Turn out the lights

the party's over--so says a Texas Congressman, whose remarks about light bulbs are right on. Video.

The state of Iraq

Here's Juan Cole's calculation of what the last twenty years have done to Iraq. Read it and weep.

Doing the math

Here's a succinct digest of the status of the likely Electoral College breakdown, at least as the present polling numbers reveal. Conclusion: Webb from Virginia for veep; and we all travel to Nevada to work for Obama this fall.

A nation of impoverished sheep

If these figures don't cause you to leap over the barricades, what will?

I'm in mourning

but not for Russert. For someone really important.

A quiz

Which is the more amazing development on this Monday?:

Al Gore endorses Barack Obama for president.

Tiger Woods wins playoff to capture US Open golf tournament.

Answer: Neither.

My reaction to this headline?

"Bush Contemplates Writing His Memoir":

LOL

All's fair in war

In Iraq, even the children are up in arms.

"It is a good day to die"

One of the finest lines of movie dialog--from "Little Big Man"--seems apt to me this evening, as I read this sad report about the effects of climate change in Africa. Better to bail out now, I say, than to await the catastrophe that will inevitably envelop the rest of humanity.

But then, I think, what about my child, and her child? Shouldn't I hang around as long as I can, and do as much as I can to help them avoid what my generation--I--have wrought?

And then I think this: I have no choice. I'll live as long as I live, and I'll do as much as I can.

WTF????

The Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit--the boss of the largest federal circuit in the US, and the position of the federal appellate judge for whom I labored as his only lawclerk for more than a year in 1966-67--has a website with pornographic photos?

I cannot be so. Right?

CBS? NBC? ABC? CNN? MSNBC?

None of the above. In order to learn of the extent of graft and corruption and lost billions of dollars in Iraq, it takes the BBC to uncover and report it.

Just so you know...

Here's a link to a succinct recital of the military/insurgent/violent acts in Iraq and Afghanistan, assembled from daily reports "on the ground." Not a pretty picture. I've referred to it earlier, but because the corporate media has ceased reporting the ongoing violence in our two "wars," I thought it necessary to mention the site again. Whoever coined, "Out of sight, out of mind" sure knew what he was saying.

Idiots, idiots

This is a rant, so don't expect links to sites or cites to authorities. Just my own authority as a student of political science in college, a student of politics since college, and a student of current affairs.

Underway--without much mention in the US, but under intense protest in Iraq--are negotiations, soon to be completed, of an agreement between the US and Iraq that governs our forces in that country. There are provisions about our troops' presence, their powers and immunities, their relationship to Iraq and the US, and, of course, the bases they inhabit and the weapons they use. It's a detailed exposition of this country's military, economic and political future in the Middle East, set forth in a binding agreement.

Many Iraqis are protesting such a deal as infringing on their sovereignty, and as not within the power of the present (puppet) administration of Iraq. They insist that any such agreement be subject to a national referendum, which the Iraq administration is resisting, knowing that the deal will be defeated if subjected to a popular vote.

Meanwhile, here in the US, there's nothing. Yes, there are some spineless protest letters from Senators, addressed to the White House, insisting that there be no provisions in such an agreement obligating the US to intervene militarily on Iraq's behalf--that would require a treaty, the Senators say, which would be subject to Congressional approval. But I haven't heard or seen a peep from the media about the incipient deal, even though it could cost America billions of dollars and countless lives, for an indeterminate period in the future, certainly well into the term of the next administration.

Wake up, America! Wake up, media! Wake up, Congress! The monsters who brought you this evil war and occupation are attempting to bind you to continue it indefinitely, to fix it so that no matter who takes over the administration they will be hamstrung by this odious, horrific deal. And, if you don't think it's odious and horrific, here's a brief exposition of its terms, as presently on the table.

You know you've backed the right candidate

when he and his wife greet each other at their moment of triumph with a fist bump.

