Super-Spies Agree: United States To Surrender Control Of World

The National Intelligence Council (i.e., all above-ground government spooks) issued a report today predicting how the world would look by 2025 (AP/AFP/BBC/WaPo). I find these exercises entertaining, but you needn't bother reading a fairly standard novocaine-laced acronym-strewn litany of bureaucratically paranoid woe telling us what we already know.

The good: the world, apparently, will still have people left on it to fight each other. The bad: the US will not have enslaved everyone in McFreedom Fry Camps and make them keep buying plastic-electric thingies or else undergo the re-application of microwave blasters. The folks paid $100 billion or so per year to think about Complicated International Shit foresee more resource wars, a strong possibility of dramatic climate change, global instability (as in, umm, war), more WMD use by the bad people, and China will of course kill us all, perhaps after joining up with India, which will then be killed, too, after totally running out of water and starting to die on its own.

The US share of global production at the end of WWII was 75-80%. Not much way to go but down after that, and when it became obvious the world would be multi-polar (at the fall of the Soviet Union, circa 1990), we could have started using a temporary windfall of pre-eminence to craft treaties, international standards, alliances, back-room deals, and legal language which would grant a most-favored status, both economically and culturally, to the US for 50+ years. If you've ever watched Star Trek, you will have noticed that they speak English in space.

Instead, the power structure here tizzed out, ignored the real opportunity and over-reached in the worst possible way. It truly sucked to watch them do this, and know. The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) surmised it could leverage a temporary military technology advantage (or in their inflationary terms, a Military Revolution) into a hegemony set in re-bar. If India or China got out of line, we could simply step on a pipeline or two and cut off their blood. Amongst the many things the PNAC crowd, which is to say Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and their coterie failed to notice was that the real military revolution was occurring not with lasers shooting from the sky, but with citizen-soldiers (a.k.a. terrorists) using prepared positions, cheap explosives, sophisticated evasion/cohesion, and disposable cell phones.

The United States, in all likelihood, will be one nation amongst many. An ideology of exceptionalism will have trouble clutching up to that world, but there is reason to think it can happen. Other nations, as they've matured, have done it. I mean, look at Germany. And of my god, the Japanese, the Swiss. You will find few nations with a more innate, quiescent sense of superiority than the French, but they live rather peaceably these days, secure in the knowledge they're living better than anyone else. I can imagine far worse outcomes for my nation of birth and conscious choice, and am reconciled to the fact that the refrigerator in our kitchen was built to the standards of the European Union.

(Formerly) Ludlum Elementary Is In The Tank

Barack Obama doesn't have to wait until he's retired, has Alzheimer's, or even takes the Presidential Oath to get something large named for him. I'd take this over an aircraft carrier any day:

A New York elementary school has been re-named in honor of President-elect Barack Obama. Ludlum Elementary School in Long Island's Hempstead Union Free School District was re-named at a board meeting Thursday, at the request of numerous school students.

"Just to watch these kids after the board voted on what they asked them to do, they were so elated," school district superintendent Dr. Joseph Laria told ABC News. "You want to talk about "Yes we can!"? That was a lesson in democracy."

Effective immediately, Ludlum will now be known as Barack Obama Elementary School, following a decision by the board to adopt the resolution drafted by students and staff.

It Is In The "We"

I came across a heady blogger via Naj at Iran Facts, she who keeps me on my toes and has provided me with many delightful, intelligent windows on her former country. (Which has become the country I'd most like to visit.) The site is called Sidewalk Lyrics, run by a "Pedestrian" who has walked down some penetrating pre- and post-election observations conveying the fun-house political mirrors which reflect between the United States and Iran.

The images come back distorted in some ways, but we both have suffered greatly from our Fundies and their collective powers in exorcising democracy. They have their progressives and conservatives just like us, and although the garb may differ, the dynamic is much the same. One token among many of fellow traveler-hood: hardly anyone in the US realizes that Iran is a constitutional democracy, and conducts elections from its city councils on up.

I've excerpted Pedestrian's post below, but if you have an interest in understanding our Enemy of the Month, Sidewalk Lyrics looks to be an excellent resource.

...there are times in a people’s history where physical laws of time and space no longer apply. There are times when the collective wisdom of a people seems to rise above what it was just days or even hours before. There are times when we decide as a nation that we will hope, we will want, we will attempt to do things differently.

