Silt 3.0: Looking back at 2005

If you want to see how next year will play out without the hassle of having to live through it, check it out here. Absurd yet plausible. Inevitable even.

Meanwhile, on the home front....

(This items works a lot better if you can whistle the theme from the Andry Griffith show while you read it.)

From the police blotter section of the local daily:

Family Disturbance. A woman on the first block of Center Drive came home form work around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday and found her son napping on the couch. He had left the socks on the floor so she called 911 because she wanted him out of her house.

Kinda puts that Sue-nummy thing in perspective, eh?

Compassionate fellowship from the Westboro Baptist Church

I like to think myself as PoMo as the next guy -- able to spot even the most subtle satire. And there are some wonderfully subtle pseudo-God Squad websites out there, like the Landover Baptist site (I think). But I throw up my hands at this one -- www.godhatesfags.com, the website of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas. Among other strangeness therein:

WBC engages in daily peaceful sidewalk demonstrations opposing the homosexual lifestyle of soul-damning, nation-destroying filth. We display large, colorful signs containing Bible words and sentiments, including: GOD HATES FAGS, FAGS HATE GOD, AIDS CURES FAGS, THANK GOD FOR AIDS, FAGS BURN IN HELL, GOD IS NOT MOCKED, FAGS ARE NATURE FREAKS, GOD GAVE FAGS UP, NO SPECIAL LAWS FOR FAGS, FAGS DOOM NATIONS, etc.

The headline on the press release the top link points to: "Thank God for Tsunami & 2000 dead Swedes!!!"

If this site represents somebody's idea of humor, I would love to see a mainstream church or three express a little old-fashioned outrage. If it represents serious and heartfelt beliefs, it is the most vile and outrageous thing I have seen on the vile and outrageous Internet, and we should do all we can to publicize it. The first step in upending the absolutist claims of the fundamentalists is to set them against each other. And putting this kind of insanity on the front page will force the slightly less wacky religious right to disavow it, and thus admit that thumping the Bible does not guarantee righteousness or virtue.

Yuck.

Update: As it turns out, so far the rest of the religious right isn't just ignoring this obscenity, they are even ignoring the tragedy in Asia itself.

DU - Republicans claim Iraq and Osama weren't worth it

A few choice quotes:

This brash act by a brash child-man is a direct threat to the security of every citizen inside our own borders for the people against whom he acted are non-forgiving and have no fear of death

Given the present set of facts, there is no Constitutional predicate on the basis of which Congress has the authority to initiate war, even with a declaration of war.

In war, there is no substitute for victory. Victory, as commonly understood, with respect to an assault on Iraq, has not been defined, let alone declared to be the objective of any such attack.

The strategic position of the United States in the world may be diminished, rather than enhanced, by an attack on Iraq. Many regimes friendly to the United States will be placed at severe risk if they are seen to assist, or even favor, the U.S. attack.

If we "succeed", what have we gained? If we don't begin a war, what have we lost?

Yes, all from conservatives. The punchline, of course, is that these comments were made during the Clinton Administration. For folks who claim the world is governed by absolutes, these cons show an impressive relativistic skill -- what was terrible idea when Bill Clinton offered it became a great one when proposed by the new "child-man."

Iraqi poll workers resign en masse

Three militant groups warned Iraqis against voting in Jan. 30 elections, saying Thursday that people participating in the "dirty farce" risked attack. All 700 employees of the electoral commission in Mosul reportedly resigned after being threatened.

The warning came a day after insurgents in Mosul, which has seen increased violence in recent weeks, launched a highly coordinated assault on a U.S. military outpost. The United States said 25 insurgents were believed slain and one American soldier was killed in the battle, which involved strafing runs by U.S. warplanes.

The United States, which has said the vote must go forward, has repeatedly sought to portray recent attacks that have killed dozens of people as the acts of a reeling insurgency, not the work of a force that is gathering strength.

The radical Ansar al-Sunnah Army and two other insurgent groups issued a statement Thursday warning that democracy was un-Islamic. Democracy could lead to passing un-Islamic laws, such as permitting homosexual marriage, if the majority or people agreed to it, the statement said.

Two observations:

(1) Stories like this bring into stark relief the absurdity of trying to hold an election under these circumstances, and make clear that the insistence on the current timetable is about the interests of the US, not of Iraq.

(2) They know they can not say it out loud (yet), but the Bush cabal obviously shares the Islamic fundamentalist hostility to democracy, and at least some of the reasons for it.

FEMA: Disaster Aid To Floridians Approaching $3.3 Billion

Since President George W. Bush declared Floridians eligible for disaster aid beginning with Hurricane Charley on Aug.13 and continuing through to Hurricane Jeanne on Sept. 26, 2004, assistance totaling $3.28 billion has been approved for a variety of programs. To date, 1.19 million storm victims have applied for federal and state assistance.

Death toll from the 2004 Florida hurricanes: 117

Death toll from the tsunami is estimated at 114,000. The Bush Administration has pledged $35M.

U.S. Businesses Overseas Threatened by Rising Anti-Americanism

The Bush administration's foreign policy may be costing U.S. corporations business overseas--according to a new survey of 8,000 international consumers released this week by the Seattle-based Global Market Insite (GMI) Inc.

Brands closely identified with the U.S., such as Marlboro cigarettes, America Online (AOL), McDonald's, American Airlines, and Exxon-Mobil are particularly at risk. GMI, an independent market research company, conducted the survey in eight countries December 10-12 with consumers over the internet.

One third of all consumers in Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom said that U.S. foreign policy, particularly the "war on terror" and the occupation of Iraq (news - web sites), constituted their strongest impression of the United States.

Twenty percent of respondents in Europe and Canada said they consciously avoided buying U.S. products as a protest against those policies. That finding was consistent with a similar poll carried out by GMI three weeks after Bush's November election victory.

George Bush, like a bad sitcom, has been brought to you by these very corporate interests. And in the snakepit where the neocons, the Holy rollers and the corporate lobbying complex twist and turn, you know there has been a deal with the Devil, even if you can't quite decide which one is Beelzebub. Adam Smith's invisible hand brought them, and thus us, to this place -- a place where we are becoming an international pariah, the South Africa to the world. And when these countries and consumers wake up to their power and organize the kind of boycotts used so effectively against apartheid, perhaps they will achieve what we have not.

From Whiskey Bar: Praise the Lord and Pass the Thumbscrews

Insight into the ugly minds that reconcile God and torture.

Blumenthal on the Putsch

The transition to President Bush's second term, filled with backstage betrayals, plots and pathologies, would make for an excellent chapter of I, Claudius. To begin with, Bush has unceremoniously and without public acknowledgement dumped Brent Scowcroft, his father's closest associate and friend, as chairman of the foreign intelligence advisory board. The elder Bush's national security adviser was the last remnant of traditional Republican realism permitted to exist within the administration.
...
Bush has long resented his father's alter ego. Scowcroft privately rebuked him for his Iraq follies more than a year ago - an incident that has not previously been reported. Bush "did not receive it well", said a friend of Scowcroft.

In A World Transformed, the elder Bush's 1998 memoir, co-authored with Scowcroft, they explained why Baghdad was not seized in the first Gulf war: "Had we gone the invasion route, the US could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land." In the run-up to the Iraq war, Scowcroft again warned of the danger. Bush's conservative biographers Peter and Rachel Schweizer, quoted the president as responding: "Scowcroft has become a pain in the ass in his old age." And they wrote: "Although he never went public with them, the president's own father shared many of Scowcroft's concerns."

The rejection of Kanter is a compound rejection of Scowcroft and of James Baker - the tough, results-oriented operator who as White House chief of staff saved the Reagan presidency from its ideologues, managed the elder Bush's campaign in 1988, and was summoned in 2000 to rescue Junior in Florida. In his 1995 memoir, Baker observed that the administration's "overriding strategic concern in the [first] Gulf war was to avoid what we often referred to as the Lebanonisation of Iraq, which we believed would create a geopolitical nightmare."

In private, Baker is scathing about the current occupant of the White House. Now the one indispensable creator of the Bush family political fortunes is repudiated.

Republican elders who warned of endless war are purged. Those who advised Bush that Saddam was building nuclear weapons, that with a light military force the operation would be a "cakewalk", and that capturing Baghdad was "mission accomplished", are rewarded.

At least one of these spurned thinkers had better be working on the mother of all kiss and tell books.

Warm & fuzzy feedback from the right: Editor & Publisher.com

On the Thursday before Christmas, Al Neuharth, former Gannett bigwig and founder of USA Today, suggested in his weekly column for that newspaper that the U.S. should start bringing home our troops from Iraq “sooner rather than later.”
...[O]ur brief article about the Neuharth column (which did not endorse his position) got linked at numerous other Web sites, and drew more letters than virtually any story we have ever posted
...
Frank Butash, West Hartford, CT.: “Apparently it's easier to run with jackals than to stand up for your country when it needs support.”

Kenneth Genest: “They had two of these in World War 2. One was called Tokyo Rose and the other Axis Sally. Their job was to discourage the American soldiers. I see they have one now at USA Today.”

Dan Clawson, Fresno,m CA.: "A disgrace to the men and women who serve. USA Today supporting the terrorist cause."

Jerry Martin, San Francisco, CA.: “Yet another self-defeating fool with a large bank account shoots himself in the foot. Their dissent equals treason. The terrorists got him just like all the other rich liberals who side against our victory. They forget that wars end, and then the country takes stock of who was where. I encourage the fool to keep mouthing against our victory over the Muslim jihad, he'll pay the social price in the end.”

T. Conway: “Mr. Neuharth has made a serious business mistake. Watch the circulation drop over the next year. The Los Angeles Times experienced the same drop after they attacked Gov. Schwarzenegger...some never learn. P.S. What side did Mr. Neuharth fight for in WW II?”

Peter Kessler: “And as for the good war, WW II, the lefties were four-square for that one. Yes sir, they were saving the USSR, Stalin and Communism. It's sad we didn't join Hitler until he wiped out the USSR. Alger Hiss and the Uptown Daily Worker (The New York Times) be damned. I see you've joined the club. Well, you're probably a founding member.”

Joe McBride, Fort Dodge, Iowa: “Mr. Neuharth, thanks to you and your ignorance the terrorists are probably booking their flights to the U.S. now! If we pull out of Iraq with the job unfinished the terrorists will be bombing McDonalds, and blowing up malls and schools here, killing our innocent men, women and children.”

Craig Wood, Waianae, Hawaii: “Today's press undermines our troops and supports our enemies. They convince parents that supporting your President is dangerous. They concentrate their ire on any fight that involves the United States and ignore all others. Like the sex scandal in the Congo with United Nations forces…. But, let some Army private put panties on an Iraqi's head and all hell brakes loose.”

Duggan Flanakin, Austin, Texas: “Neuharth should be tried for treason along with a lot of other blowhards who should be spending their energies condemning the barbarism of our enemies, the same people who destroyed the Twin Towers.“

Yeesh. What furies will be loosened if any of those folks wander into this turnip patch?

Elvis water

So you threw down the 28 large for the Virgin Mary on grilled cheese, or perhaps acquired the Jesus on a fish stick. So what does the discerning host serve with such sophisticated culinary fare? Why Elvis water, of course. Owing, I guess, to the lack of references to Elvis in either New or Old Testament, the holy water went for a mere $455. But all together, definitely a meal fit for the King.

I am a bit disappointed that no one has seen fit to follow up on my call for the Ten Commandments in a bowl of Alpha Bits.

Will the ship list to starboard?

My first thought was "Stephen King script treatment."

Ron Suskind pyschoanalyzes the Cabinet appointments

Whatever the roots of Mr. Bush's overriding devotion to loyalty, it partly stems from his disdain for the concerns of old-style meritocrats, the kind of people who wince when the president places his confidence in someone like Mr. Kerik. Mr. Bush has never been comfortable in America's so-called meritocracy. Undistinguished in college, business school and in the private sector, he spent nearly 30 years sitting in seminar rooms and corporate suites while experts and high achievers held forth.Now it appears that he's having his revenge - speaking loudly in his wave of second-term cabinet nominations for a kind of anti-meritocracy: the idea that anyone, properly encouraged and supported, can do a thoroughly adequate job, even better than adequate, in almost any endeavor.It's an empowering, populist idea - especially for those who, for whatever reason, have felt wrongly excluded or disrespected - that is embodied in the story of Mr. Bush himself: a man with virtually no experience in foreign affairs or national domestic policy who has been a uniquely forceful innovator in both realms.History will judge whether his actions are visionary or reckless. In the meantime, he is applying his intensely personal method for judging merit to pick a group of largely no-name cabinet officials for his triumphal second term.

This seems spot-on to me. And, sadly, Bush was, at least in one sense correct. It took a whiz kind like Robert McNamara to give us the first Vietnam, but Bush's crew of mediocrites managed to give us the second without working up a sweat.

Asleep at the switch again

Juan Cole points out how Bush's callous indifference to the tsunami tragedy also represents a telling failure from the standpoint of US self-interest:

US President George W. Bush has missed an important opportunity to reach out to the Muslims of Indonesia. The Bush administration at first pledged a paltry $15 million, a mysteriously chintzy response to what was obviously an enormous calamity. Bush himself remained on vacation, and now has reluctantly agreed to a meeting of the National Security Council by video conference. If Bush were a statesman, he would have flown to Jakarta and announced his solidarity with the Muslims of Indonesia (which has suffered at least 40,000 dead and rising).

Indeed, the worst-hit area of Indonesia is Aceh, the center of a Muslim separatist movement, and a gesture to Aceh from the US at this moment might have meant a lot in US-Muslim public relations. Bin Laden and Zawahiri sniffed around Aceh in hopes of recruiting operatives there, being experts in fishing in troubled waters. Doesn't the US want to outflank al-Qaeda? As it is, the president of the United States is invisible and on vacation (unlike several European heads of state), and could think of nothing better to do than announce a paltry pledge. As Harris and Wright rightly say, the rest of the world treated the US much better than this after September 11.

But all's right with the world, because even if a vacation takes precedence over a disaster at least 30 times larger than September 11, there is alsways time for Clinton-bashing.

New take on old Vatican anti-semetism

The bitter, long-running controversy over the attitude of Pope Pius XII to the Holocaust has taken a new turn with the publication of diaries that prove he opposed the return of Jewish children to their parents after the Nazis' defeat.

The diaries were kept by Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, from 1945 to 1948 when Pius XII was on the Vatican throne and Cardinal Roncalli was papal nuncio to Paris.

The diaries document the efforts by Cardinal Roncalli to reunite Jewish families torn apart by the war and whose children had been taken under the wing of the Catholic Church. The future pope's role in helping Jews escape from Nazi persecution has long been acknowledged. But the diaries show Pius XII was hostile to such efforts.

In 1946, Rabbi Herzog of Istanbul came to see Roncalli in Paris to ask that Jewish children rescued during the war and taken care of in Catholic convents should be returned to the Jewish community. Cardinal Roncalli was happy to oblige: he wrote authorising him "to use his authority with the relevant institutions, so ... these children may be returned to their original environment."

But Pius XII, who has frequently been accused of anti-semitism, sent a message via the Vatican's Holy Office ordering that Jewish children who had been baptised as Christians after being separated from their parents should not be returned unless they could be guaranteed a Christian upbringing. Children "who no longer have parents" were not to be handed over. If the parents eventually showed up, only those children who had not been baptised should be restored, the Pope proclaimed.

From Pope Pius's perspective, I'm sure this made perfect sense.The Jews would all go to Hell, so why not try to save a few? And along the way, give them the benefits of education in the Catholic approach to things like... buggery.

Almost as if they had their own Dept. of Homeland Security

The many ironies of the Novak affair

A journalism professor gets to the essence of the Plame outing:

how is (press) independence advanced when reporters insist that they are constitutionally entitled to serve as protected instruments of state calumny against private citizens?

Aid Grows Amid Remarks About President's Absence

From the Washington Post via Raw Story:

"The Bush administration more than doubled its financial commitment yesterday to provide relief to nations suffering from the Indian Ocean tsunami, amid complaints that the vacationing President Bush has been insensitive to a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions.

As the death toll surpassed 50,000 with no sign of abating, the U.S. Agency for International Development added $20 million to an earlier pledge of $15 million to provide relief, and the Pentagon dispatched an aircraft carrier and other military assets to the region. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in morning television appearances, chafed at a top U.N. aid official's comment on Monday that wealthy countries were being stingy with aid. 'The United States is not stingy,' Powell said on CNN.

Although U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland yesterday withdrew his earlier comment, domestic criticism of Bush continued to rise. Skeptics said the initial aid sums -- as well as Bush's decision at first to remain cloistered on his Texas ranch for the Christmas holiday rather than speak in person about the tragedy -- showed scant appreciation for the magnitude of suffering and for the rescue and rebuilding work facing such nations as Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and Indonesia.

After a day of repeated inquiries from reporters about his public absence, Bush late yesterday afternoon announced plans to hold a National Security Council meeting by teleconference to discuss several issues, including the tsunami, followed by a short public statement.
...
Earlier yesterday, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said the president was confident he could monitor events effectively without returning to Washington or making public statements in Crawford, where he spent part of the day clearing brush and bicycling. Explaining the about-face, a White House official said: 'The president wanted to be fully briefed on our efforts. He didn't want to make a symbolic statement about 'We feel your pain.' '
...
Some foreign policy specialists said Bush's actions and words both communicated a lack of urgency about an event that will loom as large in the collective memories of several countries as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks do in the United States. 'When that many human beings die -- at the hands of terrorists or nature -- you've got to show that this matters to you, that you care,' said Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.

There was an international outpouring of support after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and even some administration officials familiar with relief efforts said they were surprised that Bush had not appeared personally to comment on the tsunami tragedy. 'It's kind of freaky,' a senior career official said.
...
Gelb said what appears to be a grudging increase in effort sends the wrong message, at a time when dollar totals matter less than a clear statement about U.S. intentions. Noting that the disaster occurred at a time when large numbers of people in many nations -- especially Muslim ones such as Indonesia -- object to U.S. policies in Iraq, he said Bush was missing an opportunity to demonstrate American benevolence.

'People do watch and see what we do,' he said. 'Here's an opportunity to remind people of the good we do, and he [Bush] can do it without changing his policy on Iraq or terrorism.'
...
Among the world's two dozen wealthiest countries, the United States often is among the lowest in donors per capita for official development assistance worldwide, even though the totals are larger. According to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development of 30 wealthy nations, the United States gives the least -- at 0.14 percent of its gross national product, compared with Norway, which gives the most at 0.92 percent."

Well, of course they don't see much of a need to attend to anything in that part of the world since brother Neil has sworn off Thai hookers. But Gelb is spot-on: the appropriate humanitarian--Christian--responses here are blindingly obvious, and it's also a slam-dunk opportunity to create a little good will in a geopolitically delicate region of the world. But the Boy King can't be bothered to set aside his cowboy fantasy for even a few minutes to convey his concerns and dig into the biggest honking wallet on the planet.

Court Backs Firing of Waitress Without Makeup

A female bartender who refused to wear makeup at a Reno, Nevada, casino was not unfairly dismissed from her job, a U.S. federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday.
Darlene Jespersen, who had worked for nearly 20 years at a Harrah's Entertainment Inc casino bar in Reno, Nevada, objected to the company's revised policy that required female bartenders, but not men, to wear makeup.

A previously much-praised employee, Jespersen was fired in 2000 after the firm instituted a "Beverage Department Image Transformation" program and she sued, alleging sex discrimination.

In a 2-1 decision, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling in favor of Harrah's. All three judges are males appointed by Democratic presidents.

This from the 9th Circuit... you know, the one the Bushies want to break up for being too liberal. Reminds me a little of the "Switch in time that saved the Nine" back in the 1930s when Franklin Roosevelt thretened to expand the number of seats on the Supreme Court to try to stop the Court from invalidating the New Deal. Intimidation worked then, too.

More ammunition for tort reformers

Navy SEALs Sue AP Over Iraq Prison Photos

"LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Six members of a Navy special forces unit and two Navy wives sued The Associated Press on Tuesday, saying the news agency endangered the servicemen's lives and invaded their privacy by publishing photos showing the men interacting with Iraqi prisoners.

The lawsuit says the agency erred by not obscuring the identity of the six SEALs in photos that accompanied a story distributed worldwide earlier this month, contending publication of the photos jeopardizes future covert operations and harms the servicemen's careers.

...

The story was written by San Diego reporter Seth Hettena, who is named as a defendant. The story did not name the Navy members or the wife who posted the photos on what she believed was a private Web site.

...

The lawsuit, filed in San Diego County Superior Court, states that Hettena took the photos from a Navy wife's "personal digital photo album without notice or permission." It says that the woman, identified only as "Jane Doe," believed the nearly 1,800 photos she posted on the Internet site were protected from access by unauthorized users and required a password to view.

The initial AP story, transmitted Dec. 3, noted that the photos were found on the commercial photo-sharing Web site Smugmug.com using the search engine Google, and were not password-protected until after the reporter purchased copies online and began inquiries."

The possibilities for careers in covert ops must be limitless for guys who can't resist mugging for the cameras after a catch and then posting the photos on anything with the prefix "www." Up next: six members of the Big Red One sue KBR after being burned by spilled coffee served in cups that did not explicitly state "Caution: The beverage you're about to enjoy is extremely hot!"

Ex-official tells of Homeland Security failures

The government agency responsible for protecting the nation against terrorist attack is a dysfunctional, poorly managed bureaucracy that has failed to plug serious holes in the nation's safety net, the Department of Homeland Security's former internal watchdog warns.

Clark Kent Ervin, who served as the department's inspector general until earlier this month, said in an interview last week that airport security isn't tight enough and that little has been done to safeguard other forms of mass transit. Ervin said ports remain vulnerable to terrorists trying to smuggle weapons into the country. He added that immigration and customs investigators are hampered in their efforts to track down illegal immigrants because they often lack gas money for their cars.
...
Ervin lost his job this month in mysterious fashion. Appointed by President Bush in December 2003 when Congress was out of session, Ervin was never confirmed by the Senate. Nor was he renominated by the White House this month when his "recess appointment" - which lasted until the congressional session ended - expired Dec. 8.

A key senator won't say why. Elissa Davidson, spokeswoman for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, wouldn't comment on why Chairman Susan Collins, R-Maine, never held confirmation hearings for Ervin. "The decision not to renominate Clark Kent Ervin was purely a White House decision," she said.


