This should give us pause as we contemplate life on a warmer planet. Extremes in weather are almost always a bad thing, and the prospect on those extremes getting even wilder is not happy.


Climate Change and the End of Australia

What is likely to vanish – or be transformed beyond recognition – are many of the things we think of when we think of Australia: the barrier reef, the koalas, the sense of the country as a land of almost limitless natural resources. Instead, Australia is likely to become hotter, drier and poorer, fractured by increasing tensions over access to water, food and energy as its major cities are engulfed by the rising seas.
To climate scientists, it's no surprise that Australia would feel the effects of climate change so strongly, in part because it has one of the world's most variable climates. "One effect of increasing greenhouse-gas levels in the atmosphere is to amplify existing climate signals," says Karoly. "Regions that are dry get drier, and regions that are wet get wetter. If you have a place like Australia that is already extreme, those extremes just get more pronounced."

Matt Taibbi's  Wall St Isn't Winning, It's Cheating

These inequities are what drive the OWS protests. People don't want handouts. It's not a class uprising and they don't want civil war -- they want just the opposite. They want everyone to live in the same country, and live by the same rules. It's amazing that some people think that that's asking a lot.

Been thinking about Steve Jobs and his place in the tech ecosphere. The products he's best known for (Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad) were not great leaps in technology. Apple didn't invent the mouse, and the Mac wasn't even the first Apple computer to feature one. Apple didn't invent the smartphone, the portable music player, or the touchscreen tablet.

What Steve Jobs did was make these innovations into something that people really wanted to use, and he did it through perfecting the interface. He understood that most people didn't want to learn all about the machines they were using. Jobs made it so people didn't about to think about the computer while using it and people loved him for it. What people loved about the Mac was the mouse and the way it interacted with the desktop (something which no popular computer even had before the Mac came along). What people love about the iPad is the touchscreen. They don't even have to know about what's going on underneath, and most of them didn't even remember a time when it would have been expected. And that's the beauty of what Steve Jobs wrought.

Turns out that Rubio in Florida lied about his family fleeing communism in Cuba (they actually left before Castro even returned from Mexico). Easy way to score some street cred with the still-powerful exile community, I guess. It's not as romantic to say your family moved here for economic opportunity just like most immigrants (awkward too, with all the hate directed towards immigrants by todays GOP).

I don't really see this as that big a deal. It's pretty standard  for politicians to stretch their own accomplishments and outright lie about their ancestors'. Of course, Gore got crucified by the media for a lot less.

Just saw some idiot on CNBC insisting that for-profit schools were focused on the "educational experience" and comparing them favorably to normal colleges because they don't have basketball teams. At first I thought he was joking.

The AIG bailout (now up to about $182 billion) is the perfect case of what should never have happened. AIG was essentially two companies under one roof: a giant boring insurance company that was quite solvent and a giant speculative hedge fund that lost hundreds of billions. The two should never have been allowed to coexist (we regulate insurance companies to make sure they don't blow all the premiums they're paid on stupid gambles) and once AIG became insolvent it was not necessary to bail out the hedge fund operation to keep the insurer going.

Being the biggest insurance company in the world, AIG collapsing would likely have caused a mass panic and set off a bad chain of events. The collapse of the hedge fund which made giant bets with other hedge funds and financial entities wouldn't have done so. It would have screwed over the fund's counterparties (a "counterparty" in this instance being who the hedge fund was making bets with), but it wouldn't have caused a massive chain reaction.

A lot of this is due to the kind of bets AIG's hedge fund was making. In many instances, it was taking relatively small amounts of money on the chance that very very large CDOs (collateralized debt obligations, the massive bundles of mortgages that set of the entire debt crisis) would stop paying off. In some cases this was billed as "insuring" the CDOs, but they were pretty much straight up bets since the people buying the "insurance" weren't the owners of those CDOs, they were just betting on them failing (kind of like taking out fire insurance on someone else's property then cheering for the arsonists). Being willing to take these giant bets with a huge downside was mostly due to the way the hedge fund people were compensated. If they made a risky bet that was calculated to make money over an extended period of time (like taking huge bets on the health of poorly understood CDOs), the hedge fund people got paid for the entire estimated profit right away. They didn't have to wait until the deal had run its course. They didn't even have to wait until the deal had made any money at all. They got paid right away. This obviously created a massive conflict of interest, giving the hedge fund guys incentive to make any deal they could "estimate" would make money regardless of the risk.

When the CDOs started going under and AIG suddenly didn't have the money to pay off their bets; the Federal government didn't need to step in and start shoveling money into the furnace. The could have forced AIG into chapter 11, fired all the management, then spun off the giant insurance company we'd decided was essential to the global economy. The insolvent hedge fund could then have been wound down. There would not have been enough money to pay off all the bets AIG had lost, but so what? It's not the taxpayers' responsibility to bail out every company that makes bad bets and goes under. And, as stated, in many cases the counterparties had only paid out relatively small amounts of money getting some truly sick odds on their bets (up to 100:1). However, between the money they did have, the bets they'd made that didn't actually lose, and any money they could've clawed back from what was paid to hedge fund guys based on phantom profits; there likely would have been enough to pay back the money the counterparties had put up to make those bets. The counterparties wouldn't have been happy, but that's what happens when you make giants bets with a company that'll never be able to pay them off if they lose.

So, in the end, no one would have been out of pocket any money and the incompetents running AIG would have been out on the streets. Instead, we spent billions bailing out not the insurance side (which was not insolvent) but the hedge fund side which never should have been bailed out.

Just finished reading Bailout Nation, with New Post-Crisis Update: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy and it made me feel ill. Sure, the author overstated a few things to make his point. But even the raw numbers are pretty brutal, and I learned a few things I hadn't known. Draws a pretty bleak picture of how deregulation, lack of oversight, distorted reward structures, and historically low interest rates combined to melt the entire financial system. His emphasis in on the Fed and how normally sedate banks and insurance companies went wild with speculative greed.

I liked Michael Lewis'  The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine a lot better for an inside look at how the mess got started and how it played out. For obvious reasons, the guys who made a killing betting against the real estate market could be candid with Lewis in a way the guys who lost billions of their investors' money never will be.

Found this Glenn Greenwald article from a couple years ago about the root of the Tea Party anger and how it was misdirected towards minorities instead of the truly rich and powerful rigging the system. He ties it into the anger misdirected towards Clinton by Gingrich's Contract with America crowd.

Just as was true for the 1994 crime bill, the right-wing fury over health care reform is motivated by the fear that middle-class Americans will have their money taken away by Obama while — all together now, euphemistically — “having someone else benefit.”  And this “someone else” are, as always, the poor minorities and other undeserving deadbeats who, in right-wing lore, somehow (despite their sorry state) exert immensely powerful influence over the U.S. Government and are thus the beneficiaries of endless, undeserved largesse:  people too lazy to work, illegal immigrants, those living below the poverty line.....

 .....The premise of these citizen protests is not wrong:  Washington politicians are in thrall to special interests and are, in essence, corruptly stealing the country’s economic security in order to provide increasing benefits to a small and undeserving minority.  But the “minority” here isn’t what Fox News means by that term, but is the tiny sliver of corporate power which literally writes our laws and, in every case, ends up benefiting.

Just ran across this. McCain sucking up to a dictator.

Watching Republicans on TV the last two days talking about Libya and Iraq has been downright embarrassing. They've gone into 24/7 election mode and refuse to say anything good about the US under Obama. Not only are they clearly hoping the economy doesn't recover until after the election, they just as clearly are upset when the US scores any foreign policy victories. Wouldn't be surprised to find out some of them secretly wish Osama bin Laden were still alive.

McCain congratulated the French and British yesterday on victory in Libya without mentioning the American contribution, then churlishly claimed that the war would have been over much sooner if Obama had done things differently. Today, Romney was talking about our orderly and planned well in advance withdrawal from Iraq as if it were the panicked evacuation of the last personnel from the embassy roof a la Saigon.

Need I point out the obvious. Libya is an example of using our power in a limited but very effective way to help people free themselves. Iraq is an example of using overwhelming force to create a total mess. The Republicans find it quite inconvenient that they were in charge of the amazingly expensive mess while someone they dislike was in charge of the inexpensive success.


This is Mitt's quote on Iraq:

President Obama’s astonishing failure to secure an orderly transition in Iraq has unnecessarily put at risk the victories that were won through the blood and sacrifice of thousands of American men and women. The unavoidable question is whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government. The American people deserve to hear the recommendations that were made by our military commanders in Iraq.

