

BBC reports that Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, the present President of the Iraqi Governing Council and a leading Shia Muslim who lived for years in exile in Iran (#2 nation of Bush's "axis of evil"), is making cozy with Iran. Much too cozy, I'm certain, for Bush, Rummie and Wolfie, who are stridently demanding that Iraq be scoured for nuclear potentiality.

Not only is Al-Hakim asserting that Iraq should pay Iran $100 billion in reparations for Saddam Hussein's war against Iran (highly embarrassing to Bush, one would think, when he's asking Iraq's creditors and other nations that are owed reparations, such as Kuwait, to forgive indebtedness from Iraq), but the BBC reporter also made this tiny observation:

"The [Iraqi invasion of Iran] claimed the lives of at least one million people, and during the conflict Iraq used nerve gas against the Iranians. The Iranian Government is preparing a comprehensive complaint against Saddam Hussein for 'crimes' against the Islamic republic, calling for the captured former Iraqi leader to be tried before an international court.
"Some Iranian observers say the US should also be in the dock with Saddam Hussein, as Washington supported him at the time of the war."

How long do you think the Bushies are going to allow these "Iranian observers" to remain so observing? For that matter, surviving?

Let them eat war

The psychologist author of a definitive piece about Nascar Dads is interviewed here. The article also contains a link to her original essay examining the incongruity of the high percentage of white workingstiff voters that Bush is likely to attract in the upcoming election--and the psychological underpinnings their attraction to him--unless the Democratic candidate can recoup them for the party that deserves their allegiance.

Martial Law

Do I like seeing people protest in favor of that asshat Saddam? No. As I said yesterday, I wish Clinton had succeeding in killing him. I think the support he still gets from some morons is revolting. (I continue to be surprised by President Bush's approval ratings too.)

Still it's funny I don't remember martial law being declared in Iraq by the United States. I remember reading in history class that the Nazis posted formal notices of occupation and martial law, at least in the city of Paris. I remember when Baghdad fell, a couple of US flags were seen, then quickly removed. Things are not always what they seem. To borrow a syntax from Forrest Gump, occupation is as occupation does.

"Sometimes we must interfere.
When human lives are endangered,
when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe."
-- Elie Wiesel

Accordingly, I question whether American troops have the moral authority or legal right, under international law, to impose a ban on speech and peaceful demonstrations by Iraqi civilians. In a democracy, the military does not fire on peaceful citizens. I realize that not all demonstrations following the capture of the despot Saddam have been peacful, but if Iraqi's are being threatened with death for any demonstrations at all, well dammit, that's not what we're about!

Does this sound like freedom and democracy to you?

Imagine being a Tikriti who happens to believe that Saddam Hussein is worthy of support even after his capture by the US forces. This is what happens if you show that support.

Silly me

In my earlier post, "A Formidable Task," I neglected to mention this obvious hurdle that the Democratic nominee faces from Bush: The public trial of Saddam Hussein next summer (why do you think they're already talking about how long it will take to assemble the evidence?), in which, with full coverage by CNN, Fox, and all other networks (and with US viewers glued to the tube, awaiting and getting daily gore--that's without a capital letter) Bush's "victory" will be incessantly trumpeted. No matter what happens in the real "war on terr'r", that trial will deflect any losses the US or the rest of the world will suffer at the hands of the terrorists. By capturing Saddam alive, Bush has bought himself months of good press, intensely covered and followed by a US citizenry that loves this Springer-Court-Reality TV madness.

God (if you exist and listen to decent humans), help us.

Good Riddance?

Ooops, our president seems confused. From his personal message to Saddam, it appears that someone has lead Mr. Bush to believe that Saddam is dead. As a Texan, he ought to know the buckboard goes behind the horse.

President Bush said when asked if he had a personal message for Saddam: "Good riddance. The world is a better place without you...." [news]

Ain’t Nuthin’ but a Family Thing

On September 26, 2002, President Bush spoke in Houston at a fundraiser for a Republican candidate for the Senate. At that time, his Orwellian rhetoric against anyone skeptical of his foreign policy was just getting warmed up, and he took the Senate – then controlled by the Democrats – to task, impugning their patriotism, for dragging their feet over Homeland Security. Then his speech shifted focus to Saddam Hussein.

