We're all growns up, and have lots of work ahead

We Baracked the vote. We are a better nation for it.

Here's some commentary on the GOP and its future:

Conservatives also must decide whether a return to their core economic beliefs will be accompanied by a hard right turn on social issues such as gay rights, guns and abortion. Some feel that Sen. John McCain wasn't conservative enough socially.

Regardless, for Republicans to rebound, they must catch up to Democrats in online organizing and fundraising - a shortcoming made clear in this election.

"The Republican Party is teetering on the brink of irrelevancy," said Professor Lawrence R. Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. "This is about as close to a repudiation as you can get."

What will follow, Jacobs said, "will be a period of bloodletting in the Republican Party. It's going to be a free-for-all, professional wrestling battle royal."
...
Dick Armey of Texas knows what it is like to revive the Republican Party. A former majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, Armey was one of the leaders of the 1994 "Republican revolution" that seized Capitol Hill after two years of a Democratically controlled Congress and White House.

"They need to get back to what worked in the past," said Armey. "We should start by asking ourselves, 'What were we doing when people loved us?' And it's been a long time since some people in this country loved us."
...
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's future appears mixed. Armey said, "It's hard for me to tell where she will fit in." Franc said, "She's the young athlete who makes it to the big leagues who has 'lots of upside.' " Hawkins called her "a rock star."

Jacobs said: "There's been a lot of hyperventilating about her. But once cooler heads look back on her, she will be seen as destructive to the ticket and more abysmal than (former Vice President Dan) Quayle. There has never been a vice presidential candidate as unpopular as Sarah Palin.'"

GOP has 8 years of Bush to thank for lost love. Even now, Bushco is working on getting his final nail in the coffin with deregulatory measures.

The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.

The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.

Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining.

Once such rules take effect, they typically can be undone only through a laborious new regulatory proceeding, including lengthy periods of public comment, drafting and mandated reanalysis.
...
Bush's aides are acutely aware of the political risks of completing their regulatory work too late. On the afternoon of Bush's inauguration, Jan. 20, 2001, his chief of staff issued a government-wide memo that blocked the completion or implementation of regulations drafted in the waning days of the Clinton administration that had not yet taken legal effect.
...
"Through the end of the Clinton administration, we were working like crazy to get as many regulations out as possible," said Donald R. Arbuckle, who retired in 2006 after 25 years as an OMB official. "Then on Sunday, the day after the inauguration, OMB Director Mitch Daniels called me in and said, 'Let's pull back as many of these as we can.' "
...
Clinton's appointees wound up paying a heavy price for procrastination. Bush's team was able to withdraw 254 regulations that covered such matters as drug and airline safety, immigration and indoor air pollutants. After further review, many of the proposals were modified to reflect Republican policy ideals or scrapped altogether.

So lots to do in the coming years. At least we can send Palin back to the Fortress of Solitude where her and her husband can resume building momentum to support the secession of Alaska from the US. Maybe Russia will take them.

House of cards

...except the cards are made from your tax dollars and BushCo plays 52-pickup with them while funding the war on terror.

Speaking of which, have you heard that Scott McClellan, the former White House Press Secretary (post-Ari Fleischer and pre-Dana Perino), has written a memoir detailing his time spent with Bush and his spin doctors? It's titled: What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception.

The SF Chronicle has an article on it. Some of the highlights:

The Bush White House made "a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed" — a time when the nation was on the brink of war, McClellan writes in the book entitled "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception."

The way Bush managed the Iraq issue "almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option."

"In the permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president's advantage," McClellan writes.
...
The former press secretary — the second of four so far in Bush's presidency — explained his dramatic shift from loyal defender to fierce critic as a difficult act of personal contrition, a way, he wrote, to learn from his mistakes, be true to his Christian faith and become a better person.

"I fell far short of living up to the kind of public servant I wanted to be," McClellan writes. He also blames the media whose questions he fielded, calling them "complicit enablers" in the White House campaign to manipulate public opinion toward the need for war.

McClellan said Bush loyalists will no doubt continue to think the administration's decisions have been correct and its unpopularity undeserved. "I've become genuinely convinced otherwise," he said.

We knew that Iraq wasn't behind the attacks on September 11th. We know that the man who was is hiding in the luxurious Afghanistan-Pakistan mountain borne caves. Yet with enough spinning, the American people in their anger, pain, and frustration, found the lies hurled from the collective foul recesses of the neocon mouth bearing enough credence to choose to go to war against Iraq because of supposed WMDs and a (then) questionable link to the Taliban.

We knew Saddam was bad. No question about it. So we went in under the pretense of liberation, and have put ourselves in a position that will make it extremely difficult to extricate ourselves. What benefits have we seen from these actions?

Ever heard of the Wolfovitz Doctrine (aka 'Rebuilding American Defenses')? We let it become policy right:

'...while the unresolved conflict in Iraq provides the immediate justification [for U.S. military presence], the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'

We can't blame everything on the war that's lasted over 5 years and has claimed the lives of over 4,000 American soldiers thrown in harm's way not to protect American interests, but to further the goals of a dying leprous breed of politicians. However, given the war's impact on the the stability (or at least perceived stability) of petroleum availability, coupled with the crumbling mortgage industry, the housing market slump, and fuel and food costs increasing, it stands to reason that prolonging current troop deployments and actions to fight the ephemeral 'war on terror' is a bad thing for Americans and their progeny.

