Bush's Social Security Plan Is "Said" to Require Vast Borrowing

Okay, I've calmed down a little.

Check out this "journalism": Bush's Social Security Plan Is Said to Require Vast Borrowing

Here's a copy of the letter I'm sending to the editor:

Dear Editor,
First, it is clear that Bush's idea for Social Security is just that, an idea, and not a plan -- if it were a plan, he would have some way to fund it, details on how these mandatory savings accounts were going to work, and solid numbers on how the movement of money would be different from the status quo. Since he has none of these, his is not a plan but a vague idea.

Second, and more importantly, this "plan" is said to require vast borrowing because it will require vast borrowing. This isn't some baseless partisan claim thrown out by some Democrats; if benefits for the unemployed and elderly aren't coming from the current payroll taxes (as in the current system) or income taxes (the only other real source of revenue the federal government has), they'd have to come from deficit spending, ie, borrowing. It is not something that "could be necessary" if this "plan" was implemented; it would be necessary. As the article itself points out, even people in favor of this idea recognize it would require borrowing at least hundred of billions of dollars!

Finally, the article fails to evaluate the "plan" from the point of view of the young people who would retire under it. Social security exists as a safety net, guaranteed by the government, so that people need not worry about how they are going to get by when they are unable to work. Under the current system, a young person like me does not need to worry about fifty years from now; my generation's children and grandchild will subsidize me at roughly the same rate I and my parents are currently subsidizing my grandparents. But investing in mutual funds, stocks, and bonds is nowhere near as certain as the status quo: what about a 65-year-old woman who had made plans to retire in late 2001, only to discover her mutual fund had overinvested in technology stocks and her $100,000 in savings was now $35,000?

On the other hand, the claims of the advocates for keeping the current system, just tweaking it in twenty years when the surplus starts to wear thin, were also left unexamined.

I am incredibly disappointed at the quality of the journalism displayed in this article. Mr. Stevenson should be ashamed at his inability to objectively evaluate the claims of his sources and actually educate his readers.

What is feminism?

Rape makes me ill. Just reading this summary makes my stomach twist and my blood boil, makes me want to scream and pick up a two-by-four and proceed to beat every man who has done this to a woman until they couldn't even be recognized by matching dental records.

I'm not being facetious. Those of you who know me personally know I'm quite the serious pacifist. But that all vanishes in face the rape. Every violent instinct I possess has been redirected towards someone who is, I think, so vile as to not even deserve to be considered human. As one comment to this piece says, rape is a crime against humanity, meaning it is a crime against every human when it is committed.

I find rape so appalling just because of the way it symbolizes the oppression of women: the victim is violently reduced to an object of sexual gratification and, in wartime, a de-individuated appendage of the enemy's community. The men who raped these women; the man who date-raped a friend of mine, drugging a fourteen-year-old's beer so she was awake but couldn't move, not even to scream; the man who drug another fourteen-year-old into the back of his van and left her in a ditch by the side of the road; these men do not deserve to be treated as persons after the way they have denied personhood to their victims, even though they were simply treating women the way societies all over the world have treated women up until this past century.

So what is feminism? Feminism is being appalled by rape, and the daily gender inequality which it represents and is born of. Feminism is recognizing that the value of a person, what is important in their life, should be decided by the free choices they make for themselves, not by what shape their genitals are, and other people think that means. Feminism is about justice, and is the antithesis of rape.

David Brooks: Let's compare apples and unicorns!

Okay, so, as everyone should know by now, David Brooks is a tool. Let's look at some statements he makes.
First,

we're in the 11th month of the most prosperous year in human history. Last week, the World Bank released a report showing that global growth "accelerated sharply" this year to a rate of about 4 percent.

Okay, let's assume for the minute that this is true. Naturally, I wouldn't trust David Brooks to hose me down if I were on fire, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt here. However, this doesn't really mean shit. The global economy grew fantastically in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was called `imperialism', and it didn't work out so well for places that weren't Europe and the north Atlantic coast of the US.

So why does David Brooks think the current boom is so great?

This is having a wonderful effect on world poverty, because when regions grow, that growth is shared up and down the income ladder. In its report, the World Bank notes that economic growth is producing a "spectacular" decline in poverty in East and South Asia. In 1990, there were roughly 472 million people in the East Asia and Pacific region living on less than $1 a day. By 2001, there were 271 million living in extreme poverty, and by 2015, at current projections, there will only be 19 million people living under those conditions.