The president delivered the usual litany of Saddam’s defiance of the UN, his malice toward the US, his threat to world peace, etc. Then Bush said something very interesting:

"After all, this is the guy who tried to kill my dad."

I’ll pause a moment and let that sink in. Think about it. … Yeah. You see what I mean. Remember when George the Elder went to Kuwait for his victory lap, or whatever, during the Clinton Administration? Iraqis tried to kill him. And Clinton sent them some cruise missiles for an attitude adjustment.

I gotta be honest. If somebody tried to kill my Dad, and I became president and had a chance to kick his ass, his whole country’s ass, and render him to a babbling, matted idiot living in a hovel, you better your Euphrates I’d do it. Probably. I’d make him sorry somehow. I like to think I wouldn’t expend thousands of dead and wounded to do it, but I’d take care of business.

George H.W. Bush was, after all, the duly elected and duly replaced ex-president of the United States. My political differences with him aside, you don’t try to assassinate such a person and get away with it. (Or any of us for that matter.) So I’m glad that Saddam got his ass handed to him. He got what he deserved. I wholeheartedly dissent against the war, but I’m pleased with this particular result of it. I wish Clinton had gotten Saddam with a missile, and made it all moot.

Now if Bush had stood up in front of Congress and the Republic and said, “We’re goin’ to get his bastard ‘cause he done tried ta kill Pa,” I don’t think he would have gotten the misbegotten mandate he got last Spring. I suspect the polls would be a tad more lopsided, and the vote in Congress less partisan. But at least he would have gone into the history books as making a little more sense. And eventually, rationality is going to raise it’s bewildered head and ask, “What in the wide world of sports were people thinking back in ’03? What did all those kids die for anyway?”

It’s nice he’s on ice, but it’s not worth the price.

CNN.com - Bush calls Saddam 'the guy who tried to kill my dad' - Sep. 27, 2002

The dollar continues to tumble

After a brief favorable bump upon the capture of Saddam Hussein, the dollar continued to slip, reaching record low levels (one euro now costs $1.23). According to this Reuters article , a selloff of the dollar will continue, only to abate with possible good economic news. Abate momentarily, but then continue, because the unsoundness of the dollar is based on structural defects in the US economy, in particular the massive trade deficit that is building up at record levels, month after month.
There may come a time when those who are keeping the dollar from free fall by making supportive purchases decide to abandon ship because of the declining value of the dollar. If so, we are in for a rugged adjustment in America and, likely, globally.
All of Bush's positives listed in the previous posts will then come to naught, and he'll be another Bush one-termer.
While I agree that the Democrats must now--immediately--stop stabbing each other in this pre-primary period (Kerry and Lieberman's recent attacks on Dean are disgusting), and must come up with a positive message in order to attract votes, it wouldn't hurt their chances if the economy should tank.
I'll keep you--and myself--posted.

A formidable task

Here's what the Democratic nominee for President must overcome in order to win election over Bush:

