Globaloney man moonlights as genocide man

Flat-earther Tom Friedman thinks the time is approaching when the US should just up and help 3/4 of Iraqis massacre the other 1/4--some six million people:

Maybe the cynical Europeans were right. Maybe this neighborhood is just beyond transformation. That will become clear in the next few months as we see just what kind of minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to be. If they come around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible, and we should stay to help build it. If they won’t, then we are wasting our time. We should arm the Shiites and Kurds and leave the Sunnis of Iraq to reap the wind. We must not throw more good American lives after good American lives for people who hate others more than they love their own children.

--via The Poorman.

Of course, there are precedents. Prescott Bush was funding the Nazis while the US was arming the Soviet Union back in WWII. We armed BOTH SIDES of the bloody Iran-Iraq war in the 1980's, helping to kill hundreds of thousands of Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. We encouraged Iraq to invade Kuwait, and then bombed the crap out of it for doing so, and then immediately encouraged the Shiites to rise up and kill their Sunni oppressors, and then abandoned them to their deaths when they did so. (Watch Three Kings if you haven't done so--great movie.) So now the Bangaloron thinks the time is approaching when we should abandon the insane enterprise for which he was such a vocal cheerleader--but not before making sure that we leave millions dead in our wake.

Old joke du jour

Jonathan Schwarz says he used to tell this joke:

The Soviet Union collapsed because they only had one communist party. They'd still be around if they'd been smart enough to have two communist parties that were exactly alike on every issue except abortion.

New Orleans--much more than Mardi Gras

While most of the hurricane coverage has been about FEMA screwups, the plight of the refugees, and the effects on gasoline prices, the WSWS points out that the storms are having a huge impact on American agriculture. Food is one of the few things, along with jobs, that this country still exports in large quantities. Some 65% of US grain exports typically leave the country through New Orleans, but much of the port infrastructure, for both river and ocean-going traffic has been damaged, and most of the people needed to operate it are no longer in New Orleans. In addition, food production has been directly affected, with millions of chickens and tens of thousands heads of cattle killed by the storms, sugar, rice, dairy and other farms wiped out, and most of the shrimping and fishing fleets decimated. The inability to export this year's harvest will go right back up the Mississippi to the grain fields of the Midwest, leaving farmers with yields they can't sell.

There's other scary things to read about in the article, which is well-written like most WSWS articles. They even left off their typical last paragraph about the only solution being for the workers of the world to unite for this article!

Dozens dead; Liar released

Car bombs in Balad, Iraq killed at least 60 people and wounded at least 70 others on Thursday, while another bomb killed five American soldiers in Ramadi.

Meanwhile, NY Times propagandist Judith Miller, whose lies contributed greatly to public support for starting the bloody war in Iraq, was released from jail for agreeing to testify to a grand jury. She claims she received a release to talk from her source, who claims he gave her the release months ago.

Let's hope her testimony puts the whole Bush administration in jail for a long time. Let's also hope she perjures herself or in some other way ends up back in jail for a long time. She has lots of blood on her hands.

From Mike Thompson.

Low rates, quagmire to quagmire!

From Doonesbury.

When the bubbles burst

An interesting discussion is going on over at The Oil Drum about whether Americans will be willing or able to respond to rising energy prices. Will high prices result in "demand destruction," causing people to trade in their SUV's and exurban houses for a less wasteful lifestyle? A couple of commenters suggest that even if the consumer mentality can be overcome, there may still be some huge obstacles in their way:

[Marko] If [millions of Americans] have blown their credit, and they still owe $20,000 on that SUV, nobody is going to give them a car loan to buy a replacement. Likewise, if they and millions of others are having trouble making payments on their $800,000 mortgage for a McMansion that is now worth $350,000, no one is going to issue them a mortgage for a smaller house closer to their job. In fact, they might have trouble finding a landlord who will rent to them with that kind of credit record.

[SW] I hope we are beginning to see some reality come back into the discussion regarding the impact of high gas prices. All those who have been marveling at how unaffected the consumer has been really needs to consider the fact that so many small transactions are now done by credit. This acts like a capacitor. When these expenses are inelastic, the only change that is felt for long periods of time is a gradual increase in the balance on the credit card. Not so bad when that can be periodically wiped out by refinancing the house. If and when that source of free money dries up the whole ponzi scheme crashes down.

When the levee breaks, it's a gonna be bad.

They're back!

The fires in Southern California, that is:

I'm guessing that a lot of the firefighters in the California National Guard are still in Iraq.

From Chris Britt.

From Mark Streeter.

The hypocritical oaf

Frist, tell no truth:

From Dan Wasserman.

From Jimmy Margulies.

From Don Wright.

From Mike Thompson.

That's why she's a senator

In June, the Pentagon told lawmakers that three Iraqi battalions were fully trained, equipped and capable of operating independently. On Thursday, [Gen. George] Casey said only one battalion is ready.

"It doesn't feel like progress," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

-- AP

Torture Nation

Read Jeanne d'Arc's post on the latest evidence that torturing of prisoners by the US military is widespread, systematic, and condoned from on high--until you get caught or blow the whistle.

Energy savings in perspective

I'm proud of and happy with the solar shingles powering my house. They work well, providing me with about 6 kilowatt-hours of electrical energy per day, enough for my needs on most days. But the system was quite expensive (over $20,000), and I installed it only after taking a lot of conservation measures--compact fluorescent light bulbs, power strips on always-on phantom loads, and so on. Still, the savings from both the conservation efforts and the solar shingles pale in comparison to the immense energy savings available from driving less.

