Cheap Thrills – I shamelessly lifted this from pissed off patricia @ blondesense but it seems like a good idea and a way to get to know each other.

Just for the hell of it let’s talk about something light and easy. Let’s talk about cheap thrills. You know, those little things that happen in life that make you smile. Sometimes it’s a sheepish little smile and sometimes that smile crawls all over your face and creeps right into your heart.
Cheap thrills like finding something you thought was lost forever. Cheap thrills like discovering a bloom on a rose bush you believed to be on the edge of death. There are tons of cheap thrills. I’ll tell you some of mine if you’ll tell me some of yours. Deal?
-by pissed off patricia

Posted by: beq | Feb 1 2005 12:02 utc | 3

And a link: Cheap Thrills, the BlondeSense way.

Posted by: Kate_Storm | Feb 1 2005 12:55 utc | 5

Wow, texan kids are normal!
Texas Teens Increased Sex After Abstinence Program

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Abstinence-only sex education programs, a major plank in President Bush’s education plan, have had no impact on teenagers’ behavior in his home state of Texas, according to a new study.
Despite taking courses emphasizing abstinence-only themes, teenagers in 29 high schools became increasingly sexually active, mirroring the overall state trends, according to the study conducted by researchers at Texas A&M University.
“We didn’t see any strong indications that these programs were having an impact in the direction desired,” said Dr. Buzz Pruitt, who directed the study.
…
The federal government is expected to spend about $130 million to fund programs advocating abstinence in 2005, despite a lack of evidence that they work, Pruitt said.
…
The study showed about 23 percent of ninth-grade girls, typically 13 to 14 years old, had sex before receiving abstinence education. After taking the course, 29 percent of the girls in the same group said they had had sex.
Boys in the tenth grade, about 14 to 15 years old, showed a more marked increase, from 24 percent to 39 percent, after receiving abstinence education.

My reading of these numbers is that abstinence education encourages sex. If so the programs reach should propably increase.

Posted by: b | Feb 1 2005 14:21 utc | 7

that buffalo story has several levels of interpretation, not the least being that he/she probably got a look at the event schedule: An awards banquet and auction will conclude the conference Saturday night. Awards will include prizes for the top live animals and the Reality Based Carcass Class.

Posted by: b real | Feb 1 2005 15:42 utc | 9

Ah, simple pleasures. Like the scrabbling whisper of sleek, furtive nuclear bombs as they burrow into gaia’s nurturing soil:

Rumsfeld Seeks To Revive Burrowing Nuclear Bomb
Bush Budget May Fund Program That Congress Cut
By Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writer
Feb 1, 2005
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sent a memo last month to then-Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham saying next year’s budget should include funds to resume study of building an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon designed to destroy hardened underground targets.
An Energy Department official said yesterday that $10.3 million to restart that study is expected to be included in the Bush administration’s budget, which is to be released next week.
The study, which had been undertaken at the Los Alamos, Sandia and Livermore national laboratories, was halted late last year after Congress deleted $27.5 million for it from the fiscal 2005 Omnibus Appropriations Bill.
The research project was started in 2002 as a three-year effort to see if an existing nuclear warhead could be fitted with a hardened casing allowing it to dig deep into the earth before exploding. The program has been restricted each year by Senate and House members who have argued that even studying the potential for such a new nuclear weapon undermines Washington’s attempts to limit other countries from developing their own nuclear arsenals.
…”I think we should request funds in FY06 and FY07 to complete the study,” Rumsfeld wrote. “Our staffs have spoken about funding the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) study to support its completion by April 2007.” He added, “You can count on my support for your efforts to revitalize the nuclear weapons infrastructure and to complete the RNEP study.”
…Opponents of the proposed new weapon have argued that sealing off underground facilities could be done as well with smart, precision-guided conventional weapons, a position supported in 2003 by Adm. James O. Ellis Jr., then head of the U.S. Strategic Command. They also have said that no casing could dig deep enough to prevent the nuclear warhead’s explosion from sending tons of radioactive debris into the atmosphere.
At the Jan. 19 confirmation hearing for Samuel W. Bodman, the new energy secretary, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a leader of the opposition to the study, said, “Dr. Sidney Drell at Stanford University has said there is no casing known to man that can sustain driving a missile a thousand feet underground; therefore, you would have a spewing of radiation.”

