Open thread

So, you'll recall that last night I asked why I had to learn to tie a knot when my earphones and Christmas lights do it all by themselves? Reader Jason sent in this article that explains it. The article says there's no solution yet to stopping the knotting. I don't agree, but if I share it here, then someone else will make a million bucks. Read More......

Mom: 'Carol Sue Would Be Alive Today' If Not for Huckabee

From ABC:

Huckabee recently told CNN, "None of us could've predicted what Dumond could've done when he got out."

It's Bush and the levees all over again. No one could have predicted. Yeah, no one could have predicted that a convicted rapist who mauled a 17 year old high school student would then turn around and maul another woman after he was let out of prison early as a result of Huckabee's intervention. And now Huckabee is trying to cover up the entire affair. This story isn't going away. And I'm sure we can expect mom to be starring in many a TV commercial, and doing many a talk show. And when the right-wing noise machine starts attacking mom, like they did the first girl this monster raped, then we'll see whose side Mike Huckabee is really on.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't think Huckabee thought the man would rape again. I just think that Huckabee didn't care if the man would rape again. Huckabee was more interested in anti-Bill-Clinton conspiracy theories, the fact that the first womant he man raped was a distant Clinton relative, than he was the danger of putting a convicted rapist back on the street. Huckabee tried to take a cheap shot at Bill Clinton through his raped cousin and a woman is dead as a result. Did Huckabee want her dead? No. But are we really to believe that he's surprised that a convicted rapist who didn't do his time then raped (and murdered) again? Oh please.

(And can I just say "kudos" to ABC's Brian Ross for quoting something on CNN. I don't think I've ever seen one network reference another, or at least very rarely. That was good of him, and very Internet-y.) Read More......

A Maine-made ad about Susan Collins

This ad captures Susan Collins perfectly:
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The Iran NIE's political ramifications: More problematic for Clinton than Bush

In September, Hillary Clinton voted for the Kyl-Lieberman resolution on Iran. Several times since then, she has been forced to defend her vote against charges that she unwittingly authorized another Bush war. She says, not true, she only voted for "aggressive diplomacy" with Iran. She reiterated the phrase in a speech attacking Obama yesterday in Iowa. Personally, I never understood what she meant by "aggressive diplomacy." It sounds like something her top aide and Machiavellian pollster, Mark Penn, came up with.

The problem Hillary faces is that George Bush and the Republicans have a different definition of aggressive diplomacy than what normal people mean by the phrase, and Democratic voters know it. Senator Clinton says she voted to give Bush the power to engage Iraq in diplomacy back in 2002, and we all know how that turned out. He abused the authority given to him, and took us to war based on a lie. That's how Bush defines aggressive diplomacy: He can do whatever he wants.

I think that, politically, the NIE released yesterday could be worse for Hillary than for Bush. As John pointed out in an earlier post, despite having a press conference today, Bush wasn't held accountable for his warmongering lies about Iran. At the Democratic debate today, Hillary, however, had to answer tough questions about her Iran position.

During the debate, Clinton said that the US' tough diplomatic approach was the reason for Iran stopping its nuclear weapons program. For that response, she got slammed by Joe Biden:

Clinton said it's clear that pressure on Iran has had an effect — a point disputed by Biden.

"With all due respect with anybody who thinks that pressure brought this about, let's get this straight. In 2003, they stopped their program," Biden said.

When Hillary cast her vote for Kyl-Lieberman, she may have accepted Bush's promises that this time he wasn't going to bully his way into another war -- or she may have simply made a political calculation that voting for the authorization would make her look strong on defense, a useful credential for any Democrat, but especially for a woman trying to overcome a certain prejudice that still exists among some voters. But while the media is blindly in love with Bush, and Democratic voters long gave up on his serial lies, Hillary still has to face the voters -- Democratic voters. Her talk of "aggressive diplomacy" may be a good general election strategy, but it may already be backfiring with Democratic primary voters fed up with a party that never says no. Read More......

Paulson promotes Wall Street bailout as plan to help homeowners

Right. And Iraq has WMDs. Give me a break with this government sponsored bailout. It's all about helping Wall Street get past an ugly period just long enough for them to see a few decent numbers. As soon as that happens, the homeowners who bought into this rubbish will be thrown aside just as they were thrown to the wolves in the first place. All the GOP ever does is bail out its friends. I still groan thinking of the multi-billion dollar airline bailout, wondering where the hell my bailout was when the tech market tanked. No sooner did they receive cash from taxpayers did they sign up multi-million dollar executive teams who still couldn't run a company into profitability if their life depended on it. Let's not forget about the even worse service and cramped spaces in the airline industry.

