The Things I Read Today

Bush To Nominate Anti-Regulatory Industry Lobbyist To Head Consumer Protection Agency

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from dangerous consumer products. Currently, the three-person commission has a vacancy. Media reports indicate that President Bush will likely fill the position with Michael Baroody, “executive vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers, a trade group that opposes aggressive product safety regulation” and “has called for weakening the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”

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Arms Trade—a major cause of suffering

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

Global military expenditure and arms trade form the largest spending in the world at over one trillion dollars in annual expenditure and has been rising in recent years.

• The US military spending was almost two-fifths of the total.
  
• The US military spending was almost 7 times larger than the Chinese budget, the second largest spender.
  
• The US military budget was almost 29 times as large as the combined spending of the six “rogue” states (Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) who spent $14.65 billion.
  
• It was more than the combined spending of the next 14 nations.
  
• The United States and its close allies accounted for some two thirds to three-quarters of all military spending, depending on who you count as close allies (typically NATO countries, Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan and South Korea)
  
• The six potential “enemies,” Russia, and China together spent $139 billion, 30% of the U.S. military budget.

Are we getting our money's worth?

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The Big Picture: Thoughts on the Trial That's Not About Anna Nicole Smith (by Jane Hamsher)

1. The administration lied us into war and tried to abuse its power to punish the whistleblower who told the American public the truth.
   
   
2. Scooter is the firewall to Shooter.
   
   
3. Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby and other members of the administration conspired to keep federal investigators from uncovering their crimes.
   
   
4. The media was complicit in spreading administration propaganda rather than doing investigative journalism, and are now helping to set the table for a pardon.
   
   
5. The journalistic standards that have been exposed in the case (witness Tim Russert, Judy Miller, Andrea Mitchell, Robert Novak and others) are reprehensible, and have undermined the public trust in the media.
   
   
6. The degree to which this story about the lies that lead to war has been ignored by the media (relative to the feeding frenzy over a Clinton blowjob) left a huge opening that the blogs have filled.

OK, we're all morally outraged that Bill Clinton lied. But if lying is the issue, how come the Right is so accepting of this set of lies ... lies that have cost human lives in the tens of thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands by some estimates) and billions of dollars?

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Cheney: UK Troop Withdrawal Is 'Sign of Success' in Iraq

The situation is improving in the south of Iraq ... enough so that everyone agrees, the British can begin to stand down. If the situation is improving so much, how about we pull some of our guys out, too.

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