Oh, grow up, you tree-hugging pinko faggots. Nukes are our friends! You just need some re-edumacation: (no link)

Lawmaker promises renewed support for nuclear bunker buster
Sharon Weinberger, Defense Daily
28/01/2005
While a controversial nuclear “bunker buster” bomb was narrowly defeated last year in Congress, a senior Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee says that proponents are working to shore up support to allow the research to go forward.
Administration-backed efforts to develop a Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP)–a nuclear tipped weapon designed to destroy deeply buried targets–was set back last year after appropriators removed all funding for new nuclear weapons. But Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), said that with continuing efforts to educate House Republicans and with added votes in the Senate, he was “confident” that this year they would be able to move the research forward.
But the work remains controversial and is hard for some Republicans to justify to their constituents, Weldon conceded.
One of the efforts Weldon has championed is a Nuclear Posture Policy Group to help educate lawmakers on nuclear weapons issues, like RNEP. Weldon said he would like to see that group, which he helped start more than two years ago, become permanent and get Pentagon support.
The Defense Department publicly opposed the effort after Weldon announced it in 2003.
After heated debate, Congress in 2003 partially rolled back a 10-year ban in place on developing new nuclear weapons and agreed to allow research and development efforts. At the same time, lawmakers also repealed legislation that prevented the nuclear weapons labs from performing any work–even conceptual–that might lead to nuclear weapons with yields fewer than 5 kilotons.
The administration has argued that RNEP would provide a deterrent capability against rogue states, like North Korea, that are believed to be hiding weapons of mass destruction in deeply buried and fortified locations. Weldon, who recently returned from a congressional trip to North Korea, argued that such weapons would in fact be useful.
Weldon said that when he described the nuclear bunker buster to a North Korean military official, “he was ready to jump out of his chair.”

“…diving for dear life, when we should be diving for pearls”
-Elvis Costello

Posted by: OkieByAccident | Feb 1 2005 16:04 utc | 11

The saga of Ward Churchill, the CU professor/activist, is drawing to a close.
You’ll recall that Churchill was recently publicly blasted by rightwing students for writing a terse polemic about 9/11. The article in question merely, though with much vitriol, assigns some responsibility for the attacks to cumulative US foreign policy.
Hey, what a traitor! The outrage! Newspapers like the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News turned the thing into a rednbeck version of the Dreyfus affaire. And, you know what happens next. The pusillanimous CU-Boulder administration caved in to the local media pressure and suddenly concerned, but vastly misinformed, public and demoted Ward Churchill (well, he resigned his position).
It’s true. Academicians are sissies. they know better than anyone: Watch What You Say.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 1 2005 16:32 utc | 13

Okie
excellent, thanks.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 1 2005 16:49 utc | 15

Oops – never mind:

Los Angeles Times
February 1, 2005
CIA Corrects Itself On Arms
A report, the first of its kind, says Baghdad ended its chemical weapons program in ’91.
By Greg Miller, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — In what may be a formal acknowledgment of the obvious, the CIA has issued a classified report revising its prewar assessments on Iraq and concluding that Baghdad abandoned its chemical weapons programs in 1991, intelligence officials familiar with the document said.
The report marks the first time the CIA has officially disavowed its prewar judgments and is one in a series of updated assessments the agency is producing as part of an effort to correct its record on Iraq’s alleged weapons programs, officials said.
The CIA’s decision to distribute the report — titled “Iraq: No Large-Scale Chemical Warfare Efforts Since Early 1990s” — in classified channels underscores the awkwardness the agency faces as it continues to reconcile its prewar reporting with postwar realities in Iraq. Before the war, the CIA asserted that Iraq had stockpiled biological weapons and was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.
A U.S. intelligence official said the document was “not a high-level report,” meaning it was designed to supplant outdated assessments still on classified computer networks and was not meant to be called to the attention of President Bush or other senior government officials.
“It’s basically updating the books,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, “so the information on the shelf is the most current.”

