The 2004 election year is still young, and already there's a lot of hullabaloo about whether or not Kerry is going to raise taxes. First of all, Kerry is indeed on the record as saying that he will increase taxes. But the important part is whose taxes will he raise? According to his website, under "Provide Tax Relief" it says:

John Kerry has the courage to take on the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. However, he believes that we should keep the middle class tax cuts that Democrats fought for in 2001 and 2003. Specifically, he wants to protect the increases in the child tax credit, the reduced marriage penalty and the new tax bracket that helps people save $350 on their first level of income. He strongly disagrees with Democrats who want to repeal these tax cuts because it would cost a typical middle-class family with two children an additional $2,000. These families are often already struggling with higher health care costs and higher state and local taxes. In fact, John Kerry wants to give more tax breaks to the middle class with new tax credits on health care and college tuition. These tax cuts are part of his plan to restore the economy and cut the budget deficit in half in four years.

Based on my reading of this, he would essentially be rolling back the Bush tax cuts, but only for the top bracket. Assuming I understand that correctly, this means that the top bracket would revert to 2000's 39.6% (from 2003's 35%) and the bracket would start at $288,350 as it did in 2000, rather than the current $311,950. Also note that these numbers are based on Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), not net income. Your AGI is virtually always lower than your net income.

So, if my assumptions are correct, under the Kerry tax plan, your taxes would not go up from their current level unless your AGI exceeds $288,350. More on this in a bit.

To make it easier to visualize, I've created this Excel spreadsheet to help you calculate the effect of the Kerry tax plan (as I understand it, anyway) on your personal taxes. Feel free to download and distribute it, and play with the numbers.

Here are some samples for a married couple, filing jointly:

Note that numbers in parentheses indicate tax savings.

So what does this all mean? Under the Kerry tax plan, the vast majority of taxpayers will not have their taxes increased. In my example, only married couples with a combined AGI over $288,350 will have their taxes increased. And thanks to marginal tax rates, even those taxpayers will still be paying less in taxes than they did prior to Bush's tax cuts.

It's also worth noting that Kerry includes himself, his wife, and many of his colleagues within the group of people whose income taxes will be increased. So cries of hypocrisy in that regard ring hollow.

Go ahead and play with the sheet, and let me know what you find. Also, if someone has more specific details about the Kerry tax plan that would allow me to refine the sheet, please let me know.

Political Wire: Southpaws and Wingers is the new aggregator of blog political commentary. He has two categories: Southpaws and Wingers, and is collecting the political commentary form the biggest sites on either end of the Spectrum.

Sisyphus Shrugged has some thoughts on the "Clinton Mindset"

From Tim Dunlop, who, by the way, is excerpting Clarke's book.

Body and Soul points out that the Bush Administration doesn't seem to understand how a democracy is supposed to work:

But shouldn't that excuse be laughed out of the arena? Obviously the Bush administration has exploited national security concerns for political purposes all along, but national security isn't a laughing matter, or a matter for bickering. But isn't the whole point of elections to force people running for office to answer questions about what they've done and what they will do? In an election with an incumbent, is there anything more important than accountability? Clarke's charges aren't coming a week before the election. The administration has more than seven months to refute him and argue for the validity of its own vision. If they had any sense whatsoever of how a democracy worked, that's what they'd be doing, not arguing that there's something underhanded about discussing actual issues in an election year.

This is part and parcel of the right's "Madrid was appeasement" nonsense. In both cases, they simply do not understand or do not care about the underlying issues (that the Spanish were incensed at being lied to over such a grave matter and that the people have a right to have this debate before they are forced to choose) and instead focus on the notion that there must be something wrong if things don't go their way.

There is not. Now is the perfect time to have this debate. In fact, to anyone who cares about democracy, having it at any other time would be obscene. I understand the inclination of the Bushies to want to hold off on this -- it weakens their election plans. But I find it disturbing that so many on the right would publicly countenance the dismissal of such an important issue form the public debate. Democracy does not mean, whatever the right wing may think, doing as the right wants. Its a messy, ugly, confusing, and harsh process. If the right wing is not comfortable with that, well, I hear Russia has smoothed out the kinks....

Hesoid catches something:

TENET: Well, the CIA is in the CSG meeting as well. I mean, everybody's at the table. The FBI is there, the NCS is there, CIA is there, domestic agencies are there.

Throughout this time period -- I don't have access to the minutes and recordings of what happened -- what actions were they tasking, how were they thinking about this?

Now, recording doesn't have to mean tapes. There is a sense in which it could just mean written records, and someone fumbling for an answer in real time could have latched onto the word.

But shouldn't there be a subpoena to find out? Shouldn't at least someone ask?

Ungodly Politics on what the military taught him to hear when someone tosses around the word "leadership".

Scalia, in his flimsy defense of his supposed impartiality in the upcoming case involving Dick Cheney's energy cabal, argued that his vacation with Cheney, in which he travelled on Cheney's official plane, is not evidence of any compromising relationship with him. In particular, Scalia said that he had returned to Washington on a different date from Cheney, and had therefore purchased a commercial airline ticket. Because the round-trip price is much cheaper than the one-way price, he bought round-trip tickets for himself and his family, but never used the return portion of the ticket (thus he paid as much for the one-way trip as he would have for the round trip, thus his ride with Cheney on Air Force Two was just the same as any private citizen's ride on a commercial airline, and obviously not evidence of any special relationship with the Vice President). Many people use round-trip tickets this way all the time, of course. What will come as a surprise to most people, apparently including Scalia, is that it's illegal.

Justice Scalia did not say how much he paid for his round-trip ticket, but it seems fair to assume that he bought what is known as a "throw-away ticket" — something the airlines expressly prohibit. US Airways, for example, does not allow the "use of round-trip excursion fares for one-way travel," and reserves the right to refuse to board those who try to use them and to charge them the difference between the round-trip and one-way fare.

Granted, this is a crazy condition. A newspaper doesn't charge buyers more when they throw away everything but the sports section. They might want to — and their advertisers might agree — but they don't. Airlines, however, charge more for a one-way ticket because they know that some business travelers need the flexibility to buy such tickets, and are willing to pay more for it.

Of course, maybe Justice Scalia plans to use the return half of his ticket later. If he does not, however, he in essence has admitted to buying a ticket under false pretenses. He made a promise without any intention of fulfilling it. Justice Scalia is no doubt familiar with the legal term for such an act: it's called promissory fraud.

This sucks. It sucks less than having a member of the nation's highest court who is so obviously in the tank for the current administration, as well as any number of his personal pet causes, but it still sucks.

It's rather odd to be in the position of having to decide whether you hate an entire industry more than a single judicial palooka, but such is life in the Bush years.

"Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. I failed you. We tried hard, but we failed you...I ask for your understanding, and your forgiveness."
--Richard Clark

It took almost three years for someone to say that simple sentence. That is what honor and dignity look like.

Man, they cannot even do a hit piece without lying

The documentation on the GOP Web site about Kerry's supposed 350 votes to increase taxes actually lists only 67 votes "for higher taxes." Most of these are votes against a tax cut, not in favor of a tax increase. The 67 include nine votes listed twice, three listed three times, and two listed four times. The logic seems to be that if a bill contains more than one item (as almost all bills do), it counts as separate votes for or against each item. The Bush list also includes several series of sequentially numbered votes, which are procedural twists on the same bill. And there are votes on the identical issue in different years. The only actual tax increase on Bush's list (counted twice, but hey … ) is Kerry's support for Clinton's 1993 deficit-reduction plan. That's the one that raised rates in the top bracket and led to a decade of such fabulous prosperity that even its most affluent victims ended up better off.