We should have learned out lesson many times over but no, we're about to witness yet another unfair bailout that does little more than delay the problem. What happens after the rates go up? Will buyers be making so much more money that they can suddenly afford the payments? This bailout also is a slap in the face to everyone who didn't buy into this get-rich-quick scheme created by Wall Street. Average Americans who paid their bills with traditional loans are being punished because they simply did the right thing. At least some are suggesting lawsuits against this plan, though unfortunately, the legal threats seem to be limited to other financial organizations who still want their pound of flesh from this greedy subprime program.

Only a fool would believe Paulson, former Wall Street hotshot, when he says this bailout is for buyers. Just how stupid does he think Americans really are? Read More......

How Huckabee's Clinton-hatred led him to help parole a convicted rapist who then molested and murdered another woman

I'd heard about this story, but never fully understood it until reading this CBS News piece out today. It's horrendous.

Huckabee basically helped secure the guy's release because the convict had raped a distant relative of Bill Clinton - and being a distant relative of Bill Clinton, the right-wing attack machine said the woman who was raped wasn't credible (even though the guy was convicted), and they demanded that the rapist be set free because, after all, he only raped a Clinton. Well, it seems that Governor Huckabee agreed. He set the rapist free, and then the guy molested and murdered another woman. But even better? Huckabee now denies that he had anything to do with the release of the rapist/murderer. Funny, then why did Huckabee meet with the parole board on behalf of the rapist/murderer?

So now we know the real Mike Huckabee. Huckabee is part of the Rush Limbaugh hate machine that sees everything through the eyes of how much hurt he can cause the Clintons. And if that meant helping a rapist get a second chance to molest and murder again, it was a small risk to take in exchange for hurting a distant relative of Bill Clinton.

From CBS:

As [Bill] Clinton rose to national prominence, the case came to the attention of his critics. Journalists and talk show hosts questioned the victim's story and suggested that DuMond had been railroaded by the former governor. Steve Dunleavy, a New York Post columnist, took up the case as a cause, calling DuMond’s conviction "a travesty of justice."....

When Huckabee became governor in 1996, he expressed doubts about DuMond's guilt and said he was considering commuting his sentence to time served. After the victim and her supporters protested, Huckabee decided against commutation. But in 1997, according to the Kansas City Star, Huckabee wrote a letter to DuMond saying "my desire is that you be released from prison." Less than a year later, DuMond was granted parole.

Huckabee's office denied that the governor played a role in the parole board's decision, but there was evidence (exhaustively detailed here) to contradict that claim.

Charles Chastain, a Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, who was on the parole board at the time, told CBSNews.com the governor met with the board to argue on DuMond’s behalf.

"He thought DuMond had gotten a raw deal," said Chastain, who calls himself neutral towards Huckabee. "He said he'd been born on the wrong side of the tracks and hadn't been treated all that fairly."

"I don't think the governor quite understood about parole proceedings," added Chastain. "I thought of the parole board as a quasi-judicial body that wouldn't be lobbied or otherwise interfered with by anyone outside of it, so I was a little bit surprised by it."

After the meeting, Chastain said, a number of the board members "switched their vote" from the previous year, and DuMond was paroled.

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Santa Claus is fast

He may be portly. He may have an old fashioned sleigh. He may be a bit old and those reindeer don't look fast but looks can be deceiving. Try doing this when you have gray in your beard and it's cold outside.

But Sweco's report on Santa's most efficient route -- which takes into account factors like geographic density and the fewest detours -- shows that he wouldn't be able to make his round-the-world trip from there in time.

"He has 34 microseconds at each stop" to slide down the chimney, drop off the presents, nibble on his cookies and milk and hop back on his sleigh, Larsson said.

Santa's reindeer must travel at a speed of 5,800 kilometers (3,604 miles) per second to make the trip on time.

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Does Huckabee respect Santeria and Scientology too?

