On the timing of the execution of Saddam. Can't we do even one thing right?

Instead of having a dead dictator, we now have a martyr. Why you ask? Because we gave him the opportunity to equate himself with the muslim martyrs of the past.
rcald at Daily KOS

As many of you may not know, Saturday morning is the beginning of the Muslim holy days called Eid-ul-Adha. This is the "big Eid" lasting 4 days; the slighter shorter "small Eid" takes place at the end of Ramadan (which this year, was at the end of October). Eid ul Adha has two major elements of signifcance within in Islam.

First, the festival marks the end of the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca. Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam. It is one of the most important parts of the muslim year.

[...]

The second, and more significant in this case, aspect of Eid ul Adha is that it marks the muslim prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ismael at the command of God (You may know these characters better as Abraham and Isaac). This festival’s name is often translated as the Feast of Sacrifice. While regional traditions vary, Eid ul Adha is normally celebrated by a family group sacrificing a lamb and sharing it equally amongst relatives and the poor. This is a day which usually combines something akin to American/Christian ideas of Thanksgiving and Easter: there is a pervading sense of thankfulness for the bounty of God and an emphasis on both charity and feasting as a manifestation, at the same time there are constant rememberances of sacrifice in the name of God.

Given the context of this holiday, Saddam Hussein’s statement that "I sacrifice myself. If God wills it, he will place me among the true men and martyrs" takes on a new level of meaning. Hussein is playing into the sensibility Iraqi muslims, as well as more secular Iraqis for whom such a prominent muslim concept will still resonate. He is equating himself to the muslim prophets (the "true men"), like Ibrahim, and at the same time evoking martyrdom.

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On making a new martyr.

Richard Sale at Sic Semper Tyrannis

"I am so tired of hearing the word "dictator" and Saddam together. It's on a level with "anal" and then "sex." Yug. Instead of demonizing him, why not first of all mention that he didn't die a coward. He looks perfectly composed as he eyes the rope that is about to break his neck. And you have to admire the fact he didn't repent of his megalomania, saying to the hangman, "Iraq is nothing without me."

But he also was a skillful ruler and a legitimate one, as you pointed out in your briefing to the White House in late 1990 or early 1991. He had an extraordinary insight into his people --knowing when to massacre a section of a tribe or instead, build it a whole new sewage system and a string of free clinics.

Why demonize? Think of Somoza or the shah or Trujillo or the whole awfully bloody bunch of shits we have used to advance our ends in the world. We did after all back Stalin and lied for years to the public about his actions and character. Amazing.

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"Paybacks are a bitch," thus says the Dark Wraith

...In my editorial of November 6, 2006, "In Moot Defense of Saddam," I set forth my condemnation of what constitutes yet another brutish violation of international law by the Bush Administration and its various agents of opportunity.

Writing at her blog, BlondeSense, Liz notes that Saddam's execution is the result of conviction on capital charges related to "...killing 148 people who were planning to assassinate him back in 1982." In comments on the thread from that article at BlondeSense, I expressed my assessment of what will result from Saddam's hanging. In edited and expanded form, I herewith publish that assessment as an editorial position of The Dark Wraith Forums.

Spiteful vengeance breeds spiteful vengeance. Despite the belief by neo-conservatives and a fair number of supporters of capital punishment that they are the best at all manner of retributive violence, and despite the American people's belief that we are seeing the worst of the quagmire that has become our unjustified, illegal attack on and occupation of Iraq, we as a nation have not even begun to see what horrors may rise from the sands of that grim and ancient land.

[...]

And yet, when that payback is visited upon us—and it will come to us—we shall scream bloody murder at the injustice of the outrage. That, of course, is to be expected of a tribe that has lost its understanding of tradition.

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Some of the things Saddam did to the U.S.

Charles Karel Bouley at Huffington

...like Pilate, as we Americans try and wash the blood of Hussein off of our hands (and make no mistake, his death is squarely our doing, and it cost us almost half-a-trillion dollars) we need to ask ourselves, what did this man do to us to deserve this, the ultimate form of punishment?

Now, I don't want talking points, I want facts. What did he do to the United States or its citizens to deserve death? Well, let's start with what he didn't do.

He didn't attack us on 9/11, nor did any of the hijackers act on his behalf.

He didn't finance the Bin Laden construction company or Osama Bin Laden in any way.

He didn't give safe haven to Bin Laden or any of the terrorists.

He did not condone Al Quaeda.

He did not have weapons of mass destruction.

He did not have a nuclear program.

He posed no credible threat to the safety or security of the United States directly.

He never said he wanted us all dead and then followed that statement up by testing a nuclear device.

He did not financially support madrases directly, training radicalized Islamic fascists that would later threaten our country (that's Saudi Arabia).

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Congratulations on the execution of Saddam.

Martin Lewis at Huffington

Some thanks are in order:

1) To George W. Bush. It only cost $354 billion (and counting) and the lives of 3,000 very expendable US military to enable the President to demonstrate to his dad that he has a bigger Dick. Or is one...

Isn't it ironic - don'tcha think? Saddam hung so that Dubya can prove that he's BETTER hung...

2) To George H.W. & Barbara Bush for raising a child with such wonderful values.

[...]

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Bush the incompetent. Even the military gets it.

Booman at Booman's Tribune

...It didn't matter what part of the country you were in, not a single incumbent opponent of Bush was defeated anywhere. But it wasn't until we could see the proof of this that the true debacle that is Iraq began to come into clear focus. I say 'begin' because as far as I am concerned very few people really get it, even now. I don't even see a full recognition of the magnitude of the shift from my fellow bloggers. But the military is starting to get it.

Barely one in three service members approve of the way the president is handling the war, according to the new poll for the four papers (Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times and Marine Times). In another startling finding, only 41% now feel it was the right idea to go to war in Iraq in the first place.

And the number who feel success there is likely has shrunk from 83% in 2004 to about 50% today. A surprising 13% say there should be no U.S. troops in Iraq at all.

This comes even though only about one in ten called their overall political views "liberal."

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Larry Johnson on the 'execution' of Saddam

Larry Johnson at No Quarter

The shallow minded will celebrate the execution of Saddam as a victory and perhaps as a watershed moment. It ain't either--i.e. victory or watershed. If this is a pivotal moment it is simply turning a corner and driving into a deadend alley.

Remember the happy talk and predictions surrounding the death of Saddam's sons way back in July 2003? The Times of London, in describing the demise of Uday and Qusay, reported that:

They were the targets of the first US airstrike, and repeatedly attacked during the campaign. Their escape from Baghdad was a source not just of frustration to the invasion forces, but also of gnawing anxiety to Iraq's people. With the mangled bodies retrieved by the 101st Airborne from the columned villa in the northern city of Mosul confirmed as those of Uday and Qusay, therefore, the United States has turned a corner in Iraq whose psychological importance is hard to exaggerate. Even if Saddam himself is still alive, his dynasty will be dead.

Turning that corner turned out swell, didn't it? How about Professor Fouad Ajami's nifty prophecy about the benefits we would reap from Saddam's capture?

