Must read: Rolling Stone: The Worst President in History?

George W. Bush is in serious contention for the title of worst ever. In early 2004, an informal survey of 415 historians conducted by the nonpartisan History News Network found that eighty-one percent considered the Bush administration a “failure.” Among those who called Bush a success, many gave the president high marks only for his ability to mobilize public support and get Congress to go along with what one historian called the administration’s “pursuit of disastrous policies.” In fact, roughly one in ten of those who called Bush a success was being facetious, rating him only as the best president since Bill Clinton — a category in which Bush is the only contestant.
The lopsided decision of historians should give everyone pause. Contrary to popular stereotypes, historians are generally a cautious bunch. We assess the past from widely divergent points of view and are deeply concerned about being viewed as fair and accurate by our colleagues. When we make historical judgments, we are acting not as voters or even pundits, but as scholars who must evaluate all the evidence, good, bad or indifferent. Separate surveys, conducted by those perceived as conservatives as well as liberals, show remarkable unanimity about who the best and worst presidents have been.

Posted by: b | Apr 19 2006 18:32 utc | 4

malooga,
A few of us had a meeting yesterday and it was decided to get Catherine Fitts to come and speak somewhere in our region. We are also going to use her slide presentations and DVDs to try a public education approach in our area about local investing.
I’m excited about this. Another person and I will put together the program and advertise through the regional council of governments. Its time to put the local investment approach to action.

Posted by: jdp | Apr 19 2006 21:21 utc | 6

One more thing for the OT:

To the civil rights activist few things are more vexing than the profound racial disparities in our prison system. An adult black man, for example, is seven times more likely than a white to be housed behind bars. Paradoxically, the largest disparities are found in political domains controlled by liberals — the very leaders in the struggle for racial justice.

This paper, “POLITICS, IMPRISONMENT AND RACE” presents a fascinating analysis of how a fairly small disparity in the incidence of criminality within a population can result in an overwhelming difference in the composition of prison populations. And, even more interesting, the more liberal the sentencing regime – ie. the higher the threshold for imprisonable offences – the greater the disparity in prison populations because the ratios of the tails of two different distributions is greater than the ratio of the fatter bits (a technical term).
WARNING: The populations studied here are non-hispanic whites vs blacks in America, which obviously pushes a lot of buttons, and it is not entirely clear where the sentiments of the presenter lie although from the questions he is obviously addressing a fairly liberal academic (straw?) crowd. Also pretty clear is that the general theme of the web-site is pointing out statistical differences in racial populations; which is fraught with land-mines. A favourable review of the site: on VDARE.
I think the analysis is valid, and helps to explain a terrible situation we all know about, ie. a 7x higher chance of being incarcerated for US blacks vs non-hispanic whites. I also conclude that the only legitimate way to address the disparity in prison populations is to address whatever it is that creates the difference in the “incidence of criminality” – whether that is due to the socio-economic factors which influence a propensity to commit crimes or simply to higher chances of actually being prosecuted. The first factor the presenter takes as a given, and the second he simply fails to address.
“Luna”cy?

Posted by: PeeDee | Apr 19 2006 22:22 utc | 8

r-giap- LOL!!
thanks for that one.
my only suggestion for them would be a little change in the chorus.
I’d say, “I am the ape-man, I am the chimpster…”
..because of all those photos that have shown such a remarkable resemblance between his more peaceful cousins.

Posted by: fauxreal | Apr 20 2006 0:06 utc | 10

fauxreal
often the singer denis mixes languages & invents new ones tho their new cd is not so far from french popular song of the 19th century
will look up song & tell you

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 20 2006 1:06 utc | 12

I saw LoJo at a music festival in seattle quite a few years ago. I dont think anybody knew who they were, only about 150 people showed up for their set in this great big tent. By the end everybody was wild with approval. I know I loved it, even though at that time I couldnt tell you what it was about. The lead singer Denis(?) acted totally baffeled as well, that people really liked the music. One of my favorite music experiences.

