reuters staffers drinking kool-aid

i like to read reuters quite a bit, mostly because it's a more global and non-american perspective than the likes of the associated press. a non-american perspective, of course, keeps the journalism a little more neutral regarding american interests such as our wars, economies, and elections.

however, i saw a couple of items in there today that made me wince at how completely out of touch they seemed:

first: Goldman's Cohen: Mild Recession at Worst.

"I think it's fair to say it will not be as deep a recession, if it is a recession, as many people had feared not that long ago. There certainly is not a black hole developing in the U.S. economy," Cohen said. "Also, it is entirely possible we will not have a single quarter of negative GDP."

While there is little inflation pressure from wages, she said, commodity prices are a "complicating factor." She said the United States is importing commodity price inflation from overseas.

does anybody believe people when they say this anymore? or does this just strike you as pedantic number-crunching nonsense? a recession, by any other name, still smells like poverty. so what if we're not having negative gdp growth? she says it herself...commodity prices are a 'complicating factor.'

people die of 'complications' in hospitals all the damn time. that's all i'm saying.

second item: Gasoline to peak at $4.15/gallon in August.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. gasoline prices will continue to march to record highs this summer before peaking at $4.15 per gallon in August, the Energy Information Administration said on Tuesday.

awesome, right?
oops! there's a caveat:

Last month, the EIA projected gasoline prices would peak in June at $3.73 per gallon of regular grade fuel.

so if i'm to understand this correctly - last month these guys completely screwed the pooch in their economic predictions, so as a consequence, reuters is going to credit their prediction in a headline like it's an immutable truth. great.

how is that acceptable journalism?

franken violates separation of comedian and state

the man responsible for such filmic works as 'stuart saves his family', along with the seminal political treatise 'rush limbaugh is a big fat idiot', is now running for senate.

that's right - al franken, formerly of saturday night live and air america radio, is the democratic nominee for senate in the state of minnesota. yes, that minnesota. the same people who put jesse ventura in the governor's mansion are now looking to put stuart smalley on capitol hill.

sure, he's politically motivated, and a keen satirist (though one of the more obnoxious blowhards belonging to the progressives). quoth the reuters, 'He said his books and radio show have given him a solid grounding in policy, and noted that two of his movies that tackled alcoholism are used widely in sobriety clinics.'

that would be great if you were sworn in by putting your hand on the bible and saying 'hi, i'm al, and i'm an alcoholic.' it would also be great if being a pundit qualified you in the slightest to be a governor.

hiring people for jobs based on their exposure in mass media as bothers the piss out of me. look at some of the people that the tv generation were instrumental in electing to various levels of public office - arnold schwarzenegger, ronald reagan, sonny bono, clint eastwood, and so forth. while arnold is doing a decent job, this just strikes me as symbolic of negative effect of visual culture in general and television specifically on our collective culture. it's well-documented that jfk's victory against nixon was partially due to his telegenic good looks. the same could be said for reagan, clinton, and obama.

it would be wise of you to take a page from jon stewart, mr. franken, and realize that the critics should criticize. let the politicians govern. continue slamming the actual leaders all you want, but that's your job - keeping them honest. bringing a pundit like you on board would only contribute to the divisive attack-dog bullshit that has characterized our politics for so long. i suspect you don't quite know what you're getting into, and how you'll likely turn into a corrupt twit very quickly. at this rate, look for 'al franken is a big fat idiot' to hit the bookstands by 2010.

Notes from the Right-Wing: Trade Deficit

I'm Joeverkill, and these are some notes from the Right-Wing.

The World Trade Organization is advising U.S. consumers to save their money, even as the U.S. government is trying its damnedest to get them to spend it. From the AFP:

Families in the United States have to save more if the country is to reduce a deficit in payments with the rest of the world, the World Trade Organisation said on Monday.
In a review of US trade policy, the WTO said that if consumers saved more and spent less, then there would be less demand for imported goods.
That would help to reduce a deficit on the balance of payments into and out of the country, it said.

I've always been more than a bit wary of the WTO. I'm an isolationist at heart, and I've always been suspicious of the WTO's push to liberalize the flow of goods and currencies between borders. However, they're raising a good point here. We're pushing ourselves into a deep hole of debt and deficit. In my own opinion, the U.S.'s import/export ratio has been too high for years now. The federal government is telling us to spend more, but if Americans are just spending that money on imported goods (which they mostly are), it's the economic equivalent of throwing shit on a shitfire.

As per usual, though, the WTO displayed a nearly sickening level of duplicity by
warn[ing] against any pressures for protective barriers to reduce imports, saying the world's largest economy should work instead to expand its exports to balance the account.

Okay, so the WTO doesn't want to piss off all the nations that export to the U.S. -- not necessarily the high road, but it makes sense -- but then they have the balls to rule against the U.S. in its complaint against India's high tariffs on imported alcohol products.

In the conclusion of its ruling, the WTO's dispute panel said that the United States has "failed to establish that the additional duty on alcoholic liquor is inconsistent" with India's WTO commitments.
The US had filed the complaint against India in May 2007, claiming that additional duties on alcoholic beverages were as high as 550 percent of the value of the product.

I'm not saying I oppose India's high alcohol tariffs. In fact, I support the right of sovereign nations to regulate trade. But is no one going to call the WTO out on this one? They shake their fingers at the United States, admonishing us for having too high an import/export ratio, then tell us not to raise tariffs, then support a country with already astronomically high tariffs in a decision that effectively restricts the U.S.'s ability to export. Why do we put up with stuff like this?

I'm Joeverkill, and this has been Notes from the Right-Wing.

Long Hot Summer Mess - Media trends and the general election

Rasmussen Reports finds that voters overwhelming feel that the media coverage of the '08 presidential campaign is skewed - in favor of Obama. "Fifty-four percent (54%) say Obama has gotten the best coverage so far. Twenty-two percent (22%) say McCain has received the most favorable coverage while 14% say that Hillary got the best treatment." That figure by the way includes 27% of self declared Dems who believe reporters will try to help Obama win. When was the last time we saw that kind of comfort level among democrats with the slant of the media coverage? Not since before the embattled days of the Clinton presleazydency, I don't think.

Following the Lewinsky scandal and the self righteousness of that coverage we saw the naked, chest - thumping patriotism of the first Bush term that portrayed dem Dems as a bunch of apostate, commie, terrorism enablers. The Fox News aping partisan slide of the media slowed down after Bush's re-election when the lies and obfuscations that comprised the war sales job became public. As the failure of post invasion strategy became apparent and the tide turned in the favour of the Iraqi insurgency the media became more and more restive. The last two years have seen a definite slant against the Bush administration in terms of press.

Scott McClellan's decision to publish 'What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception' neatly bookends the end of an era. Make no mistake about it, he was and is a cowardly apologist for his former employers. He waited for the media climate to change and become safe for him to put out the book, and, even with the advantage of favourable press, refuses to admit to willful deception on Bush's part or on his own. I would be willing to accept a 'product of my environment' defense from a guy on the street busted for a robbery to survive poverty but not from the guy in charge of creating and controlling the environment. He makes it seem as if he wasn't even in the press conferences he gave and his press corp zombie incarnation took his place when he was spreading the administration's folderol. However that is a different story and I am getting carried away. The point I was trying to make is that the media tide has turned so much that it has now become profitable for former Bush cronies to come out and voice dissident opinions. The press is now going to ride the progress and change bandwagon in the opposite direction for the foreseeable future.

I am not one of those people who sees the press as being slanted permanently in one direction or the other. Except for the worst partisan hacks like Billo, most just bend with the wind as it blows. It is not as profitable to defend Bush when he has 30% approval ratings. What happens is that with their extensive sources and statistical data the press is the first to see the ball roll down the hill and they start to take defensive positions behind the most recent swing of the political pendulum. In doing so they help increase the momentum of the swing and inevitably with their bumbling enthusiasm they exaggerate the virtues of the currently favoured position. It happened to an unreasonable extent with the war and it is now happening with more justification for Obama and the democrats(My slant visible enough for you my readers!).