1. Bush's incumbency--not its effects, which are discussed below, but the mere fact of incumbency. Although incumbents don't always win (Carter, Ford, Bush I), they usually do (FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton).
2. Bush's campaign chest. Nuff said.
3. Bush's clever handlers. Rove, of course, but also terrific speech writers, who've created for Bush's persona a delivery of brief, simple bursts that carry brief, simple messages. He's become a good public speaker now and will have slick, effective ads, displayed round the clock.
4. A resurgent economy, even if it's not real, and even if it unfairly distributes its largesse. The media and the markets have fallen in love with the rebound and that's all that matters, apparently, even though family income continues to fall.
5. A compliant media, plus a baldly supportive Fox-TV network. Not only do these sources trumpet Bush's achievements, he (and his minions) know how to manipulate them. Did anyone not wince when Tribune Bremer let out, "We Got Him," knowing full well that his announcement was tailored to fit across banner headlines?
6. A favorable Congress, willing and able to bury scandals, to time their deliberations and effect enactments to assist his re-election.
7. Bush's control of events. Not just a huge "October surprise," which I long ago predicted would be his announcement of a major withdrawal of troops from Iraq in the month before the election, but mini-surprises along the way. Because the media and the public are able to carry only a fixed amount of news at a time, Bush (or Rumsfeld, or Condi, etc.) can drop an announcement or create a situational crisis whenever it suits them to override some unfavorable development. Witness, for example, the announcement of domestic "alerts" whenever an untoward event (such as the shooting down of helicopters) arises.
8. The "Nascar dad" syndrome, about which I blogged some weeks ago. This is the notion--borne out, I believe, by the election of Schwarzenegger in California--that white workingstiff males are experiencing an anger fueled by their loss of status and income that translates into support for macho, angry male politicians. (A 1970's version of this syndrome could be seen in the TV series, "All in the Family," with Archie Bunker as its protagonist.) Bush portrays his war on terrorism to feed just such anger, and he's got overwhelming support among this group of voters. An adjunct of the syndrome is, I believe, seen in what I call the "Oakland Raider dad" in California, carried by Latino males.
9. Bush is a "war president." Of course he both declared it to be a war and controls its duration, in in the sense that so long as he decides it's ongoing, it is. But no matter, it engenders the fear and resistance to "change horses" that a real war does.
10. Bush's character myth. This excellent article lays out this concept, frighteningly. It's the product of media, polish, cunning and swagger, cloaked in God-phrasing.
11. Corporate support. In addition to the massive infusion of campaign funds, corporations and the wealthy who've fared so well under Bush are also influential in more subtle ways. They can suggest, through their ads and presence, that all is well with America and that thus the status quo should be maintained. They do this daily, by casting out images of a prosperous, well-functioning America, not calling attention to the gross disparities of wealth and benefits.
13. Voter turnout. Always favors the Republican candidate.
14. Luck. The guy's just blessed, let's face it. He's truly a miserable failure in all his endeavors and yet he always lands on his feet--ten rungs up the ladder from where he fell. It's the story of the "fortunate son," this time as President.

There are doubtless more reasons why Bush is favored in 2004. If you have any additions, please submit them via Comment.

The foregoing makes you wonder why we even bother.
Because, quite simply, we must.

Justice Displayed

Blog-contributor John:

The last thing we need is for Bush to crow about how it was his focused measures that brought about the capture of Saddam. We should instead give thanks that Saddam was stupid enough to be caught.

Saddam should not be tried by a military tribunal or by an Iraqi court. He should be taken immediately before the Hague and tried for crimes against humanity like Milosevic. He should not be executed because that would only make him a martyr and show the world that the state of morality of the world community is no higher than that of fundamentalist religions.

Now, more than ever, we need to turn this criminal over to the international court to show we truly are members of an international community and that there is a structure for judging and providing justice even for a ruthless and bloodthirsty dictator. If we fail to stand up for justice even for Saddam, we fail to support a major principle of democracy (for which we fought a war), namely, that world organizations are the proper institutions to adjudicate and sentence those who commit crimes against humanity.

Happy Day

Happy Day! Not Saddam, I've done enough damage on that topic. But today (Sunday) is my buddy Erik's birthday. Happy birthday, Erik. Hope it was a very nice one indeed. You'll notice that the clouds dissipated just in time after the morning rain to give you a clear and brilliant afternoon. I could take credit for that, but sadly I had no more to do with it than Bush had to do with finding whatshisname. Nevertheless, I hope you'll think of me, and this fine afternoon of birdsinging and untangled sunlight, come election day.

Captured Saddam: street party

Well, I've had a busy day. My bedroom TV comes on automatically on CNN, so I knew before I got up that Saddam had been captured. But I haven't really had time to sit down and enjoy the show. Actually, I could've watched this evening, but I was watching Dinosaur Planet with my Dad. So there.

I've had time now to read some major news reports on the capture and its aftermath, and few things come to mind:

I wonder who gets the reward, and whether they have to pay anybody taxes on it. Do they get it in a lump, and move out of the Middle East for someplace nicer, or in payments, and just buy a nicer place in Iraq?

Are the Fab Five from Queer Eye available to give Saddam a makeover? 'Cause he really needs some help.

Now, I've never claimed that the average American is exactly a high wattage bulb, but just how stupid are the people in Kirkuk? Check this out:

"In northern Kirkuk, eight people were killed and 80 wounded by shots fired in the air during celebrations of the capture, said hospital official Shehab Ahmed."

