Past Peak: August 2006 Archives

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August 31, 2006

Olbermann's Murrow Moment

Media Politics

Great stuff from Keith Olbermann:

The last three minutes, especially.

[Thanks, Ken]

Update: [5:08 PM] - Text is here.

Posted by Jonathan at 04:17 PM | Comments (1) | Link to this

August 30, 2006

The Lessons Of History

Iran

Josh Marshall has a good post on the "lessons of history" as they apply to the putative case for attacking Iran. It's short, so rather than summarize it here, I'll just urge you to go read it. It's the antidote to all the heavy breathing about Iran being somehow akin to Germany in the 1930s. Go.

[Thanks, Miles]

Posted by Jonathan at 08:52 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Amplifying Terror

9/11, "War On Terror" Politics

Security expert Bruce Schneier on how Western governments and media are doing terrorists' work by constantly exaggerating the threat of terrorism, amplifying our fear:

The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics. The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.
And we're doing exactly what the terrorists want. [...]

We're all a little jumpy after the recent arrest of 23 terror suspects in Great Britain. The men were reportedly plotting a liquid-explosive attack on airplanes, and both the press and politicians have been trumpeting the story ever since.

In truth, it's doubtful that their plan would have succeeded; chemists have been debunking the idea since it became public. Certainly the suspects were a long way off from trying: None had bought airline tickets, and some didn't even have passports.

Regardless of the threat, from the would-be bombers' perspective, the explosives and planes were merely tactics. Their goal was to cause terror, and in that they've succeeded. [...]

Our politicians help the terrorists every time they use fear as a campaign tactic. The press helps every time it writes scare stories about the plot and the threat. And if we're terrified, and we share that fear, we help. All of these actions intensify and repeat the terrorists' actions, and increase the effects of their terror. [...]

...Imagine for a moment that the British government arrested the 23 suspects without fanfare. Imagine that the TSA and its European counterparts didn't engage in pointless airline-security measures like banning liquids. And imagine that the press didn't write about it endlessly, and that the politicians didn't use the event to remind us all how scared we should be. If we'd reacted that way, then the terrorists would have truly failed.

It's time we calm down and fight terror with antiterror. [...]

[O]ur job is to remain steadfast in the face of terror, to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to not panic every time two Muslims stand together checking their watches. [Emphasis added]

Schneier is actually too kind. Governments trumpet terrorist threats not out of some accidental, misguided wrong-headedness. It's a whole lot more purposeful than that. They actively seek pretexts for instilling fear, and they drive that fear home with constant reminders in the form of useless airport security measures, armed soldiers in terminals, and so on. They do it because they believe it enhances their power. They do it because it lets them control the media news cycle.

They have as much of a vested interest in our being afraid as do the terrorists themselves. Terrorists and Western governments (especially those of Bush and Blair) exist in a kind of symbiotic relationship. If terrorists didn't exist, Western governments would invent them.

Meanwhile, regarding the British plot to blow up 10 planes, it now appears that the number 10 was made up out of thin air. NYT:

In fact, two and a half weeks since the inquiry became public, British investigators have still not determined whether there was a target date for the attacks or how many planes were to be involved. They say the estimate of 10 planes was speculative and exaggerated.

Nobody will remember that, though. They'll just remember all the scary images of machine gun-toting soldiers at airports, etc. So now when a guy accidentally drops his iPod into an airplance toilet, it sets off a full-scale terror alert. It's nuts.

Posted by Jonathan at 08:37 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Bubbles Pop

Economy

People tend to have short memories. Since inflation-adjusted housing prices have sky-rocketed for nearly a decade, people think housing always goes up, when the recent situation has actually been an off-the-charts anomaly. NYT (click image for larger version):

Historically, housing has been a good hedge against inflation. What it hasn't been is a way to get rich quick. All those people holding adjustable-rate interest-only mortgages they can't afford who are counting on turning their house over in a few years for a nifty profit, might want to look at that chart. It's a bubble. Bubbles pop. When they do, a lot of people get hurt.

Posted by Jonathan at 01:09 PM | Comments (1) | Link to this

Wednesday Gumpagraph

Gumpagraphs

Today's Gumpagraph. Kent is 'Gumpa' to his grandson Sebastian.

Posted by Jonathan at 10:37 AM | Comments (1) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke

Humor & Fun

I don't want to say President Bush's approval rating is dropping, but I understand there's a sign outside of Crawford, Texas, that now says, "Home of Cindy Sheehan." — Jay Leno

Posted by Jonathan at 10:31 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Photo Op Time

Disasters Politics

Their cynicism is boundless. NYT:

On the eve of the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's strike here, President Bush returned to the devastated region on Monday...
Winding his way through tattered towns in Mississippi on his way here, Mr. Bush spent the day demonstrating empathy and optimism...

