Monday, June 23, 2003

A Great Mind! Goodness...Zulfikar must be one.  :)  I am pleased to be able to read his blog! Rethinking the tag line or the blog title might demonstrate a little humility.  All in good fun, my friend.  Good luck with the blog. 9:17:07 PM    comment []

Squelch. Fearful Symmetry tells us that everybody thought Iraq had WMD: "Yglesias skips over the parallels that must be drawn, he is engaging in an all-too-common revisionist tactic among Bush's critics, which is to ignore the intersubjective and institutional reality of Iraq's WMD programs. Before the war, no one, save for perhaps the Iraqi Information Minister, was out there saying that Saddam had no WMD, and in fact one of the chief anti-war arguments was that Saddam would use his WMD on US soldiers and inflict massive casualties, or that he would launch a strike on Israel and provoke regional Armageddon. Similarly, while the terms "weapons of mass destruction" and "WMD programs" were used interchangeably by three US presidents to illustrate the danger posed by Saddam's regime, critics now deny that finding WMD development programs -- which we have discovered in Iraq -- are as important as finding huge caches of WMD. " Yeah, well, maybe everybody that the Right was listening to said that Iraq had WMD.  I seem to recall the small matter of worldwide demonstrations from people who simply didn't believe, based on their common sense, that Iraq was in imminent threat to the civilized world.  These demonstrators have been proven correct.  The Right has a powerful squelch control on their thought radio.  It is capable of retroactively tuning in only communications they agree with! Iraq was in no way, shape or form the imminent threat that the Bush Administration painted it to be.  Yes, they were bad people.  There's a significant chance they're going to be much worse off, in the end, because of the famed Bush Foreign Policy Attention Deficit Disorder. Remember Afghanistan?  So few people do, these days.  We blasted the crap out of that country; now it's gone from being run by the Taliban to being run by a bunch of warlords.  America?  Hardly anywhere to be seen.  11:08:40 AM    comment []

Someday You Too Can Be An American. It struck me just now that the Right in this country is attempting to seize the definition of American.  They define an American as a capitalist, a moralist, and little else.  Anyone who disagrees "hates America" -- and the implication is that they are not American.  There is a Special Society, made up of people who've "made it", to pinnacles of wealth and power.  They are the only true citizens in Bush's America, and the only ones whose opinions matter.  Membership in this SS is for sale.  Your money is your proof that you belong.  The group's mandate is to perpetuate itself.  This is achieved by creating law that succeeds in tipping the balance in society even further.  While this is taking place, the SS must be extremely careful to ensure that the illusion of equal opportunity is preserved. Recently they have become so emboldened with their success that they no longer feel the need to preserve the illusion.  Come November 2004, $200 million of relentless media barrages will cement in the minds of the population that in order to raise all boats, the boats of their masters must first be raised; it is only through their leadership that the population will gain. Join the Leadership Class! Be a part of tomorrow!  Step right up with your $2500 for a hot dog, and we'll let you in on the secret.  We're going to win.  And we know who our friends are. The Right has decided that society as a whole is a loss; since that's true, they might as well make a few people very, very happy.  And by the way, how are we doing with the massive job gains we were supposed to get from the last tax cut?  10:47:25 AM    comment []

John Edwards Sums It Up. Here's the full text of a speech he gave recently.  The real question is, why does Bush do what he does?  Does he truly believe in what he's doing?  If so, why?  What is the rational evidence beneath his policies?  Is there any? This is where Buckethead and compadres need to chime in.  10:36:12 AM    comment []

Bought and Paid For. Common Sense. Phil Greenspun has a funny (as in sad) story about the market rising because the public domain is being transferred to corporations. As Phil writes......... [Lessig Blog] Never thought about airspace in that context, but it makes a lot of sense...it has belong to all/the public or there can be no air travel...but if Disney gets to own the airspace above Disneyland, why can't the rest of us then also own the airspace above our property? [Ottmar Liebert] Let's have a brief think on two things that Disney has recently bought and paid for.  First, the airspace issue.  There is exactly one reason why this stupid TFR (temporary flight restriction) exists -- Disney doesn't want banner towers over its parks.  There are these guys who make a few bucks by flying airplanes in the public's airspace and displaying messages.  Disney doesn't like this -- they want absolute control over the audiosensory experience in their parks, I guess.  They are hanging it on the hook of "security", but that's a lie, plain and simple.  Let's start calling it a lie.  It's a LIE.  Just like in Chicago, where Mayor Daley cited "security" as the reason for digging up Meigs Field, one of the nation's most historic and relevant airports.  He LIED to people.  A few weeks later he even admitted that he lied, and indicated his real reasoning (to build a park and develop more waterfront, probably named after himself). How do we know the TFR's official reasoning is a lie?  Simple.  Where are the waivers for the banner towing pilots?  They should be able to pass through a simple security vetting process and have their flying rights back.  But there isn't one, and that's how we know that Disney isn't telling the truth.  That the FAA is complicit in this is stunning.  The FAA is normally pretty jealous in guarding its perogatives for airspace, as it should be.  What really happened is that Disney's campaign contributions (there's that ugly word again) clearly influenced a Senator from somewhere, and that Senator made a call to the FAA, and told them to give Disney the TFR they wanted.  And now it's done. Like I said -- Bought and Paid For. Second, Disney has managed to damage the intellectual capital of this country in a very significant way, with the introduction of even more ridiculous copyright extensions.  This is a pretty big issue to get into, but the bottom line is that as the copyright term limits have approached some of its key properties, Disney has bought and paid for term limit extensions from its favorite politicians.  These are usually passed under the banner of "helping artists", but that's just bullshit.  It's a LIE.  The real reason is protecting Disney's IP so Joe Average isn't allowed to take a 75 year old image and make his own version of it. 9:37:20 AM    comment []

Tax Cuts == Wealth Transfer. Preview of tax back-and-forth. Bush Cites the Cost Of Tax-Cut Repeal - An easy counter to "a repeal will raise your taxes" is to point out that state and local governments across the country either raised their taxes (sales, property, income) and/or cut services. Is this simplistic argument too nuanced for most people? [cwinters.com] It's plain and simple wealth transfer.  How so?  Well, we're giving massive tax cuts to the top 1% of the population.  The Bush government completely lacks the balls to make any cuts to offset the reduction in revenue.  So the services still need to be delivered, and paid for.  That's being done by axing transfer payments to the states and by a massive runup in the deficit.  When the states see less revenue, they need to compensate.  Unless you're California with its crazy property tax laws, as the State you raise the property taxes to compensate.  Who pays the property taxes?  The middle class, mostly.  So what Bush has done is simply move the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class. "You Raised My Taxes" should be the battle cry of the middle class in the next election.  Unless the population of this country tires of having its political phrasing dictated to it by the media, that simply won't happen. 9:28:32 AM    comment []