May 2005 Archives

John (not Juan) Cole does an excellent job of saying what he really should have been saying - oh - about 2 years ago. I'm not going to bash the man as he's about to get it right up the pooper by the usual right wing suspects, but I just have to ask what he thought was going to happen when he helped stitch together the Frankenstein's monster and flipped the big switch?

The issue is pretty clear, John. Without this massive demonization and propaganda effort, Bush wouldn't have won in 2004. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? Hello? Heck, Bush probably would have been indicted by the International Criminal Court (had we not had the foresight to - uh - weasel our way out of and ensure we wouldn't be held accountable) and would have likely been impeached. Surely Rumsfeld, et. al. would have been collectively run out of town on a rail after being tarred and feathered - at a minimum.

But I'm afraid it's just going to get worse - a lot worse. The monster John helped create - inadvertently or not - is out rampaging, doing serious damage. It is not really encouraging that now some - at least - are waking up to the unmitigated disaster that it has become. Unfortunately, it seems, that we're just going to have to let this play itself out and see if we can pick up the pieces and perhaps repair the damage in a generation or two.

I'd say "pay attention and do better next time", but let's face it. I don't think that wisdom has a high probability of being imparted and the next time - if we're still able to have a next time - it'll be pretty much the same.

But let's not forget the real issue here. However horrible the results of this mindless rampage are, the democrats would have been worse.

Matt has been making a lot of very interesting statements. The one that has me rolling on the floor laughing is his latest on a theoretical reversal of Brown v. Board of Education.

What would happen if the Court reversed itself on this question? Nothing, right? The Civil Rights Act bans school segregation. And even if it doesn't, I'm quite sure that even a GOP-dominated congress would happily attach a "no segregation" requirement to Title I education money or some such thing. And even if congress couldn't make that stick, it's extremely hard to imagine that any state government would allow school boards to resegregate. Which is not to say that Brown made no difference at the time, but nowadays it seems pretty irrelevant.

Naive. Dangerously naive, imho, but that's just me. I mean, it's not like the current administration is trying (and succeeding to an alarming degree) to roll back all social progress of the last 50 years. I see no reason to believe that they wouldn't be interested in rolling this back as well. People seem quite willing to buy the whole discrimination argument - heck, I remember some of my theoretically modern libertarian friends making the technical distinction (i.e. discrimination as discriminate - the ability to distinguish) and arguing in favor of it (or at least not against it, which is pretty much the same thing).

I mean, what's the use of legal precident anyway?

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.What is Your World View?
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Muslims' Anti-American Protests Spread From Afghanistan

Just wanted to point out that this is a serious symbolic rallying point. I'm just stunned that it hasn't burst out before.

Not that I have any special skills or even ability in this area, but I think this is precisely the kind of "trivial" thing that becomes the focusing lens of that special fire of retribution that religion are so perfectly suited in bringing about.

Things are about to get really darn interesting. All we need is just one more symbolic touch point. And given this administration's preternatural ability to do precisely the wrong thing at precisely the wrong time to precisely the wrong people, I'm pretty darn sure that we won't have to wait very long for this symbolic action to happen.

Pat Oliphant smacks the nail straight on the head.

Dennis Miller has been put out of all our misery. I must say that it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Memo to an asshole:

to·tal·i·tar·i·an
Of, relating to, being, or imposing a form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life, the individual is subordinated to the state, and opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed: “A totalitarian regime crushes all autonomous institutions in its drive to seize the human soul”

A good many hippies who’d never hurt a fly are more completely totalitarian in their thinking than most members of the Soviet politburo ever were. They merely say they’re “holistic” as they wipe away the bong resin from their chins.

Hippies, particularly Hippies which are wiping bong resin off their chin (note, it doesn't get on your chin; that's bong water. The resin is much farther away in a bong you stupid git), are not people who are pushing a totalitarian viewpoint.

Maybe I'm wrong about my ranking, but I think this whole "totalitarian" meme that the right wing assholes consistently push is probably the stupidest meme they have in their little basket of idiocy. I know where it comes from. In their tiny little minds (powered by an anemic gerbil desperately spinning a rusty wheel), the logic is that because liberals believe that government should actually be doing something useful and that since we have to have *some* government it might as well be the *right* government, that means that liberals are totalitarian.

Idiots.

