Hillary the Polarizer

It is amazing to see the reaction I get when I mention Hillary Clinton and the Presidency. The sample pool (my friends) would probably be fairly similar on an ideological scale, yet the saying really is true: you either love her or your hate her.

My ambivalence stems less from her shifting convictions than from the simple fact that she yet to demonstrate she can lead. All we've seen is a failed Health Care Reform package she did as First Lady. The rest is speeches.

An analogy: if the country is like a company, then Senators are like the legal department. They spend a lot of time shuffling paper, negotiating, courting favors and grandstanding, but at the end of the day, they have little to show for it. They are vitally important, and it's fascinating work, but you wouldn't necessarily pick one of them to run the company. You would pick someone from your Executive Pool, which in this case would be one of the 50 governors of one of our fine states. Governors have to fix budgets, educational systems, welfare, job creation, taxes, immigration, etc. They can't pick one issue and spend two years getting a bill together. They have to act. They are constantly in the press. They have to work with both parties in the state legislature. In general, there is a more executive tone to the job, which is why it is a natural transition to the Executive Branch of the US Government.

Someone please explain this to her.

If Hillary were smart (which she is), she would run for Governor of New York, instead of Elliot Spitzer, and take back the coveted seat for the Democrats. Then we could see her in action.

Hillary and Darfur

Of all the people I've emailed about Darfur (Bush, Rice, Sen. Clinton, Sen. Schumer and Rep. Jarrods), Hillary was the only one who sent a response.

February 23, 2005

Mr. Jonathan Kier
New York, New York

Dear Mr. Kier:

Thank you for sharing with me your concerns regarding the situation in Darfur.
It is important to me to know the issues that are foremost in the minds of my
constituents and I appreciate that you took the time to write to me about this
issue that is of importance to you and to many New Yorkers. I take this
situation very seriously.

We cannot stand by and let atrocities continue. The people of Darfur have been
subject to a genocidal campaign of vicious attacks conducted by the armed
militias of the Janjaweed, with the backing of the Sudanese government. The
concerted acts of these groups have created a humanitarian crisis of astonishing
proportions. We have an obligation to work with our allies and others to help
protect the people of Darfur.

In September, during Senate debate of the fiscal year 2005 Foreign Operations
Appropriations bill, I spoke on the Senate floor in favor of doing all we can to
try to end the genocide in Darfur. In June, I joined more than 50 of my
colleagues in sending a bipartisan letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell urging
him to work to end the atrocities committed by the armed militias operating in
the region; to commit additional resources; to publicly identify those
responsible for the atrocities and impose sanctions; to stabilize the situation through a monitored and enforced ceasefire and unfettered access for humanitarian aid; and to submit a United Nations Security Council resolution for a vote that
would condemn the government of Sudan, demand cooperation in the provision of
humanitarian aid, and authorize peacekeeping.

Also in June, to respond to the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of
Sudan and in Chad, I co-sponsored a bipartisan amendment to the Fiscal Year 2005
Department of Defense Appropriations Act that added millions in funding for
international disaster and famine assistance, and migration and refugee assistance
in the region. I am pleased to let you know that the amendment was adopted by
the Senate and this funding was retained in the legislation that was signed
into law.

The United Nations Security Council has adopted resolutions addressing the
situation in Darfur. The United States government should work to ensure these
resolutions have force, and continue its work with our allies to help bring
security and peace to the region and end the suffering of the people of Darfur.

Please be assured that I will continue to work in the Senate to help the people
of the Darfur overcome the dire challenges they face. Thank you again for
contacting me. Please check my website at http://clinton.senate.gov for updates on
this and other important matters being discussed before the United States
Senate.

Sincerely yours,
Hillary Rodham Clinton

Activist Judges

In a stunning reversal, the Bush administration is now actively courting activist judges. Not happy with a law that was overwhelmingly approved by the voters (twice), Gonzales & Co. have petitioned the high court to overturn the Oregon's 1997 Death With Dignity Act, which allows doctors to inject lethal doses of a controlled substance to end a terminally ill person's life.