Spineless Anglos

Ya know, when I watched Lawrence of Arabia for the tenth time, it finally occured to me: The Arabs are finer folk than we occupiers, at least they are finer when it comes to their reaction to invasion and occupation of their lands.

Well, it turns out that eighty years after Lawrence, they're still a grander folk than we. They, unlike placid Americians, demand that our occupation cease, while we do nothing to end it.

What's the appropriate adage?

The Pentagon's answer to keeping watch on the conduct of private companies that are performing military and quasi-military work in Iraq is to outsource the monitoring of those companies to a private company.

Is this a lunatics/asylum circumstance, or a fox/henhouse situation, or what, exactly?

We have met the enemy and he is us

In yesterday's 60-Minutes segment about the Army's new toy--a ray gun that strikes and momentarily disables humans from hundreds of yards away with an extreme blast of heat--the device was tested on "protesters." And, boys and girls, guess what the signs held by some of these protesters read. Yup, you guessed it: "Peace Not War."

Fair game, don't you think?

The trouble with growing older

is that I probably won't be around to learn definitively whether future historians--those who after all these years have finally concluded that the Bay of Tonkin Resolution that dragged the US into war with North Vietnam was based on falsified information--will establish as truth the fact that the Bush administration misled the American people into invading Iraq. As the list of those who so contend grows--the latest being Scott McClellan--I'm hopeful the truth will emerge sooner rather than later, especially when world leaders, like Australia's new PM, appear to adopt that position.

I won't be satisfied with a "he-said, she-said" stalemate; I want a firmly established line. Trouble is, that usually takes at least a generation to materialize, and I don't have the time.

Even if we don't care

about our long-term occupation of Iraq, at least they do.

In case you missed it

Here's a 1956 movie about the wonders of Saran Wrap. It's only 21 minutes long, but once it loads you can click the advance bar forward, because I gotta tell ya, it's awful viewing.

Outrage is too mild a word

to describe my reaction to this.

The last straw

The Iraqi "government" is at best incompetent, but they're not this dumb, are they? I mean this summer their people can survive without clean water, without electricity, without security. But without soccer?

Heavy reading

Here's a detailed article about the progress (meaning progression) in Iraq over the five-plus years of the US invasion and occupation. Its conclusion is not comforting; but its perspective is sound. (pdf)

Hillary Clinton is so over

after her "I'm hanging in there until Obama's assassinated" remark. I mean, it's not just tasteless and stupid and callous, but given the color of her opponent's skin, it's pretty fuckin' frightening.

Question one: Is this the person you want picking up the telephone at three a.m.?

Question two: Imagine if McCain had said something like that. The entire election would be over, now, in May.

It's not the crime...

it's the cover-up.

Update: According to the same source, the magic date for the release of McCain's medical records, previously fixed for May 15, has been moved--to tomorrow.

Don't hold your breath.

Dear editor

Herewith is a "letter to the editor" of the SB News-Press that I emailed this evening. I'll let you know if it gets publishsed.

Remember those phrases from previous presidential elections?: “Give us a choice, not an echo!” and “Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum!” Those were the outcries of many American voters when the candidates of the two major political parties didn’t seem to differ much on policy, purpose or practice.

Of course the candidates claimed they differed greatly, but we knew better. No matter which of them prevailed, America would stay on the same course, a course it pursued with fervor and certainty except when the interruptions of FDR—with later assistance by JFK and (yes) LBJ—altered America’s course for our common good. But in the four-plus decades since the last true “choice not an echo”—embodied in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965—we’ve not really had much choice.

Well, now we do. As Barack Obama’s supporters chant, “Not This Time.” Not this time will Americans be cowed by fear of adversaries, by fear of the unknown, by fear of the future. This time the choice is between courage and confidence on the one hand, and fear and cowardice on the other. The choice is between offering America’s outstretched arms to the world’s poor and needy, to the despoiled planet, to its global adversaries; or simply continuing to train America’s armaments against perceived enemies while ignoring the true causes of the planet’s ills.

