By The Way...

...Congratulations to all the winners of the Koufax Award Winners for 2004. Maybe someday I'll have a real blog and be an entrant. In the meantime, I'll just stick with reading people who really know how to write, and not just echo news. :)

Now South Korea's Doing It

Looks like South Korea's the latest one of our creditors to decide it might be time to cut off the drunken frat boy and his party-hardy ways. Granted, they turned around and said they didn't really mean to say that they were going to be dumping dollars, but personally I wouldn't be signing any variable-rate mortgages anytime soon. Thomas Friedman, in a recent op ed piece for The New York Times (registration required) quotes former Clinton Commerce Department official, David Rothkopf, as saying that people with one of those might have cause to be losing a bit of sleep:

If you see a continuing slide of the dollar - some analysts believe it needs to fall another 20 percent before it stabilizes - you could see a substantial, and painful, rise in interest rates.

"Given the number of people who have refinanced their homes with floating-rate mortgages, the falling dollar is a kind of sword of Damocles, getting closer and closer to their heads," Mr. Rothkopf said. "And with any kind of sudden market disruption - caused by anything from a terror attack to signs that a big country has gotten queasy about buying dollars - the bubble could burst in a very unpleasant way."

Why is that sword getting closer? Because global markets are realizing that we have two major vulnerabilities that this administration doesn't want to address: We are importing too much oil, so the dollar's strength is being sapped as oil prices continue to rise. And we are importing too much capital, because we are saving too little and spending too much, as both a society and a government.


"Starving the Beast," the neocons strategy of piling up massive debt to force cuts in social programs, just might end up starving more than government. It might end up causing a lot more of the governed to starve as well.

Too Easy To Pass Up

Keith Olbermann has an amusing column on Jim/Jeff/JD Gannon/Guckert. My favorite bit is this:

“The effect of this,” Guckert/Gannon opined to CNN, “has been that we seem to have established a new standard for journalists in this country, where if someone disagrees with you, then your personal life, your private life, and anything you have ever done in the past is going to be brought up for public inspection.” [...]I’ve had details of dates published as long ago as 1996, and three years ago The New York Post breathlessly reported that I’d gone to a New York Mets game and worn short pants in the press box - a summertime event slightly less frequent than the sun rising. “My life,” Guckert/Gannon concluded, “has been turned inside out and upside down.”

Take a number, Scooter.

We're Number One! We're Number One!

I should be ashamed of myself for letting some out-of-stater post on this first when in happened in my own backyard, but once again I direct you to one of my favorite sites, Jesus' General and his article(s) on the recent revelations about Union County schools prediliction towards, as he puts it, "applying the holy rod of correction" to a disproportionate number of non-whites and challenged students.

You know, there are some things I'd just as soon my state (or some part of it) wasn't known for. I mean, it's bad enough we gave the world Jesse Helms. And, as I recall, his library is in Union county as well. Wonder if that says anything about the people of that part of the state...

WTF? Department

Here's a story from my home state that caught my attention...

ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. -- A seventh-grade teacher's assignment to write a letter asking President Bush to send troops home from Iraq has brought an apology from a North Carolina schools superintendent.

That sentence was about the entirely of the TV story -- with the exception that the anchors were saying "..apology to the President" whereas those last three words don't appear anywhere in the print version of the story.

The print story expands a bit on this by saying the reason (rationalization?) for the apology is that it was "inappropriate because [it] didn't allow for individual opinions."

I still find this story bogus -- probably because I'm not in favor of the war and never was -- although I can sort of get behind the "no options" bit. I still wonder why the superintendent felt it necessary to apologize to the preznit over this. I also wonder about the rest of the story -- did any of the students complain about this assignment? Did any ask the teacher for an alternative? Or was this something some wingnut parent took offense at and created a stink?

Well, unfortunately for anyone reading this, I'm not one of those investigative bloggers that's going to be calling everyone and his brother to figure this stuff out. But if any of you hypothetical readers hear anything, let me know.

It's Like Deja Vu All Over Again

No links, but I'd just like ya'll to be aware of how the drumbeats of war are sounding again. Take virtually any article about the administration talking about Iran and substitute the word "Iraq" for "Iran" and I think you might think you're reading an article from two years ago. The story I was listening to on BBC World Service on my local NPR station tonight on the way to work was a pretty good case in point. I pretty much suck at pronogstication, but it wouldn't surprise me if we find ourselves in a third major war sometime in the next two years.

Now That It's Winding Down...

...I figure it's time to jump on the Jim/Jeff Guckett/Gannon bandwagon. Actually, so many words have been written on this already that I doubt there's anything of substance I could add to it, but I did want to link to this article in The Guardian by Sidney Blumenthal. He gives an excellent summary whose title pretty much says it all:

"A hireling, a fraud and a prostitute"

"Thus a phony journalist, planted by a Republican organisation, used by the White House press secretary to interrupt questions from the press corps, protected from FBI vetting by the press office, disseminating smears about its critics and opponents, some of them gay-baiting, was unmasked not only as a hireling and fraud but as a gay prostitute, with enormous potential for blackmail."