One gallon of gasoline contains 36.6 kwh of energy, while a gallon of diesel fuel contains 40.7 kwh. (source) So, if you eliminate one twenty-mile car trip, you are probably saving more energy than I save in a day with all of my conservation efforts and expensive solar-power system!

This fine article (via Cyndy), points out the fundamental energy problems with our car culture, problems that won't be solved even by hybrids or biodiesel or hydrogen. Excerpt:

Consider the energy required to move a 130-pound human body by foot as compared to moving that same body the same distance seated behind the wheel of a 4,000-pound SUV. The average human can hit about 5 miles-per-hour in a brisk walk while the typical car averages 40 mph (city and freeway). While it is true that you can move eight times faster inside a two-ton vehicle, accomplishing this feat requires burning around 1,900 times as much energy (and that’s not factoring in friction, which increases with speed). This should tell you something about the fundamental insanity of depending on gas-fueled cars in an oil-starved future.

And, it’s not just the oil. Even if powered by biodiesel, hydrogen or sunbeams, the private automobile is still part of an unsustainable urban system that requires massive networks of streets, freeways, and parking structures to serve congested cities and far-flung suburbs. Driving a Prius hybrid simply makes it easier for people to live farther from the rest of their lives (while seducing them into thinking that they are “doing something for the environment”). We don’t want to face this truth because it implies too much change. Autoworkers want to keep their jobs and Sierra Clubers want to be free to drive 40 miles to experience nature whenever they feel like it.

It has been encouraging to see a lot more riders on the bus in the past month. A lot of it is UM students who have returned from summer break, but there are way more of them on the bus than there were in the spring. I can't always get my favorite seat anymore, but I'm encouraged that my bus route is going to survive (it used to be the least-used route in the AATA system).

My solar-power system is a luxury. The biggest and easiest personal/household energy savings are cheap or free, and most will even save you money.

Dem bashing is in

A good thing, too! Arianna Huffington's article yesterday, about John Kerry's recent use of Bushie talking points to argue that progress is being made in Iraq, is one of many I've seen recently (not counting the ones I've written myself). I don't think the Democrats can win in '06 or '08 with Kerry-Clinton policies of supporting the wars. But even if they do, we'll have lost, because they'll carry on with the same stupid and criminal policies (possibly better managed). Take a stand, oppose the wars, oppose "globalization," oppose John Friggin' Roberts, for Chrissakes!

To really fix this country, BOTH corporate parties need to go. If that's not going to happen, we at least need the opposition party to oppose.

The Hammer gets nailed

The WSWS explains the DeLay tactics, which basically involved using the Repug National Committee to launder illegal corporate donations to candidates for state legislature. Once these Repug seats in Austin were bought, they were used to jerrymander Texas congressional districts, which turned a 21-11 Democratic majority into a 17-15 Repug majority.

UM Solar Car finishes third

The University of Michigan's Momentum solar car finished third in the race across Australia behind the Dutch Nuna 3 team and the Australian Aurora team.

Getting colder

Let's take a look at those natural gas prices again:

The $13.907 is yesterday's close. The price as of 9:51 today is $14.37--a new record high. Gasoline futures are back up to $2.35 a gallon, meaning you'll see $3 at the pump again real soon, if you haven't already. Crude prices aren't rising as dramatically, probably because the loss of refining capacity due to Katrina and Rita has left some oil with no place to go. Still, $66.84 would have been a record high less than two months ago.

High gasoline prices are being blamed for a record high rate of late payments on credit cards, and this is before the winter heating crunch:

Heating a typical home with natural gas in colder parts of the country is now expected to cost $1,568 this winter, up 64 percent from $957 last year, according to estimates from the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association, which coordinates energy relief for lower-income families.

The news is not much better for homes using heating oil. This winter's heating bill could rise by nearly a third, to $1,666, from $1,263 last winter, the group said. Its forecasts are based on estimates made after Hurricane Katrina but before Rita.

Elsewhere:

• The Reserve Bank of Australia is warning of a market meltdown.
• On a positive note, SUV sales are plummeting.

(Some links via Politics in the Zeros)

Iraq Veterans Against the War speak out

This article has some strong quotes from Iraq vets who were at last Saturday's march in Washington. Sample:

One uniformed young man with a southern accent said he'd been a military driver trucking supplies from Kuwait to many destinations in Iraq.

"We went in there for weapons of mass destruction. There are no weapons of mass destruction - I think that's perfectly clear. So we have no reason to be there. Plain and simple."

In addition to the Iraq Veterans Against the War, a number of active-duty troops attended Saturday's demonstration in uniform, and told the press of their opposition to the war in Iraq.

A tough-looking regular Army sergeant in camouflage fatigues preferred not to give his name because he was still in the service, but said he was just back from eight months in Baghdad.

"I don't know what we're fighting for over there. It's not a good cause. They don't appreciate us when we're there. They look at us as enemies, not as friends. So it's kind of hard when you're trying to help the enemies, and not the friends."

He shook his head with a sad smile.

Chad Soloman, the Ohio national guardsman in IVAW, probably spoke for many of the Iraq veterans at the demonstration:

"It's a war based on greed and selfishness and ignorance and incompetence, and I just see no reason why we should be continuing it. So we're here to show that not all veterans are supportive of the war, that some of us feel it's wrong, and that we need to take a stand against it."

