I kind of miss the old days

As far back as the 1960s you could have an honest debate about race with racists. They would come on TV and say that black people were racially inferior and had to be segregated. They didn't pull any punches about it. You could discuss it with them and try to change their minds. Eventually enough minds were changed that it was no longer acceptable to say such things in public. Of course the opposite has been happening with homosexuality, but that's another story, maybe for another diary.

This is about racism, and how racists are now shouted down by the public reaction. «You have not converted a Man because you have silenced him» as the Twentieth Century artist Ben Shahn famously quoted John, Viscount Morley's "On Compromise", 1874.

Let's look at the notorious recent remarks by Nobel Prize winning scientist James Watson. What did he reportedly say?

inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa. . . . All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says not really.

Now there's his apology, and his explanation, but no real discussion about whether what he said was true, or even the extent that it might be true, or the ways in which it might be true, has appeared in the press to date.

No, don't for a minute think that I think he's right about race and intelligence. Even disregarding the important questions "What is race?" and "What is intelligence?" I'm just not even convinced that intelligence is really hereditary. His explanation kind of hints at that, but doesn't really say it. Most people think, or just assume, that intelligence is hereditary because they were told when they were young that it is, and the generality of the population who don't follow this don't realize that Sir Cyril Burt faked his data, although he still has defenders.

I would like the press to honestly report the controversies about intelligence and the effects on it of heredity and environment, including prenatal environment. I would like people to understand that this is not a simple issue. I wish I had saved the link, but I read some time ago that blonds exposed to blond jokes before taking IQ tests scored 8 points lower than a control group of blonds. Sounds suspiciously similar to the famous 11 points difference between blacks and whites in the US, doesn't it? But there are all kinds of other explanations that should be debated. The role of caste in American society particularly needs to be considered. African Americans are not just an ex-slave group, they are the traditional undercaste group, Untouchables.

There are even more controversial ideas that no one will even mention. Most testing of blacks has been in the US. Not only have there been pressures on them to act dumb, coming not only from the white community but from other blacks who accuse intelligent blacks of "acting white".

African Americans are a distinct gene pool. If they score lower on intelligence tests than whites, what does that have to do with Africans, even assuming that intelligence is hereditary? Maybe the intelligent ones were doing the catching, and the 'slow' ones were caught and sent to the Americas? There have been claims that Igbos and other African ethnic groups are even more highly intelligent, on average than white Americans. To extrapolate from one group of blacks to all blacks is no less racist than to extrapolate from a single black to all blacks.

Most damning to the heredity theory is the fact that Igbos made a large contribution to the African American population. The word "okra" (for example) is an Igbo word in American English. The simplest (and therefore the most likely) explanation for the differential success of Igbos over African Americans is cultural. African Americans have lost their original Igbo culture and therefore are not as entrepreneurial (and not as successful) in America's highly competitive entrepreneurial society. Maybe we should forget about Swahili and get African Americans back to their real African culture.

But most of all, let us have an honest debate about race and intelligence. Let us remember that each individual is an individual, and that even if blacks, as a group, score lower on intelligence tests than whites, there are still extremely intelligent blacks.

I got that last link from a high IQ society I belong to, that W. R. Jones also belongs to. No, it's not Mensa, it's 20 times as selective as Mensa. There is no shortage of extremely, highly intelligent blacks in the world, even in the United States, where intelligent blacks were systematically killed during slavery and where blacks have been pressured to act stupid, sometimes even by their own people. Shouting people down who say blacks are less intelligent doesn't convince blacks who are unsure about their own intelligence. Facts might.

How the mighty are fallen!

Daniel Pipes used to be an expert on the Middle East. Whether you agreed with him or not you had to respect his opinion and his command of the basic facts about the region.

Not any more. Here's what he wrote on October 9 this year:

preemption justified the invasion of Iraq before Iraqis had attacked the United States

If he doesn't get up to speed with what's happening in the world outside his bubble he's going to be the only guy left in the country who doesn't know that we were lied to about Iraq and its WMD. No one is going to pay any attention to him anymore. Which is a shame. He used to be a great scholar, but I guess he got seduced by Republican money. Mammon. He's willing to criticize Republicans like Grover Norquist, but can't say anything nice about Democrats, even repeating the lie that Bill Clinton never did anything about Al-Qa'ida. He was strangely silent about Obama's wanting to invade Pakistan if necessary. This is still the only page that turns up if you search his site for Obama.

I know most people here don't like him, but he did used to be worth reading.

He's not really anti-Muslim, in fact his "fans" often take him to task on his site for not being anti-Muslim, and when he wrote that Muslims believe the same God that Christians and Jews do most of them really tore into him for it.

I don't know what we should do about him now. Anything? Nothing? Everything?

Poll at DailyKos.com

It's going beyond surrealism

Bush is definitely disconnecting from reality. He also doesn't realize that Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison for terrorism by the apartheid regime. Here's a link to a right wing site about Mandela's terrorism. Here's Mandela's statement at his trial, courtesy the ANC website. Mandela never renounced violence (what head of state could?). He thought violence was necessary to free South Africa. It turned out that sanctions woke up the South African government, and the fall of Communism left them without their justification for suppressing the South African people. But no one in a struggle like the South African freedom struggle should have to renounce violence. It they do, as Gandhi did, and as Solidarnosc in Poland did, that's powerful, and a potent weapon, but they are under no moral obligation to do it.

Nelson Mandela didn't become the "Mandela" Bush is referring to until the South African government changed policy and became willing to talk to him. In the case of Iraq there are simply no Iraqis who are willing to talk to other Iraqis. Unlike the case in South Africa there simply are no democratic forces to talk. The people who want majority rule (Shi'ite extremists) want to kill the minority Sunnis. Everyone seems to want to kill the Christians, Yazidis and Mandeans. The Jews are lucky. They already got out. Of course all the Iraqi factions most want to kill Israelis. That's who the Iraqi Jews are now. Israelis.

Too much to post about

so I haven't posted, but I've got to post this.

General Clark endorses Hillary!

No, I'm not about to endorse her myself. I think she will learn a lot from General Clark. I hope she makes him Vice president, or at least makes him National Security Adviser or Secretary of State. She needs his expertise on those questions. She's not the devil some people portray her as, and I have long said that I will vote for her whenever she wins the nomination (sames goes for all the other Democrats) but I'm just not ready to endorse her, or anyone else, for the nomination.

I'm still numb, though. I'll get back to the blog, maybe with a report on what's been keeping me away. I'm backing whoever gets the Democratic nomination, but with General Clark out of the race, I'm not backing any candidate for the nomination, even at the urging of General Clark himself.

Surprisingly good analysis of Nigeria's constitution

Apparently, the contradiction of prescribing party supremacy for the presidential model of democracy seemed to have been lost on the framers of the 1999 Constitution.

Read more from the Daily Trust via AllAfrica.com. Highly recommended.

Just up on Kos!

Dick Cheney the first knew why we shouldn't overthrow Saddam Hussein.



Here's the Kos diary it's from.

Darfur: it's not just about resources

Yes, there is a shortage of water, that may be alleviated by new discoveries of underground aquifers. But there are always shortages. Scarcity is the essential problem of economics.

As the linked article notes, if the government in Khartoum tries to centralize control of the new water supplies (and as it doesn't note, if it continues to be an Arab nationalist government) further conflict is almost a given, no matter how much water was found.

Ethnic conflict occurs when the inevitable resource conflict cannot be solved by mutually agreeable means. The US has multiple ethnic groups, but as long as there is a political system, including a court system, acceptable to everyone, conflict won't spill over into the streets. That's one major reason why the Civil Rights Movement to integrate minorities into the system was so important.

As long as the government in Khartoum is Arab nationalist there will be a disaffected minority. But as a matter of fact, Arabs themselves are a minority in the Sudan, so there will be a disaffected majority. Until Khartoum accepts African nationalism, and realizes that Arabs are just another ethnic group, not THE acceptable, legitimate group, there will be ethnic conflict in the Sudan. That's one reason the ultimate responsibility for policing Darfur must become the primary responsibility of the AU.