This is not a partisan issue. This is an ethical issue. We've been manipulated enough with BushCo spin doctors, but we also need to take accountability for our actions of allowing our country to go in the wrong direction. We've shown the government that we're intimidated by them, when really it should be the other way around. They are elected officials. While we're going to see lots of propaganda from both sides (a certain questionable email that's been circulating comes to mind) we should keep in mind that we control who goes into office.

After so many Orange Alerts, looming shadows of Homeland Security restrictions on traveling, cases of illegal wire taps, we seemed to have been cowed into conformity. A fearful populace is an easily governed populace. When we seem to be perpetually at war, our government has enlisted tools that instill fear in our hearts, so we allow them to send more troops and spend more tax dollars overseas, while we constantly cut out education programs and raise tuition at public universities and put our next generation of engineers, teachers, police officers, soldiers, mothers, and fathers further into debt.

While Scott McClellan's tell-all comes a little late, it no doubt provides more context into the lame duck presidency that will go down in history as the administration that ran 2 terms as a fascist third-world regime while losing ground to other countries, instead of the innovative and progressive force it could've been.

That being said, the end of BushCo is nigh. Even while he campaigns for McCain, John knows that linking himself to the man who put the crack in cracka is a death sentence for the November elections.

The 935 lies of BushCo

We forget things so easily. I forget my BART ticket sometimes and have to buy one at the station.

Forgetting about why we went to war under *suspect* pretenses is a slightly larger issue. Do you remember why we went to war? It's all seen through spin-doctor induced haze...but I think I see something.

The Center for Public Integrity recently released a searchable database that details 935 'false public statements' perpetrated by the Bush administration: mainly seven individuals (George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Ari Fleischer, Paul Wolfowitz, Condi Rice, Dick Cheney, and Scott McClellan)

The massive database at the heart of this project juxtaposes what President Bush and these seven top officials were saying for public consumption against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis. This fully searchable database includes the public statements, drawn from both primary sources (such as official transcripts) and secondary sources (chiefly major news organizations) over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001. It also interlaces relevant information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches, and interviews.

It's not that an administration hasn't lied before, however, when I think back to the furor over impeaching President Clinton because he lied about getting a blowjob (and his definition of sexual relations) and I compare it to the lies spouted by the current administration...well there's no comparison.
What's really illustrative to me is how the number of lies told really peaks just prior to the invasion of Iraq. It's like they knew they had to lay it on thick to get the support needed to mobilize when the rest of the world (please spare me the laughable justification of the 'Coalition of the Willing') favored other means of resolving the conflict.

We became so polarized by 9/11 and the administration used the tragedy to pounce on Iraq because it could 'legitimately' establish a prolonged presence in an Middle Eastern, oil-producing country: an act the Administration deemed necessary for America, regardless if the tactic smacked of the deprecated model of the military-industrial complex.

We'll be in Iraq for decades to come. This was the plan. 9/11 just helped make it easier to execute because we were raw with frustration, anger, and sadness. We let it happen.

So I'm supporting my troops, and not the government that tosses them upon a sacrificial pyre in the name of democracy. Let's not forget our mistakes of voting this chimp and his circus trainers into office when we're at the polls on Feb 5...ok...I didn't vote for this guy, but at least two people did.

Or, you can vote for Romney and let him build more Guantanamos.

The ship does not go down with its captain

Let's say I'm the head of a major institution, and as such, I'm ultimately responsible for the actions of my staff/supporters/minions (think Enron's Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling). Let's further hypothesize that I was being tried for destroying electronic records...in fact...let me restate that...let's say there were rumblings of a suit being brought against me, so in anticipation of such action I went ahead and destroyed the files. Of course, I probably had some kind of 'legitimate' reason to excuse the destruction of these files - whoops! Sorry! I was just following industry best practices...what's that over there? LOOK OUT! Killer terrorists! Threat level omega-seven-polka-dot-bravo!

I'm getting ahead of myself...

You'd think I was reprehensible, correct? You'd think I was sneaky and conniving, right? You'd think that I thought I was above the law by doing such a thing. You'd think that I should be brought to justice and made accountable for my actions, even though I might not have personally put the papers into the shredders, right? After all, even though I might possess 'plausible deniability', the fact that I run the ship should make me responsible, or are we saying that the laws in the country don't apply to me. Yes, I think that's what we're saying.
At least that seems to be the reasoning behind the latest American freedom-'n-democracy ass-raping fiasco perpetrated by the White House. WTF!?

WASHINGTON -- The White House acknowledges recycling backup computer tapes of e-mail, a practice that may have wiped out many electronic messages from the early years of the Bush administration, including some pertaining to the CIA leak case.

The disclosure about recycled backup tapes came minutes before midnight Tuesday under a court-ordered deadline that forced the White House to reveal information it previously had refused to provide.

Before October 2003, the White House recycled its backup tapes "consistent with industry best practices," according to a sworn statement by a White House aide. The White House started preserving backup tapes in October 2003, which would have been shortly after the start of the probe into who outed CIA operative Valerie Plame in July of that year.