In other words, it's crap, suitable to be believed and repeated only by hard core liars or people who think that Rush is a straight-shooter fighting the overwhelming liberal bias of the corporate-owned media in this country. You know: idiots.

Read this

It was his worst moment at the mike. Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste ran through a list of at least a dozen cases of foiled plots using commercial airliners to attack key targets in the U.S. and elsewhere. Mr. Ben-Veniste cited the "Bojinka" plot in 1995, which envisioned blowing up Western commercial planes in Asia; that plot was foiled by the government and must have been on the mind of C.I.A. director George Tenet, who was having weekly lunches with Mr. Rumsfeld through 2001. In 1998, an Al Qaeda–connected group talked about flying a commercial plane into the World Trade Center.

"So when we had this threatened strike that something huge was going to happen, why didn’t D.O.D. alert people on the ground of a potential jihadist hijacking? Why didn’t it ever get to an actionable level?" the commissioner asked.

Mr. Rumsfeld said he only remembered hearing threats of a private aircraft being used. "The decision to fly a commercial aircraft was not known to me."

Plans to steal, buy or hijack private plans and crash them into buildings are foiled. Terrorists have a history of hijacking commercial jet liners. Yet the Secretary of Defense is so incompetent as to not draw the obvious conclusion that terrorists might hijack commercial jets and cash them into buildings. Why does this man still have a job?

Oh, but there is more:

"Ironically," Mr. Cox wrote, "just moments before the Department of Defense was hit by a suicide hijacker, Secretary Rumsfeld was describing to me why … Congress has got to give the President the tools he needs to move forward with a defense of America against ballistic missiles."

At that point, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, the Secret Service, the F.A.A., NORAD (our North American air-defense system), American Airlines and United Airlines, among others, knew that at least three planes had been violently hijacked, their transponders turned off, and that thousands of American citizens had been annihilated in the World Trade Center by Middle Eastern terrorists, some of whom had been under surveillance by the F.B.I. Yet the nation’s defense chief didn’t think it significant enough to interrupt his political pitch to a key Republican in Congress to reactivate the Star Wars initiative of the Bush I years.

Apparently, not only could he not recognize it beforehand, Rumsfeld could not recognize it as it was happening.

But he is not the only one. I don't know if Powell is lying here or simply unaware of the facts, but in either case, the implications are disturbing:

He also claimed that "we did not know the perpetrators were already in our country and getting ready to commit the crimes we saw on 9/11."

Some of the widows groaned. In fact, the Moms had learned, the F.B.I. had 14 open investigations on supporters of the 9/11 hijackers who were in the U.S. before 9/11.

And after the Clinton administration foiled the Millennium plot to blow up LAX, the C.I.A. knew that two Al Qaeda operatives had a sleeper cell in San Diego. F.B.I. field officers tried to move the information up the line, with no success.

What’s more, most of the 9/11 hijackers re-entered the U.S. between April and June of 2001 with blatantly suspicious visa applications, which the Four Moms had already obtained and shown to the commission. The State Department had 166,000 people on its terrorist watch list in 2001, but only 12 names had been passed along to the F.A.A. for inclusion on its "no-fly list." Mr. Powell had to admit as much, though he said that State Department consular officers had been given no information to help them identify terrorist suspects among the visa applicants.

In other words, not only were they already in the country, we even knew where some of them were.

And why weren't some of the most pressing questions asked of Bush Administration officials? Because the committee was rigged to not allow it to happen:

To the Moms, the problems with the 9/11 commission were always apparent. But the disappointing testimony from Mr. Rumsfeld was especially difficult to bear. The Moms had tried to get their most pressing questions to the commission to be asked of Mr. Rumsfeld, but their efforts had foundered at the hands of Philip Zelikow, the commission’s staff director.

Indeed, it was only with the recent publication of Richard Clarke’s memoir of his counterterrorism days in the White House, Against All Enemies, that the Moms found out that Mr. Zelikow—who was supposed to present their questions to Mr. Rumsfeld—was actually one of the select few in the new Bush administration who had been warned, nine months before 9/11, that Osama bin Laden was the No. 1 security threat to the country. They are now calling for Mr. Zelikow’s resignation.

Ms. Gorelick sees their point.

"This is a legitimate concern," Ms. Gorelick said in an interview, "and I am not convinced we knew everything we needed to know when we made the decision to hire him."

But despite her obvious discomfort at the conflicts of interest apparently not fully disclosed by Mr. Zelikow in his deposition by the commission’s attorney, Ms. Gorelick believes that the time is too short to replace the staff director.

That's right: one of the men who is accused of failing to concentrate on terrorism before the run up to 9/11 is in charge of assigning questions and scheduling testimony.

I don't say this lightly, but yesterday only convinced me further that the Bush Administration completely and utterly fell down on the job before 9/11, and worse, they are intent on preventing that from coming to light in order to protect their re-election chances. Rice will not testify under oath, for example. Frankly, the only reason is because she has something to hide:

"Why did it take Condi Rice nine months to develop a counterterrorism policy for Al Qaeda, while it took only two weeks to develop a policy for regime change in Iraq?" Ms. Kleinberg asked rhetorically.

Dr. Rice has given one closed-door interview and has been asked to return for another, but the commissioners have declined to use their subpoena power to compel her public testimony. And now, they say, it is probably too late.

Not, mind you, that they care:

An unnamed spokesman for the Bush campaign was quoted as saying of Sept. 11, "We own it." That comment particularly disturbed the Four Moms.

"They can have it," said Ms. Van Auken. "Can I have my husband back now? "

"If they want to own 9/11, they also have to own 9/10 and 9/12," said Ms. Kleinberg. "Their argument is that this was a defining moment in our history. It’s not the moment of tragedy that defines you, but what you do afterwards."

There you have it. 9/11 is Bush's political ace card, and nothing, certainly nothing as insignificant as public safety and the obligation to provide citizens with the information they need to make rational choices, can be allowed to sully that card.

Vote Bush/Cheney: Politics before Country.

Link via Arthur Silber

At least within the Fourth Circuit:

A federal Appeals Court has upheld a ruling that South Carolina's anti-abortion license plates are unconstitutional.

A three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia unanimously ruled Monday that the plates violate the First Amendment.

The plates bear the slogan "Choose Life." The judges said the plates give anti-abortion advocates a forum to express their beliefs, without giving abortion rights supporters a similar forum.

Senior U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman found the plates unconstitutional in a ruling in December.

Second, isn't a "choose life" plate inherently pro-Choice, given its use of the word "choose?" Shouldn't the pro-life crowd be pushing "Legislate Life" plates?

Mr. Sharon . . . has abandoned the option of negotiating with the Palestinians; instead, for the past several months, he has been engaged in intensive and secret bargaining with the Bush administration. He is pushing for action, and he is in a hurry. His hope is that President Bush will endorse his plan and the United States, at least, will accept Israel's de facto annexation of substantial parts of the West Bank and its encirclement of Jerusalem. Skeptical at first, the administration has been drawn by the prospect that thousands of Jewish settlers would be evacuated from Gaza and parts of the West Bank; a U.S. policy is forming around the Sharon initiative. But yesterday's event should give the administration pause. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice did not condemn the assassination; but she also said Mr. Sharon had not warned the White House in advance. If Mr. Bush agrees to reshape the Israeli-Palestinian landscape with such a partner, he can expect that other surprises will follow.

If Bush has actually agreed to annexation, this would represent the most destructive move on the Palestinean issue by the US in history, and a complete abandonment of the US's long-standing commitment to a fair solution. The results of acceding to the plans of the notoriously amoral Sharon are, as the Post notes, evident in the backhanded moves he is making even before agreement is reached. The US cannot allow itself to blindly endorse whatever he may do after he has built his wall with our blessing and our funding.

