The 5th Estate 2009

Why Bill O’Reilly Should Boycott Minnesota

2009-07-08T19:35:00.004-04:00

Christmas ‘warrior’ and triple ‘Polkbody’ award-winning ‘Paris Business Review’ Founder and Editor-in-Chief Bill O’Reilly declared July 7, 2009 as “a sad day for America” in his ‘Reality Check’ segment on the O’Reilly Factor because…. “Al Franken is now a U.S. senator”.

Why so sad? Well, “Franken is a blatantly dishonest individual, a far-left zealot who is not qualified to hold any office, a man who trafficked in hate on his failed Air America radio program. With people like Franken on the Hill, this country is in deep trouble.”

“If you want proof,” said O’Reilly, “check out Page 96 in my book Culture Warrior.”

Of course O’Reilly could have provided his 'proof' right then and there on his show (or provide it on his website, or on FOX’s website, or in one of his syndicated columns, or on his radio show) but really, why should he just give his 'proof' away for free when he can sell it to you via his book? Or, you can just take his word for it---just like Bill himself does.

But anyway, whilst America’s innocent eyes brim with tears and its nose starts to run because Al Franken is now a Senator, Bill O’Reilly is no doubt looking for some way to cheer America up—but how?

Maybe he could call for a boycott of Al Franken’s state of Minnesota? After all, as Bill told Heather Malick of the Toronto Globe and Mail whilst threatening Canada with a boycott over two conscientious objectors to the Iraq War who had sought refuge over the border:

“…they’ve lost billions of dollars in France, according to the Paris Business Review”

And if you want proof of that claim as well, well unfortunately the Paris Business Review doesn’t have a page 96 (or a page anything, as it was entirely a figment of Bill’s imagination) but you CAN check out his July 6 response to Jack Mathews’ June 28, 2004, New York Daily News column in which Mathews described O’Reilly as an ideological thug who plays fast and loose with the facts:

“First, Mathews writes that an O’Reilly Factor-led boycott if France did not economic damage to that country”, Bill harrumphs, before delivering a defiantly inert ‘no-spin’ O’Reilly Factor ‘fact’: “According to U.S. government figures, in the months following the boycott call, France did $138 million less business with the USA than it did the previous year.”

Of course France’s January and February figures (being the months in question) in the year before Bill’s Brie and baguette boycott even existed, were slightly worse----on account of the usual, utterly predictable annual drop in French exports to the U.S. every January and February since probably the American Revolution.

But the point is that Bill was able to 'prove' (after two months spent executing a two-second Google-search) that (notwithstanding the utter non-existence of the Paris Business Review) the fact remained that France had lost a number of ‘–illions’ (billions, millions, the actual word for the actual number isn't important) immediately AFTER his call for a boycott!

And the ‘fact’ that rabid bears hadn’t been admitted into the Boy Scouts to teach the homosexual agenda at the exact same time was just a bonus that Bill was simply too modest to mention.

And the only reason France actually finished 2004 with a billion-dollar increase in its U.S. exports was undoubtedly only due to Bill signing-up for another tour in the War on Christmas (which by the way, he won, once again, as he does every year).

So if we are to learn anything from history (even though there’s obviously no point because, as George Bush essentially observed; ‘we’ll all be dead by then’) it is that a Bill O’Reilly-patented boycott of Minnesota (especially in the midst of a deep economic crisis) could be just the thing to put a non-liberal-fascist smiley face back on America’s down cast visage!!.

So wipe those tears from your eyes and the snot from your nose, you ‘little-guys’ of America that Bill O’Reilly look’s-out-for from his non-elitist Long Island mansion!

Lift up your hearts and boycott Minnesota like you did France—because when the O’Reilly Factor ‘facts’ finally come in from the Minnesota Mercantile Bugle, you will be able to see the proof of your victorious stand against reality by buying Bill O’Reilly’s inevitable next best–selling book, on a page Bill himself will personally recommend to you—but only if you really need proof of course.

And then when Minnesotans hear Bill tells them what happened to their state’s economy, like France did, they’ll think extra-hard about whom they choose to represent them next time!

Beyond Palindrome: One Bimbo Enters, One Bimbo Leaves

2009-07-06T11:34:00.005-04:00

On Friday, July 3rd 2009 ex V-P candidate Sarah Palin quit her job as Governor of Alaska whilst still in her first term, despite any particular evidence of the type of fiscal or moral corruption that usually triggers such actions.

Sarah Palin quit four different colleges and universities before finally earning her bachelor’s degree in Communications-Journalism.

She quit her second term on the Wasilla County Council to run for Mayor of Wasilla.

Leaving Wasilla (population 3,000) $25 million in debt, she then ran for Lieutenant Governor of Alaska.

Though losing the Lt. Governor position to State representative Lisa Murkowski (appointed by her father, then Governor Frank Murkowski), Palin was appointed to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and served as its Ethics Supervisor.

Winning the Governorship in 2006 on an ethics reform platform, she rejected a pay raise and an appointed chef, but on other hand claimed per-diem expenses whilst frequently at home.

In her 2008 State of the State Address she stated that “we cannot and must not rely so heavily on federal government [funding]” but she’d had no problem supporting Senator Ted Stevens’ infamous $442 million dollar “Bridge to Nowhere” and though that project was canceled, had no problem accepting the funds for general transportation purposes.

Eighteen months into her Governorship, Palin accepted the offer to run as John McCain’s Vice President during which she lied about her previous support of the “Bridge to Nowhere” and the acceptance of its original funding for other purposes.

Palin also claimed credit for what she described as an active “40 billion-dollar” gas pipeline project when in fact the project was estimated at the much lower figure of $26 billion, and in fact not only was it not active but she’d paid TransCanada Pipelines $500 million for what amounted to a feasibility study (of which there is as yet no obvious sign of being conducted).

As thus described her political resume is typical of most politicians---savvy expediency served political success.

But Palin wasn’t chosen as the GOP V-P candidate for her own political savvy or policy experience, but for the expedient requirements of Conservative “intellectuals” and machinators (like William Kristol) who faced an alarming “regime change” as their expected “permanent Republican majority” was shrinking so small that it was about to be “drowned in a bathtub”.

An old ‘White Elephant’ representing the past, who became the GOP front-runner by default, was losing in the polls to a young (semi-) black man and an established white woman, both of whom represented an enticing future.

Palin was desperately picked as an ‘affirmative action’ candidate to steal the Democrats’ dynamic thunder and Hillary’s nationwide support on the assumption that women can be persuaded to vote with their vaginas (and Republican men with their penises) and not with their brains. Palin was supposed to split the Democratic Party vote by virtue of both her sex and her youth.

But whilst sex sells product, it doesn’t necessarily sell policy and as stupid and easily manipulated as the larger American electorate appears to have been in the past, the majority in 2008 weren’t buying—not least because they simply couldn’t afford-to, either literally or figuratively.

When Palin was finally permitted by her GOP handlers to expose herself to primetime national media vetting, her most challenging inquisitors were Charlie Gibson (a 19-year veteran of fluffy morning TV ‘newstainment’ who’d embarrassed himself representing GOP talking points as valid questions during a presidential ‘debate’) and Katie Couric, another morning TV veteran best known for her incessant perkiness and general vapidity.

Perhaps because of the near universal criticism of Gibson’s pathetically biased debate mediation, Gibson took a tougher approach with Palin and ‘tut-tutted’ her for her clueless response when asked to articulate “The Bush Doctrine”---but he also came across (to me at least), despite the validity of the question, as a sanctimonious dick suddenly puffed-up with freshly minted gravitas.

Presumably the subsequent interview with Couric was supposed to provide a more even playing field; ex-cheerleader to ex-beauty pageant queen. But even the naturally friendly Katie Couric was visibly baffled and progressively amazed at Palin’s inability to name a single newspaper or magazine that she read, even though Couric gave her time and several opportunities to do so.

It is notable that the public’s estimation of Kate Couric’s qualifications as a primetime news anchor rose significantly after that interview (especially as she followed up in the press with some intelligent candid reflections of what Palin had revealed about herself as a prospective Vice-President).

When Palin dismayed even the ultra-accommodating and effervescent ‘Queen of Nice’, what chance would she have against her domestic political opponents, let alone foreign ones?

From that point on only the most fawning of the media establishment would be allowed one-on-one access to Palin---Greta von Susteren of FOX News proved to be the ideal, as there was a lull in missing-blond-female-teenager activity at the time and Greta’s hubby was functioning as a Palin consultant.

Twenty-four hours after her announced resignation as Governor of Alaska, for reasons she’s claimed to have explained but that no-one can fathom, the present prognosis is that Palin is essentially just “a quitter”, that she has no spine.

I’m not sure that’s really fair, at least in the sense in which the charge is being presented---she didn’t quit on her formal education, and for over 10 years she didn’t quit on her political ambitions either.

I think a fairer assessment is that she’s simply a self-absorbed congenital simpleton, perhaps most amply evidenced by the fact that in the one subject in which she can claim any kind of peer-reviewed (as opposed to vested interest-reviewed) qualification—“Communications-Journalism” she was and remarkably still is utterly clueless.

From the first to the last she has always found fault with the media pointing out her faults—the most significant being her inability to bullshit consistently even to the industries of politics, P.R. and journalism for whom bullshit is largely their stock-in-trade

Whatever the reason Palin has decided to quit her official job, I’ve no reason to believe it’s because of some personal epiphany that she just doesn’t have the skills to fulfill her ambitions and the ambitions of her deranged supporters. In her view she isn’t quitting, rather everyone around her is quitting her. One can’t help but abscond-with and manipulate Norma Desmond’s classic lines from Sunset Boulevard:

Joe (The Plumber): "I know you. You're Sarah Palin! You used to be in presidential politics. You used to be big!"

Sarah: "I am big! It's the politics that got small!"

Sarah: "We didn't need policy! We had outfits!"

Palin claimed in her rambling resignation speech that her quitting the Governorship job was her decision and a selfless act yet still falsely blamed the media for viciously kicking her in the shins---and to think she might have been elevated to the highest leadership positions in the world!

In Sarah Palin's world, she's still claiming leadership by quitting because she got kicjed in the shins If it works for her, it works for me and dare I say it, it works for America too,

Soccer Bitch

2009-06-26T17:24:00.009-04:00

On Wednesday June 24^th the US Men’s National Soccer Team (US-MNST) beat European Champions Spain in the FIFA Confederations Cup and will now face Brazil in the Final in South Africa on Sunday, June 28th.

“All in all, a great moment for the sport we call “soccer” but the rest of the world refers to as “football” gushes Gary Schmitt.

Who is Gary Schmitt and why are his observations of American 2-0 victory against Spain in the world’s most popular team sport particularly relevant?

Well, although Schmitt is a luminary of the Project for a New American Century (the organization that brought us the Iraq War), and an American Enterprise Institute ‘thinker of tanks’ (mostly of oil tanks but also of Abrams tanks) he’s also quite the aficionado of what the rest of the world calls “The Beautiful Game”, but that he artfully calls "The Not-so beautiful Game”.

After all, as he writes:

“As someone who didn’t play soccer growing up, but had a dad who did and whose own kids played as well, I can say unquestionably that it is the sport in which the team that dominates loses more often than any other major sport I know of. Or, to put it more bluntly, the team that deserves to win doesn’t.”

In other words, having grown up in an environment where everyone except him played and enjoyed soccer, Schmitt’s extensive experience of having actually ‘heard-of’ the game informs his profound opinion that soccer is fundamentally unjust and therefore un-American.

And for this state of affairs to be “okay” with his “soccer-loving friends” who "argue that it’s a healthy, conservative reminder of how justice does not always prevail in life”, Gary Schmitt’s mature and scholarly rejoinder is “Well, hooey on that. And, thankfully, Americans are not buying it”

(Well-done, Americans, for not buying soccer-hooey! Also; well-done for not buying American cars either!)

Though admitting that “one can drive by an open field on Saturdays and usually see it filled with young boys and girls playing soccer,” and though acknowledging that the game has grown in the US, the fact that soccer has failed to garner the same attention and commercial investment as Baseball, Basketball and What-Americans-Call-Football (but that the rest of the world doesn’t call ‘soccer’) is, Schmitt suspects, because “the so-called ‘beautiful game’ is not so beautiful to American sensibilities.”.

In other words, soccer is inherently and irretrievably un-American and real Americans (like himself) aren’t fooled by its supposed egalitarianism and generally democratic appeal, at all.

As Schmitt explains:

“We (--non-sporting, balding, Americans named Scott Schmitt--) like, as good small-“d” democrats, our underdogs for sure but we also still expect folks in the end to get their just desert (sic). And, in sports, that means excellence should prevail. Of course, the fact that is often not the case when it comes to soccer may be precisely the reason the sport is so popular in the countries of Latin America and Europe.”

(Where the former is too-poor and the latter is too-socialist to accommodate illegal drug-fueled sporting excellence).

So for all you down-sized, foreclosed-on, health-care-bankrupted, retirement-savings-depleted, terrorism-targeted Americans out there looking for a little joy in the victory of the underdog US Soccer Team beating the best in the world, get a grip!

International soccer is just another expression of European socialism and Latin-American welfare masquerading as competition! It’s just a cheap knock-off of copyrighted and trademarked ‘American Free-Market Competition’ that falls apart as soon as you buy it!

After all, what’s so great about the US Soccer Team ‘winning’ against a team of socialists in a socialist game played worldwide by poor not-Americans? By buying into this non-American sporting welfare system where the undeserving get to win all the time, the US team players are actually complete losers, contaminated with the cooties of European Socialism and endemic Hispanic poverty!

Real Americans don’t measure their victories and superiority by the rest of the world’s standards! Globally-acknowledged excellence is exclusive to real America, determined solely by Real Americans, in America!

Who wins The World Series? Americans do! And how do they do that? By using American steroids supplied by the world’s best doctors who are part of the world’s most profitable health insurance and pharmaceutical systems, that’s how!

So just remember folks, anyone who celebrates the US Men’s National Soccer Team’s victories is actually un-American and if the US beats Brazil on Sunday and actually wins the Confederations Cup, it will just be a victory for socialism, illegal immigration, abortions, gay marriage, high speed rail, and the anti-Christ Barack Obama.

If the US soccer team succeeds in the global market and the MLS then becomes a real competitor to Real American sports franchises like the WWE and Monster Truck racing, the free-market system will be destroyed and the Islamo-fascists and their socialist sympathizers will have won!

So everybody, on Sunday, pray for America to lose to Brazil, so that the symbolic socialism of soccer can be shown to be uncompetitive and un-American. And if the US wins, ask God to damn the US team and all it’s supporters to hell for secret socialists---to do otherwise would be to deny American exceptionalism.

What could be more American and more Republican than hoping ‘America’ loses whilst a Democrat President sits waiting and hoping to congratulate the National Team for their success? That’s how America’s newly self-appointed soccer-bitch sees it, and in the words of Walter Cronkite, “and that’s, the way it is.”

h/t to Matt Yglesias

Bill O’Reilly: “Out Damned (Advertising) Spot”

2009-06-18T12:08:00.006-04:00

Before Dr Tiller was even buried, journalists and pundits weighed-in on whether ‘alleged’ murderer Scott Roeder was aided or abetted in his actions.

Conservative opinion insisted Roeder was an internally-driven lunatic “lone wolf”.

Liberal opinion charged that conservative-dominated media rhetoric encouraged Tiller’s killer, and that Bill O’Reilly appeared to be the most obvious enabler.

O’Reilly was not-surprisingly outraged at the accusation that the 28 episode segments of his show over the past 4 years devoted to Dr. Tiller---in which O’Reilly variously described Dr. Tiller as a “baby killer”, that he was guilty of “Nazi stuff”, that the doctor was the moral equivalent of NAMBLA and Al-Qaida and that Tiller “destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000."---might have provided ANY motivation for a fervent anti-abortion demonstrator to kill his philosophical and ‘moral’ opposite.

(Above "photoon" by 5thEstate).

O Reilly 'debunked' the accusations in his June 3^rd Talking Points Memo:

"Monday night we told you about the murder of George Tiller, the late-term abortion doctor in Kansas shot dead by an anti-government militant while he attended church last Sunday. We also told you that NBC News and other ultra-liberal outlets were blaming me and FOX News for inciting the killer.

"Now we have the murder of 23-year-old William Long, an Army private allegedly murdered by a Muslim militant in Arkansas. Police say 24-year-old Abdulhakim Muhammad, aka Carlos Bledsoe, a convert to Islam, told the cops he killed Private Long and wounded another soldier because of what the military had done to Muslims.

So here is my question: Is NBC News complicit in the murder of Private Long? After all, that network has relentlessly branded the United States as a torture nation, a country run by human rights violators. Didn't NBC News incite Mr. Muhammad to kill the soldier?
The answer is no. The killer is a loon. The media had nothing to do with it. That is the truth.”

Bill O’Reilly was absolutely correct! Of course NBC had nothing to do with Private Long’s murder, because NBC didn’t spend 4 years and 28 episode segments specifically accusing Private Long of mass-murder as O’Reilly did with Dr. Tiller.

Of course by exonerating NBC with regard to Private Long’s murder, O’Reilly also exonerates himself of culpability too (by the power invested in him by,…umm…him) under the collective innocence of “the media” whose only supposed responsibility is to report, and then let the viewer decide---“We Report, You Decide!”

Unfortunately this pat corporate phrase only helps to undermine Bill’s argument of his innocence; as he said himself in the New York Post on June 3rd:

"Even though I reported on the doctor honestly, the loons asserted that my analysis of him was "hateful." Chief among the complaints was the doctor's nickname: "Tiller the baby killer." Some pro-lifers branded him that, and I reported it”

Well Bill, the exact charge against you (and your ilk) is that you did indeed “report” and Shroeder decided, based open what you ‘reported’---which weren’t all facts, by the way, but overwhelmingly hyperbolic distortions and lies. .

Now, granted O’Reilly didn’t directly tell Shroeder to kill Dr. Tiller, but as a self-appointed moral authority figure Bill did say on June 12th 2007:

“If the state of Kansas doesn't stop this man, then anybody who prevents that from happening has blood on their hands as the governor does right now, Governor Sebelius."

And three days later Bill revisited his bloody theme and his demands for action:

"No question Dr. Tiller has blood on his hands. But now so does Governor Sebelius. She is not fit to serve. Nor is any Kansas politician who supports Tiller's business of destruction. I wouldn't want to be these people if there is a Judgment Day. Kansas is a great state, but this is a disgrace upon everyone who lives in Kansas, is it not?"

Now what ‘right-thinking’ citizen, listening to Bill’s ‘reports’, wouldn’t want to avoid the moral stain of having “blood on their hands” from failing to “stop this man” that Bill repeatedly described as a “baby killer”?

And then, apart from Bill’s insistence that his particular four-year long rhetorical campaign against Dr Tiller couldn’t possibly have encouraged Shroeder’s violence, is the contention that the constant repetition of a particular message in the media as a whole has no impact on human behavior.

If that were the case, why does anyone advertise? Why does any place multiple ads? Why do corporations make adverts that appeal to emotions rather than simply reporting the factual details of their products? Why do politicians have advertising campaigns to persuade people to vote get elected?

O’Reilly’s multi-million dollar salary is based not on the actual intellectual superiority, practicality or moral rectitude of his opinions, but on the fact that around 2 million people a night are persuaded to constantly buy his philosophical product, and can also be persuaded to buy whatever crap is advertised along with it.

O’Reilly (and his ilk) advertised that stopping “Dr. Tiller, the baby-killer” would wash off the guilty “blood on their hands” from anyone who was the “first on their block” to buy the moral outrage that was being sold and act upon it. .

Now he’s claiming his promotions and advertising have no effect. So why does he advertise his own merchandise, and why does anyone advertise on his show?

Because promotion and advertising DOES motivate people, and Bill damn well knows it.

Like Lady Macbeth, Bill O’Reilly “doth protest too much” and try as he might, he can’t wash the blood off his hands.

Dr. Tiller, The Law and the 'Fear of God'

2009-06-13T14:23:00.010-04:00

Last weekend, after years of attacks by religious anti-abortion groups against himself his property and his staff, lawful abortion specialist Dr. Tiller was finally killed in the foyer of his church; long-time religious militant abortion opponent Scott Roeder is now charged with his murder.

Two years ago in Denver, Colorado, another abortion protest incident occurred in the foyer of a place of worship which also involved militant abortion opponents. In that particular case the local police responded immediately and no-one was killed.

In the subsequent trial of the accused, the litigant's spokeswoman asked the judge to "consider the safety of ministry employees and visitors" when handing down the sentences.

Did you catch that?

The incident that the police so efficaciously reacted-to did not involve a confrontation between legal abortion providers and abortion opponents, but rather between two factions of the anti-abortion movement and with the aggrieved party asking for future protection from harassment and possible violence.

WTF?!!

After years of vandalism, fire-bombing, death threats and an assault with a deadly weapon by members of religious groups, Scott Roeder was observed by eye-witnesses and recorded on videotape in felony acts by attempting to sabotage the locks on Dr Tiller's clinic---a federal offense under the FACE act.

The clinic provided the local police with the evidence of Roeder's felony and the police did absolutely nothing.

That left Roeder free to take his anti-abortion crusade to the next level in which he "allegedly" murdered Dr Tiller in a church foyer a few days later.

Granted, an act of vandalism is no predictor of murderous intent, but it is an indicator of violent tendencies. Furthermore Roeder had to know he was committing a federal offense and he had to know he might be exposed by the clinic security cameras, yet he took the risk anyway.

So, two years prior to Dr. Tiller's murder, extreme abortion opponents terrorized another establishment that was also protected by FACE statutes.

