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  • You are currently browsing the American Street weblog archives for February, 2007.


Crusin’ Down De Nile

The junior U.S. Senator from New York really likes me. I can tell, because she sends me emails addressing me by my first name. Here are a few lines from her latest note to all of us close personal friends:

Yesterday, in my latest HillCast, I described a plan for an Apollo-like effort to make clean, alternative energy the energy of America. This plan would create a strategic energy fund to invest in developing and deploying clean and alternative energy — home grown energy.

Sounds cool to me, Diane (we longtime close personal friends call her that). Can our household budget cover this?

We can create the fund without new taxes on Americans by asking the oil companies to “Play or Pay”: either they invest in alternative energy themselves, or they pay a portion of their windfall profits earned from the spike in oil prices into the strategic energy fund.

Well obviously, this must be some kind of a test flag-raising to see if anybody salutes. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there’s something wrong about that “without new taxes” phrase. Unless it means you don’t consider oil companies American, then it must mean that you don’t see compulsory payments to government programs as taxes. Let me explain it, Diane.

If the alternatives are paying into this fund “voluntarily” or being forced to pay into it anyway, there is no choice involved. If they refuse to pay, the Energy Department (or whatever other agency gets this task) will just take the money. If they hide it under the bed, arm themselves, and refuse to give it up, then armed goverment agents will overwhelm them with firepower, and if necessary, kill them. Just like admitted taxes, these payments are made at the implicit or explicit point of a gunbarrel.

Now you might believe there are good reasons to advocate this program. It might even be wildly popular. But it is insulting to my intelligence to try and deny that this is taxation. Don’t piss on my shoes and tell me it’s raining.

why the gores’ electric bill is lose-lose for the right

much ado is being made about al gore’s utility bills as of late. but the nytimes finds out that, as usual, the numbers don’t really add up:

the group, the tennessee center for policy research, issued its statement a day after the film “an inconvenient truth,” which tracked mr. gore’s campaign to educate the world about the ravages of global warming, won an academy award for best documentary feature. by its count, mr. gore’s mansion “consumes more electricity every month than the average american household uses in an entire year,” the statement said.

but here is where the story gets a little blurry.

the group cited some damning kilowatt-consumption figures — 221,000 for the gores in 2006, compared with the american average of 10,656, for instance — which, it said, were obtained from the nashville electric service. it put the gores’ average monthly electric bill at $1,359. of course, those figures immediately rocketed through cyberspace…

the associated press, however, apparently asked a spokeswoman from the nashville utility company, laurie parker, if the policy group had actually obtained the information from them, and she said the utility never got a request from the policy center and that no information was ever turned over to them.

so the a.p. decided to review the utility records itself, and came up with slightly different kilowatt consumption numbers: 191,000 for the gores in 2006 — compared to a typical nashville home of 15,500 kilowatts.

it remains unclear at this point why there would be two contradictory sets of numbers floating around — even if both sets do show mr. gore’s mansion to be a bit of an energy hog.

we shan’t get into gore’s offset argument here. needlenose does an excellent job describing, step-by-step, how everyone can follow gore’s lead and purchase renewable energy credits for their own carbon footprint.

Read the rest of this entry »

Employee Fair Choice Act Update

This is the list of Congresspeople the Chamber of Commerce is targeting in their fight against the Employee Fair Choice Act.  If you see your congress member on the list, it’s even more important that you make that call (and get five of your friends to do the same) today:

Read the rest of this entry »

Another Reason Edwards Is VERY Viable

Elizabeth Dole’s in trouble and they’ve turned hard against the war president. Will NC go blue in ‘08? If Edwards os the nominee, the odds would be highest.

Grim Fairy Tale

On this day in 1926, a princess was born to the king of a distant country. As she grew up, her father and his courtiers punished her suitors and husbands. Finally she fled to a land where followers of her father’s materialist cult were persecuted. There she was overwhelmed into another failed marriage by an obsessive mystic mother-in-law. She went back and forth between the two worlds but was always being cast into a role instead of seen as an individual.

Her name was Svetlana Alliluyeva.

Svetlana Alliluyeva


University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds has proposed
that Iranian radical mullahs and atomic scientists be forced to
count all the occurrences of ‘heh’ and ‘indeed’ in the Instapundit
archives. He believes this will be sufficient to persuade Iran to
“reconsider their not-so-covert war against us in Iraq.”

Get’er Done

Very busy at work so all my bloggy wisdom will have to wait.  Here are two things of interest though:

Thing One:  You can go here and find out how to call your Congressional representatives to demand (nicely) that they vote for the Employee Free Choice Act.   The vote is Thursday so the clock is ticking.  Thomas explains the EFCA here.  From that post:

I think the right to unionize is an essential part of a decent, well
functioning economy. Companies with billions in their bank accounts for advertising, political largesse, and sometimes brute force have a huge advantage over ordinary employees if there aren’t unions to insist on
decent pay, hours, and benefits, and safe working conditions.

The American Rights At Work organization is asking everyone who cares about
labor rights and the freedom to form unions to join in support of the
Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 1696, S.842).
The bill, sponsored by Representative George Miller (D-CA) in the House
and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) in the Senate, would impose stiffer
penalties against employers that violate labor law. It would also

…set
up a process for newly-organized workers to negotiate a first contract
in a timely manner. Under the Employee Free Choice Act, workers could
opt to follow the "voluntary recognition" method of organizing, where
workers choose union representation through a process in which a
majority signs cards indicating their support.