See how bad the government is? The solution is to... invade Iraq.... no, wait (sound of cue cards being shuffled)... privatize Social Security!

Hill Staffer Arrested for Alleged Theft of Plasma TV From Rayburn Room

The House Small Business Committee’s chief economist was charged by Capitol Police with the attempted theft of a plasma television Thursday night.

Well, fencing stolen goods IS a small business....

Susan Sontag dead at 71

"We live in a culture in which intelligence is denied relevance altogether, in a search for radical innocence, or is defended as an instrument of authority and repression. In my view, the only intelligence worth defending is critical, dialectical, skeptical, desimplifying."

Amen.

Update: Of course, the erudite scholars with the monopoly on Christian values over at Little Green Footballs see things a little differently. Stop over for loads of data reaffirming the strong correlation between stupidity and cruelty.

U.S. Slips in Attracting the World's Best Students

Here's a shocker:

"American universities, which for half a century have attracted the world's best and brightest students with little effort, are suddenly facing intense competition as higher education undergoes rapid globalization.

The European Union, moving methodically to compete with American universities, is streamlining the continent's higher education system and offering American-style degree programs taught in English. Britain, Australia and New Zealand are aggressively recruiting foreign students, as are Asian centers like Taiwan and Hong Kong. And China, which has declared that transforming 100 universities into world-class research institutions is a national priority, is persuading top Chinese scholars to return home from American universities.

'What we're starting to see in terms of international students now having options outside the U.S. for high-quality education is just the tip of the iceberg,' said David G. Payne, an executive director of the Educational Testing Service, which administers several tests taken by foreign students to gain admission to American universities. 'Other countries are just starting to expand their capacity for offering graduate education. In the future, foreign students will have far greater opportunities.'

Foreign students contribute $13 billion to the American economy annually. But this year brought clear signs that the United States' overwhelming dominance of international higher education may be ending. In July, Mr. Payne briefed the National Academy of Sciences on a sharp plunge in the number of students from India and China who had taken the most recent administration of the Graduate Record Exam, a requirement for applying to most graduate schools; it had dropped by half.

Foreign applications to American graduate schools declined 28 percent this year. Actual foreign graduate student enrollments dropped 6 percent. Enrollments of all foreign students, in undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral programs, fell for the first time in three decades in an annual census released this fall. Meanwhile, university enrollments have been surging in England, Germany and other countries.

Some of the American decline, experts agree, is due to post-Sept. 11 delays in processing student visas, which have discouraged thousands of students, not only from the Middle East but also from dozens of other nations, from enrolling in the United States. American educators and even some foreign ones say the visa difficulties are helping foreign schools increase their share of the market.

'International education is big business for all of the Anglophone countries, and the U.S. traditionally has dominated the market without having to try very hard,' said Tim O'Brien, international development director at Nottingham Trent University in England. 'Now Australia, the U.K., Ireland, New Zealand and Canada are competing for that dollar, and our lives have been made easier because of the difficulties that students are having getting into the U.S. International students say it's not worth queuing up for two days outside the U.S. consulate in whatever country they are in to get a visa when they can go to the U.K. so much more easily.'"

Once they gain a little momentum, it's going to be the other countries that won't have to try very hard. Foriegn students aren't going to be much interested in attending universities in a wildly anti-intellectual, xenophobic country that's hard to get into, that requires them to check their civil liberties at the door, and that legislates against investment in cutting edge scientific research ("intelligent design" theories excepted). Of course, none of this will get much notice beyond the Times, its readers and those in academia; the long-term economic implications of this brain drain are way beyond the grasp of a populace preoccupied with putting parental warning stickers on textbooks that include evolutionary theory.

US Tsunami aid in context

via Eschaton: We pledged $15M. Budget for the Boy King's coronation: $30-40M (excluding security costs, which believe you me will be huge -- gotta make sure Michael Moore can't get any shots of folks throwing eggs like last time).

David Dreier: Blacks die sooner, so should favor SS privatization

So says republican David Dreier onTV's Late Edition, in his promotion of President Bush's so-called Social Security reform.

That's just so special, David. But while you're at it, why not let folks in on what a great deal it is for you, since you and your fellow ho-mo-sexuals will get an even better deal, seeing as you all drop in your 40s. As a 52 year-old gay Republican, I guess you are living on borrowed time in more ways than one...

Funny, but I assumed that Dreier was on his way to political purgatory after being outed by BlogActive, Raw Story and Hustler Magazine. I guess gay-baiting is just red meat for the red state rubes. Walking the walk really doesn't matter-- just ask Ken Mehlman. Maybe Dreier can get a guest spot on red state favorite Will & Grace.

From middle class to food stamps

Since 2000, ... more than 6 million ... Americans have joined the ranks of the millions of American families who find it increasingly difficult to perform a most basic function - to put food on their tables.

The economic indicators are numerous.

Following a seven-year decline, the number of Americans on food stamps has shot up 39 percent since 2000, according to federal statistics. Every state, except Hawaii, has felt the impact. In Arizona, food stamp rolls have increased 104 percent, in Nevada, 97 percent; Oregon, 79 percent; South Carolina, 68 percent; Missouri, 65 percent.

Texas has added nearly 1 million people to its food stamp rolls in only four years.

Part of that increase was fueled by states' increased efforts to enroll a greater portion of people eligible for food stamps and the placement of people back onto the rolls who had been initially knocked off during welfare reform. Most of it, however, social workers say, is the growing number of Americans unable to feed themselves without help.

"Clearly, most of this is because of increased need," said Carol Adams, head of the Illinois Department of Social Services. Illinois has seen a 31 percent increase in the number of people on food stamps since 2000.

The issues the blogosphere whines and bitches about pale, of course, in light of the massive natural disaster around the Indian Ocean. There is nothing we can do to prevent a tsunami, though a warning system could help lower the toll. But the economic polarization of the US is a man-made, avoidable injustice, made all the worse by its intentionality. An earthquake is amoral; our government is immoral.

Group releases video of Mosul attack

A group in Iraq released a videotape that describes the Dec. 21 attack on the U.S. army base in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

The group posted the video on its Web site on Sunday. The video showed what appeared to be the blast inside the dinning facility at a U.S. military camp in Mosul.

Another shot, apparently taken from a vehicle driving outside the base after the explosion, showed a fireball rising up and the torn tent that housed the hall.
...
In Sunday's video, dated Dec. 20, three rebels dressed in black and carrying AK-47 automatic rifles described their planned attack.

The vidoe showed a map of the camp with the dining hall clearly marked, as a member of the group was pointing to many other areas with an army knife.

It also showed a masked rebel, wearing an explosives-laden vest, hugging other group members before leaving to the U.S. base. He was identified as Abu Omar Al Museli, suggesting that he was from Mosul.

The men said that that Al Museli would break into the base through the perimeter fence.

"He will take advantage of the change of guards. We have been observing their schedule for a long time. This lion will then proceed to his target and we will take advantage of lunch time. He will storm the dining room where the crusaders and their (Iraqi) allies are gathered," one of the men said.

"Let Bush, Blair and Allawi know that we are coming and that we will chase them all away." He added.

I can't imagine a more horribly graphic demonstration of the hopelessness of our occupation of Iraq than this. Our troops will not be able to handle the strain of fighting a war in which they cannot even find a safe haven in their own base camps. There is a saying to the effect that if you can't tell the enemy from the folks you are trying to defend, you are fighting the wrong war. Is there anyone left who can deny that fact now?

Conservative Students Target Liberal Profs

"Traditionally, clashes over academic freedom have pitted politicians or administrators against instructors who wanted to express their opinions and teach as they saw fit. But increasingly, it is students who are invoking academic freedom, claiming biased professors are violating their right to a classroom free from indoctrination.

For example, at the University of North Carolina, three incoming freshmen sued over a reading assignment they said offended their Christian beliefs.

In Colorado and Indiana, a national conservative group publicized student allegations of left-wing bias by professors. Faculty received hate mail and were pictured in mock "wanted" posters; at least one college said teacher received a death threat.

And at Columbia University in New York, a documentary film alleging that teachers intimidate students who support Israel drew the attention of administrators.

The three episodes differ in important ways, but all touch on an issue of growing prominence on college campuses.

In many ways, the trend echoes past campus conflicts — but turns them around. Once, it was liberal campus activists who cited the importance of 'diversity' in pressing their agendas for curriculum change. Now, conservatives have adopted much of the same language in calling for a greater openness to their viewpoints.
...
To many professors, there's a new and deeply troubling aspect to this latest chapter in the debate over academic freedom: students trying to dictate what they don't want to be taught.

'Even the most contentious or disaffected of students in the '60s or early '70s never really pressed this kind of issue,' said Robert O'Neil, former president of the University of Virginia and now director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression.
...
Leading the movement is the group Students for Academic Freedom, with chapters on 135 campuses and close ties to David Horowitz, a one-time liberal campus activist turned conservative commentator. The group posts student complaints on its Web site about alleged episodes of grading bias and unbalanced, anti-American propaganda by professors — often in classes, such as literature, in which it's off-topic.

Instructors 'need to make students aware of the spectrum of scholarly opinion,' Horowitz said. 'You can't get a good education if you're only getting half the story.'
...
'I feel like (faculty) are so disconnected from students that they do these things and they can just get away with them,' said Kris Wampler, who recently publicly identified himself as one of the students who sued the University of North Carolina. Now a junior, he objected when all incoming students were assigned to read a book about the Quran before they got to campus.
'A lot of students feel like they're being discriminated against,' he said.
...
'It's often phrased in the language of academic freedom. That's what's so strange about it,' said Ellen Schrecker, a Yeshiva University historian who has written about academic freedom during the McCarthy area. 'What they're saying is, 'We want people to reflect our point of view.''

Horowitz's critics also insist his campaign is getting more attention than it deserves, riling conservative bloggers but attracting little alarm from most students. They insist even most liberal professors give fair grades to conservative students who work hard and support their arguments.

Often, the facts of particular cases are disputed. At Ball State, senior Brett Mock published a detailed account accusing Wolfe of anti-Americanism in a peace studies class and of refusing to tolerate the view that the U.S. invasion of Iraq might have been justified. In a telephone interview, Wolfe vigorously disputed Mock's allegations. He provided copies of a letter of support from other students in the class, and from the provost saying she had found nothing wrong with the course.

Horowitz, who has also criticized Ball State's program, had little sympathy when asked if Wolfe deserved to get hate e-mails from strangers.

'These people are such sissies,' he said. 'I get hate mail every single day. What can I do about it? It's called the Internet.'"

(AP, via RawStory).

No surprise that this is an operation backed by David Horowitz, an arrogant, intellectually dishonest weenie who continues to blaze the trail for well-to-do, middle-aged white guys who just can't catch a break in George Bush's America. While I find the whole mess to be a reprehensible waste of time, part of me would like this to go all the way to the Supremes to watch David Souter and John Paul Stevens crush their argument into fine powder.

Wampler, by the way, seems to be doing quite nicely. He's now a junior at UNC-Chapel Hill, and was given a $5,000 scholarship via the Ronald Reagan Future Leaders Scholarship Program sponsored by the Phillips Foundation earlier this year. One assumes he has been successful over the past few years avoiding any and all exposure to points of view that he knows he would hate anyways. And, as blog-IT-o ergo sum noted last month, he is active in student politics as well, making college campuses safe for guys with affiliations to the John Birch Society.

Apparent assassinations kill 5 Iraqi officials

Gunmen killed five Iraqi officials in what appeared to be three separate assassination attacks, sources said Sunday.

Iraqi police officials and Ministry of Interior sources said one of those killed was Col. Yassin Ibrahim Jawad, a high ranking police officer.

Masked men attacked Jawad's vehicle in a drive-by shooting on Sunday while he was traveling to work in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Baya.

The gunmen also wounded two of Jawad's bodyguards, one of them critically.

On Saturday, in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Khadmiye, unknown gunmen killed two local council members in a drive-by shooting, Baghdad police officials said.

In Taji, about 13 miles (20 kilometers) north of Baghdad, a third shooting killed a local council member and a relative.

Where does the line form to run for Iraqi office?

Inauguration Day schedule

CourtesyJesus' General

Jesus Christ Action Figure TV Commecial

Going straight to hell, these folks are....

Not sure about these folks, though idolatry IS idolatry...(Check out the very fashion-forward Jean-Paul Gaultier/Fifth Element outfit on Goliath...)

Colin Powell chosen to drop ball in Times Square New Year's Eve

Mayor Michael Bloomberg cited Powell extensive experience with ball-dropping, including his WMD speech before the UN, the war in Iraq, and his complete failure to rein in the neocon children running US foreign policy.

Imagine that

Ex-hostage: Militants wanted Bush re-elected

"PARIS - French journalists held hostage for four months in Iraq said their militant captors told them they wanted President Bush to win re-election.

In a four-page account of their ordeal, one of the reporters, Georges Malbrunot, also wrote that they saw several other hostages who were later decapitated. The journalists said their captors viewed foreign businessmen working in Iraq as their enemies.

One of the captors from the group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq said Bush’s re-election would boost their cause, Malbrunot wrote in Friday’s edition of Le Figaro, the French daily he works for.

'We want Bush because with him the American troops will stay in Iraq and that way we will be able to develop,' Malbrunot cited the captor as saying."

You will be shocked, shocked to learn that the piece does not go on to get the reactions of the countless pundits at MSNBC, CNN et. al. who spent the election season talking out of their asses, insisting that OBL and the Iraqi insurgents were praying to Allah for a Kerry win.

Rumsfeld Says Iraqis Must Stop Insurgents

Hey, Ayad, grab a shovel:

"BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- In his Christmas eve encounters with U.S. military commanders and hundreds of their troops, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld heard - and said - little about armor or troop shortages, issues that have made him a political target in Washington among both Democrats and Republicans.

His main message over a four-city tour was quite different: that the insurgency has staying power and a seemingly endless supply of weapons, and the time has come for ordinary Iraqis to realize that they - not the Americans - will ultimately decide who prevails in this conflict.
...
During his visit, Rumsfeld said it would be unrealistic to predict that the level of violence will recede once the Jan. 30 elections are held. In the end, he said, it will be a 'uniquely Iraqi solution,' not American.
...
Faced with a chore like digging a ditch, a typical American, he said, will grab a shovel and start digging. In Iraq now, however, the task is to step aside and get the Iraqis to dig their own ditches.

He warned against allowing the Iraqis to become too dependent on the U.S. military. More independence is what's needed, he said."

OK, Rummy's admission that the violence ain't ending after the elections is vaguely refreshing--the BushCo spin about all the bloodshed being an election-driven phenomenon is particularly galling since they were spewing similar bilgewater in the run-up to the "transfer of power" last summer.

However, the main thrust here is that the administration intends to abdicate responsibility for this disaster at the earliest possible date--cleaning up the mess isn't our responsibility, for goodness sake, it's the Iraqis' job. And we're going to make sure that's what the American public believes by the time the really important elections--our midterms in 2006--roll around.

A Kobe-Shaq Christmas

The long-anticipated showdown came today. And a Merry Christmas was had by all. Kobe Bryant got what he wanted most -- 42 points and enough highlights for a month's worth of ESPN shows. Shaq got a team that plays like a team and a 104-102 overtime win despite fouling out late in the 4th -- their 11th in a row.

Falluja returnees angry, "city unfit for animals"

Iraqis reacted with anger, frustration and resentment on Friday after many returned to Falluja to discover their homes in rubble and their livelihoods ruined following last month's U.S. offensive.

"I saw the city and al-Andalus destroyed," said Ali Mahmood, 35, referring to the district of the city he returned to briefly on Thursday but now plans to leave after seeing the mess.

"My house is completely destroyed. There is nothing left for me to stay for," the teacher said, adding that he would rather live in the tented camp outside Falluja that has been his family's home for the past two months....
An Iraqi Health Ministry official said his greatest concern was the resentment Falluja's people were likely to feel when they saw how much damage had been done to their homes.

That was certainly the case on Friday. While those who fled were at pains to say they had nothing to do with the rebels who made Falluja their stronghold, many of them have since become angry and militant as a result of the offensive.

"Would Allah want us to return to a city that animals can't live in?" said Yasser Satar as he saw his destroyed home.

"Even animals who have no human sense and feelings can not live here," he said, crying.

"What do they want from Falluja? This is the crime of the century. They want to destroy Islam and Muslims. But our anger and resistance will increase."

In order to save the village...

Insurgents operate at will in Mosul

Insurgents have been able to "operate at will" in Mosul, where 22 people died in a bomb attack this week, because the US forces and the Iraqi authorities have failed to tackle them, an intelligence assessment by senior US officials in northern Iraq concludes.
The report, seen by the Guardian yesterday, was drafted before this week's suicide attack on the mess tent at Camp Merez.

It was made after the uprising last month, when most of Mosul's police force either deserted or defected and parts of the city fell, albeit briefly, to the insurgents.

It does not specifically mention threats to US bases, but it catalogues a series of errors and missed opportunities in intelligence gathering, recruitment to the Iraqi security forces, and operational issues.

Its assessments and recommendations reflect many of the concerns expressed in briefings of the Guardian recently by General Carter Ham, the US commanding officer in Mosul, and senior Iraqi officials in the city.

Tuesday's explosion was the worst single attack on the US forces since the invasion in March last year, and has thrown Pentagon officials and the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, on to the defensive, on account of their apparent failure to protect the US troops in Iraq adequately.

If you start from the assumption that the insurgents are not crazy about our election plans for Iraq, I think you have to look at stories like this one as mere dry runs for what is coming in the days leading up to the election. And that day is likely to be marked by so much bloodshed that even our government will have to take notice.

How many points is the spread in dog years?

A few decades ago, the expertise of so-called Wall Street wizards was effectively debunked by the "random walk" theory, which proved that over the long haul, the so-called experts were no better than chance, and that a portfolio based on throwing darts at the stock listings would perform as well as one picked by a bunch of expensive analysts.

My local newspaper has applied this theory to the sports pages, with predictable results. Every week, its four sports columnists make public their picks for the coming NFL games. They match wits against a dog. Two of the humans have identical winning percentages of 51.8%. One is at 46.4%. The laggard comes in at 42.7%. The dog? Comes in 3rd out of the five at 48.2%.

Do you choose to conclude that here, as on the Street, expertise is meaningless? OK. That once the appropriate spread is factored in, sports betting becomes purely random? Fine. That dogs might make good sports writers? No objections here.

Simply stunning...

...in every sense of the word. Just in case you were wondering what the dress that Mr. Bluememe wrote about looked like, here you go:



Jacqueline Duty in her prom dress (Photo: Lexington Herald-Leader).

The solo shot was lifted from a story covering the scandal at WorldNetDaily. They really should have used the photo up at The General's place:







Now, the general has admitted to exercising a little artistic discretion in composing the photo. But it does capture the spirit of the thing, no?

Whiny, obstructionist Republicans

GOP May Challenge Wash. Governor Recount

"SEATTLE (AP) -- In what may be their last hope of reclaiming an evaporated lead in the Washington governor's race before turning to the courts, Republicans have asked county auditors statewide to reconsider ballots that were rejected on Election Day.

With the counting and re-counting finally exhausted Thursday, Democrat Christine Gregoire emerged as the victor by a mere 130 votes. The final tally: 1,373,171 votes for Gregoire; 1,373,041 for Republican Dino Rossi.

But Republicans have vowed to leave no stone unturned in the breathtakingly close race that has dragged on for nearly two months.

'I know many Washingtonians are hoping this will end soon, but I'm also sure that people across this state want a clean election and a legitimate governor-elect,' Rossi said after the final tally from a grueling hand count was announced Thursday. 'At this point, we have neither.'"

In the Republican universe, the only clean elections are the ones that they win.

Bush signals a hard push on choices for courts

The Boy King's Christmas gift to half of the United States is a finger in the eye:

"WASHINGTON President George W. Bush said this week that when the new Congress convenes in January, he would renominate 12 candidates to the federal appeals courts who were denied confirmation in his first term.

His statement, made on Thursday, signals his willingness to begin what is expected to be another bitter fight with Senate Democrats over what they assert are his efforts to shift the courts in a markedly more conservative direction.

'The president nominated highly qualified individuals to the federal courts during his first term, but the Senate failed to vote on many nominations,' the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, said in a statement announcing Bush's intentions to move aggressively on the issue in his second term.

Although the announcement appears at odds with postelection remarks by Bush that he would reach out to opponents, it is in line with what had been a principal campaign theme for him and Vice President Dick Cheney, namely that Bush would battle Democratic opposition to his judicial choices.

The White House statement, which also called for the renomination of eight candidates for the federal district courts, quickly produced expressions of dismay from Senate Democrats, who said Bush was not seeking any compromise with them in hopes of improving relations on the issue of judges.

Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat who has been a leader in opposing many of Bush's judicial nominees, said: 'In this opening shot, the White House is making it clear that they are not interested in bipartisanship when it comes to nominating judges. This starts to poison the well when everyone on our side was hoping to make a new start.'

But the most notable reaction came from Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, who is expected to become the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

'It has been my hope that we might be able to approach this whole issue with some cooler perspective,' Specter said in an interview. 'I would have preferred to have some time in the 109th Congress to improve the climate to avoid judicial gridlock and future filibusters.'

The eight candidates for the federal district courts were less controversial than the appeals court nominees, but they were also not voted on in the current Congress.

When Bush sends the 20 names to the new Senate next month, however, there will be at least two factors that will be different from the current situation. Democrats blocked 10 of his appeals court nominees by filibuster. But the Republicans have increased their majority in the Senate to 55 from 51, making it more feasible to acquire the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster, which is the threat of extended debate.

Among the candidates whom Bush said on Thursday he would renominate is William Haynes 4th, the Pentagon general counsel, who has been deeply embroiled in controversy over memorandums he wrote or supervised that secretly authorized harsh treatment, even torture, for detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and in Iraq. Haynes's nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, based in Richmond, Virginia, was suspended when the issue erupted and he was asked by the Judiciary Committee to provide material about his role in the issue and failed to do so.

Other candidates Bush said would be renominated who had been blocked by Democrats include Priscilla Owens of Texas, William Pryor Jr. of Alabama and Janice Rogers Brown of California.