Koch bros

If you want background on the most powerful men in American politics whom you've likely heard of, you should read this New Yorker article on the Koch brothers, billionaire right-wingers who fund an entire web on organizations, media fronts, and other assorted attempts to move American politics as far to the right as possible.

the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.

Oddly, as I was typing this; Rachel Maddow (who I would totally hit on if she were straight, as I just love smart tomboyish chicks) started talking about the Kock brothers somehow going after one of her producers by name.
Here's the video (but it's not very exciting, TBH)

Apparently, it is now illegal to take cash for used goods in Louisiana.

It's a law that was passed during this year's busy legislative session.....
.....[House bill 195] states those who buy or sell second hand goods are prohibited from using cash. State representative Rickey Hardy co-authored the bill. Hardy says, "they give a check or a cashiers money order, or electronic one of those three mechanisms is used.".....
.....Besides non-profit resellers like Goodwill, and garage sales, the language of the bill encompasses stores like the Pioneer Trading Post and flea markets.

 So much for limited government. I guess you can get right wingers to go along with almost anything as long as it's in the name of "law and order" (in this case, keeping people from selling stolen goods). Obviously, this bill was so poorly written that it'll likely be repealed (can't take cash at yard sales, brilliant). But the urge to control more and more of our lives is genuine. If something can't be monitored by the government, best not to allow it to take place at all.

Just look at our famously successful War on Drugs (so successful that no one can get drugs anywhere in the US). All we've had to do is spend hundreds of billions of dollars, lock up millions of people, sacrifice our 4th & 5th Amendment rights, enrich murderous gangsters at home and despots around the world; and we've made drugs slightly harder to get hold of. Terrific. I can't wait to see what's next on the agenda.

Word out of Tripoli is that Gadhafi is dead. To me, Libya is an almost perfect example of how American military power should be used. There was a popular uprising against a brutal dictator, which was being violently suppressed. We and our allies provided support for the rebels, including airpower; but never committed ground troops. The dictator eventually gets defeated, mostly due to opposition by his own people. Post-war Libya will be rebuilt by Libyans for the benefit of Libyans. That's the way to do things. Hard to do anything but pat Obama on the back on foreign policy.

I really don't understand the hostility to alternative energy on the part of the right wing. OK, I understand hostility on the part of those in the oil or coal industries as pure short-sighted self interest. That's pretty standard. What I don't understand is the hostility emanating from right wing bloggers, talking heads, or even commenters on message boards. It's as if anything the damn hippies like absolutely must be opposed regardless of what it is.

If we really want "energy independence", is it better to hope unicorns discover a massive overlooked source of oil deep in the American heartland, or to come up with alternatives to the oil we now import from dictatorships in the Middle East? Is it better to burn through our limited fossil fuels as fast as we possibly can, or to adopt methods to stretch how long they last.

The easiest is solar energy. By far our biggest demand for electricity is during the day. It's when we run A/C the most. It's when our factories are running. It's when our offices, schools, and stores are open. We have to build an overcapacity of electrical plants just to deal with the big spikes in demand we experience in the day. Luckily enough, that's also when the sun is shining. We have tens of millions of single family homes with empty roofs, just waiting for electrical panels. We have entire office and industrial parks with rooftops just as empty. Filling these rooftops with generating capacity would drastically reduce the demand for electricity and suffer almost no transmission loss. Fossil fuels combine for 2/3 of our electrical generation, and as demand increases they account for almost all the new generating capacity that comes online.

The Freakonomics site has a post that manages to completely miss the point. It disparages rooftop solar in places like San Francisco because there are sunnier parts of the state; treating it as an either/or proposition as if putting rooftop solar in San Francisco meant it couldn't go in Bakersfield or Fresno. It also completely ignores the energy lost in transmission which is saved by generating it where it's consumed and indulges in some hippie-punching by speculating that San Franciscans only want solar panels to make themselves look good.

The article goes on to praise San Diego for having just over 2000 residential solar installations. In a city of over 1.3 million people which gets only 42 rainy days a year, 2000 roofs with solar is a friggin joke. San Diego is absolutely perfect for solar and should have it on almost every roof. We should be putting rooftop solar pretty much everywhere practical, especially in places that never have snow and to which power transmission is lossy and can't be easily expanded.

Charles Pierce on David Brooks

It's Tuesday, and David Brooks is happy — nay, ecstatic — that all of you out there are using your encroaching poverty to rediscover your moral compass. He calls it — and I am not kidding here — The Great Restoration, and he's awfully proud of each and every one of you peasants.....

.....to Brooks, "Quietly but decisively, Americans are trying to restore the moral norms that undergird our economic system."
Jesus H. Christ in a fking Volvo, no, it doesn't. It means people are broke. People are broke because the end product of 30 years of economic theorizing and political action that you supported has resulted in a shattered middle-class. People are broke because the Wall Street casino that your politics created and celebrated and enabled finally broke the entire country and took the rest of us down with it.

Bloomberg's Editorial Board
writes on the same basic idea as my "tax to cause the least pain" concept, but is also worried about people getting pissed off and just wanting to "punish" Wall Street.

We support Obama’s stance that people who earn more than $200,000 (or $250,000 for a couple) ought to contribute more to the public weal. Critics call this “class warfare,” but it needn’t be. The intention isn’t to punish the rich, nor to suggest that people with high incomes are bad. The intention is to raise the money necessary to finance the amount of government we want, and to do so as fairly as possible. Those who have been luckiest in the lottery of life -- whether by talent or trust fund -- have also, in recent years, been luckiest in rates of taxation

Goldman Sachs must really, really be sweating its public image, as I just ran across a full page they ran in "Popular Science" touting their role in building a big arena in Louisville. I can't imagine that the readership has a big crossover with investment banking customers, so I'm guessing they're just trying to tell the world: "See, we sometimes actually help get funding for stuff you like. We're not just blood-sucking vampires."

I Liked Ike

Where has the Republican Party of Eisenhower, of Ford, even of Nixon gone?

There is space for a political party that is in favor of a small yet efficient government that intrudes into the market and personal lives only when necessary, strong cost-effective defense, low taxes that cause the least pain and market distortion, and balanced budgets except in emergencies. We just don't have one of those parties.

Small, efficient governments don't spend hundreds of billions in corporate welfare. Cost-effective defense doesn't waste billions on unneeded big-ticket items nor does it get involved in military adventurism overseas. A sound government would raise enough money to pay for its operations, not borrow hundreds of billions to avoid raising taxes while shifting as much of the tax burden as possible onto the backs of those who can least afford it.

I really think that a lean government that only operates where it is really needed could be an electoral winner, mainly through keeping tax rates really low without borrowing our kids into the grave. So it depresses me to see the party that pays lip service to low taxes and small government make corporate welfare its biggest priority.

Many of our rich men have not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make them richer by act of Congress. By attempting to gratify their desires we have in the results of our legislation arrayed section against section, interest against interest, and man against man, in a fearful commotion which threatens to shake the foundations of our Union. It is time to pause in our career to review our principles, and if possible revive that devoted patriotism and spirit of compromise which distinguished the sages of the Revolution and the fathers of our Union.

- Andrew Jackson, Veto of the Second Bank of the United States, 1832.

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

Both parties are rotten - how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? Both parties are captives to corporate loot. The main reason the Democrats' health care bill will be a budget buster once it fully phases in is the Democrats' rank capitulation to corporate interests - no single-payer system, in order to mollify the insurers; and no negotiation of drug prices, a craven surrender to Big Pharma.

But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.

Causing the Least Pain

I've noticed that opponents of the so-called "Buffett Rule" (that millionaires shouldn't pay lower tax rates than the less well off) throw out phrases like "class warfare" and "jealousy" as if the point were just to punish rich people for the hell of it.

The fact is, government operations need to be paid for. Doing this requires taxes and taxes on anyone cause at least some pain. So we should try to find  the source of taxes that cause the least pain and the least distortion of the market. Charging millionaires like Warren Buffett the same tax rates that others pay as a way to narrow the budget deficit seems about as painless as we can get.

The same holds true for Inheritance Taxes. Sure, it would be nice to inherit millions without paying any taxes, but it would be nice for a janitor to pay less tax on his paycheck too. Which do you think causes more pain, inheritance taxes on estates over $1 million or income taxes + state taxes + payroll taxes on the average pay stub?

I've read articles that explain away the lower taxes Buffett pays based on the fact that payroll taxes have a cap and capital gains are taxed at a lower rate as if this were just the way things are and there's nothing we can do about it. Those tax rates weren't set by edict from the Flying Spaghetti Monster. They were set by political decisions and can be changed by political decisions. Payroll taxes skyrocketed under Reagan as a way to disguise the size of the deficits he was running and no President since has done a thing to lower them; even as upper income tax rates, inheritance taxes, and capital gains taxes have been slashed or entirely eliminated.