Huckabee says he respects "anybody who practices his faith," when asked if he agreed with many evangelical Christians that Mormonism is a cult. So I wonder if he feels the same respect for Scientologists and for Santeria practitioners? See, Huckabee, just like Romney, is trying to have it both ways. Both want to get elected as the evangelical president, both plan on using a conservative Baptist view of God to craft legislation that all Americans would have to abide by, but when asked exactly what their religion says, they both demur, claiming that religion is simply irrelevant to any discussion of who should be president. Crafty little denialists aren't they? And PS, it's time to ask Huckabee the Romney question: Would you consider including a Muslim in your cabinet? Read More......

Join Digg, help the blog

Some of you may have noticed that I've added an updated Digg link to the top of each post, alongside the "comments" link. For those of you who don't know, Digg is a service that helps you sift through all the content on the Web and find the best stuff. It works quite easily....

You create an account on Digg, for free, then every time you read a post on this blog that you think is especially good, that is something that you really want to share with other people because everyone should read it, you simply click the "digg it" button above the post. (Generally speaking, after you log in to Digg the first time, if you ask it to remember who you are, you won't have to log in again.) Digg will ask you to give the post a headline (e.g., "Bush caught lying about Iran") and to describe the post in a few sentences (i.e., what is the post about). Then you submit the post, and that's it.

Now, why should you do this? Because once you've submitted the post to Digg, other Digg readers from across the Net can take a look at what you submitted, and if they agree that it's something others should read, they can "digg" the post too - upping its total number of diggs (you'll notice that there's a number next to the "digg it" link above this post, that's the number of people who have already "dugg" this post, i.e., found it worthy). And the more votes or diggs a post gets, the higher it rises in Digg's system, and the more traffic it sends to read the post and our blog.

Now, it should go without saying that you don't want to digg every post on this blog, or you'll tick people off and no one will trust your digg recommendations in the future. Rather, if you see a really good post, something that everyone simply must read, then THAT'S the post you should digg (you'll note that other sites like FireDogLake and ThinkProgress have digg buttons, so once your logged in you can digg their stuff too). And, if you already see a number greater than zero next to the "digg this" button on any particular post, it means it's already been dugg, so if you like the post too, you can digg it too and up the number.

Sounds complicated, but it isn't. Digg is a neat service, and you can lose yourself for a long time just reading through things others have dugg. And it's a great way to help us out by sending traffic our way. But again, only recommend the good stuff. Thanks, JOHN Read More......

McCain complains about US-designed Iraqi government

I missed this initially, but via the peerless Kevin Drum comes the news that Senator McCain criticized the situation in Iraq for having no political progress failing US strategy religious and sectarian violence too many ministries. No, seriously. And he wasn't shy about saying so, telling a group of journalists, "Whoever designed that government ought to be taken out and shot."

Two things about this: First of all, the idea that the number of ministries somehow causes corruption, as McCain indicated, is pretty silly. There's corruption because there's no functioning political system, which is a result of a bad electoral system and concurrent Iraqi and US failures to establish any workable compromises on the major disputed issues. Number of ministries? Really? For those keeping track, there are 31 of them, and while I'm not sure, for example, why Iraq need a Communications Ministry *and* a Communications and Media Commission Ministry, the list doesn't really seem particularly unreasonable. For comparison, the US has 15 cabinet-level Departments and literally hundreds of other federal departments and agencies (everything from NSA to IRS to National Weather Service).

More importantly, though, the idea that some random, nameless, faceless person designed the Iraqi government is absurd. Who designed the Iraqi government? Uh... we did. At the very least we created the political structure and midwifed the executive branch into being, which is where the ministries reside. And I'm pretty sure the United State Senate has some ability to affect and oversee US policy, and I don't recall Senator McCain saying much about these problems to which he now objects as they were being established and institutionalized. It's really amazing to hear the presidential candidates talk about "Washington" this and "the government" that. Y'all are in it! Do something! Read More......

Iran NIE a game-changer

The effects of the declassified Iran NIE are, to a large degree, self-explanatory: Iran stopped pursuing a nuclear weapon in 2003, the 2005 analysis indicating a hell-bent push for them was inaccurate, and it's nearly a decade away from producing materials that would allow for a weapon even if it changed its mind and decided to start up efforts to make one. Again, I think this is pretty clear, but just to reinforce, this means: (1) Bush administration claims about Iranian aggression in the past several months have been largely mendacious, (2) there is now a huge amount of space for negotiations and diplomacy with Iran, with which we share many goals, despite conservative claims to the contrary, and (3) there is no reason to even think about military action against the nation.