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You know your country is in trouble when:

Riverbend

2006 has been, decidedly, the worst year yet. No- really. The magnitude of this war and occupation is only now hitting the country full force. It's like having a big piece of hard, dry earth you are determined to break apart. You drive in the first stake in the form of an infrastructure damaged with missiles and the newest in arms technology, the first cracks begin to form. Several smaller stakes come in the form of politicians like Chalabi, Al Hakim, Talbani, Pachachi, Allawi and Maliki. The cracks slowly begin to multiply and stretch across the once solid piece of earth, reaching out towards its edges like so many skeletal hands. And you apply pressure. You surround it from all sides and push and pull. Slowly, but surely, it begins coming apart- a chip here, a chunk there.

That is Iraq right now. The Americans have done a fine job of working to break it apart. This last year has nearly everyone convinced that that was the plan right from the start. There were too many blunders for them to actually have been, simply, blunders. The 'mistakes' were too catastrophic. The people the Bush administration chose to support and promote were openly and publicly terrible- from the conman and embezzler Chalabi, to the terrorist Jaffari, to the militia man Maliki. The decisions, like disbanding the Iraqi army, abolishing the original constitution, and allowing militias to take over Iraqi security were too damaging to be anything but intentional.

The question now is, but why? I really have been asking myself that these last few days. What does America possibly gain by damaging Iraq to this extent? I'm certain only raving idiots still believe this war and occupation were about WMD or an actual fear of Saddam.

Al Qaeda? That's laughable. Bush has effectively created more terrorists in Iraq these last 4 years than Osama could have created in 10 different terrorist camps in the distant hills of Afghanistan...

Read the rest

Sadam is dead. And...?

Exactly what has changed?

Barbara O'Brian at Crooks and Liars

...Patriotism, apparently, demands that we celebrate Saddam’s death, even though he’d been stripped of his power and has been pretty much irrelevant for some time, and even though it’s unlikely his death will change a damn thing.

Josh Marshall gets it:

… This is what we’re reduced to, what the president has reduced us to. This is the best we can do. Hang Saddam Hussein because there’s nothing else this president can get right.

The very inauthenticity of the whole farce amounts to Bush Administration fingerprints. The confusion of pageantry and progress, of substituting photo ops and symbolism for actual accomplishment, is a hallmark of the Bush Administration. Yes, they’re all about covering up their ineptitude, but I wonder if at least some of them (like the President himself) honestly don’t know the difference.

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Try this slogan on for size

clammyc at Booman Tribune

Out of Iraq and Into New Orleans

While that little slogan was something that I came up with totally by accident (thanks for pointing it out, Militarytracy), it did get me thinking that this really is one of the simplest ways to (1) point out the two most glaring and high impact mistakes of this administration and the rubber stamp republican Congress who supported this administration and (2) highlight two of the most pressing needs (and less controversial than other needs like universal healthcare, etc.) that must be addressed by the incoming Congress as well as any serious candidate for President.

wmtriallawyer wrote a diary earlier today that touched on rebuilding New Orleans and wrote it in a way that would save Bush’s legacy. While we all secretly or not so secretly want to see Bush go down in history as the worst president (or person) ever, that would also somewhat involve rooting for the continuation of his “reverse Midas” policies and another two years of absolute ruin and havoc. This is something that the country and world can hardly afford.

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This doesn't look good to me.

The United Arab Emirates are dumping dollars. That sounds like the economy might just be starting to tank. All that borrowed Iraq war money that Dubya is spending like a drunken sailor, might have a little to do with it.

Nicole Bell at Crooks and Liars

The United Arab Emirates plans to convert 8 percent of its foreign-exchange reserves to euros from dollars before September, the latest sign of growing global disaffection with the weakening U.S. currency.

The U.A.E. has started, "in a limited way," to sell part of its dollar reserves, the governor of the country's central bank, Sultan Bin Nasser al-Suwaidi, said in an interview. "We will accumulate euros each time the market appears to dip" as part of a plan to expand the country's holding of euros to 10 percent of the total from the current 2 percent.

The Gulf state is among oil producers, including Iran, Venezuela and Indonesia, looking to shift their currency reserves into euros or sell their oil, which is now priced in dollars, for euros. The total value of the reserves held by the U.A.E. is $24.9 billion, Suwaidi said.

The dollar has fallen more than 10 percent this year against the euro.

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Siemens aims to reinvent auto wheel (really)

From an article at Designfax

Siemens VDO engineers are working on plans to integrate the drivetrain, steering, shock absorbers, and brakes directly into the wheels of future cars. This concept, called eCorner, is the basis for the ecological "Drive-by-Wire" automobiles, which will become a common sight on roads in 15 years, according to the company.

eCorner replaces the conventional wheel suspension (with hydraulic shock absorbers, mechanical steering, and hydraulic brakes) and, above all, conventional internal combustion engines. For car owners, Siemens is betting that eCorner translates into improved fuel mileage, more safety, and greater convenience. Designers will experience new freedoms and challenges in creating future cars with an electric drivetrain and electronic control.

Car motors will disappear — into the wheels: Siemens VDO engineers are working on the eCorner where the drivetrain, steering, shock absorbers and brakes will be integrated into the wheels of future cars.

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Eisenhower nailed it 45 years ago.

He warned against the military-industrial complex.
Robert Scheer, Huffington

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

Ponder those words as you consider the predominant presence of former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney in the councils of this White House, and how his old company has profiteered more than any other from the disaster that is Iraq. Despite having been found to have overcharged some $60 million to the U.S. military for fuel deliveries, the formerly bankrupt Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root continues to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in lucrative contracts.

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Ford on Iraq, "I don't think I would have gone to war,"

Bob Woodward in the Washington Post

Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney -- Ford's White House chief of staff -- and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.

"Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq.

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Would things be this screwed up if Ford had not pardoned Nixon?

Taylor Marsh

The full impeachment and removal of Richard M. Nixon might have healed this country, not just put a political bandage on the disgrace that was his presidency. Instead, all Mr. Ford's pardon did was prove to men coming up next, like Mr. Reagan and Mr. Bush, that the president is above the law and in an orbit all his own.

We'll never know what might have been, but former President Ford made a decision that taught a generation something antithetical to the American way. He taught my generation and the ones before mine that if you were powerful enough you could get away with anything.

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Is snuffing Saddam such a good idea?

Yeah, he's scum. But a recurring thought in Iraq seems to be "things under Saddam weren't as bad as we thought." And many now see him as being an icon for resistance against the occupation.
Steve Clemons at Huffington

The track has been laid. I don't see any way that Hussein can escape execution -- but everyone involved needs to realize that Hussein is no longer just a criminal, thuggish, murderous tyrant in the eyes of most Iraqi citizens.

To many, he has become a defiant leader fighting American oppression and someone who portrays himself as a proud and ferocious Sunni force. Many Sunnis want him back -- and we need to prepare for something big, very big, when he dies.

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Escalation will be Bush's step into hell

(Do you get the impression that I think this is a lousy idea?)
Chris Floyd at Empire Berlesque

Bush's "Great Leap Forward." The first two prongs of this strategy seem guaranteed: there will be an escalation of the war and an attack on Sadr. The third thrust – expanding the war beyond Iraq – seems increasingly likely, but perhaps, at the moment, more of an option to be held in reserve, to be brought out when the first two elements inevitably begin to fail and there is, finally, nothing left for them to do but shoot the moon and see what happens.

Yes, they are that stupid. Yes, they are that criminally reckless. And no, they don't care how many American soldiers will be slaughtered in the process – not to mention (which they never do) the countless Iraqi and Iranian – and American – civilians who will be killed in direct assaults and the inevitable, generations-long blowback.