Another reason is that any foreign peace-keeping mission is only temporary. You cannot expect a Kashmir or Cyprus style UN force to be there indefinitely without cease fire lines. This is more like Bosnia.

That means either an African Union force, or more realistically a federal force from some kind of a United States of Africa, has to stay there to police the area, because we know the Sudanese government is one sided in their approach. They have to be, as long as they are committed to Arab nationalism, which is ethnically specific in content from the beginning.

Beyond even my parannoid fears!

Watergate went beyond my paranoid fears when John Mitchell admitted to the Congressional investigators as part of the "White House Horror Stories" that the administration had plans to blow up the Brookings Institution and blame it on leftists terrorists, thus both getting rid of the voice of opposition and providing the excuse to crack down on dissent in the name of fighting terrorists.

Pat Tillman wasn't shot accidentally. He was murdered, and the administration covered it up.

Musharraf's contradictions

General Musharraf has little base of his own. Having replaced the civilian politicians he was first forced to fall on the Islamists for support. These same Islamists were never able to attract more than 10-15% of the vote in a free election, but they became Musharraf's base.

Then he was pressured by the US after 9/11 to support the "War on Terror" against the Taliban and al-Qa'ida. He did. But this left him on shaky ground. He had to mollify the Islamists, especially those in the military and military intelligence, and he faced assassination attempts, and possibly attempted coups d'etat. Now even the Islamists have turned against him.

More lately the majority of the Pakistanis have rallied around the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Chaudhry. The Supreme Court has ordered him reinstated. General Musharraf is getting more and more alienated from the society as a whole. He more and more needs the backing of the Islamists. But he more and more needs the support of the Americans, who are putting more and more pressure on him.

If I were him I would try to negotiate a transition with the democratic forces. If I were running US foreign policy I would try to make overtures to the civilian political leaders to get their support against the Islamists. But I just have a blog, that's all.

So what's the point of Africom?

from the ever rambunctious Nigerian Press:

the launching of AFRICOM has raised a number of questions and concerns about U.S. interests in Africa. Its mode of operation, its very existence in Africa, some say, resembles a spying mission and will possibly attract terrorists to the Continent. AFRICOM, according to Henry, will have no new troops, no bases, but will have a staff and "a distributed approach where the staff is located. And that will be both on the continent and off the continent."

Meanwhile, the Liberian government has been lobbying and has recently offered the country for AFRICOM headquarters. According to President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf who is a frequent visitor to Washington DC, "If AFRICOM aims to use its "soft power" Mandate to develop a stable environment in which civil society can flourish and the quality of life for Africans can be improved, African nations should work with AFRICOM to achieve their own development and security goals...".

But what is the Bush administration planning? Do they even know? Will this effectively be left to the succeeding administration to decide what to do with the African command in the military? Congress should ask some oversight questions, but Congress is too busy asking other oversight questions to bother with this little problem, especially when the administration might honestly have no real answers to the questions.

I'll be back

I'll be back. I've been having someworkplace issues, and a lot of other things are keeping me busy, but I haven't abandoned this blog. I shall return.

Was W ever a Boy Scout?

"Be prepared" doesn't seem to be his motto.

Here's the latest on what he's doing to the military:

As wildfires, floods and tornadoes batter the nation, the readiness of the National Guard to deal with those disasters, as well as potential terrorist assaults, is so depleted by deployments to foreign wars and equipment shortfalls that Congress is considering moves to curtail the president's powers over the Guard and require the Defense Department to analyze how prepared the country is for domestic emergencies.

"Have I ever heard of a dead president?"

Sure, they're all over the money. Every bill except the $10 and the $100. What is it with those denominations? But I digress.

Someone seems to have thought that the quote I made the title of this blog entry was a threat against Hillary Clinton. I certainly hope they don't think this blog is a threat against Hillary. I'd vote for her over any of the Republicans. However, I think, or at least I hope, that there is more to this story than they have made public. I will wait for evidence at the trial before making up my mind. There will be a trial, right?

Police said the student reported Wargo to the university after a second conversation, in which Wargo allegedly made a second remark indicating he planned violence against Clinton.

‘Have you ever heard of a dead president?’
That remark "was something along the lines of, 'Have you ever heard of a dead president?'" Adams said. "That's language that should be of concern to anyone. Thank goodness the classmate reported it."

Why (else) we STILL need Wes Clark for president

From The Nation's coverage of the Democratic debate in South Carolina:

There has been this idea going around that the Democrats have a fabulous, unstoppable array of candidates this year. We can't lose! This debate gave the lie to that comforting notion in any number of ways.

But they think it's only economics that will win the debate.

They still don't know--not after tonight--that the Democrats are their best bet to heal the economic fissure between the ever-fattening haves and the vast, anemic mass of the rest of us. Out in the hinterlands, local and state politicians are stirring souls and winning elections by reviving the old spirit of Huey Long and Share Our Wealth. But among the national Democrats, there appears to be scant recognition of the bleeding obvious: People are hurting, and not just those who've been unfortunate enough to land in Iraq or have family members there. A full one-eighth of Americans now officially live in poverty, we learned this past week, just as the Dow ding-dinged its way to 13,000. On this issue, among the folks I've been talking to, the anger and frustration are mingled with heavy doses of mystification: Doesn't anybody get what's happening to us out here?

It's not just economics. Besides, Democrats always have the edge on economics with the majority of Americans. It's also national security, and that's where Wes Clark has the edge on just about anybody, Democrat or Republican. He's not so well known for his positions on economic issues, but let's go to his website and see what he has to say about the issue. It's not easy to find what he has to say, so let me find it and bring it to you here:

I taught economics and political philosophy. I’ve worked in the civilian side of the Office of Management and Budget in the White House, I’m a businessman. I have, like, four different businesses. I consult for various different companies and I’ve been around the block a few times. So I’ve got strong ideas.

I believe we need to raise the minimum wage. We need to help small businesses in this country. We need to fix the access to the healthcare system. We’ve got to stop the unfunded mandates, that are running out for the No Child Left Behind Act. We’ve got to raise and enhance teacher pay and morale and performance. We’ve got to get preschool education for every child in America.

In America we’ve got to take a much more proactive role in helping Americans help themselves. Families need help. Families need leadership. Families need an advocate. I’m not talking about someone who hands out dollars or food stamps in a program and who says “Oh, I’m sorry, you don’t meet the criteria for the program.” I’m talking about people who know that family and will stand up and argue for that family. And if the programs don’t work to help our people, they’ll get those programs changed. So, I think we’ve got to really have a broad front program to help this country. If we don’t, we’re not going to be competitive in the larger, global environment. And ultimately, America’s strength, as General Eisenhower said is not our Armed Forces. It’s America’s economy. It’s the men and women who work and the men and women who put those companies together and lead those companies. And it’s teamwork. And it’s about teamwork.

I think our labor unions have a vital role in this. Our labor unions have to be strengthened. We need the ability to do real training,

(Applause)

And real education through the unions.

(Applause)

I think the union movement is the real secret weapon of the American economy. We just have to turn it loose.

Unions are the only real, effective, market method of bringing greater economic equality into society. Support them. Wes Clark does. He understands the economy better than any of the announced Democratic candidates, and they aren't even in the same league with him when it comes to foreign policy and national security. He has to be the next president. Write to him and ask him to run for president. He has to know people support him. Go to the Clark Community Network and make your voice heard.

Spread this around

I couldn't put it better myself.

racial progress?

Remember when white women would falsely accuse black men of rape? I'm sure they still do, but it doesn't lead to lynchings and outrageously unfair trials the way it used to. But I'm also sure most people alive today can't remember the kind of fear the possibility of a false rape allegation kept most black men in. Americans are much more mature in the 21st century.

