Don't worry about that clicking on your phone

courtesy of firedoglake...

Amidst the inevitable 9-11 retrospectives, I feel like only the Los Angeles Times is putting the past ten years in the proper perspective. Because the longest-lasting legacy of the 9-11 attacks is clearly the terror industry it spawned. Over the weekend the LAT looked at the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on absurd “security” projects, filling the pockets of contractors, and for little benefit:

“The number of people worldwide who are killed by Muslim-type terrorists, Al Qaeda wannabes, is maybe a few hundred outside of war zones. It’s basically the same number of people who die drowning in the bathtub each year,” said John Mueller, an Ohio State University professor who has written extensively about the balance between threat and expenditures in fighting terrorism.

Today’s entry from the LAT is even better, and something I feel we pay too little attention to. In the decade since 9-11, this has become a surveillance state, and the government collects enormous amounts of data on every man, woman and child in America, in all likelihood too much to process. We all know about this, but it’s important to see all that surveillance together in one package:

…the secret domestic intelligence gathering [...] is one of the most significant legacies of Sept. 11. U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies now collect, store and analyze vast quantities of digital data produced by law-abiding Americans. The data mining receives limited congressional oversight, rare judicial review and almost no public scrutiny.

Thanks to new laws and technologies, authorities track and eavesdrop on Americans as they never could before, hauling in billions of bank records, travel receipts and other information. In several cases, they have wiretapped conversations between lawyers and defendants, challenging the legal principle that attorney-client communication is inviolate.

We had one moment where this was subject to any debate at all, during the fight over the FISA amnesty legislation. But that was really about a small portion of the total data collection. Most of the surveillance remains a secret. Ron Wyden and Mark Udall tried to tease out a little more this summer, when they tried to get the intelligence community to admit to how they were misinterpreting the Patriot Act to allow for more data collection. But that never went anywhere. From NSA surveillance to national security letters to the AT&T room on Folsom Street in San Francisco, what bits and pieces we do know about point to a giant network Hoovering up every piece of information you let out into the world digitally.

I appreciate the LA Times highlighting this legacy. Nobody really questions why we’ve deprived American civil liberties to this degree, to protect the homeland from a threat that mirrors the threat posed by full bathtubs. Read the whole story for yourself. This has been an inexorable slide downward for ten years, and it shows no sign whatsoever of letting up.

i've said repeatedly for years, anyone who uses any digital network, no matter what it is, from swiping a supermarket discount card to making an atm withdrawal to using email to making a credit card purchase, can safely assume that all those transactions are being swept up in the national surveillance dragnet to be sniffed and ultimately filed for possible later use... anybody who thinks otherwise is simply living in a dream world...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Let's hear it for a little fun in the midst of misery

god bless the children... i've seen children in kabul having fun no matter what the weather, no matter how abject their poverty and no matter how tough the security situation... a little skateboarding sounds like just the ticket...

from the la times...

A white van pulled up to a concrete fountain on a leafy side street in downtown Kabul, trailed by shrieking Afghan children.

"Ollie! Ollie!" they shouted, pounding on the vehicle.

Oliver Percovich, a lanky Australian in a black T-shirt, emerged from the van with a load of banged-up skateboards. The children grabbed the boards and raced off to skate in the cracked bowl of the dried-up fountain.

Skateboarding was unknown to Afghans until Percovich, who followed his social scientist girlfriend to Kabul, starting teaching local children to skate in early 2007. Two years later, their relationship is over and his girlfriend is back in Australia. But Percovich's "Skateistan" nonprofit club has become a magnet for children in Kabul, the capital.

In a country where girls are rigidly segregated from boys and rarely participate in sports, Skateistan has managed to bring boys and girls together. Dozens of children swarm across the fountain every day, sharing boards and showing off improvised skating moves.

Neighborhood kids rush the Skateistan van to grab a skateboard
for an afternoon session.


Skateboarders take over the streets of Kabul under
vigilant security.

again, i say, bless 'em... if i get the chance to get some of my own photos when i get back in september, i'll be sure to post them...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

When somebody like Max Boot writes an op-ed supporting Obama, my concerns with Obama turn to despair

not good...

