Oops

It appears that even Arizona legislators can make mistakes. The two immediate amendments to their recent immigration encactments do seem to mitigate somewhat the harshest of the original provisions, but true to form--their form being the refusal to recognize the correctness of any position taken by the original law's detractors--the legislators claim the law is strengthened. Fact is, the several lawsuits challenging the law as originally passed were clear winners and the Arizona lawmakers wanted to avoid having the entire legislation stricken, which is surely would have been as written.

Wouldn't you know it

This bunch (five of them) on the Supreme Court are more activist than any previous Court. Look out for Jewish stars and Muslim crescents and who knows what going up on every hillside, in every park, in the US. I'm not a huge worrier about the First Amendment "establishment/free-exercise" clause, but I do honor the centuries of precedent which stands against the notion that a clearly religious symbol may stand upon clearly governmental property. This isn't simply the "in God we trust" slogan, or the "under God" phrase--they're troublesome enough on our coinage and our pledge but they're at least neutral as to what/whose God is being referred to--but a cross?

Letter to the editor

Here's the text of a letter I wrote this evening to the SB NewsPress. I'll update this post when/if it's published.

Update: The letter was published in the SB NewsPress on April 29, 2010.

To the editor:

I’m an unabashed liberal who believes that Lois Capps, during the years since she succeeded her husband Walter as our Congressional representative, has served the Central Coast well. She has a strong record on the environment, healthcare, civil liberties—indeed, on many important questions. But of late, on the most critical issue we face—the security of our nation and its place in the world—she has revealed herself to be merely a Democratic Party hack. I’m talking about the war—now Obama’s war—in Afghanistan.

The House of Representatives holds the “power of the purse,” and will shortly be faced, again, with deciding whether to increase funding the war, this time with an additional 33 billion dollars. (The House bill will likely—in a cynical move—include a fund for Haitian relief, in order to wrap it in legitimacy, but that provision can be separated out.) The question is: How will Lois Capps vote? Will she have the guts to say: “No! My conscience, and my constituents, demand that this killing in Afghanistan cease. Our soldiers—and Afghanis and Pakistanis—are dying for no purpose and to no effect except to harden terrorists’ resolve to attack America.” Or will she vote—as she has heretofore—to continue funding this wretched, wicked war because the Democratic Leadership (Obama, Pelosi, Reid—the usual suspects) demand that she comply with the Party Line.

I’m not asking much of Lois Capps. I’m simply asking her to ask herself, “How would Walter vote?”

Whaddya think?

Is the US Air Force just launching this thing for a lark? I must say, if I were Russia--or any other nation--I'd be, as they say, up in arms.

How to raise taxes without much political or economic pain?

A good suggestion, for starters: limit the now-unlimited deduction for home-mortgage interest payments. If you've bought a million-dollar home, financing the purchase with a $750,000 30-year mortgage, you now may deduct the entire interest component of your monthly payment, which could be as much as 4/5 of the payment in the first years of the mortgage. That interest amount is currently deductible, creating a huge drop in income-tax liability for those who inhabit giant, expensive homes.

Why not limit the home-mortgage interest deduction to a fixed sum, say, the amount of interest on a loan equalling a percentage of the median value of homes in various locales? This would leave the deduction intact for those who live in modest homes, but wouldn't allow the wealthy to benefit from their expensive, much leveraged homes at the expense of those who live more modestly.

Tell me, if you can, why that's not fair.

In case you're wondering

why I haven't been posting to this blog lately it's because I've got nothing to say. Actually, I've got a lot to say, but I'm too weary with disgust to say it. I'm close to giving up on this entity we call the United States of America, merely waiting for the next shoe to fall to prove our governance and our media and our citizenry doesn't deserve my further attention. Indeed, so many shoes have fallen lately that my voice would have been drowned out anyway.

What's in a name?

When it comes to Faulkner, not much.

Why do they hate us?

Because we're ruining their birthday parties by digging bullets out of the bodies of pregnant women, that's why.

Seen at Tea Party rallies

Teabonics.

A solution to expensive Internet hookup and slow downloading

Move to South Korea. Ironic, isn't it, that a leading factor in the US's slow speed is our relative absence of competition? It appears that corporations in the US cheer for raw capitalism except when they don't.