As the vigilant (and subtly snarky) Wendy Norris of the Colorado Independent reports:

Rev. Bob Enyart, a pastor at Denver Bible Church who proudly refers to himself as "America's most popular self-proclaimed right-wing, religious fanatic, homophobic, anti-choice talk show host" was sentenced to nine days in the city pokey after refusing to pay a $400 fine for trespassing on the Focus [on the Family] campus.

Enyart, his brother Brian and fellow Denver Bible Church pastor Kenneth Scott were convicted May 8 [2009] in a one-day trial after the trio staged a Sept. 4 [2008] protest in the reception area of the multi-million dollar Christian ministry and publishing empire.

Got that? Two hyperbolic 'Christian' political factions got into a spat in the foyer of what passes for a place of worship, the police stepped in the whole thing got settled in a court of Law.

The FACE Act which was originally designed specifically to protect legal abortion clinics from aggressive and disruptive protest actions also contains protections for "places of worship" too---which is why FACE passed the Republican-controlled Congress at the time.

As the Colorado Independent reported at the time of the confrontation:

Bob Enyart's 2007 one-hour sit-in at James Dobson's place of worship was supported amongst others by the extremely militant Operation Rescue director Flip Benham.

Focus spokeswoman Lisa Anderson asked the judge to consider the safety of ministry employees and visitors when handing down the sentences.

In other words Focus on the Family wanted a deterrent judgment against the defendants and not just a routine misdemeanor punishment, for fear of further and more aggressive incidents.

The Colorado dispute revolved around Bob Enyart's belief that FotF needed to be more militant in its anti-abortion activities.

As Enyart had the support of Operation Rescue---which despite the FACE Act had been physically attacking Dr Tiller's clinic for years ---Lisa Andersen had good reason to fear continued harassment and possible violence against FotF members from Operation Rescue and its faithful, even though they were both supposedly on the same side.

Arguably Enyart could have been charged under the FACE Act instead of common Trespass but the fact remains that this single non-violent act of harassment by one very militant religious group against another less-militant one was dealt with effectively by the local authorities.

In comparison the Wichita police were provided with all the evidence they needed to arrest Scott Roeder immediately and charge him with a federal crime. They could have involved the FBI. Roeder could have been held on bail and if he made bail he could have been monitored by the FBI whilst awaiting trial.

Instead, nothing was done.

Dr Tiller is now dead, his clinic now closed, his employees now unemployed and women are further denied their legal and medical rights.

Meanwhile radical officially 'religious' groups use the particulars and principles of secular law for their own convenience and benefit even as they refuse to abide by them and seek to overthrow them, actively or passively abetted by supposedly secular authorities.

Scott Roeder was encouraged by religious leaders, his actions given justification by certain media authorities, his act enabled by the criminal negligence of the Wichita police and culpable Federal authorities.

When a religious organization in Colorado felt threatened by another more militant religious group, secular authority acted on mere trespass, but when a secular organization in Kansas had been attacked multiple times with vandalism, fire-bombings and assaults with deadly weapons and given clear evidence to act, Wichita authorities did nothing.

If Focus on the Family feared Operation Rescue and it's violent ilk (despite their common cause), shouldn't those they commonly opposed fear even more?

And shouldn't the Wichita police have been more aggressive in exercising the authority of the law when they possessed clear evidence of a federal offense?

It's not 'God' we should fear, but rather the "fear of God" and the lack of fear of the self-professed institutional "God-fearing" zealots and the negligent deference constantly provided them by supposedly secular authorities.

Note: As I was composing and editing this post over Thursday /Friday it turned out that the obvious conclusions I drew from this small comparative study are indeed symptomatic of an endemic problem, as evidenced by this story from Friday:

Bush DOJ Failed to Enforce Federal Law Protecting Abortion Providers Anti-abortion Extremists.

Religious White Christians Can’t Be Terrorists--Part II

2009-06-04T15:27:00.006-04:00

It seems I wasn't the only one to notice the disparity of Dr. Tiller's murderer being charged only with murder, whilst Private William Long's murderer is being charged with murder, attempted murder and 16 counts of "terroristic" acts'.

On the cross-post over at The Zoo, houseofroberts commented "5th, I’ve heard three different talk show hosts use this same comparison on their shows, SINCE you posted yours."

Last night, Rachel Maddow spent a significant portion of her show addressing the exact same issues I'd already written about, the day before her show.

Coincidence? .....Definitely! In a nation of 200 million-plus mass-communication-connected adults unique observations on a national story are going to be very hard to come-by!

But Rachel Maddow drilled a little deeper than I did.

She asked a former FBI counter-terrorism agent how it was that Private Long's murderer under an active FBI 'watch' for a year, Muhammad/Bledsoe had acquired an "arsenal" of weapons.

She also asked how Dr Tiller's murderer, Scott Roeder, had complete freedom of movement when the FBI had been provided with multiple positive witness and security videotape identification of Shroeder violating federal FACE statutes multiple times and particularly just a few days before Dr Tiller's murder?

The former FBI agent responded with a statement of fact--for whatever reason, the 'system' failed--a disappointing analysis but fair-enough on its face; nothing is perfect.

With regard to both Shroeder and Mohammad, two murders which might have been prevented nonetheless unfortunately and tragically were carried-out.

But whilst not all crimes can be wholly predicted and thus prevented, treatment of the perpetrator after the fact should be and usually is quite predictable.
Crimes are measured in degrees of severity of harm and judged and punished accordingly; for example in cases of death distinctions are made between premeditation, accident, and willful negligence and these distinctions also hold true for non-lethal physical injury or financial/material injury.

So, in my previous post I argued that the charges against Shroeder and Muhammad should actually be reversed, or at least more equal.
Shroeder had a known history of intimidation and indiscriminate violent intent and was connected with a well-financed movement with a history of terroristic acts, whilst Muhammad's history presents nothing comparable--Muhammad seems to be a 'first offender', yet Muhammad is having 'the book' thrown at him whilst Shroeder isn't even facing the death penalty, despite it being an option

The "terroristic acts" that Muhammad is being charged-with are connected to those bystanders present at Private Long's murder. There's no public information as yet (to my knowledge) as to how these bystanders/witnesses where actually exceptionally terrorized.

(Everyone who watched 9/11 unfold were surely "terrorized" too --in fact the Bush administration made sure of it, after the fact--but Usama Bin Laden hasn't been charged with millions of counts of "terroristic acts", has he?)

Shroeder "allegedly" murdered Dr. Tiller in the foyer of his own church, during a service. It would appear one other usher was a material witness to Dr. Tiller's murder, as he informed Mrs. Tiller who was in the choir at the time. Is there not then a case for at least two counts of "terroristic acts" against Scott Shroeder? Apparently not.

So after the fact, Shroeder and Muhammad are being treated differently for the same crime--public politically- and religiously-motivated murder.
The former is being treated just a murderer, the latter however is a special case--a terrorist (which means a non-combatant; which means he can be held indefinitely, without corroborated evidence and who can be tortured at a whim. Shroeder meanwhile as a mere murderer is entitled to a public defender and the entire panoply of the US appeals system).

Now all the above is pretty much covered in my original post, so why the sequel?

Well, riddle me this, batperson/blogreader!!!

Radio-host Hal Turner — accused of hosting a website that incited Connecticut Catholics to "take up arms" and singling out two Connecticut lawmakers and a state ethics official — was taken into custody in New Jersey late today after state Capitol police obtained an arrest warrant for him.

SO, New Jersey State police (NOT the FBI) arrested a known racist (and pal of Sean Hannity, incidentally), Hal Turner, of simply inciting violence against officials of another state!.

What does this have to do with Shroeder, Muhammad, politically- and religiously-motivated murder and the responses of secular and egalitarian legal authorities?

Welllll....

Hal Turner has multi-year history of inciting violence.
Scott Shroeder has a multi-year history of being incited to violence.
Muhammad/Bledsoe has about one year (by the FBI's reckoning) of being incited to violence

Hal Turner was just arrested for simply inciting violence, by local police, even though to the best of anyone's knowledge no-one has acted on his incitements (interestingly he's also apparently been an FBI informant precisely because of his connections with extremists).
Scott Shroeder had a public record of violent intent and was an active participant in agressive demonstrations promoted by "pro-life" anti-abortion organizations that have a record for inciting violence and praising violence against its "spiritual/intellectual"and political enemies.
From their extremist ranks, extreme 'Christian soldiers' have sprung who have terrorized and murdered for the anti-abortion cause--which is to render abortion in any form, illegal.
(Except natural abortion of course, otherwise known as miscarriage. When God Himself kills babies it's perfectly okay, even though godless sinners may have the capacity to prevent miscarriages through the application of secular, sinful, medical science).

Scott Shroeder, even though he was known to the FBI and to Wichita locals, even though he had publicly expressed violent tendencies and participated in threatening actions towards a specific individual, even though he had bee proven to have violated anti -terror FEDERAL law multiple times, was NEVER arrested fopr his actions, let alone his own incitement or his propensity for being incited by others.

And those organizations that incited Shroeder, and continue to incite others to violence, were likewise allowed to continue and remain untouched by federal and local authorities.

Muhammad/Bledsoe, a newly-minted 'terrorist' with no local support whatsoever faces the maximum punitive weight that Federal authorities can bring to bear against him.
Shroeder, on the other hand is faced with the minimum sanctions available.

And yet Hal Turner who hasn't killed anyone or personally threatened to kill anyone or even engaged in any targeted property damage has been arrested by local authorities for verbally threatening 'across state lines' ( that's the only way I can express it).

Anyone CAN be arrested for verbal threats--it happens all the time, and when such official action is taken it usually results in a misdemeanor charge.

So why, if Hal Turner can be arrested by local police on one instance of 'verbal' (communicated) threats (supported by a record of threatening verbiage) wasn't Scott Shroeder with a record of aggressive behavior and proof of violation of federal law also arrested by either local or Federal law enforcement?

And why wasn't Muhammad/Bledsoe (under investigation for a year apparently) hauled-in for simple questioning at least, as the FBI is authorized to do? Did the FBI need him to actually commit a criminal act before charging him with anything?
Compare Muhammad/Bledsoe's case to that of any other 'domestic terror plot' the FBI has supposedly thwarted in the past 8 years. The ONE time a domestic MUSLIM 'terrorist' actually kills someone symbolic of US hegemony, and the FBI has to LET SOMEONE GET MURDERED before they DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT?!!!

By these three examples (and those that have gone before) it is evident to me that the rule of law and jurisprudence is not merely inconsistent but dangerously (and stupidly) so.
And the culprit for this regression of legal form and practicality appears to me to be an inordinate tolerance (to say the least) of the concerns of a minority of organized religious fanatics with no interest in democratic principles and the secular law that derives from those principles, in exchange for a temporary voting advantage that through temporary advantageous results became a perceived 'enduring' electoral advantage which has thus encouraged its most direct beneficiaries to sustain and promote minority sensibilities as a universal societal ( and thus political 'Zeitgeist'.

Thus a lone dark-skinned non Christian neophyte murderer is charged with 16 counts of terrorism, a white Christian practiced in terror tactics is charged with simple murder.

The 'spanner in the works' is the arrest of a white 'Christian' simply threatening violence.
But the example of Hal Turner's arrest dozen't actually refute the arguments I'm making:

Turner isn't part of a powerful religious/political entity. He's easily swept-up by the authorities. He's insignificant.

But Shroeder actually represents powerful domestic political interests, so he enjoys some some protection from the full force of the law (as do the organizations that encouraged him).

Muhammad/Bledsoe , through his religion, represents a political entity that has no relevant domestic power and thus is much easier to condemn than Shroeder.

Thus the discrepancies in the application of the law between the three of them.

One nation, indivisible, with liberty and equality for all"?

How much evidence does anyone need that this is not the case, not by a 100 miles?

And how much evidence does anyone need that protection from terrorism, that "National Security", and justice and the rule of law are still utter farces?

American Christian fundamentalists are more of a danger to the the rule of law and the principles of the US Constitution than any violent threat by their extremist foreign Islamic counterparts.
American 'Christian' extremists don't have to resort to the tactics of Al Qaeda because the 'Christians' have powerful options; they have the world's most powerful country and a gullible forgiving public that they can and do manipulate for their own ends.

Al Qaeda killed nearly three thousand in one day for their cause--their stupid criminal, venal jihad.
The US has likely killed 100-times that number in a misdirected response driven by an equivalent sense of Christian "jihad", led by a 'Christian' idiot president, loudly supported by a 'Christian' idiotic voting flock.

And here in the cases of Muhammad and Shtoeder, we see the same partisan allowances for politically privileged white 'Christians' in a nation where supposedly "all men are created equal" where religion and politics werer supposed to be divided, and where secular law was supposed to enshrine and support all the ideals the Constitution sow wisely provided.

These founding ideals hang by a thread, and the extremist 'Christians' , most clearly embodied by the pro-life movement, will kill to see that thread cut.
And yet despite all the evidence, they still have what is a reasonable hope of getting-away with the murder of the Constitution and all that it entails, for GOD.
And they are prepared to kill anyone who gets in their way because whatever retribution they may suffer in the process, they will still be comforted by the tolerance of others and the legal institutions the extreme 'Christians' nonetheless seek to destroy.
Thus white Christian Scott Shroeder faces a single charge he can appeal by the graces of secular law, whilst dark-skinned Muslim Muhammad faces either death or life with no parole--for the exact same crime.

And our legal system and all its policing authorities are allowing this inequality of judgement and punishment to pass unhindered and our pliticians are allowing it all to pass unremarked.

l

Religious White Christians Can't Be Terrorists

2009-06-02T19:56:00.006-04:00

On Sunday May 30, 2009, in Wichita, Kansas, Dr George Tiller, a specialist in late-term abortion procedures, was murdered in the foyer of his church during a service.

On Monday, June 1, 2009, in Little Rock, Arkansas, Private William Long was murdered and Private Quinton Ezeagwula was wounded outside a military recruiting station.

Dr. Tiller’s ‘suspected’ murderer, 51-year old Scott Roeder, faces “possible first-degree murder charges, according to the Kansas City sheriff’s department.”

Private William Long’s ‘suspected’ murderer is 23-year old Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad (formerly known as Carlos Leon Bledsoe). Muhammad was apparently being investigated by the FBI's Joint Terrorist Task Force since his return from Yemen (after his religious conversion).

Muhammad was “not part of a larger group or part of a conspiracy” (according to Lt. Col. Thomas F. Artis of the Oklahoma City Recruiting Battalion) but was nonetheless driven by "political and religious motives" (according to the Little Rock police) and will be charged with capital murder and 16 counts of committing a terroristic act.

So Scott Roeder is facing one count of murder (and two counts of aggravated assault) whilst Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad/Carlos Bledsoe is being charged with murder and sixteen counts of terrorism?

In 1996, when Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad was 11 year-old Carlos Leon Bledsoe, Scott Roeder was a 38 year-old member of the anti-government Freemen group and was charged in Topeka for having bomb components in his car (for which he served 16 months in jail and 8 months on probation before the conviction was overturned on appeal due to issues with the search of his car).

Roeder was known to Morris Wilson, a commander of the Kansas Unorganized Citizens Militia in the mid-1990s, who said "I'd say he's a good ol' boy, except he was just so fanatic about abortion. He was always talking about how awful abortion was.”

According to CNN, Roeder’s associates describe him as a regular participant in anti-abortion demonstrations in Kansas City and Wichita---a characterization corroborated by one worker at the Kansas City Central Family Medicine clinic, who said that Roeder was “hard to miss” because of his height. Roeder had been interrupted several times trying to disable the locks of the clinic with epoxy, but was never convicted. Another employee of the clinic memorized Roeder’s license plate number.

Roeder has spent at least the last 8 years physically interfering with Dr Tiller’s legal and medically necessary practice with the explicit or tacit support of a network of “pro-life” religious organizations that have been pandered-to and encouraged-by the GOP, the Catholic Church and influential media personalities who have been calling abortion providers “mass-murderers” for the past 30 years or more.

And then, convinced of his ‘moral’ duties Roeder succeeded in killing Dr Tiller where others before him had failed.

Over the past 8 years Carlos Bledsoe, along with a growing number of Americans that has become a majority in the past two years, apparently became aware of the constant killing, mass arbitrary incarceration and torture of non-Christian human beings---babies, children, women and men---by a US military under orders from a wholly Republican and Christian government; and presumably convinced of his own ‘moral duty’ decided to side with the Muslim faith and then ‘protest’ by murdering a new Army recruit as blameless as anyone for the actions of the organization he’d just joined.

Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad/Carlos Bledsoe apparently acted on his own volition and without any 30 year-long explicit or implicit support from issue-specific organizations propped-up by a major political party, or exhorted to action by any media personalities with long standing social and business relationships with the same.

Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad appears to have been driven to an act of murder solely by the brief evolution of private personal convictions.

Scott Roeder, on the other hand, joined an anti government militia and then later the powerfully-represented and politically well-connected anti-abortion movement as a mature adult and acted in accordance with behaviors encouraged and praised by a long established national network of well-funded anti-abortion organizations whose members have consistently resorted to violence and murder in opposition to perfectly legal and majority public supported medical policy.

No one with national media access has appeared to defend or explain Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad’s actions, whilst Scott Roeder on the other hand is being offered affirmation of the morality of his actions by the likes of Reverend Rusty Thomas of Operation Save America and Randall Terry whose Operation Rescue organization moved from California, where it began, to Wichita Kansas specifically to terrorize Dr Tiller into closing his clinic.

Bill O’ Reilly insists that his ‘reporting’ on Dr Miller over the past four or five years has been entirely fact-based---despite the fact that O’Reilly has for example presented as ‘fact’ at least twice on his show that Dr Miller would perform abortions “any time, for no reason, for five thousand dollars”, which is simply a lie.

So one 23 year old with no evident history of political activity, incitement to violence, proof of violent intent nor any trace of material support for violence is now about to be charged with terrorism as well as murder.

At the same time one 51 year old, known to have been a member of an anti-government militia, known to have manufactured bombs and known to be a regular member of the politically supported anti–abortion movement that has a decades-long record of death threats, of bombings and of murder, faces NO terrorism charges.

“George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller’s killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder. Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God” —Randall Terry of Operation Rescue, June 1 2009

And what's the analysis from a presumably less-extreme, more impartial and respectable religious figure?

"Yes, both Scott Roeder and Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad acted independently in their crimes this week. But while Scott Roeder’s ideology was just the fruit of his own psychological imbalance, Abdulhakim’s ideology is shared by dozens of well organized groups and thousands of men and women who have done harm to our country in the past and have sworn to wreak greater havoc on our homeland and military in the future.

Proof of this important distinction between the nature of these two tragic events has been the unanimous condemnation of Scott Roeder’s crime by every major pro-life group in our nation. That’s on the one hand. On the other hand, we get nothing but silence from the leaders of the particular strain of Islam that Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad studied in Yemen.

In other words, it is crystal clear that Scott Roeder, the man suspected of killing Dr. George Tiller, in no way represents the pro-life cause he heralded, while Abdulhakim will be considered a hero by many of his fellow Islamists whose cause is the destruction of America and Christianity in particular."–(emphasis added)--Father Jonathan Morris, Roman Catholic priest and FOX News Religion Contributor.

The Holy and Most Reverend Father Miller of the tax-exempt, child-molesting Catholic Church and ‘Christian’ foot-soldier of a nationwide multimedia propaganda arm of politically active religious Conservatives is doing exactly what the anti-abortion religious right has been doing for decades—ignoring the cumulative results of their own rhetorical persuasions on those who take the message to ‘serve God’ and punish the wicked according to God’s Will to heart and thus murder in God’s name according to the message of God’s ordained representatives and self appointed champions.

Apparently despite three decades of consistent death-threats, intimidation, arson, attempted bombings, successful bombings, attempted murder and assassinations directed at a select group of people for the specifically political cause of denying a majority of Americans their legal and constitutional rights in pursuit of the overthrow of a democratically determined secular law, religious white Christians Conservatives simply can’t be organized terrorists—that distinction is reserved strictly for Muslims.

Hurricane Ike Information Embargo: Politics, Economics and the Media

2008-09-17T14:23:00.004-04:00

AP photo

Within hours of hurricane Katrina’s passing all the major TV news organizations had crews on the ground and in the center of the disaster.

It has now been four days since hurricane Ike made landfall and where are the major news teams? Has anyone seen even a 15-minute report on MSNBC, CBS, ABC Fox or CNN on the aftermath of Ike over the past four days?

Of course the financial news that broke on Monday and is continuing to break every day this week is the new big story but the only other major interest of the media apart from economics at the moment is politics, in the form of Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin.

Well, Ike is a significant economic story that is being excluded from the news.

Whilst Fannie Mae and AIG are being promised collectively around $100 billion in taxpayer bailouts the cost of Ike is currently roughly estimated at about $18 billion which is hardly chump-change.

It is unclear if that estimate includes the damage to the inland oil-processing plants and the offshore rigs that comprise 20% of the national oil infrastructure. If there’s any significant damage to the facilities will the oil companies demand taxpayer-funded disaster relief proportionate to that being offered to individual citizens? Given that they’ve consistently been handed tax breaks over the last few years despite making record profits I see no reason for them not to claim poverty once again—and of course bolster such claims as being an issue of “national security”.

Ike is also a significant political story.

In 2005 Bush staged a photo-op in NOLA to deliver “the message” he said he was going to deliver at an earlier Rose Garden press conference which he’d already iterated, and then having delivered the message he left, turning out the lights he’d brought with him and leaving NOLA in the dark again.

On Monday Bush said to the press:

“I'm going down tomorrow. I'm looking forward to going down. Members of my administration will be going down. We're looking forward to hearing from, you know, the local folks. I'm confident there will be people that are very frustrated because their lives have been severely affected by this storm. My message will be that we hear you and we'll work as hard and fast as we can to help you get your lives back up to normal”.