If anyone is totalitarian, it's the "one party rules all" party. You know, the one who says that if you criticize them, you must be a treasonous liberal. That if you go against their policies, you are going against the baby Jesus. The party that believes that the state has the final say on what happens to your body. The one that tells us that we can't do ground breaking research in stem cells because it goes against their blood religion. The bunch of twits who are currently doing everything they can to get 100% of everything they want just because they have a majority. The ones who are trying to take away the right of the minority to filibuster judges they find completely unacceptable. The jackals who are so anti-Muslim that they're on the verge of rounding them all up and putting them in "reeducation" camps. The people who want to impeach all the judges who refuse to follow their orders. The ones who want to make a constitutional amendment forbidding any form of marital union other than what their narrowly defined religious view allows.

Yes, one might say that they are "totalitarian" - i.e. the individual is subordinated to the state, and opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed.

I can't wait for my favorite troll to come by and tell me what a jerk I am, how liberals are evil traitors and how we're all going to get butt fucked by the glorious republican revolution.

And that I'm the totalitarian.

Update: see the always excellent Dave Neiwert for more on totalitarianism and to whom the label best applies to.

via Roy

<heh> What a bunch of tools.

Via Holden,

Who Was Leaking to Whom?

Court documents allege that Franklin, who worked in the office of Defense Under Secretary Douglas Feith, also may have leaked secrets to a "foreign official"—believed to be an Israeli—and to "members of the media."

As a result, NEWSWEEK has learned, journalists and bloggers may face questioning by FBI agents in the case. Though reporters are not "targets" of the investigation, they could get subpoenas if they refuse to cooperate.

One can just imagine them live blogging from jail, can't ya? And maybe we could get a post on the whole torture experience - first hand. I'm sure it's just like a bit of fraternity hazing.

Any bets on who these right wing tools bloggers are? Any guesses? I think we should start a pool.

Bombs Bursting on Air

In a land where dog bites man goes against the administration's script, the preferred strategy for reporters is to ignore the dog and report that the man is too busy painting schools to be bothered such trivia.

So I got another cognitive thinking book, How We Know What Isn't So. Basically it's about belief and bias. Pretty cool so far.

Today I received How To Think About Weird Things. This book promises to be quite excellent and is focused on the more general issues of critical thinking, skeptical principles, and how to deal with any weird claims, whatever their nature.

Off to read...

Sometimes the CATO institute can be useful. Their latest report is a doozy...

The Grand Old Spending Party: How Republicans Became Big Spenders

What's kind of hilarious is that I can't remember a time when Republicans weren't big spenders. As far as I can tell, Republicans have always been pissed off about how the money is spent, not the fact that money was being spent at all. Every dollar that went to social issues was a dollar that couldn't be funneled into the military industrial complex - another dollar that couldn't be funneled into some corporate welfare program.

President Bush has presided over the largest overall increase in inflation-adjusted federal spending since Lyndon B. Johnson. Even after excluding spending on defense and homeland security, Bush is still the biggest-spending president in 30 years. His 2006 budget doesn’t cut enough spending to change his place in history, either.

Total government spending grew by 33 percent during Bush’s first term. The federal budget as a share of the economy grew from 18.5 percent of GDP on Clinton’s last day in office to 20.3 percent by the end of Bush’s first term.

The Republican Congress has enthusiastically assisted the budget bloat. Inflation-adjusted spending on the combined budgets of the 101 largest programs they vowed to eliminate in 1995 has grown by 27 percent.

The GOP was once effective at controlling nondefense spending. The final nondefense budgets under Clinton were a combined $57 billion smaller than what he proposed from 1996 to 2001. Under Bush, Congress passed budgets that spent a total of $91 billion more than the president requested for domestic programs. Bush signed every one of those bills during his first term. Even if Congress passes Bush’s new budget exactly as proposed, not a single cabinet-level agency will be smaller than when Bush assumed office.

Republicans could reform the budget rules that stack the deck in favor of more spending. Unfortunately, senior House Republicans are fighting the changes. The GOP establishment in Washington today has become a defender of big government.

One of the things I always love about the Republicans, and this administration in particular, is that they always throw up their hands and just shake their heads in dismay when asked if there is anything they can do about high gas prices. And while it's certainly true that there's probably nothing one can do right this second, it's a fool's game to not do anything at all. Over at the Center for American Progress, they have a number of ideas which can be immediately implemented which will have a serious effect on our energy dependence, usage and the amount of money being pilfered from our pockets to pay for it.