Posted by: anna missed | Apr 20 2006 1:35 utc | 14

faux,
I’d like to know that too

Posted by: anna missed | Apr 20 2006 2:05 utc | 16

We can already invest in commons tax free. Its called municipal bonds. And, that was one of our descussions. Why shouldn’t a “community investment fund” fund local water, sewer and school bonds instead of banks and investment firms. Although, the large firms have the system rigged. We sold $400,000 in bonds this year and the bank that bought them, a Michigan based bank, could not do the pass through. We had to open a seperate account in a large bank thatpassed the bond money from the buyer, to them, and then back to our account. And the funny thing is, the bank the community I work for has it’s accounts in bought the bonds.
But I agree jj. The communities taxes property taxes and water and sewer rates are paying school bonds and infrastructure bonds. Why can’t investors in the community reap the benefits from their tax dollars?
I am really excited and will be happy when this whole thing is ready to go.

Posted by: jdp | Apr 20 2006 3:22 utc | 18

@jdp & jj:
Great to hear this. Keep us all in the loop.

Posted by: Malooga | Apr 20 2006 3:42 utc | 20

I appreciate that people are putting up links to music we can listen to online. Have been enjoying Uncle’s link to Neil Young album this week. So, I just found an online link to a few cuts from a CD I find exc. background music while in the bar. Murcof’s Rememberanza

Posted by: jj | Apr 20 2006 3:44 utc | 22

Iran should be good for another 40-50 Billion/year, maybe more, I guess. If we follow along this trend, within 5-10 years, the US, that happy, peaceful Democracy, will be spending 75% of the world’s military expenditures.

Posted by: Malooga | Apr 20 2006 4:49 utc | 24

A small celebration is in order here in Italy,
where the Corte di Cassazione has officially declared
that the Center-Left did indeed win the election.
A major aesthetic “extra” is that Berlusconi seems
to prefer to remain out of sight for the time being.
Presumably he will soon break silence with one of his
patented gaffes.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Apr 20 2006 7:16 utc | 26

“Sex & War”
Stan Goff has made this avilable ($15) as pdf.
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
The notion that war is intrinsic to man’s nature is dealt a powerful setback in Stan Goff’s Sex and War. Goff, a former Special Forces sergeant, argues persuasively that rather than being born that way, men are made into killers by governments, corporations, and systems of power. Drawing both on his experiences in the military and on his reading of feminist writers such as Patricia Williams, bell hooks, and Chandra Mohanty — and as the father of a son stationed in Iraq — Goff journeys through wars, ideologies, and cultures, revealing the transformation of men into killers. His story encompasses not just the battlefield and the book, but the Swift Boat Veterans controversy, the eros of George W. Bush, pornography, the Taliban, and gays and lesbians in the military. Goff’s remarkable ability to connect his own personal experiences to contemporary feminist criticism makes for a provocative discussion of war and masculinity.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 20 2006 8:55 utc | 28

Care to speculate b?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 20 2006 9:34 utc | 30

Lind cites an interesting U.S. Army War College study about “what went wrong in Iraq”

Though the critics have made a number of telling points against the conduct of the war and the occupation, the basic problems faced by the United States flowed from the enterprise itself, and not primarily from mistakes in execution along the way. The most serious problems facing Iraq and its American occupiers – “endemic violence, a shattered state, a nonfunctioning economy, and a decimated society” – were virtually inevitable consequences that flowed from the breakage of the Iraqi state.
…
Other lessons are that the military services must digest again that “war is an instrument of policy.” The profound neglect given to re-establishing order in the military’s prewar planning and the facile assumption that operations critical to the overall success of the campaign were “somebody else’s business” reflect a shallow view of warfare. Military planners should consider the evidence that occupation duties were carried out in a fashion – with the imperatives of “force protection” overriding concern for Iraqi civilian casualties – that risked sacrificing the broader strategic mission of U.S. forces.
—
[Lind:]
Nor could the Iraq war have been won if we had sent more troops. More troops would not have helped us deal with the problems of bad intelligence, lack of cultural awareness, and the insistence on using tactics that alienated the population. As the authors state, “The assumption that the United States would have won the hearts and minds of the population had it maintained occupying forces of 300,000 instead of 140,000 must seem dubious in the extreme.”
The most important point in this excellent study is precisely the one that Washington will be most reluctant to learn: “Rather that ‘do it better next time,’ a better lesson is ‘don’t do it at all.’” What we require is a “national security strategy (I would say grand strategy) in which there is no imperative to fight the kind of war that the United States has fought in Iraq.”