The NIE's main conclusions were reported with a high degree of confidence, which usually indicates confirmation from a variety of sources. It's hard to know whether it's right or not, outside of the general idea that intel agencies are generally more likely to warn than not -- under the theory that it's better to be too aggressive in prediction than not enough, despite some pratfalls of this approach (see: WMD, Iraq).

There are two important things, however, that absolutely are knowable: First, the Bush administration knew about these judgments for months and continued its bellicose rhetoric. ThinkProgress has the quotes. Hard to call this anything other than lying.

Second, in terms of process, I'm really curious about why these judgments were released. Just months ago, the administration said the Iran NIE would not be declassified. So why the change of heart? I'd love for the answer to be that either the Democratic leadership of the intel committee of either the House (chaired by Reyes) or Senate (chaired by Rockefeller) insisted. Unfortunately -- and it pains me greatly to say this, but it's true -- Reyes and Rockefeller are stiffs when it comes to this stuff. As Spencer Ackerman notes, both of these guys seemed blindsided by the release, rather than triumphant -- Reyes even said that he wants to be "fully informed about the classified sources upon which this estimate is based" and that he will "review areas where certain agencies dissent." Sounds like a dude who has no idea what's going on. Delightful. In any case, still leaves open the question of who pushed for the release.

Whatever the answer, though, this should really change the entire orientation of US policy towards Iran. Read More......

Mainstream media gives Bush a pass on Iran lie, they're all one big happy club

It was all one big happy boys' and girls' club today, when the mainstream media got its chance to question President Bush about the recent bombshell that when Bush warned about Iran's nuclear program leading to "World War III" he already knew that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program 4 years ago. Bush then upped the ante by lying to the media again during his press conference this morning. In response to one question Bush said that he hadn't heard about any contrary intelligence until just last week. Funny, then, that his own national security adviser told the media yesterday that Bush was told months ago that there was intelligence showing that Iran had ceased its program. Did the ace White House reporters, who had Bush right in front of them, respond to Bush's assertion by saying "uh, Mr. President, your own National Security Adviser says that's a lie." Not a word. Even ABC's Martha Raddatz, who is one of the rare White House reporters to ask good, hard questions, could only come up with a polite little ditty about how our international credibility might be harmed by all of this.

So Bush lied to the press this morning, again, they knew it, again, and they said nothing, again. After only a handful of softball questions, clearly geared towards not ruffling any of Bush's very important feathers, CNN's Ed Henry, who's usually quite the pit-bull, dutifully switched the topic away from imminent World War III based on a lie to the much more important issue of a rape case in Saudi Arabia. It was downhill from there. (And yes, we reported on the rape issue as well - it's horrendous. But as compared to Bush having been caught lying in an effort to start World War III, it's just not in the same league.)

Bush lied to the media and got us into a war with Iraq. The media refused to do their job, and led us into that war. Now Bush has been caught lying to us again, repeatedly, about going to war with Iran, and the media has, again, rolled over and kicked its legs up in the air. What could the media have done differently? How about this line of questions:

Mr. President, you warned the American people about an impending World War III with Iran when you knew that we had intelligence showing that Iran had ceased its nuclear program four years ago. How is that not a lie?

Or

Mr. President, you just said that you had never been told, prior to last week, that we had intelligence showing that Iran was no longer trying to get nuclear weapons. Yet just yesterday, your National Security Adviser said that you had been told about this intelligence months ago. Which one is of you is lying?

I know I shouldn't be surprised, but I really cannot believe that the mainstream media, the networks, the newspapers, were handed this gift of a press conference, less than one day after we find out that Bush knew that Iran was no longer trying to build nukes, and they totally dropped the ball. They were freaking laughing during the press conference. It was all one big joke to the reporters assembled. Unfortunately, the joke's on us. One of my readers has just named them the "White House Press Corpse." And these are the people we rely on to keep our democracy honest. Read More......

Bush Iran Press Conference Open Thread

This is going to be fun. Surprise! The media dropped the ball and let Bush off the hook. Anyone surprised?

10:04am: He sounds horrible. "And now I'll be glannered your questions" - huh?

