Closer to Fine

Well... I've finally arrived, Campers -- over the bleeding edge of the world's TV spectacles and problems and my own. I'm looking for cohorts, not sympathy. Empathy is a remedy. Sympathy is a mere placebo.

Never in my wildest 20-something imagination did I ever project that I would feel this way when I was 50-plus. Never. I can just barely imagine what someone younger than me is thinking about life on the Happy Planet these days... what a fourteen year-old problem child might be thinking... I know one of those. I'm worried about him. I'm worried about me. I know that some days for me it's a struggle just to feel fifteen. I realize we are a "political" blog of sorts here at the ASZ, but really (although it's been bent over time the phrase "the personal is political" applies here)-- Our day-to-day lives apply to our "political" attentions and intentions. That's what it means. It can't not be so. I'll try to get there while I'm musing. Bear with me if you can. I've been thinking about this post for at least a day, even while trying to sleep.

I'm listening to the Indigo Girls this afternoon. Their first big CD. I also had the news on earlier but I couldn't stomach it. Wake the dead president, fergawdsakes, and get it over with. But you know as well as I do that they won't until it's no longer politically expedient to do so. So I shut the damned thing off. Music is better. William Congreve said as much:

"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast, To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak."

No,, Campers, it was not Shakespeare, nor is it "sooth the savage beast". Congreve was close to being a contemporary of Shakespeare ... his forte was restoration comedy. Look it up, I think "She Stoops to Conquer".

Indigo Girls. "Closer to Fine". I've sung their songs accompanying myself on guitar, paraphrasing their Xian lyrics slightly to make them more universal. Just a little. "Closer to Fine" needs little if any paraphrasing.

"I'm trying to tell you something about my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
The best thing you've ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously, it's only life after all
Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it, I'm crawling on your shore.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine."
Lyrics at: Indigo Girls site

I'm very weary of the public waking and burying of old Caligulas, mild or extreme. I'm tired of pandering newsreaders. I'm tired of them telling me how the economy is so much better lately. I'm weary of endless prognostications about who is going to "win". You can bet tomorrow's breakfast that nobody's winning but politicians and their corporate sponsors, in my rarely humble opinion.

I grew up in the optimistic 50s, and into the 60s. Born in the "Year of the Bad Water", 1952. Ask me about that, I'll tell you. I had my first child in 1972. I keep wondering about what my 76 year-old dad is thinking now. I can call him. I should tonight. Between the troubled fourteen year-old, me, and my dad, we have the U.S. demographic spanned. I know that my dad wants the bastards in DC out. I'm proud of him. He's grown.

I'm leaning on my sister and my dad for comfort in my time of 50-something discontent. Truth is that I've been discontent all my life about what is happening on our big blue marble.

Campers, I'm not going to provide you with any "news" (AKA "the Olds") in this thread. I know you know how to "google". So this is my over the edge rant for hopefully the next month. ;-) The Indigo Girls are playing the song, "History of Us". It's very nice. I learned the tabulature years ago and must brush it up.

The chorus from life's little soundtrack:
So we must love while these moments are still called today
Take part in the pain of this passion play
Stretching our youth as we must, until we are ashes to dust
Until time makes history of us

There will be no swing to Bush on the Economy

I just happened to read this article int he Post and it explains all about how voters sometimes defy numbers on issues like the economy. It suggests voters might even be able to predict better than prognositcators. There were two very interesting parts of the article to me. First, even Republican interviewees appeared to think we were spending far too much on Iraq, suggesting that their confidence would not return unless we leave that country.

Second? I couldn't believe this interview with a guy from Tuscaloosa:

During the Clinton years, Jeremy Tuck said he had been selling mobile homes in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and, at $45,000 a year, making good money. Last year, he was assembling mobile homes, earning $15,000 and living hand-to-mouth. But Bush has his vote this November. Had Gore been elected in 2000, Tuck said, "we would've been taken over by Saddam Hussein or [Osama] bin Laden."

"You make more money in plain terms when Democrats are in office," Tuck said with a shrug, "but Republicans are stronger on the military, and that's why I'm voting for President Bush."

Now which is it. Is the guy stupid, suggested by him not recognizing that neither Iraq nor Al Qaeda had the power to take us over, or is he simply stupid because he can't find it in himself to vote with his wallet? Or is he so much a Yellow Dog Republican that it doesn't matter?

I guess the Republican propaganda worked with this guy.

Via Billmon via Juan Cole via...

Isn't this what Tim Berners-Lee had in mind when he envisioned the WWW?

Why Did the Chicken cross the Road?

Coalition Provisional Authority:

The fact that the Iraqi chicken crossed the road affirmatively demonstrates that decision-making authority has been transferred to the chicken well in advance of the scheduled June 30th transition of power. From now on the chicken is responsible for its own decisions.

Halliburton:

We were asked to help the chicken cross the road. Given the inherent risk of road crossing and the rarity of chickens, this operation will only cost the US government $326,004.

Read more...

What did we Create in Iraq?

We created an enemy who may turn out to be a monster. Yeah, we're slaughtering Al-Sadr's men like there's no tomorrow, and it appears we never were prepared for the kind of diplomacy necessary to handle the more radical of the Iraqi factions. This goes to poor planning for the peace. He's disqualified for the election, but when a popular guy is disqualified that can only mean bad things.

NAJAF, Iraq - After months of losing hundreds, if not thousands, of men in battles with the U.S. military, firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr appears to be more popular than ever in Iraq.

American coalition leaders were optimistic that last week's truce calling for al-Sadr to move his men out of the holy cities of Najaf and Kufa was a sign of a weakened leader.

But many Iraqi religious and political leaders say al-Sadr's public appeal is higher than ever and that he and his followers seem poised to gain ground in Iraq's political arena, threatening America's plans for the country.

If elections were held today, polls and interviews on the street suggest, the virulently anti-American al-Sadr would command a big percentage of the vote.

In a recent poll of 1,640 Iraqis across the country, by the Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies, the numbers for those who either somewhat or strongly supported al-Sadr were higher than those of the new prime minister and a long list of other high-ranking Iraqi government officials. More striking was that support for al-Sadr was just 2.8 percentage points behind the 70 percent polled by the established Shiite Muslim leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al Husseini al Sistani.

This is a failure waiting to happen. If it hasn't already.

Hmmmm...Limted Violations of My Next 1040?

Hubris writ large.

A Bill Eases Vote Curb on Churches

Republicans in the House of Representatives have quietly introduced a measure to make it easier for churches to support political candidates, just days after the Bush campaign came under fire from liberal groups for inviting church members to distribute campaign information at their houses of worship.

Representative Bill Thomas of California, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, added the measure to a much larger bill, introduced in the committee on Friday, that centers on revising certain corporate taxes. The provision, called Safe Harbor for Churches, would allow religious organizations a limited number of violations of the existing rules against political endorsements without jeopardizing their tax-exempt status.

Although its chances of enactment are uncertain, Democrats and other critics of the proposal argue that its timing suggests that Republicans are trying to bend the tax rules in time to help the president's re-election campaign...

Now, there's a Pandora's Box for you.

I guess they finally figured out they can't compete with 527's.

This bill is not without potentially interesting scenarios, though. I wonder if I can get away with "limited violations" of my 1040 tax filing next year? Or if non-profit agencies will be able to distribute political literature to their clients with a wink and a nod? Hmmmmmm.

Boggled by the Torture Memo

Someone has to walk the plank. Someone needs to be tried in a court of international law. In fact, several “someones” need to be tried in a court of international law.

Over the past 72 hours, there’s been a lot of gnashing of teeth since the Wall Street Journal released the Department of Justice’s “Torture Memo”. And I suspect there would have been much more ink given to this issue had Ronald Reagan not passed into conservative sainthood. I’ve spent a few days actually trying to make sense of the memo before commenting, and I think more importantly, trying to divine why the memo was written in the first place.

The purpose of the memo is crystal clear – to define the legal parameters of the word “torture”, and to analyze levels of responsibility (or should we say, “culpability”). The why? How about these bullet points: to provide justification for interrogation methodology (torture), to provide cover for those performing the torture, and to absolve those leaders who endorsed the methodologies.

