Humble Thanks

A dear friend is coming to my parents' house for Thanksgiving for the first time. I invite him every year, and every year he politely declines, offering that he always has Thanksgiving with his cousins, who are devoutly religious -- not that that matters -- until this year, that is. So finally he's coming with us -- because his cousins happen to be ardent Bush supporters and religiously avow all the turkeyshit he's shoveling. The Bush divide has actually torn a family asunder on the most American of all holidays, Thanksgiving: the one day of the year when we're all supposed to come together and break bread at the table in humble gratitude. The Wampanoag were invited to share the table with the invaders, who were starving to death. The Indians brought all the food, and the whole thing lasted about 3 or 4 days. The pilgrims didn't know shit about how to survive winters without the natives to feed them. So what did we do? We made it a national holiday then murdered them all, as soon as we could. There's humble gratitude. We also invented the first weapon of mass destruction when an 18th-century captain put smallpox in all the blankets and distributed them to the tribes. It worked.

The blood and hypocrisy has never been richer. And they get richer and richer.

The gods destroy whom they first made Republicans. Pride goeth before the gall.

- Michael 1:38 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Kristof: Apocalypse (Almost) Now

The "Left Behind" series, the best-selling novels for adults in the U.S., enthusiastically depict Jesus returning to slaughter everyone who is not a born-again Christian. The world's Hindus, Muslims, Jews and agnostics, along with many Catholics and Unitarians, are heaved into everlasting fire: "Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and . . . they tumbled in, howling and screeching."

Gosh, what an uplifting scene!

If Saudi Arabians wrote an Islamic version of this series, we would furiously demand that sensible Muslims repudiate such hatemongering. We should hold ourselves to the same standard.

Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, the co-authors of the series, have both e-mailed me (after I wrote about the "Left Behind" series in July) to protest that their books do not "celebrate" the slaughter of non-Christians but simply present the painful reality of Scripture.

"We can't read it some other way just because it sounds exclusivistic and not currently politically correct," Mr. Jenkins said in an e-mail. "That's our crucible, an offensive and divisive message in an age of plurality and tolerance."
...
I accept that Mr. Jenkins and Mr. LaHaye are sincere. (They base their conclusions on John 3.) But I've sat down in Pakistani and Iraqi mosques with Muslim fundamentalists, and they offered the same defense: they're just applying God's word.
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In America, tens of thousands of followers of William Miller waited eagerly for Jesus to reappear on Oct. 22, 1844. Some of these Millerites had given away all their belongings, and the no-show was called the Great Disappointment.

In more recent times, the best-selling nonfiction book of the 1970's was Hal Lindsey's "The Late Great Planet Earth," selling 18 million copies worldwide with its predictions of a Second Coming. Then, one of the hottest best sellers in 1988 was a booklet called "88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988." Oops.

Being wrong has rarely been so lucrative.

Now we have the hugely profitable "Left Behind" financial empire, whose Web site flatly says that the authors "think this generation will witness the end of history." The site sells every "Left Behind" spinoff imaginable, including screen savers, regular prophecies sent to your mobile phone, children's versions of the books, audiobooks, graphic novels, videos, calendars, music and a $6.50-a-month prophesy club. This isn't religion, this is brand management.

If Mr. LaHaye and Mr. Jenkins honestly believe that the end of the world may be imminent, why not waive royalties?

- rob 3:38 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Companion piece to Michael's Wile E. Coyoooooooooote post below

Krugman: Economic Crisis a Question of When, Not If

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The economic policies of President Bush have set the country on a dangerous course that will likely end in crisis, Princeton economics professor Paul Krugman told Reuters in an interview.

Krugman, who may be best known for his opinion column in The New York Times, said he was concerned that Bush's electoral victory over Sen. John Kerry earlier this month would only reinforce the administration's unwillingness to listen to dissenting opinions.
...
The most immediate worry for Krugman is that Bush will simultaneously push through more tax cuts and try to privatize social security, ignoring a chorus of economic thinkers who caution against such measures.

"If you go back and you look at the sources of the blow-up of Argentine debt during the 1990s, one little-appreciated thing is that social security privatization was a important source of that expansion of debt," said Krugman.

