@b — oh, about the time that the last troops have shoved off from Basra Dunkirk-style. Except Bush will not renounce his divinity.
And by the way, about that ridiculous Boeing-Bell Osprey ad, with the Mighty Christian Power Rangers descending “from the heavens” to storm Muhammad’s Mosque — what an RPG target. Who are they going to get to fly a mission like that? What a joke. They certainly won’t be evacuating using those things.

Posted by: 4-fingers | Oct 5 2005 14:53 utc | 3

The “Downfall/Depression” has already started, our local food bank has tripled it’s number of recipients needing food in the last year alone, and this is small town America. Granted, Montana’s gdp is lower than mississippi’s however, it’s also mostly poor whites not poor blacks who suffer here. Poor knows no color. But goddamn bush to hell for this:
Billions for Israel, Nothing for Americans
Under orders to whittle agriculture spending by $3 billion, Republicans in Congress propose to slash food programs for the poor by $574 million and subsidies and conservation programs by $1 billion each, The Associated Press has learned.
Growing Gulf Between Rich and Rest of US
The United States has rising levels of poverty and inequality not found in other rich democracies. It also has less mobility out of poverty.
Also see:
Stark reality of the American dream
and this recent paper (pdf) from the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics
Worse to come, so says Dante.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 5 2005 17:20 utc | 5

Theologians Under Hitler
In the days after World War II, a convenient story was told of church leaders and ordinary Christians that defied the Nazis from the beginning. Recent research has uncovered a very different story. Rather than resisting, the greater part of the German church saw Hitler’s rise in 1933 as an act of God’s blessing, a new chapter in the story of God among the German people.
“Hitler’s Pope” by John Cornwell is also a good resource. Gives credit where credit is due and lays blame where blame is due.
It is interesting to note that dictionaries do not define the meanings of words. Rather, they are an attempt to document usage, based on contemporary practice. Thus, the meanings of words are determined not by the makers of dictionaries, but by the people thorough their contemporary practice and usage. Dictionaries are therefore a repository of meanings, not a source of them. Since the meanings of words are determined by usage, it is not surprising that the meanings of words change from time to time. Consider, for example, two definitions of the word fascism, spanning a time of about five decades:
fascism…. 1. Fascism. 2. any system of government in which property is privately owned, but all industry and business is regulated by a strong national government. n.
—Thorndike Century Senior Dictionary, 1941
fascism…. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
—The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 1992
The first definition is from the era of World War II. It is pretty easy to observe that the definition of fascism then is an exact description of the United States of America today. The second definition, however, appears to be an impressive effort to construct a definition containing words that are so different from traditional American values, and having such negative connotations, that it will never occur to anyone (who hasn’t read the 1941 definition) to measure America today against the definition.
More significant, though, is the possibility that this definition might be an instance of the makers of dictionaries taking things into their own hands, and actually defining words themselves. To conceal the manipulation the change in the meaning of the word fascism occurred over a time of so many decades. Even greater changes in meaning occur over centuries. When documents remain in use without revision for long periods of time, changes in meaning of words guarantee that the construction of the documents will change. Consequently, when authoritative documents remain in effect for long periods of time, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand the intent of the writers. Such documents can have enormous authority over the lives of people. Changes in the construction of such documents, when those changes go unrecognized or uncorrected, can cause damage.
At this time in America, the most relevant example of such a document is the Constitution for the United States of America. The Constitution is not immune to the effects of changing usage of words. Rather, we should expect substantial and unrecognized changes in the construction of the Constitution since it was written. By discovering the contemporary meanings of the words we can discover the original intentions of the writers. It was written between February and September of 1787; however dictionaries from 1787 are as scarce as hens’ teeth, so we use the earliest that we can find—the 1856 edition of Bouvier’s Law Dictionary.
Ultimately, documents must be understood in terms of the meanings of the words at times contemporary with the documents. An occasional comparison of the meanings of words, as in the case of fascism, might alert us that it is too late to replace an authoritative document, and that it is time to replace an authoritative government, instead. In either case, the longer we wait to do it, the more difficult it will be.
We have before us an 1856 edition of Bouvier’s Law Dictionary. . .
The wise move might be for one to use it.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 5 2005 19:15 utc | 7

As quoting the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin is irresistible..
24 Sept. 200:
The growing cost of growing wheat
“Nobody’s called it a “perfect storm,” yet.
But between rocketing costs for fuel and fertilizer, low prices for their crop, increased shipping surcharges and worries over whether this will be another dry winter, local wheat farmers say the future is looking pretty grim these days.
(…) ”
Link

Posted by: Noisette | Oct 5 2005 20:26 utc | 9

I must say this quote in today’s Terrorism Intelligence Report by Fred Burton at Stratfor caught my eye:

“Publicly, the president has vowed to stay the course — but privately, knowledgeable U.S. government sources have told us, he is considering a significant drawdown before the congressional midterms take place next year, regardless of the status of an Iraqi constitution or ability to transfer security responsibilities reliably to Iraqi forces.”

Posted by: PeeDee | Oct 5 2005 23:07 utc | 11