Can we count on you to call?

Thing Two:   Democracy for America runs excellent political action training seminars.  If you ever have the chance to get to one, take it.   That’s where I learned the reasoning behind the phrase "Can I count on you to …?"   Now Democracy for America Night School is back, which gives you some of the classes online via Powerpoint-like presentations.  They cover the basics of activism and try to inspire participants to get out there and do something.  Anything would good.  NIght School classes coming up are:

Holding Elected Leaders
Accountable

March 6th – 8:30pm
Eastern
RSVP: .php?id\u003d18353

Building Progressive\nCoalitions
March 13th – 8:30pm\nEastern
RSVP: www.dfalink.com/event.php?id\u003d18354

Anyone Can Run
March 20th\n– 8:30pm Eastern
RSVP: www.dfalink.com/event.php?id\u003d18356

Building Progressive
Coalitions

March 13th – 8:30pm
Eastern
RSVP: www.dfalink.com/event.php?id=18354

Anyone Can Run
March 20th
– 8:30pm Eastern
RSVP: www.dfalink.com/event.php?id=18356

Victory is not just something that happens during election
years. We earn it. DFA members are committed to sustaining the
progressive victories we’ve built last year. Are you?

Well are you??? 

Journalists Should Be Asking: Questions #7 & #8

Item: WASHINGTON (CNN)

– Polls suggest whites are more likely than blacks to say America is ready for a black president, which may be part of why much of the African-American community is cool to the presidential candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama.

Perfect non-sequitur. Who defines ‘much of the African-American community’? The poll didn’t. It defined whether they though America was ready for a black president. So did the radio callers.

Otherwise, as ‘proof’ they offer the thoughts of one South Carolina voter. Hardly ‘much’ of the black community.

Second question: the poll was conducted December 5-7 last year, so why is it being recycled now?

Sounds like someone’s trying to keep alive a meme, instead of reporting news.

Update: more recent polls completely counter CNN’s old one. So again, what’s CNN’s agenda?

Padilla? Oh, he’s normal as can be

Sure. He’s perfectly normal. He:

sometimes slept on a steel bunk without a mattress, that the windows in his 80-square-foot cell were blackened

Roughly a 7×11 cell completely dark except (maybe) one lightbulb? And you sleep on cold metal?

At the LA Times:

What emerged from the cross-examination was that Padilla had little human contact during his 3 1/2 -year incarceration in the brig, that both windows in his cell were covered to create a blackout, and that the electric light in his cell could only be activated by jailers and was, like his Koran, unavailable for unspecified reasons or periods of time.

Isolation drives prisoners mad. Always, when it’s overdone. It, by itself, is torture. He has been treated with cruelty. As with non-citizens being held for years, the US has never proved its ludicrous claims that he was part of the 9-11 plot. They haven’t even tried to.

Justice denied to Padilla is justice denied to you, to me, to our families.

Stock market: cooked?

Because I’ve followed the stock mkt for 8 years, I’ve been pretty good at calling the overall market. I’ve said for some time I was expecting a market reversal between 2600-2700 on NASDAQ, and yesterday, I narrowed that to 2625.

Maxwell Smart: “missed by THAT MUCH.”

So erring by 94 pts is not so bad. This is what I posted at Silicon Investor about it:

2007 Market Call:

Dang. My chart said 2700 and based on past experience, I deducted 75 and said 2625 was my exit point. So I was off by 94 pts. Today ought to trade like a V or W, with the bottom lower than yesterday, before the rise to a better close. Maybe.

Ah well, sometime next week we ought to rally back close to the peak, but it looks like a crummy March after that. Better to be in cash, though, when the market’s showing panic.

Time for nimble daytrades, with swingtrades on the short side.

Checking for countertrends, I’m surprised that oil, gold, and biotech indexes also dropped, as did defense stocks and homebuilders. So did the dollar. (And, of course, China stocks) Pretty serious weakness in all stocks at the moment. I’ll keep checking to see if any countertrends develop.

Closing below 2400 means sometime not far off, we’ll dip to around 2340 before a short rally.

Target: some time in the second quarter, 1850 is the first real bottom to hope for in this correction, with 1650 a longshot possibility.

Other than 9/11, I can’t recall any time that I ever saw such breadth of everything falling together. I don’t buy the sales pitch that Greenspan and China did this, independent of all other events.

The only charts of note that ‘all data’ yields a clear exponential growth curve, are XOM and CVX. I was expecting them to both test $95-$100 before they had their bubble-burst falls, and that still may be correct. HOWEVER, this may be the burst of the oil bubble. If so, look for CVX to dip below $60 before rallying back to $70. These should not burst like the COMP did in 2000; as they’re profitable with low P/Es.

I suspect oil may be the real leader of this corrective phase, which is counterintuitive, considering all the Iran turmoil. However, knowing that China is allied with Iran, we could see China using equity dumps to mitigate the price spikes of any oil embargo, (as well as our own use of the Strategic Reserve to control any of those anticipated price spikes.)