According to Rasmussen, all sides of the political divide seem to agree that the media has an inordinate influence on the election process - "Eighty-seven percent (87%) of Republicans believe the media has too much influence along with 80% of unaffiliated voters and 65% of Democrats. " Maybe so, but I also believe that they are only reflecting a national trend in a more liberal direction and in doing so help reinforce that trend. The media are followers, not leaders. They are like the kids who always tried too hard to fit in, in high school - imitating and repeating watered down versions of the witty kid's put downs. So, to conclude, this is good news all around for Democrat supporters. Just two days after Hillary endorsed Obama his lead has increased 48% - 50%. They give him a 94.9% chance at winning.

Still, there is a long, hot, sticky summer ahead where meltdowns abound. Obama needs to learn from Hillary's hard tumble from 'inevitable candidate' to the victim of strategic blunders, overspending and overconfidence. He needs to keep the pressure on McCain up until his cool facade starts cracking - something that has happened several times already when he faced minor provocations such as during the debate on the GI bill. Obama has made a good first move by rejecting interest group money and forcing McCain into a position where he must follow suit in order to keep up his image of being a reformer and a man of integrity. With his vastly superior campaign war chest Obama can afford to refuse Washington money while McCain's lackluster showing on the fundraising trail makes him more reliant on shady money sourced through Bush contacts. This means more stories on the McCain - lobbyist connection which the dems need to keep plugging at. It will make McCain look like a hypocrite while weakening his fundraising ability and organisational strength. Already this scandal has forced him to completely overhaul his campaign's top faces and it will cost him more money to replace those people in the long run.

McCain's tactic of asking Obama to agree along with him to use public funding seems to have hit a wall for now. Considering the extent to which small donations helped build up the democratic war chest I believe Obama can easily make the argument that it is OK for him to use that money instead of going the public funding route and still look morally superior. Meanwhile the McCain campaign seems to be asserting itself like a street brawler - by repeatedly challenging Obama to one on one events where McCain has an advantage, like the idea for a joint visit to Iraq and the joint town hall meetings tour. So far Obama has not risen to the bait and needs to continue to counter intelligently to these one sided demands.

That is not enough however and he needs to ramp up his own political attacks on McCain's weak economic plank and ties to Bush and his support for the war- his two weakest flanks. The key to winning is putting McCain on the defensive and showing voters the prickly side of his suave aviator persona. The angry McCain is an ugly sight and it does not make him seem more interesting like he seems to believe it does. Straight talk is one thing but naked bellicosity and defensive posturing is best left to the wrestling ring. The media has noticed this and has commented about it in the past. With them on Obama's side it will be easier for him to show us this side of McCain and he must take advantage of it in the future. As someone with a short fuse I know that sooner or later that kind of personality must show itself in all it's irrational belligerence. McCain's strong desire to speak the truth, the way he sees it, means that at some point he is going to put his foot in his mouth and it will get press play. The next time he says or does something like sing - "Bomb Bomb, Bomb Iran" the media must not allow him to get away with it without some clarification. In light of the short sightedness and failed intelligence that caused the war in Iraq that kind of impulsive aggression needs to be thoroughly scrutinised.

Also Obama needs to put forward a clear economic policy to counter McCain's and to address the number one issue on the public's mind at this point. He needs to make the case that decisive action is necessary to reverse the economic downturn and that his solutions are the best ones for them. I know that economic policy minutiae is not his strong suit but he needs to do his homework now and come across like the smarter guy during the fall debates. This is one aspect of his campaign that needs attention now; he has a good 3 months before the real muckraking starts and since Hillary has spared him the embarrassment and slow bleed of a prolonged campaign, he needs to use his time wisely and not simply expediently. The only way to counter the substance in a formidable opponent like McCain is with better material of your own, not just tall speeches. Considering that independent groups, especially libertarians, are going to be a key swing vote group in November, economic policy is going to matter. Also the best way to win over all the Hillary support is to understand and address their economic and health care needs. He can win those women and blue collar workers by emphasising the positive effects that his policy will have on their strained lives.

Besides, winning this election is just the first step. Given the hard conditions America is facing right now Obama faces an uphill task once in the white house. He has to start pulling things around very quickly in order to avoid the fallout of this worsening mess. Failure is not an option for him and I know he has the potential to be a two term monster like Bill Clinton given the right conditions and the right preparation.

i can makes pawlisee?

the transformative power of technology over politics, as demonstrated by one simple link.

The best, most comprehensive plan for change in our country will include your ideas and your feedback. America needs a president with a mandate from the people, and everyone deserves a voice in shaping our next president's agenda.

Take a moment to share your ideas. Over the coming months the best ideas will be featured and incorporated into the campaign's policy proposals. Be as broad or specific as you want.

that's right, you can submit your policy ideas to barack obama in between checking your email and logging onto youporn.

i suggested liberalizing copyright law and decriminalizing file sharing.

a friend of mine suggested, simply, "legalize it."

point is, you have a direct channel to suggest policy to the dude, and that's an amazing thing.

ok, now where's our damn jetpacks?

sci/tech geeks, ready your massive erections. the tech world coming to solve all of our problems:

item the first - an inflatable electric car that can drive 2500 miles on a single charge. let's hope this is legit. apparently it's under $10k, is shipped to you for you to assemble, ikea-style, and is made out of airbags. yes, airbags. major drunk-driving fuckups could be a thing of the past, as this thing can apparently drive off a cliff unharmed, or float instead of sink in floods.

item the second - scientists have figured out how to make shit levitate. seriously. small stuff, yeah, but it's fucking LEVITATING. "Their discovery could ultimately lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate. But they say that, in principle at least, the same effect could be used to levitate bigger objects too, even a person."

the power of these two technological advances combined could seriously rework our transportation infrastructure in a matter of a couple decades.

more importantly, bumper cars in the future are going to be sweet.

obama hires old priest, young priest

that's right, it's exorcism time! now that barack obama is the democratic party's god-king, he is wasting no time exorcising some of their demons:

"...the DNC will no longer accept donations from lobbyists and political action committees, to comply with Obama's campaign policy. Party officials say they expect the DNC's staff to quickly expand to run an aggressive general election campaign."

...

"The move indicates Obama will press his case that Republican rival John McCain is under the influence of special interests because of his advisers' lobbying ties."

something tells me that that's an amazing idea in a time when all these rich bastards are paying off the government to dick over the little guy. poor old johnny mac. you have got a long march ahead of you to november, old man.

i came, i saw, aipac

the pundits talk all the time about social security and medicare being untouchable 'third rails' of american politics. politicians risk full-on career suicide by even attempting to fuck with these golden calves. while he never had much of an agenda of any kind to begin with, the wheels completely came off of bush's attempt at a second-term domestic agenda when he tried to partially privatize social security (while i don't know if i agree with the specifics of his policy decisions, fuck social security. it's broken. if i'm gonna pay for my parents to stay fed when they're old, i might as well do it without the gubmint getting involved.)

however, social security is a pretty weak third rail when compared to our continued defense of the state of israel. obama has recently recently taking a lot of heat for not unequivocally supporting israel's inherent 'rightness' in the middle east struggle - along with all of the interesting religious and social connotations that accompany that claim. from a march 19 article in politico:

Obama “fails to understand the totalitarian politics and sensibilities of the folks over there, who are not well meaning,” said E.J. Kessler, a New York Post editor who’s a longtime observer of American-Jewish politics. “His approach will appeal to a lot of lefty Jews, but it won’t appeal to the serious players,” she said, referring to the better-organized and better funded groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Council, AIPAC, at whose conference Obama put in an appearance earlier this month.

in the previous week, both obama and mccain have gone to speak to the very same aipac, which is the largest non-partisan lobbying group for the israeli cause. in a move that straddles the line between rhetorical juggling and an ideological about-face, obama reassured continued unequivocal support of the jewish state:

When McCain addressed the AIPAC group Tuesday, he ridiculed Obama for suggesting he would sit down with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. McCain said such a session would gain little "except an earful of anti-Semitic rants and a worldwide audience for a man who denies one Holocaust and talks before frenzied crowds about starting another."

