Small Mountain

Dilworth Plaze, 6 AM, 10.21. 2011

2012-01-04T17:50:00.000-05:00

Beach Haven

2011-09-17T17:58:00.002-04:00

Before the Storm

2011-09-09T15:35:00.002-04:00

Hoya

2011-07-07T08:30:00.000-04:00

February 2011

2011-07-01T14:16:00.000-04:00

On The Trail To Mt Tammany

2011-06-29T10:17:00.000-04:00

40th Atop Mount Tammany & At Delaware Waster Gap Restaurant

2011-06-28T13:01:00.001-04:00

Maine Again . .

2010-08-04T17:56:00.002-04:00

Maine

2010-08-03T17:02:00.001-04:00

Best Food in Springfield, Ohio

2010-07-12T15:25:00.000-04:00

Trumpet Flower Child

2010-07-07T17:43:00.000-04:00

Nashville

2010-06-30T09:33:00.003-04:00

Nomah's Butterfly

2010-06-17T10:45:00.001-04:00

Pass Me the Mug o'Mead!

2010-06-10T09:32:00.000-04:00

Mercury, RIP

2010-06-03T17:49:00.001-04:00

Wassaic, NY

2010-06-01T11:19:00.001-04:00

"Walk Right In, Sit Right Down, Daddy Let Your Mind Roll On ."

2010-05-26T14:49:00.003-04:00

Iris, Me 2nd Love

2010-05-25T16:03:00.000-04:00

OC, MD

2010-05-24T09:28:00.003-04:00

pix @ an execution

2010-05-09T17:01:00.001-04:00

Prescience

2009-11-01T17:51:00.000-05:00

Diane Arbus, 1962 photo. She shows us in this posed picture the essence of the know-nothing, states rights, "give me my freedom" crowd.

In Today's NY Times:

2009-10-01T13:02:00.002-04:00

Four dams along the Klamath River to be removed!

Friend of Larry Miller:

2009-09-24T15:49:00.000-04:00

"I called for this (summit) so that we may address at the highest level a fundamental threat to the security of all peoples and all nations -- the spread and use of nuclear weapons," Obama said.
"This very institution was founded at the dawn of the atomic age, in part because man's capacity to kill had to be contained, and although we averted a nuclear nightmare during the Cold War, we now face proliferation of a scope and complexity that demands new strategies and new approaches."

Cape May & NYC

2009-09-05T17:22:00.005-04:00

Spent a week in Cape May, then attended a friend's show of paintings in NYC.

By The Sea, By The Sea, Oh, how happy we'll be . .

2009-08-29T17:16:00.002-04:00

I went to Cape May knowing that I don't like humidity, sand, or hot sun. I came away loving the tropic air and evening beach strolls.

Henry Adams

2009-08-06T15:49:00.003-04:00

[T]he sum is an emotion--clear and strong as love and much clearer than logic--whose charm lies in its unstable balance.

Kenya

2009-08-05T07:25:00.003-04:00

So glad HRC began her tour of Africa in Kenya, because, ya know, who better to unearth the "real" birth certificate.

EX PRESIDENTS

2009-08-04T14:32:00.003-04:00

You know, most of our ex-Presidents do us proud. We'll see about W.

From Foreign Policy magazine: Passport -

2009-07-22T11:15:00.003-04:00

While most are setting timeframes for troop withdrawal, one country is surprisingly joining the fight in Afghanistan: Mongolia. Under its "third neighbor" policy effort to reach out to allies other than China and Russia, the most sparsely populated country in the world will send 130 soldiers to Kabul in August and a further 23 trainers in September.

Koichi Kamoshida/Getty images

Don't Vacation At A Public (Socialistic!) Beach . . . Go To Somalia

2009-05-07T12:12:00.003-04:00

Great video on the wonderful life of Libertarians in Somalia where a "government is the problem, not the solution" attitude prevails.

Montesquieu, 1748

2009-04-26T13:00:00.000-04:00

"So many men of learning and genius have written against the custom of torturing criminals, that after them I dare not presume to meddle with the subject."

Fran Leibowitz:

2009-04-24T18:07:00.001-04:00

Even when freshly washed and relieved of all obvious confections, children tend to be sticky. I think it's because they don't smoke enough.

Paul Krugman:

2009-04-22T12:33:00.000-04:00

Let’s say this slowly: the Bush administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So it tortured people to make them confess to the nonexistent link.

There’s a word for this: it’s evil.

Steven Quartz:

2009-04-07T09:34:00.001-04:00

"[W]hat our brain is for, what our brain has evolved for, is to find what is of value in our environment.”