The tax burden has been trending in the direction of most pain, as taxes on those who can least afford it (mainly payroll and sales taxes) have gone up while taxes on those who aren't struggling have gone down. If we need to do something about the deficits (and we do), then I'm simply asking that we go in the other direction and look at taxes that cause the least pain.

"There is always an easy solution to every human problem--neat,
plausible, and wrong."  

H.L Mencken

"9-9-9" 

Herman Cain

Politics is not a game. It effects real people in very real ways. It decides what taxes we pay, if we go to war, and how your kids are educated. So I can't hope for someone batshit crazy like Bachmann to win the Republican nomination just because she'd be easier to beat. Whoever gets the nomination could easily end up the next President, and I'd prefer that not be someone batshit crazy. So definitely pulling for a moderate, preferably someone with enough spine to stand up to the wingnuts in his own party. Unfortunately, that's not the moderate we're stuck with. Romney is the only non-wingnut to gain any traction, so I guess he's the man. Not that he'd be a terrible President if he was working with a Democratic Congress (he wouldn't be); just that he's not the man to stand up to a Republican Congress and tell them to slow down.


This definitely appears to be the race Romney wants. He's the only moderate the press acknowledges (sorry, Huntsman) and there are 3 conservatives to split the far more numerous rightwing vote. He's just got to hope they don't coalesce around one candidate because if they do Romney is toast. His only path in a year dominated by wingnut anger is to win with a moderate plurality. He'll be helped by the press and Republican establishment, who are scared of a loose cannon and really don't give a damn about social issues.

Not going to dive into a complex explanation of where I've been. Just figure it's enough to say I saw a lot, did a lot, and had a hell of a lot of fun. Definitely should have kept writing, but I didn't. Always missed it, so now I'm back.

So, umm, how ya been?

Gack!

Continued horrid, frustrating, and painful computer problems.

Will be back when they are resolved. I apologize.

Madrid

Even though it's probably the ETA and not Al Quaeda, those people are still just as dead.

I've been worried for quite some time that terrorists would figure out how easy it is to hit soft targets in the West, and mass transit is actually more secure than many other places. Shopping malls, movie theaters, high school basketball games, office buildings, and crowded restaurants would all be good places to kill hundreds of people with one well-placed bomb.

Robert Kaplan has written about the way people react to ever-present danger in places like Lebanon and Israel. They basically have two choices:

1) Bunker down, keep out of public, and essentially close off most of life to avoid danger

2) Go on as if they weren't in any danger, even in the face of constant evidence to the contrary

Oddly, it's the people in #1 who end up the worse off, because every single one of them suffers the effects of terrorism. Every single one of them lives a shrinking, constricted life of limited opportunities, and making our day-to-day lives intolerable is one of the chief goals of terrorism.

Some of the people in #2 will end up being vicitms of terrorism, random street crime, or whatever else we worry about as we sit behind locked doors. Most victims will actually come from that group, as they're the ones in harm's way most often. But the vast majority of people who carry on with their lives won't become victims. That's what we need to keep in mind.

We can either take a small, calculated risk of becoming a victim; or we can guarantee that our lives are harmed. It's up to us.

Dear CNN, Fox, MSNBC, et al

Please, please stop replaying the video of the hockey player from the Canucks getting his neck broken. It's not as disturbing as your constant replays of the jet hittng the WTC on Sept 11th, but it's still really freaking me out.

On a side note, I'm glad my kid didn't want to play collision sports by the time he was old enough for me to let him (skateboarding and soccer are dangerous enough).

Thank you

Just as I thought

Reader Sheila was nice enough to provide a link to a study ranking each Senator on a liberal/conservative scale based on their rollcall votes.

I guess saying Kerry has the 22nd most liberal voting record in the Senate just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Was suprised to see Kerry tied with Lieberman and ranked as slightly more conservative than Edwards or Clinton.

Robert Byrd has the distinction of the most liberal voting record in the Senate, and also happens to have the single safest seat in the Senate (even as a Red State Democrat). To have a chance of losing an election in WV, Byrd would have to get caught in bed with a dead woman or a live boy, and even then it would be too close to call.

I was also surprised to see Lincoln Chafee ranked as more conservative than every Democrat but Zell Miller, and McCain as the 4th most conservative Republican. Makes sense, though. McCain tries to push his Party a bit towards the center verbally, but pretty much toes the line in voting.

First Line of Attack

Have noticed the exact phrase Most liberal voting record in the Senate being bandied about in regards to John Kerry (Chris Matthews used it last night at least twice). The wording is exactly the same every time I hear it.

This is not a coincidence. Much as the Republicans repeated invented the internet over and over again until it was conventional wisdom about Al Gore, they're gonna repeat most liberal voting record in the Senate over and over and over about Kerry.

Doesn't matter if it's not true (I'm thinking Kennedy, Feingold, Leahy, and quite a few others have more liberal records than Kerry). Doesn't matter if it's easily disproven (how easy was it to look up the exact quote of what Gore actually said about the internet?). All that matters is that it gets repeated.

You repeat something like this often enough and it gets planted in the mind, regardless of the facts (a good example is the constant repetition of Reagan won the Cold War over and over again).

Every single use of this phrase needs to be challenged, over and over again. If it doesn't, then the propagandists win.

Note to Arnold:

Borrowing $15 billion to avoid making difficult choices (most of whcih would break campaign promises) is not, in any way, fixing your state's budget crisis or solving any problem at all.

It is simply passing on your own problems to your children's generation (don't think for a minute that the debt will be paid off in your lifetime). It is also setting a bad precedent for dealing with, or more correctly, shirking future problems (much as Reagan set a precedent for Bush).

Welcome to Bush's America:

Faced with difficult choice?
Just pass it on to your kids

You are Schroeder!


Which Peanuts Character are You?
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What Greenspan Didn't Say

While I'm grateful that the Fed Chairman both embarrassed George Bush and pointed out a much needed truth by stating that the Federal deficits are a really big problem that we can't expect our selves to just grow out of, his framing of the debate was fundamentally dishonest.

Alan Greenspan seems to think that we should respond to the upcoming retirement of hordes of Baby Boomers by cutting their benefits. This, indeed, would disguise the size of our budget deficit (much as our current misappropriation of Social Security funds does). But it wouldn't really reduce that deficit.

The truth of the matter, and something you never hear on television, is that the Social Security fund is in surplus, has been for decades, and will be for decades to come. It's the rest of the Federal budget that is out of whack.

Social Security used to be pretty much a pay-as-you-go sort of deal. We'd take in roughly what we paid out, just like we claim to want to do with the rest of the government. But in the early 80's, Ronald Reagan ran into a problem. His tax cuts ans sepnding increases were inflating the Federal deficit ot unheard of levels. Instead of admitting the truth, that we couldn't afford to spend more money than ever before while drastically cutting taxes for rich people (sound familiar?)

Instead, Reagan and his budget people start, for the first time in their lives, expressing concern for the solvency of the Social Security system. The solution, of course, was to raise the payroll taxes on every single working person in the United States. This surplus, above and beyond what is needed to fund the program currently, is then loaned to the rest of the Federal government.

Conveniently enough, the government doesn't include this money borrowed from Social Security in its announced budget deficit. It's still borrowed, and it's still spent. But it's considered off the books, and doesn't go into the final number (I'm guessing that this will be somewhere short of $200 billion this year).

That's right, folks. The Bush deficits are a couple hundred billion dollars higher than announced, because this doesn't take into account that they're borrowing the Social Security surplus in addition to a crap-load of private funds. We only had a couple years where we were in a real surplus situation, and even them the surplus wasn't very big. Any intelligent person in the same situation would've used it to pay down their debt, not to fund a spending spree.

So when Greenspan tells us to cut Social Security benefits rather than dump Bush's tax cuts to balance the budget, he's really telling us Don't spend that Social Security revenue where it really came from, use it to continue hidng how fucked up our Federal budget really is.

For that's what we'd be doing. We'd be using taxes paid on earned income starting with dollar number one to offset tac cuts that only effect people who make hundreds of thousands a year (who, BTW, pay the same payroll taxes as someone who makes ninety thousand since the taxes are capped). Then we'd be cutting those same working stiffs' benefits when they retired.

This isn't too surprising. After all, one of the guys who came up with Reagan's end run around facing his deficits in the 80's was.....Alan Greenspan.

Quote of the Election

I'm going to do everything in my power to help re-defeat George W Bush.
- Jim Sasser (former Senator/Ambassador)

Why Kerry Should Want Edwards to Stay in the Race

There's been a lot of call lately for every Democrat to unite behind John Kerry as the Presidential nominee. This has some superficial appeal, but really isn't the best way to go.

