from The New York Times
Re “Debunking the Reagan Myth” (column, Jan. 21):
Paul Krugman is right on the mark. Conservatives have made an entire mythology surrounding Ronald Reagan. He is falsely credited by conservatives with everything from brilliant economic policies to ending the cold war.
Today we are hearing many conservatives lamenting that conservatism has lost its way. The truth is that conservatives had their way. In six years of unified control of the levers of power, they did more damage than is imaginable. It could take us a generation to regain our former prestige and clout.
Conservatism failed in the 1890s, again in the 1920s, again in the 1980s, and again at the beginning of the 21st century. That is the message Democrats need to hammer home at every possible occasion.
Conservatives failed because conservatism is a failed ideology. The greatest periods of American history all rejected conservatism in favor of the ideals our nation was founded on.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
War Card / Score Card - the Drumbeat of Lies
President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.
On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration's case for war.
It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose "Duelfer Report" established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq's nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it.
More after the click ...
My Comment:
All highly documented including a month by month graph showing the number of official public statements of untruths in the run-up to war. In my opinion, worth reading.
To those on the right who do lip service to the idea of "personal responsibility" I would say that "responsibility" and "accountability" are two aspects of the same idea as in: You are responsible therefore you must be accountable. Given the magnitude of the consequences of a war that has cost us all so greatly (in lives, in resources, in international prestige and credibility), why the reluctance to hold accountable the people responsible for those costs to those who are paying the price? Is that mantra of "responsibility" merely a talking point to be rolled out when its convenient like attacking "welfare queen" straw men?
Where is all that moral indignation that was expressed at such a deafening volume when a Democratic president lied to congress about a personal incident? Someone please explain to me why that lie and its national and international implications was so much worse, so much more damaging than these lies and their consequences.
Priorities keep on keepin' on.
On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration's case for war.
It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose "Duelfer Report" established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq's nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it.
More after the click ...
My Comment:
All highly documented including a month by month graph showing the number of official public statements of untruths in the run-up to war. In my opinion, worth reading.
To those on the right who do lip service to the idea of "personal responsibility" I would say that "responsibility" and "accountability" are two aspects of the same idea as in: You are responsible therefore you must be accountable. Given the magnitude of the consequences of a war that has cost us all so greatly (in lives, in resources, in international prestige and credibility), why the reluctance to hold accountable the people responsible for those costs to those who are paying the price? Is that mantra of "responsibility" merely a talking point to be rolled out when its convenient like attacking "welfare queen" straw men?
Where is all that moral indignation that was expressed at such a deafening volume when a Democratic president lied to congress about a personal incident? Someone please explain to me why that lie and its national and international implications was so much worse, so much more damaging than these lies and their consequences.
Priorities keep on keepin' on.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Who is Bigfoot?
Alright, Mormonism is weird…but did you know there are some church 'scholars' who think Bigfoot is actually Cain?
Here's a Bigfoot theory I haven't heard before. Apparently there are some in the Mormon church who hypothesize that Bigfoot may actually be Cain, condemned to walk the earth forever. Matt Bowman provides some scholarly elaboration on this theory on the Mormon Mentality blog.
This is all spun out from an early church leader's tall tale of encountering a hairy giant.
(Source ...)The devilish church practice of exorcism
Johann Hari: The Independent (UK)
Last year, I met a drawn, defeated 14-year old girl who had been possessed by Satan, until he and his Armies of Evil were tortured out of her.
That is how her priest explained it to me. That is how she explained it to me.
They spoke as if it was all as obvious as her scars. Clarice was a tiny girl wrapped in a big white woollen cardigan. In a church in the middle of Congo's carnage she explained how she had chosen to let the demons enter her when she was twelve.
Since then, Satan had forced her to make her mother fall, breaking her leg.
Satan had forced her to jinx her father, making it impossible for him to get a job. Satan had forced her to kill her little sister, by giving her a deadly fever.
