Indictment Anxiety Relief!

If you're like me - and if your are, your parents are quite likely openly sobbing even as I type - then you may need a break from the mis-reports and just plain sloppy, baseless opinions being bandied about by the MSM, bloggers, and well, pretty much everyone with any manner of interest in what only Fitzgerald and very few others know.

Take a vacation.

If you've been following this for a time, you've earned it(not like the last one my employer bestowed upon me :))

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go over to Media Matters and poke around a bit.

There is a lot more going on than what I loathe to call 'Plamegate.' The reason that I am so very hesitant to use that term is that Watergate was essentially a cover-up of a burglary, whilst this latest White House criminal enterprise concerns the cover-up of the outing of a US intelligence person - in a time of war no less. AND, no one can say with any degree of certainty just how deep this rabbit-hole goes.

The difference in real harm done to the country differs by orders of magnitude - and that is from what we already know with a very high degree of probability.

So.....Go on over, and read most anything - or most everything. You'll emerge a truly more informed person, and with a little luck, just maybe your parents will be able to put down the box of tissues for a moment ;)

Template Watch!

Well, things are progressing at a snail's pace regarding the development of an it-works-with-the-new-Pyra/Blogger/Google-template with all browsers. I can alter the color to fix it in IE,(an ugly non-fix) but with my browser of choice -Firefox - the latest post has a huge area of whitespace under it. I am not a CSS guru, but I have done some tableless design, and usually can figure this stuff out.

I guess I'll burn the midnight oil over the weekend unless I get some revelation as to how to get this to display properly.

Updte: I just had a breakthrough of sorts. I now know what I need to do. I need to decouple(release the parent-child relationship) of two elements. That should put things right.

Those Wacky Iraqis

The CS Monitor is reporting that the Sunnis are putting together an anti-American coalition to give them some additional clout in Iraq's new parliament.

This vigorous new effort to participate is a complete reversal from the Sunni position last year that voters should boycott polls to select the transitional national assembly. But if the coalition has decided to join in a process it once rejected, it is also beginning to articulate a Sunni political agenda that is Islamist, vehemently anti-American, opposed to foreign troops, and discreetly pro-insurgency.

Many of the old Sunni leaders are gone, entangled in the insurgency, or in jail. These new leaders are hoping that they can begin to reverse a political posture that was hobbled in part by the January boycott.

"We will insist on participating in the next election by the help of almighty God," says Adnan Dulaimi, head of a group called Ahl Iraq, who has a reputation for religious devotion and toughness that elicits respect in some and fear in others.

The political platform of this evolving Sunni coalition, named the Iraqi Accord, still lacks focus beyond ensuring Sunnis aren't persecuted by a Shiite government. Nonetheless, the groups in the coalition so far are drawing up a list of candidates and have begun calling for Sunnis to vote in December elections.

Remember the name 'Iraqi Accord.' Whilst this initial step - a fight with words, rather than arms - is vastly preferred, it is almost certainly not the last we'll hear from the war torn country.

I urge my dear readers to take a moment and read the full article. It provides much more color than I have provided here; man on the street interviews and such.

Shorter Sunni issues: "We got dissed."

Fashionably Late

Okay, rather than bore my gentle readers with a long winded post about Intel's dropping of a great many of their server processors, I'll keep it brief.

Intel has stuck to its processor roadmap for far too long. The now quaint notion that the legacy style processor/core logic/front side bus is still a valid opttion for future development has finally been dropped by the Santa Clara chip giant.

They've wisely opted to adopt a strategy much like their small rival AMD has done. It's unclear what Intel will call this technology, but anyone familiar with the architecture of AMD's Opteron processors will immediately recognize this as a variant of HyperTransport.

For anyone that wants to really dig into this, and that probably amounts to a tiny fraction of my readers, I would suggest not reading anything more about the matter, and wait until either Brian Neal or Johan De Gelas at Ace's Hardware cut through the hype, and give you the story straight.

There's a lot of odd speculation by people not in the field at this point. I don't see that as serving anyone particularly well.

Diversity :)

Who'da thunk it?

"If a squirrel and a bunch of puppies can hang harmoniously, why can't we?" - SD McConnell (the headlock is nice touch :))

This is not a photoshop job. I have a full video clip sent by a friend.

On Edit: My niece DEMANDED credit for the caption quote. Sheesh.

Why 2K?