So volatility will abound and I’ll look for an ultimate market bottom that could come as early as mid-May or as late as mid-September. (most likely between June 23-August 20)

Bottom line: oil and Iran look like the real drivers of this correction. And once some conclusion comes to that (most likely a negotiated settlement), the rebound should be equally dramatic in the COMP, as it zooms to 3000+ before the next correction comes in the Spring of 2008.

What Have You Done To Stop Armageddon?

George Lakoff is very upset about the impending attack on Iran. He gives quotes from the usual suspects, then summarizes in The Words None Dare Say: Nuclear War:

Bush, Cheney, McCain, Edwards, Clinton, and Obama all say indirectly that they seriously consider starting a preventive nuclear war, but will not engage in a public discussion of what that would mean. That contributes to a general denial, and the press is going along with it by a corresponding refusal to use the words. …

Progressives managed to blunt the “surge” idea by telling the truth about “escalation.” Nuclear war against Iran and nation destruction constitute the ultimate escalation.

The time has come to stop the attempt to make a nuclear war against Iran palatable to the American public. We do not believe that most Americans want to start a nuclear war or to impose nation destruction on the people of Iran.

Is he an optimist that is right about us? Or just a willfully blind fool in a nest of bloodthirsty killers by proxy?

Have you written your members of Congress to tell them you are opposed to nuclear war with Iran?

Needed: Nerve Tonic

Courage is sadly wanting at the Capitol, and so, apparently, is the elementary ability to read the polls:

House Democratic leaders are backing away from a plan to scale back U.S. involvement in the Iraq war by using Congress’ most powerful tool — withholding money in the budget.

Instead, party officials said Tuesday, leaders are weighing a proposal that would attempt to embarrass Bush into abandoning his war strategy. Under a plan discussed behind closed doors, Democrats probably would fund President Bush’s entire $93.4 billion request for war spending this year but require that any troops sent into battle that don’t meet certain standards receive a presidential waiver and that Congress be notified of the shortcoming.

At least one member gets it:

If “we vote for the supplemental, I believe we own the war,” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., one of a group of liberal Democrats pushing for an immediate end to the war. Bush “hasn’t to date done anything we’ve asked him to do, so why we would think he would do anything in the future is beyond me,” Woolsey said of the reporting requirements.

Dead right. And dead is what lots of more Americans — and Iraqis, many innocent, killed by Americans, as well — will be, pointlessly, while the spineless ones now throw their own power and mandate into the garbage, becoming enablers of senseless slaughter. They figure this will keep contributions coming from the beltway lobbyists, so they’ll sleep just fine at night. Crying parents will be removed by Congressional security, if needed.

Thanks for nothing, clueless cowards.


“Gee, this must be the one bombing a day Laura Bush says
discourages everyone who sees it on television. Lucky for
me, my parents only let me watch Cartoon Network.”

Two-Day Warning: liberal prophecies for the coming days

Gas-price spikes. A NASDAQ peak between 2625-2700 followed by at least a 25% correction. An advanced Daylight Savings time, with your computer requiring a patch if it’s more than 2 years old. Aggression against Iran by the Beavis and Butthead Bullies of the Beltway. Me going bye-bye (the two-day warning).

I won’t be around on-blog to be more timely in my reminders. I expect all of these events to occur within three weeks. No, I don’t necessarily mean a physical attack on Iran or the highest gas prices of the year will occur in this period. But anything short of direct talks with Iran qualifies as aggression. And the march to the highest gas prices our country’s ever experienced will be well underway. And while I’m on hiatus from our American Street, the culmination of each will come and pass.

My hiatus begins Thursday and it’ll be August at the earliest before I return. The other regulars will keep dishing up the nutritious stuff in the meantime.

Keep up the spirit that guided Americans like Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington, Lafayette, Fanny Wright, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, Sarah Winnemucca, Harriet Tubman, John Fremont, Wendell Phillips, Abraham Lincoln, Mother Bickerdyke, Carl Schurz, Thoreau, Inshata-Theumba, Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Beecher Hooker, Victoria Woodhull, Samuel Clemens, Helen Hunt Jackson, Audobon, Mary Harris Jones, the Wright Brothers, Jane Addams and Lillian Wald, Upton Sinclair, Teddy Roosevelt, John Muir, Margaret Sanger, Eugene Debs, Helen Keller, Robert Goddard, Woodrow Wilson, Ida Wells-Barnett, Sinclair Lewis, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Theodore Dreiser, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, Aldous Huxley, E. E. Cummings, Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, FDR, Eleanor Roosevelt, John Dewey, Linus Pauling, George Marshall, Harry Truman, Chuck Yeager and Jackie Cochran, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Grace Murray Hopper, John Kenneth Galbraith, Rachel Carson, JFK, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, RFK, Maya Ying Lin, Philip Emeagwali, the Berrigan Brothers, Seymour Hersh and millions of Americans before and since. All imperfect, yet all great contributors to the advance of civilization.

It is that spirit - of human liberation, exploration, creativity, and care - that I call real liberalism. which defies the narrow straitjacket of most political definitions. Carry it on.

I’ll also make a final appeal for funding for all the creative works by this community of enlightened liberals: give generously, so our works can continue to enlighten, inform and entertain liberals … and to persuade illiberals of their error. Donate via PayPal in the right column; it is the least, in good conscience, you can do to express your belief in our works.

great scientific minds think alike!

dr. pz myers of pharyngula is offering up his own version of blogroll amnesty day! as long as your site is active, and not creationist, you can get on pharyngula’s blogroll!