I suggest we work towards an America where, if one of these vets decides to run for office 20 or 30 years from now, his or her participation in the march will be a point in their favor, while having participated in Operation Iraqi Destruction will be a point against. As long as warmaking is glorified and peacemaking is ridiculed, we're screwed.

Abiotic Oil

I was reading a post by Jonathan at the Past Peak blog about the apparent nearness of peak oil. He got a pretty negative comment from an anonymous contributor who suggested that Jonathan's forecasts of peak oil's imminence were clouded by his apparent desire that it be true (something I'm guilty of, too, I'm sure). Anyway, I thought it was pretty harsh, so I rushed to Jonathan's defense. This led to an exchange of comments between anonymous which may not have stopped yet. Along the way, I learned of the concept of "abiotic oil," the idea that oil isn't a fossil fuel at all but results from inorganic reactions at high temperature and pressure deep below the earth's surface. Apparently there has been lots of research into this in Russia for over 50 years. Anonymous referred me to a couple of articles on the topic, one of which extrapolated the idea that oil is produced abiotically into the idea that it is therefore much more abundant than we think, and that it is even a "renewable" resource. This extrapolation is presented with very little evidence (one oil field in the Gulf of Mexico that seems to refill itself), and used to suggest therefore that peak oil isn't real--it's just a hoax being pulled by the oil companies and countries to drive prices higher.

Anyway, there's a lot more detail, including links to the articles I mentioned above and a lot more ranting by yours truly, over at Past Peak--if you're interested (or not).

DeLay Indicted!

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay indicted on one count of criminal conspiracy by Texas grand jury, according to Travis County clerk's office.

That's a flash headline at the CNN web site. I imagine more will be coming shortly.

[Update] Here's the NY Times article.

Good Peak Oil Site

I just came across The Oil Drum: A Community Discussion about Peak Oil. Much more current than most of the peak oil sites I've seen--if something happened yesterday, it's there.

Record damage to oil rigs

From the Financial Times:

Hurricane Rita has caused more damage to oil rigs than any other storm in history and will force companies to delay drilling for oil in the US and as far away as the Middle East, initial damage assessments show.
...
“Based on what we have right now, it appears that drilling contractors and rig owners took a big hit from Rita,” said Tom Marsh of ODS-Petrodata. “The path Katrina took was through the mature areas of the US Gulf where there are mainly oil [production] platforms. Rita came to the west where there is a lot of [exploratory] rig activity.”

Ken Sill of Credit Suisse First Boston said: “Early reports indicate numerous rigs are missing, destroyed or have suffered serious damage and several companies have yet to report. Rita may set an all-time record.”

25 Questions

Author Mike Davis and New Orleans architect Anthony Fontenot have 25 questions about New Orleans and Katrina. A sampling:

14. Was the failure to adequately stock food, water, potable toilets, cots, and medicine at the Louisiana Superdome a deliberate decision -- as many believe -- to force poorer residents to leave the city?

17. Why didn't the Navy or Coast Guard immediately airdrop life preservers and rubber rafts in flooded districts? Why wasn't such life-saving equipment stocked in schools and hospitals?

Xymphora is intrigued by question 2:

2. Who owned the huge barge that was catapulted through the wall of the Industrial Canal, killing hundreds in the Lower Ninth Ward -- the most deadly hit-and-run accident in U.S. history?

Xymphora suggests:

The reason this story isn't getting more play is that the politically-connected corporation that negligently failed to secure its barge would be facing a multi-billion dollar liability claim. You can add that claim to the fact that the storm surge wasn't high enough to go over the floodwalls, meaning that they failed due to negligent construction, presumably due to cost-cutting by corrupt subcontractors employed by the Army Corps of Engineers (for some Army boondoggles, see here). This story is just starting. Watch for Bush to try to sneak in some kind of liability limitation to protect the guilty.

From Pat Bagley. I saw the video clip of W mentioning conservation--it really WAS difficult for him to get it out.

From Wayne Stayskal.

Dumb ideas in Vegas should stay in Vegas

From Jim Day, of the Las Vegas Review Journal.

I'll confess that I agree somewhat with this viewpoint, which seems to be a fairly common one. Some government insurance programs and bailouts do encourage people and businesses to continue to build in risky areas--flood plains, hurricane zones, the firey-mudslidey hills of Southern California, and so on. Government also has repeatedly bailed out corporations, or at least their reckless leaders, time and again for absurdly risky behavior--Lockheed, Chrysler, the airlines, the S & L's, insurance companies, etc. Where the line should be drawn between acceptable and unacceptable risk in each case is certainly debatable, as is the extent to which government should step in to help individuals or corporations.

In this case, however, what is really absurd is for someone from Las Vegas to be pointing a finger. Without taking massive amounts of water from the Colorado River, parching millions of downstream acres in Arizona, California and Mexico, and buying almost 60% of its electricity from outside sources (and the 40% generated locally comes from coal, oil and natural gas), Sin City wouldn't exist at all--and probably won't in 30 years. The Gulf Coast may be occasionally wiped out by hurricanes, but it also has abundant arable land, fresh water, and has a survivable (if a bit warm) climate year round (except for those hurricanes). Las Vegas has none of that--without massive influxes of outside energy and water (and the billions the government spent on Hoover Dam) it almost completely unlivable. That it is one of America's fastest-growing cities is totally absurd--far more than is rebuilding a house in New Orleans or Biloxi.