A fucking nightmare

Those of us who are old enough to recall LBJ's repeated assurances about progress in the Vietnam war must be--I know I am--wretching over Obama's plans for Afghanistan. After a "success" in the tiny enclave of Marjah, we're now going to assault a major city, Kandahar. My God, Barack, are you that big an idiot? Are you crazy? Or, worst of all, are you just another American Imperial President?

Well, whadaya know!

Somebody realizes there's a war on in Afghanistan.

Some of my best friends...

but I gotta tell ya, the present administration in Israel is going to drag the US and other western nations into a war with Islam. They're not just violating international law by taking possession of land that they occupied after previous battles, they're doing so in front of us, in front of all decent attempts to reconcile Israeli interests in the area with that of those who've lived there for centuries.

The stock market's reaction to the "health care" bill

The Monday after passage in the House: This has got to tell you something about the terms of --the financial effect of--the legislation, right?

Chris Hedges hedges no bets

So, gang, when/where do we build our commune? And who's in charge of the Molotov cocktails?

I am speechless

Well, not quite. This article evokes a single word: Bravo!

Conservatives and liberals--Together!

Here, as well as AntiWar.com blog (which I regularly cite) is presented articulate and hopeful means of taking back America's war-prone foreign policy. Note that both sources are conservative, because Obama's adoption of militaristic means has lately emasculated the Left's power to demand peace. Is there hope that these two different ideologies can merge and become a force for peace?

Terrorizing ourselves

is the title of a new book that analyzes the US reaction to the 9-11 attacks, reviewed perceptively here.

The long haul

This link, and this, sent to me by my buddy Kyle, author of Metaphor, inter alia, tell me that we're not likely to stop spending billions (and concomitant lives) in Afghanistan very soon. And, no doubt, these expenditures likely are dwarfed by our involvement in Iraq, regardless of Obama's pledge to remove all of our "combat troops" from Iraq in a while.

We're "nation building" these two distant nations while our own crumbles. But there is one saving grace, which can be said of our massive military presence throughout the world: At least it's a job program, and it's directed specifically toward folks who need the money.

Should I be freaking out?

I mean, Merlin Olsen--age 69, which is my age--dies of cancer. Can I be far behind? Okay, Jack Nicklaus and Paul McCartney, who're also my age, are still alive and "kicking," so maybe I should shut up. But Merlin Olsen, the bigger-than-life good guy from Little House on the Prairie? Ouch.

A new dimension of warfare

Now our drones are killing people in Pakistan (on which country we've never declared war--indeed, it's supposedly our ally) who are in the process of rescuing fellow Pakistanis from the rubble of buildings destroyed by a previous drone. This post--this blog--isn't going to change anything, and I wonder if by writing this I'm simply dispelling (or is it diffusing or defusing?) the rage I feel at our military and its commander-in-chief. This madness must stop, but I feel powerless to do anything but gripe, particularly since our congressperson, Lois Capps, yesterday voted against Dennis Kucinich's House resolution calling for quick withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan.

Letter to the editor

The following is a letter I wrote to the editor of the SB News-Press. I'll update this post if/when it's published. (My first version omitted Iraq and Afghanistan as national crises, which I added by an amended letter to the editor. I surely hope they publish the amended version, because the omission of those two items by me in the original draft shows how deftly those issues have dropped from the public's--and my--consciousness, from crises to mere blips on the national psyche.)

Update: The letter (somewhat revised by the News-Press) was published on March 17, 2010.

Because the News-Press limits the length of these letters, I’ll try to squeeze my list of current global and national crises into 250 words.

Global crises: Atmospheric and oceanic warming. Declining oil reserves. Destruction of rain forests. Increasing species extinction. Diminishing saltwater fisheries. Decaying coral reefs. Shrinking natural habitats. Melting glaciers and icecaps. Increasing freshwater shortages. Growing wealth inequality. Spreading international terrorism and militarism. Ongoing nuclear proliferation. Worldwide overpopulation. Rising religious and immigrant intolerance. Continuing scourge of AIDS/malaria/poverty. Unabated political corruption.