The backup tapes, which also contain electronic documents in addition to e-mail, are the last line of defense for saving electronic records.
...
Mr. Fratto, the White House spokesman, said that "there is no basis to say that the White House has destroyed any evidence or engaged in any misconduct."

No basis...hmm...I'm reasoning those words were used because it hasn't been proven that anything was 'destroyed', at least in the linguistically accurate perception of the word. I imagine it was just serendipitous that the 'recycling' of the tapes occurred just before a court-order demanding said 'recycled' tapes be turned over.

You know what? I am sick to death of this administration. It's not that it's Republican. There are plenty of great Republicans out there. I heart Republicans. I'm sick of this administration's stomping on the vestiges of our integrity. I'm tired of blowing taxpayer dollars on issues that don't benefit the nation, when we're in the middle of a mortgage collapse and financial institutions are recording record losses (from over a 100 year period) and when our educational system is stuck in the 1950s and when we can't seem to produce enough effective domestic college graduates. I'm sick of the lies and false-truths and truthery and strategery and the fact that the President of the effing United States of America sounds like a g-d idiot when he opens that effing hole in his face. STFU Dubya.
While the bar for Presidential approval has been lowered tremendously, and we're on the brink of electing a new President, and although I'm optimistic about the future, I think we need to expect more from our elected officials, and insist on running a government that's less focused on infiltrating and more cognizant about stabilizing and scaling global socio-economic growth. Just a thought. Just throwing it out there, cuz, y'know...things are pretty crappy right now. Never hurts to dream, right? Obama anyone? The whole 'audacity of hope' notion is very appealing compared to the scary faith infused dogmas of Huck or baseball Mitt. It's like the GOP reasoned with all the instability in the Middle East, which this administration helped fuel (btw), the U.S. needs to further polarize itself and become more militaristic and ethno/faith-centric, so they unleash Huckabee and Romney.

[ending soapbox transmission now]

Pod People have reached maturity and are coming your way

New terms thanks to our elected officials:
Poulting: The act of political moulting...or perhaps

Coulting: The mindless hate spew emanating from the skanky neo-con death's head, Ann Coulter? Or maybe it could mean Sen. Craig having to step down as a result of Bathroom-gate.

Craiging: Meeting in the bathroom for hot man-Brad action initiated by doing a Fred Astaire footloose with your intended target

Autumn years:
Whether it's because folks know that it's time to throw in the towel on a soon-to-be lame duck President, his cadre is leaving for greener pastures. No doubt Karl Rove, Tony Snow, Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzalez, and possibly Craigster will soon be raking in buckets of ducats in book deals and speaker fees, assuming they aren't skewered with a subpoena. Does executive privilege extend to lowly common citizens who foot the taxbill?

Regardless, don't expect Cheney to step down. DARPA has constructed a special exoskeleton into which they will pour liquefied Cheney once doctors deem him unable to continue his job in his current soft, flabby form (being a Dark Lord takes a toll on the body). The model comes installed with a special facial engine which exhibits scowls and hateful expressions taken from the Dark Lord himself. It has a special leg holster for a double-barrel shotgun, a la RoboCop, which allows him to draw down on unsuspecting gay babies. The buckshot is comprised of the teeth of Iraqi civilians killed since Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced. When he pulls the weapon from its concealed location a metallic voice calls out "fuck off" or "go fuck yourself" a la his comments made on the Senate floor in reference to Sen. Leahy.

Martin Prince status: Achieved

Dr. Pryor: Here's your scientifically selected career.
Janey: Architect.
Kid: Insurance salesman,
Ralph: Salmon gutter?
Milhouse: Military strongman.
Martin (fingers crossed, speaking in mantra style): Systems analyst. Systems analyst.
Dr. Pryor: Systems analyst.
Martin: All right!
Lisa: Homemaker?
Dr. Pryor: Mm-hm. It's like a mommy.
Bart: Police officer? Well, I'll be jiggered.

At long last my goal of becoming Martin Prince of the Simpsons has been realized. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I have finally reached my goal of becoming a self-actualized systems analyst.

I started a job at ask.com in such a capacity. Before you start saying 'all search engines are the same', let me assure you they are not. All search algorithms are not the same, neither is the manner in which the system returns with matches to your queries. Ask uses ExpertRank, while Google employs PageRank. Needles to say, each engine is different, and I'll leave it to you to explore the difference. Ask also uses a different style of returning answers to your questions.

Check out Ask3D, and why it's different. Here's a nice little summary.

Switching jobs and attending my sister's wedding will make a person focus on things other than researching Search industry tidbits and bitmaps of Martin. Perhaps this will excuse my lack of posts. I think of you every day. You tell me who says otherwise, and I'll cut their heart out with a spoon (thank you Alan Rickman).

While the perversion of American justice and the mockery of checks and balances goes unheeded in this great nation, at least I'm in a place that will help people find information on how we as Americans and global citizens can take our grassroot steps in making the world a better place...Libby sentence commuting and abuse of "executive powers" notwithstanding.

To the dictator go the spoils...

