ward of the church

VOTE
* how long does it take the iraqis to rewrite 8million ballots? shouldnt they have done it before the election?

* dickmorris is doing the rice4pres thing again - which i wouldnt normally mention, except that i also saw some fauxnews people gratuitously floating the idea yesterday as well. http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Comment/DickMorris/020905.html

WAR
* iranian drumbeats louder louder louder. shorter increments. what the fuck are the ams gonna do? seriously? whatever it is, it looks increasingly imminent. which is really scary. at least with the iraq invasion you could see what was happening - u knew they were gonna go to the unsc to try to get some pretense of legitimacy and they were gonna invade with an army plus some shock&awe. the problem with the iran bit is that the ams are so far outside of international law that the unsc stamp is irrelevant (which also eliminates the presumed timing constraint). and there arent any troops that the ams can call on - even if they announced the draft today, the timeframes simply dont seem to fit. and this nonsense of toppling the regime by supporting pro-democracy groups internally? i wont even dignify that... the crystal ball isnt working great - i cant see what they are gonna do - the israeli flyover thing? the cost of that being 'successful' is truly scary, and the cost of it not being 'successful' is almost unthinkable. and how long before iran gets kinda pre-emptive on am arse? if u do some quick war-gaming - what result do u get? the iranians could already legally/legitimately claim that war has been declared given the am flyovers. evil cometh - im not sure what it looks like, and i fear its cos not even my imagination is sufficiently dark

AMDOM
* lynnestewart gets the brian mayfield treatment, but better. http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/11/1545229

* it seems the 911FAA report is different to the CIA/tenet report that i mentioned yesterday

* about the FAA report - the thing prolly isnt that it was delayed 5 months till after the election (and rice's nom) - but why much of that info wasnt known 3 years ago. we knew about the warnings from russia/france/germany etc forever ago - way b4 911comm.

* theindependent links the FAA report to sibel - for some reason. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=609895

* jeffgannon is pathological. ill try not to write much more about it...

* krug "It may sound shrill to describe President Bush as someone who takes food from the mouths of babes and gives the proceeds to his millionaire friends. Yet his latest budget proposal is top-down class warfare in action." its really quite astonishing - for the sake of a few $, they destroy guarantee themselves badpress - foodstamps??? its as though they intentionally construct the message that they are destroying the basic safety net. i dont get it. alienate millions of voters for the sake of what? theyve prolly already got most rich votes, and they prolly cant buy those they havent got already. and the poor/rich ratio is prolly at least 20-to-1 anyways. or 50-to-1. and they arent really trying to save money - or balance the budget or anything like that. krugman rightly calls it 'class-war' - but to what end? and to call it 'ideological' is prolly true to some extent - but can that really explain it? maybe they are gonna send everyone broke & then re-institute a poll tax? there must be a rational explanation in there somewhere - but i cant see it yet. suggesting that these people are ideological is way too generous as far as i can tell. or even delusional - it assumes that theres some intellectual integrity. (i have the same problem calling the neocons 'ideologues' - i dont think theres a single one of em who actually wants to 'spread democracy'). maybe cutting welfare is a population control thing - more dead poor people means fewer people. although the over-population argument requires some semblance of intellectual purity, which im not really prepared to ascribe to them - and besides, 'overpopulation' is essentially an environmental/green problem - so u'd have to see some consistency in their enviro policies to buy that story. or maybe cutting welfare is designed to make the armedforces look like an attractive career option - 'you'll prolly die but your kids can eat. until u die.'. jonk was worried that not enough kids had healthcare, blinky thinks too many of them are eating. sweet.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/11/opinion/11krugman.html?hp

* "At this very moment, there are millions of conservatives across the land who, unbeknown to them, will soon develop an intense personal loathing for Nevada Sen. Harry Reid." http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-chait11feb11,0,2840209.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

* "A surprising 81% of respondents believed that income above the current cap of $90,000 should be taxed... this would fix the system completely with no benefit cuts" any solution other than this seems immoral. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_02/005627.php

* wapo polling fun: "49% of the country thinks foreign aid is one of our two biggest programs." and 10% think foodstamps are in the top 2. ftr: the list offers them 5 choices defense/mil, medicare, socsec, foodstamps and foreignaid. maybe they think the lil iraqi experiment falls under 'foreign aid'... cos it is right? (separately, apparently 51% of voters thought blinky would be a better president than jonk).
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_02/005623.php


OTHER
* "Geraldo: "My Constitutionally Protected Opinion That Michael Jackson Is Not Guilty"" parently faux news is concerned that there wont be sufficient suspense in the trial of the century - unanimity doesnt make for great teeve. (ftr i think that geraldo is prolly correct - but i question his motivation)
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/fnc/geraldo_my_constitutionally_protected_opinion_that_michael_jackson_is_not_guilty_733.asp

* theres a rodstewart tribute band headlining at the local version of carnivale. toto, this aint rio.

* i kinda like chemicalbrothers' "left right" on the new album - "what’s the difference between Bush and Saddam?" - its a lot like eminems' mosh tho - lotsa people are coming up with the same ideas... not surprisingly. apocalypse and/or riots and/or fascism/marching/stomping