National crises: Meltdown of financial sector. Rising unemployment and declining wages. Increasing homelessness. Continuing media consolidation. Impoverished local governments. Skyrocketing federal deficits and borrowing. Growing corporate influence over elections. Declining value of dollar. Continued outsourcing of manufacturing/technical jobs. Spreading child and adult obesity. Shrinking middle class. Widening income disparity. Restriction of civil liberties and growth of government secrecy. Congressional gridlock. Diminished charitable giving. Decline of retirement savings and real estate values. Ballooning home foreclosures. Increasing privatization of the military. North Korea. Iran. Iraq. Afghanistan. Crumbling infrastructure. Increasing costs of living, credit and health care.

Well, I did it. However, I’ve listed only conditions that have appeared lately in the media, and only those that strike me as critical. There are likely scores more, depending on the knowledge and viewpoint of the observer.

My point is this: All these crises have arisen on our watch, while we American Boomers enjoyed the most sustained period of prosperity the world has ever known. Anybody besides me feel guilty?

Judy Collins

"Both sides..." Ouch.

Straight out of James Bond

Check out this extended analysis of why US administrations--all of them, including Obama's--are getting more and more involved in Yemen's activities, and it's not about al Qaeda, but rather about control of oil shipments and containing China. Could this be true? If so, I feel like such an idiot, a typical American idiot.

If Bush is a war criminal

what does this make Obama?

I'm no Libertarian...

but once again Justin Raimondo has nailed it when it comes to America's ongoing militarism, historically and immediately. What a waste, what an outrage. What a shame.

What do you think?

As much as I disagree with this writer's notion that capitalism heals all economic ills, I must say that his analysis of "deleveraging" and his sense of the future of US and international markets is spot on. There are so many commercial enterprises, even here in SB, that are dropping away from the marketplace (witness the many shuttered retail outlets along State Street), that it's hard not to foresee another huge string of real estate losses in the commercial area and, as this will take another few years to even out, an ongoing restructuring of our economy.

What I don't agree with is the writer's idea that government should simply stand by and do nothing as this occurs. Although so far the government's failures have been monumentally ineffective, I can't stand to allow the poor and middle-class to suffer as this all plays out. I believe the government must take steps to alleviate the agonies of the masses, even if this means more American debt, because, as the writer says, it's likely the sustained global uncertainties will mean that our dollar-based debt instruments will continue to be the "safe haven" for worldwide lenders, most notably, China.

Food for thought

What do you think about this? Positive, negative or crazy?

George Lucas's dream come true

Doesn't "the breacher" remind you of some of those machines that the evil empire wielded against Hans Solo and his rebel friends?

War isn't just hell...

it's madness. Check out this analysis of the imminent assault by massive numbers of US Marines (with some NATO and Afghan forces) on the Afghan city of Marjah. Note that our forces number 15,000 while the opposition's one-tenth of that amount. Note that we're advertising our attack in advance so the civilians can leave or barricade themselves. Note that it's likely the Taliban fighters will leave before we attack in any event, to live to fight another day. And note the cruel irony, buried in the article, that because of all the attention, money and investment that NATO intends to devote to Marjah after the attack to win the "hearts and minds" of its residents, other Afghan towns are likely to invite the Taliban to their areas so they too can receive an influx of funds and projects. It all sounds rather like the satirical Peter Sellers movie, "The Mouse that Roared," doesn't it?

Super Bowl ad

The Focus on the Family television ad that caused all the ruckus for having been shown during the Super Bowl is here. To me, the problem isn't with the ad itself--I don't find it worthy of so much grousing, indeed, I find it pleasant--but with the fact that it was the first "advocacy" ad that CBS had agreed to air, and that at the end of the rather lighthearted, inoffensive ad, a referral appeared, guiding viewers to the Focus website, where much more strident anti-abortion messages appeared. Although I am of the mind that thinks there are much greater problems with America--and America's media--I can't get over how a national network, using public airwaves, is granted the power to air the Focus ad while refusing to show ads that focus, with similar decorum, on a woman's right to attend to personal medical conditions.

To my fellow writers...

Read this and weep.

There's just no accounting for taste

I mean, to some, I suppose this is just peachy. To me, it's a bit extreme, especially the part about the soil in the girl's lungs.

Extra, extra!

Here, finally, is some important news.

Gutsy people

These two doctors have more guts than I do. Very effective, too.

What's in a word?

Check out Rasmussen's daily tracking poll of Obama's job performance. This page shows the numbers (strong approval percentage minus strong disapproval percentage), going back to Obama's first day as president, and, as Rasmussen notes, the -4% as of the poll dated 2/1/10 is the highest number for months, rising sharply from the depths in the last two days, following Obama's SOTU address. Amazing how fickle the American public is, how gullible and susceptible to being swayed by good oratory.