I'm sorry, I know that's offensive. But give me a friggin break. Lemmings have better odds. That's like fish in a barrel shooting themselves. Maybe we could drop some leaflets out of Rumsfelds's plane, next time he swoops in. A nice, simple, catchy rhyme:

I shot a bullet in the air
And it came down I knew not where.
But something killed my neighbor Fred
By blowing off part of his head.

That's why I get the big bucks folks. I'm here at Erik's Drive-in Supper Club almost nightly. Hold your fire, and don't forget to tip your waitress.
Peace.

Yahoo! News - Captured Saddam Faces Strict Gravity

The good news: Saddam was captured. The bad news: Osama's heading to Iraq

Now that Saddam Hussein is in custody, we will learn the extent to which his continued freedom has fueled the ongoing violence in Iraq. There will be daily revelations by the coalition and the Iraqi Governing Council, keeping the fact of his confinement in the news, especially as his pretrial and trial for war crimes proceed.

This is great news for Bush, of course, not only as a public relations coup, but because it may cause the Iraqi resistance to diminish over time. But not entirely, because, apparently, al Qaeda is on the way.

It's better Saddam was captured now, rather than six months from now, since by election time much of the bounce Bush receives will have dissipated as the expected infighting between Iraqi factions escalates and al Qaeda joins the fray. Bush's failure in the war on terr'r will be revealed for the fraudulent warmongering that it is.

I hope.

The pallor of the press

With the ink not yet dry on the report of the Pentagon's investigation of Halliburton for overcharging the US on gasoline purchases, Bush demands repayment and touts that this development shows how diligently his Defense Department is monitoring the Iraq reconstruction contractors. The WaPo, supposedly a watchdog of the administration, reports the foregoing today as if it's the entire story.

But of course it isn't, and WaPo knows it. California Congressman Henry Waxman has been complaining for months about the gasoline overcharge only to be rebuffed by the Army Corps of Engineers. Reports of Waxman's claims were even published in WaPo, but no mention is made in today's story of the earlier charges and their denial.

The inference, of course, is that Bush and his cronies are dutifully minding the purse, when the opposite is true. They're pulling their hands from the cookie jar only when mommy catches them--and then claiming they were only counting the cookies.

This can be expected. But it's not expected that the press would let them come away from the report looking like auditor-heroes.

There's bad news and there's bad news

The failure of the summit of the European Union to reach a compromise on a constitutional provision dealing with voting power could have disastrous effects on the viability of the EU, particularly as it nears the date when a large bloc of east European nations is about to join. The deadlock pits France and Germany, in particular, against Spain and Poland, the former wanting a voting system that takes into account their greater populations (like our House of Representatives) and the latter wanting to stick with the method that counts each nation's vote equally (like our Senate). (A note: The split parallels those nations' attitude toward the US invasion of Iraq. Coincidence?)

This failure affects the US directly, it seems to me. A robust EU, with a strong economy, a large and vocal population, and political influence could operate as a counterweight to the US in world affairs, could contain the out-of-control pickup truck that Kyle describes below. Without it (witness the recent war in Iraq, where it was split severely on the advisability and propriety of US policy) our nation can blunder on with impunity.

Some say the Cold War was less dangerous than now because the two blocs contained each other. I'm not certain of that, but I am certain that with Bush at the wheel and no cops on patrol, get the hell off the road!

Boomerang Boneheads

I can't agree that this is the most ugly event in American history. I think the Civil War will always hold that title. But Jan 2001 to the end of the Bush fiasco may go down in history as a close second. We are living in a time of insanity. This Administration is a big menacing pickup truck, tearing across the ranch and loosing lug nuts and hubcaps in every direction. How long before we're running on the rims? Are we now?

I don't think George W. Bush is really at the wheel at all. I think he's sittin' on the hood, takin' potshots at trees and hollerin' at the cattle. So who's drivin'? Beats me, but that ol' rattlesnake Rumsfeld has run roughshod long enough. Time for that boy to turn in his spurs.

"It is equal to live in a tragic land to live in a tragic time."
--Wallace Stevens

Bush's "peurile taunts"

WaPo's essay about the substance of my "Bring 'em On Redux" post says it all. The "incoherence" of Bush's handling of "postwar" Iraq (in addition, of course, to his monstrous invasion in the first place) has finally gained some traction.