...
Pryor, who was named to the appeals court by Bush during a congressional recess, thereby sidestepping the Senate, is a former Alabama attorney general. He was known during his tenure in Alabama as an outspoken opponent of legalized abortion and an advocate of a greater role for religion in government. Pryor's work as a judge has been largely unnoticed, but he did provide a critical vote upholding a Florida law against adoption by gay couples.

Brown, who sits on the California Supreme Court, was opposed for her stark opinion upholding the state's referendum against affirmative action and her vivid speeches criticizing the growth of government. Some of her colleagues wrote that she had gone too far and used needlessly scathing language to extend the reach of the anti-affirmative-action proposition.

William Myers 3rd, nominated for the Ninth Circuit, was opposed because his critics said he could not be fair on environmental cases, citing his long career as a lobbyist for the ranching and mining industries."

You're going to hear the terms "unify," "unity," "bipartisanship," "come together," and the like ad nauseum from Georgie and his minions in the coming months. Don't ever forget that this is precisely what he means when he talks about "working together."

'Seinfeld' Festivus display vies with Nativity

More Christmas-haters....

When a Florida church group put a Nativity scene on public property, officials warned it might open the door to other religious -- and not-so-religious -- displays. They were right.

Since the Nativity was erected in Polk County, displays have gone up honoring Zoroastrianism and the fake holiday Festivus, featured on the TV sitcom "Seinfeld."

The Polk County Commission voted 4-1 Wednesday to permit the Nativity scene to remain across the street from the courthouse, as well as to make that area a "public forum" open to any type of display.

But the commission insisted that unless someone claims a particular display and submits a written request asking it remain, it would be removed. By Wednesday evening, no one had claimed the Festivus display, and the commission said it would come down; a woman claimed the Zoroastrianism display, which was to stay.

The debate began December 15 when a handmade creche with the figures of Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus was erected by a Bible study group from the First Baptist Church of Bartow.

"The real spirit of Christmas is the birth of Christ," said Marvin Pittman, a retired law enforcement officer and member of the congregation. "We felt it needs to be in the public eye, so we did it."

Other displays are fine, too, he said, adding, "If somebody wants to do that, it's their right."

And true to form, the site almost immediately sprouted alternative displays, including a simple sign that reads: "Festivus for the Rest of Us -- Donated to Polk County by the Seinfeld Fan Club."

We can't make this stuff up, folks. Well, OK, we could. But we didn't.

Juxtaposition

Two headlines on the front page at Yahoo:

Bush to Renominate Controversial Court Picks

Scientists discover world's biggest cockroach

Josh Marshall nails it

from Talking Points Memo, re: the eroding support for Iraquagmire:

During the election, I always thought that the dynamics of the campaign were providing what we might call an artificial floor for support for the war -- both at the level of its management and the whole idea of going to war in the first place.

Here's what I mean -- it comes down to an issue of cognitive dissonance.

The dead-even political polarization of America remains the defining fact of our politics. Close to 50% of Americans were dead set on voting for President Bush almost no matter what. Or they were dead set on voting against John Kerry. For our purposes, it's the same difference.

I think that many Bush supporters simply couldn't take stock of the full measure of the screw-up in Iraq during the election because doing so would have conflicted their support for President Bush. Iraq and the war on terror so defined this election that support for the war and the president who led us into it simply couldn't be pried apart.

Perhaps it wasn't so internalized. During the slugfest of the campaign supporting Bush just meant supporting the war and this is what people told pollsters when they were asked, because one question was almost a proxy for the other.

You can even do a thought experiment by imagining how many conservatives during election season would have been so staunch in their support for the war if it were being fought under a President Gore or a President Clinton. The question all but answers itself.

In any case, I think what has happened is that the end of the campaign season has departisanized the war -- at least to a measurable extent -- and folks who were emotionally and intellectually committed to reelecting the president (just as there were people on the other side with similar commitments) are now freer to see the situation in Iraq a bit more on its own terms.

Now all we have to do is deal with the 59M loonies who operated inside this box.

The tangled web

I started with this headline over on Yahoo:
Teen Sues Over Confederate Flag Dress .

A teenager is suing her school district for barring her from the prom last spring because she was wearing a dress styled as a large Confederate battle flag.
...
She said she worked on the design for the dress for four years, though she acknowledged that some might find the Confederate flag offensive.

"Everyone has their own opinion. But that's not mine," she told reporters outside the courthouse. "I'm proud of where I came from and my background."
...
The Sons of Confederate Veterans has promised to help pay some of her legal expenses.


The civil libertarian in me sees her as another Nazi marching in Skokie -- I support her right to be as racist, ignorant and just plain stupid as she wants to be.

Then I wandered over to the website of the Sons of Confederate Veterans website. What a fascinating bunch of fellows.

I learned that The citizen-soldiers who fought for the Confederacy personified the best qualities of America. The preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor in the South's decision to fight the Second American Revolution. The tenacity with which Confederate soldiers fought underscored their belief in the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. These attributes are the underpinning of our democratic society and represent the foundation on which this nation was built.

And lest we get the wrong idea about the SCV, they make it clear that The SCV rejects any group whose actions tarnish or distort the image of the Confederate soldier or his reasons for fighting.

If you are interested in perpetuating the ideals that motivated your Confederate ancestor, the SCV needs you. The memory and reputation of the Confederate soldier, as well as the motives for his suffering and sacrifice, are being consciously distorted by some in an attempt to alter history. Unless the descendants of Southern soldiers resist those efforts, a unique part of our nations' cultural heritage will cease to exist.

According to their Chief of Heritage Defense, this group stands 35,000 strong. And strong they are urged to be, for the battle goes on.

Heritage Defense in the SCV is a constant struggle against more numerous, better funded opponents who are entrenched in the media. Our membership numbers 30-odd thousand men, many of whom, unfortunately, are members only because they appreciate history or are involved in the mushrooming hobby that is genealogy. They have no desire or intent to confront those who would be most happy to deny public acknowledgement of the heritage we seek to preserve, and would make us feel shame rather than pride in our ancestry. This observation is made without any intent to denigrate those members I might describe, but only to make this point -- we are not fighting with our full strength.

I should also note that not all media is antagonistic. We all know members of the media who are sympathetic to our mission. Unfortunately, even those who seek to treat us fairly are usually forced by editorial policy or corporate fiat to acknowledge our opponent’s point of view, and therefore help them perpetuate their hateful propaganda. You know the line, which goes something like this: “… the Confederate Battle Flag, which some see as a painful reminder of (insert some injustice which the opponent likely never endured here).”

Anyone care to take a guess at the fill-in-the-blank "injustice"? After spending some time wandering throught their site, I have come to the conclusion that it couldn't possibly be slavery, because that word appears exactly once on the entire site, in the following context in a seven-year old press release:

Peter W. Orlebeke, Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, stated " The Derby School should teach truth rather than run from it. It is incomprehensible that a so-called educational institution is unaware that the War Between the States was fought over issues such as the rights of individual states to set their own tariffs, establish their own governments, and receive full profit from their agricultural production. They should know that the question of slavery was brought into the war by Lincoln in late 1862 as an emotional one to bolster the sagging Northern war effort and that emancipation was not just a Northern concept, but a Southern one as well, championed by the likes of Gen. Robert E. Lee."


When we shake our heads at the way the Irish, the former Yugoslavians and damn near everyone in the Middle East is still fighting hundred or thousand-year old battles, we should understand that there are folks in the good old USA still doing the same.

Support our troops

Assuming you're not Donald Rumsfeld, you don't have the power to give our troops in Iraq the best Christmas present possible (that would be tickets home for everyone) or even the second best option (that would be equipping them properly).

However, you're not completely helpless. The DoD has a page of links to organizations sponsoring support programs. Pick one that's doesn't offend you, and find out how to send someone overseas a toothbrush, cookies or just a reminder that we haven't forgotten them.

And while you're at it, take a minute to drop holiday greetings to Rummy and Paulie, reminding them to get their asses into gear on that first option.

U.S cuts aid to food charities

The first in what will undoubtedly be a series (collect them all):

"In one of the first signs of the effects of the tightening U.S. budget, in the past two months the Bush administration has reduced its contributions to global food aid programs aimed at helping millions of people climb out of poverty.

.

With the federal budget deficit expanding and President George W. Bush promising to reduce spending, the administration has told representatives of several charities that it is unable to honor some promises.

.

Groups have been told they will have money for food only in emergencies like that in Darfur, in western Sudan.

.

The cuts to charities, estimated by some charities at up to $100 million, come at a time when the number of hungry in the world is rising for the first time in years and all food programs are being stretched.

.

As a result, Save The Children, Catholic Relief Services and other charities have suspended or eliminated programs that were intended to help the poor feed themselves.

.

The programs helped with food supplies through improvements in farming, education and health.

.

'We have between five and seven million people who have been affected by these cuts,' Lisa Kuennen, a food aid expert at Catholic Relief Services, said.

.

'We had approval for all of these programs, often a year in advance,' she added. 'We hired staff, signed agreements with governments and with local partners, and now we have had to delay everything.'

.

...

One administration official involved in food aid voiced concern that putting such a high priority on emergency help might be shortsighted. The best way to avoid famines is to help poor countries become self-sufficient with cash and food aid now, said the official, who asked not to be named because of the continuing debate on the issue.

.

'The fact is, the development programs are being shortchanged and I'm not sure the administration is going to make up the money,' the official said."


The money saved should fund the SDI program for an additional, oh, twelve seconds or so.

.

Average rent out of reach for minimum wage earners

"In only four of the nation's 3,066 counties can someone working full time and earning federal minimum wage afford to pay rent and utilities on a one-bedroom apartment, an advocacy group on low-income housing reported Monday.

A two-bedroom rental is even more of a burden - the typical worker must earn at least $15.37 an hour to pay rent and utilities, the National Low Income Housing Coalition said in its annual 'Out of Reach' report. That's nearly three times the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour.

'You get pushed into a situation where some necessities don't get paid for' because more salary must be devoted to housing, said Sheila Crowley, the coalition's executive director. 'For people on low-wage fixed incomes, that's a chronic way of life.'

About 36 million homes in th U.S. are rented. About 80 percent of renter homes are located in nearly 1,000 counties in which a family must work more than 80 hours a week - or more than two full-time jobs - at minimum wage to afford the typical two-bedroom apartment, the coalition said.

The coalition's ``housing wage'' assumes that a family spends no more than 30 percent of its gross income on rent and utilities, since anything more is generally considered unaffordable by the government.

...

The national report quoted federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data that showed hourly wages rising about 2.6 percent over the past year, slower than the 2.9 percent rise in rents recorded in the Consumer Price Index.

...

States with more residents in rural areas were generally the most affordable, although no state's housing wage was lower than the federal hourly minimum wage of $5.15, which has not changed since 1997."

And that doesn't even take into account the folks working in jobs like sales floor positions at Walmart, who take down something in the neighborhood of $8.00/hr.

Daily Kos :: How We Lost Two Clinton-Clinton-Gore Voters

My parents always vote, and neither of them has ever voted for a losing Presidential candidate. (Gore does not count, because he, in fact, did win.) In fact, I don't believe my father has ever voted for any candidate--even city council--who did not win the election; he's like an oracle.

They were both teachers. My mother was in the peace corp. My father is an education reformer. Both of them are well-educated and watch the news. They are pro-choice. They believe in separation of church and state. They support gun control. They understand that insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies are crooks. And they don't like outsourcing.

They both voted for Clinton--and though they were outraged by his affair with Monica, they didn't take it out on Al Gore. They voted for Gore and neither of them like Bush.

And so, my sister and I remain humiliated and angry that we could not convince them to vote for Kerry. We would send them articles, we'd rant, we'd rave, we'd explain until we were blue in the face, and the responses we would get back were baffling.

I love my parents, and I will always love them, but this election put a wedge between us. It brought out some ugly things in them, but I believe those ugly things are a reflection of the electorate--and that we have to understand them in order to win.

My parents are part of the 11% of Gore voters that we lost to Bush this year. We would have won if we held onto that 11%. We need to understand people like them and how to bring the best out of them, and counteract their worst instincts.



This kind of thing just tears me up strategy-wise. This dKos contributor talks in very blunt terms about how her middle-of-the road parents went to the dark side, and what we need to do to get them back.

I want to win, but I just can't see myself wanting to go to the stupid irrational places these folks would ask us to go in order to win back their (empty) minds.

'Tiz a puzzlement.

the road to surfdom

Chasing blogs around often leads you to snippets of wisdom in unexpected places. This from a comment on a posting about the growing irrelevance of the U.S. in the view of the powers that be in India:

To say that the war in Iraq is 'insane' (which of course it is, from the sentimental standpoint where things like human rights, democracy, or global public opinion are of any consequence) is like saying that the War On Drugs is insane -- a completely naïve analysis that assumes our wars are undertaken for their publicly defined goals. I think most people in Latin America, as well as most blacks in the USA, could inform you about the real goals of the War On Drugs. It's meeting those real goals quite nicely, or else the policy would change.

Why should we imagine that Iraq is any different? Someone, I assure you, is benefitting, and that someone was certainly too smart to believe his own masterful PR onslaught about how quick 'n easy it would be and how few troops and civilians would die. That someone will continue to benefit no matter how far the US standard of living erodes, and no matter which nation or economy or currency is in the ascendancy -- it's a globalised world, remember? Do you think this guy is holding T-bills?? The US federal government, with all its three branches, is just his PR wing. You'd better not believe he depends on it to be his guarantor.

So, indeed, the US is in a sad decline. But just as Reagan's rising tide didn't actually lift all boats, the ebbing tide is pretty much irrelevant to the people who've been calling the shots. It's funny that in this era when everything is privatized and deregulated, and multilateral bodies call more and more of the shots, people still have this weird voodoo faith in national governments. Noticed the rise of 'private security contractors,' aka mercenaries?

Dems Claim Win in Wash. Governor's Race

"OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) -- Democrats have claimed victory in the race for Washington governor by a razor-thin margin of eight votes, citing preliminary results of a hand recount they say puts Christine Gregoire in front for the first time. Republicans maintained the race was still too close to call.

The stunning turnaround was reported late Tuesday by the head of the state Democratic Party, who said party officials' analysis of hand-counted returns from King County - the last county to finish the grueling process - showed that Gregoire had eclipsed the dwindling margin that Republican Dino Rossi has held since Election Day.

'We're confident Christine Gregoire has been elected the governor of the state of Washington,' Democratic Chairman Paul Berendt said. 'I believe Dino Rossi should concede.'

Neither King County nor the state Republican Party could confirm the recount results that led to the Democrats' analysis. GOP officials have said they were likely to take the matter to court in the event of a Gregoire win.

Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane said Republicans were studying the recount data but had not drawn any conclusions. 'It's just too close to call,' Lane said."

Democrats at the national level should take a lesson from Berendt here--he's playing this perfectly. Got an edge? Put the Repubs on the defensive and make them the disruptive, spiteful obstacles to smooth democracy.

Merry Christmas to you too, you immoral fucktard

"I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk."--Ken Adelman, 2/13/02




"...my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."--Dick Cheney, 3/16/03

"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties"--George Bush to Pat Robertson, 3/03



"The families have made tremendous sacrifices, and we appreciate all that they do. And the President also tells them that your loved ones who are in harm's way will have everything they need to complete their mission. We will make sure they have the best possible equipment and the resources they need to carry out that mission. And that's what our commitment is."--Scott McClellan, 12/21/04

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

More Christmas-hater News

Menorah vandalized again

From Nyack, NY: Hours after residents, local officials and clergy gathered at Veteran's Park to attend a rally against the recent vandalism to a Hanukkah menorah, the menorah was vandalized again.

Eight of the nine bulbs were ripped out of the menorah, which sits next to a Christmas tree and a nativity scene, and one was left hanging out of its socket, said Orangetown Police Sgt. Jim Brown.
...
Ehrenreich, who replaced the bulbs after the first attack, said the menorah was kept up for the rally even though Hanukkah ended last Wednesday. He said the menorah was to be taken down today.

Mayor John Shields, who organized the rally with the Nyack Clergy Association, said he was "horrified."

"I am speechless," he said. "Now, I'm wondering if people are just trying to gain attention."

Along with other recent incidents, the vandalism has caused concern in the town.

Two Orangetown men have been charged with hate crimes in connection with vandalism at four homes — three were painted with swastikas.

Swastikas also were found at Pearl River schools this year, and anti-Semitic pamphlets were distributed in Orangetown. A menorah in Pearl River was heavily damaged last year.

...

Eve Dworkin of New City said when she saw the menorah damaged the first time, it "felt like a slap in the face."

As she drove to work yesterday she was upset to see the menorah once again vandalized.

"Nyack is so multicultured," she said. "You'd think having a menorah and a Christmas tree next to each other would be fine in Nyack. But I guess not."

Tell me again about the embattled holiday here?

Erosion of value of Bush's "capital"

Fifty-two percent of respondents to a new poll think Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should resign amid recent criticism in Congress over his handling of the war in Iraq.
...
As for Bush, 49 percent of respondents said they approved of the job the president is doing. That number is down from his November approval rating of 55 percent. Bush is the first incumbent president to have an approval rating below 50 percent one month after winning re-election.

Maybe it is the result of grade inflation, what with all those mail-order Medals of Freedom in circulation.

mid-week diversion

L.A. Kobes dropped one last night to the always-tough Memphis Griz. Kobes captain Bryant went 2 for 16, and oh-for six behind the arc. You da man. Perhaps coach Kobe should have a talk with Director of Operations Kobe about finding more Kobes to play for captain Kobe.

...satire, on the other hand, is alive and well.

Irony is a lost art...

Maverick U.S. States Prove Popular at Climate Talks

Not all Americans are unpopular at this week's U.N. conference on climate change.

Negotiators and green groups have embraced maverick U.S. states and companies moving ahead on emissions control, although the Bush administration has few friends at the conference after bowing out of the Kyoto agreement on fighting global warming.

"Making concessions to bring this administration into the process at this time is futile. Engagements should be with California and other states and private business," said Steve Sawyer, a climate expert for Greenpeace in Amsterdam.
...
"When designing our energy policy, Germany will always look to California because it's the best example," said Barbel Hohn, environment minister in Germany's largest state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Young tourists, take note: when backpacking through Europe, a Golden Bear flag on your backpack might be just as effective as a Maple Leaf.

Poll: For First Time, Most Say Iraq War Was a Mistake

via (washingtonpost.com):

President Bush heads into his second term amid deep and growing public skepticism about the Iraq war, with a solid majority saying for the first time that the war was a mistake and most people believing that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld should lose his job, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

While a slight majority believe the Iraq war contributed to the long-term security of the United States, 70 percent of Americans think these gains have come at an "unacceptable" cost in military casualties. This led 56 percent to conclude that, given the cost, the conflict there was "not worth fighting" -- an eight-point increase from when the same question was asked this summer, and the first time a decisive majority of people have reached this conclusion.

There is an old definition of a liberal: someone who is right about most things, but too soon.

This story also casts Shrub's "I've earned some capital -- now I'm going to spend it" in a new light. I originally was struck by what a bizarre way that is for a Harvard B-School grad to speak (one does not generally "spend" capital -- unless, that is, one is a trust fund baby), but I now see that he had best spend it fast, because he may not have it much longer.

American Civil Liberties Union : Presidential Order Authorizing Inhumane Interrogation Techniques

American Civil Liberties Union : FBI E-Mail Refers to Presidential Order Authorizing Inhumane Interrogation Techniques

A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Also released by the ACLU today are a slew of other records including a December 2003 FBI e-mail that characterizes methods used by the Defense Department as "torture" and a June 2004 "Urgent Report" to the Director of the FBI that raises concerns that abuse of detainees is being covered up.

"These documents raise grave questions about where the blame for widespread detainee abuse ultimately rests," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "Top government officials can no longer hide from public scrutiny by pointing the finger at a few low-ranking soldiers."

The documents were obtained after the ACLU and other public interest organizations filed a lawsuit against the government for failing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The two-page e-mail that references an Executive Order states that the President directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists. The FBI e-mail, which was sent in May 2004 from "On Scene Commander--Baghdad" to a handful of senior FBI officials, notes that the FBI has prohibited its agents from employing the techniques that the President is said to have authorized.

Another e-mail, dated December 2003, describes an incident in which Defense Department interrogators at Guantánamo Bay impersonated FBI agents while using "torture techniques" against a detainee. The e-mail concludes "If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done [sic] the ‘FBI’ interrogators. The FBI will [sic] left holding the bag before the public."

As horrible as this is, the real outrage is the collective yawn these stunning revelations will bring from the lapdog press and the same public that wants to restrict the civil liberties of all Muslims while trumpeting its superior "moral values."

Theocracy R Us

Yahoo! News - Ten Commandments Judge May Run for Gov.

Ousted Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore said Friday he is considering running for governor in 2006.

"I'll be praying about it and considering it," told reporters.

Moore was ousted in November 2003 for defying a federal judge's order to remove his 5,280-pound Ten Commandments monument from public display in the state judicial building. He appealed his ouster to the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites), but lost.

If Moore were to run as a Republican, he could face a GOP primary battle with Gov. Bob Riley, who has not yet said whether he will seek a second term.

Moore and Riley stood together on the Ten Commandments issue last year until Moore refused to abide by the federal judge's order. Riley said a public official must respect a court order. The monument was removed.

There you go. A grudging admission that the rule of law -- for a judge empowered by the state government -- trumps religion is enough to make a red state Republican governor vulnerable on the right.

SSA institutes novel way to avoid discriminating against gay marriages

The Social Security Administration is rejecting marriage documents issued for heterosexual couples in four communities that performed weddings for gay couples earlier this year.

The agency is rejecting all marriage certificates issued in New Paltz, N.Y., after Feb. 27, when the town's mayor began marrying gay couples, according to town officials.

Certificates issued during the brief periods when Asbury Park, N.J., Multnomah County, Ore., and Sandoval County, N.M., recognized gay marriages are also being rejected.

Susie Kilpatrick, 30, of New Paltz, said the local Social Security office told her that no marriage documents issued after Feb. 27 could be used to establish identity because of the gay marriages that took place there earlier this year. About 125 heterosexual couples have been married since then.

Kilpatrick said her marriage certificate was rejected when she went to get a new card earlier this month so she could take her husband's name.