The issue: States' Rights vs. Federal Government. Republicans are traditionally pro-States' Rights (abortion, gun law, age of consent), unless they're not (gay marriage, education or marijuana).


From today's NY Times:
The administration's appeal, Gonzales v. Oregon, No. 04-623, which is now filed under the name of Mr. Ashcroft's successor, Alberto R. Gonzales, and which the Supreme Court will hear in October, argues that the Ninth Circuit's decision "stands the proper relationship between the federal and state governments under the Constitution on its head." The brief asked the court "to correct this serious misconception of the relative powers of state and federal governments."

Red Herring: The Right Wing Media

In case anyone has lost count, allow me to list below the number of scandals involving right wing corruption of the media:

-Valerie Plame: the CIA operative whose name and occupation was linked to the media. This information could only have been leaked by one of 7 people with access to it. The revelation of the name of CIA operative is treason. The informant has yet to be identified.

-Karen Ryan: the reporter who produced videos in which she "mined" the prespecription-drug plan in 2004 and reported on its merits. These reports have now been deemed illegal "covert propaganda" by the Government Accountability Office. Alberto Garcia, another "journalist" was accused of similar bribery, but in Spanish.

-Armstrong Willaims: The Education Department paid commentator Armstrong Williams $241,000 to help promote President Bush's No Child Left Behind law on the air.

- Ketchum Inc. public relations firm: The Education Department has paid Ketchum $700,000 to rate journalists on how positively or negatively they report on No Child Left Behind, and to produce a video release on the law that was used by some television stations as if it were real news.

-Maggue Gallagher: right-wing columnist, vitriolic homophobe, was paid $21,600 in 2002 by the Bush Administration to report favorable on Bush's $300 million initiative encouraging heterosexual marriage as a way of strengthening families.

-Eason Joran: CNN news executive is forced out of his job for saying that the US army may be targeting reporters in Iraq. This is something that was said on a panel, was not recorded, aired or printed anywhere. But the new keepers of Political Correctness have deemed this offense worthy of a shit storm.

-Jeff Gannon: the pseudonymous pseudo-journalist who was given full press credentials at the White House, and was called on during briefings with the express purpose of steering controversial topics out of conversation. He was given credentials one month before his right wing news organization even existed. Turns out he was also associated with male military prostitution. Ironically, he wrote about Kerry as being the First Gay President, for his refusal to support the FMA. Even better, he told the Washington Post this weekend:
"I've made mistakes in my past," he said yesterday. "Does my past mean I can't have a future? Does it disqualify me from being a journalist?" I wonder, did he and his allies show the same mercy to Clinton? Maureen Dowd wrote an inceniary editorial on L'Affaire Gannon in the New York Times, howling at the injustice of being denied a press pass at the start of the first Bush term.

Money quote:
I'm still mystified by this story. I was rejected for a White House press pass at the start of the Bush administration, but someone with an alias, a tax evasion problem and Internet pictures where he posed like the "Barberini Faun" is credentialed to cover a White House that won a second term by mining homophobia and preaching family values?
At first when I tried to complain about not getting my pass renewed, even though I'd been covering presidents and first ladies since 1986, no one called me back. Finally, when Mr. McClellan replaced Ari Fleischer, he said he'd renew the pass - after a new Secret Service background check that would last several months.

-Swift Boat Veterans: shadowy ties to the GOP.

-Rush Limbaugh: serial husband, drug user, and now Bush envoy to Afghanistan. He will be going to Afghanistan to report on how wonderful life is there. But who is paying for the trip?


All of this amounts to one giant red herring. The GOP loves to invoke the image of the left-wing, elitist media bashing the GOP and not reporting the "truth". It turns out, they have become the most media-entrenched party, with illegal, and potentially treasoness ties to the disemination of propaganda in the modern history of the United States.

The US: Best to Invest?

Allan Laffer is not a very good writer, and oh so smug, but his piece in today's WSJ about the US being the best place to invest has some interesting nuggets. Overall, he contradicts himself a few times by basically saying we shouldn't panic, and then saying things could be better, but still don't panic.

