Drawing First Blood

The niggling numbnut naysayers of the right wing often point to the "failed" avian flu epidemic as a sign that science doesn't always get it right, and that the dire warnings about global warming should be discounted for that fact alone.

Um. Not so fast, guys:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A mathematical analysis has confirmed that H5N1 avian influenza spread from person to person in Indonesia in April, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

They said they had developed a tool to run quick tests on disease outbreaks to see if dangerous epidemics or pandemics may be developing.

Ah, you might say, statistical analysis is not a precise measuring tool.

Actually, it is. Statistical analyses were what helped pinpoint a plague outbreak in London (the first widespread use of statistics, by the way) to the drinking water (i.e. The Thames) and aided in taking steps necessary to prevent a further spread of the disease.

To continue with the article:

since 2003 it has infected 322 people and killed 195 of them.

Most have been infected directly by birds. But a few clusters of cases have been seen and officials worry most about the possibility that the virus has acquired the ability to pass easily and directly from one person to another. That would spark a pandemic.

Ira Longini and colleagues at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle looked at two clusters -- one in which eight family members died in Sumatra in 2006, and another in Turkey in which eight people were infected and four died.

The Turkey outbreak yielded insufficient data upon which to form a conclusion, but the Sumatra outbreak was clearly shown to be a human-to-human transmission.

Why is this important? The great fear of scientists regarding the avian flu is the mutation to a form that would infect mammals. Most scientists consider it a certainty that this will happen. It's already happened once in my lifetime (The Hong Kong flu was a type "A" influenza, meaning it was once avian and then mutated...I remember having that. It was not fun.)

Less than 100 years ago, an avian flu virus mutated and created the Spanish Flu. Original estimates were that between 40-50 million people worldwide died of this disease, but statisticians believe that number is off by 100%, and that the total was closer to 100 million, or roughly ten percent of the world's population. The discrepancy is attributed to more primitive medical diagnoses, because avian flu symptoms are so severe, the disease is often misdiagnosed as Ebola or Dengue fever.

Yea. You read that correctly. It's that nasty:

"One of the most striking of the complications was hemorrhage from mucous membranes, especially from the nose, stomach, and intestine. Bleeding from the ears and petechial hemorrhages in the skin also occurred." The majority of deaths were from bacterial pneumonia, a secondary infection caused by influenza, but the virus also killed people directly, causing massive hemorrhages and edema in the lung.

Too, because this was all happening at the tail end of World War I, it's likely that many of the war dead actually died of the flu, but were tallied as combat casualties.

So there's a lot of reason to be concerned about avian flu and a lot of reason to be thankful that so far, we've all been very lucky. It is, however, coming, and just because the conservative cretins pray the problem goes away, and then whistle past the graveyard when we've made it through yet another flu season without this deadly outbreak, doesn't mean it will not happen.

We need to find solutions and we need to recommit resources that have been allowed to drift away from this crisis. Thankfully, a Democratic Congress is in place, and might...might...have the foresight to do something before things get out of hand.

Given the current "It's better to apologize later than ask permission now" sentiment floating around DC, however, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Even if eventually, we all may have to.

A Kodak Moment

(hat tip to Bartcop)
If only this could be true:

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Former Sen. John Edwards said at a Hurricane Katrina conference he would propose what he called "Brownie's Law" requiring that qualified people, not political hacks, lead key federal agencies.

Edwards, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, drew laughter when he spoke on Monday of the proposal at the "Hope and Recovery Summit" ahead of the two-year anniversary of the storm on Wednesday.

"It's an absolute travesty to have people who are essentially political hacks in a very responsible position," he told the audience at the University of New Orleans.

"Brownie" refers to Michael Brown, who was head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency when Katrina struck the United States on August 29, 2005. He was criticized as being a political appointee unprepared to lead FEMA when a floundering government effort stranded thousands for days in flooded New Orleans.

He resigned shortly after President George W. Bush, who appointed him to the post, told him publicly, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" as chaos reigned in the devastated city.

Unfortunately, the tradition of patronage and rewarding hacks is a long-standing one in politics, not only in America.

True, Brownie blew up in Dubya's face (and a real leader would have fired him in a New York minute, rather than glad-hand him and give us weeks more of incompetent boobery in New Orleans and Mississippi), as did Alberto Gonzalez, another incompetent and ill-equipped appointee. Bush has cover on Gonzo, tho, since the Senate...the GOP-controlled Senate...had to vet and confirm that braying burro of an attorney general.

Still, it is a consummation devoutly to be wished, Edwards' proposal, but one that is ultimately doomed to the bonepile of good-but-impractical ideas. Many questions can be raised: who would vet the credentials of the appointees? The Senate? That would be unConstitutional, which specifically delineates what positions require Senate confirmation.

A blue-ribbon panel? OK, but who would appoint them? And what qualifications would they need?

And you just know some right-wing blog is checking out Edwards' appointees and staffers, looking for any hint of incompetence or underqualification for the position they hold.

Which raises yet another, more basic issue: what would happen if someone whose qualifications are not immediately apparent was appointed to one of these posts?

Nothing in Brownie's past indicated that he would be anywhere near qualified for FEMA director, save for a job as a glorified secretary for some state emergency manager's office.

Sometimes, tho, those administrative assistants know more about the job and the responsibilities than the people who nominally oversee the agency.

Just ask Brownie's secretary at FEMA! In fact, I'd wager that she (or he) would have made a far better FEMA director than Brownie, but (s)he'd never be hired under Edwards' plan.

Nice thought, John-boy. Try again.

Too Little, Too Late

Chief Monkey Boy Quits!

After Karl Rove's resignation, this should have been a particularly obvious event, even if there was speculation that Bush forced Rove's resignation in favor of Gonzalez:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resigned, an official said on Monday, ending a controversial tenure as chief law enforcement officer that blemished the administration of President George W. Bush.

Gonzales was to make a statement at the Justice Department at 10:30 EDT. Bush was also expected to make a statement about Gonzales Monday morning, but would not be announcing a replacement, a senior administration official said.

A senior administration official said U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement will serve as acting Attorney General, amid speculation that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff could be a candidate for a permanent replacement.

First off, I didn't realize that Chertoff was a lawyer, not that the DoJ has had any interest in law since 2001. Second, the curious thing is that this resignation follows Gonzalez' statement to Senator Arlen Spector (R-PA) that he would be staying to fix the dysfunctionality at Justice, created in large part by his ham-handed handling of the firing of US Attorneys in 2005, among other issues.

And clearly, Bush would have been happy to have his partner-in-crime, literally, stay on. Thick as thieves, those two, and I suspect when history has its final say on the Bush administration, crimes we don't even suspect right now will have been traced back to those two.

Dadby's Home!

Dadby juss walked inna door! Boyz, he loook tie-red!

Coming Home

I want to see this first thing when I log on tomorrow...

Another Canary in the Coalmine

Scott Horton has been closely following the story of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman, who is currently serving a seven-year, four-month prison sentence on charges of bribery, conspiracy and mail fraud. Horton is a Columbia law professor and a contributor to Harper's magazine. This is his interview with Amy Goodman.

Friday Music Blogging

Ace Frehley - Back In The New York Groove

Look out, NYC! I'm heading home!

Friday Kitten Blogging

Dadby's ushuwallee home by now!!!!!1

Nobady Asked Me, But

1) We probably need something like this in America: The Silly Season

2) Of course, we might have it already.

