Common Sense for Uncommon Times - Fair and Balanced |
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Random, occasionally rambling thoughts with links to interesting, scandalous, or partisan news of the day. Fair and Balanced 
We owe the liberty and freedom we take for granted to the enlisted men and women in the armed forces. They sacrifice family, ease, and even life laboring in service to all of us. The least we can do for them is honor their devotion with dignified pay scales, decent education for themselves and their children, and reasonable compensation for service away from their families and death on the battlefield. Flag waving politicians who praise the troops on one hand and cut their pay and benefits with the other should be deeply ashamed of themselves.
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Thursday, August 28, 2003
The GIP has a certain ring to it, with all due respect to the Romany people. Ineptitude Redefined. by Michael Tomasky takes a cool, hard look at the incompetence of the current ruling party and challenges the Democrats to make something out of it. posted by Dave on 11:40 PM | 0 comments link -------------------- Wednesday, August 27, 2003
I'm Shocked. The Bush Administration really surprised me by issuing this rule on Wednesday. Couldn't they have waited until it would REALLY get lost on the Labor Day weekend? posted by Dave on 2:42 PM | 0 comments link -------------------- Friday, August 22, 2003
Four 9/11 Moms Battle Bush This powerful article calls the Bush Administration on the stonewalling and obstruction they are using to block serious investigation of 9/11. It's a personal story, but the storyline weaves in the FBI, the White House, and a plot detailing incompetence and neglect by our public officials. Read it. posted by Dave on 8:35 AM | 0 comments link -------------------- Wednesday, August 20, 2003
Health care paperwork costs a bundle. No surprise you say? According to the New England Journal of Medicine, US health costs compared with Canada yield results showing huge administrative costs unknown in Canada. I suggest they merely look at some CEO salaries in insurance and HMO groups to find key culprits, but this study is good fodder for an overdue national discussion about covering the uninsured and uninsurable. posted by Dave on 11:13 PM | 0 comments link -------------------- Monday, August 18, 2003
Kevin Drum, aka CalPundit, points out that President Bush is much more inaccurate on his knowledge of troop strengths than Howard Dean was when he got raked over the coals. Chances of Bush being brought up on ignorance charges? Right. Last time I checked the Commander in Chief role was one that didn't call for month long vacations while troops are deployed in 130 degree temperatures. Bush ought to get his ass over to Iraq and see how his boys are doing. posted by Dave on 11:21 PM | 0 comments link -------------------- Saturday, August 16, 2003
Recall, Recall. Read all about it. Max Blumenthal tells all about the players behind the recall. posted by Dave on 10:44 PM | 0 comments link
Too ironic for much comment. Bush Pioneer and Cheney Energy Task Force advisor (maybe) leads company responsible for massive power blackout. Time for the tin foil hat boys to get seriously concerned. posted by Dave on 10:17 PM | 0 comments link
Katharine Seelye is a leading candidate to be considered as the worst journalist in the world. She wrote an energy article that includes a paragraph about the California energy crisis that is a classic to match her worst work on Al Gore in 2002. Here's the bomb. Two years ago California suffered a series of temporary blackouts as demand for electricity outpaced older power plants, while a botched experiment with partial price deregulation and environmental opposition created disincentives to build new plants. Wholesale electricity prices spiraled out of control, pushing the state's two private utilities to the brink of bankruptcy as they were left buying power at market rates at costs they could not pass on to the consumer. To the average reader, that might be that. But to those of us who suffered through the blackout, the rip off, the FERC fiasco, and the eventual revelations about evil market manipulation, the paragraph fails spectacularly to tell the truth. Not a single word about artificially shutting down plants. Not a single word about lying to the regulatory authority about false trades Not a single word about shipping electricity out of state to faux buyers and returning it at inflated rates. Not a single word about El Paso manipulating natural gas prices through illegal pipeline management. Not a single word about false congestion charges. Not a single word about Enron, Reliant, Mirant, or any of the other firms who have already admitted wrongdoing in legal proceedings. Not a single word about California's 20% electricity surplus this summer, still on Gray Davis's watch and with plants built under his encouragement. Instead of a full throated voicing of the evidence of artificial manipulation, all Ms. Seelye can muster is the passive voiced "electricity prices spiraled out of control" as if