HOPE is such a powerful thing. and I find that despite the fear and chaos on which this world is built, despite the greed and conceit that keeps it going, it is exactly these rare, unlikely moments that really keep us not just living, but alive. It is these moments that remind us of our humanity, our humility and of all that could be possible.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This vote was not for a person, but a path.

I put my vote in the box, not because I like Khatami, not because I want another mullah as my president, but just for the simple reason that no matter how small and impossible this dream may be, even though I can’t see how or why it may happen, I can hope and pray that now, my country’s freedom will not - as some claim - have to wait for guns and grenades.

Maybe — just maybe — this time around, the ballot box will be enough.”

But what I realize now is that my one vote wasn’t enough. It is not the day of the elections, but the day after that makes all the difference. Political systems all around the world are built on mass manipulation and mass deceit and we can not expect them to function any other way. We are wrong and naïve to even hope that they will function any other way. We can not expect one man to alter a system that is as old as time itself and as powerful.

In fact, it is not in that one man that our hope should lie – but the collective wisdom we have been able to achieve as people. That is what we forget the day after the elections, and that has been our greatest defeat every single time.

It is not in he that change will come; but in the we.

Read the rest.

Welcoming The Otter

He was born at 6:14 this morning like an incoming 8-pound, 20-inch artillery round, one so polite and mild he decided to not explode, but even so he's set everything in flux, the flux which hypnotizes us. The elements imitate, mutate, and repeat each other, muttering their memes into the kaleidoscope of genes, as if that's enough.

We had already guessed how different he is from our first, and now we know. Yes, he is what came from us, from our parents and grandparents and they from theirs all the way back through. We inherited recessive codes of melanin, dominant eye colors, crenelations in our brains, curves in our eyebrows and our bones. The outcomes are infinite. But as a father, I know we inherit far more than that. We inherit culture, we inherit prejudices, we receive affinities, proclivities, morals, and bad habits, and everything organic about us swims in the swirling thickness of the past.

Into this realm drop the souls who want to visit or need to come back again through the wells of forgetfulness into these bodies. They decide to arrive vulnerable and as resplendent blood-drenched treasures, their umbilical cords shining like strings of pearls. We don't control them, they choose us because they think we can help them, and we can only extend the best welcome to this husk.

Honestly, I don't know how it works. Maybe they choose us, or maybe they're drafted, and I might just fall apart trying to hold this in my heart. All I know is that we, the antecedents, will do our utmost. This new boy is everything we ever were, plus himself.

About Time: A First Step In Banning Depleted Uranium Munitions

There are mounting suspicions in the medical community that prolonged exposure to stews of pollutants and toxins are driving up rates of maladies from autism to diabetes. It took 17 years for bureaucrats to finally admit Gulf War Syndrome is real, despite the sufferings of hundreds of thousands of people and their children. Their conclusion didn't link GWS explicitly to depleted uranium, only going so far as to say GWS isn't imaginary.

I suppose the admission is progress compared to the baselines of casual disregard for the effects of toxins and for veterans' rights, but the Pentagon has already turned the world hot with DU, firing an estimated 320 tons of it on Iraq in 1991 alone. They've used it on ranges all over the US, and in live-fire exercises conducted off the east and west coasts, including fishing grounds off Washington State. This is not just a veterans' problem. They're just getting hit with it first.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A report released Monday concluded that "Gulf War Syndrome" is a legitimate condition suffered by more than 175,000 U.S. war veterans who were exposed to chemical toxins in the 1991 Gulf War.

The congressionally mandated report could help veterans who have battled the government for treatment of a wide range of unexplained neurological illnesses, from brain cancer to multiple sclerosis.

The Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses concluded that Gulf War Syndrome is a physical condition distinct from the mental "shell shock" suffered by veterans in other wars. Some earlier studies had concluded it was not a distinct illness.

"Scientific evidence leaves no question that Gulf War illness is a real condition with real causes and serious consequences for affected veterans," said the committee, which has been looking into the problem since 2002.

The committee, composed of independent scientists and veterans, said Congress should boost funding for research on Gulf War veterans' health to at least $60 million per year.

"This is a national obligation, made especially urgent by the many years that Gulf War veterans have waited for answers and assistance," the committee said.

Congress set up the committee in 1998, but the U.S. Veterans Administration did not appoint anyone to serve on it until 2002.

