July 2005 Archives

Well, I guess Rove's going to start feeling that necktie tightening a bit. When last we heard from Bush's brain, he was telling us he learned about Plame's covert status from a reporter.

As the investigation tightens into the leak of the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, sources tell TIME some White House officials may have learned she was married to former ambassador Joseph Wilson weeks before his July 6, 2003, Op-Ed piece criticizing the Administration. That prospect increases the chances that White House official Karl Rove and others learned about Plame from within the Administration rather than from media contacts. Rove has told investigators he believes he learned of her directly or indirectly from reporters, according to his lawyer.

The previously undisclosed fact gathering began in the first week of June 2003 at the CIA, when its public-affairs office received an inquiry about Wilson's trip to Africa from veteran Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus. That office then contacted Plame's unit, which had sent Wilson to Niger, but stopped short of drafting an internal report. The same week, Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman asked for and received a memo on the Wilson trip from Carl Ford, head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Sources familiar with the memo, which disclosed Plame's relationship to Wilson, say Secretary of State Colin Powell read it in mid-June. Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage may have received a copy then too.

So I wonder what the new story is going to be this week?

A while back, Seymour Hersh made the prediction that by the summer of 2005, we'd be at war with Iran.

"The planning for Iran is going ahead even though Iraq is a mess," Hersh said. "I think they really think there's a chance to do something in Iran, perhaps by summer, to get the intelligence on the sites."

He added, "The guys on the inside really want to do this."

Hersh identified those inside people as the "neoconservative" civilian leadership in the Pentagon. That includes Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith -- "the sort of war hawks that we talk about in connection with the war in Iraq."

And he said the preparation goes beyond contingency planning and includes detailed plans for air attacks:

"The next step is Iran. It's definitely there. They're definitely planning ... But they need the intelligence first."

Since it's now summer and we haven't attacked Iran, there was a lot of speculation that Seymour wasn't quite the reporter he thought he was. Yea, sure there were some leaks about planning for war with Iran - but that was just "routine" bureaucratic activity. Nothing to see here... Arthur Silber reminds us that there has been a fly in the Administration's perfectly wonderful plans for a war with Iran:

Bolton's absence from the UN.

There's been a heck of a lot of loose talk regarding the random searches that are going on in the subways, train stations and other places around the country in the wake of the London bombings. Charles Krauthammer is the latest to weigh in on the advantages of racially profiling compared to randomly searching. Herr Krauthammer's argument is stereotypical of the kind of argument you hear all over the place lately - even from those who theoretically should know better.

This whole talk of profiling is really doubly tragic. There is, of course, the rather slippery slope of irrational fear that we all seem to be gleefully sliding down.

The odds of dying in a terrorist attack are minuscule. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the odds are about 1 in 88,000. The odds of dying from falling off a ladder are 1 in 10,010. Even in 2001, automobile crashes killed 15 times more Americans than terrorism. Heart disease, cancer, and strokes are the leading causes of death in the United States — not terrorism.

This leads to some supremely odd situations. For example, we're willing to give up a stunning amount of our basic civil liberties to protect ourselves from what amounts to a zero chance of a terrorist attack. On the other hand, we have the same people fighting tooth and nail to prevent even the barest hint of government regulation of tobacco. People who gladly back making the PATRIOT act permanent are the very same people who would rather die than see even the slightest gun control laws put in place - even though your average American has a 1 in 9,500 chance of being killed by a gun.

The point is not that we should be outlawing tobacco, or heavily regulating guns. But doesn't it seem extremely odd that we're willing to throw away freedoms for ourselves and - most conveniently, others - when we are far more likely to be killed in a gun accident than by a terrorist?

Ye gods, what a stench.

State Dept admits Bolton gave inaccurate answers

The State Department reversed itself on Thursday night and acknowledged that President Bush's U.N. ambassador nominee gave Congress inaccurate information about an investigation he was involved in.

The acknowledgment came after the State Department had earlier insisted nominee John Bolton's "answer was truthful" when he said he had not been questioned or provided information to jury or government investigations in the past five years.

Condi Rice also added that, contrary to previous assurances, John Bolton is not - I repeat, NOT - The Walrus. Paul is still The Walrus.

