Recently in Politics Category

Now that you have been fired, CNN will have a chance to restore their reputation as a reputable news source instead of the MTV of news.

And you will have lots of time to find Obama's birth certificate.

It's a win-win situation.

Lou Dobbs Leaves CNN

By SAM SCHECHNER

Wall Street Journal

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

Lou Dobbs, a CNN anchor known for his strong views on immigration, said his show Wednesday was his last for the cable-news network.

"With characteristic forthrightness, Lou has now decided to carry the banner of advocacy journalism elsewhere," CNN/US President Jon Klein said in a statement, adding the network will miss his "megawatt smile and larger than life presence."

This week I listened to part of Obama's acceptance speech for the Nobel peace prize.

I thought it was very strange when he won the award. Listening to his speech, largely defending the use of force, I wondered if any of those judges now regret their vote.

At the time, it was said they they gave him the award as a recognition of change from President Bush/Cheney. As in, "thank God America has a new president". As in, "the biggest accomplishment for world peace is getting rid of Bush/Cheney."

But whatever change Obama has made in military terms has been, shall we say, subtle. I am not very knowledgeable in this area but as a casual observer, like most American's, I dont see much change.

We are still spending a fortune (of borrowed money) on military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We still talk about "surges" and armored vehicles, and bombs, and the burden on our troops of being deployed for almost a decade now.

We still describe our desire to meddle in those two countries (as well as Israel, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and India) as a national security priority.

We still talk about terrorism as a military problem and not a police problem.

Eight years. It is really rather amazing how long this thing has dragged on and how little we seem to have learned from 9/11.

We have a new president but American policy and thinking about international relations still seems like the same old, same old.

Years ago, I heard the idea that some conservatives believed the only way to end the so-called "welfare state" was to bankrupt the state. Bush/Cheney made a lot of progress on that financial goal and our banking bailouts continue the progress.

Lately I wonder if the same argument can be made about our military spending. The only way to really change our dependence on using military force for all problems is to bankrupt the government. I wonder how long it will take to find out.

You remember those Visa commercials? The ones with the punchline "Priceless"?

Those commercials were designed to make you feel better about an industry that has been reviled as far back as the Bible (and rightly so), but they did have a good message.

Want to know what I think is priceless about living in the USA? The rule of law.

I regularly hear people, generally conservative folks, whine and complain about paying taxes and it just gets me mad. How ignorant! How selfish! Some people have no idea how good we have it here. I know it is natural to take something for granted until you lose it but still.

How can folks be so ungrateful for the quality of life we have here at a time when we pay all this attention on Iraq and Afghanistan? What do people think we are trying to do over there? We are trying to create the rule of law. Look how hard that is and then think about how much we take for granted here and shouldnt.

We have the big stuff here.

• I am 40 years old and I have never been in fear of my life from my government or my police.
• No one I know of has ever been visited in the middle of the night and "disappeared" by a policeman or government official.
• I dont see military grade weapons on the street or soldiers in the neighborhood and neither do my children.
• The only time military jets fly overhead is for Fleet Week and air shows and they never drop bombs.
• Bombings are almost unheard of.
• I have never had to shoot at anyone or known anyone that has been shot.
• I can walk around my neighborhood day or night without fear of being murdered or kidnapped.
• When I go to the office, I do not have to worry that my wife and daughter will be alive when I get home.

Those are the big things and they are priceless. They are also things that happen because of the rule of law.

In this country, we solve our disputes with lawyers. Life is not perfect but we do not solve our problems with an AK47 or explosives nor do we have to resort to bribes and kidnapping to make a living.

And we also have the little stuff.

• All homes have sanitation and most have sewers, running water, heat and 24/7 electricity.
• The roads are all passable and most have curbs and sidewalks.
• The streets arent littered with dead animals or trash.
• And if you have a problem, you can pick up the phone and get help.

Because we have the basic rule of law here, we can use our tax money to provide these other niceties of life which are also priceless.

The irony is that we get to sit around and complain about paying taxes simply because we have it so damn good. We are rich because there is almost no fear in our lives. We live with a level of luxury and peace that billions of people want for themselves. And we barely appreciate it.

Yesterday morning I woke up to the news that 4 police had been murdered.

Today I woke up to the news that the suspected shooter had been found and shot dead.

First off, I hoped that they got the right person.

Second, I asked myself why. Why would that guy have murdered these 4 policemen he did not even know?

And that seems to be the theme of recent news. Why? Why did he/they do it?

Israel wants to prosecute some 900 year old guy from Ohio for alleged crimes in a Nazi concentration camp during WW2. Why did we murder so many families in those camps?

Cambodia is prosecuting some guy there for similar war crimes by the Khymer Rouge. Why did Cambodians turn on each other and murder half their countrymen?

A while back, a 16 year old girl in Richmond, CA was brutally raped by a group of men outside her high school - and no one called the police or stopped it. This morning there was a radio story on Richmond, CA as a former resident asked how this had happened in his hometown. I actually lived and worked in Richmond for a time and when I first heard the story all I could think about is why this happened and what those men were thinking.

Why are human beings so inhuman to each other?

From acts of individual violence to systemic violence and genocide, why do we do it? I dont have any answers. I just find myself shaking my head and asking why.

This weekend tragedy hit the Seattle area. A person walked into a coffee shop early in the morning, took out a gun, and murdered 4 policemen.

As the local TV stations ran updates on the story all day long, I kept waiting for the usual response from the NRA and gun lovers. You know, the one where they assure us that guns save lives. The one where they say this tragedy would have been stopped if the victims had been armed with guns.

Well these victims were police and they were armed with guns. They even had bullet-proof vests on! It sounds like the shooter was wounded but that did not stop him from killing his intended victims.

No, we dont need more guns we need less. Guns increase killings they dont discourage them. Look at Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Mexico and the USA.

This tragedy would not have happened if we were more concerned with safety and less concerned with making money by selling weapons. Maybe we cannot stop the movies and video games that glorify killing people with guns or the delusional folks that need a gun to feel important but we can stop the guns by making them illegal. There are no gun killings without gun factories.

If you want to keep single-shot hunting rifles and bird-shot shotgun ammunition, fine. Every other handgun, high-powered rifle, automatic weapon and ammunition should be banned and the factories strictly controlled. It is time to make our country and the rest of the world a safer place by ending the weapon industry. It is time to grow up and say that making money is less important than saving lives.

A hundred years ago, if you got sick or injured there was not a whole you or anyone else could do about it. Lots of people died.

Today we have a treatment for almost any illness, from cancer to impotence. Today we have a different problem: we have to make decisions.

Will you get the treatment?
Who will pay for it?
How much will you spend?

Looking at our waistlines, it is pretty obvious that we are not very good at making difficult decisions and sticking with them.

Which is a big part of our healthcare "problem" today and why I am so doubtful that Congress and President will do anything of consequence about it. Our "solutions" are almost always the lowest cost, easiest short-term thing to do, whether or not they actually fix the problem or cost more in the end.

This week's story on This American Life is a must-hear for anyone interested in our current health care discussion.

As I listened to the historical segment, I realized that I have heard reports on the health system in other countries but I have never heard anyone report on where our system came from.

Other countries seems to have a system with a coherent goal: cover everyone.

Who is the genius architect behind the most advanced, most expensive, and most inconsistent system in the world?

It turns out that the answer is no one. Our system was never designed; it grew out of a few seemingly unrelated decisions and a lot of individuals pursuing their own profit. In other words, no one ever made the tough decisions to design a comprehensive system with a cohesive goal.

That is why the system we live with is so frustrating.

That is also why it seems so unlikely that anyone now will redesign it into something with a coherent, logical strategy.

Eventually we will simply run out of money. People with solvent health care coverage will get treatment. Everyone else will do it the way it was a hundred years ago.

392: Someone Else's Money

10.16.2009

This week, we bring you a deeper look inside the health insurance industry. The dark side of prescription drug coupons. A story about Pet Health Insurance, which is in its infancy, and how it is changing human behaviors—for example, if you have the pet health insurance, you bring your pet to the vet more often, and the vet makes more money and...well, you can see the parallels. And insurance company jargon, frighteningly decoded.

Prologue.
Host Ira Glass describes the crazy world of medical billing, where armies of coders use several contradictory different systems of codes...and none of it makes us healthier. (5 minutes)

Act One. One Pill Two Pill, Red Pill Blue Pill.

Planet Money's Chana Joffe-Walt explains why prescription drug coupons could actually be increasing how much we pay, and prevent us from even telling how much drugs cost. (13 1/2 minutes)

Act Two. Let's Take Your Medical History.

Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson recount how four accidental steps led to enacting the very questionable system of employers paying for health care. (11 1/2 minutes)

Act Three. Insurance? Ruh Roh!

Planet Money correspondent David Kestenbaum investigates the growing popularity of pet insurance, and what it reveals about insurance for people. (14 minutes )

Act Four. Sorry Johnny... It's Only Business.

This American Life producer Sarah Koenig reports on a very surprising reason why insurance companies dump members, and how this reasoning contradicts President Obama's argument for what will lower health care costs. (11 1/2 minutes)

Every day I drive myself to work. Its about a 15 mile round trip. As I sit in traffic and at lights, I look at the other, newer cars longingly.

You see, I am cursed. In 1996, when I bought my last new car, I chose a Toyota. 12 years and 100,000 miles later, I have the same car. And there is nothing wrong with it. All I do to it is oil changes and routine maintenance, and it runs tirelessly for me. Unlike our VW, which needs a repair and/or a recall every year we have had it, the Toyota is simple but flawless.

Which is to say, I have no real argument for getting a new car. Mine still runs fine. There are conveniences it doesnt have but those are, well, conveniences not necessities. The only significant problem with it is that it does not have the LATCH system for child seats. Something that has only recently become an issue.

All the same, I periodically dream and shop for a new car. But even that has become increasingly hard to do.

If you have read my blog, you already know that I think science is real and so is global climate change. Pollution from billions of human beings is affecting the planet and those changes are enormous.

As the years have gone by, I have found it increasingly unconscionable to buy a car that gets less than 25 MPG. On some days I think traditional cars at all are a crime but even I am not at the point of giving up my personal transportation.

So I look at fancy new cars from BMW and VW and Audi and Lexus. I check out the stats and prices and then I get to the MPG...

18 MPG? That is a crime.

My Toyota from a decade ago gets 25. Even if I had the money, I dont think I could allow myself to purchase a new luxury car because of the MPG. Cars have gotten too darn heavy. It makes me angry.

Then I start to think about what my alternatives are and I get even more angry. As a kid, I watched the Jetson's skim around in flying cars. This is a new millennia and we still have two basic choices: car or motorcycle using gasoline or diesel fuel.

Go to KBB.com and you will see 10 categories of cars. That is it. All cars fit into 10 buckets. Pick any car and you will then find 3 or 4 vehicles that are virtually identical. Capitalism has brought us superficial choices in brand, color, style but no real choice.

Where are the 1-person vehicles that fit between a motorcycle and car? Where are the funky, space-ship vehicles? The alternative fuel vehicles? The plug-in electric vehicles?

Where is the fucking human ingenuity? Where are vehicles like this?

What we have is the confluence of capitalism and manufacturing to produce the most similar, cost effect vehicles for the market.
What we dont have is any real choice or anything that deals with global climate change.

The more I think about it the more it annoys me. I want a $15,000 emission-free vehicle for my 15 miles commute. Where is it?

A hint comes in recent articles like this one.

Debate Arises on 3 Wheeler

By STEPHEN POWER

Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON -- Is a three-wheeled vehicle an automobile? That question is at the center of a vigorous lobbying effort in Washington.

The vehicle in question is the Aptera 2e, a machine that looks like a cross between a Cessna plane and a tricycle. It's the brainchild of Aptera Motors Inc., a three-year-old, closely held car company in Vista, Calif.

The DOE ruled last year that the electric 2e didn't qualify under the $25 billion loan program. A three-wheeled vehicle doesn't meet the definition of an automobile under federal law as being "any 4-wheeled vehicle," according to a letter to Aptera last December from Lachlan Seward, the loan program's director.

The government set aside research money for alternate fuel vehicles but the law is written is such a way that only traditional incompetents like GM can get the money. Even when we throw money at a problem, we do so in a way that prevents any real change.

I know things will get worse and change will come. But I am tired of waiting.

This health care "debate", which is not much of a debate, has me pulling my hair out in frustration.

The hardest part about living in the US is the other people living in the US. How many times have I just wanted to live in a place with other people that agree with me...

But that is how everyone feels and that is not how it works. We are all in this together. For better or for worse.

I have had many thoughts on health care over the past few weeks. Will try to trickle them out as individual posts.

Sometimes I just shake my head and wonder what kind of country this is.

Our last President disregarded our intelligence agencies allowing 9/11 to happen, invaded no less than two countries, told us to fear weapons of mass destruction, flaunted the bill of rights and the Constitution, imprisoned and tortured people, (including many that were proven innocent)...

All that mayhem and yet when he spoke to the nation and Congress, politicians let him speak. Even when we believed he was lying, and some probably knew he was lying, we let him speak.

He was the president. The office of the Presidency deserves our respect even if we detest the man...

Then we have last night. While the current President was giving a speech on health insurance, one of our finest leaders shouted out, calling the President a liar.

After all we have been through, what topic was so extreme that it moved Rep. Wilson to this disrespectful outburst? The issues with President Bush were life and death, literally, and we kept our peace. The topic last night?

Insurance. Illegal immigrants.

I had to stop and think about all this. We don't have have the House of Lords. Calling the President a liar is something significant here.

But I cannot make up my mind.

Should I be more angry that Democrats were unwilling to speak out against the voice of tyranny when Bush was making life and death decisions that would affect millions of human beings?

Or should I be upset with Wilson. After being silent for serious issues, here comes this idiot shouting about insurance and the men and women that pick our food and butcher the meat we eat in hamburgers.

I guess I am upset about both.

I cannot change the past nor can I seem to understand what makes some Republican minds do what they do.

• Does Wilson disrespect the office of the President?
• Does he disrespect a black man as president?
• Is he in a panic about the Republican party's lack of reason or values?
• Or maybe he really is just that passionate about insurance?

I think Wilson should be censured but I dont expect that to happen.

What I do expect is our problems to get worse and the level of hysteria and irrational behavior to increase.

With the birth certificate issue and some of these bills, we have already seen politicians and some media outlets perpetuate known falsehoods as if they were true. And this past week I heard another fine member of Congress state: "Only God can change the climate, not Al Gore."

It is like the US is dividing into the actual country and some parallel universe of denial. I guess the Colbert Report wont run out of jokes any time soon.

Well there is something you didnt see during 8 years of the Bush administration...

UBS to Give 4,450 Names to U.S.

Tax-Evasion Pact May Disclose 10,000 Clients; Swiss Government Selling Stake

By CARRICK MOLLENKAMP, LAURA SAUNDERS and EVAN PEREZ

Wall Street Journal

The U.S. could within months begin criminally prosecuting hundreds of wealthy Americans -- from the obscure to the "rich and famous" -- for using foreign bank accounts to evade income taxes.

In a settlement with the Swiss government detailed Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service said Swiss bank UBS AG will ultimately turn over the identities behind 4,450 secret accounts.

At least $10 billion had been stashed to avoid payment of U.S. taxes or the disclosure of foreign accounts, according to a person familiar with the matter. The U.S. government investigation and settlement ultimately could produce some 10,000 account identities.

Republicans are always quick to say that we dont need new laws, we just need to enforce the laws we have. And sometimes that is a very true statement,

Although this crackdown on tax evaders started in the last administration, I am thrilled to see the Obama administration enforcing our laws to make the wealthiest American's pay the taxes they owe. I pay my taxes every year. It is un-American to let the wealthiest flaunt our laws and make a mockery of our country.

Just finished watching the Kingdom.

"The Kingdom [Blu-ray]" (Peter Berg)

I cant believe no one told me about this movie. This was the best movie I have seen a long, long time.

Totally on edge with excitement the entire time. At any moment, you expected to be attacked. The sense of suspense was exhausting.

But it was the script that made this a good movie. Possibly the only movie I have ever seen that gave a realistic portrayal of the Middle East. You get a real sense that Arabs are caught up in the violence just like everyone else.

This is not some "use against them" John Wayne movie where we go over there with our guns and "smoke 'em out". These are real people trying to live their lives just like we are and they are caught up in something uncontrollable. The militant Islamic movement is like a civil war where you dont know who is one what side. Terrifying.

The movie also did a great job of focusing on the children and the cycle of violence. Children that suffer from violence and grow up in a world of violence, grow up to perpetuate that same violence. The combination of bombs, killing, guns and families is hard to watch and harder to forget.

This movie was the news come to life. It was real people. And it was real scary. No ridiculous Hollywood feel-good movie here. This was an unforgettable portrayal of the world we have created for ourselves.

There are few things I enjoy as much as seeing a hypocrite uncovered, especially if said hypocrite is a senior public figure.

So I have enjoyed Governor Sanford's fall. At least at first.

When he says things like "this is a forbidden love", I wonder what planet he is from. Forbidden love? Divorce your wife - problem solved.

But when he went on about how this is the first person he has ever been honest with, how much he values being able to talk to someone truthfully... well then I started to feel bad. This guy is pathetic.

He clearly does not have any friends, including his wife. Fame, money and power are nice but if you dont know a single person you can be honest with about your feelings, I call you a poor man indeed.

Governor, if you need to fly to South America to have a friend, I would suggest that you have made some serious mistakes in your life and surrounded yourself with the wrong people.

Pathetic. Worthy of our pity...

Everyone seems to agree that the Bush Administration dropped the ball in Afghanistan. They started a war that they did not finish.

But I have been thinking about parts of the Band of Brothers movie. The parts where the men are out of supply, out of food and ammo, literally freezing to death.

The thing is, modern fighting takes a lot of resources. You cant work a job or grow food while you are fighting so someone else has to. Someone has to provide food, guns, ammunition. A lot of it.

For example, Israel is able to maintain their state of war against the Palestinians because of aid from the US. The palestinians survive and struggle because of aid from other countries smuggled through Egypt.

So with all the recent attention on fighting in Afghanistan, I keep asking myself: Who the fuck is arming the Taliban? If this is such a rugged, barren wasteland, how the hell are these religious nuts able to continue fighting the most expensive army in the world? I just dont get it.

When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, the US smuggled in weapons and supplies to fight them. Are they returning the favor now? I have not seen a single news article that probes this issue.

If you cut off the supplies, you end the war. What is the hold up?

I suspect the problem involves the lawlessness that is Pakistan and also the financial appeal of the weapon industry. There is a lot of money to be made selling guns. If the Mexican drug cartels are buying their guns in the USA, it stands to reason that it is pretty easy for the Taliban to resupply which again points to a larger, unreported issue.

Maybe we arent fighting Afghanistan so much as we are fighting our own economic system and the military-industrial complex we created.

If that is true, it is some nice symbolism.

The News Hour today had a story on the Pope's visit to Jerusalem.

1.2B Christians
1.6B Muslims

Wow. First off, that is a lot of people.

Second, living in a Christian nation like the USA, I had no idea there were more muslims than christians in the world.

Another example of how data (numbers) tell a different story from the one you think you know.

It has been years since we invaded Iraq and used the military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to hold prisoners. A long time but now we have a new president and we are finally getting some clarity on the Bush Administration's use of torture.

Will this period of time be our Nazi moment? A period when we treated people as less than human and justified that behavior to ourselves as necessary for our nation? Everyone knows that the Nazi's were evil and we would never do anything like they did...

Time will tell.

Time will also tell how many American's are even capable of understanding the question and its importance to the rule of law and our national ethics.

Probes of Bush Officials Loom

Obama Opens Door to Prosecuting Interrogation Architects; Republicans Rip Comments

By JONATHAN WEISMAN

Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama raised the possibility of prosecuting Bush administration lawyers who approved so-called enhanced interrogation techniques on terror suspects.

Mr. Obama, speaking to reporters Tuesday in the Oval Office, also laid out the parameters for a bipartisan commission to examine government tactics used in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, although he was careful to say he wasn't endorsing such a panel.

Every so often I take a few minutes of quiet reflection to try and understand what other people are thinking. This morning I heard a news story and had one of those moments.

The story was about the great lengths government goes to to make sure that people do not get benefits they are not entitled to. Benefits like health insurance for children or food stamps for the hungry or job training.

In the story a person talked about how we could instead take all the money we spend on making sure people dont get these benefits and use that money instead to pay for more benefits. That kind of seems like common sense to me as well as the Christian thing to do but it got me thinking.

There are a LOT of Americans who are passionate about this idea that other people are getting something for free. These people clearly feel strongly about this issue. They are ANGRY about this notion of free loaders. How dare those poor kids get health insurance if their parents dont deserve it!

I just dont understand this sentiment or where it comes from but this idea that others are getting something they arent entitled to shows up all the time on various topics. It is clearly a strong and motivating force in the American electorate. Why? What is at the root of it? Is there a legitimate source for something that seems to me like pure hateful selfishness?

I would also ask why this anger is so focused on the poorest and least able of our countrymen and so little of it is focused on the richest corporations and the wealthiest citizens? Enron can have tax breaks, the wealthiest can pass on inheritance without taxes but woe to the Mexican child in public school. We need to find those kids and get 'em!

Yeah, I see the anger but I just dont get it.

I think this issue also shows up with those silly tea party things last week. No one wants to pay taxes while everyone thinks other people are paying less than they are.

We should have nice streets and stable electricity and bridges but we shouldnt have to actually pay for them. Likewise we should have public schools but we dont want any of the wrong "public" to attend them and we certainly dont want to pay taxes to operate them.

Somehow the "government" is just wasting all this money. If the government wasnt so "massive" we wouldn't have to pay taxes and there would be money for everything.

Maybe these are different issues but again one way to phrase the issue is this idea that I am not getting what I deserve while other people are getting more than they deserve. It is emotional. It is angry. But is there any truth to it or is it just the simplest thing to think when unencumbered by any facts?

I dont understand what people are thinking but I can see why are country is falling apart. We have lost the idea that we are helping each other, striving for a common America.

What's going on? I thought the "world government" was totally toothless and ineffective? I thought the rich lived by their own rules?

Well there is still time for both to be true but I was surprised to read that this Swiss tax issue continues to escalate. Suddenly the G20 is considering blacklisting Switzerland as a tax haven... and the Swiss are "reconsidering" their privacy laws, in particular the line between tax evasion and tax fraud.

Hmmm.

Swiss to Review Banking Secrecy Laws

By DAVID CRAWFORD

MARCH 7, 2009

Wall Street Journal

Switzerland's government on Friday gave a panel two weeks to advise on whether the country should loosen its banking laws to allow the release of information on tax evaders to foreign governments.

On Sunday, French president Nicolas Sarkozy said the G-20 could put Switzerland on a planned blacklist of tax-haven nations.

Swiss officials say their government has not been invited to the summit, which will broadly discuss how to reform the international financial system, despite its role as an international financial center and regulator of some of the world's biggest banks. The G-20 represents a selection of industrialized and developing countries from all continents, plus the European Union. Switzerland is not a member.

Mr. Merz said his country had three choices: to keep its bank secrecy laws as they are; to abolish them; or to adapt them as the situation requires. The cabinet chose the third option, he said.

The panel is likely to look at whether Switzerland's banks should change their rules on client confidentiality. Swiss law defines tax evasion as a civil, rather than a criminal offense. That protects depositors from scrutiny, because the country's banking rules say that bank data can be provided to foreign governments only in criminal cases.

It's this distinction between tax evasion and tax fraud that the expert commission set up Friday is tasked to review. Any decisions prompted by the panel, whose deliverations will be confidential, would be taken made by the Swiss cabinet.

I dont normally read Peggy Noonan's articles because, well, because of the idiotic things she says but her op-ed today caught my eye. Three quarters of it is so dead on, I cant understand how she derailed it with her conclusion.

The article is about the crash of a Navy plane in San Diego last December. The fighter plane crashed into a neighborhood and killed an entire Korean family - mother, grandmother, and two small children.

The article is about how the Marine Corp (during the Obama Presidency) handled the investigation and how they stood up and took accountability. The article is about how rare such a thing has been, (for the past 8 years).

It is a great, poignant article up until the end when Noonan tries to turn it into an attack on Obama. Its worth a read until Noonan tries to make a point.

Is this "new math" or something?

Considering how much we hang on economic indicators, it is pretty shocking how imprecise they seem.

The Federal government produces numbers like the unemployment rate with computer systems that predate the Internet. Economists have complained about how inflexible the system is but no administration has been willing to fund improvements.

Over the past few years I began to believe that a crappy system suits presidents just fine. They can release incorrect numbers on time and then quietly revise them a month or two later. Being accurate is not nearly as important as being on message.

Which is pretty much what we saw Friday with the GDP numbers. Originally stated by the Bush administration as a 3.8% drop but now we hear the number is actually 6.2%. A nice hefty mistake but par for the course. For years, the Bush administration revised their own numbers downward with metamucil regularity.

And then we have this wonderful graph. More importantly we have the new President saying that he wants to include all government spending in the budget. What?

I dont know the details (and they probably wont change this graph much) but it appears that the Bush Administration was able to pull a little legal trick and hide the Iraq war. By funding the war as a "supplemental" budget and not "the" budget, it does not show up as part of the Federal budget.

I still cant get my common-sense head around how that could happen. How dumb are we?

Government spending should be government spending now matter how many bills or earmarks there are but I guess I dont know much about Washington politics. If nothing else, you have to give the Bush administration credit for being masters of our political system and using every trick in the book.

I very clearly remember Bush telling us the war would be free (paid for by Iraqi oil) and I remember when they fired the guy who said it would cost $100B. I cannot wait to see the new numbers which nonpartisan estimates put at $1T to $2T when you include healthcare. Maybe that is why the Bush administration kept VA funding so disgracefully low...

Anyway, like our crumbling road infrastructure, it is time we invested some money in our economic infrastructure. New computers for measuring economic measures and the power of websites to shine some light on Federal spending. You would think those would have been goals of "small government" Republicans but maybe that Obama guy will actually do something about it.

God damn! So THAT is what a President sounds like!?

What an incredible speech President Obama gave last night. I kept jumping up and down (inside) and shouting "Yes we CAN! Yes we CAN".

I found myself thinking about that last guy. What the hell did he ever talk about? All I can remember is that he was going to foster a sense of bi-partisanship in Washington DC and he was going to stop drugs in sports. Based on all the hoopla about A-rod last week, it seems he couldnt even get that one right.

Ive been critical of Obama both before and after the election but it was hard to find fault in that speech. He addressed so many huge issues and conveyed the sense that we could do better, that America could do better. I got caught up in the moment and the moment was awesome.

Then that Republican guy came on the radio. Based on his state and his thick Southern drawl, I pictured some fat, white, good-ole' boy whose jowls shake as he tries to explain the gospel of the far-Right.

His words were the same-old, same-old BS about being fiscally responsible and saving the day by cutting taxes. No surprises and no common sense.

Imagine my surprise when I walked into the other room and looked at the TV. Who stole my American and put a foreigner in his place? Holy cow. That accent and that face just dont go together, they are like matter and anti-matter. So bizarre.

Wait a minute, what the hell? The Republican party criticized Obama for being a "foreigner" and possibly even a terrorist. The Republican part fought immigration reform and continuously alleges that immigrants are coming over to this country to steal jobs and drop off babies that then steal our education and health care. The Republicans insisted we spend millions of dollars on a stupid wall to keep color'ds out...

And then here is this Indian-American governor?! A guy who was conceived in another country and only arrived here to be born. His parents sucked up our jobs while he sucked up our good Southern education. Not only is he telling us this stuff but he acts proud of it? Apparently Hell is still frozen over from the election...

Has everyone got amnesia? Am I the only person that saw the unimaginable irony of this choice? So strange.

All joking aside, my takeaway is that the country is entering a new phase. For me that is a welcome change from the last phase even though strong vestiges of the last phase stubbornly linger on.

Both speakers represented minorities. The country elected a black man. The Republican Party seemed to conclude that they needed so much change, they too elected a black man to chair the party and then chose a 1st generation American from India to deliver the speech. These are huge changes for us as a nation.

But the biggest changes were in the speech itself. The President's speech was all about being honest about our problems, facing our gigantic debts, and making changes, dare I say sacrifices, to make things better.

After years of hearing the White House say one thing and do another, in secret usually, perhaps this is just more of that. But at least the things Obama talked about were new. Like how we love our troops AND we are going to pay them more and give them better health care. So if the talk was new, maybe the action that follows will be new too.

But today is a new day and the reality of the challenges we face as a country are daunting. It is one thing to get excited at a speech and quite another thing to sit through the long, slow months and years of the journey. I am just thankful that we at long last appear to be heading in the right direction.

Apparently former vice-president Dick Cheney is out there making public criticisms of the Obama administration.

It seems odd. I thought former Presidents and VP's went out of their way to be gracious towards their replacements...

But there are a lot odd things about Cheney.

He is concerned about how Obama treats suspected terrorists? I appreciate Cheney's concern but I wish he had been concerned about this issue BEFORE 9/11 - when he was warned by the Clinton administration about Osama and a pending attack on the US. I wish Cheney had been concerned when it could have prevented the 9/11 attacks.

I now think that failure is what changed Cheney. He more than anyone else knows that he failed to stop 9/11. He knows that American's died because he dropped the ball. Because he refused to listen to Richard Clark and Clinton's counter-terrorism experts.

People that knew Cheney say he is a changed man. I imagine that guilt is tearing him up inside. I imagine its that guilt that changed him and made him see the whole world as terrorists out to get us.

We never see the whole story but at the end of the day, we are all people with feelings and faults like everyone else. I dont forgive him but I guess it makes him easier to understand.

Let's be clear: We can't expect relief from the tired old theories that, in eight short years, doubled the national debt, threw our economy into a tailspin, and led us into this mess in the first place. We can't rely on a losing formula that offers only tax cuts as the answer to all our problems while ignoring our fundamental economic challenges – the crushing cost of health care or the inadequate state of so many schools; our addiction to foreign oil or our crumbling roads, bridges, and levees.

Oh wait... Did say that?

No the President of the United States said it!! Dang.

That quote was from a speech he gave over the weekend. Today I listened to a very long press conference he held. It's a bit weird.

First off, I can barely remember a press conference the previous President gave let alone one in the first month.

Most importantly, Obama sounds fucking smart. He sounded like he personally knew what the hell he was talking about and he was talking about good common sense. I honestly dont remember any President talking like that (except recent interviews with Jimmy Carter). No wishy-washy political BS. Simply amazing.

I am still quite doubtful about the TARP, the bailout and the new stimulus plan but so far I am very impressed with the President himself. I just hope he knows what he is doing...

Cleaning up my office a bit and looking at WSJ articles I clipped over the past month... As I read the comments from readers on their website I find it most depressing.

It would be so nice to live in a place where people agreed and we could come together to face our challenges. We have a LOT of challenges to face.

Instead I read that the current economic problems were not Bush's fault - they were created by Pres. Clinton and Democrats who pushed government funded housing.

Instead I read that "Limousine Liberals" have created an environmental crisis fantasy -- all we need is more cheap gasoline from the Middle East and maybe some coal for good old USA.