In sweltering midday heat, his shirt soaked with sweat, Mr. Bush told a group of Biloxi, Miss., residents that he knew the rebuilding was so slow that to some it felt as if nothing was happening.

Still, Mr. Bush said, "For a fellow who was here and now a year later comes back, things are changing."

"I feel the quiet sense of determination that's going to shape the future of Mississippi," he said.

In an event with echoes of his prime-time speech in Jackson Square here last September, Mr. Bush spoke in a working-class neighborhood in Biloxi against a backdrop of neatly reconstructed homes. But just a few feet away, outside the scene captured by the camera, stood gutted houses with wires dangling from ceilings. A tattered piece of crime-scene tape hung from a tree in the field where Mr. Bush spoke. A toilet sat on its side in the grass. [...]

Nearby, along the ocean, ravaged antebellum homes and churches dotted the waterfront. The beach from Gulfport, Miss., to Biloxi, was deserted. Debris hung from trees and motels stood shuttered. Blue tarpaulins still patched the roofs of most dwellings. Written in green spray paint on a fence around a home in Biloxi was "You loot, I shoot." [...]

"There will be a momentum, momentum will be gathered," the president said. "Houses will begat [sic] jobs, jobs will begat [sic] houses." [Emphasis added]

Lights, cameras, but no action. Nothing in a year. They have no interest in governing; they're too busy staging events that give the appearance of governing. The sheer audacity of it really is stunning: they haven't bothered to try to get anything right in all the time they've been in office. Anything, that is, beyond their permanent campaign for more power.

Posted by Jonathan at 12:43 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

August 29, 2006

Tuesday Gumpagraph

Gumpagraphs

Posted by Jonathan at 10:51 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke

Humor & Fun

Tuesday will mark the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the storm that nearly destroyed New Orleans. The White House's response to Katrina can best be filed under "job comma heckuva." — Jon Stewart

Posted by Jonathan at 10:26 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

August 28, 2006

Criminal Outrage

Disasters

This is outrageous. Absolutely outrageous. Criminally outrageous. Greg Palast, reporting from New Orleans:

It wasn't [Katrina] that drowned, suffocated, de-hydrated and starved 1,500 people that week. The killing was done by a deadly duo: a failed emergency evacuation plan combined with faulty levees. Behind these twin failures lies a tale of cronyism, profiteering and willful incompetence that takes us right to the steps of the White House.
Here's the story you haven't been told. And the man who revealed it to me, Dr. Ivor van Heerden, is putting his job on the line to tell it.

Van Heerden...is no minor player. He's the Deputy Director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center. He's the top banana in the field — no one knew more about how to save New Orleans from a hurricane's devastation. And no one was a bigger target of an official and corporate campaign to bury the information.

Here's what happened. Right after Katrina swamped the city, I called Washington to get a copy of the evacuation plan.

Funny thing about the murderously failed plan for the evacuation of New Orleans: no one can find it. That's right. It's missing. Maybe it got wet and sank in the flood. Whatever: No one can find it.

That's real bad. Here's the key thing about a successful emergency evacuation plan: you have to have copies of it. Lots of copies — in fire houses and in hospitals and in the hands of every first responder. Secret evacuation plans don't work. [...]

Specifically, I'm talking about the plan that was written, or supposed to have been written two years ago by a company called, "Innovative Emergency Management."

Weird thing about IEM, their founder Madhu Beriwal, had no known experience in hurricane evacuations. She did, however, have a lot of experience in donating to Republicans.

IEM and FEMA did begin a draft of a plan. The plan was that, when a hurricane hit, everyone in the Crescent City would simply get the hell out in their cars. Apparently, the IEM/FEMA crew didn't know that 127,000 people in the city didn't have cars. But Dr. van Heerden knew that. It was his calculation. LSU knew where these no-car people were — they mapped it — and how to get them out.

Dr. van Heerden offered this life-saving info to FEMA. They wouldn't touch it. Then, a state official told him to shut up, back off or there would be consequences for van Heerden's position. This official now works for IEM.

So I asked him what happened as a result of making no plans for those without wheels, a lot of them elderly and most of them poor.

"Fifteen-hundred of them drowned. That's the bottom line." The professor, who'd been talking to me in technicalities, changed to a somber tone. "They're still finding corpses."

