Thursday, January 31, 2008

"Old Europe" Looks At "Change," Other USer Electoral Myths

The German news magazine, Der Spiegel, has an international edition to which I frequently turn for Continental points of view. DS long-time political correspondent, Gabor Steingart, outlines and discusses three crucial Murkin political myths for the electoral season: 1) "Washington is 'Enemy #1', 2) the power of lobbyists, and 3) the "One-Nation" fallacy.

Quite correctly, he makes the case that the last of these is by far the most pernicious, most debilitating for democracy, most destructive of actual action/change in Govt.
The third myth is the most dangerous of them all, because it shakes the very foundations of the United States Constitution. Critics across party lines claim that America is a divided nation, whipped up into a frenzy by both parties, which they insist are only capable of thinking in terms of friends and foes. All of the current candidates promise to put an end to the current atmosphere of polarization and forge a great consensus. "We are one nation," says Obama. So does Mitt Romney. And so does everyone else.

But this system of dialogue, of checks and balances, is precisely what the framers of the Constitution intended. It is arduous and often nerve-wracking, but it works.

One party keeps the other party in check. Sometimes the House of Representatives opposes the Senate, or both pounce -- when needed -- on the man in the White House. This is the way it works -- and it's the way it is supposed to work.

Democracy thrives on differences of opinion, which translate into differences between parties. Promising to put an end to this ongoing dispute makes about as much sense as a supermarket manager announcing plans to combine the meat and produce departments -- and justifying his decision by saying that the management wants to overcome the decades-long polarization between steak-lovers and vegetarians.
There is sommat with which to quibble--especially in regard to the alleged 'differences' between the parties, but you see the point: If someone starts raving about how the Parties should cooperate, you are probably talking to a fascist. Qubbles aside, the article is worth the time to read it.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Justice Department Accused of Blocking Gonzales Probe

I, personally, am shocked by these new revelations. SHOCKED! No One Could EVER Have Imagined Something Like This....Could they? I mean, really. These people at DOJ are sworn to uphold the Constitution, like everybody else, aren't they? It's not a different Constitution for them than it is for everybody else, is it?

How else do you explain this?

Richard B. Schmitt and Tom Hamburger report for the Los Angeles Times,
"The government agency that enforces one of the principal laws aimed at keeping politics out of the civil service has accused the Justice Department of blocking its investigation into alleged politicizing of the department under former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales."
Remarkable! Just fucking REMARKABLE? This is Executive Insurrection. The refusal of the Executive to submit to the Legislative for examination is a forthright declaration of 'democratic' civil war. Where will they stop?

Is There A "False" Assumption Embedded In The "Change" Motif?

That assumption is that the Dims, or some "new" Dim president, actually will inaugurate a 'reformation' of the practices instituted by the Bushevik cabal which have stripped away increasingly vast swaths of citizens' personal privacy, security, and autonomy over the previous 8 years.

I believe nothing could be further from the truth.

I think/fear/forebode the next president will do everything in her or his power not only to hold onto the powers the Bush cabal have grabbed from the Legislative, but will work to consolidate and expand those powers. Whomsoever she or he is, they will not relieve the country of ever-more intrusive, comprehensive surveillance, for example, because surveillance is essential to the propogation and maintenance of an increasingly coersive, authoritarian CorpoRatocracy, which it is the sworn duty of every National Elected Official to serve, grow, and maintain. They won't retreat from the borders the Bushies have pressed, but will inevitably press further for more and more power.

So they will find a more benevolent spin for it. Perhaps a surge in the prevention of 'identity theft,' instead of the terrorism motif? I don't know, but I do know they won't willingly or gladly relinquish even a dram of the power now vested in the "unitary Executive," they won't eschew it, they won't abandon it, they won't weaken it. They just won't.

And there is no will in the Congress to retrieve it, the congress being in effective unison with the Executive on the desireability of the Nationa Security State, the "unitary Executive," and the authoritarian CorporatocRatsee. In 232 years, the Executive has NEVER ceded back to the Legislative any power it has assumed.

And here's where the beauty/genius comes in: because, of course, by refraining from bringing impeachment against the Busheviks, the Dims have helped to ensure there is no longer any institution left in the law of the country to compel them to do it, either.

Purty fuuking shrewd, nest paw?

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Huzzah! McStain promises "More War"!

McCain: "There Will Be Other Wars"
By Eric Kleefeld (TPM)- January 27, 2008, 10:53PM

At a campaign even in Florida today, John McCain made a pronouncement that might not go over too well with the general public, should he be the Republican nominee: "There will be other wars."

"And I gotta give you some straight talk, my friends. It's a tough war we're in. It's not gonna be over right away," McCain said. "There's gonna be other wars. I'm sorry to tell you, there's gonna be other wars. We will never surrender, but there will be other wars."

(Via the Huffington Post)
OF COURSE there will be more wars. How could there NOT be more wars? When have there NOT been wars? The US has hardly spent 12 consecutive months at peace since 1789. The Busheviks are trying even now to install treaties by which the USofA will be just about irreversibly committed to a domestic and international politics of increasing authoritarianism and crony/predatory corporatism dominating the domestic relations, whilst globalist, militarist super-State extensions of power will remain the norm internationally...until the Empire tumbles, probably along with the sustainability of civilization when the climate crumbles, in about 50-100 years.

War for oil is, unfortunately, only the first of the innumerable conflicts for resources which will inevitably erupt as 1) real scarcities become common-place, and commercial scarcities further unsettle balances of power in unstable regions of the world. The Busheviks themselves, seeking to capitalize on the impending crises, have bought a bunch of up-land Paraguay, where there are the headwaters of several important rivers--as well as a government is traditionally hospitable to itinerant fascisti fleeing justice...

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Okay, That Gutless, Scum-sucking, Tea-bagging Shitwhistle, "Hairless" Harry Reid's Gonna Give Bush "Retroactive Immunity"

David Kurtz, at TPM, yesterday:
Capitulation

The handwriting has been on the wall for some time, but it now seems certain that Senate Democrats will pass a new FISA bill that contains retroactive immunity for telecoms, shielding them from lawsuits over their cooperation with the Bush Administration in its far-reaching warrantless wiretapping program.

Meanwhile, House Democrats have decided to postpone any vote on holding Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers in contempt for their refusal to testify to Congress about the White House role in the U.S. attorney purge. (Nancy Pelosi's 'leadership' is so notable, feculent bitch. Ed.)

Late Update: Sen. Chris Dodd has just reiterated his intention to filibuster telecom immunity, so maybe all is not lost.
Except that Reid's gonna make the Dems actually filibuster, instead of merely to threaten, which is always enough to kill any legislation the Busheviks oppose.

So, fuck yes, all is lost, for the 4th Amendment, anyway.

