Digby's View Point

Digby concludes:

You know, when I wrote at the beginning of this post that deficits were worse than terrorists, I was exaggerating. Now, I realize they are actually going to go there. Oh boy.

But, of course! The terraists are merely a toy to distract the so smalls. But deficits? Sacre Bleu! They steal from the Noblesse! From, oui, Me.
--ml
Classified ad:
Bijou oil can shack. Magnificent view of  all invaders. Willing staff available for peanuts. Ready to move in for right rentier. Contact Peter Peterson for details.

That's about Right

Digby posts about Tony Blair's testimony:

"I have learned absolutely nothing and have no regrets whatsoever about being completely wrong about everything."

I want the t-shirt. I do! I do! I do!

--ml

Is Imagination Wasted on Children?

Or only on school boards?
Literature, like enoki, should not be wasted on children. Fortunately there is no question that Magnetic Betty, another effort by Rob Hunter, is literature. For one thing, its cover does not proclaim that it's word choice is level appropriate, or class specific or meet any other double entendre friendly rubric. This means that this volume is not approved by the Global Council for Excessive Explanation of Pointless Innuendo's Dumb Down Project (GCEEPI:DDP). This relieves all serious adults of any responsibility to attend the remainder of this review.
Now, for the rest of us:  Yes! Rob Hunter has done it again! He has added a highly polished small industrial diamond to the crown wrought by Carroll, Sendak, Thurber, and a few others.  Too few others for our own good. With the omelette pan I join in giving this book a full "zoop!"
It is available from Lulu, or through Rob himself. You have your directions -- follow them!
--ml
This update is to correct a terrible omission. This tale is splendidly illustrated by Lee Suta, a superb choice to complement Rob. My apologies to Mr. Suta.

Welcome Gargantuan Tails!

John McKay of Archy, one of the eldest denizens of my blogroll, is branching out.
Going all uptown and market tuned he has a brand new blog:

Mammoth Tales will feature science journalism, science education, history of science, and maybe a little plain old history in those fields that I feel comfortable commenting on. I plan to offer links to stories that I find interesting, even if I don't have much to add to the stories. Moving away from science, I like good conspiracy theories, pseudo-science, and hidden histories. Expect an occasional deconstruction of those ideas. I also like to expose bad writing about science and history. But, there will also be mammoths.

This is excellent news! A very fine writer is extending his proboscis in a sinuous way to delight all who treasure the revelation of curious truth and deflation of pernicious myths. Keep your eye on it -- the book, Mammoth Tales, is coming soon.
(You can also follow him on twitter (archymck).
--ml

Which Shell Covers the Pea?

Kevin Drum opines:

Aside from tax cuts, George Bush spent eight years in the White House and really wasn't able to advance the conservative agenda in any major way at all.

Create Department of Homeland Security (whose primary mission is to prepare the populace for life in a police state)
Invade Afghanistan
Invade Iraq
Dismantle FEMA
Undermine Social Security by tying it to Medicare and soring healthcare costs
Increase payroll taxes
Emasculate FISA courts
Assert and maintain Executive privileges.
Claim unprecedented executive powers
Deprive Congress of its control of the purse.
Shift the federal court system far to the right.
Discredit scientific information
Loot the treasury twelve ways from Sunday
Operate an exceedingly corrupt administration without legal consequense
Abrogate international treaties on arms control and torture

No, Kevin, The Republican agenda didn't budge in the past decade. And because of the above the Democrats dither that they may have stepped too far to the left.
--ml

Ad Copy Revision

As published the headline reads:

In the past seven years
the dollar is down 40%.
Gold is up over 400%.
What's in your Pocket?

Bills, and lint.
--ml

Slightly Holidazed*

* Stolen from Bun Rab the boy drummer as inimitably limned by W. Kelly of the soft brown eyes.
--ml

Camouflage

Froma Harup via DemFromCT at Daily Kos notes:

Many have bemoaned the near-extinction of the political species known as the moderate Republican.

Closer observation suggests that this subset thrives now as Democrats.
--ml

The Choice

U. Utah Phillips related one iteration of the situation:

After half a dozen attempts at providing such health care as we are able to give evenly throughout the community, our most recent attempt began feebly and was negotiated sillier and sillier. The sausage machine is not done with it yet. The final bill -- the one that gets signed into law -- if it is passed will be different. Not much better most likely. Hopefully not too much worse.
Some will call it inadequate. Some will call it the best we can do to start now.  And that's just the ones who want a bill.
The samurai in the kabuki will stamp their feet on the most resonant part of the stage they can find. The choice before us will be viewed with alarm. Called: Very grave.
The signing, if it happens, will be lauded as a major historic achievement.
In every possible outcome, people will continue to die prematurely because someone whose life was not threatened demanded cash to serve. The difference is how many die. The difference is how many bankruptcies. The difference is how many divorces, how many abandonments. The difference is how much avoidable pain we accept.
The choice is truly simple. Pass this bill and -- without remit -- work to make it better. Or kill the bill and watch another generation pass before congress critturs muster enough intestinal fortitude to make another try.
Let's eat our shit sandwich now and then roll up our sleeves to replace the cooks.
--ml

Ten Years On

Goldy at HorsesAss.org fulminates over Joel Connelly's column in the PI which is rather dismissive of the WTO demonstrations in Seattle on Novomber 30, 1999. The title here links to that post which is worthy of attention.
Diana and I were among the demonstrators that breezy fine Northwest fall day. That Christmas I circulated the following account of the experience to friends and far flung relations.