Once again, anyone with a working television and an interest in what the President had to say would have heard Bush’s message then, without Bush visiting the area where most of the victims of Ike wouldn’t be there to hear his message personally due to them either having evacuated days before and having been instructed not to return or due to them still being stuck in the attics of their flooded homes and without power.

There is also the political issue of how authorities are treating Galveston and its environs compared to NOLA. Toxic FEMA trailers apparently haven’t been deployed this time. The hardest-hit communities of Galveston Island and the Bolivar Peninsula had no higher-ground stadium in which to gather for relative safety so there have been no scenes of huddled masses desperate for aid. This time the mass evacuation appears to have been more organized and pets, the elderly and infirm and those without their own transportation were accommodated. It would seem that the DHS and FEMA have learned at least something from Katrina.

The authorities were quick to report to the Associated Press that some 2,000 people stranded by flood water had been rescued by Monday.

I watched one such rescue live on MSNBC; a fit-looking man about 25-30 years old who had decided to stay-put despite all the warnings and despite the fact that his home sat atop a bait-shop that stood on stilts at the end of a low jetty that jutted-out about 100 yards into the Gulf. The jetty had vanished, the shop had been completely demolished and the second floor apartment was left perched precariously on the remaining stilts most of which were far from upright. When he was brought to shore by the helicopter the MSNBC reporter at the scene asked him about his decision to ‘ride-out’ the hurricane but at that point he dismissed the question and quickly walked away (and got a friendly lift in a police car to points unknown).

On Tuesday evening ABC ran a 5-minute (at the most) report interviewing a couple (or three) of people who had stayed behind and were now trying to pick up the pieces. One reported that he had already encountered some break-in attempts at what was left of his property and declared his intent to shoot anyone else who might try the same. This was repeated with the others interviewed in the piece and their attitudes were greeted with a chuckle by the ABC anchor back in the studio as the report was wrapped-up: “Well of course, it’s Texas!”

Such a report contradicted earlier statements by local interviewees elsewhere claiming that everyone would help each other in the circumstances. Obviously an attempted break-in would have to be conducted by another local. The word ‘looting’ never passed the lips of the interviewees or the reporters, in contrast to its judicious use regarding events in NOLA.

In fact according to a combined ABC/Associated Press report

“During house-to-house searches in Galveston, about 1,500 people were found to be safe, according to ABC News affiliate KTRK. Five dead bodies were also found. Eleven looters were arrested, and one person was airlifted out of the area with hundreds of mosquito bites. “

In 2005 MSNBC reported: “With much of the city flooded by Hurricane Katrina, looters floated garbage cans filled with clothing and jewelry down the street in a dash to grab what they could.

In some cases, looting on Tuesday took place in full view of police and National Guard troops. At a Walgreen’s drug store in the French Quarter, people were running out with grocery baskets and coolers full of soft drinks, chips and diapers.

Looters filled industrial-sized garbage cans with clothing and jewelry and floated them down the street on bits of plywood and insulation as National Guard lumbered by.”

Whilst grabbing jewelry and clothing in such circumstances is certainly looting in my view, grabbing food, water and hygiene products isn’t—especially when such products would be claimed on insurance anyway, as the DHS and FEMA weren’t supplying people properly and as the National Guard stood by and let it happen (and quite rightly). I note also the repetition of the “jewelry and clothing’ claim and the addition of “industrial-sized” adjective to the original and ordinary “garbage cans”.

Further in the article it was reported:

“At a drug store on Canal Street just outside the French Quarter, two police officers with pump shotguns stood guard as workers from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel across the street loaded large laundry bins full of medications, snack foods and bottled water.

“This is for the sick,” Officer Jeff Jacob said. “We can commandeer whatever we see fit, whatever is necessary to maintain law.”

As Dr. Greg Henderson wrote in an e-mail on August 30^th, 2005

"I am now a temporary resident of the Ritz Carlton Hotel in New Orleans.

[…]

We have a group of armed police here with us at the hotel that are admirably trying to exert some local law enforcement. This is tough because looting is now rampant. Most of it is not malicious looting. These are poor and desperate people with no housing and no medical care and no food or water trying to take care of themselves and their families. Unfortunately, the people are armed and dangerous.

[…]

The health care situation here has dramatically worsened overnight. Many people in the hotel are elderly and small children. Many other guests have unusual diseases

We have set up a hospital in the the French Qarter bar in the hotel, and will start admitting patients today. We are anticipating to dealing with multiple medical problems, medications and and acute injuries. Infection and perhaps even cholera are anticipated major problems. Food and water shortages are iminent.

The biggest question to all of us is where is the national guard. We hear jet fignters and helicopters, but no real armed presence, and hence the rampant looting. There is no Red Cross and no salvation army.”

So the police rallied to the needs of an ad-hoc hospital and maintained a sense of perspective given their own limited resources.

From the MSNBC/AP report:

Another officer, D.J. Butler, told the crowd standing around that they would be out of the way as soon as they got the necessities.

“I’m not saying you’re welcome to it,” the officer said. “This is the situation we’re in. We have to make the best of it.”

Right-wing radio in particular insisted that all the NOLA looting was criminal in intent despite the evident appreciation of the police and Dr. Henderson (amongst others) of the realities of the situation. So what’s the situation in similarly devastated Galveston and Bolivar now?

Well, clearly in Texas some looting has been attempted and has occurred as reported above.

But the fact is that the rest of nation has no idea of what is really going because the federal authorities are applying one lesson learned from Katrina that has nothing to do with their ability to provide aid and relief to victims of a natural disaster and everything to do with controlling media access to their activities so that no comparisons may be drawn between Ike and Katrina, between Galveston and New Orleans, between Texas and Louisiana or between the Federal Government’s actions of 2005 and those of 2008,

Media coverage of Ike has been embargoed.

In looking at the web-site reports about the Ike-afflicted area it appears that every MSM outlet—FOX, MSNBC, ABC. CBS, CNN---has AP attached to every single story. There appears to be not one exclusive report from any of these national news organizations and typical of these reports are paragraphs that read as follows:

“…emergency crews feared they would find more victims than survivors.

It was the first time anyone had gotten a look at the damaged resort barrier island of Bolivar Peninsula, just east of hard-hit Galveston.”

“Crews had no idea what they would find on Bolivar Peninsula, which from the air, revealed house after shattered house. “

“Search and rescuers from the Sacramento Metro Fire Department found 60 survivors on the Bolivar Peninsula, the sliver of sand that sits across Galveston Bay from the city of Galveston, according to the Associated Press.”

The AP appears to be functioning as the middle-man between officials and the MSM and the MSM seems to be acquiescing to this arrangement. The FAA has restricted over-flight of Galveston and the Bolivar peninsula to 2000 feet “to provide a safe environment for disaster response and relief operations” and disallowed helicopter-borne news crews from landing in the worst-affected areas.

According to one ABC News/AP report (referenced here earlier)

"The storm's fatal reach extended beyond Texas: Six people died in Louisiana, two in Tennessee, six in Indiana, three in Missouri, one in Arkansas and three in Ohio."

As hurricane death-tolls in general go that’s a bit above average, but then Ike was 900 miles across and most of its death-dealing potential still stretched over a 550 mile radius.

However…

“Emergency officials estimate that 400 to 500 of the 30,000 residents remained on the [Bolivar] Peninsula during the storm.

Bolivar may have been the hardest hit by Ike's 110 mph winds and estimated 16-foot storm surge. Towns all along the peninsula were virtually flattened by the treacherous winds, rain and floods from Hurricane Ike.

Over the town Gilchrist, seen from a helicopter, a single home stands alone, behind it a long stretch of waterfront homes have disappeared, pulverized by the wind and the storm surge. The bridge to this coastal area has buckled and officials found a car wrapped around a house. “

In Crystal Beach, the scene was even grimmer. A camper that had been ripped to shreds lay submerged in the canal alongside a mobile home and a giant sailboat that had both been destroyed.

Despite the devastation and reports of residents who decided to ride out the storm, Gov. Rick Perry would not confirm any deaths on Bolivar. “

The AP reported that according to Galveston City officials at least at least a third of the community's 60,000 residents remained in their homes.

We know that 60 were rescued at the last minute after being cut off and we’ve heard since that another 2,000 (as of Monday) were also plucked from dire straits. Others certainly changed their minds at the last minute whilst they still apparently had the means to evacuate so it is likely that the 1/3^rd figure was reduced though it is impossible to say by how much, but assuming that the official estimate of 1/3^rd were halved just before Ike made landfall that would leave 10,000 behind. Would it not be reasonable to imagine that 10% of those may well have been killed? That would mean a thousand people dead, despite all the warnings and the evacuation facilities laid on by the authorities.

Currently the Texas death toll is being reported as 30, the overall perhaps 60. Hopefully it really is that low. Michael Chertoff’s warning to those still resident during Ike’s landfall that they “may face certain death” would appear to be an exaggeration in hindsight but at the moment we the public just don’t know and the authorities aren’t willing to say.

Of course when so much is blown to smithereens it’s not fair to expect the precision of reporting that, for example, followed the California train crash of Sunday; but recall the effort in reporting on Katrina or the Eastern Seaboard blackout—that level of interest, effort and communication regarding Ike seems remarkably lacking in comparison, especially when it is surely a major economic story too.

Within the media reports I’ve found there have been some complaints about FEMA’s services. Oil pollution has been briefly noted and the occupants of graveyards have been disinterred by the flood-waters and are floating around with the usual storm detritus. These are as yet seemingly small details, but as yet, on the fifth day, even the larger picture is not being revealed as one might have expected by now.

When Katrina hit, authorities were so spectacularly unprepared they didn’t think of controlling media access and they were burned, rightly, by that over-sight but now it seems they have learned at least that lesson.

With Katrina the religious right immediately blamed the event on the inherent wickedness of NOLA’s civilians and pointed to subsequent looting as proof of it.

The likes of Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage embraced that meme and added that those who stayed had only themselves to blame for their subsequent plight.

Certainly with the apparent press embargo of Ike’s aftermath the right-wing is being denied sources for political hay-making and so too is the political left, but consider which side might gain if the MSM were to report from Texas with the same commitment and given the same access as they had in New Orleans?

Texas is a staunchly Republican state. Anywhere from 40,000 to 90,000 Texans, presumably mostly Republicans, ignored their Republican governments warnings to evacuate.

Are they now being blamed for their current destitution as so many of NOLA’s citizens were? Apparently not.

Are the reported lootings (as noted above) being used to condemn the entire community on Galveston? Apparently not.

Has Ike been declared a holy retribution from God for Texans’ wickedness? No.

The right wing media has kept its mouth shut this time for political reasons (just as it opened its mouth for political reasons during Katrina). The MSM has once again dropped the ball to focus on a new shiny object and once again let the authorities serve them the news as they see fit as has been allowed without significant protest since the beginning of the Bush administration, even now.

Even now the main stream media is still making political and economic decisions that favor the Republicans. The Republican presidency and its appointees are still making political and economic decisions that favor its own vested interested—to not get found-out for incompetence and self serving actions. Together, by the latter controlling information and the former acceding to that control in a partnership that extends for almost 8 years they are both still controlling not just the public discourse but life and death and the fortunes of all just so they can maintain their own relevance and elevated positions for the present and the future.

These are the politics and economics that surround the embargo on the aftermath of Ike. It may not be worse than Katrina but it is surely just as bad and cognizant of that the authorities and their surrogates in the media would far prefer that the rest of us not know that--especially with a presidential election looming on the horizon. .

National (Lampoon) Vacation

2008-08-07T09:41:00.019-04:00

(Above 'photoon' is original to this blog but if used by others a credit/link would be appreciated)

If it’s August (which it is) then it’s that time of year again when George W. Bush puts down his deluxe armadillo-skin Veto-Matic-brand Unitary Executive pen (the one with the silver spoon clip and that uses oil for ink) to take yet another lengthy official vacation.

What with rising unemployment, failing banks, record gasoline prices, record foreclosures, a record national debt, a record budget deficit, record manufacturing losses, a record number of under-insured and uninsured, record incarceration (even for politicians!), record price increases on basic foods, records in produce contamination, record lows for the dollar on the international market, record domestic spying and two continuing wars draining money from the economy at record rates, you might think that the President maybe doesn’t deserve a vacation.

You would of course be wrong (and probably a gay Nazi socialist Islamo-fascist pro-tree librul fringe America-hater as well).

To paraphrase George Bush in the aftermath of 9/11: “When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping!”

When Katrina cut its deadly swath through New Orleans the president’s actions spoke volumes; “When the going gets tough, the tough go barbecuing!”

When the death toll of US troops in Iraq hit 4000 without any appreciable result for their sacrifices the President essentially declared “When the going gets tough, the tough give-up golfing!”.

Ordinary people might take stock of such situations and work towards mitigating their deleterious effects, but George Bush is no ordinary people…person…---he’s a leader and as a leader his primary job is to maintain his optimism and thus the nation’s optimism, in the face of adversity. Maintaining such optimism is “hard work” and as everyone should appreciate the obvious reward for hard work is a nice long vacation.

But George Bush isn’t just taking a vacation for himself---he’s selflessly relaxing on behalf of the whole country! That's just the authentic kind of guy he is!

As non-working citizens leave their foreclosed neighborhoods every morning to prove American competitiveness with illegal immigrant workers, they will be inspired by George’s example:

“One day” (they will say to themselves), “I too will be able to free myself from the bonds of servitude, the constraints of arbitrary search and seizure, the tyranny of taxation without representation and the suppression of inalienable human rights by a distant power-elite, and as the Intelligent Designer is my witness, I shall take a vacation again!” (I swear this reminds of something, but I can't think what!)

With the US on the verge of a psychological breakdown (as astutely noted by Senators John McCain and Phil Gramm) it is essential for the security and future of the nation that George W. Bush takes a vacation not just for himself but for all Americans...and America's allies too!.

If George weren’t so dedicated to the welfare of this nation and instead failed to take a vacation, there’s no telling what might happen if he stayed behind his desk in Washington.

As Bush himself has pretty-much said one way or another over the last eight years:

“You don’t change horses in the bottom of the ninth when you’re on the last down and you’ve got a free throw with two seconds on the clock that’s attached to a dirty bomb set to explode in Punxatawney when your first-responders' radios don’t work because Arabic-speaking FBI agents threaten Republican marriages because their gayness makes the baby Jesus cry and prevents gynecologists from practicing their love due to frivolous lawsuits that drive up the price of oil and encourage socialized animal-human cloning by Cadillac-driving welfare queens.”

For years now libruls have been trying to get Bush out of the Oval Office, but when he does take a vacation they then complain he should be back at work!! Hey libruls, hypocriticize much?!

In these difficult times libruls should stop their obstructionist shenanigans and let Bush lead the nation towards a deserved vacation from not only present problems but the last 7-1/2 years of “hard work”.

Just because President Bush already holds the record for the most frequent and the longest vacations doesn’t mean he should relax in his efforts to relax---that would be like Barry Bonds quitting steroids once he’d beaten Hank Aaron’s home-run record!

At a time when the US faces economic problems not seen since the Great Depression whilst it fights a war as pointless and expensive as Vietnam the last thing America and the world needs is a president, denied a well-deserved vacation, being forced to make executive decisions when he knows in his gut that there’s still brush that needs a-clearin’ at the old homestead.

If the phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” isn’t just an old-timey way of saying “hey kids, we’re all going to Wally-World!” then I don’t know what is!

And besides what’s more fundamentally American than enjoying yourself in the present whilst you can and letting the future take care of itself?

So to all the nattering nabobs of negativism I say let the President take the kind of vacation from the White House that we all can only dream about---six months sounds about right. If we all let Bush have his own way, just this once, then we’ll all be better-off.

Pardoners In Crime

2007-10-11T14:01:00.001-04:00

If the RESTORE Act arrives on Bush’s desk without an immunity clause for the telecom companies that enabled his impeachable, illegal (under FISA) and unconstitutional (4th Amendment) warrant-less “wiretapping” program, he will have to veto it not so much because of the telecom’s investment in him but more because if he doesn’t he will expose himself to the same kind of lawsuits and criminal charges that the telecom companies fear.

The telecoms are complaining that without immunity they risk bankruptcy from lawsuits. This argument is stupid. For a start they’d be subject to a class-action suit, (and possibly half a dozen individual suits at best) so they wouldn’t be sunk by lawyer’s fees and court costs. Secondly there’s no way a court would allow the total bankruptcy of any one of the telecom companies—it would be too disruptive.

If he hasn’t already done-so, Bush will likely write-up a pardon for the telecoms. It won’t matter to him that a pardon is supposed to apply only after a guilty verdict and time served. His father “pardoned” Caspar Weinberger for his indictment in Iran-Contra, thus averting a trial and exposure of G.W. Bush’s own important role in the affair, thus allowing Bush to effectively pardon himself--and he got away with it!
(The sub-headings of the NYT article—Bush Diary at Issue and 6 Year Inquiry into Deal of Arms for Hostages Swept Away)

The power to pardon falls under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution:

"The President shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment."

That’s all there is to it. It can be applied to a corporation as to an individual, and no standard of justification is required.

"Should I decide to grant pardons, I will do so in a fair way. I will have the highest of high standards." (George W. Bush, Feb 22nd 2001)

Ri-iight, George!

If history is any guide, George Junior is going to get away with it, just like his old Dad, though just to be sure he’s going to have to pardon is entire administration, and with all those pardons there’ll be just enough room in his presidential Library for “The Pet Goat” and a torture memo.

Who Is Burying Ciara Durkin ?

2007-10-08T23:50:00.000-04:00

On Thursday, September 27th Massachusetts National Guard Spc. Ciara Durkin, 30, was found with a single gunshot wound to her head behind a building--apparently a “church”--in a “secure area” at Bagram Airbase.

On Friday, September 28th, The Washington Post recorded in their simple Faces of the Fallen roster that Ciara Durkin: “Died of injuries suffered from a non-combat related incident at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan.”

By Monday October 1st, ‘everyone’ had received the AP “wire” report on Iraq/Afghanistan casualties, which included Ciara Durkin, listed as having died from a non-combat related incident”

On October 1st, RTE (Radio-Television Eire) reported:

"Ciara Durkin, 30, originally from Eanach Mheáin in Connemara, died as a result of a single gunshot wound to the head within the Bagram airbase, according to information the military has released to the Durkin Family. Speaking on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta this morning Pádraig Ó Conghaile, Ms Durkin's brother-in-law, appealed to the [Irish] Department of Foreign Affairs to participate in the investigation into her death."

On Tuesday, October 2nd the Boston Globe reported:

"The Department of Defense said in a statement yesterday that Ciara Durkin's injuries came from a "non-combat related incident" that is under investigation. The statement contradicts a Sunday statement from the Massachusetts Army National Guard that said Durkin, an Army specialist, was killed in action. A guard spokesman said the term was meant to imply that Durkin was deployed in Afghanistan at the time of her death".

On Wednesday, October 3rd The Boston Herald reported:

"The Quincy soldier mysteriously slain by a bullet to the head on a secure Afghanistan airbase feared something might happen to her after discovering “something she didn’t like,” her devastated family revealed."

At this point the story was being spread through the US liberal blogosphere. There was nothing on the right-wing blogs.

On Thursday, Oct 4th ABCNews/GMA reported the story, as did CBS News, and the Washington Post and the New York Times amongst others.

On Friday, October 5th FOX News reported that "Marion Jones admitted using steroids before the 2000 Olympics in a recent letter to close family and friends" ---which Greta Van Susteren (champion of dead blondes everywhere except Afghanistan) blogged about, and about which Bill O’Really opined too.

On Monday, October 8th on FOXNews.com, under “The Big Story w/Gibson and Nauert” (which you have to carefully click-on, otherwise you just get the only obvious content—Gibson’s 'My Word') and then under “Heather’s Big Headline” there is this:

"Unfortunately, on Friday night we had to cut Douglas Kennedy's story about a U.S. soldier who mysteriously died in Afghanistan short. News on Olympic medalist Marion Jones' use of steroids broke just as Douglas's story was airing and we needed to break away to cover it. We are posting the entire story here:
[...]
We sincerely hope that Spc. Ciara Durkin's family will soon learn what led to the death of the 30-year-old woman, daughter and sister who had eight siblings. Spc. Durkin and the many other brave men and women give up a great deal to serve our country in remote and often dangerous places. Her family deserves answers soon."

So, just as FOX News finally gets around to reporting on what looks like a murder of a US National Guard soldier on a US base, one of Fox’s worst-rated feature shows (Gibson) HAD to cut away to live coverage of an Olympic athlete admitting steroid use and lying about it. And then, they buried the video report on Durkin (which does actually cover most of the salient points in a minute and a half) beneath a generic link, THREE DAYS later, along with an unctuous note of “sympathy”.

The only reason I found this story was because I already knew about Durkin from the blogosphere and I searched FOX to see what coverage they’d given it. But just to make my outrage complete I decided to see how much coverage FOX’s closest competitor, CNN had provided.

NOTHING! Here’s the search result string:

http://search.cnn.com/search?query=ciara%20durkin&type=news&sortBy=date&intl=false

There is much to be drawn from all this, but for whatever reason Ciara Durkin died, the likes of CNN and FOX and those they enabled buried her and thousands of others years ago, and they are burying her once again whilst avoiding the customary respect of soiling their hands to toss dirt into the grave they reserved for her.

There's No Cancer Like Snow Cancer Like No Cancer I Know!

2007-10-07T08:46:00.001-04:00

Tony Snow is planning to write a book on how to deal with cancer.

Finally! Why didn’t anyone think of that before?!

