How Will They Spin This One?

If further proof were needed, the smoking gun on global heating has been found, and it' still smoking:

"The rise in marine temperatures — by an average of 0.5C (0.9F) in 40 years — can be explained only if greenhouse gas emissions are responsible, research has shown. The results are so compelling that they should end controversy about the causes of climate change, one of the scientists who led the study said yesterday.

“The debate about whether there is a global warming signal now is over, at least for rational people,” said Tim Barnett, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California """
Times Online - World

So how will the Bushies spin their way out of this one? Let's guess: "Not as bad as all that. Needs further study."

Phantom Questions

How did a gay prostitute and porn site operator with no journalistic experience and no legitimate news organization employment get credentials under a false name as a White House correspondent who was called on to ask questions by the presidential press secretary and the President himself? When a veteran New York Times columnist couldn't get White House press credentials at all?

How did this person get to see a classified memo concerning the CIA secret operative Valerie Plame, who was outed by person or persons unknown, apparently in revenge for her husband blowing the whistle on Bush's lie about Iraq possessing nuclear material?

How is it that when this person was interviewed on CNN by one of its chielf correspondents, he was asked about none of this?

What's happened to the investigation into this "leak," that put a CIA agent's life in danger, and is a serious violation of law? Why hasn't the "journalist" who published Plame's name (Robert Novak, who works for, among other places, CNN) been pressured into divulging his source, while two journalists who were told her name but didn't publish it, are being threatened with jail for not divulging their source?

Why aren't we hearing about any of this from the major news media?

Why have both the former Attorney General and the new Attorney General recused themselves from handling the Plame case?

Why isn't there immense public outrage and a major Watergate-scale scandal about all of this?

Exactly what is the numbing agent introduced into the polluted air of America? Besides cable television?

Do you think that was really enough?

The Politics of Fear

Pay attention, because this is probably only the tip of the iceberg: how the Bush campaign manipulated fear of terrorism to return the Bushwhackers to office.

From the Associated Press:
Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge met privately with Republican pollsters twice in a 10-day span last spring as he embarked on more than a dozen trips to presidential battleground states.

Ridge's get-togethers with Republican strategists Frank Luntz and Bill McInturff during a period the secretary was saying his agency was playing no role in Bush's re-election campaign were revealed in daily appointment calendars obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act.

ABC News: Ridge, Pollsters Met During Bush Campaign

It's already here.

It's not if, it's how bad: preparing for the climate crisis

Author Mark Hertsgaard begins his article in the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Insight: "At the core of the global warming dilemma is a fact neither side of the debate likes to talk about: It is already too late to prevent global warming and the climate change it sets off. " Hertsgaard says that we have to shift from concentrating solely on preventing global heating to preparing for its effects.

His article puts in perspective the findings of the latest UN Panel on Climate Change, and more recent scientific realizations that the climate crisis has " already begun, and much sooner than expected. What's more, the problem is bound to get worse, perhaps a lot worse, before it gets better."

That's because this is the first systems crisis, challenging not only the ability of our political institutions to respond, but our maturity as a thinking species.

The climate crisis is a systems problem because the time lag between cause and effect. In systems theory this can cause a number of paradoxes, in combination with other factors. But the basic problem politically is that by the time the crisis is evident, it is too late to stop it. Or specifically, as Hertsgaard writes, there is a lag of from 50 to 100 years. Which means that the climate we have now is partly the result of what was poured into the air in the 1950s. Anything we do now to limit emissions may not appreciably change what will happen in the next 50 years or the rest of the 21st century.

This is also because that once global heating got started, it began essentially feeding on itself. This is where the concept of a tipping point is meaningful. Whenever it was, we have likely passed it.

The problem of understanding the dynamic was always central to the problem of focusing attention on the climate crisis. Apart from the greed and political advantage that kept this issue from assuming the priority it deserved, this lack of comprehension of time lag and complex systems behavior is why we didn't attack the climate crisis before it began.
(Ironically perhaps, and perhaps tragically, it is another time lag---between scientific and even quasi-scientific understanding of the basics of systems, and the general and political acceptance of that thinking---that may ultimately defeat us.)

So what do we do now? Hertsgaard says that concentrating exclusively on Kyoto and similar strategies is not enough, that we need to make plans to "defend ourselves" against the inevitable effects. But to do this in an effective and orderly manner requires what has been lacking: a general sense of crisis, and the political will to address it.

Why this is so and what can be done is a matter of increasing controversy among environmentalists and their organizations. One major contributor is the broadside authored by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, which among other assertions, takes the environmental movement to task for splitting its focus and competing to support pet projects while allowing the climate crisis to grow without public awareness.

Carl Pope of the Sierra Club issued a spirited rejoinder, agreeing with some of their points and disputing others, notably in a message to funders, found here:

Shellenberger and Nordhaus scorn suggestions that part of the problem is nomenclature, that "global warming" sounds too soft and cuddly, and therefore people don't get so concerned about it. I first raised this issue myself several years ago, along with making other suggestions to bring this issue to a public boil, here: And in a more recent essay in the SF Chronicle, here:

While I agree that much time has been lost because environmentalists haven't prioritized the issue, and worked together through a single organization, the problem of public awareness and political will is much more complicated. I still believe that nomenclature plays a part in public awareness, which is essential to putting pressure on politicians. "Global heating" and "climate crisis" are much more accurate as well as motivating terms than "global warming" and "climate change."

Similarly, the role of celebrities in focusing attention remains part of the mix, and in this, we may have caught a break. Right now the foremost U.S. celebrity who has made this his priority issue is Leonardo DiCaprio, with a TV documentary he narrates (in Canada, Alanis Morrisette and Keanu Reeves narrate similar documentaries.) With his Oscar nominated role in "The Aviator," Di Caprio's profile-and level of respect---is increasing.

The worst blow to climate crisis planning was the worst blow to addressing many other crucial problems---the continuing presidency of George W. Bush. So public awareness becomes even more important absent leadership from Washington.

But now the problem becomes not simply one of awareness, but of managing understanding. Sooner or later, the public is going to become aware that all the weirdness in the weather and other effects are linked to the cause of global heating. But choosing the right responses in a timely manner will be just as important as continuing to work to keep things from getting as bad as they could get in the future.

The most proximate danger, and the one we can do something about, is the Bush administration's wholesale robbery of the national budget well into the future. Those resources are going to be needed to fight the effects of the climate crisis, as well as working to prevent further deterioration.

No one yet mentions fighting the climate crisis as a reason to oppose what Bush is doing to pile up massive debt, but in the end it may turn out to be the most important reason.

We must end these excesses by defeating attempts to make tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, by defeating costly changes to Social Security, repealing very costly and counter-productive changes to Medicare, and ending the costly and counter-productive policy in Iraq.

That's the bare minimum. Sir David King, the UK's top scientific advisor, says that the climate crisis is "the biggest danger humanity has faced in 5,000 years of civilization."
It could end that civilization, as well as life on earth as we know it. For us, it is the supreme test of our "big brains" (as Kurt Vonnegut calls them) and their evolutionary value. Are we smart enough to foresee the crisis and the probable effects, and moral enough to set aside petty advantages including political ones, to do what must be done for the future.

Or will the world be plunged into chaotic crisis after crisis, from "natural" disasters to water wars, our hearts and minds armed with nothing but ignorance and fear?

California U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer with some of the 4,500 roses sent to her on Valentine's Day by supporters grateful for her stands opposing the seating of Ohio electors and confirmation of Condi Rice as Sec. of State.

Give me an N! I mean a Q! What's that spell? Oh No!

While some reports on the Iraq election results emphasize that the Shiite clerical party didn't win big enough to rule, they fail to indicate what Robin Wright chooses to stress in her Washington Post report, that the Kurds---not the U.S. favored government slate---came in second, so that the election was dominated by Islamic religious candidates who are close to Iran.