Van Heerden is supposed to keep his mouth shut. He won't. The deaths weigh on him. "I wasn't going to listen to those sort of threats, to let them shut me down."

After Katrina, the Hurricane Center analyzed the flooding and found that, had the levees had just that extra 18 inches, they would have been "overtopped" for only an hour and a half, not four hours. In that case, the levees would have held, and the city would have been saved.

He had taken the warning about the levees all the way to George Bush's doorstep. "I myself briefed senior officials including somebody from the White House." The response: the university's trustees threatened his job.

While in Baton Rouge, I dropped in on the headquarters of IEM, the evacuation contractors. The assistant to the CEO insisted they had "a lot of experience with evacuation" — but couldn't name a single city they'd planned for when they got the Big Easy contract. And still, they couldn't produce the plan.

An IEM press release in June 2004 boasted legendary expert James Lee Witt as a member of their team. That was impressive. It was also a lie. In fact, Witt had nothing to do with it. When I asked IEM point blank if Witt's name was used as a fraudulent hook to get the contract, their spokeswoman said, weirdly, "We'll get back to you on that."

Back at LSU, van Heerden astonished me with the most serious charge of all. While showing me huge maps of the flooding, he told me the White House had withheld the information that, in fact, the levees were about to burst and by Tuesday at dawn the city, and more than a thousand people, would drown.

Van Heerden said, "FEMA knew on Monday at 11 o'clock that the levees had breached...They took video. By midnight on Monday the White House knew. But none of us knew...I was at the State Emergency Operations Center." Because the hurricane had missed the city that Monday night, evacuation effectively stopped, assuming the city had survived.

It's been a full year now, and 73,000 New Orleanians remain in FEMA trailers and another 200,000, more than half the city's former residents, remain in temporary refuges. [...]

Should they come home? Rebuild? Is it safe? Team Bush assures them there's nothing to worry about: FEMA won't respond to van Heerden's revelations. However, the Bush Administration has hired a consulting firm to fix the failed evacuation plan. The contractor? A Baton Rouge company named "Innovative Emergency Management." IEM. [Emphasis added]

Palast has produced a two-part video special that you can watch online at Democracy Now. It's gut-wrenching.

One thing shown in the video that's not covered above: there are public-housing communities in New Orleans that were completely untouched by the flood that have been boarded up, all the residents (poor and black) expelled and barred from returning. Why? It's prime real estate not far from the downtown business district and the French Quarter. It's real estate that developers have long wanted to get their hands on. As Palast says, Katrina was the "perfect storm" from the perspective of developers and their political cronies.

A year ago, I wrote:

Yes, it sounds too evil to be true, but we appear to be looking at a deliberate program of ethnic cleansing. Wait and watch. A lot of people with ties to the administration are going to make a ton of money on the contracts to clear and rebuild a Disney-fied version of what was one of the world's great cities.

Watch Palast's short film, and you'll see it's all coming true. It is a criminal outrage on a truly colossal scale, yet there is no accountability. No one even really expects accountability anymore. What has happened to this country?

Posted by Jonathan at 05:19 PM | Comments (1) | Link to this

Monday Gumpagraph

Gumpagraphs

Posted by Jonathan at 11:24 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke

Humor & Fun

The White House announced that President Bush took three books with him on his ten-day vacation to his ranch in Texas. Three books. Now before you get impressed by all that, it's the same three books he took last year. He's still waiting to see if the little engine makes it over the mountain. — Jay Leno

Posted by Jonathan at 11:21 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

August 27, 2006

Ernesto Track Moved Eastward

Disasters

Ernesto has been upgraded to hurricane status, but the projected storm track has now been moved eastward.

The Gulf coast may have dodged a bullet.

Posted by Jonathan at 12:03 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Sunday Gumpagraph

Gumpagraphs

Posted by Jonathan at 11:48 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Today's Lieberman Joke

Humor & Fun

A lot of folks are big fans of the planets. Pluto now has lost its status as a planet. But it says it will run as an independent. — David Letterman

Posted by Jonathan at 11:47 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

August 26, 2006

Mr. Peabody's Coal Train

Environment

A big global warming worry has been the enormous amount of coal-fired electrical generation capacity being added in places like China and India. But we don't have to look that far from home. Grist (via Big Gav) tells us that here in the US, coal-fired plants are being built at an astonishing and dangerous pace. Excerpt:

Across the nation, 153 new coal plants are currently proposed, enough to power some 93 million homes. Of those 153 proposals, only 24 have expressed an intent to use gasification technology, which offers a way to handle the large amounts of carbon dioxide produced by coal combustion. A recent report from the National Energy Technology Laboratory anticipates the construction of up to 309 new 500 MW coal plants in the U.S. by 2030. If NETL's projections are correct, U.S. coal-generation capacity will more than triple by 2010, with corresponding air pollution and greenhouse-gas increases.
Some of the 153 proposed coal plants will add capacity for existing public utilities. Others, like those by developers LS Power and Peabody, are speculative "merchant" coal plants, which ultimately intend to sell the power — or even the plant itself — to the highest bidder. Local need for power is not part of the calculations behind these merchant plants. The concept isn't new, but the voracious expansion plans are.

Economic projections indicate that demand for electricity will continue to rise, so developers are gambling that the need for power and the low price of western coal will make them very rich. Merchant-coal developers are also finding ways to minimize the risks posed by possible carbon regulation on the horizon. A recent Business Week analysis approvingly cites Peabody's plan to sell ownership stakes in its new plants to municipal utilities and electric cooperatives, along with 30-year Peabody coal-supply contracts. If and when federal carbon regulation pushes up the cost of coal-fired generation, a smart developer like Peabody will have insulated itself from that expense. The utilities and cooperatives will pay ever-higher prices to generate electricity, passing those costs on to the consumer — but Peabody's profits will never falter. [Emphasis added]

I wonder if "2010" is a typo, but in any case this is a very ominous trend.

People who think the capitalist market will, all by itself, solve our energy and environmental problems should take note. The fundamental problem (it could hardly be any more fundamental) with unregulated capitalism vis-a-vis the environment is that the people producing the pollution don't pay the cost. As a result, it may be a whole lot more profitable to destroy the Earth than to preserve it. The coal story is a huge case in point. They'll make their quick buck now, and leave it to the rest of us to figure out what to do about global warming later. At some point, however, later will be too late.

Posted by Jonathan at 11:42 AM | Comments (3) | Link to this

Ernesto Threatens Gulf

Disasters

Computer models used by hurricane forecasters indicate that tropical storm Ernesto could become a powerful hurricane threatening the Gulf Coast, possibly even New Orleans. Oil and gas production in the Gulf is also threatened. StormTrack (via OilDrum):

For a couple days now we have been talking up Ernesto and warning that there was a significant chance that this could be the new big story. After looking at the situation today, I am convinced that things could be very bad indeed. I always try not incite undue worry, but Ernesto could get ugly. Those of you in the Gulf Coast need to re-examine your hurricane plans, especially is you live in the north Gulf from Houston to Tallahassee. A very deep layer of warm water in the northern Gulf could allow for Ernesto to become a very powerful hurricane if it reaches the area.
...The official forecast calls for Ernesto to enter the Gulf of Mexico early next week, where it could become a very powerful hurricane....

Ernesto's limited strength thus far has been due to moderate wind shear displacing the convection from the center of circulation. This wind shear should lessen today and allow for strengthening to continue. The current convective pattern is very healthy and Ernesto seems to mean business...[T]he Western Caribbean holds much deeper warm water that can allow for rapid intensification.

The [computer] models are in a clear consensus agreeing on a track over the western tip of Cuba by Tuesday. By early to mid next week, Ernesto could be roaming the Gulf of Mexico as a hurricane...Houston, New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile, Pensacola, and Panama City [are] all now in the potential danger zone. Due to disrupting of the hurricane while it passes over and near land in Jamaica and Cuba, it will be hard to make any forecasts on a landfall point along the Gulf Coast until Ernesto clears Cuba and settles into the Gulf. [Emphasis added]

NOAA:

Say it ain't so.

Posted by Jonathan at 11:09 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Saturday Gumpagraph

Gumpagraphs

Posted by Jonathan at 10:01 AM | Comments (1) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke

Humor & Fun

Posted by Jonathan at 09:57 AM | Comments (1) | Link to this

August 25, 2006

On Chavez

Energy Peak Oil

Policy Pete on Hugo Chavez:

So he likes Fidel, so what? This is business, not personal, as the Corleones used to like to say. The US just lost half a million barrels a day forever to the Chinese. Having managed to tick off every Muslim on the planet, it would have been expecting too much for an unsophisticated presidency to try to mend fences in the southern hemisphere. Why not anger everyone who will be supplying the marginal oil that the US will need pretty desperately in less than a decade? "We're imperious; you're the third world. We get to give you little lectures on Freedom and The Free Market, you get to ship us your crude."
While it is not impossible that this may be the right strategy for a secure US, more than a few foreign offices must be watching Washington with genuine puzzlement. Do the Americans really think that a policy aimed (unsuccessfully) at eradicating terrorists means the rest of the world will supply the US with its petroleum in gratitude?

