If oil prices remain high

this economist predicts that the American stock market will suffer a long, slow decline, along with the economy in general, with the middle class suffering under the "tax" that increased gasoline prices imposes on their pocketbooks.

Could it be, could it possibly be?

That after years of display of undiminished timidity in the face of the supreme power of the corporate entities that own them, there may finally have arisen in the media a sense of outrage against this administration? They've let Bush slide past the absence of WMD in Iraq, the absence of any link to al-Qaida, the long series of prevarications and abuses that have driven his administration. But now, maybe, with these false allegations against Kerry's medals in Vietnam, maybe, just maybe, they've sensed what we've always known: That Bush and his minions are evil. Lying slimeballs, monsters, corrupt and base beyond any that our system has so far experienced. Maybe, just maybe, out of a sense of moral outrage--a burst of principle--the media may finally get it, may try at last to redeem the years of ass-kissing solicitude they've given Bush and his cadre of evildoers.

Or maybe not. Remember, they're still owned by Bush's buddies.

Two takes on Iran's latest expression

When a high official in Iran said that pre-emptive strikes were not the sole prerogative of the United States, there are (at least) two possibilities. One, this is what we've reaped from what we've sown; or two, this is precisely what Bush meant to encourage with his agression, so that he can now justify agression against any nation that dares to utter the doctrine.

Depends on who(m) you listen to

The record high price of oil won't cause too much of a ripple in the world or US economy in the long run, or is cataclysmic.

Another lost story

While the news is filled with stories about Kerry's Vietnam war experience, this item--about the Iraqi soccer team and captain taking sharp exception to Bush's use of them to further his campaign, including strong condemnation of American troops occupying their country--barely makes the news.

Eye off the prize

On the eve of the Republican convention, Bush/Rove have managed to deflect the campaign from the truly relevant issues to Kerry's Vietnam war activities. Of course. They're evil geniuses, except for Bush, who's an idiot.

Among the missing issues: Jobs and real income of wage earners. They're in the pits and nobody knows it, except of course those who are experiencing the difficulties. Must we rely merely on their getting out of the house to vote on election day, or will the Kerry folks somehow manage to turn the debate to the real questions that need to be answered?

Too many brushfires

It's maddening, the number of false or biased reports that are being fed to the public by the mass media; and the stories the public aren't told.

Nowhere is it reported that the British are furious at Bush's administration for "outing" their source of al-Qaida intelligence by issuing an alert, clearly based on the source's information. Americans aren't informed about the undemocratic selection of the national assembly in Iraq, aren't kept abreast of the increasing death toll of US soldiers. They're given no information about the billions of dollars--that's with a "b"--that are unaccounted for from the Iraq reconstruction funds, the latter story carried by Reuters, but nowhere televised on the major broadcast or cable media.

We're inundated with stories about celebrity trials, with "spin" stories about campaign smears, with the latest violence and weather problems.

The dumbing down of America? It may be in large part the fault of Americans themselves. It surely is the fault of the media, too. They've long blamed themselves for this, but have done nothing about it.

Talk about a flip-flop

The Pentagon's on-again, off-again sanctioning of KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary, for failure to abide by the massive contracts in Iraq is either a strong showing of graft, or just simple incompetence. Not neither, probably both.

Another reason to abolish the electoral college, unless you're from Montana

Check out this analysis, demonstrating how skewed the system is against the will of the people.

I'm getting suspicious

I regularly check on the status of US military fatalities in Iraq, but somehow it escaped me that seven (yes, seven), American soldiers were killed in action on August 15. The deaths weren't posted by the Department of Defense on a timely basis, so the Casualty Count website only published them piecemeal.
If the deaths had been reported widely, on the day they occurred, there would have been outrage. Recall when five soldiers died from a helicopter crash in April?
Is DOD dribbling out the reports on purpose?

If Kerry should lose the election,

it may very well be because of his consistent hawkishness about Iraq. He's trying to convince "the center" that he's no wus, but in so doing he may lose not only the liberal edge of the Democratic party, but the true conservative/libertarian portion of the opposition, who are outraged by Bush's foreign policy. The website, Antiwar.com, is basically libertarian, is alienated by Bush's invasion of Iraq. But Kerry offers no contrary position, and so won't get their votes.

Nuance over madness

The Republicans have made much of [Kerry's]... record; the Kerry campaign is haunted by replays of the theme song from the old TV show "Flipper." Mr. Bush, however, has a far more dangerous pattern of behavior. On issues from tax cuts to foreign policy, the president tends to stick stubbornly to his original course even when changing events cry out for adaptation. His explanations seem to evolve every day, but his thinking never does.

This is how the NYT put it, in an editorial about Kerry's vote on the Iraq war resolution. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Toldja so

A year ago (unfortunately, our archive doesn't go back that far) I predicted that Bush would withdraw American troops just before the election. Now he's done just that, ordering 70,000 soldiers back from abroad.