(we suggested to pz that another caveat be that your blog link to pharyngula! it’s only fair!)

pz, along w/jon swift and skippy, is one of the few bloggers acting as if the true meaning of “blogroll amnesty day” applies, unlike some other blogs we know, who shall remain nameless.

The Boss’s Mite

Our noble corporate CEOs are becoming the scapegoats for all their deservedly outsourced underlings. Across the country, shreholders are seeking to stick their nose into the level of executive pay, when a mere average salary and bonus of only a little over two million is already shortchanging our titans of industry. Even Our Noble Lame Duck has foolishly been frightened into throwing a verbal bone to the plebians, dangerously admitting “The fact is that income inequality is real.” This witch-pruning has gone so far that one CEO was scared into giving up all but one dollar of his salary. But this terrible example is not the worst sign of the economic end times.

That dishonor must go to the Texas legislator who has introduced a bill to set a maximum compensation for executives of power companies which have rates over 125% of national average. Democratic State Representative Lon Burnham is open about his intended target: TXU, which just paid its boss $60 million over the last two years. The company would not only be fined, but executive pay would be capped at the minimum wage. Surely, Adam Smith would faint dead away.

While the Republicans still control the Texas Legislature and the Governor’s mansion, they need to quickly pass a poison pill to prevent such pestering in the future. My first thought was to restrict the salary of legislators to whatever maximum they set as corporate executive pay. Unfortunately, that would not work in the Lone Star State. The current minimum wage (unless Bush caves in and lets the Democrats raise it) is only about $10,300 for a year. The Texas Legislature only makes $7,200 per year (which no doubt explains a lot about its quality), so that would be a pay increase, not a deterrent. The voters consistently refuse to authorize an increase in the Constitutionally-set pay for these noble Solons.

Fortunately, they are vulnerable in another area. Their pension is based on the salary of judges (presently $125,000 a year), so the legislators work for a few years, then retire to make more than they made in office. I propose that we provide that the pension of anyone who votes for a pay ceiling for a corporation operating in Texas will be set at the same limit they put on CEOs. This kind of serious cut in compensation should be sufficient to discourage such meddling in the market. To paraphrase the state’s late icon of cowboy entrepreneurship, H. L. Hunt, if a company is worth saving, it’s worth saving for a huge bonus and stock option package.

US and UK work against each other in Afghanistan

From The Guardian, comes the report that Britain has changed tactics from a shooting war they concede can not be won by firepower:

Officials say the new tactics are to identify “Talibs who are sick of fighting” and persuade them to rejoin their tribes and benefit from the human rights laws and state structures being set up in the country. Captured fighters may also be offered alternatives to incarceration, while more deals will be sought with tribal elders.

They hope increasingly to damage the Taliban without relying on a shooting war, a tactic which has often proved counter-productive in the past, notably when Nato air strikes kill civilians. “We are convinced most people do not support the Taliban and want to take a route through it,” said one source. British officials distinguish the Taliban from al-Qaida, describing it as a “more fluid” organisation.

But they have a big concern:

British officials are worried about the consequences of US proposals to eradicate Afghanistan’s opium poppy harvest, which include spraying the crops from the air, a policy it adopted in Colombia.

The fear is that tough anti-narcotic measures now would alienate poor farmers who have no alternative livelihood and drive more Afghans into the hands of the Taliban. Such a policy would further endanger British troops, military commanders say. “The Americans are more impatient than we are,” said one official, adding that the immediate priority should be to target and disrupt “convoys and laboratories and medium value drugs traffickers”.

So The Times of London reports that the American poppy eradication plan is doing just that, driving ruined farmers to join the Taleban.

The right hand fights against the left hand again. So it goes when Beavis and Butthead of the Beltway remain in charge of the other war they didn’t win.

Must-See TV

Tonight, at 10, a top journalist takes up the fight for badly injured veterans. They need more champions like Woodruff.

Absence of Evidence plagues Bush

Those supposedly Iranian weapons parts? Looks like they came from elsewhere.

Once again, the Bush administration displays why it hates courts. They never can prove their case with that icky tricky thing called ‘evidence.’

Non-negotiations begin to prevent the non-planned war against the non-WMD possessor

The US military has been weakened, according to the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace. And “a report that accompanied Pace’s review concluded that while the Pentagon is working to improve its warfighting abilities, it “may take several years to reduce risk to acceptable levels.”

Meanwhile…

Based on historical Republican weakness at negotiating fur from a shedding cat, this can only mean they’ll be discussing the non-shape of the non-negotiating table while planning the most massive non-bombing campaign in world history.

Six years of stalling talks with North Korea provided nothing more than what was available in 2001. Republican negotiating skills haven’t looked this weak since Nixon and Kissinger’s pathetic attempts in Vietnam.

‘Bomb ‘em back to the Stone Age’ was the policy back then. It didn’t work. And the proud tradition of Republican weakness at diplomacy is showing quite clearly again. They don’t know how to wage a war or how to end one, having failed at both in every hot war since the Spanish American War of 1898.