The conventional wisdom is that a bruising primary with lots of mudslinging hurts a general election candidate, and this is true. Not only does getting slammed by people in your own Party weaken your support, but slamming them in return makes their supporters less likely to support you in the Fall.

But John Edwards has not run the kind of negative campaign that is actually going to hurt Kerry. Instead, Edwards has run a campaign based on the inequities in Bush's America and what he would do to redress them. This is exactly the kind of message the Democrats should want on the airwaves, and what they should want the voters thinking about. There is nothing in Edwards' message likely to hurt Kerry at all in a general election and quite a bit likely to help him.

The other reason Kerry needs Edwards in the race is that without viable opposition, Kerry stops being a story. Right now, John Kerry is a big deal wherever he goes and whatever he does. In fact, right now he's a bigger story than George Bush. Kerry can hog the limelight as long as he's in a competitive Primary. As soon as everyone else folds, Kerry's visits to swing states and policy speeches will get much less play.

There are plenty of Primaries left in swing states. It's in every Democrats interest that these Primaries get as much attention as possible and that the overall Democratic message gets out to the general public. They only do so as long as a viable opponent stays in the race, and John Edwards is the only one who hasn't gone negative on John Kerry.

John Kerry Should Thank Howard Dean Profusely

By claiming the left wing of the Democratic Party as his own, Dean created space towards the center for Kerry to emerge as a "moderate" alternative. Without Dean in the race, Kerry would've been the most liberal viable candidate; and centrist support would've drifted to the candidate who best positioned himself as the moderate alternative to that liberal Kerry.

I don't know if the voter perception of Kerry as a moderate will hold through the general election. Unfortunately, most of the swing voters and Reagan Democrats probably aren't paying enough ettention right now to form a lasting impression of Kerry before the Bush war machine gets cranked up.

This could've all been different. If Dean had emphasized his moderate record as Governor rather than running almost solely on the war (until just before the election), he might've actually emerged as the moderate alternative, rather than as the liberal sacrificial lamb.

Political Notes

Judy Woodruff seemed really pissed the other day that all the Democrats spend more time bashing Bush than each other. I think the people saying that a long, contested Primary that focuses on how much Bush sucks and doesn't go bitterly negative is good for the Democrats are onto something.

Bush never seems more incomprehensible than when trying to explain away the whole WMD in Iraq thing. Admit it, George. There aren't any, and there weren't any when you invaded. Just admit it and change the subject.

Edwards and Clark both take a lot of the cultural wedge issues out of play, as neither is easy to portray as the elitist Yankee liberal the Pubbies like to run against. Kerry does. He defuses the national security issue pretty well, though. So expect a campaign based on abortion, gays and guns if Kerry gets the nod (with taxes and subtle appeals to racism thrown into the mix).

I really don't see how Bush wins a positive campaign based on the issues and on competence, so I don't expect one. Given how the Press loves to decry negative campaigning, they don't seem too upset that the Republicans will spend a couple hundred million dollars slandering the Democratic nominee. Of course, the Press will get most of that money as ad revenue, so don't expect an outcry anytime soon.

How the hell can anyone who gives a damn about the Bill of Rights not get pissed over the advent of First Amendment Zones. If you can stand on a streetcorner with a poster supporting a politician, then I should be able to stand next to you with one criticizing him. If I can't, then the 1st Amendment means nothing. I don't know how to make this enough of a political issue to get the Bushies to cut it out, but it needs to be done (and if it were a Democrat doing it, I'd publicly refuse to vote for him until he quit).

There are not words enough to state how pissed I am that my kids and grandkids will be paying off Bush's debt long after we're all gone. I was pissed at Clinton for cutting taxes in '96 as an election ploy when we still had a deficit, and I'm even more pissed now (cause the amount of money is much greater, not because of who's doing it).

Robb?

Curious Stranger has the lowdown on Chuck Robb, including drug use and sex with underage girls while Governor.

They just wanted a pliant Democrat, and they got one (I'm guessing they couldn't trust Hart or Nunn to take orders).

John Edwards for President

In these discussions about electability, we all talk about who would be the best candidate against George W Bush. This is very important, given that every viable Democratic candidate would make a far better President than Bush does.

Unfortunately, we often ignore the question of who we really want to become President. Last week I spent a good deal of time thinking about this and looking into the candidates stands on various issues. I came to a conclusion.

This is not a prediction of who will win, we'll know more about that tomorrow. I make this endorsement without concern for whether Edwards would make the best candidate against Bush (I acually think Clark probably would, with Edwards 2nd). This is simply about who would do the best job once in office.

I want John Edwards to become President.

I've often described myself as an old-school New Deal Democrat who puts more emphasis on economic than social policy. I also espouse a muscular, liberal interventionist foreign policy. Of all the candidates, John Edwards comes closest to my heart on the issues that matter most. But there is more to this as well.

Edwards is the only candidate who talks about the ongoing Brazilification of our society, its division into what he calls Two Americas. I'm very concerned that this division will become permanent, and that it will harden our society and make it both more violent and less stable as those who find the traditional paths to a comfortable life no longer there. He not only talks about it, he has very detailed policy proposals spelling out the myriad ways he would make America's promise available to all.

Edwards would make the tax code more progressive. One of the realities of the last 20 years is that the burden of taxation has been moving off of corporations and the rich and onto the backs of the middle class. By repealing those tax cuts that benefit the only the wealthy and leaving the rest, Edwards would help move the tax burden back to where it once was.

Edwards would make health insurance available for all children and for those adults who are otherwise uninsurable. To me, the logic of insuring all children is inescapable. They have done nothing to deserve either wealthy parents or poor ones, and their access to healthcare shouldn't be dependent on lucking into the proper parents.

Edwards would rebuild our relationships with our other nations, expand our commitment to humanitarian aid abroad, and do more to disrupt our enemies in Afganistan and elsewhere; while still leaving our capacity to act intact. Bush has done much to damage our international standing, much of it completely unnecessary. Edwards would rebuid this standing, which is absolutely essential to getting allies to help us abroad and to keeping America from becoming a target in the first place. He would take them into consideration in a way that Bush has not, but Edwards would not, however, allow foreign governments to have a veto over our use of force.

Most of all, John Edwards has the intelligence and adaptability to react to situations as they develop. If the last few years have shown us anything, it is that we don't know shit about the future. Remeber all those pundits saying the 2000 election really didn't matter much at all?

John Edwards is a man who can react to new situations, can think on his feet, and can be trusted to make intelligent choices.

For all these reasons and for many more, I want John Edwards to become President.

Feel free to comment one way or the other, and please take a look at Edwards' policy proposals.

Well, I was close

Don't know if this counts as a good omen for Kerry or not.

It was like an entirely new game started with a couple minutes left in the first half. Went from a defensive struggle to a shootout.

Don't know if that's an omen for the Primary either.

Prediction: Carolina by 3

Just like the Democratic Primary, this is either going to be a quick blowout by New England or a slow slog to victory by Carolina.

I'm going for the slow slog, but that may just be wishful thinking.

So

How's that $15 billion to fight AIDS in Africa coming along?

Anyone From Iowa or New Hampshire?

There was some discussion on Bill Maher's new show last night that all the Deaniacs descending on Iowa and New Hampshire may have backfired. They drew a picture of a bunch of slacker hippie-wannabes with pierced noses telling traditional rural Dems who to vote for.

I was wondering if there was any truth to this.

Were the Deaniacs the sort of wild-eyed stereotypical radicals likely to turn off farm-state voters?
Or was that simply a bunch of horse-shit from people who weren't there?

I was kinda wondering about that whole Writing letters to Iowa voters thing myself. I can imagine that some of the people writing them might've gone a bit overboard in their fervor and scared the crap out of the typical suburban soccer Mom.

Am I the only one who thinks it's a sign that times have really changed when we have a woman doing the TV news named Soledad and no one even blinks?

Or when every white stockbroker's favorite athlete is a half-Thai, 1/4 black, 1/8 white, 1/8 Native American golfer with a Scandanavian wife?

Bet Against the Funeral Director

I've come up with a rule of thumb for wagering on Presidential elections (at least general elections).

See who looks most like a funeral director, and bet against him.

Shallow? Of course.

But no more shallow than letting the big donors decide, or the Supreme Court.

Gore - Bush
Clinton - Dole
Clinton - Bush
Dukakis - Bush (but this one was close)
Mondale - Reagan
Carter - Reagan
Carter - Ford

By my measure, Nixon was the last guy who won an election while looking more like a funeral director.