3) "Bend it like Beckham"...I don't think anyone thought it was about taking the money and running...

4) Well, I suppose it had to happen: smoking mittens.

5) Why the market crash isn't going away anytime soon.

6) Not that this is a new idea, but one can hope it will gain some popularity now.

7) Beware of Greeks bearing gifts...particularly if they're delivering for Austrians.

8) This movie might be worth seeing.

So Awesome!

I think I may have linked to this site before, but for my tax$$$, the Hubble is the best thing NASA does. First I wanted to link specifically to the gallery, then to "The Sky in Google Earth", with the latest news on the project with Google (the Orion Nebula is spectacular!), then to the breakthroughs in the Discoveries section..........
I can't decide.
So just go here
and decide for yourself
and oooo and aaaah.

An Interesting Editorial

In this guest essay, former Democratic congressional staffer Brent Budowsky challenges the party's Washington establishment to finally act on principle, not political calculation:

Here is my answer to Kenneth Pollack, Michael O’Hanlon and the latest tragic evasion and spin on the Iraq War currently circulating in high Democratic circles:

Hump Day Comedy Blogging

Because it's nearly Christmas....

Another Rudy Blunder

Likely, by the time you read this, Rudy will have retracted at least some of this comment, but it's worth talking about anyway:

DERRY, New Hampshire (Reuters) - Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani, whose strained relations with his children have drawn unwelcome attention in the race for U.S. president, asked on Thursday that voters "leave my family alone."

The former mayor of New York conceded there were "complexities" among his relatives but said any troubled relationships were irrelevant to his performance in public life.

"I love my family very, very much, and I would do anything for them," he said at a town hall meeting. "The best thing I can say is, kind of, to leave my family alone, you know, just like I'll leave your family alone.

On the face of it, a fair statement to make. It's "none you busaness" as we say here in the city.

Except....

"If you want to judge me or I want to judge you, we'll judge each other on our public performance. I don't know your private life. You don't know my private life," he said.

Then why the gay bashing, Mr. Giuliani? Why the flip flop on a woman's right to choose? Indeed, if it works for you, that we should stay out of your personal business, then it works the other way, that people should be free to live their lives as privately as living in any society should be allowed, free from the burden of having to defend their (legal) choices and not be forced to hide behind cloaks and shutters in order to be who they are?

And, sir, we might point out that it was YOU who dragged your problems with Donna Hanover out into the public spotlight, announcing your adulteries and your intentions to divorce at, of all things, a press conference during your abortive run for Senator from New York! Who does that, drags his spouse through that kind of public humiliation and THEN a few years down the road decides, no no, it's my life, go lead your own life, leave me alone?

Is a press conference a private matter? YOU put your family history on television for the world to digest. Sorry, but you don't get a mulligan here: you took the shot and now you ought to expect to be questioned on it closely.

And I say that as someone who has tried (and admittedly failed) to keep stories about Jenna and NotJenna Bush off this blog, because frankly, they didn't run for President.

I'll be out of the country when this post runs, and I don't expect you'll have had a change of heart regarding this comment, but just know it will come back to haunt you if I have my druthers here.

Let's Ruin TWO Celestial Bodies!

Look, I'm all for space exploration AND for colonization of other planets. As Steve Hawking points out, it's foolish to have all our eggs in one basket when we can easily spread out a little and thus ensure the survival of the species.

But...:

The moon should be developed as a sanctuary for civilization in case of a cataclysmic cosmic impact, according to an international team of experts.

NASA already has blueprints to create a permanent lunar outpost by the 2020s.

But that plan should be expanded to include a way to preserve humanity's learning, culture, and technology if Earth is hit by a doomsday asteroid or comet, said Jim Burke of International Space University (ISU) in France.

Burke, once a project manager on some of the earliest American lunar landings, now heads an ISU study on surviving a collision with a near-Earth object.

First, I wouldn't trust anything this administration's "Space Agency" has to say. Second, it's not about preserving our learning, culture and technology, because in point of fact, that's precisely what has brought us to the brink of creating a world nearly inhabitable by us, and certainly by nearly any other species above the cockroach!

No, the point about colonization is to find new ways of answering old questions, to find better ways of solving the basic problems of life: sustenance, sanitation, shelter, and then getting those answers back to Earth.

To move us to the moon when we're threatened with doom (which is silly, when you think about it: no Earth, no more Moon, in all probability) is pretty dumb. It's like buying a new house and moving only because the old one is burning.

I want to see man expand his horizons, not drag them with him to some place with a better view.

Moron Rove

I see David Corn feels the same way that I do about Karl Rove: best present the Democrats have ever gotten!:

In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote of Tom and Daisy, "They were careless people...they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made." Rove is certainly more careful than Fitzgerald's characters--careful when it comes to politics and doing whatever is necessary to win. But with Bush, he recklessly steered this country into a debacle in Iraq that has caused the death of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and that has ruined the United States' reputation abroad. Bush, Rove, Dick Cheney and the rest did so with little understanding and with insufficient planning, and they sold the war to the public with bad information and blatant misrepresentations. (Rove was part of the White House Iraq Group that devised the prewar messaging.) Rove deserves not reward but punishment. A fitting sentence would be for Rove to stay to the bitter end so he can sweep up the turds he is now leaving behind.

David, it would only give him more time to screw things up worse for the country.

Which would only be more good news for Democrats, although it would pretty much be a Pyrrhic victory in 2008.

Still, my faith in America and the American people remains unshaken: barring the entire country plunged to a depth of 200 feet under the seas, we can rebuild. We can restore. We can make it better than it was in 2000.

The Republicans threw Rove under the bus when it became clear he was a master at the short term but couldn't wrap his tiny mind around the fact that he'd actually have to get something done in eight years.

Bush has done nothing, and I do mean, nothing, to warrant any mention in the history books beyond the absolute basic "He was President for eight years, and managed not to get half the population killed" caretaker notice that was reserved for Presidents like Ford and Grant.

The Real Welfare Queens

...London-based journalist William Bowles:

It should be obvious to all and sundry by now that capitalism is in dire straights. Last week’s meltdown of the world’s major capital markets was only ‘rescued’ by the injection of literally hundreds of billions of dollars from by the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the US Federal Reserve.

So much for the magic of the ‘market’ which we are continuously told, solves all problems. And in fact, last week’s injection by the European Central bank of something like $100 billion dollars didn’t do the trick! More had to be ‘injected’ in order to stave off a total collapse of the world’s stock markets. The ‘injection’ is in reality a bail-out of the commercial banks.”

...“[A]dded to the sense of dread as investors have no idea which institutions own what debt, leaving the markets to be driven by rumor and counter-rumor. ‘There is great uncertainty as to how far risks are spread within the financial system and exactly where the losses reside,’ said Paul Niven, at F&C Asset Management. ‘The market is trading on fear.’ — (‘Central banks pour in billions - but global slide goes on’ — The Guardian, Saturday, 10 August 2007) Thus the real cause of the current panic is financial speculation caused by unrealistically cheap credit and almost no regulation of speculative markets…”

...That “entity we can’t even see,” in (Ethan) Miller’s words, has hit a big bump in the road and the “free enterprise for us” gang has turned, where else, but to the government to bail them out by lowering interest rates and pumping massive amounts of money into the system. The people who created the downturn are now lining up for subsidies so they can go out and buy “distressed properties” and restart the greed machine. Naturally, the Hedge Funds now want to profit on the misery they helped fund. Deals R’Us is still their mantra.