CNN is reporting that the 2000th American 'casualty' has died in Iraq.

Frankly, CNN(Certainly Not News) is by no means the definitive source on this matter, but the website Iraq Coalition Casualty Count is reporting 1999 confirmed as of 23 Oct. 2005, so it looks like CNN is most likely correct.

The post title wasn't meant to be snarky. I really do want to know why. Any readers here will more than likely have their own opinions - and they may all play a part, but in the final analysis it was all enabled by packs of lies and redirections.

Additional: 2000 American dead is more than we had in the first four years of Vietnam.

On Edit: Confirmed.

Hey, They're Only Iraqi Cops

From Knight-Ridder comes the latest in DOD graft.

WASHINGTON - When the Pentagon went shopping for seven armored cars for senior Iraqi policemen, U.S. officials turned to an Iraqi supplier to provide them some hardened Mercedes-Benzes.
After spending nearly $1 million, here's what they got: six vehicles with bad armor and run-down mechanics. They also were a little more than slightly used: The newest model was a 1996; the oldest, a 1994.

According to the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, the seventh auto is missing.

In a report released Monday, the inspector general said the Pentagon couldn't get its money back because it did such a bad job negotiating the no-bid deal.

In June, the Pentagon's Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq bought the seven Mercedes-Benzes for $135,000 each. They were supposed to include high-quality armor that could withstand high-velocity rifle shots.

There's much more at the above link.

Now, one would think that our people in Iraq would at least kick the tires before spending roughly a million dollars for seven, yes only 7 'armored vehicles.'

And some adjutant bean-counter should have maybe asked something like: "Hey, I see six vehicles here. Didn't we pay for seven?"

Somehow, the pollyanna-ish adage; "When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade" doesn't appear to fix this situation. The DOD bought lemons for sure. But these lemons are too bitter a pill. That the 'lemonade' adage doesn't apply here would be the main bullet-point of this paragraph. (I know how lousy that ghastly attempt at phrasing is..moving right along..)

On a more positive note, maybe the DOD will start using the newly designed vehix.com before purchasing any more vehicles. I know that their listings for armored personnel transport is small at present, but I'm told by an insider that they are moving forward with that module ;)

Testing Update!

If you can bear with me until I get my old template to work with the newish, ugly, off-site JS that Blooger/Google has deposited at the head of the page, I'll be blogging in earnest again.


Quick tip: In FireFox, only the top post seems to be effected - I LOATHE white space - and in IE, the layout looks okay, but again, there are things that I need to rectify prior to activley blogging again.


I'm not going to violate the TOS agreement simply to have a 'pretty' blog. I'll figure it out.

For the few of you that have been peeking in, I sincerely appreciate the conituned interest.

Additional: To see what the blog should look like, access this archived page

Update: I'm closing in the desired effect. Using a CSS editor, and removing some inline styles, the page displays like it did in the good old days.

Stay tuned!

TESTING!

Trying to get my template sorted

This new format doesn't like my perfectly usable old template. *sigh*

Today's GOP

Goering's Own Party

Select quote:

"Every person who opens the door -- as long as they're white -- I'll say, 'I'm James Hart. I'm running for Congress. My name will be on the ballot in the Aug. 5 Republican primary. I think white children deserve the same rights as everyone else.'"

This guy is a sick puppy.

Zoinks!

Awfully sorry about the lack of updates this past week.
 
I pulled another marathon week at the old lithography mill. We're doing work for Analog Devices.
 
I think that all I would post has already been said by others far more eloquently than I could ever hope.
 
One new and noteworthy item is that the DNC gave Kerry a far bigger boost in the polls than I would have thought...Actually, I did have that thought :)
 
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The only other item is one of a personal nature. An emailer asked me about my political philosophy.
 
In the interest of full disclosure, here it is:
 
Ideologically, I am an anarchist on the order of Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin. However, pragmatism trumps ideology in my case. Hence by practice I am somewhere in the liberal/libertarian sphere. This is not the neo-liberalism as evidenced by current trade policies which have done nothing to empower the third world. It can easily be shown that neo-liberal policies have been repressive and in fact have insured that the poor remain so..Or that their situations even worsen.
 
I'll expound on this in the near future.
 
One final note. I was in Boston during the past week, and whilst I noticed a increased police presence, this may be due the fact that I was conditioned to notice their increased presence. The big media tells us what to think about. They tell us what's important to their interests. Security issues are big news events in the post 9-11 world. The media insures that this remains so.
 