It's going to be painful to live through, but the US is giving the world a pretty good object lesson on the futility of trying to dictate terms through intimidation and military force in a world that's becoming ever more fragmented, fluid, unconquerable and ungovernable, at an ever-accelerating pace. Bullies get what's coming to them, in the end.

The White House thought the US was the new Rome. They thought they could dominate the world's oil producers by purely military means. Ain't working out too well. For the near term, world oil markets will stay open to the highest bidder and oil will continue to be fungible. But who is to say markets won't begin to break down when the oil picture gets more desperate. Oil producers will have opportunities to exert leverage beyond just getting a good price. We're giving a lot of people a lot of reasons to look for payback.

Posted by Jonathan at 04:49 PM | Comments (1) | Link to this

Major US Drought Continues

Environment

The US is currently experiencing one of the worst droughts in its history. Here's a map:

Some 60% of the country is affected. AP:

More than 60 percent of the United States now has abnormally dry or drought conditions, stretching from Georgia to Arizona and across the north through the Dakotas, Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin, said Mark Svoboda, a climatologist for the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. [...]
Brad Rippey, a federal Agriculture Department meteorologist in Washington, said this year's drought is continuing one that started in the late 1990s. "The 1999 to 2006 drought ranks only behind the 1930s and the 1950s. It's the third-worst drought on record — period," Rippey said. [Emphasis added]

Here's an historical graph, excluding 2006. 60% out-and-out drought is rare:

The current drought hasn't reached Dust Bowl levels, but the demand for water is much greater today than it was in the 30s, so the consequences of drought are considerably more severe. Topeka Capital-Journal:

While the prolonged Dust Bowl droughts of the 1930s and droughts of the 1950s are considered the historically devastating dry periods in the United States, less severe events today can create enormous problems, [climatologist Mark] Svoboda said.
That is because population growth, particularly in Southwestern states like Nevada, puts a heavier strain on water sources during a drought.

"When a little drought comes along now, it can be very disruptive," he said. "The amount of water hasn't changed, but the demand has increased greatly. You don't need to have a drought of the '50s to have the impact of the '50s." [Emphasis added]

This all seems to be happening under the radar in areas that haven't been affected. There will be downstream consequences, however, as crops fail, food prices rise, farms go out of business, etc. Expect more of the same in years to come.

Posted by Jonathan at 02:38 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Friday Gumpagraph

Gumpagraphs

Posted by Jonathan at 10:35 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke

Humor & Fun

There's a recent study about human behavior and apparently, women are capable of making decisions about the character of men within a tenth of a second. Decisions often made without any rational thought. Yep, and that's why we're in Iraq. — David Letterman

Posted by Jonathan at 10:31 AM | Comments (1) | Link to this

August 24, 2006

That Giant Sucking Sound

Economy

The US housing market is starting to tank. CNNMoney:

Home sales slumped more than expected in July, according to a trade group reading that showed the biggest supply of homes for sale in 13 years, coupled with weak prices.
The National Association of Realtors reported that existing homes sold at an annual pace of 6.33 million in July, down from the 6.6 million pace in June, which was also revised lower. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a 6.55 million pace. The pace of sales was the slowest since January 2004.

The group said that there was a 7.3 month supply of homes on the market, the largest supply of homes for sale by that measure since April 1993.

The 3.86 million homes for sale is up nearly 40 percent from a year earlier, and is a record high for the group's report.

The increase in supply is due in part to a building boom in 2005, which saw a record number of new homes enter the market. A large percentage of those new homes were intially bought by investors, and home builders have reporting that many of those are now putting those homes up for sale as they attempt to exit the cooling residential real estate market. [...]

The glut of homes on the market has cooled off if not killed the white-hot home price gains of a year ago.

All regions of the country outside of the South saw a year-over-year decline in median home prices in July, and the South posted only a 3.2 percent year-over-year rise in median home price. [...]

While month-to-month declines in home prices in the report are not unusual, a year-over-year decline suggests true weakness in the market. [Emphasis added]

Ok, so? One economist, at least, believes the housing slump will trigger a significant recession as early as next year. MarketWatch (via RawStory):

The United States is headed for a recession that will be "much nastier, deeper and more protracted" than the 2001 recession, says Nouriel Roubini, president of Roubini Global Economics.
Writing on his blog Wednesday, Roubini repeated his call that the U.S. would be in recession in 2007, arguing that the collapse of housing would bring down the rest of the economy. [...]

