Teddy

Today:

We thought in those early days in Vietnam that we were winning. We thought the skill and courage of our troops was enough. We thought that victory on the battlefield would lead to victory in war, and peace and democracy for the people of Vietnam.

[. . .]

We cannot allow history to repeat itself in Iraq. We must learn from our mistakes in Vietnam and in Iraq. We must recognize what a large and growing number of Iraqis now believe the war in Iraq has become a war against the American occupation.

[. . .]

The elections in Iraq this weekend provide an opportunity for a fresh and honest approach. We need a new plan that sets fair and realistic goals for self-government in Iraq, and works with the Iraqi government on a specific timetable for the honorable homecoming of our forces.

[. . .]

And of course the Repubs had something to say about Kennedy's 'treasonous' talk.

Republican National Committee spokesman Brian Jones criticized Kennedy’s timing.

“Its remarkable that Sen. Kennedy would deliver such an overtly pessimistic message only days before the Iraqi election,” said Jones. “Kennedy’s partisan political attack stands in stark contrast to President Bush’s vision of spreading freedom around the world.”

[. . .]

Why is it that all the folks with some sense compare 'Bush's vision' in Iraq to Vietnam? I mean, if the shoe fits, right? I'm hoping and praying that the Iraqi people can pull off this election on Sunday, for their sakes and in spite of what Chimp-boy does. After three decades of Saddam and two years of Bush, they deserve a break.

Take a minute

Sixty years ago today, the camp at Auschwitz was liberated. BBC:

[. . .]

At least 1.5 million children were murdered by the Nazi regime between the years 1933 and 1945. The vast majority were Jewish, but disabled children, Roma children and children in the occupied territories were also killed as a direct result of Nazi policies. The lives of hundreds of thousands of other children were also significantly affected.

Only an estimated 11 per cent of Jewish children alive in 1933 survived until 1945.

10,000 Jewish children came to Britain on Kindertransport - listen to and read some of their stories and find out how the Nazis treated children

Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis last century. It's estimated that 15 million people died in total. These included Slavs, Gypsies, homosexuals, disabled people, anyone of African descent, Christian pastors and Catholic priests, Jehovah's Witnesses and many more individuals who for one reason or another, were regarded as degenerates or considered racially inferior.

[. . .]

Take a minute and say a prayer for all who have, and will, die at the hands of tyrants. If you're in Europe, you owe it to yourself to take a tour of one of the camps. It was one of the most moving experiences of my life.

Update: 15:35:

Gord turned me on to this in comments.

Maggie On Babs

No, it's not a new mail-order-only video. Margaret Carlson writes about Senator Boxer in the LATimes:

You wouldn't know it from reading the newspapers, but Sen. Barbara Boxer served her country valiantly last week. In her grilling of Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice, Boxer finally named the elephant in the hearing room, which is more than the war itself. It's the lies that got us there.

For her trouble, Boxer was blasted — even by those who agreed with her — not so much on substance but on style (my emphasis). Sen. Robert Byrd gets called "irascible." Why can't women get called irascible? It's so much nicer than the other words we get called.

Style? This is a fucking street fight, folks. Style be damned. Kickin', bitin', gougin', stompin'- those count. Win or die.

The Los Angeles Daily News accused Boxer of embarrassing herself with uncivil bombast. "The edge in her voice was jarring," wrote the San Francisco Chronicle. The Washington Post's Colbert King took on Boxer for "slurring Rice." In blog- land, Boxer was called, among other things, "old, burnt out, shrill and saggy looking."

Ah, what do they know? Babs got me so hard a cat couldn't scratch it.

Perhaps a more diplomatic interrogation could have saved herself some grief. But it's hard to find that pitch-perfect voice within the range of civility on these subjects. On Wednesday, the U.S. suffered its biggest one-day loss in Iraq. The war's body count is at 1,400. Insurgents vow a bloodbath on Sunday. In Washington, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice sail on, and everybody's mad at Barbara Boxer.

Good tactic: Shoot the messenger. If I was a boot-lickin' congressoid, Sen. Boxer's actions would shame me to the point my testicles might just pop back out. Good on ya, Babs, and thanks, Maggie, for pointing these things out.

End-Timers & Neo-Cons

I'm getting some good stuff lately from conservatives that are nearly as pissed off at Bush as I am. I am glad to see this.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during 1981-82. He was also Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He writes in ZNet:

America has blundered into a needless and dangerous war, and fully half of the country's population is enthusiastic. Many Christians think that war in the Middle East signals "end times" and that they are about to be wafted up to heaven. Many patriots think that, finally, America is standing up for itself and demonstrating its righteous might. Conservatives are taking out their Vietnam frustrations on Iraqis. Karl Rove is wrapping Bush in the protective cloak of war leader. The military-industrial complex is drooling over the profits of war. And neoconservatives are laying the groundwork for Israeli territorial expansion.

In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush. Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush.

The Iraqi War is serving as a great catharsis for multiple conservative frustrations: job loss, drugs, crime, homosexuals, pornography, female promiscuity, abortion, restrictions on prayer in public places, Darwinism and attacks on religion. Liberals are the cause. Liberals are against America. Anyone against the war is against America and is a liberal. "You are with us or against us."

This is the mindset of delusion, and delusion permits no facts or analysis. Blind emotion rules. Americans are right and everyone else is wrong. End of the debate.

The conservative movement that I grew up in did not share the liberals' abiding faith in government. "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Today it is liberals, not conservatives, who endeavor to defend civil liberties from the state. Conservatives have been won around to the old liberal view that as long as government power is in their hands, there is no reason to fear it or to limit it. Thus, the Patriot Act, which permits government to suspend a person's civil liberty by calling him a terrorist with or without proof. Thus, preemptive war, which permits the President to invade other countries based on unverified assertions.

There is nothing conservative about these positions. To label them conservative is to make the same error as labeling the 1930s German Brownshirts conservative.

When the draft is reinstated, conservatives will loudly proclaim their pride that their sons, fathers, husbands and brothers are going to die for "our freedom." Not a single one of them will be able to explain why destroying Iraqi cities and occupying the ruins are necessary for "our freedom." But this inability will not lessen the enthusiasm for the project. To protect their delusions from "reality-based" critics, they will demand that the critics be arrested for treason and silenced. Many encouraged by talk radio already speak this way.

Because of the triumph of delusional "new conservatives" and the demise of the liberal media, this war is different from the Vietnam war. As more Americans are killed and maimed in the pointless carnage, more Americans have a powerful emotional stake that the war not be lost and not be in vain. Trapped in violence and unable to admit mistake, a reckless administration will escalate.

Good article. I just hit a few high spots, so go read. What's scaring me these days is that I don't get quite as concerned as I used to when I find myself agreeing with a conservative viewpoint. That's how bad things are becoming. It'll be good to gang up against Bush and defeat him. Then we can go back to fighting amongst ourselves. This is crazy, but I look forward to it like I never have before.

Democracy, Inc.

From the Corporate Crime Reporter:

Robert Kennedy Jr. last week accused President George Bush of being “the most corrupt and immoral President that we have had in American history.”

Kennedy is touring the country promoting his new book, Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and his Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy (HarperCollins, 2004).

In the book, Kennedy implies that we live in a fascist country and that the Bush White House has learned key lessons from the Nazis.

“While communism is the control of business by government, fascism is the control of government by business,” he writes. “My American Heritage Dictionary defines fascism as ‘a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership together with belligerent nationalism.’ Sound familiar?”

He quotes Hitler’s propaganda chief Herman Goerring: “It is always a simply a matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Kennedy then adds: “The White House has clearly grasped the lesson.”

Kennedy also quotes Benito Mussolini’s insight that “fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”

I think Bush&Co. are very selective in their choice of things passed down from "Old Europe".

I'd rather a BJ

In terms of presidential indiscretions anyway. Stolen from Travis:

Today in history

Was it really only seven years ago [audio clip]? Remember the good old days when a scandal was about a blowjob not torture policies and the obstruction of voting? Bring back cigars and thong underwear!

Soul, or the lack thereof

Wolcott:

[. . .]