That the Bush Administration had to even seek this counsel is profoundly disturbing, and so in my mind, the document clearly establishes premeditation on the part of the Bush Administration in the methods used for interrogation and torture at both Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

What strikes me about the 56 pages (many more seem to be missing, and some of the existing document is redacted) is the tone and texture of the memo. I find it frightening that a warm blooded human being(s) actually wrote such interpretations, with obvious full knowledge that whatever interpretations were made would most certainly be brought to bear on other warm blooded living human beings somewhere on the planet.

That the President and his subordinates in all applicable sectors of the government saw the need for such an in-depth analysis of the topic of torture is nothing short of eye popping. The brutality that this document endorses (and aptly demonstrated in the torture pictures from Abu Ghraib) is unconscionable. Perhaps even more unconscionable is that we as citizens of this country have come to accept this kind of thing as "de rigueur". It’s how we do business. It’s who we are.

What have we become?

As a supposedly "enlightened" society, what have we become that we accept electroded testicles and anal rape by lightstick in as cold of terms as the lawyer(s) that wrote it? What have we become that we accept the physical humiliation of a teenage son in front of his father as “just a few soldiers blowing off steam”?

The bottom line is that most people don't want to think. They don't want to understand. Thinking about stuff like this is both time consuming and mentally untidy. But by not speaking out, by not expressing institutional outrage, we’ve told those in power that we accept their verdict.

That congressional representatives of both parties are not outraged to the point of a public primal scream boggles my mind. The Democratic representatives on the Senate Judiciary Committee seem to get it. The Republicans don't. Yet when John Ashcroft was held to account for the memo, representatives from both parties let Ashcroft walk out of the hearing room under his own power rather than in shackles.

Look, I’m just expressing my outrage. There are well-constructed cases here, here, and here that what happened in Abu Ghraib (and what's probably happening on an even grander scale in Guantanamo Bay) are absolute war crimes. One thing the "torture memo" establishes for me is a clear chain of responsibility - the memo establishes that the buck actually does stop somewhere. With George W. Bush. Absent other information not available in the memo, it is clear that any such directives for imprisonment, interrogation, and torture must come from the President. He and only he has the power to make those decisions.

It's not a matter of inference. If Rumsfeld said "OK, do it", without specific approval from Bush, then Rumsfeld is guilty of many, many crimes. Even if he did it with specific knowledge and approval of George W. Bush, he's not in the clear. And neither is Bush.

In the final analysis, the "torture memo" presents strategies for avoiding (or arguing against) international war crimes tribunals. Never mind the moral and ethical terpitude of the memo. The memo amounts to "How to Avoid War Crime Tribunals For Dummies".

So, how are you going to respond? Expressing outrage on the internet is a wonderful thing. But guess what? The press and opinion makers don’t read these blogs. Attitudes don’t change. More importantly, policy doesn’t change because we’re just viewed as a gaggle of internet rabble rousers. Which is fine with the powers-that-be. As long as your butt is planted in your chair, and your eyes are glued to the monitor, and your fingers are dancing across the keyboard, nothing changes.

Let me type that again.

Nothing changes.

Will you let the revelations of the “torture memo” slide into the dustbin of yesterday’s soundbite, or let it be the motivation that finally moves you to some action?

From the Washington Post:

"There is no justification, legal or moral, for the judgments made by Mr. Bush's political appointees at the Justice and Defense departments. Theirs is the logic of criminal regimes, of dictatorships around the world that sanction torture on grounds of "national security." For decades the U.S. government has waged diplomatic campaigns against such outlaw governments -- from the military juntas in Argentina and Chile to the current autocracies in Islamic countries such as Algeria and Uzbekistan -- that claim torture is justified when used to combat terrorism. The news that serving U.S. officials have officially endorsed principles once advanced by Augusto Pinochet brings shame on American democracy -- even if it is true, as the administration maintains, that its theories have not been put into practice."

Please, Sir. I Want Some More
Black Box Voting, the Indiana Perspective

This one is short and sweet for people who think voting is some sacrosanct thing in the United States of America. So many other people in so many other countries know it's a rigged game, and has been forever. Why are we still babes in the woods here?

Another state bites the dust. From Intervention Magazine: An investigation into electronic voting in Indiana has frightening implications for the presidential election in November. By Elaine Kitchel

From the article:
"Wendy Orange, who recently resigned her job as project manager at ES&S (another voting equipment company), was working with Indiana election officials, with her office inside the election board's warehouse. She stated that voting equipment companies say “trust us,” and they have been trusted for years. But has that trust been earned? Can voters really “trust” the products and the companies who make them?

When Ries, the MicroVote President, was asked how a citizen could know if his/her voted counted, he replied, “It's one of those areas of a leap of faith. You really do have to have a faith in your local jurisdiction, that they are conducting equitable elections in the best faith of the voters. The security for the voter, once again, is the acceptance of good judgment by a local board. Quite frankly, it's very difficult to convince somebody how do I know my vote counted…. There is no way to link that individual ballot back to that individual voter.”"Bold emphasis is mine.

I'm voting for NOTA (otherwise known as "none of the above").

Funereal Spectacle:
Otherwise Known as - Reality TV Meets Bread and Circuses 2004

It's in today's NY Times. The Reagan family has requested the "really big shew" for Emperor Ronnie, all of it, including the riderless horse, otherwise known as the caparisoned horse. The last of one these official state funerals I remember is the one for JFK, otherwise known as John Fitzgerald Kennedy. I was 11 years-old then. I hadn't been to a funeral back then. I'm 52 now. My perspectives of all our Happy Planet rituals have changed in the intervening years.

I also read in the NY Times that the cost of this ancient ritual for Reagan is going to be in the tens of millions of dollars (US). The article is vague on the exact numbers. The spokesmouth said they wouldn't know until after it was over.

I have the front section of today's Times in front of me. It appears that the "lying in State" in the Capitol rotunda will cost upwards of $1.5 Million U.S. dollars (otherwise known as an arm and a leg), with the highest cost going toward personnel. But the costs associated from loss of productivity are much higher because of the shutdown of the federal government on Friday, which the Chimperor in Chief ordered, perhaps as high as $66 Million (otherwise known as hearts, lungs, livers, kidneys and corneas for transplant into many, many people). Then factor in the worry-cost over threat of acts of "terra-ism" and added security for that ... thousands of military personnel, snipers atop all buildings, big guns everywhere ... And as Billmon, Richard and others have called it, you have the 2004 version of a Roman spectacle, otherwise known as "Ronniepalooza".

"am pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli vendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim imperium fasces legiones omnia, nunc se continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, panem et circenses."

"Now that no one buys our votes, the public has long since cast off its cares; the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things -- bread and circuses." Juvenal, Roman satirical poet - A.D. 60-140

So while I fume here (Details below. You knew there'd be details, didn't you?), you can peruse the NY Times. The LA Times probably has as much, if not more coverage. And here are a few fun facts about funerals in general, state funerals, riderless horses, and more if I get a round tuit -- I mean around to it. ;-) )

The Museum of Funeral Customs FAQ

Black Jack, JFK's riderless horse

Arlington Nat'l Cemetary photo

And one from the on-line NYTimes: Cannons Echo as Washington Drills for Reagan's State Funeral (you may have to register for NYT stories)

Now for the fuming promised above. I've been an adversary of the "funeral industry" in the US since the late 1970s. The last one I attended was for my 12 year-old nephew, Billy, tragically killed after being hit by a car in 1995. I sang Joni Mitchell's "Circle Game" at the funeral, accompanying myself on guitar. There were 500 people in attendance. I actually got through the song, but was unable to sing it again for another 3 years without breaking down. Add to all of this, my rising gall over "Ronniepalooza", that I've already made my wishes known to my children and husband that they'd better not do anything expensive and stupid when I die. They should have a party with a lot of alcohol, and talk about what a nut I was in life. No wake, otherwise known as "viewing". I am to be cremated in the cheapest, light box allowable. I'd prefer no embalming. Haven't we enough chemicals floating in the air and in the ground these days? No memorial service of any kind, especially not religious, and NOT Lutheran. My ashes are to be scattered (illegally if necessary, in the nearest ocean, or used in a compost mix to plant a tree that will grow very large). When I told this to my family they quietly said: "Okay", otherwise known as "what mom says, goes!"