More here

Reagan Must Be Spinning In His Grave

The withdrawal of America from multinational agreements is not new. If anything, we've been at it for 25 years and more.

So one wonders what this is about?

The Bush administration is urging the U.S. Senate to ratify the Convention of the Law of the Sea. The treaty provides universal legal standards for shipping, fishing, and mining and codifies customary navigation and transit principles already followed by most states. Proponents of the convention, including President Bush, say it will enhance U.S. security on the high seas. But a number of conservative lawmakers remain concerned the treaty may harm U.S. industry and hinder counterterrorism efforts.

Fair enough, except that Ronald Reagan refused to endorse (meaning the Senate was never presented with) this treaty. He claimed that the seabed mining standards were unfair to America.

OK, fair enough. The standards were adjusted in 1994. Still, support for the treaty, particularly among Republicans, was tepid, even into the 21st century:

As former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Jeanne Kirkpatrick told the U.S. Senate in April 2004: “The formula for representation guaranteed that the industrialized ‘producer’ countries would be a permanent minority.”

So why is Bush hot to trot with this?

Here's why:For those of you still on dial-up...

In the next few hours, Russian scientists hope to dive in two mini-submarines to a depth of more than 4,000 metres, and drop a metal capsule carrying the Russian flag onto the seabed. Balyasnikov said the dive was to start this morning and last several hours. Each submarine will carry three people.

The symbolic gesture, along with geologic data being gathered by expedition scientists, is intended to prop up Moscow's claims to about 1.2 million square kilometres of the Arctic shelf, which, by some estimates, may contain about 9 billion tonnes of oil and gas deposits.

(emphasis added, and that's metric tons or about 20 billion imperial tons)

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Now I see, said the blind man, as he picked up his hammer and saw!

But there's still another piece to the puzzle. Currently, five nations have claim to the seabed under the North Pole: Russia, Canada, Denmark (by way of a ridge that runs to Greenland), and Norway. And the US. But the US claim is unenforceable because we never signed the Law Of The Sea treaty!

Disgusting little man, isn't he?

Friday Music Blogging

The one, the only Busboys - The Boys Are Back In Town

Watch out, Bonaire! Here I come!

Te aworo! See you in a week or so, I'm leaving you in the capable hands of my co-blogger, Katrina...

Friday Kitten Blogging

Some'in es goin' on...Dadby has all dese bags lyin' round da houze...

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) Could you ever have imagined that K-Fed might be a better parent than Brittney?

2) Of course, naturally, I have a solution: put the kids in foster care. Michael Jackson's got time on his hands...

3) Enough celeb crap. I'm a knight! I never get invited to the cool castle seiges!

4) One more reason sanctions against Cuba should be lifted. My God, she's a widow AND an American!

5) Could you spare a moment of sympathy for Hawaii? I know it's Hawaii and all, and so the envy of the world, but...an earthquake AND hurricane on the same day is no fun.

6) This says it best:

7) Last week it was floods. This week, Mother Nature shook things up a bit.

8) And storms. Don't forget storms!

9) Money changes everything?

10) Hm. This combines my two favorite activities...looks like I can extend my athletic career after all!

11) This is really scary. Family Security Matters is a wing of the Center For Security Policy, an uber-neo-con think tank that boasts of Dick Cheney as a former board member. It's so far out that FSM took it down when a hue and cry was raised about making Bush President For Life, but that's the least scary part!

Not That This Was Unexpected, But...

...yer an idiot, Paulson:

TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the turmoil in global markets will "extract a penalty" on growth but the financial system and economy was strong enough to withstand it without provoking a U.S. recession.

"The economy and the markets are strong enough to absorb the losses," Paulson told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published on its Web site on Thursday.

Paulson also said the repricing of risk in markets should not surprise anyone and was inevitable, and that nothing should be done to guarantee market players against losses or restrain them from taking risks.

All this article really needs is a video of someone whistling past the graveyard. Or maybe this:So many reasons Paulson is an ass here, so little bandwidth.

First, he has a point: easy credit is no different than any other economic bubble and economic bubbles burst. Period. But here's the thing: this was a bubble the Fed could have AND SHOULD HAVE done something about years ago.

I find it hard to believe that Alan Greenspan (and now Ben Bernake) don't watch TV from time to time. Hell, you can't turn on the TV but for coming across and ad for Ditech.com or Countrywide Home Loans, advertising "No money down, no principal payment" loans at rates that make the prime interest rate look like a high-yield bond. Did it not occur to them, the way it occurred to me, that there might be something wrong in an economy where it's worthwhile for a predatory lender to run commercials hawking a dangerous financial product 24/7? So you bump up interest rates a bit, and you save a few people from making the biggest mistake of their lives.

You know, Alan, Ben, and now Hank, it's OK to do a little thinking about work while you're away from the office. Most of us have to do that, from time to time.

And now here's ol' Hank talking up the economy, you know, don't worry, everything's going to be fine, as the Fed pumps $50 billion dollars into the monetary system to shore up the credit markets.

OK, so a basic economic lesson here: when a government is forced to pump that kind of money into the system, where does it come from, in a nation running hundreds of billions in deficit spending each year?

Here's a hint: It ain't from a savings account.

There are two ways for the Fed to get their hands on that kind of dough that quickly: borrow it (meaning it will have to be paid back and then the question is, from whom was it borrowed?) or print it.

If it's just printed, then simple supply and demand will tell you what happens to the value of the dollar in your pocket: more supply lowers the "price" of that good, so by extension (and yea, I know, the analogy has holes in it, but it fits the argument more clearly than a real analysis), more money drives the value of your dollars down, meaning it will take more money to buy something.

In other words, inflation. Which the Fed tames by raising interest rates, thus stifling the demand for money.

If the money has been borrowed (ignoring for a moment from whom, tho I have my suspicions), then all this does is shift the risk off the original badder debts from the lenders (rapacious bankers and sub-prime mortgage companies) to, well, us.

In effect, the money the Fed has pumped into the credit markets is a guarantee that the government will stand behind the loans out there already (although not all of them, to be sure...I doubt we can get our mitts on something like $7 trillion to finance all the mortgages out there), meaning the ultimate responsibility for repaying this money isn't on the lenders, but on the guarantors, and since the Fed has authority but no responsibility, that privilege falls on our shoulders.

Where has this money come from?

Well, the make-up of the Fed is a bunch of money center banks, like say Citibank, Chase, Bank of America, who created and run the Federal Reserve System. No one knows for sure who precisely is on the Fed board, but these three are a safe bet.

These money center banks, which also sit on the central bank boards of nearly every other major nation in the world as well as the World Bank, would have the resources to finance, short term and at a rate of return commensurate with the critical nature of the emergency (in other words, usury) the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to stem the global economic collapse that is threatening the world.

As I said, for a price. They get us coming and going here, because who do you think funds the money to the mortgage markets to lend to people like you and me at attractive rates to pay off the credit cards (that they've issued) to try to get solvent by borrowing off our salaries in perpetuity? And now who's funding the bailout of those same sickening loans?

All this, so we could buy a new computer. Or car. Or second home.

So why is Paulson an idiot? He's bluffing, of course, and it's not a particularly good bluff this time. He sees (or he should) what should be evident to anyone after reading this far down: there's an enormous risk involved in the game the central bank is playing.

