(Busy with some personal stuff, so I don´t have time to write things up. If you like to  write something to post, please let me know and I’ll get it up.)

Arafat is dead but kept alive until some political things are sorted out. Helena Cobban has written about him a few days ago: Arafat: a Palestinian tragedy. Ze’ev Schiff, military correspondent for Haaretz thinks that with Arafats death it is Time for an Israeli initiative.

Short of a secular one state solution, I don´t expect any initiative to bring long term peace to palestine. Any ideas how that ever might come about?

Dollar touches 12-year high writes …

Cont. reading: Get Used to It

News and views…

Like usual short and precise.

Not the election of Kerry so far.

But it does not look good. As projected, this most probably will be decided in courtrooms (to be precise – in backrooms of courtrooms) and that is where the Republicans have the advantage.

The beacon of democracy has lost some more of the light it once had. Irrational electoral college rules, defect and uncontrollable machines, thousands of lawyers and partisan selected judges make people around the world shake their head.

What’s coming now?

Iraq is a mess and will be worse in January/February 2005. There are no good chances. A win for the US is impossible – to loose is unacceptable for the US majority – escalation is probable. The only sure thing – more people will die violently there and elsewhere. The social agenda that will be legislated during the coming four years will deepen the divide we are already seeing. The world economy is at stall speed with all signs pointing down – even with a possible end-year DOW rally – no win possible here.

Bill Fleckenstein (pay-site), a bearish but successful, fund manager commented yesterday:

I believe that in the next four years, a lot of hopes and dreams are going to be shattered, and hearts will be broken. In my opinion, the winning party this time will perhaps lose for the next couple decades. So, the silver lining may go to the losing party, as it may only have to wait four years for a chance to reign supreme for a while.

We will not be sure who is the future President of the US for some more days. But we can be sure that some damage is done – more may be coming.

It is a cold wet foggy day here. Winter is at the doorstep.

(8:53am – after a walk at the harbourside let me add) And following winter it’s spring.

Behind the media election curtain, there are other very important things happening. Some picks:

Cont. reading: Anything But Election Thread

The best endorsement for this election is by Riverbend.
The best reason to vote is Abu Ghraib.
The best apparel for voting is a black hoodie.
The best black humor on choices is by Woody Allen:

Cont. reading: Election Thread

picture by beq

Tomorrow the puppets may vote whom to hand their strings for the next four years. Or maybe it’s the other way around. The puppet masters vote which puppet may stage at the Whitehouse. Then there is a third option. Electorate and candidates are puppets and the strings are pulled somewhere outside the picture.

Click on image to enlarge (180k)

Title: Midnight at the Puppet Theater
Artist: beq
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas

Billmon also has some Good News

Just stumbled over this piece of good news:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush holds a 49-to-43 percent edge over his Democratic rival in the latest CNN/Time poll, conducted Wednesday and Thursday.

The poll of 2,060 adult Americans, including 1,076 likely voters, has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points and is thus in essential agreement with a CNN/USA Today/Gallup tracking poll also released Friday. That poll gives Bush a 52 percent-39 percent edge. More important, both polls show the same snapshot of the current state of the presidential campaign: a solid advantage for Bush.

CNN/Time poll: Bush holds edge

Billmon finds more analogies.

Billmon on Osama’s Endorsement for Bush:

… a boogeyman with which to frighten that last sliver of undecided voters into rejecting change. Al Qaeda, it seems, has evolved into one hell of an effective 527 organization.

Your comments on The Future Belongs to Me

News and views…

It’s not going as planed for Bush. The media has turned a bit around and finally remembers its task to reveal facts and opine for decency. Yes, their propaganda for the Iraq war did fall apart, yes, they screwed up the execution of the war, yes, they are robber barons. But where does the press asks the real questions? Why does the US feels the need to be a superpower. Why is there the need to be the bully? Still 170 degree to turn folks.

Why is a report about 100,000 Iraqi war death – in just 18 month – published in the UK Lancet and not in the States? Why is anybody astonished about these numbers? Hersh has been asking this for weeks and month:

Since June 28, the bombing has gone up exponentially. Bombing, bombing, bombing. Civilian targets, civilian neighborhoods.

But I don’t see anyone in the press worrying about it. I don’t see them demanding to know how many sorties we’re flying – have they grown? Are more bombs being dropped? What’s the tonnage? We don’t know any of that, do we?