Read all of it.

Surging to Disaster (Seems to be a common thought.)

Lawrence J. Korb and Max Bergmann at The American Prospect

Want to break the back of the U.S. military while failing to accomplish anything new in Iraq? Send in more troops.

In 1964, when Lyndon Johnson began escalating America's involvement in Vietnam, Undersecretary of State George Ball warned that "the party which seems to be losing will be tempted to keep raising the ante." In the summer of 1965, when the United States had less than 100,000 troops in Vietnam, Ball concluded that "humiliation would be more likely than the achievement of our objectives -- even after we have paid terrible costs." As Ball predicted, the United States eventually increased its troop levels to nearly 600,000 and suffered almost 60,000 deaths to no avail.

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No, Dubya, your do-over won't work any better than any of your other moronic ideas did.

He knows down deep that he's useless. But he can't admit it. So, like the guy who has lost all the money, he's now betting the farm to 'try' to win it back. And he has the added advantage that all the pain and loss he's incurring is to someone else. It never enters his head what he has done to others. Hell, nothin's gonna happen to ole' Dubya.

clammyc at Booman Tribune

Let’s face it – the proposed escalation is nothing more than an attempt for Bush to call “do-over” in Iraq. And just as the neocon architects of the failure in Iraq are looking to pass the buck on whose fault this horrific disaster is, we should remember one thing – this invasion and occupation was done EXACTLY the way that they wanted it to be done. Every step of the way. Every decision, every lie, every “operation”, from “Mission Accomplished” to authorizing torture at Abu Ghraib to the use of white phosphorus in Fallujah.

We are in the situation we are in because of these decisions, and just as you don’t let the ones who drove you into a ditch keep the keys, you don’t let those who have failed in such a spectacular manner keep making the decisions, regardless of whether they hold the title of “The Decider” or not.

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We're never going to win the war on 'terra' because the deciderer keeps changing the definatiohttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifn.

Much more blood to flow. None of it from Bush, his family, or croneys.
Chris Floyd at Empire Berlesque

Bush is broadening the war’s parameters yet again, depicting the goal of his Middle East policy as defeating “radicals and extremists,” categories that are even more elastic than the word “terrorist.”

[...]

In other words, the war against “terrorist groups of global reach,” which became the “global war on terrorism,” now has morphed into what might be called the “global war on radicals and extremists,” a dramatic escalation of the war’s ambitions with nary a comment from the U.S. news media.

So, under Bush’s new war framework, the enemy doesn’t necessarily have to commit or plot acts of international terrorism or even local acts of terrorism. It only matters that Bush judges the person to be a “radical” or an “extremist.” While the word “terrorism” is open to abuse – under the old adage “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” – the definition of “radical” or “extremist” is even looser. It all depends on your point of view.

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We face a near endless quagmire in Iraq and the mid East.

Would you want to be the president who has to shovel out all the residue from Dubya's 'Excellent Adventure'?
Jeff Huber at Pen and Sword

Post-Bush, we'll either have a Republican war hawk like John McCain in the White House or a Democrat who will face the unsavory choice of continuing Bush's Middle East policy as a fait accompli or risk being labeled by latter day Rovewellians as the "Defeat-ocrat" who lost the war Bush was "definitely winning" when he turned over the watch even though the new Democrat on the block had sufficient force--thanks to Bush's foresight, of course--to continue the fight.

The Kristol Palace

Not surprisingly, the Times editorial also follows the neocon company line that makes Donald Rumsfeld the scapegoat for Iraq.

…it took the departure of Donald Rumsfeld — the author of the failed Iraq policy and the doctrine of going to war with less than the Army we needed — for Mr. Bush finally to accept this reality.

[...]

Yes, Rumsfeld was a key member of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC), but he was hardly alone in formulating the Iraq policy. Other PNAC luminaries who endorsed a ground invasion of Iraq back in 1998 included recently deposed U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, present U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, and PNAC founder Bill Kristol.

Kristol first pushed Rumsfeld on the third rail of the commuter tracks back in 2004 when he lambasted the then SecDef's comment about "you go to war with the Army you have."

If irony were still alive and with us, it would be a funny thing that Kristol and his wingman Bob Kagan thought the Army we had back in 1998 was sufficient to "do this job."

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Fun things that will result from the coming "escalation".

George is in a pissing match he's losing. (Ever notice how wars really come down to whose 'stick' is bigger) So George is going to try to make his longer. Unfortunately you and I are the ones providing the 'length' and our troops are going to take it in the neck.
clammyc at Booman Tribune

The escalation will be primarily for fighting al Sadr and his militia but may also be used for “policing” in an attempt to control the genocide from continuing to spiral out of control.

[...]

Why taking on al Sadr will be disastrous

For starters, let’s start with the fact that despite what has been said about Maliki and Sistani looking to marginalize al Sadr, the opposite is more likely closer to the truth. In fact, the above link as well as this one seem to indicate that al Sadr and his followers are about to strike a deal to return to the Iraqi parliament.

And regardless of whether he is authorizing or the source of rampant killing and violence against Sunnis, there is the small matter of him being (1) a figure that has a vast loyal following and (2) is a big part of the “democratically elected” Iraqi government – regardless of whether Bush and his minions want it to be so. The ancillary issues with respect to a military operation to take out a member of the Iraqi government – and one whose family has a city named after them would have repercussions that, from a political standpoint, would be a nightmare for the US. If you thought that our reputation in Iraq couldn’t get any worse, just wait until “war is waged” against al Sadr.

There is also the matter of this being a horribly kept secret. Take into account the fact that al Sadr’s militia is estimated to have around 60,000 fighters and they aren’t just a bunch of “dead enders”:

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Here's some good news that the damn liberuls have been keeping from the Bush faithful.

StevenD at Booman Tribune

Tired of bad news from "liberal media types" and moonbat lefty blogs? Wonder why no one ever tells us of all the successes Republican rule of Congress and the White House has brought us over the last few years? Well wonder no more. I'm here to rectify the situation with some good news that Republican politicians have been prevented from pointing out to their constituents because of the vast left wing conspiracy.

For example, did you know that thanks to President Bush's brave and sterling leadership in personally directing the "War on Terror" in Afghanistan, we now have more and better heroin for American junkies? Well, it's all true

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"Is our children living?" George Bush doesn't care.

More to contact your congresscritter about. We have plenty of money (NOT!) to blow 'furriners' to kingdom come, but not enough to take care of our own children. Ya' know how it is, when you're the deciderer, you just got to keep your priorities straight.
Judith Graham at The Chicago Tribune

In private conversations across the country this holiday break, pediatricians are buttonholing their congressmen and making a heartfelt plea: Save the National Children's Study.

This is the latest attempt to rescue the most important study of children's health and the environment in the United States.

Hundreds of scientists have helped plan the project since 2000. The scope is enormous: Researchers are set to track 100,000 children from birth to age 21, collecting genetic material and blood samples and recording kids' exposure to everything from pesticides to chemicals and air pollution. Enrollment activities were scheduled to begin in 2007.

But earlier this year, President Bush's proposed budget called for terminating the $2.7 billion study instead of allocating the $69 million requested for fiscal 2007. "The issue is really an issue of prioritization" of limited research money, Elias Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health, told a Senate hearing in May.