When Bush did address the soldiers' deaths, he said that we "weep and mourn" when Americans die, but as he was saying it his hand was flatly smacking downwards for emphasis, as if he were pounding the table during the business meeting, refusing to pay a lot for a muffler. The steady beat of his hand was at odds with the sentiments he was expressing--he didn't look or sound the least bit mournful or sombre. And why should he? Death doesn't seem to be a bringdown for him. There isn't the slightest evidence that he experiences the anguish LBJ did as casualties mounted in Vietnam. His record as chief executioner in Texas is of a man for whom the death of another is an administrative detail, a power exercise. As Sister Helen Prejean wrote in The New York Review of Books:

[. . .]

Bush has no soul and looks at our troops as numbers in a ledger. He doesn't care how many die, how many American lives, and families, he destroys, let alone all of the innocent Iraqis killed in the last 2 years. At risk of sounding like a Jesuslander, Bush is the Devil's henchman.

Liberators

Cartoon via Ezra.

Do the Math

CNN currently has a poll on their Web site asking "Would you be willing to sacrifice your life for a democracy in Iraq?" As of 1:45 p.m. PST, 91% of respondents said "no."

Which brings me to wonder, where are the Jesuslanders? They're a majority in this nation, right? So why aren't they answering that poll "Hell, yes, I'd do it because I voted for Bush. I want to press liberty and the 'Murican way on unwilling nations, even if I get my ass shot off." I'm sure that not everyone who voted in that CNN poll voted for Kerry last November.

I'll admit right now that I wouldn't sacrifice my life so Iraq can have democracy. I'm one of the 91%. But 52% of us, by voting for the Chimpster, said it was a good thing. So put your money where your vote is. Enlist.

Revoked

One of Mrs. F's Limey friends sent this to her.

Subject: Letter from the British to the Americans

..... In the light of your failure to elect a proper President of the USA for the SECOND time and thus the ability to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour', skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise". You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation.

Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed". There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won't have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize". To this I must add that the number of red squiggles in this word document was astronomical.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to Cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents - Scottish dramas such as "Taggart" will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is "Devon". If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become "shires" e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or "Red Dwarf" will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the
girls. It is a difficult game.

Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full Kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005.

You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called "rounders" which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day".

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren't even French; they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps". Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer", and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager". The substances formerly known as "American Beer" will henceforth be referred to as "Near-Frozen Knat's Urine", with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Knat'sUrine". This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen, Czech Republic) to be sold without risk ofconfusion.

13. From December 1st the UK will harmonise petrol (or "Gasoline" as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon - get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns,lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Turner on Gestaatsradio

From Broadcasting & Cable:

Ted Turner called Fox a propaganda tool of the Bush administration and indirectly compared Fox News Channel's popularity to Adolf Hitler's popular election to run Germany before World War II.

While Fox may be the largest news network [and has overtaken Turner's CNN], it's not the best, Turner said. He followed up by pointing out that Adolph Hitler got the most votes when he was elected to run Germany prior to WWII. He said the network is the propaganda tool for the Bush Administration. "There's nothing wrong with that. It's certainly legal. But it does pose problems for our democracy. Particularly when the news is dumbed down," leaving voters without critical information on politics and world events and overloaded with fluff," he said.

I've always kinda liked that loudmouth, except when he was sleeping with Hanoi Jane, but I've forgiven him for that.

If you are interested in Mr. Turner's thoughts on media and government in general, go Read "My Beef With The Media". He writes like he talks - at great length - so take a lunch.

From the horse's mouth

Via David at 42:

[. . .]

There is nothing conservative about these positions. To label them conservative is to make the same error as labeling the 1930s German Brownshirts conservative.

American liberals called the Brownshirts "conservative," because the Brownshirts were obviously not liberal. They were ignorant, violent, delusional, and they worshipped a man of no known distinction. Brownshirts' delusions were protected by an emotional force field. Adulation of power and force prevented Brownshirts from recognizing implications for their country of their reckless doctrines.

Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism of their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy. I went overnight from being an object of conservative adulation to one of derision when I wrote that the US invasion of Iraq was a "strategic blunder."

[. . .]

There are no more troops. Our former allies are not going to send troops. The only way the Bush administration can continue with its Iraq policy is to reinstate the draft.

When the draft is reinstated, conservatives will loudly proclaim their pride that their sons, fathers, husbands and brothers are going to die for "our freedom." Not a single one of them will be able to explain why destroying Iraqi cities and occupying the ruins are necessary for "our freedom." But this inability will not lessen the enthusiasm for the project. To protect their delusions from "reality-based" critics, they will demand that the critics be arrested for treason and silenced. Many encouraged by talk radio already speak this way.

[. . .]

Story.

I've been saying this for almost a year. We are quickly becoming Nazi Germany 1937. I'm sorry, but the similarities between this time and then are just too uncanny.

Maybe

I've been batting this around for a while.

[. . .]

Proposed: THAT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY NO LONGER SERVES THE INTERESTS OF ITS CONSTITUENCIES AND SHOULD BE DISBANDED.

The recent history of the Democratic party has been one of craven retreat from the principles of protection of individual rights, support for the working classes, assistance to the disadvantaged and afflicted, sound stewardship of the environment, and a strong national defense based on economic cooperation and diplomatic alliances.

[. . .]

Maybe we should have term limits. Or start evicting the 'consulting' crowd from their K and M Street offices in D.C. Thing is, there are too many 'professionals' in elected positions in the federal government. The founders of this nation never intended Senators and Congresspeople to serve for 20 years or more. The idea was for common folk to serve a term or two and then go back to their private lives. Our political process has become a one party system. There's one party within the Beltway, and the rest of us out here.

What we know

About Alberto 'Abu Ghraib' Gonzales from the Rude One:

[. . .]

Here's what we know about Alberto Gonzales - what we know, not what we suspect, not what we infer: We know that George W. Bush was arrested for drunk driving in September 1976. We know that he lost his Maine driving privileges for nearly two years, restored in July 1978. We know that in 1978, with a suspended driver's license, he began his run for the House of Representatives (and lost). We know that in 1996 Bush, when he was Governor of Texas, was called for jury duty in a drunken driving case (involving a stripper, which just makes it extra fun). We know that the judge, the prosecutor, and the stripper's attorney have made written statements that Alberto Gonzales asked the judge, in private, to "consider" striking Bush from the jury pool, despite Bush's public statements that he was willing to serve. We know that Gonzales was asked about this in his Senate confirmation hearing and that Gonzales stated he did not recall a private meeting with the judge, but that he did not "request" that Bush be taken out of consideration. In other words, we know that either Gonzales is lying or three other men, in separate statements, are lying. Who would a jury believe?

[. . .]

This guy should be disbarred and someone's trying Via Atrios:

Today, CREW [Citizens for Responsiblity and Ethics in Washington] filed a complaint with the Office of Disciplinary Counsel of the State Bar of Texas requesting an investigation into misrepresentations White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales made in a written response to a question posed to him by the Senate Judiciary Committee which is considering Gonzales’s nomination for Attorney General.

It's amazing what these people get away with. I hope CREW's complaint goes somewhere, but I doubt we'll hear much more of it.

Not likely

Dave Johnson in response to a wingnut comment:

. . . 'why don't Democratic leaders just go ahead and do something themselves about criminal acts by the Bush administration, if they really think it's so bad?'

[. . .]

The Right currently controls every single investigative and legal agent of our government, from top to bottom.

And, as a result of this, can any of the readers here think of even ONE member of the Bush administration - at any level - who has been held accountable for even one transgression of any kind, whatsoever? One who has even been fired? Even demoted? Even scolded?

[. . .]

Talk about checks and balances. It's 'rule with impunity' in D.C. The teenagers have been left in charge of the classroom.

But Will Gay Couples Get Their SocSec Checks?

