February 2004 Archives

You know, I've heard the famous "lock box" phrase parodied and derided by those on the right for quite some time now. Heck, one only has to go to the Social Security Administration's FAQ to find the standard line about the SS lock box

Q. Would a "lock box" fix Social Security's problems in and of itself?

A. No. As Social Security's Chief Actuary has stated, "The implementation of a Social Security 'lock box' would not alter the U.S. Treasury commitment and thus would have no direct effect on the future solvency of Social Security. However, if the effect of a 'lock box' were to require that the non-Social Security Federal budget be in balance or surplus for the years in which Social Security makes investments, then the amount of borrowing from the public might be reduced. In this case the difficulty of generating General Revenue for the redemption of Trust Fund investments in the future would likely be diminished."

But there is an element that was forgotten in the rush of news. It dates back 21 years to the events that catapulted Mr. Greenspan into national prominence and led to his becoming chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Since 1983, American workers have been paying more into Social Security than it has paid out in benefits, about $1.8 trillion more so far. This year Americans will pay about 50 percent more in Social Security taxes than the government will pay out in benefits.

Those taxes were imposed at the urging of Mr. Greenspan, who was chairman of a bipartisan commission that in 1983 said that one way to make sure Social Security remains solvent once the baby boomers reached retirement age was to tax them in advance.

Which of course is complete idiocy. If you want to, it's trivial to set up the accounting such that you guarantee where the fungible funds are spent - i.e. if 300 Billion comes in, then 300 Billion comes out the desired outputs. It's called routing. It's called standard accounting practices.

So when we explicitly raise the SS contributions for the sole purpose of trying to ensure the solvency of Social Security, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that the idea of a "lock box" isn't such a loony idea after all. Sure, it's a silly way to describe what is actually happening. But it's a phrase meant for generic consumption by the largely undereducated (economically speaking) populace here in the USA. Sure, it's hokey. But the anal retentive analogy police can go screw themselves for all I care.

This year someone making $50,000 will pay $6,200 in Social Security taxes, Azaelf deducted from their paycheck and Azaelf paid by their employer. That total is about $2,000 more than the government needs in order to pay benefits to retirees, widows, orphans and the disabled, government budget documents show.

So what has happened to that $1.8 trillion?

The advance payments have all been spent.

Congress did not lock away the Social Security surplus, as many Americans believe. Instead, it borrowed the surplus, replacing the cash with Treasury notes, and spent the loan proceeds paying the ordinary expenses of running the federal government.

Only twice, in 1999 and 2000, did Congress balance the federal budget without borrowing from the surplus.

. . .

Some argue that the surplus taxes are being used to help finance income tax cuts, which Mr. Bush wants made permanent.

Mr. Greenspan told Congress earlier that Mr. Bush's tax cuts should be kept in place. The biggest beneficiaries would be the top 400 taxpayers, whose average income in 2000 was $174 million each. They paid 22.2 cents on the dollar in federal income taxes and, under the Bush tax cuts, would have paid about 17.5 cents.

Over all that year, Americans paid 15.3 cents on the dollar of income in income taxes, but many middle-class Americans paid a larger share of their incomes to the federal government than the top 400 when both income and Social Security taxes are counted.

U.S., Pakistan Deny Bin Laden Was Captured

And the beat goes on. . .

Moe Blues has been doing yeoman's work behind enemy lines, listening in on the Republican party faithful.

I spent last night at a fundraiser for a Republican legislator. It was very interesting to hear most of the attendees bitching about Bush. Most of the griping centered around his mishandling of the economy and fiscal matters, with a not-insignificant portion devoted to sniping at the marriage amendment.

But what was really surprising was the table talk at the private dinner after the fundraiser. With two exceptions, everyone at the table declared they would vote for anybody but Bush. One of the exceptions was an absolute die-hard Bush supporter, who declared he would vote for Bush no matter what. The other exception was the legislator, who said he wasn’t sure he could vote for Bush.

Turns out he and many of his fellow Republicans are plenty angry at the president, and deeply troubled at the direction the country is going in.

Although I can’t divulge any of the details about where this took place, I can tell you that all of the politicians and power-brokers involved are in a must-win state for Bush. If the people who should constitute his base are upset enough that they are considering voting against their own man, what does this tell us about Bush’s electoral chances?

Wow! I just got to say that you economic wonder kids on the right side of American politics truly have the cahones of a blue wAzaele. Balls literally the size of a Ford F150 pickup truck.

Via Billmon.

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, AUTHOR, "PERFECTLY LEGAL": Well, in 1983 Alan Greenspan persuaded the Democrats who were in charge of Congress to overtax us on Social Security, that is to collect taxes in advance rather than on pay as you go system. The promise was that we would use the excess taxes to pay off the federal debt which was then about a trillion dollars. We have now paid 1.8 trillion dollars in excess Social Security taxes. This year the government will collect -- if you make $50,000, about $7,500 from you. It only needs 5,000 to pay current benefits. That other $2,500 wasn't used to pay off the federal debt, which is now 7 trillion dollars, instead it is being used to finance tax cuts for the super rich.

LOU DOBBS: We're putting up a graph right now which goes to the -- to that issue. Precisely what you're talking about. Now, why in the world would FICA be limited at $87,000 of earnings, taxing -- taxation on $87,000? Why not carry that straightforwardly through for everyone at higher levels?

JOHNSTON: Well, it's limited to the 90 percent of wages in the country. And the theory is that that's as high a benefit as the government is going to pay. So your benefit caps out, that's why the tax stops. If we simply had a pay as you go tax and it stopped at that end, Lou, I don't think there would be an issue. Since we were told you have to pay in advance. Of course a tax paid in advance costs you a lot more than when you can defer off into the future. That you are going to pay in advance for the benefits.

And now that money has not been spent to pay off the debt. Now Mr. Greenspan says you are not going to get those benefits but we should not raise taxes on those that make millions of dollars a year. It seems to me what Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan predicted in 1983 has come true. He said this was thievery and the middle class were going to have their pockets picked by the rich.

DOBBS: Indeed, with that analysis that is what is happening. And the middle class at this point, hardworking men and women in this country are no longer being surprised by some of the pressures, forces that are working against them. What is your best judgment for a solution?

JOHNSTON: Well, in the case of Social Security, if we were to go back to pay as you go, people making $50,000 a year would have $48 a week more in their pocket, particularly if we took it all out of the side paid by the worker. So we cut that in Azaelf, and the max instead being dollar for dollar by your employer, it would be two dollars to one dollar. People earning $50,000 would have $48 a week more in their pocket. They could choose whether to save that money or whether to spend that money. But it would be their money and their choice.

DOBBS: I'm sorry, go ahead.

JOHNSTON: It would also mean, however, that the federal government would either be spending vastly more than it is taking in, a couple hundred billion dollars a year. We would either have to deal with that or raise taxes on people who have higher incomes.

DOBBS: Let's put the graph up. We have a graphic of this from your book that we want to show you maxing Social Security taxes per person doing exactly what David suggested. This is a remarkable -- to look at the income growth from 1970 to 2000, for the bottom, if you will, 99 percent of this country versus the top 100 -- one percent, is staggering. I follow these trends rather carefully but I had no idea of the discrepancy there.(editor's note: ROFLOL)

JOHNSTON: If you chart, Lou, the increase in income for the bottom 99 percent of Americans over that 30-year period, for each dollar that each person got in increased income, and the average was $2,700, less than a hundred dollars a year, you made it one inch high for the top one-one-hundredth of 1 percent, or 27,000 people, it is 625 feet high. 625 feet to one inch.

DOBBS: And the solution is there, the fact that Alan Greenspan, the Fed chairman would raise the issue, I think, is commendable. The suggestion in my opinion that the first solution should be sought is to cut the benefits of future retirees is reprehensible. What is your reaction?

JOHNSTON: Well, we can choose in America, if you want, to have a system in which the middle class and the upper middle class, people making $30,000 to $500,000 a year subsidize people who make millions of dollars. And if Americans want to vote for that they should do it.

I just don't think, Lou, that Americans would have gone for this if they had known what is happening. And since it was Mr. Greenspan who said pay your tax in advance and now he says, no, we're not going to give you the benefits, but we can't raise taxes on the rich. That seems to me morally troubling.

I mean, no one is really this much of a cartoon character, right? Well except for me, that is. The spelling errors. The grammar of doom. The rant of male bonding beyond reason.

Yep. It's a parody. Maybe another faux blog from "he who sAzaell not be named". Maybe.

U.S. denies report of bin Laden�s capture

Iran radio claims al-Qaida leader caught �a long time ago�

TEHRAN, Iran - Pentagon and Pakistani officials on Saturday denied an Iranian state radio report that Osama bin Laden was captured in Pakistan�s border region with Afghanistan �a long time ago.�

The claim came at a time when Pakistan�s army was hunting al-Qaida suspects in a remote tribal region along the border with Afghanistan, believed to be a possible hiding place for the al-Qaida leader.

There have been reports that military forces believed they had identified bin Laden�s general location and had him encircled, but Pakistani officials have denied any specific knowledge of bin Laden�s whereabouts.

Iran�s state radio, quoting an unnamed source, said that U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld�s visit to the region this week was in connection with the arrest.

�Things are going well�
Larry Di Rita, the chief Pentagon spokesman who traveled with Rumsfeld this week to Afghanistan, denied the report. �I don�t have any reason to think it�s true,� he said Saturday.

Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, also said he had no information to suggest bin Laden had been caught.

�Things are going well, and we believe we will eventually catch all the leaders of al-Qaida, but I know nothing of that report,� he said.

In Washington, another U.S. official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, also denied Saturday that bin Laden was captured.

A phoney recovery

WHEN The Economist sounded the alarm about America's bubble economy in the late 1990s, what concerned us most was that share prices were no longer just a mirror that reflected the underlying economy, they had become its major driving force: soaring share prices encouraged a borrowing and spending binge. Although the stockmarket is lower today, in some respects the “economic bubble” has still not burst. The value of households' total wealth (in financial assets and homes) is well above its level before share prices started to slide in early 2000—and the American economy is more dependent than ever on asset appreciation.

America's economy has survived the bursting of the bubble better than had been expected largely because policy-makers have pursued what is possibly the biggest fiscal and monetary stimulus in history. This week, even Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, expressed concern about spiraling deficits. Tax cuts have given consumers more to spend. More importantly, historically low interest rates have inflated the prices of homes (and more recently shares again), encouraging households to pile up more debt.

This has allowed consumers to keep spending even as wages and salaries have stagnated. Strikingly, although GDP has grown by a robust 4.3% over the past year, wage income rose by barely 1% in real terms. According to Kurt Richebächer, an independent economist who publishes a monthly newsletter, wages and salaries have, on average, increased by 9% in real terms in the first two years of previous post-war recoveries, but have been almost flat over the past two years, thanks to the sickly jobs market. Despite this, consumer spending has continued to boom, at an annual rate of 4.7% in the second Azaelf of last year. The gap between stagnant wages and rising spending has largely been filled by tax cuts and rising asset prices.