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From, of all places, Free Republic, Information about a DHS concentration camp.

Now this is scary!

PittsburghAfterDark at Free Republic

The truth is out. The “truthiness” is no longer in doubt. There is a minimum of one confirmed concentration camp built on American soil in rural Wyoming.

Okay, many have heard the rumors, dismissed them as kook theories, believed by nobody, perpetuated by the ABB (Anybody but Bush) crowd or as a topic of interest for the Art Bell and Jeff Rense radio audience.

An undisclosed DHS (Department of Homeland Security) order was placed with DigitalGlobe to photograph the near completed work camp facility only listed by location as “central Wyoming” on the mistakenly published photographs.

DHS accidentally placed these photos on a publicly accessible portion of their website on March 28th and they were pulled within one hour. Fortunately Google had cached the images. They too though have been removed in the past 48 hours. The images are not gone forever though.

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Dubya, that good ole' boy, has now killed more troops than the 9-11 terrorists killed at the WTC.

So, obviously he has WMDs and deserves pre-emptive attack, doesn't he?

CBS/AP

The U.S. military announced the deaths of seven American soldiers Tuesday, raising the U.S. death toll since the beginning of the Iraq war to at least 2,978 — five more than the number of people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S.

At least 54 Iraqis also died in bombings on Tuesday, officials said, including a coordinated strike that killed 25 in western Baghdad.

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This insanity must stop.

James Brown, 1933 - 2007

"He was dramatic to the end, dying on Christmas Day," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a friend of Brown's since 1955. "Almost a dramatic, poetic moment. He'll be all over the news all over the world today. He would have it no other way."

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Did you know that L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz" was an allegory?

OK, you got me. So what is it about?
Read this, by Brian Tamanaha at Balkinization.

Every now and then I read something that comes as a complete surprise. You might have the same reaction to the following passage from Jack Weatherford's The History of Money (1997), which comes out of his discussion of the late nineteenth century debate over adding silver to the gold monetary standard:

The most memorable work of literature to come from the debate over gold and silver in the United States was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900, by journalist L. Frank Baum, who greatly distrusted the power of the city financiers and who supported a bimetallic dollar based on both gold and silver. Taking great literary license, he summarized and satirized the monetary debate and history of the era through a charming story about a naive but good Kansas farm girl named Dorothy, who represented the average rural American citizen. Baum seems to have based her character on the Populist orator Leslie Kelsey, nicknamed "the Kansas Tornado."

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How is Bushco 'Bribing' the generals?

Jeff Huber at Pen and Sword has a pretty good clue. Just when you thought they couldn't sink any lower....

Like General Casey, the four stars on the Joint Chiefs of Staff who have opposed the surge will cave in and endorse it before Mr. Bush announces his decision. They'll do so because Dick Cheney's White House made them an offer they couldn't refuse. In return for endorsing the escalation, the generals and admirals will get their wish to increase the size of the force and the size of the military budget.

Congress won't dare object to a continued military build-up, and the military industrial complex that has Congress in its pocket won't object to it either. And ideologues like Bill Kristol and the Kagans won't have any objections because their entire purpose from the get-fo was to turn America into a militaristic hegemon controlled by their neoconservative oligarchy.

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'Merry Christmas'

Next time some rightwing bigot tells you that the US is a 'Christian' nation, show them this.

You know the kind, like, but not limited to Virginia's chief 'goober' Virgil Goode.

Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque

The US Senate, full of founding fathers, and the Adams government, approved the Treaty with Tripoli (now Libya) of 1797, which included this language:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

The treaty is important for showing the mindset of the fashioners of the American system. So Virgil Goode should consider emigrating himself, to someplace where his sort of views might be welcome. They certainly aren't in the United States of America. And they never have been part of this country's values and principles.

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Remember when Grover nyquist defined bipartisanship as date rape and left little doubt as to who was the date?

Guess who is wanting a little 'bipartisanship' now that the entire public has kicked their sorry asses out of power? Would you believe there are Democrats who want to 'be nice' to the poor defeated repugs?
Were the situation reversed (like it was last year) how kind would the repugs be?
Bob Geiger

Nausea alert: Do not read this on a full stomach if you're a Progressive, who has had it up to your eyeballs with some elected Democrats regularly accepting prison shower-room, Ned-Beatty-in-'Deliverance' treatment from Republicans and then meekly saying "Thank you, sir, may I have some more?"

Because what you're about to read is the Washington, D.C. version of just that.

Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) issued a joint press release yesterday announcing that they want to convene a group of Republicans and Democrats in the new Senate to "build on the success of 'Gang of 14'" and "forge bipartisan consensus on key issues in the 110th Congress."

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Dammit, the public looked upon the works of the Republicans, and said"No more!"
That's what they meant.

Please, please, contact your congresscritter and tell them NO WAY!! to this bipartisan bullshit!
No, we don't want to become what they were, but we also DO want to repair our poor battered constitution. That won't happen with their brand of bipartisanship.

If you got your information from left bloggistan you got the truth, from MSM... not so much

Perhaps this comes as patting yourself on the back... I think it is simply reflecting on the sad state of affairs in our agonized land.
Billmon at The Whiskey Bar

What I also realized, ploughing through hundreds of forgotten or half-remembered posts, is that much of what I wrote back then proved not only true but also extremely prescient -- especially in the first few months after "mission accomplished," when the corporate media by and large was still drinking the White House Kool-Aid and the conservative movement was proclaiming the deification of Emperor George.

It's not that the story wasn't being told. Then as now, most of what I understood to be true about Iraq came from reading between the lines of the semi-official media (New York Times, Washington Post) from the samzidat journalists at Knight-Ridder, from the foreign press (the Guardian and the Independent in particular) and from the Juan Cole's crucial work translating and analyzing Iraqi and other Arabic-language sources. The downward trends could even be seen in the bare factual bones of wire service reports with obscure datelines like Fallujah and Haditha and Tikrit.

But to piece together the truth in those days you had to scrounge for it, ignore the ignorance and lies pouring out of Donald Rumfeld's mouth and defy the prevailing political tide of arrogant triumphalism. Very few journalists, and even fewer politicians, were willing to do that. Some in Left Blogistan were (Kos, Needlenose and Steve Gilliard, among others, also come readily to mind). As a result we presented a far more accurate picture of the war to our readers than the corporate media -- with a few honorable exceptions -- did to its own. I'm proud enough of that to want to remind the world, and the moronic media blog bashers in particular, of it

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All about the Jolly Fat Man.

A short history of Santa. It's worth the ad if you aren't a subscriber.

Mary Lisa Gavenas at Salon

There is no Santa Claus. Not in the poem now known as "The Night Before Christmas" published anonymously in 1823 and credited to Clement Clarke Moore, whose verses feature a weirdly elvish figure named St. Nicholas. Not in Charles Dickens' 1842 "Christmas Carol," with all its sanctimonious sermonizing about Tiny Tim and the true meaning of Christmas. For all practical purposes, there is no Santa Claus before 1862, the year that Rowland H. Macy took the gift-giving gnome known around New York as Sinterklaas (from the Dutch "Sint Nicolaas"), used an Anglicized name, had him impersonated by a reassuringly full-size human, costumed him in a nice, clean cloak, and installed him in the store as a means of snaring more Christmas shoppers.

