6/6/09- So we've now bought most of GM. Which is going to be turned into an efficient commercial enterprise by the government.

I think we're at least past the point of actually believing something so outlandish. Now if we can just stop spending billions of dollars on it.

6/6/09- Obama commonly refers to Iraq as "a war of choice", a now standard label among Democrats. What's the difference between a "war of choice" and a "war of aggression"? There was less justification for invading Iraq than there was for invading Poland in World War II. Why do we give Bush and his people pensions when we put the Nazi hierarchy to death?

And Obama's website advertises "A New Era of Fiscal Responsibility". Buuut a couple clicks further we find planned deficits averaging 735 billion dollars a year for the next eleven years. Where the planning finally ends. I guess "new era of fiscal responsibility" means at least openly admitting you don't plan to practice it. Perhaps it's a start.

6/4/09- So why doesn't Obama just put all the Guantanamo prisoners in a village in Afghanistan and blow it up?

The idea that the world's most expensive prison system can't securely hold an additional 200 some odd prisoners is cravenly ludicrous even for American politics, yet there it is. Indeed. After eight years, how likely is it that some wretch is going to escape from a maximum security prison, and if he does, what exactly is he supposed to do next? Crash a jet into a building? Spread anthrax? Make Youtube videos? Clearly, holding prisoners in Cuba doesn't make America safer, since ninety miles of water couldn't possibly stop such Moslem supermen. And anyway, when did a nation of 300 million people, the "land of the free and the home of the brave", turn coward over a couple hundred prisoners? The Republicans come up with some ridiculous, hysterical fear based talking point and screech it until the Democrats join them, generally by lunch, with the result in this case that an ongoing moral and PR nightmare is kept off US soil, where even the US media would have a hard time ignoring it. Pitiful. Just pitiful.

And here's Osama bin Laden (remember him?) poor mouthing the US for sowing "new seeds of hatred and revenge" with all its wars and whatnot. Well, Mr. Turbinbeardguy, if America wasn't stomping around the Moslem world to no good purpose then just where would you be? Where would you find new recruits? You ever think about that, Mr. Big Mouth?

5/11/09- Here's an article about how the invasion of Iraq was in part justified by false confessions obtained through beating. Yes, America, your President told you lies he beat out of people.

And here's an article which highlights the crux of the current economic danger, which is that free enterprise and arbitrary government coercion don't mix. The economic process by which goods and services are provided operates on the premise of an expectation of gain within an established legal framework. Take away the premise and you take away the process. Don't expect Washington to figure this out.

4/30/09- I just discovered there's an actual honest to god National Pork Board. It's a government program that encourages people to eat more pork. Which I guess we weren't doing enough of.

I can on some level understand the government's lust for power, its pathological secrecy, its embrace of violence .... but a pork barrel program in support of actual pork? Dare we ask ... what next?

4/22/09- Maybe waterboarding someone 183 times isn't torture if it makes them confess, only what wouldn't you say after being waterboarded 183 times, assuming you were coherent enough to talk? But the Obama administration isn't about looking back at well documented government crimes. It's about the future. Where politicians and their enablers can act without fear of prosecution. Because the US is not ruled by law.

Rep. Jane Harman, hypercrite. Made that word up just then.

4/10/09- The US government murders the wrong people 94% of the time in Pakistan.

And Lew Rockwell is right- government repackaging of a financial instrument doesn't increase its worth. There's just no telling where all this is going.

4/6/09- Most Americans think we should attack North Korea. Because they tested a rocket. Like we've been doing on a vastly greater scale for over half a century.

Hermann Goering summed it up best-
"...it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ...voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Look, America. Take it from someone who knew. It works the same in any country.

If you want to lead, get out in front.

3/20/09- So here's a guy with most of the hydrogen bombs on Earth lecturing the Iranians on the badness of their "capacity to destroy", tsk tsk tsk, and furthermore their place in the sun can't be reached by "terror or arms", though there's certainly some of that involved in the ongoing US military occupations on both sides of Iran. For good measure let's throw in the thousands of Iranians killed in a war we supported. Toss in the Iranian airliner we shot down.

Look. It's great Obama can release a video to the Iranian people and say some nice things and put together some pleasing sentences in a way that doesn't make you cringe, but America you need to understand that in the wider world, particularly in Iran, parts of Obama's speech come across as the rantings of a madman.

Let's not overanalyze this. The problem with Iran is that it doesn't accept Israel and has some actual and growing capacity to project state level violence, and since we're effectively owned by Israel then Iran has to be our enemy. Besides which the MIC needs enemies, and being a client state of Israel achieves this.

