Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Interview With The Cow

I am just thrilled by America's outpouring of love for a large, herbivorous four legged mammal. Americans really care.

Mint julep with your hamburger?

Friday, January 26, 2007

McLaughlin and the Chickenhawk

Early in tonight's McLaughlin Group, Buchanan tries to minimize the current disaster playing out in Iraq by observing that fewer Americans have died in Iraq than died in "the Philippine Insurrection, which wasn't even a war!" The Wikipedia entry on the Philippine-American War is worth a look.

Later, Buchanan answers a McLaughlin question by asserting the Sens. Hegel and Webb have a certain amount of authority to criticize the war because of their military records. Then Eleanor contrasts their authority with the pro-war "Chickenhawks". McLaughlin appears shocked, and asks Eleanor "what was that word?" When she repeats it, he asks "Do they exist?" Then she says something like they are all over the White House. The camera did not show Chickenhawk Buchanan's face, but it must have been a lot uglier than usual.

Should be interesting next week.

Decision Maker

Today's news indicates Bush has got some grammar tutoring. He is now the 'decision maker', not the 'decider'. Maybe next month he will learn about the part of the constitution where it says Congress gets to declare war.

Bush quote from AP story: "Our policy is going to be to protect our troops. It makes sense." How about protecting them by bringing them home.

From Bush's January 10 speech: "our policy should focus on protecting Iraq's borders and hunting down al Qaeda".

November statement by spokeswoman: "our policy in Iraq must be determined by victory in the war on terror, not public opinion polls."

From the 2004 debate with Kerry: "I believe, that the Iraqis are ready to fight for their own freedom. They just need the help to be trained. There will be elections in January. We're spending reconstruction money. And our alliance is strong.
That's the plan for victory."

Isn't Google great? You can dig up all this shit so easily. What is not great is that it points out the Bush and his handlers are not only all over the map on Iraq policy, they can't be bothered to do even a half-assed pr job for their policy message.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Got Yer Balls

Just what the world needs, another lame, pathetic blogger ripping the IINC for his State of the Union speech.

"Here's how you fix health care, tax cuts." If Bush had to fix a leaky toilet he'd ask for tax cuts.

I really needed to hear about the Einstein baby lady.

We need a guest worker program so immigration agents can chase terrorists? Glad those Al-qaeda guys wouldn't think of taking a job as a guest worker.

The most sickening thing was when he said that we all have to support the surge, and then without waiting for the trickle of applause, immediately said we need to support the troops in harm's way, thus making the applause for supporting the troops look like applause for the surge. Of course, the lameass democrats went along with this cheap trick. On the satellite feed, Bush turned to the democratic side of the chamber, pulled out a couple of tea bags, and taunted "got yer balls"...

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Promoting Torture

Josh White of the Washington Post wrote an article about a report on interrogation tactics by the U.S. Intelligence Science Board. His take on the report is that there is no evidence that coercive techniques work, there has been no significant research on interrogation in over 40 years, and that "ad-hoc experimentation" and "vague guidance" are responsible for the use of aggressive techniques by U. S. interrogators.

The reason why there has been no research in 40 years is that U. S. torturers were satisfied with the state of their knowledge forty years ago, as documented in the famous Kubark manual. The methods developed at that time were believed to "work"; it is not clear to what extent "work" means that the method extracts useful information, or whether it means that the method psychologically breaks the victim. Finally, the objectionable methods used at Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and other sites were not ad-hoc or the result of vague guidance, they track very well with the recommendations of the Kubark manual.

Alfred McCoy's book "A Question of Torture" sheds a lot of light on this subject. I recommend it strongly.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Social Security Bait and Switch

The A.P. reports that Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke testified to Congress that the U. S. economy could be hurt if Social Security and Medicare are not cut, due to rising boomer retirements.

Who elected Bernanke? Social Security and Medicare are not his responsibility. Why should his word mean anything to Congress?

In any case, twenty five years ago Congress acted to increase Social Security taxes precisely to set aside money for the boomer era. Since then, Social Security taxes have been running surpluses. CBO estimates routinely show Social Security sound out to 2040 or beyond. Cutting benefits now is a total screw of the taxpayers: we'll make you pay, but we won't deliver.

Finally, Medicare costs are a problem, but so are all medical costs. We know how to fix this, with a single payer system just like every other modern, industrial, high standard of living country. When people say that the U. S. should not have such a system, they are saying that they want the U. S. to be a third world country.