Fear + Loathing = Grist

You may wonder why I nearly quit posting on this blog. I've wondered myself. I feel bad about being inconstant and inconsiderate to you, my esteemed reader, and I owe you an explanation. The explanation came to me just the other day.

The Bush years were as if I was in the back seat of a car driven by a crazy frat boy, careening over the street, and my attention was (understandably) riveted on what new potential disasters were appearing just ahead and what fresh disasters we were leaving behind. I was communicating with my fellow passengers as quickly as I could form coherent thoughts in the hope (naturally) that somebody could somehow restrain the driver. I did more than blog: also wrote letters to my Congressional representatives and local newspapers, and even demonstrated on the mall in DC against starting the Iraq war.

Now we are recovering from our long national nightmare, nursing our hurt from crashing a couple parties where we overstayed our (un)welcome, and wondering how we are going to pay for that nice car that is now upside down in the ditch. The adults have now arrived and taken over, thankfully, and we can go back to assuming the trip back home will be slow and uneventful. Have we gotten back home to prosperity and respect, yet? How much longer? I'm tired.

War Elephant

Gibbon notes in his “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” that stable empires commit about 1% of their resources to the army; more being wasteful and less, dangerous. By Gibbon’s metric, the US “Defense” department should receive about $140 B (US GDP ~$14T), roughly one-fifth of its current budget. Sure, it’s arbitrary, but it also makes sense relative to the other countries.

Thank you Al Jazeera

Revolutions in the Arab world were preceded by a revolution in Arab news reporting – performed by a relatively new organization: Al Jazeera. It has been vilified in the knee-jerk American press because it does not reflexively admire all of the actions of America. Al Jazeera only embodies the central American tenet: an independent press is the best protection against tyranny.

Instead of tweeting or posting some insipid observation on Facebook or listening to idiotic right wing 'talk radio', try listening to 'think radio' here: http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

Ah, the internet, what a revolutionary thing.

Why I am a Democrat (I guess)

First, I don't trust organized political parties.

And what kind of party could consider even briefly as a viable candidate for their nomination, Sarah Palin; patently unprepared, apparently a glib imbecile and unquestionably a craven quitter (trading governing Alaska for opining on Fox $pews). This is a party of Oz, the moneyed interests behind the curtain, dangling an earnest puppet in front to read their lines. The formula was perfected with Reagan, who though only a B list actor in Hollywood, could mimic Gary Cooper good enough for government work. Bush Sr. could not read his lines properly and went off script occasionally - note: real-life experience can ruin an otherwise perfectly good puppet. Dole is nobody's fool, though he did play one briefly on television during the campaign. W offered the masters again a perfect, natural puppet: seemingly earnest, incurious, compliant, while projecting the proper independent spirit. Though occasionally fumbling, he never deviated from the words given him by the cue cards, teleprompter, or earphone. No, that is a party of party-goers, socially comfortable people who can mock a purple heart earned while their candidate never left home, people who can question well-documented birth records while dismissing their candidate's "lost" service records, people who cling to trickle-down economic theories that have been long abandoned by their original proponents. Can't their little minds maintain even a foolish consistency? An unexamined life may still be worth living, but why not spend some of it thinking?

There's always independent, but groups have more influence than even the most wise and eloquent individual. Time to get with the program.

This is how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer...

The Republicans pledge to fight hard for tax cuts for the very rich and against continuing benefits to the unemployed. Why isn't this an easy win for the Democrats? Their reluctance to engage in class warfare is admirable, but it amounts to unilateral disarmament if not surrender. I would remind [them] that ...moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!

War Costs and Profits

PBS "News Hour" (that's "McNeil Lehrer" to us old folks), as is their practice, showed pictures and brief info on 9 service members who were killed recently in Afghanistan or Iraq. A few thoughts:

1. I was expecting 6 deaths because of the terrible news of that number killed by an Afghan policeman run amok, so it was extra difficult to see more;
2. WTF are we doing still engaged in these wars? Afghanistan might have been rescued back in 2001 when we first went in but now, after W and cronies led us astray into Iraq... maybe we should cut our losses;
3. Does "fair and balanced" (both lies) Fox "News" (spews) ever acknowledge the "costs" (euphemism for deaths) of these wars? I doubt it, but I won't tune in to their Goebbels-lite propaganda to confirm. Probably those costs are instead credited to the debit side on the war contractors balance sheets (war bucks).
4. Obama is the most amazing politician of my lifetime: impressive intellect, verbal skills, and humanity. Demonstrably sufficient to triumph over his fellow Dems and a marginally integrity-challenged (in both senses) opponent McCain. That said, maybe he has to toughen up a bit to compete against Republican lie-meisters soon to be in charge of the House.

God Bless the Whole WORLD. Amen.

Budget wisdom

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery."

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, 1849