And here's a thought. If Obama really wants to have diplomatic relations with Iran, how's about opening diplomatic relations with Iran. Maybe no one has thought of this yet.

addendum: Yahoo news says "New deficit estimates much worse than W. House predicted". "Much worse" than 1.75 JHC trillion? Can't bring myself to click on it.

3/11/09- Good for Charles Freeman.

So, OK America, a small country on the other side of the world decides who you can and can't have in your government. And they do it by dishonesty, fear, and manipulation. You cool with that?

And Biden says the Taliban are just in it for the money. Perhaps he is an idiot.

And hey, how's that for a deal? Spend trillions of dollars invading various countries so you can pay the locals not to shoot you. Sweet. (insert welfare/warfare wordplay)

2/28/09-A $1.75 trillion deficit? 1.75 trillion? Don't know if you would call that change or a whopping dose of more of the same, but holy cow. 1.75 trillion. I can feel the confidence from here.

And listen here, Wall Street. Back when Washington assumed absolute unquestioned arbitrary extrajudicial power of missile fired life and death over everyone in the third world, and even to some extent the first one, you were cool with that. Now you want to whine about them stomping around your financial landscape like it's their own private Tokyo. Cry me a river. Just be glad your parts are still attached.

So basically, investors are expected to step up and place their bets on which way the government's tail will swing next. Which is understandably problematic, quite apart from the grating gall of spraying money at banks while people slide into poverty. I've tentatively decided to stop trying to explain this to Bob. Paul Craig Roberts presents a comprehensive list of options that didn't involve looting the treasury.

And you know what I would do if I was Iraq? I'd wait til Mr. Change was down to his last 50,000 lingering occupiers and then I'd kill me a quick bunch of them. Then I'd sit back and watch the rest get promptly skeedaddled right on out. Then I'd declare victory. Over the Great Satan yada yada. And the world would believe it. That's what I'd do.

Get. Out. Now.

2/14/09- Yaming Nina Qi Hanson is looking at 20 years for shipping model airplane control systems to China. She bought them over the internet. You can buy one here. Not making that up.

Look, America. The government is about power. Power increasingly comes from technology. So the government's drive for power means it must increasingly control the advance and spread of technology. This is of course laughably impossible, but since we're talking about the government then the upshot of this laughable impossibility will increasingly be its unbridled and thoroughly ludicrous freedom trampling pursuit.

And another thing. Israel says 1134 Palestinians were killed in Gaza last month. The Palestinian Ministry of Health says 1314. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights puts the number at 1284.

How many Jews were killed by the Nazis? The commonly accepted and in some places legally enforced estimate is 6 million. Some maverick historians place the number as low as 4.4 million.

How many Iraqis have died in the US invasion and occupation of their country? There is no official US estimate, but Bush read somewhere it was "30,000, more or less". Statistical estimates actually range around a million. In the last election I tried without success to persuade Obama and Ron Paul's websites to at least mention the Iraqi dead, whatever the number. You can search Inglis' website if you like.

Holocaust denial. It's not fringe anymore. Be ashamed, America. Or at least embarrassed.

And Obama is covering up torture, rattling against Iran, and bombing Pakistan. Yes indeed. Belief you can change in.

And oh yeah the federal government is going to spend us into a healthy economy. Seems like if that's all it took we'd all be driving Cadillacs by now.

1/21/09- Can I just say this about the inauguration? With all the hoopla, with all the pomp, with all the speeches and parades and of course money money money, with all the tinsel and bunting and panning camera shots it turned out that the one part, the one single solitary 36 word Constitutional part of the entire day long resource clogged gapefest, the one tiny properly codified several second long ceremonial nub around which the entire whirling carousel revolved was screwed up. Repeatedly. By the chief justice of the Supreme (cue the trumpets) Court. So they had to do it again later. 36 words. So yeah, conf-i-dence. It's what's for dinner. You absolutely could not make this stuff up.

And I notice Israel kept killing almost literally to the last minute of the Bush administration, skeedadling out of Gaza like they were part of the inauguration parade. Leaving 410 dead children behind them.

See that red stuff on your hands, America? That's blood.

1/17- bitch slap-
"I said, 'I don't care. I have to talk to him now' ... He (Bush) gave an order to the secretary of state and she did not vote in favour of it -- a resolution she cooked up, phrased, organised and manoeuvered for. She was left pretty shamed and abstained on a resolution she arranged."
                                          -masa Olmert

1/11- So the problem with the economy is a lack of confidence. And the fix is to more than double an already record federal deficit. And if that doesn't bring up enough confidence I guess try doubling the deficit again. And all of the borrowed money sprayed with the usual smiling government efficiency. Seems like we're doomed.