Here in Michigan we've got water, good farmland, and excellent transportation networks, including the Great Lakes. We've also got cold winters and the occasional tornado. There are some risks involved wherever you live, and they should probably be taken into account to some degree in public policy. But for someone in Las Friggin' Vegas to suggest that people are stupid to build homes in the Gulf Coast region--well, something about glass houses and throwing stones, I'd say.

Ted Rall captured this concept pretty well a few weeks ago:

Locals swamp evacuee job fair

From the Detroit News:

A job fair for victims of Hurricane Katrina was overwhelmed Monday by victims of an economic storm, as unemployed Metro Detroiters searched for work of their own.

The job fair at the main Detroit Public Library was billed as a means for Michigan companies to help evacuees now temporarily living in Metro Detroit. But as hundreds of Detroit residents lined up in the library hallway Monday morning, the event instead became a symbol of the help needed by the city's own residents.

More than 80 percent of the nearly 400 people filling out applications at the Katrina job fair were from Metro Detroit.

"There are a lot of people who need jobs," said Bianca Dave, 23, of Detroit, as she filled out four job applications. "They (Katrina victims) need jobs. But I need a job. Bad."

I recently finished reading Barbara Ehrenreich's new book, Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream. She investigates the nightmare world of white-collar job searching--job fairs, coaches, boot camps, faith-based networking (notworking), books and web sites. Job seekers are continually encouraged to blame their job-finding problems on themselves and only themselves, rather than the corporations or the politicians or the idiot globalization pundits (yes, I mean you, Tom Friedman) who think that a system of borrowing foreign money to import foreign stuff made by low-wage foreign workers to be sold at cut-rate prices by a cut-rate sales force is just the only way to run an economy in the 21st century.

It's the Repug dream world--what few unions are left are now scabbing each other, knowing that relentless, unending unemployment is the only alternative. Ehrenreich suggests, more or less, that white-collar job seekers stop blaming themselves and organize to change this insane "system."

Any Excuse in a Storm

Digby has a long post summarizing various reports which show that the reports of serious violence--murders, rapes and beatings--in the New Orleans Superdome and Convention Center in the week following Katrina were almost entirely fictional. People died because relief did not arrive--kept away in large part because of these lies.

Things that make you go hmmmm....

“I can see it like a movie screen,” Baer said. “We were outside of (a city in southern Iraq) watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We were at an old air base, me, Kevin and Pat, we weren’t in the fight right then. We were talking. And Pat said, ‘You know, this war is so f— illegal.’ And we all said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush.”

Pat was Pat Tillman, the football player who gave up his lucrative job as an Arizona Cardinal safety to fight in the "war on terror." He was briefly a hero for the wingnuts, having supposedly braved al Qaeda and Taliban and, oh probably Iraqi and Nazi and Japanese and Commie and Redcoat and Klingon fire while charging fearlessly up a hill in Afghanistan. Except it turned out that he was killed by friendly fire:

The soldier next to him testified: “I could hear the pain in his voice as he called out, ‘Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat f—ing Tillman, dammit.” He said this over and over until he stopped,” having been hit by three bullets in the forehead, killing him.

The Army covered up the friendly-fire part of his death while Rummy and aWol and the other wingnuts played him up as a hero. Like their earlier attempts to make a heroine out of Jessica Lynch, the lies eventually got exposed. At least some of them--Digby suggests that Tillman may have been fragged, possibly because of his anti-Bush stance.

Did you know that Tillman's favorite author was, wait for it--Noam Chomsky?

(The quotes and most of the background in this post come from The Cunning Realist.)

A cold winter

Up 150% in the past year. Half of all homes in America heat with natural gas, including mine. I'm looking into adding solar air heating panels to my house, and maybe getting a higher-efficiency furnace as well.

Drug Syndicate

Jonathan Schwartz at A Tiny Revolution asks: "Which U.S. president's family fortune came from opium?"

Another reader said it was Calvin Coolidge, to which Jonathan replied that he had another president in mind.

After a little googling, I begin to wonder if the question should be "Which US president's family fortune DIDN'T come from opium?" But if I can believe the blather here, the correct answer would be FDR, through his grandfather Warren Delano Jr. There also seem to be ties to the Bushies through HW's China and CIA connections, but Jonathan did say "president's" and not "presidents'."

The lead comment on that site suggests that John Kerry's great-great-grandfather James Murray Forbes made a fortune in the opium trade. Another comment mentions that FDR, Teddy Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Kerry and the Bushes are ALL related to each other.

And then there's this from a history of Skull and Bones:

In 1823, Samuel Russell established Russell and Company for the purpose of acquiring opium in Turkey and smuggling it to China. Russell and Company merged with the Perkins (Boston) syndicate in 1830 and became the primary American opium smuggler. Many of the great American and European fortunes were built on the "China" (opium) trade.

One of Russell and Company's Chief of Operations in Canton was Warren Delano, Jr., grandfather of Franklin Roosevelt. Other Russell partners included John Cleve Green (who financed Princeton), Abiel Low (who financed construction of Columbia), Joseph Coolidge and the Perkins, Sturgis and Forbes families. (Coolidge's son organized the United Fruit company, and his grandson, Archibald C. Coolidge, was a co-founder of the Council on Foreign Relations.)

It would appear that many or most of our presidents and other leading politicians are part of the same crime family which made fortunes in opium, wars, and opium wars.