Instead I read that the Justice Department under Bush was doing great things -- the real problem was Justice under Janet Reno and Pres Clinton.

Even as so many people are excited about Obama we are such a nation divided. When I think of the great things we could do if we were united, I find these comments from fellow American's profoundly disappointing.

But perhaps that is just the way it is and it is my own fantasy that people can get along in harmony. Perhaps leadership has always been a painful, traumatic thing where some people have to suffer, have to be forced, so that others can benefit.

If so, I hope we have strong leaders now. If so, I find myself with mixed feelings about hate, forgiveness, compassion, and wisdom. If so, I still dont know what to make of all those people who seem so passionately misguided.

I am sorry Sen. Cornyn. You see we cannot appoint you to office until we question you about your wife's affairs. It has come to our attention that your wife works with a charity. We need to ascertain that donating to your wife's charity does not buy your vote...

Oh brother.

Sen Cornyn has blocked the appointment of Sen. Clinton until he gets to yammer on for three hours about how we cannot trust Sen. Clinton because of her spouse. Apparently women dont make up their own minds; their husband's do it for them.

Adding insult to injury, her spouse is a fucking former US President! And we just ended 12 years with Presidents who were congenitally joined at the hip with Arab oil princes not to mention the Vice President's ties to military contractors.

Frankly, it is more than oh brother, it is offensive. I was really hoping to see the first female president but it is clear that there are many Americans out there who cannot conceive of women as independent individuals themselves. Until we respect our daughters as much as we respect our sons, these situations will continue.

Senate Action Expected on Clinton

By COREY BOLES and PATRICK YOEST

Wall Street Journal

JANUARY 21, 2009

A vote to confirm Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, whose confirmation was blocked Tuesday by Republican John Cornyn of Texas, is expected Wednesday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said on the floor of the Senate that he had reached an agreement with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) that there would be three hours of debate on Sen. Clinton's appointment, followed by an expected move to confirm.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn put a hold on Sen. Clinton's confirmation vote, citing continuing concerns he has about potential foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation, the charity run by former President Bill Clinton.

Tonight I saw the face of evil. Dick Cheney left his undisclosed location and did an interview with Public Television. When I see Cheney, I just wish I could express in words how much damage he has caused and I wish I could understand why people I know supported him.

Several hundred thousand Iraqi's are dead because of our invasion. Was it worth it? "Yes it was." Easy for us to say. If a hundred thousand US soldiers had died, I dont think we would still be in Iraq.

What achievements are you proud of? "We prevented another 9/11-type attack on the USA." Really? What about dropping the ball after taking office, ignoring the intelligence warnings from Richard Clark and then allowing 9/11 in the first place? Amazingly, Cheney went on to say that "previous administrations" had dropped the ball and it was up to them to lead the intelligence gathering in the war on terror.

The US is now experiencing the worst economy since the great depression. Could you have seen it coming and done anything about it? "No, you couldnt see it coming. And our tax credits worked very well. The current problems are a global one and outside of our influence."

You have talked about how you reacted after the fact but isnt it the president's job to see these problems coming and avert them? "No." Hmm, I guess that is why they gutted all of the government's regulatory and oversight agencies and appointed rich or religious leaders.

If you can stomach it, this was a very good interview. After 8 years, reporters are finally asking decent questions. Too bad reporters have acted after the fact rather than helping us avoid this leadership crisis.

It is times like this when I feel there is no justice in the world.

A few weeks ago, I started to think about Presidential pardons. It is the kind of thing one hears about at the end of a President's term. This President has had more of a reign of terror than a term so I was expecting a massive wave of pardons.

Then I realized that you cannot pardon someone until you have actually charged and convicted them. By ignoring their own crimes, I guess Bush wont be able to pardon anyone.

Then I read this article.

"pre-emptive clemency"? Just when you think they couldn't stoop any lower, they do.

The puzzling part is that Bush isn't going to do it. Maybe they are true-believers, going to head up to the stand and profess their innocence the way Sen. Ted Stevens did.

I cant wait.

Sweeping Pardons 'Unnecessary'

White House Is Disinclined to Grant Clemency to Officials Involved in Terror Policies

By EVAN PEREZ

Wall Street Journal

November 25, 2008

WASHINGTON -- The White House isn't inclined to grant sweeping pardons for former administration officials involved in harsh interrogations and detentions of terror suspects, according to people familiar with the situation.

Some Republicans have been pushing for President George W. Bush to grant pre-emptive clemency to officials who fear being investigated by Democratic critics. White House officials have countered that such pardons are unnecessary, these people say. The officials point to Justice Department legal opinions that supported the administration's methods of detaining and interrogating terror suspects.

Some former Bush administration officials have argued against a blanket pardon for post-9/11 activities, saying it would be tantamount to an admission that the Bush policies weren't legal.

People familiar with the matter cautioned that the White House's position is still being formulated and may change. If Mr. Bush does hold off, it would leave the matter in the hands of President-elect Barack Obama.

Mr. Obama has said he wants quick closure of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and transition officials have indicated there may be a commission established to study Bush-era terror policies. One criminal investigation is already under way: a Justice Department probe into the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes.

As I was catching up on the newspapers this weekend, I had my first smile in a long time. After years of watching the Bush administration ruin our country, I got my first glimmer that positive changes are happening and more might be possible.

the final days of Bush

Before the smiles though, there are a few frowns. News of Bush's actions in his final days continues to roll out. In the past week he is slipping in more changes to let companies ruin the environment for their own profits and it came out that his administration halted investigations on environmental crimes like the BP oil spill in Alaska.

Historians will take years to tabulate all the damage Bush has done to our nation and our planet. Its too bad half the country continues to pretend that they didnt cause this by voting for him - twice.

climate change going mainstream

The economy is bad but the biggest problem facing humanity is climate change. Bush actively courted those that want to disbelieve. Global warming is a myth. Global warming is natural. Global warming will create beach resorts in Canada...

Well I hear that the Today Show is now showing the very visible signs of global warming around the world. No snow on Mt Kilimanjaro? A massive drought in Australia that is wiping out livestock? It isnt just about polar bears or penguins. I fully expect global climate change to kill billions of people within 20 years but if it is on the Today Show, that means the topic is going mainstream. Which means we might actually do something if we get leadership.

come back when you are serious, Detroit

The other bright spot is watching the auto industry get rebuffed. It is hard to watch banks, who created the current financial crisis, get bailed out with tax payer dollars but I definitely didn't want to see Detroit do the same. For decades American car companies have resisted change, continued to build gas-guzzlers that damage the environment and even fight any efforts to mandate better fuel efficiency or cleaner air. And the Democrats have supported them time and again because Democrat = labor unions.

Last week, Congress did not approve a bailout for the Big 3. Instead they complained that CEO's flew there in a private jet, acting like they were too big to fail and deserved a handout. Congress actually demanded that Detroit eat a little crow and come back with a real plan for change. I dont expect Detroit to change but I was shocked to see Congress have some semblance of a spine.

Even better, Rep John Dingell got fired. The auto industry and Ron Dingell have been instrumental in keeping our country from facing global warming. Hybrid cars and cleaner air may be good for the planet but they are bad for profits so these two have fought them.

In the same week, the CEO's got rejected and Dingell was replaced by Rep Henry Waxman - an unprecedented move in Congress. This is no guarantee of anything but it is a very visible sign that the Democrats are making changes. Maybe the next 4 years wont get bogged down in the same-old-same-old Democratic nonsense.

less Byrd

Update #1

I almost forgot that Mr Earmark himself, Sen Byrd, also left his comfy roost in the Senate. The 90-year old stepped down to be replaced by 84-year old Sen Inouye from Hawaii. Unlike Ted Steven, who finally left after losing an election and being convicted for being an old, greedy dumbass, Byrd's move was "voluntary" and perhaps a sign that Democrats are cleaning their own house a bit.

So it is encouraging to see the "youth" movement making changes and replacing people who were born during the great depression with folks born after.

the Obama Hangover

On a less practical but more personal note, I also got a smile from watching Obama do 180's on his campaign rhetoric.

Hillary Clinton was the one who argued that it takes experience to accomplish change in government. The Clintons learned in 1992 that ideas and youth were not enough but a new generation didnt want to hear that. The progressive movement that backed Obama wanted nothing to do with the Clinton's and Hillary lost the primary.

First Obama nominated Biden as a running mate - hardly a symbol of youth or change. And now he has appointed a cadre of Clinton administration folks AND Hillary Clinton to his cabinet. Ouch.

I dont think I ever wrote about it but several months ago I predicted an Obama Hangover. The Hangover will come when he fails to be the candidate he promised to be in the primaries. Just like Bill Clinton did.

The reality of ruling is much harder than making campaign promises. More importantly you can tell everyone what they want to hear but in the end, you can only deliver one path. Someone is going to be disappointed.

Which is all fine with me as long as I am not the one disappointed and I am most encouraged to see Obama appoint experienced people. His cabinet appears to be an all-star team of folks and that is just what we need after 8 years of complete incompetence. I will enjoy hearing the progressives complain about a bait & switch but I am also more hopeful than ever that good things may happen at a time when we really need a few good things to happen.

justice (not just convictions) served

update #2

I forgot about another sign of goodness that made me smile. The WSJ had a cover story about Craig Watkins, the DA in Dallas, TX.

It seems Mr Watkins had few political ties yet still won his office in 2006, after the Latino community discovered that the Dallas police had planted drug evidence on dozens of Mexican immigrants. Oops. It seems that police corruption is alive and well and not just found in movies about the past.

Not only was Watkins not hand-picked by the establishment, he went on to use DNA evidence to re-examine 400 previous convictions. Guess what happened? They started to find men in prison for crimes they did not do, including a guy on death row for 27 years. 27 years!

I have long been a supporter of the Innocence Project, so I was thrilled to see a DA work with them to make certain that the people we throw in jail are actually guilty. The death penalty is murder not justice if it is applied on an innocent man.

Similarly, I was shocked and pleased to hear that 400 detainees in Guantanamo, the biggest single blemish on the American justice system, have been freed. Pleased that they were freed but shocked that there were so many people there in the first place. Now that everyone who matters agrees that we need to close the prison, the discussion to can move on to what we do to/for those people that were imprisoned (and possibly tortured) unjustly.

Finally, the election is over.

Run for the hills Bush, they’re commin’ for you. And don’t think you can hide in a cave, cause they’re gonna’ smoke you out.

Speaking of smoke, if you see any on the horizon it is bound to be Cheney in his undisclosed location burning any documents of the last 8 years he can find.

All joking aside, the Bush/Cheney reign of terror is almost over. On the one hand, I am relieved. On the other, I am disappointed that it took this long. Doubly disappointed that the country wanted to impeach Clinton for lying about sex but didn’t touch Bush for starting 2 wars, lying to us about WMD’s, Katrina, $11T in debt, etc.

Speeches

I was impressed and touched by McCain’s speech. He is not perfect but I always like the Good McCain even as I disliked the Evil McCain that appeared after he lost in 2000. His choice of words was archaic which caught my attention. He was extremely gracious about Obama and talked a lot about supporting him because it was good for the country. He praised Obama’s achievement of being the first black President. He gave thanks for being allowed to run and for the blessings of his life. Im not sure I’ve heard any politician be so thankful for his life, especially one that just lost an election. Commentators said it was the old McCain talking. He seemed very presidential.

In contrast, Obama’s speech was a letdown. While McCain seemed almost happy to have lost, Obama seemed somber and flat. He had the rockstar crowd there but his actual speech didn’t do much for me and I have been trying to figure out why.

Much of the speech seemed to be paraphrased Martin Luther King and that bothered me. I was never and Obama fan but I voted for him because voting for the Republican party after the past 8 years would be criminal. I think Obama’s speech troubled me because it had too many messages. He tried to blend the racial achievement and the “fix the mess that Bush wrought” agenda and the combination didn’t do much for me.

Did he win because he is black? Many people assured me that Obama wasn’t where he is because he is black; Jeraldine Ferraro lost her job for saying he was. The crowd photos last night and the media rhetoric that has followed were clearly about him being black. The first black President. On the one hand that is a great accomplishment and I can understand why African Americans are proud and emotional about it. But Im not black and the First Black President feels like a private achievement for the black community.

I didn’t vote for him because of his race. I don’t want to talk about race because race is not our most pressing problem. I don’t want to see too many racial victory laps because it implies that is why people voted for him. In a way, it also seems too personal; a private matter for one of our nation’s many minorities. Obama himself tried hard to avoid talking about race during the election and he was never a civil rights leader. Obama is an ideal person to talk about race but it brings up too many messy issues so they avoided it in the campaign just as I have avoided writing about it.

I think it is very sad that so many people in our country still hate their fellow citizens because of their race. I think it is shameful that people could listen to Colin Powell’s speech and discount it with the excuse that he only voted for Obama because he is black. Americans are way too hung up on issues of race (and sex) but I am fearful that issues of race will only complicate the next 4 years and take time away from larger problems that don’t reflect our skin color.

I voted for Obama because I am eager to see someone in our government get back to responsible stewardship of our country. I hope we move on to that quickly.

49/51

Obama won but it continues to trouble me that the nation is still so divided.

This was the election of “anybody but Bush”. Democrats AND Republicans ran on that same platform.

McCain was a maverick for decades before he tried to ingratiate himself with the new Republican base for the past 8 years. He was also so weak he barely made to the nomination. But as the country disintegrated, even the Republican party recognized they needed someone who wasn’t Bush and McCain’s stock rose. But McCain was always a weak candidate. As a Maverick he was never the heart of the party; always an outsider. He was never strong enough to take his party by the neck and shake it into something new. But even limping to the finish line, he might have won if the economy hadn’t melted down just before the election. Even as a twisted form of his former maverick self, he got half the public vote.

Political pundits are praising the accomplishment of Obama that he got 50% of the popular vote. To me that only means that more than half the country didn’t vote for him. It’s hard for me to see that as a mandate.

It astonishes me that the Republican party still exists after the last 8 years but they are still getting almost half the vote. The wars, the unwinding of government agencies, the financial meltdown, the $11T debt – Republicans don’t see themselves as having done anything wrong. Last week Newt Gingrinch said “We don’t have a free market if its only free market on the way up and socialism on the way down. What did these executives get millions of dollars in pay for it their companies need a tax-payer bailout?” and yet half the country is still voting Republican.

The election is finally over but we still seem very divided. A lot of people voted for "change" but it was never clear to me what exactly that change was. I feel fairly confident that we all wanted a different type of change and those differences will soon come to the fore.

If we want to see real change, Obama has to pull the Democratic party together behind a single vision and he has to get the Republican party to join in. The election is over and I find myself wondering if we will make any lasting progress if people still think of themselves first and half the country sees medicine as poison. To his credit, Obama did talk about the challenges ahead and how we need to pull together. I wonder how many of the people that need to listen will.

I've been watching both national conventions for the presidential election. I have a lot of thoughts about the experience but mostly Im struck by what a strange, almost surreal experience this particular election is. Instead of a series of well written posts, you get one long blurp. Sorry.

what's the point?

What exactly are these conventions? Are they serious business? Are they entertainment? Perhaps infotainment?

And what about the election itself? Is it a job interview or a popularity contest?

Maybe they are all of the above but they sure seem more like popularity contests. Tell me the last interview you were in where they wanted to see photos of your wife and kids, over and over and over?

pick a side, either side

The election and the conversations I have been having about it are a reminder of what I hate most about our political system -- the two-party system. Even though we share a single country, our two-party system brings out the worst in people. An irrational and exuberant passion for one side and a palpable hate for the other side.

Our elections boil down to one thing: our team and the other team. In any issue, there are only 2 choices (as Bush has told us for 8 years). We are the winners; they are the losers. We love our country; they hate our country. We understand each other; they dont understand us. Etc and ad naseum. Year after year, election after election I see the same thing.

The two-party system is so stable because of our tribal allegiance. The last 8 years have a been a total disaster on many levels but the folks that voted for Bush are able to overlook that with a lot of mental jujitsu. The facts, any facts, seem irrelevant in the face our party membership. For whatever initial reason, we choose a party and we stick with it. In the abstract, it is fascinating. Clinton was impeached for having sex while Bush starts a war, ruins the economy and bankrupts the treasury without a peep from the people...

I personally dont care a whit for either party or for the elections themselves. I dont have a red, white and blue hat or any buttons. I can understand why people enjoy the pomp and circumstance of the parties and the contest but at the end of the day, all I care about is the laws that get passed and the laws that dont get passed by the President and Congress. At the end of the day, all I care about is the act of governance and those acts seem to get lost in the contest itself. After all, the contest is about winners and losers and not about the country.

People get so caught up in the game and winning the game they lose sight of the question of whether they should even be playing the game. And it gets even more ironic when people in the game are complaining about how corrupt and terrible the game is, and how only they can fix it.

But dont try to have that conversation with anyone that is passionate about their party or the election or "taking back the White House". They wont want to hear it and probably cannot.

been there, done that

The other thing about this election I have noticed is the call for change. Every 8 to 12 years, there is another strong movement for "change". We are disgusted with politics as usual so we engage in the usual politics to get someone "new" only to find the same results - disgust and a desire for change. Things actually do change quite a bit but the feeling that things are going wrong and we need a change seemingly springs eternal.

In 1980, we got Reagan. In 1992, we got Clinton. In 2000, we got Bush (arguably the worst president ever) and now we get someone new.

I think the 12 year number is significant because it is close to a generation. If you are 18 today, you were 2 years old when Clinton was elected. That is a lifetime. That is history. Every generation bubbles over with hope and enthusiasm and runs dry on experience or hindsight.

I find it very hard to get excited about the Democrat hope & change message because Ive heard the same message so many times before. Even Bush understands, fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, ahhh.... something or other.

the complexity of simple things

The problem with simple solutions is that almost every topic you find is more complex than you think it is. Once you learn about it, get involved in it, you become aware of all the nuance and issues involved. To an ignorant man, every question is easy.

If politics was easy, it wouldnt be so f'd up. If running a country was easy, there wouldn't be so many f'd up countries. Logic and experience suggest that its not as easy as it looks.

The problem with the Democrats taking back the White House and fixing everything is that Democrats had an even hand in fucking things up to begin with.

Bush is a disaster; Cheney is a monster. Removing them and their cronies will have a palpable improvement in Washington but I doubt it will look like much to normal people because we dont understand how things work anyway.

Food magically appears in the grocery store. I get cold water when I turn on the faucet and anything I flush down the toilette disappears into nothingness forever. The details are beyond me and as long as someone else takes care of it for me, they can stay that way.

Both parties are calling for "fixing Washington" and have been most of my life. You will excuse me if I dont hold my breath waiting for it. There are no easy fixes and as a county, and we have lost the will for hard fixes or hard truths.

the only popular rebel is a dead one

And maybe that is what I admire about McCain. The idea that he can handle the hard truth and give me the straight talk. Of course the whole message is a marketing fabrication but at least it is an idea I can relate to. (And a much better idea than promising to repair the middle class. *cough*) I suspect part of the weirdness is that he delivers on that idea more than almost any other politician.

The first rule of politics is to give the people what they want, even if it is a lie. The fact that McCain is able to surprise anyone makes it something of a marvel that he has survived in politics this long. I didnt think Obama would pick Joe Biden (TWO east-coast, ivy-league, liberal elites?) but picking Palin was a surprise.

Frankly I was getting pretty sick of the Democratic message that McCain is Bush-lite. Given the rancor of the 1999 election (which a lot people conveniently forgot), I found it distasteful but McCain came to my rescue. Instead of playing it safe, he did something unexpected. It could be a total disaster, but how many politicians would even consider such a thing? Politicians learn to play it safe and pick Joe Biden.

McCain may be in the Republican party but he is nothing like Bush. One cannot rewrite history but if McCain had won in 2000, we would not be where we are today.

two conventions - two messages

The Democrat convention was a high-energy love-fest right out of a Blues Brother's movie. At any moment, I expected to see Belushi back-flipping down the isles. By contrast, the Republican convention is a flat affair that reflects a party in confusion. If the energy level is any indication, the Democrats should sweep this election. But who actually watches conventions? Just the faithful and most partisan. The rest of America will vote their party and the election may well be close.

The Democrat convention had this weird vibe under the surface. A celebrity death match between Black Man vs Woman. I saw the signs for Unity but I just didnt feel the unity (although both Clinton speeches were excellent). On the other hand, I really like the RNC message: Country First. Sure it sounds like a Southern restaurant chain but it still rings true to me.

Put our country first. All of us should. We have big, huge problems and its time to find a way to deal with them, a way to rally the energy we are only able to rally for war.

the messages

Both conventions were pushing an orchestrated message. We shall see if the public feels the same message.

In the primaries, Obama was all about change. He is different. He will change things, just wait and see. But the convention hardly mentioned that at all. Apparently focus groups said a black messenger of change was too scary; buy us dinner and a few drinks first. The message I saw in the convention was "Hey, Im just a regular guy with a funny name."

As the son of a single mother myself, never in my life have I seen so much love for single parents. Nor have I seen people try harder to make me feel comfortable with a family I will never meet. The DNC totally downplayed change and re-played Bush 2000's message of a normal guy who has kids and understands middle class problems. Of course, most poor kids I knew had to get jobs after college to pay off their loans but maybe if I had paid even more for college it would have been different.

In contrast to the Family Guy, the RNC message is about war and country. Its about McCain the soldier, the man of integrity. A message that is even more weird because people do make sacrifices in war, McCain was one of those people, and yet the Republican party has been run by chickenhawks who never served and started the war in Iraq for other people to fight. Its hard to take the wartime sacrifice and values message seriously when we have so many examples of the opposite from the very people telling us the stories.

Win or lose, I feel bad that McCain is stuck as a "supporter" of a war I feel certain he would never have started in the first place. The ironies of this election are never-ending.

If the Republican message of "love our troops" was tired, it was just as tired when the Democrats trotted it out. Lots of love for the troops. Sadly all the other tired messages were out there too. Democrats will raise your taxes!! (Fear) We can save the middle class and fix the economy! (Hope)

I must say I was very annoyed with the DNC message about the middle class and the economy. You want a better future? Save your money, work your ass off, make your kids study their asses off and get better, high paying jobs. Where is the fucking secret there? Its the same, hard lesson immigrants have been using successfully here for over 100 years yet every election Democrats promise some miracle cure that will make me lose weight and make money while I lay on the couch. *ugh*

weird beard

Yes, this election has a lot of weirdness and more than a little ugliness.

The President is not invited to the convention and then delivers a video-taped presentation so he can stay in D.C. and watch over the relief effort. (Now that is a funny thought, Bush overseeing actual work.) The convention being delayed for a hurricane after we completely ignored New Orleans 3 years ago. A speech by Joe Lieberman?? Good grief. All the female faces in both conventions and then seeing the Republicans nominate a woman after the Democrats refused to.

The common wisdom was that Vice Presidents are irrelevant. Dan Quayle, anyone? The friction between Clinton and Gore because both wanted to be president. Then we had president Cheney, the most powerful VP in history. This election Mr Hope & Change picks the most senior democrat in Congress and the oldest man ever to run picks one of the least experienced females as a VP. Suddenly the VP choice has all this importance except it probably doesnt. Its just more infotainment and distraction. Did you see McCain's 92 year old mother? John's got good genes.

closing

I alternate between being entertained and disgusted by the whole affair. I have heard the promises from both parties year after year. Im waiting for someone to enact changes that I can recognize. Im waiting for someone to tell us that we are poorer than we think, we need to spend less than we want, and we need to do things we dont want to do so that our children can have a better future. If I see any of that, I will become a believer in change.

In between Olympic headlines there has been all this pesky news about Georgia...

With the 3 year anniversary of Katrina next week, one can add another plum accomplishment to President Bush's resume. Not only has he revived the Cold War with Russia, he has started a hot war with them.

While most American's probably think Georgia is somewhere between Tennessee and Florida, I have found it pretty disturbing to watch Russia invade their neighbor while we impotently sit on our hands. Or send Condi to make, "uhhhh", weak speeches. Same diff.

Hope you enjoyed your freedom Georgia because the past few years are probably all you will get. Unless of course Putin changes his mind (and he is one of the scariest and most dangerous men alive, much more of a threat than Saddam ever was). While this president crows about "freedom" we dont do much about it unless the country involved has oil - Kuwait and Iraq.

On the one hand, it is hard to listen to McCain try to sound enthusiastic and patriotic about Georgian rights. Their problems seem so far away, like such a distraction from EIGHT GOLD MEDALS!!!, and so militarily impossible. After all, we are busted broke and our military is worn out from two failed conflicts.

On the other hand, NATO in particular and the US in general were supposed to champion the rights and freedom of invaded countries, especially against Russia. But those days seem behind us now. Another example of our fading glory, a symbol of another era.

It wouldn't surprise me if Russia continues to rebuild their former empire and we just watch it on TV. In high def.

Do you read FactCheck.org? I get their email alerts and read the summaries...

For all the talk about how Obama is different, I am a bit alarmed by the number of alerts like this one:

Distorting McCain's Remarks

August 19, 2008

An Obama ad uses dated and out of context quotes to portray McCain as clueless on the economy.

Summary
Obama's campaign is running a TV ad in Indiana that asks the question: "How can John McCain fix the economy, when he doesn't think it's broken?" But the ad uses quotes from McCain that are old and taken out of context:
The ad shows McCain saying, "I don't believe we're headed into a recession." But McCain said that in January, and he also acknowledged at the time that the American economy was in "a rough patch."

The ad then shows McCain saying in April, "[T]here's been great progress economically." But the quote is lifted from a much longer response; McCain went on to say that the "progress" made during Bush's tenure still wouldn't console American families who are facing "tremendous economic challenges."
The third quote from McCain, "[W]e have had a pretty good prosperous time, with low unemployment," also comes from January. In his full response, McCain went on to say "things are tough right now."
Note: This is a summary only. The full article with analysis, images and citations may be viewed on our Web site:

Desktop users

I thought misleading and/or smear ads were a symbol of old politics not the bright new world we were creating in this election. Disappointing. More so because it appears that there are more of these alerts about Obama than McCain.

What does it say that the charges Hamdan was convicted of did not even exist until 2006 - 5 years after we imprisoned him?

Or that this may be the best case prosecutors have against a detainee because Hamdan himself cooperated?

And how does this process compare with Blackwater? Or the law our congress created to give American's immunity from crimes committed in Iraq? People we dont like get life in prison; people we pay get the ability to commit murder?

When will this very public travesty of American justice end? One can only hope it will be 1.20.2009.

Bin Laden Ex-Driver Is Convicted

Military Tribunal Acquits Hamdan Of Greater Charge

By JESS BRAVIN

August 7, 2008

Wall Street Journal

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- A military commission convicted Osama bin Laden's former driver of supporting terrorism, the first verdict delivered here since President George W. Bush announced plans in November 2001 to try accused foreign terrorists in a separate system of offshore military courts.

"The bigger problem for future cases is that the evidence in Hamdan's case is about as good as it gets," said a government official familiar with the matter. Unlike the vast majority of the 80 or so Guantanamo prisoners slated for trial, Mr. Hamdan "was incredibly cooperative in his interrogations, gave information that was able to be corroborated, was identified in videos serving as a bodyguard for bin Laden and was captured with two missiles in the trunk of his car," the official said.

A prosecutor, Lt. Cmdr. Tim Stone, noted that even the single remaining specification, out of 10 with which the government originally charged Mr. Hamdan, carries up to a life term.

A military commissions advocate-turned-critic, former chief prosecutor Col. Morris Davis, scoffed at that prospect. If the former driver "gets a hefty sentence, it's got to send cold chills down the spines of [Mr. bin Laden's] barber and dry cleaner," Col. Davis said.

Although the military commission carries some structural resemblance to a court-martial, it is bound by a special rulebook that provides defendants with fewer rights than the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which has governed every U.S. military trial since 1951. Moreover, the 2006 law authorizing the commissions includes offenses that traditionally have not been considered war crimes, such as the two charges Mr. Hamdan faced, conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism.

Mr. Hamdan, 37 years old, bowed his head and wept softly after the verdict was read in the windowless courtroom, built inside an old aircraft control building.

More records for the Bush Administration to be proud of.

Iraq will be the longest and most expensive war in American history, the national debt has never been higher, and now Bush can crow about his economic achievements.

Crisis Deepens as Big Bank Fails

IndyMac Seized In Largest Bust In Two Decades

By DAMIAN PALETTA and DAVID ENRICH

July 12, 2008

Wall Street Journal

IndyMac Bank, a prolific mortgage specialist that helped fuel the housing boom, was seized Friday by federal regulators, in the third-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

IndyMac is the biggest mortgage lender to go under since a fall in housing prices and surge in defaults began rippling through the economy last year -- and it likely won't be the last. Banking regulators are bracing for a slew of failures over the next year as analysts say housing prices have yet to bottom out.

The collapse is expected to cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. between $4 billion and $8 billion, potentially wiping out more than 10% of the FDIC's $53 billion deposit-insurance fund.

Here is my quote for the day:

Critic of the Firms Sadly Says 'Told You'

By JOHN D. MCKINNON

July 12, 2008

Wall Street Journal

So how does he feel to be proved correct about the possible risks of a huge government bailout? "Terrible," he said. "I would have preferred that Congress had listened when something could have been done."

The quote is from an article about a guy who has criticized the structure and corruption of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for 25 years, since he served in the Treasury department for Ronald Reagan.

While the housing problems are bad and a clear result of greed and corruption, the quote makes me think mostly about global warming. Money is important but global warming is life and death.

Another article in today's paper details the Bush Administrations battles to prevent the EPA from doing anything about global warming. Sure, the White House now publicly agrees that global warming is real (a reversal of their original position) but apparently it is not real enough to actually do something about. Why? Because change will be expensive.

Maybe someone in 2050 can fix the problem with "scientific advances". Maybe more people need to watch Al Gore's movie and think about that scale with the world on one side and gold on the other...

Will Congress be able to do anything better with a new President?

Administration Releases EPA Report, Then Repudiates It

Blueprint to Reduce Greenhouse Gases Called Too Costly

By STEPHEN POWER and IAN TALLEY

July 12, 2008

Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration published a government blueprint to reduce the U.S. output of global-warming gases, but at the same time rejected the document out of hand -- saying it relied on "untested legal theories" and would impose "crippling costs" on the U.S. economy.

Essentially, the White House presented critics of the report with a prepackaged rebuttal brief, in what is expected to be the Bush administration's last major effort to frame the national discussion on responding to global warming before a new president inherits the issue. The White House argues the Environmental Protection Agency must not be allowed to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, for fear it would be able to block development across the country.

The EPA document was written to respond to a Supreme Court order: The court instructed the agency to decide whether greenhouse gases are a danger to public health or welfare. Instead, the final document took no position on the court's question -- yet escalated the extraordinary battle between the agency and the White House.

The White House rejected an earlier draft that did find a danger to welfare, which would trigger application of the strict rules of the Clean Air Act to regulating greenhouse gases. This time, the agency stopped short of the endangerment finding, but still drew up a road map for using the Clean Air Act. That led the White House to warn of a government "command-and-control" regime that would regulate virtually every aspect of American life from cars to factories, hotels and lawnmowers.