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Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. We're doomed.

Liz at Blondsense

I'd like to show you an excerpt (so that you'll read the whole article) from Madison’s Ghost on The Intoxicated Presidency – and its Corporate Support Group by Thom Hartmann, published on October 25th, 2002 in Common Dreams. (At this point in time, we aren't absolutely sure that Bush will invade Iraq)
"Hitler used the 1933 burning of the Reichstag (Parliament) building by a deranged Dutchman to declare a “war on terrorism,” establish his legitimacy as a leader (even though he hadn’t won a majority in the previous election).

“You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history,” he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. “This fire,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion, “is the beginning.” He used the occasion – “a sign from God,” he called it – to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their “evil” deeds in their religion.

[...]

Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation’s now-popular leader had pushed through legislation, in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it, that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people’s homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.

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Japanese Manhole Cover Art

That's right. Japanese Manhole Cover Art

Go. Look

"Bush is delusional" heard on Joe Scarborough show.

Jamie Holly on Crooks and Liars

Scarborough has made a definite turn-around on Bush over the past year, but it hasn't been as evident as it was on Wednesday's Scarborough Country. Joe appears to be totally fed up with the non-stop spin and ignorance coming from the White House and Bush's press conference apparently put the final nail in that coffin.[...]

Mike Barnicle was also on fire during this segment. He feels that Bush is delusional and going to place more lives in danger. I must say that I also feel the same way.

SCARBOROUGH: Well, this is uncharted territory. And Josh Green, I want you, if you will, to imagine, how would Republicans have responded if President Bill Clinton had ignored the advice of all of his Joint Chiefs, his top general in the war zone, his former secretary of state, and 80 percent of Americans? Is it not a stretch to say that many Republicans would have considered impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton if this situation were identical?

Full transcript via MSNBC

Read on

Estimated deathtoll of Flu pandemic 62 Million.

David Brown - WashingtonPost

An influenza pandemic of the type that ravaged the globe in 1918 and 1919 would kill about 62 million people today, with 96 percent of the deaths occurring in developing countries.

That is the conclusion of a study published yesterday in the Lancet medical journal, which uses mortality records kept by governments during the time of "Spanish flu" to predict the effect of a similarly virulent outbreak in the contemporary world.

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A liberal blogger posts to a 'Red' Blog

And shows that there really are some real conservatives out there who are as concerned as we about the whole situation.
(Be sure to read the comments at Redstate)
clammyc at Booman Tribune

...yesterday, I posted a diary here about my thoughts regarding the “surge option”, and thought that this would be an issue that I could get some good dialogue from our RedState counterparts on.

So, I signed up for an account last night, and was very up front (full disclosure as to who I was, etc.) with my thoughts, and, figuring that a wrong step or comment would result in a banning or some other fate worse than death....So, I was clear, concise and direct – but also respectful – all without knowing whether I would get any replies, or if so, replies that would be respectful as well.

And lo and behold, not only were the comments pretty respectful (even if I didn’t agree with them), but they were plentiful and I was surprised to find the diary right smack in the middle of the Recommended Blogs list.

Read the whole thing

Fly over your tunes! Mapping software for your music.

Tracy Staedter, Discovery News

Researchers have now developed a program that automatically organizes a collection of digital music files into a virtual landscape. Instead of digging deeper and deeper through categories and subcategories of songs, you fly over an archipelago of sound-specific islands.

"It could work like a flight simulator," said Peter Knees, a PhD candidate and project assistant at Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria. "You see landmarks that relate to style. If you dive deeper, it will reveal artists, and then deeper to see individual songs."

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The cost of elections have doubled in Utah due to those nice shiny new machines.

BradBlog

Sticker Shock May Force Jurisdictions to Revert to Hand Counted Paper Ballots Next Year...

If you needed any more evidence to counter the argument that it would be "too expensive" to dump all the shitty, unreliable, inaccurate, hackable, disenfranchising touch-screen (DRE) voting systems in favor of paper ballots, just take a look at Utah. They're the state which pushed out heroic 23-year Emery County Election Clerk Bruce Funk because he had the temerity to allow independent computer security experts to test the Diebold touch-screen systems the state was forcing him to use. (The experts found massive security flaws described as "the most severe" ever discovered.)

Well, now Utah has finally discovered that their switch from punch-cards to shitty, unreliable, inaccurate, hackable, disenfranchising Diebold touch-screen systems has doubled the cost of their elections. And then some. Get a load of this from the Salt-Lake Tribune...

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Serious Question, kiddies!

MahaBlog

This morning I read the first paragraph of this article by Peter Baker in today’s Washington Post:

President Bush acknowledged for the first time yesterday that the United States is not winning the war in Iraq and said he plans to expand the overall size of the “stressed” U.S. armed forces to meet the challenges of a long-term global struggle against terrorists.

After which enough alarm bells went off in my head to wake the dead.

[...]

Indeed, your thesis is that since September 11, the U.S. ceased to be a republic and has become an empire.

It’s an extremely open question if we have crossed our Rubicon and there is no going back. Easily the most important right in our Constitution, according to James Madison, who wrote much of the document, is the one giving the right to go to war exclusively to the elected representatives of the people, to the Congress. Never, Madison continued, should that right be given to a single man. But in October 2002, our Congress gave that power to a single man, to exercise whenever he wanted, and with nuclear weapons if he so chose. And the following March, without any international consultation or legitimacy, he exercised that power by staging a unilateral attack on Iraq.

The Bill of Rights — articles 4 and 6 — are now open to question. Do people really have the right to habeas corpus? Are they still secure in their homes from illegal seizures? The answer for the moment is no. We have to wait and see what the Supreme Court will rule as to the powers of this government that it appointed.

Lots More

Impressions of Iraq from a troop on the ground.

No Quarter

[Note from Larry C Johnson: Received this today from a CIA buddy who in turn received it from a friend in Iraq. One soldier's perspective from the ground level.]

Anyway, here's the assessment. This place; big picture - hopeless. Wrong plan, wrong place. 2003-2004 was done so wrong that we can't recover. The Iraqi leadership doesn't really want us here, they just want our money and equipment and they want us to get out of their way so they can accomplish their own personal agendas. Everything is about positioning themselves for when we leave. And they know we're leaving, every invader/occupier always has and this current one isn't shy about stating it in the press. Corruption is an art form here and we just keep playing into it.

[...]

We just need to figure out an exit strategy that will keep casualties to a minimum and get out, quickly. Then in 5-10 years, we'll be back to try to break the back of the extremist Muslim regime that has been committing genocide on other Muslims and has enabled/empowered terrorism against Jews, Christians and America. Maybe we'll get it right on the return trip.

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Either there will be an impeachment befor Bush leaves office, or the USA is over.

Booman

First, there is an almost inexorable logic that is and will continue to lead Republicans to the conclusion that they cannot afford two more years of Bush. Bush is isolated on Iraq. The Republicans do not want to follow him. Here's David Brooks explaining it to Tim Russert on Meet the Press:

MR. BROOKS: If I could say something about internal Republican politics and about this show. I hope Josh Bolten, the White House chief of staff, was watching Gingrich this first half of this show. Gingrich said, “Unless we fundamentally restructure what we’re doing in Iraq, we will not win.” He is not far off from where a lot of Republicans are. Probably where most elite Washington Republicans are.