Voter Supression

2009-03-24T09:56:00.005-04:00

C. Mcllhinnny, one of our local PA servants of the people, has temporarily withdraw a Republican plan for voter suppression. With their numbers dwindling everywhere except the old south, Republicans have suddenly become concerned about voter fraud, and want to impose a voter-suppressing requirement: picture-ID. The elderly, the poor, and minorities are the ones who would be disenfranchised by this law, and they vote Democratic.

Our county commissioners engaged in a little of this when they attempted to remove a voting place from a home for the elderly. The elderly are a very Democratic community.

Republicans love to carry on about non-existent voter-registration fraud, but will do nothing about a paper trail for touch-tone screen voting. That's where the potential for fraud is greatest.

Michael Cohen:

2009-03-23T15:36:00.001-04:00

In the end, perhaps the focus of the US military and American foreign policy, writ large, should be to avoid counter-insurgencies — AND AVOID CONVENTIONAL CONFLICTS.

Glenn W. Smith at FDL:

2009-02-15T13:15:00.000-05:00

In the movie, "The Reader," Hannah Schmitz is on trial for her Nazi-era war crimes as an SS officer and prison guard, including the murder of 300 Jewish prisoners kept locked in a burning church. Why, she's asked, didn't you let them out? Her answer, a terrifying one, is that she couldn't. The prisoners might escape. "There would be chaos," she said.

Schmitz's matter-of-fact choice - the death of others before a perceived risk of disorder - shocks the courtroom. Schmitz's act is terrifying, but not because it is a rare moral failure. It's because it is so common. Another Hannah, the philosopher Hannah Arendt, called this sort of evil banal. By that she meant that ordinary people often commit evil acts. They are not sociopaths. They are simply and unquestioningly following the rules of their culture or state.

Isn't this one way to describe the American health care system and the resistance to reform? Don't we keep many locked inside the burning building of a system that denies health care to millions? Don't we coldly guarantee their ill health and death, because reform threatens some sort of ideological disorder?

Read the rest of this entry »

Capitalism Has Been Dead A Long Time, Really!

2009-02-12T10:09:00.003-05:00

You see and hear scads of commentators, politicians, and business people talking about "The Market," "The wisdom of the Market," etc., etc. All nonsense. It really is amazing that there are still laissez-faire capitalists around. They continue trying to con us into this notion that financial systems can be self-regulatory, and that in the end capitalism will provide for all.

FDR's New Deal saved capitalism in the 1930s, but capitalists have sought to destroy the pro-social aspects of the New Deal ever since. It really does appear that if a program is pro-social, the capitalists claim it will destroy "the wisdom of the market."

The government is on the verge of saving the capitalists again. This time we might get universal health care out of it to go with the social security program we got from FDR. That's progress, I guess, albeit too damn slow.

Paul Simon's American Tune:

2009-02-09T09:08:00.001-05:00

Many's the time I've been mistaken
And many times confused
Yes, and I've often felt forsaken
And certainly misused
Oh, but I'm all right, I'm all right
I'm just weary to my bones
Still, you don't expect to be
Bright and bon vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home

And I don't know a soul who's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered
or driven to its knees
but it's all right, it's all right
for we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the
road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong
I can't help it, I wonder what's gone wrong

The Hike

2009-02-06T18:45:00.007-05:00

2006, July: In this 1st photo we are just a short distance from the hairpin turn on Route 82 leading up to Independence Pass. The banks of the creek, flowing left to right, are just visible center-right. We'll follow the creek west, left, until the brush makes it too difficult.

1965, May: The first time I followed this creek west, there was snow as far as the eye could see. The creek was no more than two feet wide, and the snow along the banks was only a few inches deep. Attempting to get to Aspen I'd found Route 82 blocked by snow, so I'd decided to go overland.

When the way beside the creek becomes impassable we take to the burro path. This path can be seen on the USGS maps of the Independence Pass area. The path follows the route of least resistance, of course, and it seems plausible that I followed a similar route 44 years ago.

The ridge straight ahead is the Continental Divide. When I saw that ridge 44 years ago I was sure I would rediscover the road just on the west side. At the time I did not know that ridge is the CD.

The cliffs, in the next photo, to the left of the saddle, dissuaded me in 1965 from even thinking about trying to go in that direction, even though it was more the way I wanted to go. Also, I became convinced that vertical lines I saw on the cliff were cranes, there to build another highway.

In 2006 the source of the creek is still farther west, closer to the ridge, but in 1965 the creek had disappeared under snow long before I got to this spot. It took us about 3 hours to get from the road to within sight of the CD. I don't recall how long I took in 1965. It was mid-afternoon when I left the highway, and it was early morning the next day before I reached the saddle.

The boulder, beside which I spent part of the first night, is slightly visible below the ridge just right of center. After the creek disappeared, the snow through which I walked became deeper and deeper until I was sinking up to my hips with each step. This was a bit unnerving, but it was a beautiful May day, and I was convinced a road was just over the ridge.