This week we got a letter from the IRS. I made a mistake on our 2007 taxes.

I am not a stupid person. I am not an uneducated person. I have an engineering degree (lots of math) and a business degree (money, money, money).

Despite these qualifications, despite several hours of work (and cursing), despite the numerous worksheets and tax instructions I used, I made a mistake on our taxes. I cannot tell you how annoyed this makes me.

Fortunately the IRS says that we overpaid our taxes but the point is the same for me. If someone like me cannot properly do their taxes, the tax system is way, way too fucking complicated.

As a matter of principal, the tax rules should be simple enough that citizens should be able to do them themselves.

Not for the first time, I wonder if my country will we ever get its house in order? We have this Constitution thing and yet every year our culture seems to get further and further from our core values. If you have ever thought about moving to another country because it sounded better there, something here is terribly wrong.

But things could change. We could make life here easier and more supportive of our citizens. You know, your brother in arms, your fellow citizen, your neighbors...

First off, it is high time we completely replace the current tax system with a flat tax (or something comparable) with no deductions. A simple 1-page form for all households.

Do you want to cover all citizens and actually cut health care expenses at the same time? Eliminate the health insurance industry. Insurers never treated cancer, or set a broken bone, or gave anyone stitches. Insurance is purely a financial system for pooling our collective finances to fund a doctors. It should be non-profit, standardized and simple. It should also be more about keeping every citizen healthy than about profits.

Eliminating our current (massive) health insurance industry is the simplest thing to do which would also have the biggest impact and I dont hear anyone in Washington talking about it. Any profit your health insurer makes is money we could have saved on health care. If you look at other countries who have better health care coverage, they all have different insurance models than we do. I just dont understand why Americans want to protect insurance companies.

Lastly, do not drive in the left lane on the freeway unless you are actually passing someone.

LOL.

After listening to a long speech last night in which everyone expected Hillary Clinton to call it quits, she didn't. Wow. Clinton really has a lot of balls. If I was ever in a prison knife fight, I know which candidate I would pick to guard my back.

It is now clear that Obama will be the Democratic Presidential candidate in 2008. But who will he pick for a running mate?

The Democratic party is divided and both sides are very emotional about their candidate. There are some folks that think either candidate would do a good job but there are a lot of people like myself who really like one candidate and really dislike the other. Can Obama bring the two sides together?

In the general election, I think Obama needs a gun-toting white southerner like Jim Webb if he ever hopes to take the South. Soft-spoken, sweater-wearing, Ivy League intellectuals may do well with PacificNorthwesternman (as we picked Nader and then Kucinich) but that wont cut it in a general election.

My sense is that Clinton and Obama dont like each other personally but that is their problem. If they ran together, it would immediately defuse a lot of tension and unite both sides of the party. We would get Change and Experience. We would get the first black man and the first woman and we wouldn't have to choose one of them.

I think an Obama/Clinton ticket would be a quick win in the Democrat party but its unclear that it would do well in the Fall. I am expecting a close general election against McCain and that will be even closer if Obama picks a bad running mate.

Last night there was a story on how the Pentagon secretly paid "analysts" in 2002 to leak false information to the media in order to build a case for invading Iraq. This morning there was a radio report on the enormous (future) medical cost of PTSD from Iraq veterans and then I read this article about factory safety and the rise of fatal explosions.

Dust Cloud Settles Over Industries

Georgia Blast Prompts Regulatory Debate; 13 Die, Steel Melts, Sugar Flows Like Lava

By PAULO PRADA, BETSY MCKAY and STEPHANIE CHEN

Wall Street Journal

May 2, 2008

Dust is surprisingly pervasive and lethal. Factories in industries from sugar to drugs to plastics produce combustible dust that can detonate from as little as the static electricity caused by the movement of the particles themselves.

A safety-board study found that 281 industrial dust-related fires and explosions killed 119 people and caused more than 718 injuries in the U.S. between 1980 and 2005. Preliminary safety-board figures show things have gotten worse in the past three years: There have been an additional 67 fires or explosions, killing 14 and injuring 70. Of the four deadliest accidents the board has investigated since it was created in 1998 three have been caused by dust.

Since the Imperial explosion, lawmakers have become so concerned that the House passed a bill Wednesday that would force OSHA to adopt recommendations made by the National Fire Protection Association to prevent accidents caused by combustible dust, giving OSHA 18 months to write its own regulations. Though the Senate must still vote, the White House has echoed OSHA concerns that the association's recommendations are too specific to be realistically applied to the more than 200,000 workplaces where dust is a threat.

The true impact (and price) of the Bush administration is going to be felt for years and years to come. As bad as things have been, I dont think we have any clue yet about how bad they really are.

Have you been paying attention to these stories. Every week there is another one about government incompetence, gross lack of oversight or outright collusion of agencies and the area they regulate.

If you were counting on the government to protect you or to look out for your well-being, think again.

First we had EPA and the 9/11 dust, then we had FEMA and Katrina. The SEC and Federal Reserve did little to halt the housing bubble or debt-crash. OSHA and factory safety. The EPA and oil drilling in park lands. Airplane safety and the FAA. Secretly Pentagon-paid advisers as "neutral media consultants". The FDA and poisonous drugs, tainted food and lead toys from China. One could go on and on and those are just the big stories that make the national news. Guaranteed there are countless smaller stories that we dont hear about. (Like the town that was completely buried by mine toxic tailings.)

Recently Daniel Shure did an op-ed where he commented that in his 50 years of journalism he has never seen so much government malfeasance. Ouch.

Is it a conscious unwinding of government protections or just the result of cronyism or perhaps a lot of both?

I find the whole thing really disturbing because it is just so huge. It seems that every rock is covering an unpleasant truth. It is so much, so big, I have little faith that voters can grasp it all or that a next president can do much to fix it.

At the same time as all these horror stories, things seem pretty good. For someone to come in and say they need to raise taxes to fix these problems, I think it will be a hard argument to make. The boiled frog phenomenon is alive and well.

It is like our country has become a giant Jenga tower and people are actively pulling bricks out all the time. Sure it is still standing but for how long?

In the movie Idiocracy, the president of the United States is African American. He is also a wrestling/porn-star who wears a red-white-and-blue tank-top and carries a machine gun. In other words, a man of the people who gives the people what they want.

The last two weeks of this presidential campaign have really shown that Obama, ummm, isnt a president like that.

Anyone with an athletic disposition can bowl better than a 37 - man or woman. Good grief. That's almost like the president of the dungeons and dragons club running for home coming king; a little too awkward.

But more troubling are the things Obama has said in last nights debate and elsewhere.

Small-town people only "cling" to religion and guns because they are bitter about economics? Yikes! Even if that is true, it is not something one says in public unless you are too rich to care. As someone who has gotten into trouble for saying things that are too blunt or direct for public consumption, even I know that a comment like that is borderline insane.

Then you have Reverend Wright, and Obama's refusal to wear an American flag pin because it is "manufactured patriotism".

The truth is, I dont actually disagree with the ideas and beliefs Obama was trying to communicate. But watching him try to explain his comments is excruciating and really make me question a) he can get elected and b) he can survive if he does get elected.

The problem is not that Obama thinks too much and has thoughtful positions that are different from the norm. The problem is that regular American's barely think at all and anyone that does something which stands out ends up making them too much. Ouch, that hurt!

The truth is important and we face serious issues but Jack Nicholson was right. We American's cant handle the truth. We want it easy, exciting, with flashy lights, laugh tracks and a double-helping of fake whipped cream that is actually made of soybean oil and corn syrup.

If Obama wants to be the smartest President since Jimmy Carter (a dubious honor), he needs to dumb it down so he can actually get elected. Bill Gates is not a hero because he is smart; he is a hero because he is rich.

If the last 30 years of Republican presidents tell us anything, it is that smarts are optional. What people want is a strong leader. Even if they lead us into disaster, they will do ok as long as they make us feel good on the way there.

So dumb it down, Obama. If you have to be smart, at least hide it until you are a winner. And maybe work on that bowling game a bit.

Continuing my theme that each of the presidential candidates brings a personal issue with them, we have this article on Hillary Clinton and the "gender wars".

The article does not explicitly say gender is the reason so many people hate Hillary but it does bring the issue up as a possible culprit. In my own anecdotal experience, people who hate hillary almost never have an actual reason or any facts. Most of them "arent really sure". They "just dont like her".

The generational differences on woman's rights is an interesting topic, albeit one I dont know much about. In general though, the past twenty years have been very peaceful and prosperous in our country. Kids today just have not idea what life was like in the 70's or 60's or 50's - whether you are talking about the black experience, the immigrant experience, the female experience or the gay experience. Young people today have benefited from the good times and they are generally more open-minded and care less about those issues.

But unless you think woman should make 80-cents on the dollar compared with men, they still are issues. After all, "we love women" -- just not women like Hillary Clinton.

At the Barricades In the Gender Wars

Clinton's women supporters fear her bid has unleashed a sexist backlash

By JONATHAN KAUFMAN and CAROL HYMOWITZ

March 29, 2008

Wall Street Journal

When Sen. Clinton started her presidential campaign more than a year ago, she said she wanted to shatter the ultimate glass ceiling. But many of her supporters see something troubling in the sometimes bitter resistance to her campaign and the looming possibility of her defeat: a seeming backlash against the opportunities women have gained.

But her campaign has also prompted slurs and inflammatory language that many women thought had been banished from public discourse.

The concern among some women about sexism comes amid signs that women's progress in the workplace has stalled or even regressed. In 2007, women earned median weekly wages of 80.2 cents for every dollar earned by men, down from 80.8 cents in 2006 and 81 cents in 2005, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistic.

At the nation's largest 500 companies, women account for 50% of managers, but hold just 15.4% of senior executive jobs, down from 16.4% in 2005, according to a survey by Catalyst, the New York research firm and women's advocacy group. Almost three-quarters of these senior women are in jobs that rarely lead to the corner office. The number of senior women in "line" jobs that involve running a business, with responsibility for profits and losses, dropped to 27.5% last year from 29% in 2005, according to Catalyst.

Heather Arnet, a Clinton supporter who runs a Pittsburgh organization that lobbies for more women on public commissions and corporate boards, recently surveyed the Internet and found more than 50 anti-Hillary Clinton sites on Facebook. One of them, entitled "Hillary Clinton Stop Running for President and Make Me a Sandwich," had more than 38,000 members.

"What if one of these 38,000 guys is someone you, as a woman, have to go to and negotiate a raise?" she asks.

Here in Pittsburgh and surrounding blue-collar areas, Sen. Clinton's run is stirring discussion among women about sexism in politics and in the workplace. The pay gap between male and female professionals in the Pittsburgh area exceeds the national average across most industries and occupations, according to a new University of Pittsburgh study. Women managers earned just 58.3% of what male managers made, and 89.5% of what women managers around the country made, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. In the political arena, Pennsylvania ranks 45th among states in number of female officeholders.

"The sexism aimed at Hillary is astounding me," she says. "We want to let our daughters know that we can be anything. It's a lie. If even Hillary Clinton can't make it, what chance do we have?"

Jean Yarnal, who has worked in local government for 41 years, says she was unnerved recently when a man she knew came into her office and asked for help with a zoning issue. When talk turned to politics, she says, he denounced Sen. Clinton as a "lesbian" and used several slurs. Ms. Yarnal says she didn't respond, but thought to herself, "That's the last time I do you a favor."

"It's like the feelings against women are getting stronger," says Ms. Yarnal. "It's like men are saying, 'We want to put you women in your place -- watch out, don't go too fast.' "

Charles McCollester, a professor of industrial relations at Indiana University of Pennsylvania who works with union members, says he is ready for a woman president, "just not this woman." He supports Sen. Obama. "Several of my really close female friends feel this is unleashing some kind of antiwoman sentiment. But I don't see it. We love women. I just never cared much for Hillary. She has set out to become as male as all the rest of the boys."

Some women in town say they don't bring up politics at work. "The consensus in my office is that women are too emotional and won't make a good president," says Terri George, a paralegal in a law office.

Some young women who support Sen. Obama -- sometimes to the chagrin of their pro-Hillary mothers -- say they too are troubled by the gender gap in the workplace. But many say they don't feel comfortable being called "feminists," and that they look to different role models than Sen. Clinton.

"It isn't easy being a woman in academia," says Amanda Moniz, a 36-year-old Ph.D. candidate in history at the University of Michigan. "I want a woman candidate who is strong, but also feminine, and who doesn't feel she has to be tougher than men to succeed," she says. "Although Hillary has achieved a lot on her own, she wouldn't be where she was if not for her husband -- and that isn't an inspiring lesson."

Alexa Steinberg, 25, a graduate student at the University of New Hampshire, says she recognizes "that women only make 78 cents for every male dollar, and there are still hurdles for women that I'll face." She says she thinks it's only a matter of time before she'll be supporting a female candidate for U.S. president -- but it won't be Sen. Clinton. "Politically and personally, she's trying to take on the male persona, and isn't a woman in the way I want a woman candidate to be," she says.

March 2008. What a month! If you had written a movie about the Bush White House -- no one would have believed it yet here we are.

strike one

After years of obvious and unsustainable behavior, we finally witnessing a complete meltdown of our financial system and housing. The canary in the coal mine is Bear Stearns. Teh poison gas is cheap money and the morgage-backed security.

At the end of last year, we had a "credit crunch" because of the process of turning mortgages into bonds. Bear was a leader in this financial wizardry and they profited handsomely from it. Then in Q4 2007, the world woke up and admitted it wasnt such a good investment after all.

The shares of Bear fell and the experts assured us the worst was over. I even considered buying shares of Bear in Dec/Jan. (How dumb was that.) Fast forward to March and from Friday to Monday, Bear shares fell from $150 to $2 and a buyout was announced by JP Morgan. What?? Out of the blue, a total meltdown.

How could this happen so quickly? So suddenly? Most of all, how could this happen with the FED orchestrating it? Why on earth would the federal government reward unscrupulous speculators?

Suddenly the small-government-dont-tax-me-free-market evangelists like Bear are getting a bailout from the federal government. It appears to be the ultimate fast one, the ultimate financial joke on Americans.

Tax payers pay for all the risk when things go bad and the bankers get all the profit. Even the purchase of Bear's assets by JP Morgan while the Fed assumes all of Bear's liabilities stinks to high heaven. That is 100% NOT how the free market is supposed to work. In fact, things are so upside down and confused its like an alternate reality sci-fi mini series...

And the revelations keep coming. The truth is we still dont know much about the details nor is it clear why the middle class should foot the bill for the wealthiest 1% when they screw up. Every day, I find myself aghast. Again.

strike two

If financial market debacles arent enough for you, we also have the Iraq occupation. Go on YouTube and watch interviews of Donald Rumsfeld telling us that the "war" would cost $50B. A few government analysts predicted $300B -- and got fired for the trouble. Oh it seems so quaint and jocular now.

A few years later, economists say well actually, it will be more like $1,000B or $1T. A year after that and we have more estimates - $2T to $3T!!! $3,000B of your tax dollars. An inconceivable amount of money and it went to pay for... what exactly?

"The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict" by Joseph E. Stiglitz, Linda J. Bilmes

We didnt get any free oil. We didnt create freedom or democracy. We didnt make friends or even keep our old friends... We also didnt rebuilt New Orleans, repair our own crumbling public schools or worn our bridges or put fiber optic networks into every home for the "information economy"...

strike three

A third major Bush Administration contribution to the world is also shaping up in March -- global warming. A giant ice sheet in Antarctica has now crumbled away. Glaciers are melting everywhere and our government still has a policy that says global warming is not real enough to actually do something about... gosh no, that might be expensive. Better wait until someone else is president.

you're out!!

Wow.

Bush wanted to go down in history. It seems pretty clear that he will.

And yet there are no riots in the street. No calls for impeachment. No nothing. We as a country are lining up and happily bending over. It is just bizarre. Think about the protests in the 1970's and compare that with the business as usual experience today. The people who do complain are "left-wing nuts". There isn't even a national consensus on whether or not we have problems let alone any unified moral outrage. (It's not just tax dollars after all. We have killed hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq - an we NEVER talk about it.)

vote with your wallet

Who do you think is going to pay for all these things?

Do you think cutting taxes is going to pay for the $1T in losses when the housing bubble finally resolves itself? Or Iraq?

We seem so removed from our own condition these days. Oh sure, you are broke, you borrowed all the home equity you could and spent it on a vacation, a new TV and a BMW... but dont worry, you will get our economy going again with more shopping...

And dont get me started on "accountability" or "individual responsibility". Republicans have preached for years about "responsibility". We shouldn't have welfare!! People should be responsible...

Well I dont see anyone lining up to pay the check for any of these crisis. I dont see anyone lining up to pay MORE taxes so we dont have to borrow so much. I dont even see any Republicans talking about how to fix these things with the next president. Apparently when it comes to your mistakes, accountability is synonymous with total denial.

Perhaps our voting system would garner a lot more attention and responsibility if we paid for our choices. After years of Bush Tax Cuts, I would like to see Congress enact the Bush Tax. If you voted for the president in 2004, you should be personally responsible for any debts he acquired since then. Just send the money in with your tax bill. If you didnt vote for him, why should you have to pay for him?

Maybe we can apply market forces to our political process and attempt to get the people who spend the money to pay the money. Then again, we would probably put Bear Stearn's in charge of the plan and screw it up.

One of the fascinating things about this presidential election is the personal issues each candidate brings up for national debate:

McCain brings a debate about the invasion of Iraq and "security".

Hillary brings up the topic of gender and the roles of men and women in marriage.

Obama brings up race.

All three are important topics but are we mature enough as a country to discuss any of them? So far it looks like the answer is no.

I was particularly disappointed by the Obama and Geraldine Ferraro flap this week. Ferraro commented that the main reason Obama is a presidential candidate is because he looks black? Well, duh! There is no question that is true.

But instead of talking about race in America, Obama cries racism?? I guess he wants it both ways. Vote for him because he is the first African American presidential candidate but if you bring up the fact that being black is the main reason he galvanizes support as a presidential candidate well then he cries racism. I call that twisted. I call that part of the problem not part of the solution.

Obama's apparent race may not be why you are voting for him but it is why he has enough of a power base to run on a presidential level. There should be no question that many people see the man and vote for or against him without knowing much else about him. Part of his appeal is that few people know anything about him, he is an empty vessel that we can fill with our hopes and dreams and as with any lesser known candidate, first impressions are very significant.

If Obama looked like his white mother and not his African father, would he be a presidential candidate? Why would the black communities of south chicago have elected a white guy from Hawaii to represent them? Obama grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia; what does he know about the stereotypical black american experience in Chicago or Detroit or the southern black experience in Alabama and Louisiana? If Obama did not look black, there is no way he would have been elected to represent Illinois, he would not have galvanized the support of the African American political machine, and he would not be a Presidential candidate today.

On the other hand, if he looked white he very well may have been elected to be the Senator of his home state, Hawaii. He is very intelligent and people like what he has to say and he is clearly ambitious. But has there ever been a Hawaiian presidential candidate? Nope. If Obama was just another white politician with an Ivy League education representing a small state, he would not be a contender. He would be a Kucinich, a Nader, an also-ran.

Obama is a contender because of his skin color and the fact that his race resonates with a powerful political constituency, 10% of Americans. But there is nothing wrong with that. And it is not racist to bring it up. If anything race should be a major campaign issue because it is a central issue for our country, affecting social policy and immigration and national identity.

Obama is an exciting candidate because he is mixed race. In other words, he is like most Americans and he could talk about that issue in ways most people cannot because he has such a unique history. But he clearly does not want to talk about it. It is also clear that we Americans are not ready to discuss the fucked up feelings and biases we have about race.

More is the pity. I guess the task is left to Steven Colbert to create a color-blind America...

A year or two back, I predicted that the next president would have won a Pyrrhic victory.

They would fight their way to a victory in the election, no small feat, and their reward would be cleaning up the mind-boggling mess created by President Bush. Thanks, George!

At the time, I predicted there would be a Republican backlash and the next Prez would be a Democrat. The Dems would get blamed for "raising taxes" to pay off the $9T debt left by Bush and they would get blamed for "losing the war" in Iraq.

All of that is nonsense of course. SOMEONE has to be responsible sometime in our country. But as far as I can tell, the FOX News crowd is completely blind to their own mistakes and eager to blame someone else for them.

All of this would be predictable of course except for the recent twist. It now looks like the exact same thing will happen if the Republican candidate wins!

Poor John McCain. The guy just cannot get a break.

I thought he was great in 1999. If McCain had won in 2000, the world and our country would be a better place. But he did not win.

Instead he had to endure the Swift Boat people and then he had to suck up to GWB and the religious wing-nuts for 7 years when he clearly saw things going the wrong way. He did all this in order to be the next Republican presidential candidate and amazingly, it looks like he will be.

Except it also looks like the Right-wing media machine (those folks like Coulter and the drug-addicted Limbaugh who make their money entertaining the Republican "base") are going to bail on this election. They too see the disaster of Bush and are only too happy to blame it on the next guy.

If the next guy is McCain, so be it. They dont like him anyway.

If the next guy is a Democrat, all is good in the world.

If that Democrat is Hillary Clinton, we will see the world's largest simultaneous orgasm on election night.

I saw a bit of the Democratic debate tonight.

I could not agree more with John Edward's comments that this petty bickering is not what American's want to see. It also bothered me when they argued about race last week. Race is the absolute last issue anyone, but especially Obama, should raise in this election.

But I was really struck by comments Obama made. "Sometimes Im not sure who I'm running against." - meaning Hilary or Bill Clinton.

What was that comment supposed to mean? Obama is not sure who he is running against? It was such an odd comment, i keep thinking about it.

Is he trying to say that Hilary is not a real candidate and her husband is running the show? Was that the gender card? Was that code for a "woman's place"? Or is he just letting us know that he is truly ignorant about elections? It was a strange thing to say.

Last week John Kerry endorsed Obama but no one is confused about which of them is running for election. It is standard practice for famous people and elected officials to campaign for someone else and before Obama's comment, I have never heard anyone talk about it. It is also common place for a candidate's spouse to campaign for them, as we see with John Edwards, whose wife is much more appealing than he is. Then again, that situation is almost always a wife campaigning for her husband not the other way around.

On a related note, I listened to Shields and Brooks last Friday discuss Bill Clinton's active role in this election. They both agreed that it was unseemly of Bill to be so down & dirty campaigning for his wife. In their eye's, it cheapened the Presidency. I really had not thought of it like that before.

What few people are talking about is that in this campaign we are seeing the real Bill Clinton. A man who us unable to control himself a lot of the time. To her credit, this is the man that his wife, the First Lady, kept in check when he was President. But now she is running for herself and he is showing his true colors and it is not always a pretty sight.

Not for the first time, I think that being married to a President hurts Hilary more than it helps her. Which is sad. I give her a lot of credit for the wisdom and personal fortitude to keep her husband together while enduring so much public humiliation and taking so much criticism from both ends of the spectrum. She is experienced and tough and I think she would have done better as the first viable female presidential candidate rather than the first First Lady presidential candidate.

But you only get to play the cards that you are dealt. Shields and Brooks are probably right; she would do better if Bill stayed aloof and Presidential and left the campaigning to her. That is something her campaign could decide to do and I hope they do it.

This graph says it all.

If you are an oil company or a country like Saudi Arabia, times are fucking awesome! You main product, oil, is selling for its highest price since President Reagan. Oil now costs 10 TIMES more than it did near the end of President Clinton's office.

I just dont get it. I thought the whole point of invading Iraq was to get their oil. Well, we have p0wned Iraq for 4 years now, shouldn't our gasoline be free by this point?

Like a lot of Americans, I woke up one morning last week to the news on the radio: Benazir Bhutto was dead. I felt sad. Other people I talked to felt sad. Then I had to check myself.

Why do I feel sad?

Truth is, I dont know fuck-all about Bhutto except that she looks like a nice woman. Why do I have feelings for someone I know nothing about? People die all the time. To be honest, there are a few public leaders that I wouldn't feel bad about seeing assassinated: Saddam, Osama, ...

Am I sympathetic simply because she is a woman? Was she a good leader? Was she a good person?

A few minutes spent on wikipedia is worth your time. If you thought our government was a mess, read about Pakistan. It makes Florida look like Switzerland.

Benazir Bhutto: Her father was Prime minister, accused of corruption, put to death. She was prime minister in 1988, fired, re-elected in 1993, fired again, goes into exile.

Nawaz Sharif replaces Bhutto in 1990, gets replaced by Bhutto in 1993, then gets re-elected in 1997 only to be shit-canned by Masharraf in 1999.

Pervez Masharraf kicks Sharif out of the country in 1999, disbands much of the government, appoints himself president, befriends our president Bush.

Bhutto, Sharif and Musharraf have been circling each other for decades. After reading some of this Pakistani political history, I still dont know if Bhutto was a good leader/person or not. There seems to be some evidence that she is both incompetent and a crook. But who knows...

What I do know is that we are up to our necks with Pakistan and Musharraf. Bhutto is murdered and the first thing the Prime Minister says is "Al Qaeda did it!!" - is he running for president in Pakistan or in the USA? Amazingly he knows exactly what to say to get America's knee-jerk and unquestioning support.

I dont know why anyone would kill Bhutto but the government claims seem pretty suspicious and a conspiracy would not surprise me one bit. Turns out there have been several hundred bombings in Pakistan in recent years (never makes the news here) and no one ever claims credit or is found. If this were Osama or Al Qaeda, wouldnt they be putting videos on YouTube to proclaim their Jihadi glory?

With all the Bush attention on this past year Iran, few people seem to notice that Pakistan already has a nuclear weapon. Iran appears stable (albeit not too happy about us meddling in their government via the Shah), but Pakistan is a cauldron of unrest and confusion.

Are we saber-rattling the paper tiger while the real one walks right behind us?

Not for the first time, I find myself wondering why the hell we are in Pakistan to begin with. We are there because of Afghanistan, you say? So why are in Afghanistan? Oh right, we went there because of Osama - except he moved to Pakistan?

Suddenly Ron Paul starts to sound a little less crazy. We suck so badly at intervening in other countries like this. Why do we continue to spend billions of tax dollars doing it?

Most Americans have no idea who Bhutto is or what the story is in Pakistan. Most voters probably dont even know what Wikipedia is or where to find Pakistan on a map. Since voters dont know any better, that leaves economic special interests to guide our hand - selling guns, selling oil, selling influence.

Which is probably why we continue to spend billions of tax dollars doing it.

What is in the water in Texas? Ross Perot, the Bush clan, and now Ron Paul.

What I had previously read about Paul convinced me that he is a total nut-job. His interview on MtP this Sunday gave me a different view.

Ron Paul

Our "Meet the Candidates" series continued Sunday as Texas Rep. Ron Paul (R) joined us for an exclusive interview. Watch our netcast or read the transcript to find out where the congressman -- who has raised more money this quarter than any other Republican candidate for president -- stands on the major issues facing our nation. Plus, John Harwood & Chuck Todd shared their insights & analysis on Decision 2008 as we approach the Iowa caucuses.

Watch entire netcast now Read the transcript

When you listen to the candidates Paul (and Kucinich) come across as nut-jobs because they do something none of the other candidates do: they take a stand. Paul actually has some principles and he follows them through to conclusions. He appears to be logically consistent and by contrast that makes him seem nuts. Professional politicians are wiggly worms who never commit to anything in public.

The truth is, it is hard to be known by the entire nation. National politics is a big game, a media circus. What candidates do is campaign on emotions, indefinable traits that make you like a candidate but not actually know what that candidate thinks or will do. Obama is all about "change". Rudy is all about "security". Bush was all about "character". Edwards is going to "save the middle-class". Romney is about "family values".

The very last thing one of the front-runners is going to do is make a clear statement. Paul made quite a few in this interview:

• "I will abolish the income tax."
• "I will pull all of our troops out of foreign countries and slash military spending."
• "Our country is becoming a fascist state where military-industrial complex and medical-industrial complex call all the shots and run the government."
• "We need a very small federal government and let the states decide for themselves."

The reason other candidates dont want to make clear statements like this is because they dont want to get treated the way Paul did on MtP. Tim Russert has made a career of lofting softballs to politicians (American's love softball right? Its the only sport that lets you drink WHILE you are working out.) but he attacked Paul. I cant remember Russert being as hostile to any other guest and Paul handled it fairly well.

Or maybe it just seemed like Russert was attacking Paul because Paul has made clear statements for over 20 years. He criticized Reagan for talking about small government and then doing massive federal spending (like Bush/Cheney). He criticized Bush for campaigning against nation building and then marching our troops right out to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan. Unlike the other "well Tim.." candidates, Paul has put his beliefs out there in writing and did a fair job answering direct questions about them.

While Paul seems a bit nutty because his ideas are so different from the status quo, it is also why he is so appealing, especially to the Internet crowd. He is a libertarian, a small government guy, and he has laid out specific changes he wants us to do. To be honest, a lot of his changes make sense and I can see their appeal.

I have to respect the guy for being true to his principles. Even more-so because it almost never happens. At best a candidate will bash the other party while skipping over his own inconsistencies or those of his party. Not Paul. He bashes Republicans just as hard as Democrats -- and he is right. We are losing control of our lives to corporate special interests and federal prying. He is right - the Republican party today is no different than the Democratic party when it comes to fiscal issues.

If you really want to see change in this country, you are not going to find it in any of the front-runners. Maybe it is time we shed a little more light on the fringes.

The Energy Bill passed yesterday. Excuse me if I dont jump for joy.

The bill included 4 parts:

1. Repeal the tax cuts specifically for oil companies
2. Address emissions from coal power plants
3. Mandate the use of "bio-fuels"
4. Raise CAFE standards

#1 and #2 failed to pass. #3 and #4 did pass.

Seriously, there was not enough political will to stop the tax breaks for America's MOST PROFITABLE CORPORATIONS? That just boggle my mind. Oil companies should be the last in line for tax incentives. The fact that we pay taxes and they dont is a sign of their awesome power and influence.

It is also something to ponder when you talk about global warming. If we are unable to cut their taxes, how on earth will we ever be able to cut their business, ie burning fossil fuels?

Coal power plants. You can wrap your hot water pipes or turn your lights off but the only meaningful way to cut our CO2 emissions is to change the big sources, like power plants. Oh well. We have coal so I guess God wants us to burn it all.

So much for the big measures that failed. Lets talk about the little measures that did pass.

Bio-fuels. Any bill that includes ethanol from corn is a bad bill. Cut the farm subsidies (another bad bill) to corn farmers before we completely drain the fresh water aquifers in the mid-west.

CAFE. CAFE is a terrible law. It is ineffective. It is constantly being resisted/fought in court. It is a bad idea leading us down the wrong road. Supporters of CAFE want you to think they are making great progress; they probably have a few subprime loans to sell you as well.

But CAFE is the law. The best thing we could do for CAFE is, as Republicans say, enforce the law we already have. CAFE was intended to cover ALL PASSENGER vehicles with exceptions for farm vehicles and heavy industry. Your Yukon and the Governator's Hummer are neither. All cars and light trucks for passenger use should be covered by the existing 25MPG rules for CAFE. If you have ever looked at the actual MPG of new vehicles, you will clearly see that is not happening.