The official added, “It would be terribly counter-productive for us to impede the March of Freedom by distracting the Executive Branch with useless facts.”

Current and former intelligence officials described it as a highly unusual step for the CIA.
“It’s stunning that they would actually put on paper a reversal” of previous intelligence estimates, said one intelligence official who had seen the document.
Richard J. Kerr, a former senior CIA official who was hired by the agency last year to conduct an internal review of its prewar analysis, said he couldn’t recall the agency ever issuing such a revisionist report on any subject.
“But the situation is rather unique,” Kerr said, noting that Iraq’s postwar reality had made the agency’s failings obvious. “Ordinarily, you’re never proven wrong in a clean, neat way.”

Kerr added, “much, it turns out, as the invasion and subjugation of even a relatively weak sovereign nation fails to proceed in a clean, neat way.”

A note in the report describes the document as the second in a “retrospective series that addresses our post-Operation Iraqi Freedom understanding of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and delivery system programs.”
A Jan. 4 report focused on Scud missiles and other delivery systems. Intelligence officials said future reports would revise the agency’s claims that Iraq had stockpiles of biological weapons and was rebuilding its nuclear weapons program

Collect them all! The first 100 callers will receive the limited edition, signed, numbered and hand-redacted version!
In a related story, Rumsfeld had this to say as he signed off on the order to fire the newly-deployed “bunker-buster” nuclear warheads:

”The buried bunkers? We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.”

Posted by: OkieByAccident | Feb 1 2005 17:22 utc | 17

Cheap thrills?
Germans know how to enjoy capitalism!
I’ve already quoted some economist who once wrote that if capitalism doesn’t yet kill people to make lampshades, it’s not because it’s totally immoral and abhorrent, but because there’s no market for human lampshade at the moment.
See, that’s why Japanese were wrong with comfort women in WWII; they didn’t fill the right papers at the job centre when enlisting them.

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Feb 1 2005 18:44 utc | 19

So many opportunitues…

The A.P. noted that “some Guantánamo prisoners who have been released say they were tormented by ‘prostitutes.’ “

Posted by: beq | Feb 1 2005 19:35 utc | 21

One more comment about the Curchill affair: he has been demoted, in a public university, because of what he said.
To me, this is another prelude to barbarity. Maybe I’m overreacting. I will speak out (and have) to defend this man’s rather insipid speech. Other, most, of Churchill’s colleagues received death threats because of such support.
This is where we’re at.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 1 2005 21:39 utc | 23

@b,
Thanks! Never messed up href tags like that before. I’d have used the Preview and figured out something was wrong, but the office firewall won’t let me.
RE your Halliburton/KBR comment – did you see this?

Wall Street Journal
February 1, 2005
Halliburton’s KBR May Be More Attractive In Pieces
By Russell Gold, Staff Reporter Of The Wall Street Journal
Halliburton Co.’s decision to break off its Kellogg Brown & Root unit, with its substantial overseas construction and military-support work, has generated a big question: Who would want both halves of KBR?
The likely answer, analysts say, is no one. But many companies are expected to be interested in one of the pieces.
The KBR unit has a bit of a split personality. It has an engineering and construction segment that builds multibillion-dollar plants to liquefy natural gas and recently completed an 880-mile railroad line in Australia that required the construction of 93 bridges.
It also has a government-contracting side best known for providing support for the military deployment in Iraq, where KBR has built and staffed dozens of dining halls and cleans clothes for the troops. The company has paid a steep price for this controversial and low-margin business: 60 employees and subcontractors have been killed in the conflict. In addition, KBR has a facility-maintenance contract for many U.S. military bases and provides substantial work to the United Kingdom’s military as well.
…Lockheed Martin Corp. has been rumored to be a potential buyer of KBR’s defense unit. This could be a diversifying move for the company, expanding its reach into an area of military spending expected to grow. The Pentagon has announced plans to slash $30 billion from the appropriations budget for large-ticket items but is increasing spending on troop deployment. A company spokesman declined to discuss the matter.
…KBR’s construction work is considered a more coveted business because it is a major builder of liquefied natural-gas plants, a booming segment of the energy market. One potential suitor is Bechtel Group Inc., a closely held engineering and construction giant. But Bechtel has tended to grow internally. The company wouldn’t comment on whether it is interested… Other companies that could view KBR’s construction business as a good fit include Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., Japan’s Chiyoda Corp. or France’s Technip SA.

