Hussein the Rabbit

Hussein the Rabbit

Bumps Ahoy

Larry Beinhart
Huffington Post

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The Bush Administration's great innovation was to stop seeing government as the enemy of wealth, but to see it as a tool to transfer wealth from normal people to the very rich. They did this through tax policy, by running up debts, privatizing as many government functions as they could (the reconstruction of Iraq is the poster child for their successes), and by increasing the size of government so that there was more money to be handed out. They were willing to throw away the chains that Republican believed in - fiscal restraint, balanced budgets, smaller government - to get at the gold piles.

The Republican congress enthusiastically went along with those programs and that transfer of wealth and with it, they hoped, a permanent transfer in power.

Presumably, the new majority doesn't see government that way.

They will put forth their own initiatives and resist the administration's plans.

However, the administration won't go away. The Republican minority won't roll over and die. The right-wing propaganda and spin industry won't pack it in. The rich people, corporations and institutions who benefit from such policies aren't going to stop.

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True believers don't lose their beliefs. Corporations don't lose the machinery by which they reach for power and influence. The greedy don't lose their greed. The corrupt don't attain purity.
2007 will be the year in which they fight back.

stupidest person on earth?

Lovely.

According to Network World's Paul McNamara, the communications director for U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-AZ), Todd Shriber, hired two 'hackers' to break into the computer of his alma mater, Texas Christian University, and change his college grades.

garage update

New Page 2

It's Not The Bloggers, It's The Blogs

Dave Johnson
The Huffington Post

A quick comment on all the big-name pundits and Washington insiders who criticize "the bloggers" and question their legitimacy: Anyone can start a blog.

(pause)

Here is what I am saying. When you criticize "the bloggers" and question the legitimacy of what they are saying, you are questioning the concept of democracy itself. ANYone can start a blog -- so everyone is a blogger.

If it makes you uncomfortable that the rabble is allowed to speak and express their opinions you need to think about your own understanding of and commitment to democracy. The blogs that reach prominence do so through an entirely democratic process - people have chosen to read or echo what is being written on them.

It's not the bloggers you have a beef with, it's the blogs themselves -- the tool that lets the public have a say.

Virtual Arianna

The Huffington Post

I'm going virtual tonight and I'd like you all to join me, or at least the virtual version of me -- Arianna Hera -- tonight at 9 p.m. ET. I couldn't pass up the invitation to join our friends at iVillage as they launch their first "Girls Night Out" in the virtual realm of Second Life, an online world with over 1.9 million residents. We'll be meeting at the sleek iVillage Loft on Sheep Island, where we'll be given a brief history of Second Life, and then head out to visit museums, design studios, and hear a musical performance. I'm also going to be looking for office space for our new virtual HuffPost offices. To join me, click here for directions. It should be a lot of fun. See you in the virtual world!

Sunni / Shi'a Distribution

Wikipedia



Sunni demographics | Shi'a demographics

Threat Scenarios

Talking Points Memo

Does anybody have a good explanation for why the Saudi ambassador to the United States just resigned his post and left the country on a day's notice? Officials are giving various unconvincing explanations, the best of which is that, in the words of an unnamed embassy official, "He wants to spend more time with his family."

Perhaps we can take that as a foreigners gently parodic homage to the American tradition of political white lies.

Ordinarily, even if there were some hidden backstory, it would likely be some palace intrigue in the Saudi royal family or some arcane point in US-Saudi relations. But look at the geopolitical context. Saudi Arabia's neighbor Iraq is in some sort of slow motion civil war. The neighbor across the water, Iran, has been empowered tremendously and stands to gain even more power if their Shi'a coreligionists in Iraq take over the country and slaughter or dominate the Sunni Arab minority. And the White House is signalling that it might opt to take the side of the Shi'a in that cataclysm and, shall we say, go along for the slaughter.

That would cut at the heart of the seven decade US-Saudi alliance, though admitteldy it's taken quite a few cuts already of late. The White House has also just been presented with the Baker-Hamilton report which has, I think fairly, been characterized as a bid to return to the earlier US policy of aligning its regional interests with those of the Sunni autocracies in the region. The White House has dismissed that out of hand.

I'm no expert on the finer points of US-Saudi relations. But I don't think you need to be to see that the underpinnings of the relationship are on the table right now. And just at this moment, the ambassador resigns and gets on the next plane home. To borrow a phrase from our judicial pals, I think any excuse that this is just some personal matter deserves the strictest scrutiny. Something must be up.