President Obama and his aides continue to impress with their handling of Afghanistan. Not only have they approved a major troop increase and a de facto commitment to nation-building, but now they have shifted personnel to make the most effective use of the added resources and turn around a failing war effort.

max boot is right up there with bill kristol, charles krauthammer, michael smerconish, and karl rove in being a neocon to the bone... i've been less than thrilled with the obama administration so far, but to see one of these guys jumping on board is more than deeply troubling...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Our neo-con, macho asshole problem

after reading the headline and the lede, i didn't have the stomach to read the rest...

How to solve the pirate problem

By Jonah Goldberg

Shooting three Somali pirates was a good start. Now let's shoot some more.

jerk...

could someone please explain to me how killing people is the solution to our problems...? i'm afraid the connection escapes me...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

My kinda guy, my kinda life...

Living the dream

well, it's not exactly MY dream, but pretty damn close...

from the la times...

Eight years ago, Dave Dixon set himself some lofty goals, especially for an unemployed, twice-divorced middle-aged man with no savings. He wanted to live on the water in Newport Beach. He didn't care to work too much. And he aspired to play golf and tennis several times a week.

Today, Dixon, 60, is living his dream, albeit with some compromises. He lives aboard a weathered, beat-up 37-foot mahogany boat he bought on a credit card for $10,000. Lacking a permanent mooring, he often is forced to anchor in the open sea off Corona del Mar, and for hot showers he uses the Orange County Harbor Patrol's guest facilities.

Yet he works only about 15 hours a week, singing at private parties and two Orange County restaurants to cover his lean $565 in monthly expenses (not including food). He gets out on the tennis court or links almost every day, enough to whittle down his golf handicap to seven and his weight by 40 pounds. And he is rocked to sleep each night by the rhythm of the water, surrounded by multimillion-dollar views of the bay.

altho' i pretty much live this kind of life right now, going where i want, and doing what i want, i also have a need to be able to use my talents (and those talents don't include singing, believe me!)... the challenge is finding venues to use those talents that don't include chaining me to a desk or otherwise placing me in indentured servitude...

check out the slide show... it will make the wage slaves among you weep...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Are the super-rich driving up oil prices to make themselves even richer...? Na-a-a-aaah... Perish the thought...

i've been increasingly suspicious that the dramatic rise in oil prices is just another orchestrated money grab by the super-rich, power elites... looks like i may not be the only person who harbors those dark thoughts...

mcclatchy...

A key federal regulator said Thursday that it's been probing whether speculators are manipulating the price of oil and gasoline and announced a series of measures to make the opaque world of oil trading more transparent.

In a surprise announcement, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) confirmed that since last December it's been investigating the trading of contracts for future deliveries of oil, commonly called futures contracts.

"Although the commission ordinarily conducts enforcement investigations on a confidential basis, the commission is taking the extraordinary step of disclosing this investigation because of today's unprecedented market conditions," the statement said. "The specifics of the ongoing investigation remain confidential. All commission enforcement inquiries are focused on ensuring that the markets are properly policed for manipulation and abusive practices."

la times...

"It shouldn't have taken oil and gasoline prices hitting Guinness-like record highs for the federal government to look into possible price manipulation by speculators, but it should also be looking at manipulation by oil companies and oil producers," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman of Congress' Joint Economic Committee.

[...]

A commission official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss ongoing investigations publicly, said the commission's economists were fairly sure that there had been no criminal manipulation of the market.

that last paragraph as much as says that the investigation is principally for show, that there is no intention to get to the bottom of the matter... (like we thought for a moment that there would be...)

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

The LA Times op-ed page takes a turn at Obama-bashing

honest to pete, is there a person with a pulse anywhere who can't see through the blatant efforts by our media elites to destroy barack obama...?

Michelle Obama is fair game

By Jonah Goldberg

Candidates who send their wives out on the campaign trail shouldn't lash out when their spouses face criticism.

Obama's delusional foreign policy

By Raoul Lowery Contreras

President Bush was right to call it appeasement.

i gave the la times a little bit more credit than this... however, i don't know why in hell i would do that since they regularly give jonah goldberg an outlet for his world-class asshole views...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Rosa Brooks: "Oh, my gosh, Hillary Clinton is female! Barack Obama is, uh, black!"

finally, a voice of reason...

The media just can't stop gushing and clucking and gasping about it all. Oh, my gosh, Hillary Clinton is female! Barack Obama is, uh, black! Will American voters accept a female candidate? A black candidate? Are voters more sexist or more racist? What's a bigger problem in America today, sexism or racism?