this was a blockbuster tornado rather than a choreographed event. Lousy writing from a proven lousy writer. If Seelye is on the beat you can bet there are vested interests who will be politely ignored in her reporting. See the incomparable Daily Howler for the world's best coverage of her lying ways. And always remember that California was the victim of Republican, Texan energy interests. The recall and associated attacks on Gray Davis for his mismanagement of the energy crisis are very convenient for this administration. Any time you can take the Crawford Twit's performance and the troops dying in Iraq out of the headlines and replace it with Arnold and those wacky Californians, you are succeeding in Rove's fondest goal. Hide the Bush. The article Seelye should have written would have a lead paragraph like this:. Cheney, Bush and Delay continue to stymie needed reforms to secure America's energy future. Common sense upgrades and economic jump starts are avoided in pursuit of the Holy Grail of ANWAR and the opening of other public lands to private energy interests. The Republican energy bill, shephered by accused extortionist Billy Tauzin of Louisiana, offers deep subsidies for nuclear, coal, and oil and a slap upside the head for conservation, the most immediate, most job creating, and most American energy measure. posted by Dave on 10:09 AM | 0 comments link
Partisans keep trying to plug Cheney's report on energy. Even normally wise Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit was silly enough to link to a pro-Cheney energy report site. Partisans will choose up sides, but this NRDC press release links to an offical Department of Energy document that squashed Cheney's ideas before they were even issued. The Bush team didn't even bother to look at the non partisan US DOE evidence before drawing up their plans (including maps of Iraqi oil fields). If you want an anti-science administration, you've sure as hell got one now: Stem cell research Global warming Faith based prison reform Energy policy Forest policy Effective family planning and AIDS prevention posted by Dave on 12:37 AM | 0 comments link -------------------- Friday, August 15, 2003
As the Watergate journalists said, "What did he know and when did he know it?" This press release from Democratic Congressman Sam Farr makes it clear which party is to blame for the failure of the electrical grid. If Tom Delay wasn't so busy trying to reapportion Texas, he might have had some time to study the energy crisis. posted by Dave on 11:52 PM | 0 comments link
Greg Palast recaps the brilliant effort to deregulate electricity in the last decade. Brilliant failure and the brilliant stars at night as the power dies in the North East. He ends with a celebration of California's chance to recall the only governor who stood up to big energy and to Bush's pirates. Read it. Since I'm on an energy roll and Dick Cheney's pathetic excuse for an energy report is once again receiving praise, it's time for Let's Tell the Truth. Here's a Clueless length diatribe I wrote in the spring of 2001: April 30, 2001: Vice President Cheney leaked the rough draft for the oil industry's assault on the environment, California, and the citizens of the United States today. The oligopolists of the late 19th Century would roll over in their graves if they could see the extent to which today's energy companies are running roughshod over the public good and the timid leadership of FERC. If there was ever a case for "just and reasonable" rates to be enforced (a FERC mandate), it's today's ripoff rates and record profits. According to Cheney and his fellow oil travelers, conservation and renewables have only a tiny place to play in the energy future of the United States. Coal and nuclear are the big winners, and the environment will be the first casualty of the proposed energy strategy. The shortsighted commitment to the extraction industries shows the lack of critical thinking plaguing leadership at the Federal level today. Some approximate highlights: Cut solar programs by 50% Cut wind programs by 50% Cut new generation of vehicles partnership by 50% Cut hydrogen (the energy silver bullet of the future) by 50% Increase coal spending Invade the Arctic wilderness Open coastal areas for drilling and exploration Increase nuclear generation I'll break rank with my brothers and sisters who are environmental purists and suggest that nuclear energy may have a place in the mix for the future, but only if we deal with it rationally and carefully. I think the global warming issues are serious enough to reopen that Pandora's Box, especially when you look at coal and oil as the alternatives. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Back of my Envelope: My pencil isn't unduly sharp, but try to follow along with a little mental exercise. Enron appears to many people as a "bad guy" company, but they're just playing the game with everyone else. They also happen to make the best domestic US wind turbines. (Ed..GE Wind now owns this wind business) Why Ken Ley isn't whispering "WIND" in George Bush's ear baffles me, particularly since west Texas has some of the best wind resources in the United States. Okay, here's the exercise: a 1.5 Megawatt wind turbine costs about 1.5 million bucks. Call it a million dollars a megawatt Oil fired plants cost half that much, but require fuel for each watt of power generated. At today's electricity prices, you can pay for a brand new power plant in one to two years. The sharks are keeping that for profit. If we invested state money in wind turbines, the electricity would be free for the life of the wind turbine. California uses about 43,000 megawatts of peak power. Let's assume we want to replace all this power generation with wind. At retail prices for wind turbines, 43,000 megawatts would cost 43 billion dollars. We don't have enough wind in California, so we would have to locate wind turbines in North Dakota, Wyoming, Texas, etc.. In the first four months of this year, we have already spent on emergency power purchases 10% of the money needed to build our massive collection of wind turbines . In four years, California could be entirely wind powered for all our electricity needs, and we would have frequent surpluses to sell to other states. Now we all know the wind doesn't blow all the time, so wind turbines aren't enough. so, we spend ten or fifteen billion on photovoltaics, high efficiency motors, cool community technologies, methane conversion from animal wastes, AND a couple of modern power plants AND a LNG port so we can get our natural gas from Brunei or Indonesia or Australia if El Paso decides to jack up the price again. I don't know about you, but I think being held hostage really sucks and I don't want to put up with it. F--k FERC. Here's a couple of additional factoids for you. In the four years it would take to invest in new wind systems, ANWAR pipelines would not even be operational. The California wind turbines would produce more electricity in one year than all of ANWAR's oil. George Bush's $1.6 Trillion tax cut, if spent on renewables, conservation, and R&D, would power the United States forever. No more imports of oil...ever. The creation of a massive US renewables and conservation industry would be our next engine of growth and the foundation of a new export boom...instead of massive oil import debt. The leadership of the US on global warming issues would restore our role as leaders rather than our current status as a whining, poor citizen of the world. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CAL ISO: Fighting back for you: Most folks don't read small print, legal filings, or obscure web sites, but I wanted to alert you to a nasty legal war going on. CAL ISO, an often maligned organization has some heroes fighting the good fight for the general public and they have been ripping the arguments of the oligopolists to shreds. In the last battle, the evil oil empire was reduced to saying our team couldn't fight because the tassles on their loafers were too short or something equally bizarre. We caught them with their tentacles in the cookie jar and they said it wasn't fair for us to look. I was reminded of the classic Blues Brothers scene where Carrie Fisher is ready to machine-gun John Belushi and he spouts off a long string of excuses why he missed their wedding...ran out of gas, car broke down, taxi got lost, and on and on....Same thing with the oil guys. The Governor may have no clothes, but CAL ISO is on a righteous roll. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why F--K FERC? FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, has the worst record, the least backbone, and the roundest heels of any commission at any level of government that I have studied. Their charter expressly commands them to make sure rates are "just and reasonable", but they have gone out of their way to make sure that NO billing has been ruled unreasonable and that TINY refunds were all that were due to the ripped-off ratepayers in California. PG&E was FERC'ed. That's why they declared Chapter 11. You may think they deserved to be FERC'ed, but we're all left holding the bag. Here's the latest FERC ruling rendered in English: You can only FERC the ratepayers 95-98%% of the time. When we have blackouts you can only gouge, not FERC them. FERCing them was okay all last year and this year. FERC the ratepayers. No refunds. Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Lest you think I'm letting the Great State of California and my fellow citizens (and me) off the hook, let me disabuse you of that notion. We're very efficient with electricity, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that California has one of the best climates in the world, particularly coastal California. Not too hot, not too cold; you can just about manage without heating and air conditioning at all. Think of the poor devils in the nasty climates of Atlanta or Buffalo. No wonder they use more energy than we do. Our biggest collective sin has been complacency. Our brothers and sisters were getting reamed last summer and we stood by and did nothing. It's going to happen to us all, and we should have been smarter. Our biggest governmental sin (and there are plenty to choose from) was the deregulation