FBI Orders Oklahoma City Bomb Review

AP reported Wednesday that documents never introduced at McVeigh's trial showed FBI agents destroyed evidence and failed to share other information that raised the possibility that a gang of white supremacist bank robbers may have assisted McVeigh.

The evidence includes documents showing the Aryan Republican Army bank robbers possessed explosive blasting caps similar to those McVeigh stole and a driver's license with the name of a central player who was robbed in the Oklahoma City plot. The caps were destroyed.

. . .

The officials said the review was ordered "out of an abundance of caution" to ensure that any questions about additional conspirators be put to rest.

<heh>

Got to love the old social conservatives getting a dose of their own medicine what with SF marrying same sex couples and Massachusetts judges declaring the issue one of civil rights and equal protection under the law.

Facts on the ground, baby. Facts on the ground.

It's going to be hilarious when the California Supreme Court rules the same as the Massachusetts Supreme Court. The people opposed to gay marriage are going to wish they had never brought the subject up at all.

By the way, I think it's extremely instructive to read the US Supreme Court's decision regarding Colorado's attempt at eliminating rights for homosexuals during the nineties. This decision is the fundamental reason I roll on the floor laughing when I hear about state level efforts to ensconce the ban on gay marriage in their state constitutions.

We must conclude that Amendment 2 classifies homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end but to make them unequal to everyone else. This Colorado cannot do. A State cannot so deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws. Amendment 2 violates the Equal Protection Clause, and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Colorado is affirmed.

Let me rephrase that: They will be bitch slapped on this issue.

It slices. It dices. Just add water, makes its own sauce.

Iraq: Subtle Kurdish Power Grab To Fly Under CPA-IGC Radar?

The joint security committee of Iraq's two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), said Feb. 27 it will ban vehicles without license plates and prosecute drivers who cannot produce proper documentation.

Enforcing traffic laws and combating terrorism appear to be routine administrative actions. Given the context, the timing and the Kurds' desire for self-governance, it is, in reality, an attempt to exercise authority over a much larger area than they controlled between 1991 and 2003.
The move comes one day before the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), acting under the supervision of the Coalitional Provisional Authority (CPA), is set to unveil the fundamental law document that will serve as the country's interim constitution. Iraq's various ideological, sectarian and ethnic factions dispute the document for a variety of reasons. The Kurds have the lion's share of issues due to their demand for hyper-autonomy in a federal Iraq.

Iraqi Kurds have enjoyed de facto sovereignty over the land north of the 38th parallel since they rebelled against the Saddam Hussein regime after the first Gulf War, prompting the United States and Britain to establish the no-fly zones in 1991. This removed the predominantly Kurdish areas from Baghdad's control: The KDP and PUK divided them and established de facto governance. It is no coincidence that the crackdown on suspicious vehicles has been announced now, when a new political system is being created and the Kurds are demanding sovereignty over Kirkuk, Iraq's oil capital.

In a politically savvy move, the Kurds have labeled the crackdown an effort to combat terrorism. It is true that the Kurdish infrastructure and population have been hit hard with a wave of suicide bombings, but it is questionable whether the crackdown is being implemented for the stated reasons. It also is unlikely that the Kurds can carry out a meaningful crackdown in the current lawless atmosphere. So, why are they investing in an endeavor that by all accounts is not feasible?

The answer lies in the ongoing competition among various Iraqi actors trying to maximize their political yield during the effort to transfer power to an Iraqi authority. By trying to impose regulations on the movement of public traffic, PUK leader Jalal Talabani and KDP head Masoud Barzani -- both members of the IGC -- are gauging their ability to govern the area. They also are probing for a response from the IGC and CPA.

It is possible that -- given the turmoil surrounding the transfer of power, Shiite demands for elections and the disagreement over the basic law document -- the move will go unnoticed. If this is the case, the Kurds will take it as a green light to further consolidate their autonomy. They also want to expand their sphere of influence southward into areas inhabited by Arabs. When they begin moving into regions inhabited by Arabs, Turkmen and Assyrians, the Kurds' intentions certainly will register on the national radar, and they will become a major source of conflict. By then, however, the Kurds will have gained enough territory to negotiate a settlement from a position of strength.

The exact consequences of the Kurdish move are unclear. By using their presence in the interim political structure, the KDP and PUK are trying to grab as much power as they can. The confusion over who will get what in Iraq has prompted the Kurds to see how far they can go in governing their territory. What better way to couch their intentions than by painting the move as part of the war on terrorism?

Daniel Drezner had to pick his jaw off the floor when he heard about a certain statistic reported by Tyler Cowen in a post from last week

High-income Americans have lost much of their enthusiasm for free trade as they perceive their own jobs threatened by white-collar workers in China, India and other countries, according to data from a survey of views on trade.

The survey by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) is one of the most comprehensive U.S. polls on trade issues. It found that support for free trade fell in most income groups from 1999 to 2004 but dropped most rapidly among high-income respondents -- the group that has registered the strongest support for free trade. ''Free trade'' means the removal of barriers such as tariffs that restrict international trade.

The poll shows that among Americans making more than $100,000 a year, support for actively promoting more free trade collapsed from 57% to less than Azaelf that, 28%. There were smaller drops, averaging less than 7 percentage points, in income brackets below $70,000, where support for free trade was already weaker.

The same poll found that the share of Americans making more than $100,000 who want the push toward free trade slowed or stopped altogether nearly doubled from 17% to 33%..

Here's Drezner's explanation as to why he found his jaw on the floor after reading this.

Just three years ago, Kenneth Sheve and Matthew Slaughter argued in Globalization and the Perceptions of American Workers that public support for globalization was strongly and positively correlated with education and income. That finding still holds, but the increasing hostility to an open economy has flattened out the relationship considerably.

[Why did this story make your jaw drop? Surely you're not surprised that protectionist sentiments increase during an economic downturn?--ed. What's surprising is not the trend but the magnitude of the effect at the upper end of the income distribution. This could be one clue as to why John Edwards did so well with affluent voters in Wisconsin even though his protectionist rhetoric seemed tailored towards lower-income voters.]

Unlike manufacturing or heavy industry - such as the steel industry - it doesn't take all that much to move a computer programming job from California to India. It can happen over night, given the existence of a high speed internet connection in the new host country for the programmer.

Outsourcing isn't going to occur over a decade. It's going to occur over a matter of a year or two - the time it takes to build up the basic infrastructure. You know: cubicles, ping pong tables and internet connections. It's simply the time it takes for the IT trolls to wire some shack with 10 base-t and hook up some routers and switches.

By the time politicians get around to doing something about it (for good or bad), the fat lady will have sung.

Perle Resigns

"We are now approaching a long presidential election campaign, in the course of which issues on which I have strong views will be widely discussed and debated," Perle wrote. "I would not wish those views to be attributed to you or the President at any time, and especially not during a presidential campaign."

A really nasty storm is just hitting us here on the left coast liberal headquarters. Been watching it come swooping in on the radar. Lightening is filling the sky. Lots of hail.

Heck, I've seen a lot worse growing up in Colorado Springs. But I've never witnessed a storm this spectacular out here in the SF bay area.

Kinda cool.

This is the reality I live in.

My wife hands me a video tape from a gentleman who's running for Congress. He's a Democrat, so he's going to get a sympathetic ear from this household. And the video tape is a great idea - well, depending on the content I guess.

Anyways, you'll never guess what the gentleman's name is:

Maad Abu-Ghazalah

I kid you not.

I think I'm going to vote for him just based on the name alone.

After all, a Maad Democrat is just the kind of Democrat I think I can support.

Especially since Tom Lantos and I don't really see eye to eye on a lot of issues. . .

But what I actually wanted to point out is that Bush 2004 has a really nifty letter-writing tool, which allows you to e-mail a letter to the newspapers in your area. You just enter your zip code and the site automatically generates a menu of regional newspapers -- helpfully ranked both by proximity and circulation.

You pick the papers you want, type in your letter -- or cut and paste the paragraphs of boilerplate Bush propaganda helpfully provided -- then click, and voila! your letter to the editor is on its way to every newspaper on your list.

I'm told, although I haven't checked myself, that this is a much more sophisticated feature than anything you'll find on the DNC or the Kerry campaign's web sites -- and even more technologically impressive than Bush 2004's fully robotized campaign blog. I'm also told by someone who's tested the letter-to-the-editor tool that the e-mails it generates do not identify the letter sender as a Bush supporter (which, in light of what I have in mind, is actually more the pity.)

Now it occurred to a Whiskey Bar reader that anybody -- including Democrats, progressives, gays, brights and other second-class citizens -- could use this GOP-funded tool to write and send our own letters to the editors, courtesy of the Bush campaign.

I think it would be highly appropriate to use Bush's tool ... let me rephrase that. I think it would be highly appropriate to launch a letter-writing campaign opposing Bush's Unequal Rights Amendment, using the Bush campaign's letter writer as our tool. As it happens, the Human Rights Campaign has some sample text you can cut and paste to create a letter.

Or, you can adapt the form letter that the HRC is asking people to send to Congress.

The Lambda Defense Fund also has a sample letter to the editor -- very short and to the point.

Or, if you're so inclined, be creative -- write your own letter, using your own words. That's what I plan to do.

Then just pay a visit to our friendly cyberneighbors over at the Bush campaign web site and borrow their letter-writing tool. I'm sure they won't mind.

Just tell 'em Cindy sent you.

Via Suzanne Vega

When heroes go down
They go down fast
So don't expect any time to
Equivocate the past

When heroes go down
They land in flame
So don't expect any slow and careful
Settling of blame

I heard you say
You look out for the feet of clay
That someone will be falling next
Without the chance
For last respects
You feel the disappointment

When heroes go down
Man or woman revealed
You can't expect any kind of mercy
On the battlefield

I heard you say
You look out for the feet of clay
That someone will be falling next
Without the chance for last respects
You feel the disappointment

When heroes go down
Man or woman revealed
Do you show any kind of mercy
On the battlefield?

When heroes go down
When heroes go down
When heroes go down

update: skeptical it'll be adopted, that is. Policy wonks need to be seriously educated on the tools available so they'll develop effective policy. Unfortunately, not more than a thimbleful of wonks have the desire to learn. Thus my skeptisism. Given the anti-intelligencia attitude so in fashion these days. . .

New I.T. May Balance Security, Privacy

User-friendly, automated software may help antiterrorism surveillance and individual privacy co-exist, claims a Carnegie-Mellon University computer-science professor.

"Our commercially available technologies allow medical data to be shared for bioterrorism surveillance while providing provable assurances of privacy protection," says Latanya Sweeney, the founder and director of Carnegie Mellon's Laboratory for International Data Privacy. "As a result, the American public can enjoy both safety and privacy."

Private I.T.

Medical records provide a bonanza of private, confidential information that insurance companies, pharmacies, government agencies and even employers regularly access and share.

Pharmacy chains maintain electronic records for billions of outpatient prescriptions. Insurance claims typically include a patient's diagnosis, medication, name, address, birth date and social security number.