[Google Results 1 - 10 of about 2,140,000 for dealing with cancer]

One way to deal with cancer is to write a book about how to deal with cancer.

You know, a lot of people think cancer can happen to just anybody, but they’re wrong! It can happen to important media-personalities as well, and when it does, their cancer is important too!

So how do important well-paid people deal with their important cancer? They write a book about it! It makes them feel just a whole lot better.

If YOU have cancer you may have thought about writing a book about how to deal with cancer, but don’t bother because you probably aren’t dealing with cancer as well as Tony Snow does so you really should buy his book instead of writing your own, because if you don’t, well then you’re just a heartless bastard who doesn’t care about people who have cancer.

Sobriety Test

2007-10-06T10:01:00.000-04:00

Who would you rather have a beer with?

That was how the competition for the Presidency was summed-up by our press in 2004 and the electorate supposedly chose to have a beer with an un-recovered alcoholic who wouldn’t shut-up, never made a lick of sense, never bought a round, lost every bar-bet and refused to pay up and then challenged everyone to a fight.
Now, as the bell for last-orders is being rung, our drinking buddy is preparing to piss on the juke-box and throw-up by the front door just before catching a stretch limousine home whilst we have to pay the tab and clean-up.

It’s weird; he seemed like such a decent, regular guy when we first met him. And as we stagger home feeling the onset of a massive hangover, we swear, on three-thousand eight-hundred and something graves, that we’re never going to do that again!

Home Improvement

2007-10-04T09:28:00.000-04:00

I've been dead-slow to post lately--just a weltschmertz phase I guess.
After two years of blogging I thought it time to re-decorate.
The new-look may not be exciting, but it's easier to read.
I have to re-establish the blogroll now and then really get back into it.

Monk-y Business

2007-09-25T15:02:00.000-04:00

(Photo: AP)

As mass demonstrations spread through Myanamar a good deal of the media’s focus has been on the Buddhists monks who have joined the regular citizens in their protests against new government policies.

The monks provide a great image, identically dressed in bright red robes, and their peaceful philosophy and manner serves as a dramatic counterpoint to the aggressiveness and oppressiveness of the ruling Junta.

The situation looks likely to result in a classic battle of democratic people-power versus despotism, peace and humility of the monks versus the arrogance and aggression of the military. Anyone with a soul will be rooting for the monks and the public to prevail.

But the monks notable participation isn't about freedom of expression and democracy or morality or social justice--it's about a change in economics that is going to hurt the monks directly.

"The protests, sparked by a doubling of petrol and diesel prices, and a fivefold rise in the price of cooking gas on August 15, tapped a deep well of anger in a country in economic crisis. Inflation runs at 40% and most people suffer economic hardship." ( The Guardian )

If the citizens can’t afford the essentials, how are they going to afford the alms that the monks rely-on to survive? Monks contribute next-to nothing to the general economy and the general economic welfare—what they get they keep to themselves--and they are supported in that by the general population.

So don't imagine that the monks are championing democracy, they've got a significant economic interest to protect.

Death and Taxes (and Profits)

2007-09-15T10:36:00.000-04:00

This job ad has now been removed from Serco's site.

The position is for a "Personal Effects Specialist" (67 openings available!) who;

“...receives, inventories, sorts, cleans, photographs, packages, and ships to family members (next of kin) all personal effects belonging to military service members and others, including defense contractors, who are killed or severely injured worldwide, especially incident to military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

In other words not only do contractors get a guaranteed profit from their "cost-plus" deals with the Pentagon whilst their employees are alive, they charge the expenses of their deaths to the taxpayer too--and make a profit on that!

( hat-tip to Wonkette! for finding the ad--but rather missing the point of the story).

UPDATE:
I wrote a lengthier post on this at NEWSHOGGERS, where Marcie Hascall Clark left a comment with this highly pertinent information...

The Defense Base Act Insurance coverage that each contract company must provide relieves the company of any responsibility of any kind to the employee or their family.The premiums are 10% or more of the employees salary and are included in the contract (taxpayer pays). When an employee is injured or killed the DBA insurance company is reimbursed all medical, repatriation, lost wages, and death benefits they pay out by the Federal Government (taxpayer) plus a 15% admin fee under the War Hazards Act.

The Blog Factor

2007-09-09T23:52:00.000-04:00

It’s been two years since I started my blog, and in that time oil prices, the uninsured, the death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan and the number of Republicans in jail and under investigation have all gone up. The genocide in Darfur continues and ‘freedomocracy’, once thought to be on the march is actually face down in an alley somewhere being eaten by rats. (None of this is my fault; it is mere coincidence I assure you.)

So why blog, or continue to blog? Simple: Because it matters. The effort of writing a serious post forces me to think, to research, to justify my arguments and opinions. For the few who read my blog, my arguments may inform them. Their comments and their own blogs in turn inform me. And the whole informed conversation that results percolates through an engaged society.

TV news-shows now report-on and reference blogs (to a limited degree); not because they want to but because they have to—some even have their own blogs. But most of them still don’t “get-it” –their posts are either copies of existing print articles or transcripts from their shows that fail to properly exploit the medium, and where original content is offered it is often as dumb as their traditional products—poorly researched, poorly written and condescending (and offering little in the way of discussion as having posted the author often disengages from the comments and in some cases disallows comments altogether).

There’s no question that a few blogs have had an effect on public discourse and current affairs. Several prominent right–wing blogs have done a fine job in rumor-mongering, character-assassination, and in manufacturing pointless “controversy”. A few left-wing blogs have broken important stories of corruption and drawn attention to important issues the traditional media has ignored.
But such blogs are well organized and focused. What purpose then do small personal blogs such as mine, and the hundreds of thousands like it, serve? Are we all just a bunch of whining egotists, yelling at strangers in the hope we’ll get the attention we crave, demanding to be taken seriously? Do our blogs serve anyone (or anything) but ourselves?

As far as I know, no one has bothered to find out, but I suspect that individual bloggers, by virtue of the hypertext link, form a collective that does serve the community and affect change.
Consider the results of the 2000, 2004 and 2006 elections.
In 2000 e-blogger was just getting started. The political dialog was still shaped by the oligarchy of TV, Talk-Radio and the major newspapers. At that time any mention of blogs was relegated to computer columns and “tech” segments and was discussed in terms of personal entertainment or as a new-fangled marketing tool or consumer resource.
By 2004 the media oligarchy had begun to reference particular blogs as news sources on occasion (most notably the Drudge Report). Some current-affairs shows set aside air time to highlight what was “on the blogs”, though the selections varied widely in what was deemed noteworthy.
Iraq was the dominant topic and discontent was brewing, but the narrative in the traditional media remained the same and Bush returned to the White House.

From 2004 to 2006 the media oligarchy continued to parrot and promote the administration’s and the GOP’s positions. The Republicans and right-wing pundits continued to dominate in air-time and column inches and the message was always the same—tax cuts helped the economy, the economy is strong, jobs are being created, global warming is a myth, we’re winning in Iraq, if we don’t fight them over there, if the Democrats were in control there’ll be more terror attacks and higher taxes, gays threaten marriage, immigrants threaten America and on and on.

But from early 2005 opinion polls showed that the general public was becoming increasingly skeptical of the messages they were receiving. First, opposition to the war in Iraq edged into a slight majority. Then confidence in the economic outlook for workers and the middle class began to wane. Bush’s popularity began to decline as did the assessment of how well he was conducting the war. The administration’s messages were no longer molding the masses’ opinions. What had changed?

Several surveys found that the public was now more reliant on the internet for their news and information, than on TV, radio and the paper Press. But if the transition from TV, radio and newspapers as sources of information was simply a matter of convenience, and as all the big players had a long established web-presence, wouldn’t their audience simply have migrated from the traditional medium to the new medium, from Fox News to Fox News.com, for example? If the information remained the same, and the sources remained the same, opinions shouldn’t have changed. But they did. Why?

Personal experiences at odds with the optimistic assessments of the government and the pundits wouldn’t necessarily reverse an individual’s opinion of the larger picture—particularly as there was no shortage of pundits spouting grand statistics and telling the public that their problems were their own fault and not the fault of policy makers. Those reliant on the traditional media might not have believed everything they were being told, but they had little or no alternative sources of information.
The internet however provides unlimited sources of information which take little effort to discover. Furthermore the internet user can concentrate on a specific issue without distraction, observe discussions and actually participate in them. The passive news consumer becomes an engaged news user and through blog-commenting and blogging itself the ordinary citizen can disseminate news and information as well.

Between 2005 and 2006 opinion polls showed increasing dissatisfaction with not just Iraq, but with domestic policy issues as well—employment, health, environment, security, justice, corruption, energy, immigration, education and civil rights. As the mid term elections loomed, the GOP’s policy priorities were the exact opposite of the public’s priorities. Clearly the Republicans dominance in the mass media and their infamous message discipline had lost its effectiveness. The public was rejecting their message, because in their gradual rejection of the traditional media in favor of the internet, the public had the option to be better informed, and I believe even the small blogs played their part.

A blog such as mine has an irregular readership of perhaps three-dozen people. My readers tend to have their own readerships, and we all have our own blogrolls where some of the links are common but many others unique. The shared interests we have and the unique links we have create networks of exponential scale. New and useful information is disseminated quite easily, new contacts made, new communities, though mutable, established. News and ideas are transferred very quickly, far and wide. Small blogs that discuss large issues can create a “collective conscious” by virtue of their accessibility. Again, I ask; if the move from traditional media to the internet was just a change in the medium, but not the “message”, why does the message no longer hold sway over public opinion?---because the source of information is different, and because the audience is no longer passive. The public doesn’t have to put-up with being spoken-to, they can speak to each other and they can talk back—and that’s what blogs provide.

I think blogs have made a difference, and that’s why I will keep on blogging. And I hope everyone else does too.

Bush’s New Excuse?—If We Leave Iraq, Iran Will Threaten World Peace!

2007-08-29T13:40:00.000-04:00

Bush’s recent speech to the American Legion in which he said that allowing Iran to pursue “technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust” sounds mighty familiar of course.

Now whilst a majority of Americans have finally wised-up to Bush’s crap, the fact that his year-long campaign to push Iran as the next great “threat” has had no takers beyond the usual suspects doesn’t mean a damn. He's still keen on bombing Iran.

As everything Bush has EVER done or said clearly demonstrates, he doesn’t give a shit about what the majority public thinks or needs; manufacturing support for the Iraq invasion was merely useful but now with his established “executive powers” he’s perfectly capable of doing whatever he wants without public support—all he needs is his “Beltway” enablers, of which he has many, too attack Iran.

Interestingly (and scarily) he may have an accidental ally in Iranian President Ahmadinejad:

"The political power of the occupiers is collapsing rapidly," Ahmadinejad said at a press conference apparently after Bush’s American Legion speech, referring to US troops in Iraq. "Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region. Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap, with the help of neighbors and regional friends like Saudi Arabia, and with the help of the Iraqi nation."

This quote may serve Bush well—not in reality, but in his mind and the minds of his warmongering supporters: in addition to the threat of Iran as a nuclear power, Bush could now parse these words to argue even more forcefully for the continued occupation of Iraq; the reasoning would be that an Iran with nuclear ambitions intends to “fill the gap” that would be left by a US withdrawal, take over Iraq and its oil and finance yet more global terrorism!

I’ll go out on what may be a very short limb here and predict that Bush will publicly make this connection in the next two weeks.

Such a connection would actually make no sense to the well-informed, but then that’s never been the US’s nor George’s strong point, has it?

UPDATE (8/30) :

"To a person, they said there would be genocide, gas prices in the U.S. would rise to eight or nine dollars a gallon, al-Qaida would continue its expansion, and Iran would take over that portion of the world if we leave," [John]Porter (R-Nevada) said Wednesday in a phone interview from Las Vegas.

That's one ( not from the WH though)...we'll see if this progresses

Who's The Bimbo?

2007-08-27T19:02:00.000-04:00

When Miss Teen South Carolina was asked why she thought one fifth of Americans can’t locate the USA on a world map the very pretty young woman couldn’t locate a coherent sentence:

“I personally believe the U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, uh...people out there in our nation don’t have maps, and, uh, I believe that our education like such as South Africa and, uh, the Iraq everywhere like, such as and... I believe that they should, our education over here in the US should help the US, err, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future… for it.”

The YouTube clip of her response has now been sniggered-at by millions, and blogged by hundreds (and aired as entertaining filler on ABC News this pm precisely because it’s zooming around the intertubes.)

Magpie notes:

“While it's easy to laugh at [Lauren Caitlin] Upton, I'd submit that she's practicing the same craft that's used by US business leaders and politicians every day: that of saying a whole bunch of meaningless stuff to try to hide the fact that a statement is wrong, incoherent, or nonexistent.”

I had a similar thought before I read Magpie’s perspective which reinforces much of what’s she’s written. Consider these words and ponder who it is who deserves laughter and ridicule:

"I was raised in the West. The West of Texas. It's pretty close to California. In more ways than Washington, D.C., is close to California." -George W. Bush, in Los Angeles as quoted by the Los Angeles Times, April 8, 2000

"Border relations between Canada and Mexico have never been better." —George W. Bush, in a press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Sept. 24, 2001

"We spent a lot of time talking about Africa, as we should. Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease." —George W. Bush, at a news conference in Europe, June 14, 2001

"This very week in 1989, there were protests in East Berlin and in Leipzig. By the end of that year, every communist dictatorship in Central America had collapsed." —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Nov. 6, 2003

"It's the Afghan national army that went into Najaf and did the work there." --George W. Bush, referring to Iraqi troops during a joint press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, Washington, D.C., Sept. 23, 2004

"Wow! Brazil is big." --George W. Bush, after being shown a map of Brazil by Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brasilia, Brazil, Nov. 6, 2005

"After all, Europe is America's closest ally." --George W. Bush, Mainz, Germany, Feb. 23, 2005

Going Gonzo

2007-08-27T11:44:00.000-04:00

" I need to spend more time with....ehhh..Morgan Fairchild...yeah, that's it...Morgan Fairchild...yeah."

"The unfair treatment that he's been on the receiving end of has been a distraction for the department," the official said.

This Friday Alberto Gonzalez handed George Bush his resignation and with his characteristic smirk asked the President to “spot” him his share of their burrito lunch, explaining that he was now unemployed and he wouldn’t be getting his social security check for another three weeks.

Gonzalez said that the weeks of interrogation by various congressional committees had been “torture”.

He went on to say that he believed he may have resigned to “give someone else a chance” but he was sure his ouster wasn’t politically motivated.
Asked when he had made the decision to fire himself he said he couldn’t recall, nor was he certain of the criteria he used in his decision but he was certain that incompetence wasn’t a factor.

BREAKING! GONZO LEAVES NATION’S KIDS TREMBLING IN FEAR!

“I’m not going to resign. I’m going to stay focused on protecting our kids.. The department is responsible for protecting our kids, for making our neighborhoods safe, for protecting our country against attacks of terrorism, to going after gangs, going after drug dealers. I’m staying focussed on that” –Alberto Gonzalez (March 22, 2007)

Without Alberto Gonzalez to protect them, millions of children across the nation broke down in tears and clutched their dollies in fear of gangs of drug dealing terrorist immigrants.

President Bush, after accepting Gonzalez’s resignation finished his burrito, read Plato’s Republic, went cycling, cleared some brush and stared at a cow before exercising his recess powers to appoint Marvin Monroe as Psychologist General.

Asked why it had taken him 36 hours to act, the President explained that he didn’t want to scare the kids “and besides”, he added, “Gonzo’s always joking around. When he gave me his resignation I thought he was just trying to get out of paying for lunch. Look…if I listened to everything everyone
told me, Iraq wouldn’t have been freedomized—in other words, oceans don’t protect us and that’s why we’re over there! And that's why I'm doing a heck of a job—it’s called leadership!”

George Will Links Republicans, Neo-Cons, to Nazis

2007-08-23T14:20:00.000-04:00

“Come September, America might slip closer toward a Weimar moment. It would be milder than the original but significantly disagreeable.
After the First World War, politics in Germany's new Weimar Republic were poisoned by the belief that the army had been poised for victory in 1918 and that one more surge could have turned the tide. Many Germans bitterly concluded that the political class, having lost its nerve and will to win, capitulated. The fact that fanciful analysis fed this rancor did not diminish its power”.

So writes George Will in his latest Washington Post Op-Ed.

Will is referring to the myth used by military leaders to explain Germany’s surrender which was negotiated by the civilian politicians.
The German military claimed they had never been defeated and would have “won" WWI if not for their betrayal by the civilian government suing for peace, which the generals termed a “stab-in the back” (or Dolchstosslegende)

The facts were that the Germans simply reached the limit of their resources and could fight no longer. The British Navy blockaded German ports preventing supplies from their small empire and outmaneuvered and out-gunned the Kriegsmarine. The Tank broke through the trench defenses, forcing German retreat. The British Army was able to deploy troops from all over the empire (and the Irish served in large numbers and with distinction) and the US provided a very useful replenishment.

Thanks to the blockade the greatest priority was given to the military; the civilian Germans lost fuel, transportation and eventually food to the war effort, and began to starve whilst inflation took hold. The war was simply unsustainable.

But rather than blame the policy that had created the war, the generals blamed the policy that ended it—focusing particularly on liberal intellectuals (which included many Jews of course). Hitler made much use of the “stab-n-the-back” myth to rise to and maintain his power.
This same argument is being used by Bush now in his nonsensical comparison of the “lessons” of Vietnam with the current state of Iraq; and by the Republican and neocon cheerleaders insisting on yet more Friedman units else America will lose--thanks to the liberal intellectuals defeatist policies, not the original flawed policy and gross mismanagement that has led us to this pass.

I’m not sure George Will really meant to compare Bush and his “advisers” and the GOP to the warmongering, racist, authoritarian, militaristic, intolerant and vainglorious Nazis (otherwise I'm sure he'd have included 'Nazi in the title), but when you try to draw parallels, sometimes you end up with a "equals" sign.

Our Surge Robots WIll Be Greeted With Nuts and Bolts!

2007-08-22T11:28:00.000-04:00

"The demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply," said Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey last week, referring to Bush’s “surge”.

Shit-for-brains Bush butt-buddy AEI “analyst" and “Surge-On! General” Fred Kagan insists “the longer that you keep American forces there, the longer you give this process to solidify and to make sure that it's not going to slide back."

So how is the Pentagon going to keep the surge going when they don’t have any troops left?

Robots!

It turns out that the Pentagon is about to award a contract for 1,000 reconnaissance robots (on August 24) to be delivered by the end of the year.

And how is the Pentagon going to decide which company’s robot has the right heavy-metal poly-alloy stuff to serve in what is rapidly really becoming the "Army of Whoever W've Got Left"?

Sadly, the decision will not be made by 'hot' metal-on-metal death-match action, but by whichever company promises to deliver 1,000 robots the fastest by year's end, using the most most convincing PowerPoint presentation.

It seems the hot favorite is iRobot--best known for its cat-terrifying, housemaid-unemploying Roomba autonomous vacuum cleaner (the company does however already supply the Army with “Packbot” recon and bomb-disposal robots).

And though the company is doing pretty well these days, no doubt they’ll be very happy to rack up around $160 million in sales for four months of work (assuming of course that they aren’t lying about their production capacity).

Now the troops know damn well they aren’t leaving anytime soon, so the delivery of more robots will be at least somewhat welcome news for the extra-dangerous jobs of recon and bomb disposal.

On the other hand the order that suggests they’ll be doing more close-quarter house-to-house reconnaissance in the upcoming months and encountering more IEDs. The robots will provide a valuable assist in tactical operations, but it’s not going to make a blind bit of difference to the strategic, political situation.

Maybe the Pentagon should invest in a few protocol droids as well?

Pentagon Censors Milbloggers, Media and Self but Still Loses to Media, Blogger

2007-08-18T09:49:00.000-04:00

“There are plenty of good reasons for the military to be concerned about inadvertent release of "intel". But the fact is the US military as a whole is as guilty of providing such "intel" to a far greater degree than any single military blogger, or indeed of all of them.”

I’m quoting myself here from a post entitled Entire Army Shoots Self In Foot , in which I took the DoD’s arguments and suppositions (as reported in NewYork Newsday ) behind their ‘crackdown’ on "security-risk” milblogs (and their authors) to task.

That was written back in January 2006. Now in August 2007 comes this from Wired.com

"For years, the military has been warning that soldiers' blogs could pose a security threat by leaking sensitive wartime information. But a series of online audits, conducted by the Army, suggests that official Defense Department websites post material far more potentially harmful than anything found on a individual's blog.

The audits, performed by the Army Web Risk Assesment Cell (AWRAC) between January 2006 and January 2007, found at least 1,813 violations of operational security policy on 878 official military websites. In contrast, the 10-man, Manassas, Virginia, unit discovered 28 breaches, at most, on 594 individual blogs during the same period.

It took a FOIA request to get this information, which is also mighty interesting because I concluded my January 2006 post with this:

“It's hard to draw any other conclusion than that the gagging of milblogs is nothing more than an exercise in political propaganda which does nothing to serve the soldier, the mission or the nation. The Pentagon itself has done far more to provide the "enemy" with the Intel it seeks, and to undermine morale in theater and at home though its incapacity to provide the troops with supplies and listen to their real-time field experience, than any milblog ever has.”

Note that the DoD was all too willing to publicly argue its case at the outset, and the fact that it took a FOIA request to publicly reveal the subsequent research that refutes their suppositions.

Now as gratified as I am at this validation of my arguments and conclusions, this doesn’t suddenly make me an expert, nor provide me with another opportunity to criticize the traditional media (which I and many other have often done and still do).