I'm going out on a limb here, but I see some strange similarities between the Bush administration and an evil dictatorship...or at least the now defunct Soviet Union.

I keep thinking of the Mikhail Baryshnikov/Gregory Hines (RIP) vehicle, "White Nights", for some reason...did you ever see that one? It's a classic. Male dancers, one American (an expatriate living in the C.C.C.P.) and a Russian (looking to flee Communist rule) who get tangled in a web of U.S vs. U.S.S.R. intrigue: all of this set upon Phil Collins and Lionel Richie theme songs. The movie basically depicted how the Cold War impacted these two people, with a common passion, but with divergent political views. The movie illustrated how wonderful the U.S. was, and how evil and oppressive the Soviet Union was. You felt good at the end when one of the dancers, who was held captive by the Soviets after the other successfully escaped, was eventually traded back to the U.S. in exchange for some KGB-type. You felt good about it: the U.S. seemed like a moral, thoughtful, courageous, and responsible nation.

Fast forward to the the 21st century and smell the stink rising from the swamp in D.C. The Rove-Cheney Death Star duo out undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame because her husband, a U.S. Ambassador, makes critical [and valid] remarks of the Bush administration, and eventually the heat falls on Scooter Libby, who takes the fall, who gets sentenced, then gets his sentenced commuted by Dubya because he feels that the punishment was excessive...

(note that during this process Dubya is a complete tofu-brained, spineless puppet with two pairs of hands up his ass moving his mouth and helping sound out those big two-syllable words)

Excessive? Didn't anyone see "Mission Impossible" with my most favorite actor Tom Cruise, whom I totally heart in all his Scientologist goodness? Remember the severity of having the potential sale of a list of all undercover agents fall to the highest bidder? Wasn't that threatening to think that all these faceless people doing black-ops, off-the-books, counter-intel, mole-type activities on the behalf of the United States government were about to have their covert and given names made available to folks like Al-Queda? Hyperbole aside, well...there's really not much to hyperbolize when you see this administration's track record. Didn't Bush once pride himself in being a believer in rough justice? I guess it only counts if you're poor or otherwise marginalized.

Apparently if you're part of the internal U.S. power structure, you're exempt from such phony-baloney nonsense, and can out a CIA operative who's married to someone who says something portraying the government in a less than popular light and who's invested more in this country's security than some spoiled, brainless, tool. Honestly, I could care less about Libby...I'd like to see Turd-Blossom, ol' no-soul Cheney, and tool shed extraordinaire Dubya: the Unholy Trinity: see some justice for this act.

I'm rendered utterly flabbergasted and discombobulated. The sheer hypocrisy and evil empire undertones permeate every statement I could contemplate. Is this "justice" or "just us": meaning, if you're not of the inner circle, then you're common cannon fodder?

I'm astounded when I think of the energy and time it will take us as a nation to mend the wounds this single administration has inflicted upon the world, and as an American, upon my country. They're making the American soldier and civilian look like a bunch of worthless blood-soaked tools eternally stained with their lies and insanity.

If you're a devout conservative and could give a isht about my "liberal" ramblings, just think about how many taxpayers dollars went into the toilet so that this scapegoat could be exonerated, when the real evil-doers go free. For all we know, maybe the cost of this nonsense could've translated into a few thousand more Kevlar vests or adequate armor, or ammunition, or food and medical supplies...but I guess it's more important to have lying, killing, and general evil dictatorship-type behavior cemented into the American fabric because it's this administration's final legacy laid upon the altar of time. Amen.

And none of the irony of this farce falling so close to our Independence Day is lost on me. Not even Roland Emmerich could make this administration look good. I'd be completely happy with Bill Pullman for President, though.

Bush considers changing U.S. political structure to monarchy

Even while considering the recent Al Gonzales/federal prosecutor debacle, which is firmly couched in the rich yet bullshitty terror-laced tapestry of our pre-embolimic Vice President, I still think everything is going to turn out just fine.

Why? To explain, I feel it's needed to contextualize the issue. To briefly summarize Al G-Funk's issue, there was an uproar about the recent dismissal of several federal prosecutors. As a result of the current situation, it's been revealed that there was an earlier suggestion made that every single one of these prosecutors be removed. Why? These prosecutors serve at the discretion of the President, but don't always tow the present White House agenda, and we know that this administration froths at the mouth when people object to the current hawk-centric party line.

The conflict is centralized around the fact that should all the prosecutors be dismissed, Bush has the right to appoint new ones...indefinitely...without requiring a confirmation hearing from the Senate.

Ahem...excuse me? Isn't this the year 2007 A.D.? Do we live in an monarchy? Are we to remove capable and intelligent people from positions solely for their political views? What's next, is Bush going to revise the Holy Bible so it legitimizes the current crusade we're executing in the Middle East? I l'm aware of the saying 'to the victor, go the spoils of war', but this is downright reminiscent of fascism. East Germany-Berlin Wall anyone? According to the the NY Times, the good news is :

Democrats are pressing the case for revoking the president’s authority, which he gained with the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act last year, to appoint interim federal prosecutors indefinitely, without Senate confirmation. The administration has argued that such appointments are necessary to speed the prosecution of terrorism cases. After the dismissals became a big political issue last week, Mr. Gonzales signaled that the administration would not oppose the changes sought by Democrats.