Krugman has a pretty good answer:

Still, the administration would like you to think that Mr. Clarke had base motives in writing his book. But given the hawks' dominance of the best-seller lists until last fall, it's unlikely that he wrote it for the money. Given the assumption by most political pundits, until very recently, that Mr. Bush was guaranteed re-election, it's unlikely that he wrote it in the hopes of getting a political job. And given the Bush administration's penchant for punishing its critics, he must have known that he was taking a huge personal risk.
So why did he write it? How about this: Maybe he just wanted the public to know the truth.

My father spent twenty years in the Coast Guard, and several after that in private disaster planning and security. I have known men like Clarke my entire life. They have spent the better portion of their lives serving what they thought was the public good, regardless of who sat in the White House. They all had political opinions, of course, but what mattered most was the duty they had taken upon themselves. Nothing could fire them up faster than idiocy of the people making the rules, or the latest stupid decision by some political hack who wouldn't knew a search and rescue mission from a Baskin Robbins. I have no trouble believing that Clarke -- despite his long history of association with and belief in the neo-con outlook -- had finally seen enough incompetence in an area he took his duty seriously to want to sound an alarm.

In response to his concerns, the Bush Administration is not rebutting his charges. They are trying to smear him. Want to know why Richard Clarke, a man who dedicated thirty years of his life to protecting the nation, went public with his story? Look at the Bush Administration attempt a public smear instead of dealing with the substance of the charges, and I think you will have your answer.

A couple of weeks ago, it was Todd Bertuzzi of the Vancouver Canucks, a team I like. This time, it was a player on my favorite team, the Maple Leafs' Wade Belak:

Teemu Selanne has seen enough. The NHL must do something about on-ice violence.

Selanne's Avalanche teammate, Ossi Vaananen, was shaken up but unhurt after being slashed in the head by Toronto's Wade Belak in Colorado's 5-2 loss to the Maple Leafs on Saturday night.

Belak was jostling with Vaananen in front of the Avalanche net when he whipped around and violently hit the Colorado defender in the side of the head and neck with his stick.

Belak was ejected, given a match penalty for attempting to injure -- an infraction that carries an automatic review by NHL disciplinarian Colin Campbell.

Belak's actions nearly cost Toronto the game. The 5-minute major allowed the Avalanche, previously down 3-0, to score twice and make it a one goal game. If not for a great goal by Sundin, and a great save by Belfour (who made up for a boneheaded penalty that led to a 5-on-3 and a Colorado goal), the game could have easily been a tie or a Colorado loss.

The NHL has one of the best games going, and shouldn't allow sideshow violence to tarnish the sport. People who want to watch brawls can turn to the WWE. I want to watch hockey.

Some will probably argue that Belak didn't slash intentionally, and that the penalty should be less harsh because of it. Frankly, I don't care if it was intentional. It's a long-standing hockey rule that you are responsible for keeping your stick under control at all times, and Belak didn't do this. Suspend Belak, send a message, and make a clampdown on violence a priority in the new CBA. Since the league is likely going to lose next season anyway, it may as well improve the sport in the process.

UPDATE 03/23: Belak was suspended for eight games (including two playoff contests), and Messier (mentioned in the comments for a spearing incident) was suspended for two.

Bush, in insisting on spinning the Spanish election result as "surrendering to terror," again displays his uncanny ability to miss the important data in his myopic focus on "terrorism" as he wants to see it.

Analysts have noted that the Spanish election was volatile well before the terrorist attack, with the Socialists ahead early on, then the incumbent conservatives taking the lead but losing ground in recent weeks. Their bungling, Bush-like insistence on spinning the attacks in a politically convenient - and obviously false - way fueled the anger that tipped the vote against them just enough to cost them their offices.

In other words, the real message of the Spanish upset is that lying about terrorism, scapegoating convenient targets for political advantage, and political grandstanding over a national tragedy create voter backlash severe enough to tip a close election. The only good thing about Bush's pigheaded insistence otherwise is that he may be too dumb to get that message until it's too late for him, also.

From the Center for American Progress:

CLAIM #1: “Richard Clarke had plenty of opportunities to tell us in the administration that he thought the war on terrorism was moving in the wrong direction and he chose not to.” - National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: Clarke sent a memo to Rice principals on 1/24/01 marked “urgent” asking for a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with an impending Al Qaeda attack. The White House acknowledges this, but says “principals did not need to have a formal meeting to discuss the threat.” No meeting occurred until one week before 9/11. - White House Press Release, 3/21/04

CLAIM #2: “The president returned to the White House and called me in and said, I've learned from George Tenet that there is no evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.” - National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: If this is true, then why did the President and Vice President repeatedly claim Saddam Hussein was directly connected to 9/11? President Bush sent a letter to Congress on 3/19/03 saying that the Iraq war was permitted specifically under legislation that authorized force against “nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11.” Similarly, Vice President Cheney said on 9/14/03 that “It is not surprising that people make that connection” between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks, and said “we don’t know” if there is a connection.

CLAIM #3: "[Clarke] was moved out of the counterterrorism business over to the cybersecurity side of things." - Vice President Dick Cheney on Rush Limbaugh, 3/22/04

FACT: "Dick Clarke continued, in the Bush Administration, to be the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and the President's principle counterterrorism expert. He was expected to organize and attend all meetings of Principals and Deputies on terrorism. And he did." - White House Press Release, 3/21/04

CLAIM #4: “In June and July when the threat spikes were so high…we were at battle stations…The fact of the matter is [that] the administration focused on this before 9/11.” – National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: “Documents indicate that before Sept. 11, Ashcroft did not give terrorism top billing in his strategic plans for the Justice Department, which includes the FBI. A draft of Ashcroft's ‘Strategic Plan’ from Aug. 9, 2001, does not put fighting terrorism as one of the department's seven goals, ranking it as a sub-goal beneath gun violence and drugs. By contrast, in April 2000, Ashcroft's predecessor, Janet Reno, called terrorism ‘the most challenging threat in the criminal justice area.’” - Washington Post, 3/22/04

CLAIM #5: “The president launched an aggressive response after 9/11.” – National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: “In the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows. The papers show that Ashcroft ranked counterterrorism efforts as a lower priority than his predecessor did, and that he resisted FBI requests for more counterterrorism funding before and immediately after the attacks.” – Washington Post, 3/22/04

CLAIM #6: "Well, [Clarke] wasn't in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff…” - Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/22/04

FACT: "The Government's interagency counterterrorism crisis management forum (the Counterterrorism Security Group, or "CSG") chaired by Dick Clarke met regularly, often daily, during the high threat period." - White House Press Release, 3/21/04

CLAIM #7: "[Bush] wanted a far more effective policy for trying to deal with [terrorism], and that process was in motion throughout the spring." - Vice President Dick Cheney on Rush Limbaugh, 3/22/04

FACT: “Bush said [in May of 2001] that Cheney would direct a government-wide review on managing the consequences of a domestic attack, and 'I will periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts.' Neither Cheney's review nor Bush's took place.” - Washington Post, 1/20/02

What does it say about this Administration that its rebuttal to Clarke's testimony is so easily refuted by the evidence? What does it say about this Administration that its response is a lie to begin with?