So what’s going to happen? These Republicans do not want to run in 2008 with Iraq hanging over. They never want to face another election like that. So at some point, six months, eight months, there’s going to be men in gray suits. There’s going to be a delegation going into that White House saying to President Bush, “You are not destroying our party over this.” And Bush will push back. But that’s going to be the, the tension. Talk about world—American support for the war, it’s Republican support in Washington for the war that the president needs to worry about.

There is more

Folks, the national credit card is about to be revoked.

Christian Weller at ThinkProgress

(The U.S. current account deficit widened to a record $225.6 billion in the third quarter, officials announced yesterday. Below, American Progress Senior Economist Christian Weller explains why it matters.)

The greatest current threat to our standard of living is the current account deficit, which now stands at a whopping $225.6 billion in just the third quarter of 2006. This is the equivalent of 6.8 percent of our gross domestic product (GDP). Current account deficits above 5 percent flash a threat level of “red” to economists.

More (than you really want to know)

Three must reads from Larry Johnson

No Quarter

The mainstream media has finally caught up and fleshed out some important issues regarding Iraq that I wrote about on Sunday (see The Iraq Catch 22). There are three in particular you should read:

First take a look at the Washington Post story by Robin Wright and Peter Baker, White House, Joint Chiefs At Odds on Adding Troops.

Second, it is now official because the New York Times tells us today (as I said on Sunday) that Attacks in Iraq at Record High, Pentagon Says.

Finally, as I warned on Sunday, we're going to try to take down Moqtada al Sadr... According to Julian Barnes at the Los Angeles Times, Sadr Army is called top threat in Iraq, A Pentagon report cites the danger of the Shiite cleric's militia.

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Butchery or Defeat?

Booman

It's time for people to be grown-ups. It's time to start considering a change in government. If we don't do something very soon, we may get an answer to Billmon's question.

All along, I've had the sneaking suspicion that the choices in Iraq would ultimately boil down to mass butchery or defeat. But, as the above post indicates, over the years I've become progressively less certain what the ultimate decision would be -- and whether and when the American military would flinch from the implications of that choice.

Next year may be the year we find out.

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A Bully Defined - George W. Bush

Betsy L. Angert - Be-Think. org

"All cruelty springs from weakness."
~ Seneca, [Roman Philosopher, Statesman, Dramatist 4BC-AD65]

"The truth is incontrovertible; malice may attack it,
ignorance my deride it, but in the end, there it is."
~ Winston Churchill [Statesman, Author, Prime Minister 1874-1965]

A glimpse into the younger years of Baby Bush's life speaks volumes. Without a deep desire, few of us ever change. We may leave old habits behind. Those behaviors take a toll on our physical well-being. our psychological transgressions might also cause us to pause. We may wish to tweak our choices. Nevertheless, the substance of who we are lingers and often looms larger.

There are exceptions. Some totally transform themselves; still these individuals are few and far between. The need must be stark. When a person is born with a silver spoon is his mouth and is handed many more, he can and often does continue to do as he has done. The past is often the present and we see ample evidence of this. Consider this character . . .

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Two articles from TomDispatch that address the same subject.

Tomgram: Schwartz and Engelhardt, War without End

[Note for Tomdispatch readers: Today, a rarity at the site. Two pieces, officially identified as such and piled atop each other -- think of them like a double-decker bus -- each focused on a different aspect of the Iraq situation as Washington imagines it. First comes a little "political bedtime story" of mine about how Washington has tried to "fix" everything but reality itself; then, an important analysis by Michael Schwartz of just why the withdrawal option, increasingly popular for the American public, is such poison to Washington's movers and shakers. So dig in. Tom]

"Fixing" the War

By Tom Engelhardt

This is an old tale. Long forgotten. But like all good political bedtime stories, it's well worth telling again.

Once upon a time, there was a retired general named Paul Van Riper. In 1966, as a young Marine officer and American advisor in Vietnam, he was wounded in action; he later became the first president of the Marine Corps University, retired from the Corps as a Lieutenant General, and then took up the task of leading the enemy side in Pentagon war games.

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The co-founder of Atlantic Records Ahmet Ertegun has died, aged 83.

RJ Eskow at Huffington

The Ahmet Ertegun story could have been remembered differently. Picture it: A suave foreigner comes to the United States and makes it in the record business by persuading urbane and sophisticated African-Americans to sound more primitive and raw. He makes millions as a "suit," which is the way musicians have derisively referred to record execs over the years.

Based on that sketchy overview, you would expect to hear that executive remembered as an exploiter of talent, another cultural colonizer using up performing artists as if they were diamonds ripped from the earth. But that's not the way the Ahmet Ertegun story ended, nor is that his legacy.

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Three possible outcomes of the Dubya presidency.

Cenk Uygur at Huffington

Now that we've screwed the pooch on Iraq, there are only three possible outcomes for George Bush's presidency.

1. He stays the course and just drives Iraq into the ground. This could involve putting more troops in, keeping the same number of troops or even some form of withdrawal. But anyway you slice it, Iraq will be a monumental failure.

[...]

2. He could attack Iran and turn the world upside down. This would guarantee his place among - not just the worst US presidents of all time - but the worst world leaders of all time. Attacking Iran would rank among the biggest military blunders in history.

[...]

Of course, then there is option number three. The only thing that can salvage Bush's presidency at this point. It's got to be a doozy to pull him out of the ignominious hole he has dug for himself. And it is.

3. Broker a peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians. If Bush could pull off this Herculean task, then every sentence about his legacy would start off with, "But no matter what, he was the one that brought peace to the Middle East..."

Now, that seems so improbable as to be near impossible. But it's his only chance.

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The Brand New Counterinsurgency Manual Released by Pentagon On the 'Net.

Eason Jordan at IraqSlogger

Now you and everyone, including Al Qaeda terrorists and insurgents, can read the entire 282-page manual.

It's posted on multiple military Web sites.

While the manual doesn’t contain classified secrets, it contains an astounding amount of seemingly sensitive military doctrine, with subject headings including:

-- INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE OPERATIONS

-- HUMAN INTELLIGENCE AND OPERATIONAL REPORTING

-- COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERRECONNAISSANCE

-- INTELLIGENCE COLLABORATION

-- INTELLIGENCE CELLS AND WORKING GROUPS

-- PROTECTING SOURCES

-- EXECUTING COUNTERINSURGENCY OPERATIONS

-- TARGETING

Should such sensitive and detailed information be dished up to the U.S.’s enemies, especially via Pentagon Web sites?

In the manual's foreword, Lt. Generals David Petreaus and James Amos write in part, "With our Soldiers and Marines fighting insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is essential that we give them a manual that provides principles and guidelines for counterinsurgency operations."

How would a U.S. soldier or Marine now in Iraq or Afghanistan feel knowing the hot-off-the-presses counterinsurgency manual is available to the “bad guys” at the same time it is available to the “good guys”?

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Can Bush touch anything? (Without ***king it up)

What happened? Yet again, privatization!

Steven D at Booman Tribune
After 9/11, billions of dollars were appropriated in order to modernize and update the Coast Guard's fleet of patrol boats and other ships. It was an ambitious plan, but one everyone agreed was necessary to enhance our nation's coastal security. However, four years later, this major effort to bring the Coast Guard into the 21st century is a disaster. Only one new ship has been added to the fleet, and it's considered structurally unsound by by the Coast Guard's own engineers. Costs have soared from the initial appropriation of $17 billion to over $24 billion. The New York Times has the story:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 — Four years after the Coast Guard began an effort to replace nearly its entire fleet of ships, planes and helicopters, the modernization program heralded as a model of government innovation is foundering. [...]