Dick Cheney, however, is still considered by most experts to be The EggMan.

A new addition to the blogroll: Dylan's Grace Notes.

Not only is she a dead ringer of a long lost southern love of mine, this is a Christian who I don't have any beef with what so ever - quite the opposite. Would that all of Christianity were filled with those as passionate and as clear a vision.

Grace notes, indeed.

Godspeed.

Fuck you.

You pull this kind of shit and you've lost my vote. I don't care if we have a thousand years of Bush family hegemony.

I'll vote Nader again before I'll vote for this crap.

Count on it.

(and I despise Nader).

Update: If you're confused about what I'm upset about, please go read Digby on this subject.

The grassroots are not united in pacifism or any other particular ideology. The grassroots are united in our belief that the Republicans are dangerous radicals who are driving this country off of a cliff. And we've concluded that accomodationist rhetoric at a time of total GOP political dominance is suicidal, particularly when the Republicans are losing the support of the American people on virtually every issue. We think that it's time for a confrontational strategy that shines a light on the Republicans' radicalism. We believe that the country is yearning for some authentic straight talk about real issues and real problems and real solutions --- including national security --- instead of half baked esoteric reworkings of Republican talking points disguised as Democratic moderation.

We believe that you can't be perceived as strong unless you are willing to fight the political fight head on. It's that simple. It's about speaking truth to power. We don't hate the military and we aren't afraid to protect the country. In fact, our entire ethos is just the opposite. The legendary "fighting liberal" image that the hawks evoke with such nostalgia --- is us.

I don't know. I suppose the more "rational" apologists on the right (or the center DLC, as it's defined these days) would perhaps explain it as a kind of a rebound from the hey days of the wild '90's.... You know, that inevitable trough that comes from the inexorable regression to the mean that good old mom nature seems to impose on us when we get too out of hand. But if this is truly the explanation, then we seem to be paying for a hell of a lot of out of the ordinary cool stuff in spades - if you know what I mean.

Going to dinner with the hardware architect of the Mac Mini.

Gotta love it.

“You go, Don Rumsfeld! Show those Nanny State Lefty VonNaySayers that real men aren't afraid of thongs in the name of freedom!

“Down with the Geneva conventions, human rights conventions and simple human decency! Up with global vigilantism, the ends justify the means - and thongs*. We must have thongs! Dick Cheney, show those weak-kneed commie liberal pussies what it means to protect America! Prove to the whole world that our behavior lives up to our rhetoric of freedom!”

"’The American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here. We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience,’ Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told reporters after Rumsfeld testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. ’We're talking about rape and murder -- and some very serious charges.’

“A report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba on the abuse at the prison outside Baghdad says videotapes and photographs show naked detainees, and that groups of men were forced to masturbate while being photographed and videotaped. Taguba also found evidence of a ‘male MP guard having sex with a female detainee.’

“Rumsfeld told Congress the unrevealed photos and videos contain acts 'that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman.’”

******
update: So it turns out the young man shot five times in the back of the head at close range had nothing to do with radical Islam, bombings or American hatred in general. Just someone who was stupid enough to be wearing the wrong clothing and run. Still, one has to crack a few eggs to make a freedom omelet... Remember , all that matters is that it could have been a mushroom cloud bomber.

I have to say that this is absolutely hilarious. In fine peacock strutting, yellow bellied fashion, a blow hard on the right has been called out to prove his manhood and has been found wanting.

So, on the blogroll goes the good Reverend.

And in the process, I found another fabulous person in the incarnation of Southpaw. Apparently, Chris knows Lord Spatula and in the comments of one of the hilarious posts where Lord Spatula makes a complete and utter fool of himself, Chris kept trying to walk him back from the mountains of madness. So another fine addition to the blogroll.

Go check them both out. Excellent and entertaining reads, both.

I got to the good reverend via this post by Dave Neiwert on the elimination game (which you should read as well).

Or The Tragic End of the Cult of Civil Discourse

Billmon has a rather timely post on the Liberal Disease that the democratic party is in the grip of. It's a riff off of a post by Talk Left's Jeralyn on the subject of the recent supreme court nominee. Go read Billmon, as he is the master of this sort of thought pattern, and if you decide to come back, there's more beneath the fold.