Scary, actually.

Too much to bear?

Losing Zinn and Salinger. I suppose they had to die sometime, but during the same week?

Why they hate us...

Check out the last line of this brief news story. Doesn't it say all there is to say about the callousness of our presence in these foreign places?

In case you missed it...

Nigeria, which over the past decade has become a nightmare of death and destruction, isn't some tiny African outpost. It has a population almost half of that of the United States, even with all the killing.

If I were living in Caracas...

I'd be holding my ears, because "shock and awe" are on the way.

Wait and see

Obama is going to deliver his first State of the Union Address on January 27. We're told it's going to be a "no more Mr. Nice Guy" speech. He's just rehired David Plouffe, who was so important in his successful Presidential campaign, to bring some potency to his administration. Well, we can get a glimpse of what Plouffe has in mind from this recent essay by Plouffe, and I must tell you I don't see very much to be hopeful about. To be sure, Plouffe says some good things, but I see no spark, no truly populist venting--certainly no significant policy suggestions--in the essay.

I'll be listening to Obama's speech with heightened interest. (I haven't watched a SOU address for years, for obvious reasons.) There's had better be some fire and brimstone--and some serious effective "change"--in Obama's speech or else he'll be guilty of what I despised so much about the Bush administration: repackaging instead of rethinking.

Obama should propose an increase in income tax on the wealthy; a re-imposition of the estate tax (since its going to go back into effect soon anyway, Obama need not suggest an enactment by Congress, but simply inaction, which Congress seems capable of doing nowadays, if nothing else); a vigorous jobs program, including federal money for job-creation, particularly in green industries and green energy efforts; strict controls and limits on lending and banking; ending both wars (certainly ending the Iraq occupation), and something bold and decisive I haven't included above. This last I'll leave to Obama and his folks--that's why they get the big bucks.

Actions, not words, Mr. President. Words don't work anymore. If you've learned anything in this first year, it's that.

The long road home

With the recent election of a reactionary to the Senate from Massachusetts, our most liberal state, the message was clear: The power of monied advertising can create the message, spread the message and indoctrinate the electorate against the force of reality, truth, decency. And now, in today's opinion, the Supreme Court (5-4) has overturned decades of precedent to allow unlimited corporate influence in elections. It's all over now but the shouting--from TV sets, Internet sites, everywhere big money reigns.

A vital question

that's rarely asked; and the answer to which seems obvious to this writer. Your answer(s)?

Before you suicide...

read this.

Ah! Now we've got him!

The following is a slightly-revised version of a letter I sent to the NewsPress yesterday. I'll update this blog if/when it's published.

Update: It turns out the photo the Feds used to show an aged bin Laden wasn't of bin Laden at all, but of a Spanish official--and he's pissed off. Can this saga of the pursuit of bin Laden get any weirder?

Further update: The letter was published in the SB NewsPress on/about January 19, 2010.

To the editor:

Extra! Extra!

Using the highest-tech digital methodology, the Feds have now updated the Wanted-Dead-or-Alive photos of bin Laden to show his aging during the many years we've been hunting him. (It's been way more than a decade, folks; he's been wanted at least since 1998, for the US embassy bombings in Africa).

Well, there's no doubt now: bin Laden's days as a free man are surely numbered. Those folks in the AfPak mountains are sure to finger him for us, now that they recognize him. For years they've been uncertain about the identity of that six-foot-four Arab living amongst them with his arsenal of weapons and teams of bodyguards, some of whom may be hauling along a kidney-dialasis machine for their boss. The locals no doubt have been hesitant to claim the $25,000,000 reward because of this uncertainty. But now, with the CIA's new PhotoShop effort, the data will come streaming in and the Predator Drones will soar, their target firmly fixed.

At long last, a serious question at a news conference

Hurrah for Helen Thomas.

For the video, go here.

The good news just keeps pouring in

Like this LA Times article about the prospects of making a living as a freelance writer.

Bravo!

In in-depth articulation of the cruelty/madness that is American foreign policy, now and for the last one hundred years.

What's in a name?

Does it matter that MNF-1 is now USF-1? Apparently not, except for t-shirts and Twitter, there's no difference.