Corporate/government media(propaganda?) doesn't always tell us how to think, but they do tell us what to think about. The jump to the manipulation of how we think about issues is easily breached. We are indoctrinated at a young age, and fed a steady diet of half-truths, untruths and other assorted distortions. We are raised to be manipulated.

General Stuff

The Dems Bostonian lovefest begins in earnest today. C-SPAN has the goods. Tonight's scheduled speakers include: Fmr. Pres. Bill Clinton, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), Fmr. Pres. Jimmy Carter, and Fmr. Vice Pres. Al Gore.

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The housing market checked in with a surprisingly strong performance. Wall Street isn't impressed. It is almost a certainty that June's report will be the high-water mark for home sales(in this cycle). Last week's dismal report on building permits is the forward looking indicator..and it's not pretty.

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Buy Google at IPO? Is Google worth $39.1 Billion?

I won't be amongst the buyers.

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The newly free Iraqis are displaying oddly autonomous behavior. Don't they know that this is a conditional freedom?

Things are as deadly as ever in Iraq.

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Moore's film is in uncharted territory - for a documentary. $103.5 million and counting.

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Poll de jour

In a show of just how undemocratic the electoral process truly is, USA Today has polled 'battleground states.' You know, the few states that get all the money and attention lavished upon them because these states could go to either candidate.

For what it's worth, Kerry is polling better than Gore did in 2000 in the polled states, except for Florida.

The GOP and Science

It is stupefying that some members of the GOP think that there is a magical place where scientific research and politics meet and flourish.
 
From BioMed Central:

WASHINGTON, DC—Members of a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel yesterday (July 21) challenged senior Bush administration officials over the propriety of asking the political affiliations and policy positions of scientists being considered for federal government advisory committees.

"Is it inappropriate to ask their party affiliation?" John E. Porter, NAS committee chairman, questioned government witnesses yesterday. "There is no specific prohibition against asking it," replied Robert Flaak, senior policy adviser in the General Service Administration, which oversees laws regarding federal advisory committees. "I see no reason why that would be important. [But] there are cases, in a policy-related committee advising the president, where perhaps it could be of interest."

Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Science Subcommittee on Environment, Technology, and Standards, told the NAS panel that political viewpoint questions are indeed appropriate because scientific advisory committees represent "the nexus between politics and science."

"Scientists should not consider themselves to be a privileged class that is somehow above politics," said Ehlers, who is also a research physicist. "Scientists must be in touch, even in tune, with the political realities around them. Only by understanding the political process can scientists fully integrate science into decision-making."

But Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Government Reform Committee who has issued his own allegations of Bush administration interference with government science, disagreed. "When it comes to scientific advisory committees, I don't think that the politics of the president or the administration should play any role in the selection. It ought to be solely on the basis of the competence of the scientists."

The NAS Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy is seeking ways to encourage greater participation by scientists in government. Yesterday's meeting assumed heavy political overtones, coming amid continuing complaints by research and public interest groups that the Bush administration is politicizing science and science policy. The committee plans to release its recommendations shortly after the November elections.

The Union of Concerned Scientists earlier this month issued a report claiming "new evidence that the Bush administration continues to suppress and distort scientific knowledge and undermine scientific advisory panels." The report cited several instances in which candidates for National Institutes of Health (NIH) councils said they had been asked during interviews if they had voted for President Bush and whether they supported his policies.

Waxman is correct. The GOP has one engineer in the House. There are a couple of physicians, and that's all for those trained in 'hard science.'

The only "nexus between politics and science" should be whether to fund research project A or B. The same rules regarding scientists' voting patterns, and or party affiliations should be applied as religion is in Article VI of the U.S. Constitution wherein it states:

...The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

If you're from Michigan, and in Ehlers' district..send him home for the holidays. I think it's a good message to send :)
 
This is an issue that touches all of us. From real, unfettered research on climate change to stem cell work, there is arguably no more an important long term issue confronting us.

Lack of Updates

Sorry about the recent lack of updates. It is not that I have not read much to comment about, but a combination of home improvements(repairs?) and an awful case of some influenza-ish physical malady have left me without time and energy to post much.
 
I'll make an attempt to update tomorrow.

Housing - Down and Out?

I've held the view that this so-called economic recovery has been a lot weaker than the usual suspects have proclaimed.
 