Posted by: b | Apr 20 2006 13:54 utc | 32

There is something very fishy about this:
Iraq parliament session cancelled after PM climbs down

A much-awaited session of
Iraq’s parliament was cancelled amid signs that a breakthrough on forming a government of national unity might be on the immediate horizon.
The news came shortly after current Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari took a step back from his long insistence of staying on at the helm in the next government and put his fate in the hands of the dominant Shiite United Iraqi Alliance.
…
The premier indicated Thursday that he might withdraw his candidacy, thus paving the way for a breakthrough in the deadlock, a UIA colleague said.
“Jaafari has left the decision about his candidacy with the alliance,” said Jawad al-Maliki. “That means he is no longer insisting on the post.”

AP: Iraq PM Lets Shiites Consider Replacement

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, under intense pressure to give up plans for a second term, agreed Thursday to let Shiite lawmakers reconsider his nomination, a step that could mark a breakthrough in the months-long effort to form a new government.
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Key to al-Jaafari’s change of heart was pressure from U.N. envoy Ashraf Qazi and his meetings Wednesday with the most powerful Shiite cleric in the country, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical cleric who has backed al-Jaafari, said Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman.
“There was a signal from Najaf,” Othman said, referring to al-Sistani’s office in the Shiite holy city. “Qazi’s meetings with (al-Sistani) and al-Sadr were the chief reason that untied the knot.”
…
Among those mentioned as replacements for al-Jaafari were Jawad al-Maliki, spokesman for the prime minister’s Dawa party, and another leading Dawa politician Ali al-Adeeb.

Posted by: b | Apr 20 2006 16:36 utc | 34

steve peacock: NSA Seeks to Pour Hundreds of Millions Into Surveillance Infrastructure

Global surveillance facilities operated by the National Security Agency (NSA) and its Central Security Service (CSS) are getting an infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of upgrades — and NSA wants more. According to a “presolicitation notice” that The Peacock Report has obtained, the estimated construction cost to replace the Hawaii Cryptologic Center ranges from $100 million-$250 million. However, it will take at least $350 million to build a new complex capable of meeting NSA’s intelligence- and data-gathering mission, the agency claims in a separate FY 2007 budget document.
…
A similar surveillance and intelligence-analysis facility project is underway at the Georgia Regional Security Operations Center, also known as NSA/CSS Georgia. Located in Ft. Gordon, NSA estimates that it will cost about $340 million to build a new complex that will adequately support the “intelligence collection and production mission” of these DoD-wide operations.
…
Additional NSA projects include the construction a 40,000 square feet classified document- and electronics destruction facility at the agency’s Ft. Meade, Md. Headquarters. It has requested $11.2 million for FY 07. The total amount for the Ft. Meade project, which is expected to start in June 2007 and finish June 2009, was not disclosed.

Posted by: b real | Apr 20 2006 18:50 utc | 36

Surfing today, I stumbled on David Byrne’s Journal
He writes quite a lot about traveling in the Yucatan and Mayan culture:

The Maya count years in what is currently called the Long Count. They believe time doesn’t exclusively run forward, as we do. They sense that it is circular, that it runs in a series of cycles — as do the Hindu. There are short cycles and there are very very long ones. The current Long Count began in 3114 B.C. (that’s early Egyptian, Sumerian and Babylonian times for handy reference — civilization in the middle east was taking shape) and the Long Count will end…get this…on Dec 23, 2012! Save the date.
At that time the “universe” (our world) will be annihilated by a flood (always with the floods!) and then the sky will fall upon the earth (an asteroid?) and darkness will cover the earth (dust from the impact?)
Then comes a relatively short age of myths and heroes — heroes whose job it is to clean up the awful mess and the metaphorical debris from the previous age — as each age starts with a clean slate. It’s all good. It will all be built up again.

Posted by: beq | Apr 20 2006 19:46 utc | 38

A secret Iranian mission was in Washington last week, according to Wayne Madsden’s sources.

April 20, 2006 — According to U.S. government insiders and foreign intelligence sources, a high-level Iranian government delegation arrived in the United States last week for negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program and other matters of mutual interest. The delegation included Iranian nuclear program officials and leaders close to President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamanei. The presence of the Iranian delegation was confirmed by the presence in Washington of Mohammed Nahavandian, a senior aide to chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani. The sighting of Nahavandian in Washington was a clear embarrassment for the Bush administration since the Iranian visit has been held in great secrecy amid saber rattling over the Iranian nuclear issue from both the neo-cons in the Bush administration and the hardliners in the Iranian government. . .