Money quote:

Take a look around. Germany hasn't had a growth spurt since the 1960s when Ludwig Erhard was Bundeskanzler. France still has a mandated maximum workweek of 35 hours, a maximum income tax rate of 58%, a 1.8% annual wealth tax and government spending as a share of GDP greater than 50%. Finland, for goodness sakes, fines speeders a percentage of the speeder's income. Sweden, Denmark and Germany also fine speeders a percentage of their income, only with caps. Japan has had a stock market down by over 70% from its high in 1989 and both company and government unfunded liabilities in Japan are out of sight. Canada's economic policies are kooky and investments in Latin America, the Middle East, Russia, Southeast Asia and Africa are about as safe as running drunk blindfolded across the "I-5" freeway at rush hour.

No (Son)tag line today

I won't pretend to have an opinion on Susan Sontag.

Here's a link to someone who does. Here's another one.

PS. I riveted to the footage of mass natural destruction. Especially, since Nate Berkus, of Oprah fame, was among the people in Thailand.

Read My Lips: New taxes

Is it just me, or does this feel like a NY street con? A shell game.

While Bush is indeed cutting certain taxes, he's simply imposing new ones in other places. It's a joke.

Eliminating the deductability of state and local taxes is going to raise taxes on dozens of millions of people, most notably in the blue states of NY and CA. The good news is that the Republican mayors and governors of these states are going to get fucked.

Money quote:

"New York City is the economic engine of our country and we already send $11.5 billion more to Washington annually than we get back," Mr. Bloomberg said in a written statement. "This would amount to another federal tax on our citizens and I will fight it tooth and nail."

Something New To Talk About

I'm getting sick and tired of writing about foregin policy. It's really the same thing over and over. US policy sucks, our options are even worse, and inertia is setting in. On the positive side, Bush & Co. are set to take a nasty fall over the whole mess.

So I'm going to change subjects.

But before I do, here's James Dobbins, former U.S. Special Envoy in Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, and Afghanistan, talking about how bad we suck, specifically in reference to Iraq.

Money quote: By losing the trust of the Iraqi people, the Bush administration has already lost the war in Iraq. Moderate Iraqis can still win it, but only if they wean themselves from Washington and get support from elsewhere. To help them, the United States should pull out its troops as soon as it can without jeopardizing the elections, train Iraqis to beat the insurgency on their own, and rally Iran and European allies to the cause.

Sounds easy right?

Quality, not Quantity, of Troops in Iraq

Here's a little armchair General-izing:
It's the quality of the troops that is deficient in the US occupation of Iraq.

Analysis, you say? Facts?
Riddle me this: why is it that the strongest army in the world, with the most advanced training and weapons systems, is incapable of quelling an insurgency 1/10 its size?
There's a trap built into the question. We are obviously mighty and well-armed, so that can't be it. Troop levels? Nah.

Could it be....our intelligence? We know our intelligence sucks from that time when those planes hit those towers. Is this seeping into the quality of the training of our troops? Could it be affecting the quality of our fight against the insurgency?

On top of all this, we are inadequately supplied, it seems. The Army National Guard revealed last Thursday that it had missed its recruiting goals for the past two months by 30 percent. According to the NY Times, nearly 900 troops have been evacuated from Iraq by the Army for psychiatric reasons, included attempts or threatened attempts at suicide. When the war in Afghanistan as well as Iraq is considered, some experts believe that the number of American troops needing mental health treatment could exceed 100,000.

I hate to say it, but I hope to God that Rumsfeld takes the fall for this.

Privatize the Army

Hey, it's not THAT crazy of an idea. Maureen Dowd suggested it today in the NY Times, seemingly tongue in cheek. But considering that it is being run about as well as the government has handled education, national security and social security, it's a pretty gread idea.

Money quote:

Why should it just be parents of kids in Iraq who send them compasses and Kevlar vests? Everybody wants to support our troops.