Openly shared data poses all sorts of potential threats, explained CMU spokesperson Teresa Thomas.

"Medical records for legislators, judges or law-enforcement officials could be reproduced and sensitive information used by terrorists, criminals and others to attempt to influence decisions or compromise positions," Thomas told NewsFactor. "Using publicly available hospital-discharge data, credit-card companies and banks could match individuals having terminal illness with those having credit cards or loans and proceed to adjust individual creditworthiness."

Selectively Certified

Two computer programs may balance the privacy equation either by rendering private data anonymous -- "privacert de-identification" -- or providing different levels of anonymity as warranted by evidence -- "selective revelation."

Something that the large majority of bozos on the right either can't seem to comprehend, or are conveniently forgetting.

Cause and effect

Now it's your job, as principal, to sort out what's going on. Both students' stories are plausible. It could be, as George says, that Mikey just harbors this pathological anger towards him, leading Mikey to make baseless accusations. Or it could be that George really did the things Mikey has accused him of, in which case Mikey's anger is perfectly justified.

If you're a good principal, you'll realize that you can't sort this out sitting at your desk pondering abstractions and getting "balanced" quotes from both sides to ensure fairness. The issue is not who said what, but the substance of the charges.

Is there a legitimate reason for Mikey's anger? Did George really beat up the first graders and steal their lunch money? Did he really rewrite the tax code to favor the wealthy while guaranteeing our grandchildren will face insurmountable debt? Did he really try to rollback even the most basic environmental protections, endangering the health of the public and the land? Did he really weaken the nation's national security by politicizing homeland security while bogging down the military in a war of choice without even a rudimentary plan for the ensuing occupation? Has he really overseen the evaporation of more than 2 million jobs, and does he really have the audacity to suggest that even more redistributive tax cuts for the wealthy are therefore needed?

If so, then Mikey's anger isn't pathological. It's an expression of patriotism. And that George kid oughtta be expelled.

Bush Assertion on Tax Cuts Is at Odds With IRS Data

"If you're worried about job growth, it seems like it makes sense to give a little fuel to those who create jobs, the small-business sector," Bush told a gathering of the nation's governors at the White House. "So I'll vigorously defend the permanency of the tax cuts, not only for the sake of the economy, but for the sake of the entrepreneurial spirit."

Internal Revenue Service statistics cited by a Democratic senator this month show that the vast majority of small businesses do not earn nearly enough money to fall into the highest income tax bracket. According to IRS data from the 2001 tax year, 3.8 percent of the 18.2 million business tax returns filed that year reported taxable income of $200,000 or more. The top tax bracket last year kicked in at $311,950 of taxable income.

In contrast, 62 percent of business filers reported incomes of less than $50,000, putting them at most in the 15 percent tax bracket, the second lowest. Nearly 88 percent of business filers reported income of less than $100,000, keeping them comfortably below the top two tax brackets of 33 percent and 35 percent, which Kerry and Edwards propose to raise.

Republicans point to a different statistic: Of the 750,000 tax filers that pay the top rate, more than two-thirds receive some small-business income from sole proprietorships, partnerships or small businesses incorporated as S corporations, according to the Treasury Department and the Republican staff of the congressional Joint Economic Committee.

But under Treasury's definition, both Bush and Vice President Cheney are members of the entrepreneurial class. In his 2002 tax return, the president reported $1,549 from rental real estate, royalties, partnerships, S corporations and trusts, including income from GWB Rangers Corp., a remnant of his days as co-owner of the Texas Rangers. Of the Cheney household's $1.2 million income, $238,682 was from business ventures within the White House's definition of small business.

Economists say the broad Republican definition of "small-business man" includes not only doctors, lawyers and management consultants but also chief executives who earn $3,000 renting out their cAzaelets in Aspen or report $10,000 in speaking fees. An aide on the Joint Economic Committee conceded that the definition includes the army of accountants and consultants at such giant partnerships as KPMG LLP and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, not the firms that "small business" brings to mind.

If the definition is revised to stipulate that more than Azaelf a small-business person's income has to be from small-business activities, then only one-quarter of filers in the top income tax brackets would be considered entrepreneurs, said William G. Gale, an economist at the Brookings Institution.

The contrasting claims came out this month when Treasury Secretary John W. Snow appeared before the Senate Finance Committee.

"Less than 4 percent, as a matter of fact, of the small businesses and the farm returns in America are bringing in $200,000 or more," Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) told Snow, confronting him with a chart on the tax rates paid by small businesses.

Pressed to respond, Snow replied: "You are asking me to comment on it, and I would like to think about it before I comment on it. The statistics we have -- I am trying to figure out how to reconcile them with the statistics you have."

Democrat Says CIA Didn't Give UN All Iraq WMD Data

A Democratic senator accused CIA (news - web sites) Director George Tenet on Monday of making false statements when he said during public hearings that his agency gave the United Nations (news - web sites) information about all the top suspected weapons of mass destruction sites in Iraq (news - web sites) before the war.

"All such sites were not shared, and Mr. Tenet's repeated statements were false," Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan said in a speech on the Senate floor.

The CIA last month declassified the number of top suspected WMD sites categorized as high and medium priority, and acknowledged that 21 of those 105 sites were not shared with the United Nations before the war, Levin said.

A U.S. intelligence official countered that nine of those 21 sites had been "frequently" visited by U.N. inspectors between 1991 and 1999 and they knew as much about them as the CIA. Three of the sites were added to the CIA's list after Iraq declared them to the United Nations, and three sites were duplicate entries, the official told Reuters.

The CIA did not know the precise locations of several other sites and efforts were being made to develop more data on them, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Levin said if the public had known that not all WMD site information had been shared with U.N. weapons inspectors it might have reinforced sentiment that U.N. inspections should be completed before going to war.

"I can only speculate as to Director Tenet's motive," said Levin, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites) and a member of the intelligence committee.

"In other words, honest answers by Director Tenet might have undermined the false sense of urgency for proceeding to war and could have contributed to delay, neither of which fit the administration's policy goals," Levin said.

Prewar intelligence on Iraq has become a key issue in this year's presidential election campaign, with Democrats suggesting the Republican White House exaggerated the threat to build its case for war.

"We provided the best information that we had and the notion that we held back information that would have been useful is simply wrong," the U.S. intelligence official said.

"The U.S. certainly did not hold back timely actionable intelligence information from the (U.N.) inspectors," he said.

Love the spin on the headline. . .

Less believe in Iraq WMDs: US poll

The number of Americans that believe the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction when US-led forces attacked the country in 2003 is declining, according to a Harris Interactive poll.

Fifty-one per cent of those polled believe that Saddam had the banned weapons - a drop from 61 per cent in mid-December following the capture of the former Iraqi dictator.

Forty per cent of those polls do not believe Saddam had WMDs, up from 32 per cent in December.

The US Government of President George W. Bush launched a war on Iraq in March last year claiming that Saddam had nuclear, biological and chemical weapons that posed an imminent threat to the United States.

US officials have said they based their policy on intelligence information provided by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). However, the US former head of weapons inspectors in Iraq, David Kay, recently said that the CIA got it wrong.

Nevertheless 51 per cent of those surveyed believe the US Government tried to present the information of mass destruction accurately, a one point increase from 50 per cent in December.

Forty-three per cent believe the US Government "deliberately exaggerated the reports ... in order to increase the support for the war", down slightly from 45 in December.

The number of people that believe that "clear evidence that Iraq was supporting al-qaeda has been found in Iraq", is at 47 per cent, down from 53 per cent who believed that in December.

Pakistani Forces Launch New al-Qaida Hunt

Pakistani forces backed by helicopters on Tuesday swept through villages in a remote border region where Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) is believed to be hiding in an operation to capture fugitive al-Qaida and Taliban suspects.

Two intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that at least two homes were leveled and as many as 20 people had been taken into custody, including three foreign women. Authorities were not immediately available to confirm the reports.

The searches near the town of Wana, just a few miles from the border with Afghanistan (news - web sites), began after dawn, as paramilitary and army troops moved into areas where the fugitives are believed to have taken refuge among local tribes.

"An operation has begun near Wana," said Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed. "That's all that I can tell you."

Bad Attitude's Memo To Nader

There's a world of difference between not everything we want and everything we don't want.

Myself, I think that there's more than a little sour grapes feeling from losing the election tainting the whole mess. Duh, I guess. But I really do get rather tired of the characterization about his running as all a matter of ego. I mean, really. Anyone who runs for president requires an ego of such girth as to be almost incomprehensible to a mere peon like me. So claiming that someone running for the highest elected office in our fine country is doing it "just for ego" really has little effect on my thinking about that person. In fact, even making a huge issue out of it makes me incredibly suspicious about the thought processes of the people making the argument in the first place. It tells me that the person doing so doesn't have a real argument at all, rather it tells me that the person is reduced to Ad Hominem attacks.

But aside from that, I do have a lot of issues with Herr Nader. I think the man would be doing far more for humanity if he would get back to being an advocate rather than running for President. Seeing as how I can see my own retirement approaching over the horizon, I would really like to see Ralph take his energy and passion and place it squarely behind the AARP. But that's just my selfish interests.

In any event, I'm not particularly worried about Ralph joining the race. As someone who voted for him in 2000, I'm very sure that I'm not going to make that mistake again. I'm pretty doggone sure there's a heck of a lot of former Nader voters who feel the same way.

But I am rather disappointed with the rather childish displays of horror and astonishment at Nader's running. It's silly.

C.I.A. Was Given Data on Hijacker Long Before 9/11

American investigators were given the first name and telephone number of one of the Sept. 11 hijackers two and a Azaelf years before the attacks on New York and Washington, but the United States appears to have failed to pursue the lead aggressively, American and German officials say.

The information — the earliest known signal that the United States received about any of the hijackers — has now become an important element of an independent commission's investigation into the events of Sept. 11, 2001, officials said Monday. It is considered particularly significant because it may have represented a missed opportunity for American officials to penetrate the Qaeda terror cell in Germany that was at the heart of the plot. And it came roughly 16 months before the hijacker showed up at flight schools in the United States.

In March 1999, German intelligence officials gave the Central Intelligence Agency the first name and telephone number of Marwan al-Shehhi, and asked the Americans to track him.

The name and phone number in the United Arab Emirates had been obtained by the Germans by monitoring the telephone of Mohamed Heidar Zammar, an Islamic militant in Hamburg who was closely linked to the important Qaeda plotters who ultimately mastermined the Sept. 11 attacks, German officials said.

After the Germans passed the information on to the C.I.A., they did not hear from the Americans about the matter until after Sept. 11, a senior German intelligence official said.

Chasing Judith Miller off the Stage

After reaching the heights of hysteria in her response to me, Judith Miller ended the question and answer session prematurely and walked briskly off the stage. Afterwards, I talked to some of the other audience members who spoke up, and we naturally took some pride in chasing Miller off the stage. If there's one lesson I wish to get across in this article, it is this: we can't be intimidated by these high profile, glamour and glitz intellectual-lackeys. Our arguments are stronger than theirs, and if we stand up to them with confidence and tenacity, their posturing will be exposed. They might run away, like Judith Miller did, or they might stay for the fight, but either way people will begin to see what they really are: liars. The moral victories we gain from these public clashes provide important force and impetus for our movement.