Snore.

These questions are tedious and inane. Simplistic efforts to evaluate whether racism or sexism is "worse" are inherently meaningless. Racism and sexism operate in complex and different ways. We should reflect on the ways in which racism and sexism have marred our history and cast shadows over our future, but let's not turn it into a parlor game about who's got it worse, women or blacks.

Increasingly, the media obsession with whether Americans will be less likely to vote for a black man or for a woman is also beside the point -- because to an emerging generation of younger voters, the very terms in which the questions have been framed no longer make much sense.

snore indeed...! when my youngest, my daughter, was in high school, i was both surprised and extremely gratified to discover that she and her group of friends included guys, gays, and people of color, and that they thought absolutely nothing about it... they chose each other because they all had many interests in many things - movies, books, issues, music, interesting facts - none of which had anything to do with sexual orientation, gender, or color of skin... while i'm from the high school generation of the early 60s, my high school, a small school (450 in grades 9-12) in a small city (100,000) along the front range of the rockies, featured a noticeable percentage of blacks and hispanics, and we, too, thought nothing of it... (gay...? we hadn't a clue, unfortunately...) anyway, i was delighted to see my daughter and her friends blithely carrying on as if none of those things mattered, which, of course, they don't...

rosa brooks is spot-on... voting for a black man or a woman is a non-issue, and anybody of any generation who has two brain cells to rub together knows and accepts that... to have our national media talking heads go on, and on, AND ON, endlessly, about these non-issues is nothing more or less than all those salacious and suggestive television ads, craftily designed to stimulate our sexual desire, sprinkled liberally between news stories about the societal benefits of abstinence as the only approved form of sex education... in short, it's total crap...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

The LA Times: CNN = C_orrupt N_ews N_etwork

here's a major media news outlet taking a strong stand against our generally pathetic media's performance in what should be their solemn duty to help prepare u.s. citizens to be able to thoughtfully elect our next president and the abject failure to do so...

Tim Rutten:

Regarding Media

CNN: Corrupt News Network

A self-serving agenda was set for the Republican presidential debates.

December 1, 2007

THE United States is at war in the Middle East and Central Asia, the economy is writhing like a snake with a broken back, oil prices are relentlessly climbing toward $100 a barrel and an increasing number of Americans just can't afford to be sick with anything that won't be treated with aspirin and bed rest.

So, when CNN brought the Republican presidential candidates together this week for what is loosely termed a "debate," what did the country get but a discussion of immigration, Biblical inerrancy and the propriety of flying the Confederate flag?

In fact, this most recent debacle masquerading as a presidential debate raises serious questions about whether CNN is ethically or professionally suitable to play the political role the Democratic and Republican parties recently have conceded it.

Selecting a president is, more than ever, a life and death business, and a news organization that consciously injects itself into the process, as CNN did by hosting Wednesday's debate, incurs a special responsibility to conduct itself in a dispassionate and, most of all, disinterested fashion. When one considers CNN's performance, however, the adjectives that leap to mind are corrupt and incompetent.

toldja... fairly strong stuff but not at all out of line...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

The WaPo notes Obama's "spiritual reawakening" in another virtuoso display of context-free journalism [w/UPDATE]

the entire story builds on this opening paragraph... (pay no attention to that throw-away little 12th paragraph...)

[T]he Democratic presidential candidate from Illinois -- hoping his campaign can recapture some of that old-time religious fervor -- launched a three-city gospel concert series over the weekend across the state, in North Charleston, Greenwood and Columbia.

i kept reading, becoming more and more astonished at how a major news outlet could completely ignore the homophobic element that aravosis at americablog (here, among many other posts) has been all over like flies on shit - until, that is, the sole mention appeared, 12 paragraphs down, inserted between parentheses, almost as an afterthought...

(The gospel series also draws attention because of the inclusion of the Grammy-winning gospel singer Donnie McClurkin, who has publicly said he overcame his homosexual thoughts and desires through prayer.)

no mention of WHY mcclurkin and his "getting over being gay through prayer" stance was drawing attention, WHERE it had been exposed, and the veritable firestorm that has ensued since... what a pathetic excuse for journalism... what a pathetic excuse for a newspaper...