Raising CAFE from 25 to 35MPG and covering all passenger vehicles is nice. Especially the latter. But 2020? Seriously, 12 years to comply with this rule? 12 years from now the polar ice caps will be ice cubes in LA. 12 years from now you will be driving a boat not a car.

The real problem with CAFE though is the structure of the bill. It is a government mandate on car suppliers. As such, it will always be fought by people that dont like government mandates and by the folks with the money to fight the government, ie car manufacturers. Car companies argue that its not their fault; customers want 400HP, 5000lb behemoths with 3rd row seating. There is a suburban mom arms race out there!

The right way to address car emissions is to address the demand side. Instead of regulating the supply, tax the demand. Drive any car you want - if you can pay for it.

Create a federal tax on vehicles. Base the tax on vehicle weight and MPG. Make it stiff. Make it stick. Make it tomorrow, not 2020.

This kind of law would create incentives for the right behavior rather than punishments for the wrong behavior. It also picks on the people, who we already know have a much weaker lobby than corporations. If you want to see changes in vehicles, change the demand. Magically car companies will begin to do the impossible; start offering lighter, more fuel efficient vehicles.

The vehicle tax would do another thing CAFE does not- raise revenue. The tax would create money for government. Money that could be spent on green technology research. It could be spend on mass transit. It could go towards improving our power grid so that we lose less energy when we transport it (which would mean fewer power plans needed). It could do a lot of things.

So big whoop for the energy bill of 2007. Wake me up when Obama waves his magic-hands-of-change and creates a meaningful action to address global warming before too many millions of people die.

Im not sure there is a single thing Hillary represents to people but Obama clearly represents "change". Change without any specifics is certainly appealing but how have change-candidates faired in the past?

In 2000, we elected Bush, Jr. His claim to fame was change. After 8 years of Bill Clinton (and Newt Gingrich), Bush was going to change the character and restore the dignity of the White House. Bush had character. He was a regular guy. Trustworthy, honest, someone you could talk to. He was not slick Willie. He wasnt gonna eat donuts while jogging or have sex with interns. Bush was a family man, a good Christian.

Well, we all know how that turned out. Total and complete disaster of historic proportions. The secrecy and the attacks on the Constitution may be forgotten quickly but the enormous amount of money Bush has borrowed will be remembered (and felt) as will his war. The war Bush started, the war he could not finish (or pay for). The war we are still arguing about.

In 1992, we had another change candidate. Tired of Republican rule after 8 years of Reagan and 4 years of Bush, the country picked Bill Clinton instead of Ross Perot or Bush, Sr. Just like 2000, the country was looking for changes and the Clinton's came into office promising them.

Gays in the military. Hillary-care. NAFTA. The first few years of Clinton's reign were not smooth or terribly successful. You might even argue they were one embarrassing gaffe after another.

Whether it is in business or politics, the truth is that ideas are easy. Lots of people have ideas. Bright ideas, bad ideas, big ideas about how things could be better.

But there is always a reason things are the way they are. Even if things seem broken to you, the reason is rarely because no one has thought of a better way yet. Someone made things that way and that someone probably wants to keep them that way. Moreover that someone is probably raking in bags of cashola and is capable and motivated to fight changes.

Having "new ideas" or a "new direction" is no guarantee that you can actually implement those ideas and take us there. Moreover, the bigger the change, the harder it is to affect the change.

When comparing Hillary with Obama, I think a lot about this reality of making changes.

If Obama is elected, I expect a repeat of 1992 to 1996. A lot of young, excited people with big ideas are going come face to face with the depth of their naivete, the hard way; through failures and blunders.

The ability to make a change is one of the strongest reasons to elect someone like Hillary. We are not talking about Laura Bush or Nancy Reagan here. We are talking about a senator, who is both intelligent and extremely strong-willed. It is time we learned about who she is and stopped thinking of her as an extension of Bill.

Even though she wasnt in office herself, she was there. She knows what its like to have big ideas and to see them get twisted and squashed by entrenched special interests.

If someone can take a basic idea like better healthcare and twist it into a nationally recognized epithet like "Hillary-care", they can squash just about any good idea. 16 years later, we still have not faced our health care problems and that is only one of many huge issues facing our country and the planet in this election.

Things could change but I plan to vote for the toughest, meanest, most politically savvy candidate I can this year. I have enough big ideas. I want to see something actually get done.

Over the years I have noticed a tendency of folks to vote for a free lunch. A lot of citizens dont seem to put 2 and 2 together and think about the consequences of their vote or what it really means. Candidates certainly dont want to tell them.

If you voted for Bush in 2004 and you voted for the Iraq war, you also voted for higher taxes.

In the past 6 years we have borrowed an unprecedented amount of money -- you, me and our children are going to have to pay it back. Most of it went to pay for our "go it alone!" war in Iraq and the massive wave of privatized military contractors. Some of it went to support our current account deficit (the fact that we buy more imports than the rest of the world buys our exports).

What that money did not pay for is infrastructure (public schools, our crumbling roads, dwindling fresh water supplies, or decaying power grid) nor did it go for medicaid, medicare, or social security. There are people who want to stop Federal "entitlement" programs and believe the only way to do that is to bankrupt the federal government so that they have no choice. We are well down that road now.

If you are voting against immigrants, legal or otherwise, in the next election, you are voting for higher prices.

If you want citizens to work in meat packing plants or farms or fast food restaurants, you need to pay them more. Remember that whole "living wage" thing you didnt want to vote for? For good or bad, immigrants do the jobs no one wants to do (including them) because they are desperate. By taking advantage of them, we benefit with a BigMac that costs $3 instead of $5. If you vote against immigrants, I hope you are also saving money more lunch money.

As domestic prices go up, companies will step into the gap with lower prices from imported goods. If you vote for trade restrictions, you are voting for higher prices.

Maybe it is worth it, but if we restrict trade and limit more imports, prices will rise. So if you vote against trade thinking it will create American jobs, just be aware that it will also increase your household costs. And you can forget shopping at Wal-Mart or their low-low prices; Wal-Mart is an empire built on the very cheapest imports from other countries. They have probably done more than any single company to bring in cheap imports and shut down American jobs. (They should put that on signs in their stores; kind of a happy-joy-joy message for the holidays.)

And then there is the biggest vote of all. If you vote for a candidate who is not serious about global warming, god help us.

Where do most American's live?

According to the 2006 census, there are 299M people in the USA. 32% of the population live in 4 states (California, Texas, New York, and Florida). 54% of the population live in the top 10 states.

If most people live in 10 states, why are the none of the critical election primaries in these states? Iowa, New Hampshire and S. Carolina collectively represent 2.8% of Americans. Who really cares what those people want?

California and Texas (1/5th of the country) deal with border issues. California, and New York (almost 1/5th) have major cities that deal with trade and immigration not to mention terrorism. Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan (15%) represent our (vanishing) manufacturing heartland. Why arent the key primaries in these states?

Our primary system is annoying. I am tired of hearing about states moving their primaries earlier so they get more attention/election dollars. Im tired of hearing about the opinions of these tiny states which have little bearing on the issues that affect most Americans. Most of all, I am tired of hearing useless sound-bites masquerading as "debates".

We have serious issues to face in our country and we keep dicking around with ol' time politics. You may think Obama is fresh but he plays the same "light on specifics" game as all the other candidates. (And naive is not the same thing as fresh.)

I have listened to both Democratic and Republican debates. Not a single one has asked how we are going to pay for the Iraq war. Not a single one.

Even though Rush Limbaugh calls global warming a hoax, climate change is the biggest issue imaginable. Are any of the candidates talking about comprehensive changes to the way we live in order to protect life itself? No.

And when it comes to defense, we continue to elect politicians with no substantive military experience, reject candidates with experience, and wonder why the results are such a mess.

One can argue that you have to play the "game" to get elected and then you can do some "good". Except that very little good ever gets done.

If you are unhappy with the way our country is being run, the blame starts with the way we elect our leaders to begin with. The primary system has more to do with media coverage and making money than it does with electing the best leaders.

For a democracy, the US has an interesting friends-list.

We were good friends with Saddam, and happy to sell him weapons when Reagan was president.

We were happy to go to war to protect the royal family of Kuwait's oil and investments.

The House of Saud are invited to all of our best parties and always get the VIP treatment.

Now we have Pakistan. We are best buds with Mr Musharraf, who holds the interesting positions of both President and top general. He is sort of like Bush+Cheney rolled into one, which makes his country anything but a democracy. By holding Osama in his country, Musharraf is able to get weapons and aid from us while declaring marshall law and disbanding his supreme court.

You almost feel bad for Castro and Gaddafi - just about the only two dictators on earth that we arent on our friends list. (Although we seem to be cutting Gaddafi some slack now that he has lost his hair and educated his sons at Oxford, or was it Cambridge?)

And then you have the Kurds. They are the friend that invite to parties but hope they dont actually show up and embarrass you in front of the cool friends.

A race of people with a common heritage and geography who were unfortunate enough to be born in Iraq, Turkey and Iran - after the British empire drew the borders. All they really want is a homeland to call their own, which ought to seem pretty reasonable to Americans but oddly does not.

While we helped create Israel and Liberia so that those people could have a homeland, Bush was happy to declare Kurdish freedom fighters "terrorists" who are the "enemy of the US". So much for Freedom and Democracy.

I wonder what we will do when Turkey invades Iraq...

Thousands Protest Emergency Rule in Pakistan

Opposition groups said thousands of their supporters have been arrested in the wake of President Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule this weekend. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and two experts consider the political unrest in Pakistan

read it

Oil is now over $90 a barrel. We are now in Jimmy Carter, 1980 levels.

It has not shown up at the pump for gasoline but I just paid over $7 for TWO gallons (make that 2 x 9/10 of a gallon) of diesel. Diesel now costs more than $3.50 per gallon - the most I can ever remember paying for fuel.

Add to that the stupidity that is corn-based ethanol and you get rising food prices. The highest increase in food prices in years. Plus my ever increasing $350/mo fee to have medical insurance (whether or not I actually need to see a doctor).

Economists dont like to look at fuel or food, but those things represent real costs and real cost inflation for the little people like myself. The same thing with health care and the cost of education

Despite this financial gloom, the President is complaining about the Democrats and how they "never met a tax increase they didnt like." Nice.

The President and the Republican party remain steadfast. They absolutely refuse to ever talk about the cost of the Iraq war or how they plan to pay back the trillions of tax dollars they have spent in the last 8 years. No, their stellar fiscal leadership is going to consist of using the "tax and spend democrats" phrase while borrowing more and more and more.

Which might actually sound good to regular Americans who are finding it harder and harder to borrow. Credit card debt is up but thanks to the housing and bond fiasco, bank lending has become very difficult and home ownership is now falling.

Frankly I am astonished things have gotten this bad. Where is the Concord Coalition? Where are the fiscal conservatives?

Why arent the Democratic presidential candidates talking about the economy every single day? "How are you going to pay for Bush's spending?" Shine a light on that corner, and quit taking questions about whether or not you are a flip flopper because you voted one way in 2003 and another way years later.

Every single day. Ask the President how he is going to pay off the money he has borrowed. Point out how much interest we are now paying and will be paying. We need to get past "tax and spend" and to some kind of fiscal responsibility.

Sheesh.

"A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton" by Carl Bernstein

We know she is married to Bill Clinton and has been for years.
We know she was the First Lady for 8 years.
We know she is a Senator of New York.

But just who is Hillary Clinton?

I have heard that she is half of the most famous couple on Earth. Every week I see the Republican Presidential candidates use her as the ultimate Liberal boogey man in their campaigns. Like a lot of people, I hear about her all the time so I thought I knew who she was.

Until I heard this interview.

Pulitzer-Prize Winning Reporter Carl Bernstein Takes on Hillary Clinton

Weekday

10/17/2007 9:00 am

Hear it here

Carl Bernstein won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Watergate scandal in the Washington Post. Now his attentions are on Hillary Clinton. Eight years and over two-hundred interviews later, his book, A Woman in Charge claims to be a definitive biography of Clinton's life. Does it matter that both Hillary and Bill refused to be interviewed for the book? Is research enough to see behind the public persona all politicians have? What did Bernstein's research reveal about the woman who could be the first female president? What impact has the book had on Clinton's run for the presidency?

Most political books these days are not worth the paper they are printed on. Their are either carefully crafted marketing pieces designed (and written by) the candidate themselves for self-promotion. Or they are attempts to discredit or titillate and sell more books by pushing a belief (right or wrong) that you already have.

Almost none of the political books rise to the level of "historical". The recent "The Reagan Diaries" was this kind of enlightening book.

When I first heard about A Woman In Charge, I was expecting another pulp-piece like the former. But Bernstein handles himself so well in this radio interview and said such interesting things, I now think it is the later.

If you can get over the unnecessarily hostile interview host who kept trying to get Berstein to throw out a zinger, the stories Carl Bernstein says are VERY interesting. I guess it should come as no surprise: Hillary is a lot more complicated and complex than most of us ever think about. She is an actual human being, which makes her both softer and stronger than her media image.

My take-away from the interview is that Hillary is a much stronger candidate and a much better leader than I had previously thought. I was already inclined towards her but now I have a lot more respect for her. She has had a long, hard road to hoe -- and I dont think I have ever heard her complain in public. And of the other Presidential Candidates, she is the only one with 8 years of White House experience; this is no average "How do you like my dress?" First Lady.

Most of us have only seen her as "Bill's wife", not as her own person. It is clear that she polarizes people but it is also clear to me now that most of us have judged her without knowing much if any of the facts.

I had no idea how much work she did to keep her marriage together or that Bill had asked for a divorce. I had no idea how much she did behind the scenes to keep Bill Clinton and his political career together. In a lot of ways she was the brains behind Pa and she definitely had the backbone. I also had no idea how religious she was.

The more I heard of this interview the more puzzled I became. Hillary Clinton is an extraordinary example of traditional family values, including the sanctity of marriage and the power or prayer. It seems like her biggest critics ought to be her biggest supporters.

I guess that is just just politics, where the message is more important than the facts. Knowing more of the facts now, I am very curious to see whether any of the real Hillary will get a chance to come out in the campaign.

September 2007

hey, its only (your) money

The Congress is voting on their annual budget and suddenly we have a fight. Bush is pushing for another blank check for the Pentagon plus additional Iraq spending while pushing back on any domestic funding. Apparently we can lose billions in Iraq but we cannot afford a penny more for our children's health care.

Bush has drawn a line in the sand; Iraq is on one side and America is on the other. While this is nothing new, get ready for more.

Democrats are going to push an omnibus spending bill and dare Bush to veto it. Then both parties will start finger pointing and trying to make the argument that the other side is the problem.

But before that can happen, the government will shut down without an emergency measure to raise the federal debt ceiling. To $9 Trillion dollars. Do you remember when Reagan was in office and politicians were so concerned about the $1 trillion dollar national deficit it sparked regular debate? Good thing we got that under control.

I know you are but what am I?

Two weeks ago Alan Greenspan, the patron saint of Republicans, dropped his own bombshell. Alan published a memoir and he did a surprisingly candid 60 Minutes interview.

I have never been a fan of Alan but suddenly the people who were fans looked a bit uncomfortable as Alan turned on them. Greenspan said the smartest President he worked for was Bill Clinton. He also said that he disapproved of Bush's deficit spending and criticized Bush (and Alan's "old friend Cheney") for abandoning Republican fiscal principles. Ouch.

What followed were editorials by Peggy Noonan and Dick Cheney himself (from a secure location to be sure) and others fighting back.

Greenspun was criticized for "Now you tell us?" -- instead of saying something in office, Alan went along with Bush then and now he says it was wrong? I happen to agree with this criticism but Alan basically explained it in his 60 Minutes interview: Greenspan stated that the goal in life is "to rise in social standing." In other words, he sucked up to his bosses so that he could get get better jobs, meet powerful people, and stay popular. Now that he is out of office, he can tell the "truth". While I personally find this behavior abhorrent, Greenspan saw no problem with it and it is certainly something I see every day in corporate America.

Dick Cheney himself posted an op-ed later in the week to explain that Alan was just plain wrong. Cheney's statistics "prove" that Bush is an amazing President when it comes to the economy and fiscal policy. In Cheney's opinion, revenues are up and they have repaired the military after the "drawdowns of the 1990's" - a period the rest of us call peacetime. As ever, there is Bush's world and the world. Cheney warns us of the pending "fiscal disaster that everyone knows is coming" but he never once mentions the deficits his administration has created.

So Alan was right about Bush's terrible fiscal policy and the massive debt he will leave behind for the rest of us to pay. And Greenspan's critics are right - he is an ass and he did not do anything to stop this mess when he could have.

a high-tech self-lynching

This week we have another tell-all autobiography and extended 60 Minutes TV interview. This time the topic is none other than Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, one incredibly successful, short, angry man. Who needs TV drama when we have real life.

It is slowly, ever so slowly, sinking in: Health care is a lot more important to American families than Iraq.

Bush is fighting the congress over health care for children. (Those greedy sick children! Dont they know we need that money for stealth bombers we never use?)

GM is fighting the UAW over health care for workers and retirees. GM has now pushed the health care burden off itself and onto the union which is a historic move. I keep hoping the auto workers will force the government to face the issue of affordable health care and change the system.

At the same time, Hillary is giving more details about her own health care plans and why reform failed in 1992. She argues that Americans are too afraid of real change and want to keep employer-based health care. Data like that is not reassuring for proponents of true reform or for the GM/UAW accord.

The President and leaders like McCain continue to argue that we are succeeding in Iraq now because of the surge, because of additional troops. However there continues to be a stream of articles that point out that the roots of success are not that simple.

It is not brute force that is making change, it is in fact embracing Iraq's tribal culture and buying loyalty to get local tribes to resist Al Queda. Not easy to spit out in a 30-second sound-bite but this answer is more realistic and the potential consequences are more complex.

McCain and Kerry both spoke eloquently about Iraq on MtP Sunday. It is hard to know what is the best course of action now. Give it more time or remove the American troops that are the focus of Al Queda's cause.

Brothers in Arms: Sheik Backs U.S., Sibling Is Suspect

To Clear Family Name, Mr. Shammari Fights Insurgents -- for a Fee

By PHILIP SHISHKIN

September 14, 2007

Wall Street Journal

The al-Shammari case is part of a new thrust in the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq: cajoling Shiite tribal leaders to fight extremists. The experiment is modeled on promising efforts in some Sunni-dominated territory, like the onetime insurgency hotbed of Anbar province west of Baghdad.

President Bush and others have pointed to Anbar as a sign of progress in the four-year war here. Mr. Bush met with several leading Sunni sheiks in his surprise visit to Anbar last week. Yesterday, one of the men, Sheik Abdul Sattar Abu Reshah, was killed by a roadside bomb.

U.S. commanders are now trying to export the Anbar tactic to Shiite and mixed Shiite-Sunni lands, where tribal loyalties and sectarian rivalries can be much more difficult to sort out. Here in Babylon province south of Baghdad, commanders are making deals with these mercurial Shiite chieftains and navigating a tangled knot of allegiances and motivations. One lesson the Americans appear to have learned: Money talks.

...

It was the first payment from the Americans as part of a security deal in which the sheik pledged his 175 fighters to battle anti-American insurgents. The fighters now wear reflective armbands to avoid the fate of their slain comrade.

Word has gotten out here that there's money to be made by pledging allegiance to the Americans. Late last month, another Shiite sheik arrived on the U.S. base here and begged for money, talking up his own influence in the tribe. "My tribe is very obedient," Sheik Sadiq al-Ghanimi told Capt. Eric Lawless. "If I tell them to sleep, they sleep. If I tell them to wake up, they wake up."

The sheik asked for agricultural help, and for a school, and, as he put it, for a "present from the American people." In return, he promised to fight extreme Shiite militias. "This guy is trying to get anything he can out of me," Capt. Lawless said later. The sheik left without a deal, Capt. Lawless says.

...

Mr. al-Shammari then signed a security deal with the Americans. Under its terms, he will be held accountable for any attacks launched from his area, and the Americans will stop firing on his villages. He has pledged to have 141 armed guards manning checkpoints in a three-month deal worth about $200,000.

The fundamental steps of any change effort are to (A) decide where you now, (B) decide where you want to be in the future, and (C) plan a series of steps to get you from A to B.

Will we ever make progress in Iraq if we are unable to agree on A or B? It is disheartening.

After the President's worthless speech, it was encouraging to hear the comments of Zbigniew Brzezinski. I have heard Brzezinski speak before and he is a cold, refreshing drop of intelligent liquid in a barren, parched political desert. He talks like a man who knows something not a man selling something. He gives me hope that despite the complete disaster we find ourselves in, there are still a few brilliant people who have a clue and could do something if we let them. Democrats and Republicans alike have been consistently incoherent and vague when talking about Iraq, why we are really there and what our plan is.

The fact that he is endorsing Obama raises my opinion of Obama greatly.

Former U.S. Officials Examine President's Iraq Stance

Testimony from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker has raised questions about the next step in the war in Iraq. Former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and former State Department counselor Philip Zelikow discuss President Bush's plans.

Originally Aired: September 13, 2007

read it

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI, Former National Security Adviser to President Carter: Well, I think it's worse than that. This is a very sad time for America. We have been involved in a futile war, a war of choice, for four years. There's no end in sight.

The president is not reaching out at home to the other side, not attempting to shape policy jointly, responding to the overwhelming desire of the American people to end this war. He's not setting in motion a process abroad designed to create some modicum of stability as we disengage.

He's essentially decided to bequeath this war to his successor and to dribble out, essentially, partial withdrawals which at this rate would last five more years, while at the same time stepping up the pressure on Iran, possibly even raising the risk of a larger war.

So this is a tragic and a dangerous time. I hope, at some point, the Republicans would prevail on the president to do what is needed, not to abdicate his responsibility, but to try to fashion a truly responsible, historically relevant policy.

No, I did not actually write this speech nor do I know if much or any of it is actually true; I take a lot of vacation when its hot. The main points I cared about are: TERROR, TERROR! FREEDOM! TERROR! Its never too late for VICTORY!"

Nice speech tonight, George. Maybe you should talk to Pinocchio. I heard he knows how to turn a wooden puppet into a real boy.

And to paraphrase Karl, its a nice change to hear about your Iraq because the rest of us are tired of hearing about how bad it is in the Iraq.

Seattle is known as the "Emerald City" because of all the trees here (it really is amazingly green). The entire state is known for its crunchy-granola-totally-out-there denizens. With that background, I was a bit surprised to hear the words "superfund site" in the paper this weekend.

Turns out one of the "up and coming" neighborhoods in rapidly expanding (inflating) Seattle is Georgetown. Georgetown is right next to the Seattle's only river, the Duwamish River. Which sounds quaint until you hear that the river is a superfund site.

That's right, folks. Despite our green reputation, Washington has an industrial chemical wasteland right in the city of Seattle as well as the nation's largest nuclear waste site (Hanford) left over from the Cold War weapons manufacturing.

Nice. Even in the Emerald City it appears that humans cannot live with nature without destroying it. (And I thought that was only an East Coast thing.)

I would love to see the port closed and merged with Tacoma, the Seattle waterfront turned into living and recreation areas and the Duwamish River restored. It would be nice to see some environmental leadership from my home town but it appears our reputation on being green is less from conscious leadership and more from the lack of people moving here.

Read more about it: here.

I find it incredible that this is the end of 2007 and we are still confronted with how damaged and dangerous Iraq is.

This article is the first sign of progress I have seen in forever. Possibly because Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld are not mentioned once.

Iraq is a tribal culture not a John Wayne movie and it appears at least some people in the army finally get that and are trying solutions that might work in a tribal system. This is not a magic bullet but it sounds like at least a little progress - something we never hear about from our actual politicians.

This is a detail-rich article and well worth a read. It is also a good reminder that there are lot more dead Iraqi's than there are dead American's.

How Courting Sheiks Slowed Violence in Iraq

Marines Try Payments, Alliances in Anbar Area; Chasing Out al Qaeda

By GREG JAFFE

Wall Street Journal

August 8, 2007

"For three years we fought our asses off out here and made very little progress," says Lt. Col. Michael Silverman, who oversees an 800-soldier battalion in Ramadi. "Now we are working with the sheiks, and Ramadi has gone from the most dangerous city in the world to a place where I can sit on Sheik Heiss's front porch without my body armor and not have to worry about getting shot."

The success in Anbar Province, which lies west of Baghdad, hasn't come easily. The key to the U.S. campaign has been recruiting, cultivating, and rewarding tribal leaders. At points, the effort even involved a Marine general making several trips abroad to woo an important exiled tribal sheik to return home. The progress here, which has unfolded as violence elsewhere in Iraq has climbed, has become central to American hopes of success in the deeply divided country. President Bush has repeatedly touted it and U.S. commanders throughout Iraq are looking to export the Marine model.

...

One of the driving forces behind the strategy in al Anbar is Brig. Gen. John Allen, a brainy and slightly built Marine officer. Gen. Allen has become an avid reader of Gertrude Bell, the British archeologist who in the 1920s drew the lines of modern-day Iraq. Her travelogues, dogeared and underlined, are scattered across his desk.

"When the tribes are at their best they live in a condition of splendid equilibrium," says Gen. Allen, quoting Ms. Bell. The lesson, he says, "is that the tribes are constantly shifting alliances to suit economic and security needs." In the process, they are also testing boundaries with U.S. forces and each other to see how far they can expand their power. About three-quarters of Iraq's population, both Sunni and Shiite, are members of one of the nation's 150 tribes.

Each tribe's leadership consists of a senior sheik and a council of several dozen sub-sheiks whose positions are typically hereditary. The sheiks oversee vast business networks that often include some cross-border smuggling, say the Marines. They award spoils and arbitrate disputes within the tribe. They also seek to place members in key jobs throughout the local and national government so that they can deliver money, power and influence. "Tribal society makes up the tectonic plates in Iraq on which everything rests," says Gen. Allen.

Saddam Hussein managed the tribes with a combination of cash and brute force, Gen. Allen says. When his government was toppled in 2003, the equilibrium among the tribes that he had constructed over three decades fractured into chaos. Some tribes aligned themselves with al Qaeda for religious reasons, linking with their Muslim brothers to drive out the occupiers, say the sheiks. Others were driven by economics. Smaller tribes saw an opportunity to align with the terrorists and amass wealth and power that had been denied to them.

More than 90% of the fighters aligned with al Qaeda in Anbar province in 2006 were Iraqis, who either came from Anbar or other parts of Iraq, Gen. Allen says. The remaining 10% were foreigners who provided weapons and money.

The al Qaeda leadership quickly moved to seize power from the tribal sheiks and institute Sharia law, which hews to a strict interpretation of the Quran. The tribal sheiks, who tend to be more moderate Muslims -- some keep a few bottles of whiskey stashed in their homes -- balked at that, and al Qaeda operatives began to slaughter them.

...

In the fall of 2006, Sheik Sattar Al-Risha, a Ramadi tribal leader whose father and two brothers had been killed by al Qaeda, quietly approached the U.S. about forming an alliance to fight al Qaeda.

His top priority was to convince Sheik Mishan al Jumaily, the head of the powerful Jumaily tribe, to return from Syria. U.S. forces had killed one of his four sons in 2003 by mistake at a checkpoint. A second of the sheik's sons was killed by radical Islamists in 2005. "After he was killed, my wife died of a broken heart," Sheik Mishan says.

In late June, Sheik Mishan's third son was killed, by a roadside bomb outside of Fallujah. The following day he called Gen. Allen and said he wanted to return to Iraq.

War is life and death. It is the failure of reason. It is the ultimate price for a nation - a price of human lives and tax dollars. If there was ever an issue that was important to take a firm stand on, it is war.

Up until now, the political talk about our war in Iraq has had all the passion (or less) of the Superbowl. But not this morning.

Lindsay Graham (an air force lawyer) and Jim Webb (a marine corp officer with combat experience in Vietnam) had a genuine, emotional argument about Iraq today on Meet the Press. Seeing our leaders argue with passion and not talking points is such a rare thing, it is definitely worth a look.

I like Lindsay Graham but he comes off in this discussion as a real ass. Like John McCain, Graham's unwavering support for the President after 4 years of obvious failure is hard to watch. We have to wait for this general's report in September? (No pressure, Gen Petraeus.) What about the last general's report, Lindsay? Or the one before that? We have had a long line of generals in Iraq; each one of them has asked for more time before getting fired and replaced while the situation has gotten worse and worse.

Just this week one of the combat generals on the ground made a press statement that before we could assess any changes or troop pull out we needed to decide what our desired end state in Iraq is. What?! All this time and the generals do not know what their goals are? No wonder we have failed.

I feel terrible for McCain. If he had won in 2000, we would not be in any of this mess and I still think he would make a great President. But his unwavering support of the colossal failure of the Bush dreamers & schemers is destroying his election campaign. Based on today's interview, the same position may well sink Graham too.

I was particularly irritated (as was Webb) by Graham's assertion that when troops re-enlist it proves that our military policies are working. That must be some kind of South Carolina logic and it is in sharp contrast to the warnings of others that we are unable to maintain our military levels because recruitment is way off. (Which is why we raised the max enlistment age to 42 and are now accepting people that we used to reject, such as high school dropouts and men with criminal records.) The burden we have put on military families while we have asked no one else to sacrifice is unconscionable. (And just wait for the tax increases to pay for it all.)

Failure of the Bush administration in Iraq is guaranteed; the only question now is what the next President can do about it.

An Iraq debate with two key members of the Armed Services Committee: Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) & Jim Webb (D-VA).

Sunday, July 15

More

After hearing John Dvorak rave about this movie on TWiT, I was curious. It was hard to picture myself agreeing with Dvorak but I like Mike Judge's other products so I rented it.

This is not Office Space 2. It is not the best movie you will see this year. You may be turned off by the crude jokes (they only lasted 30 minutes before hitting stop).

But I will be darned if I cant stop thinking about it. I see the issues from this movie everywhere in the news.

This week, the new CEO of Electronic Arts stated that the problem with the video game industry is that the games are too hard. Apparently we consumers are "paying for content we never see" so the game makers should make the games easier, i.e. dumb them down for us.

Also this week three surgeon generals made statements about how the Bush Administration has been substituting political policies for science. (The same thing NASA scientists have been saying for years about global warming science.)

Yes, it is true that every generation feels that young people are different and dumber than people used to be. Some of that is surely a reaction to change and aging, but still it is worth thinking about. Especially here in the USA, where we have so much power and influence yet seem so ignorant about so much. Take the recent global Pugh Research poll that showed that the USA is the least concerned (or informed) about global warming of all developed nations they looked at.

If you like sarcasm and farce, you will find the movie funny. It is not often you see a movie that is funny and thought-provoking. I enjoyed the mixed up wordplay (people continuously use words incorrectly), and that seat with the built in food tube, toilette and TV. The President in all his professional wrestling/porn star glory was a hoot too as was the Extreme Court.

rent it on Netflix

Then read Gore's new book, "The Assault on Reason".

