Surprise, surprise

With all the publications tripping over themselves to endorse Barack Obama lately, I've decided to join in: I favor Obama for president in 2008!

For a handy explication of the differences--sometimes more subtle than I'd like--between Obama's and McCain's views on American foreign policy, check out this essay. As to domestic policy, no contest.

I'm no economist

but I did take the course in college, using Samuelson's text; and I majored in Political Science and have followed politics and law all my life. And so, when the Nobel committee selects Paul Krugman for its annual award for economics, I know what it means: The United States government has been out of step with the economics of the civilized world since--when?--since Reagan.

Oh, wouldn't it be loverly...

If the US couldn't find a way to extort a Status of Forces Agreement out of Iraq's government before the expiration of its UN mandate on December 31. The US would then be, without any cover of international law or UN approval, an illegal occupier of a foreign nation. Any killings by US troops thereafter, I believe the law would say, would be murder; and those who ordered the occupation would, one would think, be culpable, just as culpable as Hitler was for the deaths that occured during Gemany's illegal occupations during WWII.

I'd paddle to the Hague to be inside the courtroom to watch the trial of Bush/Cheney on those charges. Hell, I'd even resuscicate my dusty old shingle if there was a one-in-a-hundred chance I could participate in the trial, if only to fill the prosecutor's water cup during final argument.

A new epithet for Bush

Comrade.

It could get ugly

I'm not talking about the tenor of the presidential campaign, which we all knew would get ugly about this time in the cycle. I'm talking about the election result itself. This composite polling site already (as of today, that is) has Obama winning the electoral-college vote, with 296 "solid" or "leaning" states; and of the few tossups, Obama's leading in most of them, too. He could end up with 350 electoral votes or more, losing only the deep south, the bible belt and the redneck west (plus Arizona, McCain's home state). In that process, it might be added, he could bring with him enough Senators and Representatives to hand control of Congress to the Democrats.

How would life feel if this happened? Wait one month and see.

Read it and weep

Can we ever live like this again?

Break out the big lipstick

This is one big pig.

Lipstick on a pig

I gotta tell ya, those add-ons (increased FDIC insurance, some accounting changes for banks, tax credits for environmental energy sources) do nothing to enhance the basic flaw in the bailout package, namely, that it's a top-down Band-Aid of the problem, and it simply hands off to the next Congress and administration the endemic structural problems of our economy, our stock-market system and, last but not least, our political gridlock. Bush has now found a way to bail out on all the problems his reign created. Two wars, economic chaos, terrorism increasing around the globe, the US reputation in the world in the tank, and America in decline.

Thanks, Bush. Thanks, Congress. Fuck you all.

A tipping point?

According to this moment's numbers (because they change each moment) at RealClearPolitics.com, Obama's lead in the national polls is more than five points on average, his electoral college lead is significant and, most tellingly, the betting odds on his winning the election are above 60-40. (Check the figures in the Intrade Market Odds box in the upper right-hand quadrant of the site.) With the upcoming Palin/Biden debate, the "crisis" in the markets, and other messes around the globe, the next few weeks until the election could become ugly for McCain. A debacle like 1964 (Goldwater/LBJ) perhaps? Let's hope so, so that the mean-spirited conservatives are, for at least two decades, once again driven to near-extinction.

A day in the life

of calm and quiet Baghdad.

Not with a bang but a whimper

This is how opposition to America's occupation of Iraq ends.

That bugle you hear...

is the US Army taking over America.

A day in the life

Read it and weep. For all of us.

When I move to the mountains

I'll have good company.

Meanwhile...

Look, I understand why all the news nowadays is about the economy, the "meltdown" and so on. I mean, we're talking pocketbooks here. But wouldn't it be nice if just a tiny slice of reporting was devoted to the ongoing violence in Iraq? If not out of interest, what about humanity?

Be afraid, be very afraid

The Pentagon has authored an agenda for future US military planning that includes persistent battles around the globe related to "resource wars"; fights against a "youth bulge" that is imminent in emerging nations, as those nations' populations demand a bigger share of natural resources; use of outer space for enhanced surveillance of Earth activities and features; increased, sophisticated use of robotic warfare; and the improved ability to conduct war among civilian populations.
A truly frightening document, describing a truly frightening future.

Sarah...

what about the road to nowhere?

Was the "surge" a success?

Or was the surge merely a purge?

I wish I'd written

This. To which I'd add the personal greed of Americans, who don't seem willing to save, but rather wish to borrow and borrow and buy and buy. A culture of consumerism that started--once again--with Ronald Reagan.

Leave it to a Brit

to explain why McCain/Palin are doing so well in the polls.