In 2001, Argentina finally defaulted on an estimated $100 billion in debt, the largest such event in modern economic history.

BANANA REPUBLIC?

"So if you ask the question do we look like Argentina, the answer is a whole lot more than anyone is quite willing to admit at this point. We've become a banana republic."

I'm really getting scared... TCS keeps referring to Argentina, which while even the CIA admits makes great pizza (yep, way down there - and yes it is a private joke), is not a great success story of fiscal and political management.

- rob 3:35 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Because when exit polls differ dramatically from final results you know something is up.

U.S. Rejects Ukraine Election Results

Next week Colin Powell will be in talks with Florida about possible sanctions against that orange juice drenched state.

- rob 3:26 PM - [PermaLink] -

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For a more current and more entertaining summation of how the various recounts and investigations to voting irregularities, why not check out Olbermann whose been keeping very involved in the issue. (some one in the press should be).

- rob 3:20 PM - [PermaLink] -

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WILE E. COYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTE



poof!

Stephen Roach, the chief economist at investment banking giant Morgan Stanley, has a public reputation for being bearish.

But you should hear what he's saying in private.

Roach met select groups of fund managers downtown last week, including a group at Fidelity.

His prediction: America has no better than a 10 percent chance of avoiding economic ``armageddon.''

Press were not allowed into the meetings. But the Herald has obtained a copy of Roach's presentation. A stunned source who was at one meeting said, ``it struck me how extreme he was - much more, it seemed to me, than in public.''

Roach sees a 30 percent chance of a slump soon and a 60 percent chance that ``we'll muddle through for a while and delay the eventual armageddon.''

The chance we'll get through OK: one in 10. Maybe.

In a nutshell, Roach's argument is that America's record trade deficit means the dollar will keep falling. To keep foreigners buying T-bills and prevent a resulting rise in inflation, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will be forced to raise interest rates further and faster than he wants.

The result: U.S. consumers, who are in debt up to their eyeballs, will get pounded.

Suuuuuuuppperrrrr Geeeeeeeennnnniuuussss!!!

- Michael 4:20 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush... he's still a turkey.

This year he left the barn door open:


And in the past a turkey looked to go home:


Happy Thanksgiving!

- rob 3:41 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Turn your back on Bush.

- rob 3:34 PM - [PermaLink] -

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And so it begins:



Remember when we rightly mocked "leaders" who tried to "lead" by becoming a persona, a charismatic leader, and not someone who made good decisions?

You know like:


and:


But those days of sanity seem to be long gone. Now America has a leader that talks of "freedom" but during his reign has overseen many freedoms taken away form its citizens, a leader who preaches "compassion" and who has none, and a leader who hides reality as thousands suffer and die from his decisions.

thanks to: Daily Kos :: Behold the Bush Billboards

(and if you look closely you'll see that the billboard is brought to you by Clear Channel... gosh that liberal media just won't stop)

- rob 1:55 PM - [PermaLink] -

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"fraud?" update (just Olbermann and a ha ha)

Ha Ha first

Exit polls and suspect elections

Hmmm. Exit polls showed opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko heading toward victory in Ukraine over current Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. But now that the official results are in, Yanukovych holds what the Post calls an " insurmountable three point lead."

Says the Post: "Tens of thousands of people flooded Independence Square in the capital Monday amid calls for a general strike or even the kind of revolution that toppled regimes in Serbia and Georgia after suspect elections."

And Olbermann: Relax about Ohio

The Ohio newspaper coverage suggests that even the mainstream media is beginning to sit up and take notice that, whatever its merits, the investigation into the voting irregularities of November 2nd has moved from the Reynolds Wrap Hat stage into legal and governmental action. Tripe does continue to appear, like Carol Pogash’s column in today’s San Francisco Chronicle. Its headline provided me with a laugh: “Liberals, the election is over, live with it.” I’ve gotten 37,000 emails in the last two weeks (now running at better than 25:1 in favor), and the two most repeated comments by those critical of the coverage have been references to the ratings of Fox News Channel, and the phrase “the election is over, (expletive deleted), live with it. I hesitate to generalize, but this does suggest a certain unwillingness of critics to engage in political discourses that don’t have no swear words in ‘em.

