sundry items

1.from mighty Skimble: Impeachment would be a buy signal.

Funny thing that Bush's record-breaking stock market failed to materialize, in direct contrast to his predecessor who oversaw a broad 350% expansion of wealth in the US in his eight-year administration...

2.the other day I told myself I was so clever for inventing the phrase scorched-earth capitalism, but predictably enough I was wrong.


3.from Dutch cosmopolitician Frans Groenendijk:

Kind of a shame, killing the people you're trying to democratize, but after awhile, says the same lieutenant, "It gets to the point where you can't wait to see guys with guns, so you start shooting everybody..."

"There's a Peter Cook-Dudley Moore routine, one of their woolgathering dialogues, where Dud asks Pete, "So would you say you've learned from your mistakes?" and Pete replies: "Oh yes, I'm certain I could repeat them exactly."
That seems to have been the Bush administration's approach to Iraq. Take the mistakes of Vietnam and repeat them exactly. And at that you can't say they haven't succeeded. "

[James Wolcott commented on an article in The Economist]
(FG only links to the homepages, and I couldn’t find the specific url(s))

4. a shaggy dog story from Haroon Moghul:
“don't watch porn, especially if you're a terrorist”

5.Chinese firepower at fire-sale prices(from the BBC):

China may have lost its reputation for making low-cost goods, but when it comes to weapons, there is no doubt which end of the market its sights are still set on. Some of the poorest and most unsavoury regimes on earth, which either cannot afford or are not allowed to buy sophisticated Western arms, are turning to the world's newest superpower to buy guns, leg-irons, anti-riot equipment and armoured vehicles.

Military specialists contacted by the BBC News website have confirmed the main findings of a report issued this week by Amnesty International, which said Chinese arms sales were fuelling conflicts and human rights abuses in countries such as Sudan and Burma.

cross-posted at HZ.

Net Neutrality

from savetheinternet.com

You may have seen web sites with one or both of these images. There's also a really atrocious TV ad called "Meet the phoneys" in which you don't even see a person or any discussion of specifics, just an image of a close-up of pair of men's shoes, walking, and a voice over saying that the phone companies want "sweetheart deals" from congress, then in small print, the tag of the association of butt-munchers, or whoever the hell they are. Actually, the butt-munchers are right, the phone companies do want a sweetheart deal from congress, but what the hell is the ad actually about?* I imagine most people tune it out. Have you seen the ad? (QT,and Windows MP )It's not always the fault of ordinary people when they are disengaged by political appeals. The butt-munchers don't even take advantage of their confusing mess of a message by telling you what their url is, which might pique your interest and turn the badness of the ad around into a mystery you might solve by clicking. They just show their association name so briefly it barely registers, if it even does.

*Ok, I'll tell you. They're the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, and the numbskulls do have a website, even if they can't be bothered to show it in their shoe ad. Like many other groups, they've been lobbying to prevent the passage of The Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement (COPE) Act, which would allow telcos to charge extra for broadband net service in a variety of ways, such as charging customers substantially more based on throughput or charging outside vendors to access their networks. (For example, if Comcast or Verizon wants you to use their in-house search engines instead of Google. Or Dogpile, or Yahoo, Lycos, etc.

Then they could charge Google or whoever to maintain access to their customers, or charge the customers who want to maintain access, as if it was premium cable so to speak.(Or both. Or make access to outside vendors much slower.)In addition to the NCTA, Amazon.com, Google(of course),Microsoft, Common Cause and MoveOn and even the NRA and the Christian Coalition oppose COPE and have supported legislation designed to protect the principle of net neutrality, which is explained pretty succinctly in this E&P article,and in a New Republic editorial (favoring neutrality). The house already voted in favor of COPE, but the Senate commerce committee takes it up today, and their site has info on how to contact your senator to express your view on the vote. Supposedly it will be close. (Here in Texas, Kaye Bailey Hutchison of said committee has not said how she intends to vote.) If you favor preserving net neutrality you would want your senator to vote in favor of the Snow-Dorgan amendment to the larger telecom bill, without any changes, rather than against COPE per se, because the Senate legislation is a bit different. They are discussing it today.