It’s a choice I, and, let us hope, a majority of Americans welcome.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Get trade secrets for amazing burgers. Watch "Cooking with Tyler

My stimulus

Okay, I got my rebate check for $300 (single filer with little income last year). So here's what I did with it. I cashed it, put the three hundred (four fifties, five twenties) in my wallet and walked out into the world feeling not a bit stimulated. Certainly not wealthier, and, as it happens, not a bit inclined to stimulate the American economy.

But it so happened that my running shoes had run out of bounce, and so I did buy a new pair of New Balance shoes on sale at Big 5. Price (a clearance price): $39.00. And, of course, made in China.

What have we become?

The world's warden?

Takin' names

and kickin' ass.

One nation under two laws

Who rules Iraq? Just ask this detainee.

You heard it here first

And I mean it. I've Googled the news-speculators, and only a few of them even mention his name, and it's way down on their list. But it's clear as a bell to me: Charles Hagel, Republican Senator from Kansas, will be Obama's veep. I won't detail why I know what I know, and why he's the perfect pick despite his ultra-conservative views on many domestic matters. I'll allow the post-facto pundits to do that, but believe me, it's Hagel.

Meanwhile...

back in Iraq.

The foreclosure crisis

must be getting serious when Sprewell can't make the payments.

Funny--but true?

In this galaxy, not far, far away...

Cynicism or truth

Here's a take on Obama's candidacy that you don't see everyday. Makes you (or at least me) wonder.

NYT columnist Bob Herbert

Why doesn't he say what he really means?

A Baghdad burger joint

A poignant story of a small business behind the blast walls. The last lines of the article make me wonder: What responsibility do we have?

Whack-a-mole

An armistice of sorts slows the carnage in Sadr City, while the Iraqi army begins a new campaign in Mosul. War without end.

The party's over...

Iran is shifting its oil-exchange currency to euros and yens. Saddam Hussein was in process of doing so when the US invaded his nation.

Grab your coat, pay the lady in the cloakroom and hale a taxi. Get outa here. To some nation south of here, preferably, but not one that hates the dollar. Mexico, maybe, or Argentina (maybe). But not Europe or Africa or Australia. Perhaps--dare I say it?--Vietnam.

Occupation blues

The Iraqi military: Fired up and ready to go!

Is it just me

or does Hillary Clinton not only act like the Energizer Bunny in this campaign, she's beginning to look like him/her?

It makes sense to me

that conservatives are happier than liberals. Why is this so?, you ask. Because, according to the survey, they're callous, rationalizing assholes.

Good news, bad news

Good news: Obama's gonna do it!

Bad news: Sales of a just-released video game exceeded one-half billion dollars in just a few days. It's called Grand Theft Auto IV, and here's what it's about:

"Grand Theft Auto IV" follows the criminal exploits of protagonist Niko Bellic, an immigrant-turned-gangster who travels from Eastern Europe to Liberty City, the game's fictional locale based on New York City. As Bellic, players can hijack cars, earn cash for criminal activities, shoot innocent bystanders and visit strip clubs.

The madhouse that is Iraq

Nothing new, I suppose, but when "Iraqi soldiers" are arresting "Iraqi policemen" you've got to wonder which lunatics are running the asylum.

I don't know why...

but the prospect of all of us someday using Evernote bothers me, offends me, even. How about you?

You can't make this stuff up

I've long marveled at how truth is not just stranger than fiction, but that it makes fiction pale in comparison. It's true that movies and novels that show our astronauts sailing off to Mars within a single reel of film are still unrealistic, but scenes from Blade Runner and Mad Max aren't far from the present mark we're creating in the world.

And then there's this: Disneyland in Baghdad, surrounded by barbed wire adjacent to the Green Zone. You tell me: Could you sell a screenplay with such an outlandish premise?

I gotta tell ya

I'm beginning to hate Hillary Clinton. I find her marginally more tolerable than McCain to watch on TV (but of course immensely more watchable than Bush--but then, so is Mussolini).