Or are we? Well, nobody was murdered over the false rape allegations recently filed by a black woman against several white men on the Duke University Lacrosse Team. Despite the lynch mob mentality of several politically correct commentators who assumed the guilt of the young men in question, and the even more outrageous mentality of Ann Coulter, who not only assumed their guilt but who even justified their alleged behavior, it turns out to have been just another false rape allegation. I guess that's racial progress of a sort. Now there is enough racial equality that a black woman can make false rape allegations against white men and be believed. It's not gender progress, though, and it doesn't speak well of the human race. It especially doesn't speak well of the people who believed the allegations without waiting for the evidence and weighing it.

from the Associated Press, via the Winston Salem Journal:

As word spread yesterday that all remaining charges had been dropped against three Duke lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting an exotic dancer, there was at least one point beyond dispute: This case was poison for everyone touched by it.

More evidence that Bush is fixing for a fight with Iran

This is from The Guardian:

The US offered to take military action on behalf of the 15 British sailors and marines held by Iran, including buzzing Iranian Revolutionary Guard positions with warplanes,

Luckily the British administration has finally learned to just say NO!

The British declined the offer and said the US could calm the situation by staying out of it. London also asked the US to tone down military exercises that were already under way in the Gulf.

This is the most important, unreported story

THIS IS NOT AN APRIL FOOL STORY!!

and it needs to get noticed, it needs to get immediate attention, and it should get that attention ahead of Iraq, global warming and every other issue, because if the bees die off, we won't be far behind.

Now if you're like most people you probably think of bees as a nuisance, you probably got stung by one when you were a kid, you might even be allergic to one, and you stay as far away as possible from them. Oh, yes, if you think about it, you remember that honey comes from bees, and honey tastes nice, so maybe bees aren't all bad. Still you don't think about them much, and are content to let them remain someone else's concern. You just don't mess with them.

Bees are much more important than most people, at least people who aren't farmers (and it's been a long time since most Americans were farmers) think. Bees pollinate crops. We eat those crops. Many crops we eat require bees to pollinate them so they can reproduce. If bees become extinct, many crops will follow. Some think we will be next into extinction ourselves. Maybe intelligent mushrooms will evolve in a few billion years, but I'm not waiting around to find out.

Here are some stories about the problem:

Illinois Farm Bureau

The Illinois State Beekeepers Association (ISBA) will conduct its 2007 Midwest Beekeeping Symposium June 9th at the McHenry County College Conference Center in Crystal Lake.

"2007 will be a crucial year for beekeepers, gardeners and farmers as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) makes headlines across the U.S. and devastates honeybee colonies," says ISBA president Ken Haller.

Where have all the bees gone?

Researchers are looking for known and unknown diseases, chemicals in the wax and food reserves or pollen and bee bread, which is how bees store pollen. The bees themselves are being probed for gross evidence of disease to make sure they are digesting their food properly, Mr. vanEngelsdorp said. The protein bees store in their bodies also is being investigated.

Colony collapse disorder is the latest name for an ailment that leaves bee hives suddenly empty.

Lewisburg beekeeper Dave Hackenberg is pointing the finger at a relatively new class of insecticide, neonicotinoids. The insecticide weakens an insect's immune system so the bug becomes an easy target for mites, viruses and fungi. It also affects bee behavior; an infected bee leaves the hive and forgets to return home.

Colony collapse malady imperils crops

Colony collapse disorder has been reported in 24 U.S. states, with bee losses of up to 90 per cent in some hives, according to a study. The U.S. agriculture department says $14.6 billion (U.S.) of pollinated crops may be threatened.

Of course the Bush administration has been slow about this. After all, they think the government is part of the problem:

from COX NEWS SERVICE

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has failed to grasp the urgency of a mysterious plague that has killed millions of honeybees, threatening billions of dollars worth of crops that depend on the insect pollinators, the chairman of a House subcommittee charged.

and probably the best article I could find.

Theories about the cause of the so-called colony collapse disorder range from illnesses, stress from traveling all over the country with their keepers to pollinate fruits and vegetables, and mites that feast on them. Or it can be a combination of things, bee experts said.

You can do it to the country

but apparently you can't do it to a private company.

from CNN:

U.S. prosecutors on Monday charged David Stockman, a former chief executive of Collins & Aikman, and seven other former company officials with fraud and conspiracy related to alleged financial misdeeds at the bankrupt auto parts maker.

Stockman, a former Reagan administration budget director, and three others are accused of misleading the company's investors to hide its declining financial condition, according to an indictment brought by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

It sounds rather similar to what Stockman was doing for the Reagan administration, which he allegedly suffered remorse for. Unfortunately we can't prosecute him, or the rest of the Reagan administration, for what they did to the US financially.

More important, we can't prosecute the even more irresponsible Bush II administration. At least we can't prosecute them for this. We can prosecute them for so much more, and we have to, if only to get them out of office before they do further damage.

Republicans are in their own little world

In the April edition of Esquire magazine, Hagel described Bush as someone who doesn't believe he's accountable to anyone. "He's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don't know. It depends on how this goes," Hagel told the magazine.

Yes, Senator Chuck Hagel actually believes that you "might see calls for [Bush's] impeachment" in the future. Someone should alert him to the fact that a very large proportion of Americans, possibly a majority, want the president impeached. It is long since that large majorities said they wanted him impeached if he lied about Iraq. It is long since that that he has been proved to have lied about Iraq. IMPEACH HIM ALREADY!!!

This is from Op-edNews.com:

Sentiment for impeachment among several impeachment polls conducted in early 2006 ranged from 30%-42%. However, by October support was increasing. A Newsweek poll, which was hardly publicized, found 51% of Americans supported impeachment, with 44% opposed.[*]

But the major media have increasingly ignored these polls. As impeachment sentiment has risen, so has the reluctance of the press to address the issue.

Did he confess to the Lindbergh kidnapping, too?

From Ann Wright at Truthout:

Graham said with a twinkle in his eye that "Americans don't mind torture; they really don't." Then he smiled broadly, almost gleefully, and said that the US had used certain interrogation techniques on "Sheikh Mohammed, one of the 'high-value' targets" - techniques that "you really don't want to know about, but they got really good results."

If they tortured him, how can we believe anything he says? Or doesn't Senator Graham care how truthful his confession is, as long as it helps Republicans win elections?

The US budget deficit - What is to be done?

Here it is, the reality:

Deficits in the hundreds of billions of dollars, as far as even the lying Bush White House can figure it.

A gross federal debt that amounts to more than a third of annual GNP, with no plan to pay it off. Ever.

It's funny how this issue has gone from being a conservative issue to being a liberal issue, but it's really a result of conservatives not really understanding Keynesian economics. Keynesian spending policies are supposed to be countercyclical. When the business cycle is going down, you run a deficit to stimulate the economy out of the recession. (The exact mix of fiscal (spending) and monetary (money supply, i.e. interest rate) policy is a matter of policy, but the role of the government in stimulating the economy out of a recession is accepted by most economists these days.) When the business cycle is on the upturn (what used to be popularly referred to as "good times") the government should run a surplus to take some of the 'irrational exuberance' out of the economy and cool it down. That's what BIll Clinton was doing during the 1990s boom. Say what you will about Bill, but he was an economic policy wonk.

There's a new kind of "vulgar Keynesianism" on the right (apologies to vulgar Marxists) that has resulted in the assumption that deficits don't matter. This new conservative orthodoxy represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what modern Keynesian economics and its countercyclical policies are all about. These people may understand the microeconomics of running a business enterprise (although Bush doesn't), but they do not understand the macroeconomics of running the American economy.

Someone else asks "Are conservatives naïve or just plain stupid?" I wonder myself, but I think that either way what this really means is that conservatives (or most of them) just don't understand modern Keynesian economics. I honestly would like to make survey macroeconomics a required course in American universities. But back to economic policy.