All it takes is one of the members to say "basta!" and the house of cards falls, forever. You've heard stories about The Great Depression, but you might (and I think you will) be living through something far worse in the very near future. And mind you, we were able to grow out of the Great Depression only by getting our asses into a world war, something we can't afford to do right now, because we've exhausted our financial and materiel supplies on this ill-starred and ill-fated invasion of Iraq, along with the more justifiable but still tragic war in Afghanistan.

Many of the 25%ers, the folks who still support George W Bush thru thick and thin, believe an apt comparison can be made to Harry Truman. It's clear from reading this, they're two Presidents too close.

Hump Day Comedy Blogging

In Living Color - Men On Fitness

Two snaps up in a Z formation, girl!

Texas Oilman Commits Treason

This is really disgusting. If this man had been a liberal, he'd have been strung up for what he did. More on the flip:

Houston oilman Oscar Wyatt is trying to ensure that a jury doesn't see an Iraqi document suggesting he discussed American troop levels and possible dates for an attack with a member of Saddam Hussein's regime prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Wyatt, 83, is slated to stand trial Sept. 5 on charges that he and others funneled millions of dollars in illegal payments to Saddam's government in order to win lucrative oil export contracts.

His attorneys are asking a federal judge in New York to prohibit prosecutors from presenting as evidence handwritten notes purportedly made by an Iraqi oil official, which suggest Wyatt conveyed information about when the United States might begin bombing, when ground forces would be sent in and how many soldiers would be deployed.

His lawyer claims none of the discussions were of confidential matters and that release of the notes would tend to prejudice a jury.

Still, one wonders where the prattling purveyors of purity are on this? A businessman, involved in an illegal transaction with an enemy nation, discussing troop movements and strengths ahead of an invasion to liberate said nation from the grip of evil?

Oscar Wyatt, along with Bayoil executives David B Chalmers and Ludmil Dionissiev, is charged with fraud and conspiracy, but not treason, in connection with illegal transactions under the UN "oil for food" program in 2003. Under that program, Saddam Hussein was allowed to "sell" oil to companies (other than US companies) in exchange for staples like food, clothing and other necessities. The intent was that no money could trade hands, so that Saddam could not profit from these deals.

As these things always go, some palms were greased and some other negotiations took place, such that Saddam indeed made out handsomely.

So nevermind about discussing troop movements, these guys committed treason from the get-go.

Yet, not a peep out of the right wing noise machine. And if you recall, a LOT of hay was made about how France and Russia were the major players in the scandal, and how then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's son was behind it all.

Eh...not so much, it turns out!

So why would two dumb hicks from the sticks warrant such a large distraction, drumming up lies about Kofi Annan and Russia and France?

Here's one reason. Here's the other, although to his credit (or debit), Wyatt and his father seem to have spread out their contributions amongst both parties. And here's a third.

But notice something: no man gave to any Presidential campaigns, even though all are obviously politically active, tend towards more conservative candidates and, critically, all are Houston-based oilmen!

Why, what magic! They didn't give to Bush-Cheney, '00 or '04????

Not likely, I'm sure. But it would take a lot more digging than I have either the time or resources to pursue.

The real question is, who fed them this troop information, which I recall was scrupulously NOT discussed on the major television networks in the run-up to the war, for fear of revealing, well, troop movements and deployments?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...pardon me, I need to sneeze...Dick Cheney.

There, that's better!

Rove'd And Rambled

I came across this little bit of news analysis from the Canadian Broadcasting Co's website. Read a bit of it. I'll meet you on the flip:

Karl Rove had no real expertise in foreign or domestic policy, but he knew how many votes it would take to win an election and, just as importantly, he knew what his Republican voters needed to hear to get them out to the polls.

He was not content simply to get George W. Bush into the White House. He wanted to turn the Republican party into a political force that would dominate the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government for a generation.

He believed he could do that with a Republican base made up of social conservatives, the Christian right and supporters of lower taxes, small government and a muscular foreign policy. The entire policy thrust of the Bush/Rove White House was directed at keeping those people happy and motivated.

At the same time, Rove could do the math. He understood that his Republican base was too narrow to ever make up a majority of American voters. He knew that most American voters were politically indifferent, waiting to be given a reason to get excited.

Enthusiasm is catchy. Neighbours influence neighbours. Energize your base, whip them into a frenzy of political activity, get them to donate their time and money to the cause, and others would follow in their wake. As George W. Bush demonstrated in both 2000 and 2004, you don't have to win by much to occupy the White House, you just have to win.

As for the other half of the country — the so-called blue states in the red-blue carve-up of the nation's interests — well, Karl Rove had little time for them. Other administrations may have tried to reach out to their political opponents, to build a big and welcoming tent as the saying goes. Uniting the country was generally seen to be a goal worth pursuing.

But Karl Rove had no illusions about attracting Democrats and left-leaning independents to his side. So why bother trying?

That way, if you don't care about reaching out to people on the other side of the political divide, and if your priority is winning elections, no matter how narrowly, then there is really nothing standing in the way of practising politics with the gloves off.

Much has been made in Blogtopia (© Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo) of the politics of the current crop of Democratic contenders and how they should be more vicious, going after Republicans more rather than talking about "inclusion" and "bi-partisanship".

Reading this, you begin to get a sense as to why the Democrats have backed away, somewhat, from those tactics (they did use the moral scandals of the GOP in 2006 to great benefit).

There's a strategy at work here, and one suspects the long term goal is to create a Democratic dynasty. Rove was onto something in that the country is ripe for one party to dominate the political landscape for a long time. It's just a sense I get that there's a brass ring just around the corner to grab.

Rove was successful at politics of division, that no one can or will deny. The question is, what did it cost the party and the American people, that he beat up on Ann Richards, John McCain, Al Gore, Max Cleland, and John Kerry so viciously?

A lot. And the 2006 elections showed, I think, just the first thrust of the backlash, which will be long and brutal for the GOP. Why?

Because if you're going to demonize the other guy, you'd better damned well make sure you're a saint. From before September 11, when Bush's poll numbers were floundering in the low 40s, through Katrina, the Scooter Libby indictments, Katrina, and mostly, the Iraq debacle, Rove has been unable to get this administration to prove its mettle just when Rove needed it most. For his dream of a Republican dynasty to take shape, he would have needed the perfect President.

What he had was the perfect candidate: malleable, affable, and idiotic. Simple, which for American voters translated into safe.

You really can fool all of the people some of the time, in other words. Bush could not actually run the country, and the people around him were too busy suckling at the teat of the administration to pay attention to Rove's political vision.

If this sounds like a paean to Rove, to a point it is. As a political junkie, he took a bushel of lemons and made a yellow liquid that could have been lemonade, but for the fact it wasn't. He paid attention to about 25% of the American people and made them feel like they were in charge.

Which explains the deep feelings some in the blogosphere feel for this administration, despite the fact that it will go down in history as the single biggest disaster to befall this nation since the British invasion of 1812. Buyer's remorse doesn't apply, because they didn't buy Bush, they sold him, and that creates an even deeper attachment. Ask any salesman.

We liberals owe Rove a debt of gratitude as well. See, Rove is like a forest fire in an old growth forest: he's burned up the little weeds and twigs at the roots, but never really got hot enough to take out the entire forest. All he's done is given us more nutrients to live off.

For nearly thirty years, liberals have watched as the progressive agenda-- an agenda of tolerance, of equality, of taking care to make sure everyone benefits from the bounty that is this land-- had been whittled away, a slice here, a sliver there.

Rove took an axe to it.