This photo shows the area in which I spent the evening of May 15, 1965 and my first night in the high country. With an eye on that saddle I got to the boulder, only a small piece of which was sticking up through the snow, as the sun was getting very close to the horizon. I stood on the downhill side of the rock, pretty stunned that I'd gotten myself into a situation where I needed to spend the night out there.

The wind picked up as the sun went down. I was wearing a parka, but it was still chilly, so I stomped a five foot deep hole in the snow. As the sun set, I got into the hole and out of the wind. I crouched down in the hole, but could not sit because my body heat melted the snow which puddled at the bottom.

When I emerged from the hole, a full moon just sat on the ridge. The expanse of snow, falling from the ridge into the canyon, then up the other side, was brightly lit, and it had taken on a sheen. I discovered the powdery snow, I'd fallen through all afternoon, now had a crust on it that permitted me to crawl on all fours over it without falling through.

Using the moonlight, I crawled over the snow toward the saddle and got there just as the day began. Although I spent four more nights in the high country, it was all downhill from there.

On the way back, 2006.

Rick Perlstein @ Campaign for Amerca's Future:

2009-02-04T10:15:00.003-05:00

Dave Weigel penned a must-read about the flat-earther who's driving the Republicans' anti-recovery strategy. It reminds me of my thoughts when Jonah Golberg published Liberal Fascism. I wanted to publish a three word review: "It will work." Because that's the only real relevant thing to say, about his book, and about Amity Shlaes's made-up story about the failure of the New Deal: the very fact that a respectable-looking, book-like object exists that says liberals caused all the world's problems will is cover enough for powerful people to claim that sound scholarship demonstrates that liberals caused all the world's problems.

Good arguments, bad arguments, it does not matter. For the next two generations at least, a considerable plurality of your literate fellow Americans will, upon hearing you're a liberal, believe you to be on board with eugenicism and will hold you responsible for the Depression. Get used to it. That's how the Big Con works. Like Vincent Foster said in his suicide note, about the Wall Street Journal editorial page: they lie with impunity.

Life On Chicago's South Side

2009-02-01T14:40:00.003-05:00

Grace Hale, Michelle Obama's aunt:

"We like things simple. We've never needed too much. All of us have our lives here, and we have them set the way we like."

Oh, Those Japanese

2009-01-31T15:45:00.000-05:00

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Bottled biofuel is shown together with the Japan Airlines test-flight plane at Haneda Airport on Friday.

Japan Airlines on Friday conducted a test flight using plant-derived biofuel at Haneda Airport in Ota Ward, Tokyo.

Shortly after noon, a Boeing 747-300 jet flew over the Pacific Ocean off Sendai, and returned to the airport about 90 minutes later.

JAL used biofuel made from camelina, an inedible cruciferous grass species. The biofuel was mixed half-and-half with ordinary jet fuel and fed into one of the jumbo jet's four engines. The engine using the biofuel was marked green.

The airline tested the efficiency of the biofuel at an altitude of about 10,000 meters.

The world's first biofueled test flight was conducted by Britain's Virgin Atlantic Airways in February 2008., followed by Air New Zealand and U.S.-based Continental Airlines.

(Jan. 31, 2009)

Mahatma d. January 30, 1948

2009-01-31T10:08:00.000-05:00

From The Yomiuri Shimbun:

2009-01-31T09:26:00.003-05:00

The government in this Prefecture, Japan's equivalent of a County, is giving out checks to buy locally made cars. Pretty nice idea. The Bucks County government gives money to promote business. Why not give cash to citizens to spend locally!

It would be a way to support local farmers and other locally owned businesses.

Reaction to Obama in Japan

2009-01-30T17:01:00.004-05:00

The Japanese seem happy about the new administration in DC, and they are delighted by the connections to Japan that some officials , high in the administration, have. An unidentified writer for Yomiuri press:

Jeffrey Bader's appearance at a reception held at the official residence of the Japanese ambassador to Washington in December set tongues wagging among diplomatic officials at the party.

Bader was a member of the transition team of then U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, and was in charge of Asian policy. Bader is expected to become a senior director for Asian affairs on the National Security Council.

He also notes:

In other good news for Japan, James Jones, a retired U.S. Marine general who previously was stationed in Okinawa Prefecture, is expected to take the post of national security adviser, and Wallace Gregson, former commander of U.S. Marine Corps Bases in Japan, is highly likely to be chosen as assistant secretary of defense for Asia and the Pacific. Timothy Geithner, appointed as treasury secretary, lived in Japan during part of his childhood and has worked at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.