Addendum: I forgot an important part of my instructions to my family. My brain dead body, otherwise known as "spare parts" will be donated wherever it can be used, cremation of what's left will follow. The doctors will probably find my liver unusable. Ah, well. You can't have everything. ROFL! Life on the Happy Planet is one laugh riot after another.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Speaking of Gallup...

Good numbers for Kerry; bad for Monkey Boy™ -- Gallup poll released this morning.

PRINCETON, NJ -- A new Gallup survey finds Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry enjoying a slight lead over President George W. Bush, while Bush's approval ratings remain relatively unchanged, but for the most part in negative territory. The president's continuing strength is in the public's perception of how well he is fighting the war on terrorism, while his performance ratings in other areas -- the economy, foreign affairs, the situation in Iraq, energy policy, and prescription drugs for older Americans -- all elicit higher disapproval than approval.

The poll, conducted June 3-6, overlapped news of former President Ronald Reagan's death. Some of the results reported here could be affected by this news.

The poll finds Kerry leading Bush in the presidential contest by 49% to 44% among registered voters, and 50% to 44% among likely voters.

The Company He Keeps

I heard on the radio today that Reagan has honorary pallbearers, among them Merv Griffin. Odd choice, Griffin, that creator of Jeopardy doesn't have the gravitas by my view. I thought I'd look these folks up.

Honorary pallbearers will be Frederick J. Ryan Jr., chairman of the board of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation; Merv Griffin; Michael K. Deaver, a former deputy chief of staff; Charles Z. Wick, a movie-industry investor; and John Hutton, a physician who cared for Reagan while he was in the White House.

Ryan makes sense being a former Chief of Staff. And Deaver, certainly, for the same reason. His physician is not surprising, either. Charles Wick is the good one -- he's the producer of Snow White and the Three Stooges. No, you can't make this stuff up.

There's your comic relief for today.

Political "Chicken"

If we've recognized no other trends over the past 10 or 12 years, the "Leona Helmsley-ing" of politics has become quite apparent to even the most casual observer. In the comments section of another recent thread on ASZ, I lamented the mean spirited nature of the political landscape. No longer is the practice of politics the domain of clashing liberal and conservative ideologies -- it's become the modern day equivalent of the Hatfield and McCoy wars.

Many pundits have opined that the continuous downward trend in voter participation is directly attributable to the negative perception that many folks attach to the process. Now more than ever, I think politicians are generally viewed somewhere beneath internet viagra scammers on the "respect-o-meter".

For a long time, I've felt that the mean spirited nature of politics has winnowed down the number of participating voters to pretty much the hardcore believers. Now, comes a poll and story from the Gallup Organization that validates my gut feelings:

PRINCETON, NJ -- An analysis of Gallup Poll data reveals extreme and unprecedented levels of polarization in George W. Bush's job approval ratings. Currently, Democrats and Republicans evaluate the president very differently, with Republicans overwhelmingly positive and Democrats decidedly negative. Views among both groups are quite strong, which means they are probably unlikely to change much between now and the election. Never before has Gallup data shown such a high proportion of partisans with such strongly opposing views of a president.


...The impressiveness of this gap is underscored by looking at historical approval ratings for other presidents who were similarly gearing up for a re-election bid. Aside from Bush, Bill Clinton had the largest partisan gap in approval ratings at a comparable point in his presidency, but his 60-point gap from May 1996 is nearly 25% smaller than Bush's. Ronald Reagan is the only other president to have a partisan gap in excess of 50 percentage points in May of his re-election year.

Bush's 70+-point gap is not only unprecedented for May of a re-election year, but it is unprecedented for any point in a re-election year. No president, dating back to Harry Truman, has had a partisan gap above 70 points in any Gallup Poll in a re-election year.

(You might want to click through and read the whole story; there’s a lot there to digest.)

All of this begs the question - why is there such a gap? Perhaps the answer is, "because that's what they want". The partisan gap is a lead pipe lock guarantee for both parties. Both the Democratic Party and Republicans can count on the vote of their hardcore supporters. The soft "middle" shrinks, providing more predictability to the probable end result, and the ability to focus efforts primarily on swing states.

But I think the poll says something a bit different. My guess is that the gap on the Republican side has been there through several election cycles, because that's how the GOP has played their flock since the days of (at least) Reagan. The Democratic Party has only recently learned the power of the politics of division, and started to play by the rulebook invented by the GOP.

So what does this say for the campaign leading up to November? A newly energized Democratic Party base finally shows some teeth. That was quite clear in Al Gore's recent speech that's received so much play. It was even more clear last week in conservative pundit reaction to George Soro's speech at the Take Back America Conference in Washington. It's clear in the successful launching of Air America.

And that's as good of an explanation as The Gallup Organization needs in analyzing reasons for such an unprecedented perception gap. The GOP wants division? The Democratic Party is showing the GOP that two can play that game of chicken.

The only remaining issue: who blinks first?

Hard Drive Maintenance

Every now and then, I'll take a peek at the hard drive on my computer and do some housecleaning - removing old games I no longer play, programs I no longer use, and spyware that sneaks onto the system. When I get motivated enough to actually open Windows Explorer and take a look, sometimes I see interesting file names with old creation dates that pique my interest. I found one of those today, from January 30, 2003. The title of the document was war.txt (I do most of my drafts in notepad).

Here's what I wrote, in response to a pro-war posting on another forum:

Quoting: "...nations that have the ability to right the wrongs being perpetrated on humanity around the world, should have a moral obligation to do so. Human rights are universal, and should be enforced."

My response:

The last I checked, the U.S. had not been elected "cop" of the world. We do NOT have a moral obligation to enforce or project our view of humanity and human rights around the planet by force. If this was truly the case, the U.S. would have been in Iraq, Rwanda, Ivory Coast, and other global human rights hot spots many years ago.

If there is a demonstrable threat to our sovereignty or health / well being as a nation, we have an absolute right to use force. The obligation of our government leaders is to we, the folks who write the checks -- that obligation is to prove the threat exists. That hasn't been done. All we've gotten is a lot of "trust me on this one" coming from Washington. A lot of accusations and harsh words have been forthcoming, but not enough evidence to convict Saddam of enough malfeasance to support even a traffic ticket.

Excuse me if I'm a bit jaded in my old age, but I don't trust the beltway bandits a lick. Ok, Iraq's got chemical weapons? Fine. I want someone to detail what, when, and where, and what type of delivery system Saddam has to get mass destruction level quantities to Atlantic City. If so, I also want to know how long our government has known about it -- because if true, someone in government should hang for not addressing this issue 10 years ago.

Lastly, Iraq has no physical plant capability to do anything nuclear. Nothing. Nada. Zip. North Korea does, but not Iraq. Anyone that thinks you can "hide" weapons grade plutonium processing knows nothing about nuclear fission.

The bottom line is: do you trust your government to tell you the unfettered truth? If you do, you didn't grow up in the era that I did, and that simple fact may be the thing that divides us and our respective opinions.

My words actually mean more to me now than they did in January, 2003. Back then, I was expressing my distaste for the red meat hell-bent-for-leather track that the U.S. was taking with respect to Iraq. Today, those words reinforce for me why I was so adamantly opposed to getting involved in Iraq.

And it's a strange feeling, with Abu Ghraib and Fallujah now quickly receding in the rear view mirror, how close to spot-on I was about the "human rights" excuse, and how wrong the justifiers were.

Sometimes, I hate when I'm right.

What is the Bush Strategy to Be?

What does he do to win this fall? The Iraq war will likely not turn around enough to win Bush points. The economy might be turning around, but consumer confidence is low, and with all those new low-paying jobs it isn't likely to get better. Bush is in trouble, and I am gleeful, but Karl Rove isn't likely to take this sitting on his ample rump.

Besides today's D-Day remembrance, which showcased Bush better than any campaign ad could, and then the Reagan funeral, which will do the same, Bush needs something more. Richard here is predicting a 2004 Willie Horton, and that may well happen. If it happens there are signs here and there that it will focus on the so-called "cultural war." Yup, watch out for Bush to appeal to his base and work mostly behind the scenes to scare average Americans about rap music or gays.

