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New Site, www.scaryshit.blogspot.com. All new posting will be there. Update your bookmarks.

Total War

Nice editorial today in the WAPost on Lincoln and Grant's actions in the Civil War vs. our leadership. Lincoln and Grant had a willingness to do what was necessary to win, as well as were able to understand the moral consequences of their actions. This administration does not do that. "Above all, that means dealing with Iraqis as they are, not as we wish they were."



PS. Was moving into a new apartment this week, right by school. Just found out that I will be teaching four discussion groups this semester. Very very nice.

National Debt and Personal Debt

Very good article in this month's New Republic entitled "False Positive" by Jacob Hacker. It's a subscriber only article, but if you don't subscribe to TNR, you should sign up today. TNR was the first "big-kid" political magazine that I started reading. Anyway, here is the rambling disjointed email that I sent to Paul Krugman at 3 AM today:

"Dr. Krugman,

Have you read the article, "False Positive" by Jacob Hacker in the

latest New Republic? What are your thoughts on his universal insurance

proposal coupled with the government subsidized savings accounts? Also, do

you think there is a way to draw an analogy between individual Americans'

personal debt to the national debt? I don't think most politicians and

economists have ever had to live off of a credit card for any significant time,

but it could be a very potent analogy and a way to discredit Bush's claims of

economic stimulus from his large deficits. Regular people understand

credit cards and loans. Not GDP and deficits. Now,

economics and finance aren't my strengths, but if I understand correctly,

Keynesian economic theory basically allows for short term deficits to stimulate

the economy, not long term structural deficits, correct? It's like the

difference between buying a TV on the MasterCard versus paying the electricity

bill on your MasterCard, as well as using the Visa to pay the interest on the

MasterCard. When you buy the TV on credit you get something of use right

away, then you pay it back at your leisure. It's good for you, you get a

TV. It's good for Best Buy, they hire employees, make a profit: it's money

into the economy, etc. It's good for your bank; they make money from the

interest that you pay them on the loan. It's good for the stockmarket

because the bank invests the money that they are making on your money.

Good deal. Everybody is a winner.



But if something unexpected happens, like your car breaks down, or your

wife gets sick, (or your family gets dive bombed by Muslim terrorists, or you

find yourself embroiled in two middle-Eastern wars) , and you have to pay the

electricity bill on the credit card one month, you are starting the slide down

the hole to bankruptcy. You are paying for a necessity, not a

luxury, and you can't afford it with your current income. You have to

borrow money just to meet your basic needs, and you not only start off on

thewrong foot with your borrowing, you start accruing interest from day one.

This is bad if it happens once, but if it happens indefinitely, you

eventually reach the end of your credit. Also, your interest payments

eventually will be higher than the original cost of your electricity bill.

Also, if nothing horrible happens, and unless your income drastically

rises, you may be able to keep up with the interest payments, and stay on top of

the bills, but to reduce significant levels of debt is very

difficult.



Well, it looks like the US government is paying the electricity bill on

the credit card right now. Like I said, I'm not an economist. I know

this is a long convoluted analogy, but I think it has merit. "Regular"

people understand how bad having credit card debt is. They worry about

their mortgage payment, and their kid's student loans. If the Democrats

could exploit personal debt, instead of trying to predict how to react to job

numbers or the stock market numbers each month, they wouldn't look like ghouls

saying that things are really bad. The GDP growth numbers look good on

paper, right? However, isn't a lot of our growth in GDP because of the

money spent on defense and the war on terror? Average Americans know that

the stock market is good. They also know that they have debt, and it gnaws

at the back of their skull a little bit each night before they go to bed.

If that stock market starts to slide down, or if interest rates start

edging up, they know that they are in big trouble. So what do you think?

Could you clean up that analogy a bit?"

So what about it guys? Is that a workable analogy? Does anyone understand what my addled brain is trying to say? I'd be happy to get some input from anyone who knows anything about economics. I sure don't.



PS. I know that the formatting is goofy as hell whenever I do a block quote. Sorry, that's Blogger, not me. I wish I knew how to make this thing work better.