As if we didn't have troubles enough around the globe,

now it's dust.

Too funny

The secrets of NASCAR racing revealed in this lucid, compelling video.

Try not to get too unglued

I've not gotten swept up in the healthcare debate/debacle in this blog, but this chart displays facts that are so maddening that I can't help myself. You've got to click on the chart to enlarge it, but when you do, weep or gnash your teeth or do something, anything, just to prove you're alive. (If, under our healthcare system, you still are.)

Mental illness?

For some reason, this morning I was websurfing and found myself visiting sites about Alan Turing, the genius mathematician. I believe I had begun my surfing with an article about autism and some reference was made to the possibility that Turing suffered from that affliction, although according to the several sites I visited about Turing not many mentioned that possibility. But I must say, Turing's life--his immensely interesting life and tragic death--made me think he may well have been autistic. Indeed, after my surfing, I thought what an amazing movie his life would make. (It has been made into a play, I understand.)

This evening I opened my NetFlix packet to watch the movie therein, not recalling what movie I'd rented, and to my amazement that movie was "A Beautiful Mind," about another afflicted scientist, John Nash.

I'm positive my morning surfing was done without conscious knowledge of what movie I'd NetFlixed for that evening. (My NetFlix plan allows me only one movie at a time, and this movie I'd rented weeks ago and had lying on my table unviewed over the holidays. I'd seen the movie before, but barely remembered it, having viewed it only once upon its release eight years ago.)

Two questions: First, was my subconscious at work this morning? Second, must one be mad to be a genius, or does it just help?

What the aughts were not.

Here's a brilliant essay about the decade that is about to pass into history, and why it perfectly forecasts the demise of what we thought was America.

Wouldn't you think they'd change the cover?

I mean, how hard can it be? Talk about bad timing.

If you think my last post about Obama's war policies was too harsh

check out this article at TomDispatch.

"Rope a hope"

Here's the text of a letter to the editor I've emailed today to the SB NewsPress. I'll update if/when it's published.

Update: It was published on December 18, 2009.

Who is he? Is Obama a war president or an envoy of peace? You can’t tell from his Oslo speech, its eloquent phrases belied by his escalation of the Afghan war. Is he a man of the people, or is he in the grasp of Wall Street and insurance-company influence? With all his common-man rhetoric, he throws billions to bail out banksters and refuses to support single-payer health care. Does he favor transparency in government? If so, why does his administration continue Bush’s secrecy policies? In short, is Obama truly the agent of “change” or is he the purveyor of “more of the same”?

Many of his supporters—including this writer—who campaigned ardently for him a year ago are more than merely disappointed or dismayed. We look to Obama’s deeds, no longer to his words, and feel betrayed. Indeed, we now understand (to paraphrase Muhammad Ali’s phrase after his victory over George Foreman in Zaire) we’ve become the victims of “rope a hope.”

A new slogan

to describe Obama's repeated failures to live up to his campaign rhetoric--and our sensation at having been betrayed by him--taken from Ali's boxing victory over Foreman in Zaire: "Rope a hope."

Afghaniconsternation

I wonder: Did Obama make his troop-increase announcement out of a firm belief that it was the best way to deal with Afghanistan and "terrorism"; or did he do so because he believed it was politically beneficial? Which causes me to ask this: Which is more frightening?

Talk about recycling!

Here's a solution to America's obesity problem.

Sometimes, other folks say it better than I

This is one of those times.

Isn't war wonderful?

The latest from our "victory" in Falluja. (Video)

Higher mathematics

Numbers like these for the costs of war make me sick, when I think of the uses to which such sums could be put back here in America. When I say, "sick," I mean actually nauseous, because not only are such monies diverted from our own benefit, they're burned up, literally, with no payoff to anyone and with evil consequences for the environment as well as the concept of peace. Awful, ugly, sickening.

Where's the outrage?

Have we grown so tired of stories like this that we're now immune to disgust? (The kicker, at the end of the article, is that we've lately extended the bastards' contract.)

McGovern and me

I guess I'm not crazy, saying that we should get our troops out of Afghanistan immediately. If I am, I'm in good company.

Accidental history

I wonder if this would work for our troops' withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. A jumbled remark at a general's news conference, and all our troops would climb aboard their HumVees and drive out of the countries. It works for me.