From Haaretz On New PM:

2009-01-30T16:20:00.001-05:00

"In fact, the argument over who will do best with President Obama comes down to this: Who can best assure that Israel will be left to its own devices to pursue ... well, what exactly? There's the rub. We have become tactical masters, improvisational impresarios. But what strategic vision are we seeking to implement? Greater Israel? Then annex the territories and expel the Palestinians. Recognition, peace and a two-state solution? Then dismantle the settlements and end the occupation."

Ed Kilgore:

2009-01-30T12:31:00.000-05:00

There are plenty of metaphors that might apply to Obama's strategy--which I've dubbed grassroots bipartisanship to distinguish it from the familiar split-the-differences beltway brand of bipartisanship--but the simplest is probably the military principle of putting yourself in a position where the enemy must decide to head off one of two likely lines of attack, exposing himself to outflanking once he has committed his forces. It's the same principle that underlies the option attack in football, or the fast break in basketball. The GOP has committed itself to a course of action in dealing with the Obama administration and a Democratic Congress that gambles everything on frontal opposition, exposing its flanks from several directions.

Dana Priest in the WP:

2009-01-23T11:53:00.002-05:00

"The CIA, which had taken the lead on counterterrorism operations worldwide, asked intelligence contacts around the globe to help its teams of covert operatives and clandestine military units identify, kill or capture terrorism suspects. They set up their first interrogation center in a compound walled off by black canvas at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, and more at tiny bases throughout that country, where detainees could be questioned outside military rules and the protocols of the Geneva Conventions, which lay out the standards for treatment of prisoners of war."

One can perhaps imagine how many neighbor or tribe or family scores were settled by turning over someone to the CIA!

Read P. Krugman, D. Baker, D. Sirota

2009-01-23T09:06:00.004-05:00

For two long the notion that government and taxes are the problem has dominated the economics debate. Finally, the ground is shifting, and we are beginning to talk about the importance of all paying their fair share. The rich have had the ear of Repubs since Reagan, but their "trickle-down, cut taxes" nonsense has not worked as they said it would, so it really is time to try the stimulus from the bottom-up approach.

From The NY Times:

2009-01-22T11:17:00.000-05:00

Mr. Blair called torture “not moral, legal or effective” and said any interrogation program would have to comply with the Geneva Conventions, the Convention against Torture and the Constitution.

Obama & Baby

2009-01-22T10:23:00.001-05:00

Another citizen impressed by our president's ability to connect.

2009-01-22T06:47:00.003-05:00

Here is a disturbing paragraph from the NY Times lead story about Obama.

"But the orders would leave unresolved complex questions surrounding the closing of the Guantánamo prison, including whether, where and how many of the detainees are to be prosecuted. They could also allow Mr. Obama to reinstate the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation operations in the future, by presidential order, as some have argued would be appropriate if Osama bin Laden or another top-level leader of Al Qaeda were captured."

This implies Obama would reinstate the old rules so we could torture Osama bin Laden. I don't think Mazetti and Glaberson understand the nature of President Obama's views on torture. Nor do I think they have been paying attention to the latest findings about the best way to secure needed information.

Obama's father was tortured by the British, and he will never "reinstate" its use by the CIA. He knows it is something we must repudiate unequivocally.

Reuters, Jim Bourg

2009-01-21T09:11:00.004-05:00

Best picture of the day! Clinton's look tells it all: "Man, this guy connects better then I do!"

Barack Hussein Obama acts like a devout Quaker: he really believes in and finds the divine spark in all people.

A New Day

2009-01-20T19:32:00.001-05:00

Pretty low-key speech from BHO today. I loved the line about putting away childish things: Grow up, America! I just read yesterday about his frequent contacts with McCain since the election. Obama acts like a really devout Quaker, finding the Divine spark in all he meets.

Dean Baker at The American Prospect:

2009-01-19T10:20:00.001-05:00

The credit system is undoubtedly facing considerable stress because so many banks are effectively bankrupt, but the economy is not in a downturn because banks aren't lending. It is in a downturn because we have just lost $6 trillion in housing wealth and $8 trillion in stock wealth. The expected effects of this loss of wealth is the huge falloff in consumption that is driving the downturn. The condition of the banks is very much a secondary issue.

2009-01-19T09:15:00.000-05:00

2009-01-17T20:34:00.002-05:00

From A MLK Jr Letter:

2009-01-17T11:04:00.000-05:00

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distort the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and awful. Paul Tillich said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression 'of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

2009-01-16T16:43:00.002-05:00

These are the gardens in winter, behind our home and a neighbor's. My wife's spot was in the foreground. This was 1975, our first winter in Bucks County.

Juan Cole Quotes Shakespere:

2009-01-16T07:39:00.001-05:00

"Ye gods, it doth amaze me,
A man of such a feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world,
And bear the palm alone. (1.2.129)

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings. (1.2.135)"

& She Wants To Be Prez!!!!!!!!!!

