Found link to a great new blog, with some very cool effects, the name of the blog is "The Most Fun Bestest Commentary Anywhere Ever " but it refuses to let me link to it...very strange. Anyone have an idea, let me know, it keeps coming up with a 404 error. I left it in my blogroll in case it was MattS not me.

Hey! Any Lexis/Nexis users out there....

Happy and Safe New Year...off for vacation, will blog if able. Hope to see you all here again next year!

The war on Terror? or contributions to your Alma Mater?

RIYADH, 25 December 2002 — Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal has donated half a million dollars to a Massachusetts-based scholarship fund named after former US President George Bush, the prince’s Kingdom Holding Company said yesterday.

Prince Alwaleed “donated $500,000 to the George Herbert Walker Bush Scholarship Fund, established by the Philips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts,” it said.

The establishment of the fund was announced at the 60th reunion of the 1942 class to honor Bush, who is one of its graduates, the company said, adding that US President George W. Bush had commended contributors to the scholarship fund named after his father.

No wonder they have overclassified that document from Iraq, would not want to embarass the Saudi's or anything. Or stop those contributions from going to Andover

And it's not about OIL? Riiiiight.

So while we let our guys on the ground in Afghanistan worry about making Humvee parts from parachute cords, the adminstration is already working on ways to reward its biggest supporters. Here's a story from Yahoo via Buzzflash about the Bush Adminstration's pre-parceling up of the Iraqi Oil Fields, which I believe W wants to save for the Iraqi people about as much as he wants to save old-growth forests for all of us here in the US.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States plans to secure Iraqi oilfields if it invades and is looking into the possibility of ramping up oil production beyond the U.N. oil-for-food program to pay for post-war reconstruction, Bush administration officials said on Sunday.

Business - Reuters U.S. Would Protect Iraqi Oil Fields Sun Dec 29,12:02 PM ET Add Business - Reuters to My Yahoo!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States plans to secure Iraqi oilfields if it invades and is looking into the possibility of ramping up oil production beyond the U.N. oil-for-food program to pay for post-war reconstruction, Bush administration officials said on Sunday.
<--snip-->
The Bush administration is considering whether it can, under international law, increase Iraqi oil production beyond the oil-for-food program. Proponents say the extra money that could be generated would be used to expedite reconstruction efforts in Iraq.

"It is an option that is being researched," a U.S. official said. "The question is how much further can you go legally."

The administration is carefully weighing how oil policy in a post-Saddam Iraq might affect oil prices, officials say. Its decision could have implications for the fragile global economy.

Increasing Iraqi oil production may help Western oil-consuming nations, including the United States, by lowering oil prices. But it could hurt key U.S. oil-producing allies, such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, by reducing their revenues from oil sales.
<--snip-->
Iraq sits on top of the world's second largest oil reserves, but war and a decade of sanctions has withered its oil infrastructure and official exports.

A recent report by the James Baker Institute at Rice University and the Council on Foreign Relations estimated it would take $5 billion to bring the Iraqi oil industry back to pre-1990s production levels, in addition to $3 billion in annual operating costs.

italics added for emphasis

<--snip-->

Analysts have said international oil companies like Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM), BP (BP.L), and Shell (RD.AS) (SHEL.L) would want to take part in any rehabilitation of the country's oil industry.

Yup, just see who's really behind it. They even mention some of the usual suspects, the James Baker Institute and the CFR.

Take part in "rehabiltation" my aching tukas...more like Take Profits from the Iraqi Oil Industry. Or am I just stating the painfully obvious here?

Ground Truth = Clueless REMF's* and there is no other word for it

Good, brave, resourceful American Soldiers are on the ground in Afghanistan, and here' an interesting story from the LA Times (reg req'd use: gorevidal/gorevidal to avoid spam) that should be more than a little infuriating.

An excerpt about asking for a Power Steering Pump for a Humvee:

Over the radio, they were told that their request for the pump had been denied because the Humvee could be driven without it. The men were incredulous. Trying to drive icy mountain switchbacks at high altitudes without power steering or power brakes would be suicidal.

Again, they were running up against ground truth. "They have no idea what the conditions are really like," Dan said. He paused and added: "Hell, we didn't know how difficult the conditions were till we got out here."

Finally, Dave, the captain, decided to repair the Humvee himself. Using parachute cord, he managed to connect engine fans to cool the engine and pump power steering fluid.

That's just sick. We're dropping gazillions of dollars into stoopid shit like missile defense and the REMF's in Afghanistan are denying parts to Long Range Patrols who need them? I think I'm gonna be sick.

*Rear Echelon MotherFuckers if you didn't know, a life form despised by the guys "on the line".

Looks like we're up on Daily Kos political state report, as an Ohio correspondant. Thanks Kos, I'll do my best. Heres's the Link to the new blog. I'm adding it to my blogroll too.

It's up, and it'll be "Live" soon according to the note on the front door from Kos.

Happy New Year!

If you love Tolkien/LotR, don't read this, however you might want to read it anyway...v funny and the product of a sick sick mind

This is a link to Public Nuisance blog. The link is to a Lord of the Rings character parody. I have been an LotR fan since I was about 10, and loved "Bored of the Rings" too. I could not stop laughing at some of the authors characterizations...Way over the Top!

I know a secret...and I'm not going to spend your money to tell you!

In an interesting non-use of our tax dollars, the Bushies have decided not to tell us about unemployment, after all how can Dubya's opponent in 2004 say anything if the information is neve collected and released?

What an awesome solution, just don't pay to have a government agency do it's job, in this case the Bureau of Labor Statistics who posted the latest mass layoffs report with this leeeetle caveat:

Mass Layoff Statistics Program Is Discontinued This is the final news release for the Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program. Since 1994, the Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration has funded the program. That fundingwill end on December 31, 2002. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)has been unable to acquire funding from alternative sources and must discontinue the MLS program. Limited historical data will continue to be available at http://www.bls.gov/mls/ on the BLS Web site.

I'm sure that Mitch Daniels and Cheney had a meeting and figured out how to take away the funding and play "I've got a secret" during a meeting, the minutes of which my great-great grandchildren will be able to read with a FOIA request and a Court Order.

Torture..in whose name?