In an article the previous day, the WSJ had noted that

…Halliburton Co. said it will sell its giant construction and government-contracting unit, Kellogg Brown & Root, a widely expected step the company had been pondering as a way to boost Halliburton’s value.
KBR, with its low profit margins, has been a drag on the oil-field-services company’s market value and earnings. Still, the unit emerged during the Iraq conflict as a major Pentagon contractor and is a dominant player in the field of building multibillion-dollar energy projects world-wide.
…KBR’s value is partly dependent on the military’s judgment of whether it did a good job supporting U.S. troop deployment in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan. The company said the U.S. military has decided that KBR earned a 1.6% performance bonus — out of a potential 2% — on about $1.2 billion of work in Kuwait and Afghanistan. Halliburton Chief Financial Officer C. Christopher Gaut said the company still is awaiting word on the size of bonuses on more than $10 billion of work in Iraq.

As you noted above, Halliburton and their ilk have a pretty sweet deal. These time-and-materials contracts really tread a fine line to being “cost plus percentage-of-cost” contracts, which are forbidden by statute.

Posted by: OkieByAccident | Feb 1 2005 22:01 utc | 25

well hamilton college shouldn’t have cancelled ward churchill’s speech today. death threats or not, the man is being singled out b/c of his recent acquittal & that he essentially speaks the ugly truth.
“a man that should call everything by its right name would hardly pass the streets w/o being knocked down as a common enemy.” georges saville, first marques of halifax

Posted by: b real | Feb 1 2005 22:22 utc | 27

rgiap
before our very eyes
Basically, people at the universities are afraid to contradict the public will. Some students are fearful of course. And most of the other students, who have their entire lives been steered away from the obstacles of unhappiness by loving parents and soccer coaches, react incomprehensibly to the specter of fear.
There’s a pithy baudrillard quote capturing this semblance of bourgeoios detachment; something about reality as a reflection in a mirror…
“I will not scare” goddamnit.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 1 2005 22:36 utc | 29

Bernhard: They’re not seriously thinking of electing Ratzinger, are they? The Catholic church would definitely jump the shark with that.
After the US elections, I’m already bordering wishing for Bush to actually go insane and nuke the whole planet, or for some massive asteroid to come and rid the planet of this stupid and deadly species known as mankind, but if the Catholics can stand Joseph Torquemada Ratzinger as Pope, then I’ll definitely cross the line.

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Feb 1 2005 23:53 utc | 31

derrick jensen on the right wing attacks on ward churchill:

I don’t think there really is anything even remotely resembling academic freedom or freedom of discourse within the culture. I keep thinking about RD Laing’s 3 rules of a dysfunctional family, which are also the 3 rules of a dysfunctional culture. Rule A is Don’t. Rule A.1 is Rule A does not exist. Rule A.2 is Never discuss the existence or nonexistence of Rules A, A.1, or A.2. The way this plays out within an abusive family structure is that the members can talk about anything they want except for the violence they must pretend isn’t happening. The way this plays out on the larger social scale is that we can talk about whatever we want—we can have whatever ‘academic’ or ‘journalistic’ ‘freedom’ we want—so long as we don’t talk about the fact that this culture is based on systematic violence, and has been from the beginning. Anyone who’s been paying any attention at all for the last 200 years knows that the United States is based on systematic violence. We live on land stolen from Indians. The economy runs on oil stolen from people the world over. The entire economy is based on conquest and theft. It’s no wonder most of the people in the world hate the U.S. But of course we can’t talk about that. Anyone who does talk about that and is noticed must be silenced as quickly as possible.