itself. When you read the fine print about the market clearing auctions it makes you want to puke. I talked to one honorable Oklahoma company that stopped selling us power because we were paying them more than $100 for electricity they bid and wanted to sell us for $12. Is this insane or what? We let the wolves into the chicken coop; hell we let them build it and put their own locks on the doors. This was all esoteric mumbo jumbo when it happened, but now that we see what's going on, it's up to us to stop it. (8/15/03 update) I don't claim any special prescience, but it was clear 2.5 years ago that Cheney's energy plan was idiotic before it was even released. His call for a new power plant to be built every week was laughable, unprofitable even then, and a waste of capital resources. I personally think Gray Davis dawdled when San Diego first got reamed by high rates, but he has been a staunch and vigorous proponent of California's rights. Nobody else, including Ken Ley's personal buddy, Arnold Schwarzenegger, can claim to have fought the good fight on our behalf. If somebody needs to get tossed out of office becaue you're in a bad mood, start with Cheney and Bush. posted by Dave on 5:01 PM | 0 comments link -------------------- Thursday, August 14, 2003
Ed Epstein of the SF Chronicle blow another hole in the arguments of Republicans that they are the party of security and defense. They're going to cut the hazard pay and separation pay of our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. He reports (in a separate email) to getting heavy traffic because of this article. I'm not surprised. The American people almost unanimously support treating our troops with respect. Why doesn't President Bush? posted by Dave on 11:18 AM | 0 comments link -------------------- Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Dog day blogging. I can't stir up too much enthusiasm about the recall, but I came across three interesting articles from the last few years that each reminded me about an important issue that's taking a backseat to less important news today. Al Gore won the election. That's a radioactive comment in many circles, but a careful counting of all votes cast in Florida has Gore as the victor by approximately 100 votes. Read Jacob Weisber's article from nearly two years ago and remember that Gore's request for a partial recount would have still given the election to Bush. The only scenario that helped Gore win was for him to ask for a recount in all counties, including the heavily Bush favoring panhandle. Davis needs to dump on Cheney and Enron. People have forgotten how forsaken California was in the early days of the Bush administration We were being raped by Bush's friends and he stood back and watched. Cheney even smirked that it was our own fault for our provocative conservation policies. David Corn has a long and thoughtful piece from fifteen months ago about a saner energy strategy for our country. In the meantime, Davis needs to get busy bashing the greedy bastards that started our slide into near bankruptcy. Finally, another Corn essay, this time on ethics. He makes the eminently reasonable argument that the ethics laws regulating the men and women who govern us should be as strict as the rules of....McDonalds. They're not. posted by Dave on 11:30 PM | 0 comments link
Who's in play this year. Actions and inaction by the administration have moved three groups of voters from the solid Republican camp into active play for the next election. These have all been key supporters and are desperately needed by the Rove team to ensure that President Bush doesn't join his father under the classic bumper sticker slogan, "Like father, like son, one term..." The three groups that I'll bring to your attention are the enlisted military, Cuban Americans, and Arab Americans. They all played key roles for President Bush's 2000 selection to the presidency. The loss of any one of them could torpedo his chances in 2004, and the loss of all three would almost inevitably be an irrecoverable calamity...for Bush. It would be great for the country. The military community has been one that Republicans have taken for granted. The distaste for President Clinton personally and his policy of "don't ask, don't tell" was widely held throughout all the ranks. In retrospect, President Clinton took damn good care of the military. The troops he handed over to President Bush's administration were capable of taking down Afghanistan and Iraq with ease. In addition, Clinton took care to take care of the enlisted personnel as well as he could. It was clear, in any case, that he didn't regard them as cannon fodder. In the last few months there has been a virtual reversal of fortunes for the Republican party with respect to the military. Whether it was cutting hazard pay, stiffing soldiers on the child tax credit, cutting funding for schools serving military bases, shafting retired veterans on disability pensions or just not delivering the mail, there is a lot of hostility among the troops. They've seen the flag waving. They've seen the campaigns built on their backs that have trampled honored