A few years ago my favorite TV show was a drama about Iraq called "Over There". The show attempted to give those of us sitting on the couch, an idea of what our troops were going through. It was cancelled in the first season.

Recently 60 Minutes did a special episode on a national guard division from Iowa that was sent to Iaq in 2005. They followed this group of "fathers, sons and brothers" for two years. I am no fan of Stone Phillips or puff-pieces masquerading as news but this was a great episode. We should all spend more time thinking about the people who are fighting for us and what they are going through.

The war experience of voters, soldiers and Iraqi's are so completely different, it hard to imagine how they can be reconciled. The troops that go seem to have little understanding of the facts surrounding the conflict, either before or after they go. American voters seem to have no concern for the financial costs involved (which they will have to pay back with increased taxes) and little awareness of what Iraqi's are going through or how Iraqi's are likely to feel about our actions when the dust finally settles.

citizen soldiers

As I watched this episode, I was really struck by how readily these men were willing to sacrifice for their country. On one hand, the soldiers and family interviewed professed (the incorrect) belief that Iraq had something to do with 9/11. On the other hand, they were so willing to trust the President. One of them even commented on his faith that the President was "a smart man and would not send them to Iraq lightly."

I was touched by their willingness to give of themselves. Their country had a need and they were willing to heed the call, no questions asked. I found myself thinking about what I have given for the war. Four years now. Four years of war; almost a trillon dollars of tax dollars spent; no end in sight.

The truth is, I have done nothing to support the war. And I am not alone.

I go to work. I pay my taxes. I read about our efforts in the paper. Iraq doesnt touch my life at all and that is the war experience of almost everyone I know. While military families feel the pain, most Americans have done nothing to support the war except continue to shop. (After all, the President himself gave us a tax cut and urged us to fight the terrorists by continuing to shop and keep the economy humming.)

The electorate are thinking about American Idol and iPhones not about sacrifice. What a contrast to previous wars when people pulled together. When there was rationing and a war tax (not a tax cut). When men went off to fight and women ran the factories. When there was a draft that forced everyone to focus on the fight and the costs.

Watching the experiences of these military families, I felt guilty. I felt terrible. I felt like I ought to enlist. I felt like I ought to do something to help.

The worst part of this debacle in Iraq is that those with the most of offer, the most educated and the most wealthy Americans, have done nothing to share the burden. No one has been drafted; few have enlisted. During one of the biggest periods of wealth creation in history, our most financially successful are not giving back or volunteering to pay a war tax. Instead they complain about having to pay taxes at all. Despite calls for change by the odd millionaire like Warren Buffett, most of our wealthy seem obsessed with giving as little as possible to our nation and keeping as much as possible for themselves.

What a contrast. What a country. What a crime. We ought to be ashamed.

I have heard that the rich start the wars and the poor fight them. Maybe that is true but its still hard to watch.

Fathers, Sons And Brothers

May 27, 2007

In Full: Scott Pelley followed a battalion from the Iowa National Guard for nearly two years, reporting on their deployment to Iraq and its effect on the families left behind.

article link

video link

Presidential pardons are something few of us ever think about except as a source of anger or irritation.

Conservative American's have never been able to get over the fact that President Clinton had sex with someone other than his wife and he lied about it. (It is somehow different when conservative religious leaders and politicians do the same thing since no one brings them up.) They tried (and failed) to impeach him for it and have never been able to get over it and move on. Conservatives are also unhappy that Clinton pardoned some Democratic crook, Marc Rich, on his last day.

Similarly, the first President bush pardoned the Iran-Contra crooks on his last day.

I just dont get it. No criminals should be pardoned for their party affiliation. We should all be angry when someone is forgiven for a crime just because they had rich and powerful friends.

President Bush has only pardoned 3 people in his 7 years in office. That is the fewest pardons of any president in a century. He clearly wants to send the message that he is tough on crime, Tejas-style, or at least just too busy to care. Don't over-think it. Innocent or guilty, if you are in prison, fuck you. Bush expects you to stay there no matter what the circumstances.

That is what makes this Libby thing so tough to swallow. Not only is Libby on Bush's staff but it is such a contrast with his normal actions, it says loud and clear that he is tough on crime - except when he and his friends are doing it. This is something all Americans should be upset with; paying the penalty for criminal actions should have nothing to do with political party.

What makes it even stranger is listening to Conservatives defend Bush's action. Educated, privileged and even lawyers, people who consistently espouse policies of being "tough on crime" now sound bizarre and foolish when they try to explain why Libby should be granted leniency when no one else should. Even more ironic is that Libby's "unfair" sentence came from a "tough on crime" judge Bush appointed himself. It would seem that being tough on crime is only desirable when it is someone else getting the sentence.

It is almost comical.

And it is sad. We have 2M citizens in prison today, most of whom also committed non-violent crimes like Libby. But the tragedy is how many innocent Americans are behind bars for crimes someone else committed. Estimates are 5-10% or over 100,000 innocent people are in prison today.

The poor and uneducated do not get "150 letters" from the rich and famous telling of their character. Regular Americans often fail to get a reasonable legal defense either. As a result, many of them go to prison and a few are even executed for crimes they did not commit. These are the people who should really receive Presidential attention and pardons.

Thankfully, there are Americans that worry about wrongful convictions and the principles of justice not just privilege. And thanks to DNA testing and efforts like The Innocence Project, some of those innocent prisoners are exonerated and get a second chance.

When I hear the stories of these guys who were in the slam for decades or on death row and are finally proven innocent and freed, I am always touched. Touched by the unfairness of it all. Touched by how thoughtful and forgiving they sound in interviews. They never spout off with bitterness and anger at the injustice of their situation. They usually just seem happy to be free, to be with their family again. Happy that the ordeal is finally over.

It makes me wonder if perhaps they learned something in prison. Perhaps their struggle with adversity developed some character or wisdom they did not have before. Which makes me think that it might be good for all of us if these rich and well connected crooks did spent more time in jail. A lot of time.

It was quite alarming when Scooter Libby was convicted by a jury of his peers for lying to a Federal Grand Jury (or was it the FBI?). It was even more alarming when a federal judge, appointed by President Bush because he was so tough on crime, gave Libby a stiff sentence.

Doesn't that judge understand how government works? The president and his staff are supposed to lie to investigators. I mean they have been doing it for years, we thought everyone knew it was their job or something. Someone has to make the Jack Nicholson decisions, the ones that "you can't handle!".

Thank goodness for President Bush. Today, during the 4th of July holiday week, Bush honored all American patriots by commuting Libby's prison sentence.

President Bush understands that prison is for poor people. Prison is for black people and mexicans. White people just can't handle prison, unless they are poor or Nazi's or both.

No sir, prison is too hard for rich white people like Bush's staff and friends. Think of Libby's wife and children? They would be so sad if Libby was punished for his felonies. It's just unfair!

Now that justice is done, my only regret is that Libby was not given a complete pardon. With a felony on his record, he cannot run for president himself like Nelson Mandella did. Oh well, one cant have it all.

Colin Powell. Where the heck have you been these past few years?

This morning MtP had a great interview with Powell. I will admit I was a fan of both John McCain and Colin Powell circa 1999-2000. Their personal involvement with the Bush administration's colossal failures has caused me to lose a lot of respect for both men but that could change. Both men did interviews on national TV this morning, Colin's in particular was worth a watch because he has been seen so rarely since he left the administration.

He will not run for office himself but he will support the "best candidate to lead our country" in 2008 - from any party. Ouch.

He was very aware of the possible post-war problems in Iraq (that all came true). That awareness of the consequences made him very cautious about invading without UN support and he briefed Rice and Bush about it personally before the invasion. (A lot of good that did.)

He would have sent in more troops to secure the nation after the war, for things like stopping the looting and maintaining security.

He would close Guantanamo Bay immediately, "not tomorrow, I would close it today".

The Republican Party debate last week showed that the Republican Party has no interest in letting gays serve openly in the military. When Powell was asked why the US is one of two nations (along with Portugal) in NATO that does not allow gays to serve openly, he said that it was time for that to change.

Overall I thought it was a great interview. One that makes me wonder (not for the first time), why he had so little impact on our actual policies? In a time of war, McCain and Powell are the men I would like to see leading us to safety. Who is really running the White House?

As I read the Saturday edition of the WSJ, it's nice to see some old friends. Good to see you again, Paul! With Alberto hogging all the front-pages this month, its nice to see you back in the limelight where you belong.

Paul doesn't get enough credit for being one of the master-minds behind our unprovoked, defensive invasion of Iraq. I was sad when he left the administration that we wouldnt see him much anymore.

But recent weeks have shown my fears to be ungrounded. Paul is back and with a vengeance. As supreme leader of the World Bank, Paul has once again shown the value of his leadership.

You go, Paul!

Wolfowitz Memo, Dictating Raises Given to Friend, Now Haunts Him

By GREG HITT

April 14, 2007

Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON -- The disclosure yesterday of a 2005 memo from World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz -- dictating the terms of his girlfriend's promotions and raises while on the bank's payroll -- is giving new ammunition to critics who seek his ouster and threatening to weaken him if he stays on at the bank.

Already, the public release of the memo and dozens of other related documents reflects the changing dynamic as Mr. Wolfowitz tries, with a mix of apologies and persistence, to hold onto his $400,000-a-year post as head of the world's biggest anti-poverty institution. With representatives of the U.S. and European governments at odds Thursday night over how many documents to disclose, Mr. Wolfowitz cut through the debate by asking that they all be released in an apparent effort to bolster his bid to keep his job.

In the August memo -- which wasn't reviewed by the bank's directors, ethics committee or general counsel -- Mr. Wolfowitz told Xavier Coll, vice president for human resources: "I now direct you to agree to a proposal which includes the following terms and conditions..." The memo went on to detail the salary that Shaha Riza, then a communications officer, would earn when she was assigned a job outside the bank at the bank's expense. It also set out her future raises and her status when she returned to the bank after Mr. Wolfowitz's term as president. She now earns a tax-free $193,590, about $61,000 more than before she was reassigned. It's not clear who besides Messrs. Wolfowitz and Coll knew all the terms.

...

The Bush administration's 2005 choice of Mr. Wolfowitz, an architect of President Bush's Iraq war, to run the bank was instantly controversial. His tenure has been marked by tension and criticism both from inside and outside the bank. But the past two weeks have been extraordinary: The March 28 disclosure of the details of Ms. Riza's salary led to chants of "Resign! Resign!" from some staffers gathered in the atrium of the bank's headquarters, and then to the emailed release of the previously highly confidential documents by the bank's board early yesterday morning.

Not to be outdone by Paul, its also nice to see Karl sticking around in the news. I know he is a modest man who likes to keep a low profile, but with Scooter in jail, someone has to keep the headlines off the President.

Computers are so complicated, arent they? Who can blame you for forgetting to back up your email? After all the effort it must have taken to avoid the White House email system and build your own, private system, its easy to forget that little backup switch. And who could keep 5M emails in their inbox without deleting a few? Honest mistake. It could happen to anyone.

White House Probes More Lost Emails

By JOHN D. MCKINNON

April 14, 2007

Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON -- The White House, already under pressure to explain missing emails from officials using a Republican Party system, says it is investigating reports that many more emails might have been deleted from its own system.

A White House spokeswoman said Friday that it is possible several million emails could have been erased. "I wouldn't rule out that there were a potential five million emails lost," said Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino. She emphasized, however, that "there was no intent to have lost them."

By day's end, another White House spokesman, Scott Stanzel, said that "we are aware that some White House emails may not have been automatically archived on the...server. However, we understand that such emails should have been preserved on backup tapes."

The 1978 Presidential Records Act requires each administration to maintain an adequate record of its actions and deliberations and preserve them for history, and recent administrations have archived emails. But White House officials raised particular concerns about the lost emails, according to CREW, because the loss meant that some emails relevant to the CIA leak investigation might not have been provided to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

A January 2006 letter from Mr. Fitzgerald suggests there were problems with the White House email archiving system. "We have learned that not all email of the Office of the Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system," Mr. Fitzgerald wrote in the letter to lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former vice presidential aide who ultimately was indicted and convicted for lying to the grand jury. Mr. Libby's lawyers were trying to obtain possible evidence in the case.

The White House has conceded that many emails from 2001-05 on a separate Republican National Committee system that likely related to official administration business were deleted by the RNC. Those emails were being sent and received by White House political officials through accounts maintained by the RNC. The White House has said the RNC emails relating to official business should have been archived, just as White House emails should be.

Someone leaked the name of a covert CIA agent to the press. And they did it in a time of war.

The first act is a felony. The second act is treason.

The first penalty is prison. The second penalty is death.

At no point in this discussion does the word "pardon" come up. And at no point in this discussion has anyone been charged with this crime; one that we all witnessed. Whoever leaked the name of covert CIA agent Plame will go unpunished.

If I was in the CIA, I would be alarmed.

If I was a Conservative, I would be outraged.

As it is, I am disappointed that our justice system provides completely different results depending on the defendant (poor people go to prison; rich people get acquitted). I am frustrated that people are able to intentionally commit crimes and avoid punishment by hiding behind the process and media obfuscation. And I am disgusted that cases like these revolve around political party not personal responsibility or merit. When Democrats are lenient on Democrats and Republicans protect Republicans, all Americans lose.

I would be much happier in a country where we treated each other as Americans. A country where rich and poor alike were treated the same by the government. And most of all, a country where lying is punished, not rewarded.

A jury looked at the evidence and very clearly found that Libby lied to the Grand Jury and to the FBI. This case did not involve "liberal judges" or political machinations. If you have any respect for our justice system and our police agencies, you would want to see Libby, and anyone else that did the same thing, punished.

The verdict and punishment should have absolutely nothing to do with what political party Libby is in or his personal relationship to the President or anyone else. Lying is bad; Lying to the government is a crime. You are a hypocrite of the worst kind if you now argue that lying is only a crime if the liar is not on your side and lying is understandable if the liar is on your side.

We talk a lot about character but character means a) dont lie to begin with and b) if you are caught, admit your guilt and serve your penance. Those are the lessons your parents taught you in kindergarten and they have never changed.

The trial is over. Do us all a favor and serve the time without appeal. Or pardon.

Remember when Republicans wanted to curb government spending? Remember when there was bi-partisan support for eliminating the deficit and lowering the national debt? It would seem that few of our leaders remember since government spending (and debt) has exploded since 2000.

As our federal debt gets close to our $11 Trillion Dollar GDP, it seems like our government officials have completely forgotten about saving some money for real problems in the future but I hope that issue comes back in the next election.

Clinton Brings Debt Worries to the Fore

By DEBORAH SOLOMON and JOHN HARWOOD

March 5, 2007

Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Hillary Clinton, sounding a theme likely to recur among 2008 presidential hopefuls, is warning about the "economic vulnerabilities" posed by foreign interests owning large amounts of U.S. debt.

In remarks on the Senate floor and a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Mrs. Clinton said President Bush's economic policies have contributed to an "erosion of U.S. economic sovereignty." She also said it is "undeniable that the exponential growth of foreign debt in the last six years has undermined our economic standing."

Currently, the U.S. imports more goods than it exports from places like China, resulting in a trade deficit, and it borrows heavily from abroad to finance its domestic investment. Foreign interests own about $2.2 trillion of U.S. Treasury securities -- or about 52% of the public debt not held by the U.S. government, compared with about 20% in the early 1990s, during the Clinton administration. The U.S. has come to rely on foreign capital because Americans don't save enough to finance the nation's domestic investment.

This morning I listened to Meet the Press again. One of the guests was Tony Snow and one of the topics was Iran's supply of advanced IED's to Iraqi terrorists.

The discussion reminded me of a survey I heard last year. The survey looked at religion in different countries around the world.

Do you believe in God? The USA scored very high in belief in God but so did a lot of other countries.

Do you believe in the Devil? What made the USA unique was our belief in a Devil. As I recall, it was as high or even higher than belief in God and it was far higher than any other country.

In other words, we believe in the Devil more than any other culture. What does that say about us?

Character has been a regular theme in the news since the late 1990's. One of the main issues in the 2000 Presidential campaign was this idea of character. At the time, candidate Bush spoke constantly about the virtues of his own character while Republicans in general spoke about the deficiencies of Bill Clinton's character, and by extension Al Gore's. John Kerry and John McCain also had to fend off attacks about their character.

With so much self-promotion in the media today, it almost comes as a shock to read about people with real character - people who risked their lives and the lives of their families to help strangers. People who took unimaginable risks simply because of the strength of their principles. Even more shocking today is that people did such things and then refused to talk about them, refused to take credit, even feared that they had not really done enough.

Such is the tale of Ernst Leitz, patriarch of the Leica camera company during WW2. Tails of recrimination and anger about WW2 are much more common than tales of personal heroism but this article is one of the latter. And worth your time.

As I read the article, I wondered about that word: character. What really IS character? Is it one of those Platonic ideals where people who have it dont mention it while people who dont have it talk about it constantly? Has the definition of character changed? Can strict values ever be character if they are based on hate and not on help or love of others? Is true character just too hard to maintain today or is it, as always, quietly going on around us too modest to call attention to itself?

As I listened to the news on the radio today, I heard a very strange thing. An actual interview with President Bush. Wha?!

The President's interview today was so remarkable because of its past absence. To my knowledge, this was the President's very first interview with NPR after more than 5 years in office. It took me aback because I realized just how rare such an interview was and what a huge change in behavior it reflects.

For years, I have heard excerpts from speeches and interviews the president has made to other groups, almost always being military schools, veterans groups or FOX News. But National Public Radio, our nation's only commercial-free news outlet partially funded by tax dollars, never got access to the President. For the first time ever, the President has come to my house to talk to me and let me say, it was a welcome change.

Until now. What's next? A fireside chat with President Cheney? One can hope.

I just heard about Boxer's comments to Condi Rice yesterday. Based on the vitriolic response, she apparently hit 'em in a tender spot.

I did not hear the actual speech myself, but just reading the comments in the paper, I really don't see anything new or shocking about them. I think the comments and the reaction are a sign of how little we actually discuss the cost of this war, who is going to pay for it, and whether it is worth it. For the most part, we only talk about whether it is worth it which leads to a very skewed analysis.

One of the biggest issues here is that over the past five years, we have grown very used to this idea that you can have a war without any costs at all. In historical terms, this idea is totally bizarre. In other ways, it is a very dangerous idea.

The whole point behind Colin Powell's warning that if we go into Iraq we will be responsible, his so-called "you break it, you buy it" argument, is that war IS costly. War is terrible and that is why wise men and women avoid it. At the time, Powell's voice of experience fell on deaf ears and was lost in the emotional arguments about patriotism. Are people starting to realize how right he was?

Politicians play on our emotions in order to get us to vote. As a result, politicians say things that you either love or hate. Recently, our politicians have invented a saying that is driving me crazy.

"The Iraqi's need to get into the fight."

What? Are you kidding me? While we moan about 3,000 US soldiers dead in the past 4 YEARS, over 30,000 Iraqis were killed just in 2006. Iraqi's dont need to get in the fight, we brought the fight to their home. They ARE in the fight; are we?

A short while ago, the tenor of articles about Iraq's president changed. For a long time, articles were all pep-talk and sunshine and positive energy. Now the articles talk about why al-Maliki is the wrong man for the job and a failure. In short-order, al-Malaki has become the Administration's scapegoat for the lack of progress. "Don't blame us; Blame the Iraqis!"

At first I was hesitant to heed these criticisms, partly because I knew the Bush Administration is in desperate need of a fall-guy and partly because I just dont know much about al-Maliki. Who nominated him? Who voted for him? Why is he president to begin with?

This article today is a good biography of al-Malaki in his role as President. Considering how many billions of tax dollars we are spending in Iraq, it is worth reading to learn more about efforts there, which are exceedingly complicated.

After reading this article, I am impressed that al-Maliki would risk his own life to try to be Iraq's first President but I think he may indeed be the wrong man for the job. But one interpretation of why he is the wrong man is that he is too much like Bush/Cheney. He is driven by an ideology and he is too intolerant of others to build bridges and form the coalitions necessary to create a Democracy.

It is not often that I hear an intelligent and thoughtful conversation about religion so today's Meet the Press was a bit of a Christmas surprise. It was also one of the best conversations I have heard about modern religion in America. Definitely worth 40 minutes of your time.

Check it out!

Meet The Press

Sunday, Dec. 24

Exclusive! In a special holiday edition, Dr. Rick Warren, author of the international best-seller "The Purpose Driven Life" & Jon Meacham, Newsweek's Editor and author of "American Gospel," discuss Faith in America. • TRANSCRIPT

As we invest $ Billions and our citizens die to create democracy in Iraq, it is disheartening to see the spirit of democracy degrade in our own country. Our leaders now spend a lot less time being leaders and lot more time focusing on being elected.

The whole point of our representative system is that we elect people we believe will make the best decisions on our behalf. When having a position on an issue becomes a liability to getting elected, you know we have a serious problem.

I go back and forth on this issue. On one hand, it doesn't seem right that tax payers pay for a stadium and team owners make a profit from that investment. On the other hand, that is the name of the game and a city without professional sports team is pretty darn lame.

In true lumberjack fashion, Seattle is going to try to prove to the nation that this city is so cool, it doesn't need pro-sports. Starting with basketball. (Apparently football and baseball are needed. For now.)

The 2006 election is a few days away and election rhetoric is at a fevered pitch. It saddens me that so much of our attention is on completely irrelevant wedge issues like gay marriage and stem cell research. I havent heard a single politician discuss climate change.

Global warming is THE issue for our generation. Global warming is going to change the ability of the Earth to sustain human life. Even Iraq is small potatoes in comparison.

Despite the lack of US electoral attention, this week had a raft of disturbing global warming news.

I have been trying not to write about Iraq but things look so dire now, I just cannot help myself. This goes way beyond our own partisan politics; Thousands of people are dying and our intervention is largely to blame.

If you missed it, this is a really interesting article on the political side of FPS games.

As a fan of realistic FPS games (Americas Army, Counter Strike, Day of Defeat), I dont spend a lot of time thinking about how the "bad guys" might feel. The games are a fun challenge to me but I can appreciate that I would feel differently if the bad guys looked like me. I can also appreciate that all of the games have white American's as the good guys, not the bad guys. A lot of games try to avoid the issue completely by making the "bad guys" wear masks or suits of armor that hide the fact that the "game" is about killing other human beings.

As an American, we are all from some other country. My family immigrated from Germany, and I find games like Call of Duty offensive at times. In those games, you kill wave after wave after wave of anonymous Germans. Sometimes it is fun but other times I find that it is completely nonsensical in a way that really mocks the reality of war and the sanctity of human life. The HBO show "Band of Brothers" gives a very different (and much better) view of the war even though it too is only from the American viewpoint.

I am not about to stop playing FPS games but I am picky about the ones I support. I am not sure where the line is but some games cross the line from being simple fun to simply offensive. Moreover it is good to read articles like this and to know that even in games, there is another side to the story. Years ago, I thought it would be great to create historical games that actual teach children history... now I wonder if you could ever do it in a fair and balanced way.

The tone of this article suggested to me that some people are crying foul about political video clips on YouTube but frankly, I think it might be a good thing. Possibly even a very good thing.

I find it hard to believe that we are coming to another national election and we are still debating what to do in Iraq. Five years after 9/11, the President's popularity is down so far that even Republicans are starting to question the way he has handled Iraq. Despite the money and the casualties, "stay the course" still looks like it will be the plan for the foreseeable future.

Unless something big and out of our control happens.

I have had to take a few lumps for being honest, but I personally despise hypocrisy. When the Foley case broke last week, I was pleased to see someone get what they had coming. But as the news trickled out, my feelings have really changed.

Genes of genius'? Go rent Gattaca...

Celebrity Genome Project?

$10 Million May Speed Decoding

By ANTONIO REGALADO

October 4, 2006

Are the rich and famous really different from the rest of us, down in their genes?

Time will tell. The X Prize Foundation, sponsor of a widely noted 2004 award for developing a reusable rocket suitable for private space travel, says it is now teaming with a wealthy Canadian geologist to offer $10 million to any team that can completely decode the genes of 100 people in 10 days.

And that's not all. As an encore, the winning team will be paid $1 million more to decode another 100 people's genes, including a bevy of wealthy donors and celebrities. Already accepted for future decoding: Google Inc. co-founder Larry Page, Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul G. Allen and former junk-bond king Michael Milken.

The idea behind the star-studded genome race is to drive public interest in DNA research and hasten the age of "personalized medicine," in which drugs and diets may be tailored to an individual's genes, says Peter Diamandis, the aerospace entrepreneur who founded the X Prize Foundation, based in Santa Monica, Calif.

I saw the DVD of Munich last night. The movie was so much better than I expected it to be. In point of fact, the movie was great.

When I first heard that some of the President's religious supporters unconditionally take the side of the Israeli government because they believe it is the next step to Armageddon and the return of Christ, I laughed. (There is a similar argument for why we dont need to worry about global warming since the people that matter wont be here much longer anyway.)

But as I have watched our elected leaders spread the bloodshed from Afghanistan, to Iraq, to the Palestinian territory, to Lebanon and now to begin threatening Iran and Syria, I have begun to think this idea is a less of a joke and more of self-fulfilling prophecy.

And now Hezbollah. We sure have learned a lot of exciting new words since Bush took office!

After a week of headlines, I find myself asking: what the fuck is going on here?

The White house just lost their most recent case regarding "detainees" before the Supreme Court.

And I want to be the first in line to commend the President. It takes a big man to extend basic human rights to a total stranger. Normally when I meet a stranger, especially one that looks a bit funny, I try to kill him. Unless of course she's pretty, in which case I might rape her before I kill her. And dont even get me started on guys with dark skin and beards; I always want to torture those guys before I kill them.

I woke up this morning to the news that Ken Lay had died of a heart attack.

The reporter was particularly supportive of Mr. Lay. He almost seemed sad that Lay had died, as if to say, "he was such a nice man, its a shame he died." After all, Lay had been keeping a "low profile" at his Aspen, CO estate while awaiting his sentence.

Personally, I found this story a bit offensive but it illustrates the mixed messages we seem to feel about crime and money.

I didnt pay much attention to this issue so I dont know what the counter-arguments are, but I do think it is a good idea to put porn in a XXX domain. Pornographic commerce isnt a very big free speech issue for me, and I would feel better about porn being in one place on the Internet not everywhere.

This article continues previous threads about using the Internet for commercial purposes, something it wasnt designed for, as well as the issue of who should control the Internet and how long the rest of the world will be content with the USA calling the shots.

Suffice it to say, I dont think Jim Dobson should be calling the shots for anything at all. The idea that porn isn't already legitimately online is ridiculous to say the least. The idea that Jim Dobson and others like him run our country is equally disturbing.

Are you curious about Iraq but not sure if you can trust the White House press releases or the US media to give you a good picture? (After all, neither of them leave the Green Zone.)

If so, check out this blog from an actual Iraqi citizen living in Iraq. He appears to be risking his life to tell the world about life in this wonderful new Democracy President Bush created.

Healing Iraq

If voters actually fall for this foolishness about taxes (which they do), I think there is little hope of any progress being made on global warming, a real issue.

How much are you willing to pay to stop illegal immigrants?

Forget walls and border patrols and national guardsmen. The solution to stopping illegal immigrants is to remove the jobs they come here to get. Period.

These poor people dont risk their lives to come here for our unaffordable health care or our non-existant retirement benefits - they come here for the American dream: work hard and earn a buck to help your family live a better life.

If the IRS and the social security administration got together and really checked the payrolls of American companies (and wealthy individuals who cant seem to stay away from those illegal servants and nanny's), they could prevent companies from hiring illegal workers. If the government built an enforceable system of worker identification and fined businesses heavily for hiring illegals, illegal immigration would end within a year.

And prices would rise.

Haditha.

On the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer last Friday, Brooks discounted the killings in Haditha. "In past wars there have been bigger massacres." "Massacres like this always happen in wars." Blah, blah, blah. In so many words, Brooks said it was no big deal.

If the way we "win" this war is by winning the "hearts and minds" of the people of Iraq, this is a HUGE deal. No matter how much good we do, it will all be undermined by scandals and coverups like Abu Ghraib and Haditha. People like Brooks dont want to see that but we can see it right here in our country when companies cover up scandals.

How is Enron's reputation these days? What about Anderson Consulting? Remember when people died taking Tylenol? What would people think about Tylenol if the company had covered it up and said it was "no big deal"? What about Merck and Vioxx. Only a few people were negatively effected, did the public think that was no big deal?

Come on, Mr. Brooks! Senseless political spin is going to get us nowhere.

It is pretty rare to see a politician say it like it is on national TV, at least rare for a Democrat. This morning on Meet the Press, Senator Biden went off! I got a strange pleasure from hearing someone call out the Bush administration on one issue after another and demand accountability with specifics, like "firing Rumsfeld Monday morning".

The second guest on the show was Hans Blix. I had never seen Hans speak before and he was terrific. Educated, intelligent, wise - all the things Harvard and Yale did not teach President Bush. It was interesting to hear Hans talk about Iraq as well as his comments on Iran - the next fiasco of the Bush administration.

MTP isnt always that good but this week was a great episode worth watching - which you can now do online. (At least you can if you dont use a Mac.)

Louisiana's Democratic Rep. William Jefferson is video taped taking a $100,000 bribe. The FBI subpeona's him to release papers for their investigation. He stonewalls them for eight months. The FBI gets a warrant from a federal judge that allows them to search Jefferson's office for incriminating evidence, which they do. (They had already found $90,000 of cash at his home in his freezer.)

Seems like a slam dunk and a real opportunity for Republicans to say, "See! We arent the only crooks in D.C.!"

Instead Hastert and DeLay get out in front defending Jefferson?!!

How much are you willing to pay for the war in Iraq? $100/month? $1000/month? Are you willing to join the army and go there to fight? Have you even thought about it?

President Cheney has been able to keep this charade going for years because they have wisely kept people from facing the costs. There is no draft for troops to maintain order. There is no war tax to pay for war. Of course we arent "mobilized for war", because if we were, people would pay more attention to the President's bumbling and what it will really cost us. And it will cost us. Estimates are over $1 trillion Dollars. We will pay but thanks to the mighty credit card, Bush will be long gone before the bill comes due.

This article on General Batiste is terrific. Read it. We need more men like Batiste to speak up. There is more to courage than actions on a battlefield and someone needs to have the courage to do the right thing. Someone has to hold Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld accountable for this fiasco.

Airplanes, grunge music, software, coffee. Seattle has a strong reputation for innovation.

Now that live here I am learning that while Seattle may be an innovator, it is also pretty poor at management. Whether you are talking business, government or politics, there is just a lot of pie in the sky thinking and a lot just bad financial management.

Imagine a country: After 9-11, the military concluded that citizens might be working with Al Qaeda so they began to use their resources to spy on civilian activities. Foremost among them were the so-called "peace" protests. Monitoring phone calls of millions were also used to observe people.

Where am I?

Nepal? nope. Afghanistan? nope. Iraq? no again.

This strategy is the one used by our own Department of Defense and it is really scary. (Maybe Michael Moore wasnt so paranoid after all.)