An interesting article via The Smirking Chimp from the The Guardian. If torture and the infliction of pain was soooo effective, don' t you think that the US prisoners in the Hanoi Hilton and other camps would have given up everything? Are we so arrogant as to believe that Al-Qaida does not teach techniques to counter interrogation? As noted in a comment on the Chimps site, "... Nobody has any evidence that using coercive methods gives you anything that patient, smart interrogation and detective work doesn't...". How true. I thought we were supposed to better than this nonsense. I see many signs of success in the investigation of Terrorism, and I am sure that they are coming from great investigative work and international cooperation, not terror and torture.

North Korea v Iraq, remind me again...

North Korea, if it's allowed to continue on this path will be taking quite a leap back towards the Cold War. And we will be facilitating it. The administration after ignoring the entire world to pass tax-cuts, has sadly opted not to see the threat posed by the North K's/current regime in power for the last 50+ years. They are tough, determined and completely committed to staying in power with assistance of their other "communist brothers" i.e. the Chinese and any one else willing to "trade" with them and provide hard currency.

I would hate to see the Korean War II because we are so focused on Iraq we miss a vital cue or clue about dealing with Pyongyang.

Check out UggaBugga. What hoot and so true. It's the freeper circular logic diagram!

Well if you don't like their thinking just rip down their signs and it just changes reality, right? No, but I guess in some distorted reality it makes the wingnuts feel better. Free Speech, Dissent , a different point of view. I though that's what our country is about. I guess not in Duluth. But then Minnesota sent Coleman, an empty suit with a perm second only to Dubya, to congress. How sad.

my post below,
...And another promise yet to be kept? is acting very strangely in any non-IE browsers. I do not know if it's blogger, or something else, I tested all the code in the post in BBEdit's preview in all the browsers I have loaded, IE; Netscape 6 & 7 and Opera. I looked fine in the previews but got whacked out "live". Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

A very belated Happy Holiday to everyone. I hope you had a joyous and peaceful day with friends and family and spent a few minutes thinking of the men and women at the tip of the spear. They deserve all our attention and thoughts these days.

...And another promise yet to be kept?

On the campaign trail, Bush and Cheney spent quite a bit of time decrying the "sad" state of our military.

"We are going to restore morale in the U.S. military," Bush told the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Milwaukee on Monday at the start of a two-day campaign swing through Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. "America's soldiers must have confidence that if asked to serve and sacrifice, the cause will be worthy and our support for them total."

The proposals Bush was releasing Monday include: (from the article on the 2000 campaign; representative rhetoric, I believe) * Increasing military pay by $1 billion -- or about $750 per active-duty service member -- over the $75.8 billion increase President Clinton signed into law this month. Bush also promises to boost targeted re-enlistment bonuses and the pay of specialists such as pilots, computer programmers and engineers. * Create a "Veterans Health Care Task Force," composed of officials from the Department of Veterans Affairs, veterans service organizations and VA health care providers, to help implement the Veterans Millennium Health Care Act.

¹Paygrade
²Time in Service
³Family Separation Allowance - has not changed in >20 years
⁴Special Duty Incentive Pay, i.e. enlisted flight pay, etc. Does not cover sub pay - sep. category
⁵Basic Allowance for Subsistence
⁶Basic Allowance for Quarters

Looking at these numbers and running the tax (15% of gross income, in this case basepay+all special pays) and then the raise/decrease in raise numbers it looks like our young man/woman is not going to do so well based on the promised increase and "being taken care of" by the administration. If you are curious what these folks do to earn this money, here's a sort of (depending on flight ops etc..) typical day in the life a "roof rat" (a person who works on the flight deck, for which they are paid an extra $150 taxable dollars per month:

0600 reville
0700-0800 morning chow
0830- 0900 quarters
0900-0930 FOD walkdown on the flight deck looking for anything that might ruin an engine - all hands evolution no one exempt
0930-1000 man up
1000-1030 first launch
1030-1230 work in shop spaces, do maintenance, paperwork, grab chow
1230-1300 first recovery
1300-1330 second launch
1330-1530 back to work on equipment (called PMS or Preventative Maintenance System), work on cleaning spaces/ship PMS
1530-1600 second recovery
1630-1700 third launch
1730-1930 back to work, grab chow again, turn over some work to oncoming shift (if there is one)
1930-2000 third recovery
2000-2030 fourth launch (if there is one on the Air Plan for night ops/currency for the aircrews)
2030-2230 back to work, late chow
2230-2300 last recovery of the day.

Friends of mine still on Active Duty or recently retired, whom I "grew up" with in the service had sadly been convinced that Clinton's Penis was an instrument of both National Policy and Eternal Shame (I wonder how they feel about the Patriot Act). But with the not-so-subtle lead-in of "dishonor and loss of dignity" Bush & Co sold a pig in a poke about restoring the military. I was unaware that it needed restoration, so were many other people. After all, with the fall of the Wall, BRAC/downsizing started under Bush 1, Clinton was merely a "steward" of that process, but still was blamed by innuendo and slander as being "soft on defense" for a process started before he was even the Democratic candidate.

My math may be not be right, and I'm not an accountant but...
Something is surely out of whack here!!! A $30 per month raise? YGBSM to use an old military acronym.

Bush will forget about Vets and those who are still serving

In an artlicle in the Boston Globe the President insulted a man whose service was literally above and beyond the call of duty; in fact he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his service during Vietnam. The man? Retired Air Force Colonel George "Bud" Day, an ex-POW who simply asked Bush one question: why are the benefits we thought we were getting after doing our part mysteriously disappearing?

''I said to him, `Mr. President, I'm Colonel Bud Day. You know your campaign [promise], a promise made is a promise kept, is being broken.' His eyes just glazed over,'' Day said. ''He really had no idea what I was talking about.''

But it gets better....

...Day said he explained the circumstances of the case. Lawyers from the current Justice Department have defended the '95 decision in court (to not pay support/health care for retirees), so Day was hoping Bush would withdraw support for the case. Instead, Day said the president told him, ''`Colonel, you really need to talk to [Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony] Principi

I can not believe that anyone in the service voted for this guy

"Day said Bush is violating his oft-repeated campaign pledge to veterans: ''A promise made is a promise kept.

He served, honorably.

