Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Get Down To Brass Tacks

From a new report, let this sink in:
"The U.S. government has already spent $904 billion since 2001 to wage wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and both of those conflicts are far from over."
But this war was well planned out with an end goal and exit strategy? No, that's right. There was never an exit strategy because they never intended on leaving. Building 30+ permanent bases in Iraq ring a bell. Add Exit Strategy to WMD and Yellow Cake in your Lists Of Bush Myths.

And thank god Bush didn't raise taxes to pay for his war. He borrowed the money. Everyone knows borrowing money with interest is always better than just paying something off. Maybe get a loan shark involved. Add this to your misery:
"the CSBA study warns that the additional burden of accrued interest payments could easily push that tab to $2.5 trillion, depending on how the cost is financed."
And let's give it some perspective:
"That's a steep price, even compared with past conflicts. 'In real (inflation-adjusted) terms, the war in Iraq alone has already cost more than every past U.S. war but World War II,' the study finds."
And show motive:
"The Bush administration has budgeted for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a way that differs markedly from the approach typically used to fund past wars. Because of its reliance on supplemental appropriations, often submitted in the middle of the year and supported by inadequate justification materials, the process has reduced the ability of Congress to exercise effective oversight. It has also tended to obscure the long-term costs and budgetary consequences of ongoing military operations."
Remember when President Bush's chief economic adviser, Larry Lindsey, said back in 2003 that the Iraq war would cost from $100 billion to $200 billion? For that frank appraisal, he was fired.

Source: US News & World Report

Science And Facts

via Washington Monthly:
Late yesterday, Barack Obama held a press conference to introduce most of his environmental team, and the names coincided with the rumors from last week: Steven Chu for Energy Secretary, Lisa Jackson to head the EPA, Nancy Sutley to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and Carol Browner to head a new a White House post as a coordinator on energy issues.

But in introducing Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Obama made a comment that stood out: "His appointment should send a signal to all that my administration will value science, we will make decisions based on the facts, and we understand that the facts demand bold action."
Science and facts. Obama stands for science and facts. What a departure from the Bush Administration theocracy who valued ideology over everything.

Source: Washington Monthly

President Elect v President Reject

Monday, December 15, 2008

Bill Moyers Interviews Glenn Greenwald

PBS' Bill Moyers sits down with political commentator, former constitutional and civil rights lawyer and Salon.com blogger superstar Glenn Greenwald.
"For all the questions put to him about his legacy, however, the press seems strangely uninterested in his controversial treatment of the Constitution and the Rule of Law: torture, surveillance without a warrant, or prisoners of war, the Geneva Convention and the claims the president has made for expanding the power of his office. That unlimited view of authority may well be the centerpiece of his legacy.

So there are plenty of tough questions to be asked about it, and Glenn Greenwald, a constitutional lawyer, has been asking them."
Click the link at the bottom to watch.

BILL MOYERS: What do you mean when you call President Bush a Manichean warrior? I mean, most people don't know what Manichean is and don't care. What do you mean by it?

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, the idea of being a Manichean comes from this third century BC philosophy that - or religion really that basically understood the world, a never-ending battle between the forces of pure good and the forces of pure evil. And all human events could be understood said adherence to this religion through that prism.

And it was a very simplistic idea that even early Christianity rejected as not appreciating the complexities of how the world actually is and the ambiguities, the moral ambiguities that characterize who most of us are in most situations. George Bush views the world and his followers viewed the world through this lens of pure good versus pure evil.

And it's not me saying that. He said that in virtually all of his speeches. And when you see the world that way what it means is that if you're on the side of pure good, as he asserted that he was and we are, it means that anything that you do, no matter how limitless, no matter how brutal and immoral, is inherently justifiable because it's being enlisted for service of the good.

And by contrast, anything that you do to those on the other side is inherently justified as well because they're pure evil. And from the war in Iraq to the torture camps and secret prisons that we set up all of the things that have done so much damage, I think that's the mentality that lies at the heart of it.
Source: Bill Moyers

GIF Of The Day

From Lame Duck to "nice duck".