2009-01-13T17:30:00.000-05:00

Despite a season of barbs aimed at the coastal elites, Palin seemed to offer an olive branch to the Big Apple: "I would think we all tear up during the national anthem at the beginning of a baseball game, don't we? That's an alikeness between Alaskans and New Yorkers," she said.

From The American Prospect -

2009-01-06T15:49:00.002-05:00

The Washington Post Discovers Job Loss in Manufacturing

A Washington Post editorial yesterday commented on an issue brief from the Congressional Budget Office which, "shows just how precipitous the recent decline in manufacturing work has been: 22 percent since the 2001 recession."

What is most striking about this editorial is that it gives the impression that the Post's editors were unaware of the sharp decline in manufacturing jobs over the last decade. This is not secret information, it is data can be found on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website in a matter of seconds.

The Post is disturbed by the fact that: "The study will provide some ammunition for those inclined to blame free trade for American industry's plight," since it points out that an increase in imports was an important factor in the job loss. Actually, few people are likely to blame "free trade," they are far more likely to blame the current pattern of selective protectionism that largely shields more highly educated workers from foreign competition while explicitly forcing manufacturing workers to compete with the lowest paid workers in the world.

Standards "free trade" models show that the U.S. economy would experience large gains if it were as easy for a kid growing up in India to work as a doctor or lawyer or Washington Post editorial writer, as a kid growing up in the New York suburbs. Trade policy has done little to reduce the barriers that protect professionals from this sort of competition.

--Dean Baker

Posted at 08:51 AM | Comments (2)

The Stimulus Package

2009-01-05T12:30:00.002-05:00

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan is right up my alley! The way Obama is handling this is exactly as we might have hoped. He's giving some consessions to all sides.

2009 2009 2009 2009

2009-01-03T11:03:00.004-05:00

Been watching and sharing the Matt Harding video, Where the Hell is Matt (2008), and feeling so pleased and hopeful. Watching him dance (badly, as he says) with people from New Zealand, Los Angeles, New York, Mali, and Japan just warms the cockles of my old romantic heart.

For a couple of years I have been reading about the possibility of an historic realignment in US politics, and it seems to be happening.

Don't miss James Wolcott's insightful and entertaining article, The Good, The Bad, and Joe Lieberman in Vanity Fair about the election. A sample:

One of the most prominent shuffleboard players on the political-analyst scene, the hacktacular Mark Halperin, began the debunking with a Time-magazine piece confidently titled “Why Oprah Won’t Help Obama.” He conceded that Obama and Oprah together would be a photo-op orgasmatron. “So yes, expect loud, rousing rallies in all three early voting states when Oprah Winfrey comes to town with her friend Barack Obama in early December [2007], with gobs of media attention, raucous crowds, emotion and great pictures. But don’t expect those events to do anything productive to allow Obama to get over the biggest hurdle standing between him and the White House. American voters are not looking for a celebrity or talk show sidekick to lead them.” Undecided voters, Halperin speculated, might be turned off by such hullabaloo. “In that respect, Winfrey’s events might even be—dare it be said—counterproductive.

How can such a fine writer of fiction as Halperin be such a poor judge of the zeitgeist?

Dean Baker at The American Prospect

2009-01-01T12:24:00.000-05:00

The lead article in the New Year's Day edition of the Washington Post bemoaned the loss of $6.9 trillion in value in U.S. stock market last year. While those who own large amounts of stock have reason to shed tears, this may end being good news for the rest of us.

The loss of stock wealth means that stockholders have less claim to value of the country's output. The U.S. economy can produce just as much in 2009 as it did in 2008 (in fact somewhat more, because of labor force and productivity growth). If stockholders can demand less because of the reduced value of their stock, then this leaves more for the rest of us.

The most visible evidence of how the loss of stockholder wealth can benefit the rest of us was the sharp decline in consumer prices over the last three months. As a result, real wages rose at almost a 15 percent annual rate in the three months from September through November.

Of course, insofar as the demand generated by stockholders (and homeowners, who have also seen their wealth plummet) is not replaced by other sources, then workers are losing jobs. Eventually weakness in the labor market will put more downward pressure on real wages. However, if the loss of demand from stockholders is effectively replaced by demand from the government or foreign sector, then the vast majority of the country will be made better off by this plunge in stock prices.

The Post should have reporters who understand this fact.

--Dean Baker

Great Line!

2009-01-01T11:32:00.001-05:00

"What does he mean by that?" asked Metternich on hearing the news that Talleyrand had died.

TBogg:

2008-12-22T13:09:00.000-05:00

The only real difference between Dick Cheney and Ted Bundy is that Bundy felt a twinge of remorse at the end.

Oh. And Bundy never shot a friend in the face while drunk. So score one for Ted.