...and yet another Chickenhawk shoots off his mouth. Pat Buchanan, brave and noble soul that he is accused Daniel Ellsberg of helping the US lose the war in Vietnam. Chickenhawk First Class Buchanan (whose unblemished military record because he doesn't have one) stands as a monument to all who have served, serve today and will serve into the future tried his best to make Ellsberg feel guilty about his role in releasing the Pentagon Papers. When Ellsberg rightly brought up Pat's avoidance of the draft, poor Pat got mad. Ooooh, we're sorry you're a Chickenhawk Pat, but when it comes to the military please stay in the same place you elected to remain when you had the chance to serve; quietly on the sidelines with your lips firmly sealed.

Howard Kurtz Just Doesn't Get It
Didja see Reliable Sources today? They had Gwen Ifill of NPR, Tucker Carlson of Crossfire and some guy from the WSJ on to talk about the media's role in bringing down Trent Lott. Gwen and Tucker both claimed that they "went with the story" on the night it happened. No one mentioned (at least that I heard) Atrios, TPM or the shitstorm that occured out here on the internet as a major factor in making the allegedly mainstream media cover the story. I'll link to the trascript when it's up.

Horse please come back!!

An interesting note, the Elcomsoft trial may be (I hope) the beginning of the end for the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). The jury acquitted the accused, and since it was a criminal proceeding Adobe is stuck with the verdict. It would be wonderful to see the whole DMCA go down this way, in a series of court cases since it would be much more difficult to pass this horrible law as a re-write after more people (like the jurors) are aware of it.

"Jury foreman Dennis Strader said the jurors agreed ElcomSoft's product was illegal but acquitted the company because they believed the company didn't mean to violate the law."

I think that a lot of other litigation will go the same way. It's a real shame that this even has to occur...talk about money in politics; what an example of the best law(makers) money can buy.

I saw that recently Hillary Rosen of RIAA was with a group of students and asked how many of them bought music because they could download it. When a majority of them raised their hands in the affirmative, she was left speechless. And that's as it should be.

Let me see, if Bill Clinton lies about a blowjob, it's almost a constitutional crisis. If any Republican lies about anything, including racist comments, their feelings on integration/segregation, the Civil Rights Act, their past voting/judicial records or animal cruelty it's OK since they are Republicans. Well maybe not 100% OK, since now Trent Lott is a mere Senator.

He still gets paid

he still gets to hang out it DC, (although I doubt he's an A-list kinda guy now)

and he can still try and add a little pork to the budget on behalf of Mississippians

So there we have it sex is evil, racisim and animal cruelty are OK, especially if you are a borrow-and-spend, don't pay the bills and hate your neighbor Republican.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Given all the stoopid INS round-ups going on, it's no wonder that the basest instincts in the biggest fools are appealed to. Apparently some brave soul out in the Bay Area just can't get over the predilections of a two-year old and continues to write anti-arab graffiti on a mural and in other places.

Gee, one of the higher-order life forms on the West Coast has discovered spray paint. Hopefully when they get bored, they'll try using it to get high and spare us all their wit, wisdom and art.

TBogg does Parody? Or is it time to get really, really worried? These days it's not so hard to believe that an official of this adminstration would make such a statement, given their general {lack of} concern for Civil Rights and individual liberties.

Grrr...now Blogger has lost my archives. Republishing has not helped and the template it OK. Any ideas?

Grrrrrr....

[12/19/2002 9:48:32 AM | Jo Fish]
While looking up some other information on our good ol' buddy Trent Lott, I was googling around some of the more "moderate" hmmm...Confederate sites on the internet. Other that the fact that they all still still seem to want to be free and independant of the United States of America, they can just not seem to understand that the war really did end over 100 years ago. But I digress. Some of the most interesting accounts I have read of the Conservative Movement seem to peg its origins with William F. Buckley over 50 years ago. I think that Buckley might have had a little guidance in his thinking. Here's a quote and a link to a very interesting document. What jumped out at me is the discussion of Taxes.

"Our ancestors not only taxed themselves, but all the taxes collected from them were expended among them. Had they submitted to the pretensions of the British Government, the taxes collected from them would have been expended on other parts of the British Empire. They were fully aware of the effect of such a policy in impoverishing the people from whom taxes are collected, and in enriching those who receive the benefit of their expenditure. To prevent the evils of such a policy was one of the motives which drove them on to revolution. Yet this British policy has been fully realized toward the Southern States by the Northern States. The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected three-fourths of them are expended at the North."

Well isn't that interesting. There is much more here, in fact the whole "The Address of the people of South Carolina, assembled in Convention, to the people of the Slaveholding States of the United States".
I see so much of the language and rhetorical construction used by everyone on the right from Grover Norquist on down the right wing-neocon food chain that it's frightening (it's almost as if the never really had an original thought). Was this little gem somewhere in Tricky Dicks brain somewhere when he began his "southern strategy"? The whole thing seems to argue for "states rights", "local control", "lower taxes" all the right wing "virtues" espoused by everyone from Dubya on down in his administration. If the "Mayberry Machiavelli's" are using this document or something like it as a touchstone for Public Policy, it's no wonder that John D'Iulio saw no signs of intelligent public policy life at the White House. Hell, just follow an obscure document more than 100 years old written by an old dead white guy, that still resonates with your political base today and you have a winner.

While looking up some other information on our good ol' buddy Trent Lott, I was googling around some of the more "moderate" hmmm...Confederate sites on the internet. Other that the fact that they all still still seem to want to be free and independant of the United States of America, they can just not seem to understand that the war really did end over 100 years ago. But I digress.

Some of the most interesting accounts I have read of the Conservative Movement seem to peg its origins with William F. Buckley over 50 years ago. I think that Buckley might have had a little guidance in his thinking. Here's a quote and a link to a very interesting document. What jumped out at me is the discussion of Taxes.

"Our ancestors not only taxed themselves, but all the taxes collected from them were expended among them. Had they submitted to the pretensions of the British Government, the taxes collected from them would have been expended on other parts of the British Empire. They were fully aware of the effect of such a policy in impoverishing the people from whom taxes are collected, and in enriching those who receive the benefit of their expenditure. To prevent the evils of such a policy was one of the motives which drove them on to revolution. Yet this British policy has been fully realized toward the Southern States by the Northern States. The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected three-fourths of them are expended at the North."