About running

Besides fretting over the militarist and fiscally perverse state of our nation (and the equally troubling emotional state of this author), I also spend quite a bit of time running. I've been running regularly since I was 37 (in 1977), averaging, probably, 1000 miles a year. I run mostly for the good feeling I get when I do it (and to avoid that bad feeling I get when I don't), and rarely run in "races," such as the many local 10-kilometer events here in SB. I've run in about ten such races over my "career," mostly 10-k's, but a few longer events, too.

I've had my share of running injuries over the years, and so this NYT article, describing a new book about running, caught my eye. It appears to criticize the effect on injuries of these many new-fangled running shoes, with their various cushionings and supports and seems to foster the idea of minimalizing footwear to avoid running injuries.

Well, here's the deal. About five years ago, after undergoing a series of foot injuries that sidelined me for weeks at a time, I decided to try something different. Instead of lacing up my running shoes--New Balance brand, not too intricate in features--as tightly as I had all my life, I decided to lace them so loosely that they almost came off my feet as I ran. I'd always tightly laced my shoes--all types of shoes--because, I suppose, that's what my mother did when she tied my shoes back in my pre-shoe-tying days.

The result of loose-tying of my shoes: No foot injuries in the years that have followed. Not a one. True, I occasionally get other pains--a tight hamstring, a sore lower back--but not a twinge of foot pain. And so--I think I'll buy this fellow's book.

If there is a "god"

this woman writer has "nailed it" for me.

Even if we don't know why they hate us...

here's a good sign of how much they hate us.

And now for something not very different...

and don't say I didn't tell you so.

Where's the beef?

Here's a letter to the editor of the SB News-Press that I submitted yesterday. I'll update this post when/if it's published.

UPDATE: The letter was published on Friday, October 23, 2009.

We’re being told that improvement in the “real economy” (that’s us, folks) won’t begin until Americans start spending again. But we can’t spend more unless we have more, and that means we need more jobs and better pay. But those increases are dependent upon improvement in the “real economy.” Do you get it? We’re caught in an economic loop, a “jobless recovery,” where only the money-changers’ pockets benefit—just like the one we suffered through during the Bush years.

There’s this difference, however. Whereas over the last decade Americans were able (and induced) to borrow against their homes and credit cards to spur spending, now we can’t. We’re already maxed out (or more), while our home values are declining, our mortgage payments increasing and our credit limits shrinking.

What about all those billions (or is it trillions?) that were poured into the banks and their insurers during the last year? Well, it turns out they haven’t “trickled down” after all, unless you’re one of their CEO’s or shareholders. But job growth? Nada. And an increase in real wages and salaries of workers? No way. Indeed, we’re still losing jobs at a monstrous rate, and wages are still in decline. Only the stock market is rising—and that’s merely an increase from a panic-driven bottom. In short, all that’s happened over the last year can be captured in a single word: Nothing.

To quote Bette Davis, “Fasten your seatbelts, we’re in for a bumpy night.”

Where's the emergency?

Better yet--where's the outrage?

Brevity rocks

I get a kick out of slogans--I'm no literary or intellectual snob--especially those that appear on bumperstickers carrying terse, pithy messages. I'm not talking about "My kid's an honor student..." stickers, and certainly not "God bless America." But "The more people I meet, the more I love my dog" is, to me, priceless. And my latest discovery: "All who wander are not lost."

One man, one vote?

Is this really a good idea in view of these folks, our fellow citizens and sign-makers?

MacMuseum?

Say it isn't so. What's the next site: The Sistine Chapel?

You think I'm kidding?

Why do they hate us?

Here's one reason.

He said it best...

I don't agree with Tom Friedman about many things (especially his favorable view of economic "globalism"), but I must admit he's a hell of a writer, with whom I agree on this point: Our national discourse has become ruinous of serious and effective democratic reflection. After a finely-pointed comparison to a similar condition in Israel some years ago, he concludes:

The American political system was, as the saying goes, “designed by geniuses so it could be run by idiots.” But a cocktail of political and technological trends have converged in the last decade that are making it possible for the idiots of all political stripes to overwhelm and paralyze the genius of our system.
Those factors are: the wild excess of money in politics; the gerrymandering of political districts, making them permanently Republican or Democratic and erasing the political middle; a 24/7 cable news cycle that makes all politics a daily battle of tactics that overwhelm strategic thinking; and a blogosphere that at its best enriches our debates, adding new checks on the establishment, and at its worst coarsens our debates to a whole new level, giving a new power to anonymous slanderers to send lies around the world. Finally, on top of it all, we now have a permanent presidential campaign that encourages all partisanship, all the time among our leading politicians.
I would argue that together these changes add up to a difference of degree that is a difference in kind — a different kind of American political scene that makes me wonder whether we can seriously discuss serious issues any longer and make decisions on the basis of the national interest.