From the Center for American Progress:

ENERGY TASK FORCE MET AT LEAST TEN TIMES: In 2001, Vice President Cheney formally convened his Energy Task Force "10 times between January 29, 2001, and May 16, 2001. All but two of the meetings were held in the Vice President’s Ceremonial Office." His staff also met at least 6 times with Enron energy executives. [Source: GAO Report, 8/22/03; AP, 1/8/02]

VERSUS

COUNTERTERRORISM TASK FORCE NEVER MET: “Bush said [in May of 2001] that Cheney would direct a government-wide review on managing the consequences of a domestic attack, and 'I will periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts.' Neither Cheney's review nor Bush's took place.” - Washington Post, 1/20/02

It's an interesting experience, as anyone who's done it will know. I wasn't selected for a jury - I observed voir dire for a child-molestation case that everyone was trying desperately to get out of, but they filled the jury before I was questioned; then I was questioned for a drug-selling case but was not selected for the jury - but simply confronting the process was provocative.

It took a lot of thought for me to finally decide to commit perjury during voir dire.

Stripped to their basics, the far-reaching actions that our country has taken in the past year seem bereft of logic: Under the banner of avenging the attacks of 9/11, the United States went to war against a ruler who had nothing to do with them, and in the name of combating weapons of mass destruction, invaded a country that had none.

Breathtaking, when you put it like that. But that isn't the way these matters have been put. . . .

As a sobering new report from the University of Maryland's Center for International and Security Studies suggests, our news media have casually bought into the same conceptual muddle, particularly in reporting on weapons of mass destruction.

Then he gets down to business.

How do you knock The Passion of the Christ from its throne as the #1 movie in America? Release another movie about people who rise from the dead, that's how! But why have just one guy rise from the dead when you can have hundreds? (Reminds me of a purported quote from the production of an old Cecil B. DeMille movie [paraphrased]: "Why only twelve disciples? This is a DeMille picture, there should be thousands!")

Yes, I know: My ticket to hell has already been punched.

WSJ has a good look at several places where Bush Administration statments about their actions 9/11 do not match the evidence.

There may be a good reason for this, but someone better come up with one soon:

In the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows.

The document, dated Oct. 12, 2001, shows that the FBI requested $1.5 billion in additional funds to enhance its counterterrorism efforts with the creation of 2,024 positions. But the White House Office of Management and Budget cut that request to $531 million. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, working within the White House limits, cut the FBI's request for items such as computer networking and foreign language intercepts by half, cut a cyber-security request by three quarters and eliminated entirely a request for "collaborative capabilities."
The document was one of several administration papers obtained and given to The Washington Post by the Center for American Progress, a liberal group run by former Clinton chief of staff John D. Podesta. The papers show that Ashcroft ranked counterterrorism efforts as a lower priority than his predecessor did, and that he resisted FBI requests for more counterterrorism funding before and immediately after the attacks.

The first two items on the list are particularly troubling. How anyone could think that we had good enough inter-office communications or were capturing and translating enough foreign language traffic a month after 9/11 is beyond me.

Not all programs are good, of course, and perhaps there was some waste in that bill. but two thirds of it? In those critical areas? Someone needs to do a detailed justification of that decision, or we can only assume that even after the country had been shattered by 9/11, the Bush Administration was as unfocused on terrorism as it was before 9/11:

The group released two other administration documents, parts of which have already been made public, showing that just before the Sept. 11 attacks, Ashcroft did not agree to $588 million in increases that the FBI was seeking for 2003. That request included funds to hire 54 translators and 248 counterterrorism agents and support staff. But in his 2003 request sent to the White House, dated Sept. 10, 2001, Ashcroft did not propose that any FBI programs get increases above previously set levels and proposed small cuts to some programs related to counterterrorism.

Other documents indicate that before Sept. 11, Ashcroft did not give terrorism top billing in his strategic plans for the Justice Department, which includes the FBI. A draft of Ashcroft's "Strategic Plan" from Aug. 9, 2001, does not put fighting terrorism as one of the department's seven goals, ranking it as a sub-goal beneath gun violence and drugs. After the attacks, fighting terrorism became the department's primary goal. By contrast, in April 2000, Ashcroft's predecessor, Janet Reno, called terrorism "the most challenging threat in the criminal justice area."

Link via Atrios

Eschaton points out that Condi is lying in her "rebuttal":

They may not have had specific intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack using airplanes as missiles. But, she switches mid-sentence between "evidence" and "speculation," implying that no analysts had even "speculated" that hijacked planes could be used as weapons, which is of course completely false. Bob Somerby reminds us:

WOODWARD AND EGGEN: But a 1999 report prepared for the National Intelligence Council, an affiliate of the CIA, warned that terrorists associated with bin Laden might hijack an airplane and crash it into the Pentagon, White House or CIA headquarters.
The report recounts well-known case studies of similar plots, including a 1995 plan by al Qaeda operatives to hijack and crash a dozen U.S. airliners in the South Pacific and pilot a light aircraft into Langley.

“Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al-Qaida’s Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House,” the September 1999 report said.

It is also worth nothing that the Bush Administration was warned by the Italians that terrorist would try to kill him by crashing a plan into the Group of Eight Genoa Summit in 2001. The threat was serious enough for the Italians to place anti-aircraft weapons around the Genoa airport.

What I found most stunning about the 60 minute story with Clarke was the way in which the Bush Administration simply did not offer a factual rebuttal to Clarke's assertions. The tone was more offended innocence, as if we weren't supposed to ask questions of the Great Man. It is offensive in a lot of ways:

As for the alleged pressure from Mr. Bush to find an Iraq-9/11 link, Hadley says, "We cannot find evidence that this conversation between Mr. Clarke and the president ever occurred."

When told by Stahl that 60 Minutes has two sources who tell us independently of Clarke that the encounter happened, including "an actual witness," Hadley responded, "Look, I stand on what I said."

Whats worse, and perhaps more damming, is that they trotted out the lie that al-Quada used Iraq as a "haven":

Hadley maintained, "Iraq, as the president has said, is at the center of the war on terror. We have narrowed the ground available to al Qaeda and to the terrorists. Their sanctuary in Afghanistan is gone; their sanctuary in Iraq is gone. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are now allies on the war on terror. So Iraq has contributed in that way in narrowing the sanctuaries available to terrorists."

Their obsession with Iraq is almost palpable. They just cannot conceive of a world in which stateless terrorists are more important than pseudo-Stalinist states. Even on 9/11 itself, they continued to be obsessed to the point of coming within an inch of letting al-Queda and the Taliban get away clean:

"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.

"Initially, I thought when he said, 'There aren't enough targets in-- in Afghanistan,' I thought he was joking.

"I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection."

Unfortunately, we don't lie in a world where state based terrorism is the primary threat. With modern technology, terrorists do not need state sponsors. They need communications and a way to get money, neither of which require a nation. The Bush Administration does not understand that today, they did not understand it on 9/11, and they did not understand it in the months leading to 9/11. And because of that, they apparently did not take al-Queda as seriously as they should have. They downgraded Clarke's position from a Cabinet level position, they did not discuss the issue in a timely manner with Clarke, Ashcroft's budget took money form anti-terrorism programs and emphasized porn instead of terrorism, and they never properly responded to the increase in chatter:

By June 2001, there still hadn't been a Cabinet-level meeting on terrorism, even though U.S. intelligence was picking up an unprecedented level of ominous chatter.

The CIA director warned the White House, Clarke points out. "George Tenet was saying to the White House, saying to the president - because he briefed him every morning - a major al Qaeda attack is going to happen against the United States somewhere in the world in the weeks and months ahead. He said that in June, July, August."

Clarke says the last time the CIA had picked up a similar level of chatter was in December, 1999, when Clarke was the terrorism czar in the Clinton White House.

Clarke says Mr. Clinton ordered his Cabinet to go to battle stations-- meaning, they went on high alert, holding meetings nearly every day.

That, Clarke says, helped thwart a major attack on Los Angeles International Airport, when an al Qaeda operative was stopped at the border with Canada, driving a car full of explosives.