She writes "When the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq two years ago, it envisioned a quick handover to handpicked allies in a secular government that would be the antithesis of Iran's theocracy -- potentially even a foil to Tehran's regional ambitions.

But, in one of the greatest ironies of the U.S. intervention, Iraqis instead went to the polls and elected a government with a strong religious base -- and very close ties to the Islamic republic next door. It is the last thing the administration expected from its costly Iraq policy -- $300 billion and counting, U.S. and regional analysts say. "
Iraq Winners Allied With Iran Are the Opposite of U.S. Vision (washingtonpost.com)

America's greatest living playwright, until today. 

Arthur Miller 1915-2005

"Death of a Salesman" 

A few days before my visit, the Tribune’s Sunday magazine had published a memoir by a woman who had been unable to get health insurance because she suffers from depression. Lipinski walked across her office to her desk and played back a voice-mail message she had received in response to the story. A woman’s voice said, “I’m really quite disgusted with the article on the uninsured. I think it’s very socialistic. Health care is not a right in this country. We are not Sweden and we are not Canada. I do not like these heart-tugging stories about people who don’t have health care. . . . Are you a socialist? . . . I do not appreciate these insipid little stories that say, ‘Oh, this poor person who doesn’t have health care.’ . . . I know friends and family who are really upset with the leftist tendencies of your coverage.” At this point, the voice-mail system timed out; it sounded as if the woman would gladly have kept going. “I get surprised,” Lipinski said. “Even something like this is seen through a political lens, rather than as, Here’s somebody with a different experience from me.”







The New Yorker: Fact

Liar, Liar, Towers on Fire

Two separate stories are breaking that indicate the Bushies had ample and multiple warnings that if heeded could have prevented the 9-11 attacks. In one case, they have covered up the information for months (especially until after the election), and in the other, they lied.

This is from a Newsday report, widely reported elsewhere as well:

"On 52 occasions, from April 1, 2001, to Sept. 10, 2001, the FAA's own daily intelligence briefings contained references to the al-Qaida terror network and its leader, Osama bin Laden, mostly in regard to overseas threats...
FAA officials discussed the growing threat from bin Laden and a renewed interest in hijackings. In the briefings, security officials noted that a hijacking on U.S. soil would result in a greater number of American hostages but would be more difficult for terrorists to carry out. "We don't rule it out," the agency said of a domestic hijacking."""

Newsday.com - State/Region News

That;s the Federal Aviation Agency. This information was part of the 9-11 Commission Report but was withheld from the public for "security" reasons.

A separate story, reported so far only outside the U.S. in the Australian Herald Sun: The adviser it refers to is Richard Clarke.

"EIGHT months before the September 11 attacks the White House's then counterterrorism adviser urged then national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to hold a high-level meeting on the al-Qaeda network, according to a memo made public today."We urgently need such a principals-level review on the al-Qaeda network," then White House counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke wrote in the January 25, 2001 memo.

However, Ms Rice wrote in a March 22, 2004 column in The Washington Post that "No al-Qaeda threat was turned over to the new administration". """"

Clarke has talked and written about this memo before, but the memo itself was only released now, by the National Security Archive, which also released the FAA information covered by the NY Times and others.

In other news...

A review of Scott Sandage's eye-opening new book, Born Losers: A History of Failure in America is up at Books In Heat.

Update
to the story below:
The New York Times reports:
"Two Democrats in Congress are pressing for investigations into how a Washington reporter who used a pseudonym managed to gain access to the White House and had access to classified documents that named Valerie Plame as a C.I.A. operative.

The Democrats, Representatives John Conyers Jr. of Michigan and Louise M. Slaughter from Rochester, wrote yesterday to Patrick Fitzgerald, the independent prosecutor appointed in the Plame case, seeking an investigation into how the reporter, James D. Guckert, who used the name Jeff Gannon, had access to classified documents that revealed the identity of Ms. Plame. "

The New York Times > Washington > Democrats Want Investigation of Reporter Using Fake Name

Earlier in the day, Senator Frank Lautenberg wrote a letter to the Bushhouse demanding to know how Gannon/Guckert got White House press credentials so easily, and with a pseudonym.

Guckert talked to the gullible media, telling them that Talon has 700,000 readers (demonstrably false) and that he quit Talon over death threats, and being followed to church. Daily Kos points out that the story broke Monday night, not Sunday.

Bloggers Expose Dirty Trick

Here at American Dash we select stories other people report and do commentary, analysis and synthesis. But some bloggers do reporting, and investigative reporting at that.

Probably the most important story bloggers have broken so far this year concerns a bizarre tale that may yet be revealed as a nefarious political conspiracy inside the Bush White House. Jeff Gannon---though as it turns out, that is probably not his real name---got press credentials at the White House with amazing ease. Among his known activities, he trashed Tom Daschle during his campaign and got himself in the middle of the Joseph Wilson (who blew the whistle on Bush's assertion that Saddam's Iraq got nuclear bomb material from Niger) and Valerie Plame (Wilson's wife who was outed as a CIA undercover by Robert Novak who was told by persons yet unknown in the Bush government) controversy, trying to show that it was Wilson's wife who suggested he be sent to investigate the Niger story, that her CIA identity was well known, and that they both were anti-Bush partisans, all of which parrots various company lies from within the Bushhouse.

Gannon wrote for a previously unknown outfit called Talon News, which Daily Kos bloggers traced back to GOPUSA and Eberle Communications, a partisan PR firm whose clients include Operation Rescue, Ollie North and Paula Jones, and had allegedly illegal dealings with John Ashcroft as a Missouri Senate candidate.

Gannon was given access to White House and presidential press conferences, and even though Helen Thomas, the senior working correspondent who had covered numerous presidents, no longer got to ask questions, he was regularly called on, and typically asked very friendly softball questions. But he rose to new heights with this one:

“ Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. Harry Reid was talking about soup lines. And Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet in the same breath they say that Social Security is rock solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work -- you've said you are going to reach out to these people -- how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?"

This got people curious, and they uncovered the story outlined so far. Then Daily Kos "kossacks" as they call themselves discovered the most sensational element---the one that caught media attention: this guy owned a couple of porn sites that seemed to be dealing in gay prostitution.

Here's the summary so far from the place that broke the story:
Daily Kos :: The bottom line

And here's a fast summary of the salient and sordid facts so far in the New York Daily News.

But the story may be just beginning. Daily Kos bloggers are pursuing timelines and other evidence that suggest Gannon was a plant, used to detour the Wilson story when it threatened the White House and Ashcroft.

So at best, the Bushhouse gave press credentials and preferential treatment to someone using an alias who ran gay prostitution porn sites. In addition to paying several Rabid Right "journalists" they installed one in the White House with the most dubious excuse for a news organization on record. But if the indictments ever come out, and the investigation ever gets going, the Plame story may return with a vengeance.

In the meantime, Tricky Dick must be grinning in his grave. The Sons of Nixon are back, with only a wussy overfed media and an exhausted, advertising-doped dumbed down panic-stricken public to not stop them. Unless of course you count the blogs.

Hats off to the Daily Kos bloggers and bloggers like them everywhere. You may be not only the salvation of the Democrats, but of this poor excuse for democracy.

Failing Health continued

Hard on the heels of the Harvard study linking health care costs to bankruptcies, even for the insured, comes a Boston University study that finds fully half of the nearly $1.9 trillion spent on health care is unnecessary waste, paying for nothing more than excessively high profits, over-the-top drug and hospital prices, unnecessary administrative costs mandated by insurance companies, plus a healthy dollop of fraud and theft.

By the way, in the spirit of our colleague's essay on numbers at Blue Voice, we will spell that out for you: the amount wasted per year is $950 billion, which is 950x1000x1,000,000. Nine hundred fifty one thousand millions.

