To say that I'm not looking forward to this inauguration is like saying that the apocalypse may ruffle my feathers. Bad enough that it's happening at all, but Bush seems also intent on raping the corpse.

President Bush's second inauguration will cost tens of millions of dollars -- $40 million alone in private donations for the balls, parade and other invitation-only parties. With that kind of money, what could you buy?

--200 armored Humvees with the best armor for troops in Iraq.

--Vaccinations and preventive health care for 22 million children in regions devastated by the tsunami.

--A down payment on the nation's deficit, which hit a record-breaking $412 billion last year.

If you need me I'll be at the bottom of a bottle of Merlot.

Sweet Jesus

What to do about the deepening quagmire of Iraq? The Pentagon’s latest approach is being called "the Salvador option"—and the fact that it is being discussed at all is a measure of just how worried Donald Rumsfeld really is. "What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are," one senior military officer told NEWSWEEK. "We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defense. And we are losing." Last November’s operation in Fallujah, most analysts agree, succeeded less in breaking "the back" of the insurgency—as Marine Gen. John Sattler optimistically declared at the time—than in spreading it out.

For for those of us young-uns who are too young to remember what a fabulous undertaking El Salvador was, here's a bit of a lesson.

The 1980 election of Ronald Reagan as President of the United States changed American policy in El Salvador dramatically. The new U.S. administration worried about Communist expansion in Central America and viewed the El Salvador military government as a potential barrier against Communism. The Reagan administration substantially increased both military and economic aid to El Salvador.

The civil war raged on in El Salvador, fueled by U.S. aid to the Salvadoran military. The government harshly repressed dissent, and at least 70,000 people lost their lives in killings and bombing raids waged against civilians throughout the countryside. The country's infrastructure had crumbled, and the nation appeared to be no closer to its goals of peace, prosperity and social justice than when the process began. Then, in 1989, the murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter at the University of Central America shocked the international community into action.

Ladies and gentlemen, George W. Bush's Free Iraq. God forgive us.

Sigh

Sen. John Kerry, whose seemingly shifting positions on the U.S. war in Iraq plagued him throughout his presidential campaign, came to this war- torn capital Wednesday to see for himself whether the country was moving toward stability or deeper into chaos.

Kerry, who repeatedly charged during the presidential campaign that President Bush had botched the war effort, was greeted warmly by U.S. soldiers in Baghdad.

(snip)

U.S. soldiers approached Kerry inside the restaurant of the Rashid Hotel, asking him to pose for photographs and sign T-shirts. The star-struck restaurant manager insisted on serving Kerry the restaurant's specialty, a plate of grilled chicken and lamb.

(via Kos)

Iokiyar

It looks like Krugman is back in full force, which I'm going to take as my cue that I've got it snap out of my own post-election, pre-inauguration funk.

How did we find ourselves living in a bad novel? It was not ever thus. Hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels have always been with us, on both sides of the aisle. But 9/11 created an environment some liberals summarize with the acronym Iokiyar: it's O.K. if you're a Republican.

I'm still spinning my wheels on how to cope with this newer yuckier version of reality that we find ourselves in. But Krugman is right about not rolling over and playing dead regarding the confirmation of Gonzalez and Kerik when he states, "when the Senate confirms Mr. Gonzales, it will mean that Iokiyar remains in effect, that the basic rules of ethics don't apply to people aligned with the ruling party. And reality will continue to be worse than any fiction I could write. "

These days it's NOT okay if you are a Republican. We need to remind people of this.

Well I'm back from a black hole of paper writing and holiday traveling. The problem with extended blogging breaks is that it's incredibly difficult to pick up a topic. And as my news consumption has been slim to none lately, I can't really claim to have anything substantial to say.

But I will hopefully come up with something. For now, Happy New Year y'all. Start the year and light a fire under Bush's ass concerning tsunami relief.

Shepards quake

And they're not the only ones.