Meantime, The Oakland Tribune not only devoted seventeen paragraphs Friday to the UC Berkeley study on the voting curiosities in Florida, but actually expended considerable energy towards what we used to call ‘advancing the story’: “The UC Berkeley report has not been peer reviewed, but a reputable MIT political scientist succeeded in replicating the analysis Thursday at the request of the Oakland Tribune and The Associated Press. He said an investigation is warranted.”

In fact, he - MIT Arts and Social Sciences Dean Charles Stewart - said more than that. “There is an interesting pattern here that I hope someone looks into.” Stewart is part of the same Cal Tech/MIT Voting Project that had earlier issued a preliminary report suggesting that there was no evidence of significant voting irregularity in Florida. Dean Stewart added he didn’t necessarily buy the Berkeley conclusion - that the only variable that could explain the “excessive” votes in Florida was poisoned touch-screen voting - and still thought there were other options, such as, in the words of The Tribune’s Ian Hoffman “absentee voting or some quirk of election administration.”

Neither MIT nor Cal Tech has yet responded to the comments of several poll-savvy commentators, and others, that its paper was using erroneous statistics. Its premise, you’ll recall, was that on a state-by-state basis, the notorious 2004 Exit Polls were within the margin of error and could be mathematically interpreted as having forecast the announced presidential outcome. It has been observed that the MIT/Cal Tech study used not the “raw” exit polls - as did Professor Steven Freeman of Penn did in his study - but rather the “weighted” polls, in which actual precinct and county official counts are mixed in to “correct” the organic “Hey, Buddy, who’d you vote for” numbers. The “weighted” polls have been analogized to a football handicapper predicting that the New Orleans Saints would beat the Denver Broncos 24-14, then, after the Broncos scored twenty points in the first quarter, announcing his prediction was now that the Saints would beat the Broncos 42-41, or even, that the Broncos would beat the Saints 40-7.

- rob 5:01 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Even though I'm a Tim Rice fan, I don't want to see this play anymore.

Bush is like Peron

I have come to think that the best foreign analogue for Bush may be Peron in Argentina (I am thinking about the 1940's, not the 1970's).
No historical analogy is exact (Laura is no Evita !), but Peron

• Used a militaristic populism to gain and hold onto power
• Used vast deficit spending to keep people happy, eventually resulting in the destruction of Argentinean finances and sharp drops in the value of the currency
• Removed all institutional checks and balances to his power, leading to "Government without Adult Supervision" and a raft of ill-conceived and corrupt schemes.

and
- Turned Argentina from one of the world's richest countries into a fiscal and political basket case, leading to a decline from which it still has not recovered.

- rob 4:37 PM - [PermaLink] -

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What's that Klu Klux Klan? You want to run a pullout in the Washington Post against the idea of african americans and white marrying? Hmmmm... well... that's kind of awful thinking.... You'll Pay? Well why don't you come in.

Washington Post printed bitterly homophobic magazine supplement

In it you learn things like the fact that sexual orientation isn't genetic. Why? Because if it were genetic it would have to be passed by gay parents who don't have kids! Putting aside a number of holes in that theory, there's the more general scientific point about recessive genes. My point is that this filth isn't even scientifically correct, and the Post is publishing it. I didn't realize the Post had no problems publishing junk science targeting minority groups. Huh.

What's more, the entire publication is based on race-baiting. It is CLEARLY written for the black community in an effort to piss them off against the gays. Funny, but you'd think the Post would have a problem with a scientifically invalid publication whose sole intent was to enrage one minority community against another. But no.

Oh, and it gets better. The publication informs you that gays die at the age of 41. Yep, all of us. What they don't tell you is that this little "study" was conducted by Dr. Paul Cameron, an anti-gay nutjob who has even been disowned by the religious right (let alone he was thrown out of various medical associations). But does the Post have a problem publishing junk science that suggests that certain minority groups are inferior to others? Not at all!

- rob 4:09 PM - [PermaLink] -

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GOP to The Rule of Law: DROP DEAD

Ethics? We don't need no stinking Ethics! We're the Republican Party!