That last part is the hardest to read. If going to "battle stations" had prevented an attack before, could it have prevented the attack on 9/11? That answer is unknowable, of course, but until now I always believed the failing was systematic. Now, now it looks as if the failure was as much in the personal at the top as in the system they oversaw. I cannot shake the feeling that if we had competent men in power, 9/11 could have been prevented.

At any rate, the picture Clarke paints is scary: an administration at least eight years behind the times, and too inflexible to overcome their biases and prejudices even in the face of the overwhelming evidence of 9/11. The Bush Administration offers no defense, no point by point rebuttal, other than "Trust us, Clarke is lying." Taken together, the two 60 minutes segments paint a picture of an Administration that is almost physically incapable of keeping the country safe.

Arafat liked it:

"The Palestinians are still daily being exposed to the kind of pain Jesus was exposed to during his crucifixion," Abu Rudeneh said in a statement after he viewed the movie.

Arafat, who watched the film on a small TV set in his Ramallah office, said the movie was "historic and impressive."

I know they generally don't give a rat's ass what the rest of the world thinks of us, but couldn't they at least pretend?

From a fire station to a Madrid bar brimming with bullfighting paraphernalia, Spaniards said Friday they were offended by a senior Pentagon official's remark that bullfighting shows they are a brave people and they shouldn't run in the face of terrorism.

They saw the comment by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as narrow-minded and promoting a stereotype.

"This is an ignorant comment," snapped Madrid firefighter Juan Carlos Yunquera, sitting on a bench outside his firehouse. "For a top official, it shows he doesn't know what he's talking about."

...snip...

In an interview on PBS television Thursday, Wolfowitz said Zapatero's withdrawal plan didn't seem very Spanish.

"The Spaniards are courageous people. I mean, we know it from their whole culture of bullfighting," Wolfowitz said. "I don't think they run in the face of an enemy. They haven't run in the face of the Basque terrorists. I hope they don't run in the face of these people."

Conservatives will doubtless tell you that what the world thinks of us is irrelevant, but they're wrong. Thanks in large part to them, the rest of the world manufactures all of our stuff, and it's not a good idea to piss them off.

It's easy to forget how much the world was behind us just 30 months ago, and how that has all been squandered.

Saletan nails it. Its too good and too long to excerpt, so go read it.

One of the reasons that Bush is so held in contempt is tactics like these. No one disagrees with his methods, in his little world, they disagree with his goals. No one is simply incorrect about policy, they are actively evil. Its cheap, childish thuggery and bullying, as his foreign policy attests. I cannot speak for anyone else, but I held that attitude in contempt when I was in grade school, and I see no reason to change my mind now that it's displayed by Bush. I also did not tolerate it in grade school, so I see no particular reason to tolerate it now. We have serious issue sin this world, and we need serious people to deal with them. The Republicans have given us a campaign with the mentality of a frustrated third grader instead.

Link via Pandagon

Unlike Nader, Jackson in the 80's and even Wellstone in the nineties, Dean is going about building an actual progressive organization with reach

In speeches in Seattle and San Francisco, Dean said his new group, Democracy for America, will recruit progressives to run for office at all levels, give money to them, and use the former candidate's e-mail network to rally voters this fall to defeat "the most radical White House in our lifetime."

This is not a vanity project, or just a fund raising front. By recruiting and financing progressive candidates, it has the ability to positively influence the direction of the party. Dean is building an actual organization, as opposed to just a movement based around him. If he can bring the majority of his followers with him, then he will have gone a long way to making good on the early promise of his campaign.

This is a pretty good definition of it:

But the bigger point is this: in the Bush vision, it was never legitimate to challenge any piece of the administration's policy on Iraq. Before the war, it was your patriotic duty to trust the president's assertions about the case for war. Once we went in and those assertions proved utterly false, it became your patriotic duty to support the troops” a phrase that, to the administration, always means supporting the president. At no point has it been legitimate to hold Mr. Bush accountable. And that's the way he wants it.

I am a little bit surprised that this ever went away.

the federal government is reviving a scientific art that was lost after the cold war: fallout analysis.

The goal, officials and weapons experts both inside and outside the government say, is to figure out quickly who exploded such a bomb and where the nuclear material came from. That would clarify the options for striking back. Officials also hope that if terrorists know a bomb can be traced, they will be less likely to try to use one.

The Pentagon has plans to invade Micronesia, for crying out loud, but it couldn't find the money for this? I am even more surprised that it took three years after 9/11 to restart the plan.

Fair play for finally getting around to it, though.

Where's your God now, Jerry?

St. Joesph's: 82
Liberty U: 63

Huh. Who would have figured that there were that many gays and feminists at Jerry Falwell's university.

I don't have any other response to this

An animal rights group said on Wednesday it would go ahead with a controversial advertising campaign that likens the slaughter of animals to the murder of Jews under the Nazis despite threats of a legal challenge.

Paul Spiegel, president of the Central Council of Jews, said he would ask prosecutors to raise charges of "inciting racial hatred" against vegetarian group People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) for the advertisements called "Holocaust on a plate."

Go eat a hamburger. No, go eat two.

Pew Research has an interesting look at attitudes after the war towards Muslims and Jews.

Some highlights:

• Unfavorable ratings of Jews in France Germany dipped since 1991, from 14 percent to 11 ans 24 to 20 respectively.
  
• France is now in line with US and British results (8 and 9 percent, respectively) with regard to unfavorable ratings of Jews.
  
• If you add together the "Somewhat" and "Very" favorable ratings, France actually does better than the United States (81 percent to 77 percent). Germany, however, does noticeably worse: 63%.
  
• The United States has the highest percentage of "Very" favorable ratings, at 36%, with France second at 28%. Germany has a miserable 10%.
  
• Attitudes towards Muslim are less forgiving. Germany, again, leads the unfavorable race with 46%. The United States is second with 32% and France follows with 29%. It appears that the War on Terrorism is exacerbating existing anti-Muslim prejudices.
  
• Britain does the best, with only 18% of people expressing unfavorable ratings towards Muslims.
  

In general, it appears that French anti-Semitism appears to be a myth, as long as we use the United States as the baseline. France has a similar level of unfavorable impressions toward Jews, and actually does better in the combined favorable ratings than the United States and the UK. Germany has a significant problem, though it is getting better.

Attitudes towards Muslims are more bigoted in the west, with no nation having anything to be particularly proud of. Germany, again, is the worse offender. In general, though, the numbers are very bad all over. I am afraid that the war or terrorism is drifting into a war on Muslims in the minds of many people in the west. Yet another reason to be upset at the Bush Administration's odd reluctance to highlight acts of domestic terrorism thwarted. It would serve to remind people that terrorism is disease found in all cultures, even our own.

The Germans consistently do poorly in these surveys, with lower favorable ratings and higher unfavorable ratings of non-Germans. Apparently, Germans have done much worse than the French, British and Americans at internalizing the notion of a nation that includes other nationalities.

Link vi Henry at Crooked Timber

But what a home it is: the center of the newly redesigned The Washington Monthly web page.

Go say congratulations.

The Kerry campaign is trying to raise ten million in ten days. We have already seen the amount of lies and press the Bush campaign can buy, so help pay for some truth

And the drumbeat of Bush bigotry pounds on and on

Gay and lesbians in the entire federal workforce have had their job protections officially removed by the office of Special Counsel. The new Special Counsel, Scott Bloch, says his interpretation of a 1978 law intended to protect employees and job applicants from adverse personnel actions is that gay and lesbian workers are not covered.

Bloch said that the while a gay employee would have no recourse for being fired or demoted for being gay, that same worker could not be fired for attending a gay Pride event.

In his interpretation, Bloch is making a distinction between one’s conduct as a gay or lesbian and one’s status as a gay or lesbian.