Her latest gimmick--the "summer vacation" from federal gasoline tax, which is but a parody of McCain's, with a politically-expedient announcement of a years-later, after-the-fact "windfall-profits" tax--is merely a capper in a long string of her "say-anything-to-get-elected" ploys that have made a mess of this nation for more than a generation. She's but a chip off Bill's block (the substituting of "bl" for "c" is purposeful): President "Don't-ask-don't-tell"; President "Welfare-reform"; President "Deregulate-media-ownership"; President "Nafta-Cafta-America-afta" (I made that up, BTW.) Clinton's presidency was a disaster, saved only by a dot-com bubble. Without that--and a few saving Executive Orders in his last days, all of which were, by law, reversible (and reversed) by Bush--he wrecked the Democratic Party, turning it into an amorphous mass of yea-sayers to corporate influence.

I won't vote for McCain if Hillary's the nominee of the Democratic Party. But I sure don't know what I'll do. (Do they accept mail-in ballots from Tahiti?)

A matter of judgment

I suppose it won't get much play in the corporate media, but the gas-tax holiday story is important, very important, in demonstrating both that Obama brings a fresh outlook to Washington and possesses judgment superior to the other two candidates for President. First, McCain proposed a suspension of the federal excise tax on gasoline, and he was then quickly followed by Hillary Clinton. Obama opposed such a measure as being merely a political gesture that would have a negative impact on the problem of gasoline consumption, while offering drivers little--and only palliative--relief.

Guess who's right, according to a host of economists, including Bush's own former chief economist.

I wonder

what was the bank's first clue that the check was forged?

Have you done this yet?

Try it, it's fun. And, if you're a believer, it's inspiring.

Brilliant, if sick

First, the North Carolina Republican Party contemplates placing an unsavory TV ad against Obama and local Democratic candidates that features Rev. Wright's "God damn America" rant. Next, McCain speaks out against the ad, saying he condemns such tactics. But, he says, he can't stop the local party from airing it. So that when the ad is evenually shown, (a) it's viewed by more than would normally view it; and (b) McCain looks like a good guy for opposing it. Talk about a two-fer.

Now wait a goddam minute

Outsourcing debt-collection phonecalls to India?

What we eat

You need to see this, and you need to scroll to the bottom.

I've never felt so powerless

I realized, when we marched against the Iraq war in early 2003, that we wouldn't stop it from happening. Once Colin Powell signed on, I realized it was just a matter of time before we invaded. Now, five-plus years later, as the ongoing carnage drifts farther and farther from our national awareness, and all efforts to stop it have come to naught, I truly despair, not just for the dead and injured, but for our nation.

And now this: Our government concealing burials of the dead at Arlington National Cemetary. More outrage--and more teeth-gritting frustration--I cannot feel.

LOL

The other day I spotted a news report that the Baghdad city council (or whatever they call it) was contemplating passing an ordinance requiring automobile drivers and passengers to wear seatbelts. I didn't enter a post about it and can't now find the link, but I gotta admit the item raised a wry, cynical smile. Arranging deck chairs on the Titanic, or something.

But this one's too good to pass.

No mystery there

Any wonder why I moved from Arizona? Recall, this is Goldwater country, one of the few states that voted from him in 1964.

(To be fair, these numbers are driven by the deep-conservative hordes in and around Phoenix, and in the backcountry. The Tucson area, where I'm from, is quite liberal, still.)

I oppose capital punishment

but if I didn't, here are some folks I would hang.

"Unmitigated disaster"

For some reason--could it be because they invented the language?--the British newspapers describe the Iraqi military's effort in Basra with a pithy accuracy that is missing from the US media.

I've checked this out

and I still can't tell if it's a joke.

Letter to the editor

I've had success lately in getting my letters to the SB News-Press published. Here's my latest. I'll let you know if they print it.

Update: It appeared in the newpaper on Friday, April 18.