NB: I do not expect either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama to actually JOIN Dodd if he filibusters, even though they say they support the effort. This will be a litmus test for me between the two (whom I believe are destined to become prominent footnotes, not president, either one). Which ever one actually DOES support Dodd, I will enthusiastically support in their campaign, If neither does, I shall abstain from casting a presidential ballot, because they will conclusively have demonstrated their fundamental sympathy with the fascist regime now in power, and their inability or unwillingness to contest the powers that be.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

The Rest Of The Pack: Dixiebelle, Hanna-Stella, & Budreau



Bon Voyage, "Mischief" - - 1995-2008

A Damn Good Girl
The House Dog's Grave
(Haig, an English bulldog)

I've changed my ways a little; I cannot now
Run with you in the evenings along the shore,
Except in a kind of dream; and you, if you dream a moment,
You see me there.

So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door
Where I used to scratch to go out or in,
And you'd soon open; leave on the kitchen floor
The marks of my drinking-pan.

I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do
On the warm stone,
Nor at the foot of your bed; no, all the night through
I lie alone.

But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet
Outside your window where firelight so often plays,
And where you sit to read--and I fear often grieving for me--
Every night your lamplight lies on my place.

You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard
To think of you ever dying
A little dog would get tired, living so long.
I hope than when you are lying

Under the ground like me your lives will appear
As good and joyful as mine.

No, dear, that's too much hope: you are not so well cared for
As I have been.
And never have known the passionate undivided
Fidelities that I knew.
Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided. . . .

But to me you were true.

You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend.
I loved you well, and was loved.
Deep love endures
To the end and far past the end.
If this is my end,

I am not lonely.
I am not afraid. I am still yours.

Robinson Jeffers, 1941

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Allons!!! Allons!!! Mes Enfants! To Arms!!!!

To Arms, mes Enfants! The fucking Congress is getting ready to pardon the Busheviks for their war crimes! According to this vid, the House has already passed the fucker; it awaits only Senate approval: and with gutless Harry Reid at the helm, that's gay-ron-fuukin-TEED, chers.

Just watch.
Then go get your neighbors and a fucking torch and a pitchfork, and head for the offices of your local legislators, and tell 'em nobody goes home til that fucking bill is DEAD!

Monday, January 21, 2008

The Democratic Senate: Gutless Enablers or Sold-Out Co-Conspirators? Hmmmmm?

The Bushevik Crime Cabal has put forth the name of yet another despicable, gynophobic, oppressive Neo-con fertilogue, one Richard Honaker, as a candidate for a life-time seat on a federal appeals court.

If Honaker's anticipated life-span were equivalent to the vermin he most closely resembles in his opinions, one might not oppose the nomination, on 'humanitarian' grounds: his like don't live long anyway. Unfortunately, the rabidly "pro-life" Honaker has inherited some human dna along with his less attractive antecedents.

We are entitled by our (shredded, almost unrecognizable) Constitution the right to petition for the relief of grievances. Honaker is a walking, breathing, shitting grievance. If you have the energy, still, write you Senator to protest this travesty. The Senate should not be complicit in any FURTHER packing of the Federal judiciary with reactionism.
Unless they agree.
If that's the case, the owe it to the 'folks' to tell us.
Minimum.
Fuckers...

Homeless Vets: Send This To Faux News' Maxi-Fucktard, Mega-Blowhard, Bill O'Reilly

Yes, the do exist.

Not all wounds bleed. At least not visibly. One vet in 5 comes home with a traumatic, concussive brain injury, according to a recent report. Readjustment to ordinary life is a life-threatening experience, according to many therapists.

But BillO', himself a chickenshit chickenhawk, would surely say those damaged souls were just 'weak.'

I really, truly, honestly hope a gang of homeless vets catches O'Reilly in a dark alley, and beats him senseless, mebbe with a prosthesis; just beats the fucker til he whimpers, soils his pants and crawls away whining in shame and humiliation.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

President "Present"?

As I have been saying, annoyingly to some, for at least three years, candidate Barack Obama seems to have perfected the art of triangulation which, ironically, was so successfully introduced and extensively practiced by the spouse of his current rival, Hillary Clinton.

Who says irony's dead?

Anyway, Obama's penchant for being "present" on crucial votes is one thing that causes me pause in selecting him as my nominee.

Well, that, and his evident contempt for the accomplishments of people in my age cohort--it's not a generation, per se; too few years, only about 15, 1945-'60-- on many of whose shoulders (and bodies) he is standing to heap his dismissive rhetoric.

Excessive? Well pardon me! Fuck him!

Alternative Energy: Where It Isn't, and Why

There is no practical reason why there isn't a solar-collecting device of some kind on the roof of every building in the US.

There are political reasons, having to do with the purchasing power of the Oil/Coal/Nuclear energy industry and the bargain-basement deals by which they have purchased the country's elected 'representatives.'

The immediate result of such an installation project would be immense, both in terms of creating new jobs, founding new, green industries, and reducing domestic industrial energy consumption.

There you see the problem, because there already are existing jobs, industries, and energy monopolies, which would lose some, if not all, of their clout.

And all those investments in Congresscritters would have been in vain.

So, until there is a top-to-bottom awakening in the energy industry, serious intervention by the Feds, and there emerges a way for all the people with all the power (as it were) to hold onto their power, wealth and perquisites, nothing's gonna change.

Devote 1/10 the amount of r&d money to solar (pv or water) cells that is being devoted now to "clean coal" (which is total bullshit propaganda nomenclature fuckers, coal is coal) and the thing'd be done.
An opposing view:
The reason is price. Until recently PV cells cost about 50 cts/kWhr vs about 8 from the utility.

Now that they are getting down into the 20s and many are paying close to 20 and we have some subsidies they are starting to make sense and production is exploding.

Which leads to the 2nd reason this is bollocks. In the short run every bit of PV production is sold out. There's no capacity to put a cell on every building in the country.

Markets are not perfect and don't solve real problems, but you can't get people to pay 10X for things very easily.
The reasons you cite, while true, are not VALID, because they free-ride the energy corps which want t preserve the status quo at any price...they get these HUGE breaks, both tax and regulatory. They don't wanna see the gravy train end, and they've been promised by the various Powers that it won/t be, qand fuck the planet, the people, and you if you can't take a joke.

Putting some kind--ANY kind--of a solar collector atop EVERY building that has a roof would immediately reduce the need for 'industrially produced' (oil/coal/nuke) by more than half...then the energy companies could sell what they produce to the manufacturing companies at a fair (instead of a subsidized) rate. You see the problem?

I know that, for exactly that reason, it is unlikely to happen, but I personally won't support the candidacy of any nominee who doesn't include such provisions in their platform.