...Jesus described his mission as being to "preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and to set at liberty those who are oppressed". He insisted that the social outcast be loved and cared for, and that the rich have less chance of getting into heaven than a camel has of getting through the eye of a needle. Jesus set out to destroy the imprisoning obligations of debt, speaking instead of forgiveness and the redistribution of wealth. He was accused of blasphemy for attacking the religious authorities as self-serving and hypocritical.

Giles Fraser has a great piece in the Guardian describing the Christ we were meant to follow:

...it should be perfectly obvious to anyone who has actually read the Christmas stories that the gospel regards the incarnation as challenging the existing order. The pregnant Mary anticipates Christ's birth with some fiery political theology: God "has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly, he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty", she blazes. Born among farm labourers, yet worshipped by kings, Christ announces an astonishing reversal of political authority. The local imperial stooge, King Herod, is so threatened by rumours of his birth that he sends troops to Bethlehem to find the child and kill him. Herod recognised that to claim Jesus is lord and king is to say that Caesar isn't. Christ's birth is not a silent night - it's the beginning of a revolution that threatened to undermine the whole basis of Roman power.

Tender and mild my ass.

Just to put things into perspective...

As of 2004
• only 82 years have passed since women were finally granted the right to vote;
• 40 years since Congress passed the Civil Rights Act that outlawed sexual discrimination;
• 31 years since women got the right to choose a legal abortion;
• 18 years since the Supreme Court declared sexual harassment a form of illegal job discrimination;
• 10 years since the Violence Against Women Act passed;
• and just 7 years since the Supreme Court ruled that college athletics programs must involve roughly equal numbers of men and women to qualify for federal support.

This is from Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner's new book, The F-Word: Feminism in Jeopardy

I came across it in the latest Utne.

Poking my head up for a second

Choose the Blue.

"We don't do body counts"

In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates are no longer bothering to conceal attacks on civilian targets and are openly eliminating anyone - doctors, clerics, journalists - who dares to count the bodies.

The question is: what happens to the people who insist on counting the bodies - the doctors who must pronounce their patients dead, the journalists who document these losses, the clerics who denounce them? In Iraq, evidence is mounting that these voices are being systematically silenced through a variety of means, from mass arrests, to raids on hospitals, media bans, and overt and unexplained physical attacks.

Naomi Klein, in the Guardian, outlines how American military forces came to choose unusual targets as part of their strategy to control information and images beamed around the world.

The estimate of civilian Iraqi casualties is 100,000.
They can't eliminate all the witnesses.

Coup in Cuyahoga

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday the United States does not consider legitimate the results of the elections, which the opposition says was marred by fraud.

He challenged leaders of the nation "to decide whether they are on the side of democracy or not.''

"We cannot accept this result as legitimate, because it does not meet international standards and because there has not been an investigation of the numerous and credible reports of fraud and abuse,'' Powell said.

Editorializing about the election the Washington Post wrote:

"For the Bush administration, the responsibility starts with stating the unvarnished truth about what has happened in an election."

I'm afraid the truth is being shellacked to within an inch of its life.

These quotes could be referring to the whammy perpetrated on the true blue majority right here in River City, but no..., they're talking about the strangely parallel election fraud in the Ukraine. As the Professor noted, the only difference between the U.S. elections and the Ukraine elections is that, over there, people are protesting in the streets.

Drumroll Please

Ladies and gentlemen...
...Your new Secretary of State.

(Ugh. I watched the whole thing. We are screwed, we are really, really screwed)

Taking Back Moral Values

Versions of this story have been floating around the web for a little over a week.

As researchers have noted, the areas of the country where divorce rates are highest are also frequently the areas where many conservative Christians live.

Kentucky, Mississippi and Arkansas, for example, voted overwhelmingly for constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage. But they had three of the highest divorce rates in 2003, based on figures from the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics.

The lowest divorce rates are largely in the blue states: the Northeast and the upper Midwest. And the state with the lowest divorce rate was Massachusetts, home to John Kerry, the Kennedys and same-sex marriage.

In 2003, the rate in Massachusetts was 5.7 divorces per 1,000 married people, compared with 10.8 in Kentucky, 11.1 in Mississippi and 12.7 in Arkansas.