Posted by: b real | Feb 2 2005 4:15 utc | 33

citizen
yup. Death threats, sure. Faculty purges, sure.
When does the killing start?
Really. Am I overreacting?

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 2 2005 4:44 utc | 35

Maybe it’s time to try harder….

MICHAEL VENTURA, AUSTIN CHRONICLE – We’re No. 1. Well … this is the country you really live in:
– The United States is 49th in the world in literacy
– The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy
– “The European Union leads the U.S. in … the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised” – The European Dream
– The World Health Organization “ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was] … 37th.” In the fairness of health care, we’re 54th.
– “U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower” – The European Dream
– The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher
– “Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its work-force in the 1980s.

It’s looking real dark out there.

Posted by: DeAnander | Feb 2 2005 5:45 utc | 37

And in summary… Eliot Weinberger revisits the invasion of Iraq, week by week and lie by lie.

Posted by: DeAnander | Feb 2 2005 5:55 utc | 39

The War Nerd
“In fact, it’s such a stupid idea, and it’d be such a total disaster for America, that Bush probably will do it. Anybody else starting to wonder if he and Cheney are actually Al Quaeda moles?”

Posted by: HTH | Feb 2 2005 10:14 utc | 41

“The World Health Organization “ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was] … 37th.”
Actually, we are tied for 37th….with Cuba. But we achieved this status without decades of economic sanctions.

Posted by: lonesomeG | Feb 2 2005 16:46 utc | 43

your fbi hard at work…
on monday

Teacher convicted of intent to make sex tour
A federal jury in Miami has convicted a middle school teacher [and former police officer] after the teacher made arrangements to travel to Costa Rica and have sex with two young girls.
…
Clarke was arrested after boarding a plane in Miami that was San José-bound, Aug. 16. Local authorities caught up with Clarke after he made reservations with Ft. Lauderdale-based, Costa Rica Taboo Vacations.
…
Costa Rica Taboo Vacations specializes in sex tours that include minors. Their website advertises fully inclusive tours, including airfare, hotel stays and sexual relations with children under 12. Their website features photos of the coast and of the Amón Plaza Hotel in San José.

on tuesday

Sexy Florida tour company is a front for the FBI
A Florida sex tourism company is a Federal Bureau of Investigation operation used to catch pedophiles. The bureau uses the Ft. Lauderdale-based costaricataboovacations.com, and Costa Rica is promoted as a lure where travelers can have romantic interludes with children.
…
Information regarding the bureau’s involvement with the sex tour agency was released during Clarke’s trial. During the course of the trial, the court revealed that the company was an FBI front that was used to gather evidence against Clarke.
…
The sex tour Web site offers airfare, hotel stay and “taboo companions.” The site’s confidential information form asks for personal data as well as tour interests, including the preferred age of a companion. The site lists preferences that include ages 12 and under.

editorial on wednesday

FBI ends up promoting underage sex here
Just when it seemed the world could not get any wackier, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is promoting Costa Rica as a place for tourists to have romantic interludes with children.
…
…for every person who is dumb enough to sign up for underage sex, hundreds will view the Web site and get the impression that Costa Rica is a place where 12-year-olds are offered for sale.
Nowhere on the Web site does the FBI even suggest that such activity might be illegal in Costa Rica.
…
…how many more pedophiles are on their way here because the Web site promoted Costa Rica as a place to fulfill their twisted desires.

one of the fbi’s targets was the gay population in southern fla
whois shows that the domain record was created may 2003
Technical Contact:
Network Solutions, LLC. customerservice@networksolutions.com
13200 Woodland Park Drive
Herndon, VA 20171-3025
US
1-888-642-9675 fax: 571-434-4620

