From The Loonatic Left

Washington Post - ABC News Poll

I do not dispute that the President has taken some hits in his popularity since the last election...however this theme was the same theme pounded constantly by the same pollsters right up until the last election.  Their polls showed consistently that the President was not popular...the problem they attributed this too was the Economy.  That was then...today is a new day...of course we have the same old media.

Today...what a surprise!  Another election is coming around and the media have again found that the President is not popular.  I'm shocked!  Shocked!

I thought this was the best question they asked in the poll:

Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as:

Democrat  32%   Republican  29%  Independent  33%   Other  5%  No Opinion  1%

Start off with a 3% advantage for Democrats, only sample 1/3 as Republicans; throw in some others...Green party? (5%) say an 8% advantage...and you find that a country which was divided 54% to 46% an 8% difference of opinion during the election in November 2004 is...hey...8% again!

Manufacture a huge headline and story...and continue the self deception of liberals everywhere!  I can picture the discussion:

"We've got an election coming up and need another negative Bush poll.  We haven't had one in a couple of weeks"  said the experienced journalist.

"So what do we want to attribute this too?"  asked the rookie journalist?

"Iraq and some thing else...I know gasoline prices!"  answered the experienced journalist.

"How are we going to document that?"  asked the rookie journalist?

"Simple to do, all we need to do is ask people a leading question like...Are you pleased with the job the President is doing in keeping gasoline prices down!" answered the experienced journalist.

You think I'm kidding?

"2. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Bush is handling the situation with gasoline prices?   

Yes: 22%,  No: 73%, No Opinion: 6%"

One question for the pollsters...what is Bush supposed to do to 'handle the situation with gasoline prices?'  Answer from the journalist:  "Quick look over there!"

"More ominously for the president, six in 10 Americans said there are steps the administration could take to reduce gas prices. Slightly more than a third say the recent run-up has been due to factors beyond the administration's control.

"I supported him last year," said Gina Coleman, 29, a homemaker living in Camden County, N.J. "I wouldn't vote for him again. It's gas prices, the war -- just the way he has been handling things. The rise in gas is something that has been happening for a long time, and the prices are getting worse. This makes me feel more negative about him, definitely."

Right the President is responsible for Gas Prices too...he also sits in the Oval Office and plans your dinner menu for the week when he is finished setting gas prices.

You Can Really See The Pain...or Something...

Cindy Sheehan mourning with the most Reverand Al Sharpton.

Clearly this touching photograph captures the pain and grief of loss that Cindy Sheehan feels.  My heart goes out to her and I offer my sincerest condolences for her loss.

Look at the mournful expression on Al Sharpton's face.  He is clearly feeling Cindy's pain and has all of the outward manifestations of a holy man offering what comfort he can to a woman who has become inconsolable in her grief.

How can anyone criticize such a sincere expression of grief and pain.  My heart goes out to her.

Unless you use a wider lens...

"OK everyone that was pretty good!  Now Reverand Sharpton...can you emote a little more for the cameras next time.  And for God sake Cindy...you are inconsolable with grief...got it?  OK I don't have all day here...when say 'now' I want everyone looking really sad.  Ready?  Now!"  <click>

"That's a wrap."

(from Little Green Footballs)

I'm Convinced Now

I have carefully studied the positions of Cindy Sheehan and I have just decided that I can no longer morally support this war.  I know this is going to shock many of you, especially those who are familiar with most of my prior thinking about the causes and justifications for the war.  I'm very sorry if some of you feel as though you have been misled or betrayed.

Why has this happened?  Really it is the irrefutable logic of her arguments that has ultimately convinced me.  I've decided to summarize the most persuasive of them here:

1. I believed before our leaders invaded Iraq in March, 2003, and I am even more convinced now, that this aggression on Iraq was based on a lie of historic proportions and was blatantly unnecessary.
2. The so-called Downing Street Memo dated 23 July, 2003 only confirms what I already suspected: the leadership of this country rushed us into an illegal invasion of another sovereign country on prefabricated and cherry picked intelligence.
3. Iraq was no threat to the United States of America.
4. When a President lies to Congress and the American people, it is a serious offense. If the Downing Street Memo proves to be true, then it would appear that the president, vice president and many members of the cabinet deceived the world before the invasion of Iraq.
5. I believe that the reasons that we citizens of the United States of America were given for the invasion of Iraq have unequivocally been proven to be false.
6. Why is this lying bastard taking a 5-week vacation in a time of war? He doesn't deserve to go to Crawford, he deserves to go to prison.
7. What can we do to get him out of power? I'm gonna say the word. Impeach. And we have to have everybody impeached that lied to the American public, and that's the executive branch, and any people in congress; We can't let somebody rise to the top who will pardon these war criminals. Because they need to go to prison for what they've done in this world.
8. This is George Bush's Accountability moment.
9. Dear Elected Officials: When are you all going to take back your constitutional authority from the maniac in the White House?  If you all won't protect us, who will?  We are seriously screwed and you all sit back and let the administrative branch take away our freedoms and foist criminals on us: people with no humanity or regard for our American Constitution or humanity. People like Alberto Gonzales and John Negroponte and most recently, John Bolton...torturers and murderers, to name a few.  You in fact are complicit in stealing our freedoms by extending the un-Constitutional and un-Patriotic Patriot Act.  Have you all lost your minds?
10. I see a revolution coming...it won't be violent, it will be a peaceful revolution. We don't want to lower ourselves to the level of our government.
11. People are sick and tired of what's going on in America today. We are finished allowing him to get away with deceiving the American public and abusing his power. We are mad as hell and we're not taking it anymore. We the people have to hold George Bush accountable. We have to make sure he answers to us. If he doesn't have to answer to Congress, or the media, we will force him to answer to us.
12. You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism. 
13. That lying bastard, George Bush, is taking a five-week vacation in time of war. You get that maniac out here to talk with me in person. 
14. The other thing I want him to tell me is 'just what was the noble cause Casey died for?' Was it freedom and democracy? Bull***t! He died for oil. He died to make your friends richer. He died to expand American imperialism in the Middle East. 
15. It’s okay for Israel to occupy Palestine, but it’s – yeah – and it’s okay for Iraq to occupy – I mean, for the United States to occupy Iraq, but it’s not okay for Syria to be in Lebanon. They’re a bunch of f***ing hypocrites!
16. I was raised in a country by a public school system that taught us that America was good, that America was just. America has been killing people, like my sister over here says, since we first stepped on this continent, we have been responsible for death and destruction. I passed on that bull***t to my son and my son enlisted. I’m going all over the country telling moms: This country is not worth dying for. 
17. 9/11 was their Pearl Harbor to get their neo-con agenda through and, if I would have known that before my son was killed, I would have taken him to Canada. I would never have let him go and try and defend this morally repugnant system we have. 

Boy I don't know about you, but I'm convinced!  I can certainly see why she is getting tons of free positive media coverage, this lady really knows her stuff.  I can certainly understand why liberals are convinced that she can persuade the American public.  This bus tour is going to be incredible!  I want to see more media coverage and maybe a few prime time press conferences!  Just let Cindy speak to the American people directly, end this silly media filter.  We need to hear directly from Cindy without the biased press twisting her words!

With the kind of piercing logic she displays here...Wow...if she had been more vocal we probably never would have had to do anything about September 11th or terrorism at all!

In fact with the kind of leadership she's suggesting, we could have dozens of September 11ths and never feel like we had to do anything about it!  (See here and here for quote sources)

Oh...and...Dennis Kucinich for President!

Comparing Kosovo with Iraq

To his credit Howard Kurtz engages in an on-line chat with readers at the Washington Post web site.  It is likely that his short inadequate answer reflected the medium he was forced to use but this is such an inadequate response that he should issue a clarification:

"Alexandria, Va.: The war in Kosovo ended with almost no lost of American life. Why hasn't the Press compared the difference between Iraq and Kosovo. We must of did something right in Kosovo.

Howard Kurtz: In fairness, the U.S. role in Kosovo mainly involved an air war, which is what resulted in so few American casualties. Iraq not only involved large numbers of ground troops, but they didn't get to go home once the Saddam regime fell."