National Review on Kerry/Yucca Mountain

From Jonah Goldberg on NRO:

Now, I've been

to Yucca Mountain and interviewed the scientists there and read quite a few

of the studies. And, frankly, I have no idea what Kerry is talking about. Yucca

Mountain is indisputably the safest conceivable installation for nuclear waste

in America — and, quite probably, on the planet. If terrorists wanted to, say,

crash a 747 into Yucca Mountain, they'd pretty much have to get past the Nellis

Air Force base, where the Air Force practices blowing things up. It's also the

home of the Air Warfare Center and the Air Force Weapons School. It is where the

Thunderbirds practice and the site of the International combat-training exercise

known as "Red Flag." Yucca Mountain also abuts the highly secure Nevada Test

Site where we've blown up a kajillion atomic bombs.

and:

Besides, if the fear is that terrorists can get their hands on this material,

why is it preferable to keep the ingredients for dirty bombs at countless

unguarded, disparate sites around the country? Even if transport is risky, isn't

leaving this junk scattered across the country riskier? Kerry has criticized the

administration for not acting fast enough to collect and secure nuclear

materials in the former Soviet Union, why does he want to prolong the process

here at home?

check me out.

By the way, I like the idea of Yucca Mountain. I would rather have all of

this country's nuclear waste stashed in the most highly guarded and best

protected place in the entire United States, rather than spread out at hundreds

of under-protected facilities across the country. You gotta put this shit some

where. The only thing to worry about is the transportation of the nuclear

materials. Once it gets here, it doesn't matter. The spooge is going to be

buried in the middle of a mountain. If you are worried about terrorists getting

to it, you should also be worrying about terrorists going to Area-51, stealing

an alien spacecraft, and using it to attack Las Vegas. It's just not going to

happen. These areas are some of the highest security places in the world. It's

seriously a lot better to have a few thousand pounds of nuclear waste stashed

here, rather than a few hundred pounds in Bridgeport Connecticut, Dover

Delaware, Seattle, Kansas City, and wherever the hell else this goop might be.

Titles now.

Well, I decided to start putting titles on my blog posts. So, here we go.

Voter Registration in Nevada (My job).

Want to hear something really interesting? I heard about this earlier in the week, but wanted to see some written verification before I posted. Democrats have officially gained the edge in registered voters out here in the Silver State. The RJ reports 747 more Ds than Rs in Nevada. I had heard approximately 7000. We'll see how many of those registrations are valid. There still appears to be a shit ton of voter fraud going on out here, especially in Clark county. Freddy Kreuger and Elvis Presley were both registered to vote out here a few months ago.

ACLU, Nevada, Marijuana

Breaking news, the marijuana legalization initiative looks like it will be on the ballot here in Nevada November 2nd! If I could make sirens and flashing lights on my site like Drudge, I would. I'm very happy about this one. Federal court declared the Nevada 13th counties rule for the initiative process unconstitutional. Good job ACLU!

Kerry Campaign on the Defensive

Read this front-pager on the WaPost. The Republican atacks are working well. Very well. This is a rough-ass article on Kerry, but at least it's evenhanded:



Bush and Cheney also selectively interpreted Kerry's words to cast them in the worst possible light.



Very true. But so what. He's the douche that was talking about sensitivity and being "proactive".

Kerry's Iraq War Position

Devestating op-ed in today's Boston Globe on John Kerry's war position on Iraq by former Congressman Mickey Edwards. If the Republicans can continue with attacks of this quality until election day, John Kerry loses this election. I don't care about the polls, President Bush has just started campaigning, I saw him on Larry King earlier this week, and although he comes off as kind of a dufus, he is one charming mother-fucker.

Yeah, this sucks.

This is a terribly grim thing to say, but there might be no solution to the problem of Iraq. - Fred Kaplan in slate.com.



read it.

Liberal = French/Pussy/Faggot/All Things Bad

From National Review:

"Kerry's secret plan, it finally emerged, was to convince France and the U.N. to

help us get out of Iraq. To you and me, asking France to help you win a war is

like asking your mother-in-law to help settle a family quarrel. But according to

Kerry, asking France to help win a war makes the war "sensitive" because, as

everyone knows, France is more sensitive than the United States, just as

liberals are more sensitive than conservatives. In fact, to be liberal is to be

French, even if only in spirit." - my emphasis added.

wow. cf. Digby.