By and large and by training, I am a free trader. That is, I believe that all would be better served if there were no governmental impediments to the movement of ideas, people and goods from any country to any other. Such a world would find the best widgets made in one place, perhaps; but readily available, and affordable, everywhere because every other place specalized in what they did best of all the world.
Best product naturally includes consideration for the environment, for a widget made in a dirty manner is less good than one made cleanly.
In my naivete I did my small best to support, the GATT, NAFTA and the WTO Treaty.
Since when I have looked about me and discovered that the promises of free trade do not appear. Yes we “boom” and have “low” unemployment. Prices have not fallen. The world is not cleaner. The ratio of worker wages to boss wages has not risen equally. Looking further I discover that these agreements have little to do with free trade. Rather they set the rules by which capitalists pillage the rest of us and the planet.
The US supports free trade, yet we pay more than three times the world price of sugar in order that some few dozens of agri-businesses will continue to grow sugar beets at a loss made good by corporate welfare in the belief that thereby we save the family farm.
Free trade is not the layoff of a US worker at $25,000 per year to be replaced by two Mexican workers at $5,000 per year each, with the $15,000 savings going to top up the CEO’s million dollar bonus.
Free trade is about raising the standards of the world to the very best we have anywhere on the globe, and then finding ways to make that standard higher. The WTO does not have that goal anywhere in its agenda.
So Diana and I went to the AFL/CIO demonstration to protest that fifty years of “free” trade has brought so much to the veriest few at the cost of all of us.
We: trade unionists, environmentalists and other interested groups filled the stands and field at Memorial Stadium to oveflowing. One of the parking lots, more than a city block in size, was filled with busses. Perhaps more were, I didn't see all of them.
At the rally before the march we heard from the heads of Green Peace, The Sierra Club and other groups. Trade unionists from Europe, Africa, India and China spoke of the devasation caused by the world’s present un-free trade.
The people present were not just from around Seattle. They came from 144 countries in ones, tens, or hundreds. Over 40 of the busses were from Canada.
In all I believe the AFL/CIO estimate of 50,000 people. The published figures, which in two days dribbled from “35,000 non-violent demonstrators and 5,000 violent activists”, to “20,000 demonstrators of whom 5,000 caused the trouble,” were edited to suit editorial fears.
At one point I decided to find the porta-facility before the long march began. By the time I came out, everyone was flowing out of the stadium towards the street. Guess leadership just shines through. This meant that Diana and I were separated by a sea of bodies. We spent the next half hour hunting for each other. We joined up before the March had ambled more than a block or two.
I had expected a parade with folks marching under the banners of their affiliation. Didn’t get it. This was free form. At one point we found ourselves marching under an immense green “condom” promoting “safe” trade. Before long we were engulfed in a scurry of teen age turtles speaking Canadian.
A mother carried a babe asleep. “Now he’ll sleep through anything!” says she.
Longshoreman and pilots, just one pair in contrast marched side by side. Technicians and performers from AFTRA marched alongside Amerindians in full fig. The juxtapositions were so many and so varied that the cammeraderie of longhairs and hard hats passed as unexceptional solidarity.
Not all was up beat and “safe”. We were joined briefly by a “good Soldier Schwenk”, as I called them. These were students, exuding Europeaness, in khaki fatigues and ex army trench coats with Deutch flag patch. And there was the knapsack. Probably this contained nothing more threatening than skivies and lunch. But we had heard about tear gassing of other demonstrators — not part of our group — the day before. The pack might contain something a bit more threatening. No doubt that was my paronia.
It was chilling to look up at eyes peering over a black bandana over the face of a lean, dark young man sitting on his heels atop a signal control box surveying the crowd with contempt.
It was more chilling, as we neared the first route turn just a block or two from the meeting hall, To see a side street blocked by about 30 jack booted motorcycle cops staring coldly at us through their dark goggles. They were armed with batons, mace, tear gas and side arms.
At 4th and Pine the march planned to turn. There was confusion. Some marched on down 4th towards the convention center. Speakers exhorted us first one way then the other. As soon as we understood that the march route turned, the Turtles, Diana and I turned. This was the first time that there appeared to be spectators on the sidewalk. Though they may have been reserves for the rowdys down the street. At least three of them urged us to stop being abortions and find Jee-sus.
Turned again onto 5th, glad that the march had been no more vigorous. We were poohed. Then we saw the Westin hotel. City transit busses used as barracades are an impressive sight — one more associated with international news than us. Yet it gave me a surge of energy when I thought, mistakenly, alas, that we had so threatened them with our peaceful protest that this was the responce when we were so tired a line of yellow tape stopped us easily.
Back home we learned how a wonderful experience had been co-opted by an unholy alliance among a handful of rowdys whose purpose was destruction, and the media whose conception of news begins and ends in a body count.
Thanks to Bill Clinton some measure of perspective was restored. No one else, not the WTO, The rowdys, nor the police will thank him.
But I do.
Now if he would stop defending our non-exeistant family farmers, and our inefficient industries, walking on water would be a non-event for him.

The trouble with revisiting past documents is facing the amount of change I required to arrive at my present state of near enlightenment.
Right.
--ml