The NYTimes has this article:

A coalition of major conservative Christian groups is threatening to withhold support for President Bush's plans to remake Social Security unless Mr. Bush vigorously champions a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

"We couldn't help but notice the contrast between how the president is approaching the difficult issue of Social Security privatization where the public is deeply divided and the marriage issue where public opinion is overwhelmingly on his side," the letter said. "Is he prepared to spend significant political capital on privatization but reluctant to devote the same energy to preserving traditional marriage? If so it would create outrage with countless voters who stood with him just a few weeks ago, including an unprecedented number of African-Americans, Latinos and Catholics who broke with tradition and supported the president solely because of this issue." (my emphasis)

Several members of the group said that not long ago, many of their supporters were working or middle class, members of families that felt more allegiance to the Democratic Party because of programs like Social Security before gravitating to the Republican Party as it took up more cultural conservative issues over the last 20 years.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, declined to talk about the letter, but said, "The enthusiasm to get behind his proposals is going to require that he get behind the issues that really motivated social conservative voters."

Asked to estimate the level of discontent with the White House among the group on a scale from one to 10, Mr. Perkins put it at 8.

Maybe those suckers are startin' to wise up.

I'll put it in plainer terms for them: Bush ain't gonna go for no Constitutional Amendment on gay marriage, because it ain't got a snowball's chance in Hell, and it doesn't look good for his Social Security swindle either. Besides that, now that you poor, beknighted, ignorant, intolerant christians voted the sonofabitch into office, he's got no more use for you than he does for a used condom. You can't elect him again. He's in, and fuck you. I suggest you take your pitchforks and scythes (I know you got 'em) to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and, if you get past the Republican Guard, maybe he'll tell you that in person, you fucking pinheads.

Fear Is Security

James Wolcott has this jewel:

What's on display in Washington today isn't strength, it's fear. Fear the White House wants every American to share, so that they won't mind--will accept--endless rows of men in visored helmets and boots.

If ya wanta read the post, I purposely didn't link to it, to make you read your way down past Karnak and the Gay TV Caballeros. I think James missed a bet, tho', in not bringing up the obvious inter-racial gay theme of the Lone Ranger and Tonto.

Ezra moved

Ezra Klein has started his own blog:

Well, I promised changes and here they are. Today's my last day on Pandagon. In fact, this is my last post on Pandagon. I wish I had an interesting story for you all, virtual fisticuffs or undying enmity between your host bloggers or maybe something involving pirates, but I don't. The reasoning for the move is deadly boring -- Jesse and I talked it over and decided it was time to go in our own directions.

But before I go, some "thank you's" are in order. Jesse has been an awesome host and Pandagon a great home. He's forced me to become a far better, sharper, and more prolific writer, and he's become -- and continues to be -- a close, valued friend. The opportunities that have come from this site -- covering conventions, writing for magazines, actually being read -- have been nothing less than extraordinary. My interactions with you guys have been awesome, educational and, on occasion, enlightening (like yesterday's consensus opinion that I needed more meditation in my life). I hope you'll all come by my new site. Maybe Jesse and I can work out some sort of joint custody arrangement. But until the paperwork finishes on that, the door's always open -- http://ezraklein.typepad.com. Thanks again to Jesse, and to all of you. Pandagon has been a hell of a ride, I'll always appreciate it.

Add him to your blogroll.

But, But, But.....

Molly Ivins' column today is about Bush's revisionist view of history in his inaugural speech. She makes this point, among others:

Nor is democracy necessarily the cure for terrorism. As a British journalist pointed out, if Britain had been following the Bush plan, it would have nuked us years ago for being the largest single source of money for the Irish Republican Army (my emphasis). Reality is so often much more complicated than George W. Bush thinks it is.

Reality? George W. Bush? Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Open your wallet . . . again

AP:

WASHINGTON Jan 25, 2005 — President Bush is getting ready to ask Congress for an additional $80 billion for conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as budget analysts prepare new estimates of the federal deficits that would have loomed even without the wars.

An $80 billion request would push the total provided to the Defense Department so far for those wars and for U.S. efforts against terrorism elsewhere in the world to more than $280 billion. An additional $25 billion has been provided to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, all but $4 billion for Iraq.

[. . .]

Hmmmm . . . Yes, let's borrow more money. Our children can deal with the effects. Know what happens with large deficits? This:

[. . .]

The US dollar is down, by approx. 30 percent against major currencies. Further weakening of the dollar is going to upset the international trade by making imports more expensive. A softer dollar will make prices rise internationally.

In a report yesterday the Federal Reserve warned of increasing interest rates ahead, despite the reassurance that inflation was very much under control.

[. . .]

Inflation is not under control if the dollar falls constantly against the euro and other major currencies. With rising deficits and the devaluation of the dollar vs. the euro, inflation will rise. Our national debt automatically gets bigger as the dollar devalues, so guess what? It's a never-ending spiral. My grandmother told me stories about the Weimar Republic and the economic devastation Germany suffered. I still have some of the old 50,000 and 100,000 DM notes that were printed without backing, devalued almost to the point of used toilet paper.

As interest rates go up, the device the Fed is using to curb inflation, it will directly affect the housing market for the worse. Have I mentioned the housing market is resposible for keeping a good part of the economy afloat? This administration's ineptitude is boundless.

Please enlist

I enlisted in the Air Force because I could travel to far off lands, meet new and interesting people, hunt them down, and kill them. Well, not really, but we had t-shirts with that on 'em. Seriously, the Guard and Reserves are in a world of hurt.

Via Gillard.

WASHINGTON - At the current pace of U.S. deployments to Iraq, the Pentagon may be hard pressed by next year to provide enough reserve combat troops suitable for the mission, judging from the military services' own estimates of available manpower.

The notion of running out of reserve troops would have been dismissed only a year ago, but the strain of fighting a longer, harder war than U.S. commanders foresaw is taking a heavy toll on part-time troops of the Army National Guard, Army Reserve and Marine Corps Reserve.

[. . .]

Of the 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq now, nearly 50 percent are from the Guard and Reserve. [my emphasis]

[. . .]

Do I have to say it again? We're in this thing hip-deep and the only options we have are cut and run or start the draft. Mark my words. All you folks who voted for (p)resident Dicknose last fall can blame yourselves when they take your teenager, give him green clothes, and hand him a rifle. How many of you Jesuslanders will let them draft your kid?

Knowing Your Enemy Is Un-American?

Doubleday is planning to publish a book of OBL's thoughts for Al-Qaeda. Here's a CNN anchor's thoughts(?) on that. From a transcript. Scroll down past the weather report.

Randy Kaye:...a quote from the publisher of Doubleday. This is a direct quote. The publisher has said, and we're quoting here, "We firmly believe we're doing a great service to America by publishing the innermost thoughts of our gravest enemy."

Now really, what good do either one of you believe or Stephanie I guess, could come from this? Why should we know our enemy?

KAYE: ...for joining us tonight for that debate. And that leads us to our last call question. Should terrorists' literature be published for profit? Give us a call at 1-800-807-2620.

And the winter storm is creating havoc for thousands of passengers trying to fly this weekend. Details on the latest cancellations just ahead.

I think this particular talking head has to speak very loudly to be heard outside his (her?) ass. Very smooth segue back to the weather, though.

"Know thine enemy as thyself." Sun Tzu, The Art Of War.

Pyongyang On The Potomac

I saw that title in an article in Media Citizen about Armstrong Williams. I couldn't care less about his Oreo ass, but I just love the title and the mental images it brings! TeeHee!

Who Are You Guys, And Why Are You Digging A Mortar Pit In My Lawn?

So, have you noticed the camo-ed up folks skulking through your woods lately? Does the clerk at your local convenience store bear more resemblance to G.I. Joe than Mr. Apu of late? Does your postman click his heels before depositing your mail in your mailbox?

Well, probably not, but that's no reason to give up on paranoia yet. There's every chance it'll come in handy soon. King Of Zembla has an excellent post on the use of super-secret commandos within the U.S. Go read. It'll make your day.

Posse Comitatus has never been a favorite of the Reagan-Bush axis; during the Iran-Contra hearings, you will recall, Congress learned of a plan Oliver North had helped to draft for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), details of which included

suspension of the constitution, the imposition of martial law, internment camps, and the turning over of government to the president and FEMA.

He alleged that the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which has long been accepted as prohibiting such deployments, had simply been misunderstood and misapplied.