Watch This Video Right Now

Interesting KOS Diary on Kerry's stiff demeanor and it's portent for the Nov election:

Try to imagine courtroom whiz John Edwards one-on-one in a debate with George Bush. It would be the sort of one-sided slaughter the President of Mars so richly deserves. Dean would say two stupid things and 20 brilliant ones. Clark, whatever his other faults, radiates enough crackle to have leaped into national prominence as a TV pundit, for goodness sake.

Kerry would... umm... would... zzzzzzz...

I don't think this gets nearly enough attention from those picking Kerry based on electability. He's a boring guy. He's stiff, he's aloof, he's patrician, and he's a Yankee. Basically Kerry is a Yankee Al Gore with a better war record.

I liked Al Gore, and worked on his campaign. I think he would've made a pretty good President. But he wasn't a magnetic, charming guy, and efforts to make him come across as one always reeked of inauthenticity.

Like it or not, electoral politics is about wooing the voters and charming them with your personality. Clinton married this with popular positions on the issues, and he won. Gore was on the popular side of the vast majority of the issues, but he never made that connection with the voters. As a result, an incompetent faker pretending to be a Texas good ole boy conned his way within stealing range of the Presidency.

From what I've seen of Kerry lately, he's Gore redux. His stiff delivery of lines that should flow naturally like Bring It On, an uncomfortableness speaking to an audience, and a generally aloof manner will really hurt in November.

We need a candidate who makes voters feel comfortable with him as a person. I'm not even sure that voters can imagine Kerry as a person.

From a commenter on Daily KOS:

"In New Hamphire last night, Yalie 1 defeated Yalie 2 to secure his hold on the front-runner status in the Democratic nominating contest. Yalie 3 came in fifth but claimed to be tied for third."
"If Yalie 1 wraps up the nomination, he will have a face-off with Yalie 4, the son of Yalie 5."

"Skull and Bones was unavailable for comment."

Josh Marshall spent election day going to as many campaign rallies as possible with these highlights:

I’ve realized that it’s impossible not to believe Edwards is going to be the nominee while you’re actually watching an Edwards event. The certainty wears off a while later, of course. But while he’s got you in his crowd you’re under his spell. Tried. Tried again ... No, doesn’t work. There’s some sort of hypnosis. At least in the moment, he's that good.

and

[Clark]connected with the crowd. He hit the war issue hard --- Bush is someone who “prances around on the deck of an aircraft carrier.”

WTF?
I'm only 7th in a google search for Burton bullshit.

This makes me very sad.

Who's the Big Loser?

Dean and Clark Both Lose!

Dean is toast. As I've said before, I don't consider him to be a flaming liberal, but his speaking style and his core of support among the left-wing has painted him as such. This has cost him his shot at the nomination. Moderates don't want him to win, and many liberals don't think he can.

Dean was building some bandwagon support before Iowa (even I thought he was inevitable), but it's all gone now. None of the anybody but Bush voters are going for him, and the upcoming primaries are all unfriendly. I see Delaware as the only potential Dean win next week.

Clark is hurting. He skipped Iowa to concentrate on New Hampshire, and still finished tied for third. Instead of Howard Dean, he's now faced with as chief rivals a better financed, highly decorated veteran with years of experience and a fellow Southerner who seems born to speak in front of an audience.

Clark needs a win next week or he's done. If I were him, I'd spend all my time in Oklahoma and North Dakota (at least I think it's North Dakota that votes next week :) ). Clark needs a win, any win. He should campaign where he has the best shot and the least competition.

Note:
While Edwards certainly wasn't helped, he wasn't hurt badly either. He went from dead-ass last to a tie for third in one week of campaigning, which tells me that he connects with voters when they get to know him. The longer he stays in, the more his support builds. People respond to John Edwards, which bodes well for him as the campaign goes on; but the longer Clark stays in, the worse it is for Edwards. He needs to pull away from the pack with a couple wins and build momentum for Super Tuesday.

He needs South Carolina, but he should also compete in Missouri, Arizona, and Oklahoma. Those are places where his background, his message, and his accent (yes, that matters) should go over well.

Who's the big winner?

Kerry Wins!

And he won in more ways than one:

1) He got the most votes and therefore the most delegates. While this is definitely a win, it also shouldn't be much of a surprise. He's from next door, and the Boston media market dominates NH. A loss would've hurt far more than a win helps, just as it has done to Dean.

2) More importantly, his opposition remains split. If either Edwards or Clark had emerged with big momentum, it really would've hurt Kerry in Yankee-phobic places like Oklahoma and South Carolina. An Edwards or Clark clean sweep in those places would've seriously dented Kerry's pitch as the most electable candidate.

The strategic voters who will vote for anyone who can beat Bush would think twice about turning their back on a guy who swept the South and Mountain West. As long as both Edwards and Clark are in the race, a sweep by either is much less likely.

Keryy needs to be very concerned about the expectations game. Novak, the Prince of Darkness, is on CNN right now saying that Kerry could sweep the next week's worth of primaries. I think there's chance he might only win a couple of them. If anything short of kicking ass next week is a defeat, then get ready for Kerry to get handed defeat.

KOS gives us the rundown on NH, including the fact that about 5% of the Republican primary voters bothered to go out in the cold to write in Democratic candidates (since registered Republicans can't cross over and vote in the Democratic primary).

One of his commenters, Maire, had this to say:

DEMs could have won in 1988 if we had selected a halfway decent candidate. We could have won in 2000 if we had reached out to the left and forged an alliance. We could even have won in 1984 if we'd had a dynamic candidate. Kerry is NOT DYNAMIC. The general population does not like watching grass grow or paint dry and that is what watching Kerry is like.

Then I found in her KOS diary some interesting observations about Wes Clark, and the comparisons to Eisenhower, our last former General in the White House (hint: She doesn't buy 'em).

Joementum

Joe, it's over. Don't drag it out any longer.

Take a cue from Gephardt. He saw the writing on the wall and bowed out. You should do the same.

Spin it how you like, but you finished 5th in a state you'd been spending all your time and money in. One of the guys ahead of you only started campaigning there last week.

You've still got your Senate seat, which puts you one up on Gep. Go back to it, and be the best Senator from Connecticut you can be. Cause that President thing just ain't gonna happen. I'm sure you'd be better off now if you'd never caught Potomac Fever, but you did.

You will not be President.

It's over. Don't drag it out any longer.

33 year old Doonesbury cartoon poking fun at John Kerry.

Predictions

1st: Kerry (by a pretty big margin)
2nd: Dean (barely)
3rd: Edwards (close on Dean's heels)
4th: Clark
5th: Lieberman

Lieberman drops out, blaming inability to raise money.

Dean limps on, but finds enthusiasm/money harder to come by than previously.

Clark continues on, but drops out after losing South Carolina to Edwards.

Of course, I could be full of crap. Dean could win handily, declare himself The Comeback Kid, and lead the pack once again.

WTF?

Have just looked at 2 different electoral vote calculators. They both agree.

If the Democratic nominee wins every Gore state plus New Hampshire and Nevada, the vote will be evenly split 269-269.

I'm guessing that the House would then jump in to throw the race to Bush.

Would really suck to have 8 years of a fucker who never won the election even once.

Almost missed this brutal takedown of Bush's State of the Union Address by South Knox Bubba:

It was just... weird. It was all over the place with half-baked ideas and half-hearted, non-specific proposals. There was no flow or cohesiveness. The segues were disjointed and bizarre, like whole pieces of it were missing.........

.........The shocking thing this speech revealed was that Bush has absolutely no coherent domestic policies whatsoever. I wonder if he is even aware of what is going on out here. I was shocked that the GOP missed this opportunity to advance their domestic agenda, whatever it is.

I Want to Hate John Edwards

He's a multimillionaire former trial lawyer who looks like Robert Redford in The Candidate and has a decent shot at becoming the next President of the United States. He's 15 years older than I am, but looks like my younger brother.

Top that with the fact that he's running a positive campaign based on what he wants to do as President rather than just on running down his opposition. I'm sure he's nicer to old people and puppy dogs than I am, too.

Reminds me of a couple guys I knew in High School, Chas Morton and Matt Ligon (you too, Tommy). They were really smart, really athletic, ridiculously good-looking guys who it would've been easy to envy and hate. But they were both so damned nice that I couldn't hate them. That drove me nuts.

Clark

Just saw a Clark speech where he was bragging about never having cut a deal for votes as if it were a really good thing.

It's not.

His lack of legislative experience is Clark's weakpoint, not a strength. How is he gonna jam his agenda through an often hostile and always self-interested Congress if he doesn't have any experience arm-twisting and vote-buying?

