Category: Politics

Fleeing GWB. An excerpt:

Now you are fleeing him, but it’s only because he’s got the earmarks of a loser. Your problem is that you don’t know why he’s losing. You think he’s made mistakes. But no. He’s losing because the ideas that you taught him and demonstrated for him are bad ideas, self-destructive ideas, and even suicidal ideas. And they are immoral ideas. You should be ashamed of yourselves because not only have your ideas not worked to make the world a better place, they were inhumane and cruel to begin with, and they have served to cultivate and excuse the inhumane and cruel character traits of those who profess them.

Need another reason to flee? How about Nuking Iran?. (A chilling look at the consequences… the world might let us get away with it.) Here’s some perspective on desiring a diplomatic solution. Familiar?

On the positive side… the 2005 Koufax Award winners. The 2005 Koufax award winner for picture series: Katrina Aftermath: And Then I Saw These is wonderful. (The photographer comments on the choice to use black & white pictures in a comment on the thread.)

An interesting question: is he a liberal? A moderate?

This post, over at Shakespear’s Sister reminds me that even though I’ve been presuming against some lies– some debunkings are new. Talk about lie fatigue.

I didn’t remember a book this morning, so I had little to distract me at lunch. Somehow, my mind tracked onto politics and the legislature. I thought a bit about some IRV suggestion’s I’d heard and it cross pollinated with some Clean Elections stuff I’d been considering. Below is what came to mind.

Katherine and Hilzoy have gone to incredible lengths to illustrate hideous consequences of the Graham Amendment. The Graham amendment neuters the constitution, eliminating Habeus Corpus.

All of the posts are solid and add to a creeping sense of horror. A few examples are here: Family Videos and Medical Malpractice. Graham lied in his speech, denigrating the events alleged at Guantanimo. In less than an hour, the whole Senate voted on the twisted thing.

Fortunately, the Bingaman amendment undoes the broken part of the bill. It will be introduced to the Senate tomorrow morning. However right the accusations are– and they may be baseless for all anyone knows– it is critical that our Senators not eliminate Habeus Corpus. Katherine’s Closing Statement has all of the posts linked together.

Read it and call your Senators.

UPDATE: The amendment was defeated, kindof. It was actually amended– it wound up better than written, worse than before the amendment. Hilzoy updates the story and writes about what we do with people we find innocent. (Hint: The answer is not “set them free”.)

Hilzoy has a brilliant post up about “Health Savings Accounts”; a poorly planned system whose main advantage is the destruction of employer provided healthcare as we know it.

Walmart charms us with its new tricks for slimming their health care costs.

Speaking of stuff you purchase but can’t comparison shop for… see what nice lemons our voting machines are?

Of course we’ll probably save lots of money treating people for complications from their illegal abortions. The new justice has pretty regressive views about all kinds of things; attempting to strike down maternity leave, force spousal notification, and other charming views. Ann at feministing rounds up some of his most eye popping judgements.

Vanport, OR Where? Gone. (Via brutal women) Also Indianola, TX

An all too accurate report on the current Democratic party, from Fafblog

ACORN Housing & community support, for rebuilding.

Bush is willing to Veto the appropriations bill if the military agrees to follow its own rules about treatment of prisoners. Apparently Bush feels the retaining the executive office’s authority to torture is more important than paying the troops. Hilzoy writes about it eloquently (as ever), at Obsidian Wings.

About the Plame thing. Hilzoy quotes James Marcinkowski, ex-CIA, in her current Plame post:

“The exposure of Valerie Plame by anyone in the White House is the same as a local police chief announcing to the media the identity of his undercover officers.

Plus some good non-Hilzoy posts…
More than Abortion: Choice, Privacy, and Criminalization (from Amanda at Pandagon)

Dear Democrats Amanda writes about Roberts. Also, JR’s comment (about #7) is also a solid prediction.

Why I’m a pro-choice male by Jesse of Pandagon

Breaking the Peg Bilmon writes about what China’s changes to its peg really mean.

Abortion Facts Useful and too often unknown by all participants.

Here are a few things that happened over the weekend… interesting stuff.

The Plame mess summarized: DKos Diary and Hilzoy of Obsidian Wings

Supreme Court Nominees. Lots of background about the nominees and analysis of O’Conner’s term.

What oil prices will affect demand? An economic analysis

Abortion is about Autonomy Good diarist post about the KOS keruffle

The World of Commerce A fun mocking of the recent supreme court decision

History Rhymes Fifteen similarities between the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Thought provoking.

Baby Name Wizard Charts the popularity of names over time. It has a nice interface.

Plus a snarky quote about roleplaying below the fold.

After reading some of the more extreme Peak Oil sites (and finding flaws where they tried to stretch their arguments), I was content to just about write them off. Kevin Drum did the research though, and while there’s a lot of disagreement on particulars, there seems to be some wide concensus. Kevin Drum’s Peak Oil reporting–
Executive Summary.
Details: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Coda

Charlie’s post about the War on Drugs ( War on Rationality), summarizes a lot of the problems I have with the drug war. Maybe it’s just a symptom of being a bad loser… or maybe I just want the best solution in the basket.

He also pointed out the amazing response time by Wikipedia– the new pope’s entry is already solid.

Amanda notices Bush’s newest excuse for his failure to capture Osama… Women in Combat. She decimates the idea beautifully.

Alas is always brilliant; Ampersand has just brought in a co-blogger, Pseudo-Adrienne. Sounds like a good thing getting better to me.

Edward at Obsidian Wings quotes Republicans from the Clinton era, underlining the hypocrisy of their musings about the nuclear option.

Bilmon returns to us with a detailed analysis of current account finances and other fiscal troubles. Globally, US consumption’s been dragging the train along… but home refinancing (which has been providing the cash for all this consumption) is running out of steam. His in depth analysis is second to none.

Kevin Drum has been pointing out that the terror of national health care isn’t seen that way in Europe and other adopters at all. (Other posts on the same issue are here, and here.)