And its not only Iraqis dying. GIs dying in the war are only reported when they die in Iraq. As most severely wounded are flown out of Iraq within 24 hours, there must be some number of them dying from their wounds later. Where are they counted? How big is that number? One hundred? One thousand? More? Does anybody ask this question?

John Pilger in the New Statesman sees “Americanism” endangering the world, no matter who wins this election. There is only one hope

Perhaps those millions of worried Americans who are currently paralysed by wanting to get rid of Bush at any price will shake off their ambivalence, regardless of who wins on 2 November. Then, as during the civil rights campaign, the Vietnam war and the great movement to freeze nuclear weapons, will a giant awaken?

It’s an open question. Mosh makes me believe that there is a chance for this to happen. But how long will it take and how many people will have to die before?

SEATTLE – The Bush administration has proposed giving dam owners the exclusive right to appeal Interior Department rulings about how dams should be licensed and operated on American rivers
…
The proposal would prevent states, Indian tribes and environmental groups from making their own appeals, while granting dam owners the opportunity to take their complaints — and suggested solutions — directly to senior political appointees in the Interior Department.
…
Dam owners “would be facing an extremely high cost and very uncertain benefits,” said Lynn Scarlett, the assistant secretary at Interior for policy, management and budget who approved the proposed rule. “Giving them some ability to voice their concern and present alternatives seemed appropriate.”
…
[The proposal] will be open to public comment until Nov. 8. The department can then, with the approval of the Office of Management and Budget, issue a final rule that has the power of law.

Further proposals, pairing future government rulings and the exclusive rights to appeal them, are to be published in next months Federal Register. Some possible pairings mentioned in the press conference were:

Ruling on / Exclusive Right to Appeal
– abortions / priests
– car driving / car owners,
– torturing / torturers,
– air quality / polluters,
– dams / dam owners,
– marriage / married couples,
– milk quality / diary farmers.

http://www.georgewbush.com results in:

BBC: Bush website blocked outside US

Surfers outside the US have been unable to visit the official re-election site of President George W Bush.

The BBC article suggests costs as a factor, but I don´t buy that. Foreign traffic is usually neglectible compared to US traffic plus they are running on the Akamai network which has local cache servers in all major countries.

The server is reachable from outside of the US with the URL http://origin.georgewbush.com

Some art makes me weep, this does. Please watch this video:

Don’t matter what color, all that matters is we gathered together
To celebrate for the same cause, no matter the weather
If it rains let it rain, yea the wetter the better
They ain’t gonna stop us, they can’t, we’re stronger now more then ever,
They tell us no we say yea, they tell us stop we say go,

Rebel with a rebel yell, raise hell we gonna let em know
Stomp, push up, mush, fuck Bush, until they bring our troops home come

on just . . .

No more blood for oil, we got our own battles to fight on our own soil
No more psychological warfare, to trick us to thinking that we ain’t loyal
If we don’t serve our own country, we’re patronizing a hero
Look in his eyes its all lies
The stars and stripes, they’ve been swiped, washed out and wiped
And replaced with his own face, Mosh now or die
If I get sniped tonight you know why,
Cause I told you to fight.

Hear the rhythm to really get the lyrics. Watch that video. Strong, very very very strong stuff. There´s some hope.
Lyrics are here

Hi Karl,

It is already the 27th and there still isn’t that surprise. What has happened? You are so good with this stuff so why is there nothing on Fox?

We need a really big one now. The polls show we may lose and all these lawyers and judges are unreliable – they just aren’t the base.

Just talked to Diebold. They have trouble with their vote balancing algorithms – had to take’em out. Now we need direct database access. What a screw up.

Sharon did win his “pay-Gaza-settlers-to-annex-West-Jordan” vote yesterday. No need for him to blow up Teheran now. That bastard is totally unreliable.

Why do the Brits take so long to get to Falluja? Do they expect US to take the casualties? A week before the election? Blair needs a butt kick – Allawi too – talking of “major neglect” – who does he think he is? Have Rummy call them.

And talking about Rummy, his shop is leaking like a sieve. $70 billion request, 30,000 more troops for Iraq, those damned explosives. Can´t he even shut up his Generals.

So where is the surprise? We can have Fox, God and whoever speaking for us, but we need an initiative, a spark, a surprise. We need one!

Don’t tell me there isn’t any coming up. That one would be really bad.