And so what's The Silent One eventually going to say about all them dead Gazans, who may perhaps number in the thousands by the time polite decorum allows him to speak of their slaughter? Any chance of Obama backsassin' The Lobby when it's his turn to speak? We should be so lucky.

1/9/09- Glenn Greenwald lays bare the essential question of why we're paying for the slaughter in Gaza when we don't have a dog in the fight.

12/16-"This is a farewell kiss, you dog, this is for the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq." -Muntadar al-Zeidi

"There is no way of knowing what the motivation of the individual was." -State Department spokesman Robert Wood

You'd think people so ignorant would be better at feigning it.

11/7- To all those who think Obama doesn't look old enough, and I'm one of them, give him a couple of years. And to those who told me on the campaign trail they didn't want a black President, get used to it. Maybe turn up the brightness.

11/4- A hip young black President with a Moslem name. You wouldn't take it seriously in a movie. And a black first family that out Kennedys the Kennedys. I'm too incredulous for patriotism. After eight years of George Bush, the pendulum has swung and then some.

Obama will be stepping into an already powerful office greatly aggrandized by the present occupant, he will have a clear majority in both houses of Congress, he will have substantially unfettered control of a global military machine, and in a time of war and extraordinary economic chaos he will assume office with an unprecedented stock of domestic and international political capital.

Let's hope he proves the measure of the hope. Because in two months he's arguably going to be the most powerful man who ever lived.

10/6- Beyond the ideological clash and economic peril of commingling government and heretofore private finance, investors want if nothing else predictability. Which isn't the government spraying $700 billion as Paulson sees fit. But being on the other side of the Rubicon, we can expect no recourse but more of the same.

Dow Chemical looks good.

9/27- Bailout Plan Executive Summary:
The people who keep the economy running by lending us money are out. So we have to give them more.

9/24- (Army Times) The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.

“I can’t think of a more noble mission than this,” said Cloutier, who took command in July. “We’ve been all over the world during this time of conflict, but now our mission is to take care of citizens at home ..."

9/20- (Antiwar.com) The US said the deaths of the women they killed in the air strike were further proof of al-Qaeda’s willingness to “repeatedly risk the lives of innocent women and children to further their evil work”.

Go halfway around the world to invade and occupy an entire country for no good reason, wage an open ended campaign of aerial bombardment, and then call others evil for the death you wreak. And do it with a straight face. Got to hand it to them.

And what do we think about the massive taxpayer bailout for rich and unscrupulous investors? My bank stocks doubled the last couple of days. So it's hard to complain. Like I say, money talks. Get used to it.

9/18- (McClatchy) After vows to respect sovereignty, U.S. strikes in Pakistan

It really looks like they're trying to get a war on with Pakistan like I wrote below. It would be nice if Congress would say or perhaps even do something about it.

9/17- What's a conspiracy theorist to do? $85 billion later, we now own 80% of AIG. Fannie Mae has been nationalized. The government effectively holds the note on most of the homes in America. Yes indeed, capitalist socialism, or maybe socialist capitalism, a government dictatorship of the financial class. Who's pounding the shoe now, comrade?

But never mind ideology. The government can't even balance it's own books with three trillion dollars a year. Do we really want them running the private financial sector?

And what's the President have to say about all this? "I grant you, you haven't heard from him in a while," said a White House spokesperson.

Absolutely not making any of this up.

9/16- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration expects an uphill battle with Congress for permission to use counterterrorism funds ($226.5 million) to upgrade Pakistan's F-16 fighters, the State Department's top diplomat for South Asia said Monday.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP)- Pakistan's military has ordered its forces to open fire if U.S. troops launch another air or ground raid across the Afghan border, an army spokesman said Tuesday.

So let's just put those two lead sentences together. We're spending millions of dollars arming a country we're sort of at war with. Okey Dokey. That should help even things up.

And not to get all out there, but somebody should mention Pakistan's a Moslem country. With nuclear weapons. No seriously.

Maybe the idea is to provoke a crisis in or with Pakistan as an excuse to hit their nuclear arsenal, and hit Iran as well because as long as they're at it.

(Reuters)- U.S. forces have focused on Haqqani's network this week, firing missiles from drones into a house and a religious school founded by him in Pakistan's tribal region just across the border, killing 23 people, mostly his relatives.

"... mostly his relatives." Just wanted to mention that.

9/7- OK, how does the government take over operation of and liability for a massive private financial entity like Fannie May? Answer: they just do.

And after years of wild money gushing influence buying fiscal license culminating in a taxpayer soaked bailout for the rich and Chinese, what's the obvious path forward from a forced nationalization of a failed multi-trillion dollar government experiment in private banking? Wait for it .... wait for it ....