Update: Steve Verdon has a rather snarky and completely unprofessional post up in response. It's really quite adolescent and typical of the critisism of Mann and Global Warming in particular. Just remember that Steve actually considers himself educated (Economics, but still). From his response, he's little more than a hack spreading propaganda. Go Steve! You're pretty much showing what a complete and total jerk you are.

The three scientist who were called out on the floor by Congressman Joe Barton from Texas have provided their responses. When last we looked, the theoretically intelligent amongst the right were slavering over the possibility that these uppity scientists were about to get a well deserved governmental smack down.

One of the long running problems with looking into the Hockey Stick has been getting data and code out of the authors (Mann, Bradley and Huges). As I have noted previously there seems to be a pattern with regards to climate scientists and their willingness to share data (and contrary to claims in the comments to that post, not all the data and source code has been shared).

Not sure if this is the same commenter here, but I'm certainly assuming it is. If you can spare a couple of bucks, please go over and help out Joe in his time of need.

Life brings serious shit upon us all, and if there's anything I've learned from doing time on planet earth it's that we absolutely must stick together. Community means helping out.

So, please. Be generous if you are able.

But for the grace of "Bob" go all of us. Subvert our ratfuck of a medical support system!

Hope you like the new look. It should display properly on IE and Firefox. Let me know if there are any issues and I'll have my crack team of style sheet elves pounce upon it instantly (however, absolutely no guarantees they'll actually solve anything).

Update: So I can see the page is screwed up on Netscape. I have no idea why. I've been flaying the CSS elves all night and they don't have a clue either - like they would, eh. So if anyone has any ideas as to why it's so screwed up under Netscape, yet not screwed up under IE or Firefox, I'd appreciate the solution (damn CSS elves).

Iraq Fuel Truck Bomb Devastates Town, Kills 98

Some 15 suicide bombers have struck within just over 48 hours in the capital and along the highway heading south in what al Qaeda's Iraq wing has declared is a new campaign to seize control of Baghdad.mosque which caused devastation in the mixed Sunni and Shi'ite town, in the center of a violent area dubbed by U.S. forces the ``triangle of death.''

A suicide bomber blew up a fuel truck near a crowded vegetable market outside the mosque. In addition to the 98 killed, hospital sources said 75 wounded were being treated, including 19 in a serious condition.

Nevertheless, the figures suggest civilians are bearing the brunt of the suffering in a conflict intended in part to bring them democracy and freedom after years of war, civil strife and economic deprivation under Saddam Hussein.

Boy, the theories be flying around like winged monkeys these days. What did Karl say. When didn't he say it. What toothpaste did Novak use when he informed Rove about Plame's status. What was Valerie Plame's dress size on the day she was working in the office pool when Novak's column was published.

All sorts of stuff that belongs in the class of speculation usually reserved for a Michael Jackson trial.

But one thing that is rather important to remember about all this is that this case will be completely resolved in an actual court of law. Not in the court of PowerLine. Not in Jeff Goldstein's kangaroo court.

Unlike all of the previous "successes" of the keyboard kommandos, such as Dan Rather, John Kerry, etc., there's an actual prosecutor on the case. An actual prosecutor is in charge of finding out the truth of the matter. And while I certainly understand that the "court" of public opinion (or the court of winged monkey opinion, as the case may be) can certainly sway the outcome of a dicey issue, it does not have the huge sway that the kommandos seem to think it has.

So I'm in Ottawa on an offsite for House Harkonenn. First, it's super hot and super humid here in the capital of our neighbor to the north. I got in at 8:00 last night and my SF pampered constitution was immediately hit with a wall of searing heat one normally feels upon entering a sauna. Cool.

Today, I'm now locked in a building because of some security problem. Gee, I just happen to be in the same building as the Israeli embassy and now there are 6' 10" genetically altered Sardaukar wandering the halls with remote control units embedded in their ears. Very scary looking dudes.

And to top things off, I forgot my official Harkonnen identification, which means I'm doubly locked up. If they catch me wandering the halls, the Sardaukar are going to pull my heart plug and use me for pet food.

Bitchin'

Sure glad they're sticking up for Judith Miller, though.