Obama said Wednesday there is no greater threat to Israel than Iran, which "supports violent extremists" and "pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race." All those threats were known in 2002, he said, yet the Bush administration "ignored it and instead invaded and occupied Iraq."

he continued in his speech (full text available here):

I have been proud to be a part of a strong, bi-partisan consensus that has stood by Israel in the face of all threats. That is a commitment that both John McCain and I share, because support for Israel in this country goes beyond party. But part of our commitment must be speaking up when Israel’s security is at risk, and I don’t think any of us can be satisfied that America’s recent foreign policy has made Israel more secure.

the entire time he maintains support for a two-state policy and insists that much of the problems we are encountering today are largely credit to the bush administration.

that's all well and good, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is that politicians in america have to treat israel with the utmost of kid gloves. the even more unfortunate thing is that the coalition responsible for protecting this israeli love-fest is partially consisted of christian wingnuts, who believe that the book of revelation tells them that support of the state of israel will bring about the rapture (i'm not sure where you get that from a book of the bible that's likely an allegory about the roman empire, but whatever). while this is a fairly fringe belief and not representative of the christian mainstream, many of those who hold this belief, including pat robertson and billy graham (allegedly) wield immense control over a large swath of american voters.

great. and we wonder why some people still want war with iran.

we need to very quickly reassess our strategic relationship with israel, for any number of reasons. among them are:

a) the holocaust ended more than 60 years ago. we helped them get back on their feet after that crazy shit went down, but seriously, that doesn't give them a free pass to build partition walls, or have a government as hawkish as the bush administration.
b) continued disproportionate support to israel in this conflict only helps feed fundamentalist islam's ideas of jihad. while sticking to one's ideals is one thing, one-sided support of one country and complete opposition to all of their rivals is an extremely dangerous thing to get involved in...especially when it involves two religions that share a holy city. this smacks of religious war, which is decidedly unamerican. it kinda sucks that people here like it that way.
c) israel as we know it exists based on a united nations partition plan that was largely opposed by arabs.
d) their human rights record is appalling, and the united nations has made that clear.
e) for the reasons listed above, this is the single-most entangling alliance we have, and the one responsible for most of our post-cold war diplomatic problems.

this is not to say that israel is not threatened by many of their rivals, or that we shouldn't help protect them. we're balls-deep in this mess, so we're somewhat obligated to fix it. however, they are often enough the aggressor that our disproportionate support for them and the specific circumstances of the situation make this a battle we can't and shouldn't have a part in. here's hoping the next administration can pull a two-state solution out its ass and call it a day.

Notes from the Right-Wing: McCain-Obama Town Halls

I'm Joeverkill, and these are some notes from the Right-Wing.

From the AP:

John McCain challenged Barack Obama to join him in 10 town hall meetings with voters before the Democratic National Convention in August...
"We need to now sit down and work out a way that we can have these town hall meetings and have a great debate," McCain told reporters Wednesday in Baton Rouge.He credits the more intimate town hall format with his victory in the New Hampshire primary that launched his climb to the GOP nomination. McCain said the style would tell voters more than the typical formal, televised debates.

Am I the only one wondering why McCain is getting all up on the "let's have some debates" horse so early? I wonder if he's got the whole Sunni-Shia thing straight yet. Or if he's bothered to learn anything about the economy since this.

If Obama has the balls to call McCain out on stuff like McCain's relationships with lobbyists, look out, because things could get tough for McCain.

I'm Joeverkill, and this has been Notes from the Right-Wing.

Oh No They Didn't

Oh yes. They did.

IN THE “Friday the 13th” franchise of horror movies the killer returns again and again after seemingly being finished off. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign might have felt that life was imitating art during the course of the long, drawn out, presidential nominating contest.

So if you're keeping score at home, that makes Hillary Clinton the deranged psycho killer who wears a bloody goalie mask and has seemingly demonic regenerative powers.

And Barack Obama is the cool kids doing all the drugs and having all the sex.

At least, according to the Economist, that's what it boils down to.

Perhaps....

Hillary could run for President of Mars?




From Astronomy Pic of the Day:

Explanation: Is that ice under the Phoenix spacecraft on Mars? Quite possibly. Phoenix, which landed a week ago, was expected to dig under the Martian soil to search for ice, but the lander's braking rockets may already have uncovered some during descent. Pictured above is an image taken last week by the Robotic Arm Camera showing the unusual light-colored substance just in front of Phoenix's landing pad. Over the next few weeks, Phoenix will continue to photograph its surroundings, analyze the composition of this hard light substrate, and dig into the surrounding soil. Were the unusual light substrate indeed Martian ice, it would give Phoenix a convenient pedestal to investigate the history of water on Mars, and to better determine whether the boundary between ice and soil was ever capable of supporting life.

This quote, from Alexa:

Alexa: dude. another place to go if john mccain is elected. you know...

Indeed.

usa becomes nagging control freak wife

a dramatic re-interpretation of the usa's new data collection policy towards foreign travellers:

hey! hey you, get back here! just where do you think you're going, mister? oh, new york, huh? what do you think you're doing there?

you're going with your friends? which friends?
rahim?
do i know rahim?
he sounds...ethnic.
what is he, african-american?

ohhh, he's muslim?
and you said you're going to new york?
my friend condoleeza said that's no good...she's known people who have gotten into trouble with muslims in new york.
just be careful, ok? i'm gonna call you every 3 hours and make sure condoleeza and her friends keep an eye on you.
how, you ask?
i have my ways.

wait a minute...
where are you taking that cigarette lighter, and that tube of gel?
you ARE up to no good!

how do i know? i knew already anyways. i've been reading your emails. i just wanted to hear you say it.

stay right here, mister! you're not going anywhere for a long time. these next few months are gonna be torture.

o hai olimpikz no tardz plz

Today I'm pulling from ESPN to give you this amazing update on just which of your freedoms China plans to oppress this summer at the Olympic Games.

Among the favorites:

• Those with "mental diseases" or contagious conditions will be barred.

• Some parts of the country are closed to visitors -- one of them Tibet.

• Olympic tickets are no guarantee of a visa to enter China.

So to recap - if you have Olympic tickets, but you're a Free Tibet activist or you're actually retarded in the "I have a problem I was born with that isn't remotely funny to make fun of at all" way, then you should probably start researching ticket-scalping services.

Also, if you have a cold or any other visible illness, you will likely be barred from entering the country.

We spend a lot of our time focussed on the election and the recession around here, but we all need to remember that in a very short time, the entire country of China is going to attempt to put its best foot forward to the rest of the world... and then China is going to fall on its face onto a land mine made of hand grenades.

On a somewhat related note - I don't know where they're going to start, and I'm not exactly sure what's going to trip the first one, but I still predict widespread rioting by mid-August.

stimulus package goes flaccid

the economic stimulus package has been obviously created to appease the bush administration and government at large's golden calf of consumer spending. retailers were quick to jump on board, offering to cash the checks, and making sales deals clearly catered to the check. i distinctly remember being mildly offended last week while watching a circuit city ad that encouraged me to "stretch my stimulus check" and offered me a new computer for $599.99 (you get to keep that extra cent!).

unfortunately for all those peddlers of cheap, easily breakable, shiny pieces of plastic, we all got bills to pay, and the economy will still blow after we get our little windfalls. according to the new york times, we're going to collectively spend somewhere between one quarter and one half. not exactly what i'd call a shopping spree. however, fear not, investors. some people are prefer to answer the call to patriotic consumerism:

“We’re going to buy a 42-inch television,” said William Meiklejohn, a self-employed computer technician, as he strolled through The Falls, a high-end shopping center south of downtown Miami, set around palm-fringed pools.