"Lockhart said that both Fannie and Freddie would be allowed to increase the size of their holdings of mortgage-backed securities ..."

Couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

9/6- The federal government can't be covering Fannie May preferred. I don't care how bought they are, they just can't.

And hey, are we going to war with Pakistan? Their foreign minister called our attacks on them a few days ago "cowardly acts against innocent civilians" and the Pakistani military "reiterated that Pakistan reserves the right of self-defence to protect our citizens and soldiers." They claim "troops flew in on at least one big CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter, blasted their way into several houses and gunned down men they found there." Which I think we can all understand might lead to some hostility.

8/25- (AP) "U.S. commanders believe al-Qaida in Iraq is increasingly seeking to exploit women unable to deal with the grief of losing husbands, children and others to the violence."

So is exploiting grief worse than causing it?

A poser.

8/24- Looks like we accidentally butchered another 78 Afghanis. Woops.

OK, American, imagine that that you and your family can be blown to chunks at any moment by confused and/or careless foreigners, and the best your scattered remains can hope for afterwards is a reluctant acknowledgment. Imagine there's not the slightest thing you can do about it, not the least defense you can have. You can be killed anytime anyplace for whatever imagined reason works. No warning. No appeal. No questions asked.

Yes it's evil, and palpably so, but beyond the question of mere morality, which we are obviously above, what with Jesus being on our side, beyond considerations of decency not visible from our lofty perch, where do we expect our murderous reality to lead? Can we at least stop with the "hearts and minds" business?

8/20- You know what the problem is in South Ossetia, along with the world generally? You know what the problem is? It's that people can't just be neighbors. They have to be "Georgians" or "Ossetians", "This" or "That", they have to get all twisty about what some distant power addicted politician waving a particular piece of cloth spouts at them, they have to give these ridiculous troublemakers guns and jets and tanks to kill people with. That's the problem. And we need to outgrow it.

8/19- what billmon said-
Even after the fiasco in Iraq, the bloody failure in Lebanon, the downward spiral in Afghanistan and, now, the futile posturing in Georgia, there’s absolutely no evidence the US foreign policy elite is inclined to moderate its ambition to re-organize the world along American lines.

That's why, American voter, you need to replace them.

8/15- Let's be clear- Georgia was the aggressor. The Ossetians would rather be aligned with Russia than Georgia. Practically everything coming out of Washington on the matter is reality free claptrap. And it hurts my brain for Bush to talk about the Russians being bad.

8/13- So now that Russia has rolled into South Ossetia and parts south it turns out you're not supposed to invade other countries. Who knew? Says an unnamed Bush person- "These actions will have consequences long term, in terms of our relationship with Russia". Oooo.

Hopefully Bush will stop at hypocritical posturing, because I shudder to think how bad he could screw up a real war. And unlike Iraq, we know for a fact that Russia has weapons of mass destruction.

7/30- (AP) The Treasury Department gains unlimited power, until the end of 2009, to lend money to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or buy their stock should they need it.

A stock propup by the federal government. Jesus. Money talks.

7/25- Here's an interesting statistic- By 39 percent to 35 percent, South Koreans saw the United States as a greater threat than North Korea.

... tell me again what we're doing in Korea?

And Mukasey is a plain bad joke.

7/15- Meet the new boss- "Obama says Afghanistan 'a war that we have to win'".

7/13- Haven't written lately about the invasion of Afghanistan being wrong, but with 9 of us quality folks killed there today I'll mention it again. It was wrong.

7/11- "After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes ... The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."
          -Major General Antonio Taguba (ret.)

7/10- From the AP: "Ahmadinejad, who has often spoken of wiping Israel off the map ..."

Here we have 1) the single most significant US news source, 2) propagating a plain lie, 3) in support of an impending war, and 4) most people believe it.

Get in touch with it, thinkers- reality does not matter. Hate sells.

7/9- Gotta love the 725k cap for the mortgage bailout. Welfare for the rich. Instead of food stamps maybe we could give them restaurant vouchers.

And the message should by now be clear on telecom immunity- the law doesn't apply to the government or to companies working for it. Privacy is quaint. Change the politicians or get used to it.

7/8- So with the exception of a dead duck US administration and the Israeli lobby essentially every political entity and national population in the entire world wants a timetable for US withdrawal from Iraq. And yet somehow it's still fringe. Put that in your military-industrial-media pipe and smoke it.

We need to come to grips with what our country has done in Iraq, in particular how we as a nation cut such a spectacular, immoral, and just plain ridiculous failure out of whole cloth. We need to clean some serious house.

7/1- Went to Bob's Ham House talk yesterday, and if he isn't Hayek or JFK he's in the same sentence. Truth doesn't fit in a bottle, Congressman.