In contrast to the execrable Meet the Press episode Sunday, Warren Onley's show today was very good. They talked about leadership from California, the way things are in Europe, the larger picture of energy consumption, and national policies.

The show was a good listen and helped me conclude that the market just isnt going to solve this problem. Markets react; leaders plan.

Oh boy am I sick of hearing about $3/gallon gasoline! What makes things worse is that the conversations we are having about gasoline are so useless. Case in point: Meet the Press.

As much as I enjoy this show, the discussion on $3 gasoline this week was worthless.

I chose to believe that most people are basically good at heart. Sometimes it is hard to maintain this belief.

Today I am thinking about genocide and poverty and it saddens me how little we want to help our fellow human beings. Just take care of yourself and shut your eyes...

Believe it or not, I was a fan of Rumsfeld reforming the military back in 2000. A smaller, more mobile (and cheaper) army seemed like a good idea and I believed him when he said his critics were just old Army guys who didnt like change.

But that was PEACETIME.

When I watched those videos of looters after the war, and Rumsfeld discounting them as the "same video clip of looting a vase over and over again", I knew things had gone wrong. Very wrong.

For a long time, I enjoyed watching Law & Order but these days Im rather tired of courtroom dramas. Three in particular: Saddam, Skilling & Lay, and Moussaoui.

Two weeks ago 4 retired generals spoke out against Rumsfeld and his handling of the war in Iraq. This week 3 more generals joined in. Today we got an 8th.

What is the deal with the military? When you are in the military, you are not allowed to speak out or question orders. If you do so, you could be court-martialed. If you do so on the battlefield, you could be shot. The theory for this is that you need control on the battlefield and if you have people questioning orders, you lose control. Most Americans believe that they have freedom of speech but it is "unpatriotic" for military officers to disagree while in the service.

Based on the response to these retired generals finally letting others know what they think, it appears that a lot of people also think it is unpatriotic to criticize military strategy even when you arent in the service anymore. Apparently retired military people are supposed to toe the line as if they never left the service. Joining the military means giving up your right to voice an opinion - unless that opinion supports the current policy.

You cannot say anything when you are in the army. You cannot say anything when you leave the army. Well when the fuck ARE you supposed to give your opinion?

I have always opposed the imprisonment of people at the base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I think our actions have been un-Constitutional, against the values of law, and ultimately self-defeating.

Others have argued that it is ok because the people there are "bad" people. If we caught them, the argument goes, they must have done something bad in the first place so they deserve to be there.

Of course this line of reasoning is the exact opposite of our principle of "innocence until proven guilty" - one of the fundamental tenets of our legal system designed to protect people from government abuse. (Like that whole torture thing we will never see the end of.) We, the citizens, have no fucking clue who these people are or what they have done (if anything) and it is wrong to presume guilt.

Im finally listening to the Drinking Liberally podcasts. The first one has me thinking about two things:

Republicans and Democrats

It strikes me that the two parties differ in two ways, which have to do with the members of each party.

Both parties have ideological groups, often called "wings". Democrats have the Latte Liberals, the Utopians who see Nirvana in freedom, the pot-smoking hippies that push for the "left" without mercy. Similarly, the Republicans have the Religious Right, the abortion-clinic warriors, the Utopians who see Nirvana in rules from Heaven that push for the "right" without mercy. Both parties seem to struggle with these groups because they are too extreme for the center of the party, the majority of voters.

We hear a lot about these ideological groups but the more interesting difference between the parties is one I never hear about in any meaningful way. If you follow the money, the two parties differ in how their members support themselves and their families and our source of money completely shapes our world view.

Sunday morning means another interview (or two) on Meet the Press. This week I got to meet General Zinni (Ret.), former Commander of U.S. Central Command.

I can see why Bush got rid of the guy - He knows his shit. General Zinni called bullshit on President Cheney's call for war, the WMD argument and on our eventual "they will greet us as liberators" approach to the war. A "war" that is still costing $150M of your tax dollars EVERY SINGLE DAY, an amount that is increasing not decreasing 4 years into the occupation.

Conspiracy theories take too much mental energy. Especially when real issues are right out in the open.

One of the most important issues of our lifetimes went before the Supreme Court today. The issue is whether a President has the power to have people captured and held without charge or trial, forever. By declaring "war" without a state or army or organization to fight, the President has in effect given himself war-time powers all the time, not just during the extraordinary circumstances such as WW2 or the American Revolution.

Whether or not you support President Bush, this case sets historic precedence that any future President will use. If the White House prevails, future Presidents will have the power to capture people from anywhere in the world, declare them as "enemy combatants" (few of the Guantanamo detainees are actually from a "battlefield"), and keep them imprisoned for as long as they want with no legal recourse. You may trust President Bush, but do you want to give this kind of power to any future president?

I have been watching the PBS history movie, The War that made America. As someone that disliked history in school, I find these modern retellings to be wonderful and fascinating. (The short story: George Washington (on the cover) wasnt all that great of a guy and we totally screwed the Indians and native peoples after they helped us.) It makes me think about how little most of us know of our own history and how much we could learn from history.

"History" really seems to be the history of war. Wars are the tumultuous force that shapes human society and it always has been that way.

This week the President has been talking non-stop about Iraq and his "War on Terror." Based on how things have gone right from the start, I find myself wishing that he and his staff would have watched some of these history movies first.

I know the President and his supporters publicly disdain PBS and "liberal" things like education, but their legacy is one colossal screw up after another and his speeches indicate that he hasnt learned a thing in the past 5 years. Three years into Bush's nation-building imbroglio, we are spending $150M per day on Iraq and $5 says the country will fly apart in civil war within a year.

Of course, the real question is what to do now. Last night I heard a great interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former Secretary of State, (one who seems a lot more competent than Condi Rice), who pointed out that Democrats need to do more than complain about Iraq, they need a plan.

He has a plan, and it is starting to make a lot of sense.

All Things Considered

March 21, 2006

Zbigniew Brzezinski, professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University, thinks that Iraq is not yet in a civil war. But he wonders whether the consequences of civil war would be worse than staying the course. He talks with Robert Siegel about why he favors pulling troops out by the end of the year.

listen yourself

It is a bit frustrating for me to work on problems that have no solution because I like to "finish" things. My recent exposure to frameworks for analyzing communications and culture have me seeing a never-ending communication problem everywhere I look.

Today I was caught this fascinating book review in the library. I wont read the book the review was VERY interesting. It seems that we American's are forever living in a bubble of our own imagination and even our nationally recognized "experts" suffer from that same bias. If it didnt happen here, it didnt happen... It is odd to be such an open and isolationist country at the same time.

For a taste of the review, here is the closing paragraph :)

A Story Still to Be Told

By Tony Judt

The Cold War: A New History
by John Lewis Gaddis
Penguin, 333 pp., $27.95

read the whole article yerself

Thus while it may seem tempting to dismiss John Lewis Gaddis's history of the cold war as a naively self-congratulatory account which leaves out much of what makes its subject interesting and of continuing relevance, that would be a mistake. Gaddis's version is perfectly adapted for contemporary America: an anxious country curiously detached from its own past as well as from the rest of the world and hungry for "a fireside fairytale with a happy ending."[20] The Cold War: A New History is likely to be widely read in the US: both as history and, in the admiring words of a blurb on the dust jacket, for the "lessons" it can teach us in how to "deal with new threats." That is a depressing thought.

The trials in the Hague (Milosevic et al) and in Iraq (Saddam, et el) have me thinking about mathematics.

In math, there are points where the normal rules dont apply. These points are called discontinuities. Black holes are thought to represent physical discontinuities to our rules of physics.

It strikes me that regime change is a political discontinuity. The rule of law works fabulously in stable states like the USA. We are able to use the law to settle disputes (without guns) and even to change the government, although it usually takes years.

But the law is created and enforced by a national government. How do you use the law when the government is the problem? Saddam was the legal leader of a nation. As a dictator, he was effectively above the law so whose law should apply to him now? What about the judge, who claims he was following the law when he sentenced 148 people who confessed to treason? What law did he break by following the law of his nation?

The situation is a terrible mess. I know what human rights and my heart think should happen but I also know that those outcomes are unlikely in the courtroom. It strikes me that violence may be the best course when you talk about regime change. They should have killed Saddam during battle because attempts to try him with the law are going to be unsatisfying no matter what happens.

Regime change is the movement from one legal system to another and there is just no way to use the law to make that process less messy. Although our government opposed it, perhaps a global legal system (the international court) could resolve this problem by creating a 'higher law' but that day is unlikely to happen soon.

"Three Cups of Tea : One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations . . . One School at a Time" by Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin

For years now I have wondered why Israel (and now the USA) doesnt try to "fight" terrorism with kindness instead of assassinations. Before we invaded Iraq, I listened to news stories about Israel's attempts to out-kill their enemies. They have been trying this for decades and as far as I can tell, peace is no where in sight. With this evidence in mind, it seems unlikely to me that one can kill their way to peace.

On the other hand, it seems obvious to me that we can lessen the chance of terrorism by increasing our bonds of friendship and that we can build tose friendships by being generous with our money and our technology. The Muslim world is so poor, what would happen if we built schools and mosques and sewer systems and water pipes?

It doesn't look like our governments will ever put aside their weapons and "precision strikes" to try a different strategy but I am heartened to see that individuals are. This interview with Greg Mortenson is great. It's heartening to see someone doing something for others with a happy ending.

Mt. climber builds schools in Afghanistan and Pakistani (8:00)

March 8, 2006

Emergency room nurse Greg Mortenson wanted to climb Mt. Everest. His adventure didn't go as planned, but it led him on another journey. That adventure resulted in 55 new schoolhouses for Afghan and Pakistani children. He tells his story to host Lisa Mullins.

LISTEN

Ahh the good old days. Men were men and women were pretty and demure. Commies were the enemy. The Russians were massing troops and tanks on the borders to invade Europe while we busily built our missile defense shield to protect America the Beautiful from nuclear bombs.

The recent furor over port ownership has me thinking about who our enemies are today. Do we have any enemies or is everything about economics now? Assuming we have enemies, what do we need to protect? If no one is going to invade, are we left to protect our state secrets or intellectual property? For the past 60 years, we have spent billions of tax dollars building systems to protect ourselves from invading nations while encouraging commerce and convenience. What should we do now?

Although the nature of politics has not changed, I agree with Rumsfeld that the nature of warfare has. Part of the Administration's problems have been because they have changed some things but not others. People seem to be relying on what they know rather than what the situation calls for.

After 9-11, the President fell back on old thinking: They were very quick to simplify things by identifying an enemy and attacking them with a steadfastness zeal that would have made Joe McCarthy proud. But the War on Terror is not a war. There are no nations to fight. No armies to repel. The combatants dont even wear uniforms which legally means they arent "soldiers". It is all very confusing and our traditional WW2 mentality did not address it well. We quickly subdued Iraq's armies but that was only the beginning of our troubles.

My take-away on the port issue is that keeping us safe from terrorists has little to do with armies and the real issues arent getting much attention. It doesnt really matter who runs the port if the process itself is unsafe and easy to fool. The facts are that 95% of the 24,000 shipping containers sent into this country every single day are not checked. If a penniless immigrant family can walk into this country from Mexico, if we have been fighting the "war on drugs" for decades without stopping the flow of drugs, how hard is it for educated terrorists to smuggle something into the country? Not hard at all. B2 bombers and troops cant fix this problem any more than they helped New Orleans face Hurricane Katrina.

Part of this situation is our fault as voters. It is against our Western nature to think in terms of context or a larger system; we demand simplistic explanations and then continue to be surprised by the "unintended consequences." Moreover few citizens have any idea how food gets to their tables or what keeps the lights on; our ignorance of the systems we depend on makes it easy for our leaders to ignore the real problems and lends itself to political issues over practical ones.

When we talk about the War on Terror, we need to be thinking a lot more about our lifestyle, our values, and how much we are willing to change and pay to prevent another terrorist attack. Of course, dialog on tough issues is another thing we dont do very well.

Will the current crisis in Iraq cause the "nation" to pull together or fly apart? To the Point had a very good discussion on this issue today. Those of you with podcast inclinations should check it out.

Iraq and the Prospect of All-Out Civil War

Monday, February 27, 2006

After last week saw the worst sectarian violence since the US invasion, talks on forming a unity government in Iraq broke down. Now, a daytime curfew in Iraq has been lifted and the streets of Baghdad and other cities are quiet by current standards, although powerful tensions remain. Iraqi security forces are on high alert, but have been infiltrated by Shiite militias. Sunnis want militias of their own. Are political leaders--or religious clerics--really in charge? Will conflicts that date to the 8th century lead to a civil war? We look at the roots of sectarian hostilities and the potential for violence spreading throughout the Middle East.

Guests:

EDWARD WONG

Staff writer for the New York Times in Baghdad

JEFF BEALS

Political advisor to the US Embassy in Iraq, he is involved in the ongoing negotiations between the US and Iraqi political and religious leaders

JUAN COLE

Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at the University of Michigan and publisher of JuanCole.com, a Web log on the Middle East, history, Islam and religion

MANSOUR FARHANG

Professor of Political Science at Bennington College in Vermont; Iran's first ambassador to the United Nations (1979-1980)

RAMI KHOURI

Editor-at-Large of the Daily Star, a Beirut-based English-language newspaper that is distributed throughout the Arab world

Apparently doctors in California have had an epiphany: killing people sort of contradicts our Hippocratic oath to do no harm. (Hmm... Some delicious ironies here with the Right to Life and the Right to Die, ie euthanasia, movements.) Is there really a more humane way to kill people? Things are getting curiouser and curiouser.

Execution called off because of lethal injection questions

By Lisa Leff ASSOCIATED PRESS

February 22, 2006

SAN QUENTIN – Concern over whether health care providers can ethically play a role in putting condemned inmates to death and legal uncertainty over whether lethal injections are unconstitutionally cruel prompted California prison officials to postpone the execution of a convicted killer for the second time in less than a day.

An hour before Michael Morales was scheduled to be strapped to a gurney in the death chamber at San Quentin State Prison, Warden Stephen Ornoski called off the execution Tuesday evening. He said officials were unable to comply with a judge's order that only a licensed medical provider could administer the sedative that would kill Morales.

“We were not able to find a licensed professional that was willing to inject medication intravenously, ending the life of a human being,” said San Quentin spokesman Vernell Crittendon in explaining the unexpected delay.

I keep hearing that "polls say most American's favor the death penalty". I am one of those people or it at least I have been one of them.

On one hand, there is a natural feeling that people who commit crimes should be punished and that the punishment should fit the crime. The Old Testament tells us "eye for an eye". Some people want justice; others want revenge. Sometimes those are the same and sometimes not but everyone wants some action. This line of reasoning has a simple conclusion: if you kill someone you should die too.

Another argument in favor of the death penalty is mere practicality. It costs a lot of money to pay for people in prison. Life in prison is a financial penalty to the tax payers, people who did not commit a crime. For the sake of economy, put the killers to death.

However, the death penalty is an example of that phenomenon, "the more you know, the less clear it really is". The reality of the death penalty is not pretty and I seriously question how many of "most American's" who favor the death penalty know much if anything about it, (Beyond Law & Order and CSI of course) and whether they would change their vote if they did.

Law is not a science. In science, we would do a lot of statistics and focus on eliminating the false positives (punishing the innocent) and false negatives (not punishing the guilty) so that only the guilty got the punishment. But law is not science it is a debate. Two advocates and a judge or jury present a case and argue the legal merits of each side. Unfortunately the quality of the advocate and the judge are highly variable, often depending solely on how much money you have and where you live.

The result? Blacks and latinos are a minority of the population but most people on death row are poor and black or latino. Scientific evidence, like DNA, has proved that a lot of those poor blacks and latinos were not guilty. That is AFTER they have spent years in prison for crimes they did not commit while the guilty went free. Law is not a science but these emotional cases are scientific proof that our legal system makes mistakes.

When people talk about their taxes or the elections, there is a common feeling that the government is a bunch of idiots and screw ups. When we talk about the death penalty and police in general, we somehow have the reverse reaction: law enforcement is infallible. We maintain this fantasy even as we joke about police and donuts.

The reality is that mistakes are made. Everyone makes mistakes but highly political situations usually demand "a" solution more than a "just" solution which means they are even more likely to make mistakes. And it is hard to find a more politically charged situation than terrible crimes.

Lifetime imprisonment and the death penalty are two of the most extreme uses of government power and thus two things we should be most careful about. Recognizing the fallibility of people and the political pressures, it makes sense for a government to err on the side of leniency so that as few innocent people suffer as possible.

Of course this is based on my personal judgement that killing and innocent person is worse than letting a guilty person, like OJ Simpson, go free. But beyond my feelings, the cases of punishing an innocent man are also cases of letting a guilty man go free. And these cases show that such occurrences do not destroy society, ergo our country can afford to be generous with leniency.

Of course on a personal level, we all want things to be perfect but real life is a series of compromises not perfection. So it will be interesting to see what California does. Either way, Im sure Texas and the Deep South will continue to represent us on the world-stage by putting people of color to death, whether it is by hanging, gunshot, beheading, lethal injection or poison gas.

Nigeria is in the news today. I dont know much about Nigeria. I assume that problems have been brewing there for some time but that the people cannot get any media attention. Inspired by Iraq perhaps, they have taken hostages and threatened the oil supply and that always gets attention. Expect to learn more about Nigeria in 2006.

Nigerian Militants Hit In Oil-Producing Region

Associated Press

February 18, 2006

WARRI, Nigeria -- Militants launched a wave of attacks across Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta Saturday, blowing up oil installations and seizing nine foreign oil workers, including three Americans, officials said.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said in the email that the attacks were a response to military helicopter assaults this week on ethnic minority communities in the region. The militants threatened more attacks would follow on "a grander scale."

The militants say they are fighting for more autonomy, a greater share of oil wealth and compensation for environmental degradation for the impoverished region's estimated eight million Ijaw people. The area's largest tribe accuses the government and oil companies of cheating it of wealth produced on its land.

Nigeria supplies 1/5th of our US oil supply so one would think that the country would be as prosperous and wealthy as Saudi Arabia. But it is not. Despite its wealth of natural resources, the country is still poor and undeveloped. This is the complaint of the hostage takers. The oil money is not falling far enough from the tree they say and they are probably right.

The issue gets me thinking about natural resources. Who should profit from something that comes out of the ground or grows on the ground? Are there different ways to distribute this wealth from the way we do it? Are some ways more just and equitable than others?

Oil and water are liquids that exist in massive pools underground. Man did not make these products. Our contribution is drilling it out of the earth and deciding who should get paid for it.

We have a system of real property in this country that makes someone the owner of the land, anything under the land or above the land. We have divided all the land in our nation into a grid and keep meticulous records of ownership. (Of course this was after we got rid of the Native American's who had some crazy idea that the Earth was to be honored and shared by all men.)

Oil and water dont respect this grid system of ownership but somehow people decide who owns the oil and they get paid for it. Presumably that money goes straight to individuals and companies. (I know that I dont get any money for our nations resources.)

How do other people allocate these resources?

In Nigeria 19% of every barrel goes to the 'country', presumably to some wealthy individual or group, and the other 81% goes to the international oil company that drilled the oil out. The Rebels want 25% of the oil money and they want it distributed more evenly. Those demands dont seem unreasonable to me. Even if the oil company only got 10% of the money, they would drill it out because there is money to be made and lots of it.

In Alaska, part of every barrel of oil is given to the citizens of the state. I dont know the exact amount but at the end of every year, the citizens of Alaska get a few thousand dollars for their "oil dividend" which they can spend on firewater, snowmobiles or whatever. Like Nigeria, Alaska has a a great deal of natural resources. Are the people there wealthy? Is the state prosperous and well developed? I have heard Alaska is nice but it remains one of the least populated (and most politically influential) states in the nation.

In Venezuela, money from the oil goes to the federal government. In that country, oil pays for the government not personal income taxes, which sounds like a good deal for all the citizens. Such a good deal that it provoked death threats from our Christian leader, Pat Robertson. Sharing the wealth is just too radical for many people in the US to handle. It blows their minds.

I dont know about oil specifically but in China, the "people" own all the land collectively. One can lease land from the government but you can never own the land. Now that is pretty different.

So I guess that there are some different systems out there. But like a lot of issues, we are so used to our system we dont even notice it and certainly dont question whether it is still the best way. I am sympathetic to the people of Nigeria and I hope they can work out a solution without more violence. God, not man, created these resources and it seems like we all ought to share in the benefits.

I am in graduate business school and taking my first ever class on ethics. I have really enjoyed learning the formal structure behind ethical thinking (which I didnt know existed) but another interesting side effect class has been learning about the beliefs of my fellow students, which are not always what I expected.

In our last class we talked about the recent Netflix "throttling" issue. I am a Netflix member and I checked their website myself. Their "how it works" page clearly states that one gets "unlimited" movies for $17.99/mo with no limitations or extra fees.

And yet, our discussion immediately focused on the customer, or more precisely, blaming the customer. "What does he want all these movies for? It is probably to pirate them." "It's not healthy to watch that many movies [so he shouldnt get them]." Why did people blame the consumer? Very peculiar, especially in such an otherwise "touchy feely" area.

We had a very similar discussion about the recent Mohammed-is-a-suicide-bomber-haha! cartoon riots. Again quick reaction was to blame the Muslims. "Being offended is no excuse for breaking things." This despite the WTO riots in Seattle, no less, and numerous student riots due to sporting events. It would seem that when we break shit, it's no problem but when ragheads burn American flags or embassies, they must be raving lunatics.

Someone suggested that Americans just dont care about anything enough to understand the way Muslims feel. That is an interesting point but I think it is something else. One, we already see Muslims as freaks and would react very differently if these were Nazi or anti-Christian cartoons. Two, its not really about cartoons.

Although I am sympathetic to Muslims and the offensiveness of these cartoons, I actually agree that the cartoons themselves are not a reasonable explanation for all the violence. But instead of blaming muslims for being too emotional or touchy, my first reaction is to ask what does explain the violence?

Is this violence an expression of other emotions?

Is it the result of living in countries without free expression, something we take for granted but does not exist in China or many other countries?

Is Denmark and France fomenting Muslim-hatred they way Europe fomented Jewish hatred in the 1930's?

Could it be that the Muslims community has long felt under attack by the US, Israel and the West and after Iraq, the cartoons are the proverbial "last straw"?

There are probably a whole list of other possible motivations. My question is why more people dont look for them instead of being so quick to assign blame. "Oh, its not our fault; Arabs are just violent."

I dont have the answer here but it strikes me that despite the spread of American culture around the world, we seem quite clueless when it comes to actually understanding other peoples.

I just listened to a very good interview with George Packer, the author of "The Assassins' Gate : America in Iraq" (George Packer). I believe that I have heard John McCain and others describe this book as a "must read". (No, I havent read it :)

Mr Packer seems to know his stuff about the war in Iraq, the lead up to the war, and the people involved. I greatly enjoyed hearing his perspective, which I will confess, differs greatly from my own opinions about the people and their motivations. Since I am probably wrong and he is probably more right, he is worth listening too.

He presents a cogent and reasonable explanation for why invading Iraq was the right thing to do. He also talks about how badly we screwed up that opportunity. (We agree on that at least.)

Bush will be gone and forgotten soon enough but the question of our role in the world and the threats of terrorism wont go away anytime soon so educate yourself...

'The Assassins' Gate'
George Packer: The Assassins' Gate

Weekday

11/16/2005 9:00 am

Listen

The main entry point to the American zone in Baghdad has been dubbed The Assassins' Gate. How did US policy get us into Iraq? How has the war affected American life? The new book The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq characterizes the people and ideas behind the Bush Administration's war policy and travels into Iraq to witness the struggles of the soldiers and citizens there.

Guests:

George Packer is a staff writer for The New Yorker and author of five books including Blood of the Liberals which won the Kennedy Book Award. He also edited the anthology The Fight is for Democracy.

Dont forget to watch the State of the Union speech Tuesday night.

But before you do, take a moment to think back to last year's speech and then reflect on the year past. How did our nation do under the President's leadership in 2005?

If you are like me, you are anxious to hear how our athletes and high schoolers are doing in their War on Steroids as well as how we are progressing on our mission to Mars.

Senator Frist was on MTP today and I guess he said pretty much what one would expect him to say.

Massive federal spending and deficits? Making tax cuts for the top 1% of income earners permanent? How about that Abramoff stuff? Was Iraq a war of choice? "Wiretaps" without a warrant? The answer to every question (except his miracle tele-diagnosis of Terry Schivo) was the war.

"We are in a time of war so [bite me] ..."

Are we really in a time of war? Did we draft any troops to fight a war? Have we raised any taxes to pay for a war? What exactly constitutes a "time of war"? When does the "time of war" end?

Reagan declared a war, dare I say Jihad, on drugs... was that a real war? is that war over? Did Clinton miss an opportunity for 8 years to defend himself by saying its not time to question things because we are in a time of war? Can you actually fight a "war" on terrorism? Isn't fighting terrorism a police matter, as the Europeans believe?

The war defense is a very tired one and yet it continues to work, year after year. God help us.

Two reports have been released this week about our performance in Iraq. One report was classified but both of them paint a negative picture of our performance under President Cheney's leadership. Apparently we didnt have enough resources and troops to sustain years of military occupation... Our troops and their families are stretched thin and there is no end in sight.

But Im with Rumsfeld on this one. What do generals know about the military anyway? Gosh, who do they think they are? 35,000 terrorist attacks in Iraq last year but we are turning the corning the corner and we can handle these terrorists just like we got those damn commies in Korea and Vietnam.

So back off you Doomsday-Democrats! America!! Fuck yeah!

Voters around the world seem to have one thing in common: They want a change.

Canada, Egypt, Bolivia, Palestine... Voters are tired of the status quo and are voting in new parties. In Canada that party are social conservatives like our President but in most of the other countries, the new leaders are decidedly anti-American.

What will we do if Hamas and like-minded parties are elected into office in this "democratic" Middle East we keep talking about creating? What lengths will our President go to to make sure that never happens?

This is another story to watch.

I have gotten a few questions about this article so I wanted to write a bit more.

According to the graph, it is only fair to point out that government spending started to rise and tax revenue started to drop in 2000, which is before president Cheney took office.

The article is not focused on tax revenues. Supply-siders argue that cutting taxes may still raise revenues, they just need a few more years. Or something.

The focus of the article is actually government spending. Republicans have campaigned for many years on the idea of a smaller federal government, less federal spending, and "fiscal responsibility." The article points out that almost every area of federal spending has increased during President Cheney's reign of error. (Which is what "irks" conservatives in the title.)

I was particularly impressed with the "earmarks", which have grown to 14,000 since the Republicans took over Congress in 1995. Earmarks are anonymous spending items that are added to bills AFTER the bill has been approved, often at night after voting and before printing the bill. Earmarks are pure pork with no federal oversight and they have become a hallmark of Republican leadership, although they dispute that the amount of money involved is not worth worrying about. So much for "it's YOUR money!".

What does the federal budget include?

Mandatory spending for entitlement programs with benefits set by law accounts for more than half the total budget. Last year, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security cost more than $1 trillion; additional programs benefit farms, veterans, civil servants and others.

...mandatory spending grew to 10.8% of GDP this year, from 10% at the start of the Bush administration. Medicare has been growing twice as fast as Social Security amid rising health costs -- and that is before the tab for Mr. Bush's new prescription-drug benefit. Entitlement spending is projected to explode as baby boomers retire.

How much are we spending on defense?

Discretionary spending for defense and domestic programs is what the president and Congress haggle over in yearly appropriations bills, and the type of spending many Americans associate with the budget. But at $894 billion in spending authority for 2006, it is less than a third of the entire pie.

Defense and homeland-security funding since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has grown to 4.2% of GDP in 2006 -- or 4.6%, counting expected additional war funding -- from 3.4% in 2001. [All discretionary programs add up to 7.7% of GDP so "defense" is over half.]

The President started a war and invaded two countries. War is pretty expensive yet he did not raise taxes to pay for it. How much is it costing us to borrow that money?

Also off-limits is interest on U.S. debt. After declining from 1998 through 2003, payments to creditors here and abroad jumped a near-record 14.2% in 2005, CBO reported. They are now 8% of all spending -- roughly half the size of all domestic discretionary spending, or more than the entire budgets of the departments of Agriculture, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Interior, Justice and Labor combined.

For fiscal 2007, Mr. Bush is expected to again omit Iraq funds from his budget request. The additional $50 billion he is expected to seek for 2006 would bring this year's total to $100 billion in emergency funds. Separately, he is expected to seek about $20 billion more in emergency funds for post-Hurricane Katrina relief.

The President has cut programs like Head Start and student loans. Can he cut enough to make a difference?

With debt payments, defense, homeland security and entitlements off the chopping block, Mr. Bush and Congress are left whittling at the one-sixth of the budget that goes to domestic discretionary spending. Only this funding has fallen as a share of the economy -- to less than 3.1% in the current year -- from 3.4% before Mr. Bush arrived, the center found.

Our financial problems are not going away anytime soon. Expect the next President to get stuck with the bill.

Stephen Colbert had an amusing interview with George Stephanopolus this week. One of his statements was that he was glad the US doesnt have a system where the voters pick the president. Presumably he was referring to the supreme court in 2000 and the electoral college in 2004 but it was an interesting comment, albeit tongue-in-cheek.

To support his nation-building campaign, President Bush has talked on and on about the virtues of democracy but what do we do when people elect leaders that we dont like? Is it fair for the US to tell other countries that they can have an election but only if they vote for the people we like?

Across the globe from Mexico to Palestine, people are increasingly unhappy with the status quo and voting to change governments that have been in power for decades. The US has helped create many of these reviled governments and championed them in the name of economic globalization. Unfortunately, millions of people no longer believe that globalization is floating all boats and they are showing their displeasure in the voting booth.

This week Hamas not only won a few seats in the Palestinian Authority (they dont really have a country as we know it), they swept the elections. Voters there are sick of the status quo and who can blame them?

We see Hamas as a "terrorist" group but we only see a slice of any organization on Television. Voters on the ground also see the schools and the relief efforts and they see the most important thing: change. Many people are tired of the corruption and lack of economic progress, and at this point, many may feel that any change is better than more of the same.

As I have written before, if people have nothing to gain from the status quo and nothing left to lose but their life, they will react with violence. This may be hard for people like us, with so much freedom and wealth, to picture, but it is only common sense. (And we see it in our own ghettos.) By creating such a desperate situation for the Palestinians year after year, the US and Israel have created a mess for themselves.

The lesson from Israel is not the one Bush regularly mentions vis-a- vis Iraq, that to "win" the war, you have to be meaner and more ruthless than the enemy. The lesson in Israel is that you cannot "win" the cycle of violence, you have to break the cycle of violence.

What is the right thing for the US to do now? What will the Bush Administration actually do (Im confident those two answers wont be the same)? What will this growing movement of Anti-American democracies mean for Iraq, us and the rest of the world?

Stay tuned.

Do you really want to go there?

There is very little talk about whether 9/11 could have been prevented now or then. The President used 9/11 to circle the wagons and give him a reason for being President which his team took maximum advantage of. They skillfully kept the topic away from their own blame in letting the attack succeed in the first place and the public let itself be led away from the smoke.