This study follows another Harvard study which determined that bureaucratic inefficiencies in medical insurance, hospitals, nursing homes and doctors' practices in 2003 cost the U.S. nearly $400 billion.

So put them together and what have you got? Half the annual bankruptcies in America are caused by medical costs that are twice as high as they should be.

Excessive medical expenses / Study finds that half of health care dollars are wasted

None of this is all that surprising, given the sheer size of these industries and their nature as profit-making corporations whose purpose is accumulating wealth, not health. How can anyone be surprised at the excessive profits, when these corporations buy off scientists and government agencies, while growing to enormous sizes by killing off or buying out smaller businesses and swallowing up their markets? Anybody who believed that costs rising so fast for so long was unfortunately due to the cost of new technology, just hasn't been getting wined and dined enough by health insurance companies.

Healthcare in the U.S. is about as good for your health as taking a bath with ravenous piranas. The condition of the healthcare system is terminal and everyone knows it. Yet nobody responds to the flatlining whine, because everybody is busy filling out forms, or munching on the tax-flesh of soon-to-be-poor people at the White House.

How do you spell Decadence?

Headline: Study links illness to half of U.S. bankruptcies

A Harvard University study found that illness and medical bills cause about half of all bankruptcies in the United States, an increase of more than 23 times the rate in 1981.

Most of the 2.2 million Americans who file for bankruptcy for these reasons start out with health insurance. Most were middle class workers who simply got sick.

"I think it's a societal failure to have people facing bankruptcy over health care," said Dr. Alan Glaseroff, chief medical officer for the Humboldt-Del Norte Independent Practice Association. "No other developed nation has that."

Headline: S.F. company to start marketing high-tech toilet seats

A San Francisco company is tooling up to produce the Swash 400, a heated toilet seat with push-button controls to adjust water pressure and temperature. A self-cleaning spray arm adjusts to the differing anatomies of male or female users. The Swash 400 lists at $699, with the more advanced Swash 600 for $899.

The Swash will compete with products from Japan's Toto Ltd., which has sold more than 20 million Toto Washlets, with warm-water cleansing system and an automatic catalytic air deodorizer. They start at $727.

In other news...

New commentary on the future of Star Trek at Soul of Star Trek.

At This North Coast Place, interviews and reporting on a symposium concerning subduction earthquakes and tsunamis, in South Asia and elsewhere.

Isn't This Fun?

Some days being President must just be so much fun. First you propose a budget based on optimistic if not utterly dishonest revenue projections, you leave out several of the biggest costs your programs will incur, then you propose slashing and zeroing out hundreds of programs that mostly benefit the poor, the poor and sick ,and the poor, sick and disabled, while making tax cuts to the rich permanent, and you still wind up with a huge deficit. And you grin at reporters and watch the rest of the world go crazy. Watch Democrats tear out their hair! Hell, even half the Republicans are having heart attacks. Such fun!

Why it makes you want to do something really fun, like proposing a whole new arsenal of even deadlier nuclear weapons! Then maybe threaten to bomb Iran!

Owning a baseball team was kind of fun, and fraternity hijinks lots of fun, gaming the electoral system very satisfying, but there's nothing like being irresponsible to the max and way outrageous, and there's nothing they can do about it!

Bush's budget likely to trigger months of contentious debate in Congress

Elevator Speech

By Theron Dash

It's the latest "reframing" craze. In an effort to actually communicate with voters, Democrats are trying to "reframe" their issues. George Lakoff has become the patron saint of this toil.

The search is now on for "the elevator speech:" that combination of winning words that can explain the party's values to somebody on an elevator.

According to an article in American Prospect, here is the GOPer Neo-Con Elevator Speech:"We believe in freedom and liberty, low taxes, less government, traditional values, and a strong defense."

Here's someone's try at a Democratic Progressive example:

"We believe in prosperity and opportunity, strong communities, healthy families and great schools, investing in our future and leading the world by example."

There are two intents here. First, to talk on the level of values, and second, say something short and persuasive.

I agree that progressives have to communicate better, more clearly and more succinctly. But I have loads of questions about this particular approach.

First of all, who is on the elevator? And is it going up or down?

My first guess of who: college professors, or maybe motivational consultants.

My first guess of direction: in circles.

These words are mostly abstract. The GOP speech consists of abstractions that are actually code words. They imply a whole litany that's been repeated at rubber chicken dinners and on talk radio forever. They summarize.

But first you have to have something to summarize. Well, you could start with the words and then develop them in detail. But you have to do both.

But in the past, Democrats won elections by making definite promises that were appealing. For instance:

A living wage.

That's a good one. And it could still work. If you built an argument around it. And you have a plan.

So my modest proposal is: start with how people live their lives. Know who these people are. Then match what they need to what you want to stand for, and run on.

Stay off the elevator for awhile. Try walking down the street first.



In other news...

A meditation on Numbers at A Blue Voice.

Ok, let's get this 05 thing over with, so we can get ready for Super Bowl '06

Sermon from the gridiron

"Ancient, traditional themes appear in the most ordinary of circumstances, and all it takes is an eye for the sacred to see them. The clearest place where this is true is sports. There you witness a dramatic battle between self and other, and home and visitors. Sports bring out the basic themes in any human life: facing difficult odds; struggling, advancing and retreating; winning and losing. A ball game takes place within certain bounds and according to strict rules, which keep the game separate from real life. These rules are like the rubrics or instructions for ritual. They allow a certain kind of athletic theater to take place, where both players and spectators experience in imagination the tensions they feel more meaningfully in everyday life. The spiritual element in sports appears in language such as 'miracle plays,' 'super bowls' and superstars---'super' is a word for transcendence--and in the pagentry and rituals of various games. In professional football, the Super Bowl is for some a powerful rite of civil religion, a compelling ritual process for a large segment of the culture."

Thomas Moore

Consecration of the beer and pretzels is at 3:30 p. PST. Go Steelers. (Well, in '06. Don't much care who wins '05. After all, there is only one team that beat both teams in the Super Bowl this year, back-to-back. )

Color Us Purple

Republicans showed up at the State of the Union address waving purple fingers, symbolizing the Iraqi equivalent of the "I voted" tag. Initial indications were of a high turnout, pleasing everyone but of course the Bushheads had to indulge in partisan gloating.

And now? ... not so much.

The official turnout figures were supposed to become available today, but they won't. That may be because indications now are that the turnout was much lower that ballyhooed in Baghdad before, according to the Associated Press. The New York Times reported on a district in Mosul where it appears to have been around 10%. The first figures that made headlines were 70% and then 60%.

Meanwhile, the first returns counted suggest that the secular Shiite slate with the current US-installed Allawi at its head is losing badly to the slate of Shiite clerics loyal to Sistani, raising the possibility that the U.S. toppled a secular dictator and 200 billion dollars later, may get a fundamentalist Islamic state, with close ties to Iran, that next door neighbor and charter member of the Axis of Evil.

"Sharif Ali bin Hussein, head of the Constitutional Monarchy Party, likened the vote outcome to a "Sistani tsunami" that would shake the nation.

"Americans are in for a shock," he said, adding that one day they would realize, "We've got 150,000 troops here protecting a country that's extremely friendly to Iran, and training their troops."""""

So where was Diebold when they needed them this time?

U.S. 'in for a shock' / In early election results, Shiite cleric's alliance trouncing Washington's favorite

UPDATE: The other shoe has fallen already: the New York Times reports that Shiite clerics are calling for a constitution that enshrines Islam as the state religion, and religious law as the law of the land.

State of Bushamerica Continued

Sorry, but you just can't make this stuff up.