Yeah, okay, so I won't be voting for the PRez this year, mebbe...I cannot see, with the candidates in the picture now, that it will make any difference.

Woody's pre-Spring-time Fashion Tips: Looking Good In A Hat

"There is one sure-fire way to look fab in your fancy, new, vernal fedora...

"You gotta THINK you look fab in that fancy, new, vernal fedora...or, as the photo illustrates, in a condom, for that matter..."

Friday, January 18, 2008

MLK's Sermon Announcing His Public Calling Opposing The Vietnam "War"

It is no accident that King's "I Have A Dream" is the one which shaped his posthumous public image. It is certainly his best known, and that is not an accident, either.

In April, 1967, King announced he was expanding his civil rights work to include the injustices he recognized as being immanent in the already fearsome, and always expanding, bloody intervention by the USofA into the civil war between North and South Vietnam. I have heard it was this sermon that got him killed. King was NOT talking to the black population alone; but his gravitas there might well have poisoned them to the injustice of the 'war' and deprived it of necessary cannon fodder, and was thus not allowed to long persist. The date of this sermon is April 30, 1967. He was assassinated April 4, 1968, while leading resistance in a labor dispute in Memphis. The man walked it.

Btw: Driftglass had this vid today. The comments there got me thinking. He's got a kewl site.

Remind me why the USofA Invaded, Conquered, Occupied, Raped, and Pillaged Iraq?

1) To void all those energy exploration and exploitation deals that Saddam and his ministers had signed with French, Russian, the Chinese, and other Governments, which excluded Anglo/Murkin 'interests,' and to forge new agreements which rectified those previous 'oversights.' Saddam and his guys weren't gonna renege on the previous deals, so they had to be "replaced" (i.e., 'killed'). The jewel in the crown is the new, proposed Iraq Oil Law, which grants huge favors and concessions to Anglo/Murkin concerns. Read all about it. It's passage will ratify the 'transformation' of Iraq into a 'working democracy' and guarantee the sitting Iraqi prime minister--mebbe, by then, Ahmad Chalabi will have popped up again--the title of "the Washington of the Tigris," or the "Lincoln of Mesopotamia" or some shit.

2) To launch a land-based air-craft carrier battle group into the heart of the resource-rich, hotly contested, tumultuous trans-Caspian energy pool. From bases in Kirkuk, for instance (which just happens to be the locale one of the four huge, 'temporary' bases nearly built now in Iraq), every population center--as well as every oil terminal, pipeline and depot--from the Bosporus to the Kyber Pass is within the effective, tactical range of supersonic, USer fighter-bombers. This is a vital necessity, if the USofA hopes to contain the energy ambitions of the Chinese, the Indians, and the re-emergent Russians. They didn't/don't call it the Grand Game for nothing.

3) To eliminate Iraq from the actors threatening Israel. Saddam Hussein probably signed his own death warrant when, during the 1st Gulf 'war,' he fired those ridiculous SCUD missiles into the Negev. His fate was sealed by the elevation to power in the US of the Chimp, a psychotic asshole "Sonny" who couldn't understand that Saddam's trying to off GHWB was just "bidness.' The denaturing of Iraq as a threat to Israel would be best accomplished by the Balkanization of the country, which could also be an outcome of the Iraq Oil Law, mentioned above.

Workers Steadily Losing Ground To Inflation: It's The Economy, Dumb-fux!

On YahooNews this morning there was this:
Gas, food spur inflation jump in 2007

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Wed Jan 16, 5:50 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Consumer prices rose in 2007 at the fastest pace in 17 years as motorists paid a lot more for gasoline and grocery shoppers paid higher food bills. However, falling prices for clothing and new cars offset some of those gains.

The Labor Department reported that consumer prices rose by 4.1 percent for all of 2007, up sharply from a 2.5 percent increase in 2006. Both energy and food prices jumped by the largest amount since 1990.

Prices were also up sharply for health care, housing and education. However, these gains were offset somewhat by falling prices for clothing, new cars and computers.

Workers' wages failed to keep up with the higher inflation. Average weekly earnings, after adjusting for inflation, dropped by 0.9 percent in 2007, the fourth decline in the past five years. The lagging wage gains are cited as a chief reason many workers have growing anxiety about their economic futures.
[...]
For December, the Consumer Price Index rose by 0.3 percent, slower than the 0.8 percent jump in November, as food costs were flat for the month and energy prices rose by 0.9 percent after an even bigger 5.7 percent jump in November. Outside of food and energy, core inflation rose a more moderate 0.2 percent in December.

The rising risk of a recession has prompted politicians to consider stimulus packages to give the economy a jump-start to either prevent a recession or at least mitigate its fallout. President Bush has said he may unveil a plan around his Jan. 28 State of the Union address. Democrats in Congress and presidential candidates in both parties are putting forward their own plans.

The 4.1 percent increase in overall prices last year was the biggest since a 6.1 percent jump in prices in 1990.

Overall energy costs rose by 17.4 percent this past year while food costs rose by 4.9 percent. Both were the biggest increases since 1990. Gasoline prices were up 29.6 percent, the biggest increase since they soared by 30.1 percent in 1999.
I'm not a math guy; my Ph.D.'s in philosophy. But it seems to me that, if consumer prices rose "4.1 percent for all of 2007," and wages dropped 0.9 percent, the net loss to the average worker was close to 5 percent.

Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Thursday, January 17, 2008

What's The Point Of having A 'Police State' If the Cops Can't ACT Like It's A Police State?


Recently, apparently acting on a tip, police invaded a home in Lima, Ohio, whereupon the killed a woman in the house, and seriously wounded the infant she was holding when they shot her. The blogger "Stephen Crane" on MLW put it this way:
(A) Lima , Ohio SWAT team invad(ed) the home of 26 year old Tarika Wilson, an innocent woman whom they shot and killed. The trigger happy cops also shot the index finger off of Sincere Wilson, her 13 month old son, whom Tarika was holding in her arms when they murdered her. Tarika Wilson also had her other 5 children ages 1 to 8 home during the deadly raid. Police arrested her boyfriend on a charge of suspicion of possession of crack cocaine & marijuana. The cops also used a stun hand grenade during the raid even though they were fully aware her children were in the home.
Thom Hartmann frequently quotes the statistic that there are at least ONE MILLION police home-invasions in the USofA every year, the vast majority of which are putatively conducted in pursuit of 'drugs.' I was being (obviously, I hope) snarky when I replied:
I don't see the problem here. (0.00 / 0)
(Rightard 'sincerity):
Somebody in that house was apparently breaking the law.
This is a nation of laws, nest paw?
For the law to function, it must be respected.
If it takes occasional violent demonstrations--particularly against 'brown' people, who are notoriously disrespectful of the "law"--to instill respect for the law, then how is that problematic for democracy?