veterans like Max Cleland. Most of all, however, they think they're being poorly led. They don't like it. Cuban Americans can't abide the returning of people fleeing Cuba. The wet feet dry feet compromise worked out between Clinton and Castro was supposed to be dumped by Bush in favor of letting all the refugees stay. Well, it hasn't worked out that way and the Florida Cuban community is pissed off. The NY Times has a nice piece about it today. The final group that Rove was counting on to help carry Michigan was Arab Americans. President Bush won a huge majority among this community in 2000 and would have carried them again except for the minor blip of 9/11. To Bush's enduring credit, he has been a model statesman encouraging all Americans to eschew bigotry and religious prejudice. Unfortunately, many members of his camp, especially the religious right, have preached hatred of the Islamic faith. Couple that with the sheer incompetence of the Bush interventions and their relative indifference to the Palestinians (until recently) and you have a recipe for a massive shift of votes in favor of the Democrats. This community is making its proud American voice heard in spite of Ashcroft and the badly named Patriot Act. None of these groups are especially large ranging from perhaps a million votes among the military and the same among Arab Americans to half that for the Cuban Americans. However, the Cuban Americans and the military are heavily weighted in Florida, an absolutely essential state for President Bush to carry. In 2000 he carried it by a nominal 570 votes, but it was clear that without the confusion of the butterfly ballot and the candidacy of Ralph Nader, Bush would have easily lost Florida. A tanked economy, giant budget outlays to support our efforts in Iraq, and a military coming off a second successive hot Iraqi summer could turn the tide against AWOL Texas ANG Lieutenant Bush in 2004. posted by Dave on 12:39 AM | 0 comments link -------------------- Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Uggabugga has the all the meanings hidden in "fair and balanced. In any case, I'd never linked to uggabugga before so I just had to get that into the blog somehow. This is as good as any other excuse to link to this always creative site. posted by Dave on 7:35 PM | 0 comments link -------------------- Monday, August 11, 2003
E J Dionne pegs it this morning. I won't give away his column, but let me just say that if you're a hypocritical Clinton bashing Republican, you better not claim Democrats are off base for going after your favorite little Bush. posted by Dave on 11:27 PM | 0 comments link
Arnold's money...should keep him out of the poor house. Let me give him credit for two things. First, he's an entrepreneur, an actor, a hard worker, and a concerned citizen who is working on children's issues with passion and his own resources. Second, as this report makes clear, he pays his fair share of taxes. If every wealthy American paid the same portion of their multi-million dollar incomes as Arnold, the country wouldn't be running a deficit. What do you mean, I hear you ask. Well, grasshopper, Arnold paid about 30% of his income in the form of taxes. He also donated just under 10% of his income to charity. That's the picture of a model citizen who pays his fair share and helps those less fortunate. His cohorts in the upper income ranks don't fare nearly as well. The latest reports showed the average income tax rate paid by the 400 tax filers with the highest incomes in 2000 was 22.29 percent, up from 22.23 percent in 1999 but below a recent peak of 29.35 percent in 1993. Of $69.57 billion in adjusted gross income reported by the top 400 filers in 2000, about $44.53 billion was made through capital gains, Burman said "Capital gains is the linchpin of every tax shelter I know of, except for municipal bonds," he said. Capital gains are generally taxed at a lower rate than wages for all but low-income taxpayers. With the tax package passed in May, the rate will fall to 15 percent Arnold is still paying at the Clinton era rates. The rest of the richest will be paying at half his rate next year. Is it fair that the union man who works with his body should pay twice what someone who coasts by on grandpa's portfolio pays? I think Arnold should terminate the unjust clauses and elevate the rest of the richest 400 to the tax paying level he endures. Let's face it; if you make around thirty million a year, having to live on only twenty million is still a reasonable thing to do. As a final Arnold suggestion, may I offer an extension of FICA withholding to every dollar of income from any source. As GWB is fond of pointing out, FICA isn't really a tax (so the poor lucky duckies won't get the child tax credit), so raising FICA isn't really raising taxes...is it? posted by Dave on 5:34 PM | 0 comments link
Katherine Harris... booed at a town hallmeeting: Security guards and Harris' staff confiscated any written material people tried to bring into the hall. Why was it again that the voters of Florida thought this party hack would be a good representative? posted by Dave on 5:13 PM | 0 comments link