When considering this debacle, and framing it in Cheney's recent comments which insinuated that folks who don't support the war don't support the troops, while Bush threatens the House and the Senate not to "tie his hands in Iraq", we see that Americans are getting tired of this bullshit rhetoric.

Voters want to support the troops by bringing them home from a war that sees 2.2 American soldiers dying each day in a seemingly senseless conflict with no terminus in site. Soon the madness will all be over. 2008 is bringing change. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. We see it reflected in Congress. We see it reflected in polls that continue to announce that approval rating levels reach new low for Bush on a seemingly daily basis.

I just hope that Dubya doesn't pull a Dead Zone on us before he has to leave office and announce that the missiles are flying, hallelujah! I bet there's a clause somewhere in the defense contract with Halliburton and Blackwater USA that allow them to assume martial law of the country if constitutional entities (the White House, Congress, State Dept.) experience the equivalent of a collision with an IED.

Support the troops...not their CIC

CIC: Commander in Chief. The U.S. Armed Services answers to a civilian; a public official elected (sort of) by the populace. Dubya is our Armed Services CIC. It's one title to which he's officially referred. Another is Slom-king, but I digress.

Soldiers don't have the liberty of questioning their orders from the CIC. They need to take the orders and execute them - period. It's a tough, but rewarding job to be a soldier because you're actively taking a role in providing for the defense of your country...or in Dubya's case: you have to serve your country's political agenda by invading another country. My opinion.

One such selfless individual was Army 2nd Lt. Mark Jennings Daily. He was deployed in Iraq in October 2006. You can check out one of the myriad articles on the full details, but essentially, he was an outstanding soldier: brains, heart, morals, and courage. He was not one of the idiots who embarrassed the U.S. in the Abu Ghraib fiasco. He was killed on a security detail in January 2007.

I salute his convictions about confronting the tyrannical organizations like the Taliban or Saddam's reign in Iraq. He was committed to taking action instead of remaining safely stateside because, to use his words, it was pointless to engage in "...philosophical masturbation that prevent people from ever taking any kind of effective action against men like Saddam Hussein."

He is not the only soldier like this. He will not be the only one to fall in this conflict. I'll say nothing to tarnish his life and the ideals for which he stood.

I will say that as soon as we get more Senators' and Congresspersons' kids dying in Iraq, I'm sure we'll find some ways to bring back these bright jewels back so they can continue to shine in our lives and enrich the world, but not left to fade in our memories. I'm sure we'll find more civilized ways to confront adversity rather than dole out death. Going to war is easy. Working for peace is hard, but I think you'll find that things that are hard to accomplish are usually much more important.

Jenna and Barbara are ready to go into Iraq and fight, George. Why not embed them in the front lines? We'll see how you fare should they pay the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of your administration's goals. Are you ready to earn more political and partisan capital at the cost of your flesh and blood? Is the war in Iraq(n) worth that much? When do we "win the war on terrorism": newsflash - we can't. It's like winning a war on rhetoric. Read: your bullshit, which is at least something we get to moult in 2008. Praise God for term limits.

Subsidized by you

Outsourcing.

What a nasty word, eh? We hear it all the time. Folks in various industries are "restructured" because of it.

A recent study by the New York Times revealed that the number of government contracting gigs has increased, while open competition between bidders has not. Most of these gigs are for operations in Iraq. Interestingly enough, spending by top contracting firms on lobbying and campaign donations has increased.

While the Times can't say it, I can: sounds like some hot, yet clandestine political pillow-talk going on up on the Hill. This type of behavior looks bad because it's easily interpreted as a case of interest groups directing policy. Also consider the long-reaching effects of outsourcing by the U.S. government when the contractors aren't held to the same level of accountability that public officials are, and compound this understanding with the lack of transparency within these privately-held companies.

It could be argued that the current administration has partnered with groups that will insulate Bush et al from any type of legal or punitive actions. I'm thinking of how the U.S. has farmed out torturing of detainees to countries like Egypt and Syria.

Top this off with the $2.9 trillion (that's: 2,900,000,000,000 dollars) budget the Bush administration submitted to Congress (the Pentagon's portion is $624.6 billion, which is up from last time), and wonder how long it will take to us to learn that the military-industrial complex is not the best way, moral or economical, to sustain one of the largest and most powerful countries in the world.

Interestingly, the budget includes only $50 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in 2009, which is the last year funding is expressly provided. Is this the first sign of when we could expect to see a full-scale extraction from the region?

Prez Junior gets a performance review?

Recently, in his State of the Economy address, Dubya said:

"Government should not decide the compensation for America's corporate executives....[b]ut the salaries and bonuses of CEOs should be based on their success at improving their companies and bringing value to their shareholders...America's corporate boardrooms must step up to their responsibilities...You need to pay attention to the executive compensation packages that you approve. You need to show the world that America's businesses are a model of transparency and good corporate governance."