But they’ve sure learned how to start them, haven’t they?

Pompous Fools Never Learn

Marian Anderson

On this day in 1897 Marian Anderson was born.

The magnificent black contralto became a cause in 1939 when the D.A.R. refused to let her sing at their auditorium. Thousands of members, including the President’s wife, quit in protest.

But it was not until sixteen years later that the New York Metropolitan Opera let her break the color barrier there. Today, fourteen years after her death, they are still utterly clueless about her and what she means. Evidence? Warning: Try not to upchuck on your keyboard when you do this. Go look at the banner photo they chose to put atop the page on her birthday at www.marian-anderson.org.


“I know that my blessing is on the way
I can’t see it right now but I stand by faith
I fought many, many battles in His name
I held up the bloodstained banner and proclaim that
Jesus is the Truth and the Light
Believe it when I say He will make it alright.”


With civil war in full swing, Iraqi horologists
are working long hours to make sure everyone
gets to the next explosion on time.


Rather than continue to serve as symbols for the GOP,
these battered and bruised pachyderms have decided to
throw themselves into the sea.

Can this be a glimmer of hope?

Since many global analysts believe this is the core reason for the war in Iraq, it looks like May will be the decisive month for the Iraqi Parliament to shit or get off the pot.

Amazing coincidence that this is timed the same as when the Bush surge reaches peak force, isn’t it? It suggests that like every other step of installing an Iraqi government, they anticipate hostilities will escalate around this event. (Majority will can be ignored by the White House till they get this last piece of the puzzle in place.)

Based on the government’s past performance, I’d look for a decision in June. But who are these ‘outside Iraq advisors’ to the Federal Oil Council? And who will conduct a population census to gain assurance of the fair revenue distribution?

After the Hersh revelations, it should now be clear to both the Sunnis and Shias that the US government can’t be trusted by either. It’ll be interesting to see of the Bush-Cheney penchant for backstabbing makes both sects realize that they’d better work together on solutions, so they can jointly demand their occupier to vamoose.

If not, the civil war will get worse.

Darfur Crimes go before the World Court

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court brings evidence before the World Court today that concludes 51 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes should be brought against a Janjaweed militia colonel and Sudan’s former Interior Minister.

It is a first step. Let us hope it marks the beginning of the end to the genocide there. It’s hard to see, since the Sudan, like the Bush government, doesn’t recognize the court’s authority. Which means the UN Security Council will likely get to judge an appropriate UN response. It’s too bad our moral authority is so weak there now, with our own sponsored genocide going down.

Justice is slow, but inevitable. One hopes it comes before another 200,000 civilians die in that ongoing genocide.

Keith on Condi

There’s no Adolf Tenderizer in this roast.

A Belated Valentine

From the First Family of Wack.

Sometimes I think we should stand for more

We should forget the polls, say ’screw the racists!’ and get busy electing the smartest and best pairing around:

Obama and Richardson. Really.

There’s really no way not to be impressed by Richardson’s accomplishments.

A combination of competence and conscience, foreign policy success and good domestic economic priorities.

Yes, it’d prompt a national review of values: have we evolved enough that racial bias won’t limit our possibilities as a nation?

Both are centrists, yet both uphold liberal ideals.

This is definitely a pairing worth considering. In addition to answering that question, I think they can win. Therefore, the country can win.

(I haven’t concluded this is the best pair available. I do consider it as a distinct possibility.)

Here’s what some bloggers who attended that AFSCME conference thought of the various candidate presentations.

Iraq: Mission Fubar

Say hello to the rapper TIMZ.

and Dr. Dahlia Wasfi.

Chamber of Indentured Servitude is on the March

Geeze; if you see this ad around, I hope you’ll print it out to use as toilet paper. Anyone who can’t see how anti-worker it really is should phone me. I have a great real estate deal for you in the prime tourist haven of Fallujah.

(The Map feature proves PT Barnum right. Please don’t be a sucker, for the sake of your kids, puppies and everything sacred, including the wallet you pray to).

An Upside-Down Country

Helen Clark

On this day in 1950, Helen Clark was born.

She was a teenaged protester against the Vietnam War, is an open agnostic, and favors making New Zealand a republic.

Despite or because of this, in 1999 she became Prime Minister, and is now in her third term. She has raised the minimum wage six times, and abolished interest on student loans. The economy has grown, unemployment has dropped, and the crime rate has fallen. She refused to participate in the Iraq invasion.

This is not quite the kind of bad example our administration would have liked to see.

Sir Bubbles: Recession Looms

For the past year, I’ve said that, in the second half of 2007, the US would experience a recession. Today I heard the first word from an expert that my prediction has some merit.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Monday it is “possible” the U.S. economy might fall into recession by the end of the year.
He said the U.S. economy has been expanding since 2001 and that there are signs the current economic cycle is coming to an end.

“When you get this far away from a recession, invariably forces build up for the next recession, and indeed we are beginning to see that sign,” Greenspan said via satellite link to a business conference in Hong Kong. “For example in the U.S., profit margins … have begun to stabilize, which is an early sign we are in the later stages of a cycle.”

“While, yes, it is possible we can get a recession in the latter months of 2007, most forecasters are not making that judgment and indeed are projecting forward into 2008 … with some slowdown,” he said.