Already, massive grass roots movements have sprung up in response to the "frenzy of political activity" Rove created in the 25%. And those movements will march forward, slowly at first, but in greater numbers, and more strongly. 25% of the nation couldn't possibly hold back the tide of change. It will come. It is coming, and thanks to Rove, it will be more progressive and more liberal than ever before.

And the seeds of his failures are very apparent:

Rove's relentlessly polarizing tactics and his over-the-top use of government power for political purposes, critics say, were bound to wear out their welcome with a fundamentally pragmatic and moderate electorate.

"Karl will always be known as a brilliant political operative who has a great tactical sense," said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster, "but tactics only get you so far. Did they change politics forever? No."

Fabrizio asked: "At the end of the day, is the party better off today than it was when it was taken over six or seven years ago?" He believes Rove's strategy has alienated middle-of-the-road voters and left the party in worse shape.

How Rove's approach could misfire in the evolving political climate was illustrated when Bush, after his reelection, sought converts to the GOP cause by pushing to create private investment accounts in the Social Security system.

In the Rove playbook, the proposal -- with its call for a new "ownership society" -- would attract younger voters distrustful of government and fearful that Washington would not deliver on promised retirement benefits.

The campaign failed. Democrats charged that Bush and the Republicans would weaken or destroy the whole Social Security program.

Rove also played a major role in advocating an immigration-law overhaul that would have offered some illegal immigrants a way to become citizens and would have tightened border security. Hard-line congressional Republicans deserted the White House on the bipartisan effort, which had embodied many of Rove's ideas.

There's much more to come. The long national nightmare is over.

Or to put it more succinctly, DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD!

Red Rover, Come Over

Obviously, the big story of the day is Karl Rove leaving the White House in a rush at the end of this month.

Much speculation will center on why:

"I just think it's time," Rove, 56, said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Monday.

"There's always something that can keep you here and, as much as I'd like to be here, I've got to do this for the sake of my family."

Hm. The stock political excuse, and it covers all manners of sins. For some, it's covered a pending indictment. For others, it's covered internal clashes with others in the White House, which one has lost. To save face, one claims a family matter, and leaves graciously.

We can hope for the first, but I seriously doubt it's the latter. Rove has too much sway with Bush, having guided his political career for fifteen years straight to the Presidency.

Speculation is that he had a contempt of Congress charge hanging over his head. Leaving the White House takes away any executive privilege cover, and of course, he would now be subject to prison time for refusing to testify.

So not a likely reason.

The real clue is this:

Rove finally decided to leave after Joshua Bolten, the White House chief of staff, told senior aides that if they remained past early September, they would be obliged to stay until the end of Bush's second and final term in January 2009, the paper said.

Ah. There we are.

Rove intends to get back into the fight with another candidate. After all, why not run out the clock? Yes, he has a son heading to college...so what? The last time I checked, the last thing a father has to do is be around for a college kid. By that point, they're either going to swim or sink on their own.

What clues can we look for to confirm this suspicion? Well, Rove and Karen Hughes were integral parts of Bush's 2000 campaign, and while Hughes left the White House (to return in 2005 as an Undersecretary of State in charge of burnishing the US image abroad, something she's fucked up worse than before she got involved), she's been very quiet for two years now.

Indeed, about the only news from State regarding Hughes has been the resignation of media affairs director Floyd Price, who quit after 17 years at State because he believed the Bush administration had so screwed up foreign relations that it would require a new President to get any glimmer of respectability back in the world's eyes, partly because he felt Hughes had approached it from the wrong angle.

You'd have to think that Hughes will be announcing her resignation shortly. Should that come, you'd have in place the strategy and communications team that very effective vaulted Dubya from a crappy governor of a middling state (in administrative terms) to the Presidency (no matter how obtained).

So who hires them? McCain? Old news. Giuliani? Possibly, but Rudy has this need to be the focus of attention and center of the universe, large and in charge of everything. I don't think he could cede the kind of dirty work that Rove is known for to him. He wouldn't trust him.

Which really only leaves Mitt Romney. And I think the fit is good. Mitt is a slightly more polished version of Dubya, all Ivy League, Massachussetts, coiffed and burnished. All it really requires is a little adjustment in the playbook, and Rove could make Mitt more than a viable candidate.

It's early enough in the process that Rove could even be pondering taking up Fred Thompson nascent campaign, but the fund raising difficultiues Thompson has demonstrated seem to tell me that his run is a non-starter. Just a sense I get, nothing more than that.

At 56, he's young enough to do this for at least two more campaigns, and his ego is big enough that I think he wants to prove it was him and not Bush who won the White House.

It will be interesting.

Money. Money, Money, Money Moneyyyyyy!

Sorry, gang, it's Sunday, I know, and hardly the day you want to think about mooney and markets and economics...hell, my hangover has me hating writing this more than you hate reading it.

But it's important:

Global central banks, including the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan, added more than $300 billion of extra cash to the banking system over the last 48 hours to stabilize credit markets.

"Central banks like the Fed and ECB are adding liquidity, and that has done a lot to calm the markets," said Rafael Martorell, chief dealer at BNP Paribas in New York.

That helped U.S. stocks recover from an early plunge, sending currency traders rushing to sell their newly acquired yen.

Recently, the Japanese currency has slipped when equity markets rose because investors could borrow in low-yielding yen to finance purchases of other risky assets. When stocks slid, the yen firmed as investors unwound those carry trades and bought back yen.

The Dow was down nearly two hundred points Friday morning, even after the Fed injected $19 billion. When that barely bumped it up to a hundred point loss, the Fed funneled another $16 billion. That made the markets go into positive ground, briefly, and it took an additional $3 billion to keep them about flat for the day.

$38 billion. About the cost of the Iraq invasion for a month and a half.

Shove it, Bush, seriously. This isn't the only news of the week that should be deeply tied (literally) to Bush's psychotic obsession with warmongering. The heavy price we've paid to secure perhaps ten percent of the known oil reserves could have basically bought us 25% of them without any military intervention whatsoever. Oh, but then there's the Republican obsession with not signing international treaties to contend with, but let's face facts: a trillion dollars buys a lot of goodwill.

Back to the stock markets. The Fed will have exhausted its ability to intervene in the markets probably by Wednesday. My guess is Bernake spent much of the weekend on the phone with the banks who control the Federal Reserve with his hat in hand, trying to find bail out money. All it will take is one banker to say no, and the entire house of cards collapses by Tuesday.

Why is this happening?

Two words: housing woes. Last year, 46% of home sales returned to the seller less than five percent equity. Since most mortgage require at least that much in a down payment, 46% of Americans either lost money or barely got back their down payment in selling a house.

I'd estimate maybe another 30% got back between 5 and 10% in equity, so about 3/4 of Americans who sold a house last year broke even. Maybe. It might be much much higher.

People have financed this recent economic growth, as feeble as its been, on their credit cards and home equity loans. Now, there will be no more home equity loans and credit card growth.

And you know who will be bailed out? Not the home owners, but the banks, who will keep lending money faster and faster and just get deeper and deeper in debt. Meanwhile, watch as people try to file bankruptcy only to find out that they can't, that they'll have to pay back each and every penny they borrowed...

The Beauty Pageant

You may or may not be aware that today marks the Iowa Straw Poll.

Unarguably the second most idiotic political tradition in America (the first being the casting of the first ballot in the New Hampshire primary, which is now fading fast in relevance), the Iowa Straw Poll is a popularity contest that candidates voluntarily enter every four years. It is not binding on the caucuses held early in 2008 (which actually choose the winner of Iowa's delegates), and since not every candidate is entered in the cotillion, begins to take on the look of choosing the Runner Up to the Iowa Corn Queen.