There has been very little talk about whether 9/11 happened BECAUSE of President Bush, whether his team dropped the ball and failed to catch the terrorists when they could and should have. What we know from Richard Clarke and others is that the Bushies hated Clinton so much, they didnt want anything to do with ANY of their policies, including terrorism. After all, we have never had a foreign terrorist attack on US soil so that was hardly a priority for them. (At the time, Cheney's priority was his secret energy policy committee with Enron and others.) Mr Clark tried many times to brief President Bush (like he briefed Clinton) and was repeatedly turned away by his boss, Condi Rice.

I think there is a very good argument to be made that 9/11 happened because of Bush's failure to protect us. If they try to use 9/11 to justify their secret wire taps, I hope this issue comes up to haunt them like it haunts me.

Having said this, Im curious how much mileage they will get from this defense. The issue here isn't wiretaps but wiretaps without a warrant or any oversight. The idea of unrestrained government power should concern the Republican base as much as the Democrats.

Wiretap Program Could Have Foiled 9/11, Hayden Says

By JAY SOLOMON and DIONNE SEARCEY Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

January 24, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The country's No. 2 spymaster said the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. could have been prevented if the Bush administration had in place a domestic surveillance system that has been criticized by civil libertarians and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

The comments by Gen. Michael V. Hayden yesterday were an early salvo in an effort by the White House to turn the controversy surrounding a National Security Agency wiretapping program into a political advantage for President Bush. Mr. Bush himself listed the NSA surveillance operations yesterday as among the crucial tools his administration has used to prevent a repeat attack by al Qaeda since 2001.

Remember when Republicans believed in balanced budgets and smaller government? Ahhh, those were the decades...

As the state of the union approaches, it is time to ask ourselves how our president has been doing. Today's topic is how he has been doing with our national finances.

This article is a good overview of the Republicans "ballooning" federal budget. I particularly enjoyed the chart which clearly shows the impact of the tax cuts starting in 2000.

Expanding Bush Budgets Irk Conservatives

With Next Blueprint Looming, a Look At How Defense, Entitlements Fuel Increases

By JACKIE CALMES Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

January 24, 2006

WASHINGTON -- When President Bush reveals his budget request in two weeks, he likely will repeat a boast from recent speeches: "We've now cut the rate of growth in nonsecurity discretionary spending each year since I've been in office."

But such spending -- for everything from air-traffic control to education and prisons -- amounts to one-sixth of a $2.5 trillion budget. And it is the only piece that isn't ballooning.

Conservatives are fuming because this is occurring when Republicans control both the White House and Congress. "The White House always says it's [due to] defense and homeland security...but even without defense and homeland security it's record spending," says Brian Riedl, budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "The brakes are off everywhere."

The big picture: The budget request for fiscal 2007 is expected to total about $2.7 trillion -- up from nearly $1.8 trillion when he took office. According to the Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, total spending rose from 2001 through 2005 by an average 7% annually, double the pace of the previous five years -- and nearly triple the average inflation rate.

The increase in fiscal 2005, which ended in September, was 8%. The year's deficit came in lower for the first time under Mr. Bush because tax revenue was up nearly twice as much as spending, due to an improved economy. The gap was $319 billion, or 2.6% of gross domestic product, the measure of the total economy -- down from 2004's high of $413 billion, or 3.6% of GDP. The administration has projected that this year's deficit will swing back above $400 billion.

I dont read the USA Today regularly but I happened to catch two interesting stories in today's edition:

The first article talks about recent vets running for office to take back civilian control of the military which I think is a good, good sign. I am sick to death of chickenhawks (whose only war experience comes from movies) running the military and starting wars while actual veterans (such as Kerry and Murtha) are disregarded as cowards and liars. Strong on defense my arse...

War vets ready for new battle: Politics

By Andrea Stone, USA TODAY

Jan 23, 2006

ELK GROVE VILLAGE, Ill. — The lunchtime crowd is thinning at Portillo's Hot Dogs near O'Hare Airport when the candidate arrives. Leaning on a cane, she moves slowly on her $120,000 bionic legs with a stooped and halting stride.

Indeed, many here in Chicago's western suburbs have already heard of the Illinois National Guard helicopter pilot who lost both legs and full use of her right arm when a rocket-propelled grenade hit her Blackhawk in a 2004 attack in Iraq.

Duckworth is the only seriously wounded combat veteran running this year for Congress, whose ranks of members with military experience are at their lowest since World War II, according to Congressional Quarterly.

But at least nine other veterans who served in the post-Sept. 11 military have announced House bids. All but one — Republican Van Taylor in Texas — are Democrats who have criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the war. They join dozens of older veterans from both parties touting military credentials as U.S. troops head into a fourth year in Iraq.

The second article is about the 2005 Pentagon report of attacks and casualties in Iraq. This report is a scorecard for how the aforementioned chickenhawks are running their "war on terror."

And the results? 34,000 attacks in Iraq in 2005. 34,000!!!!! That is almost 95 attacks EVERY SINGLE DAY, including bombs, suicide bombers, snipers, and all out fire-fights! Stop what you are doing and think about this... That number is simply astonishing. Just think about it.

In the 20 years before President Cheney, the US has had a handful of terrorist attacks, mostly by other Americans. Now imagine 1 terrorist attack in the 95 largest US cities every single day. Or better yet, think about California (about the same size as Iraq) with 95 attacks every single day.

Such a situation is simply unimaginable and yet that is what Iraq has become after Bush's "mission accomplished". There is no way anyone could live a normal life or run a normal country under those conditions and yet Bush is constantly telling us about what a great job his team is doing.

34,000 attacks in 2005 which is up 30% since 2004 and no one in the administration has been held accountable or fired. The number of US casualties is down but we still had over 7,000 wounded and the number of suicide attacks is greatly increasing.

Think about these results when you listen to the Presidents State of the Union speech this month. Please.

Attacks in Iraq jumped in 2005

Insurgents widen aim to Iraqi forces

By Rick Jervis USA TODAY

Jan 23, 2006

BAGHDAD — The number of attacks against coalition troops, Iraqi security forces and civilians increased 29% last year, and insurgents are increasingly targeting Iraqis, the U.S. military says.

Insurgents launched 34,131 attacks last year, up from 26,496 the year before, according to U.S. military figures released Sunday.

Insurgents are widening their attacks to include the expanding Iraqi forces engaged in the fighting, said Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, a coalition spokesman.

The new statistics show:

• The number of car bombs more than doubled to 873 last year from 420 the year before. The number of suicide car bombs went to 411 from 133.

• Sixty-seven attackers wore suicide vests last year, up from seven in 2004. Suicide and car bombs are often targeted at Iraqis, causing high casualties.

• Roadside bombs, or improvised explosive devices, as the military calls them, continue to be the most common weapon. Roadside bombs increased to 10,953 in 2005 from 5,607 the year before. Those numbers include roadside bombs that are discovered and defused. These bombs account for nearly one-third of all insurgent attacks.

It is Sunday and I listened to Meet the Press guests, (Carville, Begala and Maralin), discuss the Democratic party and the 2004 election.

President Bush won re-election because he had a very simple message that resonated emotionally with voters: "Vote for me or a terrorist will kill you", put another way way, "We are at war and you dont change commanders in the middle of a war". Simple, emotional, effective.

In contrast, Kerry's message was "muddled". He tried to explain the nuances and complexity of the problems we face, including terrorism and Iraq.

As political tacticians, I understand their criticism. They think in terms of marketing and simple&emotional always sells better than complex&realistic. As people study the lessons of the 2004 election, I expect the Democrats to come back with equally simple and emotional campaigns over the next few years.

And that worries me. I would argue that President Bush's years in office show that when you dumb things down too much you just act dumb. President Bush succeeded in his elections but his policies are a total failure. His administration has created one mess after another that the next President(s) will have to face and fix.

The war in Iraq is hardly a "mission accomplished" and is likely to end up costing us over $1 trillion dollars! Our trade deficits continue to rise and our national debt is through the roof. They bungled hurricane Katrina and New Orleans continues to suffer. The medicare drug plan is a mess and every month there is another high-level Republican indicted or under serious investigation. I can go on and on but suffice it to say that unless you are in that top 2% of the income bracket, Rome is burning.

It is dangerous to think that dumb & dumber is the right course to follow because it will win the election. The world IS complex and nuanced and I for one want the smartest, best educated and most capable people running my country and my military.

It may take years for people to acknowledge the damage caused by this administration, (and some people will always blame someone else), but I think it is worth the wait to do it right. If we want to be respected abroad, we need to start with respectable leaders at home.

First they had hired "civilians" beat him with clubs and rubber hose until his ribs broke. Then they put a sleeping bag over his head, tied it with wire, put him on a board and sat on his chest (remember those broken ribs?). Then they covered his mouth so he couldn't speak until he suffocated.

It sounds horrific but dont worry, those were only "stress positions", all approved by President Cheney.

Even though it turns my stomach and I believe that government torture is antithetical to our Constitution and the rule of law not to mention the Bill of Rights, the President says that the ends justify the means. These terrorists are nasty so we need to be nasty too. So we tried secret abductions, imprisonment without charges or trials, and torture as well as spying without a warrant. From the Spanish Inquisition to Nazi Germany, that kind of government power is terrifying, no question.

If we "need" to do this kind of stuff, i ask you if it is working? We have become a despicable abductor and torturer but are we winning the war because of it? Is this stuff getting us crucial intelligence that is stopping a "bomb from destroying a US city"? As far as i can see, the answer is n-fucking-o. We have tossed out human rights, we are even spying on our own people without a warrant and we are still NOT WINNING THE WAR.

President Cheney dismissed the insurgents as rag-tag holdouts (although i believe he has only been to Iraq twice) just as Rumsfeld joked about the looters stealing the same vase over and over again for the cameras. Since that time the Iraqi terrorists (who we call insurgents for some reason) have gotten stronger, bolder and more lethal every month. On New Years day alone, they carried out 12 bombings. This month they also put on uniforms and blew up a high-security police station. We keep losing helicopters and bringing home wounded soldiers for a life-time of disability benefits. We have been sending troops over there for TWO years and what do we have to show for it? If we pulled out now Iraq would implode and people dont even think, let alone talk, about Afghanistan anymore. Whether or not it was right to invade Iraq, we did invade and we have done a terrible job of it.

To be honest, i just cannot understand why Republicans have such a strong reputation for defense!?? At least John Kerry actually went to Vietnam - none of our leaders in the White House have any military experience except maybe in video games. Not Cheney, not Rumsfeld, not Wolfowitz, not Bush, not Rice, not Rove. Zippo (except for Powell who couldn't seem to wait to get out of there.) Instead we have Duke Cunningham admitting that he took millions of dollars in bribes to keep the defense contracts rolling and you have total failure in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Republicans are tough on defense? These guys SUCK at keeping us safe. The only thing they seem to be good at is spending MONEY on defense, and doing so without even the most rudimentary return on investment or accountability measures.

This week we have a kidnapped journalist, threats from the Taliban (the Taliban? We didnt accomplish that mission either?) and another video/threat from Osama Bin Laden. Oh sure, Republican President's captured Grenada, imprisoned Noriega and we got Saddam but the guy who ACTUALLY ATTACKED us on 9/11 still walks free as a bird. Instead of getting him, our defense heroes go after "environmental terrorists" who burned some shit in Vail, CO. Are you kidding me? Vail?

For almost 5 years now, we have tried to be meaner than they are and it is not working. (Which should be no surprise since it hasnt worked for Israel for the past 30 years.) For such a religious country, I shouldnt have to tell people that you cannot kill your way into Heaven any more than you can torture and kill your way to peace.

For God's sake people, the world is watching us and it is time to change strategy and try something else.

If you voted for Bush in 2004, you share the praise and blame for this administration. Are you happy with the results? Are you pleased with the Federal government trumping State governments to control our personal lives? Do you believe in fiscal responsibility and oppose deficit spending? Are you proud of one Republican indictment and corruption scandal after another? Do you really think Jesus would approve of imprisoning innocent people and torture? If you arent happy, write the President and tell him how you feel. As we saw by the demonstrations against invading Iraq, this administration only listens to donors and their voting block so speak to them.

Things are going very wrong in our country. How bad does it have to get before the people of all political parties do something about it? Im sorry for the rant but there are few issues that are more serious - this is life and death for thousands of human beings not to mention a debt burden that may cripple our economy.

I've started to watch the West Wing again. This past weeks' episode was interesting.

The main character wanted to do something about the genocide in the Sudan. She wanted a UN resolution but knew the Chinese would veto sanctions because they get oil from the Sudan. So to get the Chinese vote, she agrees to drop US opposition and allow France and Germany to sell weapons to China. In order to stop a human massacre, we had to sell more weapons.

The lesson here? To get A, you need to offer B to C. Real actions in the world are not achieved in the voting booth. We elect officials who make the real decisions in private phone calls and back-door meetings. The currency used to create actions is favors and trades.

Moreover the only topics that get addressed are the one's with strong leadership behind them and even good ideas or problems that really need a solution often dont have a political one because there is no political will. And when there is a solution, it is often a series of seemingly unrelated events.

Although the episode wasnt fantastic i think the theme really rings true. This reality is why politics is so confusing to us on the side lines. We dont know who the payers are or what the plays are. The media show is mostly for public entertainment while the real deals are never made clear to the public. To us it looks like our leaders are flip flopping and never stop making deals long enough to "do the right thing".

I remember when the President assured me that the war wouldn't cost anything; Iraqi oil money would pay for it. I remember when the White House got all testy about estimates the war would cost $250B... How outrageous to suggest war was so costly! Wars of the past were a sacrifice the President asked all citizens to shoulder; the invasion of Iraq was going to be painless. The president gave me a tax cut and told me to keep spending...

Now a Nobel-prize winning economist says the real costs will (conservatively) be 1-$2 trillion dollars. $2 trillion? $2 trillion TAX DOLLARS? So much for that $300 dividend i got. So much for the idea that Republicans are fiscally conservative. So much for the idea of accountability - these were MASSIVE screw ups and no one has even been fired.

How can these numbers be so different, after all they are both Harvard alumni? Maybe Bush was still in the eating club when his professors were covering life-cycle analysis and how to estimate costs? Or perhaps it is another result of Republican focus on weapon systems and willful ignorance of soldiers? Whatever the cause, the average citizen will pick up the tab.

Again the article (by a Harvard professor in the USA no less) was published first in the UK. Wonder how long the US media will take to pick it up?

Iraq war could cost US over $2 trillion, says Nobel prize-winning economist

· Economists say official estimates are far too low

· New calculation takes in dead and injured soldiers

Jamie Wilson in Washington Guardian

Saturday January 7, 2006

The real cost to the US of the Iraq war is likely to be between $1 trillion and $2 trillion (£1.1 trillion), up to 10 times more than previously thought, according to a report written by a Nobel prize-winning economist and a Harvard budget expert.

The study, which expanded on traditional estimates by including such costs as lifetime disability and healthcare for troops injured in the conflict as well as the impact on the American economy, concluded that the US government is continuing to underestimate the cost of the war.

Mr Stiglitz told the Guardian that despite the staggering costs laid out in their paper the economists had erred on the side of caution. "Our estimates are very conservative, and it could be that the final costs will be much higher. And it should be noted they do not include the costs of the conflict to either Iraq or the UK." In 2003, as US and British troops were massing on the Iraq border, Larry Lindsey, George Bush's economic adviser, suggested the costs might reach $200bn. The White House said the figure was far too high, and the deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, said Iraq could finance its own reconstruction.

Congress has appropriated $251bn for military operations, and the Congressional budget office has now estimated that under one plausible scenario the Iraq war will cost over $230bn more in the next 10 years. According to Mr Stiglitz and Ms Bilmes, whose paper is due to be presented to the Allied Social Sciences Association in Boston tomorrow, there are substantial future costs not included in the Congressional calculations.

For instance, the latest Pentagon figures show that more than 16,000 military personnel have been wounded in Iraq. Due to improvements in body armour, there has been an unusually high number of soldiers who have survived major wounds such as brain damage, spinal injuries and amputations. The economists predict the cost of lifetime care for the thousands of troops who have suffered brain injuries alone could run to $35bn. Taking in increased defense spending as a result of the war, veterans' disability payments and demobilisation costs, the economists predict the budgetary costs of the war alone could approach $1 trillion.

Mr Stiglitz, a former World Bank chief economist, said the paper, which will be available on josephstiglitz.com, did not attempt to explain whether Americans were deliberately misled or whether the underestimate was due to incompetence.

But in terms of the total cost of the war "there may have been alternative ways of spending a fraction of that amount that would have enhanced America's security more, and done a better job in winning the hearts and minds of those in the Middle East and promoting democracy".

Dp you remember that terrorist attack on the US we call 9/11? Do you remember the name of the mastermind behind the operation, Osama Bin Laden?

If you remember both of those things then you are apparently overqualified to work for this administration. They totally dropped the ball on Osama and instead have pushed this "war on terror" in other directions.

Instead of Osama, last month they nabbed the dreaded SUV killers, dare i say "environmental terrorists" in Oregon and Western Washington. This week they caught the dreaded Cuban immigrant spies, a bloodthirsty college professor and his wife who have been spying for the Axis of Evil power, Cuba. (Presumably in advance of a massive Cuban invasion of the USA, since we wont buy their cigars or sell them food.)

A cynic might wonder if the President Cheney really wants to stop the terrorists who attacked us or whether he just wants the cloak of terrorism to pursue his own agenda. (Sadly, I could not find the article in a US source and had to go to England.)

Prof, Wife Accused of Being Cuban Agents

Monday January 9, 2006

By CURT ANDERSON Associated Press Writer

MIAMI (AP) - A Florida college professor and his wife, a university administrator, were accused in federal court Monday of using their academic positions for decades as cover to spy on Americans for Cuba's communist government.

Carlos Alvarez, 61, a psychology professor at Florida International University, and Elsa Alvarez, 55, used an encryption system to communicate with their handlers via short-wave radio and carried messages to and from Cuba, said federal prosecutor Brian Frazier.

``These were highly placed and very well-regarded operatives in the United States,'' Frazier said.

the founders of this country were concerned about the abuse of power by government. they didnt want a king. they didnt want the state to tell them what church to belong to. they had serious issues with authority.

one result of their work was a justice system that assumes people are innocent and forces the state to prove them guilty. that type of system is fundamentally opposed to our current governments actions of "enemy combatant" and forced imprisonment in Guantanamo and the secret prisons.

one of the ironic (and sad) side effects of this "innocent until proven guilty" legal system is that many people assume anyone who has been caught by the police is guilty. i have heard this argument many times when people defend Guantanamo - "they must have done something wrong, or they wouldn't be there."

I wish that it was so. Unfortunately there are many examples of government mistakes, incidental and intentional, when it comes to law enforcement. (Ever wonder why people who dont trust the government about taxes or anything else do trust them unquestionably for law enforcement? Doesnt make sense to me.) From people mistakenly "redacted" by the CIA to the many men on death row who have been proven innocent years later, there are many mistakes made.

Mistakes are understandable. Denying that mistakes are made and not fixing them is reprehensible.

Report on FBI may strengthen Oregon man's lawsuit against it

By WILLIAM MCCALL THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Monday, January 9, 2006

PORTLAND -- A Justice Department report that faulted the FBI for sloppy work may strengthen a lawsuit filed against the agency by a Portland man who was arrested after his fingerprints were mistakenly identified during the investigation into the 2004 Madrid train bombings.

The report said no "intentional misconduct by FBI employees" was found, but said there were "performance issues by various FBI employees ... that helped cause the errors in the Mayfield case."

Mayfield was jailed for two weeks in May 2004 -- even though Spanish investigators disagreed with the FBI's fingerprint analysis. The FBI acknowledged the mistake May 24, 2004, and apologized to Mayfield.

He sued the Justice Department and the FBI in October 2004, claiming he was singled out because of his Muslim faith and that searches of his home and other locations were in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.

"Once the government or the prosecutor's office or an (FBI) supervisor says we think this guy may be guilty, the whole machinery of government goes to work to find the evidence that supports that," Precht said. "People do these things naturally. That's why we have safeguards about the presumption of innocence."

A lot of things in life just dont make sense unless you have enough information about the people or the principles involved. This is especially true with the last 5 years of President Cheney's rule.

Invading Iraq? Well that was a tenet of the Neoconservative movement. Saying that our nations laws dont apply to you because you are the President? That is part of this "unitary executive" theory.

The first part of this article is about Alito but the more interesting part explains "unitary executive" theory and its history. (Looking for evidence that Bush really is better than Reagan and his father combined? Reagan invoked the unitary executive 1 times, Bush senior 6 times but W used it 110 times and counting.)

Judge Alito's View Of the Presidency: Expansive Powers

Court Pick Endorsed Theory Of Far-Reaching Authority; Tenet of Bush White House

A Debate Over Terror Tactics

By JESS BRAVIN Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

January 5, 2006

In November 2000, while the nation fixated on whether George W. Bush or Al Gore would emerge victorious from the electoral confusion in Florida, Judge Samuel Alito laid out his view of what powers the future president would hold.

The Constitution "makes the president the head of the executive branch, but it does more than that," Judge Alito said in a speech to the Federalist Society at Washington's Mayflower Hotel. "The president has not just some executive powers, but the executive power -- the whole thing."

Judge Alito was describing the theory of the "unitary executive," an expansive view of presidential powers that he and his colleagues set forth while working in the Office of Legal Counsel of the Reagan Justice Department. Although the Supreme Court has not always agreed, he said in his speech, "I thought then, and I still think, that this theory best captures the meaning of the Constitution's text and structure."

President Bush has repeatedly invoked this theory as he asserts broad presidential powers to fight the war on terror.

...

"At its core, the unitary executive is the notion that the Constitution gives the president the executive power, and it includes the power to superintend and control subordinates in the executive branch," says Northwestern University law professor Steven Calabresi, who helped develop the theory in the Reagan Justice Department and has written extensively on its historical basis.

Adherents to the theory -- called unitarians -- reject the view that regulatory agencies should operate independent of political control. The White House should have final say over rules and decisions issued by the federal bureaucracy, they say.

An August 2002 memorandum signed by Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee advised that "even if an interrogation method arguably were to violate [an anti-torture law], the statute would be unconstitutional if it impermissibly encroached on the president's constitutional power to conduct a military campaign." President Bush has since appointed Mr. Bybee to a federal appeals court.

The Justice Department later withdrew that internal legal opinion, but it has not backed away from its theory on presidential power, which also underlies the domestic surveillance program and the detention of U.S. citizens as enemy combatants. In all three instances, the president has asserted an inherent power to take actions that critics say are contrary to specific laws -- respectively, the 1994 Torture Statute, the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the 1971 Non-Detention Act.

"If the theory were wrong, there would be no way the Bush administration's antiterrorism policies could be constitutionally justified," says Mr. Calabresi, co-chairman of the Federalist Society, which he co-founded in 1982.

Supporters and opponents of expansive presidential powers disagree about the intent of the Constitution's framers. In his 2000 speech, Judge Alito argued that the framers "saw the unitary executive as necessary to balance the huge power of the legislature and the factions that may gain control of it."

Critics say the framers were concerned about the unchecked power of a king, who could act without regard to elected representatives. "Some people would argue that the whole point of the Revolution was not to have a king," says Michael Froomkin, a law professor at the University of Miami.

Been thinking about ethics today and how much easier it is to preach than it is to practice what you preach...

At the end of WW1, the Kurdish people were split into 4 pieces, one each in Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. Understandably, the Kurdish people have wanted to reunite ever since.

The President has talked a lot about the joy and wonder of Democracy and freedom. As is often the case, he seems to have gotten part of it right but it isn't clear if he has thought it through or understands the consequences. The "countries" of the middle east are an arbitrary collection of borders drawn by the colonial powers less than 100 years ago and those borders often conflict with much older (and stronger) ethnic and religious ties. Preaching freedom and democracy in our country is good for pep-rallys but rather benign; preaching these ideas in the middle east could be volatile.

Since the first Gulf War, the Kurds in Iraq have had their own region with their own government. We protected them from Saddam and they gained over a decade of experience with self-rule. They also have oil.

When Bush/Cheney invaded Iraq, some experts that said the country would fracture into three separate regions. The White House has publicly disallowed this outcome as an option but can they make it so? What if the Kurds democratically vote for their own independence? Do you really have a democracy if a third party (the US) tells you what you can and cannot vote for?

Take an oppressed ethnic group, the desire for a country of their own, and the money to pay for it and you get a lot of trouble. Kurdish Iraq could be the stable center of a new Kurdish state but Syria, Turkey and Iran are not happy about giving up their land or about Kurdish rebels that find aid and comfort in Iraq.

What should we do about it? Can we preach freedom and democracy and not support a Kurdish state? How can we tell the Kurds that they cannot have their own country when we helped create and support the ethnic/religious homeland we call Israeli in the very same region? How can we enforce the idea of a unified Iraq without forcing the Kurds to stay in Iraq? Even without the ethical ramifications, this is quite a pickle.

We dont hear much about Kurdistan here but our invasion of Iraq (twice) puts us right in the middle of this issue. In the world of ideas, there are few that are felt more passionately or intensely than those of ethnic identity, independence and freedom. (Something we should well know from our own national experience.)

We are popular in Kurdish Iraq today because we have helped them so far but how long will that last as our goals increasingly diverge?

There is a lot i could say about this. Simply put, people with something to look forward too are less likely to risk their lives in violence or to become a suicide bomber. If you take away someone's reasons to live and their dignity, dont expect them to react rationally or politely. This is as true in US cities as it is in Israel's occupied territories.

To have a future, people need a job. A way to make money, a way to build a life for the future. In order to have jobs, the community needs an economy and the freedom to trade. This seems like a no-brainer to me but it is news enough to make the front-page of the WSJ today.

I have heard a lot of good things about Mr. Wolfensohn. (He ran the World Bank before being replaced by Paul "This is our chance to invade Iraq" Wolfowitz.) Although I fear that there are too many people who want to continue the cycle of violence, i wish him the best of luck.

This is a long article but a good one on this region of conflict that never seems to go away. Without an economy, it takes aid (mostly from the USA) to support Israel's military. With regional trade, everyone in the region could prosper and that would strengthen the bonds of peace.

It is time to give peace a chance and work on an economic solution to stabilize the region. The costs of our invasion of Iraq should prove that a military answer is just not affordable. Instead of the status quo (pumping Billions of Dollars into Israels' and our own military), it might be cheaper to just give Palestinians cash that they could spend in Israeli stores. Maybe that is crazy but i dont see any impressive results from the past 40 years of military efforts.

Latest Answer
To Mideast Crisis:
Fix the Economy

Former World Bank Chief Bets Prosperity in New Gaza Will Blunt Extremism

Israelis Worry About Security

By KARBY LEGGETT Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

December 28, 2005

KARNI CROSSING, Gaza -- James Wolfensohn, the former head of the World Bank, recently found himself on this border checkpoint between Israel and the Gaza Strip inspecting vegetables.

Boxes of tomatoes set for export baked under a strong sun as Israeli border guards, concerned about security, slowed traffic to a virtual halt. "Our produce is rotting," one farmer complained to Mr. Wolfensohn. Two days later, after a series of meetings, he had a solution: Israel would install a 20-foot high digital-scanning system to check shipments for weapons and explosives, satisfying its worries about terrorism and enabling Palestinian goods to pass.

It was a small but important victory for Mr. Wolfensohn, 72 years old, who is now a top diplomat in the region charged with fixing the beleaguered Palestinian economy. Since the spring, he has helped resolve border disputes, found funding for a seaport and safeguarded a chunk of the region's agricultural industry by rounding up a group of private investors, including himself. Gaza's residents will soon be able to travel to the West Bank for the first time in five years, a crucial step in integrating the economies of the two territories controlled by Israel since 1967.

Mr. Wolfensohn is betting that the Middle East conflict needs not only a political settlement but also an economic one. Prosperity, he believes, will blunt the appeal of extremism and give Palestinians a stake in building a new state after years of nearly continuous violence. He has one eye supporting the efforts of Palestinian moderates in January's parliamentary elections. The other is on fashioning an economy that could underpin any resolution for the long term.

Yet another opportunity for "conservatives" to strike a blow against conserving anything for the future except cows and chickens. In the last 5 years of Bush's leadership, they have attacked the EPA and pollution controls, then they went for drilling oil in ANWR and now they are attacking the Endangered Species Act.

There may well be problems with the Endangered Species Act but most of the people I have heard from so far just seem to be greedy SOB's. We would be better off if we returned all "their lands" to the Indians who have a much better claim to it in the first place than ranchers and home builders.

A world in which the only consideration is profits is a sad place to live.

Act Faces an Overhaul

By ERIC BONTRAGER Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

December 27, 2005

WASHINGTON -- After years of effort, landowners, developers and other business interests might see changes in the Endangered Species Act, a landmark environmental law that has itself become endangered owing to growing dissatisfaction among supporters and critics.

The 1973 law, which grants federal protection to species threatened with extinction, hasn't been significantly updated since 1988. While it is widely seen as in need of reworking, though, there is little consensus over how to revise a central provision that restricts use and development of land considered essential to preserving a listed animal or plant species.

Congress added critical habitat restrictions to the law in 1978 to better protect species. Landowners say that forces them to pay for the program by denying them the full use of their property.

Rep. Richard Pombo (R., Calif.) has used his post as chairman of the House Resources Committee to remove this onus. Legislation he drafted and pushed through the House would, among other changes, eliminate the critical habitat designation and adopt a new approach that involves landowners in planning ways to protect a listed species on their property and compensates them for any resulting economic loss.

F@#$ing John Ashcroft. Here is yet another example of the wealthy breaking laws, and the government doing nothing about it. Clearly putting prayer in school is a higher priority than defrauding the government, right John? And this stuff isn't even a secret; its on the front page of the freaking paper and still they do nothing.

What is upsetting here is not that a rich guy is gaming the system and defrauding the government. The upsetting thing is that our government did nothing about it. A citizen sued on BEHALF of the government and the judge told him that only the government could sue for damages. Oh brother.

This is a long article but there are a lot of amusing details. Apparently you dont even have to be very sneaky to defraud our government. (Note that this trial started in 2001! and that the proceedings were kept secret for years.)

In FCC Auctions of Airwaves,
Gabelli Was Behind the Scenes

Firms Backed by Financier Got Small-Business Discounts; Suit Labels Deals a Sham

He Says Case Is 'Extortion'

By JOHN R. WILKE Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

December 27, 2005

When the government auctioned off slices of radio spectrum for cellphone service, one big winner was Victoria Kane, an aerobics instructor who had no experience in the industry. Her start-up firm, Aer Force Communications, paid $18.9 million for five licenses that were later sold in a deal valued at $144 million.

Ms. Kane's firm entered the auction as a "very small business," a designation that brought it millions of dollars in federal subsidies. They included a 25% bidding discount and a low-interest loan through the Federal Communications Commission. But her small business was backed by a big one: that of wealthy money manager and mutual-fund impresario Mario Gabelli, one of the most prominent names on Wall Street.

...