“People confuse conduct and sexual orientation as the same thing, and I don’t think they are,” Bloch said in an interview with Federal Times, a publication for government employees.

(snip)

Bloch's position is a marked departure from how the previous special counsel, Elaine Kaplan, enforced the law. “The legal position that he is taking, that there is some distinction between discrimination based on sexual orientation and discrimination based on conduct, is absurd,” Kaplan told Federal Times.

In the logic of the Bush Administration, you cannot be fired for attending a Gay pride event, but that attendance is evidence of homosexuality, and you can be fired for that. The distinction does not exist in any practical sense.

Bush needs to publicly say, right now, that he forbids the firing of an employee because they are gay, or his puts his seal of approval on firing people because of their orientation.

This is interesting:

In an interview to be broadcast on BBC Newsnight tonight, he says: "My preference was to put the Iraqis in charge as soon as we can, and do it with some form of elections ... I just thought it was necessary to rapidly get the Iraqis in charge of their destiny."

Asked by the reporter Greg Palast if he foresaw negative repercussions from the subsequent US imposition of mass privatization , Gen Garner said: "I don't know ... we'll just have to wait and see." It would have been better for the Iraqis to take decisions themselves, even if they made mistakes, he said.

"What I was trying to do was get to a functioning government ... We as Americans like to put our template on things. And our template's good, but it's not necessarily good for everyone else."

I don't know if he was correct regarding early elections. But I do know he was absolutely correct about the economic decisions: only by allowing the Iraqis to make those decisions could the appearance of looting by the West be avoided. That opportunity was missed, and the US will suffer for it.

It sounds as if Garner had the right instincts: let the Iraqis decide the questions for themselves while the US provided security, aid, and stabilization. The Bush Administration made several mistakes in the planning for the aftermath of Iraq. It now looks as if they made a large one in firing Gardner. Bremer seems to have neither the independence or the instinct that Gardner seemed to.

This is a good look at the troubles the NCAA has making sure that it's students athletes actually resemble students. It's a hard task, and one that doesn't have many clear answers or many clear villains. Considering that the NFL and the NBA have no minor leagues, if a person wants to learn enough to play in the NBA or NFL, they have to go to college. But not all of those people are college ready or interested in anything else college can teach them.

On the other hand, despite the myths, athletic departments are almost always drains on the university at large. More importantly, the emphasis on big time sports has warped the relationships between the best athletes and the coaches. As early as junior high, the best players are passed along. People make excuses for them, people ignore their failings, and people look the other way when they don't really learn what they should. Because coaches need these kids to keep their jobs. By the time they get to college, it has been years since many of them were asked to actually perform in a class room. In many cases, they won't even realize how far behind their contemporaries they are, as much of this is done with a wink and a nod over the student's head. The patter will continue in college, until they find themselves without a job in the NBA or NFL, and no possibility of finding other good work. Something has to be done to help those kids.

But no one really knows what. The NCAA should be applauded for trying, but there is no silver bullet for this problem.

No, really

The statement said it supported President Bush in his reelection campaign, and would prefer him to win in November rather than the Democratic candidate John Kerry, as it was not possible to find a leader "more foolish than you (Bush), who deals with matters by force rather than with wisdom."

In comments addressed to Bush, the group said:

"Kerry will kill our nation while it sleeps because he and the Democrats have the cunning to embellish blasphemy and present it to the Arab and Muslim nation as civilization."

"Because of this we desire you (Bush) to be elected."

Link via Kos

Umm, or did I? (Video link.)

Oops!

Link via MoveOn.org.

An entire hotel was apparently destroyed

A powerful explosion, apparently from a car bomb, went off in central Baghdad on Wednesday, killing 27 people and wounding 40, according to senior U.S. military officials.

The blast virtually destroying the Mount Lebanon Hotel and damaging a number of houses and offices nearby.

Even more chilling is the reaction of the people in the area:

Iraqi police and coalition soldiers cordoned off the area. U.S. soldiers from the nearby "Green Zone" attempted to go into the area to rescue victims but were driven back by angry Iraqis.

I am hearing a lot of complaining about the fact that the union does not want to throw away the collective bargaining agreement and allow random steroid testing. This is very often used to paint the owners as heroes to the game and the player's union as villains. That's nonsense. The owners did not really want steroid testing, or they would have been willing to bargain away more in the last agreement to get it. Now, the owners want the players to agree to allow their members to be treated as criminals and cheaters without getting anything in return. That's all this is -- a cheap publicity stunt by a group of owners who want home runs to put fans in the seats, but don't want to admit that.

Bush thinks he can run on his war record:

A year after ordering the invasion of Iraq, President Bush is moving the war to the forefront of his re-election effort with a week long barrage of speeches, an orchestrated set of interviews with senior Pentagon officials and a new television advertisement questioning Senator John Kerry's support of the troops.
Mr. Bush's advisers said Tuesday that the president intended to press his case that the world was safer with Saddam Hussein out of power, and to use the first anniversary, on Friday, of the war's start to draw sharp contrasts with Mr. Kerry over foreign policy and leadership.

Good. Let's have that fight. Let's talk about how he has failed to support the troops and their families. Let's talk about how poorly the rest of the world now views the United States, particularly in comparison to 9/12/2001. Let's talk about the compromises he made with murderous bastards like the leader of Uzbekistan in order to get his war in Iraq. Let's talk about the complete and utter lack of WMDs and connections to al-Qaeda in Iraq. Let's talk about how he let a known terrorist go in order to build support for the war in Iraq. Let's talk about how he is spending billions on a missile defense system that doesn't work, and underfunding port and nuclear plant security. Let's talk about how his support for murderous regimes plays into the terrorist propaganda designs. Let's talk about how more of Afghanistan is slipping back under Taliban control. Let's talk about how his poor planning has turned Iraq into a troop sucking mess. Lets talk about how he pulled intelligence resources away form the hunt for Bin Laden in order to support the invasion of Iraq.

Let's have that fight.

From the Cincinnati Post:

The Bengals are in early discussions with Warren Sapp and have offered the free agent defensive tackle a four-year contract, sources close to the situation said Tuesday night.

Sapp, who turned 31 in December, is a six-time Pro Bowl player who would be brought in to help bolster the Bengals overall defense - particularly against the run. He has 77 career sacks in nine seasons but had just five in 2003, his fewest since his rookie year.

Sapp had just 5 sacks all of last year, a serious dropoff from his expected production. He did this in what he knew was the last year of his contract, meaning last season should have been his free agency tryout. And that's all the effort he put in.

Marvin Lewis would also do well to remember how Sapp just stopped playing for Coach Dungy in the playoffs a couple years ago, when playoff wins could have saved Dungy's job. He would also do well to remember Sapp's tendency to pop off at the mouth, and think about how that would play in Cincinnati, where racial tensions still run high, and where there's a long history of dissention in the locker room.

Sapp may still have talent when he wants to use it, but to my mind he's become more trouble than he's worth. If you're going to take a chance on him, that's one thing, but a four year contract is way too big a gamble. Two-year deal tops.

I still have a soft spot for the Bengals, and I'd really hate to see them make a mistake like this. If they close the deal, I just hope Sapp proves me wrong.

I am sure everyone is familiar with Andy's quote from right after the attacks in Madrid:

If it is the beginning of an Islamist terror campaign throughout Europe, then we will witness a cultural and military war on that continent not seen since the last world war. We can only hope it won't transpire, that we have managed to keep al Qaeda at bay. But if it does, we can equally hope that the democratic nations of Europe will begin to realize what Tony Blair and George Bush have been warning about for so long. The enemy is clear. The question is not whether it will strike, but whether the West can strike back and decisively defang and defeat it. It's up to Europe now. Maybe now they'll get it.