This is one of those No Shit Sherlock articles. You mean if I go to college, live my life, and make my own decisions, it is more likely that I will choose a spouse wisely? Egads!

I can't wait for the angry mail to pour in. "How dare you suggest that godless liberals are better at marriage than Christians?" Fun.

Josh Marshall gets it

Any hired-gun who worked for John Kerry and is now publicly -- subtly or not so subtly -- slipping a shiv in his back: that's someone the Democratic party can do without. Clear the decks.

We should have done that after 2000.

Bush's Veterans Day Policy

Honor Veterans...

Bush will attend a private White House reception for veterans Thursday morning. The reception will to be followed by an annual wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns and remarks at the memorial amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery.

Spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush was looking forward to honoring all those who've served.

...by Creating More Veterans

The latest tally :

Eighteen U.S. troops have been killed and another 69 wounded in this week's offensive to take control of the rebel-held Iraqi city Falluja, a senior U.S. Marine Corps commander said on Thursday.

And to what end? The people we really want to capture or kill are long gone.

No this is not me being sarcastic in the face of the new normal. This is me pointing out the utter outrage of a day like to day. This should no longer be shocking. Let's face it: nothing can be shocking anymore. These last four years (and the contemplation of the four still to come) has me rendered me shock-proof. That doesn't however neutralize the rage.

Fuck Bush and his sanctimonious didn't-serve-in-Vietnam piety. He dishonors every soldier past, present, and future, simply by existing.

And you thought all we had to worry about were new pro-life Supreme Court justices! Take a closer look at Bush's FDA appointments! This is somewhat old, (he was first appointed in 2002) but he's just been reappointed, petitions are circulating to get rid of him (thanks Kimprobable!) and outrage should never get old...

Dr. Hager is a practicing OB/GYN who describes himself as "pro-life" and refuses to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women. Hager is the author of "As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now." The book blends biblical accounts of Christ healing women with case studies from Hager's practice. In the book Dr. Hager wrote with his wife, entitled "Stress and the Woman's Body," he suggests that women who suffer from premenstrual syndrome should seek help from reading the bible and praying. As an editor and contributing author of "The Reproduction Revolution: A Christian Appraisal of Sexuality, Reproductive Technologies and the Family," Dr. Hager appears to have endorsed the medically inaccurate assertion that the common birth control pill is an abortifacient.

snip

Contrary to the claim made in the now widely-circulated e-mail decrying his appointment, Dr. Hager says he does not deny birth-control prescriptions to unmarried women. However, Time magazine reported that "In his private practice, two sources familiar with it say, Hager refuses to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women."

Jesus

LOS ANGELES, November 9, 2004 - At 7:50 PM two armored tanks showed up at an anti-war protest in front of the federal building in Westwood. The tanks circled the block twice, the second time parking themselves in the street and directly in front of the area where most of the protesters were gathered. Enraged, some of the people attempted to block the tanks, but police quickly cleared the street. The people continued to protest the presence of the tanks, but about ten minutes the tanks drove off. It is unclear as to why the tanks were deployed to this location. Uploaded here is video from the event.

Everything you need to know about John Ashcroft's replacement is right here.

I think I should have saved some of those tears from last week. Something tells me I'm going to be pretty weepy for the next four years.

Paranoid? Moi?

David M. Miyasato enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve in 1987, served three years of active duty during the first Gulf War and received an honorable discharge in 1991. He remained on inactive status for five more years, until 1996. Since then, the Kaua'i resident has married, started an auto window tinting business and this year, he and his wife had their first child.

But in September, Miyasato received a letter from the Army recalling him to active duty and directing him to report to a military facility in South Carolina on Tuesday.

What do you guys make of this?

It COULD work but I don't know. For one thing we would need to publicize it in a way that keeps it under the media radar and yet attracts enough people to be effective. Also security is still likely to eject people for this stunt given Bush's notoriously fragile ego. As an image it's compelling.

I dunno. I don't have any ideas myself.

Clearly, melodrama is in.