Her Pentecostalist priest, Papa Enoch Boonga, told me with pride how he had driven the demons out. They starved Clarice for four days, whipped her and threatened to burn her, until finally she "confessed."
Then they forced her to admit to everything she had done, and performed a long exorcism ceremony. They only believed it was working when her little body began to judder and howl and curse. I ask Clarice quietly if she really believed she had done all these things. "Yes," she said. "I do." And so we sigh lazily: another example of African primitivism. But no. Exorcism, even of children, is being aggressively promoted today by one of the most powerful men in the Western world, Pope Benedict XVI, in only slightly watered-down form. Presidents and Prime Ministers fawn over this man.
More after the click ...
My comment:
My only question is why is it unsophisticated, unenlightened primitivism when it's in Africa but sophisticated, enlightened religion when it's in Rome? I submit that it's unsophisticated, unenlightened superstition in both places and that Papa Enoch Boonga and il Papa Benidicto XVI have far more in common with each other than they have differences.
A bogus 'study' of Iraqi deaths
from the Boston Globe via The Week Magazine
It was a study with a 'jaw-dropping' conclusion, said Jeff Jacoby, and yet the media swallowed it whole. Two years ago, British medical journal The Lancet published a study estimating that 655,000 Iraqis died in the first three years after the U.S. invasion. The Pentagon and conservative pundits questioned the study's validity, pointing out that its casualty total was 10 times larger than the Iraqi government's. The press, though, trumpeted the startling finding "because it served the interests of those eager to discredit the war as a moral catastrophe." Now we know the study was, in fact. litle more than propoganda. after carefully analyzing the data and the "motives of the "scientists," National Journal last week found that The Lancet report was riddled with grave flaws." Left-wing billionaire activist George Soros provided most of the funding for the study, which was conducted by two authors who were avowed opponents of the war. The biased researcher's data and methods, the magazine found, smell of outright fabrication. "Will the debunking be trumpeted as loudly and clearly as the original report? Don't hold your breath."
My comment:
I have to admit, I bought the story (and here) and even referenced it a couple times in my blog (1) (2) (3).
The numbers were incorrect as a measure of Iraqi deaths but, the situation puts me in mind of a phenomenon I experienced throughout a career of corporate positions spanning several decades. If the numbers in your assumptions didn't agree with what management believed the numbers to be your brilliant idea was discounted out of hand. I suppose there is some good in the procedure, but it killed some pretty valid thoughts. So, for the record, let me first express my regret that the numbers don't exactly jibe with other sources and second, express my opposition to the war on the basis of assumptions that don't rely expressly on the numbers:
However, the whole affair underscores a positive lesson: One cannot combat a fabrication with another fabrication. Only the truth will do.
It was a study with a 'jaw-dropping' conclusion, said Jeff Jacoby, and yet the media swallowed it whole. Two years ago, British medical journal The Lancet published a study estimating that 655,000 Iraqis died in the first three years after the U.S. invasion. The Pentagon and conservative pundits questioned the study's validity, pointing out that its casualty total was 10 times larger than the Iraqi government's. The press, though, trumpeted the startling finding "because it served the interests of those eager to discredit the war as a moral catastrophe." Now we know the study was, in fact. litle more than propoganda. after carefully analyzing the data and the "motives of the "scientists," National Journal last week found that The Lancet report was riddled with grave flaws." Left-wing billionaire activist George Soros provided most of the funding for the study, which was conducted by two authors who were avowed opponents of the war. The biased researcher's data and methods, the magazine found, smell of outright fabrication. "Will the debunking be trumpeted as loudly and clearly as the original report? Don't hold your breath."
My comment:
I have to admit, I bought the story (and here) and even referenced it a couple times in my blog (1) (2) (3).
