Now, Where Was I before I Was So Rudely Interrupted . . . 1

A little enforced vacation from blogging this week. I’m juggling three projects, one of them winding down and two of them starting up. My cold has, in the way of this bug, settled into a cough that doesn’t want to go away. Something had to give, and what gave was what doesn’t put food on the table. . . .

So, who missed me? One person I can name (I won’t, to protect the innocent). Otherwise, my little vacation had, I am sure, no effect on the blogosphere, or, for that matter, on anything else.

So, what have I missed? Not much.

The economy has spun a few more rounds down the toilet, thanks the the NeoCon delusion that making the rich richer does anything other than, well, make the rich richer.

It’s no longer a question of recession or not. Now it’s how deep and how long. Workers’ pink slips stacked ever higher in March as jittery employers slashed 80,000 jobs, the most in five years, and the national unemployment rate climbed to 5.1 percent. Job losses are nearing the staggering level of a quarter-million this year in just three months.

The Current Federal Administration continues to fail in its effort to spin silk from its sow’s ear in Iraq, while the so-called Iraqi “government” (which, remember, hardly exists outside the Green Zone) demonstrated its toothlessness.

President Bush won’t shift course (in Iraq–ed.) before his term ends. Troops will draw down some, but not below pre-surge levels, and our military will remain overextended. The possibility of shaping a different Iraq policy won’t emerge until a new president is elected.

Meantime, the realities on the ground were brutally laid bare over the last two weeks by the fighting in Basra: Iraq’s security situation is better than in its darkest days, but remains fragile. The hope has dimmed that improved security will enable Iraqi factions to reconcile, and the Iraqi army is far from ready for prime time.

At the same time, the Current Federal Administrator continued to demonstrate its allegiance to special effects in touting a “missile defense shield” that has everything going for it except the Laws of Physics:

President Bush’s national security adviser says the U.S. and Russia can leave the missile defense issue to their successors after failing to reach agreement in their last meeting together as presidents.

But I’m back . . . .