As ridiculous as this sounds to the people of the Blue, this policy actually quite consistent with Red state logic. As noted below, they want to quarantine US citizens simply by virtue of the fact they worship Allah. Why then would they lose any sleep over tarring straight New Paltzers with a pink brush? Being the party of "personal responsibility" means never having to make such subtle distinctions.

Rumsfeld doing "Spectacular" Job

Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a spectacular job," the president's chief of staff, Andrew Card, told ABC's "This Week."

"The president has provided good direction for our military, and Secretary Rumsfeld is transforming our military to meet the threats of the 21st century," Card said.

While security remains a concern in Iraq, Card said the growing economy and the establishment of the educational and electrical systems in the country were positive developments, Card said.

"There are no guarantees, but we'll work hard to provide security," for the elections, Card said. "It'll be a wonderful success story."

Mr. Card, it would appear, is not a member of the reality-based community.

Nearly Half in U.S. Say Restrict Muslims

Nearly half of all Americans believe the U.S. government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim Americans, according to a nationwide poll.

The survey conducted by Cornell University also found that Republicans and people who described themselves as highly religious were more apt to support curtailing Muslims' civil liberties than Democrats or people who are less religious.

Researchers also found that respondents who paid more attention to television news were more likely to fear terrorist attacks and support limiting the rights of Muslim Americans.

We have come a long way since the Japanese Internment, haven't we? Back then, we wanted to stigmatize and restrict the freedoms of American citizens over racial/ethnic characteristics. Now we have moved up to religious beliefs.

Will those restricted American Muslims hate themselves for their freedom, or their lack of it?

Yessssss! And it counts!

...wherein the rather streaky Maureen Dowd describes an encounter between Don Rumsfeld, American's own anti-George Bailey, and Clarence, Angel First Class:

"CLARENCE: No more self-pity, son. I'm going to show you what the world would have been like if you'd never been born.

Clarence, who can fly now, takes Rummy's hand and they soar over the icy Potomac to the Pentagon. Beneath the glass on the desk of the defense secretary is a list of members of Congress and their phone numbers.

RUMMY: Who put that there?

CLARENCE: Sam Nunn. He's the defense secretary. Sam consults with Congress. Never acts arrogant or misleads them. He didn't banish the generals who challenged him - he promoted 'em. And, of course, he caught Osama back in '01. He threw 100,000 troops into Afghanistan on 9/11 and sealed the borders. Our Special Forces trapped the evildoer and his top lieutenants at Tora Bora. You weren't at that cabinet meeting the day after 9/11, so nobody suggested going after Saddam. No American troops died or were maimed in Iraq. No American soldiers tortured Iraqis in Abu Ghraib. No Iraqi explosives fell into the hands of terrorists. There's no office of disinformation to twist perception abroad. We're not on the cusp of an Iraq run by Muslim clerics tied to Iran. Here's Sam. He's with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs."

Read the whole thing. It will make you laugh out loud even while leaving you with a serious case of the "If only"s....

Don't ask, don't extend my tour of duty

Two lawsuits were filed last week against the United States military. In one, eight soldiers are challenging an Army policy that extended their tours of duty in the Middle East. They are suing to get out of military service. In the other suit, 12 gay and lesbian veterans are challenging the decade-old "don't ask, don't tell" policy that bars known gays from serving in the armed forces. They are suing to get back into the military.

The connection between the two suits may be more than coincidental. An analysis of Pentagon data reveals that the military is losing gay troops in the occupational areas where shortfalls are most dire. In addition to the "stop loss" orders that prompted last week's lawsuit, the Pentagon has recalled thousands of former troops from civilian life to fill these gaps.

Many of these recalls would have been unnecessary if the military had not fired so many gay service members. This year the Pentagon approved the recall of 72 veterans in communication and navigation, but it has expelled 115 gay troops in that category since 1998; it recalled 33 in operational intelligence but has expelled 50 gays; in combat operations control, it recalled 33 but expelled 106.

Overall, the military has announced the recall of 5,674 veterans since June, but has discharged 6,416 soldiers under its "don't ask, don't tell" policy since 1998, including 1,655 since the wars in the Middle East began. The discharges covered people in 161 occupational specialties, including linguists; intelligence personnel; nuclear, biological and chemical warfare experts; artillery specialists; and missile guidance and control operators.

Nothing new here. The Germans might have fared far better in WWII if they had not insisted on gassing large segments of the labor pool.

Makes you wonder about the guys like him who had themselves shot rather than go back to Iraq. Dude, your ticket home was a switch-hit away -- and you could even lie about it. And it ain't like being gay is a problem in the Republican Party -- right Ken?

Weekend Reversion

Kobe Bryant scored another triple double last night -- 36 points, 14 assists and 10 rebounds.

Oh, the team lost, to the Wizards, for the first time in LA since the Magic Johnson era, if such things matter to you.

Hey, Mr. Preznit-- Wanna Neutralize Osama?

It doesn't seem like you especially give a shit, but if you really want to make sure bin Laden never has an effect on Americans again -- appoint him head of the EPA.

Bush Vows Not to Ignore Economic Problems

President Bush, looking to build momentum in Congress for his second-term economic agenda, pledged Saturday not to ignore challenges to the nation's financial health and "leave them to another day."

"We have a duty to the American people to act on these issues, and we will get results," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

If there is one thing we can count on from our President, we can count on results. Whether it is the worst loss of life on US soil in history, or the worst job creation record since the Great Depression, or the chaos in Iraq, he gets results. So you'd best prepare for some serious results here, folks.

Whitman Warns Against Catering to Right

"Christie Whitman, the former New Jersey governor and Bush environmental official, says in an upcoming book that Republican moderates must speak up or the party could move so far to the right that it will lose its influence and strength.

Whitman, who led the Environmental Protection Agency for President Bush from 2001 until May 2003, also says in the book that she was often at odds with the White House on issues such as setting limits on air pollutants and power plant emissions and in the debate over global warming. Her tenure was marked by complaints from conservatives that she was too moderate.

The main focus of Whitman's book 'It's My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America,' is on her desire for moderate Republicans to regain control of the party. The more conservative wing of the party has claimed much credit for Bush's re-election.
...

'A clear and present danger Republicans face today is that the party will now move so far to the right that it ends up alienating centrist voters and marginalizing itself,' Whitman writes in the book, obtained Friday by The Associated Press. The book is to be released by The Penguin Press in late January.

'It is time for Republican moderates to assert forcefully and plainly that this is our party, too, that we not only have a place but a voice, and not just a voice but a vision that is true to the historic principles of our party and our nation, not one tied to an extremist agenda,' she says."

Pretty strong words from a woman who still has right-wing tire tracks all over her back.

Inhofe says Clinton's cuts made Iraq mess

U.S. Sen. James M. Inhofe said Thursday that cutbacks during the Clinton administration resulted in the lack of armor and other material faced by U.S. troops in Iraq.

"Eight years of Bill Clinton decimated the military to almost half of what it was in 1990," he said during a stop in Muskogee.

The Oklahoma Republican, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that in 1991, U.S. armed forces were armed with "a Reagan military," and had more funding and ordinance.

However under Clinton, projects were cut and "modernization stopped."

The Army and the Pentagon have come under sharp attack for the lack of armor on many of the Humvees, trucks and other vehicles U.S. troops use in Iraq. Insurgents using roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades have regularly targeted military vehicles, killing numerous U.S. troops.

Criticism intensified last week after a U.S. soldier complained publicly to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Kuwait that troops had to scrounge in landfills for scrap metal to protect their vehicles.

Frankly, I am amazed it took this long for the Repugs to pin this one on Clinton. It seems we will have Slick Willie to kick around for another 4 years. Never let it be said that the Bush team doesn't understand cause and effect. If the effect is bad, it was caused by Clinton; if it is good, it was caused by Bush. Any questions?

U.S. Diplomat starts pissing contest with Castro; loses

Cuba Erects Sign Linking U.S. and Nazis

"HAVANA - Cuba retaliated for the U.S. diplomatic mission's Christmas display supporting Cuban dissidents by putting up a billboard Friday emblazoned with photographs of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners and a huge swastika overlaid with a 'Made in the U.S.A' stamp.

AP Photo AFP

The billboard, erected overnight facing the U.S. Interest Section's offices, stands on the Malecon, Havana's famed coastal highway.

...

The U.S. mission, headed by James Cason, rejected a demand this week to remove Christmas decorations that included a reference to dissidents jailed by Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s government.

The trimmings included a Santa Claus, candy canes and white lights wrapped around palm trees — and a sign reading '75,' a reference to the 75 Cuban dissidents jailed last year.

Parliament Speaker Ricardo Alarcon called the display 'rubbish' on Wednesday and said Cason seemed 'desperate to create problems.' No other Cuban officials have commented.

Wayne Smith, who headed the U.S. mission here during the Carter and Reagan administrations and has long advocated restoring normal diplomatic relations with Cuba, said he thought the images of prisoner abuse in Iraq were an appropriate response by Castro's regime.

'If I were in their shoes, this is what I would do — call attention to the fact that the United States is now guilty of torture, of massive violations of human rights,' Smith said by telephone from Washington.

'Yes, I'd like to see the 75 all released, but we're in no position now to criticize anyone,' he said."

This is so aggravating on so many levels that I can't even count them. It elegantly embodies the administration's whole approach to foriegn policy: (1) Initiate stupid, senseless act of bullying just because you can; (2) fuck it up. Lest you suggest that this is some principled stand by the Bushistas to advocate for human rights around the world, I would ask you when the U.S. ambassadors to China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and countless other nations around the world will be putting up their ostentatious displays protesting their hosts' miserable human rights records. No, this is a juvenile act of dick-swinging by a man who clearly missed a lot of days at Diplomat School, and who seems better suited to be the mayor or sheriff of a small town in an insignificant banana republic.

It also annoys me because it sorely tempts me to give an approving nod to Uncle Fidel for his response. Don't get me wrong; it's just my affection for the underdog. I don't think much at all of Castro, whose ego, cruel streak and capacity for mismanagement rivals that of...of...oh, I dunno, Donald Trump? Sure, Cason served up a batting-practice fastball here, but Castro did swing for the fences and he did put it out. I myself would have gone with the obvious and put up a big sign with "550" on it--the number of detainees we currently have stashed away at Gitmo beyond any effective rule of law.

Deconstructing the deconstruction

I have been thinking about the Administration's assault on Social Security -- not the merits, which are of course non-existent, or even so much the drawbacks, which are manifold. I have pondering the "why." Paul Krugman has pointed out that the Bushies hate SS not because it is broken, but because it is so successful -- the last New Deal program standing.

What is interesting about this jihad is that SS is, in real terms, a pretty sweet deal for Richie Rich -- one of the most regressive taxes there is, because (a) it is a tax on wages, not returns from capital (which means that Warren Buffett could cut his SS payments to zero by doing without a salary without noticeably affecting his income) and (b) the wage limit on contributions means even if Buffett pays himself $100M in salary, he pays the same in SS as a low-level computer programmer in Silicon Valley.

So the objection is not concrete -- it is another philosophical windmill to them. Like a Japanese anti-Semite, they hate something they have little or no direct experinece with, just because. And like Quixote, they see such overwhelming evil in that windmill that they will do great damage to see it destroyed.

European and Pacific Stars & Stripes

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will begin personally signing condolence letters sent to families of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, after receiving criticism over his use of mechanical signatures.

In a statement provided to Stars and Stripes on Thursday, Rumsfeld tacitly admitted that in the past he has not personally signed the letters, but said he was responsible for writing and approving each of the 1,000-plus messages sent to the fallen soldiers’ families.

“I have directed that in the future I sign each letter,” he said in the statement.

“I am deeply grateful for the many letters I have received from the families of those who have been killed in the service of our country, and I recognize and honor their personal loss.”

In a separate statement, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said, “In the interest of ensuring timely contact with grieving family members, he has not individually signed each letter.”


What classic Rumsfeld. "I have directed that I sign" -- ! Perhaps he could direct that he buy a vowel, because he so obviously has no clue what the puzzle says.

At least they have finally admitted the shameful truth: that he was sending out the same kind of cheap form letters that usually accompany solicitations to buy life insurance and Congressmen. And the explanation is priceless -- it was done "in the interest of ensuring timely contact." Which really means, "Well, see, the Secretary doesn't really give a rat's ass about the body count, and so the unsigned letters used to drift to the bottom of his in-box and sit for weeks. And besides, just like the big boss, he prefers not to see anything unpleasant, like the orders transferring that Spc. Wilson kid to the Gitmo undercover prisoner torture investigation team. So we just handled the letters in the propagand -- I mean, the Information office."

KaChing!

War funding request may hit $100 billion

"The Bush administration plans to ask for between $80 billion and $100 billion to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan next year, rather than the $70 billion to $75 billion the White House privately told members of Congress before the election, according to Pentagon and White House officials.

Administration officials said yesterday they have not concluded how much money they will request in a 'supplemental' spending package that is scheduled to go to Congress in January.

'There's work going on inside the department to understand what's needed, and there's work going on with the Office of Management and Budget,' the Defense Department's chief spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, told reporters yesterday.

But some analysts and government officials said the request is expected to run as high as $100 billion, bringing the total cost of operations in Iraq alone to well over $200 billion since the March 2003 invasion.

...
In June, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the 2005 supplemental to be submitted this January for Iraq and Afghanistan would be between $55 billion and $60 billion.

The January supplemental will be the third special budget request to cover the military costs of Iraq. The administration asked for $55.8 billion in April 2003 and $71.8 billion in November 2003. In May of this year, Congress added $25 billion in war costs to the fiscal 2005 defense budget. In total, $152.6 billion in military funding for Iraq has been provided through the end of this year.

Those statistics do not include emergency money to support the 20,000 US troops in Afghanistan, which brings the total bill to $162.3 billion."

Relax, everyone. War-related expenses are going to look like chump change compared to the deficit numbers we'll be seeing if the Boy King deforms Social Security.

Our Stoopid Preznit (or his Advizors)

Gotta love this one.


The White House went all out to showcase the advantages of President Bush's ambitious financial agenda this week, but in the end the "challenges" proved too much.

The word "challenges" -- a main theme of a two-day White House economic conference that ended on Thursday -- was misspelled on a large television monitor that stood in front of Bush during a panel discussion.

"Financial Challanges for Today and Tomorrow," the message proclaimed in dark blue capital letters against a bright yellow background.

The conference, which critics derided as a public relations event devoid of serious discussion, spotlighted a second-term Bush agenda that would reform Social Security and the tax code while making tax cuts permanent and cutting the deficit in half.

"Like we told that reporter from the New York Times, we make our own reality now," said an unnamed source within the White house. We spell things however we want, like when we spelled 'Kerry' K-e-n-n-e-d-y, and spelled 'incompetence' M-e-d-a-l o-f F-re-e-d-o-m."

Wal-Mart Executives Fired For 'Failing To Follow' Rules

"More details emerged Wednesday after Bentonville-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. confirmed that it dumped several executives.

Earlier Wednesday, the company would not say why it decided on the firings of seven employees. The firings were made public in various media reports on Wednesday morning.

However, 40/29's Mike McCormick learned later in the day that three executives were fired and four non-executive workers were terminated for what Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams called 'failing to follow internal company rules.'

Williams stated that the terminations occurred over the past several days. The company's chief spokeswoman cited privacy issues and would not name the executives, nor would she give the reasons they were terminated."

No truth to the rumor that two of the execs were fired for engaging in nondiscriminatory behavior toward their female employees and the other was caught offering decent health benefits to his employees.

Bah

Mr. Bluememe informs me that it appears as though I am not the only thing that's been doctored around here. Apparently, the highly entertaining photo of President Pier--er, Bush I posted for your consideration the other day was not entirely authentic. Indeed, it seems as if someone with blue leanings and Photoshop had some fun with this photo:









...wherein Romano Prodi appears to be pointing out a soup stain on the Boy King's tie rather than...well, you know.

And make no mistake, Dr. Bloor is ready to offer his heartfelt apology to his Royal Highnass the instant a certified wingnut steps up to the plate to apologize for this:

I'm waiting.

CIA Agent Says Bosses Ordered Him To Falsify WMD Reports

An undercover intelligence officer, who is suing the CIA, says his managers asked him to falsify his reporting on weapons of mass destruction and retaliated against him when he refused.

When Dubya's dogs chase after those pesky trial lawyers, what do they really mean to stop? Here you go.

Ex-military lawyers will oppose Gonzales

Several former high-ranking military lawyers say they are discussing ways to oppose President Bush's nomination of Alberto Gonzales to be attorney general, asserting that Gonzales' supervision of legal memorandums that appeared to sanction harsh treatment of detainees, even torture, showed unsound legal judgment.

Hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the nomination are expected to begin next month. While Gonzales is expected to be confirmed, objections from former generals and admirals would be a setback and an embarrassment for him and the White House.

John Hutson, a retired rear admiral who served as the Navy's judge advocate general from 1997 to 2000, said that while Gonzales may be a lawyer of some stature, "I think the role that he played in the one thing that I am familiar with is tremendously shortsighted."

Gonzales, as White House counsel, oversaw the drafting of several confidential legal memorandums that critics said sanctioned the torture of terrorism suspects in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and opened the door to abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

A memorandum prepared under Gonzales' supervision by a legal task force concluded that Bush was not bound either by an international treaty prohibiting torture or by a federal anti-torture law because he had the authority as commander in chief to approve any technique needed to protect the nation.

The memorandum also said that executive branch officials, including those in the military, could be immune from domestic and international prohibitions against torture for a variety of reasons, including a belief by interrogators that they were acting on orders from superiors "except where the conduct goes so far as to be patently unlawful." Another memorandum said the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the conflict in Afghanistan.

Hutson, dean and president of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, N.H., said that Gonzales "was not thinking about the impact of his behavior on U.S. troops in this war and others to come. He was not thinking about the United States' history in abiding by international law, especially in the wartime context. For that reason, some of us think he is a poor choice to be attorney general."

Hutson said talks with other retired senior military officials had not yet produced a decision on how to oppose the selection, though testifying at the hearings was a possibility.

James Cullen, a retired Army brigadier general, said yesterday that he believed that in supervising the memorandums, Gonzales had purposely ignored the advice of lawyers whose views were not in accord with the conclusions he sought, which was that there was some legal justification for illegal behavior.

Cullen said the group of former military lawyers hoped to decide soon what specific action to take.

No Medal of Freedom for you guys.

Baghdad Burning

Baghdad Burning is an important blog for many reasons, only one of which is that it is written from inside the maelstrom in Iraq. That gives its often insightful work considerable added credence. To wit:

People are wondering how America and gang (i.e. Iyad Allawi, etc.) are going to implement democracy in all of this chaos when they can't seem to get the gasoline flowing in a country that virtually swims in oil. There's a rumor that this gasoline crisis has been concocted on purpose in order to keep a minimum of cars on the streets. Others claim that this whole situation is a form of collective punishment because things are really out of control in so many areas in Baghdad- especially the suburbs. The third theory is that this being done purposely so that the Iraq government can amazingly bring the electricity, gasoline, kerosene and cooking gas back in January before the elections and make themselves look like heroes.

We're also watching the election lists closely. Most people I've talked to aren't going to go to elections. It's simply too dangerous and there's a sense that nothing is going to be achieved anyway. The lists are more or less composed of people affiliated with the very same political parties whose leaders rode in on American tanks. Then you have a handful of tribal sheikhs. Yes- tribal sheikhs. Our country is going to be led by members of religious parties and tribal sheikhs- can anyone say Afghanistan? What's even more irritating is that election lists have to be checked and confirmed by none other than Sistani!! Sistani- the Iranian religious cleric. So basically, this war helped us make a transition from a secular country being run by a dictator to a chaotic country being run by a group of religious clerics. Now, can anyone say 'theocracy in sheeps clothing'?

We'll get to it after we finish studying global warming

More Study Needed to Settle Gun Debate - Report

"No one has done the right studies to prove whether gun ownership laws increase or decrease crime, or whether the tens of thousands of gun deaths in the United States each year could be prevented by gun control, a committee of experts said on Thursday. "Few topics engender more controversy than 'gun control,"' a National Research Council committee of experts on criminal justice, psychology, education, statistics and sociology said in a report.

"One theme that runs throughout our report is the relative absence of credible data central to addressing even the most basic questions about firearms and violence." They found that for virtually any subject involving guns, there were conflicting studies that could support one argument or the other. But none really answered the key questions.

...
"Each year tens of thousands of people are injured and killed by firearms; each year firearms are used to defend against and deter an unknown number of acts of violence; and each year firearms are widely used for recreational purposes."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported that in 2002 there were 30,242 firearms-related deaths, of which nearly 12,000 were considered homicides and 17,000 were considered suicides."


Japan: 0.6% Households w/firearms; 0.07 Intentional gun deaths per 100K
England: 4.0%; 0.4
Spain: 13.1%; 0.74
Germany: 8.9%; 1.44
Canada: 26.0%; 3.95
Finland: 50.0%; 6.65
USA: 41.0%; 13.47

Yeah, I don't see any relationship at all here.

The great blue north

The leader of the country does not believe the U.S. ballistic missile shield will work. The leader of the country wants to protect those who conscienciously object to the war in Iraq. The leader of the country supports same-sex marriage.

The America we have been trying to create exists, mostly. It is called Canada, and the biggest problem for weather wimps like me is the weather. Wouldn't it be a kick if our Kyoto-busting, coal-burning global warming fixes the remaining problems?

Iraqi Official: Iran Is 'Number One Enemy'

Now this is a welcome development.

Iraq's defense minister on Wednesday accused neighboring Iran and Syria of supporting terrorists in his war-ravaged country.

The 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war was more or less a stand-off (in large part because we propped up Saddam, but who wants to go over that old ground, right?).

So now we are doing a bang-up job of creating an ungoverned, ungovernable Iraq with no effective military. And we are shocked, shocked to learn that it is shark bait for one of the most fundamentist regimes in the region (excluding our good buddies in Saudi Arabia, but again, wouldn't be prudent to go there...)

Remember Bambi vs. Godzilla? If Dubya tries to go down the path I think he was planning to head down -- hold a meaningless, violence-studded election, declare mission REALLY accomplished, and get the hell out of Dodge, The Islamic fundies are going to move in so fast that they can wave bye-bye to the last chopper-loads of American soldiers and civilians (kinda like Saigon 1975, but let's not bring up unpleasant memories).