/Rightard 'sincerity'
Drug prohibition has worked astonishingly well at what it was designed to do: marginalizing and criminalizing drug "abusers." And everybody who uses an 'illegal' drug is an 'abuser.' By definition. Plus they're breaking the law. It's the 'perfect storm' solution to keeping the uppity folks in their places, and preventing them from participating... With a drug bust on the record, almost every option for a non-criminal existence is closed to you. Which perpetuates the culture of 'crime,' which keeps the jails full, the guards employed, the testers churning out their improbably expensive tests, and the cops confiscating 'drug-related' property.

See, it's win-win!
The War On Drugs is a war against the kinds of resistance that are emblazoned in the drug culture. Any drug "abuser" is always already suspect for other 'crimes.'

BTW: The gif at the top of the page came off the homepage of the Lima, OH, SWAT Team. Make of that what you will.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The Bush Cabal Puts "The Bully" Into The Bully Pulpit

They're, in effect, defying the legal machinery of the USofA. The CREW Blog has a piece up on the late-nite reply of the Regime to a law-suit seeking to discover information in the WhiteHouse about certain apparent ethical improprieties involving the desruction of certain historical, and Congressionally protected documents and records. According to CREW, they've effectively admitted to everything: Plame, tapes, torture, spying, everything. And they're saying: "So you gonna try to make sumpin of it, punk?"

The Bush Cabal is basically saying "Here's the final (or maybe only the peri-semi-demi-hemi-penultimate) insult, you poor mopes!" They know that if legal action against them is not brought by the end of this year, '08--and really, unless the complaints are in the system before about the 1st of July--it never will be brought, because whomsoever gains the Office will be waaaaay to busy trying to fix the incredible complex of crises the Bush Cabal will have left (hopefully) for the new incumbent. Inevitably, the in-coming President must mumble the pro-forma absolutions, claim the mandate to 'look forward, not back,' raise the flag of bi-partisan get-along, and back off.

That, and the inevitable, albeit usually tacit, understanding among the inhabitants of that sphere of action, like: 'hey, you do what you gotta fuckin' do. You'll see.' There will be considerable outrage, but not ever enough to actually bring any of them up on charges. And that presumes that the Chimperor wouldn't issue wholesale pardons throughout the out-going (hopefully) regimistas.

There is one distinguishing characteristic of this gang of thugs and gunsels: mostly they seem to have unconquerable 'poker faces.' They don't blink when are caught in a lie; they smile and go on as if they were still telling you the truth, and you would still believe them. They're like car salespeople (although that stretches the notion of 'people' pretty much to the breaking point). Or, more, really, they're more like a a bunch of brutal tinhorn gamblers, swilling power, bragging, and playing cards, with pistols on the table. It is perhaps not an accident that the tenure of the Bushevik Cabal was accompanied by the rise to public attention of no-limit, Texas Hold-em, a game at which a bully has a 'natural' advantage.

You watch Bush. He's got that archetypal "bully" primp. When he speaks, his verbal mannerisms and the constant assault of hideous malapropisms tend to disguise the postural things he does, always as if to say, "Okay, you think you're so tough, you take a swing at me. Right, fellas?" If Bush is a bully, and he is, then Cheney's just one damn bad dude. Vicious, utterly without scruple, principle, or honor. Would do (probably has done) ANYTHING to have his way. That guy Addington should go kayaking on the Potomac and have an accident. The whole rest of the regime is a circus of asswipes, boot-lickers, sycophants, and clowns, along with a compliment of 'soldiers', or made men/women.

And I am STILL not in ANYWAY certain that they actually intend to give all this up.

Sooooo-prahz, soooooo-prahz: The Bushevik Regime Destroyed Records And Data They Were Required By Law To Preserve.

Via ThinkProgress.com:
White House ‘reused e-mail tapes.’
AP reports:
The White House has acknowledged recycling its backup computer tapes of e-mail before October 2003, raising the possibility that many electronic messages — including those pertaining to the CIA leak case — have been taped over and are gone forever.

The disclosure came minutes before midnight Tuesday under a court-ordered deadline that forced the White House to reveal information it has previously refused to provide. […]

If the e-mails were not saved, the White House might have violated two laws requiring preservation of documents that fall into the categories of federal records or presidential records.
As a commentor replied:
The Dem’s aren’t going to do a damn thing about it except let the clock run out, my guess many of them are not just enabeler’s but just as guilty…
To which I replied:
Right-eeee-o! Ding, ding, ding…we have a winner. The Dims have controlled at LEAST the agenda of Congress for almost two years. If th fascist agenda hasn’t been stymied by now, it is because the Dims are AT LEAST sympathetic–and, with Reid and Pelosi leading the way, followed closely by the likes of Jane Harman–probably enthusiastic, about it.
In a subsequent post, I appended the following:
By the way, one does not have to ‘impeach’ traitors.
All that is necessary is to arrest, try, condemn, and dispatch ‘em.
Cf., the Rosenbergs…
I do NOT think the fuckers should get off scott-free. There MUST be consequences. The last time there were no consequences for presidential treachery, the fascist fuck Nixon fluttered away into retirement, only eventually to be revived as an elder statesman, thereby giving the Right-wing asstards the information they needed to plot all their subsequent treasons, from Reagan's outright theft of the '80 'election' by Bush Sr, and Bill Casey dealing in paris in '79 with the ranian ayotollas, to the sell-out of the SC(R)OTUS in installing the Chimperor. It all followed from the fear among the 'loyal opposition' to actually imprison the fallen autocrat.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Woody's Mid-Week Maxim: "The purpose of school in the USofA...

...is to create, retroactively, the chain of evidence which justifies and rationalizes all the life-path decisions made about every kid before she or he ever sets foot in a fucking classroom."

Hillary v. Barack: Prescient


This was up on TheWashingtonNote.com

Monday, January 14, 2008

Here's Good Fucking news: The Opus Dei SCROTUS Wants You To Die Begging In Pain For Jesus' Tender Fucking Mercies.

No right to experimental drugs for dying patients: Supreme Court
AFP (Published: Monday January 14, 2008)
View This Story On Propeller.com!
Terminally ill patients have no constitutional right to gain access to experimental drugs that have yet to win federal approval, the US Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The top court refused to hear a case brought by the Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs, which accuses the government's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of violating the legal rights of the patients.

As is customary when the court declines to take up a case, the nine justices gave no explanation of their reasoning.

The decision let stand an August ruling by the federal appeals court in Washington, which said the FDA was right to refuse access to drugs that have yet to go through the lengthy process of clinical trials.

"Although terminally ill patients desperately need curative treatments ... their deaths can certainly be hastened by the use of a potentially toxic drug with no proven therapeutic benefit," the appeals court had said.