Progressives Have Ideas: Gas Prices

Low-income scrap-and-replace programs:
Low-income drivers tend to own less efficient vehicles that are also often the least reliable, the least safe and the most polluting cars on the road. Scrappage programs designed to get the most polluting cars off the roads have already been used successfully in a few states.

Feebates:
Unlike tax rebates, feebates provide a direct signal of the value of efficiency to consumers where they pay the most attention - at the sticker price. A fee or a rebate is assigned to each individual vehicle type based on a fuel economy benchmark set annually for each vehicle size class. Buyers of more efficient vehicles receive a rebate; buyers of less efficient vehicles pay a fee.

Letting hybrids use high occupancy vehicle lanes:
As an additional incentive for early adopters of the most efficient automobiles, single occupant hybrids should be allowed in high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes. While advanced vehicles remain a limited portion of the market, this would further stimulate purchase and use of efficient hybrid vehicles.

Replacement tire standards:
Under federal fuel-economy standards, automakers equip new vehicles with tires that have a lower rolling resistance, which leads to higher fuel efficiency. By requiring replacement tires to be as efficient as new car tires, gasoline savings would begin immediately, saving over 7 billion barrels of oil over the next 50 years.

Car-sharing:
Recognizing that the average U.S. private car sits idle 96 percent of the time, car-sharing programs could decrease annual driving without loss of convenience. Pioneered in Europe and introduced in the United States by Zipcar and Flexcar, car-sharing programs provide participants with access to cars in their neighborhood for short-term rental. Zipcar claims that each of their cars replaces 7 to 10 privately owned cars.

It's stunning really - this predilection on the part of Republicans to doing absolutely nothing at all about energy except to increase its consumption.

I remember when the energy crisis was hitting out here in California. When the price was finally passed along to the consumers (yes, I do believe in the markets), it was stunning how quickly people reacted - my own household reduced energy consumption by almost 40%. I can still hear Dick Cheney's assertion ringing in my ears regarding conservation and how it wouldn't do jack to solve our energy problems - the binary thinking moron.

Anyways, give the American Progress post a read. It's pretty good. And then start bitch slapping the right with their simple inability to do anything about energy and their brain dead march into oblivion.

Via ThinkProgress

by Sarah Frankfurth

I found the calculations written on the back of an envelope that I had fished from the clutter of clothing, junk mail, cat toys, and dirty dishes that littered the floor of my tiny studio. I remembered scratching them out in one of my many attempts to figure out how the hell I was going to get out of the massive debt I’d accumulated over the past few years. I had no idea how I could possibly owe so much when I had so little to show for it. A few trips here and there, an old car, some used books and records, but nothing that seemed like it could possibly total such a large amount. I looked at the equations on the envelope for a possible answer, but none of them held any meaning for me, they looked like a stranger had written them.

I squinted harder at the numbers, fighting back the panic that my debt would swallow me, and tried not to think about my passive role in all of this. So far, every significant step in my life had been taken on a whim or a suggestion from someone else. The university I attended, the various cities I’d lived in, the meaningless café and temp jobs that I’d survived off of were all selected at random. There was never any forethought or master plan that guided my life. In fact I tried to avoid any type of plan at all costs, even one as simple as meeting a friend for a drink at a specific time on a specific day. The idea that I might have to live up to something and therefore could fall short filled me with dread. My failures were all cAzaelked up to fate or someone else’s bad idea. But now I needed a good idea to carry me out of this debt.

I turned my gaze to the cracked window that separated me from the street outside and contemplated stripping. I weighed the pros and cons. Well, there are lots of strip clubs in my neighborhood, it would be convenient. No, that’s not safe. I’d have to work in North Beach. And take a cab. Yes, a cab. And maybe I could wear a wig? Definitely. And if people I knew ever came in there, I’d have to pull them aside and threaten to kill them if they ever told anyone. But then I’d have to buy stripper outfits. What are they, and where do you get them? Maybe I could sew something for myself. Yes, a good plan. A cab, a wig, a homemade g-string, and a few death threats. No problem. I had it all figured out. Except the part where I would actually take off my clothes and “dance.” I have no idea how to “dance” like that. I know how to dance and I know how to have sex. I just don’t know how to do both of them at the same time in front of a bunch of strangers while keeping my wig on and an eye out for anyone that I might need to threaten. I called one of my ex-stripper friends for some advice. Unfortunately he wasn’t home.