Those opium wars include the ongoing quagmire in Afghanistan, where the removal of the Taliban has made poppy growing profitable again.

From Mike Thompson.

From Doonesbury.

From Tom Toles.

News on the solar front

I've updated my solar blog, if you're interested. I've also updated it if you're not interested.

George Monbiot on Peak Oil

WIIIAI forwarded this article to me: It's better to cry wolf now than to wait until the oil has run out. Excerpt:

Oil analysts and environmentalists have warned of disappearing reserves ever since drilling began, and they have always been proved wrong. According to people such as the Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg, this is because the industry is self-regulating. "High real prices deter consumption and encourage the development of other sources of oil and non-oil energy supplies," he says. "Since searching costs money, new searches will not be initiated too far in advance of production. Consequently, new oilfields will be continuously added as demand rises ... we will stop using oil when other energy technologies provide superior benefits."

It is beginning to look as if he is wrong on all counts. As the Economist magazine pointed out on September 10, "demand for petrol is pretty inelastic in the short term", because people still have to go to work, however much it costs. According to the analyst it cites, "it would take a doubling of petrol prices to reduce American petrol consumption by just 5%".

Lomborg's idea that companies can just go out and find new oil when demand rises suggests that he believes geology is as malleable as statistics. One day - or so we should hope - a superior technology will certainly emerge, but cheap alternatives to liquid fuels are currently decades away. Yes, the pessimists have been crying wolf for almost a century. But better that, perhaps, than crying "sheep" when the wolves appear.

I'll bet the Brits know

Jerri sent me this joke:

Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing.
He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."

"OH NO!" the president exclaims. "That's terrible!"

His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the
president sits, head in hands.

Finally, President Bush looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"

86 dies at 82

My childhood is dying off rapidly. First Gilligan, now Maxwell Smart.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Don Adams, the wry-voiced comedian who starred as the fumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart in the 1960s television spoof of James Bond movies, "Get Smart," has died. He was 82.

Actually, he was 86.

He will be sorely missed.

Ummm...would you believe "fondly remembered?"

How about "buried in an unmarked grave in Compton?"

Sorry about that, Chief!

Pall bearers will be 22, 37, 45, 71, 76, and of course 99.

The Bully Pulpit

Maybe I'm reading the cause and effect wrong here, but it seems as though before aWol started talking about conservation a couple of hours ago, both oil and gasoline prices were falling and the stock market was rising. Since then, oil and gas prices have gone up and stocks have gone down. I wonder which explanation is more likely:

• Traders doubt that anyone listens to W anymore, so they don't expect any conservation to result--hence, higher prices.
• Traders figure that if W is calling for conservation, the situation must be desperate.

Inadequate Body Armor

For aWol himself! Irony of ironies, I guess. The now unfortunately-named Second Chance Armor of Central Lake, Michigan (near Charlevoix) has been selling bullet-"proof" vests which have apparently been deteriorating rapidly, possibly contributing to the death of a California police officer. During the two years when Second Chance knew they had a problem but failed to tell anyone, they sold $53,000 worth of body armor to the Secret Service for use by aWol, Laura, and others.

While the wealth never seems to trickle down very far, sometimes the blatant incompetence and criminality of 21st-century America trickles up to the top (where it is clearly right at home). To quote Nelson Muntz: "HA HA!"

Yeah--"Dressed as police"

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Insurgents dressed as Iraq police shot and killed six teachers Monday, while violence claimed at least 10 other lives, including three U.S. soldiers, authorities in Iraq said.

Of course there aren't any insurgents actually in the Iraqi police force. Nor are there British troops among the insurgents, or American imperialists hiding amongst the American liberators. If you believe all that, there's a bridge in Alaska I'd like to sell you.

Jimmy Carter Bush?

Wonders never cease! A few weeks ago, aWol actually took a tiny measure of responsibility for his administration's massive Cheney-up of the response to Katrina. And now I see this headline on the NY Times web site:

Bush Urges Conservation as Retail Gas Prices Rise
...
"We can all pitch in by being better conservers," Mr. Bush said after being briefed on the situation at the Energy Department. "People just need to recognize that these storms have caused disruptions." In addition to urging consumers to cut back, he said federal employees should use carpool and public transport and not take non-essential trips.

Public transport? Oooo...the base isn't going to like that! The Red Sox won the World Series last year, and now W is admitting mistakes and calling for conservation. The end must be near.

[Update] This paragraph from WIIIAI fits in pretty well here:

It’s a measure of how mainstream opposition to the war in Iraq now is that pro-war politicians are unable to impugn the motives of its opponents. Yesterday Bush said something about advocates of pull-out being well-intentioned but mistaken. Compare this with the taunts hurled at opponents of the war in Vietnam and you can see the difference. Bush and his claque are not able to call war opponents traitors, to suggest that they love America or leave it or even to suggest that they don’t support “our troops.” Bush used the same rhetoric about the terrorists only being able to win if America’s will is sapped, but at the same time in the same press conference had to acknowledge the legitimacy of the anti-war position. Rhetorically, he’s lost the argument, or at least ceded a lot of ground.

Winners and Losers

The latest from Paul Craig Roberts:

The Iraqi war has three beneficiaries: (1) al Qaeda, (2) Iran and (3) US war industries and Bush-Cheney cronies who receive no-bid contracts.

Everyone else is a loser.
...
When Asia pulls the plug on the dollar, the US government will find that monetary and fiscal policy are powerless to offset the consequences.