How DeLay Rakes It In

Nov. 29 issue - Rep. Tom ("the Hammer") DeLay strengthened his hand in the House last week when the Republican caucus voted a rule change that would permit him to stay on as majority leader even if he is indicted in a Texas fund-raising probe. At the same time, DeLay is quietly raking in fresh bundles of cash from GOP colleagues and big corporate donors for another highly personal cause: paying off his mounting legal bills.
...
A huge chunk of the new DeLay legal-defense cash, $200,000, comes from Republican House members who have new reasons to be especially grateful to the majority leader: the success of the DeLay-engineered Texas redistricting plan brought four new Texas GOP members to Washington this month, thereby consolidating Republican control in the chamber.

But much of the rest of the cash comes from a posse of corporate donors such as Texas horse-racing magnate Charles Hurwitz, who, along with his company, Maxxam, has chipped in $10,000 to pay DeLay's legal debts. (Hurwitz also has contributed an additional $24,000 to other DeLay campaign committees in recent years.) Hurwitz and DeLay have a long relationship: when Hurwitz was facing a suit by federal regulators for allegedly defrauding a savings and loan in 1999, DeLay interceded with the chief federal bank regulator in an unsuccessful attempt to get her agency to back off the case. Hurwitz later hosted a golf and marlin-fishing fund-raiser for DeLay at Palmas del Mar, a luxurious resort complex he owns in Puerto Rico.

Privacy? You Don't need no stinkin' Privacy! We're the Ruling Party!

G.O.P. Says Motive for Tax Clause in Budget Bill Was Misread
Yeah, some thought it was a horrendous breach in the privacy of citizens, but it really was a way to get at anyone so bold as to speak against the ruling party (ala the Nixon days... we don't like what you say, we audit you).

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 - Democratic leaders and senators from both parties expressed outrage on Sunday about an obscure provision in the huge end-of-session spending bill that would allow the chairmen of the Appropriations Committees and their staff assistants to examine Americans' income tax returns.

Republican leaders said that their motives had been misread and that there was never any intention to invade the privacy of taxpayers. They promised that the provision would be deleted from the bill in a special session on Wednesday before the spending measure, which cleared Congress on Saturday night, was sent to President Bush for his signature.

Representative Ernest Istook, Republican of Oklahoma, who was responsible for the insertion of the tax provision in the 3,000-page, $388 billion legislation that provides financing for most of the government, issued a statement on Sunday saying that the language had actually been drafted by the Internal Revenue Service and that "nobody's privacy was ever jeopardized." Mr. Istook is chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that has authority over the I.R.S. budget.

It was also so innocent that it had to be hidden in a 3,000 page bill. Democrats better get staff that has the patience to read every damn bill (all the boring thousands of pages of them) or else they may vot for a provision that allows the arrest of any 'citizens' that are against the will of el Presidente.

- rob 4:00 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Kay J. Maxwell, President of the League of Women Voters, Thank you.

Voting Problems Should Be Fully Investigated and Resolved
Statement by Kay J. Maxwell, President of the League of Women Voters

WASHINGTON, DC - "The League of Women Voters is deeply concerned about voting irregularities in the 2004 election. The appropriate officials must fully investigate these concerns through open and public processes. Election officials should look into problems quickly and thoroughly and fix what proves to be wrong. Transparency and a willingness to look into potential problems will strengthen voter confidence and ultimately improve our electoral system.

"It is important to ensure that every properly cast ballot is counted and to make improvements for future elections. Attention must be given to inadequate polling place procedures, problematic voting machines, voter registration system failures, casting and counting of provisional ballots, and absentee voting issues.

"This was far from a perfect election."

Read it all. Calm. Intelligent. Correct.

- rob 12:32 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Herbert: Bush's Echo Chamber

Competence has never been highly regarded by the fantasists of the George W. Bush administration. In the Bush circle, no less than in your average youth gang, loyalty is everything. The big difference, of course, is that the administration is far more dangerous than any gang. History will show that the Bush crowd of incompetents brought tremendous amounts of suffering to enormous numbers of people. The amount of blood being shed is sickening, and there is no end to the grief in sight.