On the other hand, it does provide a perfect excuse to invade Iran....

Happy Anniversary, Part II

A year ago a bedraggled Saddam Hussein was dragged from a hole in the ground to a chorus of self-congratulatory remarks from United States officials claiming that his capture marked a turning point in the war in Iraq.

"In the history of Iraq a dark and painful era is over," declared President George W. Bush. "All Iraqis can now come together and build a new Iraq."

The self-deceiving optimism of US military commanders was extraordinary.

Major General Ray Odierno, whose 4th Infantry Division was credited with arresting Saddam, declared a month later that the insurgency was "on its knees" and only "a sporadic threat."

Odierno went on to assure the press corps in Washington that "I believe that in six months you are going to see some normalcy". Other US generals echoed his words.

A year later American casualties showed how little the war was affected by the imprisonment of Saddam. Of the 1283 US soldiers who have died in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003, no fewer than 821 have died since his capture.

Six months after Odierno spoke, the US only fully controlled islands of territory. All the main roads out of Baghdad were unsafe. The resistance felt strong enough to openly establish its checkpoints around the capital.

Why did Saddam's capture accomplish so little compared to the expectations of the White House and US military? They appear to have believed much of their own propaganda about the resistance being orchestrated by remnants of Saddam's regime - Donald Rumsfeld's notorious "dead-enders."

Not news, of course. But "an essential part of the rear-guard action the truth must wage against the propaganda of power is to preserve the old lies so that they can be held up against the new." (Bluememe, 2004)

Weekday diversion

Martinez on Way to NY Mets

"The New York Mets are set to complete a deal for Boston Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez, grabbing the prize off-season signing from crosstown rivals the Yankees.

The Yankees had also coveted the triple Cy Young Award winner but, according to a report on Major League Baseball's Web Site Tuesday, Martinez told a television station in his native Dominican Republic that he had signed with the Mets.

...
A four-year $52 million deal is expected to be confirmed later this week after Martinez passes a physical examination for his new team.

...
Martinez finished last season with a 16-9 record and a career worst ERA of 3.90. The righthander saved his best efforts for the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, pitching seven shutout innings in Game Three and retiring the last 14 batters he faced. "

As a Sox fan, it seems to me that the Henry-Epstein-James axis, a disciplined bunch, probably assume they can replace most of his wins at a much lower price over the next couple of years, ideally without as much wear and tear on the bullpen. We shall see.

As a Mets fan (who likes Pedro a lot), this makes no sense. I was hoping for something creative, not just splashy, from Minaya when they brought him on board. Signing a (very good) six inning pitcher in his thirties to four years, and talking about acquiring guys like Moises Alou suggests that he shares the management's delusion that they're much closer to contending than they actually are.

Missile defence shield test fails

The first test in almost two years of the planned multi-billion dollar US anti-missile shield has failed.

The Pentagon said an interceptor missile did not take off and was automatically shut down on its launch pad in the central Pacific.

A target missile carrying a mock warhead had been fired 16 minutes earlier from Kodiak Island in Alaska.

The Pentagon is spending $10bn a year on the missile system, which was meant to be in operation by the end of 2004.

The Missile Defence Agency said an "unknown anomaly" was to blame for the system shutting down.

Actually, transferring billions of dollars to well-connected defense contractors for ineffective nonsense while soldiers die because they do not have basic low-tech tools like armor is a pretty well-understood anomaly.

Interceptor Missile Fails in Test Launch

SDI screws the pooch yet again:

"An interceptor missile failed to launch early Wednesday in what was to have been the first full flight test of the U.S. national missile defense system in nearly two years.

The Missile Defense Agency has attempted to conduct the test several times this month, but scrubbed each one for a variety of reasons, including various weather problems and a malfunction on a recovery vessel not directly related to the equipment being tested.

A target missile carrying a mock warhead was successfully launched as scheduled from Kodiak, Alaska, at 12:45 a.m. EST, in the first launch of a target missile from Kodiak in support of a full flight test of the system.

However, the agency said the ground-based interceptor 'experienced an anomaly shortly before it was to be launched' from the Ronald Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean 16 minutes after the target missile left Alaska."

An "anomaly" with this budget-burning Rube Goldberg scheme could mean anything from massive structural failure to winds gusting at more than fifteen knots...The article goes on to remind readers of the program's illustrious five-for-eight record in tests that were essentially rigged to eliminate the possibility of failure. Well, almost eliminate, anyway.

I love that the test site is named after Ronald Raygun. I think everything connected to this fiasco should be stamped with his name, just to remind us of what a dimwit he was.

Documents Show String of Iraq Abuse Claims

Newly released U.S. Navy documents portray a series of abuse cases stretching beyond Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison where photos surfaced this year of U.S. troops forcing prisoners — often naked — to pose in humiliating positions.

The files released Tuesday document a crush of abuse allegations, most from the early months of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, including U.S. Marines forcing Iraqi juveniles to kneel while troops discharge a weapon in a mock execution and the use of an electric shock on a prisoner.

The approximately 10,000 files include investigation reports from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and witness interviews.

All names have been blacked out in the documents, which were released after a federal court ordered the government to comply with a Freedom of Information Act petition filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights and other organizations.

"This kind of widespread abuse could not have taken place without a leadership failure of the highest order," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero.

The Pentagon says cases of abuse are taken seriously and investigated.

"The fact that these cases have been investigated underscores the point that we've been making, which is when we have credible allegations of abuse we take them seriously and investigate them," said Maj. Michael Shavers, a Pentagon spokesman.

Some of the documents include the alleged executions of Iraqis. The Navy found the allegations to be "unsubstantiated" and closed the investigation. It remains unclear whether any other military branches are investigating.

In one of the reports, a Marine said he and two others were ordered to kill three Iraqis.

"The executions allegedly took place in early April 2003 while the unit was temporarily based at an abandoned Iraqi pharmaceutical factory south of Baghdad," according to the NCIS document, dated June 26, 2003.

The Marine said he was threatened with death if he did not carry out the order. The bodies of the dead Iraqis were allegedly dumped in a hole, the document said.

After the incident was reported, the Marines were interviewed. One, who was interviewed and advised of his rights, retracted his previous statements, saying the executions never took place.


I'm running out of things to say in response to these outrages. It seems our Preznit can escape all scrutiny just by repeating his "freedom is on the march" mantra. Maybe Mark Geragos should have tried that line in the Scott Peterson trial...

Much more troubling LA Times article on the subject here.

Deforming Social Security: Talking Points Memo

Two excellent pieces here and here on the cabal's incoherent, disingenuous and just plain stupid Social Security scam. The first is from Michael Kinsley and is a simple logical refuation; the second from Josh Marshall addresses the politics of the situation.

This issue is an excellent opportunity for the Democrats to start working George Lakoff's theories and bust their butts in reframing the issues. I have a feeling there are just enough moderate Republicans who retain a whiff of common sense and decency to derail this thing if we can derail the "we are saving SS from disaster" meme Bush has been using without challenge.

But...but...isn't Lucky Pierre a French name?

Via Sister Novena's PortaPulpit, although the folks at First Draft and Rising Hegemon have also seen fit to add their thoughts.

Cuts in carbon dioxide emissions urged

"The world's chief climate scientist on Tuesday disputed the U.S. government contention that cutbacks in carbon dioxide emissions are not yet warranted to check global warming.

Experts readied a report, meanwhile, saying 2004 will be one of the warmest years on record.

'The science says you've got to reduce emissions,' Rajendra K. Pachauri told The Associated Press in an interview midway through a two-week international climate conference.

The Kyoto Protocol, the international accord requiring cuts in carbon dioxide, 'is driven by the need to reduce emissions, and on that there is no question,' said Pachauri, chairman of a U.N.-sponsored network of climatologists.

Scientists largely blame the accumulation of carbon dioxide and other 'greenhouse gases' in the atmosphere for the rising temperatures of the past century.

...

The United States is a member of the umbrella U.N. treaty on climate change, and it signed that treaty's Kyoto Protocol in 1997. But President Bush renounced the Kyoto agreement in 2001, saying emission reductions would hurt the U.S. economy.

Before leaving for the annual climate-treaty talks, U.S. negotiator Harlan Watson told reporters in Washington that the United States - the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide - would eventually stop the growth in its emissions 'as the science justifies.' After arriving here, he said the Kyoto Protocol's approach was 'not based on science.'

Asked about Watson's statements, Pachauri was emphatic.

'The science says you've got to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The science says you've got to stabilize concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,' he said. 'What may be subject to uncertainty and subject to debate is who is to reduce how much.'

...

Pachauri said the evidence of change is everywhere - in the doubling of extreme weather events recorded by the World Meteorological Organization, in the melting of glaciers worldwide, and in the one-degree global temperature rise of the past century.

'The evidence is so strong, the observations so strong, it's very difficult to close your eyes to it,' he said. "

One of two things will likely follow: either the administration will put together a blue ribbon panel to undertake a multiyear study into exactly what Dr. Pachauri meant when he used ambiguous phrase like "reduce emissions" and "no question," or they will dismiss him out of hand because he looks too much like Osama bin Laden.

Bush Awards Medal of Freedom to Three

What do you do with the fuckups who were instrumental in leading us into an unnecessary war and making a mess of it once it started? Why, you supersize the lie and give them medals, of course:

"President Bush (news - web sites) awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Tuesday to three figures who were central to his Iraq (news - web sites) policy, former CIA (news - web sites) Director George Tenet, former Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer and retired Gen. Tommy Franks.
...

Bush lauded all three for playing "pivotal roles in great events" and for advancing the cause of liberty in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Iraq.

...

'Did George Tenet get the Medal of Freedom for his 'slam dunk' case for war based on weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist? Did Paul Bremer clinch this honor for speaking out against the administration's bungled war planning only after he'd left the job?' asked David Wade, a spokesman for Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass. 'My hunch is that George Bush (news - web sites) wasn't using the same standard when honoring Tenet and Bremer that was applied to previous honorees like the pope, Mr. Rogers, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.'"

Not to mention Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Thurgood Marshall and J. William Fulbright, to name a few of Clinton's awardees. Keep an eye on eBay--it's entirely likely that a few of these babies will be offered at auction in the coming days by past recipients. No reserve.

ACLU files lawsuit over 'intelligent design' mandate

Two civil liberties groups representing 11 parents on Tuesday sued a school district that is requiring students to learn about alternatives to the theory of evolution.

The ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State said the lawsuit is the first in the nation to challenge whether public schools should teach "intelligent design," which holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by some higher power.

The Dover Area School District was believed to be the first in the nation to mandate the instruction of intelligent design when it voted 6-3 on Oct. 18 in favor of including the concept in the science curriculum.

The ACLU contends intelligent design is a more secular form of creationism, a biblical-based view that credits the origin of species to God, and may violate the constitutional separation of church and state.

"Intelligent design is a Trojan horse for bringing religious creationism back into the public science classroom," Witold Walczak, legal director for the state ACLU chapter, said during a news conference.


Intelligent Design is a crock, of course. You can see a condensed dismantling of it here. Religion offers something of value to many people. But it becomes self-parody when it tries to be science.

Nevertheless, I am worried about where this one is going. I think we are about due for another Scopes Trial, and I doubt that we can expect the Supremes to do the right thing at this point. Ignorance is likely to soon graduate from political expedience to offical governmental policy.

Freedom is on the march

President warns that violence could spawn 'Iraqi Hitler'

Fallujah to become concentration camp

Killings Sting Proud Battalion

Stormin' Norm rips Rumsfeld

McCain has 'no confidence' in Rumsfeld

Iraq's insurgency continues at a fierce pace

Freedom is on the march, all right, right over the side of the fucking cliff. It took me ten minutes to find those headlines, and you could easily triple the number of similar stories with another ten. Meanwhile, this is what Team FUBAR had to say yesterday about events in Iraq:

"The President indicated again last week at Camp Pendleton that as we move forward on elections, the Saddam loyalists and terrorists will become more desperate...But they will be defeated, and they are being defeated. "

And today:

"...Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a great job during a time of war. We appreciate his leadership at the Department of Defense. And that's why the President asked him to continue his service, and he's pleased that Secretary Rumsfeld will continue to serve as Secretary of the Defense....He has provided strong leadership in liberating Afghanistan and Iraq from oppression and tyranny. And he has been working to transform the military to better meet the challenges that we face and the threats that we face in the 21st century."

Gee, just imagine how different things will be if the Pentagon gets its way and government spokespersons start spreading disinformation...

Fallujah to become concentration camp

The US military is discussing plans to turn the Iraqi city of Fallujah into a giant concentration camp. Most of the city's 300,000 residents were driven out by a massive US bombing campaign in the week prior to an invasion by 10,000 US marine and army troops on November 8.

The December 5 Boston Globe reported that US commanders plan to turn Fallujah into a “model city” : “Under the plans, {US} troops would funnel Fallujans to so-called citizen processing centers on the outskirts of the city to compile a database of their identities through DNA testing and retina scans. Residents would receive badges displaying their home addresses that they must wear at all times. Buses would ferry them into the city, where cars, the deadliest tool of suicide bombers, would be banned.”

The plans call for “all men to work, for pay, in military-style battalions”, the Globe reported, adding that: “To accomplish those goals, [US commanders] think they will have to use coercive measures allowed under martial law imposed last month by [puppet Iraqi] Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.”


I think we ought to rename Fallujah while we are at it. "Manzanar" has a nice ring to it. "Theresienstadt" might work, though it does not roll off American tongues as easily. And there's always "My Lai."

Ford to Kill Mammoth Excursion

Ford Motor Co. will kill off the Ford Excursion, its largest sport utility vehicle and a lightning rod for criticism from environmental groups, next year, a source familiar with the plan said on Monday.

The mammoth vehicle will stop rolling off the assembly line in September, as Ford moves to free up production capacity for the refreshed Super Duty pickup truck, said the source, on condition of anonymity.
...
U.S. sales of the Excursion, which was launched in 1999, are down 25 percent so far this year. The Sierra Club (news - web sites), which dubbed the Excursion the "Ford Valdez" after the infamous Alaskan oil spill, called it an environmental disaster because of its poor fuel economy rating.

Official gas mileage figures are not available from Ford or the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites), but a review on Kelly Blue Book's Web site says the Excursion gets about 14 miles per gallon on the highway and 10 miles per gallon in the city.

The reason official figures are not available for the Valdez is that the EPA, in its wisdon, does not publish numbers for vehicles larger than the average Manhattan 2-bedroom apartment. Also exempt is the equally ludicrous Hummer.

Mr. Bluememe has been known to foam at the mouth when discussing the insane American obsession with slow, evil-handling, unsafe, lumbering behemoths like these. The world would be no worse off if owners of these badges of profligacy had bought Volvos instead and punched 1/8" holes in their gas tanks.

Bernard Kerik: The gift that keeps on giving

New York City: Kerik kept first wife a secret

First there was "The Lost Son." Now comes the lost wife.

Investigators conducting a background check of Bernard Kerik last week as part of his confirmation hearing uncovered that the then-Secretary of Homeland Security nominee was married to a woman he has apparently kept a secret for the past 20 years.

Friends of his said they were not aware of the woman, and Kerik did not acknowledge the marriage in his best-selling autobiography, "The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice."

Instead, he wrote about only two marriages, one to a New Jersey woman named Jacqueline, whom he married in 1983 when he was 28, and one to his current wife, Hala, whom he married in 1998.

But Kerik, who withdrew his name for consideration for the nation's top security post on Friday, was also married to the former Linda Hales in North Carolina.

Kerik and Hales, who has since remarried and changed her name to Priest, were married Aug. 10, 1978, when she was 27 and he was three weeks shy of 24, according to her lawyer, Ronnie Mitchell. They separated in 1982 and were officially divorced June 6, 1983, Mitchell told Newsday.

In Kerik's book, however, he wrote that he married Jacqueline in the winter of 1983, raising questions about whether his first and second marriages overlapped.

This certainly helps to explain why two-timer Rudy and Kerik got along so well. I just can't decide whether letting Kerik twist in the wind is a net benefit or not, given that it pushes Donald "Marie Antoinette" Rumsfeld and the ongoing bloodbath in Iraq out of the spotlight.

Vote for Edwards an electoral shock

Voting irregularities were few in Minnesota this year -- until it really counted.

Defeated Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry likely is going to get one less electoral vote nationally than he should have -- 251 instead of 252 -- because of an apparent mistake Monday by one of Minnesota's 10 DFL electors.

One of the 10 handwritten ballots cast for president carried the name of vice presidential candidate John Edwards (actually spelled "Ewards" on the ballot) rather than Kerry.

"I was shocked ... this will go in the history books," said Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer, who presided over a ceremony that normally is uneventful.

Kiffmeyer said she was unaware of any other such apparent mistake in Minnesota, although there have been cases in other states of "faithless electors" casting ballots for candidates other than those to which they were committed.

There was stunned silence after the announcement that Edwards had gotten a vote for president, but none of the 10 electors volunteered that they voted for Edwards as a protest, nor did anyone step forward to admit an error.

"It was perhaps a senior moment," said elector Michael Meuers, 60, a Bemidji marketing consultant for a health care firm, the second-youngest member of the Minnesota delegation to the Electoral College.

I guess it is worth a brief respite from railing at Republican fraud, theft and dirty tricks to point out a little old-fashioned Democratic stupidity.

Happy Anniversary

An al-Qaida-linked suicide bomber blew up his vehicle Monday near cars waiting to enter the Green Zone, home to the U.S. Embassy and Iraq's interim government, killing 13 Iraqis on the anniversary of Saddam Hussein's capture.
...
After last month's campaign, U.S. commanders claimed they had broken the insurgency's back in the mainly Sunni Muslim areas of western Iraq, and that they would start phasing in Iraqi security forces to take over. But fighting has persisted.

On Sunday, American jets dropped 10 precision-guided missiles on insurgent positions in Fallujah after insurgents fought running battles with coalition forces.

"We are still running into some of these die-hard insurgents that have either come back into the city or have been laying low," spokesman Lt. Lyle Gilbert said. "As we are bringing in contractors to help with the reconstruction of Fallujah, this (fighting) slows the process down."

Farther west in Ramadi, 10 explosions were heard early Monday. No details were immediately available on what caused them or if there were casualties. The blasts came a day after insurgents and Marines traded artillery fire that killed one woman.

In the northern city of Mosul, a car bomb blast struck a U.S. Stryker brigade patrol Monday, wounding two American soldiers. U.S. troops and gunmen fought gun battles after the blast.

In Tarmiyah, on Baghdad's northern outskirts, three more U.S. troops were wounded in a car bombing that wrecked two Humvees, pieces of which were raised into the air by jubilant Iraqi men who danced around their charred hulks and a large crater blown into the road.

Is there REALLY a Nanny?

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall

TPM raises a question that occurred to me, though in slightly different form.

Who's the nanny? Or, rather, is there really a nanny?

Let me be clear. I don't think there's any reason to reveal this woman's identity, if she exists. And I'm certainly not trying to.

On balance, I figure it's probably more likely than not that she does exist. But as near as I can tell, no specific details about this woman's identity or what she did for Kerik's family have ever been published. Nor have I seen any reports in which a given journalist writes as though he or she was privy to such details, even if he or she chose not to publish them to protect the woman's privacy.

And I don't think I can remember any "nanny" story in which such details have remained so secret. Given the fact that we now know there were a few dozen revelations (and counting) that would have sunk Kerik's nomination, you have to wonder. To paraphrase the old saw, if this nanny hadn't existed, the White House or Kerik might have been awfully tempted to invent her. And perhaps they did.

What I had been thinking about is that when somebody realized what a piss-poor job Alberto "Anything Goes" Gonzales did vetting Kerik, I am sure there was discussion of which sword Kerik should be told to fall on. Most of Kerik's problems are of the same crony capitalism genus as, say, Dick Cheney's or Jim Baker's, though of a coarser species. So blaming Kerik's flame-out on doin' what comes naturally to his bosses would be problematic, to say the least. Inventing a Nannygate escape hatch throws the dogs off the conflict-of-interest scent, and preserves the ability of repug hit squads to take down the next Zoe Baird.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this, if it turns out that the nanny thing was a fabrication, is that an administration drowning in fuck-ups felt the need to create yet another as a way of deflecting attention from the main dogpile. It is almost as if they had no clue how to do anything other than fuck up.

Update Or, it could be Kerik's slippery zipper.

Oh, please

If you haven't been by already and haven't eaten in the last hour or so, click to get a dose of Bill Donahue's latest sliming of America last week on Scarborough. A sampler:

"BUCHANAN: Bill Donahue, what do you think about “The Passion of the Christ”? And as a practical matter, even if Hollywood hated the film, it seems to me as an artistic work of art, a smashing triumph, a film of great controversy and interest, it ought to at least be nominated for best picture. It pulled in more money than any other picture all year.

WILLIAM DONAHUE, PRESIDENT, CATHOLIC LEAGUE: I spoke to Mel a couple of weeks ago about this. And I don‘t think it really matters a whole lot to him. It certainly doesn‘t matter to me. We‘ve already won.

Who really cares what Hollywood thinks? All these hacks come out there. Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It‘s not a secret, OK? And I‘m not afraid to say it. That‘s why they hate this movie. It‘s about Jesus Christ, and it‘s about truth. It‘s about the messiah.

Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism. We have nothing in common. But you know what? The culture war has been ongoing for a long time. Their side has lost.

You have got secular Jews. You have got embittered ex-Catholics, including a lot of ex-Catholic priests who hate the Catholic Church, wacko Protestants in the same group, and these people are in the margins. Frankly, Michael Moore represents a cult movie. Mel Gibson represents the mainstream of America. "

And the level of dialogue actually deteriorates from there.

Over at AmericaBlog, John does a great job of bitchslapping Donahue for his virulent anti-Semitism, which in the New America need not be disavowed or cloaked in any code words.

But my personal favorite was the point at which Buchanan and Donahue agree that the chaste denizens of the Holy Red States will be so morbidly offended by all this Christian bashing that they're going to revolt against Evil Hollywood and Michael Moore, Prince of Darkness. Which red states are these bozos talking about, anyways? Would it be Nevada, Arkansas or Oklahoma, who have the highest divorce rates in the country (22 of the top 25 positions go to red states)? Or Mississippi, Texas and New Mexico, who get the gold, silver and bronze, respectively, for teen parent rates (22 of 25 to the reds again)? Or maybe they mean Florida, South Carolina and New Mexico, recent prizewinners for highest violent crime rates per capita?