One vote shy(again)

from th' Library o' Congress

Remember Herblock? Sure you do. He was the Washington Post's cartoonist for something like 170 years, back when they still published a newspaper.(Ok, ok. Just from 1946 till 2001, when he died. That's still a pretty impressive streak.) Supposedly Nixon canceled his subscription to the Post after Herblock drew him crawling out of a sewer. Isn't it interesting how the flag amendment keeps rearing its insert description here head, and gets repelled, albeit by the barest whisker of the chiny-chin-chin of the two party system?

cross-posted at HZ, etc.

USNWR: Alternate Realities

Last week the Time cover story was Haditha. Same for Newsweek. But US News and World Report (you know, the one with "world" in the title) had a series of themed cover stories advising its readers about "seven reasons not to retire". When I was in high school I had a government teacher who regarded USNWR as being far more sober than the big two newsmagazines, but that was some time ago. The seven reasons?

1.Retirement? Fuhgeddaboudit. Working longer could be better for you--and your wallet
2.It literally pays to work, and money can buy peace of mind
3.The economy may face a shortage of qualified workers
4.A flexible schedule and no stress
5.Working can boost your health, keeping you active and sharp
6.Staying fresh in mind and body
7.Your marriage may benefit from a little less togetherness
8.One couple's division of labor
9.Without those pesky E-mails, you'd feel a little less connected
10.The clientele is warm and fuzzy
11.You can use this time of your life for a whole new beginning
12.The three-course breakfast
13.Work may add new meaning to your later life
14.A passion for solving problems

When I looked at these I thought of Patrick McGoohan's village on The Prisoner and how psychotically upbeat the announcements on the intercom were. At first, I wanted to rant about how US News was spinning the destruction of the welfare state's safety net as something completely unlike what it is and will be, a schizoid denial of the massive cognitive dissonance imploding in their middlebrow readers' skulls at the thought of the coming post-New Deal age of scorched-earth capitalism in which you work 40 plus years to get a chance to be a Walmart greeter and get a senior's discount at Denny's. But maybe that's too obvious. After all, one of the reasons older people will need to keep working in the future is to pay for the wars we aren't paying for now. So, maybe the USNWR cover is not so much a denial of Haditha and the war as a sort of blissed-out corollary.

Still, I thought I'd try my hand at an alternate series of headlines:

1. Who needs to raise taxes to shore up social security? It's just a liberal plot!
2.Medicare? What's that? Get back to work, your break's over!
3. We need you to keep working because we never properly funded higher education. (Besides, you voted against all those pesky regulations protecting your pension fund, remember?)
4. That ten trillion dollar debt isn't going to pay itself!
5. Socialized medicine? What are you, a commie?
6. Of course we aren't demoting you. We're just changing your job description. Think of it as a fresh beginning.
7. Best of all, I know how to count because I went to private school!


cross-posted at Hugo Zoom, etc.

Tom Delay and the fat kids, etc.

ritalin.com/npr

various items via Judicial watch:

Retirement Account of DeLay's Wife Traced - Washington Post (June 7, 2006)

Army has to turn over Halliburton docs - United Press International (June 7, 2006)

Judge orders Army to release KBR records - The Hill (June 8, 2006)


And authoritative vs. authoritarian: strict parents, fat kids,
from the Xinua Daily:

The report from Boston University School of Medicine also found that the fewest weight problems occur among children whose parents are "authoritative" -- having high expectations for self control but respectful of a child's opinions and who set clear boundaries.

The study also found that children of parents who are permissive, defined as indulgent and without discipline, also have weight problems but not to the degree of the offspring of strict disciplinarians with low levels of sensitivity, the study said.