What signs do I refer to? First, I guess the new Texas GOP Convention brought forward a platform that is tougher on gays and all the other issues sacred to the religious right. Second, as reported in The New Republic, Bush and his aids are appealing directly the religious right base. The descriptions are scary.

Just this week, W. delivered a keep-the-faith barn-burner to nearly 2,000 religious leaders and social service workers assembled in Washington for the White House Conference on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. In his best preacher's voice, Bush spoke of souls lost and found, the power of the Good Book, and the need to surrender one's life to "a higher being." But his larger goal: Reminding the audience of what a key friend he has been. Stressing his commitment to government funding of religious groups, Bush noted that, when an obstinate Congress tried to block his plans, he outsmarted them by signing an executive order.

Is this mere pandering? Perhaps, but it is clear the religious right will never recognize that Bush can't possibly keep funneling government money to them. It is certainly dishonest. What is scarier still is Bush's faith-based Czar:

The more illuminating speech, however, came from Jim Towey, Bush's faith-based czar, who helpfully focused the crowd on the fierce "culture war" still raging in this country. Iraq may be getting all the press these days, he allowed, "but there's also another war that's going on ... that really gets to the heart of the questions about what is the role of faith in the public square." If the anti-Bush forces wind up carrying the day, Towey reportedly warned, "you could almost wind up creating a godless orthodoxy."

Yes, disagreements on what is good for this country is, to them, the sign of the devil. Polarization runs amok and the Bush Administration is encouraging it. Even in interviews to religious journalists, and this coming week Bush will be meeting with James Dobson, fresh as he is from being scolded by the Pope over events in Iraq, including Abu Ghraib.

The question is whether Rove's strategy can get enough of the religious right out to vote. For myself, I just can't predict that. Having Bush so beholden to them makes my skin crawl.

Worth a Click and 40 Minutes

Donna Brazile is a treasure. Always has been, always will be. She was the manager of President Gore's 2000 campaign, and has recently published the next book I plan to buy, "Cooking With Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics". This past Wednesday, she was interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR's "Fresh Air". I really, really recommend listening to this 40 minute interview. She revisits the 2000 election, what happened on election day, and the aftermath. There's also a great riff or two on the current fervor in the Catholic church.

As progressives, we can.not.allow.2000 to happen again.

Get involved. Don't wait for the person next to you to make the first move -- be that person.

Butt Fugly, But...

Interesting concept. Definitely "outside the box" thinking. Maybe I should start snapping up surplus 4500psi Worthington air compressors and storage tanks from the U.S. Navy.

Soma Do and Soma Don't.

While the globe turns politically, we still have our local space... the one we live in, and Mark Morford (at the San Francisco Chronicle) , one of my all-time favorite social commentators, says:

Drug Up Your Teen Today!
This just in: Prozac is a better treatment than talking to your kid. Isn't life fabulous?

From his piece: "Hey, they've done studies. Studies that finally prove once and for all that Prozac is much more effective on your depressed miserable slouchy door-slammin' punkass teen than merely talking to him and loving him well and teaching him to appreciate life and sex and spirituality and fine artisan cheeses. So you know it must be true. "

Come on, yuppies. Tell me how it's much better for these kids to be psychopharmalogically altered for their own good and shipped off to an off-shore school, as the TV tells us you do.

I'm the mother of children, now 27 and 32. They are not without their "issues", and it was when they were teens that the "drug and sequester the behavior problems" came of age. The practices are florid now. Tell me why you' d rather drug your kids than talk and work with them to help them cope with life on the Happy Planet.

Language and Life

Or, The Life of Language as we dabblers like to call it

"If language were liquid it would be rushing in.
Instead here we are in a silence more eloquent than any word
could ever say."
Suzanne Vega

At my house we talk about words. I don't mean that we use words. Certainly we do. I mean we talk about them, their meanings and origins. My adult children grew up with my peculiar penchant for language curiosities. I can't help it! And they are doomed to being called pedantic forever as a result ;-)

So, just now my husband asked me remind him about the US English language acronym: TWAIN (referring to twain drivers to run computer scanners). Nope, it's not associated with our beloved Samuel Clemmens. I had read a few years ago that it was an acronym for Technology Without An Interesting Name. A pleasant thought, but.... Nope. It's more tangential than that. According to AcroIT (a great resource) it was originally taken from a poem by Rudyard Kipling: The Ballad of East and West.. the quote is:

"...never the twain shall meet." Clemmens got his name from Mississippi River depth soundings... twain. I think the reference is really associated by wide tangents with the Kipling quote. I love tangents... even deep ones.

I'm also a big advocate of researching word usage and etymology. I know. I'm geeky in that way. When I worked at a shelter, graveyard shifts (12 AM to 8 AM) I used to read the BIG reference dictionary in the wee hours. You had to be there.

My goal in life is to have a current and bound edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in my "library". Right now I have a couple years old edition of the computer version. For me it's just not the same when you can't feel the paper between your fingers.

So here's my initial bid for lightening up the weekend "news". Words, words, words. As says Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty in "Alice Through the Looking Glass": When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

Anyone Notice Bush Hiring the Lawyer?

I must admit I missed a small detail about the story until I read a column by John Dean today on Westlaw. Dean claims the guy is a criminal defense attorney! How's that for spin? Does Bush really need that kind of specialist to help him out?

As Matt Drudge might say, "developing. . . "

EU-Topia:
ShrubCo's Rage Against the Dying of the "Light"

While we sturm und drang on our side of the Atlantic the inexorable evolution of human culture continues over on the other side. You know, that place where Old Europe is? (Actually it's doing it here too in the US, but the thought of it makes people pale, so I'll bypass that for now. The US? Change? Unthinkable!) I think the turn to what might rightly be called the quasi-tribalism of the European Union fits right in with what futurists have been saying for decades about a return to a planetary system of peoples less, not more, centralized. It's like eating your cake and having it. That IS the correct turn of the phrase. The trick is not to have cake and eat it. That's easy. The real magic is eating it, and still having it. But I digress.

What caught my eye today is a reference to the EU, the European Union, doing it's evolutionary thing despite the ShrubCo Neocon machinations to the contrary.

So I thought a little "reading" on the EU was the next indicated thing. If you don't care about the EU, okay. If you do, here are some links to reading up on it, since our illustrious (nefarious) Rummy the Rum fired the "Old Europe" salvo months ago.

First, some dry stuff on federations and confederations: here.

Next, The European Union: A guide for Americans

And finally from Project Syndicate, an association of newspapers around the world: America Confronts Old and New Europe

If I live long enough, and human beings don't destroy themselves in the next 20 years, the endless jockeying for the top power seat on our Big Blue Marble is a source of endless entertainment and study. ;-)

Rage, rage against the neocon's extinquishing of the light. Happy reading!

(Image at the top is electronically pilfered from the Sydney Morning Herald. The arena of the angry bull. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies, www.daviesart.com)

Sad

Ronald Reagan is apparently on his last legs. According to reports, his condition has markedly deteriorated in the recent past.

When Ronnie does go, he'll get personal credit for a lot of things ("Tear down that wall, Mr. Gorbachev.") that he doesn't deserve, the fall of the ex-Soviet Union being one of them. There will be an outpouring of Republican grief on the day Reagan dies, and believe it or not, Monkey Boy™ will get a bounce from it.

While there would never be any real love lost between Ronald Reagan and myself, I sympathize with Nancy Reagan. "Ronnie's long journey has finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer reach him," she said. I recently lost a loved one to complications from Alzheimer's, and I can tell you that no one deserves such an ignoble ending. May his journey soon come to a merciful conclusion.

Update, 5:15PM - Well, that didn't take long.

Kevin and Me


Most days, I’m pretty much on the same
wavelength as Kevin Drum (Washington Monthly’s Political Animal) when it comes to political discourse. Any disagreements I might have with Kevin's opinions are usually more semantic in nature than anything else, even though Kevin certainly tacks a wee bit to the right of me.

Today, though, we depart in opinion.