Strangely enough, I'm quite hooked on the 4400. Despite all my predictions, they have managed to have enough formula to be a pseudo typical prime time series and yet still have a quite captivating story line which keeps me guessing and thoroughly engaged. Definitely well worth the dollar.

I've been watching this whole kerfluffle regarding Miller, Cooper and the little troll around which the whole dust up revolves. Myself, I'm neither a constitutional scholar nor a historian so I don't have much expert insights to provide. Rather, my viewpoint is from the outside as one of the ordinary people the press and the government are supposed to be doing the right thing for - I'm not even a "citizen" journalist for an online magazine.

One of the things that struck me about this whole sordid affair is - for example - the visceral reaction from Eric Alterman, Kevin Drum, and any number of liberal pundits. It's something that I don't quite understand. I mean, I certainly understand it in the abstract - yea, we'd all like to believe in the mythic right of journalists to protect their sources. But since it doesn't exist, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.

And it's not like I don't completely understand the idea behind protecting one's sources. But that's the whole point, isn't it? If there's "shield laws" then it isn't the reporter who is bravely shielding his or her sources - it's the law. And the law is - for better or for worse - not on Judith Miller's side here. If you really believe in the principle, then you go to prison for it. Use your journalistic super powers to get the law changed. Do anything except whine for "Bob's" sake.

I think that's what really pisses me off the most about this whole affair - the faux whining. The actual facts of the underlying issue are pretty obvious and even non-citizen journalists like me are able to get a pretty darn good picture about what happened - I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this crap out. Instead, we have the press - so fiercely cherishing the protection of their sources - sitting on their frickin' thumbs and providing the most information free reporting on the whole Plame affair possible. Here we have a frickin' spy outed for political payback and they can't get off their pampered asses to even scribble down a few column inches about it.

But when someone who has been spinning the lies of her cherished sources regarding non-existent weapons of mass destruction, someone who played a very important role in projecting fear, uncertainty and doubt about whether or not we're all going to end up in a mushroom cloud... well, now they sit up and take notice! It just pisses me off something fierce that Miller is now little miss martyr and the press is using this as yet another excuse for their inability to actually report anything substantive about the whole affair.

And I do suppose that sticking up for Miller and making a federal case out of this is like the ACLU sticking up for the free speech rights of Nazis - I suppose. But I really do wonder if any of this would have been even necessary if THEY WERE JUST DOING THEIR FRICKING JOBS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

My lord. What a pack of wimpy losers we have for reporters. They can't possibly stand up for a principle unless it's someone who has so abused "confidential sources" that they literally mean almost nothing any more.

Thanks a lot guys. Hope this whole Miller thing works out for you. In the meantime, we have a complete and utter mess that is getting worse and worse by the day. Maybe someday we could have some real reporting?

Well, that is, after y'all are done preening and strutting, of course....

John over at the aptly named Blogenlust has a very interesting post up about keeping perspective on the recent London bombings.

As Publius has already noted, it's important to keep the scale of violence in perspective. What happened in London was an atrocious act of violence, but it would be considered mundane in Iraq.

I point this out because while our media is saturated with coverage of the London bombings, including images of victims accompanied by sad music and shinny new graphics, they're downplaying daily reports of similar attacks in Iraq.

Why is that? Have we really become numb to the violence in Iraq? How come Anderson Cooper doesn't fly to Iraq whenever there is a car bombing? And how come pictures like this aren't accompanied by the latest Coldplay?

And that was just in the first six weeks after the Iraqi government came into power. The number is now up to 1181 civilians and 648 Iraq police and military personnel*.

Of course, the caveat must be stated that this discussion is not to diminish the tragedy that Londoners - and the UK in general - have suffered yesterday. However, it does beg the question as to why on earth anyone with brain one thinks that there is any question of whether Iraq is a success. It's not.

All it takes is 50 horrific deaths in a western city to send the United States into a security tizzy.

The last two suicide bombers in Iraq - well, those just raise a yawn and a half hearted attempt at bringing up how nicely the schools have been painted. I just have to say, our metrics have just completely disappeared. We have no perspective any more. None.