Iraq, Iran, and the World's Going to Hell

I've always had a little soft-spot in my heart for the neo-con justification for the Iraq war. The idea that we can reshape the middle east by establishing a stable democracy. The idea that Iraq's population was more "secular" and educated than the other possibilities in the region. That their infrastructure and potential for oil revenue is much better than the other countries in the area. That their populace, after 30 years of brutal repression, was ready to take out Saddam Hussein and try something different. However, the Bush administration did not use that rationale to sell the war. They used WMD's and the idea that Saddam was a threat, and that he aided terrorist. OK, they fucked up. Whatever.



I also thought that maybe Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush are taking a page out of the Nixon on China playbook. The "madman" play. They thought that they would make Bush look like a crazy cowboy with this war, and scare the pants off the ayatollah's in Iran and Lil' Kim in North Korea. Make them think that we could win a war with 150,000 troops, so we can easily go after them as well. Well, that didn't work either. Check this out, again from Rumor Control, one of my new favorite sites. How about this:

Iran's Supreme National Security Council Secretary, Hassan Rowhani, said, "I

think the experience of Iraq would be sufficient for the Americans for years to

come not to think of invasion against any other country."

So, how close are we to a nuclear Iran? Well, they are currently testing ballistic missiles that can reach Israel. Awesome. I remember just a year ago reading about how much the people of Iran like America, and how much they want to overthrow their corrupt mullahs. Doesn't look like that's very true anymore.

So, lets look at everything that has happened in the past week. We have new major terror alerts, we have absolute bungling in the Khan affair, we have Iran and Israel testing rockets, we have Iran telling Europe to call off the IAEA, they're making a bomb and the world has to deal with it, we are now unofficially at war with Iran, we lost any possibilities for peace with the Shi'a, we are seeing a major battle centered in Najaf, and a simmering insurgency across the entire country.

How about that Bush administration keeping us safe? Winning that war on terror, huh? Great job.

Ganja

A little lighter subject here, yet again a nice article arguing for marijuana legalization.

We're All Gonna Die!!

Well, I just checked in on RumorControl just now. I had spent most of this morning writing angry letters to the NYTimes and WAPost on their election coverage. I also sent a nice letter to the LATimes thanking them for being consistenly better than those other two crappy papers. By the way, check out Digby's site if you don't already. I hadn't been reading his blog until recently, it's really good. Anyway, back to RumorControl.com, we might be at war with Iran and not even know it. I'm not even gonna say anymore, because I have no idea what the heck is going on, but this is some truly bad shit.

"The rhetoric coming out of the Bush administration has convinced Iran that

military conflict is inevitable and rather than await an attack at a time and

place of America's choosing, the Iranians will try to inflict significant damage

to U.S. forces on Iraqi soil by means of the Mahdi Army and other Shi'a groups,"

an informed intelligence source told This Is Rumor Control.

Jesus this is bad.

John Kerry is a Crappy Candidate. But He Might Still Win Nevada.

Well, I saw John Kerry speak last night at the Thomas and Mack Center, here in "Ne-vah-dah". Here is my transcription: "Blah blah blah, no Yucca Mountain, blah blah blah stronger America, blah blah blah, help is on the way, blah blah blah, alliances/internationalize, blah blah blah I supported the war."



It was about what I expected. He said the same old crap, and for some reason the Kerry campaign/Nevada State Democratic Party think that the "No Yucca Mountain" is the silver bullet for Nevada. Well, I'll tell you something, it's not. People have been hearing about Yucca Mountain for 30 years now. Everyone out here has a vague uneasiness about Yucca Mountain. Noone wants nuclear waste out here. A certain number of people care desperately about this issue, but not that many. All those people are going to vote Kerry or Nader or whoever the guy who's running for the Green Party. Oh, and this is from today's RJ:

"But nuclear industry backers and other officials scoffed at his strategy, saying

it could backfire on him and that he was playing the issue for votes."

By the way, I like the idea of Yucca Mountain. I would rather have all of this country's nuclear waste stashed in the most highly guarded and best protected place in the entire United States, rather than spread out at hundreds of under-protected facilities across the country. You gotta put this shit some where. The only thing to worry about is the transportation of the nuclear materials. Once it gets here, it doesn't matter. The spooge is going to be buried in the middle of a mountain. If you are worried about terrorists getting to it, you should also be worrying about terrorists going to Area-51, stealing an alien spacecraft, and using it to attack Las Vegas. It's just not going to happen. These areas are some of the highest security places in the world. It's seriously a lot better to have a few thousand pounds of nuclear waste stashed here, rather than a few hundred pounds in Bridgeport Connecticut, Dover Delaware, Seattle, Kansas City, and wherever the hell else this goop might be.