Which ones, Pat? And what can Blue-staters do to get this bunch of hypocrites running away from us even faster?

Lil' Tommy gets righteous

Friedman in yesterday's Times:

"Hey, look, I have no idea what sort of government the Iraqis might elect. I believe it's their first step in a thousand-mile journey to make that country something halfway decent and normal. But I do know this: There are a lot of Iraqis who would really like the chance to vote on their future, just once, and there is a virulent minority that is butchering people there just so they can never have that chance. Yes, the Bush team's incompetence in securing Iraq is a travesty. But even with all that said, is it such a hard call for Arabs and Europeans to figure out on whose side they should be? Do these people really feel good about not lifting a finger?

'We in Iraq have a lot of disappointment with many of our neighbors,' Ghazi al-Yawar, Iraq's interim president, told me the other day while he was visiting Washington. President Yawar described Iraq's neighbors as sitting on a fence 'dangling their legs and munching on pistachios,' while 'the forces of darkness' try to rip Iraq to shreds. 'We do not understand why a vicious suicide bomber who claims the lives of innocent civilians is a terrorist in one country and in Iraq he becomes a freedom fighter,' added Yawar, a bright and decent man."

Friedman has always had a wide streak of know-it-all scold in him, but he's at his most insufferable when he spouts strawman stuff like this and then refuses to consider the obvious answers to his questions. Like, perhaps, maybe everyone wants to see the good guys--whoever the hell they are--win, but no one wants to join Team FUBAR to do it. George Bush is seen as the anti-Midas in huge swaths of the world right now, a nasty combination of incompetence, arrogance and duplicitousness. He insists on total control over everything, everything he touches turns to shit, and he's the one who always manages to dodge the consequences (Exhibit A: Tony Blair). No leader in his or her right mind is going to send their troops into the chaos that is Iraq.

Weekend Diversion, Part Tres

ESPN.com - NBA - Bad pass: Kobe-Karl rift over Vanessa Bryant

The Kobe Bryant-Karl Malone feud has turned personal, with Bryant accusing Malone of making a pass at his wife at a game.
...
Malone's agent, Dwight Manley, said then that Malone was furious at Bryant, and also said private, personal attacks were involved, but would not elaborate.

Bryant elaborated plenty on Sunday.

He said he had phoned Malone, who has a home near Bryant's in Newport Beach, after Vanessa Bryant told her husband on Nov. 23 that Malone had made inappropriate comments to her that night at the game at Staples Center.

Bryant said he called Malone and told him, "Stay away from my wife. What's wrong with you? How could you?"

Malone was unavailable for comment Sunday. Manley did not immediately return a phone call from The Associated Press.

Manley, however, told the Los Angeles Times: "Karl wants to give you two messages. He never hit on Vanessa, nor would he. In fact, when he first heard (the accusations), he said, 'You have to be kidding me.' As for the comments he made to her that offended her personally, he told both her and Kobe that night that he apologized."

Lest anyone forget...

Bryant is the defendant in a civil lawsuit accusing him of rape. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for pain, scorn and ridicule the woman says she has suffered since her encounter with Bryant at the Vail-area resort where she worked in June 2003.

You could call it a bit of delusional paranoia. Or, on the "takes one to know one" theory, perhaps his complaint has some credence.

Retired Army colonel, 70, sent to Afghanistan

This is what happens when the same folks who defined "mission accomplished" define "all volunteer Army."

Dr. John Caulfield thought it had to be a mistake when the Army asked him to return to active duty. After all, he's 70 years old and had already retired - twice. He left the Army in 1980 and private practice two years ago.

"My first reaction was disbelief," Caulfield said. "It never occurred to me that they would call a 70-year-old."

In fact, he was so sure it was an error that he ignored the postcards and telephone messages asking if he would be willing to volunteer for active duty to "backfill" somewhere on the East Coast, Europe or Hawaii. That would be OK, he thought. It would release active duty oral surgeons from those areas to go to combat zones in Iraq or Afghanistan.

But then the orders came for him to go to Afghanistan.
....
His wife of 47 years, Patricia, said she thought a cruise through the Panama Canal they took after he gave up his private practice would be the most adventurous experience they would have after retirement.

"I feel a lot more comfortable than when he was in Vietnam," she said. "This is a great way to finish his career."

On the one hand, I guess you have to honor his willingness to serve. On the other, I am reminded of the smart-ass definition of a jury.

Weekend Diversion, cont.

L.A. Kobes trounce the legendary L.A. CLippers, 89-87. Kobe-in-chief Bryant goes 13 for 32, only 2 other Kobes in double figures, and a big 5 assists for Bryant, who went 1-6 from behind the arc. You da man.

No truth to the rumor he has taken to signing the game ball BEFORE the game.

LiberalOasis: Ginned Rummy, part Deux

Everything you need to know about what a callous, incompetent conglomeration of slime Don Rumsfeld is (as if you needed any more "everything you need to know" encapsulations) is encapsulated in this piece about his fateful Q&A in Iraq last week.

Turns out the Donald got virtually the same question back in May. His sidekick, General Myers, gave the questioning grunt a hand job.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: ...You do not have all the up-armored humvees you need...

...Production is ramping up this month...We're trying to get them to you as fast as we can...

...It's not a matter of resources, it's a matter of how fast can we build these things and get them over here.


And yet, when the same question came up last week, Rummy did his best imitiation of his bambi-in-the high-beams boss before telling our troops to take their shrapnel like men. Guess he felt he needed to give "cool, calm, collected, don't-give-a-fuck" a rest and went with "is this my butt or a hot rock? don't-give-a-fuck" for a change.

One of the most encouraging (OK, one of the FEW encouraging) things I have heard in recent weeks was the roar of approval from the other soldiers when Army Spc. Thomas Wilson spoke truth to power. I wonder if such things happened 18 months into Viet Nam.

Update: Make that 15 months ago when Rummy first stroked our boys in Iraq about armor. And here is along list of articles about the subject dating back to October of 2003

Popcorn Liability Suit Ends in Settlement

A liability lawsuit against the manufacturers of an artificial butter flavoring used at a popcorn plant has ended in a settlement.
...(A)bout 30 former workers at the Gilster-Mary Lee Corp. plant in Jasper and their spouses ... sued the manufacturers, claiming they should have known the chemical diacetyl, used to make the butter flavoring, causes lung damage.

Yikes. And here I was bitching at my wife for buying the stuff at the local Infiniplex just because spending five bucks for half a cubic foot of air offended me...

The Poor Man: Because You Are Idiots

The Poorman seemed to lose the muse for a while, and it looked like he was going to sign off his blog. But he is back, and the mighty scimitar of sarcasm has not lost a step. This piece, on the looming right-wing attack on the last bastion of leftiness, is a keeper.

This "problem" will be dealt with the way every other left-wing conspiracy has been dealt with. First, it will be whined about incessantly, and anyone who tells them to pipe down will be accused of hating America. This can be kept up indefinitely, because, if there is one thing conservatives are good at, it is whining about how oppressed they are by nebulous crypto-commie cabals. (The other thing they are good at is gloating about how they control everything. Both can be done at the same time without any discomfort.) Peter Beinart will assume that there's something to this, and write about how the Democrats need to abandon their unmanly intellectual elitism and embrace the proud Democratic tradition of Wavy Gravy. Gregg Easterbrook will mount his 600 cubic hectare gravity bong and write a column about how the theories of evolution and relativity are only theories, maaaan, and as such are no better than his theory that there is an infinitely wise and kind and just spirit controlling the universe who allows the creatures he loves unconditionally to suffer the many arbitrary cruelties of this world, such as Gregg Easterbrook columns. Principled liberals and moderates will roll over, and public universities will create Departments of Conservative Studies, where you can earn a Doctorate in Wingnuttery for your dissertation on how the Dixie Chicks made us lose Vietnam.

Blow, big man.

Ohio Election Fraud -- Four Corners Defense From Ken Blackwell

<On Friday December 10 two certified volunteers for the Ohio Recount team assigned to Greene County were in process recording voting information from minority precincts in Greene County, and were stopped mid-count by a surprise order from Secretary of State Blackwell’s office. The Director Board of Elections stated that “all voter records for the state of Ohio were “locked-down,” and now they are not considered public records.”
The volunteers were working with voter printouts received directly from Carole Garman, Director, Greene County Board of Elections. Joan Quinn and Eve Roberson, retired attorney and election official respectively, were hand-copying voter discrepancies from precinct voting books on behalf of the presidential candidates Mr. Cobb (Green) and Mr. Badnarik Libertarian) who had requested the recount.
One of the goals of the recount was to determine how many minority voters were unable to vote or denied voting at the polls. Upon requesting copies of precinct records from predominantly minority precincts, Ms. Garman contacted Secretary of State Blackwell’s office and spoke to Pat Wolfe, Election Administrator. Ms. Wolfe told Ms. Garman to assert that all voter records for the State of Ohio were “locked down” and that they are “not considered public records.”
Quinn and Roberson asked specifically for the legal authority authorizing Mr. Blackwell to “lock down” public records. Garman stated that it was the Secretary of State’s decision. Ohio statute requires the Directors of Boards of Election to comply with public requests for inspection and copying of public election records. As the volunteer team continued recording information from the precinct records in question, Garman entered the room and stated she was withdrawing permission to inspect or copy any voting records at the Board of Elections. Garman then physically removed the precinct book from Ms. Roberson’s hands. They later requested the records again from Garman’s office, which was again denied.
Ohio Revised Code Title XXXV Elections, Sec. 3503.26 that requires all election records to be made available for public inspection and copying. ORC Sec. 3599.161 makes it a crime for any employee of the Board of Elections to knowingly prevent or prohibit any person from inspecting the public records filed in the office of the Board of Elections. Finally, ORC Sec. 3599.42 clearly states: “A violation of any provision of Title XXXV (35) of the Revised Code constitutes a prima facie case of election fraud within the purview of such Title.”


Where is the outrage over this kind of crap? Where is the press coverage? And on a more fundamental level, when are people going to wake up and realize that putting the state chair of a presidential campaign in charge of tallying the votes is a less than brilliant idea? (A bad idea if you believe in honest elections, anyway -- having Katherine Harris steal Florida in 2000, Ken Blackwell steal Ohio this year, and who knows who steal somewhere else in 2008 is going to look brilliant to the Repugs for as long as we let them get away with this shit.)

If Democracy was an Olympic sport, we wouldn't even make the finals. But we'd be serious contenders in Cronyism and Election Rigging.

Kerik bows out

Given all the other skeletons tumbling out of his closet in recent days, it's a little like nailing Capone for tax evasion, but it'll do:

"Former New York top cop Bernard Kerik abruptly pulled his nomination as President Bush's new homeland security boss last night, saying he feared an embarrassing nanny scandal.

'I uncovered information that now leads me to question the immigration status of a person who had been in my employ as a housekeeper and nanny,' Kerik said in a statement.

'It has also been brought to my attention that for a period of time during such employment required tax payments and related filings had not been made.'

The bombshell decision caught the White House off-guard and sent Bush scrambling for a new candidate to run the sprawling bureaucracy of 22 federal agencies.

'I can't believe they let this [the nomination] through and didn't know about it,' a White House official complained of the political vetting process before nominations are made. 'They should have known about this.'"

I particularly liked the part about how he has "now" uncovered information leading him to suspect his nanny might be an illegal immigrant, presumably after leaving her in charge of his kids for who knows how long. Corrupt? Hypocrite? Incompetent? All of the above? Whatever. Actually, he sounds like the perfect Republican appointee to Homeland Security...

Addendum: Nanny, schmanny. Looks like the last straw was the arrest warrant.

Dear Principal Stephenson:

I read a story on the net about how you are using some unusual and controversial source material in the 623-student Cary Christian School you run in North Carolina. The 43-page booklet in question is called "Southern Slavery as it Was," and is a startling revisionist polemic for the proposition that slavery was no more offensive than a ride on "Pirates of the Caribbean" at Disneyland.

Here are some excerpts from the booklet:

* "Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence." (page 24)

* "There has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world." (page 24)

* "Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care." (page 25)

* "But many Southern blacks supported the South because of long established bonds of affection and trust that had been forged over generations with their white masters and friends." (page 27)

* "Nearly every slave in the South enjoyed a higher standard of living than the poor whites of the South -- and had a much easier existence." (page 30)

I certainly applaud your efforts to get your students to think for themselves, and to present more than one side to an issue. Christian schools have a bad rap for that sort of thing, you know. And I think it is fine to dare your students to be outraged and to refute what they are taught -- essential even.

You were quoted as saying that "A student may be assigned an opinion they may not agree with, so they will understand both sides." I couldn't agree more, sir. The way to create intellectually curious citizens who have the tools to challenge simplistic pabulum from their teachers, their church or their government is to expose them to a wide range of opinions and ideas, including those we may disagree with.

So I assume that when you teach your elementary school kids about families, you assign them "Heather Has Two Mommies;" that when you teach them the Genesis story that you also have them read "Darwin and Evolution for Kids;" that when you preach abstinence to your junior high and high schoolers that you also give them a copy of Ruth Westheimer's "Sex for Dummies;" that when you teach them how the west was won, you also have them read "Trail of Tears;" and perhaps most importantly, that when you present the Bible as literal truth, you have them read "Atheist Universe: Why God Didn't Have A Thing To Do With It."

Mr. Stephenson, if you do these things, and truly teach your charges to think for themselves, you have my highest admiration, and I thank you for not fitting the stereotype I would have blindly applied to you.

If, on the other hand, you would fire on the spot any teacher who dared to bring such blasphemy into your school, then it is hard to escape the conclusion that you are indeed the kind of hypocritcal, white sheet-wearing racist fuck I would have guessed you are, and I am sad there isn't really a hell for you to rot in.

Very truly yours,

The Left Revererend Bluememe

Official Who Criticized Homeland Security Is Out of a Job

The man who has issued many critical reports about the mismanagement and security flaws at the Department of Homeland Security was told Wednesday night that he was out of a job.

Clark Ervin made himself very unpopular by issuing a series of stinging reports on security programs that he said had failed, officials he called inept, and fraud that he suspected. His year-end report, out today, alleges that millions of dollars have been wasted or are unaccounted for by the department.


Nothing remotely surprising about this, what with Team Toady running the show. But it did get me thinking.....What is going to happen to that brave/suicidal soldier who rubbed Rummy's nose in the soiled newspaper yesterday -- they gonna fire his ass, too -- with a ticket home? If all it takes to get fired from George's team is a bit of criticism, why don't they all just stand up and raspberry the CIC?

Yeah, I guess Dubya knows their jobs are a far worse punishment than getting fired would be. Different rules for the fodder units. Nevermind.

Reporter gets house arrest in source case

"A Rhode Island television reporter was sentenced to six months of house arrest on Thursday for refusing to reveal the source of an undercover videotape, even though the source identified himself.

Investigative journalist Jim Taricani was convicted last month of criminal contempt for not saying who leaked a surveillance videotape in an FBI corruption investigation. But after the conviction, a defense lawyer came forward and identified himself as Taricani's source.

Taricani, one of several American journalists who have been found in contempt in recent months for failing to name confidential sources, had faced up to six months in prison for his conviction.

But at a sentencing hearing on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Ernest Torres said he had taken the reporter's health into consideration in deciding against sending Taricani to jail. Taricani, 55, has had a heart transplant.

Still, Torres said it was important that his sentence be seen as sending a strong message that would deter reporters from behaving in a similar fashion.

'Reporters do not have complete authority to decide when sources can be kept secret,' the judge said.

...

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based group that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide, criticized the sentence.

'While Jim Taricani will not spend any time in prison, this sentence is a form of incarceration that will deny him his freedom just for doing his job,' the group's executive director, Ann Cooper, said in a statement.

Taricani was convicted for refusing to disclose the name of the person who gave him an undercover surveillance videotape that showed a former Providence, Rhode Island, official, Frank Corrente, accepting a bribe.

Taricani broke no laws by airing the videotape, which stemmed from a corruption probe of former Providence Mayor Vincent 'Buddy' Cianci, Jr. The probe resulted in Cianci and Corrente being convicted and sentenced to prison.

However, Torres said Taricani had aided and abetted a crime committed by the source, who had been under a protective order not to make public any tapes resulting from the investigation."

There you have it. Even while Torres and his sanctimonious henchman DeSisto achieved their original aim--to find out who actually leaked a worthless, obvious piece of tape--Torres can't resist teaching Taricani and the press a lesson while he's at it. This sort of authoritarian "justice" is commonplace in Rhode Island, but sadly, it seems to be all the rage these days.

Don't count me among those jumping with glee about Judith Miller's predicament. To be sure, she's a self-important, partisan hack who deserves jail for something, but those who want to send her off to Big Marge for eighteen months because she supposedly "witnessed a crime" in the Plame affair really aren't taking the big picture into account here.

Weekend diversion (a few days early) -- Wrong MJ

L.A. Kobes star Kobe Bryant is catch a rash of shit about now, most of it richly deserved.

What were the Lakers thinking this summer when they let Kobe Bryant dictate whom the team acquired in the offseason?

Everyone knows they were desperate to re-sign Bryant, but once you give up that type of power to a player, he isn't giving it back.

Since making his free agent power play this summer, Kobe already has helped exile Shaquille O'Neal, Gary Payton and Derek Fisher. Kareem Rush was given away last week for two second-round picks.

Tuesday, Bryant nailed the door shut on a Karl Malone return to the Lakers.

Dissing one of the 50 Greatest is not a Phi Beta Kappa move. But there is more. The article goes on to say that Bryant is acting like he owns the joint, and has alienated most of his teammates.

The Lakers need to be careful. Word is spreading quickly around the league that while Bryant is an awesome player, he's a terrible teammate. When the Lakers finally have some cap room to go out and lure free agents, what top-tier player is going to want to play there?

A few years ago, everyone was saying Kobe wwas the next Michael Jordan. He is now well on his way to becoming the next Michael Jackson.

Yes Men Hoax on BBC Reminds World of Dow Chemical's Refusal to Take Responsibility for Bhopal Disaster

This is just too delicious for words.

This week was the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster. Union Carbide never did right by the thousands of victims; Dow bought Carbide a few years ago and is being irresponsible as well. Enter the Yes Men. They got the Beeb to run their spoof spokesman's apology and offer to pay billions in compensation on behalf of Dow. It took two hours for a retraction to run.

The really fun part was the second round. Dow issued a press release denying that the pseudo-spokesman, "Jude Finesterra," was a Dow employee, but not addressing the substance of his comments. The Yes Men issued a more complete retraction:

To be perfectly clear:

The Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) will NOT be liquidated. (The fake "Dow plan" called for the dissolution and sale of Dow's fully owned subsidiary, estimated at US$12 billion, to fund compensation and remediation in Bhopal.)
Dow will NOT commit ANY funds to compensate and treat 120,000 Bhopal residents who require lifelong care. The Bhopal victims have ALREADY been compensated; many received about US$500 several years ago, which in India can cover a full year of medical care.
(2) Dow will NOT remediate (clean up) the Bhopal plant site. We do understand that UCC abandoned thousands of tons of toxic chemicals on the site, and that these still contaminate the groundwater which area residents drink. Dow estimates that the Indian government's recent proposal to commission a study to consider the possibility of proper remediation at some point in the future is fully sufficient.

Dow does NOT urge the US to extradite former Union Carbide CEO Warren Anderson to India, where he has been wanted for 20 years on multiple homicide charges.

(3) Dow will NOT release proprietary information on the leaked gases, nor the results of studies commissioned by UCC and never released.
Dow will NOT fund research on the safety of Dow endocrine disruptors (ECDs) considered to have long-term negative effects.
Dow DOES agree that "One can't assign a dollar value to doing what's morally right," as hoaxter Finisterra said. That is why Dow acknowledged and resolved many of Union Carbide's liabilities in the US immediately after acquiring the company in 2001.

(4) Most importantly of all:

Dow shareholders will see NO losses, because Dow's policy towards Bhopal HAS NOT CHANGED. Much as we at Dow may care, as human beings, about the victims of the Bhopal catastrophe, we must reiterate that Dow's sole and unique responsibility is to its shareholders, and Dow CANNOT do anything that goes against its bottom line unless forced to by law.

Brilliant. The only way it could have been better would have been if it had run here, say, on Fox. But that could never happen, because Bhopal doesn't exist for the American media.

For more of the same, check out their Dow spoof site, dowethics.

Military recruiting falling far short of goals. Duh.

Retired Col. Hackworth is one of the good guys. He does Soldiers for the Truth. He's been talking to recruiters, and getting some nasty numbers.

Since this tragic war kicked off in March 2003, the United States has evacuated an estimated 50,000 KIA, WIA and non-battle casualties from Iraq back to the States – leaving 50,000 slots that have had to be filled.

The job of finding fresh bodies to keep our units topped off falls mainly to the Army Recruiting Command. But the “making-quota” jazz put out by the Recruiting Command and the Pentagon to hype their billion-dollar recruiting effort, with its huge TV expenditure and big expansion of recruiters during the past year, is pure unadulterated spin. Not that this is anything new. The Command has a sorry reputation for using smoke and mirrors to cover up poor performance.

“Hack, here’s a snapshot of how little of our 1st Quarter mission has been achieved,” says an Army recruiter. “Look at it from a perspective of a business releasing quarterly earnings information. To keep unit manning levels up out in the field, especially in Iraq, there’s no question our recruiting mission is in serious trouble.”

“These are totals for the 41 USAREC (Recruiting Command) Battalions, so these stats represent the USAREC mission accomplishment:

Regular Army Volume (all RA contracts):

Mission: 25,322
Achieved: 12,703 (50.17 percent)

Army Reserve Volume:

Mission: 7,373
Achieved: 3,206 (43.48 percent).”

The Army National Guard is faring no better. A Guard retention NCO says: “The word is out on the streets of Washington, D.C. ‘Do not join the Guard.’ I see these words echoing right across the U.S.A.”

By the end of this recruiting year, the Regular Army, Reserves and Guard could fall short more than 50 percent of its projected requirement, or about 60,000 new soldiers. And according to many recruiters, quality recruits are giving way to mental midgets who have a hard time telling their left foot from their right.