Because supply-side economics works, of course! Look, these irrelevant statistics prove it! (Again, I'll assume his statistics are accurate, and the comparison between 'living on less than $1 a day' and 'extreme poverty' was appropriate.)

Here's the thing: there is a broad trend towards economic integration on a global level; there is also a broad trend towards higher standards of living. But the people responsible for the second one aren't the ones responsible for the first one. Amartya Sen -- who won a Nobel prize in economics, something not even David Brooks believes David Brooks has done -- argued in Development as Freedom a few years ago that the Indian states that have improved their standard of living the most over the past 20+ years are the ones that have weighted their options carefully, not done what the Western capitalists wanted because it would supposedly make their economy go whoooosh. (As Argentina and Russia will tell you, those Western capitalists turned out to mostly be wrong.)

In other words: yeah, local economic growth is generally a good thing. But don't confuse an increased real GDP with more health care and literacy and rights for women. The people and their leaders need to channel and regulate the direction 'those guys in pinstrip suits' want to take them. And David Brooks is still an incoherent and craptacular writer.

Okay, one more

I'm going 2 blocks away for Thanksgiving, my roommates are gone and we don't have cable. What else would I be doing but posting?

If you, like me or Alton Brown, enjoy both cooking and science, here's a neat little article. The rest of you can go have hot dogs and Kraft macaroni and cheese. Bastards.

Turkey day

This is just brilliant. And insane. They tend to get along rather well.

Just for the record, I will not be eating turkey tomorrow, as animals are my friends and I don't eat my friends. I will, however, and unfortunately, be eating in the vicinity of turkey. That's what I get for going to the house of some omnivores for Thanksgiving.

Enjoy yours.

Realigning the Frame: Liberty is about 'Opportunity', not Ownership

From a diary over at Kos

'OWNERSHIP SOCIETY' IS GOP SPEAK FOR 'DEREGULATED MARKETS': Conservatives talk about ownership without bothering to talk about how the under advantage will become owners. This is dangerous. It spreads the false idea that ownership is the pure product of hard work, rather than the result of well managed social and economic opportunity.

AN 'OWNERSHIP SOCIETY' WOULD BE RULED BY ARISTOCRATS AND KINGS: Who's the symbol of an ownership society? The King of England, that's who. The framers of our constitution understood that in order for everyone to have opportunity, government must insure equal opportunity for all by limiting the ability of a few wealthy owners to slowly amass the majority of the nations wealth. Conservatives disagree with this vision held by the very founders of this country.

'OWNERSHIP SOCIETY' DOESN'T MEAN YOU'LL BE ABLE TO OWN A HOME: It means that you'll have an increasingly difficult time buying that first home because there will be no regulations in the market. Ownership will be the exclusive domain of those who already have equity--either through inheritance, access to corporate wealth, or through personal gain. To be against Bush's 'ownership society' is actually to be FOR the rights of first home buyers.

AMERICA IS THE LAND OF OPPORTUNITY FOR EVERYONE, NOT A LAND WHERE A FEW WEALTHY PEOPLE OWN EVERYTHING: When Americans think about 'Liberty' they don't think about ownership, they think about the Statue of Liberty. Nobody can own liberty because it only result from freedom and opportunity for all, not the amassing of wealth.

Spread the meme ...

Then why did you vote for him?

Apparently, many Americans don't understand that, when you vote for a candidate for president, you're endorsing that person's political projects.

Across the board, the poll suggested that the outcome of the election reflected a determination by Americans that they trusted Mr. Bush more to protect them against future terrorist attacks - and that they liked him more than Mr. Kerry - rather than any kind of broad affirmation of his policies. ...

Even as two-thirds of respondents said they expected Mr. Bush to appoint judges who would vote to outlaw abortion, a majority continue to say they want the practice to remain either legal as it is now, which was Mr. Kerry's position, or to be legal but under stricter limits.

Americans said they opposed changing the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, which Mr. Bush campaigned on in the final weeks of his campaign. A majority continue to support allowing either same-sex marriages or legally recognized domestic partnerships for gay people.

So, basically, people choose their president the way they choose senior class president. I'm really, really glad I have City of Heroes and a paper on Berkeley to distract me from this, otherwise I'd be really depressed right now.

Well, this is depressing

So it turns out the average American `doesn't know what to say' about evolution.
I can't decide what this means, nor which is more depressing: that people have been shuffled through our crappy publication education system and don't understand what a `scientific theory' is, how science works, and so on; or that the people who favour ridiculously literal readings of the Bible are that prominent.