What bullshit!

Multiple signs of recovery? My ass. Job losses continue unabated, as do the hours of work and amount of pay. Income disparities are growing, not shrinking; gas prices are headed upward again, inflation is on the way and the value of the dollar is tanking.

Obama was sold a bill of goods by his Wall Street advisors that counseled unmonitored "trickle down" economics. The worst is still to come, brothers. This "recovery" is a chimera, a fake boom fueled by the government's infusion of funds into banks and big corporations, who are reporting big profits rather than trickling the money down into the hands of the people.

You heard it here first. Actually, not first. Seven-hundredth. We're in for years of ugly recession, and in the short term for another deadly bounce off the bottom.

Great fun!

Here's a link on a site that offers strings of quotes from an oldtime radio program named "Pat Novak for Hire." It starred Jack Webb (pre-"Dragnet") and was set in San Francisco, where Webb played a hard-boiled private investigator. The dialog, much of it captured in these quotes, was Raymond Chandler cubed, at least cubed. Give some of the episodes a click and read as many of the quotes as you can before falling out of your chair in glee.

Karzai ballots

Hmm. What was your first clue the election was rigged?

We've got China right where we want them

Building a chocolate theme park.

And now for something really important...

Check out Cecil's answer to an age-old question.

Fifty things that are being killed by the Internet

Here's one list. Can you think of others?

Arranging deckchairs...?

I know that the Titanic metaphor is a much-used one, but I'm getting that sensation with Obama's administration. Fiddling while Rome burns? Closing the barn door after the cows have split? Whatever, you pick. His ramping up in Afghanistan, his equivocation about military tribunals, his billions to banks and AIG, his backing down on healthcare, his constant failure of meaningful leadership--among many things, lead me to despair of hope for a significant change in America's course. Could it be that Obama's out for a plaque somewhere. Is he--like Bill Clinton--so needy, so yearning for universal adoration that principle plays no part in his decision-making? Is he, after all, just another politician?

What do you think?

Do you agree or disagree that "America's mainstream has a 'mean streak'"?

Robots that lie to each other

This article explains why we need religion, even if there's no god.

I coulda told ya

Two weeks ago I was camping along the migration route of Sockeye salmon--one evening on the Olympic Peninsula side, one evening on the Vancouver Island side--and there was talk of a "thinner" run of fish. "Thinner" was the word the lady on the Canadian side used, as I recall. Turns out she wasn't exaggerating, not at all.

How awfully sad.

Barack, I hardly know ye

Here's another one of my letters to the editor of the SB NewsPress. I'll update with info if it's published in the hardcopy paper.

Update: The letter appeared in the NewsPress on August 5, 2009.

To the editor:

A liberal’s assessment of Obama’s brief tenure.

His Sotomayor nomination rocks. However…

The economy. I grant that he’s not had nearly enough time to reverse the disastrous impact of decades of America’s profligate, credit-addicted consumption, but he’s hearkening to the same persons and institutions to effect “change” that created and fed on those now-entrenched cultural/economic memes. While he seeks to improve our financial straits—to constrain our unregulated markets, to cure our loss of decent-paying jobs and widening earnings disparities—there’s little prospect of stemming America’s decline so long as he employs the tools crafted by the same folks who wrecked—and profited from the wreckage of—our nation’s economy.

Our “security.” His rhetoric occasionally feels satisfying, but his actions—the buildup in Afghanistan/Pakistan, the still-growing Pentagon budget, the continuing secrecy—are doggedly similar to those of his predecessors. He also promotes America’s global-policing role, thereby energizing the “military-industrial complex” that Eisenhower warned about five decades ago. Indeed, but for his recent (and politically safe) elimination of some Pentagon-derided F-22’s, Obama’s foreign/military policy appears as pugnacious as Reagan’s.