What it does show, is that an ordinary citizen with no “officially recognized” expertise and limited resources can, with a little thought thrown-in, determine actual reality on their own rather than relying solely on being spoon-fed the versions of self-perpetuating “experts” and “authorities”.

Score another one for the hate-filled, loony, lefty hippie bloggers!

(P.S. On the subject of US military meddling in the truth, here’s an old satirical post about Rumsfeld that might amuse; The Iraqi Free Press (a $100-million value!),
with the bonus of some actual Arabic phrases you can learn!

Bush Baby?

2007-08-16T18:12:00.000-04:00

Not my usual type of subject, but Jenna “The Wild One” Bush just got engaged to one Henry Hager who, as an aide to recently expunged Bush-brain Karl Rove, would now seem to be unemployed (just like Jenna herself) and thus eligible for government handouts.

Wedding plans have yet to be announced. Also yet to be announced is why she’s gained so much weight over the past few months when “the other one” is still quite trim, as are her parents. (pictorial timeline of Jenna’s form here at the egregiously gossipy but entertaining Wonkette).

But I should stop right there.
Who am I to pry and poke at the adult First Daughter’s appearance? Why, such a thing would surely breach the bounds of decency!

And to insinuate that she, the daughter of a firm advocate of abstinence before marriage, might be pregnant out of wedlock would be quite beyond the pale. No doubt the proof that Jenna has simply been overindulging in Hamburgers and potato salad whilst vacationing with Sarkozy will be made evident in the next few months.

Indeed on the day of her wedding we should all be able to look forward to Jenna looking radiant and at her very best, as every bride and every groom and every witness desires.

I wonder when the wedding will be. October? I'm just guessing.

True Detective Stories! Cult of the Unremarkable Islamists!

2007-08-16T13:09:00.001-04:00

(h/t to Red Tory for bringing this to my attention. He casts a wide net and always has lively comments, so pay a visit.)

We are well into summer, and you know what that means: Major League Soccer, barbecues, brush-clearing and of course, TERRAH!

“…the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have begun focusing on what they say is a greater threat -- small, anonymous groups of disaffected men who radicalize one another and turn to violence.”

Apparently the FBI is totally on the case, having identified these would-be terrorists with the totally awesome and highly scientific descriptors ‘BOGs’, for "bunch of guys," or ‘GOGs’, for "group of guys”---and thanks to the FBI’s mad skillz “the cells may offer greater opportunities for detection and infiltration than the lone-wolf threat because they are more numerous and most members are amateurs.”

So have no fear citizens! The ‘G-men’ have got the ‘B-men’s number!

Well almost, anyway...

Though the FBI has now detected this new and significant threat to our mothers and their apple-pies, it seems that “they are difficult to detect because most lack formal structure or prominent leaders and have little or no contact with Al Qaeda or other known terrorist organizations.”

Because if they'd only have the decency to call themselves Al Qaeda in Oklahoma or something it would really help!! But if that weren’t alarming enough consider this:

"There is no useful profile to assist law enforcement or intelligence to predict who will follow this trajectory of radicalization. Rather, the individuals who take this course begin as 'unremarkable' from various walks of life," the NYPD said in a report released Wednesday.

So have fear, citizens! The ‘G-men’ haven’t got the ‘B-men’s' number!!!

And it gets worse! Apparently a “BOG” can “plan multiple attacks, use varied weapons and tactics, and draw on a wider range of resources than an individual could, officials say.”

Holy Mary Mother of God!
Never would I have imagined that a group of people could draw upon a wider range of resources than an individual could! Do you realize what this MEANS?!!

Why they might organize themselves, establish hierarchies, assign responsibilities, meet regularly, coordinate activities, canvas for support, seek out alliances, develop strategies and who knows, one day they might create a geo-political entity based on common interests, establish a collective identity and possibly even dominate the world!

Thank-God we have officials who are prepared to say things!

Law enforcement officials say BOGs present unique challenges."If we don't bump into them directly or have someone involved in some form of interaction with them, we'll have a difficult time finding them," said Arthur M. Cummings II, the FBI's deputy assistant director for counter-terrorism.

Well there’s only one thing for it then! A mass deployment of FBI agents to round up every single group of disaffected men! It’s the only way to save America!

I’ve written at length and seriously about many of the previous US terror plots and warnings (Idiots Thwart Other Idiots , DHS and the Three F's , Politics, Plots and Paranoia ) and found them to be lacking in credibility and undeserving of the dramatic coverage they were given.

But the article excerpted here (there’s plenty more to it) is the most ludicrous twaddle I have ever seen, in its own contradictions, hyperbole and the absolutely moronic utterances of the featured officials.

It’s been said that “it takes a thief to catch a thief”. It might follow then that it would take delusional incompetents to catch delusional incompetents. In which case, have no fear citizens; the FBI is clearly up to the task!

But just in case, stay terrified (or 'terrorfied'),--it's your duty as an American!

Polling the Surge: Mass-Debating, O’Handjob and Bollocks

2007-08-15T15:11:00.000-04:00

Note: this post is a 'three-pager'

A CBS News poll released on Monday this week “shows that 29 percent of respondents now believe that the surge is having a positive impact, an increase of 10 percentage points from last month” (emphasis added).

Hmmm! What’s happened that has prompted this pretty significant shift in opinion?

Has sectarian violence dropped-off significantly? No.
Are any parts of Baghdad now safe for correspondents to walk around without body armor and massive military escort? No.
Is electricity now available from the grid for more than 1-hour a day? No.
Has the Iraqi “government” finally been able to accomplish something, anything? No.

These were the goals of the “surge” that began in February and that was supposed to show a positive impact almost immediately, but soon thereafter the White House claimed that results wouldn’t be forthcoming until after June when the full “surge” force would be wholly deployed.

It seems sectarian violence has dropped off a bit in Baghdad (which is supposed to be a major aim of the surge) but some of that has to be attributed to the established summertime cycle of such activity.
Of all its intended goals, the “surge” has had only a marginal impact on just this one aspect of the situation, which clearly illustrates that it is in fact a tactic and not a strategy as Bush and his mouthpieces try to claim.

So, why the significant increase in the perception amongst some that “the surge is having a positive impact”?

Well, Bush’s clueless mass-media echo-machine might have something to do with it:

(Time Cover Dec. 11, 2006)

The usual suspects have all been trotting-out to Iraq on carefully orchestrated DoD junkets and returning with boilerplate reports of progress without providing anything more than anonymous anecdotal “evidence” from “the troops” and “the commanders”.

But what may have driven this change in perception more than anything else has been the significant promotion of the Brookings Institute’s “scholars” Michael O’Hanlon/Ken Pollack recent (July 30) New York Times Op-Ed entitled: “A War We Might Just Win.”

From Media Matters:

“On July 30, Pollack appeared live during the 9 a.m. ET hour of CNN Newsroom and the 5 p.m. ET hour of CNN's The Situation Room, as well as MSNBC's Tucker and National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation. O'Hanlon appeared on the July 30 edition of MSNBC's Hardball and the July 31 edition of CBS' Early Show.”

In almost every appearance in this media blitz O’Hanlon (and Pollack) were introduced by the presenters/interviewers as “skeptics of the war”, without any evidence--because there is none.

The only skepticism these two have ever expressed has been with regards to the “management” of the war, not the war itself. (A summary of their public record that refutes their “skeptic" status is available here).

Over the next two weeks the usual suspects have done the media rounds, trumpeting the same “skeptic” reference without challenge except perhaps from John Stewart (a comedian it should be noted, NOT a journalist or ‘expert’) in an interview with Bill Kristol who was particular in referencing O’Hanlon/Pollack and the invented “skeptic” qualification as proof of their veracity and thus proof that the “surge” was making progress.

The key to this media blitz of course is the combination of claiming that O’Hanlon/Pollack are “critics” of the war, and the publication of their optimistic Op-Ed in the supposedly “liberal” New York Times---thus the implication of an impartial view (one has to disregard the fact that the NYT gave full uncritical reign to Judith Miller’s White House-directed WMD propaganda and the fact that O’Hanlon/Pollack “criticisms” have been limited to complaints that the occupation force could have used more troops and more bombs should have been dropped for Bush’s “strategy” to have succeeded—which would have stopped all the liberal-Democrat whining).

(Interestingly after all the media appearances, Glenn Greenwald asked O’Hanlon directly about his “war skeptic” credentials, which O’Hanlon directly refuted:

“As you rightly (emph.) reported -- I was not a critic of this war. In the final analysis, I was a supporter.”

O’Hanlon has since countered this confession on NPR’s On Point by saying “I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time rebutting Mr. Greenwald because he’s had frankly more time and more readership than he deserves” which of course is a rebuttal that might sway a six-year old desperate to pee in the middle of an argument about cooties, but surely wouldn't convince an adult--excepting adult journalists, of course!.)

In contrast there has been no significant coverage of Anthony Cordesman’s assessment of the surge--try "cordesman surge" on Google(Web) and on the first page there' are no hits from any major media outlets, nor on the second page either (or the third).

Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic Studies and International Studies was on the exact same trip as O’Hanlon/Pollack, yet arrived at an entirely different conclusion! There has been no consequent invitation of other “talking heads” appearing in the mass media expressing analyses that run contrary-to, or even being partially questioning-of, the rosy views of those being so heavily promoted (all two of them).

It is small wonder then that the “surge” has enjoyed its own surge in the perception of its success. But this improvement seems to have occurred amongst the apparently perennial ‘29-per-centers.’

If Bush’s surge is “having a positive impact” why then hasn’t Bush’s overall performance figures or his “handling of the campaign against terrorism” increased? After all, hasn’t Bush constantly connected each to the other?

On the subject of the surge, it seems clear to me that a carefully orchestrated media campaign specific to the “surge” has had a positive domestic effect on the GOP’s hardcore base in terms of this singular issue, but not enough to persuade the overall majority in this or other related issues.

This ‘bump’ on a singular issue speaks volumes about media manipulation and media compliance with the administration’s message, and also about the desperation of the GOP and their most ardent supporters in trying to find some positive amongst all the negatives.

“With one day left in the month, American casualties in July are the lowest since the troop surge began in February", reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin, "and civilian casualties are down by a third.”

I would remind David Martin that a reduction in American casualties was not supposed to be a measure for “progress” in the surge—in fact the DoD cautioned that they were expected to rise somewhat--but God-forbid that the CBS National Security Correspondent would actually remember that (and in this report he cites no figures, military OR civilian presumably because he's been told they don’t really matter-- "we don't 'do' body counts"--official!).

“U.S. officials attribute that to the dismantling of networks which make roadside bombs and to American soldiers protecting the local population. It would only take a few spectacular attacks to reverse those trends, but even critics of the war strategy are encouraged.”

So although ‘networks” make and use IEDs they have been apparently “dismantled”, BUT if they show up again well then… ummmm…I guess the ‘networks’ won’t have been dismantled, would they?

Still, the important thing is that “critics of the war strategy are encouraged”—based in the fact that they proclaim themselves “encouraged”. And who are these “war critics”? Why none other than O’Handjob and Bollocks!

"For me, gut instinct, just piecing all of the information together subjectively, I thought we should give it a few more months into 2008," O'Hanlon says.”

How telling! “Gut instinct” and “subjective” analysis from a longtime proponent and supporter of the disastrous and illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq has been dutifully given pride of place in the CBS article entitled “U.S. Observers Note Progress in Iraq”—and it is but one of many simlilar by other serious news organizations.

Quite accidentally, David Martin partially gives the game away when he finishes with:

“That is exactly what the American commander Gen. David Petraeus wants — continue the surge into next spring and then start a gradual withdrawal back to the pre-surge troop level of 130,000 by the end of 2008”.

What Petraeus wants is to become a four-star general with all the benefits. He serves “at the pleasure” of the President and does what Bush wants.

What the GOP Administration wants is to stall and then use the inevitable policy change that will come from the 2008 elections—no matter how slight those changes might actually be---to claim that “progress” was undermined and their certain “victory “ thwarted, if only those meddling kids hadn’t interfered!.

So it is small wonder then that the CBS poll has shown its own surge in the perception of the “surge’s” supposedly “positive impact.” Certainly CBS has done nothing to provide any counterpoint or context, nor have any of the other major media outlets done anything to impartially inform the public before asking their opinions.

This is yet another very clear example of why media matters, and how by not just re-iterating but actually building from the party propaganda, mass media influences public opinion in a way that serves private political agendas and polices.

Fortunately in this case only the most intransigent one-third has been persuaded to reverse their perceptions—not with facts, mind you, but through a campaign of propaganda. But it certainly substantiates the methods of Karl Rove and Frank Luntz, whose only purpose and justification is to manipulate whoever they can for their own and their paymasters’ benefit.

This one-third may once again change their opinion as time drags on, but in this latest propaganda initiative abetted by the mass media there must be reasonable hope in GOP circles that all is not lost and that they can still shape “reality”—at least enough to mitigate their current losses and who knows, perhaps even turn the tide that currently runs against them.

Although the majority of the public has certainly changed and acquired a healthy skepticism, it is evident that the mass-media is still as blatantly partisan or as willfully blind as ever. They are still providing hand-jobs to a corrupt administration, and still presenting complete bollocks to the public.

Note: “Bollocks” is an Old English term (from around the 15th Century) that originally referred to the irrelevant bloviating of priests from the pulpit.

Dun Rovin'

2007-08-13T17:10:00.000-04:00

It is an old British pun and play on words, that for instance when a fisherman retires he might name his abode “Dunfishin” (as in “I’m done fishing”). The use of “Dun” implies rest or comfortable retirement; from the Danish/Swedish/Norwegian word “dun” for feather “down”, as used in pillows.

Anyway, the BIG news of course is that Karl Rove is quitting at the end of August and much chewing of the fat is now ensuing.

“…he wouldn't be going if he wasn't sure this was the right time to be giving more to his family, his wife Darby and their son" said Dana Perino, undoubtedly the cutest liar I ever did see. His 18-year old son is of course is in college, not in Iraq, but at least he’s getting a college education (unlike his dad) and doesn’t have to dodge the draft as his father did (at least twice, despite never being a full–time student).

But never mind all that, what does Karl Rove’s departure mean?

Well, he delays the subpoena already against him, probably forcing a re-issue for him to appear as a private citizen, but ‘sadly’ then minus personal access to government records. And of course with “Bush’s brain” now “disconnected”, everyone left in the Whitehouse will claim mass confusion and memory-loss, as will Rove of course should he have to testify. That’s basically it.
As a newly private citizen I think he’s in a much more powerful position, personally, than if he completes Bush’s term. That in turn helps Bush and Gonzalez. And if Rove still intends to stay involved in GOP politics, he can keep a low profile as a less public figure.

I’m sure some pundit will express the startlingly insight that Rove’s departure reinforces Bush;s “lame-duck” status (in fact ABC7 News reporter just said that). Duh!

I’m not saying my brief analysis is brilliant, and it may well be totally wrong and others might have keener and more informed and better substantiated opinions. But I’m not counting on the usual MSM suspects to illuminate the consequences of Rove’s departure.

And I'm certainly not cheering his official departure--the sob deserves trial and jail.

Guns And Money

2007-08-13T13:55:00.000-04:00

NOTE: This post is is rather ad-hoc as the subject sources are still quite confusing.

(All following emphases added)

According to the AP this week

“The U.S. training command had already reported it would arm all Interior Ministry police by the end of 2006 through its own three-year-old program, which as of July 26 has bought 701,000 weapons for the Iraqi army and police with $237 million in U.S. government funds.”

According to the Washington Post last week

“The GAO reached the estimate of 190,000 missing arms -- 110,000 AK-47s and 80,000 pistols -- by comparing the property records of the Multi-National Security Transition Command for Iraq [MNSCT-I] against records Petraeus maintained of the arms and equipment he had ordered. Petraeus's figures were compared with classified data and other records to ensure that they were accurate enough to compare against the property books.

Petraeus reported that about 185,000 AK-47 rifles, 170,000 pistols, 215,000 pieces of body armor and 140,000 helmets were issued to Iraqi security forces from June 2004 through September 2005.
But the property books contained records for 75,000 AK-47 rifles, 90,000 pistols, 80,000 pieces of body armor and 25,000 helmets.”

Add the rifles and pistols together and we get 350,000 weapons “issued” over 15 months, according to Petraeus. That leaves another 351,000 weapons purchased over the last 22 months to reach 701,000.

According to the US DoD the Iraqi Army will in the end state be an approximately 137,500-person force based around an Army with 9 infantry divisions and 1 mechanized infantry division consisting of 36 brigades and 112 battalions.

Battalions consist of approximately 800 soldiers; 112 battalions would equal 89,600 troops. Now let’s assume spare weaponry at 50% and another 50% for possible reserve units. That gives us 179,200 assorted AK-47s and pistols.

According to Global Security there are intended to be 65,000 police.
It seems up to 91,000 have applied and received some training, possibly uniforms and pay, but its functional size appears to be anyone’s guess—perhaps 10,000 of inconsistent quality and allegiance.
Even so given the intended gross figures for police (65,000) and army (137,500) we arrive at a total of 202,000 requiring weapons.

Assuming all are armed with either AK-47 or pistol and doubling the figure for spares, attrition and contingencies we arrive at 404,000---still 297,000 weapons short of the 701,000 the US has supposedly bought and distributed: If we subtract the 190,000 “missing weapons” that still leaves 107,000 presumably unnecessary weapons unaccounted-for (a $36 million value!).

But wait...there’s more!

Italian officials are now pursuing arms dealers who apparently had illegally struck a ‘back-channel’ deal with the Iraqi Interior Ministry:

“Investigators say the prospect of an Iraq deal was raised last November[2006], when an Iraqi-owned trading firm e-mailed Massimo Bettinotti, 39, owner of the Malta-based MIR Ltd., about whether MIR could supply 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 10,000 machine guns “ to the Iraqi Interior Ministry,'' adding that "this deal is approved by America and Iraq.''

“… 'most' of the 105,000 weapons were meant for police in Iraq's western province of Anbar. That statement raised questions, however, since Pentagon reports list only 161,000 trained police across all 18 of Iraq's provinces, and say the ministry has been issued 169,280 AK-47s, 167,789 pistols and 16,398 machine guns for them and 28,000 border police.”

161,000 police now? These figures are getting crazy. There are supposed to be as many trained police in Iraq as there are US troops? And they are all supposed to be armed? None of this makes any sense. Well, anyway…

The Iraqis had already (supposedly) been provided with at least 350,000 weapons in addition to whatever the ex-army and ex-police already personally held (which the US never bothered, and was incapable of, accounting-for.

“Iraqi officials did not make MNSTC-I aware that they were making purchases,'' Lt. Col. Daniel Williams of the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq (MNSTC-I), which oversees arming and training of the Iraqi police and army, told the AP.

That’s a very circumspect choice of words. Anywhoo, we still aren’t done yet:

“In a report last year, Amnesty International said that in 2004 and 2005 more than 350,000 AK-47 rifles and similar weapons were taken out of Bosnia and Serbia, for use in Iraq, by private contractors working for the Pentagon and with the approval of NATO and European security forces in Bosnia.”

Now that would match Petraeus’s reported “issuing” of arms for Iraqi forces between 2004 and 2005. But there are just a few teeny multi-million dollar problems here:

At best, by my rough calculations, assuming an army of 137,000 and a police force of 160,000, all armed, we arrive at 297,000 personnel and 297,000 guns. Doubling that figure for contingencies, wear and tear etc we get 594,000 guns needed in total.

That still leaves 105,000 guns “missing”—and the GAO reports 190,000 “missing” which makes sense because there is no way the Iraq police or the Army are at their supposed full strengths, and they obviously haven’t all been issued all the guns apparently purchased.
Interestingly though the figures for the police are greater now by close to 100,000 compared to my previous calculation we still end up with a kind of magic number—297,000 (or 295,000), with an estimated value of $103 million.

Oh and one other thing; the Bosnian-sourced weapons “were taken out of Bosnia and Serbia, for use in Iraq, by private contractors working for the Pentagon”.

Does that mean that contractors simply supervised the process, or does it mean that contractors were the recipients, or both? Why would they be subsidized by US taxpayer money? And would they then also be additionally billing for this “service” and then keeping the weapons?

It appears to me then that either far too-many weapons have been bought (suggesting unnecessary profits for the suppliers and the possibility of kickbacks to the purchaser), or that far fewer weapons were actually bought than were paid-for (providing a $36- to $100-million bonus to the purchaser), or that anywhere from 105,000 to 297,000 weapons are now available on the black market, perhaps at more than $338 per gun (thus providing even greater potential profit), or finally, that anywhere from 105,000 to 297,000 weapons have simply been stolen and/or distributed.

All of these guns would require bullets, of course. I’ve seen nothing yet to indicate whether these arms deals included bullets or not, but 100 million rounds at 18-cents each would cost $18 million and equip 300,000 guns with over 300 bullets each (or 900-plus bullets each for 100,000 guns) and from a $36 million profit that still leaves $18-million to fool around with.

What the precise figures are and who exactly is profiting in money or equipment is as yet unclear, but US citizens at least are obviously getting rooked, US troops are obviously being endangered for profit and/or twisted policy, ordinary Iraqis certainly aren’t benefiting and certain Iraqi and US officials and their friends are benefiting from a collective conspiracy or at least a larger collective incompetence.

Bear in mind this is all US taxpayer money being spent and siphoned here. Note also that during the Bosnian conflict, the United States provided about $100 million in defense equipment to the Bosnian Federation Army, and the GAO found no problems in accounting for those weapons.

I intend to revisit this subject and hopefully make more explcit sense of it. But meantime, even though Bremer "lost" over $8-billion in just one year and a possible $100-million having been mislaid seems small by comparison, this isn't just about mere graft, but lethal corruption and what's more it is just a fraction of the larger Iraqi arms bazaar and boom.