6/30- Still can't sleep past 7. After all those years of sloth. That's what running for office does to you.

Leverage the Iran blowback in 2 years?

6/26- I'm off the donk. It was a short ride. I think I'm just not their hierarchy's kind of folks. And they're not mine.

I've never been clubby anyway.

6/24- Back from doing signs, time to GOTV. Hoping for the forties.

6/21- So Corden has come out with a hit mail piece on me (at bottom of site), cherry picking my much larger website a few days before the election so I can't respond, after avoiding a debate the entire race.

Like I said at the start. A regular politician.

6/19- Teresa the campaign manager gave me my label last night, it turns out I'm an "independent democrat". She didn't say if I was an upper or lower case D, but I like the sound of it.

6/18- Corden seems to have gone underground. He's never been particularly responsive, but since the primary his online schedule lists his events without providing a time or place. Which would make them hard to attend.

Running for office has taught me a lot about politics, which I guess it would. For the hardcore partisan it seems there's no such thing as ideological overlap or congruency of views, or even political expediency. You're either with the tribe or you're not.

6/16- People are always asking me what I'm going to do for them, how I'm going to solve their problems, and I try to give them the best answer I can, but let me just say that if you really think Bob Inglis or Paul Corden have a big stack of quick and easy solutions to all your problems then you need to take a closer look. We need to stop electing politicians who say they have all the answers and start electing some who will admit they don't.

6/15- If anybody has any pictures of me dancing at the Kershaw/Lawson wedding last night, yes I'm a politician with an election in 9 days but keep the price reasonable. Is all I'm saying.

6/11-We're inside the gates, boys and girls.

Here's the deal. Anybody who didn't vote Republican in the primary can vote in the runoff. If we split the McCanless vote 66/33, not implausible under the circumstances, it's neck and neck. Corden got the party hard core yesterday, and that's about all he's going to get. We on the other hand have an entire universe of fed up people to tap into. Do the math.

6/10- In a runoff with Corden. The tactical thrust is to keep hitting him on the debate he won't have. The strategic thrust is change. If you want it, vote for it.

6/8- Made my first campaign promise this morning speaking at Shady Oak Baptist Church, I told them if I became a Congressman I would come back and give them a sermon based on my experiences in Washington. I'm not Rev. Barton, but I'll have a go at it.

6/7- Just cleared 13480 robocalls, didn't want to go there but Corden decided to so I followed, here's the message. Liz Patterson endorses Corden in his message. Because he's the Party's man. Go along. Get along. Faced the VC but wouldn't face me.

If you want change, vote for it.

6/5- So I hear the shtick with Corden's mailing is that he's "the true Democrat", leaving me by implication the false Democrat, though I'm of course unnamed, and I also understand the only way to win the solidly Republican upstate is to be solidly Democrat, whatever that means exactly. It apparently involves indulging in wishful electoral strategizing and making nonspecific partisan insinuations.

6/3- Spoke to the Union County Motorsports Association this evening, they're kind of a lodge for motorheads, yard sign guy Ron Henderson hooked me up with them. Found out when I got to town I was front page news, with picture.

I suppose if I become a Congressman I'll get used to this sort of thing.

6/2- Busy day in Union, scheduled to go back tomorrow at 7. Met with the Greenville Baptist Minister's Association this evening, need to write about it.

6/1- Bob McLain of WORD said he never heard back from my opponents about an on air debate. Two Democratic candidates for the US Congress didn't even have the fortitude to respond to his invitation. Why hasn't anybody heard a WORD about it?

And Bush, at Furman, urges 'culture of responsibility'.

Be careful what you wish for, Mr. President.

5/29- NOT ENDORSED BY THE GREENVILLE NEWS!

Let's face it, the chance that the Greenville News was going to endorse a candidate with enough sense to oppose the war ... well, it is to laugh.

And yeah, Paul's "the most knowledgeable candidate". Guess he just didn't want to show me up in a debate.

Like I wrote back in March-
"The Greenville News clearly considers Paul the lesser of two Democratic evils.

Why settle for the lesser of two evils?"

5/28- Turns out WORD is all talk.

5/27- I was on my way out the door running late to the Young Democrats candidate meet and greet at the Handlebar this evening when someone called to tell me how great he thought my talk on Channel 4 was, it had just aired and he looked up my number. The rest of the story is that he was a Republican. So if I make it through the primary, the general election might actually be easier.

5/26- Spent the day in Union, had an interview with the Union Daily Times, visited the radio station, put out yard signs and talked to people. It's a nice town. And $2.85 for the jumbo frank plate at Hearts is hard to beat.

