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.