This is the biggest story of the year

Insiders are saying what we predicted--that invading Iraq would simply create a breeding ground for anti-American sentiment, in essence "a movement" seeded by our warlike behavior.

Democrats can win the presidential election--hands down--in a single stroke

by invoking Robert's Rules of Order in such a way as to wrangle the 9/11 commission into following Condi Rice's bullshit testimony ("We didn't know, couldn't know, about the imminent airplane attack on US skyscrapers") with the directly contradictory evidence of Sibel Edmonds, who translated intelligence documents precisely to the opposite effect.
Why do I think this will turn the tide? Check out the photo of the translator on the above link. She's a knockout (besides being multilingual), and so will appeal even to Bush supporters. What am I saying? Especially to Bush supporters, who define truth by what's prettiest.

Somewhere in Manhattan, there's a janitor who stands to make a cool fifty grand

if he/she tells the complete story of when and how and by whom he/she was ordered to cover up the painting, Guernica by Picasso, that would otherwise have been displayed as the backdrop of Colin Powell's now-discredited speech to the UN Security Council in which he detailed the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to justify our invasion?
Wouldn't you pay, even pay-per-view, to follow the exquisite details of the backstage machinations, from the initial order emanating from the White House to its final effectuation?

WarBots

Check out Revenge of the WarBots on antiwar.com:

"We tried to warn you. We protested, we railed and wrote arguments against the war, but you wouldn't listen. Now, those mercs killed in Fallujah were your responsibility. You put them there, with your cakewalking, rosepetal fantasies and ridiculous misconceptions about Iraq. The blood of all the dead from your illegal, unjustified war in Iraq - both 'coalition' and Iraqi - is on your hands. "

Raed on Falluja

Raed in the Middle ... insightful thoughts on the cycle of violence.

The real reason for the invasion of Iraq?

Or just another one?

Fallujah

A perspective on the horror in Fallujah: Juan Cole * Informed Comment * ... was it revenge for the incineration of Yassin by Sharon?

Jobs

From CNBC this morning: Gateway is closing nearly all (180) of its retail stores, laying off 2,500 workers. (I happened to enter such a store three years ago, newly opened in SB, when I wanted to buy a laptop. I went through my list of desired specs with the salesperson, had my credit card in hand and then was told that the machine would be shipped in three days. The salesperson told me that the store didn't stock computers, but was only an outlet for receiving retail orders. I left the store and bought my laptop--a Compaq--at Circuit City, muttering under my breath that Gateway's retail concept was idiotic. Three years later, apparently, they concurred.)
CNBC also reports that Sun Microsystems is laying off 3,500 jobs.
The Labor Department will issue its report on March job levels ten minutes from now. The concensus of projections is that the unemployment rate will remain constant at 5.6%, and the economy will add 120,000 jobs, about the same numbers as was projected last month, when the eventual figure was 21,000. (Recall, it takes about 150,000 additional jobs each month, on average, to keep up with the growth of the number of persons entering the workforce.)
To be updated very shortly.

Update: The numbers are high: 308,000 new nonfarm jobs in March; upward revision of February's jobs to 46,000 from 21,000, and January's job numbers upwarly revised too. The unemployment rate, however, increased to 5.7% and there's hardly any movement in the net income per worker and there's actually a loss in hours of work. Furthermore, the sectors that grew jobs were not high paying. Retail, services, and so forth. Manufacturing didn't add any jobs.

These figures, however, are fodder for the Bush campaign. If they keep up at this level in the coming months, look forward to four more years with Bush at the helm.

Floor Statement of Sen. Daschle on the Abuse of Government Power

You guys gotta read this. Seriously. Tom Daschle speaks out on the Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill witch hunts, "the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity as a deep cover CIA agent," and the Abuse of Government Power.

"This is no way to run a government.

The White House and its supporters should not be using the power of government to try to conceal facts from the American people or to reshape history in an effort to portray themselves in the best light."