[UPDATE]

my sincere apologies to the wapo... i have since read a lead story on obama in the la times which doesn't mention the homophobia flap AT ALL... i simply failed to appreciate the fact that the wapo isn't alone in its race to the bottom of context-free reporting...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Speaking of wingnuttery, let's hear it for THE IRAQ WAR!

permanent war... permanent occupation of iraq... ya gotta love it...

The 'surge' is working

Casualties are down and security is improving in Iraq; Washington must give the strategy more time.
By Max Boot
September 8, 2007

[...]

Notwithstanding all the political hype and hyperbole, events on the ground do matter, and there is no denying that events in Iraq have been moving in the right direction since the surge started. Not even the Democrats deny it. Sens. Jack Reed, Hillary Clinton and Dick Durbin, among others, have acknowledged that, as Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin put it, "The military aspects of President Bush's new strategy in Iraq . . . appear to have produced some credible and positive results."

yay, war...!

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Evidently, the LA Times doesn't care if their stories contradict each other

see previous post...

Clement is expected to follow policies of Gonzales, Ashcroft
The acting attorney general, a longtime Republican, vigorously defends Bush's war on terrorism and limitations on due process.

By Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Another whine from a blog-challenged reporter

check this out...

Blogs: All the noise that fits
The hard-line opinions on weblogs are no substitute for the patient fact-finding of reporters.

By Michael Skube
August 19, 2007

[...]

The blogosphere is the loudest corner of the Internet, noisy with disputation, manifesto-like postings and an unbecoming hatred of enemies real and imagined.

[...]

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, whose popular blog Daily Kos has been a force among antiwar activists, cautioned bloggers last week "to avoid the right-wing acronym MSM." It implied, after all, that bloggers were on the fringe. To the contrary, he wrote, "we are representatives of the mainstream, and the country is embracing what we're selling."

Moulitsas foresees bloggers becoming the watchdogs that watch the watchdog: "We need to keep the media honest, but as an institution, it's important that they exist and do their job well." The tone is telling: breezy, confident, self-congratulatory. Subtly, it implies bloggers have all the liberties of a traditional journalist but few of the obligations.

[...]

The opinions are occasionally informed, often tiresomely cranky and never in doubt. Skepticism, restraint, a willingness to suspect judgment and to put oneself in the background -- these would not seem to be a blogger's trademarks.

But they are, more often than not, trademarks of the kind of journalism that makes a difference. And if there is anything bloggers want more than an audience, it's knowing they are making a difference in politics. They are, to give them their due, changing what is euphemistically called the national "conversation." But what is the nature of that change? Does it deepen our understanding? Does it broaden our perspective?

[...]

The more important the story, the more incidental our opinions become. Something larger is needed: the patient sifting of fact, the acknowledgment that assertion is not evidence and, as the best writers understand, the depiction of real life. Reasoned argument, as well as top-of-the-head comment on the blogosphere, will follow soon enough, and it should. But what lodges in the memory, and sometimes knifes us in the heart, is the fidelity with which a writer observes and tells. The word has lost its luster, but we once called that reporting.

i rarely choose to post about either the blogosphere or bloggers and i don't very often take a bead on journalists, other than to excerpt what i believe to be their relevant (and, occasionally, outrageous) work... but i can't let this one lie...

my first reaction...? arrogance... my second reaction...? elitism... my third reaction...? ignorance...

i can only speak for myself, but it would be completely impossible for me to be as informed as i am (take a leap of faith with me here) were it not for blogs... yeah, sure, there's opinion galore, sometimes little in the way of fact-checking, plenty of irreverence, strong emotion, harsh invective, vulgar obscenity and occasionally outright slander... there's also a ton of unfiltered perspectives, unsanitized viewpoints and heartfelt stories from and about ordinary people that illuminate what's going on in the country and the world in ways unobtainable elsewhere... over and above that, there's an increasing amount of very good investigative reporting, offering information dug up from sources that reporters on a newspaper or magazine payroll might never have uncovered... none of this is to even mention, of course, that one of the many reasons the blogosphere has exploded is that many of THOSE goddam reporters haven't been doing their job...

but ya know what, and this is what mr. elite reporters-vs.-bloggers skube entirely misses...? 90% of the truly great journalistic reporting that i read, i get pointed to by bloggers... thanks to bloggers, i find that i consistently read sources i didn't even know existed and/or would never have had the time or patience to dig out for myself...

one other thing he misses, and this may be the biggest one of all... reporters are increasingly turning to blogs as a far more direct and complete way to tell their stories, and bloggers are increasingly moving into traditional journalism as a way to reach more readers... mr. whiney-pants skube, firmly stuck in a pre-blogosphere mindset, insists on framing an either-or situation, when, in reality, it's both-and... the blogosphere and its wonderful platform, the internet, is transforming global dialog and truly allowing, for the first time in history, EVERYONE not only to be informed but to take part...

bite me, mr. skube...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Our trusted media: calls for his head = Gonzales "loses ground"

the entire country is screaming for his firing or impeachment, but gonzales only "leaves senators questioning his candor and honesty...?" c'mon... i'd call it a load of understated crap if it wasn't so completely disingenuous as to defy credibility...