Kevin has compiled a short and fairly accurate analysis of the current issues with oil supplies. He specifically looks at the situation from the demand side (where any such discussion should start), and compares historic demand for oil with capacity to produce it. What was a bit of an eye opener for me was his demand / capacity graph. Looking at the graph from a historic perspective, it's clear as a bell that the West is heading for some rough waters. In Kevin's analysis, you should enjoy your $2.25 gas, because it looks like prices will (long term) be headed increasingly upward. He even takes a pretty good swing at why demand has become so skewed - and it isn't all the fault of the West.

On these issues we agree. And I'll give Kevin this - he tries to look at all sides of the Rubik's cube. Our departure in opinion is on solutions.

There are two ways to stabilize the situation: suck more oil out of the ground, and/or decrease demand.

Kevin posits that there are five key actions that could positively impact the demand/capacity imbalance:

1. Produce more oil (drill wells, build pipelines).
   
2. Switch to other, more plentiful hydrocarbons (gas, coal).
   
3. Increase use of renewable power sources (wind, solar).
   
4. Increase energy efficiency (higher CAFE standards, energy-friendly building codes).
   
5. More conservation (less driving, air conditioners set to 80 degrees).

The five key actions that Kevin lists are basically the same actions that the energy lobby supports, in one manner or another. What these actions, as a group, fail to do is bring what every consumer and business person everywhere needs more than lower prices: price predictability. I believe that it's not so much the high price that drives us nuts (although when I filled up this morning, watching the wheels spin on the gas pump meter was certainly on my mind), but the unpredictability of gasoline prices for our vehicles and natural gas / fuel oil to heat our homes in the winter.

The bottom line is that there is a finite supply of oil at present and predicted consumption rates (20 years? 50? 100?). At some point in time, as a species, we're going to have to decide to bite the bullet. I know that there's no political will to bite any friggin’ bullet, but I'd like to offer a reasonable start at a long term solution that at least brings predictability to the consumer, doesn't mortgage our energy future, doesn't rape the environment in our collective last gasp for more oil, eliminates a major flash point in world politics, and positions us, as a species, for the future.

The quickest and most reasonable way to solve energy problems in the long run is to adopt a sensible application of consumer energy taxes and tax credits - a carrot and stick approach to solving the energy problems once and for all. One (a tax) won't work without the other (tax credits). Here's my "non-economist" view of how it works:

1. Raise the tax on consumer energy products (gasoline, natural gas, fuel oil, etc.), and make the tax a variable tax - in other words, as the market price for oil increases, the tax rate decreases. Vice-versa, as the market price for oil decreases, the tax rate increases. Effectively, then, the price of finished oil products to the consumer is stabilized, regardless of market or seasonal fluctuations. A portion of the tax could be utilized for R&D on alternative energy sources - for example, fuel cell technology that is actually, and economically, scalable.
   
   
2. Offer significant tax credits for use / purchase of non-fossil fuel alternative energy sources.
   
   
3. Offer credits for purchase of hybrid / alternative energy vehicles.
   
   
4. Offer significant tax credits for fuel conservation purchases - I'll give you an example - let's say I have a 15 year old central air system in my house. Now, I know inherently that if I replaced the system with current technology, I'd probably save a significant amount of energy dollars over the course of a year. But the initial outlay is so high that I'm willing to limp along with the old unit until it gives up the ghost. Now, if I had the ability to write off say, an amount equal to the differential in energy costs for a year, now that would be some incentive to change out my old power hog, and to buy the most energy efficient unit possible.

That's a starting point, anyway. It's fair, reasonably equitable, reduces demand, and rewards both efficiency and development of alternative energy sources. (Sidebar: Can you imagine what kind of impact the investment of $200 billion in alternative energy research would have in actually bringing some of these technologies to market. $200 billion is what we've expended in Iraq, to date.)

But, but, but. The above isn't my biggest point of departure with Kevin Drum. The following paragraph at the end of his posting is what tweaked me:

Liberals can help too. How about a deal that trades ANWR drilling for higher CAFE standards, for example? Sounds horrible, doesn't it? But it might be a politically feasible trade, and in the end the benefit from higher mileage cars probably vastly outweighs the negatives of another pipeline in Alaska. Consider it food for thought.

What Kevin views as a "trade", I view as abject capitulation. CAFE (auto fuel efficiency standards) for ANWR is not a tradeoff -- it's an environmental Faustian bargain.

I'm no longer willing to concede the need for raping ANWR or any other scrap of the planet in our increasingly urgent quest for the last drop of oil. We long ago reached a point of diminishing returns in what we get for both money invested in oil exploration / drilling -- and the vulnerability this quest brings to the environment around us has become unacceptable. Again, it's way past time to quit whistling past the energy graveyard. We've reached a critical convergence of world politics, energy politics, and environmental politics, and someone in a powerful position needs to stand up at a podium and say so.

I believe President Gore would have done just that. George Bush would drink a gallon of Texas Light crude before he would admit there's a big problem that needs more than a bandaid solution. And I don't think John Kerry will take any significant steps in that direction, either, at least not without a clear mandate to do so and at least one (cough, cough...Democratic Party) house of congress behind him.

Yeah, I know, I'm a goddam pollyanna. Perhaps Kevin is more of a realist than myself, and that's OK, too. What I do know is that even if we, as a species, decided to make the commitment to change today, the upside of being forced into the future probably wouldn't be realized in my lifetime.

But we've gotta start somewhere. The discussion has to start somewhere, sometime, and and that sometime needs to be sooner than later.

Why not now?

Class War, Republican Style

It used to be you could count on the Republicans to attack poor people during elections, scaring the middle class by painting pictures of Welfare Queens stealing the money of the middle class via AFDC and welfare money. You could count on that kind of class warfare as regular as clockwork, and you could additionally count on the Democrats to bash the Republicans for wanting to cut the tax rates on the rich. Such tactics swept both Reagan and Bush the Elder into office, and that magic "capital gains" phrase probably shored up a bit of solid support for Bush the Younger. Yeah, the myth was always that the Democratic Party was the party of the lower middle class, and the Republicans were the party of the rich.

Not anymore. Anyone who has watched Republican pundits on television or Republican attack ads on TV knows that the new class warfare is to characterize John Kerry as rich, rich, rich. Terry Neal reports on this in today's Washington Post. I find a few bits interesting.

First, it is amazing how completely open the Republicans are being about it, given that Dick Cheney and the Shrub are both multi-millionaires as well.

"Most Americans can't afford yachts, private planes, thousand dollar haircuts or homes in Nantucket," Republican National Committee spokesman Jim Dyke said in a news release announcing a new video game on the RNC Web site. The game is called Kerryopoly. It's similar to Monopoly, but the properties belong to the Kerry family.

I love their excuses for the tactic a whole bunch. Evidently they see no hypocrisy, or can lie with a straight face. (Perhaps this is a Republican requirement for running for office?)

"We are speaking to the inherent contradiction in the life story of John Kerry," said Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt on Wednesday. "He is someone who purports to campaign as a man of the people, but who resides in a whole series of wealthy million dollar chateaus and mansions. It's just one more contradiction and example of him being out of the mainstream with America."

In other words, Holt explains, Republicans are pointing out the hypocrisy of Democrats who play class warfare, but they're not playing it themselves. The issue, Holt and other Republican officials said, is not so much that Kerry is rich, but that he's a phony.

"John Kerry is dividing Americans on class and income," Holt said. "Republicans don't do that. Republicans, for example, fight for tax relief that is fair for everyone." Kerry, on the other hand, "supports repealing tax cuts for people who make over $200,000."

What kind of crack monkeys are these guys? Are they really saying that since Kerry isn't selfishly acting in his own interest that he can't be trusted? Are they really saying that ideals are only good if they help you line your own pockets?

But I like the Kerry camp response:

Kerry campaign spokesman David Wade responded: "Boneheaded attacks from this bunch are as insulting as they are ironic. It's downright hypocritical coming from the campaign of a president whose connections got him into a 'Champagne Unit' of the National Guard during Vietnam and whose path was paved with privilege from Andover to Arbusto oil to the Texas Rangers. This guy who was born on third base and thought he hit a triple is going to engage in a sad game of class warfare? . . . I don't think a lot of Americans remember Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy because of where they came from, they remember them for what they did to make America stronger. Good luck finding Americans who think that way about George Bush."