I can only see four ways out of this. There's not enough fat in the budget to cut, and ending foreign aid won't solve this.

Oh, and don't even THINK about not paying it. The 14th Amendment says you can't even QUESTION the national debt.

1. Throw out the Defense Department. There's enough expenditure there to balance the budget, but there goes America's stature as a world power. There goes the safety of Americans in the world, I would say. It would be effective national suicide.

2. Drop Social Security. That seems to be Bush's preferred solution, but he can't get any traction for it. Fuggedaboutit.

3. Print money. This one doesn't get much attention because of the US's bad experience with inflation in the 1970s. I wouldn't favor it, but you could pay off the debt by printing money. As more and more of this debt is held overseas, this may become a more and more popular solution. But it would wreak havoc on the economy, and it would be VERY difficult to get the effects out of the economy. Just ask anyone in Latin America.

4. Raise taxes. I mean, honestly, they shouldn't have been cut in the first place. This administration's solution to everything is to cut taxes. It's time to get real about the economy. We have to repeal the Bush tax cuts. Then we have to figure out what to do about the economy, which may involve raising taxes even higher to pay for the accumulated debt. Of course the details will depend on the business cycle, not to mention policy considerations, but it's time to stop worrying about being called a "tax and spend" liberal. It's better than being a "spend and spend and spend" conservative.

The media horse race and the presidency

I don't want any more unqualified presidents. I don't want any more Fundamentalists, or ideologues who want to abolish Social Security, or anyone else with fringe ideas, either, but the worst problem with Bush is his complete lack of qualifications (and I don't mean credentials, or other paper qualifications) to be president.

Hillary is a nice person, who knows a lot about health insurance but not much else. Most of the people who back her seem to think she would bring Bill back to the White House, and that is what they are really interested in. Nineties nostalgia is what it's all about. Bring back the nineties.

Barack Obama is wonderful. I love him, but as a first term Senator, with no foreign policy experience, and little national experience, he's just not qualified yet. He's got plenty of years to go (I know, we thought that about Jack Kennedy, too, until his assassination - but you can't worry about that except to try to prevent it) so there's no hurry to make him president.

Edwards? Please. He couldn't carry his own state last time, and didn't even run for Senate from there because his own fellow North Carolinians were ready to dump him. His whole thing seems to be that he's southern, and the Democrats have to nominate a southerner if they expect to win the White House again. Maybe, but Edwards won't win the south.

All of these people will go down in flames in the general election. I'm not saying I wouldn't vote for them. I can't imagine voting for any Republican over any of them, but I know they're going to lose the general election.

General Clark is the most qualified to lead the country out of the two wars we are in. If you're worried that electing a general will lead to militarism or more wars, there's no historical precedent for it. Of the six professional military generals we've had for president (Washington, Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, Grant and Eisenhower) only Eisenhower has had a war during his term. He inherited the Korean War and shut it down as fast as he could. Eisenhower is also the only president who has warned us about the military industrial complex.

General Clark promises to do the same thing to Bush's war in Iraq, and he is the only candidate who knows how to do it safely. Furthermore, he knows as much about economic issues as the other candidates, and is the only candidate who will unabashedly call himself a liberal. But somehow the media keep ignoring him.

He's the only candidate who knows what he's doing. All he has to do to get my vote is to ask for it.

Oh, and he's a southerner, if you're worried about that. I don't care. I'll vote for him anyway. ;-)

Secretary Rice's history lesson

I already said she had the wrong qualifications for an administration with two wars going on in the Islamic world.

Keith Olbermann lets the world know just how bad it is.

Bush losing even his new friends

Remember how Bush's "tough" policies had (supposedly) finally tamed Colonel Qaddafi? How Bush's invasion of Iraq had convinced Qaddafi to stop terrorism and turn in his WMD, before he got invaded likewise? Well, this is just in from the BBC:

Britain and America now suggest the Libyan leader is a model for others to follow.

Libya - by rejecting terrorism and then, in 2003, surrendering its nuclear and other unconventional weapons research - earned the lifting of sanctions and lost the status of a pariah.

But still Col Gaddafi can be combative.

"Libya has not been properly compensated, so other countries, like Iran and North Korea will not follow his lead."

"This should be a model to be followed, but Libya is disappointed because the promises given by America and Britain were not fulfilled...

"And therefore those countries said we are not going to follow Libya's example because Libya abolished its programme without any compensation... This destroyed that model... no-one is going to follow that model as a result," he said.

Read the rest of the Interview at the BBC website.

That "House divided" quotation

I've been listening to the Congressional debate about the Iraq resolution, and I'm listening over and over to Congressional representatives quote the saying "A house divided against itself cannot stand." (Somehow no one says anything about a Senate.) They all attribute it to Abraham Lincoln.

I know that most Americans associate the phrase with Lincoln, and for good reason, because he used it to great effect in the Lincoln Douglas debates. But Lincoln was quoting someone else.

One of Lincoln's favorite sources was the Bible, that indispensable basis of English literature. The quote is actually from Jesus, in the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 12:

22. Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw. 23 And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David? 24 But when the Pharisees heard [it], they said, This [fellow] doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils. 25 And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: 26 And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? 27 And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast [them] out? therefore they shall be your judges. 28 But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. 29 Or else how can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house. 30 He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. 31 Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy [against] the [Holy] Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. 32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the [world] to come. 33 Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by [his] fruit. 34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. 35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. 36 But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. 37 For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

I quote from the King James version, not because I think it is the best translation, but because it is the literary version in English, and this is about allusion in English, not about theology.

What really shocks me is that many of the Congressional representatives who think they are quoting Lincoln, not realizing that he was quoting Jesus, think they are Bible-believing Christians and that the United States is supposed to be a Christian nation based on the Bible. Have they even read the Bible? They certainly don't know it very well. By their words in the Congress they shall be judged, and by their words in Congress they shall be condemned.

Republicans are the real "Democrat Party"

Huh?

No, I'm not kidding. The Republican Party in the U.S. belongs to something called the "Democrat International". It is an international organization of political parties that organizes Conservative and rightist parties. Their membership is worldwide, but is especially strong among European conservative parties. They cooperate in the European Parliament, and seek to extend their influence elsewhere. Why the Republicans are in the International with them I do not know.

For the record, the Democratic Party is in neither the Liberal International, nor the Socialist International, and is, AFAIK, not in any international political organization.

Wow, that was fast!

Here's the lowdown:

The Army court-martial of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, which ended in a mistrial Wednesday, may have stranger turns ahead: Prohibitions against double jeopardy may keep prosecutors from having a second trial, his lawyer and a legal expert say.

I suspect that the military and the administration don't want a ruling on the legality of the war, and are afraid they will lose. Too bad. I was hoping they would lose.

Why DID the US invade Iraq, anyway?

We know it wasn't 9/11. Bush never even pretended it was, and I don't know how anyone got any idea that there was some connection between Iraq and 9/11.

WMD? Joseph Wilson and others debunked that before we went in. Bush knew there weren't any, and he lied about it, not just to the public, but to Congress, which is criminal.

To impose democracy? That's a great oxymoron. I can't take that seriously. I hope they didn't. They never even made noises about invading Equatorial Guinea, North Korea (which actually has WMD) or Myanmar.

Bush wouldn't even take the question from Cindy Sheehan. Helen Thomas cornered him at a press conference, but he couldn't come up with a coherent response.

Oil? Why not invade Venezuela? Bush doesn't exactly like them either. Or Equatorial Guinea.

I guess it was "This guy tried to kill my Dad." Bush really thinks his family owns the US of A.

