Fascism in Fifteen Parts

I just found this series of articles by David Niewert of Orcinus. It's two years old but probably a good primer in how the state of affairs in our country has come to be. I haven't read it all yet as it will take several sessions, but I'm going to make the attempt. Join me.

Irony marches on

Bush with the Romanian president:

"Iran . . . is a non-transparent society . . ."

Who was on the Dickster's Energy Task Force again?

Also, Bush is bandying U.N. resolutions around again, with regard to Syria this time ("Syria must abide by 1559"). We'll be attacking shortly.

Stretched thin

No, this time it's not the U.S. military, it's me. I've been realizing over the past couple weeks that I have a lot of commitments, some that have to be dealt with sooner than others.

One is the book I've been writing over at creativity. That's fallen by the wayside and I'd like to get it finished because it's next up in line after Technocracy, the 8th in my epic series of pulp drivel whose publishing deadline is rapidly approaching. I'm starting to get serious hate mail from my regular readers, who've been waiting since November '03 for the next episode. I still have a little more work to do there before it gets shipped off.

Also, there's The Fixer & Gordon which I've let suffer, the contributing I do over at The Seventh Cross, and the administration of this blog, which is taking more and more time thanks to the increased traffic (thank you all who come by here and I'm not complaining). Then, most importantly, there's the reduction of quality time I'm spending with Mrs. F and the Princess thanks to all these commitments. Never mind work (my real job of keeping the cars in my section of Long Island's North Shore running).

So, I'm trying to figure out what to do. Since my books mean income, those naturally take priority. Though I've tried, blogging and writing just aren't working for me. I know others can do it, but I've found I can't. My brain goes to completely different places and it's a walking and chewing gum thing for me. My blogging will be reduced in the coming weeks, that's a given. How much is still a matter of consideration. Whether it'll be a complete hiatus for a couple months until the work on my books is done, or just a once in a while thing, I don't know yet. I'm also debating having a guest blogger until my hiatus is over, but that's for further, private, discussions between Gord, KR, and me. If someone is interested in filling in temporarily, email me and I'll take it into consideration. I'll still be doing the 'behind the scenes' work here regardless.

So that's it. Nothing Earth-shaking, just that you'll be seeing a little less of me here over the next couple months. No great loss really, I know y'all like Gord and KR better than me anyway. Ha!

Shock and Awe

Bubba's got a great post up that I meant to link to the other day:

I thought "shock and awe" was just a clever tagline dreamed up by Rumsfeld's PR people. In fact, it is the title of a 1996 report to the Pentagon on "achieving rapid dominance."

[. . .]

Jawbone of an ass

WTF? I thought the Saudis were Bush butt-buddies? Seems that Bush is Bandar's bitch. First, we pull American troops out of the Kingdom and now oil prices are heading upward again. I thought we had some leverage?

[. . .]

Oil prices held close to $55 a barrel, within sight of all-time highs, as late wintry blasts in the United States reignited demand and a tumbling dollar drew more investors into energy markets.

U.S. light crude for April rose 2 cents to $54.61, nearing the record high of $55.67 hit in October last year. Rising oil prices have raised concerns that higher energy costs will pinch corporate profits and curb consumer spending.

[. . .]

So I ask again? Who's in charge around here? Bandar or Bush?

Sturm und Drang, was macht nichts

From Melanie:

[. . .]

Let me say a few things that should be blindingly obvious by now. Europe was not bamboozled by Bush/Condi's charm offensive last month. If anyone had any reason to doubt his "sincerity" (whatever the hell that means) as a multilaterist/internationalist, that little moment has gone down in flames. Bolton's appointment to the UN is a massive "Fuck you" to the rest of the planet. What Bolton doesn't understand is that the world's view of the US has undergone a substantial revision since we completely screwed up our little middle-eastern adventure. We are now nothing more than a bully with nothing left to back it up and everybody knows it. Have a wonderful time at the United Nations, Mr. Gutless Wonder Bolton. And you are one of the prime movers who got us here, loudmouth.

I love it when she's pissed.

Morning thoughts

Pilfered from Champollion at Rising Hegemon:

The minimum wage bill is hung up in the Senate where there is no agreement in sight to raise the minimum wage over $5.15 an hour.

WASHINGTON - The Senate defeated dueling proposals Monday to raise the $5.15-an-hour minimum wage — one backed by organized labor, the other salted with pro-business provisions — in a day of skirmishing that reflected Republican gains in last fall's elections.

And remember, the Republicans have also made it easier for employers to allow comp time in lieu of time-and-a-half when an employee goes over 40 hours in a workweek.