If the Olympics can attract top corporate sponsors, why can't Rummy's Global War on Terrorism? Bring it on, Bank One!

Picture this: a truck rumbling across the desert on the evening news, completely armored and emblazoned with golden arches. Or a fleet of Visa Humvees. You know Donald Trump would love to slap his name on a few Chinooks. The 82nd Trumpborne.

And what about product placement? When soldiers give their Christmas greetings on Fox News or MSNBC, they could be holding cans of Pepsi or calling home on Samsung phones. Why merely send their love when they could be writing love letters in the sand on Apple computers?

Like athletes or Nascar drivers, they could sell every inch of their body: STP helmets, Nike boots, Staples "Yeah, we got that" dog tags, Starbucks M.R.E.'s, CamelBak canteens by Camels, Sony laser target designators.

All those old, out-of-shape reservists being dragged back by Rummy would be great pitchmen for arthritis medication. And Celebrex night vision goggles.

The really big corporate sponsors might set up some hospitality yurts dispensing Wellbutrin in the desert. Sure, security's so bad that Rummy was afraid to go any farther than Kuwait last week, but Michael Eisner might want to visit with some Disney imagineers and check out a different kind of Fantasyland: the neocon variety. Mr. Eisner could use some good publicity.

In this day and age, when every sports arena has been hideously renamed for some corporate entity - like Minute Maid Park in Houston, Network Associates Coliseum in Oakland, Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego and FedEx Field in D.C. - Rummy could easily think big.

How about the American Express Green Zone? Instead of those four huge facsimiles of Saddam's head that adorned the Iraqi Republican Palace, why not put up big heads (and necks) of Geoffrey, the Toys "R" Us giraffe?

Whole units could begin shopping themselves on eBay and trolling for corporate sponsors, just as the Dartmouth swimming team did in 2002 with the pitch, "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own a piece of N.C.A.A. Division I collegiate memorabilia."

What's a measly swimming team compared with the thrill of ponying up for the Third Infantry Division of Fort Stewart, Ga., the Army unit that conducted the famous "thunder run" and took Baghdad - and is now about to be redeployed in Iraq?

Rummy's a little distracted trying to get his silly space shield, which fizzled yet again in a test yesterday, and fighting hard for his job, so it may take him awhile to focus on privatizing. Meanwhile, we still have that pesky armor shortage.

So how about Tommy "Stop Writing Books and Finish the War" Franks, Paul "You Disbanded the Iraqi Army, Dummy" Bremer and George "Slam-Dunk" Tenet taking off those preposterous
Medals of Freedom and contributing them. Just as Scarlett and Melanie took off their gold wedding rings for the Confederate cause, those medals can be melted down for a little Humvee armor.

With help like that and some corporate support - maybe Levitra could even sponsor his next trip to Iraq - Rummy could get the Army he wants and wishes to have sooner rather than later. Like, while we're actually fighting a war.

The sponsors could help a lot in keeping the Army in top shape. After all, our troops could be stuck there for years, perhaps decades. And could even wind up defending an Iraqi ayatollah.

With all the foreign companies investing, we could finally have a real coalition. The coalition of the shilling. No German troops, but why not a Passat partnership?

With allies like these....

One of the current administrations oft repeated distortions concerns the Coalition of the Willing, and the inclusion of Pakistan as an example of "how far we've come" in the GWOT.

I've always contended that Republicans have a very very poor understanding of the region, but their insistence that Pakistan is a friend represents a genuine miscalculation of dangerous proportions. While the elite segment of society, encompassing the wealthy and the powerful, may be outwardly friendly to the United States, it is the very same segment's unwillingness to engage the far more numerous and dangerously populated segment of Pakistani society that should be troubling to Americans.

James Risen and David Rohde of the New York Times write about how Pakistan has subtly foiled our quest to find Bin Laden, infiltrate his new core group of followers, or gather any sort of intelligence in Pakistan since the GWOT began. Money quote:

More than three years after the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and New York transformed Osama bin Laden into the most wanted man in the world, the search for him remains stalled, frustrated by the remote topography of his likely Pakistani sanctuary, stymied by a Qaeda network that remains well financed and disciplined, sidetracked by the distractions of the Iraq war, and, perhaps most significantly, limited by deep suspicion of the United States among Pakistanis.