Comment: I have tried and tried to understand why contemporary evolutionary theory is a threat to fundamentalism. A hundred years ago, Darwinian biology is associated with Social Darwinism (`the rich are richer because they're better, so screw the poor!'); that's why William Jennings Bryan, an awesome Evangelical populist, argued against it during the Scopes trial. But that association's long since faded. And if you want reactionary fundamentalist moralism, you just need Paul's books, or Deuteronomy if you're Jewish; Genesis, especially the creation story, isn't going to do that much for you. Why is taking a metaphorical reading there so important?

Incidentally, you can read my defence of evolution here. I haven't reread it in a while, so I can't say I endorse all of it now, but it was well-received when I wrote it a couple years ago.

Meanwhile, ...

Bob Herbert talks about something a little more important.

William Safire's garbage

So, no surprise, William Safire starts shilling for an amendment that would allow Ahnuld to run for president. I don't have any particular opinion on this either way, actually, but here are some phrases that made me go `huh?'

That makes all naturalized citizens - including taxpayers, voters, servicemembers - slightly less than all-American. Even children born abroad of U.S. citizens have fallen under the shadow of Article II; this has caused pregnant women to race back to our shores to make certain their children's political potential is not somehow beclouded.

Now, I'm not in law school, so I could be wrong -- but I thought the children of American citizens were automatically American citizens. It doesn't matter where you were born so much as the citizenship of your parents at the time.

He's a libertarian conservative, a man of the right whose popularity is rising on the Left Coast. Under the tutelage of former Secretary of State George Shultz and former Gov. Pete Wilson, he is using his celebrity, charisma and political moxie to break up the logrolling logjam that put this state into the hands of easily rolled legislators and budget-busting initiative rule.

I haven't been following Californian politics as closely since I moved off the West Coast. But I do glance at the front page of the Chron every couple weeks, and talk about the issues of the day every so often with my admittedly liberal parents. So, again, I could be wrong -- but I don't think Ahnuld has done shit in the past year. He got some emergency bonds passed, but hasn't done anything to reign in spending; I'm not sure he was even running on anything else. Possibly the stem-cell research funding initiative was his idea, but that wasn't a legislative achievement.

Maybe after Safire leaves the Times will bring in Barbara Ehrenreich permanently. That would make me happyful.

Women vs. Wal-Mart

In Nickel and Dimed a couple years back, Barbara Ehrenreich spent some time working at Wal-Mart. Her conclusions? Wal-Mart is a shitty place to work: no benefits, crappy pay, a domineering management system. Oh, and systemically sexist. Then Wal-Mart got sued for that last one.

The way that Wal-Mart underpays women and doesn't promote them, despite the fact that so many women who work there are supporting their families, is shockingly hostile. As one of the plaintiffs pointed out, "They don't even pay you enough to pay a babysitter." In their company culture, they've always had the idea that to move into management, people have to be willing to relocate. [Uprooting the family] can be tremendously disruptive to families for either men or women. It's clearly something that can be avoided, especially now that there are so many Wal-Marts everywhere. You hardly need to be sent to another state to work at a different Wal-Mart. ... What's disturbing is that Wal-Mart is really profiting from female poverty -- both from its workers and its shoppers. Part of the problem with the Wal-Mart business model is that it requires more poverty in order to grow. They really have no incentive to improve working conditions. If they are lowering living standards everywhere they go, people have no choice but to shop at Wal-Mart.

The Republican party doesn't care about national security

So you're a Republican in the House. Which is more important to you:

(a) protecting the citizens of the United States from further terrorist attacks, by enacting the recommendations of the 9/11 commission, or

(b)protecting the political territory of your buddies in the Pentagon?

Answer here.

A Lack Of Originality!

To copy Drew, who was himself copying someone else, I have a fun experiment we can all do! Here are the first ten songs randomly selected by itunes from my library of 3011 songs:

1. The Same Old Song - The Temptations
2. Stealing From A Thief - Anthrax, The Threat Is Real! Volume 8
3. Prince - Housequake - DJ Rhettmatic, The Wedding Mixer
4. Vacant - Dream Theater, Train of Thought
5. ...And Justice For All - Metallica, ...And Justice For All
6. Born Mimic - Joe Beats Conspiracy, Reverse Discourse
7. Atlantis - Stratovarious, Dreamspace
8. What's Goin' On - Marvin Gaye
9. Silent Lucidity - Queensryche, Empire
10. One Of My Turns - Pink Floyd, The Wall

Unlike Drew, however, I invite you all to post your top tens in the comments. See, Drew has people that actually post regularly, so he doesn't have to encourage it. Keep in mind, this is supposed to be the first ten songs chosen randomly by the program.

