http://annezook.com/ en-us annezook@allmail.net 2008-07-01T16:21:35-07:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://annezook.com/archives/003419.php Also? Just for variety this year, there's a thought that the Worst President Ever and Terror Czar Cheney might be planning to offer us a December surprise. An economic meltdown. Like most of the rest of us, they expect a Democrat to take over the White House in January and I'm sure they're content to dump their mess in the Left's lap. Until then, though, they're doing all they can to keep it from happening on their watch. Military spending as a share of GDP is expected to grow by $75 billion in fiscal 2008, enough to neutralize a 0.3 percent decline in GDP. That will keep things from tanking early enough so that the Worst President In History might be expected to take action. Dick Cheney was secretary of defense for Bush 41; just before the 1992 election he engineered a big run-up in outlays, as the military restocked... 3419@http://annezook.com/ 2008-07-01T16:21:35-07:00 http://annezook.com/archives/003418.php Everyone knew. Everyone knew it was torture, but they were more concerned with 'plausible deniability' than with blocking it. I mean, it's clear that there were objections, but they were all made inside the system. Sort of pro forma protests. No one seems to have stood up and said, "No. I will not be a party to this and I will not sit quietly by and let you do it, either."... 3418@http://annezook.com/ Prisoners and Torture 2008-07-01T16:02:28-07:00 http://annezook.com/archives/003414.php Glancing at the headlines: George Carlin is dead. We'll all be less-amused and less-thoughtful for his loss. It hardly seems fair that Dobson is still with us. (I guess we know which of "his" "children" god really wants to spend time with.) The man is a deranged crackpot. Why do major news outlets continue to give him so much free press? Without them, he'd be no one, living nowhere, and doing a little damage to just a few people. Unlike, say, certain rightwingnut administrations. In today's news, people are shocked (Shocked, I tell you! Shocked!) to discover that liberal and Demovcrat job candidates didn't get a fair hiring shake under the Bush/Cheney regime. The Mississippi is bursting levees and rolling over its man-made banks just as though it didn't understand that humans are the boss and nature should follow our rules. Too bad they can't get some of that water... 3414@http://annezook.com/ 2008-06-24T11:56:59-07:00 http://annezook.com/archives/003413.php George Will kicks McCain's butt for memory loss, short-sightedness, and overall ignorance. I almost feel sorry for McCain. He's struggling to win over his own party's base at the same time he's fighting to get votes from disenchanted-with-Republicans independent voters. He sounds schizophrenic at times. On the same day, he was bragging about differing from on global warming and proposing that we open up the country's coasts to oil and gas companies. He's got a tough row to hoe. Dana Milbank says he's dancing. And, whether he likes it or not, Dick Cheney may hereinafter be known as the Torture Czar.... 3413@http://annezook.com/ 2008-06-19T11:42:30-07:00 http://annezook.com/archives/003411.php I'm so glad that opportunities abound for the world to laugh at our president. (Okay, not all the world. Some of it is busy dying.)... 3411@http://annezook.com/ 2008-06-17T13:03:50-07:00 http://annezook.com/archives/003410.php Just so typical. Achenbach. Always worth reading. In my next life, I want to be a public intellectual. I think I could specialize in generalizations. Did you get your "economic stimulus" check? Did you spend it? Did you enjoy it? I hope so, because we're going to be paying it off for a long, long time. In the aha! category, we have this story, which answers two questions for me. "No," Clinton supporters are not refusing to support Obama, and "yes," I am seeing a weird increase in wingnut Obama-bashing in the last 24 hours or so. (Because polls show Obama already has a lead over McCain.) And more electoral math!... 3410@http://annezook.com/ 2008-06-16T15:47:02-07:00 http://annezook.com/archives/003408.php I just don't know how to deal with a story about this kind of brutality. (Warning: Link to story of brutal toddler murder.) Clearly the man is crazy, and not in the "temporary" insanity kind of way. If passersby are trying to intervene and you push them off to finish--what you're doing--well, that's not someone who just 'snapped' for a second. That's big-time crazy. Maybe I do believe in the death penalty after all. Because if I think about this for more than two consecutive seconds, I almost feel like I could execute the guy myself. Well, no. Not almost.... 3408@http://annezook.com/ 2008-06-16T14:13:12-07:00 http://annezook.com/archives/003406.php CNN has put together one of those cool, interactive maps. This one's speculation about the electoral vote in November. Right now, the map shows 190 electoral votes "safe" or "leaning toward" Obama and 194 "safe" or "leaning toward" McCain. 154 are up for grabs. (That's 538 total, so someone needs 270 to win.) I really like it when they use colors because I like to see the patterns. (There's what I always think of as "the N", the block of western states that would vote for a tree frog, as long as it was running under a Republican label.*) The country looked pretty blue in 1996. (Of course, the thing about those maps is that they don't tell you how close some of those state contests were.) These maps show you the electoral votes for each state, as well as which way their votes swung: 1996 By 2004, The Porkie... 