"Maybe now they'll get it" sounds suspiciously like Andy wants the European nations to change their policies regarding terrorism. Now, as Andy full well knows, Europe is heavily involved in fighting the war on terrorists. The only conviction for 9/11 happened in Germany, and European troops are helping to make Afghanistan safe, picking up where the US failed to lead. European intelligence and police agencies are cooperating with US agencies. The only matter of dispute is where the invasion of Iraq fits in the fight against terrorism. Andy considers it vital, so it is no stretch to think that "Maybe now they'll get it" is a reference to Europe becoming fully engaged in Iraq. Andy wants European governments to change their policies based on a terrorist attack.

But isn't that a victory for the terrorists, under the right-wing definition of what happened in Spain? Hasn't al-Qaeda made it abundantly clear that they wish to ignite a war of civilizations, in order to unite the Muslim world behind them? Would not the presence of every significant western Army in the middle of the Middle East not make that take easier -- particularly if it were done without UN approval?

And that's the point. Andy obviously does not want the terrorists to win (a concession he seems oddly unwilling to make to those of us on the left who disagree with him), but by the logic he and others have been pushing in the wake of the Spanish elections, his paragraph above is the equivalent of hoping for a victory for the terrorists. In both cases, a change that could be seen as in line with the stated desires of al-Qaeda could have taken place in response to a terrorist attack by al-Qaeda. And that's the problem with the "logic" of the Spanish election.

Andy obviously feels that Iraq was a good idea and was hoping that the latest attacks would change enough minds in Europe to force European governments to support the invasion. But when the Spanish reacted, in part, to the terrorist attack to decide that the invasion of Iraq was a faulty tactic, they are somehow appeasing al-Qaeda, despite the fact that both courses of action are desired by al-Qaeda, if for different reasons. Voting defensively, what Andy and the right wing are now suggesting the Spanish should have done, is an untenable situation when the ramifications are so complex. By condemning the Spanish for voting based on all the information available to them, Andy is being more than just hypocritical. He is asking for the Spanish, indeed for all voters, to turn over their voting choice to the terrorists. If the position has any intellectual weight beyond "appeasement == doing what the neo-cons don't want you to do", it must mean voting based on what you think the terrorists don't want you to do. That is far too much control to give to the terrorists. The only way to survive as a democracy is to vote, based on all the available information, for what you think is in your nation's best interest.

Andy and the right wing knew that before the Spanish returns came in. It's a shame they forgot it in their horror at being disagreed with afterward.

Saw this in a course lesson from my Continetal Literature class and it set me off. This has always been a pet peeve of mine.

The course says:

"Like the occult, though, it [a computer] requires a certain mystical knowledge to navigate your way through it."

Nope. Nuh-uh. Not even close.

A computer is a piece of technology; it is based on well understood, easily explainable principles of mathematics and phsyics. It's function and operation is entirely understandable by anyone who has a given amount of time and desire to learn. Occult, on the other hand, is defined as

1. Of, relating to, or dealing with supernatural influences, agencies, or phenomena.
2. Beyond the realm of human comprehension; inscrutable.
3. Available only to the initiate; secret: occult lore. See Synonyms at mysterious.
4. Hidden from view; concealed.

Only the "Hidden from view" is even close, and thats the least common definition. There is not that is not understandable in the design, maintenance or use of a computer. There is nothing in a computer that is inscrutable. But for some reason, modern culture has allowed itself to be bullied into being infantalized by pundits and computer snake oil salesman. For some reason, a culture that is built on citizens being able to make rational choices about which candidate would have a better foreign policy or be able to manage the economy best is also a culture that has allowed itself to be convinced that its incapable of understanding a glorified box.

I particularly hate this trend in literature. By keeping computer technology at an arms length, it encourages people to think of computers as something outside of their lives, like some strange deity that proves useful if the right sacrifices are acceptable but dangerous if they are not. Computers are tools, and thats all. There is nothing mysterious or inscrutable about them, there is nothing that cannot be understood. I have no idea how to cross stitch, but that doesn't make a pair of knitting needles occult-like. The effect is to elevate and remove computer technology from the fabric of human experience. In the past, literature would have a proper respect for the tools of the craftsmen it dealt with. Today, because of this misguided notion, technology is seen as some imposition on the human condition instead of the natural extension of mankind's history of tools.

In other words, we get literature that treats technology fearfully or with awe. Neither attitude is a particularly useful look at something so integral to modern culture.

There isn't really any other way to read this. Frum argues that Kerry is Bin Laden's candidate because of what happened in Spain. Since, in the world of the conservatives, Al-Queda "won" in Spain, then if a massive terrorist attack takes place, then we must vote for Bush, because otherwise the terrorists get what they want.

In other words, Frum has said, in print, that the American people should not under any circumstances vote for who they think would be the best candidate. No, instead, they have an obligation to try and figure out what the terrorists want us to do and then do the opposite. Even if a person thinks the terrorists are wrong, and what they want us to do would actually be the best course of action for the country, that person, according to Frum, should still not vote for that option. The only thing that matters is what the terrorists want.

David Frum has written a column that argues for a course of action that gives the terrorists complete and total control over the elections. I know he thinks he is being clever, but he is actually being cowardly. He wants the American people to huddle fearfully in the voting booth and desperately try to figure out what we should do based on what the terrorists think. That gives far too much control over our actions to the terrorists. Real strength comes does not come from trying to second guess our enemies intentions. Real strength comes form doing what we think best and making our enemies react to us. Frum demands that voters only consider what the terrorists don't want us to do, not which position is best for the country.

I have no intention of giving Bin laden that much control over my vote. David Frum may be content to vote out of fear and apprehension, but I am not. Let the terrorists react to us, not the other way around. Thats the only sure way to maintain the integrity of our elections.

Link via Pandagon.

Via PRI's Marketplace comes this (under "features," RealAudio required):

Bush Medicare TV segments may have crossed the line
The General Accounting Office tells Congress that the Bush administration paid people to pose as journalists praising the benefits of the new Medicare law on TV news segments. While the GAO says that's legal as a way to educate beneficiaries, federal investigators and some of the president's political opponents wonder if that crosses the line into taxpayer-supported propaganda. Although journalists are supposed to be independent, that can be tough in understaffed newsrooms where such government segments are easier to produce.

Congressional investigators are scrutinizing television segments in which the Bush administration paid people to pose as journalists praising the benefits of the new Medicare law, intended to help elderly Americans with the costs of their prescription medicines.

The videos, a hybrid of advertising and journalism, are intended for use in local television news programs.

Several of the videos include pictures of President Bush receiving a standing ovation from a crowd cheering as he signed the Medicare drug-benefit law on Dec. 8.

The materials were produced by the Department of Health and Human Services, but the source is not identified. Two videos end with the voice of a woman who says, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."

But the production company, Home Front Communications, said it had hired Ryan to read a script prepared by the government.

...snip...

The government also prepared scripts that can be used by news anchors introducing what the administration described as a made-for-television "story package."

...snip...

Lawyers from the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, discovered the materials last month when they were investigating the use of federal money to pay for certain flyers and advertisements that publicize the Medicare law.

I frankly don't care how you feel about the Medicare plan itself. The use of these deceptive tactics to pawn off administration propaganda as if it were an objective news story is disgusting, and it would be equally disgusting if Democrats were guilty of it. It makes it even worse that it's taxpayer-funded propaganda in a news report's clothing (illegal, by the way).

You really need to listen to the PRI story if you can. They play clips of the "news story" that give you a good idea how it's being spun.