The war in Kosovo for those who are challenged in the research or memory department was an abysmal failure.  We are still in Kosovo...the war has not ended and by any measure was not a very successful mission.  Sadly many people measure success by the poorly chosen metric of 'loss of soldier life', as though a war is a video game not the military solution to a problem.  The goal of a war is to solve a problem, failure is defined as not solving the problem.  There is no other measure.

It is possible, of course, to have a pyhric victory.  That is a victory where the goal is met but the cost exceeds the benefit. Measuring this type of victory is a very subjective process.  I hardly think that even the harshest 'rational' (note the qualifier here) critic of the Iraq war would consider a stable Islamic Democracy a pyhric victory; unless the loss of life were to be substantially higher than it appears it will be at this point.  

It is not possible to have a successful military campaign which does not accomplish the purpose for the campaign or solve the problem the campaign was designed to solve.  That is the very definition of the War in Kosovo.  A victory?  Not even close.  Only if the war was designed to help along the genocide of the Albanians, could this war have been considered successful.  Only a liberal Democrat anxious to protect the reputation of the Clinton administration would even consider the possibility that this war...still going on...was successful.

P.J. O'Rourke wrote about the Kosovo campaign the following observation (I'm doing this from memory so please assume that it's not perfect):

"You could tell from the structural damage who was responsible for which pile of rubble, if it was an entire village burned to the ground it was Serbians; if the damage was just to individual houses it was the Albanian separatists; if the damage was to a bridge going to nowhere, or an empty warehouse it was the international alliance bombing to avoid hurting anyone.  If it was useless, unoccupied and unwanted you can bet that it would be bombed."  This (or something like it) was in his book: Peace Kills.

Eventually there will be peace in Kosovo...when the ethnic cleansing is done.  Meanwhile peace is maintained by international troops who will still be there long after the Coalition has left Iraq.  So much for a successful war.

A Re-cycled Post About a Secular Iraq

This is recycled from here.

The point I was trying to make is still valid.  Given our secular culture as portrayed by the media, imagine the reaction of the Iraqi people to the idea of a secular government.  They don't want this!  Who would?

Do we really think that Iraqis are going to want to become a hedonistic culture?  Because that is the cultural message our TV and media outlets broadcast and nothing else either sane or sensible makes it onto the airwaves or into print!  Try explaining that the majority of this country actually rejects the behaviors televised nightly and that this is just 'entertainment'.  I'm sure that explanation has been attempted...and has been unsuccessful.  We have become so desensitized by our permissive and explicit culture that we can't see that depravity has become the norm...at least in our media productions.

If we wonder why countries would reject our governing model, the culprit may actually be how our media portrays our culture.

My prediction:  The United States will be unable to develop a secular government in Iraq because the media output of this country...our public face if you will...is abhorent to all right thinking persons.  Sadly nothing else makes it onto our media but the outrageous and the inane; therefor our country and culture is judged by that output.  Neither Iraqis or anyone else in the world wants to live like our media output says we live. 

This is our biggest cultural failure and now is probably hampering the spread of democracy.  What a price to pay for our low-brow Hollywood culture.  'Democracy, Whiskey, Sexy'...Indeed.

What happened to the Economy?

Is it just me or...has this issue just dropped off of the radar screen of every media outlet in the country. 

"Paging Paul Krugman...Paul Krugman...please call your office!"

I have a few questions I would like some tax cut opponents to answer (Krugman especially):

1. Why have we had huge job creation over the past year and a half?
2. Why have we had a huge reduction in budget deficits despite an increase in Federal spending?
3. How is it possible to have job growth, economic growth, reducing deficits and low taxes?
4. Where is the pending economic collapse you and every liberal Democrat was harping about?

To members of the media:  Where are the millions of unemployed?  The homeless?  The under-employed?  You wrote about them constantly during the last election...remember?

Special question to Lou Dobbs on CNN:  Where are the employees who have lost their jobs to cheap overseas labor?  This was your pet issue and you pounded upon it constantly...now...nothing.

One thing to keep in mind...this economic turn-around was accomplished during a war, after a terrorist attack, after the corporate accounting scandals, during a huge oil price spike and despite a constant negative barrage of media coverage.  If there are any proponents left who still cling to the notion that tax cuts 'hurt the economy', the past two years must be an embarrassingly difficult aberration to explain.