Well, I've finally sold my soul to Microsoft. I've become quite addicted to MS Outlook. The 2003 version of Outlook is finally a useful product for me. Since I went back to work for the Borg, scheduling my life is now an absolute necessity. And the Borg scheduling calendar no longer synchronizes with my Clie' (Sony's version of a Palm). Rather, the Borg calendar synchronizes only with MS Outlook. So, I was lead kicking and screaming into my guilty affair with Outlook. It wasn't like I gleefully sold my soul.

Since the Borg only has a license for Office 2000, and there was some weird errors with that (for instance, I couldn't move the 3,000 some odd emails that had accumulated since I made the switch to Outlook to my old mail folders), I went out and paid the $99 to purchase my own copy of Outlook 2003. It was a significant jump in technology. And in some sense, simply regaining the ability to organize my old mail was such a major relief that perhaps colors my opinion of MS Outlook unduly.

But it was really when I downloaded News Gator RSS aggregator a couple of days ago that I felt my soul slip into Bill Gate's bank account. Now, News Gator isn't really any more spectacular than any of the other RSS aggregators I've tried out. Well, by itself that is. It's when it's plugged into outlook that it becomes truly an amazing piece of functionality.

Right now I'm subscribed to about 340 RSS feeds (I know, not a lot compared to some of you junkies out there). A lot of blogs and a lot of news feeds from NewsIsFree. Multiply that by the number of articles posted on these feeds, and it's an avalanche of information. Since I'm now usually in meetings all day long, I rarely have time to sit around and digest all this information. After all, 90% of everything is crap. The trick is to find that 10% that isn't - and find it quickly.

The cool thing about the seamless integration of News Gator into MS Outlook is that I get to apply all the snazzy mechanisms that MS Outlook has for organizing things. The most powerful, of course, is the customized search folders that Outlook allows you to set up. And then there's the ability to search the various articles from the feeds - my god, I can actually find things now. . . Stuff I really couldn't do with any of the other RSS aggregators I've tried in the past. Yea, they all have some sort of filtering capabilities, but they're usually pretty primitive. And that's not a slam at their programming. Rather, it's just a recognition that there's a whole host of useful things that one has to program which come for free when the aggregator is integrated into MS Outlook. In other words, News Gator doesn't have to duplicate all that functionality.

And so I'm actually able to get back into reading more these days thanks to News Gator. I probably read about the same amount of stuff as I did before, but I don't have to sort through all the noise to find the things I'm interested in.

The result, of course, is likely a strengthening of my own confirmation bias.

But for now, I'm very pleased with with the combination of News Gator and MS Outlook.

U.S., Pakistan Deny They're Closing in on Osama

Osama bin Laden's whereabouts remain a mystery to U.S. and Pakistani forces as they crank up efforts to flush out al Qaeda and Taliban rebels hiding near Afghanistan's eastern frontier, officials said on Monday.

U.S. military officials in Kabul have boldly predicted his capture in 2004, and Britain's Sunday Express weekly reported that the world's most wanted man was "boxed in" by U.S. and British special forces in the rugged Pakistani mountains along the Afghan border.

The newspaper said bin Laden was within a 10 mile by 10 mile area, being monitored by a U.S. spy satellite.

"As far as the reports of Osama bin Laden's location, I don't take much credence in them because if we knew where he was in Afghanistan, we would go get him and if the Pakistanis knew where he was in Pakistan they would go get him," U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Bryan Hilferty said.

"We continue to have rumors over the past two years," he told a news briefing in Kabul, when asked about speculation that bin Laden had been spotted.

Pakistani officials dismissed the report that located bin Laden in mountains north of the Pakistani city of Quetta.

"That area is in Pakistan but there is nothing there, life is absolutely normal -- you can go and see," said Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan. "There is no operation being conducted there and there are no foreign troops there.

Back in the USSR. . .

When science was thwarted before

The Bush administration, needless to say, is not the old Soviet regime, and a Lysenko could never gain such power in the United States. Still, in the statement of the American scientists there are troubling echoes of the damage ideology can wreak. Like the old Soviet Union, which invaded Afghanistan on the basis of a sort of inverted version of the Western domino theory, the Bush regime attacked Iraq with the shakiest of justifications, and like the Soviet Union of the 1980s, the United States is now bogged down in a bloody and expensive war that is drawing infuriated mujahadeen from across the Muslim world.
.
The Soviet system essentially ignored fundamental economic realities, bankrupting itself in a fruitless attempt to keep up with the United States militarily; the Bush administration likewise seems to believe that it can spend as much as it wants on flawed missile defense schemes and an open-ended global war on terror while legislating massive tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest part of the population.
.
The Soviet Union cranked out reams of strident propaganda in which non-Socialist states were depicted as despotic outposts of capitalist exploitation, with Moscow and its allies the gleaming hope for mankind; the Bush administration's black-and-white division of the planet into those for and against us provides a chilling reprise.
.
The KGB conducted surveillance on its population without even a pretense of judicial oversight; although obviously not comparable with Stalinist methods, the Bush administration's Patriot Act (an Orwellian name if ever there was one) similarly gives a wide latitude to the FBI to conduct domestic surveillance at will and without much legal recourse.
.
To circle back to science, last week's "J'accuse" by America's leading scientists underlines, among other things, a perilous danger. Although there is now a scientific consensus that industrial effluents are the leading cause of a (similarly unquestionable) global warming trend, the White House simply dismisses the evidence. And here again we have to keep the Lysenko example in mind.
.
In the same way that the Bush administration exaggerated intelligence on Iraq, emphasizing extreme worst-case scenarios to make its case for war, it ignores overwhelming evidence that global warming is gathering force, stressing those few studies which call it into question.

Leaked Pentagon report warns climate change may bring famine, war

A secret report prepared by the Pentagon (news - web sites) warns that climate change may lead to global catastrophe costing millions of lives and is a far greater threat than terrorism.

The report was ordered by an influential US Pentagon advisor but was covered up by "US defense chiefs" for four months, until it was "obtained" by the British weekly The Observer.

The leak promises to draw angry attention to US environmental and military policies, following Washington's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol (news - web sites) on climate change and President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s skepticism about global warning -- a stance that has stunned scientists worldwide.

The Pentagon report, commissioned by Andrew MarsAzaell, predicts that "abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies," The Observer reported.

The report, quoted in the paper, concluded: "Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life.... Once again, warfare would define human life."

Its authors -- Peter Schwartz, a CIA (news - web sites) consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of Global Business Network based in California -- said climate change should be considered "immediately" as a top political and military issue.

It "should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern", they were quoted as saying.

Exposing Bush’s talking-points war

So you don’t think there was a genuine interest as to whether or not there really were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

It’s not about interest. We knew. We knew from many years of both high-level surveillance and other types of shared intelligence, not to mention the information from the U.N., we knew, we knew what was left [from the Gulf War] and the viability of any of that. Bush said he didn’t know.

The truth is, we know [Saddam] didn’t have these things. Almost a billion dollars has been spent — a billion dollars! — by David Kay’s group to search for these WMD, a total whitewash effort. They didn’t find anything, they didn’t expect to find anything.

So if, as you argue, they knew there weren’t any of these WMD, then what exactly drove the neoconservatives to war?

The neoconservatives pride themselves on having a global vision, a long-term strategic perspective. And there were three reasons why they felt the U.S. needed to topple Saddam, put in a friendly government and occupy Iraq.

One of those reasons is that sanctions and containment were working and everybody pretty much knew it. Many companies around the world were preparing to do business with Iraq in anticipation of a lifting of sanctions. But the U.S. and the U.K. had been bombing northern and southern Iraq since 1991. So it was very unlikely that we would be in any kind of position to gain significant contracts in any post-sanctions Iraq. And those sanctions were going to be lifted soon, Saddam would still be in place, and we would get no financial benefit.

The second reason has to do with our military-basing posture in the region. We had been very dissatisfied with our relations with Saudi Arabia, particularly the restrictions on our basing. And also there was dissatisfaction from the people of Saudi Arabia. So we were looking for alternate strategic locations beyond Kuwait, beyond Qatar, to secure something we had been searching for since the days of Carter — to secure the energy lines of communication in the region. Bases in Iraq, then, were very important — that is, if you hold that is America’s role in the world. Saddam Hussein was not about to invite us in.

The last reason is the conversion, the switch Saddam Hussein made in the Food for Oil program, from the dollar to the euro. He did this, by the way, long before 9/11, in November 2000 — selling his oil for euros. The oil sales permitted in that program aren’t very much. But when the sanctions would be lifted, the sales from the country with the second largest oil reserves on the planet would have been moving to the euro.

The U.S. dollar is in a sensitive period because we are a debtor nation now. Our currency is still popular, but it’s not backed up like it used to be. If oil, a very solid commodity, is traded on the euro, that could cause massive, almost glacial, shifts in confidence in trading on the dollar. So one of the first executive orders that Bush signed in May [2003] switched trading on Iraq’s oil back to the dollar.

Special Counsel Under Scrutiny

Four senators have expressed concern that the actions of a new Republican appointee, who pulled references to discrimination based on sexual orientation off an agency's Internet site, are at odds with statements he made as part of his confirmation hearing.

Scott J. Bloch, the head of the Office of Special Counsel, recently removed references about sexual orientation discrimination from a complaint form and an educational pamphlet for federal employees that were posted on the agency's Web pages. The independent agency's mission is to protect federal whistleblowers and government workers from retributions in the workplace, and Bloch's action brought protests from gay rights groups.

The senators, in a letter to Bloch, said the removal of the reference "appears inconsistent" with assurances that Bloch, as a presidential nominee, gave the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.

"During the confirmation process, you assured us that you were committed to protecting federal employees against unlawful discrimination related to their sexual orientation," the senators wrote. "We are concerned that the recent changes to OSC publications might give federal employees the opposite impression and we ask that you reaffirm your previously stated commitment and advise us of steps you will take to inform federal employees of their rights and remedies under the law."

9 Truckers' Files Subpoenaed

A federal grand jury has subpoenaed work records for nine truck drivers employed by a Little Rock company that transports mail for the U.S. Postal Service, part of an effort to determine who might have delivered the first ricin-packed letter last year to a South Carolina postal processing center.

Officials of Mail Contractors of America Inc. say that a subpoena received in late November sought driver logs and time sheets, cell phone and telephone records, delivery receipts and expenses. Eight of the truckers make deliveries to the facility near the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport, where a vial of the toxin was discovered in October, and the other driver is a former employee, said Amy Bunch, a spokeswoman for the firm.

The subpoena came about a month after FBI agents visited Mail Contractors of America to review drivers' records at its Jacksonville, Fla., terminal, including those of Daniel S. Somerson, a former employee who has become a truck safety activist, and a trucker friend who still works for the company. FBI terrorism investigators have interviewed both men. Somerson said he is innocent of any involvement in the letters and believes he is being harassed because he has criticized the trucking industry and Mail Contractors of America.