I suspect before the end of this election we'll get more disgusting tactics from the Republicans. And some will surely energize their base. I've seen Republicans who actually are swayed by this scurrilous stuff, but I've seen nobody change their minds over it. Indeed, I've seen some swing voters cringe. But expect even dirtier stuff. Kerry in a burnoose will likely show up soon.

Disconnected from Reality

The May unemployment numbers came out today, and I'm not quite sure what kind of story they tell.

Basically, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that we're treading water. For the first time in three months, new job creation is down - perhaps a delayed reflection of the downturn in housing construction noted as early as two months ago. The unemployment rate itself remains basically the same (5.6%) as it's been since December, 2003.

What the report doesn't say is what I'm hearing on the street. Every day, I talk to people about the jobs situation. To a person, they're still saying "what job creation?". Yes, perhaps if you want to wash dishes in a restaurant, or change sheets at a local hotel during the summer travel season, there's a job out there. That's not employment, though, IMHO.

Even the hiring managers I talk to, and I spoke with one as recently as yesterday, say that it's still very much a "buyer's market" out there. In other words, for every open job they post, they get fistfulls of applications. The summer youth employment training in the metro area where I live had over 1000 applications for 45 summer jobs for teens. A recent job fair at a local hotel had thousands of job seekers turn out for what amounted to a resume troll by HR managers.

A few posts down, I talked about lies, damn lies, and statistics. The real statistic is the number of folks I get in a week that walk into the facility where I'm a manager and ask me, "Are you hiring?". They're looking for anything resembling permanent work.

I've had to hang a "not hiring" sign at the entrance to our building just to winnow down the number of people knocking on the door. Even so, some are still knocking out of desperation.

A Long, Long Way from Choctaw Ridge:
Update on a Different Sort of Anniversary
I remember 15 years ago. Or do I?
Dateline -- BEIJING

From Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor: New story emerges of an infamous massacre


"Standard histories such as that by Yale's Jonathan Spence, as well as the recent groundbreaking "Tiananmen Papers," suggest that Chinese soldiers did not fire on students before they left the square in the early hours of June 4, 1989. But in popular references, most recently in the first paragraph of a major retrospective wire story this week stating that "thousands were killed in Tiananmen Square," the myth persists. A massacre did take place in Beijing 15 years ago, eyewitnesses say - just not in Tiananmen."


(Be sure to click through at the bottom of page 1 to read page 2)

3:15 AM Note: I was in the middle of posting this Thursday evening, when we had a several city cable outtage here in S. California. [Grumble, grumble -- Adelphia Weasels, grumble, grumble!]

From Life's Little Soundtrack:

It was the 3rd of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day.

Yep. It was today, June 3, 1967. I was three weeks shy of my 15th birthday, and far from Mississippi, when Bobbie Gentry hit the charts with 'Ode to Billie Joe'. My dear husband Mr. Keys has one of those idetic minds for dates in his life. It's almost spooky. He was also three weeks from 15. For many popular songs of the 60s, he can tell you the date he first heard it, where he was, who he was with, and what they were doing. (The booger! LOL)

Despite receiving a few "worst songs ever" awards in the decades since, "Ode to Billie Joe" received four Grammys in 1967, (three of them for Bobbie Gentry, one for the arranger), and the song was #1 on Billboard for four weeks. If I had an FTP server, I'd upload it so you could have a listen... just Google for it or buy it from iTunes.

Sometimes nostalgia is all it's cracked up to be.

The Purge Begins

I guess George Tenet was not ideologically pure enough anymore. Heads had to start rolling. I'm guessing this is the first. Can't wait to read the book.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- CIA Director George Tenet, who weathered storms over intelligence lapses about suspected weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has resigned for personal reasons, President Bush said Thursday.

"I will miss him," Bush said.

Yeah. Like a bad case of acne.

Chalabi, anyone? Or Plame? How about Abu Ghraib?

Don't dance yet. As strange as it may seem, Tenet is one of the "good guys" (in a WWF/WWE kind of way), and perhaps one of the only counterweights to a creeping facist viewpoint in the U.S. intelligence community. BushCo is circling the wagons. This isn't necessarily good, IMO.

Out of Control

News item:

OPEC Agrees to Raise Oil Output Ceiling

I've been thinking about this for the past few days. OPEC is usually pretty good about matching supply with demand to keep prices propped up. However, several news stories have surfaced from the trading floor over the past few days that lead me to believe what's happening with oil prices is kind of out of OPEC's control right now.

The first problem is one of production. Only Saudi Arabia and UAE actually have any excess capacity to work with - and both have already been cheating on production quotas. Venezuela has some excess capacity as well, however, the Venezuelan oil industry is in a state of disarray right now. So other than sending a signal to the markets that OPEC is "concerned" (insert a Bill Cosby "riiiiiiigggght" here) about price levels, I don't see much practical impact at the pump of OPEC raising production output.

The second problem is kind of embedded in the first. From my understanding of the situation, what's happening with prices in the oil markets right now is pretty much out of OPEC's direct control. So, whatever anyone thinks about Bob Woodward's assertation in his book that Saudi Prince Bandar promised Dubya that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election, what's happening today is totally unrelated, IMO.

In a market such as this, it would seem that the only way to reduce oil prices is to reduce consumption. This happens in two ways: conservation (forced or voluntary), or natural demand drop (recession). The tail kind of wags the dog with the latter - a recession related to high oil costs forces a demand drop. Seems to me as if that's the direction we're probably heading. The only question remaining -- is it labeled a "Bush Recession" or a "Kerry Recession"? If economic growth numbers flatten in the next month or two, President Kerry will be immune.

So, here's what's really confusing me. Should I be happy about where gas prices are now (assuming they're going to keep going up, up, up), or should I be scared that I won't be able to afford enough gas for my lawnmower in a month or two?

Fahrenheit 9/11 - The Trailer

Here!

Be there or be square...

National Hunger Awareness Day

Darn - and I was just getting ready to head for bed, finally, after yesterday's busy news cycle. But lest I forget, today is National Hunger Awareness Day. I could spread a lot of sappy words here, but I won't because it's late, and my shallow words wouldn't do the topic justice even if I was fully awake. For more information on how you can get involved in your community, click on the plate in the left menu. I'll be spending part of my day at an event marking this occasion at a local university.

Believe it or not, even in our bountiful country, millions of people go to bed hungry every night. And I'm not talking about the homeless, the drug addled, or others on the fringes of society. A vast majority of the folks fitting the USDA's "food insecure" profile are just like you: proud, working class folks struggling to pay the bills in Dubya's "robust economy". And they're sneaking down to the local food pantry during the week to put food on the table.

So, if you can help out, please do. A monetary donation to America's Second Harvest, or contribution of food, money, or your time to your local food pantry can go further and help more people than you would ever imagine.

To change the world we live in, start with your little scrap of the planet.

It's a Good Time to be a Democrat

Just a sampling of this evening's news you'll be reading in tomorrow's headlines:

Administration Freed Terror Suspect

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nabil al-Marabh was No. 27 on the FBI's list of terror suspects after Sept. 11. He trained in Afghanistan's militant camps, sent money to a roommate convicted in a foiled plot to bomb a hotel and boasted to an informant about plans to blow up a fuel truck inside a New York tunnel, FBI documents allege. The Bush administration set him free - to Syria - even though prosecutors had sought to bring criminal cases against him and judges openly expressed concerns about possible terrorist ties.

Bush Consults Lawyer in CIA Case

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush has consulted an outside lawyer about possibly representing him in the grand jury investigation of who leaked the name of a covert CIA operative last year, White House officials said Wednesday night.

"The president has made it very clear he wants everyone to cooperate fully with the investigation and that would include himself," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

He confirmed that Bush had contacted Washington attorney Jim Sharp. "In the event the president needs his advice, I expect he probably would retain him," McClellan said.

"I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration official [who leaked Plame's name]," Bush said last year. "I don't have any idea. I'd like to. I want to know the truth."

But Bush said, "This is a large administration and there's a lot of senior officials."