That has compromised the Coast Guard’s ability to fulfill its mission, which greatly expanded after the 2001 attacks to include guarding the nation’s shores against terrorists. The service has been forced to cut back on patrols and, at times, ignore tips from other federal agencies about drug smugglers. The difficulties will only grow more acute in the next few years as old boats fail and replacements are not ready.

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U.S military. If you want to know the truth about what happened to your troop, you must be an athiest.

This is so wrong for so many reasons... By this logic, abortion should not only be a right, but advocated by the right. DWI should get you a bigger faster Hummer (you know, so you could mow many more 'rewardees' to their reward). And murderers should be funded as a public service. This is really advocating a 'culture of life'.

From Andrew Sullivan at Time

A reader pointed me to this stunning passage in an ESPN.com story about the death of Pat Tillman:

[Lt. Col. Ralph] Kauzlarich, [formerly the Army officer who directed the first official inquiry,] now a battalion commanding officer at Fort Riley in Kansas, further suggested the Tillman family's unhappiness with the findings of past investigations might be because of the absence of a Christian faith in their lives.

In an interview with ESPN.com, Kauzlarich said: "When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don't believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more — that is pretty hard to get your head around that. So I don't know how an atheist thinks. I can only imagine that that would be pretty tough."

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Flying Mammal Found From 125 Million Years Ago

John Noble Wilford, NY Times

Scientists have discovered an extinct animal the size of a small squirrel that lived in China at least 125 million years ago and soared among the trees. It is the earliest known example of gliding flight by mammals, and the scientists say it shows that mammals experimented with aerial life about the same time birds first took to the skies, perhaps even earlier.

From an analysis of the fossil, the researchers concluded that this gliding mammal was unrelated to the modern flying squirrel and unlike any other animal in the Mesozoic, the period best known for dinosaurs living in the company of small and unprepossessing mammals. They announced today that the species qualified as a member of an entirely new order of mammals.

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Iraq: Dubya, Can You Hear Me?

Jeff Huber at Pen and Sword

Whatever Bush decides to do in Iraq will determine America's fate for at least a century. No, that's not hyperbole. Our sortie into Iraq was a grave mistake, and grave mistakes bring dire consequences. If Bush blows it this time, U.S. influence on Middle East affairs could disappear like the sandwich my dog snatched off the kitchen counter last night. The vacuum will be filled by Russia and China, with help from their energy partner Iran. The loyalties of our western European allies will erode even further than they already have. Isolated, our economy will dwindle, as will our leverage over Russia and China, and we could wake up one day to realize that, shucks, we lost the Cold War after all.

So much for that "mission accomplished," huh?

[...]

What he (Bush) needs to do most is stop acting like a spoiled adolescent playing grown-up and start acting like a 60 year-old man who is the president of the United States and leader of the free world. If he can do that, he might just find that Americans across the political spectrum will still support him. Heck, I might even stop calling him "Young Mister Bush."

If he can't do that, he needs to be impeached.

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Charting the Way Forward in Iraq

Larry Johnson, No Quarter

The mess in Iraq is reflected by the policy confusion that now reigns in the United States. The supposed salvation lying withing the findings of the Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group has not materialized. In fact, the Baker/Hamilton study was dead on arrival and really did little to address the military reality on the ground in Iraq. We really shouldn't be too hard on Baker and Hamilton because there is no clear philosophy or strategy dictating what we should do in Iraq.

I'm currently working at a U.S. military base directly and heavily invovled in the Iraq operation. I am stunned by the lack of consensus even within the military about what is going on in Iraq and what we should do. As in Washington there are folks who believe we need more troops and folks who believe the time to pull out has come. The only area of consensus is that things are going poorly in Iraq and we need to do something different.

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Surprise! American Health Care Costs Too Much

Booman Tribune

If there is one thing the Democrats in Congress could do this year and the next to expand their newly won majorities in Congress and capture the White House in the 2008, it would be to address the ever expanding burden health care costs place on the 99% of Americans who aren't ridiculously wealthy. We have privatized our health care system under Republican rule for the benefit of special interests (Insurance and Pharmaceutical companies, for the most part) and the results have been devastating for millions of Americans. Americans like me. Americans like you.

Time to start spending some of that political capital the Democrats won last November on the only special interest that really matters: our families.

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Consumption Has Finally Caught Up With Us

Alternet

We're closer than we think to an age when gasoline becomes a luxury and restaurant meals become unattainable.

If there is one thing that most inhabitants of the late 20th century shared in common, it was a perception of rising global abundance in virtually all fields: energy, food, housing, consumer goods, fashion, mass culture, and so on.[...]

At least some strata of the global population will continue to experience an increase in personal wealth in the 21st century, but the sense of abundance that characterized the late 20th century is likely to evaporate for the great majority of us. One day affordable luxuries like overseas vacations and meals out will become unattainable, and even basic necessities like energy, electricity, water, and food are likely to become less plentiful and more expensive. This global austerity will produce great hardship for the poor and will force even lower-middle class families to choose between long car trips, restaurant meals, air-conditioning in summer, and high thermostats in winter.

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...And America comes third.

Religious freedom is being kicked in the teeth by "God-fearing" religionists.
Iguess they just don't understand the history of 'established' religions. They just don't work.

From Crooks and Liars

This is not a joke. The Pentagon has been infiltrated by the Roy Moore wing of the Republican party—or the Christianists. How many of you have ever heard of the Christian Embassy? I've talked about the Evangelical Right and the Air Force many times before, but this video is truly disturbing. I'm not against religion at all, but not in this context. Lambert brought this story and video to my attention.

Les Enragés: High-ranking officers in the Pentagon are routinely violating regulations by proselytizing in uniform. Another alarming symptom of the anti-American Faith-based government propagated by the Bush administration and right-wing theocrats.

And this from AmericaBlog

Evangelical Christian cabal recruiting inside Pentagon
by John in DC - 12/11/2006 08:08:00 PM

I don't mind if they're religious extremists, I just wish they wouldn't flaunt it.

From Reuters:

A watchdog group that promotes religious freedom in the U.S. military accused senior officers on Monday using their rank and influence to coerce soldiers and airmen into adopting evangelical Christianity.

Such proselytizing, according to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, has created a core of "radical" Christians within the U.S. armed forces and Pentagon who punish those who do not accept evangelical beliefs by stalling their careers.

Today is better than tomorrow.

The Righties tell you what a lovely place Iraq is. How we are making things all better, and the nasty ol' librul media is lying about the good we are accomplishing there.
Try this on for size...
Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist who reported from Iraq for over eight months from 2003-2005, as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and Jordan. His reports have been published by the Independent, the Guardian and the Sunday Herald in the UK He writes regularly for Inter Press Service, as well as for Tomdispatch.com, and is currently finishing a book about his experiences in Iraq.

From Truthout

Iraq as a living hell.