The numbers were incorrect as a measure of Iraqi deaths but, the situation puts me in mind of a phenomenon I experienced throughout a career of corporate positions spanning several decades. If the numbers in your assumptions didn't agree with what management believed the numbers to be your brilliant idea was discounted out of hand. I suppose there is some good in the procedure, but it killed some pretty valid thoughts. So, for the record, let me first express my regret that the numbers don't exactly jibe with other sources and second, express my opposition to the war on the basis of assumptions that don't rely expressly on the numbers:
- Pre-emptive war is morally and ethically wrong. Our fight in Afghanistan has some moral and ethical foundation. We were attacked. The attack on us originated in Afghanistan. The people who perpetrated the attack on us are still at large in Afghanistan and in the Afghan border region with Pakistan. Our presence in Afghanistan is in defense of country and in retaliation for and attack on us.
- Our presence in Iraq was prompted by cooked intelligence that reported the presence of WMDs (which proved to be non-existent) and on a presumption of ties between Saddam Husein and al Qaeda (which have also proved to be non-existent). That we are engaged in a war brought on by deliberate falsehoods (if I'd told them, they'd be called lies) compounds the moral and ethical wrong of the pre-emptive nature of the war in Iraq.
- A military win in Iraq is impossible. Among other things, we've lost track of who the enemy is and, in fact, the vast majority of the Iraqi people have become "the enemy" simply because they don't want us there ... in their country. It can be forcefully argued that most of the people we are killing in Iraq were not our enemies until we arrived.
However, the whole affair underscores a positive lesson: One cannot combat a fabrication with another fabrication. Only the truth will do.
He might be on to something
"Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born."
-- Ronald Reagan
Sunday, January 20, 2008
For all those Reagan worshipers out there
by Hal Stewart
There's been a great deal of back of forth about Clinton and Obama and what they have said about Reagan. Personally, I've missed most of it. Being a stock market person I've been a little preoccupied over the last few weeks. But, I think it's time to chime in on the debate because the underlying facts -- those pesky things -- aren't very flattering to Reagan. In fact, the facts -- again, those pesky annoying things -- indicate that Regan was a complete and total fiscal disaster.
More after the click ...
There's been a great deal of back of forth about Clinton and Obama and what they have said about Reagan. Personally, I've missed most of it. Being a stock market person I've been a little preoccupied over the last few weeks. But, I think it's time to chime in on the debate because the underlying facts -- those pesky things -- aren't very flattering to Reagan. In fact, the facts -- again, those pesky annoying things -- indicate that Regan was a complete and total fiscal disaster.
More after the click ...
The Plight of the Small Farmer in America
A man owned a small farm in Indiana.
The Indiana State Wage & Hour Department claimed he was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to interview him. "I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them," demanded the agent.
"Well," replied the farmer, "there's my farm hand who's been with me for 3 years. I pay him $200 a week plus free room and board. The cook has been here for 18 months, and I pay her $150 per week plus free room and board. Then there's the half-wit who works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally."
"That's the guy I want to talk to --- the half-wit," says the agent.
"That would be me," replied the farmer.
The Indiana State Wage & Hour Department claimed he was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to interview him. "I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them," demanded the agent.
"Well," replied the farmer, "there's my farm hand who's been with me for 3 years. I pay him $200 a week plus free room and board. The cook has been here for 18 months, and I pay her $150 per week plus free room and board. Then there's the half-wit who works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally."
"That's the guy I want to talk to --- the half-wit," says the agent.
"That would be me," replied the farmer.
Getting it wrong ... again
... in its embrace of the notion that relief means letting people keep their own money, the White House’s proposal excludes those who have no money to keep — about 45 million families earning too little to pay income taxes and to qualify for a rebate. Yet these are exactly the people who should be helped, not only because of their dire need but also because they would be most likely to spend quickly whatever assistance they got.
The rest in the New York Times after the click ...
My comment: Let them eat cake.
The rest in the New York Times after the click ...
My comment: Let them eat cake.
In the Quest for Inspiration
Saguaro National Forest at the foot of the Rincon Mountains near Tucson, AZ.
Candy waits patiently in the car while I wander around in the desert, hoping that inspiration will overtake me.