Just to contextualize his comments, know that this was coming from a man who had a childhood just like you and me. He's a Washington outsider, as he claimed during his initial run for office...you know, his dad was the Ambassador to China, Head of the CIA, Vice-President of the U.S. for 8 years, President of the U.S. for 4 years and ol' Dubya went to Phillips Academy, then off to Yale, then hung out in the Texas Air National Guard during Vietnam, then off to Harvard to get his MBA, then worked in the oil industry, and finally became a small-town governor from the state of Texas: home to Selena! Yay!

Does this mean that we can cut his pay if his approval ratings dip below a threshold? And how do we go about requesting greater transparency of his *rumored* coke habits of old, because that would just be great fun altogether: definitely a clipping for my wallet! Do we get to grade him on his judgements of leaving the Kyoto Agreement when the U.S. is the number 1 emitter of greenhouse gases, and he doesn't want to impose cap limits on businesses? What about inciting a conflict abroad to distract the masses from Dick Cheney's leaky colostomy bag? Can we at least get a better understanding why his spin doctors have him describe the global warming phenomenon with a name like "climate change"? Is that a transparent description? It's kinda like "killed by one's own troops" and "friendly fire" or "shell shock" and "post-traumatic stress disorder".

Dubya probably doesn't care what the press will say about this. Bush thinks the press is 'elitist' because their background isn't in step with average Joe. See my second paragraph and repeat.

2008 is coming. Get ready America.

Sorry. This was supposed to be a shorter post, but I got carried away. You can probably tell that I'm passionate about this topic. I'm transparent that way...

Web of intrigue expands in Russian-UK radiation murder case

Britain is expected to ask for the extradition of a Russian citizen to be tried in the murder of former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko.

This has been in the news for months. You might have heard of the word "polonium-210" being thrown around - it's a nasty isotope that causes devastating radiation poisoning in a very short amount of time, as it decays relatively fast and as such is a high alpha particle emitter, the latter being extremely destructive to human tissues. Litvinenko claimed that he was poisoned with the isotope, as retribution for comments made criticizing the Putin administration. He died shortly after being admitted for medical treatment.

The Guardian UK has a very succinct and informative story on the developments and players. If you want to read about some even more crazy black ops espionage tainted details, then check out Alexander Litvinenko's obituary notice.

This could be a big deal for the U.S. as the U.K. is a close ally, and U.K.-Russian relationships are expected to chill should the British government ask for the citizen to be extradited. Do we think that Bush is a big enough statesman to run the war on terror in the Middle East and referee the tension that's building between the U.K. and Russia? That's been America's role in the past. It's been an effective means of deflecting national attention from domestic affairs to foreign concerns.

It should be interesting to see what comes out of all this.

Sand Castles

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid sent Bush a letter today advising that the surge of troops he has planned is not a wise course of action.

I'll be the first to admit that I think invading Iraq and overthrowing the government, albeit a corrupt one, wasn't in the best interests of national security. Of course, at the time we were told that there were WMDs in country. The UN representative never found any, but we invaded in March 2003 nonetheless.

Fast forward 3 1/2 years and we're still in Iraq and the new Cambodia: Afghanistan (shhh...top secret.) The country and surrounding region is destabilized, and the Sunni/Shite conflict is rapidly growing worse. Some have said that the vacuum of power left by Saddam Hussein's demise will pull more violent and dramatic factions into the fray, resulting in more deaths of innocents and soldiers alike. I tend to agree with this point.

Frame this in the context of troop deployment: if we leave now, then that country and surrounding region will be, for lack of a better word: effed up. Seriously eff to the yew to the cee to the kay effed up. Worse than it is already.

So. What are we to do? The Democrats are saying that Americans are tired of the fighting. I know I am. I'm tired of hearing about kids over there dying or becoming maimed by IEDs and sniper fire because this war isn't about survival - it's about political gains ultimately motivated by a personal vengeance.



I also think that one of the underlying motivations for being there is to create a base of operations and permanent American presence in the Arab world: 1) win hearts and minds to foster a new democracy, 2) then remain in country to help maintain and legitimize the new government while discreetly maximizing American economic petroleum-based interests. I may be oversimplifying this here, but it doesn't seem to be too far-fetched.

Bottom line: we can't conduct mass demobilization of our Iraqi-based military presence now. The Bush administration effectively committed the American people to remain in the region for at least a decade, most likely 2 maybe 3. It was a calculated ploy. Once we destabilized the region, we're morally obligated to stick around and assist in building a new government and society that we helped significantly destruct for nothing less than ensuring that the U.S. will be able to position itself in the Middle East. This isn't partisan politics. This is Manifest Destiny and an extension of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine unfolding before our eyes.

Best Good Times Ever in 2006

Since we're closing out the year, I thought I'd acknowledge some events and experiences from 2006.

My son's second Christmas: this year was awesome for him because he was finally able to enjoy the toys much more than the wrapping paper and boxes. Who can forget the intoxicating fun of Mr. Crinkle-Wrinkle and Mr. Corrugated Box Face?

F.E.A.R., Call of Duty 2 (COD2), and Prey: while F.E.A.R. and COD2 came out in 2005, I played them this year on my ultra-sick custom built system with a Thermaltake Tsunami case, an ASUS A8N-SLI mobo, an ANTEC TPII-550 power supply, an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ processor, running XP Pro SP 2, with 2GB PC3200 RAM, a 320GB WD SATA 3.0 HD, a BenQ DW 1655 DVD-RW, and boasting the EVGA 7600GT KO. This machine spits hot fire and was featured in the Arthur C. Clarke short story, "The Nine Billion Names of God." I'm not a blasphemer.