In his State of the Union address, GWBush said, "Justice is distorted and our economy is held back, by irresponsible class actions and frivolous asbestos claims--and I urge Congress to pass legal reform this year."

On February 3, a Halliburton subsidiary agreed to pay a $30 million settlement in an asbestos lawsuit, as part of a global pay-out of $4.3 billion. The subsidiary, Dresser Industries, was acquired while VP Dick Cheney was chairman of Halliburton. Plaintiffs in the suit alleged that Dresser knew their products were harmful to workers in the 1930s but continued to sell them for forty more years.

Thanks and kudos to Hunter at daily kos for catching this. His link:

Daily Kos :: Loyalty, Rewarded

The Social Security Scam

There are stories appearing now that claim younger voters are in favor of privatizing Social Security, but a study cited on this site says otherwise. It also suggests why this is a particularly costly scam for younger people.

Dude Where's My Retirement

Dear Abby: What is Authoritarianism?

There's something to be said for reading newspapers, as opposed to only online news. Under a news story we saved, this paragraph from a Dear Abby column:

"""Dear Abby: At my school, a period of time is dedicated to discussing world events. My teacher, "Mrs. Jones," has often shared her opinions about world events and our government with us. She has very strong opinions and usually gets upset when anyone disagrees with her. One day when she was talking, I told her I did not agree with her opinion and got detention for it. I understand that I shouldn't be rude to teachers, but I believe that my comment was respectful. Was I out of line?
UNCERTAIN
IN FRANKLIN LAKES, N.J.

Dear Uncertain: If the comment was disruptive, it may have been. It would have been more diplomatic had you voiced your disagreement after the class was over."

(The column byline is Jeanne Phillips, and is distributed by Universal Press Syndicate. This item appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on January 29, p. E10.)

After reading Dale Maharidge's excellent book, Homeland, which among other things chronicled the ease with which Americans after 9-11 were eager to give up First Amendment rights, to punish dissenters or even those who asked questions, this item is a little indicator that things really don't change much.

We posted this on daily kos and the reaction was interestingly tepid. We wonder if that's because the politics of the teacher aren't revealed. Some commented they got detention for similar questioning. Of course, all the Dash brothers were in constant trouble for this, especially in high school, but we do recall a few teachers who encouraged us to think for ourselves, and to engage. Anyway, the irony of having world affairs "discussion" in which actual discussion is punished was obvious to us, though surprisingly not to everyone. Theron's thought: Apparently the nuns have taken over the world.

Captive Audience

The Bushmeisters are masters of the outrage barrage: create enough outrages, and nobody has the time, energy or space to focus on all of them.

So for months and probably years the Bushwhackers have been getting away with turning ostensibly public forums and rallys into private members-only events. They give Bush the obverse of a captive audience: instead of keeping people in, they keep people out. It's the shopping mall philosophy of public event, with a little J.Edgar Hoover brand of fascism to boot.

They pretty much got away with it in the campaign, as when attendees at a Cheney events literally had to sign a loyalty oath. So even with no election to worry about, they are continuing the policy. In Fargo, North Dakota, no less.

"City Commissioner Linda Coates says she was shocked to learn she and her husband were among more than 40 area residents on a list of people barred from attending President Bush's speech here Thursday.
The list was supplied to workers at the two Fargo distribution sites, along with tickets and other forms citizens were asked to fill out, The Forum reported.
The list includes critics of Bush or the war in Iraq. It includes two high school students, a librarian, a deputy Democratic campaign manager and a number of university professors. "

So if you want to see the President, bring your Bushamerica card. It's the only card accepted by the Bushmeisters. They don't take the Bill of Rights.

? IN-FORUM ?: "Media Partners:

Log In Register "

The Torture Vote

The news isn't that Alberto Gonzales won confirmation by the Senate for Attorney General. The news is that 36 Senators voted against him, and that several days of debate highlighted the issue of torture as never before. Even a vote that Gonzales got--from the freshman Senator Salazar of Colorado--came only after Gonzales sent him a letter in which he pledged in writing to oppose torture in all its forms.
Bloomberg.com: U.S.

Gonzales may yet prove to be a millstone around the Bushneck, provided investigations into his questionable conduct in Texas continue. Europe is paying much more attention to the war crimes trial than is Island America but there may be fallout from those quarters as well.

In the meantime, Blue Staters must not relax vigilance on the topic of torture, including pressuring Hollywood to stop depicting torture as some sort of obligatory and sensationalistic interrogation technique. It is seldom used for interrogation, and almost never with success. Since people get their ideas about torture more from the movies and TV than from the news or even politicians, this is important.

And even more scrutiny must be focused on Iraqi prisons and Guantanamo.

Crew of the Enterprise, leaving orbit at the end of this season. 

In other news...

A review of Italian Tales, a new anthology of writing from Italy is at Books In Heat.

A comment on yesterday's cancellation of the Star Trek: Enterprise TV series is at Soul of Star Trek.

Failing Health

A new book by historian Scott Sandage chronicles how "failure" and "bankrupt" became synonymous in 19th century America, and financial failure meant you were a failure as a person.

In our time we've seen that poverty has become immoral, and millions of Americans hide their difficulties, and don't complain, feeling mostly shame, and all too often redirect their anger to people who aren't responsible for their plight and may be even worse off than they are.

There are increasing numbers of bankruptcies suffered, not on paper by businesspeople who cynically game the system with tax shelters and phony corporations, or just use the law to protect themselves behind incorporation, but by ordinary people who thereby lose everything. It's a low grade fever in America now, but if the dollar sinks and interest rates soar, it could become a raging epidemic.

If that wasn't enough, there is this study that says many Americans are just a serious illness away from bankruptcy, even if they have health insurance. Just what does that say about this society?

Getting Sick in America is Going to Cost You

James Joyce, born February 2, 1882 

"I am a democrat. I'll work and act for the social liberty and equality among all classes and sexes in the United States of the Europe of the future."
James Joyce 1916.

Smirking droning litany of lies continued

From an Associated Press analysis:

""""Bush explained in detail how, under his proposal, younger workers would be able to divert some of their Social Security payroll taxes into private accounts "so you can build a nest egg for your own future."

Nowhere in his State of the Union speech did he give the other side of the equation — that Social Security benefits for those workers would be reduced as a result. He stated "your account will provide money for retirement over and above the check you will receive from Social Security," without explaining that check would be smaller. """""

And more from this Associated Press analysis

Yahoo! News - Only One Side Told in Bush Soc. Sec. Pitch

Kerry Response

to the droning smirking litany of lies...

“Our country faces a real crisis in health care, a real challenge of record budget deficits, and every American deserves a real plan to improve retirement security -- not weaken it. The problems of health care can be solved if we stop giving tax cuts to those who have the most, and start making health care affordable for those working harder and harder for too little. I was disappointed the President did not spend more time addressing this problem that keeps millions of Americans up at night worrying about their children's future."

“The problems facing Social Security 50 years down the road can be fixed tomorrow if Washington ends the borrow-and-spend policies that are running up a record debt and dumping it on the backs of our children. The challenge of retirement security can be solved if we sit down in the true spirit of bipartisanship and make it possible for young people to save and invest while still guaranteeing that Social Security remains insurance against poverty and disability that can never be wiped away."

And from the official response by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid:

"Too many of the President's economic policies have left Americans and American companies struggling. And after we worked so hard to eliminate the deficit, his policies have added trillions to the debt - in effect, a 'birth tax' of $36,000 on every child that is born.