If anyone believes that brute force alone can overcome this need only read the following:

On Sept. 9, for example, an air raid near the village of Dela in South Waziristan killed as many as 80 civilians. Young men from the Mehsud tribe, many of whose members died in the incident, began flocking to the militants. "That was a turning point," said Rahimullan Yusufzai, a Pakistani journalist. "Their friends, their relatives and people they knew were killed."

But the US is sitting on its laurels. There is apparently a secret plan to reinstate a dormant propaganda unit within the Pentagon aimed on winning over "Hearts & Minds" in foreign lands.

Pentagon and military officials directly involved in the debate say that such a secret propaganda program, for example, could include planting news stories in the foreign press or creating false documents and Web sites translated into Arabic as an effort to discredit and undermine the influence of mosques and religious schools that preach anti-American principles.

Does anyone there have a brain? Even if this were true, how could let something like this leek out.

More Evidence of Republican disdain for Science

In today's NY Times, money quote:

Congress has cut the budget for the National Science Foundation, an engine for research in science and technology, just two years after endorsing a plan to double the amount given to the agency.

The $388 billion spending bill for the current fiscal year, approved by both houses of Congress on Nov. 20, provides $5.473 billion for the National Science Foundation, which is $105 million less than it got last year and $272 million less than President Bush requested.

"I am astonished that we would make this decision at a time when other nations continue to surpass our students in math and science and consistently increase their funding of basic research," said Mr. Ehlers, a former physics professor who is chairman of a technology subcommittee. "

The National Science Foundation supports technological innovation that is crucial to the sustained economic prosperity that America has enjoyed for several decades."

While cutting the budget of the science foundation, Congress found money for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in Birmingham, the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, bathhouses in Hot Springs, Ark., and hundreds of similar projects.

Anti-Matter: The Bush Doctrine

Halfway through what will become the Bush Legacy, it is becoming clear that what he will be remembered for is inverting the American Ideal, the American Dream, and America: the Symbol.

There's the obvious:
The importation of faith into the public sphere. This is different from religion. Religion has always held a place in the public sphere, in the sense that religion is protected, tolerated, and meant to be separate from the State. But faith as a concept was never an American ideal. Americans were always trained pragmatists, scientists and workers. For a far more salient commentary on the rejection of science and the scientific method in America today, see Small Precautions.

The NY Observer has a great piece on this very subject, from a political point of view. Money quote:

The cost of destroying a secular public life will, if allowed to proceed, undermine the stability of American democracy. All these people on their knees holding candles may not appreciate it, but public religion, not private religious formation, is the enemy of our kind of government. Even in the long-past era when most Americans were some brand or other of Calvinist, religion had to be pushed into the corners of politics so that a nascent secular culture could nourish democracy. In the first half of the 19th century, the battle to drive religion out of the political forum and into the home was not easily nor ever entirely won. Waves of religious mania battered the country and threatened democratic institutions and practice. They still do.

The Christians and their churches, which are using their temporary, strategic, electoral-minority position to gain majority dominance, will live to wish that they hadn’t labored so long to put "people of faith" in the driver’s seat. Other than dogmatism and a built-in resistance to reason, logic and science, sectarian religions have nothing in common except a potential antagonism for each other—one which holds the threat of someday ripping the country to shreds. "Religion" and "faith" are pushing ahead on a common front now, but in due course they will fall on each other with mortal fury. History teaches that the one thing religions hate more than secularism is other religions. With each year that religions are encouraged and given a preferential place, they become more demanding and more truculent in claiming more power and deference. As more members of more religious organizations adopt peculiar and distinguishing forms of dress, headgear and hair, the lines harden and the probability of physical conflict between these groups of faith-based fanatics
grows.