Well isn't that interesting. There is much more here, in fact the whole "The Address of the people of South Carolina, assembled in Convention, to the people of the Slaveholding States of the United States". I see so much of the language and rhetorical construction used by everyone on the right from Grover Norquist on down the right wing-neocon food chain that it's frightening (it's almost as if the never really had an original thought). Was this little gem somewhere in Tricky Dicks brain somewhere when he began his "southern strategy"? The whole thing seems to argue for "states rights", "local control", "lower taxes" all the right wing "virtues" espoused by everyone from Dubya on down in his administration. If the "Mayberry Machiavelli's" are using this document or something like it as a touchstone for Public Policy, it's no wonder that John D'Iulio saw no signs of intelligent public policy life at the White House. Hell, just follow an obscure document more than 100 years old written by an old dead white guy, that still resonates with your political base today and you have a winner.

Testing 1..2..4
Mark Kleiman has a really good piece on the "No Child Left Behind" thing. It seems that amazingly enough, there might be some incentive for cheating on the tests on behalf of schools and it's not considered when incentivizing the schools for performanc. Wow. Who would have imagined that Congress and the President could ever be so careless. Here's an excerpt from Marks article:

The problem is measurement error, both random and non-random. [This is separate from the problem of systematic cheating due to Dukenfield's Law of Incentive Management.] The measurement error is large compared to the actual variability among schools; as a result, incentive programs that reward, e.g., "most improved" schools wind up, as Tom said, "Mostly paying for the noise rather than the signal." In addition, since the sampling error goes down as sample size rises, small schools are much more likely to be rewarded and much more likely to be punished than larger schools; the principal of a big school has so little chance of getting a prize as to largely eliminate any incentive effect. When the prize depends on doing well for every identified ethnic group, it's heterogeneous schools that suffer.

Gee, color me shocked. When our kid was in public school in VA, they basically taught nothing but what was going to be on the SOL's (Standards of Learning) tests. Learning and education were optional/not really required, test passage was. I can see that as the pressure on administrators to get results intensifies, so will institutional cheating, after all they're only human and need to put food on their families too.

[12/19/2002 9:48:32 AM | Jo Fish]
While looking up some other information on our good ol' buddy Trent Lott, I was googling around some of the more "moderate" hmmm...Confederate sites on the internet. Other that the fact that they all still still seem to want to be free and independant of the United States of America, they can just not seem to understand that the war really did end over 100 years ago. But I digress. Some of the most interesting accounts I have read of the Conservative Movement seem to peg its origins with William F. Buckley over 50 years ago. I think that Buckley might have had a little guidance in his thinking. Here's a quote and a link to a very interesting document. What jumped out at me is the discussion of Taxes.

"Our ancestors not only taxed themselves, but all the taxes collected from them were expended among them. Had they submitted to the pretensions of the British Government, the taxes collected from them would have been expended on other parts of the British Empire. They were fully aware of the effect of such a policy in impoverishing the people from whom taxes are collected, and in enriching those who receive the benefit of their expenditure. To prevent the evils of such a policy was one of the motives which drove them on to revolution. Yet this British policy has been fully realized toward the Southern States by the Northern States. The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected three-fourths of them are expended at the North."

Well isn't that interesting. There is much more here, in fact the whole "The Address of the people of South Carolina, assembled in Convention, to the people of the Slaveholding States of the United States". I see so much of the language and rhetorical construction used by everyone on the right from Grover Norquist on down the right-wing-neocon food chain that it's frightening (it's almost as if the never really had an original thought). Was this little gem in Tricky Dicks brain somewhere when he began his "southern strategy"? The whole thing seems to argue for "states rights", "local control", "lower taxes" all the right wing "virtues" espoused by everyone from Dubya on down in his administration. If the "Mayberry Machiavelli's" are using this document or something like it as a touchstone for Public Policy, it's no wonder that John D'Iulio saw no signs of intelligent public policy life at the White House. Hell, just follow an obscure document more than 100 years old written by an old dead white guy, that still resonates with your political base today and you have a winner.

Apparently Trent "I never knew Martin Luther King was an important figure" Lott wants to stay on as Majority Leader. Please Trent, do stay, we need to make sure that everyone knows what the face of the Republican Party really is. Besides, moving is such a drag...stay in DC.

Merry Christmas to all Defense Contractors
In a move surprising to no one, the Bush White House today ordered up the Missile Defense Shield. Despite the fact that it only succeeds in either rigged tests, or by pure luck, we as taxpayers, are about to fund a really really really stupid program. I would rather see the money going to folks in our society who actually need it, to the junior enlisted personnel in the military who actually need it (yes, they do live on Food Stamps and serve our country...shame on us).

Even the program's staunchest supporters acknowledged today that the Pentagon would be fielding a research-and-development program that had many kinks to work out.

For example, the radar for the system has not yet been built and the booster rockets that lift the interceptors into space are unreliable. Pentagon officials said today that they would upgrade existing radars for now and try to work out problems with the booster rockets by next fall.

So once again, we get to toss good money after bad. When Clinton killed this thing in the 90's I truly believe that he was not being "weak" on a National Security issue, he just was fiscally responsible enough to see that there were other places to spend tax money. Our school system in this country could sure use an infusion of capital from our "Education President" that would make a hell of a lot more sense than building a "missile defense" system to defend against a non-existant enemy.

Oh, and help me out here. Why do we need a Missile Defense System and this so-called Doctrine of Preemption? Why should we need a defense against a foreign government whose ass we have/will kick anyway, just because we think they are a threat for some reason (not shared with us, the public)?

So the news is starting to leak out about companies that supported or might still support Saddam by selling him stuff that is "proscribed". No wonder none of the members of the Security Council or Bush Administration want thjs out in public. Can you say "Embarrassing"? or may be even Criminal? I guess that the Mayberry Machiavellis forgot the first rule of beltway scandal...it's not the fact's that'll gitcha, it's the COVER-UP!

Waiting to exhale...not really.

Blogger is giving us fits again...grrrr.

Saw the The Two Towers last night at one of those midnight show things. Really good...but they need to quit messing with Tolkiens story. They were much better in Fellowship at not messing with the actual story. Just because you are a screenwriter and/or director and are working on a story like LoTR, does not mean that you get to add new material, make a major change in a characters behaviour, or screw with the ending because you ran out of "time". Which would not have happened if you all had not been making shit up and putting it in your movie...you are not Tolkien, you are film makers. Get over it.