Could this and appearance of movement in the Iraqi political impasse be contributing to the Gold and Oil price shifts that b pointed to?

Posted by: small coke | Apr 21 2006 2:06 utc | 40

Attn Unca & Anyone else w/ Gangsta Decoder Rings. What the Flying F- is going on here (nr. Pittsburg)???
State police said the men drove up to the Beaver Valley Power Station in a tractor-trailer on Tuesday night to pick up two large containers of tools for a contractor for whom they worked.
Security guards stopped the men for a routine inspection, but they drove away, police said.
The guards became suspicious and called police, who pulled the truck over about a mile from the plant.
A state trooper got a warrant to search the vehicle and found a duffel bag, which he said contained $504,230 in mostly small bills.
The driver denied knowing anything about the money or who gave it to him, so the trooper seized it, police said.
A spokesman for the FBI confirmed that the Joint Terrorism Task Force responded to the situation in conjunction with state police, but he said they don’t think terrorism is involved. He would not give any other details.
The men, who are from Houston, said they picked up the bag in Chicago and had no knowledge of its contents, according to police.
Investigators think the cash may have a drug connection. A police dog picked up the scent of drugs in the sleeper cab of the truck where the bag was found, police said.
Both men were detained and later released. No charges have been filed. link
Was someone getting paid off for some nuclear materials or what…Scary Big Time Shit…

Posted by: jj | Apr 21 2006 3:16 utc | 42

Addendum: jj, if you like Murcof your bound to dig on over xposure fm, over xposure is online radio out of seattle…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 21 2006 3:37 utc | 44

@jj:

Keep us posted on the tractor thing, if you find anything else out. It’s possible that they were really there to do what they said, but were drug smugglers on the side — when the security people stopped them, they (the drivers) realized they would never pass an in-depth inspection, panicked, and fled, provoking exactly the thing they were trying to avoid. I’m not sure what Occam’s Razor would say; assuming they’re stupid drug dealers seems unlikely, but so does assuming they were there to smuggle out nuclear materials and were unprepared to pass security.

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Apr 21 2006 4:33 utc | 46

@jj:

Yes, but was it Something Big in nuclear materials, or Something Big in drugs that only showed up because the people involved were stupid?

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Apr 21 2006 4:59 utc | 48

$504,230 sound like drug traffic to me. If this were nuclear, I’d expect a few more zeroes. And I would expect a more coastal location. It is suspicious that they were not detained, as jj noted, but that also happens in cases of more pedestrian organised crime rings.
Not sure how to read that one, except to say that only a few years back, we would automatically think in terms of War-On-Drugs and now we are conditioned to go right for the War-On-Terror explanation. Hard to say.

Posted by: Monolycus | Apr 21 2006 5:16 utc | 50

100,000 spys, $44 billion/year – and where is the benefit?
Spymaster Tells Secret of Size of Spy Force

John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, said Thursday that the United States’ global spying apparatus now numbered nearly 100,000 people assigned to stealing secrets and analyzing information to help protect national security.
The total number of personnel who report to the 16 disparate intelligence agencies and departments has until now remained secret, an effort by the government to mask the size of its spying operations. Mr. Negroponte disclosed the figure at a lunchtime speech here, calling those who serve in the intelligence field “patriotic, talented and hard-working Americans.”
The disclosure came just months after another American intelligence official divulged, apparently by accident, another closely guarded secret: that the budget for American intelligence agencies last year totaled $44 billion. That disclosure was made by Mary Margaret Graham, a top deputy to Mr. Negroponte who served previously as a senior official of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Posted by: b | Apr 21 2006 5:54 utc | 52

Something is up with US finance — last week the US dollar climbed several percent vs. Canadian dollar, and then today it is at a recently historic low once again. Why that should occur is a mystery, but I always think it must be the result of some manipulation.
Almost wish I was an arbitrager.