That's a pretty good crossection of my music, though obviously in 10 songs there are some significant genres missing and Dream Theater is a little under represented considering how many albums worth of music are in the library, but feel free to tell me all about how bad my taste is in the comments!

This shit ALREADY?

Republicans on the joint committee responsible for merging the
two drafts of the spending bill into one uniform bill to be approved
by both houses of Congress have added language that would
allow hospitals, insurers, and other non-human entities to refuse to provide abortions, and not suffer any spending penalties.
Below is the text of the email I'm sending both of the senators from Illinois:

Dear Senator XXX,
The amendments to the spending bill announced this weekend, with provisions likely to further degrade womens' rights to choose, are completely inappropriate, and contrary to the expressed desires of the majority of Americans -- recall that only a small percentage of very vocal social conservatives want restrictions on access to abortion. I strongly encourage you to support Senator Boxer in her opposition to these amendments: do not vote in favor of the revised spending bill, do not vote to end the fillibuster she is likely to launch. I ask you this as a concerned citizen of Illinois.
Sincerely,
Dan Hicks

What? who?

The rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. I've just had an insanely busy four weeks. Grad school's a bitch that way. Fortunately, I should be considerably less busy in the near future, and then I'll be on vacation in California for most of December, where you will once again not hear from me.

Look at it this way: no 2,000 word essays on obscure philosophers taking up three screens' worth of space until January-ish. Celebrate!

A few good things you should read:

Brand Democrat | Oliver Willis

Pandagon on Kerry's "Every Child Protected" bill (which petition I have signed)

Atrios on health insurance. The guy's an economist, isn't he? Well, you should read it anyway, get some edumacation.

Oh, and Stuff from the Bible. Because I just want to see if certain people actually read this thing like they claim they do ...

I'm Number 2! I'm Number 2!

I'm totally copying Matty Y here, but since Andrew Sullivan thinks it's sooooo important for liberal bloggers to mention the murder of Theo van Gogh, here you go. Murder is wrong kids, and people who do it are bad. And boom, I've just claimed the moral high ground.

Haven't heard about this before now and don't think this is a huge story? Yeah, you're not alone...

Flat Tax Crushed

Matty Y's got a very short, elegant take down to all the "tax simplification through a flat tax" that Bush talking about lately.

The Moral Party?

Head on over to Josh Marshall for a couple posts about how dirty the Republicans still are. In the early nineties they tried to the party of greater morals by passing a rule that any Republicans under indictment could not be in leadership posts. Now that Tom DeLay is under indictment, however, it looks like they're going to be getting rid of that silly ass rule.

Yesterday's News, Today!

Well, we seem to have fallen off the bleeding edge of the news cycle here at the ol' Staff of Ra, but in case you didn't know, Colin Powell Bush Administration official to drop out after one term, and Bush has replaced him with Condoleezza Rice. Behind Powell, evidently Rice was the person with the most credibility at the beginning of Bush's first term, but given the higher profile of the Secretary of State it's likely that, like Powell whatever little credibility she had left will be flushed.

A Tale of Two Spartans

In a great commentary on the literary life of the country, the official Halo 2 strategy guide has become one of the best selling "books" of the decade.

Incidentally, Halo 2 rules.

New Games Journalism & Halo 2

I'm pretty sure I posted about New Games Journalism back in the summer, but back then the site was getting around three hits a day. I'm going to give you these in reverse order so you know what to look for, but start with this article explaining what New Games Journalism is, then read the inspiration for that article.

New Games Journalism is not reviewing in the traditional sense of the word, but they are a kind of review. The goal, as I see it, is to relay the unique experiences in the game as best you can to the reader; to take them into the world of the game and show the reader the amazing or terrible aspects which might induce someone to buy it.

So, that primer out of the way, I'd like to talk about Halo 2 a bit. First, I'm not done with the single player game yet, so there're be more to come on that front. My Xbox has been offline since August due to being on a new and oftentimes unstable wireless network. On Wednesday I hooked up the wireless network adapter thinking it would be a major pain to set up, but in fact it only took a little bit of fiddling to get me up and running. As Halo 2 loaded, I received a voice messsage from Brandon, an occasional contributer here. I haven't seen Brandon in person since his wedding over a year ago, but I received a voice mail message through a game telling me about a game he had played the night before with Czar, another occational poster here and another person I haven't seen in forever, and told me that I should join in with them. Seconds after the messsage ended I saw that Brandon was not online playing Halo 2, but was in fact offline playing the single player campaign. Moments later I had recorded my own voice message where I told him of my current availability, only to shortly thereafter hear back from Brandon saying that he would find a good stopping point and then we could play. Then he soundly beat my ass. I got some good licks in though.