Greenspan said that while it would be “very precarious” to try to forecast that far into the future, he could not rule out the possibility of a recession late this year.

So again I say: the war and the economy will be on voters’ minds when primary voting begins. So which of the candidates for prez have the strongest economic messages now?


U. S. to Trade Dick Cheney to Australia for Two Bush
Kangaroos and a Case of Foster’s Lager

You call it tomata, I call it democracy

Let’s call the whole thing off.

Especially since Exxon and Halliburton can’t make a decent profit there.

A Get Well Soon Wish

To our picture-full librarian colleague, Fearguth. Pancreatitis is not the easiest disease to go through, and we wish him a quick return to health.

Selling the New War: truth in advertising not required

The trumped up cherrypicking of evidence to build support for Bush’s next desired war continues.

No mention is made of the fact that the vast majority of IED materials came from within Iraq when US commanders failed to secure stocks of explosive materials. Weaponry supplied by Saudis or other countries is not identified at all. And what if the Saudis are buying and supplying the materials that originated in Iran?

None of that matters to the salesmen of war. All you have to remember is babies being dumped from Kuwaiti incubators to understand how easily a snow job can be sold.

Lefty Hollywood?

I see the rightwing blogosphere always dissing Hollywood because of it’s occasional fling with a somewhat progressive movie. But they’re wrong to call most of them ‘Lefty’ movies or ‘anti-American’ movies because most that gain that label are anything but.

An Inconvenient Truth would have been considered a movie about science and the environment a quarter century ago. Back then, groups like The Sieera Club had many a conservative member because, after all, conservation and conservative share common roots.

Now, because a centrist Democrat is featured prominently, the movie is dissed as loony leftwing stuff. Which says more about the lack of real leftism in this country.

Many foreign films get dissed by the righties, because ‘dem furriners don’t speak Amurrikan.’ And any actor who takes any political position they disagree with gets shunned, no matter how talented their acting actually is. Based on that mentality, if some computer geek blogs that they like Bush, I should presume their Christmas bonus was awarded for their political views.

Real leftism, the kind rarely seen in Hollywood anymore, is rooted in economic class struggles. Racism and sexism and homophobia are closest to true leftism, as the victims of bias suffer economic exploitation or repression as part of their experience.

But antiwar advocates? Historically, they’ve come from left and right. If you’re antiwar and antitax, what does that make you today? To the Rightist extremists, the label gets applied amid the specific issue being fought, so one could be labelled an America-hater today and welcomed as a good conservative at the next city council meeting. Consistency is not required.

I agree with The Nation: the last truly Lefty movie I can recall was Norma Rae, in 1979. Or maybe the Milagro Beanfield War in ‘88. There’s movies since that have focused on bigotry, or on political hypocrisy, which I consider to consider examples of progressive thought, but economic class movies (or mini-series) like Norma Rae, Grapes of Wrath, Roots and the like are generally considered comedy material like Down & Out In Beverly Hills or Trading Spaces or The Fisher King.

Hollywood does lean progressive. That often accompanies creative types in the arts and music and theater. But amid the glitz and flash of celebrity worship and the vanity required for many to remain appealling at casting calls, true leftism has been orphaned in Tinsel Town.

It’s also nearly absent in the political sphere. Keep the poor fed and out of sight. It worked for Rudy Giuliani in New York City. And it keeps 200,000 military veterans homeless each night, largely overlooked and quickly forgotten.

Fair wages for fair work is at the core of real leftism. But when anyone raises that cry, it’s denounced as wealth redistribution to unskilled people who lack incentive or smarts. When in fact, I’ve met many degreed homeless people and incredibly smart, hardworking poor people.

That the Rightists are granted any credence in defining the Left is a byproduct of a media whose own incomes grant them little direct experience with the economically marginalized. Much like the people at the Academy Awards.

Sunday Goddess Blogging: Durga

Durga

In the Hindu pantheon, Durga was created as a warrior goddess to kill a demon that could not be defeated by any man or god.

It is rumored that she is secretly worshipped in this country by NRA members who consider her a patroness of the Second Amendment.

The Oscars Don’t Matter

After the Seymour Hersh story today (covered at 7:48 am, below), all that matters is our White House is funding numerous terror groups. So the only award that interests me is the runaway choices of Bush as the Traitor of The Year and Cheney as Best Supporting Traitor.

Global Warming? We should count ourselves lucky if our nation lasts so long. The Queen? Helen Mirren cannot possibly outdo the royalty that spawned Little Lord Bush. Idi Amin? An anorexic compared to the appetite for human flesh displayed by the gluttons in the White House.

If Oscar has any sense, he’ll be in a bunker in Switzerland, hoping to ride out the reign of permanent genocide.

Why Al-Sadr?

Anyone who’s read my analyses of Iraq should have noted by now that I’ve developed a belief that the US government should seek a closer alliance with him. And I fully expected to be challenged at some point. What expertise do I bring to my argument?

As regards Muslims, Iraq social stratas, etc., my analyses can’t qualify as expert at all. Yet I possess a pragmatism rooted in my mortal experience that there is much that most humans have in common when the veneers of ideology and nationality get peeled away.