Since we moved, my motivation to make pictures has ebbed to an historic low point.
Pointed Warnings - Ocotillo (Ah-kah-tee'-yo) thorns.
Sonoran Desert Icons - Saguaro and Ocotillo
Family Values: Proud that Working People Can't Make Ends Meet
Conservative Christians and Republicans use the rhetoric of "family values" quite often even though it is a term with no definitive meaning. Voters can invest it with whatever content they want and thereby imagine that the politician is on their side. If we want to know what Republicans think of the term, we should look to what they do and even say in other contexts. How do they give substance of the concept of "family values" and what do they really value themselves?
Everyone can see that America is heading into serious economic trouble which will negatively affect most American families. How do Republicans think that those families can be helped weather the consequences of years of Republican mismanagement, corruption, and lies? By giving even more tax breaks to wealthy corporations! This might sound crazy, but apparently Republicans think that economic hardship is good for families — and even welcomed by them.
This at least was the message from Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) when she said "I am so proud to be from the state of Minnesota. We’re the workingest state in the country, and the reason why we are, we have more people that are working longer hours, we have people that are working two jobs." That's right, people who can't get by unless they work a lot of extra hours or even take on a second job are living the American dream — which for them must seem like a nightmare, but it helps provide more money for people like Bachmann, so I guess it's still a dream for her.
More after the click on Jesus's General ...
My comment: Or to phrase it the way Keith Olbermann did, "Our slave labor can build better pyramids than anybody else's save labor."
It's much easier to control people when they're scared, hungry and sick.
Once one accepts that simple fact, it becomes easier to see a pattern that ties together a fear of terrorism, an economy that forces people to work multiple jobs to stay afloat and a strong conservative resistance to universal health care with draconian laws that undermine the civil and human rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
And Mitt has a plan ... a wonderful plan to bring the auto industry back to life and return all those great manufacturing jobs to Michigan. His idea is basically a $20 billion dollar bail-out package for the car companies, coupled with a roll-back of the CAFE Standards so that American automobile companies can get back to making cars that no one wants to buy in the first place. Talk about pipe dreams!
Everyone can see that America is heading into serious economic trouble which will negatively affect most American families. How do Republicans think that those families can be helped weather the consequences of years of Republican mismanagement, corruption, and lies? By giving even more tax breaks to wealthy corporations! This might sound crazy, but apparently Republicans think that economic hardship is good for families — and even welcomed by them.
This at least was the message from Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) when she said "I am so proud to be from the state of Minnesota. We’re the workingest state in the country, and the reason why we are, we have more people that are working longer hours, we have people that are working two jobs." That's right, people who can't get by unless they work a lot of extra hours or even take on a second job are living the American dream — which for them must seem like a nightmare, but it helps provide more money for people like Bachmann, so I guess it's still a dream for her.
More after the click on Jesus's General ...
My comment: Or to phrase it the way Keith Olbermann did, "Our slave labor can build better pyramids than anybody else's save labor."
It's much easier to control people when they're scared, hungry and sick.
Once one accepts that simple fact, it becomes easier to see a pattern that ties together a fear of terrorism, an economy that forces people to work multiple jobs to stay afloat and a strong conservative resistance to universal health care with draconian laws that undermine the civil and human rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
And Mitt has a plan ... a wonderful plan to bring the auto industry back to life and return all those great manufacturing jobs to Michigan. His idea is basically a $20 billion dollar bail-out package for the car companies, coupled with a roll-back of the CAFE Standards so that American automobile companies can get back to making cars that no one wants to buy in the first place. Talk about pipe dreams!
Entertainment dressed up as news
"Never has a symbiotic relationship between politicians and television been as obvious as in the past two weeks. First it was the 24-hour news networks, then the internet, and finally, the major broadcast networks that discovered that primaries, nominations, and elections could serve as the mother's milk of TV. They fill air-time, and the actors work for nothing."
The rest of the thought after the click ...
The rest of the thought after the click ...
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