Surely he’s too well schooled to be ignorant of an acutely salient lesson of history: empires invariably decline due to consumptive over-indulgence and militaristic over-reach. Therefore, his failure to activate true “change” must be the result of something in his character that is ultimately ruinous of meaningful achievement: fear.

After suffering through eight years of an executive who acted through ignorant arrogance, must we now endure one who suffers from informed cowardice?

Well, whadda you know!

The feds are finally getting back to some serious antitrust enforcement. It's actually quite a modest start. By way of background (not related in the NYT story), the loosening of antitrust enforcement began many years before Bush II, with the slow turning away by the US Supreme Court from truly aggressive rulings favoring competition between businesses as the means to create a healthy climate for the marketplace. The "Chicago school" (based on Milton Friedman's concept of unrestrained capitalism) took over, the most salient disciple of which was Professor (now federal appellate judge) Richard Posner and influenced the course of judicial as well as administrative decision-making, creating the doctrine that consumers benefit more from economies and efficiencies of scale than from competition among equals. There began a long history of approvals of huge mergers that created "too big to fail" entities: not just banks but conglomerates that spanned many business arenas.





Well, maybe we've learned that "bigness is badness," to repeat an adage that used to dominate antitrust thinking. I hope so, because it has gotten so that entry into some low-investment businesses is becoming prohibitively costly, almost impossible. With high rentals of huge malls, massive chains of retailers and suppliers, how, really, could a small entrepreneur begin, for example, a sandwich shop or a burger joint? What about a carpeting outlet or a clothing stor?





As I said, a modest start, but a start toward once reducing the power of the monied and vested interests in America.

Okay, I'll chime in

I've been quiet for a while, I know. My laptop died, and I'm awaiting a new one. Also, there's been so much noise on the airwaves about the election protests in Iran that I feel rationality has been muted, although I've not been without my own ideas on the subject. Here they are, extended and stated much better than I could by Professor Juan Cole.

Good for Britain

Looks like they're going to investigate pre-Iraq-war shenanigans. Let's hope it's a thorough study, and that it shows the Bush administration's role in that tragedy.

I'm grateful that somebody's watching

because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to follow the US "timetable" for withdrawal from Iraqi cities by the end of this month, and from Iraq by 2012. The answer: don't count on either.

There's no explanation for this...

except for the dominance of the military-industrial-political complex.

Iran's democracy

It was on Bush's "axis of evil," but when it comes to presidential debates, it beats our version hands down.

"New beginnings"

I just watched Obama's speech in Cairo. I teared up at the end. I realize now why I voted for the guy, and why I'm proud that we elected him our president. In case you missed it, and want to be moved, here's a link to the C-Span presentation of it.

http://www.c-span.org/Watch/Media/2009/06/04/HP/R/19357/Pres+Obama+Speaks+to+the+Muslim+World+From+Cairo.aspx

Norman Lear speaks

Not just a fine creator, an oracle. This video is directed to the first President Bush:

I couldn't resist

Here's another letter I wrote to the SB NewsPress, which, if it's published I'll be surprised and will update accordingly.

To the editor:

A few days ago, George W. Bush gave a speech to the graduating class of a New Mexico high school. It was the first time ever that he said something with which I heartily agree, and so I cannot help but pass it on. Commenting on what it felt like now that he was no longer President of the United States, he said, "frankly, it's a liberating feeling."

What's in a name?

In Iraq, when are city limits not city limits?

Sometimes you find an essay that says it

better than you can. Howard Zinn's is such an essay (actually, transcribed from a speech).

Good news

I used to be a knowledgeable antitrust lawyer. Back in the day, I prosecuted class-action lawsuits against price-fixers in the bread business and the title insurance industry; I fought tie-in sales and market-allocation schemes on behalf of consumers and small businesses. I used to know the law in these areas and I used it, I think, to positive effect.

But over the years the law eroded, erosion caused by both the opinons of a neglectful US Supreme Court and an indifferent bunch of enforcers in the federal government, from the Department of Justice Antitrust Division to the Federal Trade Commission.

Now, finally, this will change. Perhaps because of a realization that the prior policies have caused the phenomenon of "too big to fail" corporations, perhaps because of the dominating impact of some segments of our economy upon our national wellbeing--we're in for some serious re-thinking of our antitrust policy. It's long overdue, but it's welcome.