Suffering Fools

2007-08-11T09:31:00.000-04:00

Yesterday when Giuliani said “I was at ground zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers” he was immediately and roundly criticized.

Looking at the larger quote it seems to me his subsequent clarification—that he was trying to express empathy for the 9-11 workers whose health is suffering--rings true:

“This is not a mayor or a governor or a president who's sitting in an ivory tower. I was at ground zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers. I was there working with them. I was there guiding things. I was there bringing people there. But I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them."

So have Giuliani’s words been taken out of context? Are his detractors being unfair? No.

Even without the offending line, his words are self-aggrandizing and his attempt at empathy politically calculated and patently false. The one line that has been seized-upon is in fact entirely in-context. Giuliani has convinced himself (with a little help from his friends) that he is the one and only hero of 9-11.

By not providing for the rescue workers, by setting himself up as a “terrorism expert” (despite having placed his anti-terrorism center against other advice, in a known target), by claiming his first thought in the attack was “thank God George Bush is our president” (at the 2004 RNC convention, when the content of the 2001 August 6 PDB that Bush ignored was well known), and certainly by his utter lack of support for rescue-workers subsequent health claims, his newly expressed “empathy” is obviously complete bullshit.

The actual meaning behind his words is that as he’s not suffering the health effects of the rescue workers their complaints must be exaggerated. Giuliani didn’t actually “misspeak” nor are his words being taken out of context or being purposely misconstrued. He’s fooled himself into thinking he can fool everyone else, and oh, how he thinks he suffers!

Well he isn’t suffering, and those who truly are suffering refuse to suffer fools any more.

David Petraeus and the Prisoners of the Goblet of Shit of Iraqistan

2007-08-09T13:46:00.000-04:00

Hardcore fans of G. W. Bush will be lined-up around the Capitol this September when David Petraeus reads excerpts of the latest episode in this seemingly unstoppable fantasy of a boy who accidentally discovers his magical powers and with the help of newly-found and instantly loyal friends, embarks on a seminal quest to combat evil---a story which has captured the imaginations of whole nations.

Unlike J.K. Rowling however, the security surrounding Bush’s fiction has been by comparison remarkably lax. Indeed it is almost as though the ‘actors’ are somehow being paid to reveal the story before official publication!

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

If you’d prefer to be totally ignorant until the official publication READ NO FURTHER!
But if you just can’t stand the excitement, read-on.

Ready?

Hundreds die, but nothing else happens…until the next episode, due out in about six months when… hundreds more die and still nothing happens.

Obviously there isn’t much point in buying the book now, is there? Well there’s one more spoiler—you already paid for it.

Define Humanitarian Crisis

2007-08-05T15:52:00.000-04:00

After four years of fuck-all, the UN has decided that with thousands murdered and hundreds of thousands displaced, in a parched land with a corrupt government that provides no public services but that supports a murderous militia, Darfur consiitutes a "huminatarian crisis" about which something must be done!

Meanhile , after four years of fuck-all, the UN has decided that with hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced, in a parched land with a corrupt government that provides no public services but that supports a murderous militia, Iraq doesn't consiitute an "humanitarian crisis" about which nothing will be done.

Left, RIght and Wrong

2007-07-29T12:40:00.000-04:00

Sometime "you just feel like a nut", hence this:

Two wrongs make a Right, and three wrongs make an even-more Right, whereas one Left makes a Wrong and two Lefts make two Wrongs.

This is why the Rights have to be more wrong more often than the Left ( who have to be wrong only once) so that the Right, by being more Right through being more wrong than the Left (who have to be wrong only once) can properly counter the Left who are inherently wrong and thus don't have to work as hard at being wrong--which is just typical of the slacker Left.

So you see, you just can't even begin to compare Left with Right because no matter how hard you try (and I know you don't because you are Left) the Right will always be right because they work harder at being wrong, and therefore are simply superior and incomparable to the Left.

Of course, if you were to admit that you were wrong and agreed to the Right's extraordinary rightness (acquired by multiple wrongness), you'd still be wrong, because you are Left. It's like the opposite of being gay--you are born Left and wrong and there's nothing you can do about it so just accept what's Right.

Forever Blowing Billions

2007-07-23T14:36:00.000-04:00

Last week’s very shallow NIE Key Findings were reported-on for the most part in the now familiar cut and paste style; the Bush administration’s essential message that Al Qaeda is a present and growing threat was dutifully delivered just as the Democrats were trying to force the GOP to commit to a time frame to begin withdrawal from Iraq.

Absent from most of the coverage is the irony in that one of the purported justifications of the Iraq occupation was the “flypaper strategy” that would draw AQ to Iraq for US forces to then apprehend and destroy, thus making the world and the US a safer place, and yet after all the “leadership”, time, blood and treasure expended the situation is now apparently as bad (and rather, worse) than it was before.

Perhaps the MSM decided not to insult our intelligence by providing some damning critical context on account of it being too obvious, or perhaps they just forgot—for the millionth time.

But having put the same amount of effort into their reporting and analysis of the Key Findings as the Administration had in writing them the NIE received its two minutes of fame before the ADD kicked in once again,

You might be surprised to learn that another report came out last week, one just as important to national security and the pressing issue of Iraq, but which received even less attention than the NIE—that is to say practically none at all—despite it involving facts rather than conjecture, expenditure of huge amounts of money rather than broad opinions, and that this ignored report is considerably more substantial than the two-page Key Findings of the NIE and deserves some serious attention.

I am referring to the Congressional Research Services The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan and Other GWOT Operations Since 9/11.

Now the good people at the CRS note that this report is not a formal audit of the DoD's financial records, but is instead a record and analysis based on whatever they could find and/or were provided-with by a variety of official sources (and they recommend a formal audit should be conducted).

The report provides quite an insight into some of the accounting practices of the DoD and the considerations that affect the management, measurement and reporting of their actions which are not particularly obvious to the lay person such as myself, so I’d recommend reading it yourself for its educational value and the informed perspective it provides.

But to whet your appetite here are some excerpts and observations:

“Of the $610 billion appropriated thus far [including the May 25 FY2007 Supplemental], CRS estimates that Iraq will receive about $450 billion (74%), OEF [Afghanistan and GWOT] about $127 billion (21%), and enhanced base security about $28 billion (5%), with about $5 billion that CRS cannot allocate (1%).
Of this total funding, 93% of the funds is for DOD, 7% for foreign aid programs and
embassy operations, and less than 1% for medical care for veterans."
[emphasis added]

By “cannot allocate” the CRS means that $5 billion is unaccounted-for or missing. Granted that’s chump-change compared to the overall expenditures—it may well be all stuck between the sofa cushionsin Rumsfeld's now vacated office---but that’s five times more than is being spent on veteran’s care which, it so happens, is apparently going to be reduced by $200 million next year (and, one could add that $5 billion to the $8 billion that Bremer of the CPA has still to account for).

“As of November 2006, DOD estimated that war-related obligations total $372 billion and average monthly obligations were about $10 billion including $8.6 billion for Iraq and $1.4 billion for Afghanistan. Although these figures capture DOD’s contractual obligations for pay, goods, and services, they do not give a complete picture because they do not capture all appropriated funds or all funds obligated. DOD acknowledges that these figures do not capture over $30 billion in classified activities.”

The budget of the clandestine services (CIA, NSA, SRO etc.) has, through some smart investigative work and the occasional slip-up by the government, been generally estimated at $30-40 billion a year coming out of the overall Defense budget for the past 25 years. But this paragraph suggests that the clandestine budget has been practically doubled, in a supplement under the cover of war-related obligations. Whilst I can appreciate that operational expenses would increase in this situation, it doesn’t seem like a doubling of the budget could be justified—especially given the non-existent results thus far.

“Based largely on DOD accounting reports, average monthly obligations grew from $6.2 billion to $8.8 billion, an increase of about 40% with the most rapid increase in Iraq. Monthly obligations for OEF have hovered around $1 billion a month while Iraq costs
increased from $4.4 billion to $7.4 billion in four years.”
[…]
“As of October and November 2006, obligations are running about $10 billion
a month with Iraq at $8.6 billion and Afghanistan at $1.4 billion”

Although the self-inflicted increase in oil-costs are obviously a factor, these figures also point in part to the attrition of expensive equipment which point to the fact that not only is the US making no headway, it is being bled to death—just as the Russians were in Afghanistan.
The report does note that the 2007 figure is now $12 billion a month for Iraq, which might be attributable to the “surge” though that would take the rough metric of the “cost per deployed soldier” of $390,000 per year for those already there to $685,704 per “surge” soldier (assuming $2 billion divided by 35,000 troops).
NOTE: I’d caution that my calculation here is simplistic and nothing to hang a really serious argument on, but as a generality based on a concomitant (and official) generality it makes the point of significant cost increases without any obvious return on investment.

“Although DOD has testified frequently and submitted various reports on Iraq
and the global war on terror, information and explanations of changes in the cost of
OIF and OEF have been limited, incomplete, and sometimes inconsistent.”
[…]
“CBO [Congressional Budget Office] pointed out that DOD’s justification materials have been sparse — for example, DOD provided five pages to justify $33 billion in operation and maintenance spending, about half of the FY2006 supplemental request.41”

Apparently the standards of justification for spending $33 billion federal dollars are less than those required to renew a driver’s license (5-6 pieces of documentation required).

Indeed the report provides numerous examples of the DoD’s inability to properly account for possibly up to $100 billion in funds, as well as its apparent utter lack of interest in even attempting to do so, since, it should be noted, September 11 2001.

“For FY2008, the Administration is requesting $141.7 billion for war
costs, somewhat less than in FY2007 but about 20% more than in FY2006.
Although the Administration classified both requests as emergency funds, much
of the funding would not seem to meet the traditional definition of emergency — as
an urgent and “unforeseen, unpredictable, and unanticipated” need — though defense
requests in the past have not been held to that standard.”57

But none of this apparently is of much interest to our MSM---the $400 haircuts of prospective presidential candidates grooming to look their best in front of television cameras are so much more interesting and relevant to the great unwashed than the largest government department’s atrocious accounting for multiple billions of taxpayer dollars being spent on causes they have no desire to support and from which they not only derive no benefit but by which they are impoverished and actually harmed.

I accept that some of the DoD's spending is bound to be discretionary and however well- intentioned some of it will lead to a dead-end. But it is pretty clear that that the DoD is taking as much advantage of the "state of war", and using the 'fog of war' to excuse itself when called to account by those who entrust their money to military management and national security.

This report, though mild in its criticism. illustrates how appaliingly badly run the US military really is in its finances and does nothing to promote the idea that despite its faults it is in any way the "finest in the world", let alone a servant of the public need and the public purse. It is above and beyond such rational and prosaic concerns. Nothing justifies a department of Defense so much as war, and nothing justifies its continuity and profligacy so much as the continuitin of war, regardless of the public's opposition.

Eat My Shorts

2007-07-19T09:59:00.000-04:00

Long, artfully constructed posts not only have a lot of words but also you have to read them all, and I have to write them all (which is a lot harder), so I thought I’d make you slackers do some work for a change and put-up a number of short posts (collectively entitled Eat My Shorts) and see if you can make sense out of them, so I don't have to (as much).

The New Strategy for Victory In Iraq
“An important part of the American strategy against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has been to drive wedges between the group, other insurgent groups and the Sunni population…”
[NY Times 7-19-07]

…by talking trash about everyone I assume? Is it the ‘Poisoning Hearts and Minds’ strategy? Given that none of the Americans seem to speak Arabic, I suspect something’s going to get lost in translation. Still, I’ll give them an ‘F’ for “eFFort”

And You Thought; “At Least Canadians Aren’t Batshit Insane!”
“I adjust and stiffly greet the first man I see. He is a judge, with the craggy self-important charm that slowly consumes any judge. He is from Canada, he declares, and is the founding president of "Canadians Against Suicide Bombing".
Would there be many members of "Canadians For Suicide Bombing?" I ask.
Dismayed, he suggests that yes, there would.”
[Johann Hari reporting from the neocon National Review annual ‘Meet the Crazies’ Cruise] (Recommended reading!)
(Hat-tip to RedTory for this beauty.)

The 'Canadians For Suicide Bombing' don’t have a website probably because they are hiding in a cave in Waziristan and being liberal hippies they are too busy adding suede fringes to their knitted-hemp suicide vests to even have their own blog.
But the Canadians Against Suicide Bombing do have a website and thanks to them there hasn’t been a single Canadian Suicide Bombing since....since... everything changed after 9-11!

And When I Say Our Economy Is Strong, I Mean Strong Like A Wet Paper Bag
“All in all these bloated spending bills will increase government spending by $81.4 billion more than needed. These increases could very well drive up the deficit, increase taxes and ultimately cripple America’s surging economy.”
[John Carter (R-TexAss), taking a dump on The Hill blog, 7-19-07]

Absolutely right, John! It’s only thanks to the hard-work and sacrifices of Big Oil and George Bush alone that spending over $500-billion on a war we still don't need, didn’t cripple our surging economy!

Mother Of Parliaments Gives Birth: Newborn To Be Christened "Democracy"
[UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown] launched a cross-party debate on a new bill of rights that could for the first time enshrine the rights and responsibilities of the citizen. The age of voting could also be reduced to 16 and elections held on Sundays.
Mr. Brown announced his government was surrendering or limiting the executive’s powers over the right to declare war..
There could also be limits on the executive’s power to ratify international treaties, grant pardons and make key public appointments.
[The Guardian]

I can think of thirteen former colonies who might start rethinking that old “give me liberty or give me death” independence thingy.
Now don't you go upsetting yourelf, ducks..here...just sit yourself down and 'ave a nice cup o'tea!

National Stupidity Estimate

2007-07-17T19:41:00.000-04:00

‘The White House, anticipating that it would be accused of choreographing the release of the [National Intelligence Estimate] estimate today to bolster support for its Iraq policy as the Senate debates the war, dismissed the idea today. “We don’t keep it on the shelf and say, ‘Let’s look for a convenient time," Tony Snow the chief White House spokesman, told reporters this morning.’

--writes David Stout of The New York Times who is apparently not intelligent enough to note that the 2004 and 2006 mid-year National Intelligence Estimates which both reported major increases in terrorism and terrorist recruitment were mysteriously not released until after the respective November elections when the GOP ran specifically on its awesome “War on Terrah!” record.

The major thrust of this NIE, according to the keen mind and cut-and-paste skills of ace reporter Stout (and dozens of other Right-clicking reporters) is that:

‘The United States will face “a persistent and evolving terrorist threat” over the next three years, as Al Qaeda continues to plot attacks comparable in scale to those of Sept. 11, 2001’

So let me get this straight:

For the past 4 years we’ve been 'fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here', we were winning the war in Iraq for a couple of those years, we’ve been making progress (that has been “good”, “tremendous”, “steady” “remarkable”—according to Bush, Rice, Cheney etc.) every year, and the world is a safer place without Saddam Hussein and YET…AQ is now bigger and badder-than-ever and planning to unleash another 9-11 in the US in the next three years.

Dang! That makes Bush and the GOP look like assholes, doesn’t it?

Not according to Republican John Boehner who “said that the new intelligence estimate confirms that the administration’s policies have weakened terrorist capabilities” (as per Stout’s article). After all, according to the report;

“We assess that greatly increased worldwide counterterrorism efforts over the past five years have constrained the ability of al-Qa’ida to attack the US Homeland again and have led terrorist groups to perceive the Homeland as a harder target to strike than on 9/11. These measures have helped disrupt known plots against the United States since 9/11."

BUT…according to the NIE:

"We are concerned, however, that this level of international cooperation may wane as
9/11 becomes a more distant memory and perceptions of the threat diverge."

Of course!
Typical fucking worldwide counterterrorism efforts and international cooperationalists!

They’ll be all like: “ 9-what, dude?”
and we’ll be all: “ -11 man! 9-fucking11! Don’t you remember?”
and they’ll go: “that’s sooo 2001 bro, where you at?!”
And we’ll be all in their grill with:
“Hey! It’s not like you got attacked an’ shit, oh-Kaaay?!” and they’ll be like “Whatevuh!” and totally spaz and throw our cell phone into the bushes and then start making-out with the hot foreign chick who totally wanted me to liberate her sweet crude!

Sorry…let me back-up a second.

So it has been “worldwide counterterrorism efforts” that have “constrained the ability of al-Qa’ida to attack the US Homeland again” and that “these measures have helped disrupt known plots against the United States since 9/11” has it?

Well that’s mighty interesting, seeing as the “known plots” against the US over the last five-and-a-half years have been a complete joke (there’s a pretty comprehensive compendium here)
But more interesting is the assessment that “international cooperation may wane”.

Why? Presumably because the ‘international cooperationalists’ prefer mind-destroying surrender-cheese to ginko kenoba, so 9-11 will become “a more distant memory and [their] perceptions of the threat diverge.”

I don’t suppose that the assumed reduction in international cooperation would have anything to do with all the attacks that have been conducted around the world against US allies that are directly attributable to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and the allies’ involvement in same, would they?
And just maybe protecting the US from another AQ attack is slightly less important than their protecting their own countries, especially as the US has a tendency to completely blow their intelligence operations for the sake of publicity and then claim the credit for thwarted plots whilst doing absolutely nothing to reciprocate and actually making the situation worse.

But never mind!

The US don’t need no stinking international cooperationalists, not now we have a one-and-a-half-page super-extra-detailed analysis of the 6-year long GWOT written by top experts in 14-point Georgia font WITH bullets points to explain to us how, after hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives spent making progress, we are still going to be attacked in the next three years because Al Qaeda is not only “proficient with conventional small arms” but they also plan to “continue to try to acquire and employ chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material in attacks and would not hesitate to use them”---just like Saddam Hussein, who we killed to protect our freedoms, crush terrorism, spread democracy and make the world and especially the US a safer place by fighting them over there!

And that’s the National Stupidity Estimate.

Go To Hell

2007-07-16T12:59:00.000-04:00

''Do not our hearts cry out, most especially, when our young people are subjected to debased or false expressions of love which ridicule the God-given dignity of every human person and undermine family interests?'' (Pope Benedict--January 24 2007) .

"Unless of course you are a Catholic priest who likes fucking children, in which case forget what I just said."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I apologise to anyone who has been offended, who has been abused. It should not have happened, and it will not happen again”

So said Los Angeles Cardinal Mahony following a $660-million settlement that if approved will excuse the Cardinal from having to testify how the Church dealt with the pedophile sexual abuse of a number of its clergy over the course of several decades.

The Boston Archdiocese managed a similar deal in 2002, paying $157 million, also promising that such things would never happen again. Several European dioceses have made similar arrangements in recent years and similar announcements that such things will never happen again.

The Catholic Church sits in judgment on the morality not only of its parishioners, but on those of other faiths and on those of no faith. When it comes to its own actions however, none may fully judge but themselves and no matter the crime, secular or moral, they have the power of absolution and “forgiveness”—a ‘Get-Out of Jail and Eternal Damnation- card’ which they print themselves whenever the spirit and necessity moves them.

Across the world the Catholic Church has obstructed every investigation into the moral and secular crimes of its officers, given them sanctuary and maintained themin comfortable seclusion. If I recall correctly only two priests (in the US) in the last ten years have actually gone to jail—after being stoutly defended by the Church with not just full knowledge of their crimes but with significant culpability in them.

Whilst the actions of the individuals may be considered aberrant the actions of the Catholic Church are not. In every case they intimidate victims and witnesses, obstruct secular investigation and never even punish their own. When finally forced they make “amends” by bargaining with money---money they have acquired over the course at least 15 centuries that has been founded in moral and political blackmail. There is no corporation, publicly subscribed-to but privately held, that has been longer established than the Catholic Church.

According to the Catholics sex out of wedlock, abortion, and even prevention of pregnancy are all sins and what’s more should be publicly legislated as crimes in their view. But child-fucking by Catholic priests is apparently neither a sin nor a crime.

In the mortal world of secular law, child-fucking is a crime, as is the harboring of criminals, accessory to criminal acts and obstruction of justice. What’s more the institutionalization of such criminal acts is also a crime. The Catholic Church, in this regard, is a criminal organization.

And yet neither the Catholic Church as a whole, nor its criminal officers are held to proper account because of some kind of nebulous special status afforded to them.

The Catholic Church should be recognized for what it is; a political corporation that should be subject to the full range of secular laws and held fully accountable for their repeated violations.
And the whole fucking lot of them, including their adherents who attend Mass and buy their place in Heaven with their tithes and devotion and apologies should all go to Hell—not in the hereafter, but in the present, in prison.

Sympathy For The Devil?

2007-07-14T20:32:00.000-04:00

The pithily titled Midwest Towns Sour on War as Their Toll Mounts provides some brief but intimate portraits of small-town folks coming to grips with the fact that the scion’s of their communities are coming home dead from an adventure they supported and even encouraged.

Retired electrician Bob Peck voted twice for Bush […] Peck would not vote for him again, even if he could.
Woody Marshall, a Vietnam War-era Navy veteran, described his own evolution as he trained his gaze on an elegantly stitched tapestry of a smiling Aaron Sissel in a VFW corridor. At first, he was "thrilled" that U.S.-led troops toppled Saddam Hussein and his tyrannical government.

(snip)

Like so many Tipton residents who saw the war delivered like an unwelcome package when the cortege passed, Pelzer realized that it took her son's death for her to focus on the war.

So where’s the counterpoint in this article, the “balance” we expect?

Where, for instance, is GOP representative Ann Coulter’s typical grief-counselor perspective? Strangely absent it seems.