Civil disobedience

The American tradition that everyone, even Nat Turner, is entitled to a day in court is so strong that people will deliberately violate the law to get a day in court and challenge the law. H.D. Thoreau did it personally to challenge the Mexican War. The IWW had free speech fights to challenge the kind of threats to freedom of expression that called forth the ACLU into being. Dr. King did it to challenge segregation laws. Billy Mitchell even did it to bring attention to the future of air power. Of course his situation was a little different. The law he broke wasn't the one he wanted to make the issue, but the principle is the same. He went out of his way to deliberately violate a law to get a day in court and turn it into a platform. Lt. Watada violated the law that he wished to make the issue, and his day in court is a wonderful chance to challenge the legality of the war in Iraq. I hope he wins his case. [crosposted @ D-Kos]

The latest as of today:

On the first day of the court-martial in Fort Lewis, an Army base near Seattle, Watada explained that he saw the order to go to Iraq and support combat operations as illegal because the war itself was illegal.

Wesley Clark at the DNC Winter Meeting, February 2, 2007.

Democrats.org has a post called "Wesley Clark Video" that's worth checking out...

Wes's speech still isn't tuned to the audience, which was hardcore Dems who reacted more to Hillary than to Wes. But I think that Wes's sentiments will appeal more to the country at large, not to mention the fact that he has far more experience with foreign policy and national security affairs. Hillary does have the one issue of health care down, and I know that that's important, but I don't think it's as critical as either the threat of global warming or the disastrous war and our relations with the rest of the world. We can deal with health care when we get more pressing issues out of the way, and Hillary would be the person to push universal coverage through Congress.

But let's not forget Barack Obama! He doesn't have enough experience to be president yet, but one day he will make one of the best we ever had.

In the meantime I think Wes Clark is not only the most qualified candidate in any party, I think he is the Democrat with the best chance of winning in today's world. Maybe he should have used this speech instead:

Studying countries that no longer exist

Condoleeza Rice and I have something in common. We are both experts in the history of countries that no longer exist.

Now, when she began to study the Soviet Union it did exist and she did not expect it to become history as soon as it did. No one did.

The successor states to the Soviet Union are still important in world affairs. Russia in particular is still a major power, if no longer a superpower in the same category as the United States. So her expertise is important.

However, many of the problems of the world today, from Bosnia to Palestine to Iraq, are the result of the collapse of an empire which collapsed long before the Soviet Union. I am, of course, referring to the Ottoman Empire. The problems caused by the collapse of that long ago empire, not the problems caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union, are the problems that are causing the most problems for the United States today.

Isn't it about time we had a Secretary of State, or a National Security advisor, who is an expert on the Ottoman Empire?

I was wrong

I've been saying that the era of airline hijackings was over. After 9/11 and United flight 93 no passengers would sit still for a hijacking. The shoe-bomber just proved the point, as far as I was concerned.

This just in from Sudan.

So I was wrong. At least I didn't bet any money on it!

Are the Bushites afraid they will be prosecuted?

I hope so. But even more, I hope they WILL be prosecuted for their crimes. It would do a lot to fix the United States of America, and almost as importantly, to fix our reputation in the rest of the world. Watergate didn't affect our international reputation as much as the Iraq invasion has. That was affected by the Vietnam War, which Nixon and Kissinger could argue they inherited and were trying to end, and by such bad deeds as the overthrow of Allende, which really wasn't very related to Watergate. But I digress.

Here's the story from TPMmuckraker.com:

At an oversight hearing this morning, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) grilled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over the sudden departure of several U.S. Attorneys at the administration's request.

This is informative

I think most people with any knowledge of history, or old enough to remember Khrushchev and his shoe, will recognize that the Soviet threat was not invented by the Neocons.

You should also know that "Jahiliyya" literally means "ignorance" and refers to the state of illiteracy and polytheism that the pre-Islamic Arabs lived in. That this "ignorance" of God and of the benefits of civilization is something Sayyid Qutb saw taking over the world speaks more to his own troubled mind than to reality.



N.B. Most, almost all, Islamists are western educated, and have been cut off from traditional Islamic knowledge. Some of the best and most informed attacks on them have been by traditional Islamic scholars.

TIME

No, not the newsmagazine, the way things keep changing, and how they never change back. The "inexorable march of" thing, if it is a thing. the direction of which is defined by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Is it an illusion? Certainly we experience events in time, but to an objective observer (God?) are all events at any point in time just as real? Is it only from the way we experience events that they seem to happen in sequence? Why can't we go back (or forward) to experience events out of sequence? Will we be able to go back and/or forth when we understand the nature of time better? Why hasn't anyone come back to experience us yet? Or maybe they have? Is antimatter just matter going backwards? It looks that way in a Feynman diagram.

Living in the present (how can you avoid it?) does it really avoid the other times? Does the present moment include all three times (and if so are there nine times? the past, present and future in the past, the same three times in the present, and again in the future?) or does it exclude them? If the present, which so quickly becomes the past, is real, is not the past which it becomes just as real? Or is the present even real? If existence in time is not real, what is? Is there existence outside of time? If it is outside of the space-time continuum that we call the universe (i.e. all that exists) can we call it "existence" at all? How can we divide the present from the future and the past, when the future seems to slide as seemlessly into the present as the present does into the past? "Carpe Diem" sounds nice, but by the time we seize the day it disappears and becomes yesterday. Non-abiding is all we can do, and we must accept it.

Speaking of the space-time continuum, I wonder if there are other universes in which movement in time is free, but movement in a spatial dimension is constant, inexorable and unidirectional, as with what we experience as time in this universe. Would that spatial dimension become the functional equivalent of time? Is that what "time" in our dimension constitutes? From the outside, if there is an outside, is time another spatial dimension? What would the universe, experienced differently, "look" like? What does it look like experienced from outside of time, (assuming that there is an experience of that perspective)?

But why speculate about this? It is typically human to wonder about things we can never know. We humans think ourselves blessed by this faculty, and hope to have answers some day. Maybe instead of being blessed we are cursed with this, and will never know answers. I don't know. I only know that I have questions, but not their answers, and that there are worse things than speculating about these things. Maybe they are what life is all about, just questions, never any answers.

My favorite Jazz musician is no longer with us!

from e-jazz news:

Jazz pianist Alice Coltrane, widow of jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, died on Friday, January 12th at the West Hills Hospital near Los Angeles, California. She was 69.

Mrs. Coltrane was born Alice Lucille McLeod in Detroit, Michigan August 27, 1937. As a young girl, she studied classical piano and began playing organ in local churches. Bud Powell was one of her early teachers. She played piano with her brother, Ernest Farrow, in several Detroit clubs before moving to New York in the early 1960’s to pursue a career in jazz. There, while playing at Birdland with vibraphonist Terry Gibbs, she met John Coltrane. They later married, and she performed in his quartet beginning in 1966 until his death in July of 1967.

There's so much sadness in me right now. She has meant so much to me for so many decades now. There is a void that will not be filled, not for a long, long time. If you never heard her music, go to iTunes or someplace and listen. She took off where John ended, moving into beautiful Indo-Jazz fusion in the 1970s. She didn't record as much as I would have liked, but I have most of her albums. Now there will never be new music from her.

I'm sorry. I just want to be alone right now. Excuse me.

As usual Olbermann says it better!

Thanks, Keith. Keep up the good work.

Who favors the "death tax"?

Everyone who follows the issue knows that Warren Buffett favors the inheritance tax.

What most people don't know is that the whole thing was the brainchild of Andrew Carnegie, who convinced Theodore Roosevelt to push for it to be made law. Carnegie made his money himself, and thought that others should make their own money, not inherit it. Permanent dynasties would be bad for the American "land of opportunity" dream.

Carnegie gave his money back to society, and felt other millionaires should do the same. If they didn't the government should take the money. If they didn't want the government to take the money, they should give it to charities of their own choice.

Bush isn't sending more troops

Bush doesn't have more troops. He's not sending anyone who hasn't already been to Iraq, over and over and over. He's asking the troops who've already been there to do more, and more, and more. Bush is taking a military that's stretched to the breaking point, and he's trying to stretch them just a tiny little bit more. Just to see if they break? Or because those voices in his head (that he thinks are God) tell him to? Or because he hates the US government and wants to destroy it? Or because he's seriously stupid?