F.E.A.R. incorporates the Max Payne/Matrix bullet-time effect so that everything slows down so you can maximize your carnage and shoot 16 guys in the face and still have time to attach a proximity mine on a wall next to the Robocop looking killbot (check the section on "...wave after wave of my own men...") This game has some of the best graphics for a shooter that I've seen. The gore factor extremely high. Close range shotgun blasts make limbs vaporize in a red mist. Wounds profusely bleed and leave hideous smears on the walls and floors. It also makes cool references to Special Forces Operational Detachment - Delta, which is always close to my heart. The story elements are spooky, and it's obvious that the writers gleaned themes from modern Japanese horror films, read "Ringu/The Ring" and "Ju-on/The Grudge."

COD2 is a World War II shooter that has you play through all of the major campaigns of WWII, first as a Soviet rifleman, then as a U.K. armored infantryman, and lastly as a U.S. Army Ranger who supports efforts to make D-Day a success. The play is gritty, not so much in gore, but in the way that battle is portrayed as it should be: messy, confusing, and inaccurate. The American campaign intro sequence pulls from the landing scene in "Saving Private Ryan", and it's just as tough to watch as you're the proponent of the action and the witness to all the destruction. This game is the largest factor in why I haven't posted in so long.

Prey is a beautiful shooter that uses the DOOM3 engine (think portals) and puts you in the shoes of Tommy, a native American who wants to get off the reservation, and end up getting his wish...and so much more. You never run out of lives, rather if you die you're allowed the opportunity to enter the spirit world to recharge your life and spiritual powers before continuing on in your quest. The gameplay is fluid, the graphics are luxurious, the story compelling, and the enemy smacks of the Borg, always a good villain.

Honestly people, aren't these the best villains ever: Borg and Nazis? You just can't get tired of smoking these jokers. Incidentally, name one of the first video games in which a certain German WWII psychopath was THE main boss character. American versions of the game list him as "Master-D", but he looks like you-know-who. Just for the sake of your well-being, know that his head explodes in a very graphic way at the end of the game. It wouldn't be right if it didn't.

V for Vendetta: the film that's based on a comic that's set in the 80s that nobody (except fanboys) knew about. It also tackled serious political issues and should be used a vehicle to inspire political and philosophical debates if an uncomfortable silence always ensues while visiting the in-laws. Fortunately, I don't have this problem. Alan Moore, a Brit, one of the authors of the comic, remarked that the film didn't go far enough. Being as that it was originally about life in England under a totalitarian government, Moore commented that as an American piece of work and considering the current state of affairs in American politics (I'm looking at you Bush, Rove, Cheney, and Rummy), the film should have used the United States as the setting. Since the film does have a message about truth and justice and acts involved to actualize these ideas, Moore seemed to feel that Americans would've gotten more out of the film had it been set in NY or SF or LA. Of course, then the studio would've been firebombed by the Christian Coalition and Michigan militia driving what....Homeland Security SUVs with Calvin pissing-stickers on the rear window, of course.

Quitting smoking: yes, I had picked up this rather nasty habit. I kicked it this year. Actually I grabbed it by its dirty yellow face, and smashed its tubular head against the concrete until its tobacco brains littered the street in a glorious fan of projectile bleeding, at least as much blood as an imaginary cigarette-person has in his/her body. Needless to say I'm very glad to have changed this habit.

Computer-based games for the blind/visually-impaired: This has been a growing area of interest, and developers are starting to listen. There are tons of articles out there about smaller shops that are putting these games out. Just a few days ago I was listening to a story on NPR, and the developer/innovator being interviewed made an interesting comment when the interviewer asked him about his interaction with larger publisher/developer houses. The developer mentioned that when he approaches big shops, the common response from them to take on software projects like his was that making games for the blind would be bad for their stockholders. Of course, it wasn't phrased like that, but essentially, that's what they meant. Still, it's great to see these games coming out. I should probably brush up on my ear-eye coordination skills else I'll get smoked by someone who hears me lean around a virtual corner and gets the bead on me before I on him.

Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank: If these names don't sound familiar, the Nobel Peace Prize should. Mr. Yunus is a Bangladeshi economist who started loaning money out to people who the bank shunned because they were poor and had little or no collateral. He effectively helped reduce poverty from the ground up, and shown the world that there's an alternative means to helping people help themselves. If you get a chance to hear him interviewed on NPR, which I did a few weeks ago, I recommend you spend the 30 minutes listening. It's a great story and helps remind us that there are still good people in the world committed to helping others by helping them help themselves so they don't need to resort to less civilized means. And when I say "less civilized means" I mean they don't want to shoot you or blow your buildings up. That's right - helping people become financially solvent and economically viable can help eliminate the root causes of terrorism. Mr. Yunus said as much during his Nobel prize acceptance speech. A notable quote: "I firmly believe that we can create a poverty free world if we collectively believe in it…The only place you would be able to see poverty is in a poverty museum."