And on a last note for the day...Please, let's not have a Joe Lieberman candidacy. I'm truly sorry that Al Gore is dropping out of the race in '04, and I doubt that he will run again. But this Lieberman thing is way over the top. Not only does he not stand a snowballs chance in hell of getting anywhere, he is really a Republican in Democrats clothing. If he were not going to make a "principaled" attempt (isn't that what policticians call it? Principaled?) to "explore" a candidacy, then I would guess he might switch parties if properly incentivized, before even the likes of Zell Miller or John Breaux. Old Joe is quite the opportunist and I think he would go. Just a hunch.

Bush and Rove might just alienate the Lucky Duckies after all
In a stunning show of sensitivity to their good ol' corporate donors the Bush White House wants to slam the lower to middle income taxpayers again. Todays Post has an interesting article about the new "tax plan" being telegraphed by the Council of Economic Advisors.

"The increasing reliance on taxing higher-income households and targeted social preferences at lower incomes stands in the way of moving to a simpler, flatter tax system," R. Glenn Hubbard, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, warned at a tax forum at the American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday.

Otherwise to be known as the "Lucky Ducky" tax plan, I'm sure that it initially will be sold by Dubya as pro-family, pro-Jesus tax plan (poverty, chastity etc...) plan to the working poor in this country. In the run-up to the next election, the Bushies will blame any adverse economic fall-out from the plan on the evil Congressional Democrats and of course, Satan (or Osama bin Laden).

The buzz is that Trent Lott may resign tomorrow...wow! Will the Senate split again? Chaffee! Chaffee! Chaffee! Think Linc!

I knew it would happen! I knew it would happen! I knew it would happen!
The WaPo carries this piece. Here's the "money line" of the article:

"The officials said Bush and his aides believe Democrats are hypocritically exploiting the issue out of partisan opportunism, and that the absence of news from the war on terrorism last week contributed to the focus on Lott. The officials said Bush would oppose any effort by Democrats to undermine Lott.

Pardon Me? How does pointing out a bigot and bigotry distract the War on Terror? Which seems to be the thrust of this unnamed White House official's statement. Or is it that with the success of the Ralph Reed strategery (i.e. if you're a not cree-dentialed-rock-solid Jesus-lovin-Chickenhawk-National-Security-Believing All-American Whizz-Bang, then you must be some-kinda-A-Rab-lovin'-freak) in the mid-terms that has emboldend the White House to say such things with no fear of looking stupider than usual? . And maybe up until now it's been effective, but so many people are offended by the (I hope) soon-to-be-former Senator from Mississippi, that perhaps they'll take this White House statement/smokescreen for what it is: White House Bullshit.

I think that if you are a Republican in this day and age, if you can't win on the issues, then win on noise and demagoguery. -sigh-

Lotsa Lott..Nickles dumps on him
Looks like Oklahoma senator Don Nickles the #2 Freeper in the senate has started to circle like a shark smelling blood in the water, from an AP story out of the bay area here's the inimitable Don Nickles:

Leading Senate Republican calls for new elections for Lott's leadership job as majority leader

WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer Sunday, December 15, 2002
(12-15) 06:39 PST WASHINGTON (AP)

The Senate's No. 2 Republican leader called Sunday for a new election for the majority leader's job that Sen. Trent Lott is set to hold in the new Congress.

Sen. Don Nickles, Lott's deputy for six years as the GOP whip, urged other Republican senators to consider picking a new leader because of the controversy about Lott's comments at a birthday party for South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond.

Nickles, who had kept silent on Lott's remarks that conveyed nostalgia for the policies of racial segregation, said he accepts Lott's multiple apologies over the last week.

"I am concerned that Senator Lott has been weakened to the point that may jeopardize his ability to enact our agenda and speak to all Americans," Nickles told ABC's "This Week." "There are several outstanding senators who are more than capable of effective leadership, and I hope we have an opportunity to choose."

He added: "Can he be effective? Can he campaign in places like Chicago? I don't want to squander our ability to get things done. We only have a short window this year."

I really think if Lott is not reelected as Majority Leader, he'll leave the senate and it's going to get very interesting quickly. I wonder if there's a line in Vegas on Chaffee leaving the Republicans to join Jeffords?

Today's Post has an editorial about the GAO v. Cheney suit. I suspect that they are being more than a bit naive when they ask Cheney to go ahead and release the information that was the subject of the litigation (the energy task force stuff). Have to wonder if maybe the Saudi's show up there somewhere? Hmmm....
Well, if we never get to see it until long after I'm dust the Post can take comfort that their own Ceci Connelly certainly helped put the arrogany B.F.E.E in the White House. I wonder how grateful the WH actually is?

Mark Kleiman makes an excellent point about Trent Lott's future. If he were to be "dissed" by members of his own party and not re-elected to his position as Majority Leader, then he he might well "retire" leaving open the chance for the appointment of a Democratic replacement, since the Gov of MS is a Dem. Toss in a shot of Lincoln Chaffee bolting to join Jim Jeffords (a more likely scenario than McCain leaving) and it could be a horse race...quickly. Damage control in the WH would be pretty amusing to watch too. I'm sure that Lott had no expectations that Dubya would put on such an aggrieved face in public, no matter what he really thinks (I'm pretty sure he agrees with all of Lott's real sentiments).

An interesting post on Josh Marshall's blog, TPM with Trent Lott on the phone with Larry King (a transcript). Lott has to be reminded by King who Truman beat in that election, something any kid who actually studied history would remember..."Dewey Defeats Truman" - hm? Lott is obviously clinically brain-dead and has been for years. Must've been the inhalants (hairspray).

Here's the interview:

Well, Trent Lott does a call in to Larry King tonight. And it's already been taped. And TPM's got the transcript. And well, let's just go to the tape.

The first run through about Lott's opinions about Strom Thurmond's 1948 candidacy?

Having said that, you know, I see -- I was 7 years old when, you know, Strom first ran for president. I don't really remember anything about the campaign.
And would Thurmond have been a better president than Harry Truman?
KING: But you don't think he'd of been a better president, say, than Harry Truman who defeated him that year?
LOTT: You know, I'd have to go back and look at the election of that year. Harry Truman obviously did a lot of great things for our country, and, you know, I was trying to remember who the Republican nominee was...