To the editor:

Consider me a "bitter small-town American." True, I live in blessed Santa Barbara, California, not in Pennsylvania or Ohio or any of the other "rust-belt" states that have lost so many well-paying jobs in the last twenty years, without recourse or redress. But I, like most Americans, have seen my civil liberties vanish, my health-care costs increase, my gasoline and grocery prices skyrocket, my Earth deteriorate, my national debt explode, my nation wage an immoral war and incur the disdain of billions of fellow humans.

To be sure, I don't "cling" to guns or religion as a result, and I don't take my bitterness out on immigrants. But I surely do blame the Bush/Cheney/Clinton line of leaders, as well as the rest of the media and political cabal, that doesn't respond to the needs of ordinary Americans. I want--I yearn for--America to change, fundamentally. I want Americans to run America again.

I therefore support Barack Obama for president, because of the remaining candidates, only he, to his credit, "gets it"; and only he, however inartfully, addresses it.

Uh, oh

Could this be a first flicker of a sellout? (Check out what's on Obama's lapel during this talk in "small town" Pennsylvania.)

I have a dream...

that such a man--not Bryant Gumbel, the other man--is our president. After viewing this video, how can any sentient U.S. male not agree?

Okay, maybe I'm no genius

but am I the only sentient progressive Obama supporter who's thought of starting a movement (triggered and fueled by a website, of course) entitled, "Small-town bitter Americans for Obama"? I'm of course disqualified from doing so because SB is hardly an embittered locale, nor does my comfortably retired status make me (necessarily, financially) embittered, but C'mon guys, get with it! Not only will such a movement defuse by ridicule the Clinton/McCain rhetoric, it might actually catch on as a catch-phrase for reality. I mean, after all, as he did with the race thing, Obama in a few words (perhaps not all well-chosen) captured an American reality, and we ought to be embracing and fostering it, not running from it.

Obama--Oh, really?

Here's a complete, unspun exposition of the supposedly anti-small-town remarks the Obama made to a California fundraising audience. You tell me: Is this truth, or is it denigration?

And here's Obama's reply to Hillary and McCain, who attacked Obama's comments as being condescending to working stiffs, as being outrageous and out of touch with America's mainstream: I'm right. I'm in touch. I speak truth to reality.

I must say, Obama's good. In fact, great.

If I'm Hillary

I'd quit when this happens.

Say it isn't so

CBS News--the revered Columbia Broadcasting System, home of Cronkite, Severeid, Murrow, many others--is considering using CNN's facilities and broadcasters to augment its reporting? As much as I like Anderson Cooper, are we talking Larry King? Ohmigod.

The seeds (literally) of our own destruction

Does capitalism make human overpopulation inevitable?

Leave it to San Francisco

to form a movement worth joining.

Wonderful, wonderful

Here's a multi-faceted presentation: Essay, with links to video and graphics, of Howard Zinn's just-published book about American imperialism. A gem.

Too cool

Can I get a napkin, please?

I don't get it

This essay in Time magazine about the perils of the world's (especially America's) switch to biofuels for power is frightening, but what is most frightening is how late in the game it is for us to have realized this. Anyone with common sense could have predicted this scary outcome, and, for that matter, the inadequacies and repercussions of using land and its foodstuffs for fuel.

A test of Iraq's army?

Bush is applauding the recent assaults by al Malaki's forces on the Shiite militias, claiming that they're evidence that the surge is working by showing how well the Iraqi army can stand up against its adversaries. Well, look again. In Baghdad, the US is augmenting Iraq's forces with both air attacks and armored assault vehicles. In other words, all that the surge has accomplished is to change the color of the faces of the troops wearing boots, reducing our casualties on the ground while we supply fire from above and from behind solid steel barriers.

The next shoe to drop

is the home equity loan crisis.

The audacity of spin

The Pentagon's announcement that the recent increase in violence in Iraq is evidence that Bush's "surge" is working? I'm not making it up.

Anderson Cooper deserves a look

I happen to be a fan of this reporter on CNN, because he does his job well--good delivery, good balance--and now he's done some spadework and commentary on the Rev. Wright thing that really deserves credit. On his blog, he quotes a long segment of Wright's entire sermon in which the "chickens coming home to roost" remark was made, placing it into perspective. Good for AC.