5/23- The Channel 4 taping went OK I think, it airs Tuesday at the end of the 5:00 news. I still think politicians are overpaid, but not as much as I used to.

5/21- Beyond simple supply and demand, the skyrocketing price of oil is being driven principally by speculation over Bush attacking Iran.

5/19- Filming with Channel 4 Friday, have a debate in the works with WORD.

5/16- The latest rumor, and I've heard it from two independent sources, but the word is that I'm a fundamentalist Republican. So how about that. Gotta love politics.

5/13- In something of a public flame war with camp Corden over the debate, or lack of it. Got a $200 check, the largest so far.

5/12- Need to do a shoot for Channel 7, still pushing for a debate.

5/9- I dealt with the Sudanese government some years ago. The UN should put a gun to the Myanmar government's head and tell it to get out of the way.

5/6- Had an interview with the Greenville News today, and Channel 4 called for me to come in and give them some footage. Russell set up the facebook page yesterday, and I met with Jonathan the media planner.

It's all definitely not rocket science. But it's hopefully close enough.

4/29- Went to the debate last night between Inglis and Jeter, put on by the Young Republicans. The format seemed to work fairly well, with impromptu rebuttal and reasonable restraint instead of a formal structure and time limits. Inglis displayed all of the footwork that has him running for a sixth term, and Jeter did well, particularly for a first effort. He may not have Inglis's experience, but at least he's not running on his record.

In other news Monday, 4 US Soldiers, 43 Iraqis Killed; 112 Iraqis Wounded.

4/21- Went to the Republican 4th district convention this evening, and I had thought to just loiter around the fringe but it turns out that's hard to do when you can't find the center. All the nonparticipants were initially supposed to sit on the stage. Not making that up.

4/20- Had breakfast this morning with Griff at Stax, and who else would happen along but one of the two other candidates, Bryan McCanless, who I hadn't met. Griff had to rush off to church, Bryan ended up missing it. He's an interesting guy.

4/17- Say what you want about Jimmy Carter, and a lot of people do, but he was certainly the most decent President this country has had in my lifetime. If he wants to talk to Hamas or Fatah or the devil himself I have no doubt he's doing it out of sincere conviction, and it's a testament to the stranglehold the Israeli lobby has on the levers in this country that he can be so thoroughly shunned for it not just by the Republicans and the media, but by his own alleged party as well.

In other news, 250 yard signs were ordered today and should be ready Tuesday. A campaign event is being planned, in part to distribute them.

4/15- Yesterday evening's Democratic party meeting took an unexpected turn, when a gentleman took such offense at the words on this very website that he rose and read them aloud before the people assembled.

And the words went from being on the internet to being spoken openly at a public meeting. And you couldn't help but notice that the world went right on spinning. And not only that, but there seemed a general consensus that the truth was something we might discuss more.

4/9- Griff, the previous nominee, has been working on setting up a debate, but word now is Paul doesn't want to participate. Maybe send him some encouragement. Because if he can't handle it here, he won't be able to handle it in Washington.

4/5- The details of the Bear Stearns deal are of course too complicated and arcane and otherwise shrouded to more than casually contemplate, per which the general impression is one of people in suits making money, in this instance with the active intervention of the US government, but the one detail that sticks in my mind is the buyout going from 2 to 10 dollars over a weekend, a 500% increase. And I've been in a few buyouts, from both shareholder ends. And that just doesn't happen.

4/1- Out on the campaign trail today, and on the way home I stopped at Snapshot Cafe and managed to arrive shortly before a debate being held by Furman students on the question "Do Democrats Have All the Answers". I can't say for sure which way my input swung it, but if this level of blind luck holds, the campaign should go well.

3/31- Just back from the kickoff press conference.

It didn't go badly.

addendum
So my headline in the Greenville News is 4th District race gets third Democrat, or at least I think that's my headline. It's above an article about me. I actually filed first, the day before Corden and two weeks before McCanless.

The money quote comes from county GOP chairman Samuel Harms, in response to my observation about US military expenditures exceeding that of every other nation on earth combined. "I hope he keeps it up," he said. "That’s not a winning theme in this district."

Because see, kids, it's not about hard numbers and objective reality, national debt and legitimate defensive need, flag draped coffins and missing limbs. It's about "winning themes". It is plainly a marketing game for them. And make no mistake that no one else's sacrifice is too great to win it.

addendum to the addendum
So now my headline is Christian kicks off 4th District campaign.

Which is correct.

3/26- The Greenville News clearly considers Paul the lesser of two Democratic evils.

Why settle for the lesser of two evils?