You know, every day I wonder what else this administration can do to further my sense of outrage. And pretty much every day, I unfortunately get an answer.

What I Heard About Iraq

This is a column by Eliot Weinberger that came out last month, but it bares reading, and re-reading. Warning: Any human being with an ounce of empathy will come away depressed, horrified and outraged by this. Read it anyway, and remember that this is what 51% of the people of this country voted for, whether they realized it or not.

Here's a good companion piece that lists various misstatements, half-truths, and downright lies given by the administration over the Iraq war. Watch for the parallels coming up soon as they gear up for Iran. And to help you keep your scorecard current, there is always Bush Lies, a website devoted to keeping up with all the crap they try to feed us.

Here Cums Da Judge...

Okay, that was tasteless -- so sue me. But then, the story behind it is pretty tasteless, too...

OKLAHOMA CITY - Jurors and others in Judge Donald Thompson's courtroom kept hearing a strange whooshing noise, like a bicycle pump or maybe a blood pressure cuff. During one trial, Thompson seemed so distracted that some jurors thought he was playing a hand-held video game or tying fly-fishing lures behind the bench.

The explanation, investigators say, is even stranger than some imagined: The judge had a habit of masturbating with a penis pump under his robe during trials.

The lurid allegations have led to criminal charges against Thompson, brought an embarrassing end to a solid career and shocked many of his colleagues. The case could also lead to a wave of appeals from defendants claiming that the judge was not paying attention while presiding over their cases.

More of that fine, red state high moral character we keep hearing about. Another example in the story is how he fired two people from his office because they gave statements against him. I thought that was illegal? Maybe it's one of those IOKIYAR things...

Disclaimer: I have no idea what Judge Thompson's political party of record is, so I may indeed have my foot in my mouth in referencing republicans with him. But I think the odds are on my side, frankly.

Science Marches On

Solar Cell Implant May Restore Some Sight for the Blind

CHICAGO-Ophthalmologists at Rush University Medical Center implanted Artificial Silicon Retina (ASR) microchips in the eyes of five patients to treat vision loss caused by retinitis pigmentosa (RP). The implant is a silicon microchip 2mm in diameter and one-thousandth of an inch thick, less than the thickness of a human hair.

Four patients had surgery Tuesday, January 25. The fifth patient is scheduled for a later date.

OK, so it's not a bionic eye (for those of you my age that remember "The Six Million Dollar Man"), but it does seem to be showing some promise. And you have to start somewhere, right? This technology seems to require a healthy optic nerve and a retina that, while damaged, still retains some functionality; so it's not going to be restoring sight to people blind from birth or anything like that, but still...

And in other news....

The creator of Dolly the sheep has been granted a license to clone human embryos for medical research.

Boy, I bet the fundies will be up in arms about this one. A quick skim of the comments collected by the BBC show a pretty broad range of responses, although it was sort of a surprise to me that the two I saw from this side of the pond were in favor. I guess the mouth-breathers watching "The 700 Club" and Faux News don't have a habit of tuning in to the BBC, but I'm sure they'll be hearing about it soon enough. My personal favorite among the comments I read though was the one from the guy that argued that all life had a right to develop -- he used the example of "every seed is a potential tree" or some such claptrap -- I wonder if he thinks of that philosophy every time he sits down to eat his steak or chicken or piece of broccoli, for that matter. Oh, wait, I forgot the universal hidden codicil -- "except where it impacts my life."

As The Twig Is Bent, So Grows The Tree Dept:

From the always entertaining Gen. J. C. Christian comes a link to a young man by the name of Rudy Takala, a 16-year-old boy who's well on his way to becoming a right-wing pundit. His latest piece is one accusing liberals of having no manhood because some of us find it difficult to ignore a Marine Corps general officer saying "It's fun to shoot some people."

Now, I'm a former Marine, and you know, oooo-rah to the general and all that, but damn, hoss, I thought they taught you boys better than to talk like that in public.

I'll be interested in hearing whether young Rudy plans to prove his manhood in the field in a couple of years, when he's eligible to enlist. I'm sure the Corps would love a gung-ho fellow like him, and I remember from my time associated with the recruiting service that we're always looking for those CAT-3A types who want to be a grunt.

OK, *One* Post About The SOTU...

Bob Harris has an excellent rundown on the various lies spoken by the Chimp during the national pep rally the other night, complete with numerous links that provide the contradictions to Dubya's claims. Bob is usually a pretty good read anyway, I highly suggest you check out his site and spend some time poking around.

Not About the SOTU

But instead, an interesting essay by Carol V. Hamilton on George Bush as Presidential Simulacrum, comparing Dubya's presidency to the character of Chance the gardener in "Being There".