(a quick search using the form in the LH column will give you a few dozen mentions)
 
This morning the Census Bureau released it's June 2004 numbers concerning new housing activity.
 
It's not pretty.
 
I'll give you the highlights as I see them.

• Construction of new homes in the U. S. slowed in June, falling 8.5 percent from May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.802 million.

 

• Starts of new single-family homes declined 9.5 percent in June to 1.489 million seasonally, the lowest level since May 2003.

 

• Building permits, a forward looking indicator, for single-family houses slid 6.2 percent to 1.51 million.

 

• Overall building permits tumbled 8.2 percent to 1.924 million units. It's the sharpest decline in permits in 10 years.

 

• Over the past five months, housing starts have averaged 1.926 million, down from last month's 1.952 million.

The number of homes already in the process of being built remains at high levels, but, and this is a big butt, building permits crashed.
 
As the housing market and consumer spending were the two legs holding this fragile economy together, if these housing start figures prove to be more than an aberration, then this could prove very damaging to the so-called economic recovery.
 
"The recent weak patch of economic news for June, on consumer spending, employment and industrial production, has not dented most economists' view of an economy reaching cruising speed". So reads a snippet of this Reuters' article detailing some poll numbers of economists' expectations for the balance of this year and next.
 
Me, I'm not an economist, but I do watch broad indicators of economic activity. I'd say that the glass is half-full, and someone's treating themself to a quenching drink.
 
The $64,000 question is of course, who is correct? Or are we all wrong?
 
I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the University of Michigan's Consumer Confidence Index rose slightly for July. Consumers are slightly more optimistic about the near future than in June, but will they continue to spend? Do they have any more credit with which to continue to spend?
 
Wages have lost money to inflation, and personal debt is at or near all-time record levels. Energy and food costs are way up, and this of course erodes consumers abilities to purchase hard goods - durables.
 
So, I'm less sanguine than the surveyed economists. This is not news. Time will tell if any of us are reading the tea leaves accurately. I use the price of copper as a measure of economic activity. While copper prices remain high, it is off it's peak, and the trend is beginning to turn murky. Copper could go either way at this juncture.
 
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Iran? Show me.
 
So, if some the 9-11 hijackers merely passed through Iran on their way to wherever, that's a lot less aid than the U.S. gave all of them. Now that's ugly.

Town Haller Needs History Lesson

At TownHall.com, where "The Conservative Movement Starts Here"(is conservatism a moving experience?), columnist Paul Jacob opines about Washingtonian hypocrisy on both sides of the aisle(which is really just one side).
 
Unfortunately, Mr. Jacob hits an area that I'm pretty well versed in. The writings of Madison are a special source of intrigue for me, and I know some of his writings quite well.
 
Here's what Jacob claims:

Much of the hypocrisy in Washington politics involves partisanship. It appears that ideas don't matter nearly as much as whether there is an R or a D stitched onto the chest of the idea's advocate.

Partisanship is winning out: Politics has become a football game with a blue team and a red team competing for all the prizes of power and money. The goal is to win the game by staying in office and by getting or keeping your team in the majority - so you as a congressman get the bigger and better slice of perks, pork, privileges, and power.

That's much different than the body of citizen representatives our Founders envisioned - men who would act not as part of the factions so feared by Madison, but as an independent board of directors to run government according to the rules, the Constitution, and for the benefit of us all as shareholders.

But our Founders' dreams are not today's reality. This can be seen in the reckless disregard for principle, and in the routine trivialization of ideas. The issues that so animate the citizenry have become mere objects to be used to win the game by the partisan professional politicians populating the nation's capitol.

First of all, the founders' of this country were indeed professional politicians. Or, at the very least, white men that could afford to take the necessary four months off in order to draft the Constitution and Articles of Amendment. This situation applied to all centralized governmental processes wherein those attending needed to physically meet.
 
Does that sound like the common worker of today, or does it more likely reflect the moneyed and privileged?
 
Madison was very class conscious. When he uses the word 'factions' he is using it as means to differentiate between the gentry - of which he was part - and the proletariat. The founders' - very much a class of ruling elites - wanted to control the political and social processes of the new country. Why else would the electoral have been written into the Constitution?
 
Lest you think I am in error, and that Madison meant something else when he used the term 'factions,' I refer you to the following text from Madison's Federalist Paper number 10:

The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good.