Shades of our last years in Vietnam.

The way I see it, this is anothe reason why Shrub is pushing so hard to make elections happen in January. Once he declares the job of bringing democracy to Iraq a success, he can bring everyone home and avoid the consequences of his folly. Nevermind the chaos and ongoing bloodshed, the new lost generation of broken vets, and the destabilization of the Gulf. In a few years, the privations of the "ownership society" will outweigh the short memories of youth, and the Neocon gun will be reloaded and ready for more mischief.

Make birdies, not war

Golf Drives Out Military Base in North Korea

"MOUNT KUMGANG, North Korea (Reuters) - In a variation on the swords-to-plowshares theme, North Korea is swapping heavy artillery for golf clubs.

This is not the communist state's latest secret weapon nor a disarmament gesture. It's a new scheme to attract golf-crazy South Koreans to an enclave in the North just across the Demilitarized Zone border.

Due to open in two years, the 7,500-yard Diamond Country Club course will host golfers amid the scenic, mountainous Kumgang resort.

Players of the quintessentially capitalist sport will walk where a communist military base once stood, its heavy artillery pointed at the South. But the only bunkers will be those filled with sand to trap wayward golfers.

South Korea's Hyundai Asan is developing the 18-hole course with investment from Seoul-based Emerson Pacific to help promote tourism in the Kumgang special district. A second, 9-hole, course is also planned.

'It's not the prospect of financial profit I'm in this for,' said Lee Joong-myun, chairman of Emerson Pacific, which is investing $56 million in the project."

The first image that popped into my mind was that old episode of M*A*S*H*, where Henry Blake is teeing off on a makeshift hole that involved driving over an active mine field.

In a perfect world, this project would be a sign that Kim Jong Il has finally gotten it--no need to threaten the wealthy neighbors when they're more than happy to part with their cash through more peaceful means. And one of the Doctor's favorite means of redistributing wealth is by getting grouped with a gaggle of overweight, well-to-do white guys who are convinced that owning the latest Nike driver will make them play like Tiger.

Paul Krugman on the Social Security Thang

via t r u t h o u t - Paul Krugman | Inventing a Crisis

Krugman may not be well-suited to TV, and he may not be the ideal point man on purely political stuff, but where politics and economics intersect, he wields one mean machete. His recent piece on the shell game required to justify the Preznit's Social Secuity scam is a classic. We can only hope that somebody listens, and that Team Bush is unable to frame the debate on their own incoherent terms.

Watchdog Group Calls Column Racist

Sam Francis, syndicated columnist and former Heritage Foundation analyst, wrote a piece railing against the a controversial and racy Monday Night Football promo that featured Nicollette Sheridan and Terrell Owens.

In his Nov. 26 column, Francis decried the MNF spot not only for its implied nudity and implied sex, but for racial reasons. (Sheridan is white and Owens is black.) Francis wrote, among other things: "Breaking down the sexual barriers between the races is a major weapon of cultural destruction because it means the dissolution of the cultural boundaries that define breeding and the family and, ultimately, the transmission and survival of the culture itself."

As a proud participant in a "mixed race" marriage, I am more than a little bit pissed off. If this is where we are going, then soon Team Rapture will be adding Miscegenation to blasphemy, heresy and treason on my growing list of sins justifying my burning.

By all means, be horrified. Be outraged. But think twice about asking for his head. Because Sam Francis is the tip of the racist iceberg, willing to say what millions feel but are too cowed to voice by the politically correct culture they so deeply resent. Smack this asshole down, and the racist next door will stay hidden.

The sad fact is that this kind of antebellum nonsense is still, 140 years after our Civil War, a pervasive stain on this country. And part of the seamy underside of the red state antipathy to the John Kerrys of the world is the way in which the civil rights movement made traditional racism unfit for polite company. The ugliness is generally sublimated so far that it pops out in other incoherent ways, like the re-election of George Bush.

As Atrios pointed out,

Yes, Francis is entitled to his opinion that "Breaking down the sexual barriers between the races is a major weapon of cultural destruction." Creators is entitled to syndicate it. Newspapers are entitled to publish. But, expressings concerns about breaking "down the sexual barriers between the races" is not a broaching a "senstive topic," it's fucking racism.

I won't waste time probing the ugly corners of Mr. Francis's psyche. But I have this funny feeling that part of why the commercial upset him is because, way back in his private space, the idea of Owens having his way with a white woman gave him a chubby. Wouldn't it be fun to pull Mr. Francis's Netflix records and see how many times he rented Mandingo?

John Snow to Remain U.S. Treasury Secretary

"John Snow, whose predicted departure created a parlor game of speculation in Washington this week, will remain U.S. Treasury secretary at the request of President George W. Bush, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

...
The Washington Post and New York Times both reported within the past 10 days that Snow was likely to be replaced, fueling talk about his possible successors. Snow will now remain in office as Bush prepares to elevate the role of the Treasury in a second-term agenda that includes extending $1.85 trillion in tax cuts, streamlining the 3,000-page tax code, and reinforcing Social Security.

...
The 65-year-old former railroad executive entered the Cabinet in February 2003, after Paul O'Neill was ousted two years ago this month after objecting to plans for an additional tax cut. Keen to avoid his predecessor's mistakes, Snow dropped the objections he had raised in the private sector to budget deficits and embraced Bush's policies. He helped the president win congressional support for a third round of tax cuts in May 2003 and then toured the nation as an election-year salesman for Bush and the administration's economic record."

Every report I'd seen in recent days had him pegged as a dead man walking...hard not to conclude that the Bushistas had difficulties finding anyone else willing to trash his or her good name by peddling the administration's Alice-in-Wonderland economic policies for the next four years.

U.S. vets from Iraq war emerge at homeless shelters

U.S. veterans from the war in Iraq are beginning to show up at homeless shelters around the country, and advocates fear they are the leading edge of a new generation of homeless vets not seen since the Vietnam era.

"When we already have people from Iraq on the streets, my God," said Linda Boone, executive director of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. "I have talked to enough (shelters) to know we are getting them. It is happening and this nation is not prepared for that."

"I drove off in my truck. I packed my stuff. I lived out of my truck for a while," Seabees Petty Officer Luis Arellano, 34, said in a telephone interview from a homeless shelter near March Air Force Base in California run by U.S.VETS, the largest organization in the country dedicated to helping homeless veterans.

Arellano said he lived out of his truck on and off for three months after returning from Iraq in September 2003. "One day you have a home and the next day you are on the streets," he said.

In Iraq, shrapnel nearly severed his left thumb. He still has trouble moving it and shrapnel "still comes out once in a while," Arellano said. He is left handed.

Arellano said he felt pushed out of the military too quickly after getting back from Iraq without medical attention he needed for his hand -- and as he would later learn, his mind.

"It was more of a rush. They put us in a warehouse for a while. They treated us like cattle," Arellano said about how the military treated him on his return to the United States.

We need to get out in front of this issue and fast. First, these guys deserve help. Second, making it clear what "support our troops" should mean is damned good politics. The Bush Administration should be ashamed, and we need to take this one to them.

Faith-Based Communicators React to CBS, NBC Nixing of Church Ad

Last week, one of the big stories was the rejection by NBC and CBS of an advocacy ad from a religious group. The twist, of course, was that the United Church of Christ was selling a message of tolerance and open acceptance of gays.

I am reminded of that old saying about politics making strange bedfellows. It seemed to me on reading about this situation that liberal indignation was likely to have unintended consequences.

December 3, 2004, NEW YORK CITY - Responding to the refusal of the CBS and NBC television networks to air a message from the United Church of Christ, a nationwide group of faith-based communicators has issued a statement challenging the networks' action as "arbitrary" and contrary to the principles of freedom of speech and equal access to media.

The statement was drafted yesterday by the Communication Commission of the National Council of Churches USA, an ecumenical association of professional communicators serving a wide range of Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox faith groups. The statement reads:

"The controversial issue here is not the content of the ad, but the arbitrary standards of the network gatekeepers. Church doors are open to all who would come; but broadcast channels are increasingly closed to all but the wealthy and well-connected.

"It is important to note that the broadcast networks are not being asked to give free time to the United Church of Christ to express its message - the church is ready to pay dearly for that privilege, even though the networks do not pay for their highly profitable use of the broadcast spectrum.

"The Federal Communications Commission, in giving free access to the public's airwaves to commercial corporations - with virtually no strings attached - has handed them powerful control over America's media "public square." The for-profit keepers of that square are all too willing to promulgate messages laced with sexual innuendo, greed, violence, and the politics of personal destruction, but a message of openness and welcome that merely says "church doors are open to all" is being silenced as too controversial!

"Advocacy advertising abounds on TV: agribusinesses, drug manufacturers, gambling casinos, oil companies, even some government agencies regularly expose viewers to messages advocating their products and programs, in the interest of shaping public attitudes and building support for their points of view.

"Are only the ideas and attitudes of faith groups now off limits? Constitutional guarantees of religious liberty and freedom of speech, not to mention common fairness, beg for leadership by the FCC to assure that America's faith community has full and equal access to the nation's airwaves, to deliver positive messages that seek to build and enrich the quality of life."

If the UCC's message is OK on the public airwaves, who's isn't? Can Jerry Falwell run message ads? David Duke? Grover Norquist?

Careful what you wish for.

Blair Rules Out Iraq Civilian Death Toll Probe

British Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected a call Wednesday for an independent inquiry into the civilian death toll in the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

The call came in an open letter to the premier made available to Reuters and signed by over 40 diplomats, peers, scientists and churchmen.

Any totaling of the Iraqi civilian war dead could embarrass Blair ahead of a general election expected next May in a country that mostly opposed the U.S.-led war.

Britain and the United States have suffered around 1,070 military losses in the war since it began in March 2003 but the countrywide casualty count is not known.

Blair, however, said he saw no need for an inquiry.

"Figures from the Iraqi Ministry of Health, which are a survey from the hospitals there, are in our view the most accurate survey there is," he told parliament.
...
The signatories urged Blair to commission an urgent probe and keep counting so long as British soldiers were in Iraq.

"Your government is obliged under international humanitarian law to protect the civilian population during military operations in Iraq, and you have consistently promised to do so," they wrote in the letter.

"However, without counting the dead and injured, no one can know whether Britain and its coalition partners are meeting these obligations."

Signatories included Air Marshal Sir Timothy Garden, who spent 32 years in the military; Sir Stephen Egerton, a former British ambassador to Iraq; human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger and the Bishop of Oxford Richard Harris.

In a report released in October by the Lancet medical journal, days before the U.S. election that returned President Bush (news - web sites) to power, a group of American scientists put civilian deaths at 100,000.

PM Blair (with hands clenched tightly over his ears): "LA LA LA ... I can't HEAR you..."

Secretary Rumsfeld supports our troops

Disgruntled Troops Complain to Rumsfeld

"Disgruntled U.S. soldiers complained to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Wednesday about the lack of armor for their vehicles and long deployments, drawing a blunt retort from the Pentagon chief.

'You go to war with the Army you have,' he said in a rare public airing of rank-and-file concerns among the troops.

In his prepared remarks earlier, Rumsfeld had urged the troops - mostly National Guard and Reserve soldiers - to discount critics of the war in Iraq and to help 'win the test of wills' with the insurgents.

Some of soldiers, however, had criticisms of their own - not of the war itself but of how it is being fought.

Army Spc. Thomas Wilson, for example, of the 278th Regimental Combat Team that is comprised mainly of citizen soldiers of the Tennessee Army National Guard, asked Rumsfeld in a question-and-answer session why vehicle armor is still in short supply, nearly two years after the start of the war that ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

'Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?' Wilson asked. A big cheer arose from the approximately 2,300 soldiers in the cavernous hangar who assembled to see and hear the secretary of defense.

Rumsfeld hesitated and asked Wilson to repeat his question.

'We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north,' Wilson said after asking again.

Rumsfeld replied that troops should make the best of the conditions they face and said the Army was pushing manufacturers of vehicle armor to produce it as fast as humanly possible.

And, the defense chief added, armor is not always a savior in the kind of combat U.S. troops face in Iraq, where the insurgents' weapon of choice is the roadside bomb, or improvised explosive device that has killed and maimed hundreds, if not thousands, of American troops since the summer of 2003.

'You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and it can (still) be blown up,' Rumsfeld said."

That's right, folks, all that stuff about the protective value of vehicle armor is hype. This guy is a fucking disgrace.

History has indigestion

"We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny. And only in such a world will our own freedom be finally secure.

...

[We} have made a national pledge to help Iraq defend its independence.

And I intend to keep that promise.

To dishonor that pledge, to abandon this small and brave nation to its enemies, and to the terror that must follow, would be an unforgivable wrong.

We are also there to strengthen world order. Around the globe...are people whose well-being rests, in part, on the belief that they can count on us if they are attacked. To leave Iraq to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people in the value of an American commitment and in the value of America's word. The result would be increased unrest and instability, and even wider war.

We are also there because there are great stakes in the balance. Let no one think for a moment that retreat from Iraq would bring an end to conflict. The battle would be renewed in one country and then another. The central lesson of our time is that the appetite of aggression is never satisfied. To withdraw from one battlefield means only to prepare for the next. We must say in Iraq--as we did in Europe--in the words of the Bible: "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further."

...
Our objective is the independence of Iraq, and its freedom from attack. We want nothing for ourselves--only that the people of Iraq be allowed to guide their own country in their own way.

We will do everything necessary to reach that objective. And we will do only what is absolutely necessary.

...
We do this in order to slow down aggression.

We do this to increase the confidence of the brave people of Iraq who have bravely borne this brutal battle for so many years with so many casualties.

And we do this to convince the leaders of the insurgency--and all who seek to share their conquest--of a very simple fact: We will not be defeated. We will not grow tired.

We will not withdraw, either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement."

George Bush, December 2004

Nah, just kidding. I just popped in "Iraq" for "South Vietnam" and "insurgency" for "North Vietnam." It's actually Lyndon Johnson in his "Peace without Conquest" speech, April 1965.

Generalissimo Bush

Lots of press coverage today of Generalissimo Bush in his latest custom-made uni. How much more banana can this Republican get?

When I see Shrub prancing about in his many different military get-ups, I can't help thinking of the many other famous leaders who liked to do the same thing. There's this guy:

this charmer:

and of course this fellow from the cover of Time Magazine:


We had a real 5 star general as a President once. Oddly enough, he never wore a uniform when he was Prez. See, he defeated a few major fascists, and warned of the military-industrial complex. Different times, I guess.

The other disturbing thing about this series of photo ops is Bush's predilection for the pomp of large numbers of uniformed soldiers as a backdrop.


Remind you of anything?

Even our Nobel laureates are an embarassment

U.S. Twin Deficits No Problem, Nobel Laureate Says

Or, more precisely, Nobel-Laureate-Who-Is-Also-with-the-Fed-and-Supports-the-Boy-King:

"The U.S. current account and budget deficits, which some analysts see as the cause of the dollar's depreciation, pose no problems for the world economy, one of the Nobel 2004 economics prize laureates said on Tuesday.

Arizona State University Economics Professor Edward Prescott, who also works for the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, also said Asian central banks were unlikely to go on accumulating dollars forever.

'The U.S. (current) account deficit, no problem. People that say there is (a problem) are ignorant, they do not understand something called balance sheet, present value, something that a good undergraduate (economics student) learns,' Prescott said.

...
'I don't see any problems with the U.S. (budget) deficit ... it's for political reasons that people are yelling and screaming about that,' Prescott said.

...

He said he was not worried about the dollar, which has lost more than 30 percent against the euro, 20 percent against the pound and 16 percent against the yen over the past two years.

'The fluctuations in the value of the dollar are sizeable but they are not huge ... I don't think there's any problem associated with it,' Prescott said."

Just in case you weren't sure, Professor Prescott made his political preferences plain in the weeks prior to the election. In addition to endorsing Bush, he made a few other Nobel-worthy comments in an Arizona Republic piece last October:

"Americans will spend the next two weeks trying to sort through the differences between President George W. Bush and Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry on many issues.

But on the economic front, especially when it comes to taxes and economic growth, the president's policies are more likely to bear fruit, according to Arizona's new Nobel Prize laureate.

'That's an easy one,' said Edward Prescott, the Arizona State University professor who shared the 2004 Nobel Prize for economics.

'When you cut tax rates, employment always goes up,' he said in a phone interview Monday with The Arizona Republic.

...
Bush's campaign on Monday released a letter signed by Prescott and five other Nobel laureates critical of Kerry's proposal to roll back tax reductions for families earning $200,000 or more.

In The Republic interview, he said such a policy would discourage people from working.

'It's easy to get over $200,000 in income with two wage earners in a household,' Prescott said. 'We want those highly educated, talented people to work.'"

So let's review the professor's lecture: Record trade deficits, no problem; record budget deficits, no problem; anyone who disagrees with him is ignorant of introductory principles to econ; withering dollar, no problem; tax cuts for the wealthy always lead to more jobs; and it's easy to earn 200K per year.

Um, is it too late to enroll in Professor Krugman's section?

The way we live now

How to say "I'm a stupid American" in any language:

"ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Planning a European vacation and don’t want to talk American politics with an inquisitive foreigner? A New Mexico T-shirt company suggests going Canadian.

For $24.95, T-shirtKing.com offers the 'Go Canadian' package, full of just the kind of things an American traveler can use to keep a vacation free of U.S. politics.

There’s a Canadian flag T-shirt, a Canadian flag lapel pin and a Canadian patch for luggage or a backpack. There’s also a quick reference guide — 'How to Speak Canadian, Eh?' — on answering questions about Canada.

It is the brainchild of employees at the Mountainair, N.M.-based company known for comical T-shirts it sells worldwide on the Internet.

'It’s not meant as a slight against the United States or Canada,' explained T-shirtKing.com President Bill Broadbent. 'It was meant as something Republicans could give their Democrat friends to say ’C’est la vie.’ ... But maybe not c’est la vie because that’s a French word.'

...
The “Go Canadian” idea emerged while Broadbent and several co-workers were chatting about a possible product to fill the gap between the end of their political slogan contest and another contest they plan for January.

One of Broadbent’s colleagues had heard of someone harassed about U.S. politics during a recent overseas trip.

Some people might not mind, but others “just want to be on vacation,” Broadbent said. “So we were joking that they could just go as Canadians, and that just kind of evolved.”'

First, we want to suck up all their prescription drugs, then we want their flu vaccine, then a bunch of us file papers to live there, now this. If I'm a government official in Ottawa right now, I'm calling Ariel Sharon to ask him for blueprints for that wall he's building...

Putin questions viability of planned Iraq elections

Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) said he "cannot imagine" how genuinely free and fair elections could be held as planned in Iraq (news - web sites) next month given the fact that the country is under "total occupation" by foreign forces.

"I cannot imagine how elections can be organized in conditions of total occupation of the country by foreign troops," Putin said Tuesday, as he met visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi at the Kremlin.

Take, that Giorgi Bush! You put the kebosh on my sham election in Ukraine, I do same to you in Iraq. Black kettle and the pot, eh? Ha, ha, ha. Boy, Cold War, that was good old days.

Maureen Farrell: "God Is With Us": Hitler's Rhetoric and the Lure of "Moral Values"

Excellent piece on Buzzflash debunking the Hitler-as-atheist strawman and showing eerie similarities between Hilter's religious rhetoric and and Bush's:


"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. . . As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people." (Munich, April 12, 1922)
"If positive Christianity means love of one's neighbor, i.e. the tending of the sick, the clothing of the poor, the feeding of the hungry, the giving of drink to those who are thirsty, then it is we who are the more positive Christians. For in these spheres the community of the people of National Socialist Germany has accomplished a prodigious work." (Feb. 24, 1939)
"We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out." (Berlin, Oct. 24, 1933)
"An educated man retains the sense of the mysteries of nature and bows before the unknowable. An educated man, on the other hand, runs the risk of going over to atheism (which is a return to the state of the animal)." (Hitler's Table Talk, 1941-1944, page 59)


You can change the fascism danger warning to Orange now.

Wacko Watch: Rapture Index

Interested in seeing how the other half lives? Check these folks out at the Rapture Index. Be sure to visit the FAQs. I especially liked "How can I recognize a cult?" (if they don't think the Bible is infallible, it is a cult)

Naomi Klein: You asked for my evidence, Mr Ambassador. Here it is

Great piece from Naomi Klein in the Guardian calling bullshit on our propaganda war in Iraq, and deftly explaining why we saw so little of the bloodshed in Falluja.

"We don't do body counts," said General Tommy Franks of US Central Command. The question is: what happens to the people who insist on counting the bodies - the doctors who must pronounce their patients dead, the journalists who document these losses, the clerics who denounce them? In Iraq, evidence is mounting that these voices are being systematically silenced through a variety of means, from mass arrests, to raids on hospitals, media bans, and overt and unexplained physical attacks. .

Read it. Then scroll down this page and read the 14 signs of fascism again.

Bush Replaces Outspoken Civil Rights Chair

President Bush on Monday moved to replace Mary Frances Berry, the outspoken chairwoman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission who has argued with every president since Jimmy Carter appointed her to the panel a quarter century ago. ...

The eight-member panel investigates civil rights complaints and publicizes its findings. It has no enforcement power. Four years ago, Berry and the commission were heavily critical of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for his administration's handling of the disputed presidential election won by his brother.

The newly named commissioners are Gerald A. Reynolds, former assistant secretary for the office of civil rights in the Education Department, and attorney Ashley L. Taylor of Richmond, Va. Bush intends to designate Reynolds the commission chairman, succeeding Berry, and to name Abigail Thernstrom, already a commission member, as vice chairperson.
...
"We thank the commission members for their service," she said. "Their terms have expired and we have appointed new commission members."

Reynolds is assistant general counsel for Great Plains Energy Inc. in Kansas City, Mo. In addition to serving in the Education Department under Bush, Reynolds was deputy associate attorney general providing legal advice for civil litigation matters.

They've been telegraphing this one for weeks, if not months. For a guy who clams not to like swatting at flys, Bush sure seems to go out of his way to do just that. The Civil Rights Commission is toothless. He spent four years ignoring them with impunity. but he couldn't let pass an opportunity to poke the civil rights crowd in the eye, just for the hell of it. The surprising aspect is the background of the new chair. It appears that there just isn't a government job for which the bewst preparation isn't working in the energy biz.