Whether Mr. Gabelli and his partners stayed within those rules is the issue in the federal suit, tentatively set for trial early next year. It was filed by an individual under the False Claims Act, a Civil War-era law that lets citizens sue on the behalf of the federal government. The suit alleges that bidders defrauded the U.S. by getting small-business subsidies they weren't entitled to.

None of those who told the FCC they controlled these firms had experience in building or running a cellphone service. None provided such service to customers after winning a license. Gabelli affiliates put up most of the money for the bids and took 49.9% stakes in most bidding firms. Then, when the licenses acquired at auction were sold, the Gabelli firms collected the majority of the proceeds.

Documents produced in the suit long were confidential. Unsealed recently after a request by The Wall Street Journal, they show how aggressively Mr. Gabelli maneuvered to take advantage of breaks the FCC gave to small-business bidders.

Some bidders Mr. Gabelli or affiliates of his backed didn't have control over their own bank accounts, and some principals didn't even have authority to write checks, court papers show. One bidder in the sale of radio spectrum told the court she didn't know what spectrum was.

...

Judge Crotty ruled last month that even if the bidding breached FCC rules, the plaintiff can't sue to recover bidders' profits -- only the federal government could. The ruling was a victory for the defense. And he encouraged the Justice Department to seek recovery of those profits in the event he ultimately rules in the plaintiff's favor.

The Justice Department told the court in 2001 that it had decided not to intervene in the case. It added that this decision "should not be construed as a statement about the merits" and said the U.S. might decide to intervene later. The department said the suit couldn't be settled or dropped without its consent.

A former official of the FCC said the agency didn't want the Justice Department to join the case, for several reasons. Among them, according to the official: It worried that a U.S. endorsement of the suit would embarrass the FCC, which didn't detect the alleged fraud.

Republican, Democrat or Foreigner - In the United States of America, you are innocent until proven guilty. Period.

This is a fundamental right which exists to protect people from the abuse of government power. The Bush Administration's actions of imprisoning people without charge or trial is un-American in its truest sense and an embarrassment. (To add insult to injury, the only time Republicans seem to remember the presumption of innocence is when their officials are under investigation or indictment.)

I hope this latest action by the courts is a recognition that these guys have been making a mockery of our system of government for year. Enough is enough.

Appeals Court Denies U.S. Bid 
To Transfer Padilla

By ROBERT BLOCK Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

December 22, 2005

WASHINGTON -- In a setback to the Bush administration's claims of new legal authority for fighting terrorism, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused the government's request to transfer alleged dirty bomber Jose Padilla from military custody to a civilian court in Florida.

The sharply worded decision, written by Judge Michael Luttig, a staunch conservative who was considered but passed over for recent openings on the Supreme Court, rebuked the government for proposing to move Mr. Padilla's case to a civilian court after the government held him more than three years in military prisons as an "enemy combatant." Judge Luttig said the proposed jurisdictional change smacked of an attempt to prevent the case from being reviewed by the Supreme Court.

Confused by this latest revelation of secret Bush administration activity? Prisoners in Guantanamo, torture in Abu Ghraib, secret CIA renditions and now secret NSA spying.

I didnt know there was a secret FISA court but since there is, why would the Bush Administration avoid the court and have the NSA spy without a warrant based on secret presidential authority? At first I was baffled. The court seems easy enough to use and its whole purpose was to grant warrants for secret surveillance... By itself this NSA thing makes no sense.

But when you combine it with President Cheney's insistence on torture and the CIA Rendition program (ie capturing people and whisking them off to 3rd World Prisons), there appears to be a method to the madness...

The reason not to use the FISA court is because you dont want anyone to know who you are spying on so that you can "render" them to secret prisons and torture them at your leisure. In the name of protecting us from terrorists, of course. What if these people have a bomb and could kill thousands of innocent Americans?

Why Wouldn't They Go to the FISA Court?

Laura Rozen thinks that Noah Schachtman is right: the NSA domestic intercept program that the Bush administration set up to evade oversight by the FISA court is the result of improvements in technology followed by utter stupidity in its application:

60 Minutes also did a disturbing piece on the rendition program. We captured and tortured an innocent man for 6 months in secret jails. Ooops. The Arab names are so hard tell apart.

But not to worry, he was only a foreigner. We are the country of freedom so if we need to capture a few people and torture them, so be it. At least we have the good taste to keep it secret and dont go showing off with video tapes on TV like those terrorist fellows. And President Cheney is a freely elected Democratic official, so we are the good guys.

Rendition Revisited

(CBS) The Secretary of State last week had to tour Europe fending off charges that the United States is illegally kidnapping and torturing suspects in the war on terror.

But most everywhere Condoleeza Rice went, she was peppered with questions about the man you’re about to hear from.

Kalid al-Masri is a 42-year-old car salesman from Germany. His incredible story of kidnapping, imprisonment and interrogation has helped expose a secret U.S. tactic now known as "rendition." A CIA unit called the rendition group has used a fleet of unmarked planes to snatch suspects around the world. Well over 100 people have disappeared this way.

But a number of these suspects have been flown to prisons notorious for torture. And some, like Khalid al-Masri, may have been rendered by mistake.

Did you know that we didnt even have a department of defense until after WW2? Until then we had a department of war. Someone wisely understood that it would be hard to defend the "war" budget during peacetime but it would be hard to cut the "defense" budget... ever.

We spend more money on our "defense" budget than all other nations in the world combined and yet critics say that our troops are poorly trained and supplied. Where is all that money going? Even before Iraq we spent $300B+ every year on the military and that money didnt even cover any of the expenses of actually fighting; we needed $250B (and counting) more money for Iraq and Afghanistan.

When we talk about cutting things, like taxes and social programs, have you noticed that no one ever talks about cutting defense? I've heard some say that we cant cut these budgets because of the job loses but that sounds a lot like social welfare for the military industry. Im happy to see that some people are thinking about cutting those defense payments even if it doesnt make the news.

On the other hand, McCcain and others have been talking about increasing the size of the military in order to maintain our occupation of Iraq and the 9/11 Commission is saying that we arent spending on things that would actually protect us from terrorism.

I support McCain's comments but would use money from the big weapon system budgets to pay for it. Even so, how much "defense" can we afford to pay for and are we spending those funds on things that really defend us?

I've heard politicians talking about the need for more limits on lawyers but I havent heard anyone saying that there are fewer court cases. I wonder where this trend will lead.

Trial-less Lawyers

As More Cases Settle, Firms Seek Pro Bono Work to Hone Associates' Courtroom Skills

By NATHAN KOPPEL Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

December 1, 2005

The trend worries some judges. "There is so much settlement and arbitration that we are losing sight of the basic right to trial by jury," says U.S. District Judge David Hittner of Houston.

Junior lawyers have long complained about the fact that they rarely see the inside of a courtroom during the course of their daily work. What has changed, as evidenced by Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw's arrangement to represent prisoners, is that many law firms are coming up with creative ways to score trial work -- reaching out to judges, government agencies and legal-aid organizations, offering to donate associate time in exchange for referrals of cases that seem particularly likely to go to trial. Typically, once a firm gets such a referral, it handles every aspect of the case.

Ever notice how politicians are always going to "clean up Washington" and yet it seems more corrupt every year?

Remember that whole White Water thing? No one could explain what it was, the Clinton's were never really charged with anything, but that Ken Star guy just never went away, year after year after year... And then there was that whole Republican revolution, Contract with America, and the idea that Republicans like Newt Gingrich were going to "clean up" corruption in Washington. Ahh the good old days...

The Valerie Plame thing has quieted down again but the new trial to watch is this Abramoff guy. Will anyone actually get punished for corruption in the nation's Capitol? After being slapped several times by the Ethics Committee, will Republican leader DeLay get convicted of something? How long will our government sit around doing nothing in the hope that DeLay can return to Washington and get back to "the people's business"?

Time will tell.

Federal Influence-Peddling Inquiry
Casts Wider Net

Four Lawmakers' Dealings With Lobbyist Are Studied; Low Threshold for Bribery?

By BRODY MULLINS Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

November 25, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A Justice Department investigation into possible influence-peddling by prominent Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff is examining his dealings with four lawmakers, more than a dozen current and former congressional aides and two former Bush administration officials, according to lawyers and others involved in the case.

Investigators want to know whether Mr. Abramoff and his lobbying firm partners made illegal payoffs to lawmakers and aides in the form of campaign contributions, sports tickets, meals, travel and job offers, in exchange for helping their clients.

The Justice Department's probe is far broader than previously thought. Though it remains smaller than the congressional influence-peddling scandals of the 1970s, its focus on prominent Republicans raises the risk of serious embarrassment to the party before next year's congressional elections. Those involved in Mr. Abramoff's case say that the Justice Department investigation could take years to complete.

The Clinton's were too early in 1992 for the big health care debate. But pressures have kept building this past decade. How much longer can we go before we really HAVE to discuss the value of health care to a society and how much we can afford. I hope its not much longer.

State, Local Officials Face
Looming Health-Care Tab

Rule Requiring Disclosure Of Obligations to Retirees Could Force Painful Choices

By DEBORAH SOLOMON Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

November 23, 2005

A looming accounting change is forcing state and local governments to fess up to something that's been lurking on their books for years: Many have made costly retirement health-care promises without planning how to pay for them.

Under a new accounting rule, governments soon must start recognizing their long-term obligations to pay for retirees' health benefits -- and, for the first time, publicly disclose what it would cost each year to fund that liability.

For many governments, the promised amount is likely to be sizeable enough to prompt big changes such as cutting retiree benefits, borrowing money and diverting tax dollars from other spending priorities -- or risk a credit-rating downgrade that could significantly boost borrowing costs. Estimates of obligations for some states range from $500 million to as much as $40 billion.

"This is going to be a big jolt to many state budgets, and this problem is one that is not immediately resolved," said Cecilia Januszkiewicz, secretary of Maryland's department of budget and management.

But the dilemma for governments may be even thornier. Most states are legally required to provide some form of employee and retiree benefits for government workers, and changing or doing away with those benefits usually requires legislative action. While some local municipalities have more flexibility to change benefits, others must work through their state legislatures. In contrast, most public companies can easily trim benefits, especially those with weak or no union representation.

Getting "tough on crime" through punishment never made much sense to me. On one hand, it is questionable whether penalties get to the root cause of crime; on the other hand someone has to pay for all those jails.

In percentage terms, the USA has the most people in jail of any other nation on Earth. (Most are minorities serving non-violent sentences for drugs.) Since we cant seem to afford public schools anymore, it was only a matter of time before we couldn't afford jails. Eventually the costs of jails will get so high, we will have to question some of our laws. That hasnt happened yet but these articles show that problem is growing.

With Jails Bulging,
Some Sheriffs Let
Inmates Go Early

State Budgets Fail to Keep Up As Sentences Get Tougher; A Stripper's Ticket Home Whooping in the Parking Lot

By GARY FIELDS Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

December 5, 2005

BEND, Ore. -- Ben Peles was lying on a bunk in a two-man cell at the Deschutes County Jail here when the intercom squawked his name. Sheriff's deputies told him to roll up his stuff and prepare to leave.

Mr. Peles, a 26-year-old air-conditioner installer, was taken aback. He had landed in jail only 10 hours earlier to start serving a two-week sentence for possession of methamphetamine and theft. Shivering in a sweatshirt in the November night air -- it had been warm and sunny when he walked in at 10:30 a.m. -- he couldn't believe his luck. "I've never heard of them releasing anybody this quick," he said, waiting outside the jail for his girlfriend to pick him up.

Mr. Peles's unexpected freedom walk is becoming a regular ritual at jails and prisons in Oregon and at least half a dozen other states. These states have long grappled with overcrowding by trying to find money for new facilities and stuffing more prisoners into existing cells. More recently, some have turned to a last-ditch solution: opening the doors and letting inmates go.

Bulging Jails and Tight Budgets
Make Job of Guard Even Tougher

In Oklahoma, the 2000 Killing Of a Young Officer Lingers; Staff Positions Go Unfilled; 'I'm Going to Cut Your Throat'

By GARY FIELDS Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

November 2, 2005

GRANITE, Okla. -- In the cavernous dining hall of the Oklahoma State Reformatory, a corrections officer zigzagged among tables, checking for problems. His partner watched the serving line, his head swiveling back and forth as if watching a tennis match. A cadet officer stood at the entrance. By the time all the men straggled in for ham sandwiches and pound cake -- to be eaten with plastic utensils -- there were 120 prisoners in the dining facility. Their arms were covered by tattoos of dragons, devils and rival gang symbols.

If trouble erupted, the cadet by the door wouldn't have been much help to her colleagues. Not yet trained, she was under instructions not to intervene but to run outside and get help.

Two months earlier in July, there had been a racially inspired melee at the maximum-security prison. When the fight started, there was a lone guard caught in the middle. The prison has 100 officers watching over 1,059 inmates, one in nine of whom has killed someone.

The job of prison guard, which has always been perilous, is growing harder. Because of tougher sentencing laws and budget constraints, the number of inmates in the U.S. is growing rapidly, far outpacing the hiring of prison officers. The number of federal and state prisoners nationwide hit 1.5 million last year, up 51% compared with 1995. The number of prison officers increased 8% during the same period, to 239,079.

There have been several interesting articles recently about voting on the Middle East which has implications for our own behavior there.

At times it can be fun to ponder how different things might be. As we get ready to tap ANWR and shove more oil money into the pockets of some perky oil corporation(s), it is worth giving a thought to what things might be like if our nation's oil went to our nation's citizens. (Imagine what our retirement benefits would look like if ALL our national resources went to benefit our national citizens? *phew*)

This idea was such a provocative affront to God, it caused Christian leader Pat Robertson to suggest assassinating (in a holy way, I am sure) the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. In the meantime, quiet, unassuming Norway has been using its oil money to benefit its 4.6M people for years. As our country runs up its credit card bills as fast as the registers will allow, imagine sharing a $190B with 4.6M people...

It was nice to boost to my patriotic pride to see American companies head the "blood money" list at the end of the article.

Well this is a bleak read and as the "only non-US author" being read by the Army, it's getting a lot of attention.

Nowhere to run

After what has been described as the most foolish war in over 2,000 years, is there a way out of Iraq for President Bush, asks Brian Whitaker

The Guardian

Tuesday November 29, 2005

There is a remarkable article in the latest issue of the American Jewish weekly, Forward. It calls for President Bush to be impeached and put on trial "for misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 BC sent his legions into Germany and lost them".

To describe Iraq as the most foolish war of the last 2,014 years is a sweeping statement, but the writer is well qualified to know.

He is Martin van Creveld, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and one of the world's foremost military historians. Several of his books have influenced modern military theory and he is the only non-American author on the US Army's list of required reading for officers.

The whole question of why we went to Iraq continues to mystify me but it's particularly odd to hear Israeli's criticizing us. Here we have professor of military history in Israel calling our invasion the biggest mistake in 2000 years. On the other hand, it was my understanding that one of the main (unspoken) reasons we went to war was Neocon (Cheney, Libby, Wolfowitz, etc) support of Israel. Did we invade to help Israel and are they now complaining about it? To quote Vinnie Bobberino, "I'm so confused!!"

There continues to be a lot of fuss about whether or not we should have gone to war but the real question of course is what we should do moving forward.

Democrats are finally showing signs of backbone by criticizing the war and Bush's retort that criticism is unpatriotic and cowardly is working less and less. This is a good thing (for me) but it isn't leading to much direction moving forward.

It may even be valid to say that the current US regime just isn't capable of moving forward because of all their screw-ups this far. One friend opined that the best thing to do now is simply keep troops on the ground until we can elect a new President in 2008. Surely our next Great Leader will be able to actually lead something besides vacation. A painful idea but he might be correct.

The rebellion against Bush is growing bold enough to openly propose an immediate pull out, such as we saw with Senator Murtha. The problem is that it's not clear at all that things would be better if we pulled out or even if we left a skeleton force, as we have done in Afghanistan. (Does anyone even remember our first invasion, Afghanistan? It rarely gets mentioned.)

Another possibility mentioned by this article and others is that the country may still implode in civil war. This possibility is something else to watch, particularly due to the Kurd's understandable desire for the creation of their own country. After all, Jews got Israel so why shouldn't Kurds get Kurdistan?

One thing for sure is that this issue wont be going away anytime soon. Here are some notable tidbits from the article:

LOS ANGELES: US congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a senior Californian Republican, broke down as he resigned yesterday after pleading guilty in court to taking bribes, including cash, a yacht and a Rolls-Royce.


There is nothing surprising about another Republican (or Democrat) politician taking bribes from defense contractors in return for Pentagon contracts. What is a surprise, a shock even, is a guilty plea.

I dont forgive Cunningham for forsaking our trust but I have to respect him for admitting what he did. No one, ever, pleads guilty. You can watch old black & white movies and imagine a time when people admitted wrong doing but these days everyone fights; No matter what your crime, there is always a chance your lawyer can get you off. Everyone follows Scooter Libby's lead: Deny, deny, deny.

Getting on the stand and saying yes, i did it, i feel terrible, i am guilty, take me to prison. Now that is truly shocking.

Cunningham denied any wrongdoing in July. But yesterday he said he was deeply sorry and ashamed. He said he would co-operate in the government investigation of at least four defence contractors.

"I broke the law, concealed my conduct and disgraced my office. I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions, most importantly, the trust of my friends and family," he said, choking back tears.

Cunningham had already said he would not seek re-election in 2006. He will be sentenced on February 27 when he faces up to 10 years in prison.

His guilty plea followed months of investigation by the Internal Revenue Service, the criminal investigative arm of the Pentagon, the FBI and federal prosecutors.

We talk a lot about accountability in the White House and elsewhere but this act of contrition is one of the few examples of anyone in the public eye demonstrating it.

NPR tonight had a series of interviews with voters in Louisville KY. The reason these people were interviewed was that they had voted for Bush twice and were now unhappy with his performance. I think the interviews will continue throughout the week in different cities that are meant to represent the "heartland".

One of the interviewees stated that she voted for the president (twice) because of his strong moral character. Her evidence of this strong morale character was that he hasnt cheated on his wife (that we know of).

He hasnt cheated on his wife.

You are asked to hire a person for the most important, most powerful job in the entire world. Your one criteria for this hiring decision is whether or not the person cheated on their spouse (that you know of). OMFG!

This issue will be interesting to watch.

On one hand we have Dell, Walmart, and safety of the US Treasury bond.

On the other hand, we have the World's most brilliant minds on international diplomacy. The people that have wow'd us with the ability to think beyond Cold War ideologies and past vendettas as illustrated by their insightful and effective policies in Iraq, Israel, Palestine, North Korea, Syria and Iran. Not to mention the President's endearing and repeated use of the word "uhhmm" in his role as the Voice of Freedom.

I think I will be betting on Walmart.

U.S. Increasingly Pursues
Two-Track China Policy

Economic, Security Goals Yield Approach Combining Engagement, Containment

By JAY SOLOMON Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

November 17, 2005

When President Bush visits Beijing this weekend, he will face a foreign-policy conundrum -- how to stay friendly with a China that has become America's fastest-growing trading partner and one of its biggest sources of capital while guarding against a potential military threat from the rise of a strategic rival.

One administration answer: "congagement," in the language of some policy wonks, a mix of "containment" and "engagement."

The dual approach accommodates competing agendas. American companies ranging from Dell Inc. to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are increasingly dependent on China's low-cost manufacturers and are eager to tap the country's vast domestic market. Last year, total U.S. trade with China grew 28% to $245 billion, and China is second only to Japan among America's foreign lenders.

A Treasury Department report released yesterday found that Beijing's lending role continued to grow in September. Chinese holdings of U.S. government debt rose to $252.2 billion from $248 billion in August. (See related article on page C1.) Though that investment helps keep American interest and mortgage rates low, it makes Washington vulnerable to China's potential dumping of dollar-denominated holdings.

American defense planners, meanwhile, have grown increasingly suspicious of China's military buildup.

Just a few weeks after the grand jury expires, following 2 years of investigation and several public comments by Woodward about the case... John Woodward admits that a White House official told him about Valerie Plame before anyone else. Are you kidding me? What the #%$ is going on here?

There are bound to be numerous articles in the weeks to come but I am baffled by this development. I have lost a great deal of respect for Mr. Woodward. And I am tired of hearing about how reporters need to be released by their sources (who may have committed a crime) before they can testify to a grand jury. Protecting the misuse of government power is not on my short-list of human virtues and certainly doesn't jibe with the idea of a free press as a government watchdog. This issue has made the press look more like a Tony Blair lapdog than a watchdog.

It reminds me once again that politics is a spectator sport but unless you actually know the people involved personally, you dont know much at all.

Woodward May Alter CIA-Leak Case

Reporter's Testimony Could Entangle Other Officials, Muddy Libby Prosecution

By ANNE MARIE SQUEO and JOHN D. MCKINNON Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

November 17, 2005

WASHINGTON -- This week's testimony by Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward in the CIA-leak investigation raises the prospect of additional Bush-administration officials becoming entangled in the two-year probe.

Science is enabling us to do amazing things with drugs. But $600,000 a year for treatment? Who can afford that? Who should have to pay for that? How much can society afford to pay? Is our current system the most efficient system for deriving the most benefit?

The Clinton administration brought this issue up over ten years ago but we werent ready to face it. As a culture, we seem to prefer fixing things in the emergency room over avoiding them with prevention.

Healthcare is a very complicated issue, not least of which because it requires us to face our own mortality and the issue of what a human life is worth. It's much easier to avoid until we cant avoid it any longer (or until the next Maria Shrivo stunt).

Dealing with our growing health care crisis will require compromise and someone is going to lose out. There is no national leadership today but we wont be able to put this issue off forever. In the meantime, the pressure will keep building.

A Biotech Drug
Extends a Life,
But at What Price?

For Ms. Lees, Treatment Bill Now Totals $7 Million; Her Bones Keep Crumbling Guilt of Another $1,400 Day

By GEETA ANAND Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

November 16, 2005

For 25 years, Carol Lees thought she would die early.

In the summer after her freshman year in college, she was diagnosed with Gaucher disease, a disorder that swells internal organs and weakens bones. There was no treatment for this disease, so rare it affects fewer than 10,000 people in the world.

Then in 1991, at age 44, she received a new drug that had been developed for Gaucher. "This is amazing," she told her husband. "I'm going to be given a second chance."

The drug that gave her hope went on to become one of the biotechnology industry's greatest success stories. Yet today, Ms. Lees still struggles to make sense of the unexpected way her life has been shaped by her disease and the medicine. She is grateful the drug has prolonged her life, but she is in constant pain. And her conscience is ill at ease about the price of keeping her alive -- $601,000 a year, or about $7 million so far.

"I often look around and ask myself, 'Is this a $1,400 day?' " says Ms. Lees, who scouted projects for Peter Falk and ran Madonna's production company in the course of a career in the movie business. "Many times, I'm not so sure."

Suddenly Republicans have discovered the budget deficit and concluded that we need to cut money from programs that support the poor to close it? Puh-lease...

By and large, the programs we spend our tax money on are investments. If we invest in education or infrastructure, we may get a return on that spending in the years to come as taxes from people with good jobs. If we invest in food and housing for the poorest, we may reduce the desperation and misery of those who could otherwise resort to crime and violence (like we see in France at the moment).

It should be no secret that, like millions of our citizens, our government is living beyond its means and borrowing to keep the good times rolling. We have to cut something but student loans, food stamps, public housing, education are not the things we cannot afford. They are the things we must afford.

What we cannot afford (and what is never mentioned) is our military spending. What we cannot afford is spending more money on the military than every other nation in the world COMBINED - over $300B every year BEFORE September 11 and BEFORE we invaded Iraq. If we need to cut something to pay our bills and meet our obligations, the Cold War military industrial complex is the first thing we should cut. Stealth bombers, laser satellites, all that billion Dollar crap we built to fight the Soviet Union and now have no use for is what should go first.

All those expensive weapon systems we built to fight off a Soviet Invasion do us no good in stopping terrorists or in Iraq. Dick Cheney's friends at Halliburten, Lockheed, and the other defense contractors should feel the pain - not the poor, the old, the weak, and the young.

The time has come to choose between guns and butter. This should be an easy choice of priorities.

Two articles on the Internet. Together they got me thinking about what would happen if the rest of the world abandoned the existing Internet which is pretty-much controlled by the USA and moved to the so-called "internet 2.0" which they would control?

This is also an interesting issue to watch in terms of globalism. We dont have any government or legal systems that work on a global level because we have never needed anything like that before in history. But the Internet is pushing business to a global level which is bound to uncover a lot of new issues for mankind.

We cannot afford schools. We cannot afford healthcare for everyone. And apparently we cannot even afford prisons anymore either.

This is some scary stuff.

If i was accused of a crime that i did not commit, I think that i would use every chance that i got to state my innocence. "Dude, I AM INNOCENT!"

Whenever the President and others talk about Karl Rove these days, they are quick to say that he is "innocent until proven guilty". They no longer say that he is innocent; they say that he is innocent until PROVEN otherwise.

The thing is, unlike the rest of us, they know if he is innocent. Since they know what he did or didn't do and they continue to say he is innocent until someone can prove he is guilty... well doesn't that pretty much tell you that he isn't innocent?

Based on what i have heard about this 1982 law, it seems unlikely that anyone will ever be convicted by it. Whether or not a crime is committed, the law is just too hard to prove in court because the burden of proof is based on motives not actions. How do you prove beyond a shadow of a doubt someone's motives?

On the other hand, it also seems pretty clear that Rove and Libby were talking with reporters about a covert CIA agent. Whether they are convicted or not, common sense (and witnesses) says that they are guilty. The real mystery is why they did it and why Libby botched his testimony to the grand jury so badly.

When the news is bad, announce it on Friday when fewer people are paying attention or better yet, change the subject.

Last Friday Scott Fitzgerald indicted Vice President Cheney's aid and good friend Scooter Libby for lying under oath (always an endearing quality in a White House official) but no one else was charged. I woke up this morning to the announcement of Samuel Alito (who??) for supreme court justice. Since Alito is apparently not middle of the road, ie controversial, was this announcement done in haste to change the subject from Prosecutor Fitzgerald? One wonders...

But who has time to wonder? On to the next round! I predict the discussion of Alito's views will be interesting for a while before it becomes mind-numbing and bitter. One thing i will enjoy is the discussion of "state's rights" and how states should have the right to put prayer in school and ban abortions but not have the right for medicinal marijuana or doctor assisted suicide. Who knew states are such a tease?

Before Harriet Miers disappears into the fog of history, I am still curious why she was nominated. My guess is that Bush's team created a list of candidates with Alito at the top and Miers nowhere to be seen. The President then decided to take action and unilaterally nominated Miers, his good and loyal friend, to just about everyone's surprise. Of course there is no way to know what really happened, but maybe someday we will and you saw it here first.

"Meet the Press" this week discussed the indictment of Scooter Libby.

Wiliam Safire made a claim, which was not challenged, that is complete nonsense. Safire stated that the fact no one was indicted on leaking secrets is proof that no one leaked secrets. This statement is completely preposterous as no such causal link can be concluded.

Now Im not an expert in formal logic but I do know a little something about the law. Prosecutors dont indict people unless they believe they can prove it in court even if they believe or know it happened. Many crimes that are hard to prove are never charged. This is partly why someone stealing a TV is much more likely to go to jail than someone doing insider stock trading.

No one was charged with uncovering a CIA agent but no one is contesting the facts that Rove and Libby contacted and then openly discussed an undercover CIA agent with reporters Scott Wilson, Robert Novak and Judith Miller. Why would Rove and Libby discuss this matter with anyone?

It was interesting to learn that the first George Bush campaigned to create this law protecting CIA agents after an agent was uncovered and killed. But I have heard that this law was never intended to be used or enforced. In other words, if Rove or Libby consciously leaked the name for whatever reason, this law was never enforceable against them. Again, this does not prove or disprove whether they did leak the name it only pertains to whether they can be punished for it.

David Brooks and Safire both came to Libby's defense by saying that since Libby wasnt indicted for leaking national secrets he should be let go. Brooks went on to say that there was no "cloud of decay" around the White House. I beg to differ.

Libby lied repeatedly under oath. That's right, one of our nations top officials repeatedly lied under oath and people are saying everything is ok, stop picking on Scooter? So much for the Republican party that ran an election in 1999-2000 on the basis of a high moral standard and "cleaning up the White House."

Todays Seattle Times ran a pretty good article about the Valerie Plame case. The article has a decent summary of events so far as well as details on the latest twist: details on Dick Cheney's involvement.

A good article.

After talking about reports, Rove and Libby, we suddenly see Cheney's name in lights.

We did invade Iraq. It is hard to put oneself into the mindset one had back when the White House was frantically trying to justify it's case for invading a sovereign nation that had not provoked us.

Cheney's office reportedly is focus of probe into CIA leak

By Jim VandeHei and Walter Pincus The Washington Post

read it here

Step into the WayBack machine for a moment. Clinton was in the White House and the Treasury concluded that we would not need 30 year bonds anymore because the government was running a budget surplus for the foreseeable future.

A few years with that Harvard MBA at the helm and the 30 year bond is back with a vengeance.

Oh please, thou dost protest too much!

For decades, Republicans have railed against "big government" and opined in the papers about the virtues of a smaller federal government. Yet in the past 5 years of Republican control of the capital, they have failed to cut a dime of expenses. In fact, they have spent even more money than Democrats before them and run up historically large deficits to pay the bills. The only thing they actually have cut has been revenues.

The funny thing is that you dont hear much about the evils of "big government" from Republicans these days. Spending isnt the problem apparently, revenue (ie taxes) is.

Mr Forbes wants a flat tax. I actually see a lot of virtue in simplifying the tax code for many of the arguments he uses.

However, one has to ask how the tax code became such a mess in the first place. The answer is: special loopholes for wealthy individuals, powerful lobbies, and large corporations. Those forces have not gone away nor will they sit idly by while tax-reformers raise their taxes and eliminate their hard-won exceptions.

So will a flat tax reform succeed? Ask yourself whether this administration has shown itself as a force for cutting programs and defeating powerful political forces. If it's not "faith based" or a war, this particular Republican administration has been anything but steadfast on reforms. A Republican flat tax is just a distraction from their real efforts to continue Federal government bloat and get religion in schools.

Remember all that fuss the Bush administration made about corruption in the UN? How John Bolton was going to reform those inefficient UN beureacrats?

Well it looks like John could have started cleaning up our own administration in Iraq. What's that saying about 'those who live in glass houses'?

Even plain old tuna fish is the devil now adays...

We talk a big game but much of the time, talk is all it is. Many (most?) of our efforts are half-assed as if saying we are doing something is the same thing as doing it correctly.

Hong Kong can afford to test all its ships. Japan can afford to test all its beef cattle for Mad Cow. We talk all about safety but cant ever seem to find the money to pay for a system that would actually keep us safe. Safety is all about the appearance of safety in America...

When the PROSECUTORS resign because they feel the trials are rigged, you know it's bad...

Keeping the housing finance system free of fraud is immensely important to everyone.

Practically the only good thing the Bush administration has done is put the screws on Fannie and Freddie to put a stop to the fraud that was going on there. Democrats are doing a real disservice to us by not cooperating.