So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.

Now there you have the real Madison. Far from being a democratically minded product of the enlightenment, Madison was, as he wrote above, supremely conscious of class. He was a member of the ruling elite of the eighteenth century. Madison considered he and his class above the rabble, and together, they structured government in a way that would solidify and perpetuate his conceptions. Read the whole document. Ideologically, Madison had more in common with Marx than he does with the fabricated history that we are taught in school.
 
I'll be emailing Mr. Jacob with the entirety of Federalist Paper No. 10
 
He just might learn some real history :)
 
Before anyone asks me what I was doing at TownHall.com, I sometimes go there to see how much I don't fit into the reactionary cheerleader mold. It can be quite invigorating.
 
Besides, it's my birthday!
 
Birthday Update: Sarah McLachlan will not be performing at my birthday party later today. Something about 'doing her hair.' :)

Unsorted Stuff

First of all, I'd like to wish the folks at Blogger/Pyra/Google success with the new WYSIWYG blog editor. I think it sucks, but it should enable people even less qualified than me to publish their spurious opinions via a blog.
 
Now, on to a couple of news items.
 
I see that Allawi is going to get tough on terrorists. Which terrorists? USA Today reported earlier in the week that 2% of people being held in Iraqi jails and prisons were foreigners.
 
Allawi learned his lessons from the MI6 and the CIA very well. He's establishing a "security service" to deal with the "terrorists." One must keep in mind that Allawi was the teller of the infamous "45 minutes" claim.
 
Of course we don't know how much real support Allawi has amongst the Iraqi populace. Time will tell.
 
Relatedly, the unconflicted U.S. government is scolding the Filipino government for pulling troops out to spare a man's life. The U.S. NEVER negotiates with terrorists.
 
See: 1983 Beirut, Lebanon when another faux cowboy in White House, we did much the same...Nevermind, you're supposed to forget about that.
 
The other thing that caught my otherwise sleep deprived attention this morning was that Martha got 5 months in the joint, and another 5 months of "home detention." I'm sure she'll somehow make it through the 5 months confined to her stately Connecticut manor.
 
Now, we have to look at Kenneth "Kenny Boy" Lay. If Martha gets 10 months for making what - $20K? - Kenny Boy should get an "Arabian Crew Cut" if convicted :) (yes, I just made that up)
 
This WYSIWYG editor is a real step backwards. *sigh*

Success!!

The blog now renders acceptably well in IE at 800 x 600.

I think I'm done messing with the CSS for a while - okay, maybe a tweak here and there - but that's all.

Once I fill the blog up with topical stuff over the next week or so, I'll be engaging in a link swap drive.

I do have one really interesting item for you(at least I found it interesting). Karen Kwiatkowski was interviewed by Philip Dru back in May. You can D/L and listen to the interview by clicking on → this link ←. Neocon strategy explained by someone that was right there listening. There is a lot of material covered. It's almost an hour and a half, and well worth your time. In my humble opinion. It's a 10MB D/L. If you'd rather listen to the interview in streaming audio, here's a dial-up friendly 16k stream.

Die Wirtschaft

Sorry about my use of German for the entry title(The economy) but I'm reading Marx. I'm concurrently reading Keynes so I'm more than a little confused about economic theory at present :)

No worries though, as real world economics are vibrant and many faceted things that seem bent on confounding theories and rendering equations useless..or else we're all being mislead. Nah. That could never happen.

The state of the U.S. economy seems to be wiltering under the summer heat.

The labor market is loosening, producer prices slipped unexpectedly in June, and the housing market - which has been the bulwark of economic strength all throughout the last four years - is cooling as sure as interest rates are rising.

All told, the stimulus from the Bush tax cuts appear only in the rear-view mirror. The various talking heads that were raving about Bush's economic plan were directly benefitting from it.

For those of you using IE at a resolution of 800 x 600, help is on the way. I have a couple of days to reapply the old template and it'll be right as rain.

Back on Thursday

I have been on a data recovery crusade..I lost the working template to pure bs - that is, that template that works in the utterly useless IE browser at 800 x 600.

So, I'm using a linked stylesheet to reconstruct the template...essentially reverse engineering the blog template via a stylesheet.

If I could spend a few uninterrutpted hours on the template, I'd have it done. Unfortunately, Thursday July 15 is the soonest I'll be able to work on it.