Gonzales will have a field day with that one, nez pas?

In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.

One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center. In another exercise, jets performed a mock shootdown over the Atlantic Ocean of a jet supposedly laden with chemical poisons headed toward a target in the United States. In a third scenario, the target was the Pentagon — but that drill was not run after Defense officials said it was unrealistic, NORAD and Defense officials say.

Even if the full extent of their duplicity were known, we doubt the Bush administration would have much to fear from a population of willing -- make that eager -- dupes. But you can certainly see why, if worst came to worst, our beloved leaders might not wish to reject outright the option of interposing an armed division between the White House and the angry, pitchfork-wielding mob.

Keep in mind that all these schemes are just as much to silence you and me as they are to combat "terror". You see, we are just as much terrorists to this administration as a nuclear-explosives-garbed Islamic fundamentalist, the minute we decide not to shut up and drink our Kool-Aid.

Go read. It's a hoot.

Walking Wounded

From The American Conservative on the hidden human cost of Bush's imperialistic war. This is a powerful article, and I recommend you read it.

The observant will have noticed that we hear little from the troops in Iraq and see almost nothing of the wounded. Why, one might wonder, does not CNN put an enlisted Marine before a camera and, for 15 minutes without editing, let him say what he thinks? Is he not an adult and a citizen? Is he not engaged in important events on our behalf?

Sound political reasons exist. Soldiers are a risk PR-wise, the wounded a liability. No one can tell what they might say, and conspicuous dismemberment is bad for recruiting. An enlisted man in front of a camera is dangerous. He could wreck the governmental spin apparatus in five minutes. It is better to keep soldiers discreetly out of sight.

The years will go by. Iraq will fade into the mist. Wars always do. A generation will rise for whom it will be just history. The dismembered veterans will find first that almost nobody appreciates what they did, then that few even remember it. If—when, many would say—the United States is driven out of Iraq, the soldiers will look back and realize that the whole affair was a fraud. Wars are just wars. They seem important at the time. At any rate, we are told that they are important.

These men will come to hate. It will not be the Iraqis they hate. This we do not talk about.

It is hard to admit that one has been used. Some of the crippled will forever insist that the war was needed, that they were protecting their sisters from an Islamic invasion, or Vietnamese, or Chinese. Others will keep quiet and drink too much. Still others will read, grow older and wiser—and bitter. They will remember that their vice president, a man named Cheney, said that during his war, the one in Asia, he “had other priorities.” The veterans will remember this when everyone else has long since forgotten Cheney.

People say that this war isn’t like Vietnam. They are correct. Washington fights its war in Iraq with no better understanding of Iraq than it had of Vietnam, but with much better understanding of the United States. The Pentagon learned from Asia. This time around it has controlled the press well. Here is the great lesson of Southeast Asia: the press is dangerous, not because it is inaccurate, which it often is, but because it often isn’t. So we don’t much see the caskets —for reasons of privacy, you understand.

In 15 years in Washington, I knew many, many reporters and intellectuals and educated people. Almost none had worn boots. So it is. Those who count do not have to go, and do not know anyone who has gone, and don’t interest themselves. There is a price for this, though not one Washington cares about. Across America, in places where you might not expect it—in Legion halls and VFW posts, among those who carry membership cards from the Disabled American Veterans—there are men who hate. They don’t hate America. They hate those who sent them. Talk to the wounded from Iraq in five years.

Arms, legs, eyes, horrible burns, a terrible price to be sure, but the butcher's bill from Bush's stupid and unnecessary ego trip has yet to be presented to the American people - and it will be with them for generations.

Please read the whole article. Print copies and give them to any supporters of Bush's war that you still talk to. Let them know the damage that irrational ideology has done in the name of all Americans and will continue to do throughout our lifetime.

Culpability

TCF:

[. . .]

As much as we are righteous on The Left in continuing to effectively document and expose the wealth of incompetence of the Bush administration, we must not forgive the culpability of those who have overruled us by blindly opted for four more years of it. Before November, our passionately vested European allies were worried but confident that we would shake off this aberration of neo-Fascism, because they separated George Bush from the pragmatic, lone superpower he had temporarily steered off course. But, unfortunately for the 49% percent of us who solemnly swore too on Thursday as Bush took his second oath of office, most of our former allies and moderate Arab states now consider us un-indicted co-conspirators.

[. . .]

Divided We Stand

Thomas Friedman is an unusually thoughtful and experienced Middle-East expert. When he speaks, I listen, because he's not spouting a party line. Go read his Op-Ed in the NYTimes about the upcoming Iraqi election and the division in the West.

Ever since 9/11, I've argued the war on terrorism is really a war of ideas within the Muslim world - a war between those who want to wall Islam off from modernity, and defend it with a suicide cult, and those who want to bring Islam into the 21st century and preserve it as a compassionate faith. This war of ideas is not one that the West can fight, only promote. Muslims have to fight it from within. That is what is at stake in the Iraqi elections. This is the first great battle in the post-9/11 war of ideas.

This war also can't be won with troops - only with turnout. This is a war between Iraqi voters and insurgents - ballots versus bullets. And the people who understand that best are the fascist insurgents. That is why they are not focusing their attacks on U.S. troops, but on Iraqi election workers, candidates, local officials and police. The insurgents have one credo: "Iraqis must not vote - there must be no authentic expression of the people's will for a modern, decent Iraq. Because, if there is, the world will see that this is not a war between Muslims and infidel occupiers, but between Muslims with bad ideas and Muslims with progressive ideas."

And at this key juncture the West stands disunited. Condi Rice told the Senate that the "time for diplomacy is now." Give me a break. The time for diplomacy was two years ago. We would be so much better off now if the entire European Union was actively urging Iraqis to vote, and using its own moral legitimacy in the Arab world to delegitimize the insurgents. The divided West is a real liability.

Both girls I interviewed wore veils and one also wore a full Afghan-like head-to-toe covering; one was of Egyptian parents, the other of Tunisian parents, but both were born and raised in France. What did I learn from them? That they got all their news from Al Jazeera TV, because they did not believe French TV, that the person they admired most in the world was Osama bin Laden, because he was defending Islam, that suicide "martyrdom" was justified because there was no greater glory than dying in defense of Islam, that they saw themselves as Muslims first and French citizens last, and that all their friends felt pretty much the same.

We were not in Kabul. We were standing outside their French public high school - a short ride from the Eiffel Tower.

They've got Al Jazeera. We've got Fox News. No wonder so much ignorance is afoot in the world.

SpongeBush SquarePants

I haven't had a crush like this on anybody since 8th Grade (That was before Junior High existed, let alone Middle School!) Maureen Dowd has made the ultimate connection. Absolutely ridiculous on the surface but right on the money deep down (undersea reference). What is it about Irish redheads?

Dr. Dobson has done the country a service by reminding us to watch out for the dark side of lovable but malleable sponges. He inspired me to fish through the president's Inaugural Address with a more skeptical eye.

Some of the same advisers who filled Mr. Bush's brain with sugary visions of a quick and painless Iraq makeover did mean the speech to be literal; they are drawing up military options for the rest of the Middle East. Once again, the lovable and malleable president seems to be soaking up the martial mind-set of those around him, almost like ... a sponge.

SpongeBush SquarePants!

We can only hope that Dr. Dobson doesn't pick up on the resemblance. SpongeBob, as his song goes, "lives in a pineapple under the sea/absorbent and yellow and porous is he!" SpongeBush lives in a bubble in D.C./absorbent and shallow and porous is he!

Even if he's a little light in the flippers, SpongeBob has brought children good, clean fun. SpongeBush has brought the world dark, endless fights.

I've got a sponge on my kitchen sink that's smarter than Bush. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get it to start a Permanent War. Go read Ms. Dowd.

We're killing Conservatives

Yeah!!!! The Brain made it on a conservative blog's link list with the disclaimer:

(Don't read these unless you want your blood pressure to rise)

I'm thrilled to do my part and promote hypertension among the wingnut population. Note to Pam, Digby, Big Media Matt, and the guys at Seeing the Forest, you're accomplices as well. I'm so proud of us . . . sniff.