Gonzales loses ground on the Hill
His explanations leave senators questioning his candor and honesty.

WASHINGTON — Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday accused Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales of repeatedly misleading Congress and suggested that he had perjured himself in connection with statements to lawmakers about an anti-terrorism program.

the same thing's happening with bush... two-thirds of the country wants his head on a plate but you'd never know it from reading our proud, tell-it-like-it-is, "FREE" press...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

A headline that says it all

from today's wapo roundup of the nation's op-ed pages...

Today's Hot Topic: Rebooting the War on Terror

and just in case you had any doubt about what they might mean by that, here's the paragraph that 'splains it all...

War on Terror: After the release of the new National Intelligence Estimate on terror threats this week, the WaPo argues that the most urgent decision to be made is what to do about al-Qaeda's sanctuary in Pakistan. "If Pakistani forces cannot -- or will not -- eliminate the sanctuary, President Bush must order targeted strikes or covert actions by American forces, as he has done several times in recent years," the editors write ... the LAT argues that the report should reinvigorate Americans' interest in the war on terror. "The passage of time without another terrorist outrage on American soil has inspired complacency about continuing dangers and a reluctance to address issues -- such as the proper balance between liberty and security in an age of terror -- that are certain to recur," the editors write ... the WSJ argues that the report is "a stark reminder that al Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups continue to pose an urgent threat to our security, and that 9/11 was not the terrorist one-off that some liberals wish it were so they can switch the subject to global warming and after-school programs."

it's hard to believe that these major media outlets are, once again, playing willing pawns to bushco fear-mongering... just look at the verbiage...

must order targeted strikes or covert actions

well, hey...! while we're at it, let's not stop with pakistan... we've got all that military firepower just sitting around in the gulf, let's go for a two-fer and bomb iran at the same time...

and these...

• reinvigorate Americans' interest in the war on terror

• terrorist outrage on American soil

• continuing dangers ... that are certain to recur

• stark reminder

• continue to pose an urgent threat

• 9/11 not the terrorist one-off"

and what would fear-mongering be without a wsj dig at the al qaeda-loving, dirty fucking hippie liberals...

so they can switch the subject to global warming and after-school programs

after all that's been revealed, discussed and written about, to still adopt these fear-mongering positions when it's patently clear that the "war on terror" has been the biggest manipulation of average citizens in modern history, is totally baffling to me... the only thing i can possibly imagine is that we're being set up for another terrorist attack so that these fine people can then say, "well, we told you so..."

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Dick Cheney: "We must restore some balance" between Congress and the White House

this man is clueless...



the above surely must be one of jonah goldberg's favorite quotes... he's writing in today's la times, parroting once again the incredibly juvenile theme of, "Well, THEY did it too"...

My president's better than yours
Liberals who deride Bush's actions as extreme sang a different tune when their party's presidents used similar tactics.

At a candidate forum for trial lawyers in Chicago on Sunday, Hillary Clinton proclaimed that the Bush administration is "the most radical presidency we have ever had."

This is, quite simply, absurd. But such boob-bait for the Bush bashers is common today in Democratic circles, just as similar right-wing rhetoric about Bill Clinton was par for the course a decade ago.

[...]

For eight years, the right screamed bloody murder about Clinton's overreaching. He minted new executive privileges, "accidentally" rummaged through the FBI files of political opponents and sought electronic wiretapping powers — during peacetime — that today are denounced during the war on terror. Some on the right feared we were on a slippery slope to tyranny. Liberals often chortled about such right-wing paranoia.

Today, the dynamic is reversed. Liberals fret over creeping fascism while conservatives give Bush the benefit of the doubt. Both sides are open to charges of hypocrisy, and neither is immune to partisan amnesia. The only consistent crowd are the Libertarians, who distrust all government power.

here's what i wrote to the la times as an open letter to mr. goldberg...