I like Clark, and I think he has the potential to be a good President, but he'll need a VP and a staff with good political instincts much more than the other candidates.

Politically, he's the 2nd biggest loser from Iowa. He was expecting a resounding Dean victory to clear the decks and leave him as the principle alternative to the Gov. Now he's battking for 3rd in the polls with Edwards, and will have to fight with him to win the more conservative primaries in SC, OK, and the Dakotas.

He doesn't need to win NH, but a 4th place showing would really hurt Clark's campaign. On the other hand, a 2nd place finish would be a real boost.

Dean

Matthew Yglesias thinks that a 3rd place finish in Iowa actually helped Howard Dean by keeping the opposition from uniting around a lone opponent.

I disagree.

The fact that there are multiple viable opponents in New Hampshire helps Dean win New Hampshire, but his lousy showing in Iowa makes New Hampshire far more important than it would otherwise be. Lots of candidates have finished 2nd or 3rd in New Hamshire and Iowa then gone on to win the nomination. Howard Dean is not one of these candidates. If he doesn't win in NH, he's toast. He could drag this out as long as wanted to, with his strong finances and devoted core of supporters, but he'll still be toast.

After NH, the campaign moves to places like South Carolina, Michigan, and Oklahoma. These are not likely to be very Dean-friendly. The Super-Tuesday races in the South will likewise be a bloodbath for the Dean campaign if Clark and/or Edwards are still in the race.

The only races coming up where I'd consider Dean to even be competitive are Delaware and Washington. He needs a win in NH to keep him from completely disappearing from the radar. If he goes under, he likely won't come back up in time for friendlier races in the Northeast and West Coast.

As I've stated before, I don't think Dean is as liberal as either his supporters or the general public consider him. But that hardly matters now. As long as people think Dean is an unelectable radical, he might as well really be one. And screaming on TV sure doesn't help change that perception.

He doesn't win NH, and he's toast.

Faux "News" is apparently under orders to prop up Dean while taking down Clark and Kerry.

They also seem to be kind to Edwards, but that may be a miscalculation. I'd don't think he'd be as easy to take down as the Pubbies think.

Strongbad on video games, and you can play them at the end.

We Want Indictments, We Want Disbarments

Can you imagine if the Democrats had done this to the Republicans:

WASHINGTON -- Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.

From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.

This would be the only topic on cable news for at least a couple weeks. The pundits and talking heads would be screaming for indictments and disbarments. They would use this to tar all Democrats as dishonest sleazebags for supporting the people who did it.

So allow me to be the first.

We want indictments.

We want disbarments.

And any Republican who doesn't agree is a dishonest sleazebag.

The Democrats on the Judiciary Committee shouldn't even allow the quorum needed to meet until there are people behind bars.

Fuck You, Chevy Chase

Matthew Yglesias discusses counterfactual scenarios and gives us this:

My personal favorite, however, is what if Nixon had won in 1960 and had to deal with the pressures of the Civil Rights movement. At the time, the allegiances of African-American voters were roughly split. The GOP in the aggregate was more supportive of civil rights than were the Democrats, but the leading civil rights advocates in the government were northern liberal Democrats. There's a fair chance that the circumstances would have forced Nixon to become a civil rights champion (as they forced Kennedy and LBJ), no Goldwater campaign, and no southern re-alignment. You might have seen northern liberals move into the GOP which then would have become something like a European liberal party dominated by Olympia Snowe types while the Democrats became a vehicle for white class politics.

I see this as having been a very real possibility. For much of the 20th century, the Republicans were, on the whole, more liberal on social issues than the Democrats. This is understandable, as most rural areas were Democratic and most affluent urbanites Republican.

This lead to an interesting discussion of other scenarios amongst his commenters (TR wins in 1912, tries to jump into WWI too early, destroys support for him and his economic policies; Nixon wins in 1960, leads us into a bloody war in Cuba, etc).

My favorite counterfactual has always been:
Chevy Chase doesn't make Gerald Ford look like a complete fool every Saturday night, Ford ekes out a victory against Carter and gets blamed for all the badness of the late 70's (and possibly legalizes pot, in accordance with the wishes of many, including a young Congressman named Dan Quayle).

I've always considered Reagan's victory in 1980 to be much more of a reaction against Carter's ineefectual administration and against things completely out of Presidential control rather than a sudden embrace by the electorate of voodoo economics. Of course, the Reaganistas don't see it this way. They seem to feel part of some massive historical tide (a tide, of course, that has trouble actually winning elections without an incompetent opponent).

So, no Chevy Chase on SNL, No Ronald Reagan Memorial National Debt, no decades of neglect for alternative energy, no gutting of labor and environmental law enforcement, no shifting of the tax burden from the wealthy and corporations onto the backs of the middle class. No Chevy Chase, and my kid isn't looking at paying off the 1981 tax cuts for the rest of his life. Fuck you, Chevy Chase.

How Free? How Independent?

Am wondering exactly how free and how independent we're really gonna let the Iraqi government be.

What if it wants a theocracy?

Closer ties to Iran?

What if it reneges on all Saddam's debts? (which I hope it does, as governments/banks that loan money to bastards like him shouldn't get their money back)

What if it supports Palestinian suicide bombers the way Saddam did?

What if it nationalizes the oil companies?

What if it wants to elect ex-Baathists, as some Eastern European countries have elected ex-Commies?

What if a relative of Saddam came to power

I'm asking because we've deposed leaders for things like nationalizing oil companies, and I really don't see the Bushies allowing the Iraqis the freedom to do stuff that pisses it off. Hell, we once deposed the elected government of Guatemala cause it pissed off United Fruit.

The things in bold are my guess as to what would be deal-breakers in this case. I don't know exactly what we'd do, and neither do the neo-cons (who never anticipated an Iraqi government that wouldn't do our bidding). I just know we wouldn't let things stand if the new Iraqi government reneged on all its debts and started nationalizing oil companies.

The Era of Big Government Is Back

Bush didn't say it, but should have.

If you like massive government programs that do nothing but buy off voters and contributors, this is your guy.

If you like the prospect of trillion dollar deficits, this is your guy.

And if you don't mind shuffling off today's spending on our kids and grandkids, this is your guy.

Will the last Republican to abandon fiscal conservatism please turn off the lights?

I Know You Are a Terrorist

Holy Crap!

Howard Dean was on CNN a little while ago, looking like someone smacked him in the head with a crowbar.

I don't know what's a bigger shock:

1) Gephardt getting bitch-slapped by the voters

2) Edwards finishing a strong second

3) Dean finishing a weak third, getting lapped by Kerry and almost by Edwards

He has the money and organization to take this all the way, but Dean must win New Hampshire or he's toast.

Gratz to the Kerry and Edwards campaigns, you worked for this one.

FWIW: Kerry/Edwards wouldn't be a bad ticket. Not as strong as Clark/Edwards, but still strong.

FWIW, part II: Gephardt would make a fine Secretary of Labor, keep it in mind.

Liberal Oasis reminds us that it's less about how you do in Iowa than in how you spin it.

Who remembers that Clinton actually lost Iowa by 8% in '92, then went out and declared himself the Comeback Kid?

The Most Important Election Is Always the 2nd

The Shia outnumber Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq, and they would dominate any popularly elected government.

Unfortunately, there is nothing is the rehotric of their leaders, nor in the history of the Iraqi state that leads me to believe they'd have any interest in respecting democratic traditions.

Among these are allowing your opponents to be critical of you, allowing them to run political campaigns unimpeded, allowing votes to be counted honestly (a step we've had trouble with in recent years),and actually stepping aside if you lose.

We've seen plenty of mostly honest first-time elections when dictators have fallen or regimes have collapsed. What we don't always see is the winner of those elections ever leave the scene willingly.

I'm afraid that's what we'll see in Iraq. Some mullah or representative of one will take power, and that'll be all she wrote. We'll have either a kleptocracy like in Zaire, a thugocracy like Zimbabwe, or a corrupt Islamic Republic like in Iran.

But no matter what fucked up regime ends up in power, we'll get the blame.

People will forget how bad Hussein was, and they'l focus on the least flaw (or the giant, raging flaws) in the successor regime. And we'll get the blame for every damned thing it does. Count on it.

Cauci

Never been to a Caucus, don't know much about how the votes get counted. But I got cable specifically so I could watch political stuff, so I guess I'll just keep watching these idiots drone on until we get some news.

Tomorrow, things should be a bit clearer. The latest polls seem to show Kerry and Edwards surging and Dean sliipping a bit, but who the hell really knows.

Strange Bedfellows

Michael Moore and George McGovern are both campaigning for Wes Clark, perhaps the most conservative Democratic candidate other than Lieberman.