Sex And The Citizen

Survey asked 14,000 people in 48 countries:
"The survey asked respondents to consider seven questions related to sex. Some questions were factual: how many sexual partners have you had in the past year and how many one-night stands have you had? Other questions were about attitudes to sex: is sex without love acceptable, or sex with casual partners? From the answers, the researchers compiled an index of promiscuity for respondents from each country.

The result appears to show that Finns and other Europeans are the most promiscuous, whereas respondents from more conservative countries, such as Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, are less promiscuous."


Source: The Economist

"Yeah Brother, This Is Iraq"

CNN Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware reports that Muntader al-Zaidi — the 28 year-old Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush yesterday during a press conference — “is being investigated for possible charges not connected to assaulting President Bush, but for doing it in front of the Iraqi Prime Minister and hurling the shoes in the Prime Minister’s general direction rather than at President Bush’s head.”

The errant throw at Bush's head has prompted the NY Mets to sign al-Zaidi to a MLB contract, sending the rightie to AAA New Orleans Zephyrs. I keed.



Source: ThinkProgress

The Made-Up Drama

What a lame headline on Reason.com.

Obama's 'My Pet Goat' Moment
"Why did it take Barack Obama 48 hours to renounce Rod Blagojevich?"

Equating an attack on the World Trade Centers where Bush, after being warned, sat motionless for 7 minutes with Obama not commenting on a scandal for 48 hours?

Forget that the President-elect is running the economy while Bush is dodging loafers in Iraq, forget that he is putting together a cabinet and appointees to lead us out of the greatest recession in our lifetime, forget that he seems to be addressing all the real problems of the day with thought-out meaningful answers and solutions, you want to get on him because it was 48 hours instead of maybe 24 hours? Would 36 have worked? What about 18?

I'm sure when Obama heard that Blagojevich was held by the Feds he didn't sit motionless for 7 minutes. Yes, it's his Senate seat, but it's not his job to fill it.

This whole notion that Obama is going to make everything right and be perfect every step of the way is ludicrous. Mike Tyson ludicrous. Was it ever in question that Obama was not going to renounce him?

"My Pet Goat" is a moment that has no peers. It is the epitome of ineptitude. Don't use it like Fox News uses "Nazis" to describe any dissenting views. Obama is the opposite of Bush. The childrens book was a metaphor for Bush's child like intellect. Don't even try to link Bush and Obama with these types of images.

Would the author have favored a McCain-style approach and have had Obama shut down his transitional duties to make a statement?

Source: Reason Magazine

The Torture President

Under Saddam Hussein torturers were rewarded and promoted.

In America they are.......taxpayer-paid US soldiers given orders by Bush.

How much intelligence did these guys give us? How many hearts and minds did we win?

Supreme Court Allows Cigarette Case Disputing Marketing

You mean breathing smoke into my lungs is bad?
"Tobacco companies suffered a defeat in the Supreme Court on Monday when the justices ruled , 5-4, that the companies can be sued by smokers who contend they were deceived by advertisements promoting “light” cigarettes."

To win their suit, the decision emphasized, the complaining smokers [from Maine] still have to prove that the companies’ “use of ‘light’ and ‘lowered tar’ descriptors in fact violated the state deceptive practices statute.”
Guess who was for and against?

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority decision, which was joined by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

And the Dark Side? Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

The liberal Judges are pushing for State's rights. The Conservatives are arguing the State laws are “expressly pre-empted” by the federal labeling act.

Seems to be the ol' flip flop here. But big money is involved so it makes sense for the conservatives to flush their values down the toilet.

Will this end smoking? No. Will lawyers be paid? Yes. Just make them $50 a pack and end the charade.

Source: NYT

Instart Karma Is Gonna Get You

And in the end, the hate you take, is equal to the hate you make.

Sarah Palin's Church in Alaska pictured below.



I do not condone arson or cowardly actions, it could just as easily have been bad circuitry in this cheap looking building, but Rev. Wright might say the chickens have come to roost.

Today We Are All Italian Loafers

What were the Secret Service doing? Not one, but two shoes.

Bush thought he did it to get on TV, didn't know his beef. Classic. On his final visit, his exit interview to revive his legacy, he gets called a dog and has 2 shoes thrown at him. What an image around the Arab world. A fitting epitaph.