Paul Rosenberg:

2008-12-21T17:37:00.001-05:00

Put simply, the GOP has basically had TWO ideas since 1932: (1) Kill the New Deal and anything related to it. (2) Promote Republicans as heroic saviors and attack Democrats as depraved traitors who hate America and are trying to destroy it.... All the other ideas Republicans have had since then have simply been tactical or strategic weaponry to advance those two basic ideas, split the Democratic base, shift blame, or otherwise gain political advantage, regardless of any real-world policy consequences. In short, Republican ideas revolve around the long-term struggle for political power, based on controlling political and quasi-political institutions, and thus controlling the political discourse.

From Atrios At Eschaton:

2008-12-19T09:38:00.001-05:00

Liars

They lied. Hundreds of thousands of people died. Then they lied about lying.

How they live with themselves I do not know. How the Villagers get more upset about, say, John Edwards' big house than this stuff I do not know.

From The Anchorage Daily News:

2008-12-19T08:21:00.000-05:00

Sherry L. Johnston was arrested by Alaska State Troopers at her Wasilla home Thursday December 18, 2008 and charged with six felony counts of misconduct involving a controlled substance. Johnston is the mother of Levi Johnston, the Wasilla 18-year-old who received international attention in September when Gov. Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, announced their teenage daughter was pregnant and he was the father.

Brian Rose In Vanity Fair:

2008-12-18T10:39:00.001-05:00

“We were done a tremendous disservice by the administration,” one official says. “We had no background in this; it’s not something we do. They stuck us with a totally unwelcome job and left us hanging out to dry. I’m worried that the next administration is going to prosecute the guys who got involved, and there won’t be any presidential pardons at the end of it. It would be O.K. if it were John Ashcroft or Alberto Gonzales. But it won’t be. It’ll be some poor G.S.-13 [bureaucrat] who was just trying to do his job.”

Scott Ritter In UK Guardian:

2008-12-17T14:27:00.001-05:00

Invading Iraq and removing Saddam, the glue that held that nation together as a secular entity, was the worst action the US could have undertaken for the people of Iraq, the Middle East as a whole and indeed the entire world. For Cheney to articulate otherwise, regardless of his fundamentally flawed argument on WMD, only demonstrates the level to which fantasy has intruded into the mind of the vice-president.

Juan Cole At Informed Comment

2008-12-16T10:05:00.000-05:00

The cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars now stands at over $900 billion, with nearly $700 billion of that accounted for by Iraq alone. When the cost of past US wars is adjusted for inflation, only the expenditures on WW II exceed the price of the Iraq War. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz expects the total cost, when health care for wounded vets over their lifetime is taken into account, to reach $3 trillion.

LTC Bob For Eric Alterman At Media Matters

2008-12-15T17:43:00.001-05:00

You may be a pacifist. That's fine. Several, indeed dozens of Altercators who have written to me in the past have asserted such about themselves. My point, however, remains. If you want to be an effective pacifist, then you need to understand the military. If you want to effect change, either for pacifist or humanitarian reasons, then you need to have a firm grip on the realities of war and violence. It is not enough to shout slogans, put up a website, and march. You must be able to intelligently debate, without emotion, how your vision might realistically be put into effect. Which is why you must understand the counterpoint, the one by which I live. You must understand how moral men and women conceive of the use of force.

From Juan Cole at Informed Comment:

2008-12-15T09:29:00.000-05:00

The frequent US bombing of civilian Iraqi cities that are already under US military occupation has been one of the most under-reported stories of the Iraq War.

Glenn Greenwald On The Bush Administration:

2008-12-13T16:13:00.000-05:00

"The rule of law has essentially ceased to exist."

Joseph Stiglitz In Vanity Fair:

2008-12-11T14:22:00.001-05:00

The truth is most of the individual mistakes boil down to just one: a belief that markets are self-adjusting and that the role of government should be minimal. Looking back at that belief during hearings this fall on Capitol Hill, Alan Greenspan said out loud, “I have found a flaw.” Congressman Henry Waxman pushed him, responding, “In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right; it was not working.” “Absolutely, precisely,” Greenspan said. The embrace by America—and much of the rest of the world—of this flawed economic philosophy made it inevitable that we would eventually arrive at the place we are today.

From Matt Yglesias at Think Progress

2008-12-09T17:17:00.000-05:00

The Basics

Early childhood policy in Finland in a nutshell:

Mothers are entitled to five weeks maternity leave. After that, there’s a parental leave period of ten additional months that can be taken by either mother or father or divided between the two. After that, children have an “unconditional right to day care.” That can be provided either at municipal-run institutions or else at private ones. There are fees day care charged on a sliding scale according to income that max out at 233 euros per month. That’s far less than the cost of care, which, clearly, is heavily subsidized. A family that prefers to have a parent stay home and take care of the children can do so and receives a home care subsidy. Thus, the system is neutral between traditional and working-mother models. About 30 percent of Helsinki children are in the home care / allowance system.