We are so third world. Cue up Lee Greenwood, please.

Indeed. After 4 more years of Bush, all America will be known for is cheap labor and bad government. I guess it's a way to solve the immigration problems. The illegals will look somewhere else for better-paying employment opportunities.

American Wahabbis

From Mother Jones, an alternative lens for viewing the Ten Commandments cases.

In the United States as in the Middle East, the core of this Puritanism stems from a nostalgia for an imaginary past – in our case, a belief that the U.S. was a wonderful place when it was peopled mostly by pioneers who came from good northern European stock, who knew right from wrong, and weren't afraid to back up their beliefs with a gun, or by going to war, if they needed to.

Yeah, like slavery and them pesky blanket-asses, huh?

The founding fathers, of course, had a very different vision. They had seen the damage caused by the arcane disputes which triggered the religious wars of the seventeenth century. They preferred the ideas of the secular enlightenment, which instead of forcing men to accept the religious interpretations of other men, provided the space and security for each man to seek God in his own way.

Good article. Go read.

Sheep

What do you get for pretending the danger's not real
Meek and obedient you follow the leader
Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel
What a surprise!
A look of terminal shock in your eyes
Now things are really what they seem
No, this is no bad dream. - Sheep, Pink Floyd

Keeping and bearing

I'm not one for firearms. I never felt the need to own one after I left the military. I don't hunt. Just never felt like shooting anything that didn't pose a threat to me, and I have a soft spot for animals. I don't condemn hunting, I got friends who do, religiously. They enjoy it, more power to 'em. I'll go target shooting with friends once in a while, just to assure myself I ain't lost it (qualified marksman consistently in the military, even got a ribbon, with oak leaf cluster and star device, for it), but I never felt the need to own a gun.

Until now.

More below the fold . . .

Letter From Canuckistan

Thank goodness (sometimes) for slow news days. As I sit here with my fingers in my ears waiting for something truly earth-shattering (it could happen, under this administration) to come across my wires, occasionally I run across a jewel to share with you. This letter to Condiliezza appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press. Thanks to 42.

I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defence system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.

Such control-freak antics may work in the virtual one-party state that now prevails in Washington. But in Canada we have a residual belief that politicians should be subject to a few checks and balances, an idea that your country once espoused before the days of empire.

To protect people against international crimes like genocide and ethnic cleansing, they support new institutions like the International Criminal Court -- which, by the way, you might strongly consider using to hold accountable those committing atrocities today in Darfur, Sudan.

And these Canadians believe that the United Nations should indeed be reformed -- beginning with an agreement to get rid of the veto held by the major powers over humanitarian interventions to stop violence and predatory practices.

Gee, whatta buncha commies, eh?

Disgusting

NYT via Kos:

[. . .]

But the delays were only beginning. The initial misstep, as well as other previously undisclosed problems, show that the Pentagon's difficulties in shielding troops and their vehicles with armor have been far more extensive and intractable than officials have acknowledged, according to government officials, contractors and Defense Department records. In the case of body armor, the Pentagon gave a contract for thousands of the ceramic plate inserts that make the vests bulletproof to a former Army researcher who had never mass-produced anything. He struggled for a year, then gave up entirely. At the same time, in shipping plates from other companies, the Army's equipment manager effectively reduced the armor's priority to the status of socks, a confidential report by the Army's inspector general shows. Some 10,000 plates were lost along the way, and the rest arrived late. [my emphasis]

[. . .]

What was that? Oh yeah fuck support the troops.

Depleted uranium

The Sister:

Let me just reiterate this one more time: things like 9/11 don’t happen in a fucking void. Our actions have consequences.

Link. [video] Warning: Very graphic.

Watching the clip, it reminds me of the Hell many of those in Japan went through for generations after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

The deficit

Ya see why I harp on this? This ain't just my idiotic ramblings. From the lips of somebody who knows something:

Warren Buffett, the world's greatest investor, yesterday launched a vitriolic attack on the US government for failing to take effective action to reduce the country's trade deficit.

[. . .]

"A country that is now aspiring to an 'ownership society will not find happiness... in a 'sharecropper's society' " But he says that just such a demeaning outcome is "where our trade policies, supported by Republicans and Democrats alike, are taking us."

It's time for a little pain, though this Congress cringes at the mere thought of it. It's time for a tax increase, before the debt gets out of reach. It's time for the repeal of the Bush tax cuts a few years ago. We cannot sustain this pace of spending, especially using the fuzzy math (big-budget items off-budget) the Bush administration is. It's time for the White House to be brought to the bar, and it's time for the 'paleo-conservatives' to do it, if any of 'em actually exist anymore.