Heh . . .

The 50 Most Loathsome People of 2004. Via Corrente.

Snowed in?

Chapter 9 of Empires is up at creativity . . . Happy reading if you're stuck inside. I'm headed out with the 'manual snow thrower' (© Gordon).

Snow

Couple feet. Long Island is starting to look like Gordon's neighborhood.

The BOMB

Via Pam:

A top North Korean official has told U.S. legislators that the communist state possessed nuclear weapons, Radio Free Asia reported on Friday.

North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan said the country was a nuclear weapons state but its nuclear arsenal was defensive in nature and Pyongyang did not intend to possess it forever, Radio Free Asia quoted U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon as saying.

[. . .]

Story.

Tell me again why we're in Iraq?

Coronation in the Garrison State

Good rant from Mike Whitney in Counterpunch.

The Bush inauguration is designed to shock the American public into noticing the fundamental changes within the government. Like Guantanamo, it is intended to be more symbolic than substantive. The event is a means of acclimating people to the seismic shift in the basic structure of the state. The administration has taken the country from Republic to National Security State in four short years. Now, they,re determined to saturate the public consciousness with that new reality.

"Canine bomb-sniffing squads, bicycle patrols and crowd control units also are at the ready Hour by hour the city of grand buildings and marble statues disappears behind curtains of steel security fences and concrete barriers."

"Disappears behind curtains of steel?" Or, was that an Iron Curtain?

Who said it can't happen here?

In the "Garrison State" the speeches reflect the values of its leaders. We should expect another dose of Messianic braying from the Bush pulpit; more incendiary taunting of imaginary enemies, more Simian chest-pounding over fabricated victories; more saccharine praise of our valiant military. And, of course, throughout the speech, the buzz-words that arouse the Christian faithful to near frenzy; knowing that one of their own occupies the thrown.

It's all gibberish, but the underlying factoids are quite real. The State and Corporate America have linked-together in a conjugal embrace; there's not a hairs-breadth between the two of them. While the corporate warriors are inside lining up at the public trough, the military is busy keeping the plain-folk at bay. The essential message is hard to ignore.

Duh. A little over the top, maybe, but not by very much.

Bush is like an incompetent plastic surgeon who leaves his clients scarred for life. And a lot of them love him for it cuz he's such a silver-tongued smoothie. They're afraid to look in the mirror, though.

Interactive Inaugural Map

Mark Fiore has an interesting Interactive Inaugural Map to all the festivities last Thursday that you weren't invited to. From Mother Jones.

Saturday Cattle Dog Blogging

Cooperation was lacking this week.

Pay-Per-View Freedom

A WaPo editorial about the lack of public access to the Chimpathon:

THERE WERE, in the end, protesters along the route of President Bush's inaugural parade. It is conceivable that the president might have even caught a glimpse of them. What there were not nearly enough of, however, were ordinary people: Washingtonians, out-of-towners or anyone at all who was neither a Bush donor with tickets to the bleachers nor a demonstrator with a permit to wave a sign. This was not an accident.

Reports from those who did try to attend varied. Some stood for hours in the cold, trying to get through checkpoints. Some reported swifter entrance. But many, we fear, simply didn't bother to go, discouraged by the unwelcoming atmosphere of the inauguration with the heaviest security in history, the negative advance publicity, the closed streets and the phalanx of police officers lined up to protect the politicians from the people (from us? Why on Earth...? ed.). Maybe that's what the post-Sept. 11 world has to look like, but on a day ostensibly dedicated to the spread of freedom around the world, it wasn't the best advertisement for American freedom either.

So even if you (shudder) like the sonofabitch you couldn't get to see the parade without paying. Americans love parades, and I guess the Chimp-in-Chief has figured out how to make them pay-per-view, the little prick. That Marine Band wasn't paid for by your donors, Georgie.

Oh Canada?

Two posts struck me. Tresy, over at Corrente, has emigrated north of the border:

[. . .]

From our new home we will continue the same fight as before, and invite others to join us. (We learn daily of more who are.) To those who can't or won't, don't misunderstand: They also subvert, who merely get up and leave.

And Pam is thinking about it:

. . . My question to those of you willing to speak up, was should we stay and fight? Kate and I need some convincing, as we felt the warmth of total acceptance by all of the folks we came in contact with in lovely Vancouver. . .

My 2 cents? I'm a stand and fight kinda guy. This is my country too, dammit, and I'm not letting any idiot in Washington weasel it out from under me. When I leave, I'm going because the Mrs. and I are retiring in the place where we fall in love again each time we visit. But I ain't leaving until we've won the fight. I'd rather go out in a box than run away from Bush and his cartel. They don't scare me, and the more criminal shit they do, the madder I'm gonna get, and that will reinforce my drive to stay and fight. That's just me.

I can understand Pam's motivation though. Were I part of a gay couple, I'd probably consider moving to Canada as well. It'll get a lot worse for them here before it gets better.

Besides, much as I treasure the memories of playing hockey in Toronto one winter, it's too fucking cold up there.

Barbara '08?

From the King:

That's what George Bush said, and I don't agree with that at all. We're all responsible for our actions in our lives, and we all have to be held responsible and accountable for things that will happen when we're no longer in office, too. I mean, if we cast a vote for Social Security [reform] so that we end up with senior citizens walking around garbage cans looking for food, it doesn't matter if that happens a year from now or 40 years from now. We're responsible. There's no statute of limitations on bad judgment. [my emphases] - Sen. Barbara Boxer in a Salon interview.

The more I hear from Senator Boxer, the more I like her. Seems like she and John Kerry are the only ones with balls. She keeps this up, she might be our best hope in '08. Boxer/Obama maybe?

Dancing fools

I am really something
That's what you'd probably say
So smoke your little smoke
And drink your little drink
While I dance the night away!
I'm a dancing fool! - Frank Zappa

Bob Herbert:

[. . .]

The disconnect between the over-the-top celebrations in Washington and the hideous reality of Iraq does not in any way surprise me. It's exactly what we should expect from the president and his supporters, who seem always to exist in a fantasy realm far removed from such ugly realities as war and suffering. In that realm you can start wars without having to deal with the consequences of them. You don't even have to pay for them. You can put them on a credit card.

[. . .]

Disgusting.

On Social Security

There's a good article on Social Security in the January 24 issue of Time magazine:

Is There Really A Crisis?.

Also related articles:

Are There Other Ways to Fix It?

How Would the Bush Plan Work?

The Really Troubled Program

... And Here's The Solution

If you go to the newsstand and get the print edition, there's a bunch of pie charts, graphs, sidebars, and probably 8x10 glossy photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one telling what each one is. (Sorry, Arlo.)

Go figure

Thomas Friedman in NYT via Atrios:

[. . .]

Funnily enough, the one country on this side of the ocean that would have elected Mr. Bush is not in Europe, but the Middle East: it's Iran, where many young people apparently hunger for Mr. Bush to remove their despotic leaders, the way he did in Iraq.

An Oxford student who had just returned from research in Iran told me that young Iranians were "loving anything their government hates," such as Mr. Bush, "and hating anything their government loves." Tehran is festooned in "Down With America" graffiti, the student said, but when he tried to take pictures of it, the Iranian students he was with urged him not to. They said it was just put there by their government and was not how most Iranians felt.

Iran, he said, is the ultimate "red state." Go figure.

So, Fidel is lecturing us on human rights abuses and the Iranians love Bush. There is something wrong with the Universe. I think I'm gonna buy a military surplus Minuteman silo from the Air Force, move me, the Mrs., and the Princess into it, and seal the motherfucker up. Shit's just crazy. I was thinking maybe Gitmo wouldn't be too bad (warm, ocean breezes, scantily-clad brown women), but with my luck, they'd ensconce me at Thule, Greenland. I like the silo idea better.

SpongeBob Queer Pants

We're in for four more years of this shit.

Never mind that Bin Forgotten is still on the loose, the Bushites are losing sleep because a cartoon sponge may be gay.

Bush better hop on the gay marriage amendment before SpongeBob and Tinky Winky (the gay Teletubby) hook up.