Fickle folks

I get it now, finally. The "surge" was Rove's way of kicking the can down the road, not just to the next president, but as a way to extend, and hence bore the public with, the Iraq war and occupation. He realized that there's no drama in Iraq anymore--no stories of heroism, no torture mess--and that therefore the media would slow down its coverage and the American public would move on to the state of the economy and Spitzer's failings and so on.

And of course Rove was right.

It's comforting to see

that celebrities have their ups and downs too. (Most distressing, to me, is #10 in the slide show: Val Kilmer, an unlikely Batman lately.)

Hmm...Maybe I should rethink

that "organ donor" designation on my driver's license.

Is all lost?

I happened to be watching the recent interview of Barack Obama in which he said something like "My grandmother is a typical white person," the same grandmother of whom Obama had previously said, as part of his landmark speech about race, that she sometimes harbored fears of blacks and spoke in stereotypical terms about them.

My reaction to his "typical white person"comment was immediate. I knew two things: First, that it would add two more days to the news cycle on Obama's race-thingee; and second, that the Right would spin the remark into something damaging to Obama, likely that he was denigrating whites, painting them as racist as a group, and hence displaying his own racism.

Of course I was right on both counts. But my problem isn't with the Right's reaction, but rather with my own, a cringe. I realized that I wanted the racism question to go away, to disappear into the shadows, the same shadows that Obama's speech had shed light on. I was, I realized, part of that culture that would talk about race in private, but was still fearful of addressing it as a matter of public concern, and most fearful of a black person addressing it.

If I cringed--I, an enlightened one--is it likely that others could overcome that reaction? Can we change a culture--or even honestly acknowledge one of its powerful memes--in time to vote a truth-speaking black person into our highest office? Can we even nominate such a person to run for it? I'm beginning to think not.

One solution to the high price of crude oil

It seems to be working, too: Ruin the American economy, so it drags down the global economy, so that demand for oil declines, and the bidding price for future oil deliveries declines.

Is this burning the barn to roast the pig? Your suggested adage?

Must-see video

Baghdad, city of walls. (Four minutes)

It all adds up

Just so you know (although the Corporate Media doesn't tell you): In the thirteen months since "the surge" began, the average daily number of American troop deaths has been 2.34, almost identical to the daily average during the entire five-year war (2.36). At this rate, in about fifty years the number of deaths of US troops in Iraq will equal the number of dead troops in the VietNam war (about 60,000). Fifty years, which is just about when McCain and his buddies will finally withdraw our troops from Iraq, because by then we'll have sucked up all their oil.

An essay on our capitalist culture

to which I can only respond, "Yup."

Horror of horrors

This is most enduring Bush legacy, and it's awful.

Bumpersnickers

I've seen some great ones lately. My favorites:

"The more people I meet, the more I like my dog."

"Where is Bush taking Americans? And why are we in this handbasket?"

And the last one, presumably an observation about McCain's melodic "Bomb, bomb Iran" reference:

"McCain: Putting the laughter back into slaughter."

Okay, I admit it

When it comes to choosing a Democratic "dream ticket" for president and veep, I'm not perfect.

All the news that's fit to surf

You know you're a political junkie when you visit this webpage, displaying the counties of Wyoming and how each of them voted in yesterday's caucuses, which resulted in an Obama victory. You know, further, that your addiction is boundless when you roll your cursor over the counties to learn the tallies of each, including that of Hot Springs county (in the center of the state) where the vote was 31 Obama, 22 Clinton, 11 uncommitted. I had more people than that in my homeroom class at Sam Hughes elementary.

A day in the life

of the so-called "improving" Iraq.

Time to take the gloves off

Okay, now I'm getting pissed. Here's a video spot on Hillary's website showing a blackened, widened image of Obama, and presenting a lying message about his subcommittee, and here's a detailed analysis of the spot, showing why the HRC campaign must be stopped.