"This is the biggest housing slump in the last four or five decades: every housing indicator is in free fall, including now housing prices," Roubini said. The decline in investment in the housing sector will exceed the drop in investment when the Nasdaq collapsed in 2000 and 2001, he said.

And the impact of the bursting of the bubble will affect every household in America, not just the few people who owned significant shares in technology companies during the dot-com boom, he said. Prices are falling even in the Midwest, which never experienced a bubble, "a scary signal" of how much pain the drop in household wealth could cause.

Roubini is a professor of economics at New York University and was a senior economist in the White House and the Treasury Department in the late 1990s...While many economists share Roubini's concerns about imbalances in the global economy and in the U.S. housing sector, he stands nearly alone in predicting a recession next year. [...]

Housing has accounted, directly and indirectly, for about 30% of employment growth during this expansion, including employment in retail and in manufacturing producing consumer goods, he said.

In the past year, consumers spent about $200 billion of the money they pulled out of their home equity, he estimated. Already, sales of consumer durables such as cars and furniture have weakened.

"As the housing sector slumps, the job and income and wage losses in housing will percolate throughout the economy," Roubini said.
Consumers also face high energy prices, higher interest rates, stagnant wages, negative savings and high debt levels, he noted.

"This is the tipping point for the U.S. consumer and the effects will be ugly," he said. "Expect the great recession of 2007 to be much nastier, deeper and more protracted than the 2001 recession." [Emphasis added]

As the article notes, the effects of housing's collapse will be much broader than the effects of the stock market's collapse. A lot of people own stocks indirectly through their 401(k)s and pension funds, but not that many people own a lot of stock outright. But more than 70 million families own homes, and many of them have depended on the value of their homes continuing to rise, using home equity loans to turn their homes into ATMs. That will come to a screeching halt.

Posted by Jonathan at 08:19 PM | Comments (1) | Link to this

Thursday Gumpagraph

Gumpagraphs

Posted by Jonathan at 07:44 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke

Humor & Fun

When it comes to the war in Iraq, no one is more optimistic than our President Bush. In fact, no one is optimistic other than President Bush. — Jon Stewart

Posted by Jonathan at 07:42 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

August 23, 2006

One-Handed Rubik's

Humor & Fun

CalTech student sets the world record for solving a 3x3 Rubik's Cube — one-handed:

Posted by Jonathan at 12:19 PM | Comments (1) | Link to this

Wednesday Gumpagraph

Gumpagraphs

Posted by Jonathan at 10:50 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke

Humor & Fun

Now they're saying all this terrorist activity could lead to higher oil prices. When asked why, the oil companies said, "Cause everything leads to higher oil prices." — Jay Leno

Posted by Jonathan at 10:49 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Damaged Goods II

Politics

This (via Raw Story) is creepy. Bush's portion is a little over two minutes long. It's more than the usual insufferable posturing: the guy's getting flat-out incoherent.

Watch for the Max Headroom glitch at about the 1:35 mark. Absence seizure?

Posted by Jonathan at 12:22 AM | Comments (2) | Link to this

August 22, 2006

Planet Under Pressure

Environment

From a six-part BBC series Planet Under Pressure (click the image for a larger view):

Exponential growth cannot continue.

Posted by Jonathan at 08:51 PM | Comments (1) | Link to this

Damaged Goods

Politics

Forever a boy, and a silly one at that. USN&WR:

He loves to cuss, gets a jolly when a mountain biker wipes out trying to keep up with him, and now we're learning that the first frat boy loves flatulence jokes. A top insider let that slip when explaining why President Bush is paranoid around women, always worried about his behavior. But he's still a funny, earthy guy who, for example, can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides, but forget about getting people to gas about that. [Emphasis added]

"Paranoid around women, always worried about his behavior"? Whaaat? That aspect of his character has to be pretty pronounced for it to be a topic of conversation by a "top insider". Yeah, Barbara Bush must have been a scary mom. No doubt. But Dubya's sixty years old now.

Where are the grownups?

Posted by Jonathan at 08:29 PM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Garbage In, Garbage Out

Media Palestine/Middle East War and Peace

Take a look at this shamelessly propagandistic slide show from The Jerusalem Post. Stunningly one-sided.

The problem with turning propaganda against your own population, whether in Israel, here in the US, or anywhere else, is that the short-term gains turn into long-term disaster: a population whose heads have been stuffed with phony nonsense is incapable of choosing well.

