August, 2007 archive
Romney Snark 0
Dana points a way for the forgotten.
Where Did the Unity Go 0
Brendan gives a pretty through explanation here. (Language warning–Brendan got a little worked up as he recounted the events of the recent past).
“Get Your Program! You Can’t Tell the Players without a Program!” 0
Will Bunch posts a handy-dandy guide to the primary candidates here.
Fresh Disgust 0
There is an old story about a rock-ribbed New Hampshire Republican.
One day, his neighbor spied him at a Democratic Party rally.
“Zebediah,” said the neighbor, “I didn’t know you had become a Democrat.”
“I ain’t,” said Zebediah. “I just come here to keep my disgust fresh.”
I guess that’s why I read the news.
To keep my disgust fresh. Eugene Robinson (emphasis added):
Bush laid out his Iraq policy yesterday in plain language, with none of his recent gibberish about al-Qaeda in Pakistan being the same as al-Qaeda in Iraq, only different, but really the same, kind of. This time we heard the classic neocon analysis — the same grand vision that got us into this mess. If Bush hasn’t changed his mind by now, he ain’t gonna.
Bush said we have to stay in Iraq to “change the conditions that caused 19 kids to be lured onto airplanes to come and murder our citizens” — and that’s the heart of the matter. Forget for a moment that Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with the Sept. 11 attacks. The neocon idea is that the only way to eliminate terrorism in the long term is to create democracies that will offer potential terrorists an alternative future of freedom, prosperity and hope.
No one can argue against the flowering of democracy, and the United States should help freedom bloom wherever it can. But what on earth would make Bush — or the neocon ideologues who are his enablers — believe that any nation would appreciate being invaded, occupied for years by tens of thousands of foreign troops and having a particular brand of Western democracy imposed at the point of a gun?
I can’t answer that question. But if you think Bush is going to care what Petraeus’s report says in September, get out of the sun immediately and drink lots of water. You’re delirious.
Five Brothers 1
When I was much younger, I built a model of the first USS The Sullivans. (There have been several since–the Navy remembers its dead.)
The Sullivan Brothers were not on the campaign trail.
Thanks to Atrios.
Give Me a Break: Personal Delusion Dept. 0
I just heard George W. Bush say in a radio news report, “I believe that people will make rational decisions based on facts.”
As does George W. Bush, for example, who never met a fact?
Words fail me.
Dems Can’t Keep Stuff Straight, Either 1
From FactCheck dot org on the candidates’ AFL-CIO forum. Click the link for detailed analysis:
- Sen. Joseph Biden said none of the others “has a better labor record than me.” Actually, they all have better AFL-CIO “lifetime” ratings than Biden.
- Sen. Barack Obama attempted to revise his own earlier remarks about invading Pakistan, claiming: “What I said was that we have to work with” Pakistan’s president. But the record shows Obama didn’t actually say that.
- Obama also said he would call “the president of Canada” about trade matters. Actually, that nation doesn’t have a president.
- Sen. John Edwards said the North American Free Trade Agreement “has cost us a million jobs.” That million-job estimate is disputed.
I would submit that none of the errors are in the same league as these. Please discuss (both of you).
Toll Booths 0
Toll Brothers, major manufacturer of McMansions, has announced its strategy for dealing with the current troubles in the real estate market: Take it out on the employees.
“If things got tougher, we would look more at shedding overhead costs – unfortunately, eliminating employees, doing the tough stuff that management is supposed to do in order to balance the ship,” said Robert Toll, chairman and chief executive officer, in response to an analyst’s question during a conference call.
(snip)
The company thinking, he said, is that it does not want to sell homes at a lower rate than they are inherently worth. Meanwhile, it will try to ride out the nationwide slowdown in housing sales, caused largely by disruptions in the mortgage industry, by cutting costs. Many financial institutions have tightened their lending standards in response to an increase in mortgage defaults across the country.
Of course, there is a flaw in the reasoning here: a good offered for sale is worth only what someone is willing to pay for it–that’s especially true in real estate.
Mr. Toll’s houses have no instrinsic value, except, perhaps (and economists can debate this for days), for the value of the materials from which they are constructed and the labor of the employees and contractors who turn raw materials into something for which a customer is willing to pay (lots of) money.
The statement quoted above seems to indicate the value Toll Brothers places on the labor of the persons who produced the McMansions which have made them rich.
Storage Space 0
I thought about saying something about this story, but then discarded the thought, because, frankly (and I do everything frankly), I thought it would be piling on, and I couldn’t figure out a clever way to do so.
But this is clever.
What Digby Said 0
This has been my second fourth edition of What Digby Said.