Arrogant Ignorance loves company.

- rob 12:06 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Anne Applebaum Annoyingly Applies Asinine Allusions to this election investigation
(The Washington Post in an effort to boost circulation is moving to shorter articles, more pictures, and articles (like below) that insult the intelligence of seven year olds. Ahhh... nothing like dumbing down the electorate).

In ATMs, Not Votes, We Trust (washingtonpost.com)

When the ATM asks whether I want a receipt, I usually say no. When a Web site wants my credit card number, I usually say yes. When I pay bills online, there is no paper record of the transaction. In my failure to demand physical evidence when money changes hands, I am not very unusual. Most Americans now conduct at least some of their financial transactions without paper, or at least sleep happily knowing that others do. Yet when it comes to voting -- a far simpler and more straightforward activity than electronic bank transfers -- we suddenly become positively 19th century in our need for a physical record.

It is, if you think about it, quite inexplicable.

Umm... no it isn't. Anne? Do you balance your check book? Does your bank have its own auditors? Do you not notice if something you purchased on the internet did not arrive? The answer is yes on all of those, and then suddenly your knowingly stupid allusion bursts into flame.

Folks, this is our democracy we're talking about... please, let's take it seriously.

- rob 12:01 PM - [PermaLink] -

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It's the Ass, Stupid!

During election night I had a little map of the United States, with red and blue stickers to put on each state as it was called according to news media. Yesterday I moved a foot stool and saw a little blue circle stuck on the floor, with a donkey in the middle. And I felt like an ass.

It's time for the Democrats to take a flying leap off a tall building. We need another party. All they will do now is move further to the right and get "religion" while Republicans sneer and publicly defame them with odious judgments about their "moral character." What horseshit. I never liked Kerry. I thought he was a lousy candidate. They only reason I had any hope at all was because he's a rich bastard and he could match Bush's warchest, and for that reason alone I thought he might conceivably have a shot at it. In fact, I would have voted for my dog over Bush, I think he'd be a better president. He couldn't possibly be any worse.

No, I felt like an ass not because of cynical Republican politicians -- who, after all, are only doing what any human ape would do, ruthlessly exploit raw power invested in their hands by a weak-minded, easily manipulated citizenry -- I feel like an ass because of the country itself. I'm deeply ashamed of it.

Nationalism, in any form, is probably the greatest threat to a republic, especially a liberal constitutional democracy based on the rule of law. I won't go into that particular rant just now. The point is this: if you whip up fear and launch permanent war against any and all who disagree with what you plan to do to them -- for whatever reason -- then the heel of fascism comes down, directly on the face of the citizen. A jack-booted thug is a jack-booted thug, I don't care what country you come from. And a heel in the face in the name of God is a heel in the face nonetheless -- I don't care whose God you happen to be taking advantage of. Sure, fight fire with fire, I'm all for it. Only thing is, we're killing all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons. Who do you think will pay the ultimate price? The side with the fanciest uniforms always loses. Check your history books.

Why didn't John Kerry stand up and speak out loudly against this unjust, unforgiving so-called war? Why didn't he point out the obvious: that Bush is a craven coward who has no respect at all for the government of the United States and its famous, hard-won Constitution? Why didn't he invoke World War 2 and what all those men fought and died for -- namely, our Bill of Rights and the freedom not to have a brutal ideology inflicted on us all? The freedom to go about your business? The newest freedom ever to exist in the history of nations? Instead he let that precious memory and terrible time become twisted around and used by propaganda ministers, our very own Goebbels, Mr. Rove. Now that century-defining conflict has been enshrined in the mantle of the State and its noble cause forgotten, along with the reason those men died. How dare we disrepect and dishonor our own war dead for a radical fascist agenda, forced down our throats by criminals? Who are we to invade a sovereign nation, who did nothing to us? Why is a fact suddenly the enemy? And why are exactly half of Americans too stupid too realize what's going on here? What was so wrong with the Powell Doctrine that it had to be jettisoned like a watermelon seed between Bush's thumb and forefinger in a blinding minute, with no debate? Why didn't the nation rise up? Where was Congress? No, instead we elected vermin for successive terms so we can bomb even more foreign brown people out of their cities, out of their homes, out of their skins, out of existence. Do you know how many times I've heard idiots saying "Let's just bomb the fuckers. Kill 'em all." I actually heard one guy on the radio answer "Yes" to the incredulous question, "Are you seriously suggesting that we kill more than 250 million people?"