We Democrats have a different vision: Spurring research and development in new technologies to help create the jobs of the future. Rolling up our sleeves and fighting for today's jobs by ending the special tax breaks that encourage big corporations to ship jobs overseas. A trade policy that enforces the rules of the road so that we play to win in the global marketplace instead of sitting by and getting played for fools. After World War II, through the Marshall Plan, we rebuilt Europe and they went from poverty to an economic powerhouse. Today, we need to invest in our nation's future with a Marshall Plan for America - to build the infrastructure our economy needs to go - and grow. President Eisenhower did that in the 1950s with the interstate highways. National investment created the Internet in the 1970s. We need to build the next economy - and we need to start now. "

Latest Republican Plot

In the latest Republican plot designed to depress the entire Dash family as well as the Blue States in general, the latest episode of "The West Wing" was pre-empted by that other president and his droning smirking litany of lies. If you are interested, a blow by blow account is available from John Podesta and his team at Center for American Progress:

Think Progress

As for us we await next Wednesday when hopefully the only President we recognize returns to the airwaves: President Bartlett.

I'm ready

The State of Bushamerica, Inc.

Live from Washington---

Instead of a State of the Union, this year I thought I'd just read you highlights from our Annual Report. It's a nice document, with great illustrations and glossy paper, and I recommend it to all right thinking Americans.

Here's the cover. Pretty nice, huh? For our Spanish-speaking friends it says, BUSHAMERICA INC. And here's the list of our officers: Chairman of the Board of Directors and President-G.W. Bush, that's me. Vice-President and CEO-Dick Cheney. Vice-President of Operations--- Don Rumsfeld. Director of Marketing-Karl Rove. And so on.

So let me read you some of the highlights.

The state of Bushamerica Inc. is pretty darn good.

We're returning stockholder investment and building a future for ourselves. Our brand identity has never been stronger.

9-11

Our 9-11 Line continues to out-perform expectations. As everyone in our business knows, the secret of ultimate performance is in thinking big, which means being willing to take and manage big risks.

The key to selling products is keep it simple, and link it to strong emotions. Most products have to make do with simple anxiety, which is okay if you're selling mouthwash, but not war. For that you need the big smell of fear.

Of course we didn't know when and where a terrorist attack would come. Though we encouraged the illusion that we didn't expect it, we were ready to seize the opportunity. That it was larger and hit closer to home than we anticipated only made our response stronger. And actually made our job easier.

There are many ways to position a terrorist attack, and we chose imagery consistent with our goals and philosophy. We made it a very simple case of good against evil, and we made sure to stress that the triumph of good was no certainty. By painting the enemy as mysterious, inscrutable and very powerful, we ensured that our "us or them" polarity would enable us to exert control.

This formula of course matched the worldview imagery of our core customer, comfortable with the good v evil scenario. It's clear, it's definite, and those are two wonderful attributes for a product that sells itself. Benefit to the customer? That's easy.

Our product we called Freedom, but in essence it meant the continuing of the mindless work-and-spend lifestyle everyone loves. For our core constituency, it's work, worship and spend, and we made sure to integrate their lifestyles into our program.

To the fear we linked to terrorism, we added economic anxieties to increase dependence on our leadership. It's a delicate balance to maintain anxiety without widespread feelings of deprivation, so our outsourcing to China kept low-cost consumer products flowing in. Our Wal-Mart subsidiary in particular helped us keep their eyes off the ball out there in consumerland.

We have to acknowledge that we couldn't have had this year of success without the softening up work of the 1980s into the 90s, when it became clear to everybody that to be poor or sick and need help from the government is not only shameful, it is immoral. So Bushamerica could thrive, while millions of our non-partners worked 2 and 3 jobs for slave wages and never complained, except about liberals and foreigners and know-it-all traitors who don't support Bushamerica.

The underlying product support we utilized is the time-tested need for the king, especially in time of "invasion." There is nothing like fear to ensure loyalty, and nothing like the feeling of being in mortal danger to inspire both fear and "loyalty to the royalty."

Patriotism can be a powerful ally when you are in power, and we're happy to report that it still works great, even after the previous eight years when we didn't use it, for obvious reasons.

We want to particularly thank our media partners for their help in creating optimum conditions.


Iraq Inc.

Our returns on Iraq this year were strong. Through the smokescreen of "bad news" we saw the sunlight of a robust arms technology industry, and record profits for many of our contractors. We used the full federal borrowing and spending power for our short-term stimulus, as well as our long-term investment in that oil-rich region.

Stimulus from Iraq Inc. and even more from Homeland Security (our "stealth" profit center!) kept the national economy vibrant enough to offset tax revenue losses, which of course accrued as gains to our stockholders.

Contract Renewal

Of course the big news, and the big triumph of the year was our contract renewal for another four years. Our marketing team outdid themselves again this time, but we really must thank that peerless combination of our stockholders and contractors, plus our core constituency of consumers, for putting us over the top. Diebold, Sinclair,Fox---hey, you know who you are.

Forecast

Our strategic goals continue to be: 1. maximize immediate value for stockholders. 2. commit longterm federal investment to benefit stockholders, subsidiaries and contractors regardless of who runs the federal government in the future. New foreign markets are expensive to develop but we've invested a lot of taxpayer money in them, so Bushamerica will be in position to reap whatever profit opportunities may result. And if none do, well, it wasn't our money.

We're all justly proud that in the 90s, even without the White House, we were able to turn a citizenry angrily demanding affordable health care into wary consumers who preferred insurance instruments designed by our corporate partners. We're hopeful that we can work our magic again on an even tougher product: Social Security. But we will need all our partners help on this one. It has immense longterm potential for financing options, but even if we don't get there this time, the controversy should be sufficiently distracting that we can close any number of other deals without opposition.

Summary and Corporate Overview

Bushamerica has never been a stronger, more integrated corporation with a clear identity and clear mission for the future. In four short years we have transformed the country we took over, and by the end of four more years we hope that transformation will be complete, so that in brand terms, the difference between America and Bushamerica will be zero.

Of course by then, Bushamerica will be considerably more profitable, but that's for our stockholders to know, and our customers never to find out.

Gosh, maybe I wasn't supposed to read that part.

Good night and may God bless Bushamerica.

Gonzales Debate: Say No to Dictatorial Power

While we didn't watch it all, we caught some of the Senate debate on the Gonzales nomination. It seemed that Democrats succeeded in making torture the main issue, beginning with an impassioned statement by Senator Ted Kennedy, linked here.

KENNEDY URGES SENATE TO DENY GONZALES NOMINATION OVER TORTURE POLICIES

But we heard another compelling and important argument from Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. She emphasized that Gonzales insisted in his memos and testimony that the President has the power and right to override law as passed by Congress and interpreted by courts. This is nothing less than a recipe for state fascism and dictatorship. Her statement, which at this moment is not yet available, was eloquent on the subject of the danger of making Gonzales the chief law enforcement officer of the country. She emphasized that his main qualification is as the private lawyer for George Bush, but this isn't the constitutional job description of the Attorney General.

Say No to Torture: Vote No on Gonzales

American Dash is one of more than 500 blogs on record opposing Alberto Gonzales for U.S. attorney-general. The Senate opens debate on his nomination today, and there may even be a vote. We urge our U.S. readers to contact their Senators and urge them to vote no. Torture is ineffective and therefore unnecessary, but more than that it is inhuman and immoral.

If he is confirmed, Gonzales' problems will not go away. His torture memos, which he has never clearly repudiated, will haunt the U.S. for a generation, and will keep the Iraqi prison photos alive around the world. But he also faces legal questions, including possible perjury and other crimes and improprieties in Texas, and now he has been named as a defendant in a suit alleging complicity in war crimes (link below), namely the torture of Iraqi prisoners and prisoners at Guantanamo.

CCR

Questions continue on 04 vote

Earlier this month the company that owned the 2004 election exit poll statistics issued its report on why exit polls showed Kerry with a 3% advantage but Bush apparently won with a 2.5% advantage. The reason given was basically that Kerry voters were more willing to talk to the people doing the exit polls.