Compared to US budget and trade deficits, terrorists are a minor concern. The greatest danger that the US faces is the dollar's loss of reserve currency role. This would be an impoverishing event, one from which the US would not recover.

An intelligent government sincerely concerned with homeland security would find a way to halt the global labor arbitrage that is stripping the American economy of high value-added jobs and manufacturing capability, thereby causing the US trade deficit to explode. The loss of tax base that results when US companies outsource jobs and relocate production abroad makes it ever more difficult to balance a budget strained by war, natural disasters, and demographic impact on Social Security and Medicare.

Global labor arbitrage is rapidly dismantling the ladders of upward mobility and thereby endangering American political stability. This threat is far greater than any Osama bin Laden can mount.

Quote du Jour

From the Village Voice:

[S]ome 250 military family members...marched on Saturday. Many said they had no patience for President Bush’s claim that to pull out now would mean their loved ones died in vain. “Twenty thousand more people could die and it wouldn’t give my son’s life any more meaning,” said Diane Santoriello of Pittsburgh, whose son, First Lt. Neil Santoriello, was killed by when a bomb exploded under his tank while patrolling in Iraq. “I think the situation is out of control and we’re making things worse.”

Stop the War Democrats

You can read my headline either way--as supporting "Stop the War" Democrats like Kucinich, McKinney, Lee and others, or as a call to stop the "War Democrats" like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry and way too many others who have not only voted for and supported the criminal war in Iraq, but all too frequently call for sending even more troops into the quagmire. Everyone who marched in protest on Saturday, and the now clear majority of Americans who support them, need to make it clear to the Democratic Party that this approach is unacceptable and unforgiveable. Any Democrat who voted for the war in 2002 needs to be run out of office in his or her next primary. Make sure the voters have a choice between a warmonger Repug and a peacenik Democrat. Heck, this way the Dems might even win!

From Justin Raimando:

Through a combination of cajoling, threats, and nasty primary challenges, critics of our interventionist foreign policy in both parties can put pressure on Congress to stop funding and start questioning this rotten war.

New Yorkers--it starts with you. Get your best anti-war politician to challenge Hillary in the primary next year, and support the heck out of him or her. Hillary is NOT on our side, and needs to be tossed on the trashheap of history. This war only happened, and has only dragged on as long as it has, because of Democratic apologists for it. No more Kerrys or Hillarys--Peace Democrats or No Democrats! (And boy, didn't that Supreme Court argument for Kerry work well, huh? Now we'll have an endless quagmire AND a star chamber.)

Second place so far

Tracking the World Solar Challenge in Australia appears to be harder than following the North American Solar Challenge in July. However, according to the Michigan team's blog, their entry Momentum is in second place after the first day of racing.

From Doonesbury.

Bush Quagmires Continue to Kill

• US Helicopter Crashes in Afghanistan, Killing 10
• U.S. Forces Clash With Rebel Cleric's Men in Iraq; Bombings Kill 10

AWol really should listen to us. I took part in Ann Arbor's peace march and rally.

Kickoff is at 6

The Michigan football team is playing at Wisconsin today, starting at 6 pm, but most eyes around here will of course be on the World Solar Challenge in Australia, which starts at the same time. You can track the race at the WSC website, or here at Bob's Links and Rants!

Must Scream TV

I tried to watch some CNN last night and this morning to see what Rita might be doing to the Gulf Coast. While the wind-swept correspondents ducking debris is clearly cheesy sensationalism, I kind of enjoy it. What I can't stand are the idiot anchors back in Atlanta--Soledad O'Brien, Paula Zahn, Larry King, and others (I actually find Aaron Brown to be somewhat tolerable). The worst part is their interminable questions--here's a composite based on what I saw a hundred times:

Soledad: We go now to Sean Baker in Galveston (picture of Sean with his CNN raincoat fluttering in the wind). Sean what's going on in Galveston? We've seen projections for days that Galveston may take the brunt of the storm, but now it appears as though it might be spared, might not get the full brunt, of the storm as we had all feared. There certainly must be some sense of relief there in Galveston, even though we all know this is far from over. So tell us, Sean, what's going on in Galveston?

Sean: That's right, Soledad. As you can see, the wind and rain are pretty strong here in downtown Galveston, but not as...

Soledad: Sean...let me interrupt for a moment. We all know that Galveston was devastated by a hurricane in 1900, the worst natural disaster in US history, and we've all been hoping and indeed praying that it doesn't face that kind of devastation again, even though many experts have been predicting it this week, with a huge storm surge topping that sea wall. So, Sean, tell us more about what's going on there--I know it has already been a long night for you.

Sean: Yes it has, Soledad. We have reports of a fire in the downtown area...

Soledad: Hold that thought, Sean, the mayor of Beaumont is speaking to the media, and we're going to go there right after this break. This is CNN.

And while Soledad and Paula bring new meaning to the words "creepy" and "rude," Larry King adds several dictionary entries to the word "oblivious." If the eighth pilot he had interviewed hadn't been watching the Jet Blue landing Wednesday night while talking to Larry, Larry would have missed the landing entirely. CNN's coverage, while featuring the stunning live video, was almost completely content-free otherwise. They kept showing live shots of the plane in the air, without any context--where is the camera, which way is it pointed, how far is the plane from LAX, what is its altitude? This is also a major problem with CNN's hurricane coverage. They're constantly showing video of wind, rain, flooding, devastation, etc., and almost never indicate where or when the video was taken. Even the idiot anchors don't seem to know whether the video is live or just a replay from earlier. With all the tools they have at their disposal, CNN could provide both tons of information and compelling entertainment, but they generally fail to do either.