Posted by: jonku | Apr 21 2006 6:34 utc | 54

Some analysis on the potential of a military coup:
The speculation is that Allawi will use the armed forces to seize power and topple the stubborn Jaafari, who insists on staying in power (he was premier in the previous administration) although he
has lost support of everybody around him, including the Americans, the British, the Sunnis, the Kurds, the seculars and some of the Shi’ites in his own United Iraqi Alliance (UIA). His only remaining supporters are the Da’wa Party, which he heads, and the rebel-cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
……………………
He added, “I warned the Americans repeatedly from trying to model Iraq on the social and administrative system in the United States.” Allawi was saying that a military coup was not desirable, but neither was the chaos existing in Iraq today. This chaos under Jaafari, he said, “where the government turns a blind eye to the militias … has led Iraq to a disaster”.
……………………
But two factors make this idea unlikely. One is that Allawi, no matter how strong he may be, is not an officer in the army. Few officers would risk their necks for a civilian – again, as Arab coup history has shown since 1949. As long as he is not a member of the Army, his chances of a successful coup are limited.
A second reason why his coup would be difficult is that although the Americans might allow or facilitate it, Iran would never be so obliging toward a coup against its allies in Baghdad.
Thus, if one pro-American coup took place by Allawi, a counter pro-Iranian coup would would take place a few months later, headed by someone like Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the SCIRI.

Posted by: anna missed | Apr 21 2006 7:57 utc | 56

b,
I agree, its interesting how this has been reported a done deal for the past month, and yet he’s still there. Not that the other DAWA choices are any better to the those claiming he’s a gonner — the SCIRI alternatives would be even less acceptable.
On another note, an eyewitness report on the recent fracus in the (Sunni neighborhood) Adhamiya, here complete with maps and photographs. Theres a US military base a stones throw from that neighborhood, and an Iraqi base in it! Talk about controling the situation.
I’ve been noticing this new fear going around the Iraqi bloggers about proffesional types (doctors,etc) now being targeted for no apparent reason. A bad sign in a Cambodian sort of way.

Posted by: anna missed | Apr 21 2006 9:15 utc | 58

Hu Jintao will be pretty pissed. This screems for revenge.
China and Its President Greeted by a Host of Indignities

Bush and Hu looked up, stunned. It took so long to silence her — a full three minutes — that Bush aides began to wonder if the Secret Service’s strategy was to let her scream herself hoarse. The rattled Chinese president haltingly attempted to continue his speech and television coverage went to split screen.
“You’re okay,” Bush gently reassured Hu.
But he wasn’t okay, not really. The protocol-obsessed Chinese leader suffered a day full of indignities — some intentional, others just careless. The visit began with a slight when the official announcer said the band would play the “national anthem of the Republic of China” — the official name of Taiwan. It continued when Vice President Cheney donned sunglasses for the ceremony, and again when Hu, attempting to leave the stage via the wrong staircase, was yanked back by his jacket. Hu looked down at his sleeve to see the president of the United States tugging at it as if redirecting an errant child.

Posted by: b | Apr 21 2006 15:49 utc | 60

Breaking news: CNN is reporting that United Iraqi Alliance has informally decided to replace Ibrahim Jaafari with MP Jawad al-Maliki of the Islamic Dawa Party as its candidate for prime minister. The formal decision will be made on Saturday.

Posted by: anna missed | Apr 21 2006 18:08 utc | 62

@b real – gulp!
But a well reasoned article.

Posted by: b | Apr 21 2006 18:25 utc | 64

Last year:30 a barrel…50 a barrel… 60 a barrel…
three days this week: 70 a barrel… 73 a barrel…75 a barrel
NPR says it’s due to ‘concerns over Iran’s nuclear ambitions’, a lie.
The left says it’s greedy corporate price gouging, also a lie.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have just passed peak oil.
Hold on tight now. It’s a long steep ride down….

Posted by: gylangirl | Apr 21 2006 20:19 utc | 66

fauxreal
i wrote in the commotion for lo jo – it is on boheme du cristal – they are a group who ar respected universally in france both by the public & other musicians
i have done many many collaborations with many people & i was extremely touched by their invention & their decency

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 21 2006 21:47 utc | 68

i’m very interested in the underreporting of the jailing of the british army doctor for refusing to participater in an illegal & immoral war – it seems to me to me to be a very rare instance indeed & cannot recall it happeniong before – wonder if anyone else knows if it has recent precedent
he is appealing & it will be an important process restating the imperatives of nuremberg

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 21 2006 23:40 utc | 70