Now academic statisticians have had the time to study the figures and this interpretation, and find it wanting. Specifically this group, from several prominent universities, doesn't accept this explanation, and says that widespread fraud is still an open possibility. They call for more investigation. Here's the press release with links to the full reports:

Prominent Statisticians Urge Investigation of 2004 U.S. Presidential Election Results - USCountVotes.org

He's back

Looking rested though not so tanned, John Kerry was the only interview guest on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday. His answers were clear, sharp and pointed. (He had a slight flub once, which was probably due to not hearing the question correctly, and it was a dumb question anyway.)

On the campaign and its outcome, Kerry said that post-election analysis suggests that 9-11 was the paramount issue, and that voters were reluctant to change presidents in the middle of a war, which they've never done in the past. When host Tim Russert quoted him as telling an audience in November that it was the Osama bin Laden tape, magically appearing a few days before the vote, that sunk him, he didn't disagree. He said that until the last weekend he was rising in the polls (one assumes he meant his campaign's polling), then flattened out on Sunday when the tape was played, and went down on Monday, the day before the election.

Even so, he said, he won the popular vote in the battleground states, and if distributedly a little differently, he would be president. He took responsibility for the campaign's mistakes, specifically for not coming out sooner and more strongly in his own defense against the Swift Boat liars (though that's in hindsight; at the time, many others came to his defense, and it didn't seem necessary.)

He said he "wasn't thinking about" either the presidential election or his own senatorial election in 2008, but about the issues of today. He mentioned several times the legislation that he has already introduced to finance health care for American children. But his strongest moments came when talking about Social Security, and countering a Russert characterization for his plan to rollback Bush tax cuts as "a tax increase," he called those tax cuts "irresponsible," and whipped out the Financial News article (linked from this site several posts back) stating that European central banks are losing confidence in the U.S. dollar.

The bottom line for us is that this appearance solidifies Kerry as the leader of the Democratic party, and most specifically of the party in Congress. This is very important, especially in light of the post-2000 election period, in which Al Gore refused to stay involved, and the party wandered leaderless into the disastrous 2002 congressional elections.

Although Kerry would not back Senator Kennedy's call for immediate troop withdrawls and a date certain for U.S. troops to leave Iraq, he endorsed Kennedy's analysis that the presence of U.S. troops is a major cause of problems, and the goal of proceeding to train Iraqis as quickly as possible so U.S. troops can leave as soon as possible. On other matters, however, Kerry is taking bold stands: he voted against Condi Rice, he said he would vote against Scalia if he is nominated for chief justice.

This is what the Democrats need to be an effective opposition party: boldness, spine, intelligence, a sophisticated grasp of the issues, and Kerry's battle-tested stature and the crispness he learned for the debates. When Russert asked him "The most important thing you learned running for president?" He answered, "How great, how unbelievable the American people themselves are. They are just--the courage of the American people day to day blew me away. And I think that, you know, this is an amazing country, and I came to love it even
more."

We aren't thinking about 2008 either. But it would be another shame if the experiences of such an incredible campaign were lost, when they could inform the political process of now.

Here's the transcript link:

MSNBC - Transcript for Jan. 30

Throwing the First Stone

Sharon Stone is an actor, most famous for sexy movie roles. She's a blond, too, so we know all about her, right?

Recently Sharon Stone stood up in a crowd and pledged a $10,000 donation. Nobody asked her to, it wasn't a fund-raising event. But she made it one--she challenged others in the audience to pony up. And oddly enough, they did. In five minutes, Sharon Stone raised one million dollars.

For what? you might well ask. Not her Oscar dress. Not even for a currently fashionable charity, however worthy, like the upteenth solicitation/benefit/etc/ for tsunami victims.

For mosquito nets. For African children.

It seems Sharon Stone was in the audience for a panel discussion on poverty in Africa at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. One of the panelists mentioned that 150,000 children in Africa die each and every month of malaria, principally because they don't have mosquito nets for their beds.

So Sharon Stone disrupts the tsk tsk panel discussion, and finances a way to address the problem. Which is one important thing. But here's the other important thing.

One million dollars buys time for a 30 second campaign commercial. One million dollars pays for one one-thousandth of one week's military spending the U.S. devotes to Iraq.

But those mosquito nets cost $7 each. They last for five years. One million dollars buys nearly 150,000 mosquito nets. That's the lives of 150,000 children. The Grim Reaper gets a whole month off.

One blond. Five minutes.

She puts the leaders of the world to shame.

And with one week's worth of what the U.S. is spending in Iraq, which is one billion dollars, which is one thousand times a million dollars, the children of Africa would sleep in safety.

BBC NEWS Entertainment Film Actress Stone raises fast million

enhanced photo of surface of Titan, where scientists say there is no intelligent life either

The Only Thing We Have to Fear is Bush Himself

Further evidence that the Bushheads have been manipulating fear for political gain, in a British TV documentary series on international terrorism shown on the BBC but still not shown anywhere in the U.S. The director:

"The United States is the most powerful, confident and in many ways, the freest civilization ever in the history of the world. It is extraordinary that it has become so paralyzed by the fear of radical Islamist terrorism--it really is a lion quaking in the face of a mouse. Radical Islamists do represent a serious threat and will use terror against civilians, but when you look at them historically, as the series does, you come to see that they are not some new force with a unique power to bring the strongest nation in the world to its knees. "

More from The Nation:
Editor's Cut

It's not just Red v. Blue, it's Red v. Black (or in this case, Green)

Out of Iraqnam

Senator Ted Kennedy became the first U.S. Senator to call for beginning withdrawl of U.S. troops from Iraqnam after that country's "elections." Republicans immediately castigated one of their favorite targets for ridicule and vituperation, but in fact we heard exactly the same analysis of the situation (that the presence of U.S. troops is itself causing many of the problems) and same solution (UN peacekeepers) from a Shia Muslim candidate interviewed on The News Hour yesterday.

Kennedy's speech follows a proposal for phased withdrawl from the U.S. House, and the deadliest day of the war so far for American soldiers.

Boston.com / News / Nation / Washington / Kennedy calls on US to begin troop pullout

The Irony Is...

that instead of irony being slain by 9-11, it has been given rebirth in realities created by the Bushies. The story linked below is dripping with irony. It seems the Christian Coaltion is accusing all Democrats who voted against Condi Rice for Secretary of State of "prejudice." They don't say racial prejudice--just prejudice against conservatives--but they note the high level African Americans appointed by Bush.

If this story is any indication, the irony is that the Coalition charges are giving new prominence to the charges made by Rice's opponents, that the Bushies engaged in systematic lying.

This story rather coyly notes another irony, that by "minorities" the Coalition apparently does not mean homosexuals.

Yes, irony is alive and well. Of course it may not be irony at all. It may just be insanity.


religious right accuses democrat senators of 'prejudice' - news from ekklesia

Lettuce for Pundits Is Tip of the Iceberg

Another right wing pundit got caught taking money from the Bushies, and his Bushness had to himself confront the issue at his press conference.
The Globe and Mail: Won't pay columnists to promote policies, Bush vows

Right. Both situations that have come to light seem to skirt the law, this one by paying a columnist for other work--ghostwriting, brochures, etc.---that she nevertheless aped in her columns. But the whole rabid right system is pay-for-play, beginning with "training" at rabid right institutes rather than real newspapers, and then employment with rabid right organizations, or graduation to rabid right papers, magazines, TV, radio shows. Then once rabid right stardom is achievement, in however small a measure, there are "fellowships" and lavish speaking fees from corporations.

The media has itself to blame as well, with its advertorials and reliance on celebrities with tenuous if any relationship to actual journalism, as well as the consultants who comment. The whole system, which taints the entire political spectrum (although lefties don't get paid nearly as well) has made this kind of practice eminently possible. It's not even surprising that this person didn't realize she should have disclosed.