Now you can add Bush's approach to immigration to this list, for which I will keep a running tally. Really, there are two policies here. Given illegals who cross the border temporary working visas. Keep students out. Does anyone see how stupid this is? Raise your hands. Joseph Nye Jr. writes about this in today's NY Times.

Money quote:

Last year, the number of foreign students at American colleges and universities
fell for the first time since 1971. Recent reports show that total foreign student enrollment in our 2,700 colleges and universities dropped 2.4 percent,
with a much sharper loss at large research institutions. Two-thirds of the 25
universities with the most foreign students reported major enrollment declines.

The costs to the American economy are significant. Educating foreign students is a $13 billion industry. Moreover, the United States does not produce enough home-grown doctoral students in science and engineering to meet our needs. The shortfall is partly made up by the many foreign students who stay here after earning their degrees.

Congress is the last refuge of scoundrels

Why oh why has the mainstream media remained silent on the ridiculous accusations thrown out by DeLay against the Ronnie Earle, the prosecutor in Texas who is looking for an indictment?

Bravo to the Gray Lady for publishing Earle's Op-Ed today.

The main point is that regardless of how partisan he may be, it is a grand jury of citizen peers who will decide whether or not to indict him, NOT Ronnie Earle. And they will indict him if he committed a crime, and there is enough evidence to convince them that he should at the very least answer some questions.

And as a side note, of the 15 people Ronnie Earle has prosecuted, 12 were Democrats. Quite simply, Texas was a Democratic state until recently, and as Earle put it, "most crimes by elected officials involve the abuse of power; you have to have power before you can abuse it. "

The Looming Iranian Crisis

It's amazing that the broadcast stations are focusing on Specter, the Cabinet and the Clinton library, and virtually ignoring the DeLay crime syndicate and the Iranian nucular threat.

From today's NY Times:

A European diplomat familiar with the British-French-German initiative said they were also pessimistic that Iran would back off its nuclear ambitions, but that they had no choice but to engage Iran because military options were distasteful or impractical after the troubled invasion and occupation of Iraq.

American policy is truly non-existent. They literally have their heads up their ass. They have no idea what to do, who to turn to (they've even contemplated working with the UN!!), or how to get the Iranians to come to the table.

On the other hand, many in the administration say that Iran is not likely to enter into talks with the United States, as the Europeans want, because the revolutionary clerics who control the government are unalterably opposed to engaging with a country it considers the enemy.

Great.

Running on empty

This is unbelievable. How can this be getting so little attention? We are literally running on empty. What the hell has happened to the Republicans? Fiscal responsibility used to be their clarion call, but they have completely abandoned all reason. On top of the higher debt cieling, Bush and his crime family want to make the tax cuts permanent, privatize social security and they need another $70 billion for Iraq!!!

From the Center for American Progress:

Conservatives waited until after the election was over to breach the country's debt ceiling. Although the country actually reached $7.4 trillion in debt in early October, Treasury Secretary John Snow employed a host of accounting tricks to technically avoid breaching the limit. One trick even including suspending investments in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund. Snow's moves were directly designed to prevent conservatives in the House from having to vote on such a politically sensitive matter in the weeks before the election.

From today's NY Times:

The bill, if approved by the House in a vote expected on Thursday, would authorize the third big increase in the federal borrowing since President Bush took office in 2001. Federal debt has ballooned by $1.4 trillion over the past four years, to $7.4 trillion, and the new ceiling would allow borrowing to reach $8.2 trillion.

With no end in sight to the huge annual budget deficits, which hit a record of $412 billion this year, lawmakers predicted on Wednesday that the new ceiling would probably have to be raised again in about a year.

But what does all this mean? Our debt is not owned by Visa. It is owned by our trading partners, which puts us in a very awkward, un-American position. John Kerry had this to say on the Senate floor:

"To pay our bills, America now goes cup in hand to nations like China, Korea, Taiwan and Caribbean banking centers," Mr. Kerry said. "Those issues didn't go away on Nov. 3, no matter what the results."