Posted by: b real | Feb 2 2005 18:04 utc | 45

Not only is America unique among Western Nations in not having a medical system that covers its citizens, since it wastes its money on Dept. of Mass Slaughter rather than the sufficient but decidedly un-Imperial Defense Dept., but we also have no real Unemployment Benefits. Americas last for fixed period, after which one gets nothing & is not even officially counted as un-employed. Germans used to get benefits until they found a job like their previous one. I would be very interested if Euro Barflies would tell us what yr. benefit systems are now. (B’s response to article that German state now apparently forcing women into prostitution was unclear; though it’s always been clear that, as soon as prostitution becomes acceptable, women will be pressured & eventually coerced into it, informally or otherwise.)
(I heard blurb on NPR this am from bbc – i think – saying that unemployment in Germany was now as high as during the Great Depression. Sounds like the elite destruction of Europe is moving along as quickly as in xUSA – but perhaps Bernhard & Jerome would sometime like to marshall some figures & do a thread on that. India, China & Brazil here we come…..but we can vote, so we must have a democracy……)

Posted by: jj | Feb 2 2005 19:37 utc | 47

Nine taserings and you’re out.
Loitering: you know it’s got to be stamped out. For good.

Posted by: Anonymous | Feb 2 2005 20:20 utc | 49

O.K. so she’s not much to look at but she never needs more than an occasional oil and battery change and she love you long time

Posted by: Seoul Mate | Feb 2 2005 20:58 utc | 51

from lonesomeG’s link (just so nobody misses it)

The comment, made by Lt. Gen. James Mattis, came in reference to fighting insurgents in Iraq. He went on to say, “Actually, its a lot of fun to fight. You know, it’s a hell of a hoot. I like brawling.”
“You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for 5 years because they didn’t wear a veil,” Mattis continued. “You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.”

Posted by: b real | Feb 2 2005 21:55 utc | 53

but remember, my droogs, the general is just a bad apple. Our uniformed men and women are good people involved in the business of destruction.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 2 2005 22:17 utc | 55

The guy’s no aberration. He’s the model.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 2 2005 22:31 utc | 57

a slothrop
correct again. mattis a boykin stepped right out of father knows best & marcus welby as directed by reinhard heydrich – also supplying violin accompagnement

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 2 2005 22:59 utc | 59

@Slothrop:
If that’s the case Slothrop, then the volunteer army(circa 1972), was a piss-poor idea. I’ve always believed that service academies–where Mattis came from–are piss-poor ideas.
I think that from what we’ve seen on TV and read in the last 2 years, one could plausibly make the argument you are making.
And if you are right, the ground force component of the military is “broken” far more than I believe.

Posted by: FlashHarry | Feb 2 2005 23:04 utc | 61

Benjamin, June, 1938:

The present situation is summed up in the words: “All that has been achieved so far we possess only as something threatened and vanishing” (Horkheimer, “Philosophie and kritische Theorie,” ZfS, 6, no. 3, p. 640). Is it still possible to separate from the decay of democratic society those elements which-being linked to its early period and to its dream-do not disavow solidarity with a society to come, with humanity itself?

Who dares dream of utopia?
Watch what you say.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 2 2005 23:10 utc | 63

Who owns your link? Is it legally O.K. for you to cite extracts from an online article? Discover evolving ways to make property theft!

Posted by: Book Marx | Feb 2 2005 23:38 utc | 65

@Book Marx:
The usual suspects are upthread.
The Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act–70 years.
That is Funny as hell. Who’d want steal anything of Sonny’s–except perhaps Cher in the very earlies. And only for a very short while.