Arnold unlit...Cigar aficionado has a 2000 bio of Arnold's love affair with good cigars. I think a good cigar is a wonderful thing myself and cannot fail to be impressed with Arnold's mastery of such arcana as leaf, wrapper, and violation of federal import regulations. For those concerned about Arnold's reputation as a womanizer, what would I know. What I did appreciate was this comment about the Republican platform: "The Republicans have a good chance to capture the White House this year, Schwarzenegger says, but they're "going about it the wrong way. I don't like all this flag-waving and rhetoric. I wish they'd talk about the issues--especially the family. That's the most important problem we have--the breakdown of the family--and no one is doing anything about it." Cool how with one paragraph Arnold shot Bush's entire 2004 campaign strategy out of the water. Flag waving and rhetoric is all Bush has got. He can't be happy to have the potential governor of California getting into office and blaming Bush for deficits, wars, and the demise of the family. Go Arnold. I'm voting No on the Recall and Yes on Bustamante, but a small part of the back of my mind wants to see Arnold step into the pile of shit the Republicans in the state government have made. "I'll be back" only goes so far when the deficit is $38 billion, and "hasta, la vista, Baby" may end a movie, but when you're broke in Sacramento, there's always an "hasta", and the people are always "la vista". Baby. He may regret the day he gave up his Hoyo de Monterrey for a shot at governing this wonderful and magnificent state. posted by Dave on 4:45 PM | 0 comments link -------------------- Saturday, August 09, 2003
A Washington Post editorial today takes issue with Al Gore's rhetorical spanking of George Bush and the meek media this week. As the company newspaper in the world's most insular and self absorbed town, it's reasonable to expect they'd be feeling a sore backside after the former Vice President was finished with his tour de force. Today's editorial continues the dismal failure of the Bush era Post to rise from the prone position even to defend itself. In the same issue with this self serving editorial is a brilliant article agreeing with most of Mr. Gore's assertions. When a paper suffers serious disconnects between the journalism and editorial sides, you can assume serious interference by vested interests. Nobody is more guilty of this than the Wall Street Journal, but the Post is giving them a run for their money. I referenced this earlier with a Harvard Study discussing levels of partisan ferocity. It would serve the Post editorial writers well to read more of what their reporters are writing. I recommend Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus in particular for their recent hard hitting reporting. Please not the deliberate absence of reference to Bob Woodward. He is no longer a practicing journalist, but an authorial hack with a vested interest in telling pleasing stories. posted by Dave on 11:49 PM | 0 comments link
The sound of stuck pigs squealing. Cheney's energy task force loses battle after battle in the courts in their effort to deny the public's right to know how this administration forms their energy policy. What are they afraid of? The secret maps of Iraq falling into the wrong hands? Today's filings by the busy marijuana-busting, judge-nanny, terror fighters in the Ashcroft Star Chamber was to obstruct again the clear orders of the courts. posted by Dave on 11:34 PM | 0 comments link
Mea Culpa. It's true. I did support the Iraqi intervention. Bring on the stocks, the cudgels, and the laughing, taunting public. I admit that I believed that even George Bush would not stoop so low as to invent false evidence to take the country to war. In any case, the war is a done deal and we need to win the peace. Friedman has a new column about a pair of clerics that are pushing for a liberal Islam with separation of church and state. It's a promising article and represents the evolution of the Middle East all sane people should be hoping for. My fond hope is that Bush doesn't cut and run here like he did in Afghanistan. The stakes are too high. posted by Dave on 11:10 PM | 0 comments link
The Boy Wonder, even from Crawford, just can't stop his fibbing. The thuggish and evil bombing of the Jordanian embassy in Iraq is probably the work of Al Qaeda. There's no reason to doubt the reasoning that the jihadis are going to try to harm the US and our allies in regions where they can operate with impugnity. In line with that argument, it's hard to conceive of more chaotic and fertile terrain for al Qaeda than current Afghanistan and Iraq. I agree fully with the arguments of the Bush team that al Qaeda is still active. However, the quick identification of Ansar al-Islam as the responsible bombing group gave the administration another chance to spin their favorite pre-war falsehood...so they did. As CNN reported about the Ansar campfrom the Bush team's just released 100 day report "al Qaeda's poisons/toxins laboratory" before the war. Here's the ABC report on the raid of the Ansar al-Islam camp. No WMD, no sophisticated labs. Other reports mocked the suggestions that the rustic facilities could ever have been used for scientific research and development. I'll leave it to the reader to judge why the administration still sticks to already disproved stories. posted by Dave on 8:04 AM | 0 comments link