KING: Dewey. Tom Dewey.

LOTT: Yes, it was Dewey. I don't -- you know, I couldn't tell you one thing about what Dewey's policies were at the time. I remember the headline, you know, that Dewey wins.

KING: Yes, Dewey defeats...

LOTT: Yes, Harry Truman won. But, you know, one of the things that people don't even, you know, remember is that his running mate was a guy named Fielding Wright from my state.

Are we in meltdown mode now?

-- Josh Marshall
Thanks to TPM and Atrios for the referral.

Well the Kissinger commission lasted just this long...oh, it's over? George Mitchell quit. Now ain't that a shocker. I don't think I would want to sit on a commission with a known felon an internationally wanted man if I had a law license either.
Or even a conscience.

Haloscan dumped my comments when I republished..anyone have a clue?
Comments are back on, YAY!

Sounds as though Senator Tom from South Dakota is taking after Sen Lott...apparently ol' Trent said the same thing about Strom 22 years ago. And they still rubber-stamped his (Thurmonds) Judge appointment. I'm guessing that they had followed some a bloggers advice and just shown him the door with a plane ticket back to South Carolina Trent might have been spared a session of hoof-n-mouth. But I could be wrong

update pt II
It's gone. It was so bad, I just could not leave it up here any longer. Jen's comments will pass into the archives sans the "poem".
update
This "poem" seems to be making the rounds on the internet. How sad. If you get it, delete it. Don't forward it. I am only leaving this post up until midnight 12/11. If you haven't read it..it's gone. Sorry. It's pretty offensive, and I really do not want it on my site except as an educational piece.

I don't usually post stuff from emails, but I got this from a friend last night. She and I used to work together in what could best be called a "government-contractor" sweatshop at the end of the Bush 1 recession. Both of us had MBA's and both of us were working for way less than we should have been, but hey, we had to "put food on our families", ya know? Anyhow, after going out and perusing the Freeper site last night on a linkage from Atrios to another site to the Freepers on El Rushbo, I figured that this was a good antidote to all their BS. - Freeperville - what a horrible place, they even turn on thier own like sharks for not following the "Party Orthodoxy".

Anyhow...

Hi All,

I don't typically comment on internet mailings as I am all for people having their own opinions. But receiving this one on a mass distribution truly makes me very sad (especially knowing that the group being distributed to is a [supposedly] very educated and arguably "privileged" group in our society). This email is, for one, totally and completely racist. Moreover, if any of you think that one person gets rich (or even remotely comfortable) off of welfare then you are sadly misinformed. If you think Medicaid provides good healthcare then you are sadly misinformed. If you don't realize that there are a lot more white people on welfare than any other color people then you are sadly misinformed. While illegal immigration may be a problem that needs to be tackled, all of you (especially the women) should be thankful you live in a country that is so desirable and free, where there is the potential for economic success even for women and you should understand why other people would want to come here. How would you like to have been so unfortunate as to be born in say, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Haiti, or many other places, never having running water, electricity, enough food or the opportunity to go to school? In that case you would try to come to the U.S. also. Let's at least try to consider the other side when forming our viewpoints.

Jen

Thanks to Skippy the Bush Kangaroo for the howdy! Visit Skippy today!!

A link for the Senator from Mississippi
From a link back to Amygdala's site, maybe Trent Lott should go take the one or more of the tests here. I think I know the answer already.

Diulio Speaks, With Ari's hand up his ass
I think that the byline here ought to be "The White House, Washington DC". In fact, it probably is. Sad that Tipsy McStagger can't have the mirror held up too close, he really must not like what he sees.

Be Afraid
This is off the "official" DARPA site for the Poindexter Project. Check out the last item...mind reading anyone? Do we all get tested for our empathic skills to become the thought police? I'm not really laughing here anymore. On the day this list goes "dark", I think that a cottage in New Zealand might be a good investment. Forever.

IAO Vision: The most serious asymmetric threat facing the United States is terrorism, a threat characterized by collections of people loosely organized in shadowy networks that are difficult to identify and define. IAO plans to develop technology that will allow understanding of the intent of these networks, their plans, and potentially define opportunities for disrupting or eliminating the threats. To effectively and efficiently carry this out, we must promote sharing, collaborating and reasoning to convert nebulous data to knowledge and actionable options. IAO will accomplish this by pursuing the development of technologies, components, and applications to produce a proto-type system. Example technologies include:

Collaboration and sharing over TCP/IP networks across agency boundaries Large, distributed repositories with dynamic schemas that can be changed interactively by users Foreign language machine translation and speech recognition Biometric signatures of humans Real time learning, pattern matching and anomalous pattern detection Entity extraction from natural language text Human network analysis and behavior model building engines Event prediction and capability development model building engines Structured argumentation and evidential reasoning Story telling, change detection, and truth maintenance Business rules sub-systems for access control and process management Biologically inspired algorithms for agent control Other aids for human cognition and human reasoning

Q: When is Felon still a Felon? Mark Kleiman has the answer here in perfectly lawyerly fashion...guess that's a good reason to be an Attorney? At least you can make a persuasive argument!
Answer: When it's Elliott Abrams or any of the other Iran-Contra criminals...you know the ones now running things again; Poindexter & Co. I'm just surprised that Ollie North has not been given a gig in this administration yet. I guess that they are waiting for a position as a fatuous bullshit artist to open up ... oh sorry Ari has that job at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, and Torie Clarke has it at the Pentagon.

update
Mark tells me that he is not an Attorney. That's OK, he's a really smart guy (just go check out his blog) you'll enjoy it!

Ahhh, Trent we hardly knew ya...and I really don't want to either
It seems that there is a bit of tempest around ol' Trent for after he bid that paragon of Tolerance and Virtue Strom Thurmond "Hail and Farewell" at his 100th birthday bash. The blogosphere is having a field day with it... not surprisingly, the "mainstream, liberal" (remember them?) are keeping it pretty quiet, on orders of Gen Rove and his PAO Ari. However, even the righty bloggers are upset about Lott's remarks at the 100th party. This quote is from Jeff Cooper and he makes that point too...not much in the "real" press.