Link via Corrente. You really should read The Farmer's post too.

Banktruptcy

. . . You know a lot of people don't realize that the industry that gave the most money to Washington over the past few years was not the oil industry, was not pharmaceuticals. It was consumer credit products. Those are the people. The credit card companies have been giving money, and they have influence . . . [my emphasis]

Go read the whole post and understand how this horrible bankruptcy bill is being shoved through.

Update: 15:30:



Found this here. Thanks to Oliver Willis.

Update:16:30:

Stolen in full from Froggy:

The Republican controlled government is coming after anyone who isn't rich now, and they are making very little effort, except in how they name their bills, to hide the fact that the real war is not on terrorism, but the working class. You think I'm kidding? This is what we get because the red states are full of poor, god-fearing people who ought to be more afraid of the Republican party than any god of any religion.

ANWR . . . again

Travis has an excellent post on the shenanigans over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

In their continuing attempts to ruin as much of the world as humanly possible while their guy still has office, Republicans have figured out how to avoid a filibuster on legislation allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by tacking provisions onto a budget bill . . .

Death sentence

I commented on this Friday. Gillard goes farther.

[. . .]

This is from US training, which stresses fire and protection first and foremost. Car doesn't stop, blow it away. That's what happened in Tal Afar when the troopers from the 25th ID blew away a family. Speeding? Be a kid with a machine gun waiting for a car bomb and donkeys speed. Instead of conspiracy theories. one should be asking how many times do US troops kill Iraqis just like this. I thought driving while black was bad, now driving while Iraqi can be a death sentence.

Ah-nold: Girly-man Gubernator

James Wolcott does it again.

"[T]he Governor is so used to browbeating the press that he thought he could do the same to the California Nurses' Association (CNA), one of the most militant unions in the country, with 60,000 members and representing registered nurses at 171 health facilities throughout the state. Schwarzenegger has been trying to roll back the union's gains on nurse/ patient ratios, safety standards and kindred issues.

"On February 15, when Schwarzenegger and his platoons of body guards and flunkies trooped into a screening of Be Cool, 300 nurses demonstrated. Kelly DiGiacomo, 46 years old and 5'2", a nurse at a Kaiser hospital near Sacramento, had a ticket. She ensconced herself in the fourth row, wearing her nurse's scrubs.

"A bodyguard rushed up, and under the pretext of a possible meeting with the governor, led her to a room with a California Highway Patrol cop at the door and began to grill DiGiacomo. A few days later a CHP investigator called. DiGiacomo asked why she should be considered a threat. The investigator replied, 'Well, you were wearing a nurse's uniform.' 'Oh, sure, the international terrorist uniform,' DiGiacomo scoffed. Californians scoffed with her when they saw the news stories. At least Bush and Cheney can claim they're being targeted by hairy men from the dark side of Mecca. Here's Arnold hiding behind his goons from the woman who cares for you when you're in the hospital."

Some "tough guy", huh?

Martha's Lesson

There's been a lot of verbiage this week about Martha Stewart. As everybody knows, she just got out of the can after five months, a billion dollars richer and probably infinitely wiser. Good for her, I say. Before all this happened, I couldn't have gave a shit less about her one way or the other. I still don't, other than I think she got royally screwed by the government. Think on this:

Ms. Stewart got five months in a federal joint and five months house arrest for lying to the government about a crime that she was never charged with, a crime that arguably never occurred, over an insignificant amount of money from the sale of her own stock, that ain't a drop in the bucket compared to what Enron and others blatantly stole from everybody with administration help. What I take from that is this:

It's OK for the president and the government, cops, politicians, preachers and corporations to lie to, or steal from, you and nothing happens to them. Nothing, except maybe praise for doing their job well and being on the bandwagon of power.

However, if you lie to them without being on their IOKIYAR list, or for being an uppity broad, or for not paying enough protection money in the form of campaign contributions, you're in big trouble. It's the Amerikan way: pay up or pipe down. Or we'll knock you down.

I'm not going to even say that this is unfair, because that would just be whining. Of course it's unfair. It was engineered that way and it works well. Someday the tables will turn and I hope I'm there to grind my heel in their face. Now that's fair.

Questions

A good one from the Ghost:

[. . .]

Why is a book, possibly anywhere from twenty-five hundred to two thousand years old, of dubious and questionable authorship, with notable historical inaccuracies, inconsistent logic, unprovable positions and overt factual errors, the so-called basis of an open, democratic, scientific and technologically advanced society?

[. . .]