Anyway, that's hardly a very good example of New Games Journalism, but I've never been so amazed with the way a non-communication (read: cell phone) device can connect people separated by a continent. Halo 2, so far, is a spectacularly good game, but it's blowing my mind how it's able to bring people together so they can digitally kill each other.

I don't entirely agree with his politics

but Howard Dean has shown over the past year+ that he can get people involved in, even excited about, the Democratic party. I think he could be a brilliant party chair.

Today's reading assignment

Pretty much everything they've posted over at pandagon today is well worth your time.

This strategy for the Democrats, being a sincere but ultimately ineffectual opposition party, taking the optimistic and moral high ground, is much, much more appealing to me than the other two that have been floating about the blogosphere lately: lurching even further to the right, or forming a propaganda network as manipulative and disingenuous as the movement conservatives'. While building a strong progressive voice in the mainstream media is important, what we really need is a journalistic establishment whose primary mission is to check and evaluate the claims of the propagandists. If journalists were actually, you know, journalists, and the Democrats were actually, you know, the party of the non-wealthy and non-bigoted, movement conservatism wouldn't stand a chance.

Halo 2

Halo 2 drops tonight at midnight in many places. Not being a car owner, I'm unable to make it down to the game store tonight, but my Moot Court Brief is done so I'm going Halo 2 crazy tomorrow.

Incidentally, I heard a report about a week ago that there were over 1.5 million pre-orders for Halo 2. Let's figure that out: $50 x 1.5 million = $75 on the first day. If anyone doubted that games have arrived as a force in society, let that doubt be gone.

Damn liberal media!

You know, it's a good thing the New York Times published an article explaining that the Bush administration is incompetently waging its war on terror[ism] before the election, so the electorate could be reminded of this important detail.

Oh, wait. The election was last week, wasn't it? Shit. Don't you hate it when the liberal media pulls shit like this, publishing stories that hurt Bush after the election, in a transparent ploy to lead swing voters to Kerry?

Welcome My Friends, To The Show That Never Ends...It Just Takes Long Breaks

In the midst of being woefully behind in my progress towards completing the brief I'm working on, and supposed to be finished with for tomorrow, I went to Philly last night to see my friend Drew's band, The Trap, perform. I haven't had a friend in a band since high school, so I had forgotten how much more the girls would rather have sex with, or even talk to, the cute guitarist than with me. That's alright, such things would have really fucked up this whole "Friar without the faith" thing I've got going on.

The show rocked though. I implore you all to go to The Trap's web page and download their songs. There were two other bands there, well, two that mattered, and though I've gotta jet now I might post their websites later if I can find them.

The Saddest Shit Evva

Now that the election is over I can start posting more traditionally geeky things, like the Miss Digital World Contest, aka the thing we geeks that try to be cool shake our heads at.

I Loved Bees

The I Love Bees saga is over, and what a ride it's been. For those that have no idea what I'm talking about, well, I've posted a million times about it, but here's some help.

I haven't listened to them yet, but evidently you get the story from these audio files. What a bitchin' way to sell a game.

Time To Strategize

While we're licking our wounds from this election disaster I found a bitchin' chess program online to hone our strategic abilities so we can kick conservative ass next time.

So THAT'S what happened

A sixteen-year-old girl just explained to me what happened on Tuesday (screenname removed to protect her identity):