Posted by: Anonymous | Feb 2 2005 23:49 utc | 67

My before Bush speak rant.
The dem party has lost it’s way from the days of FDR who was considered a traitor to his class. The dems with the Democratic Leadership Council took the party on the trail of upward wealth distribution. They used the same economics as the repubs through the 90s of free trade all the while knowing the middle and lower classes would get hammered. They proclaimed (Bill Clinton did) during the Nafta and GATT debates that the US could compete and these agreements would be good for the US. Bullshit.
In the mean time, the dems masked their regressive trade agenda with a still progressive social agenda on gay rights and abortion with some environmentalism thrown in, but not to much. This turned out to be the classic bate and switch. After being betrayed by the dems the working classes still voted for Gore, but the vote was close due to the anybody but Clinton 2000 campaign.
After Bushie is elected 9/11 happens and the mood throughout the country is, we know that Bushie is screwing us, but the (hyped up) war on terra makes us think why change horses. We’re scared. Also, the dems do not have a candidate that instills hope for a progressive economic agenda that takes the burdens off the lower and middle classes.
It is my unfettered opinion that before the dem party can get back into power, a populist progressive agenda must be expressed from the dems that gets back the constituents they left out in the cold. The working stiffs. Forget all social issues except the social issue of economic justice in the US and worldwide. The old chicken in every pot statement has always resonated and always will.
Our current economic situation is built on debt and a false sense of security and even class. US citizens are spending beyond their classes, either middle or lower, ability to spend.
The new dems agenda should be:
1. Prohibit the SS privatization bullshit. Its the most successfull program in US history, why change it? The money get into the economy just fine now. Take the cap off earnings taxed for SS and then create two categories below the top SS tax rate for lower and middle class persons. Turn the tax progressive.
2. Stop promoting 401ks through the tax code. This would put the money back into local banks and economies. Currently 401k monies are being invested in stocks of S&P 500 companies that use stock price for leverage to borrow money and move jobs overseas. Also, greedy money managers require ever higher profits margins from companies so off shoring and down sizing is the way to higher stock price. Also, take all incentives for CEOs to pump up stocks out of the tax code. All this is doing is promoting accounting tricks. Investing on the local level even at a lessor return would make the economy boom in the US. while 401ks exist, Americans will be paying to put themselves out of work.
3. Do away with all off shore tax havens and the provision in the tax code that allows any foriegn taxes paid by corporations to be deducted from US taxes. This provision promotes offshoring jobs.
4. Cut military spending by 1/3 and for the next two years divert that money to promotion of new infrastructure. Water, sewer, roads, alternative energy. This would upgrade US infrastructure for the next twenty fives years.
5. While promoting an economic justice social agenda, promote legalization of pot and do away with the laws that create to many criminals and allows the confiscation of property for drug crimes. Further, taxes on legalized pot would bring more money into governments for programs.
6. Fully fund schools (the dumbing down of the US is in full speed ahead mode) and college education for anyone that is willing to go. Turn collgeg back into the free thought bastions of old. Economic and social justice begins with education.
That is a short list and my short history of the situation. Until the dems get back to the economic justice agenda, social issues will be “left” behind for the left. Until the steam comes back like in the 50, 60s and early 70s the repubs will control the debate.

Posted by: jdp | Feb 3 2005 0:14 utc | 69

jdp
right on brother.
Is Dean the man to do it? Juannie’s recent post suggests some hope I suppose.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 3 2005 0:37 utc | 71

Bush SOTU:
“We need an end to friyolous asbestos claims…”

KBR inherited the asbestos mess back in 1998, when Cheney bought Dresser Industries Inc. (page 121) As lawsuits piled up, KBR was forced to file a prepackaged bankruptcy last December. In July, Halliburton won court approval of its $4.2 billion asbestos settlement plan. The company now expects to emerge from reorganization in the fourth quarter with the asbestos headache gone. Meanwhile, though, charges related to the litigation and losses on a huge project in Brazil led to a $292 million operating loss for KBR in the first half, on revenues of $6.8 billion. That comes on top of a full-year 2003 loss of $36 million, on revenues of $9.3 billion.

—A Thorn in Halliburton’s Side, Business Week, October 4, 2004.
Cheney smirking there, you know.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 3 2005 2:26 utc | 73

He just lied through his teeth on SS. He tipped his hand by stating how much money congress on the general fund side to pay out benefits. The rich will need to pay income taxes to fund SS benefits and he don’t like it.