Steven Walker, who co-founded the Abigail Alliance in 2001, had urged the Supreme Court to give patients suffering incurable disease a legal redress against the "unelected, tenured career bureaucrats" of the FDA.

"The majority opinion of the appeals court suggested that this is an issue for Congress to solve. A great idea if one has a full lifetime to work on it," he wrote Friday in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece.

"The framers (of the US constitution) understood that the pursuit of life is an inalienable right that should not be abridged without due process of law."
Five fucking Catholics. Five fucking Catholics...How did there ever get to be FIVE FUCKING CATHOLICS on the US Supreme Court? [Via TheRawAStory.com]

All this shit is being marvelously camouflaged behind the screen of competing rhetorics of race and gender, isn't it? The primaries! Who's watching the SCROTUS? Fuck the SCROTUS...

If there is one thing for which the Republic may always bless the Busheviks, it would HAVE to be their provision of irrebuttable evidence that the vaunted, olympian, irreproachable Supreme Court of the United States Of (fucking) AMERICA is just as corrupt and as susceptible to political skullduggery and back-scratching quid-pro-quo-ism as any hick, boon-docks, redneck, hijacking speedin' court anywhere in west Texas (I was thinking of Monahans, but that's another story.).

Figger there's any connection? Nahhhhh...too conspiratorial...they're not smart enough to pull of sumpin that complicated...It's okay...Really, it is...

Kill Bush?

Ben Metcalf, writing in Harper's Magazine in the month after the resignation of the irreplaceable Lewis Lapham, posed the dilemma this way:
"Am I allowed to write that I would like to hunt down George W. Bush, the president of the United States, and kill him with my bare hands?"
The answer becomes all the more poignant, as the Bushevik "residency" circles the toilet-bowl of it's own history more and more tightly, and the temptation of the incumbent to finish the job for which he was installed--to undermine, wealen, and dissolve as thoroughly as possible, every single institution and instrument of democratic self-government standing between the Corporats complete pre-emption of civil society--increases with every passing day.

If we are to judge by facts--Metcalf is still at liberty, not in Secret Service custody, or under indictment--the answer is "yes, you may write that you "I would like to hunt down George W. Bush, the president of the United States, and kill him with my bare hands."

It's a pretty subtle and nuanced piece, and I heartily recommend it to any and all who harbor the most malevolent thoughts about the criminal, cowardly, smirking little shit-weasel, President George W. Bush!

Sunday, January 13, 2008

What Is It About The Right-Wing Fucktard Commentariat and Their Assholes?

Everybody knows the original of the type, Rush "Rusty" Limbaugh, who claimed to permanent immunity from participating in the draft during the Vietnam ICORP because of a pilonidal cyst, only to later turn having a mad, infected hair up his rectum into a Right-wing asset, so to speak.

Now comes word that Glenn Beck, CNN's answer to Hermann Goering, was a hemorrhoid underwent a serious bout of hemorrhoids, which landed him in the hospital, where he apparently believes he received substantially less than the honorific treatment he was due as a Gauleiter of the 101st Chairborne at a local emergency room. Rumors that his hemorrhoids erupted when he tried to pull his head out of his ass at the close of one of his low-rated scum-fests wrapped on a recent night, are false, according to a CNN spokesperson...

Sheer Brilliance, No Comment Required

*Thanks to M_A, at WildWildLeft.com

HR 888: Wadda Loada Codswalloping CRAP (Can I Hear a good, loud "FUCK GOD"?)

Under a load of totally innocent sounding verbiage, a bunch (31, at last count) of theo-fascist, anti-democratic, Congresscum (most GOPukes, most from the south) are attempting to sneak the 'camel' of creationism/dominionism under the Constitutional tent-flap. They want to use the Congress--actually, a House Resolution--to re-write a fundamental chapter of USer history, and use their recreated 'history' to justify and rationalize the final dissollution of the separation of Church from State in the USof A. Read all about it, here for the text of the this abomination and here for discussion.
Resolved, That the United States House of Representatives----

(1) affirms the rich spiritual and diverse religious history of our Nation's founding and subsequent history, including up to the current day;

(2) recognizes that the religious foundations of faith on which America was built are critical underpinnings of our Nation's most valuable institutions and form the inseparable foundation for America's representative processes, legal systems, and societal structures;

(3) rejects, in the strongest possible terms, any effort to remove, obscure, or purposely omit such history from our Nation's public buildings and educational resources; and

(4) expresses support for designation of a `American Religious History Week' every year for the appreciation of and education on America's history of religious faith.
That's the money quote, but read, too all the prologues (The "Whereases") to this shit. They take archaic, prosaic references in texts such as letters and other sources, mis-read them (well, duh!), and turn them into phony, specious/spurious evidence for the position that, against history and the Constitution, the USofA is, by these circular references, a "christian" nation, and should therefore be subject to Christian morality and law.

I say "Fuck that." I say "Fuck God," and if you object, I say that's the fucking point, assholes. Anybody appealing to "God" in public, political discourse should be shunned, mocked, and driven from the public stage in tar and feathers. Any 'Constitutionally sworn officer of the State who actually votes/voted for it should be driven from office, with whips and chains if necessary, at the point of a sword.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

You Might Be A "Real Baby Boomer" If

If you remember the name of the girl/boy you were sleeping with when you heard Neil Armstrong speaking from the Moon...

or noticed that Stevie Wonder had ceased to be "Little"...

If you remember the Tet Offensive, and LBJ complaining that he'd lost the war cuz he'd lost Cronkite, then you're a RBB (real Baby Boomer).

If you enlisted to avoid the draft, or know what it means to have a 'deferrment...'

If you had sex with someone, in the shower, washing off the tear gas residue from being gassed by the pigs for demonstrating against the invasion of Cambodia, you're a RBB.

If you remember your draft number (hint: 1-365), or when Ram Das was still Richard Alpert, you're a RBB...

If you remember the the name of the judge who tried the Chicago Seven, and still know the name of Howdy Doody's cow...

If you cast your first presidential ballot for Nixon cuz you didn't trust Humphrey, you're a RBB...

If you watched the Watergate hearings and cheered for Sam Ervin and his Constitution,

If you saw LBJ's surgery scar on the nightly news, or saw him lift his beagle by the ears you're a RBB...

If you remember the Huntley/Brinkley Report...or Tim Buckley...or Bobby Darren...

if the first presidential election you actually remember involved Adlai Stevenson...

I was prompted to think of those thing in response to a post on PFF, in which the poster, one 'donkeytale' recited these which now follow, all of which of course are at least episodes, if not chapters, in my memory, too:
1. If you remember air raid sirens and hiding under your school desk to prepare for the inevitable nuclear attack by the Soviet Union, then you are a real baby boomer.