Appropriate, since the poll is basically conducted like a state fair, with people paying $35 to listen to rock bands, enjoy rides and, yes, vote for the person who paid their admission! Why is this considered at all a relevant political turning point?:

AMES, Iowa (Reuters) - Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney and a handful of lesser-known rivals hunted for votes in Iowa on Saturday at an informal straw poll that offered the first big test of the 2008 White House race.

Iowa Republicans began lining up at mid-morning to vote in the nonbinding mock election, with Romney an overwhelming favorite to win and several candidates slugging it out for a second-place finish they hope will vault them into contention.[...]

The straw poll, an Iowa tradition since 1979, is an early test of a campaign's organizational strength in the state that holds the first nominating contest. It often thins the field of weaker candidates and gives the winner a temporary shot of momentum.

Only Republicans could imagine a way of using money to winnow candidates out: if you can't afford to buy enough votes to maintain your place in the field with respectability, you get out now.

"I can't buy you, I don't have the money," [Former Arkansas Gov. Mike] Huckabee told the Ames crowd. "I can't even rent you."

And yet...

Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson has said anything less than a top two finish will finish him, and several other candidates could face similar decisions.

"We've got a tremendous opportunity to show the country that Iowa, not the political pundits in Washington, make the selection," Thompson told supporters jammed into his tent.

Right, Tommy. I think it's so cute that you believe that! Iowa makes the selection...the selection the pundits and moneychangers pay them to make!

Friday Music Blogging

The Zombies - She's Not There

If you could give an award for the greatest song ever written and sung, this song would have to rank right at the top of the list. I think it may be the most underrated song in pop history.

Friday Kitten Blogging

Wha? Huh?

Nobody Asked Me, But...

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

A Hopeful Sign

But how long will it last, and how effective with they be?:

"There has been a proliferation of activist groups ... especially after the 2004 elections. I would speculate that these groups will get more active as the 2008 elections come up," said Anthony Michel, a communications professor at Avila University in Kansas City, Missouri.

The movement is fueled both by suspicion of mainstream media and burgeoning access to information via the Internet, Michel said.

Email, blogs, virtual meeting spaces and rapid-fire links for like-minded people make it easier and faster for individuals to come together in letter-writing campaigns, petition drives, fund-raisers, meetings and marches.

An example of its power, the recent Capitol Hill debate over a federally funded health insurance program for children triggered an outpouring from the political hinterlands, and Congress voted August 1 to expand the program despite a veto threat from the White House.

Vox populi. It's a good thing.

But then there's the downside and we've already seen cracks in the foundation: when the movement becomes big enough to earn a seat at the table, as dKos demonstrates, it also becomes part of the machinery, subject to the same co-optations that any other political faction suffers.

Too, the "outsiders looking in" end up attacking those who can been labeled as "selling out"

Prima facie evidence of the past twenty years has shown this to be true. Think about the Christian Coalition and other religious-right-wing groups and you see my point. They've allowed politicians to skew their principles in the cause of expediency, with nary a word from the Falwells and Dobsons of the nation.

Why? Because the Falwells and Dobsons of the nation were bought off, as was anyone else who accrued enough influence to make it worth the Republican party's while. Hell, Sun Myung-Moon had Republican Congressmen at his coronation ceremony as the Second Coming of the Messiah! You think that hasn't influenced how he deals with those Congressmen when they have ethical issues, much less how they shape and vote on "morals" legislation?

But even now, those who have been co-opted face challenges from their rear and right:

The Grassroots Conservative Majority, a political group started in Tennessee last November, focuses on "returning the Republican party to its core principles of social and fiscal conservatism" by supporting specific candidates in key races. The Web site gets about 700 visitors a day, according to organizer Ed Sistrunk.

So it's not just limited to progressives and liberals who are thoroughly frustrated with the inability of the Democratic party to do something, anything, about Bush and Cheney and the moral bankruptcy this nation faces, on top of the fiscal bankruptcy we've already entered.

But make no mistake: people who are liberal, who for years hid that fact, are starting to crawl out from under the wreckage of decades of being vilified and hated, because after Katrina, after Iraq, after Attorneygate, after Chinese imports tainted with melamine and Ground Zero toxic fumes and bridges collapsing, a Presidential cock being sucked sounds like precisely what it was: a big fat nothing.

The article I linked to points out that the 2004 elections were a watershed for this movement, the real impetus, and to a degree, I concur. The elections proved that either the system is dangerously screwed, if you believe that the election was stolen yet again, or at the very least, America is heading down the wrong path with its eyes wide open and that this time in our history will be crucial to righting the ship of state. Or both, to be honest.

I'll point to an even more narrow event that I think ignited the progressive grassroots movement to come out of the shadows and organize at the local level. It was Jimmy Carter's speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention.

To hear one President talk about courage and honor, and how the current President lacked them, well, it was a jarring note at a convention where the word was "No Bush Bashing". Read an excerpt:

In repudiating extremism, we need to recommit ourselves to a few common-sense principles that should transcend partisan differences.

First, we cannot enhance our own security if we place in jeopardy what is most precious to us, namely the centrality of human rights in our daily lives and in global affairs.

CARTER: Second, we cannot maintain our historic self-confidence as a people if we generate public panic.

Third, we cannot do our duty as citizens and patriots if we pursue an agenda that polarizes and divides our country.

Next, we cannot be true to ourselves if we mistreat others.

And finally, in the world at large, we cannot lead if our leaders mislead.

You can't be a war president one day and claim to be a peace president the next, depending on the latest political polls. [...]

And in many ways, the last few months have been some of the most disturbing of all. But I am not discouraged. I really am not. I do not despair for our country. I never do. I believe tonight, as I always have, that the essential decency and compassion and common sense of the American people will prevail.

CARTER: And so I say to you...and so I say to you and to others around the world, whether they wish us well or ill: Do not underestimate us Americans.

We lack neither strength nor wisdom. There is a road that leads to a bright and hopeful future. What America needs is leadership.

Without mentioning Bush by name and opening a door to repeated bashing back by right wing pundits and radio jocks, Carter laid out the case for what America needs to do to right itself.

You'll notice that much of it is addressed right to the American people, not the party. Echoing FDR, he said we must not allow ourselves to be bullied into fear, either by terrorists external or worse, the ones ruling us.

In other words, see something, say something. And I think a lot of people let those words wash over them like a soothing bath and got the courage to make a call, to talk to a friend, to challenge the bar bully know-it-all who tries to talk over people (like, say, Sean Hannity) by confronting him.

And if it meant a punch in the face, literally or figuratively, the point was made: we weren't going to be afraid of the fight any longer. Eventually, we'd prove our point and win.

You see it in the news and on the talking head programs more and more, as well: people willing to stand up and be counted, rather than avoid confrontation. It must be driving Bill O'Reilly crazy that liberals are talking over him now.

I don't think we should ever have been bullied in the first place, but that's just me. I know I wasn't, and I've had some nasty run-ins with neo-con right wingers, many of whom I've managed to make friends with despite our differences.

The political pendulum in America swings to and fro, and right now, it's swinging from the fro to the "to": To America. To the left. To the future. To what's right. We're at the beginning of a new era in American politics, American policy, and American prestige. Our beacon of freedom and liberty, hidden under a bushel of corruption, anger, hatred and greed for these past six years, is being uncovered by a new generation of caretakers, who will point that beacon at our enemies and more important, our friends, and remind them of what makes America great.