Dennis Kucinich, the most liberal candidate, has apparently asked his voters to switch to John Edwards if they don't get the 15% needed to get to garner some delegates. He's about as conservative as Clark.

BTW: Neither of these candidates are anywhere outside the mainstream of the Democratic Party, nor are they in the same ballpark as people like Zell Miller and John Breaux. They're just not the obvious picks for liberals like Moore and Kucinich.

TV "News"

When did MSNBC become wingnut central?

I know I haven't had cable in a very long time, but they seem as bad as Faux "News" now.

New Term

Not real happy to see My Baby's Daddy enter the lexicon as a term of art. Never had a problem with people having kids outside of wedlock, but am old-fashioned enough to think that couples can take better care of kids than singles. This is especially true when the single in question is very young and never had a stable relationship with the father of her child.

When it's so common for women to get knocked up by someone they're not dating exclusively that you need a special term for it, that's a problem (I'm assuming here that the word boyfriend would suffice if he was, in fact, her boyfriend).

Vaporware

Whenever a competitor announces a new product, you can be sure that Microsoft will announce that it's working ona something that fills the same niche, but with more features. They'll do this even if they don't have such a product in development yet, or even if they have no intention of ever developing one. This mythical product is known as vaporware.

The intent of vaporware is to make the currently available competive product less attractive to both consumers and investors. Why buy this product when a cheaper one with more features will be available soon? Why invest in this product if one with the marketing muscle of Microsoft behind it will be competing with it soon?

In politics, we see vaporware either as a competing proposal that is much cheaper and/or puts off real action for years, or in the call for more studies or research. The Bush administration has gotten very good at the announcement of vaporware for maximum effect.

Worried about golbal warming? Don't worry, we're gonna study it some more to waste tim make sure we really have a problem.

We saw this with the big fuss they made over hydrogen fuel cell autos, which won't be commercially available for well over a decade. We have hybrid cars now, we can make regular cars much more efficient than we currently do; but why worry about all that if hydrogen fuel cells will solve all our problems? This is a very effective way to distract attention from things we could being doing now that the Bushies oppose for either political or ideological reasons.

I'd put school vouchers and the No Child Left Untested Act into the category of vaporware as well. Why fix up urban schools, reduce class sizes, and pay teachers enough to make it a truly desirable occupation (all things we could do now, but which would cost lots of money), when we can simply wait for the vast number of quality private schools that will magically spring into existence at some point in the future (and it would truly have to be a vast number to make a real difference in our educational system) or for market mechanisms to fix everything without having to spend more cash.

Bush's Mission to Mars fantasy looks like more vaporware. It's aimed far enough in the future that the Bushies know they won't have to pay for it, at the same time as it's used as the reason to kill off other programs now. Bloggers have noticed, but the mainstream press has ignored (surprise) that Bush proposes to cut funding for every NASA project that doesn't point to the Moon and Mars. Some of these are crappy money wasters (the Space Station), some are cost effective and scientifically useful; but they want to shelve it all. I'm guessing that this is mainly just a chance to help pay for the Bush tax cuts, with a bit of payoff to big defense contractors thrown in.

The question is, how long will the public accept Bush proposals at face value?, and will they ever start to look at them as the vaporware they are.

Civil Servants

Am reading Robert Kaplan's An Empire Wilderness : Travels into America's Future, which chronicles here in America the growing divide between those who can thrive in the global economy and those who can't, as well as the gradual dissolution of the nation-state, patriotism, and public services in favor of private security firms, private schools, and a sense of belonging more wrapped up in self or local than national identity.

Kaplan has explored the latter more fully in The Coming Anarchy : Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War, in which he writes about places that never quite got a national identity off the ground (think of how much fun we had with those who thought of themselves as Serbians first, members of the Orthodox Church second, and Yugoslavians only third, if that).

Kaplan describes the problem with the police in many Mexican cities. Rather than fighting crime, they are criminals themselves: working as security and hired muscle for drug runners, shaking down businessmen and civilians, even carjacking and armed robbery.

Instead of the mixture of desire to do good and the desire for a secure job with good benefits that drives people into policework here, they surely see more police driven by the desire to make a quick buck easily [this is not to say that Mexico doesn't have honest cops trying to do well, just that the incentives don't work that way].

This made me think of the problems with corruption endemic in many 3rd world countries' civil services, where a bribe is necessary to get a marriage license, to get a loved one's body from the morgue, to take a school entrance exam, for any of the things in daily life we've taken for granted.

An honest, decently paid civil service is one of the things that is absolutely necessary for a livable society. Some societies have one, some don't, and I honestly don't know how a place like Mexico or India will be able to clean their's up. I'm guessing the key will be to pay civil servants enough to make it a desirable job, then to be ruthless in getting rid of anyone corrupt.

But this isn't an easy problem to solve. Once the bribe-taking mindset becomes prevalent, it's hard to root out, especially for those places that don't pay their civil servants a living wage. If I was a cop who couldn't feed his family without bribes, I'd be shaking people down too.

I Should Like Lieberman More Than I Do

At least on foreign policy matters, he and I both favor of muscular, interventionist liberalism; we're essentially Cold War Democrats. We believe that America has a positive role to play in the international arena (which sets us apart from a lot of other liberals), but that it can't do everything alone (which sets us apart from a lot of conservatives). Lieberman, Clark, and Kerry are the candidates I feel closest to on foreign policy, probably in that order.

Joe has a good environmental record, and is actually to my left on some other social issues like affirmative action. Like me, he doesn't buy into Reagan's dictum that government is the real problem. We both believe that the government can be and usually is a net positive in our society (of course, that's net, not in every instance).

So why don't I like Lieberman more? I'd divide it into one big policy difference and one smaller personal one.

When it comes down to it, Lieberman has simply become too comfortable with the concentration of wealth and of political power in fewer and fewer hands. Either he doesn't see these as a problem or he doesn't see them as being solvable. I, on the other hand, see that we need to prevent our slow division into have's and have-not's, into those with lots of power and those with noe if we're to prevent ourselves from being an increasingly brutal and dangerous society like Brazil or anyplace else with a wide and widening gulf between the rich and poor. Given my druthers, I'll choose Denmark over Brazil any day, and I see a steeply progressive tax code and strict regulation of corporate behavior as necessary to push us in that direction. I'm not sure Joe agrees.

On a strictly personal note, Lieberman's smarmy goody-two-shoes act gives me the creeps. It bugged me in 2000 when he spent most of the election lecturing Hollywood, and my reaction hasn't gotten any better.

We agree on more than I usually admit, but Lieberman and I are just too far apart on our vision of government regulation and of the tax code for him to be my guy. Sorry, Joe.

No Agua

Came home from work yesterday and there was no water coming from my taps. I figured that there was a water main somewhere being worked on, so I waited. Sure enough, the H2O started flowing again in a couple hours.

Like the last time freezing rain knocked out my power here in The London of the Piedmont (Buffet's description of Nashville's weather), this gave a bit of time to reflect on how soft and downright helpless Western Man has become. I may be able to fix a computer, drive a car, argue my way in and out of trouble, or even change a diaper; but put my ass in a situation with no electricity, no supermarkets, and no access to potable water and I'm in deep shit. And of the three, clean water is probably the most vital and hardest to get.

Millions of people, lots of them little kids, die each year because they have no way to get clean drinking water. Kinda puts my bullshit struggles in perspective, don't it? Makes me thankful to be here in America and feel a little unworthy of everything I've been handed at the same time.

SayUncle discusses freedom and what is necessary to preserve it and isn't happy with what he sees:

In short, guns are useless without the will to right wrongs and take risks. Sadly, I think America is at the point where most of us are unwilling to take risks, stand up for what’s right, and speak truth to power.

We sit by while our courts restrict speech; politicians authorize government agencies to snoop through citizen’s records without warrants; police randomly harass motorists; indoor plumbing justifies why police no longer have to knock and announce their presence before entering a suspect’s home; dissenters are quarantined to First Amendment Zones; judges tell people they can’t sell their book; local governments abuse eminent domain; men armed with machine guns parade around our large cities; people are detained without access to legal counsel, sometimes in secret; and the list goes on and on.

As long as Michael Jackson is in the news, Paris Hilton is sucking dick, and the latest reality TV shows are popular, we don’t notice. Or we don’t care.

Or we’re forced to pick two losing sides. Democrats and Republicans have equally deplorable records regarding civil liberties. It just depends which particular civil liberty you’re talking about. We often vote for the lesser of two evils.

It’s up to us to change it by holding politicians responsible. If we can’t do that now with our vote, we won’t have the will to do anything if our last hope turns out to be AK47s.