2. If you remember being scared shitless every time a car engine backfired during the Cuban Missile crisis, then you are a real baby boomer.

3. If you remember clearly where you were and what you were doing in elementary/middle/high school at the very the moment you first heard the news that JFK had been assassinated, then you are a real baby boomer.

4. If you watched Ed Sullivan on the three consecutive weekends that the Beatles first appeared on American TV, then you are a real baby boomer.

5. If you remember the day Sam Cooke was shot to death in LA, then you are a real baby boomer.

6. If you remember listening to the radio broadcast from Miami the night Sonny Liston refused to leave his corner for the 8th round of his first fight against "Cassius Clay," then you are a real baby boomer.

7. If you remember the assassination of Malcolm X, even if you weren't sure who he was at the time, then you are a real baby boomer.

8. If you (or a boyfriend if you were female) owned a draft card at some point during the Vietnam War, then you are a real baby boomer.

9. If you were able to lie convincingly to anyone at all that you had attended either Woodstock or Altamont, then you are a real baby boomer. {the truth: I paid the outrageous sum of $6.50 for my ticket to the Stones at the Forum in LA a few weeks before Altamont, and recall both BB King and Ike & Tina (plus the Ikettes) as being far superior entertainers and musicians}.

10.If your entire mind just went numb and never recovered after you awoke to the tragic news on your clock radio the morning after the KKKaliforniadise primary in 1968 (less than two short months after the MLK, Jr. assassination) then you are a "real" baby boomer
. My thanks to dt for this. I have a "Baby-boomer" post festering in me, because I am becoming irritated at the emerging enthusiasm to 'balance' things on what remain of the backs of we, who through no fault of our own, were born between late '45 and about '60, and are beginning to take our due retirement...

A note about generations: From some (arbitrarily) fixed point, it is the average time between birth and parenthood. Anthropologists put the number of years comprising a generation anywhere between 20 and 30. Some earlier accounts, iirc, put the number at the time between birth and fertility. This would be a considerably shorter time.

I plan to return to this presently, but I am not yet ready.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Woody's Words of Wisdom (WWW): You Can Begin To BelieveThat 'Throwing Money' At A Problem 'Never Solved Anything"

when the people who have lots of money to throw at their problems stop throwing money at their problems to solve them. Til then, skepticism is in order.

Mr. Deity #10: Mr Deity and the Seed

The very best, smartest, cleverest, snarkiest God-parody EVAH! You can link to the other segments (1-9) at the YouTube site.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Howard Dean Told Ed Schultz: "Americans don't vote on issues, they vote on 'values' and 'character'."

Which strikes me as being exactly the same as saying "they/we vote for candidates on the basis of how many FUCKING MAGIC BEANS they TELL US they have in their FUCKING pockets."
Jeezis FUCKING Christ!

(Should be read as if spoken by , e.g., Lewis Black!)

Did Doolittle Do Too Much?

Via TPM:
Republican Rep. John Doolittle, who is under investigation in a congressional lobbying scandal (related to Jack Abramoff's revelations about GOP graft in Congress. Ed.), plans to announce his retirement from Congress on Thursday, according to a Republican official who spoke with Doolittle.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity pending a public announcement in Doolittle's Northern California district.

The development comes as Doolittle, in his ninth term, faced growing political pressure from fellow Republicans who viewed him as a liability because of his involvement, along with his wife, Julie, in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling investigation. House Republicans, still smarting from losing control of Congress in 2006, are eager to put that ethics taint behind them.

Doolittle came close to losing re-election in 2006 in one of the most conservative districts in California and some in his own party believed he couldn't survive this time around.
Politico provides some background:
federal grand jury has issued document subpoenas to six aides to embattled GOP Rep. John Doolittle (Calif.), who is under investigation by the Justice Department over his ties to imprisoned former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The subpoenas were issued to Ron Rogers, Doolittle's chief of staff; Dan Blankenburg, deputy chief of staff; Alisha Perkins, scheduler; Evan Goitein, legislative director; Martha Franco, senior executive assistant; and Gordon Hinkle, field rep.

The subpoenas are the latest sign that the federal corruption probe of Doolittle is continuing to gather steam. Doolittle's home was searched by FBI agents earlier this year. The agents were looking for any evidence regarding Doolittle's ties to Abramoff. Julie Doolittle, the congressman's wife, did consulting work for Abramoff, and Doolittle himself wrote letters to the Bureau of Indian Affairs on behalf of several of Abramoff's Indian gaming clients.

Doolittle has denied any wrongdoing, and he has accused the Justice Department of harassing him and his wife, but after his home was searched, House GOP leaders forced him to give up his seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee.

Doolittle's office could not be reached for comment on the subpoenas prior to this post.

UPDATE: Doolittle’s lawyer said in a statement that the lawmaker has been subpoenaed for his legislative records going back 11 years. Doolittle will fight the subpoena, arguing that this investigation violates the balance of powers between the legislative and executive branches, according to attorney David Barger.

“As was disclosed on the floor of the House, the Executive Branch has chosen after more than three years of this open investigation, to issue numerous subpoenas to the Congressman’s staff,” Barger said. “These efforts raise serious constitutional issues going to the very core of our Separation of Powers created by the founding fathers; issues that affect every Member of Congress not just Congressman Doolittle.”

According to Barger, the staff members have been assured by the Department of Justice that they are merely witnesses. The staff members will confer with the House Office of the General Counsel to determine how to respond to the subpoenas.
Here's a guy without whom Congress will not become any the poorer, ethically if not financially.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Woody's Daily/Occasional Homily: Any Politician Would Gladly Sacrifice A Limb

to prevent ANY change in the rules in effect when they got elected.

This is also known as "The Iron Law Of Electoral Reform."

Blaming the Victims (Guilty as charged.)

This is a theme to which I have returned often:

In reply to a post on MyLeftWing, a commentor repeated a common complaint, one which I too have occasionally descended:
So, Dear Grand-da-da, we became by default a nation of ignorant and largely intellectually lazy fucks which were--surprise! surprise!, easy fuckin' picken's for the better organized and determined fools of the Neo-Con right-wing who were patiently preparing to steal our lunches and eat them.
While this is an entirely comprehensible sentiment (I have myself fallen into it), it is, I believe, wrong. It wasn't/isn't laziness, or even rank stupidity, which turned the trick. It wasn't by default. It was by design.

The metastasizing turgidity of the public mind was the inevitable, predictable result of a phenomenally expensive, incredibly extensive, permanently pervasive, enormously effective, incredibly durable, almost invisible campaign of propaganda begun almost a century ago by Woodrow Wilson, first to create support for his war, then for his (Capital "L")Liberal agenda.