All the money in the world can't buy greatness. All the debt we've rolled up won't buy us prestige. None of the bounty that God in His (or Her) infinite wisdom has blessed this land with will help us now. We have to get back to the basics of this country. Opportunity for all, justice for all, freedom for all.

We must stop being afraid of terrorists, but more, we must stop being afraid of those who would exploit terrorism for their own political benefit. We've allowed Osama bin Laden, a pathetic, sick, weak, evil man, to become a bogieman of immense proportion because he startled us.

But I say to you, there is more courage in the New York City secretary who gets dressed in the morning and hops on a subway train to her job in lower Manhattan than in all the conservative bloggers in the country. She is not afraid of Osama bin Laden because of Osama bin Laden. Instinctively, she knows she's afraid of what's been represented to her by these evil twisted and sick men (mostly) who would want nothing more than to watch her sweat and shake while their cronies stick their hands in her pocket the next time she fills up her Honda Accord with gas.

There's the real enemy. There's what we really should be angry at. And we should be angry at a government that's allowed this situation to get so far out of control that the very mention of an ancient steam pipe exploding in Manhattan or an undermaintained bridge over the Mississippi collapsing raises the immediate spectre of Al Qaeda.

Fuck them, I say. Al Qaeda wants to come over here and get rowdy? Let 'em! They'll buy a whole lot more trouble here than they bargained for. I know neighborhoods in Brooklyn that would just be itching for some moron to show up with C4 strapped to his chest.

And in the meantime, we can bring our troops home from Iraq and let them get on with their lives, making America a great place, once again.

The people will speak, and they will be heard, and we will take our country and government back.

And to the Hugh Hewitts, the Sean Hannitys, the Michael Fumentos, the Dean Barnetts of the country, and every other ignert right-wing scaremonger?

Fuck you, too. We're through with you. Go ahead and pick on the big boys, the candidates, the Democrats who are front page news. We're coming up behind you, so keep your scared little eyes behind you, too. We won't be so polite and kind.

And to any grassroots movement that builds enough momentum and enough stroke to be co-opted? We'll take you out after them.

Wrath Of God

About once a year, the New York City area, usually Northern Jersey, sometimes Westchester County, suffers a tornado.

For nearly anyone else who has a tornado infestation, our tornadoes are things you guys probably drive through: F0.

Not today.:

National Weather Service officials confirmed Wednesday night that a tornado had touched down in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn this morning about 6:30 a.m.

The tornado, which was confirmed by twisting patterns in the debris left behind, was probably moving at speeds of 111 to 135 miles per hour, meteorologists said.

Hours after the tornado and violent thunderstorm pounded the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bay Ridge and Sunset Park, Mayor Michael Bloomberg visited one of the blocks hardest hit, shook hands with residents and said that, thankfully, no one was seriously hurt there.

That's an F2, for those of you keeping score.

Worse, it's the second tornado to touch down around NYC in the past month. The last one was three weeks ago, during the storm that eventually was blamed for the massive steam pipe explosion on 41st & Lexington.

But, as they way, wait! There's more! The torrential rain of this storm, almost and in some areas over three inches in one hour, caused massive infrastructure flooding and shut down nearly every subway line in Manhattan, and most in Brooklyn and Queens (the Bronx lines are mostly elevated, and so service wasn't completely wiped out, altho getting to Manhattan was a challenge).

Major roadways were flooded out and by 6AM, the start of rush hour, police were reporting 35 separate automobile accidents on the area roadways.

The good news, because, you know, it's all about me, I was able to get a table at lunch easily. I did have a struggle on my commute, naturally, and what is normally a twenty minute train ride stretched out to an hour and twenty minutes.

New Yorkers, despite their fairly gruff reputation, shouldered it well. Although there were a few cross words, mostly from suburban commuters who felt the need to remind everyone of their self-importance when plowing into an already overcrowded subway car, most people understood that it was what it was: rain can take down the biggest subway system in America. Period.

By the way, the light show was awesome!

Hump Day Comedy Blogging

The inimitable, the immortal, Bugs Bunny

"Aw, now you're mad at me again!" Classic!

Uh Oh, We're Fucked....

(hat tip to Mr Doggity, who is a welcome addition to Blogtopia (© Skippy The Bush Kangaroo)

You might want to pass this story around amongst friends, then start making survivalist plans. This could get rough:

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress.

Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.

Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.

It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.

To get an idea of the magnitude of this, the US debt outstanding is just under $10 trillion, so about ten percent of our debt is in China's hands, the second or third largest creditor we have, after the UK and possibly Saudi Arabia.

It's curious that China would make these comments on the heels of their recent export tragedies, but China's never really been beholden to Western sensitivities.

Congress has announced they would be looking into imposing more tariffs on Chinese made merchandise, partly in response to trade protectionist forces within the Democratic party, partly as a sop to those who have accused China of currency manipulations (thus covering both labor and management, and making a political stand on China ahead of the 2008 elections).

China's yuan is pegged to the dollar at a fixed rate so the first real warning shot would come when China loosens those ties. It has allowed the yuan to float to a higher level in recent months, and yes, has made what appear to be manipulative moves with their currency trades, but has not completely freed the yuan from the dollar.

Such a move would force the yuan to rise against the dollar and force Chinese officials to sell dollars to cover losses. The dollar would then drop precipitously and, well, forget about getting loans for a while as the credit markets tighten to absorb the new US demands for credit to repay China.

What? You thought we'd grow our way out of this mess?

A Primer In How To Exploit Your Own Life

Rudy Giuliani sounds an awful lot like Bill Clinton on the campaign trail when confronted about his personal life, weaving in details when it suits him, ducking questions that clearly make him uncomfortable:

In speeches in small towns and large here, Giuliani has emphasized his resume as a hard-boiled prosecutor, a tough mayor who tamed New York City, and a terrorism expert.

Yet he also tries to show his personal side, picking and choosing when to reveal personal details.

At Flapjacks Fine Restaurant in Maquoketa, for example, he made a point about his health care policies by talking about how he had survived prostate cancer but his father had not.

Giuliani insists that questions about his personal life are relevant only if the subject involves his performance as a public official.

Now, hang on a minute! This is a man with a full blown libido, not unlike the Big Dog, and Republicans nationwide in their bloodlust all said "If it matters in our house, it matters in the White House!"

You'd think Rudy would have come up with a better way of handling these questions than to duck them, but...

Despite the stresses of his colorful and troubled past - the highly public divorce from his second wife and his wooing of the woman who became his third wife when he was mayor in 2000, for example - Giuliani insists his performance never has been affected.

But Giuliani finds his message of the day sometimes is lost in questions about personal issues he would rather not discuss.

On campaign stops yesterday, his message about stopping drugs, particularly the rampant problem of methamphetamines here, got lost in questions about his daughter and religious life.

Unlike Clinton, however, Giuliani bares his teeth:

He refused to comment, asking reporters instead, "Don't you think we should be talking about methamphetamines?"

Likewise, you may recall during the 2004 Presidential campaign that several Catholic bishops warned that Kerry would be refused communion and excommunication unless he repudiated his pro-choice stance, and that any other Catholic (at the time, no distinction in party was made) who refused to renounce this position would be subject to excommunication as well.