I can't help but wonder how low the GOP is willing to go to push its agenda. But hey, never mind how they're subversively manipulating public opinion, John Kerry has a rich wife, and even worse, he's from Massachussetts! Pay no attention to that fat drug company behind the curtain...

I didn't get the email, but apparently Tony Knowles has taken a strong position on gay rights:

HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN ENDORSES KNOWLES - Tony Knowles was proud this week to receive the endorsement of the Human Right's Campaign, America's largest gay organization. Personal freedoms are so important to me, to Alaskans and to the future of American democracy that I consider this to be a fundamental issue of my campaign, along with jobs, education, health care and national security, Knowles said. Among other excerpts from his remarks before the HRC Board:

I recognize that HRC is a bipartisan organization. As an independent Democrat, I understand the need to work closely with both parties. Jobs, education, health care, national security and personal freedoms are more important than politics.

As a U.S. Senator, I will be a co-sponsor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and anti-hate crimes legislation.

I support funding for HIV/AIDS prevention research to tackle this uncontrolled health problem in our communities and in Africa where it is epidemic.

I'm against a federal constitutional amendment on marriage - or any U.S. constitutional amendment that limits rights. Amending our Constitution should be done to grant rights, not take them away.

I am pro job and that means no job discrimination based on sexual orientation. Health care should not be denied to domestic partners. Sexual orientation and marital status should not be obstacles to health care.

I am against government intrusion into our bedrooms; into our reading habits, our medical records and our personal lives. We need judges and politicians who respect our personal liberties, who will protect our freedoms and who will enforce our rights

Alaska is not San Francisco, and taking such a clear position is a sign of both leadership and courage. Leadership and courage should be rewarded -- contribute what you can.

Kash at Angry Bear has the details, but, essentially, the CBO has a statistic refereed to as the "cyclically adjusted" budget. That statistic adjusts for those aspects of the budget that are cyclical in nature, in order to show the effects of policy.

The result will not make Bush backers happy.

This Modern World has some perspective form Spain.

So, many people began to ask "who did it?", "not all of us are here, we lack 200" and "we want the truth before voting" already in the mammoth antiterrorist demonstrations on Friday. The Government stuck to the ETA hypothesis trying to avoid this probable electoral damage. They must have thought that using their massive media control they could cover it up for four days, until election's aftermath. Government-controlled public and private televisions, radios and newspapers broadcasted once and again "it was ETA", but each minute less people was buying it. It has been said that workers of some of this media were near to revolt because of the pressures to avoid the Islamic hypothesis (today, EFE -Spanish state press agency- workers' unions have asked for the immediate resignation of their boss because of this). But then, media not controlled by the Government started broadcasting the Islamic hypothesis and how the controlled media were manipulating the whole issue. In a matter of hours, Spain was bipolarized, with thousands seeking information in Internet and sending it via SMS to their friends. IMHO, the Government went mad and commited suicide in this moment. They agreed there were "Islamic clues" but said once and again it was ETA although the mass crime was claimed three times by Al-Qaeda and there were several tapes (two or three, still unknown) with Islamic messages claiming "Operation Trains of Death" in Madrid and threatening "Smoke of Death" in Italy and "Winds of Death" in the USA. Millions began to think they were being lied, with the blood of 200 Spaniards still warm. SMS messages with the truth spreaded very quickly (I received about 50 from about 40 different sources). In workers' districts through the country, people began to protest beating pans in the windows and shouting "they make wars, we suffer them", "we are not puppets" and "Spain is not to be lied". Others demonstrated before Aznar's party offices in different cities singing "Liars, liars!" and "Culprits, culprits!". In Madrid, these demonstrations united over 3,000 people, probably many more according to the images seen on TV. When police started asking for ID's, they showed their ID cards to the international TV cameras deployed there shouting "Urdaci, look at my face!" (Urdaci is the information director in the channel 1 of Spanish public television, massively involved in the coverup). Sort of a lightweight civil revolt, as you can see. Nothing serious, but obviously damaging to the ruling party. As a last error, Mariano Rajoy (Government's party candidate, since Aznar was retiring) spoke on TV blaming these demos as "antidemocratic and illegal". For a Government widely perceived as too authoritary and non-negotiating, this sealed their fate.

Read the whole thing, as they say, particulalrly the dexriptions of the heroism of the people of Madrid. In fact, its so important that I think it needs to be repeated:

The behavior of the people was of utter heroism. I must say it, I didn't expect it and I'm very proud of my people now. When the victims in the trains started shouting "neighbours, neighbours, please help us!" to the surrounding buildings, hundreds of every age and sex rushed downstairs to help, even understanding that there were bombs and could be more. Commuter drivers in nearby roads stopped their cars and took the horribly mutilated and burnt woundeds to area hospitals even before the first ambulances arrived. Even some people who were inside the trains stayed to help others instead of fleeing! Please believe me when I tell you that the people of Madrid behave EXCEPTIONALLY and with rare bravery and solidarity in these very hard minutes. I use to be quite cynic, but this defies any cynicism. It was epic, heroic, I don't have words. Those thinking that the Spanish people is being coward should reconsider their opinion in the light of this.

Feel free to smack the next person who tells you the Spanish were afraid.

I understand Dionne's concern here, but I think he is wrong:

A lot of Democratic reformers would prefer not to talk about the Media Fund. They're grateful for its work and don't want to challenge efforts to beat Bush on the basis of what they see as a close legal question. Such Democrats say that many Republicans who have opposed limits on campaign fund raising are now being hypocritical in going after Ickes. That's true but, I fear, shortsighted. My hunch is that in the long run, the country -- and, yes, especially Democrats -- will regret opening a new loophole in the campaign money system so soon after some of the more notorious of the old ones were shut down.

The so-called campaign finance reform was a band aid. It did little to stem the flow of money into campaigns, and it did nothing to lower the cost of campaigning. The electoral process still runs on money. Until that changes, the Democrats would be remiss in not doing what they can to be successful under the present system. Because the present system is the only system we have to work with. Unilateral disarmament is not going to work. Principle is fine, but principle without power is just political masturbation.

If Dionne is truly worried about the effect of money on campaigns then he should spend his time agitating for publicly financed campaigns and free airtime for candidates. Because until either of those happen, money will remain an integral part of campaigning. Criticizing the Democrats for working within the present system as best they are able is akin to criticizing an ER doctor for concentrating on the gun shot wound instead of the patient's weight problem.

Man, everyone needs to calm down

The terrorist attack in Madrid and its seismic impact on the Spanish elections this past week have brought the United States and Europe to the edge of the abyss.

Nonsense. The neo-cons seem incapable of understanding that the majority of Europe sees Iraq as a sideshow from not a part of the war on terrorism. Leaving Iraq is not to abandon the war on terrorism, and disagreeing with Bush's policies is not to want to hate America. Spain and Europe are not going to stop helping in the war on terror. In all the hyperbolic panic that the neo-cons and the voices of the "establishment" have been spewing this morning I fond no mention of the fact that the Spanish government is keeping its troops in Afghanistan or that the incoming government has repeatedly stated that they would keep troops in Iraq if such troops were to serve under UN auspices. There is no panic in Europe -- only in the neo-con circles. This is a disagreement over tactics. It is not the end of the word. It is not even the end of the Atlantic Alliance.

The war against terrorism is going to be a long term struggle. There will continue to be disagreements over priorities and tactics. The Europeans are not children, and they have had much more experience with dealing with and defeating terrorists than the United States. They are not going to sit quietly in the corner and say "yes sir, no sir" to the Americans. And thats a good thing. Ideas should not go unchallenged, and the Alliance is stronger when the quality of the idea matters more than where it originated.

The Alliance is no danger; the war on terrorism is in no danger. it shows just how warped the neo-con view has become that they cannot see the forest for Iraq.