And one other thing. Many readers have written in to say that there's just no way we're going to let ourselves take sides in what would likely be at least a borderline genocidal civil war between Iraq's Sunni minority and Shi'a majority. To which, I can only say, why not? Is there anything we've seen in the last six years that makes you think we wouldn't pull the trigger on a ridiculously foolish new plan? I don't just mean that as trash talk. I think it's the only sensible way to approach the case at hand.

The main mistakes I've made thinking about foreign policy over the last half decade were, I think, all cases where there were certain outcomes I just didn't find credible because they were just too stupid and dangerous for anybody in a position of power to try. Goog luck on that.

Another point, and one I'm not sure is widely appreciated. The folks who brought you the Iraq War have always been weak in the knees for a really whacked-out vision of a Shi'a-US alliance in the Middle East. I used to talk to a lot of these folks before I became persona non grata. So here's basically how the theory went and, I don't doubt, still goes ... We hate the Saudis and the Egyptians and all the rest of the standing Arab governments. But the Iraqi Shi'a were oppressed by Saddam. So they'll like us. So we'll set them up in control of Iraq. You might think that would empower the Iranians. But not really. The mullahs aren't very powerful. And once the Iraqi Shi'a have a good thing going with us. The Iranians are going to want to get in on that too. So you'll see a new government in Tehran. Plus, big parts of northern Saudi Arabia are Shi'a too. And that's where a lot of the oil is. So they'll probably want to break off and set up their own pro-US Shi'a state with tons of oil. So before you know it, we'll have Iraq, Iran, and a big chunk of Saudi Arabia that is friendly to the US and has a ton of oil. And once that happens we can tell the Saudis to f$#% themselves once and for all.

Now, you might think this involves a fair amount of wishful and delusional thinking. But this was the thinking of a lot of neocons going into the war. And I don't doubt it's still the thinking of quite a few of them. They still want to run the table. And even more now that it's double-down. I don't know what these guys are planning now. But there's plenty of reason to be worried.

-- Josh Marshall

Arianna Huffington: Welcome to the Web, Tom DeLay!

The Huffington Post

Dear Tom,

First let me say, welcome to the blogosphere -- always nice to have a new voice in the mix. So good to know you have access to a computer in jail (oh, sorry, you dodged that bullet). And thanks for the link.

But since you're a newbie blogger, I want to give you a hand by pointing out some rookie mistakes your site made in its diatribe about me and the Huffington Post today.

For starters, you seem to have missed the class on the difference between linking to a news story and offering an opinion on said news story. You claim that I was "in quite a tizzy" and that I'd "acquired sound intel" that there are Christians in the Defense Dept.

Acquired sound intel? That sounds so cloak and dagger, like a secret fact-finding golf mission to Scotland. You make it seem like I'm skulking around in a trench coat and fedora -- oh wait, that's your pal Jack Abramoff. Far from skulking or acquiring intel, what we actually did was "link" (a key term you should know as a blogger) to a story written by a reporter for "Reuters," which is a news wire service (a handy place to get "facts." Here's a link.)

As for my being in "a tizzy" over the story: trust me, linking, while fun, isn't that big a deal -- we do it at HuffPost dozens of times a day.

In this case, we linked to the story and headlined it "Senior Officers Accused of Coercing Soldiers to Adopt Evangelical Christianity." Which, if you read the story, is precisely what happened. You see, we don't make up the news. You're thinking of Fox.

One more thing: the Internet is a pretty fast moving place. So if you want to draw blood, you might want to try using a fresher zinger than saying I'm "the long lost 4th Gabor sister." No one LOLs at that one anymore. (I realize you may not understand what LOL means -- it's only 10 years out of date. Once you figure out the difference between a link and an opinion, let me know and I'll explain it. ; )

Welcome to the Internets!

Arianna

achieving clarity, one politician at a time

Talking Points Memo

Via Muckraker, here's a snippet of a Congressional Quarterly interview with incoming House intelligence committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX):

Reyes stumbled when I asked him a simple question about al Qaeda at the end of a 40-minute interview in his office last week. Members of the Intelligence Committee, mind you, are paid $165,200 a year to know more than basic facts about our foes in the Middle East.

We warmed up with a long discussion about intelligence issues and Iraq. And then we veered into terrorism’s major players.

To me, it’s like asking about Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland: Who’s on what side?

The dialogue went like this:

Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?

“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”

“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.

Ladies and gentlemen, your new intel committee chairman.

-- David Kurtz

get your head around it

Talking Points Memo

Maybe if I ignore this for a while it'll get better?

From USNews ...