Bush Push May Cost Churches Tax Breaks

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's re-election campaign is trying to recruit supporters from 1,600 religious congregations in Pennsylvania - a political push that critics said Wednesday could cost churches their tax breaks.

An e-mail from the campaign's Pennsylvania office, obtained by The Associated Press, urges churchgoers to help organize "Friendly Congregations" where supporters can meet regularly to sign up voters and spread the Bush word.

"I have never in my life seen such a direct campaign to politicize American churches - from any political party or from any candidate for public office," said Rev. Barry W. Lynn of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "By enrolling churches in an election scheme like this, I think the Bush-Cheney campaign is actually endangering those churches' tax exemptions without even the courtesy of telling them that they run a risk."

As I've said many times..."You can't make up this shit."®

Update, 11:05PM - Whoops, missed one.

Democrats Seek Special Halliburton/Cheney Counsel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House Democrats urged a special counsel on Wednesday to probe whether Vice President Dick Cheney broke the law through any involvement in the award of a government contract in Iraq to his old company, Halliburton Co.

For the second day running, Democrats demanded more answers to questions raised by a newly unearthed Army e-mail that said Cheney's office "coordinated" action on a contract to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure that was awarded to Halliburton.

Goodness, I just can't keep up anymore.

Also from Drudge: More Republicans Jumping Ship?

Whenever I hear Ted Stevens name I am reminded of those days watching C-Span and hearing his voice called for rollcall: "Mr. Stevens. . . " I always loved C-Span, yet I almost never watch it anymore. Perhaps I need to praise Brian Lamb, a fellow man from Purdue, sometime soon.

Anyway, Ted Stevens is officially off the reservation! Woohoo! Yes, Republicans left and right are either finding their consciences, which have been buried in a vault somewhere next to the Picture of Dorian Gray. This is beginning to be delicious! Here's what Ted had to say about Bush's request for an emergency reserve fund for Iraq and Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A powerful senator from President Bush's own party rejected his administration's request for broad leeway on a $25 billion reserve fund it wants for Iraq and said on Wednesday he intends to limit how the money can be used.

"We expect this to be used only for Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Iraq," declared Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which approves government spending and oversees the federal budget.

Stevens told administration officials at a hearing: "Some of my colleagues have said that you're asking us to give you a blank check because of the word 'may' in this provision. I would intend to change that to say it 'shall' only be used for these accounts."

This is minor in some ways, the substitution of the word "shall" for "may," but could it be one more Republican jumping off the war wagon? Perhaps we should start tracking all the Republicans such as Hagel, Lugar, Perle, even, beginning to criticize, even slightly, the Bush legacy in Iraq.

This is beginning to look very good. I've not had faith in the polls. I'd rather count Republicans refusing the opportunity to gladhand with Bush by their sides.

A Rarity -- Bush Edits for Sensitivity to Muslims and to Europeans

And, startlingly, I got this from DRUDGE!! (Could it be that Drudge is falling off the Bushite Bandwagon?)

President George W. Bush compared the war on terrorism to World War II on Wednesday but trimmed one famous Allied message and dropped the word "crusade."

In a speech at the US Air Force Academy graduation, Bush recited part of General Dwight Eisenhower's message to troops ahead of the D-Day landings but carefully quoted around the term, which has deeply negative connotations in the Muslim world.

"'Soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force,'" Bush quoted Eisenhower as saying. "'The eyes the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you."

Eisenhower's original message to the troops opened with: "Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months.

"The eyes of the world are upon you. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you."

Look at that! He edited the word "crusade," which is obviously a word that Muslims react badly to, and also ones the Europeans would focus on sharply.

So what does this mean? The rhetoric Bush has used in the past, of "either you're with us or you're appeasing Frenchies who eat snails," is fading now that Bush must go begging to the United Nations, an act that is a must if he is to have a hope of retaining his job. What is this? None other than the Shrub's chief skill. He's pandering. At least this time it isn't to the religious right.

Pardon me while I go get some mouthwash.

Joke Time

As the President is getting off the helicopter in front of the White
House, he has a baby pig under each arm. The Marine guard snaps to
attention, salutes, and says: "Nice pigs, sir!" The President replies:
These are not pigs, these are authentic Texan Razorback Hogs. I got one
for VP Cheney, and I got one for Defense Secretary Rumsfeld."

The Marine again snaps to attention, salutes, and replies, "Nice trade,
sir!"

(Shamelessly stolen from Yam on Atrio's comment board)

Lies, Damn Lies, and...um...whatever...

Army Expanding 'Stop-Loss'Program

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Army will prevent soldiers in units set to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan from leaving the service at the end of their terms, a top general said Wednesday.

The announcement, an expansion of an Army program called "stop-loss," means that thousands of soldiers who had expected to retire or otherwise leave the military will have to stay on for the duration of their deployment to those combat zones.

Wow, that'll make a lot of Army wives (and husbands) happy.

The expansion affects units that are 90 days away or less from deploying, said Lt. Gen. Frank L. "Buster" Hagenbeck, the Army's deputy chief of staff for personnel. Commanders have the ability to make exceptions for soldiers with special circumstances; otherwise, soldiers won't be able to leave the service or transfer from their unit until they return to their home base after the deployment.

So, basically, if you're a soldier whose unit is scheduled to rotate to Iraq or Afghanistan in the next 3 months, regardless of whether you've been there before or not, you're going back. If you're in one of those units and the end of your obligation is coming up in the next week (or the next 6 months), you're going anyway.

The move will allow the Army to keep units together as they deploy, Hagenbeck said. Units with new recruits or recently transferred soldiers would not perform as well because the troops would not have had time to work together.

Give me a break. This has been going on since the beginning of military time. Old hands leave, even in the middle of war. New fodder comes on board. Any soldier / sailor / airman who is nearing completion of their obligation knows this - because they've already seen it hundreds of times.

The announcement comes as the Army is struggling to find fresh units to continue the occupation of Iraq. Almost every Army combat unit has faced or will face deployment there or in Afghanistan, and increased violence has forced the deployment of an additional 20,000 troops to the region, straining units even further.

Well, we've already raided the cookie jar in the Korean theatre - a few weeks back, several thousand troops were pulled out of Seoul and relocated to Baghdad. So I'd say we're already thin in staffing. Just wondering aloud - what happens if another brush fire flares in, say, Afghanistan?

Hagenbeck had no numbers on how many soldiers would be affected.

You know what? This is the kind of nonsensical bullshit that pisses me off. You know this lying weasel has the numbers right in front of him. You know that every reporter sitting in on this newsconference has a contact in the Pentagon that could pull out the number immediately. You know why Buster wouldn't give the number? Because it's large - very large - and would instantly ignite a firestorm in the military.

Intuitively, I have to think that the Army and Marines are already having a difficult time filling billets at the recruiting stations. The half-truths and bullshit that recruiters spin is bad enough in normal times. But then I run into statistics like these:

Fiscal Year 2004 Missions (The Fiscal Year is October through September.)
Active Army Mission -- 77,000
Army Reserve Mission -- 21,200

FY04 Year-to-Date Accomplishments (through April 2004)

We have recruited 41,467 Soldiers for the Active Army. We have over-achieved our year-to-date mission of 41,352 by 115 enlistments, which puts us at 100.3 percent for the year.

We have recruited 9,449 Soldiers for the Army Reserve, exceeding our year-to-date mission of 9,398 by 51. This puts the command at 100.5 percent for the year.

...and I don't know what to tell you. I guess it's easy to meet your goals when you've underestimated your needs by such a large margin. Hence the old saying, "there's lies, damn lies, and statistics".

A Positive Trend

The Democratic Party is two for two this year in special elections, both in heavily GOP leaning districts:

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - Democrats looking ahead to November got a bounce with the victory of Stephanie Herseth in a special election, marking the party's second straight congressional triumph and snatching a House seat in a heavily GOP-leaning state.

Herseth, a member of one of the state's most distinguished political families, narrowly defeated Republican Larry Diedrich in Tuesday's poll. She will immediately fill the seat of Republican Bill Janklow, who resigned his seat before he went to jail over a deadly auto accident.