Question

I hear lots of numbers as to how many Palestinians have been killed since the start of the most recent violence. Does anyone know how many of them have been killed by other Palestinians, either in bombings or killed for collaborating with the Israelis?

Just a side note, but I really miss Rabin. He's maybe the only one who could've guided Israel through this without the bloodshed we've seen. I was happy to see Sharon stand up to the wingnuts in his own party and say that settlements must be dismantled, but I have yet to hear of any actually being torn down.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

Can't understand why everyone seems so pissed about Israel building themselves a security fence. Seems like a great idea to me.

It'll allow the Israelis to better protect themselves against suicide bombers and other terrorists (there've been no recent bombings originating in Gaza, cause they've already got a big fence around it), which is the obvious intent. What gets less attention is that it will also force the Israelis to abandon the far-flung network of settlements they've built, especially those which are dangerously close to Arab towns.

That's the thing about really damned expensive fences, you tend to build them in the shortest line possible, without detours for tiny encampments on some distant hillside. I wrote last year that the Israelis would eventually have to withdraw behind defensible borders, and I remember Thomas Friedman advocating back in the 80's that they should simply hand the Palestinians their land back and say You're independent, deal with it. Don't expect to be trading with us or taking jobs here anytime this century (not a quote, just the gist of his idea).

The Palestinians have no inherent right to work for Israeli companies, nor to trade with Israel. They only get to trade with and work for people they're at peace with, and they're not at peace. Nor are the 1967 borders sacrosanct. They were the product of war themselves, after all.

Israel should simply fence off what they need to keep and can sensibly defend, then slam the doors and declare the Palestinians independent. After that, they're on their own.

Update: Just heard that a woman waiting to go through security from the Gaza Strip blew herself up, killing 4 Israelis. While the crossings through security fences are obvious weak points, one possible solution (but an extreme one) is simply to not allow anyone to cross.

Either a Joke or the Worst Scam of All Time

Verbatim:

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adress. You must cpotemle this pcesors by clicking on the link
below and enntering in the litle window your Citi ATM
Card Number and card pin that you use on Atm Machine.
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To veerify your e-mail adress and access your Citbiank account, klick on
the link bellow. If nothing happnes when you click on the link -8 copye
and pastte the link into the adress bar of your window.

Not a Fan of the Vanity Candidates

Just caught enough of the debate the other night to see Sharpton criticizing Howard Dean for not hiring enough blacks as Governor, which was just enough to annoy the shit out of me.

Cut the guy some fucking slack. He was Governor of freakin' Vermont, a state so white that it makes Idaho look brown. How the hell is he gonna hire many minorities in a state that doesn't have any to start with?

I know it would look bad to cut the vanity candidates out of the debates, but we really don't need to waste much time listening to guys who aren't really running for President. Let them draw attention to pet causes the same way everyone else has to instead of glomming onto free publicity from the Presidential Primaries.

Brian Linse agrees with me on possible VPs:

Edwards has always struck me as a Clintonesque candidate, and at the very least he should be considered as a great VP on a Wes Clark ticket if Dean tanks.

If Dean wins the nom? Dean/Clark would be the way to go for the best chance of ousting Bush Jr.

The Poor Man gives us a likely scenario for a Clark win, as he emerges as the main non-Dean candidate after NH then runs the table in the South and Mountain West.

Kevin Phillips is pissed and you should read what he has to say about the Bush family, inherited priviledge, and the future of politics in America:

This type of dynasty is antithetical to the American political tradition. The presidency is now subject to inherited views, inherited staff, inherited wars, inherited money, inherited loyalties. I'm not talking about particular policies -- I'm talking about a unique evolution of a corrupting institutional process in American governance.......

.......You have to focus on the Bush family itself. They have made the presidency into an office infused with an almost hereditary dishonesty. There's so much lying and secrecy and corruption to it. Just look at the way Neil and Jeb and Marvin and George W. have earned their livings, with all these parasitic operations: profiting from their political connections, cashing in on favors from big corporations and other governments. It's a convergence of arrogance -- the sense that you don't have to pay attention to democratic values. It's happening again with Halliburton. They can't help but let their old cronies in there to make buckets of money off the war.

VP Candidates

A few days ago, I wrote about Wes Clark being the most logical Democratic nominee not named Howard Dean, and that his choice for a VP isn't as constrained as Dean's is. I see the best choices for Clark as John Edwards and Jean Shaheen, both of whom I see adding something to the ticket nationwide, with the kicker of Edwards' regional appeal in the South and Shaheen delivering her swing state.

This made me think more about the strategy behind picking a VP nominee. There are two main schools of thought:

1) Pick a VP who helps you nationwide, even if only a bit, included in this would be picking a VP who fills in some of the gaps on your resume. This would be the rationale for Howard Dean to pick Wes Clark as his VP.

2) Pick a VP who helps you a lot in one particular area or key state. This would be the rationale for Gore to have picked someone like Bob Graham in 2000 (Graham would help in Florida and help with foreign policy in today's political climate)

The best VP picks, of course, are a mixture of both. They are candidates who have nationwide and regional appeal at the same time. Jean Shaheen would fit this category, as she could virtually guarantee New Hampshire and would add something in every state due to being a woman. Al Gore helped Bill Clinton in the South, and added foreign policy and legislative experience that reassured the rest of the nation.

An addendum should be that, of course, the VP should neither hurt nationwide nor in a particular region (and this obviously includes not picking anyone who is unfit to be President). This is where the Liberman pick failed. He did help in Florida and in California (where Gore didn't really need help), but he hurt elsewhere (I think the distancing Gore from Clinton thing was mostly of interest to the Press and was probably a wash).

As much as I'd prefer it to be otherwise, Lieberman's religion hurt Gore in Tennessee, Missouri, New Hampshire, Arkansas, West Virginia, and New Mexico, which he won anyway [this does not mean that I'm happy that there are still people who vote aginst candidates based on religion and ethnicity, but simply that they exist and that reality must be faced]. I also think his constant harping on Hollywood and rather conservative image probably drove a few more voters to Nader. He was obviously useless in the VP debate, but that is of minor importance in the big picture.

So who are the VP's I'd consider in '04?

A lot depends on the candidate doing the picking, and his particular needs. Next would be my take on the electoral map and where a VP might help most. Last, but not least, should be whether this election is one in which big risks are justified, and I think they are quite justified.

The first place people look for a VP are among other candidates:

Howard Dean: Good Presidential candidate, not a good VP candidate; centrist with public image of left-winger; no regional appeal outside the Northeast, which is already solidly Democratic (but would help in NH and Maine); MD gives added credence to postions on healthcare; excellent record as Governor; tendency to shoot off his mouth; main appeal is among the Democratic base; should only be considered as VP if needed to unite the Party; good campaigner

Joe Lieberman: Bad candidate, worse VP; has been far more critical of other candidates than any other Democrat in race, making it hard for him to turn around and join one of them; religion is both an advantage in some areas and a liability in others; soft campaigner; solid record as Senator; looks like Keebler Elf

John Kerry: So-so candidate, so-so VP; good military and foreign policy credentials; smart as hell; good ideas on environment and energy independence; trouble connecting with voters; weird hair; weirder wife; no regional appeal outside Northeast; would make much better President than candidate,kinda like Gore; in fact, much like Gore in many ways including all his weaknesses as a candidate

Dick Gephardt: Bad candidate, only slightly better VP; doesn't connect well with voters; so-so record in Congress; no eyebrows; some regional appeal in Midwest, but mostly among core Democratic groups; so-so campaigner; only a viable VP for an insurgent wanting to rebuild bridges with mainstream Democrats

Bob Graham: So-so candidate, better VP: got no traction in crowded field; solid foreign policy credentials; very popular in Florida, which should put him on anyone's short-list; weird diary habit; not an exciting guy, but might be perfect for a candidate who generates enough excitement on his own; would've won election for Gore in 2000

Wesley Clark: Good candidate, good VP; excellent military and foreign policy credentials; smart as hell; seems to be getting his footing as candidate and does well on stump; politcally untested; only candidate with an advantage on Bush/Cheney in military matters; slightly weird bugeyes; can be abrasive at times; background has great appeal among veterans, rural voters, and groups that might not respond to other candidates

John Edwards: Decent candidate, better VP; accent and background should have strong appeal across South and Midwest and in rural parts of West (even many non-Southern swing voters seem to respond to Democrats with Southern accents), but probably can't deliver NC; relatively untested; very telegenic; solid postions on a variety of issues; good campaigner; Clinton without the zipper problem

Not gonna consider the vanity candidates; will take a look at other possible Veeps soon.

What Famous Leader Are You?

What Classic Movie Are You?