3/25- Paul Corden, the only other candidate so far registered for the primary, put up his website today. I'll be posting a review within the next few days, but as I've been saying in conversation, my impression is that Inglis isn't beatable from inside the mainstream. Inglis has been a professional politician a fair bit of his life. He knows the business, he has the money. He's a Republican incumbent in a solidly Republican district. He isn't going to be beaten with a running game. If Democrats want to win, they have to go to the air. I think Paul could get solidly in the 30s, maybe up into the 40s. I think I would be somewhere between 20 up into the 50s. That's it in a nutshell.

3/21- Bush declared Wednesday in a propaganda speech beamed into Iran that the Iranian government has "declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people, some in the Middle East", which I think raises the question of whether its OK for our President to use government money to broadcast wild, eye-bulging lies.

3/17- Just back from Bob's Ham House talk on the economy, and it turns out what's needed is "confidence". Maybe we can get some at WalMart.

And Bob's for telecom immunity because the phone companies "cooperated", or as the mafia says, "cooperated".

And when it comes to earmarks stay a pig, don't be a hog, or very nearly those actual words to whatever effect.

3/12/08 (AFP)-"I want to assure you -- just like I assure military families and the troops -- the politics of 2008 is not going to enter into my calculation, it is the peace of years to come that will enter into my calculation," he pledged to a Christian broadcasters association.

"They're not coming home based upon defeat, or based upon opinion polls, or based upon focus groups, or based upon politics, they're coming home because we're successful," he said, to thunderous applause.

Here's a news flash, Mr. President- it looks like Obama will probably win, and when he does he's going to promptly close the books on your six year blood shower. But until then you just keep right on grinding, spunky.

3/11/08- Went to the party convention yesterday evening, and let's talk about what wasn't talked about- the objectively grotesque military budget, the semi official demise of the bill of rights, the nation's steady decent into abject usury, the fairly third world decline of the dollar, the codification of torture, and that our President is a bloodsoaked nitwit. None of those things were mentioned. We said the pledge, sang the national anthem, prayed twice, and debated the colors on the party logo.

3/6/08- Had coffee this afternoon with Paul Corden, a fellow potential 4th congressional district democratic nominee candidate. We got together with Griff to talk politics and maybe do some ad hoc power brokering, whatever that would look like. Paul looks the part, and with a law degree, ground combat experience, and a background in marketing, central casting could have sent over a lot worse. My impression is we don't have differences in ideology so much as a distinction in how far down the sleeve to wear it. Paul and Griff trend toward pragmatic, I trend toward ... well, I guess I'd have to characterize it as less pragmatic, though I'm not sure our positions aren't in fact functionally reversed. I think under the circumstances the most pragmatic approach may be to throw pragmatism to the winds. I have no hard numerical data on this.

It will be interesting to see what Paul puts on his website.

And re: the killings in the previous entry, it turns out they apparently murdered the wrong uncharged people, three women and three children. The intended victim was one Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, wanted by the FBI for questioning. No one seems to have pointed this out so I'll do it here, but a cruise missile is rather an awkward instrument of interrogation.

The bombing targeted a "facility where there were known terrorists", a government term for "huts full of people".

The White House stressed its intention to "go after" anyone and anyone affiliated with anyone "plotting and planning ... to inflict terror". The villagers for their part "fled in fear of another attack".

The Bush administration is out of control.

3/3/08- The Israelis keep some number of big plays mapped out, and the time to act on one would be while Bush is still in office, depending on how much they think remains to get out of him and whether they think Obama is going to win. The big play might involve some sort of attempted final solution to the Palestinian problem and/or an attack on Iran, possibly with nuclear weapons, which the Israelis may decide need to be actively introduced.

Yes, the big play would be a bad idea. That may stop them. It may not.

And Ahmadinejad just finished the first state visit ever made to Iraq by an Iranian leader. Bush really is the great uniter.

And the latest terminally guided killing warrants a comment on the American government's shift away from the rule of law. Our government now routinely kills people suspected of connections to groups tied to or believed to be engaged in activities in support of terrorist related etc. etc. etc.. No one is charged, no one is convicted, no one is sentenced. A decision is simply made somewhere, a missile is simply launched, and people in this or that faraway country are simply murdered. That the murdering entity doesn't bother with its own elaborate and expensively maintained court system doesn't seem to matter to anyone of any significance, and that the murdering entity in fact gets the guilt of entire nations wrong doesn't seem to matter either. And morality aside, make no mistake that one dark facet of this dark gem is that the high tech murder anywhere at anytime for any reason paradigm will not remain a one way street.

2/29/08- Telecom immunity is bad, but can Congress actually pass a law retroactively immunizing a private entity from civil liability in an ongoing action? What's a judge supposed to do with that?

It's called the rule of law, and like them or not it seems the Bush administration has pretty well dispensed with it.