No one's ever accused Rudy of being particularly religious...as a New York City resident, I can't recall one story in the papers about him being at a church, unless it was a funeral or the cameras were there (Christmas mass at St. Patrick's, for example), and yet:

The question about his Catholicism raised other questions about whether he goes to church regularly or could partake in Communion because of his support of abortion rights.

He brushed off the question, saying there shouldn't be a religious litmus test for public office, winning applause.

Not a bad answer, but one that Kerry would never have been allowed to get away with in a Republican crowd, and one Republicans shouldn't allow the Mayor of America to get away with, either.

George Bush managed to get elected despite a history of serious and severe personal and psychological problems, such as untreated alcoholism, drunk driving, drug abuse, and extreme cowardice. He had several advantages over Rudy in covering these up, however: first and foremost, Bush comes from a culture that is used to covering up for the extremes of youthful behavior (i.e. Upper class Connecticut) and buying off the evidence. Second, Bush had Karl Rove and while Rove might be consulting with one or two campaigns already, he likely won't become fully involved until 2008, if at all.

Lastly, Bush's temperment allows him to laugh off personal insults (or at least, appear to). Rudy is far more confrontational about such things, notoriously of thin-skin. Eventually, the pressures of the campaign trail will catch up to him. He was barely able to contain himself as mayor.

The Republican race is an interesting dynamic, in that it seems every candidate is playing to lose.

Thank You, Once Again, Captain Obvious!

Well, duh!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. summit in September on climate change, one of at least four international meetings set for this year, is already raising doubts about any action being taken before President George W. Bush leaves office.

The big question is what will replace the Kyoto Protocol when that agreement to cap greenhouse gases expires in 2012.

The United States has never been part of the Kyoto pact, with Bush having said its economic costs make it "fundamentally flawed." But the president has been vocal recently about the need for a new strategy to curb climate-warming emissions.

Action? On global warming? By a President who has paid lip service at best (on June 21, 2001, he admitted that the science proving the earth was warming and was created mostly by man was there), and at worst, has gone four-square in opposition to any initiative, including the Kyoto Protocols, that would limit greenhouse gases?

Gee, Cap'n Obvious, how nice of you to make this observation!

Several arguments were raised about the Kyoto Protocols, and one could make the case that by allowing China and India to be exempt from them made them fundamentally flawed. However, let's take a look at that.

The United States currently pumps some 20 tons of carbon per capita into the atmosphere right now. China, for example, pumps perhaps 3 billion per capita (with a larger population to be sure, but even factoring that out, it's still only about 9 tons on an equivalent sized population). India's rate is lower still.

Yes, these are growing economies, and could surpass us in the next decade. But in forcing us to comply with Kyoto, Bush could have had six or seven years to this point to develop cleaner technologies, cleaner energy sources, and better use of renewable energy, to lower our carbon footprint, and...here's the big one, folks...to sell to India and China!

Meaning, economic growth for us, something this country has sorely lacked within its borders in the 21st Century (don't be mislead by reports of American economic growth: most of that is predicated on the rise of the global economy and our multinational corporations' overseas subsidiaries upstreaming money to the US). It also means homeland security, national mobilization, and a sense of pride of accomplishment, that America is destined for greatness and doesn't have to rest on its laurels.

Oh, but tax cuts and wars for oil...far more important than the survival of the planet. I keep forgetting who I'm dealing with.

The problem with the Republican love of "volunteerism" is the whole "you go first" philosophy. Yes, many businesses are starting to understand that greenhouse gases, global warming and climatology are important factors that are going to cost us a lot, economically. The problem becaomes the hemming and hawing about what to do about it, and what is the competition doing about it.

The great strength of capitalism, that competition promotes lower costs and greater efficiencies, simply is not applicable to a situation that demands a sacrfice for the greater good be made. The first company who makes inroads into more environmentally conscious productivity will necessarily pay a price that his competitors will not pay, deflating his earnings and making his stockholders very angry, until his competitors decide to take the plunge as well and incur those same costs.

This will not happen fast enough.

If there's any one observation to be taken from last week's bridge disaster in Minnesota, or the infrastructure nightmare that is New York City or any older urban area, it's this: the ounce of prevention that could have, should have, been spent years ago becomes not a pound of cure when applied to critical conditions. It becomes a ton.

Although private enterprises are waking up to the fact that global warming is real and will hurt them badly, the overwhelming costs associated with even mitigating it will scare businesses away from taking the steps needed now.

And yet, those costs are nothing compared to the costs that will be incurred through catastrophic loss associated with global warming and the deterioration of the human environment.

The problem, of course, comes down to human psychology as well. We'll pay through the nose to fix something that gets broken, but we won't pay an "unnecessary" dime to prevent it from happening in the first place. This is what municipalities and states have counted on for centuries, that to ignore a problem is to make it go away.

Bush claims his meeting will be the beginning of a process that will run past the 2008 elections, so even this lip service conference is both politically-oriented (and you wonder how China feels about promoting a Republican election agenda) and designed to run out the clock on the Bush administration, who will pray nothing untoward will happen on their watch (e.g. pray the problem goes away).

Too, the lack of credibility that Bush has with world leaders will hobble, not hamper, any agreement in the first place. One wonders why he is bothering.

Right. Rupert Murdoch Won't Screw Up The WSJ....

Exhibit 1, from the formerly respected London Daily Times:

Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated.

Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby.

The sums were done by Chris Goodall, campaigning author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, based on the greenhouse gases created by intensive beef production. “Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg [2lb] of CO2 to the atmosphere,” he said, a calculation based on the Government’s official fuel emission figures. “If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.

“The troubling fact is that taking a lot of exercise and then eating a bit more food is not good for the global atmosphere. Eating less and driving to save energy would be better.”

Mr Goodall, Green Party parliamentary candidate for Oxford West & Abingdon, is the latest serious thinker to turn popular myths about the environment on their head.

Note the doubleplusgood trick Murdoch's editors pulled here: not only do they reinforce myths regarding global warming...that it's non-existent, that it's not human-related, that more carbon is emitted by cows and trees (later in the article)...and couples it to the opinions of a Green Party candidate, thus ensuring that both sides of the issue have to be circumspect in how they handle this story, the Greens being the leftist, environmentally correct peace party.

So make it a double slam against lefties, with a small hit to the "no global warming" crowd of right-wingers.

Now, it's bad enough that the Wall Street Journal editorial page is practically a recruiting poster for the John Birch Society, if this is the kind of irresponsible, slanted reporting that we can expect from a Murdoch regime, swallowing some knucklehead's claims whole without pointing out even some of the more obvious flaws in his conclusions (for example, what guarantee does Goodall have that people who walk more eat more meat? In fact, observation indicates just the opposite: people who walk more tend to eat healthier meals), and just transcribing whatever diatribe du jour is fashionable.

UPDATE: Yea. Whoops!

[Q]uestions were immediately raised about the Special Committee when Reuters reported that one appointed member was not only a personal friend of Murdoch's, but he also ran a computer education foundation that had received $2.5 million from Murdoch's News Corp. That represented a rather obvious conflict of interest for someone who was supposed to be independent from News Corp.

Worse, the Special Committee is going to be chaired by a far-right GOP yes man who not only faithfully regurgitates Republican talking points in print for a living, but who in early 2003 predicted the fighting in Iraq would be "relatively inconsequential," and who months later declared that America had won the Iraq war in "a cakewalk."

That's who Murdoch has tapped to protect the Journal's editorial integrity? Good luck. I mean, was Sean Hannity not available?