Now, I would have liked to have heard some sort of mention on the financial-center terror alerts in the northeast, and all of the scary news going on out here in Las Vegas this past week. Major surveillance for potential terror attacks, and did Oscar Goodman know, and was there a cover-up because of potential tourism losses? And how about this by Kristoff in NYTimes today?

William Perry, the former secretary of defense, says there is an even

chance of a nuclear terror strike within this decade - that is, in the next six

years. "We're racing toward unprecedented catastrophe," Mr. Perry warns.

"This is preventable, but we're not doing the things that could prevent

it."



That is what I find baffling: an utter failure of the political process.

The Bush administration responded aggressively on military fronts after 9/11,

and in November 2003, Mr. Bush observed, "The greatest threat of our age is

nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in the hands of terrorists, and the

dictators who aid them." But the White House has insisted on tackling the most

peripheral elements of the W.M.D. threat, like Iraq, while largely ignoring the

central threat, nuclear proliferation. The upshot is that the risk that a

nuclear explosion will devastate an American city is greater now than it was

during the cold war, and it's growing.

In my next column, I'll explain how we

can reduce the risk of an American Hiroshima.

Yeah, and what about this on Juan Cole? What the hell is Moqtada al Sadr up to? What about Prime Minister Allawi? Is there really a conspiracy to kill Ahmed Chalabi and his nephew Salim? How bad is he, and how much of it is Allawi attempting to consolidate power?



John Kerry has not impressed me that he is taking the threat of terrorism seriously. And what the hell is his plan other than to "Internationalize Iraq"? I don't care if France and Germany start a draft to send over half a million troops to help a Kerry presidency. What does he do with the troops? The lack of troop strength is a huge problem, but more importantly, what the fuck are we trying to accomplish there? Seriously, what are we doing? And how would a Kerry administration differ in it's handling of the war? So far, other than promising to "reach out" to other countries, he is minimizing any differences between himself and the president on Iraq. The main thing that Kerry says is that he supported the war, still would have voted the same way, but he would have done things the "right" way. Great. Thanks for taking our country's future so seriously Mr. Kerry and the Democratic Party.



Oh by the way, the rank and file Dems are the worst. You know what line got the biggest applause? "I won't privatize social security"? "National service = free college"? "The government is going to take over insuring catastrophic cases, ie. cancer, MS, AIDS, etc"? No, of course not. "I'm John Kerry and I served in Vietnam"(or some loose approximation of that.) What the fuck man. Stupid Democrats. The Weekly Standard and National Review are right. The Democrats and John Kerry truly are the September 10th party. They should get rid of the donkey mascot and go for an ostrich (you know, heads in the sand? duh.)

Jack Daniels + Sauza + Keystone Light + Raw Chicken Wings = Lots of Vomit

Got back from the Arizona desert earlier today. Went camping this past weekend in Temple Bar AZ, on Lake Mead. Wow, it was amazing. I might talk more about it later. Just gorgeous mountains and canyons, and the lake. We caught some nice red stripers and catfish. I have been puking my guts out all day since 7:30 AM today though. Drank way too much tequila and Jack Daniels last night at the old campfire. Anyway, check out Fafblog on Iraq to start the week off.

Nader is not a Vampire.

Ralph Nader in the LATimes:

Though the Democrats have the right to robustly oppose my independent

presidential campaign, they don't have the right to engage in dirty tricks

designed to deny millions of voters the opportunity to choose who should be the

next president. But that's what is happening. Across the country, the Democratic

Party, state Democratic partisans, corporate lobbyists and law firms are making

an unprecedented effort to keep the Nader-Camejo ticket off the ballot. It's a

sordid, undemocratic tactic, an affront to voters and a threat to electoral

choice.

Yep. Don't vote for the guy if you don't like him. Try to talk your Nader-voting friends out of it. However, don't take away my right to pull the lever for whomever I wish.

Awesome column on WAPost by Rober Samuelson here. ...

Awesome column on WAPost by Rober Samuelson here. It's on the way that marketing was eroded the value of politics. Good stuff.