In 2002, the Bush administration received a debt limit increase of $450 billion dollars. The next year the Treasury requested, and Congress delivered, a $984 billion dollar credit line, the largest in history. That amount exceeded "all of the debt inherited by President Ronald Reagan, which was all of the debt accumulated from Bunker Hill [1776] to 1981." The Bush administration and its conservative allies have blown through nearly a trillion dollars in just 18 months.

According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, if President Bush succeeds in passing his 2005 budget – which includes an extension of expiring tax cuts – the government will rack up about $6.2 trillion in additional debt between now and 2014, nearly doubling our current debt ($7.38 trillion) for a total of $14.5 trillion.

Interest payments on the mounting debt, which exceeded $321 billion in fiscal year 2004, also squeezes out funding for other priorities like education and health care.

Doc Rice? REALLY!?!

Day 1 has been a pretty shitty day for Doc Rice, so far. And sadly, as a mindless-drone, she's going to have to rely on Bush for her marching orders. What is she going to tackle first?

Israel/Palestine?
The announcement of Russia's new nucular missle?
Saudi Arabian terrorist financing?
The Iranian/EU deal? It seems the National Council for Resistance in Iran has announced that the Iranians are lying. We don't like the NCRI, but they're good at gathering intelligence.
How about the bombings in Argentina this morning?
No, wait, how about Margaret Hassan?

Poor Condi.

And in other news, Zarqawi has moved to Mosul. Things are calm now, apparently. Another battle won?
And the NY Times editorial about why we can't win against an insurgency is fascinating.

Maragaret Hassan believed dead

The inevitable has happened. Initial reports of the murder of Maragaret Hassan, the British national/long-time resident of Iraq, are beginning to trickle in. A video has surfaced on Al Jazeera showing Hassan being shot. If confirmed, she would be the first foreign woman to be executed by the insurgents in Iraq.

A few thoughts:

• Strange that they would shoot her, and not behead her, as they have done others.
• Why did they wait until after the American elections? Is it presumptuous to assume that they would be cognizant of the American political calendar? Am I a horrible person for wondering how this would have influenced the election had she been murdered two weeks ago?

With such a "strong electoral mandate", I doubt very much that the Bush administration is going to react to this murder at all.

Exchanging a pearl for a lollipop

NY Times reports on the "agreement" reached by Europe and Iran on the suspension of Iran's nucular ambitions.

Are they serious?

Here, we'll give you whatever you want. More trade? More money? What do you need? Just please stop enriching uranium (so openly) or Uncle Sam will get really really mad at us for being such shitty negotiators. But don't worry, he's too weak to do anything to you. We know you want WTO membership, but Uncle Sam said no. You kidnapped some of his kids 30 years ago, and he said you can't trade with us. But we'll trade with you anyway. Just please stop embarrassing us.

Buried at the end of the article is the money quote:

Making concessions on its nuclear program has been widely unpopular inside Iran, and Mr. Rowhani was put on the defensive by conservative Iranian journalists.

When a reporter for the official Islamic Republic News Agency remarked, "The reason Iran has given so many concessions is because the Iranian team was weak," Mr. Rowhani replied that the country's best diplomats had conducted the negotiations and "this is the outcome of our best diplomacy."

Another Iranian journalist cited an interview in an Iranian newspaper that accused Iran of giving "a pearl in exchange for a lollipop."

"That's not true," Mr. Rowhani shot back.

The Budget Deficit according to WSJ

55 economists participated in a Wall Street Journal survey about the priorities of a second Bush term.

Shockingly, the majority cited the "yawning budget deficit" as their biggest concern.

"...the economists caution that the deficit is likely to be a persistent long-term problem and they don't expect the president to have as much success in dealing with the deficit as he will have in addressing other economic issues."

"The budget deficit is a particularly intractable issue, economists say, because of continued spending demands."

""The bottom line here is, if we don't get a significant narrowing of the budget deficit, you're going to have increasing upward pressure on interest rates. That will increase private savings in the economy, but it will also slow the rate of the growth of the economy."

Told ya so.