Update, 9:45PM - Was watching Brit Hume on Faux a bit earlier, and he had a panel of the usual neocon suspects (didn't know Juan Williams was one of them...) and to a person they were morose over Herseth's win - not because she won, but because of the trend. All were visibly upset that in a state where they thought Tom Daschle was vulnerable, Herseth "stole" a Republican seat. All were lamenting Monkey Boy™'s slide in the polls, and the polling numbers associated with the generic question, "do you want change?".

It was also noted that the last time a party swept special congressional elections (GOP) was the year of Newt's "Contract on America". Democratic Party candidates are 2 for 2 this year (Chandler in Kentucky). The possiblity of winning back the house (now 11 seats needed) and the senate are becoming very real for the Democratic Party, and as I've noted before, starting to dawn on the RNC. Look for some of the GOP members in both houses to gain spine against Monkey Boy™ in the coming months.

Confidential to Terry McAulliffe: George Bush has handed you the opportunity of a lifetime on a silver platter. Don't blow it.

Richard Takes a Mulligan

Yesterday evening, I posted what I intended to be the first of a series of ramblings linking where the U.S. is today geopolitically, and offer those ties to America's insatiable thirst for energy. After a few hours reflection, I decided that most ASZ readers already understand the nature of this connection (at least at a broad level). So, I've removed the original post, and shelved the idea.

Anyone that's really interested in "following the money", so to speak, might want to start with this Google search.

Suffice it to say, we've all been suckered on a grand scale. Revisiting how we got there is not going to solve the mess. I'm really more interested in looking at how America gets out of this mess. The energy component of our national quagmire is clearly the most important. Giving the candy store to the energy barons - and this has been the entire focus of the Bush administration since day one - is not the answer to our collective problems.

Without historical context, it's difficult to make sense of how the barons staked their claim in the Bush Administration. So I hope the following exchange from 2000 places a bit of that context around the mindset of the folks who are running the country. That the capitalist nature of the oil barons and the imperialist nature of the neocon policy wonks should ultimately intersect is not surprising:

Before the 2000 election, Enron employees pondered the possibilities of a Bush win.

"Ken Lay's going to be Secretary of Energy," says one Enron worker.

That didn't happen, but they were sure President Bush would fight any limits on sky-high energy prices.

"When this election comes Bush will fucking whack this shit, man. He won't play this price-cap bullshit."

Crude, but true.

"We will not take any action that makes California's problems worse and that's why I oppose price caps," said Mr. Bush on May 29, 2001.

The US Army Wants YOU!

Yes, that's what you think it is, a protester outside a recruiting facility essentially saying, "join the United States Military, see new lands, fight for freedom, and have a bit of fun torturing people."

Now I'm not one to think all soldiers are responsible for the abuse in Iraqi prisons, and the guys should be punished. But it is hard to believe that they did their acts without some instruction from above.



So far, all we're getting is stonewalling. So I'm pleased to see this clever protest in Boston. It is reported by DC Indymedia, a pretty radical group, but surely even radical groups should be allowed to protest, no? That's exactly the word. "No." Boston police arrested this protester, and they didn't even have to resort to the Patriot Act to back them up, but you just know Mr. Ashcroft would be proud of them, and George Bush might say something like, "What's that man doing out of Hare Krishna Prison?"


And you're surprised the protester got arrested? This is America, home of freedom of speech. A man can stand in whatever outfit he wants, quietly, not screaming or accosting anyone. That's according to our principles, isn't it?

Yeah, right. Not in this Administration. Not with the hype thrown up about terrorism. There are many ways our voices are being silenced, and this is one.




Ptooie!

Predators, Some of the Horrors
Another Pond Object Lesson

Predators are different depending on the biosphere. This is a simple fact and goes without saying for most people, and for pondkeepers; our predators are heron and like birds, and raccoon. Herons wait for you to be gone, and then they spear your pond fish and carry them off. Raccoons are worse... they leave half-eaten carcasses. As I said, Yes Virginia, there are horrors for the goddesses of ponds.

In the world biosphere we have many other predators including, the US government.

I understand why herons and raccoons hunt and then find pond fish. Food. I don't understand why the millionaire, billionaire boys have to hunt throughout the world. Their money makes them money in wheel barrows via investments. But yet, it's not enough. Once I read that even with the filthy rich, people desire 10% more than they have. I don't understand that. I guess I was just "born bad", not of a proper mindset to be one of the elite power brokers, a proper capitalist. I'm more and more inclined to think simpler, and to think that a simpler government is necessary. I cannot really effect any change. I'm just a little voice out here.

ATTN: Bush Youth - RNC Needs YOU!

Hey kids - is your dad a Bush "Pioneer" or "Ranger"? Then, make him proud this Father's Day and join the ASZ Challenge - and possibly win an all expense paid trip to the Republican National Convention in New York City courtesy of Ed Gillespe! Yes, young brownshirts, the Republican National Committee is sponsoring an essay contest as part of their "Stand Up and Holla!" campaign, open to all Bush Youth (18 - 24 years old).

Is there a budding Sean Hannity in the crowd? Perhaps a pugnatious and pert mAnn Coulter wannabe? We breathlessly await your enthralling composition of youthful conservative wit and wisdom! Everyone's doing it! You might even get lucky, and get to hobnob with Carson Daly on MTV's "TRL", fer jeebus' sake.

Here's the dealio:

• Who? Young Adults Ages 18-24
  
• What? An essay of no more than 300 words that answers this question: Why is the President's call to community service important and how have you demonstrated it?
  
• How? Write your essay...Ten finalists may be invited to film a video clip that will be posted to the web and voted on by the public.
  
• Why? Because what you think matters... and the winner may deliver a speech to the nation during the 2004 Republican National Convention.
  
• When? The deadline for contest submissions is June 15, 2004. Voting will be available on the Convention website and on the RNC's voter registration vehicle, "Reggie the Rig," and on MTV.com. The winner will be announced on MTV's TRL.

We here at ASZ can think of no better way to express how you feel about the President's call to service - particularly with continuing rumors of firing up the military draft right after election season. Hint: we suggest you recognize examples from the past four years of how Mr. Bush and/or other prominent Republicans have aptly demonstrated their sentance commitment to community service. Google it and see what you can find - we're not doing your homework for you.

You say you're not in the targeted demographic? Pshaw! That's why ASZ is here - submit your essay by clicking the "comments" link to this posting, and we'll facilitate finding a willing surrogate member of the Bush Youth Leauge to present your essay.

But you need to act fast - don't delay! Although the the RNC deadline is June 15th, ASZ's deadline for entries is whenever this thread archives itself or haloscan pukes on the comments, whichever is earlier. No purchase necessary to enter. Decision of the judges is final. Must be present to win. Void in all 50 states, and elsewhere as prohibited by law. Odds of winning are approximately as long as that of Monkey Boy™ making a graceful exit from Bushraq.

Here a Civilian Contractor, there a Civilian Contractor, Everywhere a Civilian Contractor

Sometimes it isn't just our catchword "Bushcorp," but it seems as if the entire reason for war and the carrying out of it is run by civilians, whether for long-term geoprofit or for short-term war-profit. But it infects the CIA, too.

From theage.com comes a report of heavy participation by civilian contractors in the raid on Chalabi's house last week. Reading between the lines it appears they used these folks to gather intelligence from the computers there, but some actions certainly will make it look as if they were there to show the world the face of "ugly Americanism."

But eight armed American contractors paid by a US State Department program went on the raid, directing and encouraging the Iraqi policemen who, witnesses say, ripped out computers, turned over furniture and smashed photographs.

Some of the Americans helped themselves to baklava, apples and diet soda from Mr Chalabi's refrigerator, sitting in a garden outside to enjoy their looted snacks, according to members of Mr Chalabi's staff.

The contractors work for DynCorp, a subsidiary of Computer Sciences Corporation and the company in charge of training and advising the Iraqi police on a State Department contract. A State Department official confirmed the DynCorp workers' presence during the raid.

What's odd is that this didn't get legs and hit all the papers. Just envision some computer geeks out in the garden of Chalabi's home sipping on margueritas and ordering the ransacking. It all seems so decadent.

Gee, why am I not surprised?