It began when Edouard Bernays noticed that it didn't matter what people thought as long as what they thought about could be controlled and manipulated. This is the fundamental insight of the subsequent propaganda assault, which was designed to engineer the complacent complicity of the "people" with the fascist/corpoRat agenda.

Through a regime of carefully orchestrated lies (e.g., ALL advertizing/public relations and civic propagandas), the CorpoRats developed an almost infallible program designed to undermine, disable, and/or undo any and all democratic institutions and/or instruments which might avail the People in resisting the attack on their sovereignty by the elites, plutocrats, oligarchs, and their (highly paid) minions.

And, through the incentives provided by CorpoRat consumerism (the "American Dream"), to not only make 'em like it, but to make them (us, all) enthusiastic participants in their/our own enslavement.

It worked, naturally, because the assault was so totally unprecedented in size, scope, and resources. And it is working still.

Of course, there is no record for this project; or at least there is no KNOWN record. But one need only observe the objective circumstances and the myriad, obvious consequences and it is evident that this is not an accident. And there is tremendous resistance to admitting the truth of it, too, because no one wants to admit they have been so totally "pwn3d". We all want to think we're immune to such things, even if they were practiced here. Which everybody know isn't the case. It's only our 'enemies' who are so foolish as to be led around by their noses by official propaganda.

A Law Requiring Voter ID Comes Up For Argument In SCROTUS Today

Via CabDrollery (thanx, Diane):
On Wednesday the Court will hear arguments on a case challenging an Indiana law requiring a current state issued photo identification card in order to cast a ballot. At the heart of the case is a 61 year old woman who was not allowed to cast a regular ballot using the forms of identification she had used for years: a utility bill, a letter directed to her from the Social Security Administration, and an expired Indiana driver's license, according to this article in today's NY Times.

The timing of the case is important: the Supreme Court decision should be out by June, which means it will affect the rules in place for the 2008 election. Supporters on both sides of the issue recognize this.
The thing to remember is the Iron Law Of Electoral Reform (ILER): No pol EVER wants to see voting made easier because, though it might mean more voters for themselves, it could also mean more votes for a potential opponent.
Ergo, no pol ever wants to see changes in the rules under which they themselves were 'elected.'

Frog News Service Carries Report Saying Gulf of Tonkin "Attack" Didn't Happen

Why does AFP (Agence France Presse) hate Murka? From RawStory, today, comes the news that, yes, Virginia, McNamara made the whole fucking thing up:
Report reveals Vietnam War hoaxes, faked attacks
AFP--Published: Tuesday January 8, 2008
North Vietnamese made hoax calls to get the US military to bomb its own units during the Vietnam War, according to declassified information that also confirmed US officials faked an incident to escalate the war.

The report was released by the National Security Agency, responsible for much of the United States' codebreaking and eavesdropping work, in response to a "mandatory declassification" request, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) said Monday.

From the first intercepted cable -- a 1945 message from Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh to his Russian counterpart Joseph Stalin -- to the final evacuation of US spies from Saigon, the 500-page report retold Vietnam War history from the perspective of "signals intelligence," the group said in a statement.

During the war, North Vietnamese intelligence units sometimes succeeded in penetrating US communications systems, and they could monitor American message traffic from within, according to the report "Spartans in Darkness."

On several occasions "the communists were able, by communicating on Allied radio nets, to call in Allied artillery or air strikes on American units," it said.

"That's something I have never heard before," Steven Aftergood, director of the FAS project on government secrecy, told AFP.

But he said that probably the "most historically significant feature" of the declassified report was the retelling of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident.

That was a reported North Vietnamese attack on American destroyers that helped lead to president Lyndon Johnson's sharp escalation of American forces in Vietnam.

The author of the report "demonstrates that not only is it not true, as (then US) secretary of defense Robert McNamara told Congress, that the evidence of an attack was 'unimpeachable,' but that to the contrary, a review of the classified signals intelligence proves that 'no attack happened that night,'" FAS said in a statement.

"What this study demonstrated is that the available intelligence shows that there was no attack. It's a dramatic reversal of the historical record," Aftergood said.

"There were previous indications of this but this is the first time we have seen the complete study," he said.
Everybody inside the CommInt/SigInt community knew the truth, from day 1. I was part of that group, from '65-'68. It was part of the 'lore' of the service, but we were told, explicitly, to STFU about it. We started talking about it in about 1980, iirc...

Monday, January 7, 2008

If I Believed in God, I'd Pray For George McGovern's Continued Good Health

Why I Believe Bush Must Go
Nixon Was Bad. These Guys Are Worse.

By George McGovern
Sunday, January 6, 2008; Page B01

As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president.

After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to impeach President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the campaign. I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeated me.

Today I have made a different choice.

Of course, there seems to be little bipartisan support for impeachment. The political scene is marked by narrow and sometimes superficial partisanship, especially among Republicans, and a lack of courage and statesmanship on the part of too many Democratic politicians. So the chances of a bipartisan impeachment and conviction are not promising.

But what are the facts?

Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly "high crimes and misdemeanors," to use the constitutional standard.

From the beginning, the Bush-Cheney team's assumption of power was the product of questionable elections that probably should have been officially challenged -- perhaps even by a congressional investigation.

In a more fundamental sense, American democracy has been derailed throughout the Bush-Cheney regime. The dominant commitment of the administration has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against Iraq. That irresponsible venture has killed almost 4,000 Americans, left many times that number mentally or physically crippled, claimed the lives of an estimated 600,000 Iraqis (according to a careful October 2006 study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and laid waste their country. The financial cost to the United States is now $250 million a day and is expected to exceed a total of $1 trillion, most of which we have borrowed from the Chinese and others as our national debt has now climbed above $9 trillion -- by far the highest in our national history.
Go to the link in the Hed, read the whole thing. Compare:
George McGovern -- 35 B-24 missions over "Fortress Europa."
George W. Bush -- Deserted, rather than take a drug-test.

I Don't Want Dem Candidates Promising To "Build Bridges" to Vicious, Racist, anti-democratic GOPhux

Over on Driftglass's site:
At 9:33 PM , Anonymous PhysioProf said...

PhysioProf's official bipartisanship policy:

I don’t want my party to “build bridges” to the psychopathic racist sexist authoritarian sick fucks that are the remaining dregs of the Republican Party. I want my party to adopt a clear unambiguous progressive platform that repudiates all of the pathology of the degenerate Republican Party.

To the extent that there are any Republicans who are sick of the depravity of their party, and not too addled to recognize that it is their party that has single-handedly created the national clusterfuck we are currently embroiled in, they are welcome to join us. Otherwise, they can all go fuck themselves.