And speaking of metrics, I do have to say that I'm absolutely appalled by the fact that it's only after two years that our government has decided it's finally time to set some metrics for the Iraq war. What's even more appalling is that people are just beginning to wake up to the fact that - gee - maybe we actually should have some metrics to base whether we define it to be a success or failure.

Of course, we could just ask the families of the last 900 Iraqis that died last month. Or perhaps the families of the 22,787 - 25,814 Iraqi civilians that have died so far.

But that would be too easy.

Sadly, people who have no metrics before they do things will not really develop good ones after the fact - certainly not while they are in the thick of things. And I suppose that I can't really blame the common folk for not having solid metrics before the war (although I must confess it was one of the first things I did on the eve of the war). But it seems to me that one must either be completely blind to the facts in Iraq, or completely ignorant of them to conclude that success in Iraq is an undecidable fact.

The bombings in London - as horrific as they are - also serve as a sharp contrast to the daily horror that Iraqis are putting up with.

Yes. Praise the British for their stiff upper lip. Send them your prayers and support.

But please people. Let's take a frank and stark look at Iraq and what's happening there on a daily basis. And then start demanding a real plan from these Jackals who are running this fiasco in Iraq.

Yes, actual metrics would be a great start. But lord almighty, it's such a tragic comment on how this war has been prosecuted that we simply don't have them almost 2 and a half years after the "end of major combat operations".

I'm sorry to say, but this is how idiots do things. And it should have been apparent to anyone from the very beginning.

Perspective.

Perhaps we need a mirror as well.

Words fail. To all my friends and acquaintances in Britain, Godspeed. To all my English friends living over here, I hope all your relatives and friends are safe and sound.

To all you right wing assouls: fuck off and die. I simply cannot believe the speed at which they have instantly grasped this this horrific incident to use for their own political agenda and to (most importantly) beat up their political enemies.

Update: what was I thinking? It's lunacy to think this isn't going to be politicized by both sides. Still, what passes for prayers in my fictional religion goes out to y'all on the other side of the pond and I hope you can stomach what's coming down the pike as we on this side of the pond make political hay out of your tragedy.

My most sincere apologies for the state of our politics and the nightmare that ensues from it.

Bush's plummeting approval ratings

plus

60% agree with or oppose overturning Roe v. Wade

plus

66% of Americans opposed eliminating the filibuster.

plus

Rove's little bit o' treason

plus

one really pissed off right wing religious base demanding red meat

This just keeps getting better and better. Apparently, Liberals are no longer the mamby pamby nurturing parent stereotype that we've all come to know and love. Nope.

Who knew that Liberals are - in fact - ruthless and merciless parents who will never let their children forget a mistake - no matter how small? And - get this - conservatives are the kind and understanding parents who know that precocious children just need a bit of room and they'll all turn out good in the end.

Pretty cool, eh? I have to say that I'm rather pleased with this new trend. Conservatives are finally shedding their Republican Reptile skin and out pops a warm hearted, nurturing phoenix. After all, Republicans are the party of equality of opportunity, right? I fully expect them to start pushing affirmative action any day now.

Conservatives: what's wrong with them?

Comparisons between the US and dictatorships are considered offensive, which they are. But if they fit the facts on the ground, they are also essential. Saying "it can't happen here" doesn't make it so.

The usual excuse is to say that in our case, it's different. The reason why the targeted group has to lose its rights is different. It's not the same old lunacy this time. This time it's justified.

However, the differences mean nothing. Everything is always different. Nothing ever happens the same way twice. South African apartheid is different from Saudi Arabian, which is different from ghettoizing Jews, which is different from Hutus slaughtering Tutsis. It's not the differences that tell us what we're dealing with. It's the awful similarities.

We need to get our heads around a few simple facts. No matter how reasonable it looks, no matter how great the threat (which is another way of saying no matter how great our fear), it is never all right to deprive other human beings of the same rights given to full citizens. It was insanity the last time, and it is insanity this time. There is no way to be a civilized society and do those things. It is crazy, obviously, to destroy civilization in order to save it.

For those of us who want to stop enabling lunacy, it is important to call things by their right names. We need to stop being respectful toward attitudes that destroy respect. Reserve tolerance for opposing points of view. Insanity does not need tolerance. It needs treatment.

