Don't do as I do

I got out of the stock market entirely about three months ago, and since then the Dow has gone up and up, hitting new highs. I knew this would happen--always does.

And yet, just take a gander at this chart and the accompanying comment. China and Japan own us now, and all it will take is one sneeze, one burp, and the American Empire is over.

It feels good to be on the sidelines watching, rather than in the arena, fighting with lions and tigers and bears, oh my.

Goddam right!

Ship this illegal immigrant outa here!

That silence you hear

is the absence of cheering on Main Street (as opposed to Wall Street) from the new high recently hit by the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Here's why.

"A great day for Iraq."

That's a quote from a US general, commenting on new uniforms for Iraqi military that visually differ from the old ones so insurgents can't conceal themselves as soldiers. You gotta read the entire article, and if you're not teared up (with either laughter or sadness) by the end, you're not a human being.

I have my limits

For years, I've posted tales of the miseries Iraqis have undergone because of our invasion and occupation of their country. But tonight, at one o'clock a.m., PDT, I found myself unable to keep at it, unable to click at the bottom of page one of this report about the hundreds of bodies found in the Tigris River, unable to bear more ugliness and depravity. If you can, feel free, but don't tell me what appears. I'm going to sleep--like most Amerkcans.

"Why do they hate us?"

Hmm. I wonder. Could it be because of this?

They're finally getting it

Our troops in Iraq are asking--of themselves now, but, hopefully, of their commanders, including their commander-in-chief--"Why are we here? Who is the enemy?"

Job has nothing on the Iraqis

Now we learn that the Tigris River is poisonous--dead fish and dead birds floating along, covering the banks of the river north of Baghdad. And of course the river is a main source of drinking water for Iraqis--and flows south.

WTF?

Some posts ago I wondered "who's on first?" Now, with this latest madness among the Iraqi power structure, I wonder, "who's at bat?"

Pot and kettle

During the first three days of October, seventeen US soldiers have been killed in Iraq. Now that's an horrific average daily death toll--more than twice the average over the three-plus years of the war--but an even more horrific raw figure. Seventeen dead GI's. If a helicopter carrying that many troops went down outside of Atlanta, Georgia (or somewhere), the event would bounce every other story off the front page, at least for one news cycle.

But not over the last few days. The seventeen GI died unnoticed, the news of the carnage swamped by stories of Congressman Foley's folly.

Not that I'm not enjoying watching the Republicans twist and squirm, but in truth the left-wingers, including all AirAmerica radio hosts, have given time to only that one story, mimicking the right commentators during the Clinton scandal. So--Al Franken, Randi Rhodes, all you folks--don't for a moment think you've got the high ground on yellow talk. You're no different from the Limbaugh's and Hannity's. You're all in the entertainment business, pure and simple.

I missed my calling

I shoulda been a headline writer, so I could come up with lines like this. Wonderful.

If you wrote a novel with these developments

you'd be ridiculed as a sci-fi author. An eleventh-hour scandal about a Republican Congressman, soliciting sex from a teenage intern while heading up House's Internet solicitation committee; a growing unrest about foreign wars; a hard-headed president, with hard-headed advisors, resisting all. And now, we learn that the Senate is up for grabs, headed for a dead heat which, of course, would leave any significant political votes in that chamber tied--and with Cheney, the most hard-headed of all, able to cast the deciding vote.

Condi, you're a lying bitch

This monster has been given a free ride for too long. Now, less than a day after she denied meeting on July 10, 2001, with Tenet and Cofer Black about an imminent al Qaida attack, it turns out, oops, that meeting did indeed happen.

A new movement

Take a minute or two, and make your whole day.

McCain, as in Abel

This essay nails it. The "maverick" senator from Arizona is no moderate, no maverick. He's dangerous, and he's a media darling. Sound like some sitting president you know?

Who's on first?

When Iraqi police attempt to assasinate the governor of a province, you gotta ask yourself.

Flipping burgers

That used to be the job reserved for the high school dropout, the lowest rung on the service-industry poll. Well, if you scroll down (or, if you can handle reading) this lengthy analysis of how "free trade" is wrecking the American job market, you'll find this paragraph.

"According to Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin, even McDonald jobs are on the way offshore. Augustine reports that McDonald is experimenting with replacing error-prone order takers with a system that transmits orders via satellite to a central location and from there to the person preparing the order. The technology lets the orders be taken in India or China at costs below the U.S. minimum wage and without the liabilities of U.S. employees."

The prospect of leaving my newly-arrive grandchild a third-world (or lower) economy is truly frightening--as is this article.

You know you've got construction problems

When a ceiling light fixture fills with fecal matter seeping through the floor above.

In case you wondered...

Here's what's going on in Iraq lately. The author of this blog, an Iraqi journalist, keeps track of the ongoing carnage throughout the country, not just the latest car bomb in Baghdad. It makes for tough reading, but it's necessary to get a true picture of how ugly it is, day after day, in that sorry nation.

The looming debacle

Here's why I got out of the stock market.