2/27/08- Anybody else notice al-Sadr just extended his cease fire until two months before the election? What's up with that? Doesn't he know we're going to be busy with political stuff then?

But never mind that. Friends, Romans, coconspirators, settle no longer for getting your news from an ivory tower, because Beth at the Greenville News is now literally relaying it from Babel.

Maybe we really are on some preordained apocalypse gig.

2/26/08- I notice Paul Harvel's cartoon about Bob's new video is a reproduction.

2/23/08- Anybody besides me notice Turkey has invaded Iraq and our embassy in Serbia was looted yesterday?

2/22/08- Got an email from Bob this morning about his new video/campaign theme Get Down with Bob, and I'm actually at kind of a loss to parody it. And to be honest, I kind of feel like making fun of Bob is my turf and I don't need the competition. To be even more honest, his email arrived at the same time as an email with the news that Shriners has decided to accept Rusul for treatment. Rusul is an Iraqi girl who was injured in the war. She and her uncle will hopefully be here soon, and it looks like the decision is going to be to cut her foot off. And it's just not funny.

2/18/08- Back from Bob's Ham House talk, and let's just say it- the Republicans have screwed up so bad that like as not a black man with a Moslem name is going to be the next President. This awful reality hung palpably in the air, unspoken if not unmuttered, and no passing slogan nor wanly whistled tune could dispel its terrible onrush.

Turns out their big problem is a charisma deficit, so that they must now by way of remedy attempt to sell their war "winsomely", and I'm not making that up. I don't recall how they plan to sell everything else, but the prospect of selling a war winsomely sticks in my mind as perhaps the most novel marketing scheme in the long and colorful history of the discipline.

But for the cost, it would be a hoot.

2/6/08- Watched the clip of Bob on Colbert, and it was an appropriate venue to discuss his idea about a 35 foot high concrete wall along the Mexican border. As I put it in an email, it's probably more brainless than fascist. But I don't suppose practicality is much of a consideration.

Marketing, baby.

Marketing.

1/31/08- It looks like health care is going to be the big framing effort for Bob, which makes sense. It wasn't going to be the economy or immigration, and certainly not the war. Yes, health care is a mess, and no you couldn't realistically expect the Republicans to correct it, seeing as how they've overseen the descent, but at least it isn't a catastrophic failure, and who's to confidently say the Democrats wouldn't have done worse.

We aren't going to have socialized medicine in this country, there's too much money involved. We'll probably continue to slide that general direction, but we won't go so far as to materially impact the corporate bottom line, at least not anytime soon. Both parties are going to continue to pursue business as usual, and what's left of the free market will continue to try and cope. Get used to it.

1/18/08- Today's political phrase that pays is "economic stimulus", which coming from politicians means some variation on one or the other of the government's two basic tricks of taking or spending money, the conventional wisdom being that less of the first and more of the second is good for the economy. Of course anybody with a credit card can tell you where this will eventually lead, except that since the government can't exactly go "bankrupt" it instead sinks into "massive crippling debt", which leads to "runaway inflation". Which I suppose would call for the opposite of "economic stimulus", whatever the phrase for that is.

1/15/08- Had lunch with Griff today, and I think his idea about a federal community service program has merit, only I wouldn’t make it compulsory. It occurred to me talking about it that it could maybe get two or three birds with one stone if it was structured right. Such a program would be Constitutional if it was voluntary and if it employed people in pursuit of legitimate Constitutional ends, though let’s be clear that those legitimate ends don’t include giving the nation’s unfocused youth something to do, though I think that’s a fine side benefit. But perhaps the larger benefit of a correctly structured program might be to help revitalize the federal government with a steady infusion of youthful energy and ideas in place of the current ossification. Young people might come away from the program with an increased sense of maturity and purpose, and who’s to say the government might not do the same.

We also talked about the economy, and I’m supposed to come up with something to do about it. It’s the burger and fries of politics to make sweeping campaign promises about the economy, when in fact politicians actually have very little if any direct control over it. The truth is that the economy is basically just people doing things for each other, generally for money. The process requires a common transportation infrastructure, a regulatory playing field, and a medium of exchange, and the government helps the economy in such measure as it effectively and predictably provides these things. Beyond that, the government is in fact a demonstrable drain on the economy. Take as a particularly bad example the trillion dollars spent so far in Iraq. What do we have to show for it? Do we have a trillion dollars worth of roads or bridges? Do we have a trillion dollars worth of factories, homes, or food? No, we have a trillion dollars worth of corpses and a trillion dollars worth of ill will dragging down our exports to the rest of the world, along with the added drain of the usual wartime inflation. So be wary when these same architects tell you what they’re going to do for the economy.