Stuffing the ballot box, puritan-style

In an appearance before Congress in February, when the controversy over Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl moment was at its height, Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell laid some startling statistics on U.S. senators.

The number of indecency complaints had soared dramatically to more than 240,000 in the previous year, Powell said. The figure was up from roughly 14,000 in 2002, and from fewer than 350 in each of the two previous years. There was, Powell said, “a dramatic rise in public concern and outrage about what is being broadcast into their homes.”

What Powell did not reveal—apparently because he was unaware—was the source of the complaints. According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003—99.8 percent—were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group.

When compared to the shenanigans in Ohio and Florida on Nov. 2nd, this is chump change. But you gotta marvel at the manipulative skill of these folks. And it is simply fascinating the way the article covers Junior Powell's ass by claiming he was unaware that fewer than 500 of the 240,000 complaints received in an entire year -- that's about 2 per business day -- were from anyone other than PTC. Yeah, suuuure.

Poll: Christian beliefs

Seventy-nine percent of Americans believe that, as the Bible says, Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, without a human father, according to a new NEWSWEEK poll on beliefs about Jesus.

Sixty-seven percent say they believe that the entire story of Christmas—the Virgin Birth, the angelic proclamation to the shepherds, the Star of Bethlehem and the Wise Men from the East—is historically accurate. Twenty-four percent of Americans believe the story of Christmas is a theological invention written to affirm faith in Jesus Christ, the poll shows. In general, say 55 percent of those polled, every word of the Bible is literally accurate. Thirty-eight percent do not believe that about the Bible.

So 28 large for half a grilled cheese makes all the sense in the world now.

Fox to Become Main McNews Source For Clear Channel

News Corp.'s Fox News has reached an agreement to become the primary news provider to radio giant Clear Channel Communications Inc.

The pact stands to greatly boost the radio presence of Fox News, which rolled out its service last year, as it looks to compete with the much more entrenched CBS Radio, a unit of Viacom Inc., and Walt Disney Co.'s ABC Radio.

Under the terms of the five-year deal, which starts next year, as many as 172 of Clear Channel's news and talk stations could eventually carry Fox's radio service, which includes news updates of up to five minutes per hour and syndicated talk shows by some of its cable news personalities, including Alan Colmes.

The Clear Channel partnership will give Fox News's nascent radio unit close to 300 stations, including 37 in the top 40 markets. There are options in the deal that could increase the number of Clear Channel stations affiliated with Fox News over time. Fox News said that if all options are exercised, its service could have more than 500 affiliates by mid-2005.

The teaming of Fox News and Clear Channel is sure to raise eyebrows among some media-watchdog groups. With about 1,200 radio stations, Clear Channel of San Antonio has become a lightning rod for concerns about consolidation in that industry. Fox News, for its part, often is accused of having a conservative bias, although Mr. Colmes is among the news operation's liberal commentators.

You mean it wasn't already?

This would be more of concern were not for the fact that FM and AM readio are well on their way to becoming techno-dinosaurs. Of course, its primary successor, satellite radio, will be even easier to control.

And hey, they even let a liberal talk once in a while, so what's the biggie?

White House: Borrowing to Help Fund Social Security Plan

The White House said on Monday for the first time that President Bush's plan to add personal retirement accounts to Social Security would be financed in part by new government borrowing that could top $1 trillion.

Bush has made reform of the U.S. retirement program a top priority in his second term and will push for creating private accounts in a meeting later in the day with top congressional leaders.

Bush's economic advisers have been analyzing financing options for more than a year. But the White House, until now, had declined to say that borrowing would be used to cover the transition costs. Experts say Bush has few other options because of record federal budget deficits. The president has ruled out tax increases.

"There will be some upfront transition financing that will be needed to move toward a better system that will allow younger workers to invest a small portion of their own money into personal savings accounts," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Asked if transition costs, estimated at between $1 trillion to $2 trillion, would be financed by government borrowing, he added: "That's what you're looking at doing as part of the transition to a better Social Security system."

Social Security reform has now officially passed into the realm of the tragically stupid.

A recent analysis by the White House Council of Economic Advisers found that tapping the bond markets to pay for private accounts would increase the nation's debt-to-GDP (news - web sites) ratio by 23.6 percentage points by 2036.

Social Security has always been an exercise in income redistribution -- from today's workers to today's old folks. Superficially, this is a change to a sytstem that takes from the children of today's workers for today's old folks. But it will also likely help push the whole economy over the cliff with its massive new borrowing.

Remember when lots of republicans were budget hawks?

In sworn affidavit, programmer says he developed vote-rigging prototype for Florida congressman

via The Blue Lemur/Raw Story:
In a sworn affidavit Monday, a former programmer for a NASA contractor said that he developed a vote-rigging prototype at the request of a then-Florida state representative who is now a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

from the affidavit:

In the vote fraud prototype that I created things are not what they seem. Hidden on the screen are invisible buttons. A person with knowledge of the locations of those invisible buttons can then use them to alter the votes of everyone before them. By clicking the correct order of invisible buttons the candidate selected by the user is compared to other candidates within that same race. If the candidate they selected is leading the race nothing happens. If the other candidate is leading the race the vote totals are altered so that the selected candidate is now leading the race with 51% of the vote. The other candidates then share the remaining 49% in exact proportion to the totals they had previously. In the prototype supplied to Feeney the vote totals show on the screen. In an actual application the user would receive no visible clues to the fraud that had just occurred. Since the vote is applied by race, any single race or multiple races can be altered. The supervisors or any other voter would never notice this fraud since no visible sign would appear. Additionally, the procedure could be repeated as many times as was necessary to achieve the desired results. No amount of testing or simulations would expose the fraud as its activation and process is completely invisible to everyone except the person programming the vote fraud routine.

OK, NOW can we start talking about a stolen election?

Returning Fallujans will face clampdown

via Boston.com :

The US military is drawing up plans to keep insurgents from regaining control of this battle-scarred city, but returning residents may find that the measures make Fallujah look more like a police state than the democracy they have been promised.

Under the plans, troops would funnel Fallujans to so-called citizen processing centers on the outskirts of the city to compile a database of their identities through DNA testing and retina scans. Residents would receive badges displaying their home addresses that they must wear at all times. Buses would ferry them into the city, where cars, the deadliest tool of suicide bombers, would be banned.

Marine commanders working in unheated, war-damaged downtown buildings are hammering out the details of their paradoxical task: Bring back the 300,000 residents in time for January elections without letting in insurgents, even though many Fallujans were among the fighters who ruled the city until the US assault drove them out in November, and many others cooperated with fighters out of conviction or fear.

One idea that has stirred debate among Marine officers would require all men to work, for pay, in military-style battalions. Depending on their skills, they would be assigned jobs in construction, waterworks, or rubble-clearing platoons.

It kinda makes you wonder if there are any positions anywhere in our government that include in the job description, "must have read at least one history book or watched 'The World at War' on TV."

And how about a quick show of hands as to whether we should show sympathy to the commanders working in "unheated, war-damaged buildings."

Aide Takes Blame for Tax Return Provision

A mid-level House aide said yesterday that he was the one who, during last month's drafting of a huge spending bill, added a provision that could give staffers on the House and Senate appropriations committees broad access to Americans' tax returns.

Richard E. Efford, a 19-year veteran of the House Appropriations Committee, said he did not inform any elected official before inserting the provision and advised his immediate boss, Rep. Ernest J. Istook Jr. (R-Okla.), only after it was too late to make changes. He said other House and Senate appropriations staffers in both parties were aware of the provision, however, and believed it gave them needed authority to enter facilities of the Internal Revenue Service (news - web sites) to inspect how taxpayer funds were being used.

"I would guess we all thought it was a housekeeping thing that would help our bosses but did not need to be elevated up to them," said Efford, who described himself as "dumbfounded" by the uproar.

So Istook finally got one of his staffers to fall on his sword on this one. And so a simple, easy to cover story is converted into a much bigger story about the deeply flawed way in which the Repugs are running Congress, which is of course going to get no coverage at all.

Jon Stewart's 'America' Named Book of Year

"Jon Stewart's 'America (The Book),' the television commentator's million-selling riff on politics and other matters of satire, has been named Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, the industry trade magazine.

In announcing the award Monday, Publishers Weekly called the book 'a serious critique of the two-party system, the corporations that finance it and the 'spineless cowards in the press' who 'aggressively print allegation and rumor independent of accuracy and fairness.'"

Stewart is the perfect contemporary embodiment of the historical court jester, the ostensible "fool" who got away with sticking it to The Man when no one else could. The Boy King and his court have given him four solid years of material, of course, but his primary target has always been the media. That it took them so long to catch onto that is an indication of just how witless and self-important they are.

Foriegn policies

McCain withholds approval of Rumsfeld

Powell Says Europe Must Reach Out to U.S. Too

Rumsfeld to stay at the Pentagon

I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the magnitude of John McCain’s service to the country in Viet Nam and the courage it must have taken to survive his ordeal in the POW camps following his capture. And to the extent he says anything, anytime that might annoy the Boy King and his minions, I’m happy to see him in front of a microphone. But frankly, he’s starting to make a habit of standing up to be counted as long as it’s not time to stand up and be counted. And where I'm from, we don't call those guys "mavericks," we call them weenies....

The juxtaposition of Powell’s remarks and the news of Rumsfeld’s retention last week was another classic illustration of the administration’s arrogant attitude toward the rest of the planet. The notion that Powell would be chiding the Europeans about not “reaching out” under any circumstances was a redefinition of the term “chutzpah,” but coupled with the announcement that Rummy would be staying on to charm our geopolitical partners in his inimitable way….These guys have got to come up with something for the rest of the world besides “You’ll take it and you’ll like it.” In case they haven’t noticed, the New American Century is off to a very bumpy start, and we’re going to need their cooperation on a variety of issues in the very near future.

14 identifying characteristics of fascism

This has actually been up on the net for a while, but deserves almost daily reflection.

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

6. Controlled Mass Media
Sometimes the media are directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media are indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in wartime, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.


A fuller discussion of this topic is included in , of all things, a sermon avaiable online at dKos. Of course, there are sermons and thee are sermons, and this one, from a "Universalist Unitarian" Church, is likely unrecognizeable as such to most of the churchgoing public. For more on the church, take a peek at their "introduction to liberal religion." When the fundies start burning heretics at the stake, I doubt these folks will be spared.

Robert Blake's Trial Scheduled to Begin

Thank goodness. With Scott Peterson safely stashed, America was on the verge of having to pay attention to something that mattered for a change. Now, we can all get back to being numbed by the moral outrage of Larry King, Nancy Grace and Mark Geragoguggleus.

Today's crony capitalism installment

via Newsday.com:
Kerik nomination is a ticking time bomb:

Campaign bodyguard to Rudy Giuliani.

Errand boy for the Saudi royal family.

Energetic exploiter of Sept. 11th tragedy.

Tough-talking publicity-hound vowing to bring law and order to Iraq - then hightailing it out of there after a disastrous 14 weeks, leaving the place far less safe than he found it.

Oh, the bullet points on Bernie Kerik's real-life resume just go on and on. But is this really the guy we want standing between us and the terrorists?

George W. Bush apparently thinks so.

White House sources were saying last night that Kerik, the scandal-scarred former commissioner of the New York Correction and Police departments, will be named today to take Tom Ridge's job as head of homeland security.

For now, let's give the Bush folks the benefit of the doubt: Maybe they've been wowed by Kerik's shameless swing-state Kerry-bashing in Bush's behalf. ("I fear another attack, and I fear that attack with ... Senator Kerry being in office responding to it.")
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Let this be a warning from someone who's followed the man's ladder-climbing career: He's a personal and professional time bomb the Bushies will learn to regret. Don't say I didn't warn you, guys!

That's certainly the message that smart law-enforcement professionals in New York were exchanging yesterday, as they shook their heads in disbelief at Kerik's latest career goal.

"He couldn't run the Rikers commissary without getting greedy and making a mess, in a jam," one correction veteran said. "Now he's gonna be in charge of the Department of Homeland Security? Let's just hope the terrorists don't decide to come back."

This former subordinate was referring to just one of many petty scandals that have hung over Kerik's career. When he ran Correction, nearly $1 million of tobacco-company rebates were diverted into an obscure foundation Kerik was president of. This was for cigarettes bought with taxpayer money and then sold at inflated prices to jail inmates. But this rebate money - would kickbacks be a better word? - got spent entirely outside the normal rules for public funds.


If you had the assignment of larding the new administration with the most corrupt and incompetent gang of sycophantic stooges you could find, what would you differently than Dubya has done? Not much, I'll bet.

Bill Moyers | Grist Magazine

Bill Moyers just gave an important and deeply troubling speech at Harvard upon receiving an award, which is excerpted below. Read the whole thing, and weep.

(T)he delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the oval office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.

Remember James Watt, President Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, 'after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back.'

Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the bible is literally true - one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index. That's right - the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the twelve volumes of the left-behind series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious right warrior, Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.

Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): once Israel has occupied the rest of its 'biblical lands,' legions of the anti-Christ will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts, and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.

I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious, and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels 'which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man.' A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed - an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144-just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of god will return, the righteous will enter heaven, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.

Bush sets out plan to dismantle 30 years of environmental laws

George Bush's new administration, and its supporters controlling Congress, are setting out to dismantle three decades of US environmental protection.

In little over a month since his re-election, they have announced that they will comprehensively rewrite three of the country's most important environmental laws, open up vast new areas for oil and gas drilling, and reshape the official Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

They say that the election gave them a mandate for the measures - which, ironically, will overturn a legislative system originally established by the Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford - even though Mr Bush went out of his way to avoid emphasising his environmental plans during his campaign.

"The election was a validation of the philosophy and the agenda," said Mike Leavitt, the Bush-appointed head of the EPA. He points out that over a third of the agency's staff will become eligible for retirement over the President's four-year term, enabling him to fill it with people lenient to polluters.


So you got your red states, which voted for this. And your blue states, which didn't. What you won't have is green states.

Far more radical measures are also under way. Joe Barton, the Texas Republican chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who is to help push through the energy bill, has also announced a comprehensive review of the Clean Air Act, one of the world's most successful environmental laws.

Environmentalists predict the emasculation of the Act, which has cut air pollution across the country by more than half over the last 30 years. Not to be outdone, the Republican chairman of the House Resources Committee, Richard Pombo, has announced a review of the Endangered Species Act, for the protection of wildlife. The law has been the main obstacle to the felling of much of the US's remaining endangered rain forest. And in a third assault, Congressional leaders have also announced an attack on the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires details of the environmental effects of major developments before they proceed.

Breathtaking. Today, figuratively. Tomorrow, literally.

Bush Downplays Thompson's Terror Worries

President Bush played down on Saturday a stark warning from his resigning health chief that the nation's food supply is largely unprotected from terror attack.

Bush said that the government is doing what it can to safeguard the public from threats, but much work remains.

"We're a large country, with all kinds of avenues where somebody could inflict harm," said Bush, asked about the issue after an Oval Office meeting with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. "We've made a lot of progress in protecting our country, and there's more work to be done, and this administration is committed to doing it."

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said in a speech Friday announcing his coming departure from the Bush Cabinet that he worries "every single night" about a possible terror attack on the food supply.

Despite dramatic increases in inspections of food imports, only "a very minute amount" of food is tested at ports and airports, Thompson said.

"For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do," Thompson said. "We are importing a lot of food from the Middle East, and it would be easy to tamper with that."


I feel better already.

Boing Boing does MSN Spaces

Microsoft has made more money than there is money by being late to every party but beating the snot out the guys who rented the hall and bought libations. So it should be no surpise that they have now decided to make an appearance at the blog soire'.

As the folks at Boing Boing have determined, the Empire's first effort is rather un-bloglike -- that is, if you think of blogs as an antidote to corporate-owned infomedia.

Microsoft's new blogging tool, censors certain words you might try to include in a blog title or url. If you can't speak freely on a blog, what's the point of having one? This demanded a full investigation.

Using my existing MSN Passport account, I attempted to create a number of blogs, one after the other. The results of which titles passed and which were banned may surprise you -- or at least generate a few Beavis-and-Butthead snorkles. Each of the linked test-titles in this BoingBoing post points to to an actual, unmodified screenshot of the corresponding test blog I created (or was denied the ability to create) using MSN Search.
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I figured anything in the original list of seven dirty words banned by the FCC would be off-limits: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. Most of that proved to be true, as did other potent cusswords which would likely cause license problems for a television or radio station.


It is indeed as if George Carlin had been hired to write the terms of use. The good news is that MSN Spaces will be safe for all the Brittney Spears/Gilligan's Island/conspicuous consumption blogs a complacent, anesthetized public can stand. The bad news is that if corporate America ever decides to squelch blogging, there is an increasing likelihood they will be able to pull it off. And once they finish neutering pension funds, the Democratic Party, and the Bill of Rights, they come looking for us.

Lawyer in OH Recount Suit: We Have Evidence of Fraud

There was a pretty lengthy interview on C-Span today with Cliff Arnebeck, an attorney for Alliance for Democracy, who is going to file a suit tomorrow in Ohio challenging the election result. This is different from demanding a recount. This organization is actually saying it believes--BASED ON EVIDENCE--that the election result is INCORRECT.

Mr. Arnebeck said they have evidence that shows the election result was actually the opposite of what's been reported. He says that Kerry won 51% of the vote in OH, and he seems to claim he can prove it.

I have no idea about the validity of this claim, but I can say this is the first time I've heard a lawyer involved in this fracas saying they have evidence of fraud.

Listen to it yourself and tell me what you think. Go to www.cspan.org under "Recent Programs" and click on "Washington Journal Entire Program (12/02/04)"


No idea how legit this is, but it sure looks good...

Bush Opposes Delay on Iraq Vote

President Bush on Thursday rejected calls for postponement of Iraq's parliamentary election, insisting that "it's time for the Iraqi citizens to go to the polls."

Adhering to established administration policy, the president's declaration also sent an unwavering signal in the face of calls for delay from Sunni Muslim and Kurdish figures in Iraq, as well as some other leaders around the world.

"We are very firm on the Jan. 30 date," Bush told reporters at the White House.

Both Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in separate appearances Thursday, joined in Bush's demand that the election go forward as planned. The administration push came after interim Iraqi President Ghazi Ajil Yawer, a Sunni tribal leader, added his support for holding the election as planned despite pleas for postponement by those concerned that violence would make voting impossible in large areas of the country.

The direction this is going is now painfully clear. Iraq will be ready for elections in January, despite all objective evidence to the contrary, just because Dubya says so. The elections will be declared legitimate, even though huge pieces of the country will be too scared to vote, or will die trying. And Maximum Leader will again declare Mission Accomplised, and promptly withdraw our troops a la Saigon 1975. Iraq will struggle with a civil war that will last many years and cost thousands of lives, but none of them will be our troops, and so none of them will register here.

Our troops will come home. And somewhere around the midterms, Iran will become an a threat to the US because of its nuclear program, and the cycle will repeat.

Welcome to Neocon Valhalla.

Macroeconomics 101 via American Prospect Online

there is a growing risk of a financial meltdown with the following elements:

First, as foreign confidence in the dollar keeps shrinking, so does the dollar. The Federal Reserve then has to raise interest rates defensively to make investments in U.S. securities more attractive to foreigners.

But high interest rates slow U.S. economic growth, hurt the stock market, and could contribute to a long-anticipated crash of housing prices.

We could face a serious recession with no easy cure, since the usual fix is to run temporary deficits plus low interest rates. But in this case, overly large deficits were part of the problem, and higher interest rates would be necessary to prevent a further dollar collapse. But won't the Japanese and Chinese central banks, whose economies rely so heavily on exports to the United States, keep buying American bonds? Perhaps -- it's a kind of co-dependency in which they willingly buy paper that is losing its value because the exports help develop their real economies.

On the other hand, the United Staates is not just dependent on foreign central bank purchases of bonds. Because our budget deficit eats up so much domestic savings, our stock market and venture capital markets also are net borrowers from abroad. In the past we have counted on the fact that the American economy was so productive that foreigners, despite the trade deficit, saw the United States as a smart place to invest. But if the dollar is weak enough long enough, that investment starts drying up. U.S. financial markets have been quavering lately because foreign investment flows are dwindling.

How likely is this dire scenario? None other than Paul Volcker has said that he thinks that the odds of a dollar crash in the next few years are something like three in four.

New Iraq Prisoner Photos

The U.S. military has launched a criminal investigation into photographs that appear to show Navy SEALs in Iraq (news - web sites) sitting on hooded and handcuffed detainees, and photos of what appear to be bloodied prisoners, one with a gun to his head.

Some of the photos have date stamps suggesting they were taken in May 2003, which could make them the earliest evidence of possible abuse of prisoners in Iraq. The far more brutal practices photographed in Abu Ghraib prison occurred months later.

An Associated Press reporter found more than 40 of the pictures among hundreds in an album posted on a commercial photo-sharing Web site by a woman who said her husband brought them from Iraq after his tour of duty. It is unclear who took the pictures, which the Navy said it was investigating after the AP furnished copies to get comment for this story.


As usual, there is so much to be sickened by here that it is difficult to know where to start. But the most mind-boggling part is that the pictures were hidden in plain sight on a commercial photo-sharing website. Rather than hiding their transgressions, these guys were so proud of their exploits that they wanted to share them with the world. What more do you need to know about the culture the Bush team has created among our military? How much more evidence do you need to force the admission that Abu Ghraib was not an anomaly, but was rather the inevitable consequence of the work of folks like Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto "Anything Goes" Gonzales?

AP allowed Starr to dodge blame for going after Clinton re: Lewinsky

from Media Matters for America:

On December 3, the Associated Press reported that "[former independent counsel] Kenneth Starr says he never should have led the investigation that resulted in the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton" -- but did not point out that Starr himself sought the authority to conduct that investigation. According to the AP, Starr told the Santa Barbara News-Press that "'the most fundamental thing that could have been done differently' was for somebody else to have investigated Clinton's statements under oath denying he had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky." Starr also said, "There was a sense on the part of the country that my (Lewinsky) effort was an effort somehow to expand the (Whitewater) investigation, when it was separate."

The AP failed to mention that: 1) Starr actively sought (and ultimately attained) authori