10:05am: First question was a softball. What idiot asked that question?

10:07am: Are you concerned that the US is losing credibility, looking like the boy who cried wolf?

10:08am: The media STILL hasn't asked him why he lied about Iran publicly after he already knew that they were no longer seeking nukes.

10:11am: Bush says he wasn't briefed about the NIE until last week? Oh really? But was he AWARE of the NIE before that? He's saying that his staff let him publicly lie about Iran's nuclear program, about an impending World War III, and no one bothered telling him, uh boss you're wrong? So who is he planning on firing for letting him lie?

10:13am: Oops, he lied. From the Washington Post:

Hadley said Bush was first told in August or September about intelligence indicating Iran had halted its weapons program, but was advised it would take time to evaluate. Vice President Cheney, Hadley and other top officials were briefed the week before last. Intelligence officials formalized their conclusions on Tuesday and briefed Bush the next day.

Bush just said, in response to a reporter's question, that NO ONE in his administration told him that maybe he needed to be careful about what he was saying about Iran because there was other intelligence out there. Well, he just contradicted his own National Security Adviser who just said that Bush was told just that in August or September.

10:19am: You know, the media still dropped the ball on this one. No one has called him directly on this and said "Mr. President, your own national security adviser told you in August or September that there was intelligence that Iran had ceased its nuclear program, yet after that date you publicly warned of World War III with Iran. What do you say to those Americans who think you lied to them?" Come on guys. Oh well, CNN's Ed Henry just switched to the topic to Saudi Arabia and now the Wall Street Journal guy wants to talk about the economy. So much for Bush lying to the American public in an effort to get us into another war. That topic is so six minutes ago. Read More......

Scathing analysis of Bush having been caught lying about Iran's nuclear program

Bush is holding a press conference at 10am Eastern. He scheduled it before the NIE leaked, showing that he lied to the American people, yet again, in order to start a war with Iran. Let's take a stroll down memory lane and look at what George Bush had to say about Iran, when he knew that they had already halted their nuclear program:



Hmm. It actually seems that some reporters understand they've been had by Bush on Iran. Reuters headline: "Report contradicts Bush on Iran nuclear program."

A new U.S. intelligence report says Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and it remains on hold, contradicting the Bush administration's earlier assertion that Tehran was intent on developing a bomb.

Washington Post headline: "A Blow to Bush's Tehran Policy."

President Bush got the world's attention this fall when he warned that a nuclear-armed Iran might lead to World War III. But his stark warning came at least a month or two after he had first been told about fresh indications that Iran had actually halted its nuclear weapons program.

New York Times headline: "An Assessment Jars a Foreign Policy Debate About Iran."

Rarely, if ever, has a single intelligence report so completely, so suddenly, and so surprisingly altered a foreign policy debate here.

An administration that had cited Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons as the rationale for an aggressive foreign policy — as an attempt to head off World War III, as President Bush himself put it only weeks ago — now has in its hands a classified document that undercuts much of the foundation for that approach.

The impact of the National Intelligence Estimate’s conclusion — that Iran had halted a military program in 2003, though it continues to enrich uranium, ostensibly for peaceful uses — will be felt in endless ways at home and abroad.

Remember that just two months ago, 76 Senators accepted Bush's war-mongering approach to Iran when they voted for the Kyl-Lieberman resolution - legislation that many people, including us, think gives Bush the authorization to start yet another war with Iran. And now we find out that Bush was trying (yet again) to start a war based on a lie.

Here's the roll call vote on Kyl-Lieberman. Read More......

Iraq isn't "fading" as an issue . . . it's just on temporary hiatus

Michael Cohen makes a fantastic point over at DemocracyArsenal: there's been some talk recently about how Iraq is no longer a major focus in the presidential race (his post addresses an article, naturally, by Peter "Failing Upwards" Beinart). This is true, but somewhat misleading.

Iraq will be a huge issue in the 2008 election, probably the most significant and certainly one of the top few. The reason it isn't getting a ton of attention *right now* is because it's primary season, and the candidates in each party simply don't differ that much in their respective Iraq plans/policies. The Democrats all want to end the war, and while they disagree on the exact speed and plan for redeployment, there's not enough variations to make it a hot primary issue, especially among the front-runners. The Republicans all want to stay in Iraq forever. Once we get nominees, there will be plenty of differences to hash out.