How about a quote from the most famous war-widow in the US, Cindy Sheehan? Or the next-most famous, Mrs. Tillman?
There’s no mention of any effort to contact them for their view—perhaps the apparent reticence is due the intimate focus of the article and to introduce such “celebrities” into the story might detract from its essential tale.

The six weeks since have been a fog, she [Dixie Pelzer] said, an initiation into a parallel world occupied by the families of the 3,611 U.S. troops who have died in Iraq.

How about some quotes from those parents of the 3,611 who were actually opposed to the war-- not just from fear for their own sons and daughters lives but also from fear of the larger meaning and consequences of Bush’s and the Republican’s rabid and predictably destructive policies?

There is no time or column inches for them apparently; perhaps they aren’t victims the way these grieving staunch, twice-voting, moral, god-fearing family-values Republicans are.

No, there’s no sympathy for the anti-family, pro-abortion, homosexual-loving, tree-hugging, liberal, Democrat, immoral god-haters who opposed the war from the beginning and were branded traitors and lunatics by those who now bury their blind, bloodied and ignorant faith in the ground and weep over the bitter harvest they have sown.

Our sympathies should be with them for their personal loss, and they always have been from the beginning. But from them, to those liberal Democrat strangers who feared for others lives and railed in opposition of their likely waste have been called traitors and ghouls delighting in death by the champions of war and yet it seems no sympathy for the victimization of sage oppnents even now. is worthy of record.

Even now it seems there’s still no sympathy for the humanistic, altruistic, liberal “Devil”.

NOTE: I appreciate there are technical editorial contsraints on any story, but has anyone yet seen an MSM article or report anywhere that sympathetically adresses the pains of those who have lost their sons and daughters for a cause they knew was false but suffered the same sacrifice (or perhaps worse), despite their vehement oppostion?

Bush Budget

2007-07-12T18:13:00.000-04:00

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/budget/2008/

"My plan reduces the national debt, and fast. So fast, in fact, that economists worry that we're going to run out of debt to retire." —George W. Bush, radio address, Feb. 24, 2001

In 2001 the US had a $128-billion surplus. Bush’s super-fast national debt reduction plan turned that into a $157-billion deficit by 2002. In other words he spent $285 billion to give me and millions like me a $300 refund (or about 85-cents a day extra).

“Tomorrow I'm going to talk about the size of the deficit. I'm not going to guess what that will be, but I can predict it's going to be substantially lower than it was three years ago.” ---George Bush July 12, 2007. Ohio.

Three years ago the deficit was 412 billion against a $100-billion drop in federal receipts since 2001.
From 2004 to 2005 the deficit dropped significantly from $412-billion to $318-billion. From 2005 to 2006 it dropped to $248-billion.
For 2007 the deficit is estimated to be $244-billion.
By 2012 George insists that the US will have a surplus again, of $61-billion

UPDATE: These figures of ACTUAL deficits and surplus from Page 13
http://www.cbo.gov/budget/historical.pdf
for the benefit of anyone who thinks I might use invented statistics to make my arguments.

Now this is all very complicated stuff, I’m no economist and George Bush is a complete clod BUT….

From 2001 to 2003 we went from a surplus of $128-billion to a deficit of $377-billion (total $505-billion). Of that we can assume say $100-billion for Iraq and Afghanistan and $285-billion for tax-cuts which are the extraordinary expenditures of the period. That leaves $120-billion of “miscellaneous expenses” (assuming national debt repayment didn’t change).

Now Bush’s Budget mid-session review says (emphasis added):

“This Budget improves the timeliness and specificity of the information provided to Congress and the American public about the cost of the war"

No it doesn’t; in as much as I couldn’t find anything that referred specifically to Afghanistan or Iraq.

“It shows the full cost of the war through the rest of the President’s term –and also provides detailed justifications.”

Again, no it doesn’t (as far as I could tell) though it does project increasing the DoD budget from it’s current $485-billion (-ish) to over $600-billion by 2012. (Oh, and we’ve heard all the justifications for war and they have been and are, all bullshit).

Given that there is zero chance that oil prices will [edit-only continue to rise-edit] drop (especially as the US continues to drag its feet on energy efficiency) it makes sense that Government expenditures will rise. But so will consumer costs, yet Bush somehow expects ‘reciepts’ ( otherwise known as income taxes) to rise without raising taxes—which he is totally agin’. He also has no plans to increase the tax “burden” on big business, so how will “receipts” rise? By the public paying more for taxed goods and services I assume.

And let’s not forget that Bush originally asked for something like $70 billion to get the Iraq War over and done with in one year with Iraqi oil revenues and a new free-market economy there expected to pay for the peaceful reconstruction.
These “supplemental” requests have increased each year (with every “success”) and now he’s asking for around $130-billion! Part of this increase has to do with the doubling of oil prices that his invasion has triggered and the occupation has sustained!

Add to this the assertion that “It shows the full cost of the war through the rest of the President’s term” which means he has no intention of bringing US forces home before he leaves office (but we all know that anyway). So for 2008 he’ll be asking for probably another $150-billion whilst the ‘receipts’ continue to decrease because the cost of living will continue to increase and the corporate world will maintain profits by passing increased costs to consumers and cut jobs whilst retaining their rebates and tax advantages—as long as Bush remains in power.

So where will the savings come from to drive down the deficit? Bush’s ass and our hides I reckon.

Harry Potter and the Enormous Pile of Political Cash

2007-07-07T15:32:00.000-04:00

At the railway station of national politics there appear to be just two trains one can catch---the Republican Zephyr and the Democrat Local.

But unknown to the regular muggle passengers (many of whom seem to pick the wrong train, no matter what) there is another, invisible platform where sits a train waiting patiently to transport those with the gift to see it, to a place of mystery and wonder.

I am of course talking about the Hogwash Express which leaves Platform 9-3/4 % every four years, destination: The Third-Party School Of Magical Politics.

Every four years the school spontaneously burns to the ground and then, Phoenix-like rises from the ashes, re-invigorated, and sets out to challenge political reality with spells and incantations and promises of a new broomstick that will sweep away the cobwebs and dust-bunnies of complacency and banish the soul-stealing status quo to some prison tower, never to be released again.

But rather than increase enrollment with the usual parlor tricks, this semester The Third-Party School Of Magical Politics has created a muggle version of the Mirror of Erised with a new website mysteriously named Unity08 (I’m pretty sure if you jumble the letters and numbers you get to see a unicorn or something).

At this mystic portal ordinary muggles can “vote” for a presidential “ticket” compromising one Democrat and one Republican that will form their desired “dream team” for unity, one destined to confound the traditional party system and usher in a new era where for once politics won’t give you a pounding headache.

As Jim VandeHei of the Washington Post reports, the founders of Unity08 don’t want to create a “Third Party” but instead want to “force Democrats and Republicans to revamp themselves by becoming more issue-focused, responsive and candid.”

"What we are trying to do is to create a forum for people who are in the middle who have been left out of politics."

To accomplish these goals Untity08 is inviting disaffected ‘centrist’ voters, especially the “young”, to bypass the traditional party structures and selection process and choose their own Presidential and Vice-Presidential ticket via an internet ‘ballot’ with the only nod to reality being that one should be a Democrat and one a Republican.

Their theory is that most Americans are fed up with both parties, a belief backed by recent polling data, and are eager to shake up the political process if they can find an outlet.

Noting that about 85 percent of Americans use the Internet, Rafshoon [a Unity08 founder] said that "they can't all be extremists. There has got to be room out there for us."

These old political consultants running Unity08 can’t be this stupid and clueless about how presidential elections actually work.

I think they are just cynically trying to siphon- off cash from what will be a record season for public discontent and political spending. They only need to persuade 2-3% of the electorate to donate to score a few million dollars for themselves.

The Harry Potter fantasy is an original work of entertainment that has provided an unexpected and broad benefit.

The fantasy these Unity08 jokers are offering appears to me to be an unoriginal exploitation of reality with absolutely no benefit to anyone except its founders.

Check out their site here and judge for yourselves.

Patriot Games

2007-07-04T13:49:00.001-04:00

It seems there is a surge of patriotism (or what passes for it these days) in various state legislatures and Minnesota in particular, which has just passed a bill requiring local government to officially use only US-sourced Stars and Stripes instead of imported ones.

“The biggest honor that you can give the flag is that it be made by American workers in the United States of America. Nothing is more embarrassing to me than a plastic flag made in China. This replica of freedom we so respect should be made in this country."

So said Minnesota House Democrat, Tom Rukavina, the bill’s sponsor.

Republican Rep. Dan Severson didn’t agree, arguing:

“That flag should be made throughout the world because it is our message to the world that there is hope for freedom and justice.”

Looking-out for American workers is a major plank of the Democratic Party platform whilst sheer jingoism and a sense of manifest destiny has become a Republican trademark so these representatives’ positions seem consistent with their party politics and policies.

Yet they still appear to be reversed from the “norm”--after all it’s the Democrat slighting the Chinese “plastic” flags and the Republican expressing a more “nuanced” global view (though on the other hand the Republican by implication is supporting outsourcing).

Regardless of the real and imagined ramifications of their respective positions on this new legislation, I’d say that beneath it all they do share a common perspective seemingly apropos to a nation that bears the word United in its name”--they are both united in a fantasy where nostalgic symbolism trumps reality.

Restoring the manufacture of the flag to its country of origin is nothing compared to restoring its original meaning, and no amount of arbitrary local legislation can do that.

Independence Day?

2007-07-04T10:21:00.000-04:00

231 years ago, Americans rose up to claim freedom from the tyranny of a dictator wielding a massive military and a government oblivious to the rights of the common man.

No longer would they tolerate the appointed monarch, George, financing imperial ambitions in far-off lands from American taxes, nor suffer the intrusions of government agents and arbitrary rulings of George and his representatives, nor permit the promotion of politically and religiously connected cronies to act and govern in their own self-interest.

My, how far we have come since then!!

In Which I May Well Be a Jolly Good “Fellow”

2007-07-02T18:37:00.000-04:00

To quote the Brookings Institution:

"For policy-makers and the media, Brookings scholars provide the highest quality research, policy recommendations, and analysis on the full range of public policy issues.
More than 140 resident and nonresident scholars research issues; write books, papers, articles, and opinion pieces; testify before congressional committees; and participate in dozens of public events each year. Over 200 research assistants and support staff contribute to the Institution's research, publishing, communications, fundraising, and information technology operations."

Bully for them! Sounds to me like it is a highly organized and well-financed cadre of dedicated and disciplined intellectuals bent on illuminating really important stuff and whatnot (and indeed it is).

I. on the other-hand, am one of those foul mouthed dirty f**king hippie bloggers that such luminaries as WashPo Ombudsman Deborah Howell and syndicated talking heads Richard Cohen, Bill O’Reilly, Charles Krauthammer and their ilk consider a threat to intelligent discourse on Subjects That Really Matter; like being respectful of privileged morons who get paid handsomely to shape public opinion and influence policy without accountability.

So it was with great interest that, (thanks to a tip from Cernig of NewsHoggers-- a regular contributor to Crooks & Liars) I was apprised of this recently-posted article by three fellows of the prestigious Brookings Institution entitled Why the Iraq war won't engulf the Mideast, and I quote:

“Yet, the Saudis, Iranians, Jordanians, Syrians, and others are very unlikely to go to war either to protect their own sect or ethnic group or to prevent one country from gaining the upper hand in Iraq.
The reasons are fairly straightforward. First, Middle Eastern leaders, like politicians everywhere, are primarily interested in one thing: self-preservation. Committing forces to Iraq is an inherently risky proposition, which, if the conflict went badly, could threaten domestic political stability. Moreover, most Arab armies are geared toward regime protection rather than projecting power and thus have little capability for sending troops to Iraq.” ( emphasis added)

My interest was piqued not just because this was contrary to the continued promotion of the 'conventional wisdom' of the Bush administration and its cheerleaders—even though they’ve been dead wrong in every prognostication--but because I’d read something strikingly similar and thus corroborative before, and I quote:

“The essential problem with the Republican argument [that withdrawal from Iraq will lead to region-wide chaos] is that it assumes that the political and religious dynamics in the Middle East are monolithic—which they demonstrably are not.
In all the Middle East conflicts and radical political shifts in power since WWII each country has pursued its own particular interests above anything else. Alliances and opposition have shifted according to rational need more than emotional desire.”

Both these excerpted analyses posit the same basic argument; that history, observation and dispassionate logic strongly suggest that the right wing and the Republicans are most probably wrong (for the umpteenth time) in their public prognostications. The Middle East is not monolithic and it is not bent on a collective course. It is in fact the fractures within its arbitrary collective rather than its commonalities that determine its political course (as is the case in the US and Europe).

But here’s what is most interesting to me about this subject:

The first quoted analysis was authored by three fellows of a professional think-tank supported by a staff of several hundred salaried colleagues and researchers.

The second quoted analysis was authored by me, a foul-mouthed dirty f**king hippie degenerate uneducated narcissistic blogger (not sure who to attibute that to)…FIVE MONTHS before the Brookings Institution Fellows got around to reaching the same conclusion.

My particular effort took about 4 hours of unpaid and concerted research which I didn’t link-to or footnote because otherwise my post would have been essentially unreadable.

Now I don’t mean to criticize the Brookings Institution for being slow off-the-mark, our respective timing regarding addressing the same subject is not necessarily relevant. But I think I can reasonably point out that by this example that critical thinking, intellectual discipline and pertinent commentary is not the exclusive domain of a self-validating and elite club.

This “concurrence” of analysis and opinion proves nothing with regard to the complementary arguments that have been made—time may prove us wrong—but it does strongly suggest in this instance at least that public status and social elevation has nothing to do with the essential validity of an argument.

I may be a foul-mouthed dirty f**king hippie degenerate narcissistic blogger but I think I can reasonably claim to have kicked the well funded, highly-resourced and reasonalby-respected Brookings Institution in the ass on this particular subject by dint of reaching the same conclusions FIVE MONTHS earlier and certainly with no more effort (and likely less), FOR FREE!!!

I should ask them for a job.

Admittedly the qualification is slim, but look at how well those who have been consisently and significantly wrong are doing! I think I'd make a jolly good fellow!

Blogtopia

2007-07-02T11:53:00.000-04:00

Blogs are like opinions; everyone is an asshole…no wait, that’s not right…let me blame an overzealous imaginary “staffer” for that little gaffe, and start again.

Err-hmmm….

I try to avoid ‘blog-roll bloat’. Not that there’s anything wrong with a really long blog-roll, I just prefer to keep mine pretty short so I’m slow to add to it (I can always use others longer blog-rolls). But I have just added a new entry, The Newshoggers, and I’d recommend my guests to visit.

It has four quite prodigious contributors, and a simple layout with a very handy 'Label' subject search . The posts are smart, concise, wide-ranging, engaging and pointedly referenced. I know at least two of the bloggers have been guests on Crooks & Liars more than once so that speaks volumes I think. So check it out.

American Idiot

2007-06-30T10:28:00.001-04:00

The US may be running-out of decent jobs, uncontaminated food, clean rivers and international goodwill, but one thing it still has plenty-of, is idiots. And not just ordinary idiots, but idiots with influence and power:

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discrimination on the basis of race.”

That is the learned opinion of Chief Justice John Roberts regarding the larger context of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling striking-down mandated racial diversity in Kentucky public schools. (h/t Teaghan’s Mom)

Boy, Chief Justice Roberts works really hard for his $260,000-something a year, doesn’t he?

Roberts also just decided that the phrase “Bong Hits 4 Jesus”, despite being “cryptic", could also “reasonably be regarded as encouraging illegal drug use" --and thus I suppose the equivalent of incitement to riot, or murder, or the overthrow of the government?

I would have thought that the way to stop encouraging illegal drug use through cryptic phrases would be to stop encouraging illegal drug use through cryptic phrases, rather than “legislating from the bench”.

Moving on, you’d think the military, especially one engaged in combat, would be the last place you’d find an idiot in charge, wouldn’t you?
You would? Well then, you’re an idiot! (and you too could be a General!)

General Peter Pace: “What’s most important is do the Iraqi people feel better about today than they did about yesterday, and do they think tomorrow’s going to be better than today?”

A few weeks ago an ABC/BBC poll found that 82 percent of Iraqis “lack confidence” in coalition forces and 69 percent said coalition forces make “the security situation worse.”
When asked if he actually knew how the Iraqi people currently feel about the U.S. occupation of Iraq Pace conceded “I do not have that in my head.”

It has been noted that more votes are cast on American Idol than in Presidential elections.

In six years US economic growth has dropped to half that of major European nations, its debt and deficits are at record levels and still increasing. 5 million have been added to the official poor. No new jobs have been created. Personal bankruptcy has increased.

Infant mortality has increased, longevity decreased. Food is increasingly contaminated. The cost of living has increased, real wages decreased. New Orleans still lies in ruins. The US has been fighting two wars collectively for 5 years without progress. International terrorism has quadrupled. The US is now viewed as a threat to nations, not a benefactor.

The right to trial and the presentation of evidence has been rescinded. Kidnapping and torture is policy. Domestic spying is policy. Justice serves politics, not the people.
Public property is made private. Private companies have more rights than individuals and are permitted to operate outside the law.

Money is “free speech” and corporations write the laws. Voting is a business not a right. Government is by some people for some people with liberty for a few. The President and the Vice-President, empowered by the people do not answer to the people.

How did this happen...to America?!

What are you; an idiot?

Stupid is as Stupid Does

2007-06-28T07:15:00.000-04:00

Newsweek wonders why the US public is poorly informed. These same-week covers might provide a clue.

According to the latest Newsweek poll "…as many as four in ten Americans (41 percent) still believe Saddam Hussein’s regime was directly involved in financing, planning or carrying out the terrorist attacks on 9/11, even though no evidence has surfaced to support a connection.”

Newsweek finds this result rather surprising. Why the considerable and continuing ignorance?

Well, consider Newsweek’s bemused and passive reportorial tone---“…even though no evidence has surfaced to support a connection”---as if the “evidence” simply failed to show up due to unforeseen circumstances.

The fact is that Cheney above-all knowingly and repeatedly pushed this false connection in television interviews and even after some responsible newspaper journalists had thoroughly debunked the claims, Cheney (and his surrogates) were allowed to re-iterate the lies with absolute authority and without clear refutation (that means you, Timmeh!).

Repetition by the Administration and its op-ed proxies of this false assertion and the failure of much of the media to corroborate the claim allowed the myth to become 'conventional wisdom'. And even when questioned on the claim the liars were allowed to repackage the story whilst maintaining the content and again much of the media let the new lies pass with little or no comment.

If simple repetition gives strength to lies, then the repetition of truth should give strength to actual truth. But the MSM has been all too willing to engage in the former, and not the latter.

Here’s what Newsweek could (and should) have written instead:

"…as many as four in ten Americans (41 percent) still believe Dick Cheney’s false public assertions that Saddam Hussein’s regime was directly involved in financing, planning or carrying out the terrorist attacks on 9/11, even though Cheney had absolutely no evidence to support his definitive claims as he made his case to justify the now 4-year old Iraq war.”

Newsweek’s bemused surprise at the respondents’ ignorance is as much an indictment of the majority of the media as it is the fault of a lazy public—after all it is the media that provides the bulk of our current-affairs information.

If Newsweek knows that the Hussein/9-11 “connection” is bullshit why don’t they actually call it bullshit? Maybe it’s because they’d be calling bullshit on themselves.

Over a Barrel

2007-06-25T11:43:00.000-04:00

The SMART ForTwo. 60 MPG. Sold in Europe, Canada and Mexico sonce 2001. Now re-engineered for improved stability and safety and arriving in the US in 2008, courtesy of Mercedes.

Thirty-two years ago Congress enacted the Corporate Average Fuel Economy bill to force US auto manufacturers to increase fuel-efficiency in response to the early- to mid- 1970s’ oil crises (over the objections of Big Auto of course).

Now the Senate is working on new legislation and once again the US auto-industry lobbyists are putting up a fight, using much the same arguments as they did 32–years ago:

Increasing fuel efficiency will cost too much! Cars will have to be made lighter so they won’t be as-safe and people will die! Workers will lose jobs! It can’t be done!

The auto-makers aren’t entirely wrong, but it’s not the fault of legislation. It’s their fault.

Take the latest “retro-cool” Mustang (that Ford hoped would be as a big a success as the original). The base version uses an iron SOHC fuel-injected 4-liter V6 that provides 210 HP and delivers (supposedly) 19-28 MPG. It still uses a live rear axle, just like the 1964 original (even the super-performance Shelby 500 version Cobra has the same axle)

The “retro-cool” MINI Cooper S however uses a DOHC aluminum 1.6 Liter fuel-injected turbocharged 4-cylinder producing 172 HP and 177 Ft.lbs of torque) and reaches 60 MPH in practically the same time as the Mustang but delivers (supposedly) 29-36 MPG—thanks to it’s modern and efficient engineering.

The US auto industry has had 30 years to read the writing on the wall—that smart engineering resulting in efficiency, quality and reliability sells just as well as styling---but they stuck to styling and left others to advance the engineering, even as they continually lost market share.

The one thing Big Auto could take comfort in and profits from was the SUV market, which true to form didn’t require any engineering effort on their part—just styling and marketing. The “safety” argument for SUV’s (that if you hit a smaller vehicle you’ll survive and the others won’t) has lost its appeal in the face of rapidly rising gas prices. Fuel efficiency is the biggest concern now.

Ford has attempted to address this with their Escape Hybrid (engineered by Mazda, by the way) but it costs $3000-more than the Prius whilst delivering 20-less MPG. You can’t go off-roading in a Prius but how many people go off-roading anyway? Ford’s hybrid isn’t even outselling the regular Escape (despite its vastly superior MPG).