I don't know. I just know he's not sending any more troops. Not because the Democrats (and a lot of the Republicans) in Congress won't let him. Because he doesn't have any more troops to send to Iraq. He's just asking the troops he has to do more when they're already doing all they can. That's why more of his generals have left. The same generals whom he says he listens to and whose advice he says he follows.

The man needs to be impeached. Yesterday.

De mortuis nil nisi bonum

It's not hard to say nothing bad about Gerry Ford. He was a nice guy, a rarely honest man in a profession full of scoundrels. He was also my first Congressional representative.

Everyone else has given their respects and their eulogies, although I have yet to hear anyone mention Gerry's being the straight man on the old "Ev and Gerry Show" back in the 1960s. He and Senator Everett Dirksen led the Republicans in the Congress, and went on TV to give the regular Republican response to the Democratic presidents' press conferences.

I'd like to remember Gerry for something personal, though. One of my first political memories is of a tornado in the district, and how Gerry got federal aid to the victims. Ever since I was a little kid I had warm feelings about him, more so as I learned how atypical he was as a politician. I was very happy to see him become the first president who never campaigned for the office (or at least for Vice President) since George Washington, and I didn't find it strange that he, who had so little of the consuming ambition that makes and breaks politicians at every level, also became the first and only president who lost a war. He did what had to be done, and we are a better nation for everything he did for us. I never voted for him, but I listened carefully to everything he said and I always respected him.

They don't seem to make Republicans like that anymore, or many politicians of any party.

Celebrities and politics

I've always had mixed feelings about celebrities and politics.

I know many celebrities feel that promoting their opinions in public is bad for business. Politics and religion are always controversial and talking about them might alienate potential customers. Better to keep one's controversial opinions to oneself, and use the money to fund causes close to one's heart. But on to my own mixed feelings about celebrities and politics.

On the one hand they're entitled to their opinions, just like everyone else. And I suppose they are entitled to use their celebrity, if they want, to promote their opinions, just like other people use their money, or writing skills, or other abilities to promote their opinions. The real question is "Should they?"

Let me give two examples, from the right and from the left.

Jane Fonda was famous for her opposition to the war in Vietnam. She came to my university to speak against the war. I was the only person working against the war who spoke against her coming, not because I thought she was wrong to sit in the seat of a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun (although she was), but because she was not an expert on the history or politics of southeast Asia. What difference did it make what she thought? She was not someone was worth listening to about the topic.

I was over-ruled, not on the grounds that anyone respected her opinion (they didn't), but on the grounds that she would draw people to the forum. She did, but how much effect she had on any of them is open to question. We got some starry eyed people who were all agog that they had seen a REAL MOVIE STAR up close. (Big deal! I used to live in L.A. and I am NOT impressed. In fact I'm rather jaded about tourists hunting movie stars.) None of them seemed to pay any attention to what she, or anyone else, had to say about the war, and they crowded out people who came for information, and who would have come anyway. And I was impressed neither with Ms. Fonda's intelligence nor with the extent of her knowledge about the war, at least compared to those of a real expert. She had a right to her opinion, but I wasn't very impressed with it. I am impressed with her films, though. She's a great actress. I have to admit her body is very impressive too. She's kept it in very good shape since the 1960s.

The example I have from the right is Charlton Heston. He has become a spokesperson for the NRA, speaking against gun control. He is a more impressive speaker than Ms. Fonda. He's really got the Moses act down, although he's not much better at reading a script than Ms. Fonda. His movies are at least equally impressive as hers, but that's not why I'm writing this.

Many people told me that they thought Michael Moore had been unfair to him in "Bowling for Columbine" when he pestered him with questions at the end about gun control. I disagree. If Charlton Heston is going to be a spokesperson for the NRA he is going to have to take the tough questions. Unfortunately he couldn't take them. The NRA was unfair to have asked Mr. Heston to take on the task of being their spokesperson. He was a fool to accept. He wasn't qualified.

It's possible, at least theoretically, for a celebrity to be a good spokesperson and advocate for a cause. Maybe George Clooney is finally giving us an example in his campaigning for Darfur. But people have to remember that starring in a movie doesn't necessarily require brains (although it certainly doesn't preclude it, either, any more than having muscles precludes having brains.) Why should I listen to someone who starred in films about any issue other than acting? Why should I listen to a specialist in foreign affairs about their taste in films? No reason at all.

Bennett and Blacks

If you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down.

That would be an impossibly ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down,

(from CNN.com)

In all the months after Bill Bennett said that I haven't noticed anyone, even The Nation, point out what WOULD happen if we aborted every black baby in the United States. We'd just go back to having Irish criminals. My Irish history professor (no Hibernophile) gleefully claimed to have seen statistics that showed that "every petty thief in the British Isles has an Irish last name." Personally I wouldn't doubt it at all.

Almost immediately someone jumped on him to explain why the Irish, the street criminals of the British Isles, became the stereotyped policemen in the United States, arresting blacks, Puerto Ricans and others who occupied the same social category that the Irish had occupied in the British Isles.

Crime is caused by social conditions, not the existence or non-existence of certain racial and ethnic groups. Until the social conditions that cause crime change crime will continue, regardless of whether we get rid of certain ethnic or racial groups.

A victim of his last conversation?

from the LA Times:

Rice apparently believed that Bush would simply follow the advice of whoever he spoke with. Therefore the one factor determining whether Bush would support the commission was whether Cheney or Rice managed to get to him first.

I've heard Prince Charles described the same way, but no one lets him be the Decider.

Here's what was wrong with Bush from the beginning

He said it himself:

I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style.

For those who don't understand capitalism, a group which unfortunately includes the president, you don't spend capital. You invest it. That's what makes it capital, not money. You spend money, or you save it and it becomes capital. You invest capital. That's why savings = investment (S=I) in economics.

But this president doesn't understand economics, capitalism or capital, so he squandered all the political capital he got from 9/11 and his re-election, and now he is bankrupt. And the way he is running the United States, the country will be too, very soon.

Wes Clark's ideas for Iraq

It's hard to explain a new option in an op-ed format, but if anyone can do it, Wes Clark can.

Here's what he wrote for USA Today:

What about a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawals? Today, setting a rigid, Washington-driven timetable is an option, but a bad one. A precipitous troop reduction could have far-reaching effects: emboldening Iran, weakening U.S. security promises to friendly states, and even sparking military initiatives by other powers — Turkey or Iran — to deal with the resulting security vacuum. Our weakened position in Iraq also could undercut our leverage in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

What about imposing a tripartite division of Iraq? That would merely feed ethnic cleansing and likely lead to a wider, more intense conflict.

The right approach is a coordinated diplomatic, legal, economic and security campaign drawing upon broader dialogue in the region and intensified political work inside Iraq.

Read the whole thing here.

It's official

from Forbes:

The war in Iraq has now lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in the war that President Bush's father fought in, World War II.

That's the War in Iraq, not the war against Usama bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida. Remember them? The people who attacked us on 9/11? The people Bush and Cheney and Rummy let get away?

The question is, what do we do about it?

George W. Bush's Resume

George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Past Work Experience

Ran for congress and lost.
Produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
Bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas; company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
Bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money. Biggest move: Traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox.
With father's help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas.
Accomplishments in Previous Positions

Changed pollution laws for power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the Union.

Replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog-ridden city in America. Cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money.

Set record for most executions by any governor in American history.

Became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of my father's appointments to the Supreme Court.