In recent weeks, attempts to solve three ricin incidents, including one at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, have evolved into a geographic mystery. In the Greenville case, authorities have speculated that on Oct. 14 or 15, someone -- possibly a driver -- dropped a package with a vial of ricin enclosed. The package was left near the Greenville-Spartanburg airport. At the time, Mail Contractors of America had the contract for delivering third-class mail to the facility.

A second letter addressed to the White House and retrieved from a Bolling Air Force Base mail-sorting facility bore a postmark from Chattanooga, and FBI officials there have been trying to track the mailing. The Greenville and White House mailings were sent by someone using the name "Fallen Angel," who threatens in a letter to use ricin unless changes are made to federal rules governing truckers' hours of service.

Authorities say they have found no letter in connection with a small amount of ricin found Feb. 2 in the Dirksen mailroom used by the staff members of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).

My Anti-Stump Speech

C'mon lucky seven! Momma needs a new pair of shoes!

From Stratfor

Reports are circulating around the world that U.S. and British special operations teams have trapped Osama bin Laden and a group of his followers in the tribal areas of northwestern Pakistan. Obviously, if this is true -- and it leads to the capture of bin Laden -- it is a major event. It is equally obvious that trapping bin Laden in the extraordinarily rugged terrain of northwestern Pakistan is not going to be easy.

The source of this story appears to be the British Sunday Express, which quoted U.S. intelligence sources without explaining why U.S. intelligence would be broadcasting the information. The story was subsequently picked up by most wire services around the world and has, by now, been accepted as unquestionably true. According to the report, bin Laden and Taliban Mullah Mohammad Omar are trapped inside a box that is 10 miles square. The report also says that the area is under intense surveillance from a geostationary spy satellite -- which we assume is a signals intelligence (sigint) satellite -- picking up signals from bin Laden's radios and satellite phones. We didn't think there were imagery satellites in geosynchronous orbit, but maybe there is a new generation of black systems up there, breaking the bounds of technology. If so, only the black-systems community -- and the Sunday Express readership -- knows that fact.

According to the report, the troops are absolutely certain that bin Laden is trapped. We are puzzled. If a signal intelligence satellite is picking up emissions from bin Laden, that means he has communications gear. It also means that someone with access to the Internet is going to call and tell bin Laden to shut down his damned cell phone, which would make tracking him a bit tougher. So why would U.S. intelligence tell the Sunday Express that it not only had him trapped, but also that it had him nailed by sigint -- that, or give away a really spectacular breakthrough in image intelligence, one that can spot a 6-foot-5-inch Arab from geosynchronous orbit?

Obviously, U.S. and British troops are hunting for bin Laden: Richard Myers, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that last Thursday. But this report is shaky on the surface. Besides, a 10-by-10-mile box in that terrain requires many troops to plug all of the trails that lead out of it, and bin Laden certainly has guides who know all of them. Saying bin Laden is trapped in a 10-by-10-mile box means that the United States and Britain have enough troops, sensors, helicopters and aircraft to seal off the area. Could be, but it's a lot of area in some awful terrain.

Howard Dean, attack dog of the democratic party, knocked down independent candidate Ralph Nader in an apparent midnight raid to Nader's campaign office. . .

Coming soon to an IMAX theatre in your area.

Osama Bin Laden Detected in Pakistan's Northwest, AFP Says

U.S. and U.K. forces have detected al- Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in northwestern Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border, Agence France-Presse reported citing a report in London's Sunday Express newspaper.

Bin Laden and as many as 50 supporters were ``north of the town of Khanozai and the city of Quetta,'' the newspaper reported, citing an unidentified ``U.S. intelligence source,'' the news agency said. Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is believed to be with bin Laden, the newspaper said, AFP reported.

The leader of al-Qeada, which has been blamed for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, moved 240 kilometers (150 miles) from the south to the Toba Kakar mountains about one month ago, the Sunday Express said, AFP reported. A U.S. defense department spokesman declined to comment on the report, AFP said.

The area is under surveillance from a satellite while forces await orders, the newspaper said in its early Sunday edition, AFP reported. Bin Laden's whereabouts had been discovered from ``a combination of CIA paramilitaries and special forces, plus image analysis by geographers and soil experts,'' the newspaper reported, AFP said.

Comforting to finally hear the obvious come out of the mouths of those with a different political ideology than mine.

Veterans face conundrum: Kerry or Bush?

Bush used his father's political influence to move past many on the Texas Guard's waiting list. He was not required to attend Officer Candidate School to earn his commission. He lost his flight status after failing to show up for a required annual physical. These facts alone raise the eyebrows of those who took a different path in a war that for the Marine Corps brought more casualties than even World War II.

The Bush campaign now claims that these issues are largely moot and that Bush has proved himself as a competent and daring "war president." And yet his actions in Iraq, and the vicious attacks against anyone who disagrees with his administration's logic, give many veterans serious pause.

Bush arguably has committed the greatest strategic blunder in modern memory. To put it bluntly, he attacked the wrong target. While he boasts of removing Saddam Hussein from power, he did far more than that. He decapitated the government of a country that was not directly threatening the United States and, in so doing, bogged down a huge percentage of our military in a region that never has known peace. Our military is being forced to trade away its maneuverability in the wider war against terrorism while being placed on the defensive in a single country that never will fully accept its presence.

There is no historical precedent for taking such action when our country was not being directly threatened. The reckless course that Bush and his advisers have set will affect the economic and military energy of our nation for decades. It is only the tactical competence of our military that, to this point, has protected him from the harsh judgment that he deserves.

At the same time, those around Bush, many of whom came of age during Vietnam and almost none of whom served, have attempted to assassinate the character and insult the patriotism of anyone who disagrees with them. Some have impugned the culture, history and integrity of entire nations, particularly in Europe, that have been our country's great friends for generations and, in some cases, for centuries.

Bush has yet to fire a single person responsible for this strategy. Nor has he reined in those who have made irresponsible comments while claiming to represent his administration. One only can conclude that he agrees with both their methods and their message.

Most seriously, Bush has yet to explain the exact circumstances under which American military forces will be withdrawn from Iraq.

I tell ya: anyone who still defends this BOONDOGGLE, formerly known as the Iraq war, is an ideological moron who hasn't the strategic sense of a five year old.

Hope y'all can still look yourselves in the mirror. You have sold your soul for a grand or two of tax cuts.

Again, just want to say "Thanks!"

I've lost count. Are we on Plan 9 yet?

Plan for Caucuses In Iraq Is Dropped

The Bush administration is abandoning the core idea of its plan to hold regional caucuses for an Iraqi provisional government and will instead work with the United Nations and Iraqis to develop yet another plan for the transfer of political power by June 30, U.N. and U.S. officials said yesterday.

The decision, forced by rejection of the caucus system by a wide range of Iraqis, means that the Coalition Provisional Authority led by the U.S. administrator, L. Paul Bremer, will instead hand over authority to a caretaker government until direct elections can be held, officials said.

. . .

With just more than four months remaining, the United States is effectively back at square one on how to create a provisional government to assume sovereignty. Because Iraqis have rejected other ideas, the cAzaellenge for the United States, the United Nations and Iraqi leaders will be to find a formula -- quickly -- that will provide political stability and be regarded as legitimate by the majority of Iraqis.

The Bush administration has essentially given up on the idea of further refining its troubled Iraq transition plan, already twice redesigned.

Via Secrecy News

According to an often repeated anecdote, physicist Enrico Fermi once wondered aloud about the existence of extraterrestrial beings and why they had not shown up on Earth: "Where is everybody?"

In another Los Alamos report that was withdrawn from online public access, Los Alamos scientist Eric M. Jones tracked down the three colleagues with whom Fermi discussed the matter -- Edward Teller, Herbert York, and Emil Konopinski -- and obtained their written recollections of the 1950 conversation.

See "'Where is Everybody?': An Account of Fermi's Question," Los Alamos National Laboratory report number LA-10311-MS, March 1985 (17 pages, 1 MB PDF file).

Via Shriekback

Well the mouth is open
and the noise comes out
Ain't no reason for it
just a need to shout
It's malnutrition
We could fall apart
It's never delicate
Just something from the iron age

We shake it up
And we break it down
The sound of a satellite
Saying get me down
Yeah we shake it up
And we break it down
Hear the voice of America
In your home town

Well the film is running
'til the film runs out
There's no point of focus
It zooms in and out
It's information
And it leaves no mark
It's just as permanent
as painting in the iron age

I'm plugged in and loaded
Don't forget to phone in
The self destruct is holding
I'm counting, I'm counting, but only to three

Chorus
We get it right sometimes
We shine a light sometimes
We see the fish below the ice sometimes
Stand up and fight sometimes
We get the fright sometimes
How will we ever pay the price this time

Yeah we shake it up
And we break it down
It's east European, west European
It's moving so fast
It goes all the way round

Yeah he's on a mission from god
But he don't know whose
and he don't know why
Says I'm not a light in the darkness
More like a shadow on the lungs
I'm balanced here on the edge of anger
I'm standing here on an empty page
Sooner or later I'll start receiving
I've been standing here for days

Via Digby, I find the most interesting article in the Financial Times.

Musharraf says no to nuclear site inspections

Pakistan would in no circumstances permit foreign inspectors to enter the country and monitor its nuclear weapons or civil nuclear facilities, General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military president, said on Tuesday.

"This is a very sensitive issue," he said. . "Would any other nuclear power allow its sensitive installations to be inspected? Why should Pakistan be expected to allow anybody to inspect?"

I hear an awful lot of the phrase "violence is the only language they understand" thrown about.

I wonder, though, if it isn't so much that "violence is the only language they understand," rather than violence is the only language that people who spout such tripe are able to speak.

Ye gods. Doesn't it seem like Haiti is turning into a stinky cesspool at an alarmingly exponential rate?

Haiti's prime minister appealed Tuesday for international help to end an uprising against the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in which at least 57 people have been killed.

Prime Minister Yvon Neptune made his plea a day after former soldiers joined the rebellion, seizing the key central city of Hinche, burning the police station, freeing prisoners and increasing the potential for full-scale civil war.

Rebels also controlled most roads leading in and out of the northern Artibonite region, home to almost 1 million people, and chased police from a dozen towns.

"We are witnessing the coup d'etat machine in motion," Neptune told reporters. He said Haiti's 5,000-member police force is not equipped to respond and that he expected the international community "to show that it really wants peace and stability in Haiti."

But Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said that "there is frankly no enthusiasm right now for sending in military or police forces to put down the violence that we are seeing."

Enthusiastic!!??!??!?!? What the f*ck?

I still can't get that word out of my head.

Yea, "enthusiasm" has *everything* to do with whether we get involved in a crisis. Most of the Police, fire fighters, ER personnel, all these people who deal with emergency situations - all of them tell me that "enthusiasm" is an necessary ingredient for dealing with emergencies.

Grow up Colin. This is the real world.

Suck it up. You're the secretary of state. Enthusiasm isn't part of the job description. . . Grow a f*ckin' spine.