But many suspect that the Bushies are involved in direct pay for play arrangements that are much more common and at a much higher level than has so far been revealed. Why should we believe this? Hey, it's more like, why shouldn't we?

The Big Shoe Drops

Faster than a speeding stock ticker, the other shoe---the Big Shoe--drops, and with it may go the dollar and the U.S. economy, etc. According to a Chinese economist, China has "lost faith" in the U.S. dollar.

For what that might mean, see the following (meaning the previous) several posts.

Economist: China Loses Faith in Dollar

World Revolt Against Bushamerica
This My Ydd blog thread is one of several items emerging to warn of a revolt against Bushamerica by other major nations of the world, particularly the European Union countries. Seymour Hersh in the speech linked below is also very harsh on this subject. He says that when the dollar falls, the suppressed emotion in Europe against Bushamerica will surface in a pretty ugly way.

This thread is interesting for the links to other news and essays on the web, as well as personal observations by Europeans and the poster on his experiences in England this year. We added our two cents in noting that Americans who had been abroad in recent years seemed invariably to be Kerry voters when they came back.

Tired of Bushies intransigence on the climate crisis and other issues, the EU is going its own way, forging alliances with other nations. The idea that the U.S. is "the leader of the free world" may be myopia, which wouldn't be surprising. The key issue however is Iraq, and since other countries have a better idea of what is really going on there, they see the ruinous consequences whereas the U.S. only senses it, due to our media blindness.

But since it is the U.S. and its economy making this war, and because efforts to deal with the climate crisis will be less successful without major changes in the world's greatest pollutor, when the EU and Japan are in position to dictate terms, the U.S. awakening is apt to be quite rude.

MyDD :: A Multi-Polar World - The Financial Times Weighs In

UPDATE: Further evidence of the above: Yesterday four British subjects, suspects in the war on terror that the U.S. has held at Guantamo for three years, were returned to Britian for investigation. Today they were all released without charges.

And so with that thumb in the Busheye, it begins.

Iraqnam Naked

Transcript of a talk given by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, an absolutely devastating description of the macro and micro catastrophe that is Iraqnam. This is killing the future writ large, and tragedy writ very large for the very small, in Iraq, in West Virgina, in the wards of Americans reduced to vegetables because of brain injuries sustained in a war continued by what Hersh describes as a neocon cult.

Index

Killing the Future

The Iraqnam war is now costing the U.S. one billion dollars a day. Today the Bushwarriors requested an additional $80 billion for the war. Other reports indicate that the U.S. expects to keep 120,000 troops in Iraqnam for another two years.

The new estimate of the U.S. budget deficit for this year is $437 billion. Yesterday, a British newspaper reported that European central banks plan to buy fewer dollars, as the U.S. dollar sinks in value, due in large part to the growing deficit.

The debt is financed to an increasingly degree by central banks in Japan and China, and so the fate of the U.S. economy rests largely in two individuals who make the decisions for those banks. A sudden and substantial fall in the dollar would have unforeseeable consequences for everyone in the U.S.

The budget deficit will be used by the Bushies to deny funding to programs that have already been stripped, adding to the ongoing crisis in health care and education.

As if this isn't enough, we are haunted by the highly damaging hurricanes and floods of 2004, and the already damaging floods and snowstorms of 2005, all of which require heavy government support for recovery and even survival. The frequency and ferocity of storms and other weather-related catastrophes will only increase, as yesterday's report on the climate crisis indicates. We will need government resources, as well as a healthy National Guard, more than ever.

The Vietnam war was very damaging, with consequences that still deform our national life. But in its power to kill the future, the Iraqnam war may be even worse.


Latest News and Financial Information | Reuters.com

More important than Gay Marriage?

"An ecological time-bomb is ticking away," said Stephen Byers, who co-chaired the task force with U.S. Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, and is a close confidant of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "World leaders need to recognize that climate change is the single most important long term issue that the planet faces."

This report, issued today, appears to be the most politically high-powered scientific report so far, stating bluntly that we're getting close to the point of no return.

CNN.com - Report: Global warming approaching critical point - Jan 24, 2005

Yet Another Effect of Torture

The torture photos, the White House memos by the attorney general designate, the international Red Cross reports alleging U.S. torture in Iraq and Guantanamo: besides besmirching the name of America around the world, inflaming the Islamic cultures, and making it difficult for American military to insist on Geneva convention treatment for U.S. servicepeople, and now one more effect: the Iraqis now in power, who are likely to be the ones in power after the "election," are accused of rampant torture of their prisoners. And exactly what can the U.S. say about it? That anybody will believe?

Don't look now, but the Bushies are going to have to revise their reason for invading Iraq once again, because "to get rid of the tyrant who tortured his own people" doesn't look so good right now. Unless they want to add, "and replace him with another tyrant who tortures his own people, and the folks at Halliburton."

There's very little they can credibly say, when the Secretary of State designate refuses repeated opportunities to condemn torture, and the Attorney General designate is one of the architects of U.S. permissiveness and policy of torture. Neither should be confirmed, but we join in the movement to deny AG designate Alberto Gonzales confirmation by the Senate.

Yahoo! News - Torture Still Routine in Iraqi Jails, Report Says

A Wretched Start

Just a few days after coronation, a new poll out today shows GW Bush's job approval rating at 44%, with 54% disapproving. Unaffiliated voters give him a 37% approval. Only a 78% rating by GOPers inflates his numbers.
Bush Job Approval

In other news...

Of interest mainly to the North Coast of California, two new blogs officially launch today:
This North Coast Place and North Coast Texts. Readers interested in Native affairs may find the current content of Texts worthwhile.

Elsewhere, Gabriel has taken to writing sestinas, among the new verses on his blog. And there's cat blogging at Blue Voice.

Next year.

Congratulations to the New England Patriots.

the Bus is coming... 

AFC TITLE GAME / Patriots vs. Steelers, 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Channel: 5, Channel: 13, Channel: 36 / Loyalty drove Bus back to Pittsburgh / Bettis has strong ties with city and its fans

The Kerry Inaugural

A Stoical Kerry on Bush's Day (washingtonpost.com)

Let Freedom Thud

Before we pull up our socks and bring freedom to the world, let's review how we're taking freedom to Iraq. We bombed them, to the tune of four Hiroshimas. We made several hundred thousand homeless. Then we invaded them, and occupy their country. We killed a hundred thousand people, put most of the formerly employed out of work, destroyed their electricity and water supplies. We completely leveled one of their cities, starting with the hospitals, until it was a stinking pile of rubble and rotting corpses. The capital city is now a free-fire zone, and the most powerful military in the world can't even protect the highway to the airport.

We rounded up people randomly, put them in prison without charge, and tortured them in the most specifically humilating ways for Islamic cultures, and circulated photos of the torture around the world. We invaded a country with no terrorists to speak of, and transformed it into the most popular terrorist recruiting and training center in the world.

Our armed forces are depleted, our reserves are in a shambles, and nobody in their right mind will sign up for the National Guard anymore. U.S. deaths in Iraq approach 1500, with thousands more wounded, and thanks to modern medicine a lot of them will be maimed for life. Our few allies in Iraq are getting out as fast as they can, and even some of the contractors making billions from pretending to repair what we destroyed are leaving.

But we're holding free elections just like we said we would, though six months late. Parts of the country are so hostile that polling won't even be attempted, polling places in the rest of the country are being kept secret, as are the names of candidates. Election rallies are held in secret, and the people who appear on the stage refuse to admit whether they are candidates or not. Election monitors aren't even in the country. They're going to monitor from somewhere else. Government officials are being blown up, and the country may or may not already be in a civil and/or religious war, depends on your definition.

The march of freedom in Iraq is so clear that a clear majority in the U.S. think the whole thing was a mistake, and the rest of the world is convinced U.S. policy and leadership are dangerous.