There it is folks. Bushamerica. Kill 'em all. These trash-talking cowards have the loudest voice and make the least sacrifice. Why should they? Let somebody else do the dirty work, and if they get blown up, too bad. The good news is that we're killing way more of them than they are of us. And if you get cold at night in that chilly desert, you can always warm your toes with spent uranium 235. At least there's no draft, and my taxes won't go up, because my God is pretty damn big, a lot bigger than yours, and if you don't like it, then fuck off out of my country.

The problem is, though, we're in their country. They can't fuck off. And that about sums up the war. And our beleaguered, overextended troops are getting blown to pieces right and left, every day, while your taxes stay low and your president maxes out every credit card he can get his hands on, which is all of them, including and especially yours. Remember: It's your money! That's why it's all free. At whatever interest they feel like charging you, including retroactive fees, fining you and upping your rate for late payments on things that have nothing to do with your credit card. Think I'm making this up? Believe whatever you want. The Grand Canyon is only a few hundred years old. It's just really deep.

Getting drafty in here, isn't it? Just you wait. I am fervently "praying" that every damn fool who voted Republican in the last election has a sturdy child to send to Iraq to relieve the ones who will be there for as long as they can breathe that hot, radioactive desert air.

And shame on our country for sentencing your children to die in someone else's country for George W. Bush's sake -- for a lie.

I hope they make it, I really do.

- Michael 11:49 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Perhaps as a rebuttal to Michael's post below (the one below the murder/violence bit) I'd like to point out:

Third of Americans Say Evidence Has Supported Darwin's Evolution Theory
Almost half of Americans believe God created humans 10,000 years ago

See? What you said... was.um.. more say God.... then Darwin...10,000 years ago....

Whoa. I'm out of touch with America.

But this isn't blue vs. red... this isn't a heartland issue. There's a good chance several folks in your neighborhood believe that either dinosaurs walked with humans or their bones were strewn about the world by God to test our faith. (or by evil scientists to test our faith).

From the Gallup Poll:

Although 45% of Americans believe that humans were created by God pretty much in their present form at one time 10,000 years ago -- a view that corresponds to the account of creation as presented in the Bible -- only 34% of Americans believe that the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word

Only... Only 34%? That seems huge to me. And it seems to be ignoring the fact (and these are facts folks, not some piece of socialist liberal propaganda) that the modern bible (well the new testament portion) is largely a list of accepted works and letters compiled around the year 170 and perhaps written with the influence of Pius 1 the bishop of Rome from 142 to 157. Even this though isn't the final list, what is now considered the new testament wasn't finalized until around 367 by St. Athanasius (bishop of Alexandria). The Catholic church has no problem with these facts. So to believe it is the exact word of God you must believe that Pius 1 was able to weed through all the gospels (and there were more back then) and determine which ones were legit. And then you have to believe that he made a few errors, but that somehow St. Athanasius was 100% right on.

Oh and thanks to the wikipedia for the exact dates and names... I only had a general sense of the history based on what I've read about the Gnostic Gospels.

Now the 48 inspired bit... I can go with that. I don't agree, but I can't really say they are wrong, not really. Heck an out right 100% evangelical Atheist is pretty religious in their own right... they have to "have faith" in the "fact" that the unprovable has been unproven (yeah tough I know, but that is what faith is all about now ain't it).

It should be noted that this is what MoveOn noted about George Gallup Jr: "is a devout evangelical Christian, has been quoted as calling his polling ?a kind of ministry.? ... And a few months ago, he said, ?the most profound purpose of polls is to see how people are responding to God.'." So perhaps this, like much of any church's or political party's doctrine, should be taken with a pinch of salt (Lot used pinch his wife every time he heard that line).

- rob 11:10 AM - [PermaLink] -

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