Iraq 'slipping into civil war'

The signs are becoming more evident that Iraq may be slipping into civil war as rivalry and resentment among its ethnic and religious groups become more and more pronounced.

Veteran United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has pointedly warned Iraqi leaders that they face 'very serious dangers' if they do not put the interests of the nation ahead of those of their clans, tribes, ethnic groups and religious communities.

He had just finished a visit to the country to determine the feasibility of elections.

At a press conference, he appealed to the members of the Governing Council and to Iraqis in every part of the country to be 'conscious that civil wars do not happen because a person makes a decision, 'Today, I'm going to start a civil war' '.

He told Iraqis that civil wars erupt 'because people are reckless, people are selfish, because people think more of themselves than they do of their country'.

Mr Brahimi has helped mediate civil conflicts in Lebanon and Yemen.

Across the country, tensions are rising as various groups jockey for position with the approaching June 30 deadline for Iraqis to retake power.

Sunni politicians speak angrily of American bias towards their Shi'ite rivals. Kurds are more outspoken in demanding self rule - if not independence. And Saddam Hussein loyalists, or perhaps the Al-Qaeda, have killed more than 100 people in recent suicide bombings.

Even before the US-led invasion of Iraq last March, some Western and Arab scholars predicted the country would plunge into civil war as soon as Saddam's totalitarian rule collapsed.

A senior United States official, speaking on condition of anonymity, agreed that civil war was possible.

You're idiots. Full fledged morons. The stuff that is happening in Iraq is on your heads. Your insanity led to this result. It didn't have to be this way, but your single minded pursuit of a strategy based solely on a fictional western philosophy of "being tough" and "standing tall" has resulted in a complete disaster.

You're childish, idiotic and should be forced to go back to school for about a decade learning about negotiating and diplomacy before you are ever allowed to either comment on or direct foreign policy.

Or at least until you've retaken elementary school to see how childish your fantasies of how things work really are.

Again, thanks!

Plan 9

Clearly, the war has entered a new phase. As we argued last week, U.S. forces have failed to completely suppress the guerrilla forces west of Baghdad, although they have been quite successful to the north, where they concentrated efforts in December and January. However, this guerrilla operation is unlike others we have seen even to the west of the city. The number of troops involved, the coordination of the attacks, the fact that there was a purpose other than simply inflicting casualties, all represent a fairly startling new development.

It is certainly true that the guerrillas did not engage American forces, which is probably a good idea on their part. The Iraqi defenders are neither well trained nor well armed. It is not bad strategy to go after softer targets. Moreover, the stated strategy -- of the jihadists at least -- has been to punish those who collaborate with the Americans, which this attack certainly did,along with demonstrating that the Iraqi forces were not ready for significant duty.

It is more important, however, to understand who they are and where they came from. There are three possible theories. The first is that they are part of the original guerrilla force that has been operating in the region -- now seasoned, confident and operating more effectively. The second is that these are foreign jihadists -- working with or without Iraqis -- moving into the region to carry out operations. A third explanation is that the Iraqi guerrilla movement is even better organized than first thought: A cadre of dedicated but relatively untrained troops carried out the first wave of operations from May through December 2002. A second cadre of Baathist troops, drawn perhaps from the Special Republican Guards, has now been activated and is drawing on weapons caches pre-positioned for them.

If the latter were the case, it would mean that the guerrilla movement had prepared for a long-term war. But the proof of this will be when other, similarly significant operations begin elsewhere in the country. If this activity is confined to the area west of the city, then this explanation is unlikely, and one of the first two explanations is more likely.

However, we are just about ready to say that the guerrilla war is going into extra innings. The emergence of this new force indicates a new level of capability for the guerrillas and must be taken with utmost seriousness. It is difficult to imagine that this force was once organized but is now dispersed. It required substantial command, control and intelligence to bring this force together and conduct the assault. It would be very surprising if this operation were a one-off. The important question to watch is whether this happens only in this region, or whether other guerrilla combat teams are in place elsewhere.

Via Too Much Joy

When I was a kid my dad had pictures of these clowns
He hung them on my wall and wouldn't let me take them down
I didn't understand then and I still can't figure out
What those goddamn clowns were so sad about

A clown was my boss at every job I ever had
Clowns run all the record companies that ever said we're bad
A clown pretended to be a girl who pretended to be my friend
This world is run by clowns who can't wait for it to end

I have yet to meet a kid not scared to death of clowns
They can't walk and they don't talk they've got painted on frowns
A clown with a gun I hope I never see
Would he shoot himself or shoot me?

A clown taught every class I took at my old high school
Clowns all wear Speedos when they hang out by the pool
Clowns dress up like cops and threaten to call my folks
This town is filled with clowns who don't get my jokes

They fall on their asses
It takes lots of practice
They fall on their asses
It takes lots of practice
They fall
They fall

I have nightmares filled with clowns and you're there too
You have a big red nose and stupid floppy shoes
You're becoming one I can see the signs
I hate clowns almost as much as I hate mimes

A clown was my boss at every job I ever had
Clowns run all the record companies that ever said we're bad
A clown pretended to be a girl who pretended to be my friend
This world is run by clowns who can't wait for it to end
wait for it to end
wait for it to end
wait for it to end

Gunmen Attack Iraq Police, 21 Killed

At least 21 people were killed and 35 wounded on Saturday when Iraqi guerrillas attacked a police station and a government building in the town of Falluja, hospital officials said.

Police said an unknown number of prisoners escaped from the police station during the attack which, according to hospital officials, left 14 policemen, four civilians and three attackers dead. The defenders were clearly overwhelmed.

The attack, involving rockets, mortars and machineguns, signaled a growing boldness on the part of insurgents fighting U.S.-led occupation forces and Iraqis seen as supporting them.

On Thursday, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, General John Abizaid, narrowly escaped an attack on his convoy near Falluja, a town in what is known as the "Sunni Triangle" center of resistance to U.S. forces.

An Iraqi police officer said the guerrillas outgunned the policemen at the station, attacked at the same time as a government building situated several hundred meters away. "Unknown men fired mortars, explosives and light machine guns from four directions. Their weapons were more powerful than our Kalashnikovs," said police officer Earazan Abu Issa, who was outside the police station when it was attacked.

Pakistan Braces for the American Storm

The buzz in Pakistan this week, at least according to the Daily Times, is that CIA Director George Tenet paid Islamabad a secret visit on Feb. 11. In short, Musharraf was preparing the public for what sort of terms would be necessary for him to cater to Washington's wishes, and Washington just might have provided the appropriate information about al Qaeda's new digs in Pakistan.

That brings us to a more recent statement by Musharraf concerning militant activity. Speaking at Pakistan's National Defense College in Rawalpindi on Feb. 12, Musharraf said, "Certainly everything [within Afghanistan] is not happening from Pakistan, but certainly something is happening from Pakistan. Let us not bluff ourselves. Now, whatever is happening from Pakistan must be stopped and that is what we are trying to do."

On Feb. 10, Musharraf outlined what Washington would need to do to get him to move. On Feb. 12, he made it clear to other power brokers within Pakistan what needed to be done. Stratfor expects a third, more direct, statement to tumble from Musharraf's lips in the near future.

The issue now is simply one of timing. The Afghan-Pakistani border currently is difficult to navigate: Mountains plus winter equals no tanks. Once spring arrives, however, the United States can roll in and -- in theory -- nab all the appropriate personalities, just in time for the Democratic National Convention in July. If the Bush administration can pull it off, more Democrats than Howard Dean will be screaming.

The plan is not quite as neat as it seems. Northern Pakistan is rugged territory, but people actually live there and like it. Most are none too pleased with what the United States has been doing across the border in Afghanistan of late. This region, dubbed the Northwest Frontier Territories, is heavily Pushtun and is rife with al Qaeda supporters. Rolling into it would not be pretty.

Which one would you rather have given over 500 soldier's lives, thousands injured, 200+ Billion dollars and unknown cost to our diplomatic capital on the international stage?

Bad Mojo

From the U.S. point of view, if our perception is correct, there are serious problems. It is one thing to be gaining on the guerrillas, regardless of how small the increment. It is yet another thing to be losing ground, again regardless of the amount. It is a particularly delicate time in Iraq, with the United Nations team talking with the Shia about the timing of the inevitable elections. Everyone is watching carefully to determine whether the United States is gaining control of the situation.

The guerrillas are clearly trying to make the case that the United States is not in control of the situation yet, and this might be only a surge operation driven by political events. But there has not been a quantum leap in operations. There has been a slow, steady tempo of operations that tends to increase -- and certainly has stopped decreasing.

The U.S. troop rotation is now under way. That means that the experienced forces are eagerly awaiting returning home, while the newly arriving troops are not yet ready to take control of the situation. The United States is in the gap where the old troops have, in their minds, left, while the new troops have not quite arrived. This is a period that will continue for several months.

The guerrillas clearly know the state of U.S. troops. The Iraqi police and army must be full of guerrillas assigned to infiltrate them. They certainly knew which convoy to hit. There is an opening here for the guerrillas, and they seem to be aware of it. It will be interesting to see where the guerrillas -- and the jihadists -- are a week from now. It will be telling about the shape of the war, at least until the summer.

Truly, we live in the best of all possible worlds.

Almost $1.7 Trillion Spent On Health Care in '03

The USA spent nearly $1.7 trillion on health care last year, although the rate at which spending increased slowed for the first time in years.

A small decrease in medical prices, coupled with less spending by states on Medicaid programs, helped slow the increase, a report published Wednesday by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says.

National spending grew a projected 7.8% in 2003, down from 9.3% in 2002. Still, the country spent $5,805 per person on health care in 2003, an amount that far exceeds the per capita amount spent in every other industrialized nation.

Health care accounted for 15.3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) last year, the fifth-consecutive year that ''more of the nation's resources (were) allocated to health care,'' according to the report.

Despite the slower rate of growth, the report forecasts spending on health care will continue to outpace growth in GDP through 2013. That means health care costs are likely to rise faster than most people's incomes.

''Each year, there are more people who find they just can't afford health care or insurance,'' says Paul Ginsburg, an economist at the Center for Studying Health System Change, a research group.

The good news for employers and consumers is that growth in health insurance premiums is expected to moderate, slowing to about a 7.1% increase in 2005. The report estimates that premiums rose 10.4% in 2003.

The bad news for many workers is that employers are passing along additional insurance costs, through increased premiums and bigger out-of-pocket charges, which are what patients pay when they visit the doctor or fill a prescription.

Out-of-pocket costs, which went down during the height of the managed-care era, are rising. The forecast says those costs currently eat up about 2.7% of a consumer's disposable personal income, an amount that will rise to 3.1% in 2013.

U.N. Aide Backs Cleric, Not U.S., on Iraqi Elections

An envoy for the United Nations said that he supported a powerful Shiite cleric's call for elections to help install a new sovereign government after having met with the cleric this morning.

The envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, said the cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, "is insistent on holding the elections and we are with him on this 100 percent because elections are the best means to enable any people to set up a state that serves their interest."