Holiday Sales Non More Black

Black as in death. ["but death sells", Ian Faith, Spinal Tap manager]
From Nov. 28, the day after Thanksgiving known as "Black Friday," through Dec. 6, luxury sales dropped 34.5 percent compared to the same period last year, while overall apparel sales fell 22.9 percent. Electronic sales fell 22.3 percent.
Source: Yahoo

Google Slams Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal twists a story about Google looking to build an internet fast lane? Tries to make Obama anti-net neutrality? Would Sith Lord Rupert Murdoch do such a thing?
"In short, the Wall Street Journal story is wildly, dramatically overblown and reflects a misunderstanding of both our caching practices as well as our position on net neutrality," Adam Kovacevich, a Google public affairs spokesperson, told Portfolio.com
Will the WSJ publish a clarification?

To start a war, you have to build your case in the media months ahead of time. Sell your story. Seems Rupert is making up a drama, using the President-elect as a strawman.

Oh, the liberal media bias.

Source: Portfolio.com

Net Neutrality's Slippery Slope

This is what CEO Henry Blodget had to say about net neutrality in his recent article on Silicon Alley Insider:
One of the most kneejerk Internet causes in recent years has been "net neutrality"--the absurd conviction that phone and cable companies who paid hundreds of billions of dollars to lay the cable that Internet data travels over shouldn't be able to charge different rates for different tiers of data service.
Absurd? What a ignorant, dick thing to say. His lame site may have never gotten off the ground if carriers were charging tiered service for internet access.

Public dollars paid a big part in the development of the net and the companies pipes' through massive tax subsidies. The inherent competition and level playing field is the backbone to the success of the net.

When his readers call him out for his asinine quote, Henry fires back, "FedEx charges different rates for different delivery times. Is that so horrible? Where are the cries for 'Mail Neutrality'?"

Is he kidding? When you see all this loss on Wall St and Ponzi schemes behind $50 billion house of cards, just know that these guys are in charge.

Equating FedEx with the internet makes no sense. If you charged FedEx access to the highways for every mile they use, or if FedEx were allowed to take over a lane of a public highway for a competitive edge, then you have a case. His analogy is useless.

This is about content. FedEx doesn't ask what's in the box and charge you different rates. A box is a box.

And as for true competition for internet access, we only have one pipe coming into our homes. There are not 100s of wires outside at your curb. ISPs pay for access to that pipe. The government regulates this, they have anti-trust laws.

Hopefully Net Neutrality and it's greedy opponents are a done argument with the new Obama administration.

Source: SAI

200 Torture Lawsuits Against Rumsfeld [So Far]

'Tis the season to start addressing War Crimes:
AMMAN, Dec 15, 2008 (AFP) - A Jordan-based Iraqi rights group said on Monday it has filed 200 lawsuits against US former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and American security firms for their alleged role in torturing Iraqis.

Ali Qeisi, head of the group the "Society of Victims of the US Occupation in Iraq," said the cases, relating to torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners, have been recently filed in federal courts in Virginia, Michigan and Maryland.

"Around 30 lawsuits have been accepted so far," Qeisi told AFP. The others are still under consideration.

"The torture was systemic, and those responsible for it should be punished and the victims should be compensated," he said.
Source: RawStory

Bush's 'So What?'

Bush today expanded his guiltless-even-though-I-destroyed-everything asshole rejoinder, "So what?", from Cheney's equally dickish "So?" from a few months back.

George, you've just been called out for having 100% wrong reasoning for pre-emptive war. So what? I'm sure some soldier's parents appreciate that quip. Watch this video and feel the uncontrollable need to punch someone in the face.



The interview was with ABC’s Martha Raddatz.
BUSH: One of the major theaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand. This is where al Qaeda was hoping to take–

RADDATZ: But not until after the U.S. invaded.

BUSH: Yeah, that’s right. So what? The point is that al Qaeda said they’re going to take a stand. Well, first of all in the post-9/11 environment Saddam Hussein posed a threat. And then upon removal, al Qaeda decides to take a stand.
The mind of a fool. Is he that dumb to not know? He's beyond cognitive dissonance.

So his point is: after you attack someone not responsible for the initial strike and they take a stand, then you have to fight them because they took a stand.

It's justified as long as you sprinkle a little al Qaeda on top.

Source: ThinkProgress