(yes, that was a purposeful spelling)

Via King Harvest

We get it on most every night
When that moon is big and bright
Its a supernatural delight
Everybody's dancing in the moonlight

We get
Everybody here is out of sight
They don’t bark and they don’t bite
They keep things loose they keep it tight
Everybody's dancing in the moonlight

Dancing in the moonlight
Everybody's feeling warm and bright
Its such a fine and natural sight
Everybody's dancing in the moonlight

We like our fun and we never fight
You cant dance and stay uptight
Its a supernatural delight
Everybody was dancing in the moonlight

Dancing in the moonlight
Everybody's feeling warm and bright
Its such a fine and natural sight
Everybody's dancing in the moonlight

We get in on most every night
And when that moon is big and bright
Its a supernatural delight
Everybody's dancing in the moonlighthttp://www.hellblazer.com/mt/mt.cgi?__mode=view&_type=entry&blog_id=1#
Quote

Dancing in the moonlight
Everybody's feeling warm and bright
Its such a fine and natural sight
Everybody's dancing in the moonlight

Via Athena, I'm led to a column in the Chicago Sun Times which perfectly illustrates the issues I have with what passes for religion these days.

Some gaze at viaduct Virgin but forget concrete world

I stop taking digital photos and observing the crowd for a few moments, and I focus on the image itself. Sure, it sorta-kinda looks like the Virgin Mary. At any given moment, there are about 100 million stains forming on walls and on shower floors and in refrigerators. Occasionally you'll get one that looks like Jesus or the Virgin Mary; just as often, you'll get one that looks like Cedric the Entertainer or Kelly Clarkson.

Just a few steps west of the holy image, leaning against a streetlight pole on Fullerton, there is a homeless man, holding up a small cardboard sign that says:

HELP

I'M HUNGRY

You'd chastise a screenwriter for such easy symbolism, but there the man sits, squinting against the sun and holding up his sign.

In clusters of two and three and four, the faithful who are flocking to and from the image of the Virgin Mary -- they walk right past the homeless man. They walk right past him, as if he's not even there.

These people are far more interested in the symbolism because it's all about selfishness - what Iraq does to prop up their own world view. What painting schools does to justify their own self worth. What their tax return will look like after sticking it to the poor, elderly and helpless.

If they actually cared about the things that the symbols represented, they'd stop focusing on the idols and start living what the symbols represented. Instead of demonizing anyone who dares to disagree with them, they would be embracing debate and dissent. Instead of trying to squeeze every dollar out of the poor so they can finance their own little slice of Cayman heaven, they'd be out trying to figure ways to bring everyone in from the cold and provide them a future that keeps their dignity. But they don't really care about such things. They are still focused on their idols.

Bow too low before any god and you'll miss the whole point of why the god is there in the first place.

Dave Brooks is the canary in the coal mine and he just fell off his perch. Brooks' latest screed, Calling Democrats' Bluff, is a doozy.

I must say that we have finally crossed over into bizarro world. Brooks is singing the praises of Bush's latest gambit to screw the middle class so he can save the poor. I guess what Brooks seems to be forgetting is that the democratic theory of taxes is that they should fall on those who can afford it most. Screwing the middle class is only guaranteed to cause untold pain and suffering - but that is precisely what Brooks wants.

Kind of surreal to see the republicans doing this whole "self fulfilling prophecy" thing, though. I mean, they've been telling us for decades that Social Security was a wealth transfer program and I guess they mean to make damn sure that it becomes one.

And I'm not really sure where Brooks gets the whole "leadership" thing from how Bush has handled SS. I mean, he really hasn't put a plan on the table at all - the administration even seems to be backing off the plan that Brooks is so fond of. All Bush has is a plan "like" thing that has yet to be brought to congress.

Even more damning is the fact that what ever problems Social Security has, Medicaid has far, far worse problems. So I guess that David Brooks' definition of leadership is to first take care of the long term "problems" rather than dealing with the issues confronting us in the next five years.

Now that I think about it, this whole metaphor of "dealing with the wolves at the edge of the meadow rather than dealing with the wolf in the cart" seems to fit the Bush administration to a "T".

Via Ara (who seems to be a much nicer and emotional person than I) I find my top three matches to be

Just wanted to point out that in the past week alone, over 200 250 people have died and "Bob" only knows how many have been maimed and injured. Close to that number injured and dead the previous week.