Party Pen Name, or Arnold's life as a RINO. When Arnold first came to California, he loved Richard Nixon. Maybe not so strange when you think of Arnolds connections with Kurt Waldheim, but I'm not going into that can of worms. What I want to suggest is that Arnold's rather vague positions on a variety of issues mask a Shriver-induced shift towards a common sense mainstream political philosphy. Sure, he's the Terminator, but he's also the Kindergarden Cop a silly faux Santa, and someone who is a master at self deprecation. He also busts his butt raising funds and attention levels for the plight of kids. I don't question his sincerity or passion for helping children. His genuine ire at the Republicans for impeaching Bill Clinton is widely known among Republicans. What all this suggest to me is that the Rush Limbaugh and Drudge attack is due to their sure and certain knowledge that Arnold spells the end of the politics of personal destruction by Republicans. He's going to be on the receiving end and every bad piece of economic news he bludgeons Gray Davis with is wielded equally effectively and more against President Bush. Arnold's self proclaimed freedom from special interest influence may apply as much to dissing Karl Rove as the prison guards. We'll see in due time, but the entry of so many other Republicans in the race indicates the lack of attention to Republican principles that true believers insist on. posted by Dave on 1:35 AM | 0 comments link
Budgets, blame, recalls, and lies. We watched an interview with Gray Davis tonight. He's not Mr. Charisma, but he's a solid governor who has done his best for the people of California with the hand he was dealt. The Republican charges about fiscal mismanagment and lying about the budget would have more salience if the accusers paused to wonder whether the federal or state economy has performed most poorly since 2000. Without question the dismantlement of the federal budget surplus and the current $500 billion deficit has to rank as the worst economic performance of all time. That plus the loss of over 3 million jobs. It's no wonder that California is reeling under the double barreled assault of Bush's voodoo economics redux and the Enron rape of tens of billions of dollars from our energy budgets. It's no coincidence the first blackouts and cynical manipulation of the energy auctions came immediately after the Supreme Court selected George Bush as the President. Ken Lay, if you hadn't noticed, is still not in jail while Martha Steward is under indictment. It stinks. posted by Dave on 1:05 AM | 0 comments link
It's a Gas... The New York Times reports that debates about weapons of mass destruction still impair the sanity of workers in our intelligence factories. The latest brick falling from the edifice of competence is today's report contradicting previous Presidential claims that "We have found the weapons." It turns out that the famous mobile weapons labs really are hydrogen production vehicles for filling weather balloons for artillery practice. What makes this unsufferably painful to the Rove rear echelon is the internal battle and accompanying atypical leaks that make it clear the early weapons claims were political and unsubstantiated. Here's the money graf: Another government official from a different agency said the issue of the trailers had prompted deep divisions within the Defense Intelligence Agency. The official said members of the engineering team had been angry that the agency issued the joint white paper with the C.I.A. before their own work was completed. Ouch and damn. Bush is once again revealed as an incompetent prevaricator selectively using bad intelligence. Of course, if you read Al Gore's speech, you would already know that. posted by Dave on 12:39 AM | 0 comments link -------------------- Friday, August 08, 2003
Al Gore gave one of the best speeches of his life this week posted by Dave on 1:19 AM | 0 comments link -------------------- Tuesday, August 05, 2003
Media bias...documented by a Harvard study posted by Dave on 9:57 AM | 0 comments link
The Houston Chronicle has a guest editorial by a retired Pentagon official that explains some of our bizarre lack of planning for the post-Saddam Iraq. There's more. In another nice piece, the Chron reports on the Stalinesque purges the Republicans are running in Texas. posted by Dave on 12:57 AM | 0 comments link -------------------- Monday, August 04, 2003
Time Magazine lays out an uncomfortable reality of our war on terrorism. Our best forces can't be in two places simultaneously. The special forces that were hunting Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan were taken off duty and moved to Iraq. Their presence is deeply missed in Afghanistan, except, of course, by bin Laden. posted by Dave on 1:12 AM | 0 comments link -------------------- |