Frozen in place

A two-minute video. Too cool.

I missed my calling

I shoulda hired onto The Onion staff, so I could think up stuff like this. What a great gig!

Tough duty

Over last weekend and today, I've been making Obama-support calls into Texas precincts. We have a script (from which we vary alot), essentially asking voters to support Barack in the primary election and to remember to caucus later that same Tuesday to select more delegates. It's a peculiarity of Texas Democratic politics that they have some combination of caucus and election on the same day, with the primary election itself being an "open" primary, i.e., anybody can vote in it: Democrats, unaffiliated voters or Republicans.

Well, I gotta tell ya, it ain't been heartening. From "Go to hell" to "Go elsewhere" it's been a long, hard telephonic slog. And even those folks who've been knowledgeable about the process have avoided committing to Obama. Some of this may be due to his color, some due to the sections of Texas covered by the area codes I was given (southeast Texas--truly backcountry), but some of it may be due to Rush Limbaugh, who's no dummy.

Touche

YouTube, I love you.

Why didn't I think of that?

If John McCain is eligible to be elected president because, having been born on a US Navy base in Panama, he was born on "US soil," then the US Navy base at Guantanamo, Cuba, is US soil too, and the prisons there are subject to the laws and constitution. Thus, the indefinite imprisonment without charge and trial is illegal under the Bill of Rights, as much there as if it were taking place in Santa Barbara, CA.

The fine print

Ya know, sometimes you've gotta read to the bottom of those bland newspaper articles to get the gist. Like this one that talks about the greater intensity and turnout of Democrats in the primary contests throughout the country.

Second from the last graph, as counterpoint to the Democrats' enlistment of new voters, the Republicans offer this effort in Ohio's upcoming primary:

"Maggie Nafziger, the county GOP executive director, says the database used to target such voters includes things like applications for licenses to carry a concealed weapon.
'I can find the answers to those questions on anyone in Ohio,' Nafziger tells CNN. 'Then we go after them.'"

Life's a bitch

Especially if you're hard of hearing, elderly and wearing a bulky jacket in the winter in Baghdad.

Back to the drawing board

Just last week, pundits, echoing Bush and McCain, reported that Iraq had met one of the important political "benchmarks" by adopting a plan for elections of provincial governments. Well, not so fast. Apparently, the triumvirate of something called the "presidential council," consisting of three men, a Kurd, and Sunni and a Shiite, who were required to approve the measure, didn't. And not on some insubstantial ground: there was disagreement about the power of the national government, particularly when it comes to firing the heads of the regional governments. It wasn't certain when or if these differences would be overcome, the measure having been sent back to the Iraqi parliament for further process, and it's likely that the delay will mean that the scheduled provincial elections, set for October 1, won't take place.

The Bush administration's cavalier reaction: "That's democracy." My reaction: Meanwhile our troops and treasure are being wasted.

Worst of both worlds

Now the "s" word--stagflation--has replaced recession as the most worrisome economic prospect. I remember those dog days. The slow economy, coupled with increasing prices, meant that the idea of lowering interest rates to spur the economy would trigger an inflationary spiral, so there was nothing to be done to stop the ongoing quarters of zero economic growth. Are we there yet?

Killing me softly...

So, it turns out that Osama bin Laden was right: We're gonna kill ourselves, with only a little help from our enemies. Indeed, Pogo was right after all.

Oh, damn

It's with sadness that I report that Ralph Nader has decided to run for President again. Sadness because, although I agree with everything he says about the inadequacies of the stated policies of both Clinton and Obama (and a fortiori McCain), the solution is not for him to become a presidential candidate and thereby to weaken his influence, but rather to work with one (or both) of the Democratic candidates toward his ends. Nader is weakening his influence by these repeated candidacies, weakening his image and his legacy as well. Instead of effectively raising his laudable policies into public discourse, he's isolating himself from the electoral process and diminishing them and himself, becoming now a near-ridiculous footnote in history.