This is what your government does in your name.
Satisfied?
Via Susie.
Give Me a Break: Marketing as Patriotism Dept. 0
(Full disclosure: I did not serve in Viet Nam because of a high lottery number. I had decided that, if drafted, I would go and not flee to Canada, though I considered then and consider now that the Viet Namese War was a fraud and a lost cause–as it proved to be. Kinda like this War in Iraq.)
Romney, who did not serve in Vietnam due to his Mormon missionary work and a high draft lottery number, was asked the question by an anti-war activist after a speech in which he called for “a surge of support” for U.S. forces in Iraq.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, also saluted a uniformed soldier in the crowd and called for donations to military support organizations. Last week, he donated $25,000 to seven such organizations.
“The good news is that we have a volunteer Army and that’s the way we’re going to keep it,” Romney told some 200 people gathered in an abbey near the Mississippi River that had been converted into a hotel. “My sons are all adults and they’ve made decisions about their careers and they’ve chosen not to serve in the military and active duty and I respect their decision in that regard.”
It is so easy to fight a war with other persons’ children and wives and husbands and brothers and sisters and parents, is it not?
Support the Troops, Bushie Style 0
Jeffrey Lucey was a veteran of the Iraq War who returned home with obvious mental problems.
After escalating behavorial misconduct, he was involuntarily commited to the VA Hospital in Leeds, Mass., and placed on suicide watch.
And released by an MD without consultation with a psychiatrist.
He killed himself 17 days later.
His parents have sued for malpractice. They may have a case:
(Alberto Gonzales’s Justice Department. It is to laugh.)
Another sacrifice for Bush’s lies.
They Just Make Stuff Up 0
From FactCheck dot org. Follow the link for a detailed analysis, along with citations of facts:
The Republican presidential candidates debated – and sounded some more false notes:
- Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney falsely claimed U.S. job growth had been nearly 17 times faster than Europe’s. Actually, European Union employment grew faster than that of the U.S. last year. Romney’s source for the information told FactCheck.org that he himself would no longer use the figures.
- Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani accused Democratic candidates of “appeasement” toward Islamic terrorists. In fact, leading Democratic candidates have spoken out strongly against terrorism.
- Sen. John McCain claimed American families spend $140 billion of their income preparing federal income tax returns. We find no support for that figure, which the Internal Revenue Service puts at $19 billion.
- Rep. Tom Tancredo claimed illegal immigrants “are taking a large part of our health care dollars.” But the independent Rand Corp. estimates that undocumented immigrants account for 1.5 percent of health care spending or less.
The “Public Good” 0
Chris Satullo explains how Republicans just don’t get it:
Congressional Republicans have basically just one idea in their head.
It is this: Government should always do less and get smaller. Markets should always do more and gain power.
It’s their one big idea. And it’s wrong, particularly in how they apply it.
They’ve been wrong on all this for a long time. Wrong in Iraq. Wrong for the environment. Wrong for the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast. But that seems only to ratchet up the fervor with which they cling to their notions.
They consistently confuse CAT scans and toaster ovens – in other words, public vs. private goods. And they wrongly equate free markets with the self-interest of the big corporations that bankroll their campaigns and life-styles.
Without question, truly free markets are efficient; they build wealth and foster innovation. When markets function well to promote private goods, pols shouldn’t meddle.
Public goods are different. What is a public good? A good in which society has a vivid stake beyond the benefits that flow to individuals, a good that is vital to the smooth and just functioning of the commonwealth. Such goods can’t be left to the vagaries of markets, which amorally pick winners and losers. A public good, in a sense, is one where everyone needs to be a winner. Public goods include things such as education, clean air and health care.
Objectives 0
A while ago, I discussed how all the objectives given by the Current Federal Administrator for the War in Iraq were, how shall I put it?
Boooooogus.
They were merely part of the campaign to market a war.
And that left me wondering, what is the objective of the War in Iraq?
And I finally figured it out.
The reason the Current Federal Administration is making war in Iraq is, quite simply, to make war.
Making war was and is the goal, in and of itself.
War is the NeoCons’ pornography.
No doubt, it helps them stand strong.
Drinking Liberally 0
Tomorrow, Tangier Restaurant, 18th and Lombard, Philadelphia, 6 p.
See you there.
Bush Arms Terrorists 0
It’s amazing. The Current Federal Administration really can’t get anything right.
The report from the Government Accountability Office indicates that U.S. military officials do not know what happened to 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year as part of an effort to train and equip the troops. The highest previous estimate of unaccounted-for weapons was 14,000, in a report issued last year by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.