3406@http://annezook.com/ Campaigns and Voting 2008-06-11T13:44:22-07:00 http://annezook.com/archives/003405.php Lest I talk about money lost, stolen, or just given away in Iraq. In the run-up to the invasion one of the most senior officials in charge of procurement in the Pentagon objected to a contract potentially worth seven billion that was given to Halliburton, a Texan company, which used to be run by Dick Cheney before he became vice-president. Unusually only Halliburton got to bid - and won. Wow. Wotta shocker! Porkie--I mean Georgie, may want to "pressure" Iran, no doubt in a desperate attempt to accomplish something not-entirely-evil during his highly regrettable White House tenure, but other sources suggest that his changes are slim-to-disappearing. He has lame duckness to deal with, along with his eight year legacy of general lameness and blinkered stupidity. Factor in his immoral war and, from what I've been reading, unsubtle attempts on the part of the gov'mint and cheney-affiliated oil companies to force... 3405@http://annezook.com/ 2008-06-10T13:57:54-07:00 http://annezook.com/archives/003401.php Bush misused Iraq intelligence - US Senate report U.S. President George W. Bush and his top policymakers misstated Saddam Hussein's links to terrorism and ignored doubts among intelligence agencies about Iraq's arms programs as they made a case for war And, DUH again. Statements that Iraq had a partnership with al Qaeda were wrong and unsupported by intelligence, the report said. It said that Bush's and Cheney's assertions that Saddam was prepared to arm terrorist groups with weapons of mass destruction for attacks on the United States contradicted available intelligence. Color me so surprised.... 3401@http://annezook.com/ War 2008-06-05T13:22:45-07:00 http://annezook.com/archives/003396.php I'm not sure what today's theme is. Maybe it's the upcoming weekend, but I feel like taking a minute of silence to mourn the death of common sense in this country. A car dealership in the United States is offering a free handgun with every vehicle sold. You think there's ever going to be a moment when these folks realize that choosing a stupid gun over a $250 gas card sort of proves Obama's point? Also, predictably, I think these folks should be just a little less militant about their wanton stupidity. An audit of some $8bn (£4bn) paid to US and Iraqi contractors has found that almost every payment failed to comply with US laws aimed at preventing fraud. Color me so not surprised. Honesty compels me to admit that any organization handling sums of money that run into seven, eight, or nine digits is going to have a... 3396@http://annezook.com/ 2008-05-23T15:29:31-07:00 http://annezook.com/archives/003395.php It's Friday, so it must be dinking around time. Baseline year 1980: Cost of a 1980 first-class stamp: $0.15 That's 42 cents in today's money, so the USPS is right on target! Cost of a 1980 gallon of regular gas: $1.25 That's 3.57 in today's money Cost of a gallon of 1980 milk: $1.69 Adjusted for inflation, that's $4.82 Actual price today: $3.13 Poor dairy farmers. The national debt in 1980 was about: $914,000,000,000 or 914 billion. In today's money, that's going to be: $2,612,000,000,000 (rounded) or 2.612 trillion Which sounds bad enough, but thanks to certain lunatic politicians, the national debt is actually $9,200,000,000,000, or a whopping 9.2 trillion. What was the national debt in 2000, when GB arrived? $5,700,000,000,000 (5.7 trillion). He and his buddies have added $3.5 trillion to the mess. What comes after trillion? Bazillion, right? And then gazillion. And then my head explodes. _________________________ Tom's... 3395@http://annezook.com/ 2008-05-23T08:27:47-07:00 http://annezook.com/archives/003393.php I've had the urge to blog over the last few weeks, but never quite got around to it. Therefore, under the heading of, "things I found interesting," I offer a handful of links. (No time for proofreading, sorry.) The Most Disappointing President from April 22. To accompany that one, I offer The GOP's Ideas Deficit. Achenbach is uncharacteristically serious in The Next Big Scandal from April 21. To accompany it, you might want to take a look at In Sadr City, Basic Services Are Faltering and the happy news that War costs could be under $170 bln: Pentagon. (If you're interested in a bit more background on the failure in Iraq, you might try How Much Did Rumsfeld Know?) Afghanistan, the forgotten country, may be back on the radar. On May 9, I read that the Pentagon Is Open to Moving More Marines to Afghanistan. They should never have left... 3393@http://annezook.com/ Politics and Liberalism 2008-05-16T14:30:11-07:00 http://annezook.com/archives/003378.php Yeah, we got trouble, right here in Denver these days. (Trouble with a capital T, and that rhymes with "B" and that stands for Bruce!) Bruce told to leave podium over remark about Mexican workers* He's always been a jewel in the Rightwingnut crown, but.... (And, by the way, about that kicking story? I note that the photographer in question had an ethnically Puerto Rican name. Maybe Bruce just has a problem with people whose skins are brown?) And, while I'm making note of idiotic Colorado wingnut politicians, here's another one for your reading pleasure. ___________________ * Story comments elsewhere are interesting. It's fascinating to see the number of people who anxious to stand up and affirm their own stupidity.... 3378@http://annezook.com/ 2008-04-21T16:04:54-07:00 http://annezook.com/archives/003376.php In a passing political note, let me say how happy I am that I did not watch the debates this week. From the comments and coverage I've read, they were even more devoid of content they were when I first decided (several years ago) that watching them live was a waste of time. In other political "news"? You know times are tough when the American president and the British prime minister start talking about the good ol' days of the Blitz. It's been forever since I've been able to hear Bush talk without wanting to kill myself, but I feel justified in my contempt for the man when I read things like this little jewel, presented in response to a suggestion that maybe, just maybe, our "special" relationship with the UK isn't quite as special as it used to be. "False!" Bush argued before the questioner finished. "We've got a... 3376@http://annezook.com/ 2008-04-18T13:29:03-07:00