I certainly am not rooting for the bad guys here, but it's hard not to get the distinct impression that things are completely out of control in Iraq. I keep hearing that things are getting better and better and how the jihadists are desperate and on the run*. But I wonder what would be the effect of having 2,000-3,000 people die on a weekly basis here in the US (i.e. the number dying in Iraq scaled up as a percentage of population).

I really have to wonder what drugs y'all on the right are smoking (or injecting or swallowing or inserting as a suppository) these days (not that I haven't had such thoughts before), and ponder when everyone is finally going to wake up to your blatant happy face lies and white washing and finally kick your lilly livered butts like they deserve to be kicked.

The Slacktivist has a nice post up on the hollowness of Christian victimhood. Tonight on the way home, the formerly socialist and now "fair and balanced*" NPR program All Things Considered was doing a bit on the phenomena of Christians "taking charge": using the courts and <shudder> lawyers to get their way in the public school system.

But I'd like to point out that the culture of right wing victimization doesn't stop with the Christian faction. It's pretty much spread throughout the entire party. Even the fringe groups on the right are sucking off the victimization teat - from Libertarians to South Park Republicans.

It's quite stunning really. Here we have a group that has managed to spend 300 billion dollars carrying out their wildest fantasies of empire playing democracy dominoes in the middle east. The entire duration of this little adventure has consisted of non stop whining about how the vast liberal media has been undermining support for the troops. (oh, and how fat Michael Moore is).

And I think if I hear another David Horowitz inspired rant about the pitiful representation of conservatives in academia... well, let's just say that it won't be pretty. Let's just say that any time the right wing wants to trade professors for Judges and Corporate board positions I'll drop everything and personally broker the deal with the "radical" academic left.

Maybe all of this is payback for the mythical nanny state democrats of the past. That fierce breed of superhuman liberal which single handedly took over the entire American media, strode like gods across the American political stage and forced politeness and political correctness down the throat of a generation of the poor long suffering conservatives.

Myself, I blame libertarians for this entire mess*. They are the enabling catalyst which has brought together this unholy union of rapacious corporatist and religious fascists.

As I've mentioned before, my only wish is that the libertarians are carted off to the reeducation camps before I am. I think I can play Christian long enough to keep them from discovering my true liberal ways. Cut my hair. Start dressing in suits. I could keep 'em guessing for a couple of years and that should buy me enough time. I could still perform useful work for them.

My guess is that the Dobson crowd already have all the libertarians marked - the libertarian's inability to compromise on their core principles of being selfish and rude will force our new moral overlords to turn on them like a pack of ravenous wolves turning on a weak member of their own pack.

Michelle Malkin is already starting to circle their sorry asses in anticipation of the kill. Coulter is starting to play up the whole bare foot and pregnant thang.

Ah to sleep, per chance to dream....

_________________
* obviously, this is a joke. I just thought that, when writing about the proliferation of victimhood on the right, I should join the fray and blame some group for my problems. The libertarians are easy targets because they're prominent in the blogosphere and their positions - while attractive - are indefensible in the actual real world we inhabit.

Thus making them the perfect scapegoat

Come and listen to a story about a man named Tom
A poor punditeer, with columns little better than a sitcom,
Then one day he was searching for a hook,
And up through the muck came a bubblin crock.

Y'all come back now, y'hear?

Everyone seems to be reacting as expected to the "revelations" that, when you fight two near simultaneous wars, conveniently forget to plan the occupation and repeatedly fuck up the rebuilding, your military is unable to do much of anything else. Those on the left are snorting with the "satisfaction" of being damn right on the opportunity cost of the Iraq war and just plain idiocy of the Bush "doctrine" in general. Those on the right are shrugging their shoulders and wondering out loud what the big deal is.

Me, I thought that everyone seemed to be missing the true message of this "announcement"

"The assessment is that we would succeed, but there would be higher casualties and more collateral damage," said one senior Defense official. "We would have to win uglier."

I think the answer is painfully obvious. The only thing that truly surprises me is that they still seem to feel the need to justify their actions.

How quaint.

Side note: I just have to say that I find that picture of the 1945 Trinity nuclear explosion one of the most amazing photographs I've ever seen. The arc is almost geometrically perfect. The chaos and destruction within seemingly contained. Sorry, just thought I should mention that. Shiva the destroyer be a friend of mine... and seeing as how I identify with Yama more often than not...