Private daycare facilities are eligible for the same level of public subsidy as municipally run ones. This isn’t really a profitable line of work and so there aren’t many providers — just five percent of Helsinki children are enrolled in a private center.

That leaves the other 65 percent of Helsinki kids in the municipal centers. Centers have two kinds of staff members — “kindergarden teachers” who have bachelor’s degrees and “practical nurses” who have less education. For every four children under the age of three you need one staff member. For every seven children between the ages of 3-6 you need one staff member. And for every two practical nurses you need one kindergarden teacher. So a section of 21 older kids would be taught by one kindergarden teacher assisted by two practical nurses.

The Future of The GOP

2008-11-19T14:24:00.005-05:00

In her column today Kathleen Parker points out the GOP will not survive if the party continues to associate itself with religious extremists. Can the GOP remove abortion and gay marriage from the debate and still win?

I doubt it. With only unbridled capitalism, which has been thoroughly discredited, left for the Republicans to run on, one wonders if the GOP can survive. I know we said before that the GOP was dead, following Nixon and Watergate, but Barack Obama is no Jimmy Carter.

The Sirius Star was carrying Saudi oil worth more than $1200 million when it was hijacked by pirates at the weekend

2008-11-19T12:47:00.003-05:00

I was stunned by the breadth of this tanker. And, imagine, pirates still roaming the high seas!

Tibetans, Chinese Meet

2008-11-18T11:41:00.002-05:00

In Indian the Tibetan gov in exile met with reps from the Chinese gov.

Code Names

2008-11-12T11:31:00.000-05:00

President-elect Obama: Renegade
Michelle Obama: Renaissance
Malia Obama: Radiance
Sasha Obama: Rosebud
Vice President-elect Joe Biden: Celtic
Jill Biden: Capri

Chris Bower at Open Left

2008-11-10T08:18:00.001-05:00

Consider three major cultural trends in America that have largely taken place over the past twenty years:

Internet Rising: Over the past twenty years, the rise of the network neutral Internet has been, by a long way, the biggest change to the national media landscape. Fully 55% Americans are not just online, but have high-speed connections, and the Internet is now the #2 source of news in the country, trailing only television. Twenty years ago, virtually no one was online, and the world wide web wasn't even created.
The Rise of Non-Christian America. The number of self-identified non-Christians has slightly more than doubled since 1990 and now totals 21.6% of the population.
The Rise of a Non-White America: While the Census does not measure ethnic / racial statistics the same way every ten years, thus making long-term trends somewhat difficult to pin down, twenty years ago non-whites formed 15% of the electorate, much lower than the 26% in the 2008 election. That is an increase of about one-half percent every year for the past twenty years.

Via Daily Kos

2008-11-10T07:55:00.001-05:00

Roger Cohen:

I’ve had countless uplifting e-mails in recent days that, in different ways, have been about a moral reorientation, a reaching out, the rediscovery of the ways in which we can be our brothers’ and our sisters’ keepers. Diana Strelow, 73, of Portsmouth, Va., put it this way:

"My vote for Obama was and is about my hope that an intelligent, self-respecting president will lead to a renewal of civility on the part of all of us — perhaps a renewal even of the love that Americans once had for each other."

QOTD #2

2008-11-09T09:41:00.001-05:00

Obama's gift is that he understood America's great secret, that Americans have a deep and abiding need to love one another, and that we only lack the courage to do so. --A. Serwer at The American Prospect blog.

Quote Of The Day

2008-11-09T09:36:00.000-05:00

King trusted whites to stand up. Obama showed me he was right.

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

44

2008-11-07T17:11:00.001-05:00

Amazing it is! And today, at his presser he calls himself a "mutt!"

As we once said about another shocker, the world will never be the same.

Studies of "Racists and Rednecks for Obama" have begun, I'm sure. I'm going to watch his race speech again. That speech, I think, is comparable to Lincoln's NYC Cooper Union address in that both saved a campaign.

From The American Prospect blog:

2008-11-05T09:38:00.001-05:00

WE'RE ALL AMERICANS NOW.

On April 26, 1964 Malcolm X spoke in Cleveland Ohio. The speech, called The Ballot or the Bullet, was basically an ultimatum--blacks would have rights or they would claim them, by violence if necessary. Malcolm said "when I speak, I don’t speak as a Democrat, or a Republican, nor an American. I speak as a victim of America’s so-called democracy. You and I have never seen democracy; all we’ve seen is hypocrisy."