With fuel economy increasingly important (and even critical) to many consumers the Big Three have nothing of their own to offer, whereas the Japanese are responding with more hybrids as well as with conventionally-powered economy cars like the Scion, the Fit, and the Yaris—which are incidentally also cheap enough for the increasingly beleaguered working class to reasonably afford.

And now even Mercedes, that icon of luxury and wealth, thinks the time is right for the absolute antithesis of the traditional American automotive philosophy of "bigger is better" with the 2008 introduction to the US of the 60 Mpg SMART ForTwo.

Whether the SMART will actually turn a profit in the US is anyone’s guess:
It hasn’t made a profit in Europe yet (thanks in large-part to the vast range of cheap and efficient four-seat alternatives) but even in a market where small is both the norm and an advantage in both town and country the truly tiny SMART has still been very popular and practical.

The original Mini was unnecessarily small and economical for the general US market when it was introduced in the 60’s. But the US learned to love smaller cars in the 70’s and thirty years later the technologically advanced and relatively efficient new MINI continues to sell very well whilst. for instance, the technologically-challenged and inefficient (and newer) Mustang has already seen a 20% drop in sales this year.

If “free market forces” really worked as the Friedmans of this world insist they do (or should) then the Big Three would have spontaneously responded to the 70’s oil crises with more-efficient (and better-engineered and more reliable) “all-American” vehicles. But even when increased efficiency was mandated by the government Big Auto influenced the CAFÉ legislation so that all the effort to improve efficiency could-be and was outsourced—resulting in layoffs of American auto workers.

The Prius was introduced to the Japanese market in 1997 and in a more refined version to the US in 2001. The MINI likewise was developed in the late 1990’s and debuted in 2001. The SMART also entered the market in Europe as a 2001 model. All of these were thus on the road before the 2003 US invasion of Iraq that has significantly contributed to the current fuel crisis.

US auto makers found themselves “over a barrel” in the 70’s, by accident. Thirty years later they are again “over a barrel”, but this time by their own design—or rather a willful lack of design. When it was founded the US had reason to claim and shape the future, but in a remarkably short span it is now "over a barrel"--literally and figuratively--and the current plight of the US auto industry and thier current protestations over the new legistlation is a salient example of the attitudes of this nation's elite self-serving, myopic, out-of-touch and whining elite.

Call to Alms

2007-06-18T10:27:00.000-04:00

I get calls:

HSBC wants me to know something or other.
Someone else tells me I can take out a second mortgage on my house.
Can I speak to Mrs. ...uh...Wanhmmrguher...?
Vote for Quimby.
For just one-hundred dollars you can help poor little Hillary Clinton get the kind of home and massive personal security detail she deserves.

But just the other day I got a call from the US Navy:

“How are you doing, sir? The US Navy is organizing care-packages for the troops serving in Iraq and we are calling to…”

Do you want money?

“No, the Navy just wants to blah troops blah support blah blah…”

Well, if you don’t want money what do you want?

“You can help us and the troops by putting together care-packages and getting your friends and family involved…blah troops blah support…or you could donate some money… ”

Why isn’t the $450-billion defense budget taking care of this already? What about the latest $100-billion supplemental?

“We didn’t get the money…”

Bullshit! You’ve had the money, and you have the money! You want to support the troops? Demand they come home now! If you want to support the Bush policies, send them care packages on your own dime! You want private help? Ask Blackwater, KBR, Triple Canopy, any of the contractors, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz—ask them!

“Were asking everyone sir…”

Bring them home. That’s my support. End of call.

The misbegotten Iraq adventure is not supposed to be a charity. The troops aren’t over there to protect my “freedom”, they are there to execute an insane policy—in that regard they are a victim of circumstance, but then aren’t we all?

This begging has got to stop, and the way to stop it is to eliminate the cause for the begging. Bring them home and give them shelter, not quarters and band-aids.

Weltschmertz!

2007-06-15T12:24:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted for a while due to a combination of weltschmertz and ennui and then just when I thought I might have something slightly interesting to post about, my intertubes went pear-shaped.

Now that I've been reconnected to the vitriolic webospherospace (thanks to the excellence of Comcast technician Saint Lopez) normal bitching and whining will be resumed as soon a possible.

The GOP God Squad

2007-06-08T12:04:00.000-04:00

" When a person says, "My faith doesn't affect my decision- making," I would say that the person is saying their faith is not significant to impact their decision process.”
(Governor Mike Huckabee, GOP Presidential Candidate Debate. May 3 2007)

As the GOP has so-decidedly become “God’s Own Party” I think the moderators of the debates should include the “faith factor” in every single question they ask the candidates, so that we can all gain some deeper understanding of how their religious convictions might affect their policies.

Such as:

Given that the 7th Commandment is “thou shalt not commit adultery”, and that the biblical punishment for adultery is death by stoning, how would you apply these to current laws concerning marriage and divorce?

As the 2nd Commandment states that “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above,” and that we know from the Bible that Jesus sits at the right hand of God in Heaven” would you seek ban the sculpted depictions of Christ’s crucifixion, or would simply no longer recognize the tax-exempt status of religious organizations who continued their use because as they would be violating God’s law they wouldn’t be practicing a legitimate faith?

As we are all God’s children and as He is a loving God who watches over all of us, would you eliminate all health and safety regulations, or would there simply be an exemption for regular church-going Christians?

“Homosexuals are an abomination unto the lord and any man that lieth with another man shall be stoned to death.” Do you agree with that statement, and if so would you set up a separate government department devoted to that task—and how would you pay for that—or would that responsibility be tasked to the DHS?

When it comes the safety our brave men and women serving in Iraq would you support regular burnt offerings to the Lord our God accompanied by prayers, or do you think $100 billion a year in appropriations is sufficient?

A traditional concern of Conservatives in particular is excessive government, government waste and the environment. As President would you consider, for example, replacing the presidential armored limousines with in-line skates or removing the engines from Air Force One and just fly on the power of faith, or what?

Love Letters for Libby

2007-06-06T16:18:00.000-04:00

Justice Walton handed down concurrent 15-month and 30-month sentences to former Cheney Chief of Staff, “Scooter” Libby, found guilty of lying under oath and obstructing justice regarding the investigation into the exposure of covert CIA agent and WMD specialist Valerie Plame-- despite a letter-writing campaign by some 174 friends and colleagues pleading for leniency (versus 24 non-friends urging maximum time, which is what he got).

And oh what letters they are! And also, oh what letters they aren’t!

Back in February of this year John Podhoretz wrote an article entitled The Libby Farce: It’s a Trial About Nothing

“Now, Scooter Libby is an old friend of mine, and I think he is a great public servant and a patriot, and I would dearly love to see him acquitted”

But going by Raw Story’s summation of Libby’s supporters’ letters, Libby’s old friend J-Pod seems to have decided to STFU since then.
Dick Cheney declared “Scooter Libby is one of the most capable and talented individuals I have ever known” in an official statement on 10/28/2005 as well as in an hour-long interview with Chris Wallace on FOX, but apparently he couldn’t pen a letter of support, presumably due to other obligations.
Former Solicitor General Theodore Olsen who personally knows “what a prosecutor with unlimited time and resources can come up with after endless probing” also seems to have been otherwise occupied. (Giggle if you really must.)

In fact it’s worth noting whose expressions of support are still posted on the Libby Legal Defense Trust website and who then actually appealed to the judge.

But in addition to those who did and didn’t write on Libby’s behalf, what was actually written struck me as very interesting and not particularly helpful to Libby or to the reputations of the respective authors.
Here for your amusement and amazement are some excerpts (full texts here at The Smoking Gun) some of which are quite revealing--as well of course, my comments.

Rumsfeld--“He is the type of person others can hold up to their children and grandchildren as an example of a truly honorable public servant”

Except for being a felon of course. But won’t somebody think of the children—and the grandchildren!

Wolfowitz--“He made decisive contributions to the development of our first post-Cold War defense strategy—a shift that made possible a nearly 40% reduction in spending and force levels.”

Gee, I thought that was Clinton’s fault and Kerry’s fault and it weakened America!

Wolfowitz--“He and his staff provide critical analysis and support for the development of the famous “left hook” around Kuwait.”

So if it weren’t for Libby and his staff, General Schwarzkopf might have just driven straight ahead and taken more casualties? Thanks Scooter, for showing a General how to fight a war!

Wolfowitz--“Mr. Libby played an influential role…in developing policy and strategy… including responses to various terrorist threats, the North Korean nuclear issue... the Middle East peace process and the strategy and policy for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

How very interesting that Wolfowitz should use this situation to credit Libby’s influence and by implication dilute his own.

Wolfowitz--“…he was a strong advocate for a more rapid build-up of the Iraqi army and a more rapid transfer to of sovereignty to the Iraqis, points on which history will prove him to have been prescient.”

If indeed Libby was such an advocate, so too was Wolfowitz—it was the one part of his own thinking that acknowledged at least some degree of pragmatic realism. But what does any of this have to do with Libby lying and obstructing justice in an investigation of the exposure of a CIA agent? Nothing!
But then Wolfowitz finally finds something pertinent to say about Libby when he praises Libby for:

Wolfowitz--“…his effort to persuade a newspaper not to publish information that would have endangered the life of a covert CIA agent working overseas.”

Really? What a patriot! Why couldn’t he similarly persuade Robert Novak not to publish? Didn’t Novak care about National Security? (umm…I guess not).

United Nations mole John “The Angry Walrus” Bolton helpfully writes:

Bolton---“I have myself been to meetings after which I could not remember what agency or Department most people worked for or why they were even there.”

Well, John, maybe that’s because you don’t even know why the United Nations even exists—but your own arrogance and ignorance doesn’t excuse Libby’s obvious lies.

Throughout the letters there is a consensus that Libby was a personable man, devoid of an overarching ego or Machiavellian mindset and therefore the notion that Libby might have been involved in a cover-up or conspiracy must be some kind of mistake.

But in trying to paint a picture of Libby as a selfless and tireless public servant (and totally not a megalomaniacal prick like everyone else) his supporters don’t skimp in praising him for his deep and wide involvement in pretty much every major foreign policy and national security issue---errrm…except for the justifications for invading Iraq and the outing of Plame of course—even though he was Cheney’s Chief of Staff.

His friends also haven’t helped him in talking-up his legal career—as a lawyer himself one would have expected to have mounted a solid defense and tell the truth. But he didn’t, because he couldn’t without implicating Cheney.

“Scooter” isn’t the nickname of a mastermind or a powerbroker, but of “a good soldier” (as one supporter has specifically described him and which most others imply). And Scooter wasn’t indicted for the leak—as right-wing harpies like Victoria Toensing kept maliciously claiming--he was indicted and convicted for obstructing the investigation into the leak.

Scooter was and is low-hanging fruit and if he really was the forthright and upstanding individual his friends claim, he wouldn’t have lied to save Cheney’s ass. But he did because he’s a “good soldier” and just follows orders.

Cheney hasn’t exactly rushed to Libby’s defense or offered anything like heartfelt support (perhaps understandable since he’s a cyborg) and has since only provided soulless single-sentence comments after being pressed to say anything at all.

As Scooter sits in his cell, I wonder if he’ll reflect on the nature of his relationship with Cheney? What conclusions might he draw about the superior he so faithfully served who couldn’t be bothered to write a character-letter to the judge on his behalf? Only time will tell.

But though Wolfowitz managed the longest and whiniest screed, the most maudlin and saccharine effort was by political dominatrix Mary Matalin. According to her, Scooter Libby shouldn’t go to jail because he was the world’s greatest dad and fake uncle and “loved all families” (her emphasis), but most especially the Cheney family spawn, and to make her fine legal point she provides the following example of Libby’s love:

Matalin—“While on one of our early “undisclosed location” work trips (which were…unanticipated by our families and us […] the Cheney grandchildren were required to accompany us, yanked out of school and away from their much-awaited night of Trick-or-Treating. Scooter flew into action, finding treats and creating costumes…it took hours and a very creative effort on his part.”

WTF? I mean, really, What the F-ing F?!! What else is there to say?

If Libby had spent a bit more time loving the Constitution and the law and the cares and needs of citizens rather than Dick Cheney and his grand-rugrats, maybe he wouldn’t be going to jail.

Still, at least he’ll be able to read and re-read the love-letters from all his friends—except, that is, from his one true love, Dick Cheney. Sadly for Libby, Cheney seems to be, like, so over him.

(Someone hand me a tissue, I think my allergies are playing up--or is someone chopping onions in here?)

God, Guns and Garda World

2007-05-31T11:03:00.000-04:00

NOTE: I've edited this from yesterday's original--removed some unneccessary whining about the press and tightened things up a bit.

A couple of days ago dozens of men in new Iraqi police uniforms walked into the Finance Ministry in the Green Zone (Correction: The Ministry is NOT in the Green Zone) , walked out with five Britons and drove off in their new police SUV’s without any interference.

Much of the press coverage (mostly from AP and Reuters) reads like this…

“Hundreds of Iraqi and U.S. troops cordoned off sections of Baghdad's Sadr City slum early Wednesday and conducted a series of raids in an apparent effort to find five British citizens” (emphasis added).

This terminology reminded me of the original reporting of the four Blackwater "contractors" who were ambushed. mutilated and strung up on a bridge in Fallujah 3 years ago.
"U.S. officials said the civilians were killed in a grenade attack by suspected insurgents.." (CNN May 6 2004)

It eventually transpired that the "civilians" weren't hired for their truck-driving skills--they were actually ex-US military providing armed escort with licence to kill and total immunity from military, national and international law--hardly the definition of a "civilian" by anyone's standards.

So as the press is once again demonstrating a complete lack of curiosity I thought I'd dig a little deeper.

You’ll note from the press reports that the abductees are being generally referred to as “citizens”. In one or two instances it has been noted that 4 of the 5 were “security guards” working for an outfit called GardaWorld.

(Now I know things are pretty bad in Iraq, but to have four security guards protecting one individual inside the Green Zone? Is that extravagant, or sensible? In this instance apparently it’s neither.)

GardaWorld is the “Global Risk Security Group” of Garda World Security Corporation which, judging by its company literature is pretty impressed with itself and insists we should be impressed too.
It is one of many “security “ firms operating in Iraq, like the US-based Blackwater, Titan, CACI, ESS, Triple Canopy, Fluor. the UK–based Aegis and others.

Garda however is Canadian which is interesting because the Canadian government stayed out of the “coalition of the willing” in Iraq, as did Chile--which I mention because Blackwater has employed a couple of hundred Chileans in Iraq following which Chile passed a law making it illegal for ex-military to participate in conflicts without government sanction.
Canada apparently has no such law and it is unlikely the current PM and Bush admirer Stephen Harper would sign such a thing willingly.

(RedTory's post Canada's 'Global Risk' Mercenaries has more background on Garda and some salient questions)

There are some significant differences between Garda and Blackwater, but some notable similarities too.
Blackwater was founded by Erik Prince, a Navy SEAL who interestingly was also heir to an auto-accessory manufacturing fortune. Prince leveraged his wealthy family’s political contacts as well as his own military connections to establish a private paramilitary training facility in North Carolina in 1997.

Garda started out in 1995 as a general security firm providing cash-handling and office security and expanded into investigations and risk-management.

Blackwater (whose "vision" is to "support security, peace, freedom, and democracy everywhere") has become the largest and best-equipped mercenary force in the world thanks to the privatizing, militaristic Bush administration.

Garda meanwhile, dominated by sales and marketing entrepreneurs, expanded more through ordinary commercial acquisitions but just lately acquired Kroll Security International and thus a significant entry into the lucrative personal security business thriving in Iraq.

Aside from the cash-cow that is Iraq, there’s one other thing that these two companies share—a religious element.

Blackwater is infused with conservative religious purpose (neatly summed by founder Erik Prince's blurb of a book called "Christian Fatherhood: The Eight Commitment's of St. Joseph's Convenant Keepers" which he said "provides men with the basic training they need to complete their mission") . And Garda seems to have a religious connection of its own; on its website it proudly states that it is “the recipient of The Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East (FRRME) 2007 Prize for Peace in the Middle East.”

The FRRME is chaired by Lord Carey a former Archbishop of Canterbury and compared to US religious poobahs, Carey is practically the antichrist—he allowed women to be ordained in the Anglican church, prefers talking to Muslims instead of bombing them and though he thinks homosexuality is a sin he seems to have no problem with gay civil unions (but “marriage” is verboten).

Now this “Peace Prize” wasn’t presented in a church or the FRRME’s UK headquarters or Garda’s HQ in Montreal--it was presented in a ceremony in the Pentagon!

“GardaWorld has provided an outstanding service to every aspect of our work in Iraq and in reality is the biggest contributor to our efforts of peace-making.” (said the President of FRRME Rev. Canon Andrew White).

The FRRME’s mission apparently is to expunge religious violence and intolerance--so they pal-around with the Bush administration and his Christian soldiers in the military? Well good luck with that whole combating religious violence and intolerance thing!

I call bullshit on that—they’re just profiting off the Iraq like everyone else. Where do they get the money to hire their security in Baghdad? (yes, they are there in the Green Zone being protected by private guards and the US military—not by God!)

So why should the US risk its soldiers to recover a handful of abducted British citizens provided by a Canadian company doing business in the middle of a warzone?

Because the US government is in the corporate religious war business now and it needs to look after its own—not its own citizens or citizen soldiers, but the contractors and middlemen that keep the business going.

P.S.

For more on the nexus of war, business and religion I recommend Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill.

At Least You've Got Your Health

2007-05-29T09:52:00.000-04:00

For no good reason apparently I just haven't gotten myself together to post for a while. Though my individual efforts have no influence on important matters, the collective efforts of regular bloggers have changed our world. So it's back on the horse again, as it were.

As Shakespeare wrote in Henry the Fifth:

"And gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."

So it is with blogging methinks....ahem...

No battle was won that e'er was fought by those that sat in silent thought
Their counsel kept as secret treasure for fear of being held to measure,
The gold of silence oft is a weight when last unpursed is spent too late
To change the trade thus far agreed nor satisfy each trader's need.
For to the bold go victor's spoils, and so to them go victim's oils.

Sorry, I got carried away there...anywhoo....

Michael Moore’s latest ‘opinion-reportorial’ on US health care, Sicko, may actually have the same kind of impact that “An Inconvenient Truth” has.

Here’s a personal comparison of the UK’s National Health System and the US “system”.

I was born at home (whilst the house was still being built, actually)—no hospital visit necessary, just the attendance of a midwife.

Even though my father was a manager at BOAC his pay was miserable and we led a frugal life (especially compared to today--we didn’t get a car until I was eight and then it was the cheapest—a Mini-Van). Mum got a job then. We got our first TV when I was ten (1970). My clothes were all hand-me-downs until I was 11. I got my first (and only) new bike at 13.

But of all the things my parents struggled to afford, health-care was never a problem thanks to the National Health Service.

We had regular checkups at school (not just for lice or “nits” but general health too), and doctors would make house-calls on request. From one of these my eldest brother was found to have a problem which further examination showed to be a hole in his heart.
He spent two weeks at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital where he was operated-on in one of the first heart surgeries of its kind (this was in 1964). It didn’t cost my parents a penny.

When I was 13 I jumped-off a moving train (out of perceived necessity, not for a dare) fractured my skull and spent two of my seven days in hospital unconscious, all at no cost beyond the normal automatic NHS contributions.

In my second year in the US my throat began to feel tender and it was painful to swallow. It got so bad I could only eat soup and yoghourt, and I was running a temperature.
I was earning $4 an hour (no health insurance of course) and knowing the cost of health care I kept working and hoped my condition would just go away (I’d never had anything worse than a cold before).
Luckily for me a regular customer at my store was a male nurse who worked at Bellevue Hospital. He noticed my throat was swollen, gave me an impromptu exam right there and then literally dragged me up the block to the E.R., telling me not to worry about the expense.
It turned out I had a temperature of 104 and a virulent form of strep-throat. Fascinated interns made notes whilst the ENT specialist stuck me with an antibiotic and told me my throat was so swollen that I would otherwise have been dying from asphyxiation within an hour. The diagnosis and cure had taken about an hour altogether and totaled a week’s wages for me.

Years later working as a cabinetmaker my hand slipped into a table-saw blade. I broke two fingers and the tip of one of them was not-very neatly split laterally for about ½ an inch under the nail. The doctor took off the nail, washed out the wound, closed it up with five stitches, put my nail back on and as a precaution against infection recommended I stay for two days on an antibiotic drip. I was put on a gurney for no obvious reason and whilst an available bed was being looked-for I was wheeled into a supply closet where I was re-discovered six hours later.
I compare that to when as a 14 year-old I accidentally sliced the top of my thumb off; I got sixteen stitches from an ex-seamstress Indian nurse and, job done, was sent home immediately. My thumb looks normal, my left index finger looks odd and the bill for my saw accident was $2000. Worker’s compensation covered the cost of my saw incident, but of course the contribution went up by 40%.

The last six weeks of my mother’s life were spent in hospital; a week in the ICU and then under constant care, attached to various necessary life-sustaining tubes (but no major machinery). Again, the NHS took care of everything, we had no forms to fill-out or bills to pay.

The UK’s NHS was established as a flexible investment in the public and the future. Basic nationwide health-care serves both moral and practical needs. A healthy society is a stable and productive society. It is high time that the US realized that the notion of the individual as the salient characteristic of this nation’s identity is a myth, and a destructive one at that—and I think that’s the psychology behind many of the US’s problems.

The US as a nation needs to understand that it has a responsibility to care for its own. It needs to grow up. It has to apply it’s founding humanistic values on a nationwide scale by taking care of the poor and downtrodden, of being neighbourly and pitching-in and working hard in the present to make a better future. A real national health system would be about as democratic and American as it gets.