As a person who's heavily on the freedom side of the freedom vs caution debate, I certainly wouldn't advocate compulsory treatment. Moonbats can live next door, if they want, so long as they keep to themselves. However, in public life, whether for voters, politicians, or media, intolerance cannot be tolerated.

If radical conservatism continues to be tolerated as something normal, it's not hard to see what will happen. Those few symptoms--detention without trial, torture, or making up legal excuses in the name of a greater good--tell us that we've crossed the line. We're not headed for the slippery slope. We're on it. It is past time to say no. The only question now is when we'll open our eyes and see where we're going.

No doubt you already heard the rumor.

Bush's brain, indeed.

I think Joseph Wilson is finally going to get his wish.

Via a Valid Path

I know you're out there
Cuz I can feel ya
Yeah I can feel ya trying to pull me down
I know your kind
You kinda like it
When people tell ya not to come around
Here's looking at ya
Been nice to know ya
I see the lines written on your face
I wish you well
But I gotta tell ya
Ain't nothing human ‘bout the human race

You can run
But you can't look behind you
You can hide
But the truth's gonna find you

Some people fight it like some disease
They carry secrets to an early grave
They try to fake it
While on their knees
Never knowing what they really crave
They got no values
They got no soul
No sense of purpose
Nothing to believe
Call me your friend
Then steal me blind
To me you're nothing but a common thief

You can run
But you can't look behind
You you can hide
But the truth's gonna find you
Holding us within this maze

It's been hanging in the air for some time. That pregnant feeling when everything around you is telling you that a big storm is about to break, but you can't put your finger on any one thing - something that you feel on multiple levels rather than just an intellectual understanding of a rational explanation of mechanism. But this one just keeps promising to break, stressing things more and more, rather than actually breaking. It begins to wear on you and you find yourself wishing that the god damned storm would just break so you can finally get it over with - it's the anticipation of the disaster which becomes far, far more stressing than whatever the actual disaster will bring.

At least in theory. Because inevitably, the disaster really, really is worse than whatever pregnant pause which proceeds it. Being silly humans, however, we simply cannot stand the tension and the seemingly endless anticipation of disaster soon overwhelms us and we start begging mother nature to just get it over with and unleash whatever big bad ass disaster she has waiting for us in the wings.

Or that's how it seems to me. Living in my own warped version of reality, combined with my own highly specialized and cultivated filters through which I interpret the data I receive from the various sources (some of whom are highly suspect, I must confess).

Item: Democrats are actually more unpopular than Republicans.

A poll on the political mood in the United States conducted by the Democratic Party has alarmed the party at its own loss of popularity. Conducted by the party-affiliated Democracy Corps, the poll indicated 43 percent of voters favored the Republican Party, while 38 percent had positive feelings about Democrats. "Republicans weakened in this poll ... but it shows Democrats weakening more," said Stanley Greenberg, who served as President Clinton's pollster. Greenberg told the Christian Science Monitor he attributes the slippage to voters' perceptions that Democrats have "no core set of convictions or point of view." Fellow strategist James Carville said the war in Iraq and rising fuel prices are affecting party loyalty as well. "The country is just in a foul mood," Carville said. He noted within the same poll, 56 percent of Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction. The poll was conducted June 20-26 and queried 1,078 likely voters. The margin of error was pegged at 3 points.

- When you vote with Republicans for an energy bill that showers huge oil/gas companies with massive tax breaks at a time of record deficits, and that energy bill won't lower the cost of gasoline, Americans will believe you stand for nothing.

- When you ignore public demands for a withdrawal/exit strategy from Iraq, and instead vote against legislation requesting the President explain an exit strategy from the war, Americans will believe you stand for nothing.

- When you say you are for economic fairness, and then your top leaders start negotiating the elimination of the Estate Tax that falls on the wealthiest 2 percent of citizens, Americans will believe you stand for nothing.

- When you deride the fact that the Bush administration lied to the country about the war and about its behavior before 9/11, and then vote to confirm chief liar Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State, Americans will believe you stand for nothing.