Which I would amend thusly:
To the extent that there are "Republicans" who are sick of the depravity of their Party, its leaders, its platform, and its agenda, AND are willing to repudiate it in all its manifestations and signs,AND will admit their complicity in the fucked-up conditions in which the country finds itself as a result of their blind, stupid, arrogant bullshit, I will tentatively welcome them into BACK the ranks of the Reality-based humanity, on a trial basis, on the proviso that any back-sliding will result in instant deportation to Trent Lott's outhouse.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Shrillary's Big Problem: The "Toughness" Issue

Here's why, imho, she's not a good choice(via Raw Story):
"{Hillary seems to raise possibility of nuking terrorist 'safe havens'"

Clinton promises 'heavy retaliation' for terrorist-harboring nations

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, finding herself in an unexpectedly close race with freshman Sen. Barack Obama, flexed her national security muscles in Saturday night's Democratic debate, raising the possibility of loosing nuclear weapons on countries that harbor terrorists who plot a nuclear attack on the US.

Clinton, answering a hypothetical question about the possibility of a nuclear weapon being detonated in the US, said she would immediately target terrorist "safe havens." The former First Lady warned "every state in the world must know we will retaliate," and she invoked deterrence aimed at the Soviet Union during the Cold War -- predicated on mutually assured destruction resulting from a US nuclear counter-strike -- as a successful strategy for averting a nuclear catastrophe.

ABC News anchor Charles Gibson, who was moderating Saturday night's Facebook-cosponsored debate, asked the candidates to imagine questions they would face the day after a nuclear weapon was detonated in a major US citiy. What will we wish we had done, and what will you as president do? Gibson asked the candidates.

Although she did not deliberately say she would launch nuclear weapons at countries where terrorists were believed to have found safe haven, her answer left it as a clear probability.

"If we can demonstrate that the people responsible for planning the nuclear attack on our country may not themselves be in a government or associated with a state, but have a haven within one, then every state in the world must know we will retaliate against those states," Clinton said. "There cannot be safe havens for stateless terrorists who are in these networks that are plotting to have the proliferation of nuclear weapons ... that could cause such havoc. So I think we have to be very, very clear: Deterrence worked during the Cold War in large measure because the United States made it clear to the Soviet Union that there would be massive retaliation. We have to make it clear to those states that would give safe have to stateless terrorists that would launch a nuclear attack against America, that they would also face very heavy retaliation."

That's the biggest danger Shrillary poses: That, to rebut any critique that she is/will be 'too weak' (too female, i.e.) to confront our "enemies," she'll get railroaded into some stupid move like heaving nukes around. She'll have an incentive to prove herself "able" to "go to war." It is way too likely, especially in the highly-charged conditions which will prevail when (if) the Bushies actually leave.

Friday, January 4, 2008

Sino Qua Non

Without China, climatological reforms and treaties are worse than meaningless. China's energy use and subsequent emissions are going to increase exponentially, very soon. Krugman's discussion of the implications of this phenomenon is instructive.
The "money quotes":
(B)ecause China’s oil demand has been rising along with its economy, in recent years China has been responsible for about a third of the growth in world oil consumption.

As a result, oil at $100 a barrel is, in large part, a made-in-China phenomenon.

Speaking of made in China, that brings us to a second issue. There’s growing concern in this country about the effects of globalization on wages, largely because imports of manufactured goods from low-wage countries have surged, doubling as a share of G.D.P. since 1993. And more than half of that rise reflects the explosive growth of U.S. industrial imports from China, which went from less than 0.5 percent of G.D.P. in 1993 to more than 2 percent in 2006.

Last, but most important, is the issue of climate change, which will eventually be recognized as the most crucial problem facing America and the world — maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives.

Why is climate change a China issue? Well, China is already, by some estimates, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. And as with oil demand, China plays a disproportionate role in emissions growth. In fact, between 2000 and 2005 China accounted for more than half the increase in the world’s emissions of carbon dioxide.
So, he concludes,
The truth is that China is too big to be bullied, and the Chinese are too cynical to be charmed. But while they are our competitors in important respects, they’re not our enemies, and they can be dealt with.

A lot of Americans, when they think about the next president’s foreign-policy qualifications, seem to be looking for a hero — someone who will stand tall against terrorists, or transform the world with his optimism.

But what they should be looking for is something more prosaic — a good negotiator, someone who can bargain effectively with some very tough customers and get the deals we need on energy, currency policy and carbon credits.
Sounds like a back-door Richardson endorsement, to me...

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Fascism Is FUN!

From Australia. This is a very timely piece.
"You have a mortgage to pay, Swedish furniture to buy.
Leave politics to those who don't mind getting dirty."

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Ex-CIA Analyst Ray McGovern Warns Against "Creeping Fascism."

Go read it. It's totally correct.
Creeping Fascism: From Nazi Germany to Post 9/11 America
By Ray McGovern, Consortium News
Posted on December 29, 2007, Printed on December 29, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/71881/

I actually don't think fascism can be thought to be 'creeping' anymore. Fascism's got its warm-ups off, and is doing calisthenics on the sidelines, working the cycle, warming up, in plain site, waiting to go in and kick some hippy ass. This ad icon has always impressed me as no more (but also no less) than the embodiment of the corporate orcs.

This Time Last Year, There Was A Foot Of Snow Around Here

Whereas, today it is cold and sere, but dry (though cloudy, the promise of snow is remote today).
The dogs were tres amused.

Both Dixiebelle, whose long, thick coat kept her warm...

And Hanna-Stella...whose enthusiasm is proof against any climatological vagaries.

Mischief is a delicate soul, who would prefer it not to snow, nor rain, nor blow very hard...

Budreau wouldn't stay still long enough to photograph, being a canine snowplough the whole time.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Re: Ron Paul

I won't have much to say about him or his supporters, all of whom I regard as fundamentally retarded in important ways.

However, I did post the following note on th comments board at Carpetbaggerreport:
In the wondrous, exhaustive “Iron-Men/Wooden-Ships” saga of Nelson's navy in the Napoleonic wars, by Patrick O’Brian, toasts aboard HMS Surprise (and other vessels under Jack Aubrey’s command) often offer a toast to the King and “Confusion to the Emperor,” meaning Napoleon.

It is in that mood of wishing confusion upon an enemy that I encourage the RonPaul entourage--naifs, and scumtards alike--to press forwards with their futile, quixotic quest because, if nothing else, it may generate confusion in the ranks of the GOPhux, cause crises in their morale, and disrupt the flow of funds to their coffers.

So, though I do not think Paul himself is sufficiently qualified to suck runny dog-shit through a Flavo-straw, and wouldn’t vote for him to do so even if it were a national office, I am gratified that both he and Huckleberry are in there poking sticks into the spokes of the GOPhuque machine.


Anything that hinders them helps the opposition, of which I count myself a loud and loyal member.