One last thought...where would the economy be today if oil prices had not doubled?  It staggers the imagination.

Sheehan's Grief

I swore I was not going to write about this 'story'.  Not because I am at all concerned about the impact, sorry that is just not going to happen; but because the mother is clearly having a very public nervous breakdown.  How is my writing about her phony cause any different from the reprehensible behavior of the anti-war activists who are exploiting this woman's mental illness for their pet political crusade?  Answer...no difference at all.

So why am I writing this post?  To urge everyone to leave this poor woman alone and let her work through the stages of grief alone without the TV cameras pressed into her face. 

It is awful enough to lose a child; this lady has lost not just her child, but also her husband, her family and her friends.  Those who have gathered around her now are not her friends, they are leeches looking to bask in the publicity this woman's private grief has created.  (Can Jesse Jackson be far behind?)  At some point in the future, if she even survives this ordeal, this lady will be horrified at her own behavior.  Where will these new 'friends' be then?  On to find another victim to 'enjoy'.

Even if I were at all sympathetic to the anti-war cause, this most recent display of opportunistic behavior by the anti-war wing of the Democratic party would have soured me to the movement beyond repair.  It is one thing to oppose military action in Iraq, I believe that is a misguided cause and we can discuss our points of view rationally; but it is quite another to stoop to this level of abuse.  Trying to use a grieving and probably mentally ill woman to advance a political argument...eww!

To hear some anti-war activists, they actually believe that this patently offensive behavior will help their cause!  You know maybe Sheehan is not the only one suffering from mental illness.

More Intelligent Design Reaction

"Me thinks he doth protest too much!"  William "Billy" Shakespeare

First read this article in the Washington Post.

Now let's see...we have vindictive know-it-all reactions from a group of scientists who are trying to discredit and assassinate the character of a person who had the audacity to allow a scientist to publish a paper which questioned evolutionary theory.  Who...I ask you...is the fundamentalist?  Is it the person who dares to challenge the status quo?  No.  A fundamentalist is a person who refuses to consider and reacts violently to any idea which questions a cannon of belief.

These scientists, and believe me I am using the term loosely here, are behaving like fundamentalist dingos.  I would expect a similar reaction from Islamic fundamentalists when you question the Koran.  "How dare you threaten my belief system!" This type of visceral reaction suggests to me that there is something really wrong here.

What are they hiding?  How about the fact that genetic research has blown a huge hole in their fundamentalist thinking?  Here is a wonderfully instructive quote:

"Not long after that, Smithsonian scientists asked Sternberg to become the unpaid editor of Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, a sleepy scientific journal affiliated with the Smithsonian. Three years later, Sternberg agreed to consider a paper by Stephen C. Meyer, a Cambridge University-educated philosopher of science who argues that evolutionary theory cannot account for the vast profusion of multicellular species and forms in what is known as the Cambrian "explosion," which occurred about 530 million years ago.

Scientists still puzzle at this great proliferation of life. But Meyer's paper went several long steps further, arguing that an intelligent agent -- God, according to many who espouse intelligent design -- was the best explanation for the rapid appearance of higher life-forms.

Sternberg harbored his own doubts about Darwinian theory. He also acknowledged that this journal had not published such papers in the past and that he wanted to stir the scientific pot.

"I am not convinced by intelligent design but they have brought a lot of difficult questions to the fore," Sternberg said. "Science only moves forward on controversy." (emphasis added)

Yes it is awfully hard to support a theory which can't explain why the scientific facts don't fit it.  If genetic mutations were the reason for the vast array of life forms, why does that not work today?  How can mere genetic mutation explain the fossil existence of thousands and thousands of life forms coming into existence all at once?  Answer...it can't.

So why are we clinging to a purported scientific theory that fails to satisfy the standards of scientific proof?  Answer...an orthodox fundamentalist mentality.  I believe it was Bertrand Russel who said, "If philosophy can have revolutions, it can have it's fundamentalists too."  Apparently the same thing can be said for some scientists.

Krugman Is Right!!??!!?!

Hey even a blind squirrel sometimes finds a nut!