Accurate information has survival value. Garbage in, garbage out.

[Thanks, Miles]

Posted by Jonathan at 04:53 PM | Comments (1) | Link to this

Tuesday Gumpagraph

Gumpagraphs

Posted by Jonathan at 09:06 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

Today's Bush Joke

Humor & Fun

Thousands of Lebanese refugees are pouring back into their home towns, and it seems that one relief organization is stepping up their aid efforts more than any other relief organization. Which group is it? Here are some hints: They're Shiites, they're on the State Department's watch list of terrorist groups, and their name rhymes with "Lezbollah." — Jon Stewart

Posted by Jonathan at 09:03 AM | Comments (0) | Link to this

On Hezbollah

Palestine/Middle East

From the London Review of Books, an article by American Charles Glass, written at the height of Israel's attack on Lebanon. Glass portrays Hezbollah as a principled and — dare I say it — comparatively civilized outfit. This appraisal is all the more remarkable, coming, as it does, from a man who was himself kidnapped and held hostage by Hezbollah for 62 days in 1987. Excerpt:

In his memoir, Not So Wild a Dream, the famous CBS correspondent Eric Sevareid recalled watching the execution of six Nazi collaborators in the newly liberated city of Grenoble in 1944.
When the police van arrived and the six who were to die stepped out, a tremendous and awful cry arose from the crowd. The six young men walked firmly to the iron posts, and as their hands were tied behind the shafts they held their bare heads upright, one or two with closed eyes, the others staring over the line of the buildings and the crowd into the lowering clouds...As the last shot was fired, the terrible, savage cry rose again from the crowd. Mothers with babies rushed forward to look on the bodies at close range, and small boys ran from one to the other spitting upon the bodies. The crowd dispersed, men and women laughing and shouting at one another. Barbarous?

Such events were part of what the French described as the épuration — the purification or purging of France after four years of German occupation. The number of French men and women killed by the Resistance or kangaroo courts is usually put at ten thousand...The American forces that liberated France tolerated local vengeance against those who had worked for a brutal occupier. Thousands of French people, encouraged by a government in Vichy that they believed to be legitimate, had collaborated. Many, like the Milices, fascist gangs armed by Vichy, went further and killed Frenchmen. When Vichy's foreign sponsors withdrew and its government fell, the killing began. Accounts were settled with similar violence in other provinces of the former Third Reich — countries which, along with Britain and the United States, we now think of as the civilised world.

From 1978 to 2000 Israel occupied slices of Lebanon from their common border right up to Beirut and back again. To reduce the burden on its own forces, the Israelis created a species of Milice in the form of the locally recruited South Lebanon Army...The SLA had a reputation for cruelty, confirmed when its torture chambers at Khiam were opened after the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, and for a high rate of desertions.

As Israel pulled back from Beirut, the high-water mark reached during its 1982 invasion, its share of Lebanon contracted further and further....Hizbullah, which led the resistance that had forced the Israelis to abandon most of their conquest, demanded the unconditional return of all Lebanese territory. Its attacks intensified, resulting in a loss of IDF soldiers that became unpalatable to most Israelis. The Israeli army placed the SLA between itself and Hizbullah so that it could pay the price that Israel had decided it could not afford. Hizbullah kidnapped SLA men, and the SLA and Israelis kidnapped Shias. The two sides killed each other, as well as many civilians, and blood feuds were born. [...]

Barak abandoned Lebanon..., suddenly and without advance warning, on 23 May 2000. His SLA clients and other Lebanese who had worked for the occupation over the previous 22 years were caught off guard. A few escaped into Israel, but most remained. UN personnel made urgent appeals for help to avert a massacre by Hizbullah. Hizbullah went in, but nothing happened.

The deputy secretary-general and co-founder of Hizbullah, Sheikh Naim Qassem, wrote..., 'It is no secret that some young combatants, as well as some of the region's citizens, had a desire for vengeance...Resistance leadership issued a strict warning forbidding any such action and vowing to discipline those who took it whatever the justifications.' Hizbullah captured Israeli weapons, which it is now using against Israel, and turned over SLA militiamen to the government without murdering any of them. Barbarous?