Problems: It's too far before the election to make a difference in November. And they're not the troops that count, because they're to be taken from noncombat areas, not from Iraq or Afghanistan. On this account, it looks like a bald political ploy and may indeed backfire. Let's hope so.

Hurricane Charley

Damn. If only the hurricane had waited until the Republican convention. It's dominating the TV news--absolutely overwhelming all channels--that nothing else can find its way through to the US viewer. Okay, I'm sorry for the 15 or so who died in the storm, but what about the hundreds who've died over the last week in Iraq.

(On CNN, they just had a two-minute segment called "other news" and it featured three reports, in this sequence: 1. The path of Charley. 2. Governor Jeb Bush's upcoming visit to wrecked sites from Charley. 3. The ending of the "truce" in Najav, Iraq. Now CNN's back to hurricane coverage. BTW, coverage not of the storm itself, but photos of its damage, and efforts to gain insurance coverage.)

"Wrenching changes"?

A Bloomberg report about about the widening US trade deficit contains a frightening quote from a recent Federal Reserve Board meeting:

Growing trade deficits contribute to a widening gap in the current account, the broadest measure of trade because it includes investments, and put the dollar at risk because the U.S. needs to attract more and more foreign capital to finance it.

Fed officials are watching the growing trade imbalance and its contribution to the $144.9 billion current account deficit. Staff members made a special presentation at the Fed's policy meetings June 29th and 30th, saying that ``outsized external deficits could not be sustained indefinitely.''

While adjustments to the imbalances aren't ``necessarily imminent'' and would likely be ``benign'' when they happen, ``more wrenching changes could not be ruled out,'' according to minutes from the meeting released yesterday.

What, I wonder, are these changes, and whom, do you suppose, they'll wrench?

If Kerry wins the election

it will be an astounding victory for truth, for reality, over the ignorance of the masses, fed by media tripe. The level of discourse on the TV channels is so base that one wonders how a citizen can be asked to make an intelligent decision. I point, as today's example, to the media's castigation of Kerry for rising to the "bait" that Bush fed him, by saying that he would have voted for the Iraq war, even knowing what is now known about the absence of WMD.

I haven't read the details of that particular exchange, but that's not the issue, that's not what's at stake in the upcoming election. What's at stake isn't debating points or "gotchas" or mean-spirited smears by and of these two men. What's at stake is the future of the planet.

I can only hope that Americans can somehow see through the media's grossly inadequate presentation of the issues and gross distortions of fact. I don't know how they'll do this, and hence must rely on hope.

My God, what are we doing?

Our ferocious invasion of sacred cities, our massive attacks throughout Iraq, these are not only immoral, illegal and monstrous, they're inflaming the entire Muslim world, Sunni and Shia and in between. I can't believe our media, and hence our populace, can sleep through this violent rampage. But somehow they manage to do so, day after despotic day, month after murderous month. This is how empires end.

What do they know that we don't?

All three major 5-year indices, the Dow Industrials, Nasdaq (mostly high-tech companies) and S&P 500 (the broadest index) show the end of the "recovery" and a downward U-turn, and this in spite of record profits for many of the major corporations. Obviously the body of investors in American corporations sense something in the economy that bodes ill for business.

I wonder why we don't have reports of this consistent phenomenon. Could it be that the entities that control the news are buddy-buddy with, indeed are part of, the companies whose stock makes up these indices?

On the other hand

This AP story is headlined, "Leak allowed al-Qaida suspects to escape"--a direct statement, although not attributing the leak to a source. The story itself, on the other hand, does its best to bury the import of the story, that is, that US officials, giving an interview with newspeople on background, leaked the name of the terrorist, causing obstruction of ongoing investigations.

Update on October Surprise

Okay, so the conventional wisdom was that if al-Qaeda, or somebody, attacked the US before the election, it would benefit Bush/Cheney on a kind of "don't change horses in the middle of a war" theory. Accordingly, I fretted about such an attack, and I'm sure the Bushies longed for it.

But now that the Bushies have spouted that the recent spate of terrorist arrests have defused the threat against the US, an attack now might play into the Democrats' hands on the theory that once again the Bush administration has failed to assess intelligence and threat correctly. So suddenly I'm rooting for an attack, to spark a turn toward Kerry/Edwards. If such an attack should occur, Kerry/Edwards might just be elected by near-acclamation.

Sensing this, the Bushies have been quick to downplay the significance of the recent arrests, insisting that the danger remains. They don't want for a moment to lose the leverage that continuing fear of terror gives them, even at the expense of our sanity, our serenity, or the truth. And, to combat this cynicism, I assert my own.

For a synopsis of the pundits' ruminations on the subject, and related subjects, check out this Christian Science Monitor article.