Curiously, though, the story has been largely absent from the mainstream media (Atrios has noted, for example, the continued silence of the New York Times), and while the audience that heard Lott's remarks reportedly "gasped," so far there has been no comment from other Republican senators. This is important. In a few weeks, the Senate will reorganize under a Republican majority, and at present Lott is slated to resume his position as majority leader. If his comments are allowed to pass unremarked, and Lott is re-elected to his leadership post, it will go a long way toward rebutting the suggestion of some Republicans that the racist "paleo-conservatives" have been banished from the mainstream of the party.

I'm just curious, how long til Paul O'neil and Larry Lindsey are talking to Esquire? I'll bet they give interview before Osama is in U.S. Custody. And I'll bet that the more that Ari & Co trash them, the sooner one of them starts dropping more D'Iulio-like dirt...tick-tock....

Landrieu brings it home, Bush heads home...the beginnings for '04?

In a victory over the weekend, two democrats in Louisiana won their races, by far the most watched was the Landrieu-Terrill race where whoremaster Rove tried to position another Bush Droid to fill a seat in the Senate. The good folks in Louisiana saw fit to send a good (a little conservative for me...but hey, that's what it's all about. Diversity of opinion, right?) woman back to the Senate for six more years. To Suzy "Creemcheese" Terrell...na na na, hey hey GOODBYE!

Now the backpedaling starts...here's a nice quote from SFgate.com

Alex Castellanos, a Republican consultant who helped Terrell's campaign, attributed the loss to quirks of the state. "Just in case politics is not unusual enough, God invented Louisiana," he said. The race was not about Bush, he said. "We had an election that was about the president on Nov. 5 and he won. This wasn't about that. Mary got out her vote in a very Democratic state."

So Mr. Kissinger, have you seen this too?
Frank Rich writing about the impending Gulf War asks some excellent questions in todays NYT editorial page. If Kissinger can not or will not answer the questions about his "client list" then why in the hell should he be allowed to chair a commission like this, unless it's a rigged deal going in (which, sad to say, I think is correct). Here's the money paragraph as far as I am concerned. The emphasis is mine:

Might these lists overlap? Might some of the names be dear American business cronies of the Saudis? Do any of them have a vested interest in post-Saddam Iraq? It's stonewalled questions like these that make some of us nervous about the expanded war to come. We know Saddam Hussein is a thug and we want him gone. But the administration has never stuck to a single story in arguing the case for urgent pre-emptive action now. Saddam was in league with Al Qaeda — or maybe he wasn't. He has nuclear weapons — or maybe he won't have them until some years from now. Our goal is regime change — or disarmament — or both. Our post-Saddam endgame is — what? Something is missing from this picture, and meanwhile Al Qaeda is very much at war with us and, in a new development, the Israelis. You wonder if the Bush administration thinks we're as gullible as the Saudis do.

Ooooh, Rush takes it in the same location as his pilonidal cyst
Joe Conasons Journal has a pretty good account of the Hot Air Hindenburg and his attempt to cover up his 4-F status he used to dodge the draft. Good Reading.

Also Crossfire tonight had Charlie Rangel floating the idea of a draft, interesting. Tucker Carlson almost went apoplectic...I actually thought he was going to choke.

RANGEL: And the other thing I would say is that we've got to have shared sacrifice. If the president is so dedicated to having a preemptive strike against Iraq, it should be shared and we should make certain that we have a draft and everyone is going to participate.

CARLSON: Oh, wait a second. I'm sorry, I asked you for three discrete ideas. You said they need better PR, we need some sort of stimulus and we need a draft. I mean -- what are the economic ideas over the next five years?

RANGEL: Well, the economic ideas are going to be that we're all going to share in this and that it's not just going to be giving tax cuts to the rich and expecting the poor to go off and fight the wars and not to have anything in terms of knowing that Social Security, Medicare, prescription drugs, not one of these things have been done.

You go Charlie!

Sorry about the links, not all are working. There seems to be some problem with the blogger templates and how they are saving HREF and SRC linkages. Been reported to blogger central. Hope they can fix it...anyone else having similar problems?

The Number is 800,000 Mrs. Bush
In a sickening display of Bush Compassionate Conservatism and Temporal Tone-deafness this spewed from the lips of Laura Bush:

"I wish for peace," said Mrs. Bush when asked for her wish for the season. "I hope that all Americans will remember other people during this Christmas, ask senior citizens in, visit with people who are lonely, that they'll work in their food banks, that they make sure that they use their good fortune to help others who are less fortunate."

O'Neil and Lindsey GONE
From MSNBC "Firing its economic team is an overdue admission by the Bush administration that its economic policies have failed", Daschle said in a written statement. "However, the fundamental problem is that this administration has no comprehensive plan to get the economy back on track."

Gee, with unemployment up to it's highest point in over eight years, do you think maybe more heads will roll? This is a great sign for Dem's who should be
piling on with Daschle. C'mon, a tax cut and increased spending? Oye Vay!

If the Republicans can call us "Tax and Spend" Liberals, can we call them the "Credit Card Conservatives"? Motto: Mortgaging Tomorrow to Pay for Today. Fits doesn't it?

Well, you can't say that the "mainstream" press isn't getting a reward for being a bunch of good little toadies to the B.F.E.E (Sorry Bart...had to borrow that too). According the Mistress of Spin at the five-sided monument to Mr. Murphy on the Potomac, Torie Clark alleged Journalists will be deployed to front-line units in Iraq...wait a minute, we're going to Iraq? Oh sorry, I was sleeping.

Anyhow, it looks like the Pentagon's folks in charge of being in charge, have either put together a crack team of totally friendly journalists, or they are going to monitor the living shit out of anyone with press credentials in-country. Forget about another Ernie Pyle, or some of the still-living legends of print journalism from Vietnam, or even some of the non-whore broadcast journalists of SE Asia, who actually reported on what they saw, good/bad/indifferent. I suspect it will be more like the depiction of the press train on M*A*S*H, than the press guys with the grunts. File the "wrong" story, be sent home or worse an all-expense paid trip to John Ashcrofts Permanent Summer Vacation Club and Gulag (Club Gitmo?)

Just wondering...Gitmo is a not even a nice place to visit, much less be living there. Trust me.