Accomplishments As President

Attacked and took over two countries.
Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.
Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
First president in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.
First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in U.S. history.
After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.
Set the record for most campaign fundraising trips than any other president in U.S. history.
In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.
Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in U.S. history.
Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in U.S. history.
Set the record for the least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.
Signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any president in U.S. history.
Presided over the biggest energy crises in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
Presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.
Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.
Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
Dissolved more international treaties than any president in U.S. history.
My presidency is the most secretive and unaccountable of any in U.S. history.
Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history (the 'poorest' multimillionaire, Condoleezza Rice, has an Exxon oil tanker named after her).
First president in U.S. history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.
Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.
First president in U.S. history to order a U.S. attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation.
Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in U.S. history.
First president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the human rights commission.
First president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the elections monitoring board.
Removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in U.S. history.
Rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
Withdrew from the World Court of Law.
Refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
First president in U.S. history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. elections).
All-time U.S. (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
My biggest lifetime campaign contributor presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
Spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in U.S. history.
First president in U.S. history to unilaterally attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
First president to run and hide when the U.S. came under attack (and then lied saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1)
First U.S. president to establish a secret shadow government.
Took the biggest world sympathy for the U.S. after 9/11, and in less than a year made the U.S. the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in U.S. and world history).
With a policy of 'disengagement' created the most hostile Israeli-Palestine relations in at least 30 years.
Fist U.S. president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
First U.S. president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the U.S. than their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
Set all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated U.S. law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
Failed to fulfill my pledge to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive.'
Failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capital building. After 18 months I have no leads and zero suspects.
In the 18 months following the 9/11 attacks I have successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.
Removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in U.S. history.
In a little over two years created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided the U.S. has ever been since the Civil War.
Entered office with the strongest economy in U.S. history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.
Records and References

At least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available)
AWOL from National Guard and deserted the military during a time of war.
Refuse to take drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.
All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father's library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All minutes of meetings for any public corporation I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.
For personal references please speak to my daddy or uncle James Baker (they can be reached at their offices of the Carlyle Group for war-profiteering.)

Good take on Clark

There's a lot to be said about the fallacy of political pundits and conventional wisdom about Wes Clark, too much in fact.

and too much in the article for me to quote. I'll let you read "The Donkey in the Room" for yourself.

Not the greatest generation any more

Look at this sick sh*t:



And then Americans wonder why they hate us. The kids that grew up in the privation of the Great Depression went on to hand out candy and chocolate bars in Europe and Japan, making friends that helped us win the Cold War. Their grandchildren fighting in Iraq, against people who never attacked us and who might have been our friends, are busy making enemies that will haunt us longer than I care to predict.

Maybe this is an isolated incident, but I don't think so. The Iraqis greeted us as liberators. Now they hate us. Now you know why.

MSNBC won't print this

because it attacks someone else's comments about Wes Clark's op-ed about Iraq.

Gregg says:

"Iraq is far more complicated than any one of you here realize. If the politicians, think-tankers, Bush bashers and everyone none active military would get out of the way, the military could handle this situation ASAP."

Gregg, Iraq is far more complicated than YOU realize. That's why we need someone who does understand it to sort it out. Could you have even found it on a map before we invaded?

BTW, you contradict yourself when you complain that Wes Clark didn't win wars, but ask everyone else to get out of the military's way. The military already won in Iraq, but Wes Clark realizes that war is more than a military problem. You don't. That's why he was a general and you weren't. And for the record I know someone who is being sent to Iraq. Just shared a beer with him AAMOF, and hope to see him again before he goes.

Why do these people hate the Constitution?

from MSNBC:

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The U.S. military called no witnesses, withheld evidence from detainees and usually reached a decision within a day as it determined that hundreds of men detained at Guantanamo Bay were “enemy combatants,” according to a new report.

and why pick on these people? If they are terrorists, there should be evidence. If they are not, they should be released. And if you have no evidence that they are terrorists, why do you believe them to be?

more from MSNBC:

Twenty-one first-year law students at Seton Hall University in Newark, N.J., analyzed the documents to create a database analyzed by eight second- and third-year students.

Among their findings:

* The government did not produce any witnesses in any hearing.
* The military denied all detainee requests to inspect the classified evidence against them.
* The military refused all requests for defense witnesses who were not detained at Guantanamo.
* In 74 percent of the cases, the government denied requests to call witnesses who were detained at the prison.
* In 91 percent of the hearings, the detainees did not present any evidence.
* In three cases, the panel found that the detainee was “no longer an enemy combatant,” but the military convened new tribunals that later found them to be enemy combatants.

“No American would ever consider this to be hearing,” Denbeaux said. “This is a show trial.”

Welcome to Stalinism, American style!

I'm back

I've been busy and I've been busy celebrating the Democratic victory when I wasn't busy otherwise. Maybe I should post a series of short pieces on introducing Islamic studies or something like that? Well, I'll post new messages as I have time.

I still am worried about our democracy, though. We need to do some things ASAP.

1. Get ballots with certifiable paper trails to confirm the voters' choices. The opinion polls very consistently overestimated the actual poll results as far as Democrats went. The obvious explanation to me is that the polls were rigged. Not enough to stop a Democratic landslide but enough to slow it down.

2. Repeal the noxious portions of the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act. I take my oath to defend the Constitution "against all enemies, foreign and domestic" very seriously.

3. Investigate the worst aspects of the Bush regime, to stop their crimes and promote the idea of impeachment. At the very least the public needs to know what the &%$#! has been going on in the Bush regime.

4. Try to change course in Iraq so that we're not going it alone any more. The options are so much worse than they were before or should be now.

5. GET BIN LADIN! Dead or alive. (But I'm not holding my breath waiting for the Commander in Chief to order that one.)

We are in very deep shinola here!

This is from the Military Times newspaper group editorial about Rumsfeld:

It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation’s current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.

Did you get that? Rumsfeld is losing control of the military.

So what is the solution? The Military Times group of Newspapers suggests that Rumsfeld be fired. I have long thought Rumsfeld should have been fired for many, many reasons, but the call for firing him to restore discipline in the military worries me. That would only whet the appetite of political generals in the military. We are lucky to have a nonpolitical military in the US, and to have civilian control of the military. We need to keep that more than almost anything.

What worries me about this editorial is the argument that the opinion of the majority of Americans is not important, but that the opinion of the generals is. That doesn't sound like civilian control.

To be fair, they ambiguously complain that Rumsfeld is losing control of the military, but their solution to his loss of control is to give more power to the top military brass, letting them decide who gets to give them orders.

It's been argued elsewhere that the Cheney gang is so adamant about retaining Rumsfeld because Bill Clinton let the generals (e.g. Wes Clark) call all the shots, and the new administration wanted to restore effective civilian control. I don't know. I do know we are in trouble here. It needs a steady hand. It needs someone who's got a history of strong military experience, and a strong committment to a nonpolitical military and civilian control. Maybe a retired, nonpolitical general?

Rumsfeld should be removed because (1) he has failed, and (2) he has lost the faith of the country at large. That he has lost the trust of the generals is incidental. They have a vote, like everyone else, but they don't have voice. Civil servants in general are "Hatched" but military personnel do not have the same rights of free speech as civilians. Nor should they. They are the core of the government. Lose control of the military and you lose the republic. There's no crossing the Rubicon in reverse. It's that simple.

I thought it would have been Boykin!

How did I miss this? I've been away too long, I guess. But the news is just getting too surreal for my taste.

MIAMI (AFP) - The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God. "He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

OK, the guy is under Rummy in the chain of command, so he'd better say nice things about him, but "the good Lord tells him is best for our country"?!? I thought military were supposed to sign oaths to defend the Constitution of the United States. Hasn't this guy even read that Constitution?

Even stranger, OK, suppose this guy believes the Bible literally and thinks King Solomon talked to God. How does he come off thinking Rummy does, too? Or is he just being very subtly sarcastic? That must be it. It's very dry humor, over Rummy's head.

another straw man from a Republican

This Republican is pretty extreme, so I don't think I should use him to speak about all Republicans. David Horowitz does speak for many, though, and he has enough big Republican money behind him to get some attention. Here's his latest straw man argument about Democrats:

if only America left Iraq and focused on killing Osama bin Laden, the Islamic jihad would be over.