Backfire

Check out this on Antiwar.com Blog. The writer posits that the whole theory of installing Jeffersonian democracy with heavy armor is backfiring. Well, yes. ... But look, a new word: liberventionist. Cool.

Let God sort 'em out...

In response to Sound Familiar? ...

Everything about this war is the same evil as every other war. The whole damned thing is a bubbling, seething magma of insanity piped fresh from the irritable bowels of hell. And when I saw those hyenas lynching and cavorting around those crispy corpses, I wanted an Apache helicopter to drop down over the Euphrates and strafe the whole misbegotten crowd. Mow ‘em all down, let God sort ‘em out.

See what war does to the mind? Who should I call about what it's doing to mine?

Dona nobis pacem, fac Dominae. Salva me fac Dominae. …Pacem! … Mir! … Peace!

Just imagine

If the April 1 list of killings and bombings in Iraq were to occur in a comparable area/population of the United States, say Southern California, we'd be calling out the National Guard, right? Well all those killings are happening with the military already in place.
Scroll down the list, pop around the links to see how the numbers flow from bad to bad to bad. You'll be amazed that Bremer can call this place "an evovling democracy." It's an existing hell.

Sound familiar?

Tribune Bremer's announcement that those who defiled the Americans in Fallujah will be "punished" sounds frighteningly like the kind of decrees that issued from the SS during the occupation of Paris, no?

Starbucksgate

Seems somebody named Eric, who works for Donald Rumsfeld, left some interesting notes on a table in a Washington Starbucks. I imagine they have a shredder next to the table with the half-n-half and Splenda. He shoulda used that on his way out.

Link
[Washington Post, being kinda clueless, requires registration. They don't realize you're defeating the purpose and function of the Internet if people can't link to your content.]

Chaos

I'm listening to KPFK this morning -- an interview with a reporter named Robert Fisk in Baghdad. Besides the chaos of the event in which bodies of foreigners have been dragged from their vehicle and hung from a bridge, he opined that the situation in Iraq generally is getting worse, more violent. This is bad news, obviously. But it's good news, politically.

"I don't think think that reporters should be talking about their own safety. Most of the people being killed in Iraq are Iraqis." ... He went on to point out the disparate media coverage of the deaths of westerns there, as compared to the deaths of Iraqis.

Unspectacular campaign

AirAmerica, the liberal radio network that is due to start in a few markets at noon today is off to a less than awesome beginning. This site lists the stations where it may be heard and says that the website will provide a streaming Internet source, but no link. Maybe tomorrow?

I must say, we here in Santa Barbara are blessed with Pacifica Radio, heard at 98.7 FM, KPFK, and of course other like-minded transmissions on KPFK, which also streams through its site to the world, but I'm going to support AirAmerica too. We've just got to take back America, and we've got to start somewhere, however modest that start appears.
Update: The website of AirAmerica has been spiffed up bigtime since I linked to it this morning. It now shows the programs and the performers. Much good stuff. Log on and hope.

Updated update. Here's a list of sites that may allow streaming audio of the new network.

Kerry watch

Not in derogation of my immutable opposition to the re-election of Bush/Cheney in November, I'm going to maintain a (sometimes) log of items about John Kerry--his activities and positions--that are troubling to me as a liberal. For starters, there's this position paper about Venezuela on Kerry's website.

Here we go again

Waiting for the all-important monthly jobs figures. More important now than ever.

Conditional Condi

If I were still a lawyer, I would insist that Condi Rice give testimony only after all the underlying paperwork is available for use in examining her. There's a wealth of documentation, including Richard Clarke's emails and memos to her, all still "classified," that must be in hand before her testimony can be tested.
Will this happen, or will the examiners' questioning of Condi be wussy and weak? I fear the latter, partly because of the Commissioners' lack of gumption, partly because of their lack of paperwork. Partly, too, because the Commissioners' fear that badgering Condi might be taken as, well, anti-woman, anti-black, anti-both.

I fear, as I noted below, that Condi's gonna carry the day, as a good liar can when unchallenged.

Another take

There are two sides to every story, especially in international economics. For the side that disputes my preceding post, check here.