Update:
Just saw this quote from the article: "....It is a far better thing for a bona fide, credible source of information -- the news media" said Ms. Clarke. Independant Media and Professional Journalists my aching backside. MWO where are you?

I was looking for this information and found it here in David Broder's column from December 3rd in the WaPo. The emphasis is mine, not Broders.

Broder writes: "As my friend, columnist Mark Shields, pointed out recently, when Congress authorized the use of force in Iraq, not a single member of the House and only one senator had a son or daughter serving in the enlisted ranks of the armed services. And only three House members have children who are officers."

If that's not a statistic that will make your hair stand up on end, I don't know a another one that will. It's OK to send everyone else's kids, but not theirs. Barb and Jenna, Liquor is cheap on-base! Hurry on down, I'm sure you can acquit yourselves more honorably than Dear Old Dad...or not. Seems that grampaw might have been the last person to serve in your family with Honor.

Here's an exceptionally well-balanced piece from the Howler on Gore and the Internet. I wish that there were more like this and that an analysis of this caliber could get published in the mainstream press, instead of the drivel that shoots from the mouth & pen of Howie Kurtz or from Tweety the Loud and Obnoxious...

I remember the work of some of the early internet pioneers and the statements that were being made by Gore, Gingrich and others about the viability of the internet as a method of information "tool". It's fascinating to think Gore's words were used against him by folks who can likely not use their own computer if it does not come preloaded with WinWhatever and IEx on it.

Support some excellence in blogging...click on Scoobie's link to the left and drop a dollar or two in his jar...I'm sure he'll appreciate it, and he does great work and will be able to continue.

So let's review this once again. In light of the recent Mayberry Machiavelli controversy stemming from the Esquire article, it's a bit enlightening to look to the past for other Oval Office misdeeds. With the advent of Tipsy McStagger and the Reign of Secrecy that is in vogue in the current White House, it's instructive to fire up the Way-Back machine and listen in...

I found this at Daniel Ellsbergs website. I have excerpted bits and pieces which are sort of interesting, if you want to read the whole thing, hit the link and enjoy yourself.

This little snippet is pretty much prescient:

October 8, 1971: Nixon, Ehrlichman, and Richard Helms, 10:58 A.M-12:12 P.M., Oval Office


Conversation #587-7; cassette #1251
Ehrlichman: Now, Helms pressed me very hard for some kind of guarantee that the CIA would always have a veto on declassification. I don't think any president can be in the position of delegating that decision to the director of the CIA. Otherwise, the CIA becomes a sort of self-perpetuating power in the government and nobody can ever get at anything it ever did in ancient history.

Even then, there was Ehrlichman (Alberto Gonzalez forebear?) worried about controlling the CIA, except now the last part of the last sentence has, I think come to pass.

Then there was Nixon's obsession with the Jews, and Kissinger (crime pays!)

July 5, 1971: Nixon, Haldeman, and Ziegler, 4:03 P.M., Oval Office

Conversation #537-4; cassette #876 Nixon: Jewish families are close, but there's this strange malignancy that seems to creep among them - radicalism. I can imagine how the fact that Ellsberg is in this must really tear a fella like Henry to pieces - or Garment. Just like the Rosenbergs and all that. It just has to kill them. I feel horrible about it. Ziegler: Could make up an English name. Haldeman: . . . Rosenstein could change his name. . . . [general laughter] Ziegler: It is right. It's always an Ellsberg. Nixon: Every one's a Jew. Ellsberg's a Jew. Halperin's a Jew. Haldeman: Gelb's a Jew. Nixon: But there are [unclear] - Hiss was not a Jew. Very interesting thing. So few of those who engage in espionage - are Negroes. . . . In fact, very few of them become Communists. If they do, they like, they get into Angela Davis - they're more the capitalist type. And they throw bombs and this and that. But the Negroes. - have you ever noticed? . . . . Any Negro spies? Haldeman: Not intellectual enough, not smart enough. . . not smart enough to be spies. Nixon: The Jews - the Jews are, are born spies. You notice how many of them are just in up to their necks? Haldeman: A basic deviousness.

These are folks that today's Republicans cannonize as freaking saints of the Party...is this what the WASP's at the top (and they are) still believe in their heart of hearts? Is the adminstrations "policy" towards Israel just a cynical attempt to further weaken the Democratic Base?

And then there's this little gem...check out the "journalist" named at the end...

Nixon: I want to look at any sensitive areas around, where Jews are involved, Bob. See, the Jews are all through the government. And we have got to get in those areas, we've got to get the man in charge, who is not Jewish, to patrol the Jewish - Haldeman: [unclear] Nixon: . . . full of Jews. Second, most Jews are [unclear]. You know what I mean? You have Garment and Kissinger. Haldeman: And thankfully Safire.

omigod!! They loved him then too!

Well, it's sort of working now. No answer from blogger support about any of my questions...found more answers in the Yahoo! blogger users group. So, back to square one...and not a Permalink in site ...

OK it's official..blogger is pissing me off. Not only have they screwed up my archives, links and permalinks, everything is getting double posted.grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Hitchens on Kissinger. Read the article, had to check the by-line more than once. This is Hitchens? And the name Clinton never appeared once? He better watch out, they'll never let him into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave again...

Piggy Nooner once again making me barf here. Is there a reason that she thinks that she has more testoserone than Daschle other than she wuz a speechwriter once and a Republi-clone always? I guess she has decided to pick on Tom D on Rushie-poo's behalf. Twit.

Zoinks. I needadrink....

ummm...Piggy dear, Rush allows no contradictory viewpoints on his "show". It is after all entertainment, not reality, remember? And besides, what would Rush say if Senator Daschle (veteran - US Air Force/commissioned officer too) would ask him about his service record? Ummm, gee Senator, I tried to join up, but all the spots for fat white guys with anal-cysts were taken. Yeah, I'm seeing that happen. In an alternate universe.

1. Found link to a great
   
2. Hey! Any Lexis/Nexis users out
   
3. The war on Terror? or
   
4. And it's not about OIL?
   
5. Ground Truth = Clueless REMF's*
   
6. Looks like we're up on
   
7. If you love Tolkien/LotR, don't
   
8. I know a secret...and I'm
   
9. Torture..in whose name?An interesting article
   
10. North Korea v Iraq, remind