White House advisers say Bush won't react in detail to the ISG report for several weeks, while he assesses it and awaits various internal government reports on the situation from his own advisers. Bush tells aides he doesn't want to "outsource" his role as commander in chief. Some Bush allies say this is a way to buy some time as the president tries to decide how to deal with rising pressure to alter his strategy in Iraq and hopes the critical media focus on the Iraq war will soften.

What a pitiful coward this man is. Maybe if I just sort of shuffle the papers a bit and clear my throat everybody will get off my case. That's his response.

Just above that passage there's this ...

"We have a classic case of circling the wagons," says a former adviser to Bush the elder. "If President Bush changes his policy in Iraq in a fundamental way, it undermines the whole premise of his presidency. I just don't believe he will ever do that."

I'm not sure I've ever heard anything truer said on the whole sorry topic of this war. And it gets to the heart of the issue. He won't ever change course. Not because there's anyone who can't see that the present course is a catastrophe, but because changing course would cut the legs from under the collective denial of the president and his supporters. As bad as things get they can still pretend they're on the way to getting better. It's a long hard slog to January 2009 when it becomes someone else's fault. Once they pull the plug themselves, though, they admit it was all a disaster, that the whole presidency was, in Dick Gephardt's half forgotten phrase, "a miserable failure."

That is why we're in Iraq today. Get your head around it.

-- Josh Marshall

Upset In The Demo: MSNBC Beats CNN Five Out Of Seven Days Last Week

The Huffington Post

Note that these numbers specifically reflect just one slice of the ratings pie, a specific slice of viewers in a specific block of time. It just so happens to be the most important slice .... if you juxtapose the numbers, CNN is still the clear winner in total viewers for both the day and for primetime. But as TVNewser — who, frankly, oughta know — says, 'the mere fact that Countdown, Scarborough Country and the Doc Block are competing against Paula Zahn, Larry King and Anderson Cooper must be striking fear into the hearts of CNN Center and Time Warner Center.'

Third place? When you crunch all the numbers, yes. 'Perennial third place?' Hmm. Looking ahead, maybe not so much.

Jamba Juice warns consumers about smoothie contamination

Los Angeles Times

SAN FRANCISCO -- Jamba Juice Co. warned consumers today that a potentially deadly bacterium may have contaminated smoothies that contain strawberries.

Wright/Fukuyama dingalink

cultural evolution; chaotic systems etc.

David Corn

David Corn: "It's crunch time for George W. Bush.

He has to decide whether or not to change his Iraq policy, as James Baker, his father's secretary of state, weighs in with a report that applies much pressure on him. According to Friday's edition of The Washington Post, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group chaired by Baker and former Democratic Representative Lee Hamilton will recommend next week that Bush withdraws nearly all US combat troops from Iraq by early 2008. Baker's group attaches qualifiers to its call for this redeployment, noting such a drawdown should occur only if circumstances on the ground permit it. (And this pullout would be accompanied by moves aimed at enhancing US support of Iraqi military units, such as embedding US troops within Iraqi units.) But even Baker's conditional call for disengagement is a sharp retort to Bush, who has repeatedly dismissed the notion of withdrawing troops until, as he puts it, 'the mission is completed.' The commission's report--if the leaked accounts are correct--will send a message to Bush: Iraq is not working, you must shift strategies."

Russert speaks plainly to Hadley

The Huffington Post

Bush National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley appeared on NBC's Meet The Press Sunday morning. Host Time Russert confronted Hadley about a memo by outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that was leaked over the weekend. The latest leaked memo appears to have been the last straw for Russert, whose frustration was palpable as he bluntly listed the numerous aspects of the war about which the Bush administration has been wrong.

Watch the video...

Read a transcript of the interview here.

From Meet The Press.

time horizons, chaotic systems

bloggingheads.tv

Barney Frank and Bill O’Reilly Square Off

Crooks and Liars

After this teaser the other day, you knew Bill O'Reillys interview with Rep. Barney Frank was going to be fun. Frank succinctly breaks down why he called Chris Wallace out on his "odd view of balance" saying that the interview was promoted as a chance for the Democrats to talk about their agenda yet began with Wallace nitpicking points of controversy while all but ignoring the positive Democratic agenda the incoming Chairmen were prepared to discuss. Frank made his case so persuasively that O'Reilly — who claimed he's been "sabotaged" before too — conceded he had a point.

Video WMP | Video MOV

Sparks began to fly when O'Reilly brought up the topic of income redistribution and freaked out when Frank gave him an answer he didn't like. This prompted the Congressman to tell Bill to "stop being a silly would-be district attorney" when he demanded an answer "for the record" and told him to "go to law school" if he wanted to do that. O'Reilly couldn't resist the urge to fire back accusing Frank of thinking he was the "czar of the interview." Good times.

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