Beatings in Iraq routine

Three former members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division have said that soldiers in that division routinely beat Iraqi prisoners, both supposedly to gather intel and for sport:

In one incident, the Human Rights Watch report states, an off-duty cook broke a detainee's leg with a metal baseball bat. Detainees were also stacked, fully clothed, in human pyramids and forced to hold five-gallon water jugs with arms outstretched or do jumping jacks until they passed out, the report says. "We would give them blows to the head, chest, legs and stomach, and pull them down, kick dirt on them," one sergeant told Human Rights Watch researchers during one of four interviews in July and August. "This happened every day."

The sergeant continued: "Some days we would just get bored, so we would have everyone sit in a corner and then make them get in a pyramid. This was before Abu Ghraib but just like it. We did it for amusement."

It is time to bring the troops home and prosecute all of those many "bad apples" guilty of torture and other war crimes, starting at the top: Bush, Rumsfeld and Meyers. Today is the day to hit the streets and let our criminal government know that their time is up. I'll be in the march here in Ann Arbor, and know several people who got on the buses last night to go to DC.

From Drew Sheneman.

From Signe Wilkinson.

From Gary Varvel.

From Brian Adcock.

From Doonesbury.

World Solar Challenge

Fresh off their victory in the 2005 North American Solar Challenge, the University of Michigan's solar car team is ready to take on the world in Australia, starting this Sunday. The 2005 World Solar Challenge starts September 25 in Darwin, Australia, traversing the island continent from north to south, reaching Adelaide on October 2.

Those of you who read my blog back in July know you can expect way too many updates as the race progresses. I talked to a member of the team, unfortunately left behind in Ann Arbor, who told me that the real race is for second place. One of the Dutch teams (I think) apparently has some very high-efficiency (and expensive) solar panels giving it about 700 watts more power than the UM car or any other car in the race.

Meanwhile, the university is involved in another solar competition. The Michigan Solar House, aka MiSo, is about to be hauled down to Washington, DC for a competition on the Mall in October. The house features all sorts of active and passive solar elements to provide electricity, heating and cooling, and hot water. MiSo will be one of 18 entries on display from October 7-11 and 13-16 in the Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon. The Decathlon winner will be announced October 14.

Go Blue! Go Blue!

Sign Ideas

Going to one of the big peace marches this weekend? Here are some ideas for signs:

• Bush is to Earth like Katrina is to Louisiana
• We're fighting them there so we can't protect ouselves here
• Bush's levees are about to break
• George Bush: The LIE of the hurricane
• We're all in the Superdome now
• Katrina-Rita in '08! (better than what we've got now)
  

and the message we really need to get across:

• No Pro-war Democrats in '06 or '08!

Cindy, not Hillary, in 2008

From the Village Voice, via Left I:

Sheehan isn’t stopping her critique with Bush. On the contrary, she has begun to set her sights on Congress and the Democratic Party as well. When she spoke in Brooklyn on the night before, she took note of the fact that Senator Hillary Clinton voted to authorize Bush to use force in Iraq and– like most Senate Democrats–has done little to bring the troops home. Clinton, in fact, has filed legislation calling for more troops.

In an interview after her speech, Sheehan told the Voice she was “so frustrated” by leading Democrats like Clinton “who should be leaders on this issue, but are not.” Already, she has set up a future meeting with New York’s junior senator this weekend. And she plans to sit down with the state’s senior senator, Chuck Schumer, too. “It’s time for them to step up and be the opposition party,” she said. “This war is not going to end unless the Democrats are on board with us.”

I hope Sheehan is wrong, because I don't see the corporate Dumbocrats getting on board any time soon. John Kerry, with an actual anti-war record to his credit, could have gotten on board last year and been president today. But his higher loyalty, as with Hillary and with aWol, was to his corporate paymasters.

The future here--today!

From CNN:

On Highway 290, a major road between Houston and Austin, people were pushing their cars and minivans to save gas -- and were moving just as fast as the vehicles that were driving. Others were stopped on the side of the highway after breaking down or running out of gas.

If that's not a preview of coming attractions, I don't know what is.

I'm baaack!!

My cable modem quit working yesterday, so I had to go to Comcast this morning and get another one. Still catching up on what I missed. In the meantime, Rick sends me some quality speculation for your consideration:

The recent incident in Basra, where two british commandos were arrested by Iraqi authorities, and were later remanded to british authorities under some violent coercion..

The commandos were arrested while wearing plain iraqi clothing, that is, they were masquerading as Iraqi citizens. Isn't that a violation of the 'rules of war, in that all legal combatants are to remain in their uniforms?

The commandos were in posession of explosive devices and timers at the time they were arrested. Just what were they intending to blow up?

...Masquerading as Iraqis, about to set a timer-controlled bomb. I wonder how many of the IEDs that are being attributed to 'insurgents' are really being set by forces whos real interest is in keeping the conflict going???

Something for everyone

We here at Bob's Links and Rants (and by "we" I mean "I") aim to please. So here's a hodgepodge of selections to suit nearly every taste.

For the optimist, from Home Power magazine:

According to the EPA, a total switch to energy-efficient lighting in the US would keep 202 million tons of carbon dioxide, and 600,000 tons of nitrogen oxides out of the atmosphere. Some experts suggest such a switch would reduce the US yearly energy bill by at least $30 billion.