[04-11-2004 13:04:21] ----: because he's always bitchin at Bush about him outsourcing jobs, right? Yet, his wife owns Heinze (actually, she doesn't own jack shit, its her dead husband's company and money) and it ousourcing thousands of jobs. If they moved Heinze to the US, think of how many jobs there would be. But, no, they're keeping it wherever the fuck it is.
[04-11-2004 13:05:24] SecretAgentDan: ... you think people chose Bush over Kerry because Heinz ketchup manfactures overseas?
[04-11-2004 13:05:30] SecretAgentDan: wow
[04-11-2004 13:05:34] SecretAgentDan: when did you go insane?
[04-11-2004 13:05:35] ----: that's not even what I'm saying
[04-11-2004 13:05:41] ----: I was giving you a REASON
[04-11-2004 13:05:43] ----: A REASON
[04-11-2004 13:05:44] ----: one
[04-11-2004 13:05:47] ----: there are countless
[04-11-2004 13:05:56] SecretAgentDan: uh huh
[04-11-2004 13:06:04] ----: and I'm not insane
[04-11-2004 13:06:07] ----: you're the fucking moron
[04-11-2004 13:06:16] ----: now i know why I don't keep company w/ liberals
[04-11-2004 13:06:27] ----: I seriously think I'm dumber having talked to you about politics
[04-11-2004 13:06:42] SecretAgentDan: how, exactly, am I a moron?
[04-11-2004 13:09:34] ----: because you're so wrapped up in your Liberal world view you have no idea how badly this country would be if we had someone like Kerry in office. You want to know one of the reasons the economy is bad? Because that dumb ass Bill Clinton made the land that has our oil in Alaska "protected land" or whatever the fuck he called. Therefore causing us to have to get it from other countries. And since gas prices are so fucking high, people aren't buying new cars because they can't afford to fill the tanks. And since people aren't buying cars, peopel who make cars are getting laid off. If Bush could get it to where we could get our own oil from our own land, we'd have a way better economy. But, no, your dumb ass DEMOCRATIC president fucked that up.

It's Over

Kerry's giving up. 4 more years of the same old Bush bullshit.

The Day After

Ok, let me first say that all is not lost. Even though the networks promised that they wouldn't call anything until the was absolutely clear they called Ohio for Bush last night, but it's close this morning. The NYT has Ohio still as a tossup and the EV count 249-242. This is desperation setting in, but it IS still really close.

That being said, I've never felt more cynical and ashamed of Americans. Given all that has happened in the last four years, half the country (more than even think that Bush is doing a good job) voted for the status quo. The Youth vote didn't happen. The momentum in what 70% of Democrats said was the most important election in their life fizzled like crazy. Kerry should have mopped the floor with Bush given the terrible decisions the guy's made, but unlike 2000 we're probably not even going to win the nationwide popular vote. Granted, I had had a couple beers last night, though I was hardly drunk, but it was the first time I've ever really considered moving to a different country. Not only do I not know how I'm supposed to work with people for a more perfect union when they choose ignorance over the facts and "strong morals" over mistakes piled to the sky, but I'm also left with a swath of the population that continually lets me down in fights where it really counts. This is an election where young people REALLY could have made a difference. I think Micheal Moore is right, when you ask people questions on the issues (should gays get some more rights, should we do stem cell research, etc) most Americans are Democratic, and yet they disapeared right when we needed them.

So again, there's an outside chance that we could squeak this one by and Kerry could pull out a win, but we shouldn't be in this situation. We should be winning by large margains and I'm disgusted that people who agree with us on the issues at hand couldn't manage to help us in our darkest hour.

Election 2004

Well it's at least another hour before we start hearing anything real on this thing, and I'm about to go crazy. I actually didn't think I'd get this jittery, and yet I can't get any work done because I can't stop turning the TV on and off seeing if anything's happened. I think I need a drink...

Also, I hope you all got out there and voted. I cast a proud vote for Kerry and all the Dems on my ticket. I'm crossing my fingers, hoping, and wishing I was on the West Coast so it wasn't so late by the time I find anything out. Later all...

Big Day Tomorrow Huh?

So I've been off the radar for quite a while, but I needed to pop in to remind you all that, yes, there is a rather large election tomorrow. Your asses had better all vote. I'll try to muster the strength to post something else, but I think I'll probably end up just kicking it all out tomorrow in a huge, mega even, election day buffet.

American nightmare

Gary Kamiya explains why he calls Bush `one of hte worst in the history of the republic' on Salon:

Perhaps the most dispiriting aspect of the whole sorry chapter has been the collapse of national memory and accountability. One outrage follows the next with dreamlike regularity, lies about aluminum tubes to 9/11 revelations to Ahmed Chalabi to Joseph Wilson to cooked intel to Abu Ghraib to illegal detentions to lost explosives, and nothing ever happens, no one is ever punished, everything is for the best in the best of all possible six-gun-brandishing worlds. In an age of reality-TV war, where nothing is asked of Americans except that they rage and fear on color-coded command, the death of responsibility offers a happy ending to all -- except for those killed in Iraq.

There's a lot more in this powerful lament to the utter disaster this administration has been, for both our nation and our world.