Of course he can't actually quote any real Democrat saying something so simplistic. I can quote him, here, confusing Sunni jihadists and Shi'ite jihadists (notice that they are killing each other in Iraq, with our troops in the middle) as "the Islamic jihad" in his blog entry.

Given Horowitz's obvious intelligence, and history of Communism, he's probably making a deliberate misrepresentation of what Democrats have been saying. Still, it's nice to know that we're having some effect, and that they can't just accuse us of supporting the terrorists anymore. Well, some Republicans will always do that, but Horowitz seems to want to be believed in his lies.

This lie is disturbing, though:

Those who attack us from within without offering a constructive policy for winning are helping the enemy. They are not criticizing the Administration; they are sabotaging the war. I have yet to come across a single Democrat who has a plan to prosecute the war more effectively.

If he hasn't "come across a single Democrat who has a plan to prosecute the war more effectively" it's his own fault for not visiting Wesley Clark's "Securing America" site. He's more likely lying again, and setting up Democrats to become inmates of the American Gulag his Republican friends are building.

National security? I don't think so.

Ever since he was in college George W. Bush talked down Social Security. He thought it would be his legacy to turn back the New Deal, especially it's cornerstone, the Social Security program. And it looks like he won't give up. Here's the latest:

Oct. 22 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush said Republicans can hold their congressional majority by focusing on national security and the economy, and that he will return to overhauling Social Security as a top domestic priority for his last two years in office.

He thinks that being a War President gives him "political capital" and that then he gets to spend it. The sap doesn't understand that you don't spend capital, you invest it. That's what makes capital different from money. This president doesn't even get the basics of capitalism. No wonder he wants to abolish Social Security. He doesn't realize that it saved capitalism, because he doesn't understand capitalism.

Could Bush secretly be a Communist? No, I think he's just a little dense. After all, even intelligent Communists understand the difference between capital and money. They've read Das Kapital.

The Ox-Bow President

Does anyone else remember when America stood for the rule of law, for justice and fair play? Does anyone else remember when our wartime movies, even the ones that didn't have Nazi villains, even the ones that weren't overt propaganda, featured the kind of values that made the United States the last best hope of earth? Not anymore. Habeas Corpus has been flagrantly abolished without even a pretense of invasion or rebellion to justify it.

From the New York Times editorial:

While the Republicans pretend that this bill will make America safer, let’s be clear about its real dangers. It sets up a separate system of justice for any foreigner whom Mr. Bush chooses to designate as an “illegal enemy combatant.” It raises insurmountable obstacles for prisoners to challenge their detentions. It does not require the government to release prisoners who are not being charged, or a prisoner who is exonerated by the tribunals.

The law does not apply to American citizens, but it does apply to other legal United States residents. And it chips away at the foundations of the judicial system in ways that all Americans should find threatening. It further damages the nation’s reputation and, by repudiating key protections of the Geneva Conventions, it needlessly increases the danger to any American soldier captured in battle.

In the short run, voters should see through the fog created by the Republican campaign machine. It will be up to the courts to repair the harm this law has done to the Constitution.

I think a Hollywood writer said it far better in the darkest days of World War II, when the US and the world faced an enemy far greater than al-Qa'ida and Usama bin Ladin:

A man just naturally can't take the law into his own hands and hang people without hurtin' everybody in the world, 'cause then he's just not breaking one law but all laws. Law is a lot more than words you put in a book, or judges or lawyers or sheriffs you hire to carry it out. It's everything people ever have found out about justice and what's right and wrong. It's the very conscience of humanity. There can't be any such thing as civilization unless people have a conscience, because if people touch God anywhere, where is it except through their conscience? And what is anybody's conscience except a little piece of the conscience of all men that ever lived?

I agree with what he said, but I can't defend his right to say it

General Dannatt wants British troops out of Iraq immediately:

The point that I'm trying to make is the mere fact that we are still in some places exacerbates violence from those who want to destabilise Iraqi democracy.

I've always been amazed at two types of people: those who said it was inapproriate for retired generals to speak out against the war, and those who complained that no serving generals spoke out against it. No serving generals spoke out because such speech is insubordination and a breech of discipline. If you're in the service and you want to criticize any higherups in the chain of command, you have to get out of the service. It's called military discipline.

It feels strange to say this, but I agree with what the general said, but I have to oppose his right to say it. Billy Mitchell was right about Air Power, too, and today everybody knows it. We have an Air Force, an Air Force Academy, a Department of Defense and everything else he asked for. We even know that he was right about the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor. But he shouldn't have said it without resigning from the military first, and the court martial was right to convict and punish him.

If you've ever seen an insubordinate, undisciplined military you would understand what I am talking about. It's dangerous.

Wes Clark says what needs to be said!

and he says it so well. Listen for yourself:



Here's more from coverage of his speech in Alabama:

Bin Laden’s strategy, Clark said, is to encourage the U.S. to invade Iran and Syria.

“His strategy is to create zones of chaos and savagery," Clark said. “He wants more Iraqs … where he can go in and emerge with leadership.

“Why do we want to play his game, when it is totally against our interests?"

I only hope his voice holds out until the 2008 election.

Fair and balanced? How?

Faux news claims to be fair and balanced, but here's what they did in a report on what they called

Vanderbilt Univ. discussion on 9/11 turns into a Bush-bashing festival

There was no chance for any of the faculty members to defend themselves, only the prosecution, and a witness for the prosecution. Faux News did have their punching bag "liberal" to make some mealy mouth comments that were supposed to be a defense of something (free speech?) but the accused were not given a chance to defend themselves, nor were any witnesses for the defense allowed to testify.

That's Faux News for you! Liberals are guilty, guilty, guilty of treason, treason, treason!

And the idea of debate between two sides is a quaint relic of liberalism. Which means freedom.

Remember, the president says the terrorists hate us become we are free, so as soon as we become unfree the terrorists will stop hating us and the GWOT will be over. Unless we try to become free again. So don't even think about freedom anymore. Much less a fair and balanced debate.

It's all Clinton's fault!

I don't believe these people. When Bush finally leaves office in 2009, they will still swear that everything bad that ever happened during his eight years was Clinton's fault. I guess the "Party of Personal Responsibility" was the party of other people's personal responsibility.

Et tu, McCain?

Yes, John McCain blames Clinton, too:

Sen. John McCain, a likely 2008 U.S. presidential contender, blamed former President Bill Clinton on Tuesday for failing to stop an unfolding nuclear threat from North Korea in the 1990s.

The Arizona Republican also took a swipe at Clinton's wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, a New York senator and possible Democratic rival for the White House.

It's time for Bush to take responsibility for his own policies and their failures. Clinton's policy on North Korea wasn't perfect. What policy could be for a country that expects to be applauded for its nuclear test? But Bush's policy is clearly worse, and if Bush won't admit making a mistake with it, McCain should be adult enough to tell him to change course again.

And blaming Hillary is really low, even for a Republican.

How to get the Usama clock?

Colorado Bob, who runs "Thank you, Keith Olbermann" among other blogs, wants to know where to get the Usama clock. I just copied and pasted the source code from another blog. I suggest everyone else do the same.

I rewrote the shpiel, and changed the spelling. There are only three vowels in Arabic (a, i, u). The other two vowels (e, o) are written in Roman script to to try to show short vowels, but I think it's confusing. There's no good method of showing vowel length in English. But I digress. You can write "Osama bin Laden" if you want.

Put up the clock and edit it yourself. I don't think we can remind enough people that this is the first time in American history that it has taken more than four years to catch the people responsible for an attack on the US and put a stop to their activities. The Confederates and the Japanese military were both out of action four years after Fort Sumter and Pearl Harbor, respectively. We can't let bin Ladin get away!

The president's voices

are getting stranger and stranger. "The President hears what he wants. . . . He hears things that only he can hear." I couldn't have said it better than Keith Olbermann: Watch here!