The NY Times provided a multi-author overview of Moqtada Al-Sadr today that describes his efforts at the current juncture in this long war that I consider a must-read. It displays how he came to prominence and how he’s acted and reacted with flexibility in response to different events. It doesn’t overlook his imperfections, nor does it make him out to be a demon. And the biggest question that many have about him is where do his real loyalties and motivations lie?

Our president makes decisions based on gut feelings, even if his gut goes against all evidence. My analyses of Al-Sadr arise from instinct, too, but I see nothing in the available evidence that contradicts my senses about the guy.

Consider this backdrop: His father practiced the care of the poor and marginalized. That’s consistent with core teachings at the roots of the three great Western religions.It should not sound foreign or extremist to Christian and Jewish ears.

His father and several close members of Moqtada’s family, were murdered by order of Saddam. Moqtada would understandably feel anger at Saddam and his sycophants for those grievous losses. But would he extend that to all Ba’athists, or the larger group of Sunnis that they sprang from? That’s possible but isn’t a certainty.

Al-Sadr did not express emnity with us nor did he ask for this war. With the US invasion, he was simply thrust into the middle of the war. And how has he reacted to that?

He has displayed respect for his elder cleric, Al-Sistani.

He’s protected Shia neighborhoods from Sunni attacks and established a functioning safety net that’s benefitted the wounded, ill and poor, carrying on the works of his father.

His army has fought back against US troops, when attacked.

He has leveraged pressure against the Shia Prime Minister when he feels Shias are under excessive pressure from US forces.

He’s purged his ranks of people who act too independently of his direction, especially those that have made his organization look bad or out of control.

When the surge was announced and it was clear that the common populace in Shia neighborhoods would be protected by US troops, he pulled his army aside. Whether tactically motivated or motivated by a sincere desire for a restoration of order, the net effect is the same.

While friendly to Iran, he’s known to be a nationalist that doesn’t want Iraq’s government to be Iran’s puppet. Nor does he want it to be America’s puppet.

Though occasional criticism is directed his way, sometimes for the actions of his army, he appears to remain sensitive to that and tries to correct the errors made.

All the while knowing he has both military and political enemies who would eliminate him in an unguarded second.

As I said, I can’t know his every motive or his ultimate goals. But he’s demonstrated courage, intelligence, compassion, shrewdness while serving the needs of millions of Shias and under a long period of strife and duress.

It is the SCIRI forces more closely aligned with Iran that has sponsored most -if not all- of the death squads operating out of government ministries.

The NY Times article indicates that Americans are now actively negotiating with him, something I’ve been advocating for the past year. I don’t know if that’s at the initiative of General Petraeus, but it marks a fresh measure of understanding that Al-Sadr, like Al-Sistani, retains considerable influence over millions of Shias. Enough, perhaps, to quell the civil disorder if the Sunnis back off or are held off by US forces.

Of course, the Seymour Hersh report casts lots of doubts about whether Bush’s negotiating efforts are real or whether Al-Sadr is being set up by an administration now siding with the Sunnis.

In any event, considering that Al-Sadr had no past of anti-American animosity and the circumstances he’s had to contend with since, defending a population where unemployment rates have ranged from 33% to 60%, I have to admit he’s impressed me greatly. He’s navigated amid sharks, he’s had SCIRI, the Sunnis, Al Qaeda, the US military and Bush aiming at him. And he’s survived. As one of the two most popular figures in the country.

I still think, if he’s negotiated with without betrayal, he may hold some keys that can unlock progress towards a functional country. But if Bush, the cabal of ex-pat elites in the new Iraq government and the oil company execs are seeking a partitioned Iraq - as the Hersh article indicates, he may be the biggest impediment they’ll encounter, guaranteeing a long fight still ahead.

Either way, I consider Al-Sadr to be a pragmatist above all, capable of dealing sensibly to every fresh hand he’s been dealt. Perhaps that came from outlasting his mortal enemy, Saddam Hussein. Perhaps it came from the wisdom and compassion of his father. Wherever it came from, I believe pragmatists make good leaders and allies. His main principle seems to be he won’t sell out the civilian population he represents, and that, too, is deserving of respect.

As a non-expert, I could certainly be wrong. But as a pragmatist, I sense the presence of a pragmatic dude.

We’re having a party

Or, at least, Sara at Orcinus has a great idea for one.

The McMaverick with Fries

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The Truly Frightening Spectacle of a Terror Regime

The Shias rebelled against Saddam Hussein… and were left out to dry in the nineties. Now, after it was the Sunnis who worked with Al Qaeda to attack US forces repeatedly in Iraq, Bush is turning against the Shias in Iraq, Lebanon, everywhere, all because he discovered, belatedly, that his war was strengthening Iran’s influence. If his administration really didn’t understand that before Shock and Awe, they have no business designing foreign policy.

So rolling over on the Shias: a double-cross by the world’s greatest terror gang (Team BushDick) that can’t be trusted by any Muslim sect?

The ever-prescient Seymour Hersh provides the sordid details of the Bush betrayal and the scenario ahead for the next Bush war with Iran.

Update: Having mulled over Hersh’s reports further, here’s what really infuriates: all the gambling going on in the backroom, with Bush funding more terror groups.

Didn’t he ever learn the definition of the word ‘blowback’?

I don’t need to hear condescending attitudes suggesting all the covert actions are too much for a simpleton to absorb. I just know that if you lie down with every dog in the neighborhood, you’re going to get fleas, mange and a rabid bite or two.