If all US households replaced one incandescent bulb with one CF bulb, one nuclear power plant could be shut down. If US homes replaced all of their 500 million incandescent bulbs with CF ones, the US instantly would have untold energy wealth and surplus--no more shortages or brownouts.

For the pessimist, the ever-reliable James Howard Kunstler:

Take a good look at America around you now, because when we emerge from the winter of 2005-6, we're going to be another country. The reality-oblivious nation of mall hounds, bargain shoppers, happy motorists, Nascar fans, Red State war hawks, and born-again Krispy Kremers is headed into a werewolf-like transformation that will reveal to all the tragic monster we have become.
...
In this remarkable three weeks since New Orleans was shredded, no Democrat has stepped into the vacuum of leadership, either, with a different vision of what we might do now, and who we might become. This is the kind of medium that political maniacs spawn in. Something is out there right now, feeding on the astonishment and grievance of a whipsawed middle class, and it will have a lot more nourishment in the months ahead.

There are two things that the newspapers and TV Cable News outfits are not covering very well. One is that the Port of New Orleans is not functioning, with poor prospects for a quick recovery, and with it will go much of the Midwestern grain harvest. Another thing that has fallen off the radar screen is the damage done to the oil and gas infrastructure around the Gulf Coast, especially the onshore facilities for storing and transporting stuff, and for marshaling the crews and equipment to fix stuff. The US is going to run short of its customary supplies for a long time. The idea that these things will not affect an economy of ceaseless mobility is not realistic.
...
Meanwhile, does anybody remember a place called Iraq? A bomb that killed thirty people was reported on page 12 of the Sunday New York Times. That's how important Iraq has become. But, I guess, a nation can hardly pay attention to a bullet in the foot when it has a sucking chest wound.

For you gibberish fans, here's W himself:

And that can-do spirit is -- these county commissioners -- we call them county commissioners -- county supervisors and mayors who are dealing with unbelievable trauma, and, you know, they're right there on a front line of trying to comfort people who hurt. And, yet, amidst all that agony and pain they're going through was this comforting spirit. The can-do spirit is, you know, seeing progress being made. And inside this tent there's a can-do spirit of taking a horrible situation and making this part of the world better. And so I'm impressed.

And for blue-state gibberish fans, here's John Kerry:

[Ex-FEMA director Mike Brown] is to Katrina what Paul Bremer is to peace in Iraq, what George Tenet is to slam-dunk intelligence, what Paul Wolfowitz is to parades paved with flowers in Baghdad, what Dick Cheney is to visionary energy policy, what Donald Rumsfeld is to basic war planning, what Tom DeLay is to ethics and what George Bush is to "Mission Accomplished" and "Wanted Dead or Alive."

For those who like to do the math, there's Paul Craig Roberts:

According to the September 1 Manufacturing & Technology News, the Government Accounting Office has reported that over the course of the cakewalk war, the US military’s use of small caliber ammunition has risen to 1.8 billion rounds. Think about that number. If there are 20,000 insurgents, it means US troops have fired 90,000 rounds at each insurgent.

Very few have been hit. We don’t know how many. To avoid the analogy with Vietnam, until last week the US military studiously avoided body counts. If 2,000 insurgents have been killed, each death required 900,000 rounds of ammunition.

And for those of you who think James Howard Kunstler is really an optimist, there's this from the Independent:

A record loss of sea ice in the Arctic this summer has convinced scientists that the northern hemisphere may have crossed a critical threshold beyond which the climate may never recover. Scientists fear that the Arctic has now entered an irreversible phase of warming which will accelerate the loss of the polar sea ice that has helped to keep the climate stable for thousands of years.

They believe global warming is melting Arctic ice so rapidly that the region is beginning to absorb more heat from the sun, causing the ice to melt still further and so reinforcing a vicious cycle of melting and heating.

The greatest fear is that the Arctic has reached a "tipping point" beyond which nothing can reverse the continual loss of sea ice and with it the massive land glaciers of Greenland, which will raise sea levels dramatically.

"Born again Krispy Kremers." That's funny. Mmmm...donuts...

Do I hear $5 a gallon?

From the NY Times:

Rita has the ability to severely disrupt oil production and refining that has still not completely recovered from the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina three weeks ago. The devastation could conceivably be even more severe than the previous hurricane because the Texas coast is more densely packed with refineries and other onshore plants than Louisiana was, analysts said.

"A direct hit by a level 4 or 5 hurricane on the Houston ship channel, that would be devastating," said Bob Linden, a managing consultant at PA Consulting, noting that the area is thick with refineries and other critical energy operations.

Free Market Always--Except for Gas Prices

From the NY Times:

The governors of eight states sent a letter on Tuesday to President Bush and Congress calling for an investigation into profits made by oil companies after Hurricane Katrina and asking for legislation that would require the companies to refund to customers any profits deemed excess.

Our own governor, Jennifer Granholm, made a name for herself as the state attorney general by making a fuss about gasoline price "gougers." She is one of the eight signers of the letter, as is Bill Richardson of New Mexico. Richardson, you may recall, was Energy Secretary in the Clinton administration. During his tenure, the mergers of Exxon with Mobil and BP with Amoco were formally approved, and the merger of Chevron with Texaco was proposed. Whatever power the oil companies actually have to "gouge" consumers is due in large part to these mergers, which only went forward because the Clintonistas, in