Naim Qassem called the liberation of south Lebanon 'the grandest and most important victory over Israel since it commenced its occupation [of Palestine] fifty years before...But what impressed most Lebanese as much as Hizbullah's victory over Israel was its refusal to murder collaborators — a triumph over the tribalism that has plagued and divided Lebanese society since its founding. Christians I knew in the Lebanese army admitted that their own side would have committed atrocities. Hizbullah may have been playing politics in Lebanon, but it refused to play Lebanese politics...Hizbullah had become — as well as an armed force — a sophisticated and successful political party. It jettisoned its early rhetoric about making Lebanon an Islamic republic, and spoke of Christians, Muslims and Druze living in harmony. [...]

Like Israel's previous enemies, Hizbullah relies on the weapons of the weak: car bombs, ambushes, occasional flurries of small rockets and suicide bombers. The difference is that it uses them intelligently, in conjunction with an uncompromising political programme. [...]

Hizbullah's unpardonable sin in Israel's view is its military success. Israel may portray Hizbullah as the cat's-paw of Syria and Iran, but its support base is Lebanese. Moreover, it does one thing that Syria and Iran do not: it fights for the Palestinians. On 12 July Hizbullah attacked an Israeli army unit, capturing two soldiers. It said it would negotiate indirectly to exchange them for Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in Israel, as it has done in the past. It made clear that its attack was in support of the Palestinians under siege in Gaza after the capture of another Israeli soldier a week earlier. The whole Arab world had remained silent when Israel reoccupied the Gaza settlements and bombed the territory. Hizbullah's response humiliated the Arab regimes, most of which condemned its actions, as much as it humiliated Israel. No one need have been surprised. Hizbullah has a long history of supporting the Palestinians. [...]

Now, Israel has rescued Hizbullah and made its secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, not only the most popular man in Lebanon — but in the whole Arab world. An opinion poll commissioned by the Beirut Centre for Research and Information found that 80 per cent of Lebanese Christians supported Hizbullah; the figure for other communities was even higher...Unlike in 1982, when it could rely on some of the Christian militias, Israel now has no friends in Lebanon. [Emphasis added]

The wise way to judge people is by their actions, not their rhetoric. Hezbollah's refusal to commit reprisals against collaborators speaks volumes, as does their dedication to social programs for Lebanon's neediest citizens. Are they saints? Of course not. But neither are they the nihilistic terrorists portrayed in American propaganda. People have a right to defend against invasion. Hezbollah just happens to be very good at it.

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August 21, 2006

Monday Gumpagraph

Gumpagraphs

Well?

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Today's Bush Joke

Humor & Fun

Midterm elections are a few months away. The intensity is picking up. Republican Senator/possible '08 presidential candidate George Allen of Virginia, campaigning hard. George Allen was pointing out that his opponent in the Senate race, James Webb had sent someone to videotape all of George Allen's appearances — which is not a very nice thing to do because George Allen says some really stupid s**t. Like, "Let's all welcome macaca over here to America." Although in Allen's defense, he didn't know that the gentleman was already a citizen and didn't need to be welcomed to America, or that his name wasn't "macaca". I think Allen just assumed the gentleman looked "macaca-ish". — Jon Stewart

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August 20, 2006

Chauncey Gardiners

Media Politics

Following a trail of links, I happened to arrive at Robert Parry's 1999 review of Edmund Morris's Reagan biography, Dutch. In a remarkable passage, Morris provides a rather shocking list of examples of Reagan's utter cluelessness. Parry:

[T]he Reagan in Dutch comes across as a shallow human being — a man so self-absorbed that he failed to recognize his own son, Michael, at his high school graduation.
Morris also judges Reagan as a one-dimensional leader who himself mixed fantasy with fact in the service of his ideological goals, a man who possessed an "encyclopedic ignorance."

In one sardonic passage, Morris wrote that "the world that rotates inside [Reagan's] cerebellum is, if not beautiful, encouragingly rich and self-renewing. It is washed by seas whose natural 'ozone' produces a healthful brown smog over coastal highways, and rinsed by rivers that purify themselves whenever they flow over gravel. ...

"Reagan's world is not entirely without environmental problems. It glows with the 'radioactivity' of coal burners (much more dangerous than nuclear plants), and is plagued by 'deadly diseases spread by insects, because pesticides such as DDT have been prematurely outlawed.' Acid rain, caused by an excess of trees, threatens much of the industrial northeast.

"Geopolitically, the globe presents many challenges. ... North and South Vietnam should never have been permitted to join, having been 'separate nations for centuries.' The Soviet Union [is] bent on invading the United States via Mexico (a strategem of 'Nikolai' Lenin). ... The economy of South America is a mess, particularly in Portuguese-speaking Bolivia."

See also Helen Caldicott's account of a meeting she had with Reagan, one of my very first posts here at Past Peak.

Morris calls