Bush is abandoning any moral force the US ever gained by going along with Cheney’s vampire-like requirement to operate in the dark. And the fact is that exposing all the various sub-groups at work in the Middle East and challenging them openly to quit the terror life remains the only honest way to unite the country and our allies around the globe to ward off the worst of the lot.

Hersh reveals that Bush is risking funding Al Qaeda itself! And the reality is that Iran is a sufficiently advanced, pro-Western society. If, through honest negotiations, its clerics could be persuaded to end their emnity towards Israel, it could serve as the buffer against Sunni extremists who have done the bulk of attacks on our country in the past two decades, (with the Shia record of hostility towards us largely confined to less than a decade long ago.)

As it stands now, if the world turned the post- 9/11 Bush question around and asked him if he was ‘with or against’ the terrorists, the only honest answer he could give is ‘both.’

And therein lies both a moral and strategic disaster in the making.

At this point, I feel there’s only one way left for the country to clear itself from the ambiguity, dishonesty and potential for blowback. Bush and Cheney must be impeached for giving aid and comfort to too many enemies to count.

More:

Digby and Lambert provide good summaries.

A simple question we might all ask the American public: is it okay that Bush is now funding terror groups including, in all probability, Al Qaeda?

Who’s playing into the hands of Al Qaeda? Who’s giving aid and support to our enemies?

Congress now has every reason to begin a full investigation as a prelude to impeachment proceedings… for treason.

At ThinkProgress, there’s video of Sy Hersh making the same point as I have:

All of this should be investigated by Congress, by the way, and I trust it will be. In my talking to membership — members there, they are very upset that they know nothing about this. And they have great many suspicions.

We are simply in a situation where this president is really taking his notion of executive privilege to the absolute limit here, running covert operations, using money that was not authorized by Congress, supporting groups indirectly that are involved with the same people that did 9/11, and we should be arresting these people rather than looking the other way…

So get on it. Email your reps. I can’t imagine any issue bigger that could ever deserve more of your emailing time.

In Ruffini World, where life is beautiful all the time

In Ruffini World, Moqtada Al-Sadr is allied with Al Qaeda. In Iraq, he is not.

In Ruffini World, Whack A Mole has been replaced with Seal A Hole, which is accomplished by patience, that well-known hole filler. The same patience that causes Ruffini to sense victory in less than two weeks, before 80% of the surge troops have arrived.

In Ruffini World, our troops have to lay waste to Sadr City, turning it into the next Fallujah. When hearts and minds can’t be won via civil behavior, waste ‘em is the Ruffini prescription.

In Ruffini World, the mainstream media roots against a US victory. They’ll only report on the failures of Bush war strategy. Which explains the ‘near-defeaning silence’ from Bush-haters like Fox News, ABC News and Rush Limbaugh.

In Ruffini World, childbirth begins before pregnancy, which only occurs with premature ejaculation. Mere men would blush to admit that, but in Ruffini World, accelerated results are achieved singlehandedly.

The Extremist Pseudo-Faith GOP Base is down to four

And neither is named Rudy or McAnything.

Hunter, Huckabee, Brownback or Romney. None meets their laundry list of requirements, but they may award Romney his ’second virginity’, which is the hypocritical reach that it sounds like.

Unless they want to knock themselves out of any primary influence, they’re going to have to sew Mitt a new cherry.

That would explain why they need to do the Lord’s work in secrecy, just like Jesus did, crafting a way to turn their whine into water for the Chameleon of the Commonwealth campaign.

So let’s review the Ten Commandments to see where gays, terrorists, immigrants, and taxes are mentioned. Oopsie; guess there’s a little extra surgery required there.

Brother, can I hear a ‘Hymen’?

As close to a Mutiny as it gets

This won’t faze Bush:

SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.

“There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations.”

A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. “American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders.

It’s clear he intends to keep the threat pressure on, no matter what anyone says. What’s not clear is whether he’ll make it happen, or whether his brinksmanship is intended to grant his cronies one last oil market killing before his term is out.

Either way, I expect we’ll know sometime between 10 days from now and 10 weeks.

A surge in Iraq, a spring offensive to put down in Afghanistan, and a potential strike by us or Israel, all at the same time. I think the military brass is wise to send this pre-emptive message. But Bush can tell them their resignations won’t be accepted and quash their effort.

Clearly Bush is busy developing a casus belli tied to Iraq to sell the case to the public, because the earliest projections of an Iranian nuke are in 2009 - which means the haste rgument doesn’t hold.

Should Iran choose to respond by cutting its oil exports - an action it’s entitled to do - Bush can leave us vulnerable to an economic shock he can only counter bt drawing off the strategic reserve. The market speculation would cause the price to rise anyway during the limited time it would take to drain that, and the chain of events that follows would be rife with claims from both sides that the other was committing acts of war.

Yet Bush seems bent on playing this game of chicken without any recognition that Iran has options available that fall well short of his need to make the case for war. In that event, will he invent a Gulf of Tonkin lie?

Oops… he did it with class

I usually don’t blog about teenybop culture icons, but occasionally, when classy gestures emanate from high places, they deserve a mention.

Craig Ferguson, you are truly a considerate man.