His annual income has dropped over the last year from about $100,000 to more like $80,000 as the economy has slid, Mr. Meiklejohn said. But he and his wife own their home and their two cars clear of debt, he said. Their two children are grown and married. No sense stashing their $1,200 tax rebate in a savings account.

“If I spend it, it stimulates the economy,” Mr. Meiklejohn said. “If people go around paying off bills, it’s not going to make any difference.”

i'm not an economist, and i don't think any regular contributors here are either (rootless cosmopolitan, where the hell are you?). since when does paying off one's debt not stimulate the economy? if you really wanted to mobilize us good little consumers right now, wouldn't the best idea to get all this unstable debt taken care of, making all of our banking institutions more sound? how is choosing circulate money, thereby supporting a business, not moving the economy?

it really makes you think that this is just money from the government to help us maintain our serious bread-and-circuses habit. after all, why would you cause any kind of civil disruption (political or otherwise) in a declining country, when civil disruption in liberty city is so much more fun and free of consequence?

the enhanced interrogation cruise line

the bush junta's apparent response to complaints about having torture prisons in other countries has been to put them where countries aren't:

According to research carried out by Reprieve, the US may have used as many as 17 ships as "floating prisons" since 2001. Detainees are interrogated aboard the vessels and then rendered to other, often undisclosed, locations, it is claimed.

...

"By its own admission, the US government is currently detaining at least 26,000 people without trial in secret prisons, and information suggests up to 80,000 have been 'through the system' since 2001. The US government must show a commitment to rights and basic humanity by immediately revealing who these people are, where they are, and what has been done to them."

eighty fucking thousand?

the official story from emperor fratboy's crew, and the narrative accepted by the media, has always seemed to imply that this extraordinary rendition is extremely limited. high profile cases appear because these people are allegedly all serious threats to america. if this were an isolated incident, and we were keeping osama bin laden aboard that ship, i might be able to look the other way about allegations of fudging international laws in this manner. so might the rest of the world...bin laden's kind of a dick.

sending almost three times the population of liechtenstein is not the same. for every one guy that's truly pissed off and plotting against america (who doesn't merit/deserve this treatment anyway), there's probably another 10 or 20 who are petty criminals, who said the wrong thing at the wrong time, or went shopping with rachael ray at the burqa barn.

General thoughts to fill up the weekend hole and the gaping hole in my life!

Politics has completely invaded my life this summer. I find it it a very interesting development that I am this immersed in the politics of America, a country where I am still officially statusless. That is literally my status - waiting for a status change, awaiting a green card and in between many uncertainties of life and immigration. Let me tell you, my readers, that it is a strange position to be in life - to be unrecognised so to speak. My sympathy for the many millions of illegal immigrants also stems from my own position. As I extend my opinion on the social and political happenings of the land I am besieged by questions of belonging and of whether I have a right to take part in this debate. The question of who I am becomes even more strained and greyed because of my legal status. What is my definition? Bureaucracy decides that. It is a cold place to reside in but I have decided after a full 6 years here that I have to start acting as if the matter has been decided or that that decision does not matter so much. I have decided to be proactive. A man has to make a stand sometimes, regardless of what he is recognised as.

Besides the years that I have spent here have been full, fuller than even the years I spent being born and growing up in India. I have spent the mature years of my life here after all. The major choices of my adult life have been made here. It has been a weird time here. I have made mostly bad decisions. I have jousted unhappily with the law and had a rough time trying to fit in with society at large. My first couple of years were in Los Angles(misspelled intentionally) in a big university where I lost myself in the worst ways and the best. My intellectual sparring partner from the inceptive stages of this blog, joeoverkill might remember me as a very green freshman; he will certainly remember struggling to understand my thick accent and eccentric classroom positions. It took a while to make myself be understood and a lot longer for me to understand the rich culture that I was thrown into. At the time I joined college I felt mostly disenfranchised from the culture around me. In a certain sense I fit in perfectly but in other ways I was lost, holding on to a plank in the middle of the sun scorched southern cal sea.

I remember other peers, mid westerners and east coast refugees just as homesick and lost as I was. USC is no representation of the country I learnt much later. The war on Iraq started in the spring semester of my freshman year in Trojan hall, the second dingiest dorm on campus(the honour of worst dorm of course belongs to Marks hall, that festering outpost of perpetually horny, loser overachievers! Us Trojan hall residents had them to thank for making us look slightly better. Magnoliafan, if you get an offer at SC, avoid both dorms). I remember my red headed neighbour, an awoved republican - something I would have completely been ignorant of in my freshman, foreigner complacency if not for his subsequent actions - put up fliers around the dorm. The fliers called for some kind of weak, soda and chips party(typical for the deans halls residents who were too scared of regulations to have a real party with booze) in the common hall to celebrate the declaration of war. All I had observed of my neighbour thus far was that he had an elaborate manner about him that seemed to hide a complete lack of personality and a horrible taste in music. This is just an observation of his general mode and not a critique of the war supporters. He just happened to be a zero so far in my eyes and his actions had the effect of raising my eyebrows and forcing me to notice him and the political atmosphere that I was so far ignorant of.

I remember being angry, very angry, upon reading his fliers. I left an obscene message on his dorm door chic whiteboard criticising his jingoistic missive. A few hours later I was hauled up by my epitome of chill RA for a heart to heart in the cluttered basement supplies room. This guy had passed me by several times as I hauled giant, brown paper bagged cases of coronas and Mickey's green 40's past his live and let live gaze. A real mensch and a true American spirit - a spirit that Joe's libertarian soul will find much to approve of. Ask rupey and the analyst, both of them have enjoyed the fruits of my fruitful, never carded because I am brown, expeditions to the 32nd street market. I enabled many a Trojan hall black out and bathroom puke disruption. So this guy(remind me of his name analyst or rupert, wasn't it pete?) took me to task that afternoon and told me that he could not have that kind of disruptive and divisive sentiment clog up the love pipes of his air conditioning free dormitory(I am still mad at you SC). That was one of my first encounters with the limits of political discourse. I think that was a very important discussion. My RA wanted me to apologize to my nemesis and I returned to my room angry and also forced to confront the source of my anger.

Why was I so angry with the posters Scarlet had put up? That nickname by the way fits my erstwhile nemesis appositely, for his mindset was just as ancient as his hair was red. As I composed my apology I realised that what had irked me most was not his support for an opposing position supporting the war. What troubled me most was his call for a celebration of a war - a silly, cheap, carbonated drinks and fried potato affair to commemorate and goad forward the certain death of American soldiers and Iraqi combatants and civilians. I refused to apologize to him and expressed my critique of his call in my letter. Now that I look back at that moment I am struck at the prescience of my anger at his attitude. I could never have guessed at the extent of mismanagement and carnage that the war would unravel into. At that time of my stay in America, I was a complete political novice and my only reason for opposing the war was a distrust for the hubristic, runaway nationalism epitomised in my neighbour. The celebratory(fascistic one could say), carried away by post 9/11 anger and desire for revenge is what allowed the mismanagement of the first 3 years of the war. That running down a hill energy, opposed to any heed for caution or critique is what allowed this catastrophe to happen. Irrational anger is a lot more obvious to outsiders than to someone who is caught up in a patriotic moment. Why did the Bush administration not give any heed to opposition within international bodies like the UN?