But he left open the question of when the elections might be held.

Ayatollah Sistani, revered by many of the 15 million Shiites in Iraq, has said he wants direct elections to appoint members of a transitional national assembly before the scheduled transfer of sovereignty on June 30. The Bush administration has opposed such elections, saying they are impossible to set up given the timeline, and instead supports a caucus-style selection process.

At about 3:20 p.m., meanwhile, a loud explosion shook central Baghdad, but it was not immediately clear what caused it or exactly where it took place. Early reports indicated it might have occurred in the city's western suburbs.

Mr. Brahimi's statement this morning makes it virtually impossible now for the White House to stick to its original plan and persuade the Iraqi people of the plan's legitimacy. American officials had asked the United Nations to send an electoral assessment team, led by Mr. Brahimi, to look into the viability of direct elections. Ayatollah Sistani had said he would seriously consider the opinion of the team

Using the honorific reserved for descendants of the prophet Muhammad, Mr. Brahimi told reporters, according to Reuters: "We are in agreement with the sayed that these elections should be prepared well and should take place in the best possible conditions so that it would bring the results which the sayed wants and the people of Iraq and the U.N. want."

Mr. Brahimi made his remarks after meeting with Ayatollah Sistani for two hours in the ayatollah's home in the southern holy city of Najaf. The ayatollah's simple home is located in a narrow alleyway a few blocks from the Shrine of Ali, one of the holiest pilgrimage sites for Shiites, who make up 60 percent of the population of Iraq. Witnesses said they saw Mr. Brahimi entering the alleyway at around 10 a.m.

Mr. Brahimi's statements do not indicate that he necessarily supports a one-person, one-vote type of general election. Ayatollah Sistani has also told people in private that he does not necessarily need to see that kind of election take place here. His rare statements, issued through his office, indicate that he wants some kind of process that is more representative of the Bush administration's plan.

Okay, so I'm just sitting here Azaelf paying attention to the new Enterprise episode and I see T'Pol go from saying she's attracted to Trip to dropping trou in less than 15 seconds.

Just sort of freaked me out there for a second.

Strange times.

Via Secrecy News

It is often noted that espionage is an ancient enterprise with roots at least as old as the Bible.

But what is rarely if ever recalled is that intelligence oversight and accountability are *also* part of the Biblical record, and that the Deity imposed a severe penalty upon those who distorted intelligence and inflated threats.

A Washington Times op-ed writer today attempted to defend the CIA by citing the first Azaelf of the Biblical precedent.

"Some Americans find in the CIA a convenient scapegoat, failing to recognize that throughout history espionage has been used to protect peoples from their enemies. Ancient Israel had spies: 'Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan [to see] whether the cities they dwell in are camps or strongholds.' (Numbers 13:17-19)," wrote Ernest W. Lefever of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in the Washington Times, Feb. 11, p. A18.

What Dr. Lefever failed to mention is that the spies sent by Moses came back with a hyped National Intelligence Estimate, with unhappy results.

"The land, through which we have gone, to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants... and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them." (Numbers 13: 32-33). Only Joshua and Caleb dissented from this majority view.

Because they wittingly or unwittingly exaggerated the capabilities of the Canaanites, God sentenced the spies to death, displaying no judicial deference to the intelligence agencies.

"The men who brought an unfavorable report about the land died by a plague before the Lord," we are told.

"But Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh alone remained alive, of those men who went to spy out the land." (Numbers 14: 36-37).

The Ledo Shuffle

The Pakistani situation continues to boil. The United States on Feb. 10 said that it has had intelligence about the activities of Pakistani nuclear scientists for several years and had passed it on to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. To be more precise, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters that the United States had passed on "pieces of information" to the Pakistanis. The United States is, therefore, now in the process of trying to explain how it missed the nuclear transfer program by stating that it had at least some knowledge of it that was passed to Musharraf, while strongly hinting that the United States was aware of the whole thing. Musharraf, in the meantime, told the New York Times that the United States had not given him convincing proof, nor had it provided any evidence, of Abdul Qadeer Khan's activities until October 2003.

This is getting really weird. Why are the Americans and Pakistanis arguing over when Washington told Musharraf about the nuclear plot? Musharraf had to have known about Khan because -- as general and president -- he commands the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, and the ISI was all over the Pakistani nuclear program. It is inconceivable that the ISI was not aware of a plot by a group of scientists -- all of whom were under constant surveillance by the ISI and knew they were under constant surveillance -- to sell nuclear secrets around the world.

The United States has sprung a trap on Musharraf. It is not about what Washington told him or when; it is about the ISI. Musharraf can take one of two positions. He can admit that he knew about the plot and that he sanctioned it and tell the United States to get lost. The problem with that is that he is facing the prospect of the United States, India and -- for good measure -- the Israelis weighing in with some helpful comments about Pakistani-al Qaeda collaboration on nukes. If the president of Pakistan announces to the world that the plot was okay by him, then Pakistan is going to be in a world of hurt.

Therefore, Musharraf is denying that he knew anything about it. However, if that is true, then he has a rogue intelligence service on his hands, and the military is also suspect. If the ISI knew what Khan was -- which it did -- and didn't tell Musharraf -- which he says it didn't -- then Musharraf has no choice but to dismantle the ISI.

This is precisely what the United States wants. Remember, please, that the United States in essence told the world that it intends to carry out military operations in Pakistan as part of the endgame on al Qaeda. Al Qaeda has many supporters within the ISI and the Pakistani military, and the United States wants these elements purged before any major operations are launched, since the same people who covered up the Khan operation will also provide cover and intelligence to al Qaeda. An offensive into Pakistan cannot succeed unless the ISI is dismantled, or at least purged.

The purpose of the nuclear game is to force Musharraf into carrying out such a purge. The U.S. assertion that American intelligence informed Musharraf, and his argument that U.S. intel didn't give him any real evidence, is simply Washington turning up the heat a bit. It is also about Musharraf trying to pretend it doesn't hurt. It really doesn't matter when he was told. The point is that he either knew, or the ISI is out of control and has to be stopped.

From Stratfor

U.S. President George W. Bush did something Sunday that he rarely does -- he went on television for an unscripted interview. The fact that he did it is far more revealing than anything he actually said. The White House does not normally risk putting the president on the spot, but officials clearly felt they had to in this case -- which measures the level of discomfort that exists in the administration over the question of why the United States went to war in Iraq.

The president's problem is simple. As we have argued, there were solid strategic and political reasons for invading Iraq that had been extensively discussed within the administration. However, the ultimate justification given for the invasion was the threat of WMD. It was not the real reason, but the Bush administration felt it was easier to sell that explanation than the complex reasoning that led them to the conclusion that an invasion was needed. They assumed that (a) no one would object to invading over WMD and (b) that they would find the weapons there. They miscalculated on both points. More precisely, there were objections to invasion without prior verification of weapons and worse, the core assumption -- that the weapons were there -- proved to be false.

Bush's strategy Sunday on "Meet the Press" was to deny the undeniable. He kept insisting that the weapons would be found. He is now conceding the obvious -- that they haven't been found -- which makes it likely, at this point, that they aren't there. His problem is that if he were to lay out the full strategic rationale behind the invasion now, it would appear that it was simply post hoc rationalization. Bush's enemies are characterizing him as so desperate to invade Iraq that he would tell any lie to justify the move. They never provide a satisfactory explanation as to why he had this urgent need to invade, but it doesn't matter. Bush is strangling on the cleverness of his own PR managers, and he can't get out of the way. His political situation is serious and should not be trivialized. His political managers certainly can't be naïve enough to believe that the intelligence review panel will defuse the issue until after the election: CIA Director George Tenet signaled last week that there were limits to which he would fall on his sword.

This is particularly the case because the Pakistani situation is ratcheting out of control. At casual glance, it appears that while the CIA was obsessively focused on getting it wrong in Iraq, it missed the real force behind Islamic nuclear proliferation: Pakistan. The crucial question is this: Did the CIA actually miss this entire global operation, or did the United States know about it and accept it because Pakistan was a key ally? This is not a question about this administration -- It is a much broader question, beginning with Reagan and continuing through Bush I and Clinton. Unfortunately for George W. Bush, he will get to pay the bill for them all, because he turned WMD into a core national policy.

Just finished watching the president's performance with Tim Russert for the second time. I must say. What a loser. It's really no wonder that they keep Bush locked up out of contact with the public. Bush is like every evil Dot Com CEO I've ever known. He waves his hands and spouts a bunch of mumbo jumbo and expects his authority to make the illusion physical reality. It can be stunning to watch and can have a freaky effect on the unwashed corporate masses, yearning to believe. But it's really just a tap dance done by a guy dressed up as bozo the clown.

I know people like that homey, everyman kind of drinking buddy in their leaders. Myself, I actually prefer someone who is actually talking about the question that is actually being asked, not some bizarre fantasy world that Bush seems to live in. You can still be oily and slick and a political shark when you're smart. It's not that political part of Bush that I can't stand. It's the completely clueless fantasy world he spins in the unshakable belief that we'll buy the song and dance. It's simply embarrassing. . .

Bush claimed Iraq was a war of necessity. A "pre" imminent threat. Which makes it a super imminent threat in my book - but Bush doesn't want to play the "word game". Seeing as how he would lose in even the simplest of word games, I can certainly see why. He claimed that Iraq had the capability to produce WMD - implying actual factories, know how and required materials. Somehow he doesn't comprehend that none of that is true. He was far along in the past, but no way to actually build anything. Had ambitions, but no penis pills to actually get his WMD hard on.

The discussion about the intelligence - or the lack thereof - was a continuously comical event. Yea, Saddam was a nasty guy. But what made him so much of a threat? Oh, we couldn't wait until he became a threat. Well, what made him so nasty of a guy that we couldn't wait? He killed his own people! We all know that nasty people are just parts of the same whole. Saddam and Osama are best buds.

Geesh.

Even more hilarious was the discussion about the intelligence investigations. So are you going to testify? Why should I? It's not me who did anything wrong. I was just following the CIA's recommendations. What they showed me convinced me that I could not wait for those sniveling French and the rest of the UN lackies. No, I don't think we need iron clad evidence to launch a preemptive war. It's my duty to the American people to see every mole hill as a mountain because of 9/11. Oh, and the reporting date of the "independent" commission is there to ensure that we get the best possible reporting - it's not a politically inspired date.

Again, geesh.

Bush then stumbled into a discussion about the economy. His basic line seemed to be "Gee, it's not my fault that I hit the Trifecta". Tim barely seemed willing to press him on any of this, so the whole exchange was boring. Bush basically unpacked the Tax Cut super weapon of the Norquist Right and brandished it all about him while answering questions. Pretty silly.

At the end when they were talking about the upcoming election, it was pretty priceless (mostly because I was getting bored). After showing Bush plummeting in the polls recently, and the match up against Kerry is looking real bad for the man, Tim came right out and asked GW if he was prepared to lose. The response by Bush was forgettable, but the question was worth the wait. Watching Bush tap dance around his service record was also worth the wait. It's pretty clear he thinks those records are unrecoverable and that everyone who knows anything is either dead or paid off. Still, fun to see the gears move in his head when asked about it on national TV. Going to be fun debates with Kerry.