Today, we saw something different, something Malcolm could never have foreseen. A biracial man with a Muslim father and an Arabic/Swahili name, reared by his white grandparents, has ascended to the highest position in American politics. This was not Malcolm's dream. It was not something he saw as possible. Another man saw it, a man Obama paid homage to tonight when he said "we may not get there in one year or in one term, but America I promise you, we as a people will get there." That man knew he would not get here with us, and he was right. But we could not have come here without him. And we still have a ways to go.

The devastation on 9/11 Malcolm would have shrugged his shoulders at. And in the grim aftermath of the attacks, we were supposedly united. But it soon became clear that we would be more divided than we had ever been before. Palin's assertion that there is a real America and a fake America was shocking because it was a frank admission of what the red-blue divide really was, a competition over who could speak as an American. Who Americans really are. After 2000, and even more after 2004, as America divided itself along all too familiar lines, blue state Americans were afflicted with a nagging anxiety: Is this not our country?

Obama's gift is that he understood America's great secret, that Americans have a deep and abiding need to love one another, and that we only lack the courage to do so. The theme of Obama's campaign has been a simple affirmation that we are in fact, one, in ways Malcolm never could have though possible and in ways Martin Luther King only dreamed of.

Red Staters should take heart in the knowledge that this ideal is not exclusive. Obama's victory does not mean this is no longer your country. It is not the country conservatives believed it was, but it is theirs as much as it is ours. This is a nation of whites, blacks, Asians and Latinos, gay and straight, conservatives and liberals, small towns and coastal metropolises. No passion can ever break our bonds of affection, no matter how often it may seem so. McCain was wrong: this isn't a proud moment for African-Americans. This is a proud moment for America.

And maybe, just maybe, in the coming years, we can all learn to live with that. Surely those whose shoulders we stand on would have wanted us to, even if they could never see it coming.

--A. Serwer

The Obama Effect

2008-11-04T22:12:00.002-05:00

Looking at early Obama states, most are voting 5 to 6 points higher FOR Barack than polls indicated. We have people voting for Obama who'd rather not talk about it.

Anticipation!

2008-10-30T10:17:00.003-04:00

"A WORLD SERIES WE CAN BELIEVE IN?....A friend points out that the last time the Phillies won the Series was October 1980, ushering in the election of Ronald Reagan and a long era of conservative ascendancy. Tonight the Phillies won again. Another sign of a new era in politics? Maybe!" - Kevin Drum, Mother Jones magazine blogger.

Yesterday, I read somewhere online that Obama plans to have his election night rally in Grant Park! This, of course, is the park where the FDR coalition fell apart in the1968 police riot.

Fishing Vessel Sinks in Bearing Sea

2008-10-29T15:37:00.003-04:00

The Katmai

Sarah Palin should go home. Only four fishermen survived when their boat sank in a hurricane. Seven died when they abandoned ship in the Amchitka Pass connecting The Pacific Ocean and Bearing Sea in Alaska. Her State needs her.

To watch testimony from a 38 y/o Japanese-German survivor, go here.

Palin Supporters

2008-10-25T08:44:00.002-04:00

The only slice of the electorate that Sarah Palin has held onto is guys who paint their bodies and stand shirtless in freezing weather.

Sarah Silverman

2008-10-24T12:16:00.002-04:00

Jobs, Baby, Jobs!

2008-10-22T13:31:00.002-04:00

Clinton job creation, dark blue; Bush, light blue.

The Make-Over: What Went Wrong?

2008-10-22T09:48:00.000-04:00

What would have happened had Palin and her brood been put up in motels and purchased their clothing at Walmart? McCain should have made 'em take public transportation, and take their meals at bars.

From Firedoglake's C.H. Smith:

2008-10-22T09:26:00.000-04:00

We are all reaping the fetid, stale whirlwind sown by republicans -- "I got mine. Screw you."

Palin's $150,000.00 Clothing Buys

2008-10-22T09:02:00.000-04:00

On The Page: [McCain] Campaign spokesperson contends in a statement that it was always the intention to give the clothes to charity after the campaign.

Adds it's "remarkable" the media is spending time "talking about pantsuits and blouses" with the other important issues in this election.

One of the most important issues is the corruption of the Republican Party, so keep those expense reports coming.

Palin in 2012? HA!

2008-10-22T08:28:00.000-04:00

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post seems to think Palin is a viable candidate for president in 2012. Nonsense! Not only has she shown herself to be unprepared for any office above smalltown mayor, her crooked behavior as governor is becoming more apparent everyday.

David Brooks

2008-10-21T11:57:00.000-04:00

David Brooks is fighting against the tide. Using some composite of himself and his first cousins as the everyman of the moment, he argues that this is no time for going into debt.

What horse shit. He was fine for going into debt to bail out AIG, but now wants to put on the brakes for spending on the middle class.

Brooks calls this a "back-to-basics moment." He means: now that we've bailed out the wealthiest among us, lets get back to basic, crony capitalism, i.e., no help for the middle class.