The intersection of the political and the personal is my one overwhelming concern. Without the aggregation of persons, the body politic is but a ghost that concerns and addresses abstract causes. Why is it that I am so much more concerned about politics today than I was 4 or 5 years ago. Part of it of course is my strange status. I had to live here for this long to start caring enough about the political system that controls us all, whether we voice our opinions or not. Far too many people are not represented by their representatives because they choose not to express their voices. Freedom of speech also means freedom not to speak. I realised over the last 5 years that even though I could not vote( and probably will not be able to for the next 10 -15 years until I become a citizen, if i do at all become one) there are other ways to express my opinions.

Certainly, going out to try to register voters for the PA democrat primaries has helped me feel closer to the heart of this beast they call the democratic process; a beast that is for the most part distant from individual concerns or opinions. The more one engages in it the closer it comes to you however. In the absence of a true, one to one democracy, the closest one can get to real representation is to take part in the dreary process of representative democracy. If my language reminds you of a college civics geek, then you are right. I am a dumb, drunk college geek in the way I relate to politics, and all the better for it. When I was a reprobate(guess I still am!) and an average, muddleheaded statusless worker(clinging to my beer bottle and my penis since I had no gun or bible to cling to!) I had no chips in play. Now I do and I am betting on change. The game is in session and I am playing. Rupert, history is a shit pile and we will plant our flags on it.

great moments in racism history: john mccain

from feb 18, 2000:

Arizona Sen. John McCain refused to apologize yesterday for his use of a racial slur to condemn the North Vietnamese prison guards who tortured and held him captive during the war.

"I hate the gooks," McCain said yesterday in response to a question from reporters aboard his campaign bus. "I will hate them as long as I live."

---

"I was referring to my prison guards," McCain said, "and I will continue to refer to them in language that might offend some people because of the beating and torture of my friends."

McCain made it clear that his anger extends only toward his captors. As a senator, he was one of the leaders of the postwar effort to normalize U.S. relations with Vietnam.

i guess i can relate. i got no beef with mexicans, but i hate those god damned beaners that stole my bike (not really). if you're offended, but still want to vote for him, just imagine him as christopher walken in pulp fiction:

Mclellan Unpopular with GOP, Walking Dead

Bob Dole has been sending emails (WTF NO WAY).

Bob Dole does not like Scott McLellan anymore.

Bob Dole thinks McLellan is just trying to make a buck.

Bob Dole is just as surprised as everyone else that he's not fucking dead yet.

McCain/Dole '08: AKA "The Early Bird Special"

caption contest!

i was thinking how to caption this picture, but was drawing a blank. this could be fun...what do you guys got?

what's the best part about the gas crisis?

soon i'll be able to work in my underwear.

The federal government has offered four-day workweeks to eligible employees for years as part of a flexible work program that also includes telecommuting.

But the surge in gasoline prices is pushing more private employers as well as local governments to offer a four-day week as a perk that eliminates two commutes a week.

In America's struggling automaking heartland, the shorter workweek offers employers a way of rewarding employees when the budget does not allow a salary increase, said Oakland County, Michigan, executive L. Brooks Patterson.

solid.

thiiiiiis is ouuuurrrrr couuuuuntryyyyy

if you've ever watched a single quarter of nfl football in the last two years, then the title of this post may have made you cringe already. for those of you that aren't aware, this is the john mellencamp song that chevy has been using to sell trucks to the great american hick. check out this offensive one right here:



incidentally, this is not a bad song if you listen to the whole thing. the lyrics are all about centrist populism, patriotism not jingoism, and post-bush reconciliation. unfortunately, all i can think about now when i hear it is how much some asshole in detroit wants to sell me a 10 mi/gal silverado so i can wave my big american dick in the air like the star-spangled banner itself while singing 'thiiiiis is myyyyy peeeeeniiiis'.

the fine folks who bought out all of our private streetcar companies just to close them down and force people to drive use our shared memory of vietnam, rosa parks, and (jesus fucking christ) 9/11 to sell us cars. in symbolic move of solidarity, what is gm doing to give back to its countrymen that have supported them?

buying out their employees so they can hire new people and pay them less! from royturrs:

All of GM's roughly 74,000 U.S. factory workers had been eligible for early retirement packages and buyouts intended to clear the way for hires of lower-wage workers under a deal negotiated last year with the United Auto Workers union.

...

GM, like the other two Detroit-based automakers, reached an agreement with the UAW that allows it to hire new workers for some jobs starting at $14 per hour, or about half the current average hourly wage.

funny, i wonder if the ramos arizpe factory (the home of the saturn vue!) is having the same problem.

this all reminds me of a henry ford quote: there is one rule for industrialists and that is: make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible. so what does that make gm, a company that makes expensive pieces of shit and pays their employees pittances?

it makes them a failure.

Notes from the Right-Wing: Military Spending Bill

I'm Joeverkill, and these are some Notes from the Right-Wing.

From Reuters:

The House of Representatives on Thursday passed a $601.4 billion defense spending bill despite a veto threat by the White House...
Rep. Ike Skelton, the Missouri Democrat who chairs the committee, and the ranking Republican, Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, argued that lawmakers needed flexibility to add weapons to the budget that had been forgotten by the Pentagon."We've put in systems that save lives that the Pentagon did not think about," Hunter said on the floor of the House, citing added funding for armor for Army trucks, greater use of unmanned airplanes, and equipment to defuse roadside bombs.

So to recap, the Democrat-controlled Congress is adding money to a defense bill to pay for stuff that the Pentagon didn't ask for. The federal government is $9 trillion in debt, and the Democrats -- who have repeatedly accused the Bush administration of starting a costly and irresponsible war -- are tacking extra cash onto a military funding bill, just because they feel like it?

Can anyone say "kickbacks?"

This is the sickening thing about our so-called "2-party system." Neither side seems interested in curbing spending, and neither will acknowledge that we have a federal debt crisis on our hands.

Some smaller things that piss me off about this bill...

The White House also cited objections, but no veto threat, to the addition of $3.9 billion for 15 additional Boeing C-17 cargo planes and $523 million as a down payment on 20 more Lockheed Martin Corp F-22 fighters in fiscal 2010.

Do we really need more F-22's? Really? The Air Force's website claims that "The F-22A cannot be matched by any known or projected fighter aircraft." I once read an article in the Florida Today in which an Air Force captain claimed that a single F-22 with a skilled pilot could dismantle the entire air combat capability of most sovereign nations. And we're ordering 20 new ones. Just for this year.

The veto threat also covers provisions that would require the videotaping of all intelligence interrogations and would ban private contractors from carrying out interrogations, a job lawmakers said should be reserved for the government alone.

So Bush is threatening to veto accountability. Nothing new about that.

The White House said cuts to funding to start building missile-defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic could jeopardize U.S. security and delay the fielding of weapons meant to protect against an emerging missile threat from Iran.
The Democratic-controlled House approved $10.2 billion in funding for missile defense, $719 million less than the Pentagon requested, but $212.6 million above the current level.
The Senate Armed Services Committee bill fully funded the administration's plan to start deploying up to 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a tracking radar in the Czech Republic.

Missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. Someone should note that these sites would not serve to protect the United States from missile attack. It would protect our European allies, our military bases in Europe and Western Asia, and Israel. The only countries with missiles that could hit the mainland U.S. are definitely not going to launch them at us. When people hear "missile defense," they think of a big scary nuke randomly flying into their town, when in reality that would never happen. Not by missile anyway. The government would serve citizens better by spending that money on port and airline security.

I could go on about this, but I won't. You guys get the point. Your tax dollars are being wasted by both sides of the aisle here.