Posted by: jdp | Feb 3 2005 2:29 utc | 75

“America stands with the Iranian people”
Whew. The Iranian people will sleep well tonight.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 3 2005 2:50 utc | 77

“We are in Iraq to achieve a result…democracy…”
Nietzsche:

There one is common people, audience, herd, female, pharisee, voting cattle, democrat, neighbor, fellow man;… there even the most personal conscience is vanquished by the leveling magic of the great number; there stupidity has the effect of lasciviousness and contagion; the neighbor reigns, one becomes a mere neighbor.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 3 2005 3:01 utc | 79

jdp
He’s hard to look at; not pretty on the eyes. I’d rather watch my grandma masturbate.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 3 2005 3:03 utc | 81

Did he use any big words?

Posted by: H.K. and F. | Feb 3 2005 3:07 utc | 83

slothrop: thanks for the Ward Churchill discussion. I read one post about it yesterday and heard this story on NPR about it this morning.
Who is this Bill Doyle guy that launched the campaign against him?

Posted by: Voodoo | Feb 3 2005 3:11 utc | 85

voodoo
not sure

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 3 2005 3:17 utc | 87

Actually, I just turned the fucking sound off and watched the SOTU while listening to György Ligeti’s Requiem.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 3 2005 4:13 utc | 89

I keep hoping someone will tell us what he/it said, as I’d sooner watch a solar eclipse w/my naked eyes…
Speaking of things that are hard on the eyes, I was driving down the street the other day, when I realized Kos was right in front of me. Seems suckering the masses into supporting the Pirates pays quite well, as he was driving a gold Lexus w/vanity license plate “mar4kos” – as I recall.

Posted by: jj | Feb 3 2005 4:47 utc | 91

“….As Franklin Roosevelt once reminded Americans, “each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth”. And we live in the country where the biggest dreams are born. The abolition of slavery was only a dream – until it was fulfilled. The liberation of Europe from fascism was only a dream – until it was achieved. The fall of imperial communism was only a dream – until, one day, it was accomplished….”
George W. Bush wrapping himself in the (fake) mantle of Franklin Roosevelt as he delivers hogwash to the people of America, State of the Union address, February 2nd 2005.
0de
We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities.
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion art empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample in empire down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth.
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
by Arthur O’Shaughnessy [1844-1881].
In light of what that bastard and his cronies have actually done to Nineveh and Babel I am only sorry I cannot come back from the dead and sue the creature for plagiarizing my work and trying to pass it off as the wisdom of another. But oh no, you’ve already blocked that route with your damned copyright laws. Can’t you at least expose the little bastard for me?

Posted by: Furious Arthur O’Shaughnessy | Feb 3 2005 9:38 utc | 93

Beria: Yep, I can. Though I don’t know yet if it’s some inside job due to internal dissension or if it’s the FSB – in which case Saakachvili should avoid small planes.
Copyrights: I’m repeating myself, but it’s worth repeating. Intellectual property is theft.
The only worthy goal as far as intellectual creations are concerned, is to put them all online for free, the present, past and future ones. It’s time to decide if humans are a bunch of greedy parasitic assholes or a sentient species proud of its bright mind and its intellectual achievements.

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Feb 3 2005 10:40 utc | 95

Not really new news but anyhow:
‘Zero intelligence’ trading closely mimics stock market

A model that assumes stock market traders have zero intelligence has been found to mimic the behaviour of the London Stock Exchange very closely.

Posted by: b | Feb 3 2005 13:32 utc | 97

Arthur O’Shaughnessy’s line WAS quoted by FDR in his second inaugural address in 1937. Presumably the person who decided to requote it didn’t bother to look up the whole poem and notice its Mesopotamian references. Or if he did, he wanted to say that, with this week’s election, Iraq is giving birth to a “new dream”. I sincerely hope the election is a beginning to the end of their current nightmare. However, there’s a lot more killing to go through before the American troops go home, I’m afraid.

Posted by: mistah charley | Feb 3 2005 14:06 utc | 99