Sir,

I don't disagree with your thesis. Presidents seem to have a propensity for seizing as much power as they can, a tendency foreseen by the founders and doubtlessly the reason they formulated such clear language about the separate but equal balance of powers.

I don't support any president of any party accruing unfettered power, and to claim that concerns about the constitution-trampling Bush administration are "absurd" only tells me that, one, you either haven't been paying attention or, two, you choose to ignore reality. The steps taken by George Bush and Dick Cheney to wield absolute executive power are among the single most disturbing developments I have seen take place in my country over a 60-year lifetime, a lifetime that's included 37 years of senior level management and university professorships around the globe. I am in daily touch with a number of friends both in the U.S. and abroad, a mix of lifelong Republicans, Democrats and independents, all of whom agree that the United States is facing the most critical constitutional crisis of its history, and that, if it's allowed to continue, we are in serious danger not only because of the time left to the current White House occupants, but, down the road, from ANY future president.

Rather than perpetuating the, in my opinion, patently ridiculous theme of "Well, THEY did it too," I would think you would be speaking out FOR the restoration of our precious Constitution to its rightful place as the fundamental underpinning of our nation. I never let my children (or, now, my grandchildren) get away with the "They did it too" excuse and I certainly expect better from someone who writes from the platform of the Los Angeles Times.

Sincerely,

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

NOW we see that they were lying: a blinding glimpse of the obvious

it's a good thing rosa brooks is directing her comments to traditional media outlets and not including the blogosphere and non-traditional news sources...

Like freed hostages who gradually cease to identify with their captors, mainstream media outlets seem to have been seized by a new spirit of liberation in their coverage of the Bush administration. Lately, we've seen a rash of astonished, outraged stories and editorials relating to the administration's recently discovered malfeasance.

[...]

The new media message is righteous and clear: Administration officials tricked us — all of us! They assured us that everything they did was legal … necessary … for our own good … but now we see that they were lying!

Well, yeah. So what else is new?

[...]

Bush and Cheney valued power and expedience, nothing more — and much of the time, they didn't even bother to cover their tracks when they bypassed long-standing laws and regulations. Similarly, when it came to compliance with our laws and constitutional traditions, they hardly even pretended to give a hoot.

So why did it take us so long to notice?

[...]

It's hard not to conclude that collectively, we were all too cowardly, slothful or puffed up with our own self-importance to ask the right questions and stand up for principle. The administration didn't trick us; we tricked ourselves.

Someday, the Bush era may come to seem like a bad dream, a shameful, inexplicable interlude in American history. We're right to be outraged by Bush and Cheney, but we should also save a bit of outrage for when we look in the mirror.

yeah, well, rosa, the media STILL aren't taking nearly the forceful stance they should be taking in light of the illegal outrages perpetrated on the citizens of the united states and half of the rest of the world by the criminal occupants of the white house... as supposed keepers of the flame of truth, journalists should insure that these outrages are on display on the front pages of newspapers, as lead stories on local, network and cable news, and front and center on every news website, daily, across the country... citizens and media alike can't afford a minute's rest until that cabal is removed from office...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

The new ownership of the LA Times is proud to bring you - NEOCONS!

what a great way to start the day... i open up the la times email headlines only to find that two out of three of the featured op-eds are written by neocons, pleasuring themselves by writing about war... yeah, i know, that's how neocons get themselves off, but, doggone it, they really should be doing it in the privacy of their own bedrooms...

first we have dr. strangelove



Peter Sellers as
Dr. Strangelove

The lessons of Vietnam

Iraq desperately needs a political solution in the short term to make the war more manageable for the next president.

[...]

The Nixon administration was convinced that it had achieved a decent opportunity for the people of South Vietnam to determine their own fate; that the Saigon government would be able to overcome ordinary violations of the agreement with its own forces; that the U.S. would assist against an all-out attack; and that, over time, the South Vietnamese government would be able to build a functioning society.

American disunity was a major element in dashing these hopes. Watergate fatally weakened the Nixon administration through its own mistakes, and the 1974 midterm congressional elections brought to power the most unforgiving of Nixon's opponents, who cut off aid so the agreement couldn't work as planned. The imperatives of domestic debate took precedence over geopolitical necessities.

[...]