I'm Joeverkill, and this has been Notes from the Right-Wing.

gop bbl rofl

while a lot the talk in primary politics has been about the democratic party being unable to keep itself together, it seems doomsday predictors were calling it for the wrong party. the republican party is in serious danger of complete self-destruction this year.

i read an interesting interview with mike huckabee on huffpo today, in which he assessed the general political status of the evangelicals, gave a postmortem on his campaign, and drew a distinction between his ideas and those of other members of the party:

My experience in Arkansas was, a lot of the so-called conservatives said "Let's cut the budget." But they wanted to add prison sentences, they wanted to eliminate parole, they wanted to have harsher sentences for various crimes. And I said "OK, that's fine, but that's going to be expensive. So which do you want?" You can't have both, or you do what the federal government has done, and this is where I think Republicans have been especially irresponsible. Their approach has been [to] just kick the can down the road and let your grandkids pay for it.

over the course of the primaries, it has been telling to see members of these varying parts of the republican party squabble amongst themselves and rarely actually agree on solid policy prescription or true ideology. while the reagan revolution was able to bring together several disparate parts of the american ideological spectrum, their connection these days is extremely tenuous. this is especially manifest in the continued distrust of mccain from a significant portion of the party. that being the case, these are what i see as the growing constituent parts and their possible fates:

neo-libertarians (figurehead: ron paul) - these are the 'live and let live' conservatives. no taxes, no wars, no victimless crimes. i have an interesting feeling that as this movement grows in power and influence, the moderates and hard-liners will start to get really sick of one another. the hard-liners will likely defect toward the libertarian party and boost its ranks. the moderates are up in the air - i see this bloc as the one with the largest third-party potential, especially with the way ron paul is doing in primaries (he took 24% in idaho).

fiscal conservatives and the wealthy (figurehead: mitt romney) - until they can balance the budget, lower gas prices to 3 cents a gallon, and prove that most of them aren't greedy capitalists, good luck seeing these guys wielding that much clout anywhere in washington (besides through lobbying firms).

war hawks (figurehead: john mccain) - these folk ain't going anywhere, unless barack obama develops paranoid schizophrenia and decides to start nuking countries based on throwing darts at a world map. look out, french guyana!

christian nationalists (figurehead: george bush? that hagee dude?) - i think the fringe right of christian-oriented politics has seen its best days. it's possible we may see less of their chest-thumping after the release of the so-called 'evangelical manifesto,' but they'll continue to harp on 'family values' issues and our policy in israel.

christian socialists (figurehead: mike huckabee) - expect to see this bloc grow as christians nationwide continue to wake up from their collective 'who would jesus bomb?' mindset and start realizing that jesus was down with helping the poor, turning the other cheek, and non-ethanol-based green energy solutions. definite third-party potential here, as well, but more likely to switch to the dems. expect them to butt heads consistently with the paulites over just about everything. i wouldn't be surprised if mccain's running mate came from this group, to stop these types from jumping to obama.

neo-conservatives (figurehead: mephistopheles p cheney) - don't expect to see these guys in a position of power ever again. all the other groups listed above have realized that these jackasses are for the most part just greedy sophists and propagandists with flawed ideology sustained only by good public relations.

whatever happens, it's going to take a long time before the republican party is going to be able to put itself back together again. the gop, for the foreseeable future, is a headless chicken. until it finds a new single goal for large portions of the american people to cling to (because war and deregulation just don't cut the mustard these days), they're going to see some really hard times.

War for Oil Just Might Work

We talk a lot of trash around here. In fact, I'd say you could make the case that we're all pretty far up each other's assholes about how much we read the news and know about stuff. Mino called us out recently.

As of yet, I haven't had the time nor the inclination to offer up a rebuttal to his (extremely necessary) challenge. However, I now have the inclination, so I believe I'll take the time before lunch here to talk at length about the oil Iraq may be able to provide in the coming years.

I call the Bush Administration a lot of names. I have engaged many times in discussions that often lead up to the idea that my friends and I could have done a better job running this country. This line of reasoning is based on the assumption that the men in question are somehow so ridiculously inept that anyone could have achieved more success than these apparent mongoloids.

That line of thinking is as dangerous as it is ignorant. Let me state now, for the record, that these men are not stupid. While I'm sure many "yes-men" were instated strategically throughout the executive branch and beyond as per the orders of those on the inside, said yes-men were typically not in any position to advance any meaningful legislation of their own accord.

These men were puppets, and were it not for Hurricane Katrina, much of the horror they inflicted upon this country would still be hidden in the shadows, known only to single-minded activists who keep up with the number of acres of national park land we still protect (not a lot) or how many lobbyists there are in Washington D.C.(a lot).

The great illusion put forth in the fourth quarter of the Bush presidency has been a masterstroke of mindlessness. The way these men have bailed on the President has been likened to rats from a sinking ship. Once again, we all love the idea that these men have somehow failed. We like the thought that they are now backbiting at one another. We love to entertain the notion that they may soon be going down. This gives us all a sense of justice.

We also love to see our possibly-retarded President doing little shuffle step dance numbers on the way to his press conferences and the like. We love watching him tell the Pope "awesome speech" on the Daily Show. We love this because it once again reinforces our original ideas about the man. It allows us to be correct, which gives us a sense of pride and helps assuage our righteous anger.

But back to my first point.

From the Economist:

One significant exception [to the rule that many oil-producing nations are producing at capacity] is Iraq, which holds (at least) 10% of the world's proven reserves, but accounts for only 2.5% of total production. Iraq has the potential to furnish a long-term solution to the oil market's long-term supply problem, but it will need to improve dramatically on its recent performance before buyers of oil futures will be convinced that it can deliver.

We love to think of these men as idiotic buffoons. It shields us from the hidden truth that no one really wants to think or talk about.

These men are rich, powerful, intelligent, well-connected and evil as fuck. Every brilliant man in the world is given his chance - at some point or another, in some form or fashion - to join this class, and we must all make a decision at some point or another as to whether our allegiances stand with the men or with the supermen. We must decide whether we place more value on our personal comfort or the greater good.

These men have made their decision. Many of them made it long ago. Some of them only made it very recently (and a few of them are even coming to regret their decision). However, the fact remains that they chose their course of action very carefully. In doing so, they have killed more than one million people in an effort to control what may be the world's largest as-yet-mostly-untapped supply of oil.

We supported these men in this mission, and therefore we are all very quick to label them nitwits, fuckups and all manner of other put-downs. But the truth of matter is far more difficult to swallow. These men are swindlers of the highest order, and we allowed them to deceive us. They are profiteers, and we were eager to accept their narrative of easy victory if that indeed was what it took to preserve a quality of life we felt was being threatened.

They care very little for the world at large, but their own safety and comfort has always been amazingly important to them. In this way, these men are their very own microcosm of the modern America. It was so important that they save this world they had created for themselves - and they were so singularly-minded in their plans to do so - that they were willing to carry out any task to make it happen. They were willing to look beyond the lies they had to tell. They were willing to look beyond the careers they would have to destroy. They were even willing to look beyond every innocent man, woman and child they would have to kill (or maim, or leave brotherless, fatherless, motherless, sisterless - in short completely and totally alone) on their way to carrying out their most important objective.

If you think I'm speaking in hyperbole, or that I haven't a clue what I am talking about, I would direct you to read this article about former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's newly released memoirs, in which he casts a scathingly harsh spotlight upon the goings on inside the White House throughout the three years (03-06) he held such an unpopular yet privileged position.

I consider myself extremely well-informed. I had, up until this point assumed that these men went to war for oil, and that they only muffed the numbers. It was simple for me to believe that these men could screw up something easy like the amount of oil left to pump in Iraq, given the way a nearly constant string of mistakes has seemed to plague this administration from the beginning.

I see now that it was I who was mistaken. These men are monstrous capitalist swine. They had these numbers, surely long before I did. They made the decision to become the powerful elite, and therefore they have the insider information.

I am now forced to conclude that these men were not wrong. They were not men with dubious intentions and a lack of strategic ability. They were correct in their assumption that Iraq may hold the key to propping up this failing 20th century model of industry. They then took a look at all that would be involved in securing this region.