Researchers also found that children of neglectful mothers and fathers, those who are emotionally uninvolved with no set rules, fared about the same as kids raised by permissive parents.

The study covered 872 children who were part of a group enrolled at birth in 1991 in a U.S. Government study and followed for a number of years.

"Among the four parenting styles, authoritarian parenting was associated with the highest risk of overweight among young children," concluded the study published in the June issue of Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

"These results provide evidence that a strict environment lacking in emotional responsiveness is associated with an increased risk of childhood overweight," the study said.

It may be that strict parents have defined limits on when and what their children eat that could have a negative impact if not accompanied by warmth and sensitivity, it added.

cross-posted at Hugo Zoom, etc.

a reminder

from the St Petersburg Times(Fla.), fall 2002

"The incestuous relationship between government and big business thrives in the dark."
- Jack Anderson


cross-posted at Hugo Zoom.

Thoughtless Expenditure

Our gracious host appears to be on vacation again, so I figured I'd plug a theme I've driven home so many times I've lost count: without opposition research, there is no opposition.

As any experienced, effective activist can tell you, sans regular, reliable, comprehensive intelligence on the plans and operations of the enemies of democracy in this country, no amount of advocacy, protest, or litigation after the fact will set them back one iota. On the other hand, if we know what they're scheming in advance of it appearing in the media or on the street, we have half a chance of jamming a stick in their spokes.

And as all the top researchers in the country--most of whom are unfunded--will tell you, intelligence is not something you can get off the Internet or in the newspaper. Rather, it's gathered through field agents and network contacts painstakingly cultivated through personal connections and nurtured through reciprocal deeds like covering someone's back from attack, and constantly sharing resources and information.

For a brief period of time, back when militias and Aryans were blowing up federal buildings and dynamiting human rights activist's homes, a trickle of dough got into the hands of some very good opposition researchers from philanthropists who were rightly terrified that their regularly-funded do-gooders might get their heads blown off. But ever since the right-wing terrorists of the moment were convicted in the latter half of the 1990s--largely due to the tireless and mostly unrewarded efforts of protector societies like the Public Good network--liberal funders went back to financing environmental poster-coloring contests and multi-cultural parades.

Nothing wrong with either, of course, but knowing how lame law enforcement is in preventing such things as hate crimes, and being at least vaguely aware of the malicious intent of the American right-wing, you'd think that progressive bankrollers would consider investing say ten percent of what they lavish on career complainers in keeping them alive. Just a thought.

The birth of whiskey; Kentucky, Pete Barbutti and ...the metric system.

June 1st,1495 - Friar John Cor records the first known batch of scotch whisky.


June 1st,1792 - Kentucky becomes the 15th state of the United States. (These 2 factoids kinda go together, don’t they? )

years ago when I was a kid, Pete Barbutti[warning:auto sound file] used to appear on Carson from time to time and tell interesting if somewhat meandering stories. I’m not exactly sure who he was(is), but I gather he was one of Johnny’s friends. I remember he was on once and Carson asked him:

“did you have a nice fourth?” [i.e., 4th of July]
and Pete Barbutti replied, “I had a nice fifth too.”


You can’t tell that joke anymore, now that the half-litre bottle has replaced the fifth. That’s the only bad thing about converting to the metric system, I mean, if not being able to tell anyone that joke bothers you. I guess you can try and tell it, and perhaps bewilder some younger person who’s cooler than you. Although I’m guessing some people will be also bothered by being smoked by a car with more kilowatts than they have, and nary an old fashioned horsepower to speak of, but I’m guessing they’ll get over it. Yes, we need to convert to the metric system, because buying expensive gasoline in nice small litres and slowing down to 100 kph may even confuse and and therebye mollify some people. I mean, if Xymphora is right about the average American being dumber than a can of paint. Is that harsh? I don't know. But it is a reflection of my fondness for meandering narratives.

crossposted at HugoZoom, etc.