It's going to be funny when Bush slinks back to TX next year, going down as the only president in the history of the US to have not been elected. Kerry. Edwards. Dean. Clark. Who cares. If they get their act together, this man doesn't stand a chance.

Just saw some excepts from the big Bush interview by Tim Russert on my local TV news.

From the few bits, it looks like Tim rolled over like a puppy and exposed his belly for the Pres.

Via Northrup, I'm lead to a rather interesting column by Richard Cohen. I don't know if this is a sign of breaking intelligence and reflection in the moral sphere of corporate ridden media or just a ritual of psuedo self cleansing which will fade with the summer sun. In any case, it's nice to see.

Blame, Blindness . . .

But any truth commission worth its name would have to look beyond the government. It would be instructive to examine the yahoo mood that came over much of the nation once Bush decided to go to war. The decision -- its urgency -- seemed to come out of nowhere. Yet most of America fell into line, and in certain segments of the media, the Murdoch press above all, dissent was ridiculed. On Fox TV, France was called a member of the "axis of weasels" and antiwar demonstrators in Davos were disparaged as "knuckleheads." Colorful stuff, but wrong, irresponsible and craven.

I do not take myself off the hook. The mood got to me, too. And while I kept insisting that the Bush administration was exaggerating the case for war, was in too much of a hurry and was incapable of assembling a true coalition, I nevertheless went along with the program.

There is much cause for concern here. A consensus -- based on false facts, outright lies and exaggerated fears -- took over the nation. We didn't go on a bender, as we did after Pearl Harbor, and incarcerate a particular ethnic group, but we did go to war when we plainly did not have to. More than 500 Americans and thousands of Iraqis have died for a mistake. Peace has not been brought to the Middle East and America is not only no safer than it was, it may well be in even greater danger. This was no mere failure of intelligence. This was a failure of character.

Via Brad DeLong, I find a most interesting article about Ron Suskind's book, The Price of Loyalty.

Did Greenspan Use O'Neill to Send Bush a Signal?

Most Curious Character

The character in this drama with interesting motives isn't O'Neill but his more shadowy friend, Alan Greenspan. It's evident that Greenspan helped with the book; his fingerprints are all over the thing.

Why would the Fed chairman grant an interview, even off the record, to a journalist he knew to be armed and dangerous to the Bush White House? Surely, not out of a sense of loyalty to his old friend Paul O'Neill. If Greenspan had that gene, he wouldn't have lasted as long as he has.

Even more surely, not out of ignorance that he was helping to explode a political bomb. Greenspan doesn't get out of bed before examining the political consequences.

The only good explanation is that he knew exactly what Paul O'Neill's book would say -- that the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bush administration had been almost criminal and that the manner in which Bush made decisions was deeply disturbing -- and he was pleased to have it said.

Given, of course, that Greenspan was never explicitly attached to the thing. The subtle impression that he helped to create it Greenspan could deal with in his usual way, by the subtle manipulation of perception.

Denial or Greenspan-speak?

A week after the first sensational tidbits from ``The Price of Loyalty'' appeared, Greenspan was asked about the book's contention that he considered Bush's plan for tax cuts irresponsible without triggers to scale them back if budget surpluses evaporated. ``It's been rare over the many years of our friendship that Paul and I have different recollections of events, but in this case we do,'' Greenspan said through a spokesman.

As O'Neill pointed out to me, ``If you read what Alan said, he didn't actually deny it.'' And it's true. If you read as plain English Greenspan's carefully crafted public response, it sounds like a denial. But when you see it for what it is, Greenspan- speak, it reads as almost a ringing endorsement.

We all know that Paul O'Neill just sent his old friend Dick Cheney a nasty message. It's interesting to think that Alan Greenspan co-signed it, even if he did so in disappearing ink.

But he can't keep it up forever. Sooner or later even the Great Oz is going to lose it.

Ye gods. The spin now a days. It's like the Bush administration was just a bunch of autonomous robots doing whatever the evil CIA was telling them to do. Today on The News Hour With Jim Leher, I heard my main man David Brooks say that the PUNDITRY was to blame for the whole "imminent threat" meme (apologies to Chun for the use of the word). This is just really an extension of the column he excreted for the NY times a couple of days ago, so it wasn't really all that surprising to hear. Kind of like the collective blame of a public lynching. Everyone's equally guilty and the scape goat (the CIA) shouldered the blame so we're now all washed clean in the blood of the lamb.

As I started this rant with: YE GODS.

Just figured out why I really can't stand the show. It's the whole paternalistic thing about God coming down and giving Joan "lessons". It's like she really doesn't have a mind of her own and she has to be led around like a rat through a maze in order to learn the point of the homey homilies that compose the plot of the show.

My wife likes the show, though. Me, I just put Bowie on the ear buds.

Never gonna fall for
Modern love - walks beside me
Modern love - walks on by
Modern love - gets me to the church on time
Church on time - terrifies me
Church on time - makes me party
Church on time - puts my trust in God and man
God and man - no confessions
God and man - no religion
God and man - don’t believe in modern love

Via Supertramp

So you think you're a Romeo
playing a part in a picture-show
Take the long way home
Take the long way home

Cos you're the joke of the neighborhood
Why should you care if you're feeling good
Take the long way home
Take the long way home

But there are times that you feel you're part of the scenery
all the greenery is comin' down, boy
And then your wife seems to think you're part of the
furniture oh, it's peculiar, she used to be so nice.

When lonely days turn to lonely nights
you take a trip to the city lights
And take the long way home
Take the long way home
You never see what you want to see
Forever playing to the gallery
You take the long way home
Take the long way home

And when you're up on the stage, it's so unbelievable,
unforgettable, how they adore you,
But then your wife seems to think you're losing your sanity,
oh, calamity, is there no way out?

Does it feel that your life's become a catastrophe?
Oh, it has to be for you to grow , boy.
When you look through the years and see what you could
have been oh, what you might have been,
if you'd had more time.

So, when the day comes to settle down,
Who's to blame if you're not around?
You took the long way home
You took the long way home.......

Army Officials Up in Arms Over FAS Web Site

U.S. Army security officials became exercised this week at the possibility that a classified Army publication was posted on the web site of the Federation of American Scientists.

One security official called for the FAS web site to "remove all Army publications ASAP," and suggested that he would contact the FBI if prompt action were not forthcoming.

Following review of the document identified by the Army official as classified, FAS declined to remove it from the web because its contents were clearly innocuous.

Furthermore, we added in an emailed response, "We do not recognize the Army's authority to restrict our freedom to publish." [Ed: I love this bit]

Another Army official intervened to advise the security official that "Unclassified Army publications and documents are in the public domain [and] you definitely shouldn't threaten the owners of these websites...as you have...."

The Army security official shortly retreated with the explanation that the supposedly classified document on the FAS web site was unclassified after all. In other words, nevermind.

George Tenet, Man of La Mancha

Musharraf and the loan arranger

It is understandable that Musharraf would want a solution to this crisis that does not cAzaellenge any of Pakistan's institutions. The real mystery here concerns the United States. First, forget the Pakistanis. How did the CIA miss Pakistan's transferal of sensitive technical information to Iran and Libya, and how did it miss it for more than 10 years? Second, if the CIA did know about it, why didn't anyone -- Reagan, Bush, Clinton -- do something about it? Third, if the transfers were discovered only recently -- say, during the Libyan reversal -- and the United States did not want Musharraf to fall as a result, did the United States simply suppress all public discussion to work covertly with Musharraf? Fourth, after the United States went public with it, why would it settle for, or be interested in, the political execution of Khan? The real issue is and always was the ISI. Why go public and let Pakistan off the hook so easily?

The Pakistanis can be understood. The United States discovers they've been selling nuclear secrets to everyone the United States hates and fears. Pakistan can't deny it, but it can pretend that it was the bad man over in the corner there -- he did it. The bad man makes his public confession, exonerating everyone else. Musharraf is shocked -- shocked -- to discover this has been going on. Musharraf breathes a sigh of relief.

It's the Americans who are baffling. Why make a public issue of this if Pakistan gets off the hook anyway? Or, put differently, how can the United States let Pakistan off the hook if it was selling nuclear secrets to Iran and Libya? Unless the United States suppressed the information and got the situation under control, the response makes no sense. For example, perhaps Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi threatened to go public with the news if the Americans didn't move first. Without some such scenario, the response makes no sense. Since we doubt that Gadhafi threatened that, we are left with a quandary.

The mystery yields only one conclusion: The United States did not simply let Musharraf off the hook. Musharraf was allowed to escape his crisis by blaming Khan -- and we suspect that there is a pardon lurking in his future -- but Musharraf had to make other promises. The only thing the United States cares about more than nuclear proliferation to Iran and Libya is: Osama bin Laden. In all likelihood, he is somewhere in Pakistan, in the tribal areas in the northwest. Last week, the United States announced intentions to go in after him this spring. That's tough country, and the United States needs the ISI and the Pakistani military.

Perhaps the deal was this: Musharraf does not have to shake up the entire Pakistani military-intelligence faction in return for cooperation in bin Laden's capture; Musharraf agreed. Within this line of speculation, one question remains: Musharraf agreed -- but did the military and the ISI?

DOE INTELLIGENCE BUDGET GOES BLACK

The Department of Energy (DOE) is refusing to disclose the 2005 funding request for its small Office of Intelligence.

The budget for DOE intelligence has been unclassified for as long as anyone can remember. But the 2005 DOE budget justification documents, released on February 2, make no mention of the it.

Why the secrecy? DOE wouldn't say.

"We are not going to discuss this issue at this time," said Joseph Davis, the principal deputy director of public affairs at DOE, in response to a query from Secrecy News.

Last year, DOE systematically went through the prior-year budget documents that are posted on the DOE web site and excised all reference to intelligence spending (SN, 10/22/03).

But detailed DOE intelligence budget information for 1999 through 2004 is still available here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doe/budget.html

When it comes to intelligence budget secrecy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation apparently didn't get the memo: The FBI disclosed this week that it is requesting $13.4 million in 2005 for its own Office of Intelligence. It also reported proposed funding levels for the joint Terrorist Threat Integration Center and the Terrorist Screening Center. Likewise, the State Department disclosed amounts requested for its Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR).

But these are exceptions. Intelligence budget secrecy remains the rule, though an increasingly disputed one.

"After a dubious conclusion that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction just before the war in Iraq, critics say there should be more financial accountability for the government's spying," according to a story about the "black budget" in USA Today.

See "Data sought on secret spending" by Richard Benedetto, USA Today, February 3:

http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20040203/5891789s.htm

<heh> Nothing to see here. Just move along.

(via Brian Leiter)

Got the link to the latest Fighting Words political cartoon. I must say, I am particularly fond of the imagery of giant flying pigs which can fly undected over cities at low altitudes and drop toxic pixie dust on the unsuspecting population. . ."

Are we a bunch of idiots or what?