And they chose to sacrifice life by the millions in an effort to line their pockets with money in similar denominations.

May God have mercy on their mortal souls.

And may He also have mercy on ours, for while this is but the most recently visible blight on America's record of crimes against humanity gone unchecked by the citizenry, it is not remotely the first. It will not be the last, either.

I wonder at times if we are only carrying out a dance that must be done by all creation. I wonder if this just the way of things. The big fish eat the little ones. The strong rule the weak.

History tells me I am wrong to believe we can do any better than this.

Hope tells me history is full of shit.

nuremburg redux

john bolton, bush crony and former american ambassador to the united nations, is taking a trip to wales today, where people are planning to arrest him for misleading the world on the war, and other miscellaneous douchebaggery.

don't know john bolton? let me get you up to speed.

from rightweb: Bolton has criticized the United Nations, lambasted U.S. efforts to diplomatically resolve the standoff with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program, and berated the "weak" international response after Iran apprehended several British soldiers for allegedly straying into Iranian waters, which he argued "emboldened" Iran, whose 'government today is a theological revolution on the march'. (note: seriously? don't pull that 'theological revolution' crap if you back a guy who supports intelligent design.)

among his other accomplishments are: leading in the 'successful effort to rescind the UN resolution from the 1970s that had equated Zionism with racism', 'being a a prominent participant in some neoconservative groups such as the Project for the New American Century [those neo-con 'new pearl harbor' wingnuts],' and 'derailing a 2001 biological weapons conference in Geneva convened to endorse a UN proposal to enforce the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.' (source: wikipedia)

so yeah, this guy's basically one of the masterminds of the brilliant bush foreign policy that has made the rest of the world pissed off at us to the point that some welsh people at a faggy book festival are going to drop a citizen's arrest on him.

keep an eye on wales tonight - some crazy shit could go down. i'd love to see that precedent set up, so we can start taking down the big dogs.

obama = rubber, you = glue.

remember that whole snipergate thing?
how hillary made some shit up about taking sniper fire in bosnia, when it turns out she was just coming for tea or some nonsense?

or that time when mccain said something dumb?

anywho, i know nobody's immune, and i've been waiting for obama's big time, campaign-ending gaffe. i thought i saw it today with the reuters headline: "Obama admits reference to Auschwitz was wrong".

intrigued, i followed the link, which told me the following:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama admitted on Tuesday he was wrong to say his uncle helped liberate the Nazis' Auschwitz concentration camp after Republicans said Soviet troops freed the camp.

Obama's campaign said the candidate meant to say that his great-uncle, Charlie Payne, had helped liberate a part of the Buchenwald camp, not Auschwitz.

MR. OBAMA, HOW DARE YOU LIE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE LIKE THAT?
ADMIT IT!
you were WRONG to say that about auschwitz!

Obama has a Full Blown Aid (Possibly from all the Castro Love?)

When you're popular among a demographic generally better known for buying baggy pants than voting, then you might want to shy away from the vote from the guy people in America dislike very much.

On that note, and since I'm too pressed for time to offer up real insight on all of this (new project at work has me extremely screwed over when it comes to free moments), I have some new Barack Obama campaign slogans I've been kicking around.

Barack Obama: El Presidente (de los Estados Unidos) de Siglo XXI
Barack Obama: The President that Pisses Off Your Parents
Barack Obama: Proving that All Young White Intellectuals Wish They Were Black(re: Cool), One Vote at a Time
Barack Obama: We Got It 4 Cheap
Barack Obama: Islamerica. Just Kidding.

you think YOU got it bad?

as much as i love sky-is-falling alarmism, let's put a little perspective on our own plight for a second.

"MIANZHU, China (Reuters) - New aftershocks toppled 420,000 houses and injured dozens in southwest China on Tuesday, heaping destruction and fear on a region struggling to recover from the country's worst earthquake in decades."

---

The official death toll from the 7.9 magnitude quake that struck Sichuan province on May 12 was raised on Tuesday to 67,183, but it was certain to rise as 20,790 were listed as missing. The quake injured nearly 362,000 people.

an entire nfl stadium's worth of people dead, the equivalent of the city of long beach injured, and enough houses to hold citizens from multiple rocky mountain states destroyed in an aftershock.

and we went to war over 3k dead civilians, have lost 4k+ more since, and we're treating it like it's the end of the fucking world? i'm a little confused.

america remembers how to make shit

just when you thought america had completely forgotten about heavy industry, manufacturing, and all our other blue-collar jobs that don't involve flipping burgers, peter g gosselin from the los angeles times disagrees.

turns out, all that increasing demand for industrial goods from former mud-hut-dwellers worldwide, coupled with old fixed price deals, allows us to make goods like steel on the cheap. take that, china!

"We're in the midst of 2 to 3 billion people around the world rising out of abject poverty and demanding they have a better living standard," said Daniel R. DiMicco, head of Nucor Corp., America's largest steel company. "That means we've got a 20- to 30-year bull market in basic stuff."

industrial and agricultural profit margins are booming: "Foreign demand has helped drive U.S. Steel from a loss of $420 million five years ago to a nearly $880-million gain last year. Mining giant Freeport-McMoRan's profit is up 1,539%, from $181.7 million to nearly $3 billion. Fertilizer maker Mosaic Co.'s earnings went from $54 million for all of 2003 to $521 million for just the three months ended in February."

meanwhile, the tech boom we've found ourselves in is deflating a little bit, and companies are starting to consolidate as the industry matures - and, i speculate, as our crazy bullshit anti-brown-folk homeland security laws start scaling back that 'brain drain' of ours, making america collectively dumber.

while this will fuck over the coastal states, it bodes well manufacturing-heavy flyover states, whose personal income has risen "6.5% in the last five years. The rest of the country has managed only a 5.4% pace, according to government statistics assembled by Moody's Economy.com." incidentally, this would be awesome if this year's real inflation wasn't 10%.

does this mean we'll pull ourselves out of the recession quickly, and we'll start making a bunch of more money once our nation's economic style turns and runs back to the 1950s?

oops! read the fine print...there's one huge catch:
"While the heartland's revival is producing lots of new revenue and profits for old-economy companies, and while it's marginally pushing up the incomes of their employees, it's not generating lots of new jobs."

so no new jobs are created, the middle class are getting ever-so-slightly richer than other middle class (but still actually getting poorer via inflation), and corporate profit margins are reaching for the sky?

what this says to me is that the economy still sucks, but that this summer, one great american is going to get to fill his special swimming pool up to the brim:

Making war by making babies, the Eeevil insidious plot to displace the first world.

I read an article today that had the curious effect of first making me shake my head in disapproval and then slowly turning that sideways nod into a up and down head bob of assent. By the end of the article my head was doing circles and I looked like Linda Blair from the exorcist. Immediately I felt that I should post about it. Anyone who has been following the post just below by the analyst and the string of impassioned comments that follow should find this piece very interesting. It touches on many of the talking points from his post and the comments.

Entitled - How Birthrate Is Turning Modern Conventional Warfare on Its Head, the author Gary Brecher(who is also writing a book called "The war nerd") argues that the most effective method of modern warfare is to simply out breed the opposite side. He makes some very far fetched claims in the article about the conscious efforts of Kosovo Albanians, the Palestinians and the Northern Irish Catholics to out breed their enemies, the Serbians, the radical Zionists and the Protestants, respectively and thus oust them from the lands being disputed. In making this argument he invokes the Nazi policy of Lebensbraum - extermination of the Slavic, Polish and Russian people from the east to secure land for the German born pure bloods to flourish.