Maybe the Bush-lovers don't care how many young Americans die in Afghanistan and Iraq, or how many Afghanis and Iraqis are killed by our troops. Maybe they don't care how mad it is to try to impose our version of democracy on a populace that yearns to govern itself, in its own way. Maybe they don't care how many tax dollars are burned up in support of our supposed war on terr'r. But this, by God, they care about: Fraud, corruption and waste of our tax dollars.

Here's what I think. This Halliburton/BKR overcharge issue is going to open up the entire question of the misuse of our money in Iraq, the failure to use Iraqis and their business for rebuilding, the skimming of dollars for unnecessary bureaucracy and paperwork, etc. I think we have a real scandal in the making, which, together with the rebuff Bush gave to France, Germany, Russia and Canada in the rebuilding contracts, could turn the tide against this most ugly event in American history.

Time for a bit of Humor?

Care to end your worried week on a light note? Here are a bunch of signs spotted at the peace march in Washington in January. And if you get to the bottom and go to page 4, there's a handy list of the differences between the US Govt and the Terr'rists. It helps to be able to keep them straight.Topplebush.com Humor section

And remember, It takes a worried man to sing a worried song.

"Bring 'em on" redux

From The Independent:

Bush laughs off critics of 'spoils of war' bidding
George Bush poured fuel on the flames of the Iraq contracts dispute yesterday with a sneering dismissal of a suggestion by the German Chancellor that the decision to bar Germany, France Russia and Canada from bidding might violate international law.

"International law? I'd better call my lawyer," the American President joked in response to a reporter's question at the White House.

The lunatics are running the war on terr'r

We drop bombs on kids in Afghanistan (again). We spend millions of dollars to train Iraqi troops, only to have one-third of them desert before they see duty. We announce that the upcoming contracts for "rebuilding" Iraq will be delayed, after massive complaints about the Pentagon's decision to allow only coalition countries to bid on them; on the next day, we ask the same countries we excluded to forgive Iraq's debt to them. We direct the Iraq ministry to stop tallying the country's war dead.

Meanwhile, our dead are piling up, killed by "toy cars, Coke cans and animal carcasses."

A diversion

Even I, an inveterate Bush-bashing websurfer, need an occasional vacation, and so I surf over here, where all is revealed.

Many of you have already found the site, I'm sure. Those of you that haven't--enjoy. But don't forget to come back here if you can pull yourself away.

Consider the source

It's arch-conservative, Bush-backing William Kristol, in a WaPo column--and he lucidly points the way to a Dean victory over Bush in 2004. He doesn't wish it, of course, but he demonstrates that it could indeed happen.
Read it and rejoice!

I persist in doubting the obvious

The latest madness: The Pentagon (Wolfowitz) has determined to exclude from bidding on Iraq reconstruction contracts any companies from nations that didn't support our invasion, most notably, by name, France, Germany and Russia. Part of the payback that Colin Powell warned them about.
I am amazed, again, again, at the audacity--the unvarnished, arrogant exercise of power--of this Administration.
I am amazed even more that I am amazed. I feel like the Jewish family in prewar Germany who kept saying, "It'll blow over," "They don't really mean it," and "They wouldn't dare." Well, next time I doubt, even for an instant, the utter evil of these madmen, please, somebody, hit me over the head with something--preferably soft, however, like a paperbackcopy of Mein Kampf.

An afterthought: Shouldn't the Iraqis have something to say about this?

Just Another Day of Capitalist Empire

Let's see.
Halliburton just got another $1 billion extension in its Iraq "reconstruction" contract--the third delay, to the dismay of its competitors who are still cut out of bidding.

The US Army is using Israeli special forces to train our troops in counterterroism tactics in Iraq. That's sure to calm Islam's doubts about our intentions.

The US Army is launching a massive assault in Afghanistan to dislodge the re-emerging Taliban forces.

The "Coaltion forces" in Iraq have jailed unfavorable locally-elected officials and are keeping them incommunicado in prison, unavailable for interview even by the network media, such as Sixty Minutes.