And a huge majority of Americans will agree with the Democratic nominee and disagree with the Republican one.

As Cohen says,

[T]he notion that the Iraq war will be a non-story once the two parties settle on a candidate seems pretty far-fetched. If the GOP candidate continues to support keeping troops in Iraq at present levels, does Beinart really think that the Democratic candidate will not remind voters of this fact? With more than 60% of the American people opposed to war that would be some pretty lousy politics. Indeed, I imagine it will be the centerpiece of his or her campaign. We may be getting a temporary respite from talk on the campaign trail about the war, but I, for one, would be pretty shocked if Beinart is right and Iraq is a "non-story" in the general election.

The idea that Iraq won't be a huge issue in the inter-party race, rather than the current intra-party ones, is crazy. Read More......

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning. It's a cold, windy one here in D.C. but no snow, yet.

Bush is holding a press conference this morning. Maybe one of those ace White House reporters can actually get Bush to explain his lies about Iran. In one of his last pressers, Bush invoked the specter of World War III over Iran. At the time, Bush knew...he knew...Iran wasn't building nuclear weapons. Should be interesting anyway.

What else? Read More......

Democrats to debate credit card practices

The Republicans were perfectly fine with ignoring the practices of the credit card industry. Whatever Big Finance wanted to do, they could do. Even this past weekend I heard one American tell me about a brand new credit card that arrived in the mail - ready to go after one phone call - despite never even asking for the card. Who actually thinks such programs are beneficial or safe for consumers?

With Americans weighed down by some $900 billion in credit card debt _ an average $2,200 per household _ practices of the very profitable industry have been ripe for scrutiny by the Democratic-controlled Congress. They have also grabbed the attention of the Federal Reserve, which plans to require credit-card issuers to give customers at least 45 days' notice before raising interest rates and to provide clearer information on fees.

On Tuesday, Levin's subcommittee, which has been investigating the industry, will look at how credit-card issuers raise consumers' rates -- to as high as 30 percent -- when their so-called FICO credit scores decline even if they've paid credit card bills regularly and promptly. In many cases, consumers have little notice of the increased rate, which are automatically triggered by declines in FICO scores for reasons left unexplained, the subcommittee found.

Ultimately it wouldn't be such a bad idea for people to get rid of personal debt but until that happens, the system needs to be a bit more fair. It doesn't always have to be a one way street with Big Finance, despite what the GOP likes to think. Read More......

Newly elected PM in Australia signs Kyoto

That was pretty fast work. Strangely enough, new PM Rudd actually did what he said he would do during the elections. What a novel idea.

"This is the first official act of the new Australian government, demonstrating my government's commitment to tackling climate change," Rudd said in a statement issued hours after he and his Cabinet were officially sworn in after Nov. 24 elections.

Rudd said that he had signed the "instrument of ratification" of the Kyoto Protocol and that it would come into force 90 days after the paperwork was received by the United Nations.

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Can you spare a few bucks?

By a few, I mean only about $30,000. Many Americans carry no personal debt though the ones who do, help drag the average credit card debt to around $9,000. A very high minority (over 40%) spend more money than they earn with the average American spending roughly 105% of what they earn. With our existing concept of debt and spending, grasping all of these numbers and their personal impact is not easy.

What's that mean to you?

It means almost $30,000 in debt for each man, woman, child and infant in the United States.

Even if you've escaped the recent housing and credit crunches and are coping with rising fuel prices, you may still be headed for economic misery, along with the rest of the country. That's because the government is fast straining resources needed to meet interest payments on the national debt, which stands at a mind-numbing $9.13 trillion.

And like homeowners who took out adjustable-rate mortgages, the government faces the prospect of seeing this debt -- now at relatively low interest rates -- rolling over to higher rates, multiplying the financial pain.

So long as somebody is willing to keep loaning the U.S. government money, the debt is largely out of sight, out of mind.

But the interest payments keep compounding and could in time squeeze out most other government spending -- leading to sharply higher taxes or a cut in basic services like Social Security and other government benefit programs. Or all of the above.

Without any visible impact on our day to day life, it's hard for most of us to get our heads around such numbers. There are few incentives for politicians to even try addressing a complicated and unpleasant issue like this. Will it matter? I guess we will find out soon enough. What do you think? Important or irrelevant? Read More......