In making this comparison he completely ignores the ground realities that persist in the three countries mentioned. He actually implies that the Kosovars were responsible for inciting the Serbians to genocide and that they somehow used the United States as an unofficial army faction on their side. The west's weak minded awoval of violence and support for the autonomy of poorer, smaller states is being used by these states to their advantage according to his sneaky logic. His argument is as far fetched and ludicrous as that of the most far fetched conspiracy theorists. According to him the west's squeamishness(the very same that led to WW1 and WW2) makes them vulnerable to the alarmingly high fertility of the rabbit like Africans, Asians, Arabs and Catholics. As we sit here gently discoursing from our ivory towers, the Huns and Moors are copulating away in a frenzy of nationalist fervour so as to topple our weak walls of immigration laws and peace keeping forces, foolishly kept on a tight leash.

Is breeding a tool of state - yes, it has been infrequently used. The Palestinians in refugee camps and the radical Zionists both propagate the idea of out breeding the other. As the article shows, both groups have laughably similar birth rates that end up cancelling each other out, if rocket attacks don't do it for them. I can hear Joe's teeth grind(and with good reason) at their myopic logic and attitude that reeks of feudalism. However there is a huge logical fallacy in this theory that the only reason repressed groups have so many children is to defeat the other side, his presupposition that Catholics, Kosovars and Palestinians breed as an expression of nationalistic strength and expansion. Firstly why can one not suppose that people breed more because of higher mortality rates in the war zones mentioned?

Brecher himself provides the facts to topple his tottering argument by stating that, in a strange paradox, these very same people who bred in such huge numbers when they lived in slums abandon their profligate breeding as soon as they become middle class citizens. He shows us the case of the Catholics whose breeding rates have dropped as they near a historic majority over their Protestant brethren in Ireland. It seems to me that the obvious conclusion one draws is that as the prosperity and education levels of the Irish Catholics increased and as birth control techniques became more effective and more commonly accepted their growth rate naturally declined.

He doesn't really make much of an effort to show how the two imperatives, of state and of necessity both play a role in determining birth rates. It's either one or the other, depending on the case he is trying to make. This is my problem with the first half of the article. I could by now see where he was leading us in his heavy footed and discursive way - why to the topic of immigration of course. Sure enough he drops some big bombs with the invasion rhetoric that he insists on marrying into his overall thesis on immigration- "As far as I know, nobody’s claiming the Latino immigrants decided to have a lot of kids as a way of reconquering Texas and California, the way the Israeli settlers are doing. La reconquista, if it happens, will be an unforeseen result of rising birth rates and falling death rates for countries like Mexico that are just moving up from the third world to, say, the second-and-a-halfth. " Go on, Brecher says, it's ok to say that they planned this all out decades ago, these Mexicans who are descended equal parts from Conquistadors and the poor Mayans and Incas who were conquered by them. They have the conquering mentality of the Spaniards but it is mixed with the submissiveness of their native forefathers so that the only technique they may to wage war is this passive aggressive invasion.

His next statement is truly startling - "By 1970, Mexico was at that dangerous stage where there’s just enough basic medical care to keep people alive, so death rates are falling sharply, but people are still poor enough to want a lot of kids." Dangerous? Dangerous to whom? So it is dangerous to us that they can save lives and propagate. The self centred, extreme North Americans first nature of that statement is abhorrent to me. The author persists in looking at things solely from the point of view of the effect it has on America or the west. His neo - colonialist outlook is about 50 years behind the norm.

However, the worst part of the article was over. Here came the surprising part where I found myself actually agreeing with Brecher. He echoes my sentiments about assimilation expressed in some comments on analyst's post. He says that after a couple of generations the descendant of the average immigrant is going to be more Americanised than say a 7Th generation Quaker(I have no clue how many generations ago those guys got here but they have been around a long time so I picked them). In fact they are going to be so Americanised that they will be complaining about the need for border fences and their social security benefits being eaten up by the infernal newcomers from down south.

He argues - "This is one point where people’s anxiety over these slow, demographic conquests splits according to their real fears: do you just not want to see that kind of face when you go outside, or do you not want to import the culture of the immigrants’ home country? The whole debate right now is so censored, so totally dishonest on both sides, that nobody will come clean about which it is. I suspect for some people it’s the faces: they want the faces on their street to be the same shape and color they were when they were growing up." I have to agree with both analyst and with Brecher about this point. Forget the whole issue of social security benefits or the effect that immigration has on the medical infrastructure and focus for a moment on all the people whining about the effect immigration has on the cultural landscape of America. Think for a second about the fudged statistics about immigrants bringing their diseases(and the implication that by extension they bring with them their corporeal and moral squalor) and degenerate criminal ways. The tenor of those arguments is irrefutably racist. One needn't even make those points in order to argue against immigration. I respect Joe's points about the economic points and may even be someday convinced of the seriousness of some of the issues he brings up. However the invasion rhetoric that so many of the news pundits and everyday Americans use sets me on edge.

One telling example is of Pat Buchanan whose racial views are prehistoric to say the least. He has stated - "Any man or any woman, of any color or creed, can be a good American. We know that from our history. But when it comes to the ability to assimilate into a nation like the United States, all nationalities, creeds, and cultures are not equal. To say that is ideology speaking, not judgment born out of experience." If that does not qualify as white supremacist talk I don't quite know what does. That however is the ultimate meaning of what so many Americans mean, but dare not say aloud, when they discuss immigration. The funny thing is this is far from true. Even if it was true however, isn't there room enough within America for divergent cultures to co - exist. Will there be occasional tensions- sure. Is it worth our while to deal with those issues on a day to day basis and go on with our lives - I think so. Did the LA riots mean that the city should be forcibly segregated - Hell No. Haven't racial divides improved and healed somewhat since then?

The very last section of the article explains the idea of immigrant assimilation succinctly by using the example of a sailboat filled with Congolese immigrants moving to Paris. The idea expressed, that immigrants move to another country to escape the strict cultural and social confines and also the disorganised state of affairs of their home countries is absolutely spot on. They move as much to absorb the advantages of the host county's work culture and order as it's immediate financial incentives. Immigration, people seem to forget, is not just a physical move that immigrants undertake hastily without any thought for the future and with only an eye on the magical honeypot of dollars lying 5 miles north of the Rio Grande. It is a big decision that is made with the future interests of their families in mind. With that kind of mindset, there is no incentive to commit crimes or harm the host country.

I can identify with the analogy of the boat completely. Let me give you an example. When my family drives to Jersey to pick up supplies from the ubiquitous Indian grocery stores situated there, I sometimes go with them. One or two visits to the interiors of the shops however were enough to satisfy my curiosity and since then I usually wait for them in the car blasting the AC and the stereo with the album - 'Speak English or Die' by Stormtroopers of Death. I love this seminal grind core album of right wing, anti immigrant nuttery and hysteria for it's speed, musical brilliance, campyness and over the top values - including racist jokes about Indian shop owners in S.O.D's native NY. The irony of my situation in the Indian store parking lot listening to this album puts a huge grin on my face - especially when harried looking, older Indian fathers and mothers stare at me curiously as if I was some new species of fish or fungi.

I hate going inside the stores because it reminds me of the utter, unnecessary chaos of grocery stores back home - Aisles too narrow to fit two way cart traffic, rudeness, selfish disregard for other shoppers, in short provincialism of the narrowest order. I hate to, but am forced to admit that there is some correspondence between the rants of singer Billy Milano and the scenes within the store. However that store is a little slice of India; pretty or not it represents some aspects of what living there can be like. It does not threaten America, it simply exists as a little outpost of another culture. The people shop there and conduct some aspects of their lives through the goods they buy there. However come Monday, they will be seated in offices performing tedious corporate tasks that keep the wheels greased for the machinery of commerce and globalisation. In short what the fuck is the big deal? Five generations from now, the Hispanics and miscellaneous brown people are gonna be most of the code monkeys and cops - symbols of conformism and corporate slavery.