Krugman in this New York Times column delivers a essay which is going to provide him an 'I told you so'.  He is writing about the housing bubble and he makes some extremely valid points that should be of concern to everyone.  Rather than reflexively dissing the guy because of his reprehensible behavior in the past, some of you might just want to listen up.

First off the housing bubble actually exists and there has been evidence that the air is coming out of that bubble.  Why is this a problem?  A little history lesson...when real estate values fall, bad economic shit happens.  Texas...1980's...any questions?  Oh probably tons but let me start wading through the connections.

First...the Texas economic train wreck was oil connected but the housing and real estate devaluation took on a life of its own.  Sure the bottom falling out of the oil market started that ball rolling but when folks quit paying mortages because they have no income and no one wants to buy their house, the holders of those mortgages start to bleed as bankruptcies and foreclosures begin sapping resources.  Banks...failed...often.

Fast forward to some of the regional bubbles...houses are so expensive that to own them people have been entering into interest only adjustable rate mortages.  This means in simple english that the jobs in those markets do not pay enough money to support the purchase prices for real estate in those markets.  What happens when demand is less than supply?  The price drops...right?

Stay with me here...it gets even worse.

When two thirds of the housing market is financed through interest only adjustable rate loans with call provisions...what happens when real estate values stop rising?  Oops...  We have houses worth less than the mortgage amounts, financed through interest only mortgages made to people who could not afford the mortgage if they had to pay principal.  You see they were counting on the rise in home values to use the equity to buy into a house before they had to pay down principal...but what if the houses don't go up in value?

If people can't afford their mortgages and default...it causes foreclosures and bankruptcies...just like Texas.  If over 66% of some regional markets are financed through interest only ARMs those markets are going to tank...far worse than Texas in the 80's.  You actually have morons buying houses on speculation and trying to flip them!  These folks are what will be known as defendants in a few months when they are foreclosed upon and plaintiffs a few months later when they are forced to file bankruptcy.  Here's a clue for you...banks will fail...again.

We are soooo close to being there today.

The housing bubble is the product of two things:

1. Speculative investment; and
2. Lack of supply.

The first is a by-product of the second.  If interest only mortgages were not available, the housing prices would be unsupportable because the population of buyers who could afford the price would not exist.  By using a speculative investment tool like interest only debt, buyers are able to stretch and meet the monthly payments.  These buyers are gambling that rising housing prices will provide them the equity the need when they get ready to sell.

The lack of supply is a product of two things, zoning and population density.  There are some markets which have been artificially inflated by zoning (Portland and Seattle come to mind), but many markets in the Northeast and California are inflated because of population density.  Demand does exceed supply but incomes do not support the astronomical prices.

The bottom has not fallen out of these markets but only a fool would believe that the torrid pace of housing inflation will continue.  Say it with me...Krugman is right!

Intelligent Design Debate

So...should intelligent design be taught at schools?  Yes or No?

I say yes.  I say yes for two very  important reasons. 

1. It is a philosophical question, not a religious question.  Failing to permit students to think about philosophical questions sounds like an incomplete education to me. 
2. We permit the teaching of evolution, which just like intelligent design appears to only get you so far before you slam into the unknown and unknowable.  Favoring one religion (atheism) over any other is inappropriate.

Before anyone tries the old tired phrase regarding the separation of church and state, permit me to remind them that this was a phrase used in a letter to Methodist ministers...it is not a constitutional document.  I have posted on this phrase in the past...don't make me find it and link it!

Frankly we have carried the principal of church/state separation just a tad too far in my opinion.  When students are not permitted to even know that there might be any disagreement over a scientific theory, aren't we behaving just a little bit like a totalitarian state?  "You must not discuss subject matters that the State deems inappropriate!"  snarls the KGB Officer...or the atheist to the school board (same thing eh?).  What are we raising a bunch of little atheistic commies?

We should recognize that the prohibition about 'making no law' was meant to protect religious expression...not banish it.  Sadly we have completely incompatible religious expressions amongst the citizenry.  Were we to try and teach every religious creationism theory along side the atheistic evolutionary theory, students would be taught little else.  ...but is it too much to ask that at least some mention be made of the lack of philosophical certainty of the origin of the universe?