The Pentagon is seeking to establish new military bases in India and Pakistan to establish positions closer to "unstable areas."

Meanwhile, the dollar slides to new lows against foreign currencies, so that it now takes almost $1.225 to buy a euro. One effect of this 40% gain in the cost of foreign currencies is, of course, to imprison Americans here. No escape to Europe, the Far East, Australia--anywhere--at these rates.

A strongman with a moustache

A leading Australian newspaper predicts this develpment: The abandonment by the US of the creation of a "democratic" regime in Iraq in favor of rule by a single leader or group of tribal chieftans, a la the British means of imperial dominion. The "realists" in the Administration have taken charge over the Wolfowitzers, and have decided upon a course that will cause us to withdraw our troops "with dignity" to avoid the constant killings and yet maintain control over Iraq's resources.

It'll be amusing to observe Condi and the gang at work, shifting the rhetoric and with it the public's expectations, here and in Iraq.

The War on Terr'r

Okay, although it's cutesy to point out that our Harvard MBA President still can't pronounce his chosen term for his mortal enemy, there's a serious point to be made (many points, actually) about why this concept of a "war on terrorism" or "on terror" is a conceptual/political/intellectual fallacy that is doomed--and may be fatal to the warriors. This site sets forth a thorough and detailed exposition of the danger, indeed the idiocy, of such a concept. I ascribe to its analysis entirely.

Neocon 101

Who are the neoconservatives, anyway? I wanted some names, so I saddled up and went Googlin’.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/special_packages/sunday_review/5778521.htm

http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/

http://www.eurolegal.org/useur/usneocon.htm

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/lind1.html

Enjoy. Then vote ABB – Anybody but Bush.

The miserable failure

I'm not sure how long it will remain so, but try Googling "miserable failure" (click "I'm feeling lucky") and check out whazzup. And speaking of same, here are the true job figures as analyzed by experts:

http://www.epinet.org/.

The upshot is that Miserable Failure's predictions about job creation due to his tax cuts are--you guessed it--a miserable failure. The specific numbers are found on the "Job Watch" link of the above website.

What's better than Teflon? The Memory Hole.

Reagan, the "Teflon President," managed to remain unblemished through scores of scandals, including Iran-Contra, the S&L collapse, and proven conflict-of-interest charges against members of his cabinet and staff. But at least some of these transgressions were aired in public forums: the Senate Intelligence Committee, the House Finance Committee, the courts; and a few people (Keating, North, Poindexter, Abrahms, others) were made to face the music.

Not so with Bush. To name just this year's litany (so far), not including the items that haven't been inquired into at all, like Halliburton and Bechtel:
(1) The 9/11 investigation? Stonewalled, heading toward oblivion.
(2) The WMD--not their existence in Iraq, which slid below the radar months ago--the prewar intelligence (and its misuse) by the spooks, the neocons and the administration. Gone.
Vanished.
(3) Cheney's Energy Task Force. Disappeared.
(4) The Valerie Plame leak. Who's she?
(5) Kenny Boy. Ditto.

At some point, I believe (because I must believe it in order to retain my sanity) the mainstream press will awaken and inquire and persist, like they did during the Nixon years, the latter Johnson years and--with inordinate ferocity--the Clinton years.

I believe it, but so far see little evidence of it.

Orwell is amused

So, the present administration of the US government is creating its own TV channel to broadcast "the good news" from Iraq. Of course it is. At some point, the similarities to 1984 (as well as to 1939 Germany) will overwhelm. But until then, it's simply fun to watch Bush awash in his own false imagery, complaining that the news contains only blood and gore while he exploits blood and gore to his benefit.

I wonder how many viewers will tune into the new channel to watch paint dry on an Iraqi school?

Has it come to this? Apparently so.

Demolishing homes, holding relatives hostage, issuing ID cards, establishing checkpoints, creating razorwire barriers--Israeli tactics in Gaza and the West Bank--are now our tactics in villages in Iraq. How dumb can we be? We're supposedly trying to win the "hearts and minds" of the Muslim arabs, and yet we're imitating their enemy.

I'm convinced that by a year from now there will be continuing deaths in Iraq, the place will be in political shambles and because of the election Bush will try to cover all this with favorable spin. It's our job not to allow that to happen.