Too bad we're busy diverting/cutting funding for education and social programs in the States. I can see this graph in my head that depicts how incidents of terrorist acts fluctuate as money is diverted from such programs. You know the graph...it looks like an MS Excel bar chart graph that has two columns and if you modify the source data in the "program column" it impacts the metrics in the "terrorist" column because the "terrorist" column is a function of the "program" column. I digress.

My wife's new digital camcorder: Maybe she'll let me take it to work in 2007 and film the man who stands in the middle of the sidewalk on 21st by Broadway and sings off-key songs and smiles at everyone, but who will tell you not to look at him if you do. Finally everyone will believe me when I have irrefutable visual proof and I put it up on YouTube.

What Would Jesus Do in People's Park?

Someone vandalized the American soldier memorial on the hillside in Lafayette last night/this morning. In case you haven't heard anything about this Louise Clark, the property owner, and some other interested individuals put up hundreds of white crosses on her private land. A sign that reads "In Memory of 2,867 Troops Killed in Iraq." sits in the middle of the memorial.

It's been knocked down before. Some motorist pulled over, got out of his/her car and knocked it over. Now someone decided to throw tar or paint (it's not known which) on the sign.

Regardless of your stance on the war/conflict/situation in Iraq aka the war on terrorism (which, in my opinion is as useless as a war on traffic), we've lost sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends as a result. They're gone. They won't be coming to Christmas this year to open the present you got them, they won't be celebrating another birthday with you or your family, and they won't be meeting up with your friends to go out for drinks on New Years. While Bush and the administration would like you to believe that the terrorist killers in Iraq would like to take away your motorhomes and big screen TVs, the rhetoric is getting old.

These Americans made the "ultimate sacrifice", and at the very least it seems decent enough to recognize their loss. You're not being un-American if you acknowledge the loss of your warriors in what some might deem an unethical and immoral conflict. I can see how this memorial could be seen as both a protest and support of the presence of American soldiers in Iraq. As protest, it's indicating that we've lost these people forever. We already lost thousands on 9-11-01, which is why we're fighting (thanks for the spin turd blossom) over there. As support, families who've lost a loved one might feel a sense of communal acknowledgement for the grief they might be feeling - a sense that they're not alone. Of course, I'll be the first to admit that I find the protest angle a more likely motivating factor.

While the news about the new Defense Secretary asking for more troops in Iraq, and the attacks in the country are the highest they've ever been, I've felt a little insulated against it. This covert vandalism so close to home just really put the cherry on the top of the sundae. It reminds me that even in the Bay Area we have some people who'd prefer to just listen to Fox news and go along with every vile prognostication that flops out of Bill O'Reilly's evil face-hole. Pretty soon I might just have to turn off my brain and start a MySpace page. I'm sure Rove and Cheney would have a greasy, ruby-starfruit punctuated lovefest if I did that.

On a lighter note, you can now log your driving frustrations on platwire.com. For more info.

Lafayette: The New Berkeley

I'm not sure if you've all seen this hillside next to the Lafayette BART station, but I've seen it since it was first erected. The monuments stand on private ground, and are in clear view of the Highway 24.

My favorite part of the story describes how someone knocked down the sign. I'm willing to bet that this person probably drove some kind of SUV, and had one of the fashionable "Support the Troops" sticker on the bumper, and maybe...just maybe...a Calvin prayer sticker in the window.

I wonder what motivated that person? What was so upsetting to that person? Was it the fact that the number on the sign indicates that the number of Americans dead as a result of the Iraq War [...Conflict....what are we calling it now...Crusade?] now out-numbers the loss of lives from the Sept 11 attacks? Was it because the simply ugly fact that we have dead soldiers as a result of an unpopular war, thrust upon the world from a cowboy administration? Was it just upsetting to be so fired up about kicking Taliban, Iraqi insurgent, or otherwise terrorist a$$es, and to have the minor detail of dead Americans expressed through this display be so unpalatable....or if I could borrow the accusatorial tone of a certain former U.S. Senator: un-American?

Is it un-American now to make a public statement that serves to simply quantify the loss of American life on foreign shores for murky or contentious reasons?

I leave that up to you, gentle reader.

But I will give you my response: no it's not un-American. It galls me that the GOP party had used its machinery to support goals that detract from the foundations of the great country. I'm not ashamed to be an American, but I'm ashamed of this current administration. For all the "San Francisco values" that the Democratic party has, I find it terribly ironic that the Republican party and its army of neo-conservative Faith-based zealots has in its ranks meth smoking and juicy gay-love pastors, and senators who IM congressional pages in hopes of scoring. Clinton might've lied about getting a BJ from Miss Lewinsky, but given the current state of affairs: which is a worse lie told to the American people: "I didn't do it with her", or "There are WMDs over there and a bad man in charge of them, and we need to send our boys and girls, and if necessary, to ask them to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to make this world a safer and more democratic place for all our children." What's worse? What would Kenneth Starr do? What would you rather spend your taxpayer dollars on: the investigation of an illegal BJ or lying to the American people, and the mis-appropriation of American funds and lives to support a war campaign to secure an American position in the Middle East ?

Gentle reader, please thrall me with your acumen.