A political settlement has to be distilled from the partly conflicting, partly overlapping views of the Iraqi parties, Iraq's neighbors and other affected states, based on a conviction that the caldron of Iraq would otherwise overflow and engulf everybody. The essential prerequisite is staying power in the near term. President Bush owes it to his successor to make as much progress toward this goal as possible; not to hand the problem over but to reduce it to more manageable proportions. What we need most is a rebuilding of bipartisanship in both this presidency and in the next.

oh, ya gotta love henry... he sounds so very, very erudite and professorial as he reminds us of his vast reservoir in the management of u.s. involvement in other countries' civil wars, gained in vietnam, yet ANOTHER war criminal escapade, where we ALSO shouldn't have been in the first goddam place... then he has the unmitigated gall to propose a diplomatic initiative, based on - put your hands over the kids' ears - BIPARTISANSHIP, so the NEXT PRESIDENT will have an easier go... great god almighty in heaven above... henry really needs to wake up and smell the coffee... it makes no difference whatsoever how much bush may posture over "political settlements" and "bipartisanship..." he has proven in countless ways that he is indeed only posturing... we may be talking to iran and he may be looking twice at the iraq study group report, but those are only red-herring tactics, buying time while the u.s. presence in iraq becomes ever more entrenched, which, of course, is precisely the plan... you'll notice that the one thing he DOESN'T discuss is getting the hell out - permanently - preferring instead to leave it to us to decide what he means by the oh-so-academic term "geopolitical necessities..." bite me, henry...

and, as if that wasn't bad enough, then we have max boot as colonel klink, implying that the current horror in iraq would be going ever so much better if we sacked some of those incompetent lieutenant colonels and colonels who "simply aren't effective leaders or who consistently fail to achieve results" and replace them with blood-and-guts, patton-types... i won't even go there...



Werner Klemperer as
Colonel Klink

Fire the incompetents, find the Pattons

Our armed forces need to do a better job of punishing failure while rewarding those who succeed on the battlefield.

ok, i'm done...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

If you're gonna smear, do it in a bipartisan spirit

another taste of how the relentless attacks on 2008 presidential candidates are going to shape up... from one of the masters of the art, jonah goldberg...

John Edwards' poor scam

The would-be president and former ambulance chaser wants you to think he's the champion of the underclass.

There's a little hustler in every politician. But sometimes there's a little politician in a hustler. Such is the case with John Edwards.

and that's just the title,the teaser and the opening sentence...

i felt moved to compose a letter to the la times editor...

Dear Sirs:

I can see how the 2008 campaign is going to shape up - hyperventilating huffers and puffers, sitting in their foxholes, tossing out feces-laden grenades, and hoping none either roll back into their holes or get lobbed their way. Ok, if that's the kind of opinion writer you choose to support, so be it. Let me make a small request.

I would feel somewhat better about seeing such vituperation in print if the opinion writer in question, Mr. Goldberg, would opine in a more bipartisan fashion. It seems there are hypocrites and idiots galore in the current field of presidential candidates, both Democrat and Republican. When entire op-ed columns are dedicated to savaging only one party's candidates, serious editorial bias starts to become a little bit obvious, don't you think? Even George Bush occasionally makes the effort to appear bipartisan (I emphasize the word "appear"). Couldn't you encourage Mr. Goldberg to follow suit?

Best regards,

i didn't deliberately didn't offer any examples of idiots and hypocrites from the "other party" because i think they are ridiculously easy to find... how about rudy giuliani, mitt romney, and john mccain for starters...?

from paul krugman (nyt select, subscribers only) via joe at americablog...

Here’s the way it ought to be: When Rudy Giuliani says that Iran, which had nothing to do with 9/11, is part of a “movement” that “has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us,” he should be treated as a lunatic.

When Mitt Romney says that a coalition of “Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda” wants to “bring down the West,” he should be ridiculed for his ignorance.

And when John McCain says that Osama, who isn’t in Iraq, will “follow us home” if we leave, he should be laughed at.

so, jonah, whaddaya say...? lessee you take a crack at these idiots as well... it seems to me that you could have yourself a veritable bipartisan vituperation feast (if you want to, that is)...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

What the media wants us to want

[T]he media today imparts what it wants readers and viewers to want - most often in order to maximize profit.

i would go quite a bit further... the media today imparts what the super-rich, power elites tell it that they want readers and viewers to want...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments