Nov 03 2007
I just wrote a piece for ePluribus Media that I think you’d like to check out. It has embedded video, multiple links in “Wikipedia” style, a few footnotes and a couple great images.
It was a lot of work.
I’m not going to repost the whole thing, but I am going to provide the punch-line — the spoilers, the ending — but it won’t ruin anything for you.
Trust me on this: you won’t mind reading the full piece over there, ‘cuz you’ll still be cheering the spoilers from over here.
Oct 31 2007
It seems the propaganda and fear-mongering is working. According to a Zogby poll published yesterday,
“A majority of likely voters – 52% – would support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, and 53% believe it is likely that the U.S. will be involved in a military strike against Iran before the next presidential election, a new Zogby America telephone poll shows.” [my emph.]
Oct 29 2007
This is troubling, not because it is unexpected but more due to the fact that many have predicted it and watched as their dire predictions came true. From CNN Money:1
With oil prices setting records over $90 a barrel – and $100 looking ever more likely – experts say there’s a good chance drivers will see $3 gasoline before the end of the year.
“Three dollar gasoline in this market is unavoidable,” said Stephen Schork, publisher of the industry newsletter the Schork Report. “At this rate, we’re going to see $4 a gallon.”
If you think that’s bad, make the jump and read more…
Oct 29 2007
Originally published Sun Oct 28, 2007 at 10:03:07 PM EST on ePluribus Media.
Hat-tip to jrichards of DelphiForums for the pointer to the primary source article.
Sometimes, “follow the money” is best done in rather obscure places, then compared and contrasted to other items of interest to see where things fall on (or off) the balance sheet.
An obscure but potentially informative source to aid in following the money trail is the Consolidated Federal Funds Report (CFFR). The recently released edition — the 23rd such report, which has been compiled and published almost continuously since 19831 — represents all the domestic federal spending for Fiscal Year 2005. The principal author is Gerry Keffer, chief of the Federal Programs Branch at the Census Bureau, who leads a team of eight Census workers in the task of compiling the CFFR.
There’s more…
Oct 27 2007
Don Rumsfeld was charged with war-crimes today. Bushco’s connection to Mid-East terrorism and pork may be the next story to blow.
Retired Air Force Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, a former NATO commander Bush appointed last year as his special envoy to work on the issue, left the job recently because of what several sources described as his frustration at the administration’s failure to devote serious attention to the problem. Ralston, vice chairman of an international consulting firm led by former defense secretary William S. Cohen, did not return several calls for comment.
There’s far more at stake…
Oct 26 2007
This was the evening news from Armageddon…
After discovering a suspicious man in a brush area on the San Bernardino campus of California State University, police attempted to detain a 27-year-old on suspicion of arson.
Following a chase, officers opened fire and killed him, police said.
“They thought there could be the possibility that he’s an arsonist,” Patterson said. The area “is in the path of the fire.”
Four charred bodies were found Thursday in an apparent migrant camp burned by one of the wildfires raging across southern California, authorities said Thursday.
As wildfires were charging across Southern California, nearly two dozen water-dropping helicopters and two massive cargo planes sat idly by, grounded by government rules and bureaucracy.
A news crew was taping a cabinet meeting at the White House as the president was giving a briefing on the California wildfires. The news crew taped Cheney as he appeared to be nodding off.
“There’s all kinds of time for historians to compare this response to that response,” Bush said during a tour of the state’s fire-ravaged communities.
“A lot of people are going to lose their homes today,” San Diego Fire Capt. Lisa Blake predicted earlier.
According to estimates, nearly 1 million southern Californians have been displaced in the biggest evacuation in state history as a result of at least 16 simultaneous wildfires. More than 350,000 houses have been evacuated.
People who need it can get help with “home reprayer – repair,” said the president, handing out the FEMA phone number and Web-site for victims of the wildfires.
“Arnold Schwarzenegger is right. These fires are going to go out… but there are still going to be needs and concerns,” Bush said. “We’re not going to forget you in Washington, D.C.”
These fires are going to go out, and hard work will remain, but I am not counting on Bush to set things right. After the jump, I will tell you what you can do right now to help the people hurt by this crisis.
Oct 26 2007
We all know that Bush wants $196,000,000,000 more for his Iraq and Afghanistan disasters, but something curious was tucked into the funding request. According to ABC News:
The item: $88 million to modify B-2 stealth bombers so they can carry a newly developed 30,000-pound bomb called the massive ordnance penetrator, or, in military-speak, the MOP.
The MOP is the the military’s largest conventional bomb, a super “bunker-buster” capable of destroying hardened targets deep underground. The one-line explanation for the request said it is in response to “an urgent operational need from theater commanders.”
ABC called CENTCOM to ask about it. CENTCOM said they’d look into it and call back. They haven’t yet.
Congressional Quarterly adds:
In interviews Tuesday, military experts said the new weapon was not designed for the kind of counterinsurgency campaign being conducted by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. They said the MOP could prove useful against other targets, notably underground Iranian facilities that are said to be producing nuclear weapons materials.
“A weapon like this is designed to deal with extremely hard and buried targets such as you would find in Iran or North Korea,” said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the conservative military think tank the Lexington Institute, who is also a consultant for some defense contractors.
“Clearly, in the case of North Korea, the likelihood of military action is receding as the Pyongyang government becomes more tractable,” said Thompson, referring to recent progress in diplomatic efforts to persuade North Korea to dismantle its nuclear programs.
How about Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility?
“You’d use it on Natanz,” said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org. “And you’d use it on a stealth bomber because you want it to be a surprise. And you put in an emergency funding request because you want to bomb quickly.”
Oct 25 2007
Why on earth have tensions suddenly escalated along the Turkish border with Iraq? Why have Kurdish PKK guerrillas been going out of their way in recent weeks to provoke a conflict with Turkish forces and draw the Turkish Army into a cross-border incursion into the Kurd-administered region of northern Iraq?
The most important clue may lie in the persona and actions of Ray L. Hunt, CEO of Hunt Consolidated, Inc., member of the Halliburton Board of Directors, Bush “Pioneer,” major Republican fund-raiser, and, oh, by the way, member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB).
Hunt is no mere peripheral bit player; he has donated $35 million to his alma mater, Southern Methodist University, for purchase of an apartment complex that seems destined to be the site of the Bush Presidential Library and possibiy an affiliated think tank (oxymoron alert).
In short, Ray L. Hunt is a poster boy for Republican, Texas Big Oil, crony capitalism.
Below the break let us ponder how Hunt appears to be a primary catalyst for cataclysm in the Middle East.
Oct 22 2007
Aus des Rheines Gold ist der Reif geglüht.
Watching a DVD of the New York Metropolitan’s version of Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung (or Twilight of the Gods [TOG]) the other day, I was struck at how prescient the otherwise reactionary composer was in anticipating the destruction of the voracious classes. (One should not find it odd that in Wagner one finds mixed the most progressive and the most reactionary of views and trends, as in this he is the exemplar of the age, which mixes reason and progress with vile reaction, destruction, and mass murder.)
Dick Cheney, who is Alberich in my analogy with Wagner’s opera, was on the stump beating war tom-toms against Iran during a 35-minute talk at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), which The New York Times calls “a research organization”. In reality, WINEP is a well-known right-wing pro-Israel lobby. While praised by liberal dreamboat Al Gore as “Washington’s most respected center for studies on the Middle East”, according to Right Web:
Oct 20 2007
I just frontpaged a short piece over on ePluribus Media called “About that weapons cache…” — Good News and Bad News, but it’s important enough to repeat in full here…
Great news, folks! This just in from Reuters:
19 tons of explosives found in Iraq
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – U.S. forces in Iraq discovered nearly 19 tons of explosives in a weapons cache north of Baghdad this week, one of the biggest finds of its kind, the U.S. military said on Saturday.
[…snip…] More at link in title
Isn’t that wonderful? 19 tons!
Of course, if the Bush Administration hadn’t lost 380 tons of explosives just over three years ago, we might have something more significant to crow over. (Make the jump…)
Oct 20 2007
Sometimes, a number is so stunning that all you can do is stare.
24%
Look at it.
Think about it.
Less than one-fourth.
The most unpopular president ever.
According to Reuters:
Bush’s job approval rating fell to 24 percent from last month’s record low for a Zogby poll of 29 percent.
Down five percent. In one month.
Down five percent, in one month, from the previous record low!
The mind reels. The mind stumbles. The mind falls down.
The national telephone survey of 991 likely voters, conducted October 10 through October 14, found barely one-quarter of Americans, or 26 percent, believe the country is headed in the right direction.
The poll found declining confidence in U.S. economic and foreign policy. About 18 percent gave positive marks to foreign policy, down from 24 percent, and 26 percent rated economic policy positively, down from 30 percent.
You know what’s worse than being a president with a record low 24% approval rating? Being an opposition party that is incapable of opposing a president with a record low 24% approval rating.
It’s embarrassing.
It’s humiliating.
Considering the real life consequences, it’s also disastrous.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent part of yesterday running from her Democratic colleague, Rep. Pete Stark. Stark said bad things about Bush.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spent part of last week running from his colleague, Sen. Chris Dodd. Dodd tried to stop a bad Bush policy.
Pelosi and Reid did not spend much time running from Bush.
They did not resolve to stop his war.
They did not resolve to stop him from torturing people.
They did not resolve to stop him from indiscriminately spying on the American people.
They did not resolve to force him to comply with subpoenas.
They did not resolve to force him to comply with laws, national and international.
The elected leaders of the Democratic Party are afraid to stand up to a president with a 24% approval rating.
The elected leaders of the Democratic Party are afraid of being criticized for standing up to a president with a 24% approval rating.
Perhaps that’s why Reuters also reported this Zogby poll result:
A paltry 11 percent gave Congress a positive grade, tying last month’s record low.
Paltry. That’s a good word for it: paltry.
Congress always polls poorly. But this is a record. A record of paltriness.
11 percent!
They’re less popular than Bush.
They’re less than half as popular as Bush!
It’s clearly not from opposing him, because they clearly haven’t.
Maybe it’s time they tried something different.
Maybe it’s time they tried opposing him.
For real.
Because if you can’t stand up to a president with a 24% approval rating, what can you stand up to? What can you stand for?
Oct 20 2007
TPM puts Kurd threats to repel Turkish intrusions by force way up high. Vladimir Putin warned the US not to attack Iran just days ago.
Iran today appointed a key ally of Iranian President Ahmadinejad as Iran’s new nuclear negotiator just days before a crucial meeting with the EU.
An Iranian spokesman, “Gholam Hossein Elham, said a deputy foreign minister, Saeed Jalili, would replace Mr Larijani in time for a meeting on Tuesday with the European Union’s foreign policy head Javier Solana.”
Mr. Jalili, unlike his predecessor Ali Larijani, is a hard-liner. His appointment by the man who really holds control of Iran’s nuclear project, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suggests an end to compromise….