Math on the Brain

Math seems to be running through my posts today, like grease through a goose. I like this one by Maureen Dowd:

Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard, has been pilloried for suggesting that women may be biologically unsuited to succeed at mathematics.

He may have a point.

Just look at Condoleezza Rice.

Many fine examples of said arithmetical challenge here. Read. Enjoy.

Condi may not know Einstein's theory of relativity, but she has a fine grasp of Cheney's theory of moral relativity. Because they're the good guys, they can do anything: dissembling to get into war; flattening Iraqi cities to save them; replacing the Geneva Conventions with unconventional ways of making prisoners talk. The only equation the Bushies know is this one: Might = Right.

It is puzzling that if you add X (no exit strategy) to Y (Why are we there?) you get W²: George Bush's second inauguration.

At Condi's hearing, she justified the Bush administration's misadventures by saying history would prove it right. "I know enough about history to stand back and to recognize that you judge decisions not at the moment, but in how it all adds up," she told a skeptical Senator Biden.

Problem is, she's calculating, but she can't add. For now, Sam Cooke is right about the Bushies. They don't know much about history.

Those fuckers think they'll be long gone when History judges them. As egregious as their bullshit has been, the Time-Space Continuum has sped up so they'll know The Truth About Themselves in plenty of time. Unless they do the Right Thing and croak at the parties tonight.

Bi-Coastal Haiku

Honest to Murgatroyd, G-Man, my old fart of a poetic muse made me do it:

Fixer and Gordon may finally get to meet this Spring, at Gitmo

Not bad if I do say so myself, considering I don't speak Japanese.

An observation

I'm watching MSNBC's coverage of the coronation and one question comes to mind. Can Chris Matthews take Dubya's cock any farther down his throat?

It reflects on us now

Toronto Star via Melanie:

It has been said that George W. Bush is in denial of reality, in Iraq and elsewhere. But what of America itself? More particularly, what of the majority of Americans who re-elected him?

They had the right to their democratic choice. Still, what sort of nation rewards a leader who misled it into war, spawned worldwide anger, eroded America's moral authority, turned the Iraqi occupation into a showcase for American ineptitude, and increased terrorism?

[. . .]

Ya see, it's one thing when folks form other lands look at our President with distaste because he's an idiot. It's another when they look at all Americans like idiots because we REelected him.

The 23rd Qualm

Stole this from The Culture Ghost, as I think it befits Coronation Day.

Bush is my shepherd; I dwell in want. He maketh logs to be cut down in national forests. He leadeth trucks into the still wilderness. He restoreth my fears. He leadeth me in the paths of international disgrace for his ego's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of pollution and war, I will find no exit, for thou art in office. Thy tax cuts for the rich and thy media control, they discomfort me. Thou preparest an agenda of deception in the presence of thy religion. Thou anointest my head with foreign oil. My health insurance runneth out. Surely megalomania and false patriotism shall follow me all the days of thy term, And my jobless child shall dwell in my basement forever.

Amen.

La Cage Aux Spongebob

From Gadflyer:

What, according to the American Family Association, is the greatest threat to our nation? Terrorism? Environmental degredation? Poverty? Greed? Not even close.

It's Spongebob Squarepants, and his insidious tolerance of diversity. Damn you, Spongebob!

Let's let the folks at the American Family Association tell you exactly what this means: "It is as unprecedented as it is cunning, using all the right words and happiest faces in an attempt to speak directly to the nation's children about 'tolerance and diversity.' Once again, of course, those ideas include homosexual advocacy."

First they came for Tinky Winky, and I did not speak up, because I couldn't stand the Teletubbies. Then they came for Spongebob, and I did not speak up, because I thought he was overexposed anyway. Then when Kermit the Frog and Snuffelupagus kidnapped me and I woke up in a leather bar wearing chaps, there was no one left to speak for me...

Damn, I hate when that happens!

World fears new Bush era

That pesky Guardian again, God bless their Limey hearts:

A poll of 21 countries published yesterday - reflecting opinion in Africa, Latin America, North America, Asia and Europe - showed that a clear majority have grave fears about the next four years.

Fifty-eight per cent of the 22,000 who took part in the poll, commissioned by the BBC World Service, said they expected Mr Bush to have a negative impact on peace and security, compared with only 26% who considered him a positive force.

The survey also indicated for the first time that dislike of Mr Bush is translating into a dislike of Americans in general.

In Britain, 64% of those polled said they disagreed with the proposition that the US would have a mainly positive impact on the world. The figures were even higher in France (75%) and Germany (77%).

Mr Bush's victory was viewed positively in only three of the 21 countries: the Philippines, Poland and India.

Holy shit! Is the Guardian writing jokes for The Daily Show now?

Mr Bush's job approval rating stands at 50%, with 47% disapproving. In recent times, only Richard Nixon at the start of his second term in 1972 recorded poll ratings as poor.

Let's hope that the comparisons of Bush's second term to Nixon's keep a'comin'. If I remember right, Milhous had to go home a couple years in. And the horse you rode in on, Bush.

Math and Philosophy

Chris Suellentrop of Slate has some thoughts on the Social Security swindle.

Explaining how both the "Social Security crisis" and the "privatization solution" rely on faulty math misses the point of the president's plan entirely. Like supply-side tax cuts, Social Security reform is a subject on which conservatives prize philosophy—or, if you prefer, ideology—over arithmetic.

The confusion over the nature of the debate is intentional. The Bush administration has linked two reforms—private accounts and benefit cuts—that have nothing to do with each other. Benefit cuts are the administration's preferred solution to Social Security's long-term financing imbalance. (Democrats prefer a mixture of benefit cuts and tax hikes.) Private accounts have nothing to do with Social Security's actuarial problems, except to the extent that they make them worse. White House aide Peter Wehner conceded as much in his leaked memo on Social Security. Pushing investment accounts without benefit cuts would mean "making no effort to address [the system's] fundamental structural problem," Wehner wrote.

Here's what a straightforward discussion of the philosophy behind the Social Security system would look like: Democrats support welfare for old people, on the grounds that it creates a safety net for capitalism's losers, who might otherwise live in poverty. Republicans oppose welfare for old people, on the grounds that it reduces incentives to work and save, it gives the government too much money to spend, and it makes people overly dependent on the government for their retirement. That's an honest debate. Let's have it.

There's a lot of good stuff between the quotes. Please go read.

Look, I know that Social Security needs some work. Fine. Let's fix it. I think we could start by not letting the government "borrow" the money to finance the budget. I'd like to see the amount in the "trust fund" that is composed of T-Bills, U.S. Savings Bonds, or all the other fancy names for I.O.U.'s. Their "promise to pay" is a house of cards, and there must be a tremendous interest bill. A tweak here, a tweak there, and that takes care of the math part.

Here's the true philosophical part as I see it: Do not let the Bush administration touch Social Security. They have fucked up everything they've put their hand to and there is no reason to believe they will do any better with this. I think their aim is twofold: Enrich their Wall St. henchmen, and make more greedy Republicans, and the Hell with the rest of us.

Endangered Species: Chickens?

These are two really good articles in Working For Change. Way too many good quotes, so I'll just give you a tease from each one.
Molly Ivins

Henhouses overstaffed with foxes
Condi Rice says we should leave the questions to the experts

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice helpfully explained it all for us. The problem is that we are living in an alternative reality. What we think we know is not true. We have always had enough troops in Iraq. There are 120,000 trained Iraqi soldiers ready to take over. The president has condemned torture, so what else is there to say? Why torture happened, whose fault it is and why it is still happening at Guantanamo is not a problem because the president has condemned it. Secretary Rice also condemns it, so why raise questions about the fact that she wrote a letter to get an anti-torture clause in the intelligence appropriation bill taken out?

What, do you want to insult her integrity?

Secretary Rice did say that mistakes were made, but she does not know who made them or who should be held accountable. And, of course, as we all learned during the last election, no matter what happens, it is never, ever President Bush's fault.