In the meantime, the climate crisis is becoming increasingly obvious, and millions of children are dying of easily preventable diseases or vitamin deficiences. We've in hock to China, the health care situation is so dire than even major corporations and insurance companies are calling for some kind of government program before the economy implodes.

That's how the eagle is soaring. So our course is clear: let's do it again real soon in as many other places as possible.

While obscene decadence rules in Washington, there are some who won't be invited to the parties.  

four more years, dude 

Boxer Rebellion Continues, Condi Must Wait Until After Coronation

In the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday, Senator Barbara Boxer voted against confirmation of Condi Rice for Secretary of State, and her forceful request for full Senate debate was granted.

The only other Senator to vote against Rice was John Kerry. The SF Chronicle:
Kerry voted not to confirm Rice on the grounds that she is "the principal architect, implementer and defender of a series of administration policies that have not made our country as secure as we should be and have alienated much-needed allies in our common cause of winning the war against terrorism."

Dems seek Senate debate on Rice / Panel votes approval, but Boxer pushes to extend discussion

Our Quadrennial Day of Mourning

According to the results of the latest U.S. polls on GW as Prez, January 20 should be Why the Hell Did They Vote For Him Day.

Add to that the following unsurprising finding of the BBC survey: "On average across all countries, 58% of people - and 16 out of 21 countries polled - said they believed Mr Bush's re-election to the White House made the world more dangerous."

So while the Bushies spend their millions on their apocalyptic festivities, opposition organizations are holding rallies and marches, and a Counter-Inaugural Ball. Haven't heard much about the stealth plan for thousands of people to stand up during Bush's address and turn their backs, but then it wouldn't be very stealthy if we had. For more information on Washington doings, try the ReDefeat Bush site.

January 20 is also NOT ONE DAMN DIME DAY, a consumer boycott "to remind the people in power that the war in Iraq is immoral and illegal... and they are responsible for stopping it."

We're not sure who is sponsoring this, but an email on the subject came from a trusted source. The idea is action without going to Washington. Let your non-spending do the protesting.

Bad Barbara Boxer Blisters Contradictory Condi

Though the brand new Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama was especially impressive at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on the nomination of Condi Rice for Secretary of State, it was Senator Barbara Boxer who was the most aggressive in questioning Rice's actions, statements and credibility.

Boxer went after Rice principally on Iraq and torture. She blistered Rice on her contradictory statements on weapons of mass destruction, such as saying that no one had suggested that Saddam could use a nuclear weapon in a year's time, just nine months after President Bush had said exactly that.

Particularly effective was the way Boxer zeroed in on the Bushie pre-war hype as a product roll-out, using chief of staff Andy Card's words that you don't roll out a new product in summer, as a rationale for how they were scheduling Iraq. This is an image that people immediately understand, and it explains in a single image why the Bushies offered all those rationales that weren't true. Everybody understands a sales job.

Boxer was passionate on the effects of the war, pointing out that a quarter of the American casualties in Iraq were soldiers from California. She caught Rice in an obvious contradiction over her action in getting removed from a bill on intelligence agencies a statement forbidding such agencies from using torture that contravened the Constitution and international laws to which the U.S. is a party. Rice said the statement was unnecessary because intelligence agencies were covered by a similar statement in the Defense authorization bill, yet she also claimed that the statement would allow terrorists protections they weren't entitled to.

Though media coverage of Boxer's questioning and anti-war stance was to treat it as an embarrassment (just as anti-war talk was treated in the Vietnam era, although with more disdain then and in a more dismissively patronizing tone today) it was a much better image for the cameras to catch this face-off between two women rather than old white men browbeating the small woman of color.

But Rice of course knew that all she had to do was survive the day without saying something soundbiteable and embarrassing, while providing a couple of positive sound bites for the news. Still, the minority is there to make noise and trouble, while defining themselves and their issues, letting the American people see what they believe in. If Democrats show up for only fights they can win in this Congress, they'll be spending a lot of time at home.

All those emails and calls generated by the Internet that Senator Boxer received on the vote fraud issue are still having an effect. She solicited and got thousands of signatures on a petition in support of her questioning today, and granted interviews to a couple of prominent bloggers for their report on dkos.

Senator Obama engaged in questioning with a calm demeanor---Condi even looked a little smitten at times---and with his easy grasp of foreign policy issues, he seemed to have been on the Foreign Relations committee for years. Everyone knows he gives a great speech, but his questioning showed the same precision of language and attention to the essentials. He honed in immediately on two words in Rice's opening statement (terrorism and tyranny) and used them to frame his probing inquiries on a coherent policy for deciding when the U.S. will use its military---why in Irag and not the Sudan?

John Kerry returned to the cameras for his questioning as a committee member. We missed his first round, but his afternoon round was relatively detailed on nuclear proliferation issues. However, Kerry also issued a call to supporters via email to sign his petition in favor of demanding the resignation or firing of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.

what to wear for the inaugural

Eat, Drink and be Merry, for Tomorrow...

A few numbers for Bushies to chew on while they choke on their champagne at their obscene Inaugural parties, courtesy of the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll:

GW Bush has the lowest approval rating of any returning president since Nixon.

Only 44% believe his invasion of Iraq was a good idea.

They DISAPPROVE
on Bushies handling of Iraq 58%
of the economy 52%
of budget deficit 58%
of health care 51%
of social security 55%


Political Divisions Persist After Election (washingtonpost.com)

In other news...

Books on work and a Marquez memoir reviewed at Books In Heat

Notes on the Future of Star Trek at Soul of Star Trek

MLK

The Big Liars

To emphasize the quote in the post below about the Bushies going "all out," this New York Times story says they are enlisting the Social Security administration itself in their disinformation campaign. Ignoring the objections of people within the agency, they are politicizing the information function of an important program's administration to spread their lies about the imminent demise of Social Security benefits, unless the Bush plan to destroy Social Security saves it.

So not only are they trying to destroy Social Security in order to save it, they are forcing the Social Security administration to lie about their own program by saying they are failing when they aren't, so they can promote its destruction.

This needs to be an issue, because it seems like it should be illegal, and if it is, Social Security beneficiaries and payers into the system (which means just about all of us) may have standing to take the Bushies to court.

The New York Times > Washington > Social Security Enlisted to Push Its Own Revision

The New Big Lie

Two items stacked nicely today on T. Goddard's political wire:

President Bush "plans to reactivate his reelection campaign's network of donors and activists to build pressure on lawmakers" to pass his Social Security plan, the Washington Post reports."The campaign will use Bush's campaign-honed techniques of mass repetition, never deviating from the script and using the politics of fear to build support -- contending that a Social Security financial crisis is imminent when even Republican figures show it is decades away."

Bonus Quote of the Day"George Bush and the Republicans are going for broke. They know that a second-term president has no more than eighteen months to force his agenda through -- and they won't waste a minute." -- James Carville, quoted by the Washington Times.

From the folks who brought you WMD in Iraq, Saddam masterminding 9-11 and the Swift Boat Liars for Slander and ReElection, the drumbeat is going to be Social Security is going to hell, and the way to fix it is to destroy it. Sort of the Drill in the Alaskan Wildlife sanctuary philosophy on a grand scale.

It is a lie. There is no crisis, just a problem caused mostly by the fact that presidents like the Bushes have robbed the social security trust fund for such critical items as Star Wars and to line the pockets of their contributors. They are the real thieves and cheaters damaging social security.

So far the Bushie push isn't working. But it's no time to relax, as we learned in November. The Dems smell blood in the water but we all have to resist this Big Lie.

Steeler fan in London with the other Big Ben. If you don't know what that means you've never had a Roethlisburger. Hint: Go Steelers vs. Jets tomorrow.