The situation in Iraq has reached such a point of degradation and danger that I've been unable to return to report - as I did from 2003 to 2005 - from the front lines of daily life. Instead, in these last months, I have found myself in a supportive role, facilitating the work of some of my former sources, who remain in their own war-torn land, to tell their hair-raising tales of the new Iraq. While relying on my Iraqi colleagues to report the news, which we then publish at Inter Press Service and my website, I continue to receive emails from others in Iraq, civilian and soldier alike.

What I know from these emails is that the articles on Iraq you normally read in your local newspaper, even when, for instance, they cover the disintegration of the Iraqi health system or the collapse of the economy, are providing you, at best, but a glimpse of what daily life there is now like. After all, who knows better what's happening than those who are living it?

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EPA Scrubbing Library Web Site to Make Reports Unavailable

From Truthout

Washington, DC - In defiance of Congressional requests to immediately halt closures of library collections, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is purging records from its library websites, making them unavailable to both agency scientists and outside researchers, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). At the same time, EPA is taking steps to prevent the re-opening of its shuttered libraries, including the hurried auctioning off of expensive bookcases, cabinets, microfiche readers and other equipment for less than a penny on the dollar.

In a letter dated November 30, 2006, four incoming House Democratic committee chairs demanded that EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson assure them "that the destruction or disposition of all library holdings immediately ceased upon the Agency's receipt of this letter and that all records of library holdings and dispersed materials are being maintained." On the very next day, December 1st, EPA de-linked thousands of documents from the website for the Office of Prevention, Pollution and Toxic Substances (OPPTS) Library, in EPA's Washington D.C. Headquarters.

There is more...

Like lots of others, I have conflicting opinions of Tom Friedman.

As does David Roberts at Huffington. But Like Roberts, I have to agree that Friedman nails this issue.

Go to the site, and watch the video.

Sell your KBR/Halliburton stock, now!

Then buy lots of popcorn. This is going to be fun!

Henry Waxman is about to start investigating war profiteering.
Jane Hamshire at Firedoglake

Henry Waxman wrote Rummy a letter this week, outlining his concerns about unanswered questions regarding war profiteering scams:

At the lowest level, Blackwater security guards were paid $600 a day. Blackwater added a 36 percent markup, plus overhead costs, and sent the bill to a Kuwaiti company that ordinarily runs hotels, according to the contract.

[]

That company, Regency Hotel, tacked on costs and profit and sent an invoice to ESS. The food company added its costs and profit and sent its bill to Kellogg Brown & Root, a division of Halliburton, which added overhead and profit and presented the final bill to the Pentagon.

And bless be, it looks like Henry is going for the jugular:

The California congressman said that Blackwater's services were not just pricey, but prohibited, because the Army never authorized Blackwater or any other Halliburton subcontractors to guard convoys or carry weapons. Houston-based Halliburton has been paid at least $16 billion to provide food, lodging and other support for troops in Iraq, and $2.4 billion to work on Iraqi oil infrastructure.

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Who was it said Iran would never lift a finger?

SusanUnPC at No Quarter

BBC News, "Iran 'will help US to leave Iraq'," December 9, 2006:

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has said Tehran is willing to help the US withdraw from Iraq.

But he added that Iran would only assist if the Americans changed their attitude towards Tehran.

The BBC's Frances Harrison in Tehran says Mr Mottaki did not spell out the change of attitude required. ... she adds that Iran probably wants the US to drop its insistence that it freeze its nuclear programme before any kind of talks.

So the U.S. should put the nuclear issue on the back burner? As substitute host Mike Barnicle said on MSNBC's Hardball Thursday:

[I]t is highly unlikely that by late tomorrow afternoon Iran will have a nuclear weapon, and yet it is highly likely, sadly, that by tomorrow afternoon, another United States Marine will be killed or a soldier will be killed in Iraq. So what is wrong with talking with Iran?

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Are the long knives out?

Booman at Booman Tribune

Now, there are those that are merely 'mindful of the drubbing the party received in last month’s midterm elections'. They make up one part of the emerging bipartisan impeachment coalition. But the more compelling contingent are the ones that are absolutely in a panic over our Iraq policy. If they can't convince the President to pay attention to them, they will have no choice but to take him out any way they can.

[...]

If Bush doesn't make a dramatic change of course, he will leave the GOP no choice but to accede to impeachment proceedings. The exact pretext for Bush and Cheney's removal, and the make-up of the caretaker government, will have to be quietly worked out, but you can be sure that the long knives are out and many power players are going to be spending the holidays plotting out scenarios that will get us out of this nightmare...and fast.

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The Iraq Cassandras.

Cassandra:

(Greek mythology) a prophetess in Troy during the Trojan War whose predictions were true but were never believed
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

In Greek mythology, Cassandra ("she who entangles men") (also known as Alexandra) was a daughter of King Priam of Troy and his queen Hecuba, who captured the eye of Apollo and so was given the ability to see the future. However, when she did not return his love, he placed a curse on her so that no one would ever believe her predictions. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra

Maha at The Mahablog

Shortly after U.S. forces marched into Baghdad in 2003, The Weekly Standard published a jeering article titled, “The Cassandra Chronicles: The stupidity of the antiwar doomsayers.” Among those the article mocked was a “war novelist” named James Webb, who is now the senator-elect from Virginia.

The article’s title was more revealing than its authors knew. People forget the nature of Cassandra’s curse: although nobody would believe her, all her prophecies came true. And so it was with those who warned against invading Iraq.

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Refreshing! A Republican on Republicans.

By Rick Klein Boston Globe

Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire yesterday used his last major floor speech as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to blast his own party's leadership in Congress, accusing Republican leaders of engaging in the type of fiscal recklessness that he said led voters to oust the GOP from power.

[...]

"The American people took the reins of government away from the Republican Party relative to the Republican Congress in this last election," Gregg said in a speech on the Senate floor. "They did so, I think, in large part because they were tired of our hypocrisy as a party on the issue of fiscal responsibility. And it would appear that their concerns are justified. It is true, I guess."

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I said earlier I don't think we can afford 2 more years of Shrub. Here's why!

Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars

C-Span's Friday Washington Journal had on David Walker, U.S. Comptroller of the GAO on to discuss two recent reports, one on recommendations for 110th Congress Targets for Oversight and Global War on Terror Costs (both .pdf. You can watch archives of the show here.

[...]

From the video on America's Fiscal Future:

…And even if we're able to constrain discretionary spending for the next ten years to the rate of inflation, which we haven't for a long time, we still face large and growing structural deficits in the years ahead. Bottom line? The status quo is unacceptable and unsustainable. We're on an imprudent and unsustainable fiscal path. Tough choices are required. We will not be able to grow our way out of this problem. Anybody who says that suffers from two problems. Number one, they have not studied economic history adequately; and number two; they probably wouldn't do real well at math. Because the numbers just don't add up.

There is more

Don't you just love some Bush-O-Nomics?

This is the kind of man it takes to win in Iraq.

Compare this man to his commander-in-chief.
It makes you want to cry for your country, doesn't it?

Major Bill Edmonds at No Quarter

For just a minute or two, step into my life. I am an American soldier in the Army Special Forces. I have just returned from a one-year tour of duty in Iraq, where I lived, shared meals, slept and fought beside my Iraqi counterpart as we battled insurgents in the center of a thousand-year-old city. I am a conflicted man, and I want you to read the story of that experience as I lived it. In the interest of security, I have omitted some identifying details, but every word is true.

Read on...