Gee, Molly, thanks for clearing that up. She goes on with her thoughts on Jonathan L. Snare, new head of OSHA:

No, he's not an expert in health or safety, but he used to be the lobbyist for Metabolife, the ephedra diet pill that attracted so much unpleasant attention. Ephedrine was finally barred in 2003 after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decided it had caused 155 deaths. I guess we're lucky Bush didn't put Snare at the FDA. According to the Washington Post, Metabolife spent more than $4 million lobbying the Texas Legislature between 1998 and 2000. Snare was also general counsel to the Republican Party of Texas from 1999 to '01 and has extensive experience in election law.

Bill Berkowitz

Claude Allen in the house
Anti-abortion, homophobic, abstinence-only supporting African American chosen as President Bush's chief domestic advisor.

In a post-election letter to the president, Bob Jones III, the president of Bob Jones University, suggested that Bush "put" his "agenda on the front burner and let it boil." With Allen in place as the president's chief domestic policy advisor, and Jim Towey, the head of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, recently named an Assistant to the President, "a post," writes the FRC's Tony Perkins, "with direct access to the Oval Office," the religious right is ready to rock 'n roll.

That was the last paragraph. That oughta get your interest up.

Remember, folks, readin' makes ya smart.

Planetary alignment

You know something's fucked up with the Universe when Fidel can take the moral high ground.

Cuba today accused the United States of lying to the world about its treatment of prisoners at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, saying torture was a daily occurrence at the prison camp for terror suspects.

The Cuban foreign ministry said it sent a letter to the US government urging authorities to immediately stop the alleged abuse at the camp, which sits on Cuba’s easternmost tip.

“The Foreign Ministry joins the protests and demands of the international community for the US government to immediately halt these flagrant violations of prisoners’ rights,” the statement said.

[. . .]

There was a time, in a galaxy far, far away, where any statement like this from the Cuban government would be laughable. Today, you have to take it with more than a grain of salt. Link via 12thharmonic.

Outsourcing

A reliable source tells me that RAND has been contracted by the government to come up with a way to avoid instituting a draft, despite the desperate needs for more combat forces.

The solution? Outsource desk and logistics jobs to private companies while pushing those "chairborne" warriors out of their offices into fighting units.

[. . .]

From a Kos posting.

They're desperate over at the Pentagram. Bush shot himself in the foot when he promised not to institute a draft. So, how much are Halliburton et al. going to overcharge us for these services? What, you think they're gonna put the contract up for competitive bids? Yeah right.

Fairy King

The Guardian:

On Thursday, the fairy king of fairyland will be recrowned. He was elected on a platform suspended in midair by the power of imagination. He is the leader of a band of men who walk through ghostly realms unvisited by reality. And he remains the most powerful person on earth.

How did this happen? How did a fantasy president from a world of make believe come to govern a country whose power was built on hard-headed materialism? To find out, take a look at two squalid little stories which have been concluded over the past 10 days.

[. . .]

Link via WTF??

I've been through Europe over the past two years. This is how most folks over there look at us. This president has turned us from the Leader of the Free World into a fucking joke.

Dead Horse Walking

From the WaPo:

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) predicted yesterday that partisan warfare over Social Security will quickly render President Bush's plan "a dead horse" and called on Congress to undertake a broader review of the problems of an aging nation.

Perhaps most provocatively, Thomas said lawmakers should debate whether Social Security benefits should differ for men and women, because women live longer. "We never have debated gender-adjusting Social Security," he said. A House leadership official said that not even Republicans on Thomas's committee would vote for that idea. Thomas also said the system might take into account the need of blue-collar workers to retire younger than office workers.

Yeah, that'll help clear things up. Yeesh.

Thomas's comments, which took the White House by surprise, reflected some Republicans' view that the White House has mishandled the plan's rollout and that a fresh start is needed to allow a chance for getting Democratic support.

Right. Bush finally got caught mishandling something, so he gets a "do-over"? My dyin' ass. He has enough trouble riding a bicycle forward, let alone trying to back-pedal one, no doubt to run over some citizen's rights that he missed.

It's gonna be a big fight, but this is a glimmer of hope.

Inaugural Fear

Pierre Tristam writes in the Daytona Beach News-Journalonline.

President Bush, our neo-New Dealer, is reaping too much unfair criticism for the way he's going about his second inaugural. He spent the entire electoral season describing a country at war, describing himself as a "war president," comparing the war on terror to World War II, and wearing designer-fatigues in front of troops perfectly trained to die for his messianic fancies. Yet here he is, about to preside over the most lavish inaugural celebration in history (not counting a few imperial coronations of the Roman and Napoleonic sort).

The criticism is unfair because what most liberal detractors refuse to acknowledge is that Bush never intended to be a war president. He was only playing one on TV. He recognized better than any Democrat that it's the only way to win an election in a country of armchair jingoes. Leaders short on policy but big on politics not only read their electorate's fears accurately but stoke and validate them, riding them to victory. This the Bush camp has been doing splendidly since 2001. It brings to mind the way Leon Gambetta, the short-lived French statesman, summed up the long-lived "Ceasarian democracy" of Napoleon III and his Karl Roves of a century and a half ago: "Fear! That is their great political means. They engender it, they inoculate it, and, once they've frightened a certain class of citizens, they present themselves as saviors, the better to strip people of their freedoms, of their civic dignity, of their public rights."

At his second inaugural, Thomas Jefferson (to whom Bush referred in his first inaugural) had reminded Americans "that a just nation is taken on its word, when recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others." At his brief fourth, Roosevelt had found room to note that "we have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community. We have learned the simple truth, as Emerson said, that 'The only way to have a friend is to be one.' " And Lincoln in his second had that line about malice toward none and charity for all.

Bush's record makes it difficult to tread in those directions, self-parody or humor of any kind being the one taboo in inaugural speeches, and America's friendship and integrity having as much value as the dollar of late. Word has it he'll stick to fear. He managed to scare the country into war over nonexistent weapons of mass destruction in barely existing Iraq. He's about to scare the country into waging war on its own government programs (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) over trumped up fiscal crises in the distant future. Never has the nation so knowledgeably re-elected its own executioner, or so willingly bought into its own bankruptcy (my emphasis). That's just the "ownership society" Bush will celebrate on Thursday. He's earned it, and so have we all.

I disagree with the guy to the extent that I feel Bush has earned every last criticism, and then some, but I like Tristam's general tone. As a nation, we certainly have earned the disrespect of the world for actually electing this bozo and, whether we deserve it or not, we are going to get what's coming to us. What goes around, comes around. I'll bet in five years you won't find anybody that'll admit to voting for him. If we're allowed to ask (or answer) such questions by then.

Business as usual

------------------------------------------------------
MSNBC Breaking News
------------------------------------------------------

Senate committee OKs Rice as secretary of state by 16-2 vote -
Democrats John Kerry and Barbara Boxer are only "no" votes.

Chamberlain Democrats.

There is no crisis

Fight back on Social Security. ThereIsNoCrisis.com

Munich '05

Night Light:

A word about Feinstein and her cronies: they are the Neville Chamberlain Democrats. They live in a dream of the past, a time when bipartisanship equaled statesmanship, and to be truly bipartisan meant you were a successful diplomat. Diplomacy is a fine quality that has been much belittled by the Bush Junta in recent years – and that’s the point. You’re not dealing with people who want to compromise. Mountbatten was a diplomat, because he negotiated with Nehru. Chamberlain was a fool, because he negotiated with the Axis. For a Democrat to be bipartisan today means to cooperate in one way only: You want to put your foot on my neck, and I’ll help you put it there.

[. . .]

Neville Chamberlain Democrats. I love it.

Principles

While Faith-based bullshit has run rampant in this country, some folks still have the cojones to stand up for what's right.

DOVER, Pa. - Science teachers in a central Pennsylvania school district have asked to be excused from a mandate that they read a statement about "intelligent design" during biology lessons next week.

[. . .]

"We believe that reading the statement violates our responsibility as educators as set forth in the code," biology teacher Jennifer Miller said in Friday's editions of the York Daily Record. "Students are allowed to opt out from hearing the statement. We should be allowed to opt out from reading it."

[. . .]