Well, if there actually was a third party to join, that is... Much to my own failings, I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. Although I was in California, and consequently my vote didn't mean jack as Gore carried the state hands down, I was part of the meme pushing for a smack in the face to the democratic party. At the time, I really bought into Saint Ralph's argument "if Gore can't beat a Texan with his record on the environment, etc, etc, then he doesn't deserve to be president...". Yep, that whole line of reasoning worked out really well. Two wars and several trillion dollars flushed down the drain later we can see that whatever Gore was, he was far, far better than the alternative.

At the time, I can remember quite distinctly my arguments - one of which I was quite fond of. It went something like this

The democrats are like a bunch of kidnappers ransoming the American public: vote for us or we kill the dog

Item: Don't worry, be happy. Not only was Iraq "worth it", we are not in a dire situation with respect to our troop levels. And whatever you are hearing about the military, they are not - not, I repeat - in any systematic trouble.

Yesterday I had a rather depressing experience that pretty much summed up this whole situation. Robert Siegel, on NPR's All Things Considered, was throwing out a little tid bit as a teaser before the break: "In a reversal of trends, the Army exceeds its recruiting goal". At that point I turned off the radio and cued up my AP CD at maximum volume such that my ears - which have offended me - started to bleed.

I mean, what kind of a world do we live in when the Army, who are telling us that they must pick up an average of 9760 recruits per month through September, then turn around and lower the goal for July to 5650, which they then "exceed" by 500 recruits. And that liberal, pinko, commie, Saddam coddling NPR turns around and reports that as a reversal of fortunes with a straight face? The whole thing is the perfect metaphor for the war in Iraq - we keep lowering the bar until we can clear it, and then we proclaim it a victory from the rooftops.

As I said, these are the end of days.

Item: Team of U.S. GIs Missing in Afghanistan. Seems that not only did a helicopter get shot down, but it turns out the helicopter was sent in to find out what happened to a missing team of soldiers. Lovely, ain't it? I mean, doesn't this just fly smack in the face of the portrait that the right is constantly painting of the success story that is Afghanistan? I mean, at this point, it's starting to sound more like a replay of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan rather than the flower of liberal democracy spreading like kudzu throughout the land.

Well, at least the illicit drug transit from Afghanistan is set to take off. Myself, I've always thought that the whole drug trade was the ultimate form of expression for capitalism, so I guess it's fitting that the first country that we liberated in the war on terror is literally the biggest drug exporter in the world. A seething hot bed of free wheeling capitalism in its most raw form. Regulations? We don't need no stinking regulations - or laws for that matter. A libertarian paradise indeed.

Item: Flu outbreak hits China's wild birds. Perhaps the biggest irony of all is that it appears that all this hand wringing over terrorists, the war in Iraq, the mess that Afghanistan appears to be tumbling head long into, the complete and utter fuck up that the democratic party has become - well, that's all going to pale in comparison to what the ultimate bio weapons manufacturer appears poised to unleash upon the population of the globe.

Yep, while we've all been worrying about vote counting, whether our soldiers have enough body armor, and whether Judith Miller will go to jail for her "principles", good old mother nature has been brewing up a rather potent virus that is not just mutating rapidly, but appears to be a rather deadly beast. Granted, we might just luck out and no mutation occurs which transforms the virus such that human to human transmission becomes easy. The saner heads will tut tut my alarm at such matters and brush away my worry with a quick squirt of reason, but quite frankly that kind of reaction is getting less and less credible. Just check out my Furl archive I've been compiling regarding the avian flu and how we are completely unprepared for what appears to be inevitable. Yea, it may not happen, but as they say in the old country - the country of my birth - "hope is not a plan". The sleep of reason may beget monsters, but laughing in the face of an impending epidemic isn't much better. Millions are going to die - at least 50,000 just in my state of California alone.

Kind of puts the whole 9/11 thing in perspective, don't it?

Well, at least there are a few bright spots we can be thankful for. Apparently, we men can be reassured that our penis is in fact normal, and not really undersized.

Men worried about having a small penis are usually pretty average, but have a false idea of what the normal size is, according to a report in the medical journal Urology.

This best way to reassure men with penile concerns is to educate them, the author of the report says. Men should know that a normal-sized penis is 1.6 inches or more when flaccid or 2.76 inches when stretched out.