We're gonna breed a generation of morons if this becomes law. Personally, I'm surprised that Homeland Security didn't arrest the teachers who went against this crap.

34 Scandals Worse Than The Blue Dress

Salon has lined out 34 scandals, and their current status, that occurred during the first four Bush years. You may have to watch a commercial to get a site pass, about like listening to a sermon to get a sandwich in the old days, but it's worth it. Print it (10 pages) and read it at your leisure.

At the Inaugural

From The Onion Weekly Dispatch, which you can get free in your e-mail:

Caged Saddam To Be Highlight Of Inaugural Ball
WASHINGTON, DC—Attendees at the Independence Ball, one of nine officially sanctioned galas celebrating President George W. Bush's second inauguration Thursday, will be treated to a viewing of a caged Saddam Hussein, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said Monday. "What better way to honor the president than with a physical symbol of his many first-term triumphs?" McClellan said as Hussein rattled the bars of a cage already suspended above the ballroom where the event will be held. "And I must compliment the planning committee. Outfitting Gitmo detainees with iron collars and forcing them to serve appetizers was an inspired stroke." Ball attendees will also be awarded door prizes, including a basket of nuts, 20 yards of cloth, and a barrel of crude oil.

What could I possibly add to that?

Speaking of Jenna...

From the Philadelphia Daily News:

The White House has been mum on Jenna's job search (odd since they're usually so forthcoming), but the Post believes Jenna has started work not as a teacher, but as a teacher's aide because she doesn't have the qualifications necessary to take over a classroom under the stringent requirements of No Child Left Behind.

(Who knew when dad signed it into law in 2002, the child being left behind would be his own daughter?)

The Post reported in December that Jenna was going to teach at Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School in a low-income neighborhood. But after rumors flew that Jenna had actually started as a teaching assistant, the Post spoke to executive director Linda Moore.

"Jenna Bush is not employed as a teacher at the school," Moore said.

Asked whether Jenna was working as an assistant teacher, Moore said: "I can't confirm that."

'Suppose she's a chip off the old blockhead.

Subjective 'values'

[. . .]

As you know, dress and appearance are an important reflection of our Christian values. "We are what we wear," as the saying goes, and according to this edict, your own daughters [Jenna & NotJenna], bejeweled and bedecked in garments that plunge of neckline and cling of fabric, cannot be said to reflect the deeply-held believes of the tens of millions of "values voters" who sent you back to that highest office in the land.

[. . .]

Sincerely,

Lewis Sheldrick
Coalition for Traditional Values

Beverley Hayden
Concerned Women of America

Robert Wilder
American Family Organization

Randy Thomas
Campaign for Families

Dennis Patton
Silver Ring Thing

Sandy Slokum
Defend Our Marriages

Roy deLong
Baptist Leadership Council

Seems like the Bush family doesn't quite measure up. From Kevin T. Kieth at Lean Left.

Hardship

From This Day In Radical History.

1943: WW II hardship, Soviet style: Red Army breaks 890-day-long German siege of Leningrad.

I wonder how many days it will take to break Bush's siege of America? 1400+ and counting.

1943: WW II hardship, American style: U.S. bans sale of pre-sliced bread for duration of the war. (Not unlike current practice, the government never explained how this action helped the war effort.)

Bush hasn't got the balls to ask the American public to make any sacrifice for his bullshit war, let alone a little thing like slicing their own bread, which might even promote a little unity.

Plenty more where those came from.

Just For Fun...

Go see Tom Tomorrow.

Don't make me laugh

". . . and Senator, I demand you stop impugning my integrity." - CondoLIEzza Rice to Barbara Boxer today.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Integrity . . . ha-ha . . . Condi . . . ha-ha . . . oh, that's good.

Fool Me Once....

If you don't read anything else all day, go read this Op-Ed by Paul Krugman in the NYTimes:

A charming man courts a woman, telling her that he's a wealthy independent businessman. Just after the wedding, however, she learns that he has been cooking the books, several employees have accused him of sexual harassment and his company is about to file for bankruptcy. She accuses him of deception. "The accountability moment is behind us," he replies.

Last week President Bush declared that the election was the "accountability moment" for the war in Iraq - the voters saw it his way, and that's that. But Mr. Bush didn't level with the voters during the campaign and doesn't deserve anyone's future trust.

Lemme see if I get this: Bush lied, hornswoggled, obfuscated, played a shell game with "moral values", invoked God to do evil, conned the Retard Right into finally electing him and, because he pulled it off, now it's OK ? As in, "Hey, suckers, I lied, cheated, and stole. I got away with it. I'm head honcho now, you did it and there's nothing you can do about it. Get over it. I'll do what I want. Fuck you." That about it?

Maybe we can't hold Mr. Bush directly to account for misleading the public about Iraq. But Mr. Bush still has a domestic agenda, for which the lessons of Iraq are totally relevant.

White House officials themselves concede - or maybe boast - that their plan to sell Social Security privatization is modeled on their selling of the Iraq war. In fact, the parallels are remarkably exact.

Still, there are two reasons why the selling of Social Security privatization shouldn't be another slam dunk.

One is that we're not talking about secret intelligence; the media, if they do their job, can check out the numbers and see that they don't match what Mr. Bush is saying. (A good starting point is Roger Lowenstein's superb survey in The Times Magazine last Sunday.)

The other is that we've been here before. Fool me once...

Bush, you only managed to fool enough people by a little bit. There is no statute of limitations on what you've done and I want to be there when the American sheeple figure out what a snow job you pulled on them. They'll be mad at themselves for being naive enough to let you get away with it, and then, because nobody likes to admit they 've been a fool, they'll transfer that anger to you and you'll hang. You haven't seen your "accountability moment" yet, motherfucker, and when you do, I and millions of other "reality-based" Americans will fucking come! (See Fixer's post)

If we let this arrogant fool destroy a social safety net that is the envy of the world and has served Americans well for over sixty years, by the same bullshit tactics he sold his bullshit war with, well, maybe we deserve to spend our Golden Years eating Wal-Mart dog food.

Man wisdom

This probably belongs at TF&G, but what the hell. It's a subject near and dear to my heart. From Jen at Gillard:

[. . .]

If nothing else, most Smart Boys know that a) giving a lady an orgasm earlier in the night takes a lot of pressure off for "the main event" and b) decent "oral debate" skills make up for any, um, underendowment issues quite a bit.

[. . .]

I might not know the ins and outs of the political/government situation as well as I'd like, but pleasing a woman is something I'm eminently qualified to speak on. No bragging, statement of fact. Guys, please your woman (or man, but it's not the same) before you do your thing, or just after, or both. They are not objects solely for your gratification. If you don't know how (common, for some reason) ask her to show you. You'll thank me. And ladies, don't just lay there and fake it. If your guy ain't doing it right, show him what you like.

Here we go . . . again

(p)resident Dicknose:

"When democracy finally happens in Iraq, [people] in Iran will see what can be achieved."

Yeah, they will see burnt out cities, destroyed infrastructure, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, dead and wounded. They'll see that they're better off with their Fundamentalist mullahs than having American troops tramping over their land like bulls in a china shop. Tell me, Chimp-man, are they already stocking up on rose petals to toss at our feet when we arrive? You're a fucking asshole, you mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, retard.

Update: 05:45:

Pessimism from Dave Johnson:

[. . .]

These new attacks are presumably just the second stage in the multi-nation plan Wolfowitz spoke about right before the war. In other words, we can plan to be at war for five to twenty years.

The Army and Guard are already being pushed to the limit. Thus, there will have to be a draft. But in order for there to be a draft, anti-war groups and spokesmen will have to be marginalized and crushed. So those of us who are anti-war should prepare to be called traitors and cowards with an intensity that we haven't seen so far. Ann Coulter is soon going to go completely mainstream. [my emphasis]

[. . .]

Once more unto the breach, my friends.

And just to throw this out there: What do you think about the blue states threatening to secede if Bush goes into Iran? And just like my Iraq endgame, I know no one has the nuts to do it but humor me. Again, comments solicited. And thanks again to all the folks who left comments on that post. Some excellent and detailed ideas, even from the guy who compared me to Nixon.