Gulf War Syndrome affects at least one-fourth of the 700,000 U.S. troops who served in the 1991 effort to drive Iraq out of Kuwait, or between 175,000 and 210,000 veterans in all, the report found. Few have seen their symptoms improve over the past 17 years, the report said.

Symptoms include persistent headaches, widespread pain, cognitive difficulties, unexplained fatigue, skin rashes, chronic diarrhea and digestive and respiratory problems.

Many Gulf War veterans suffering these symptoms say they met with skepticism when seeking treatment.

The panel found two possible causes: a drug given to troops to protect against nerve gas, known as pyridostigmine bromide, and pesticides that were used heavily during the war.

The panel said other possible causes could not be ruled out, including extensive exposure to smoke from oil-well fires and low-level exposure to sarin gas when captured Iraqi stocks were destroyed.

The U.S. government has spent roughly $440 million on Gulf War health research since 1994, but spending has declined in recent years and often is not focused on improving veterans' health, the committee said.

The report further highlighted inadequacies in the medical care veterans have received from their government.

A 2007 investigation by the Washington Post found combat veterans in the current Iraq war faced rodent-infested housing and bureaucratic hurdles as they sought treatment at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the flagship military hospital in Washington D.C..

(I know the picture is disturbing; some genetic effects of GWS are similar to thalidomide deformities. Others are worse, and there are many tiny victims of Desert Storm. Depleted uranium weapons are already banned by every international treaty, law, or convention. Only the United States has used it, and it stays hot for 4.5 billion years.)

Those Who Study History Are Condemned To Know It

And speaking of Henry Kissinger, he floated a paper ("Seizing Arab Oil") under the nom de plume "Miles Ignotus" (Unknown Soldier) in Harper's back in 1975 about America solving its oil problems by invading Saudi Arabia and seizing its infrastructure. It may not have been his idea originally, since James Schlesinger (Richard Nixon's SecDef) advocated the same thing in 1973, and tried to rev up the sullen British on a joint operation which included Kuwait and Abu Dhabi. Britain responded by making another James Bond movie, but the Gift Zwerg (from german, lit "poison dwarf") never gave up on the idea.

James Akins was the US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1973-75, when he was dismissed for telling Kissinger to perform an unnatural act. He returned to lobby against the planned war, and later personally filed a winning suit against AIPAC which went to the US Supreme Court in 1998.

Akins remarked at the imminent start of the Iraq invasion in 2003, "It's the Kissinger Plan! I thought it'd been killed, but it's back."

More Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton

The Dem caucus has mapped out their turf on healthcare (Kennedy and Baucus), and on seniority & leadership (Reid), just as the "Clinton as Sec-State" rumors began swirling and leaking. Leaking with two aides quoted in every story.

That's the kind of choreography we got from the Dark Side for 5-6 years after 9/11. Either the Obama camp wound up a couple of allies in Kennedy and Reid to show Clinton she wouldn't get Senate Majority Leader or anything in Health Care, or La Clintonessa heard the rumors and sent out feelers. Given the communications discipline (not among the core Clinton traits) the former seems far more likely.

Bottom line, her Senate opportunities were being closed off right around the time Sec State rumblings started. It will give her a world stage, more cameras, and possibly high drama, so my bet is she won't be able to turn it down.

Psyche's News Roundup

YouTube - Your Weekly Address from the President-Elect
Alaska Senate: Begich Widens Lead Slightly - The Fix
Minnesota Independent: ‘Ordinary voter’ in New York Times recount story has strong GOP ties (how they work)

The Washington Monthly: Demint: "Americans do prefer a traditional conservative government"
Bill's Foreign Deals May Pose Issue For Clinton As Secretary Of State
Obama Mosaic Small.png (PNG)

Iraeli PM Candidate's Website Looks A Lot Like Obama's... (Photo) (Tzipi Livni)
Body of Lies: The CIA's involvement with US film-making | Film | The Guardian | The CIA is often credited with 'advice' on Hollywood films, but no one is truly sure about the extent of its shadowy involvement.
LOL@McCain

Thomas Friedman’s World Is Flat Broke: vanityfair.com: (wife's fortune: down 3.9 bn to 25mil: Friedman cranky)
Bush cites progress at world economic summit (after destroying world economy)
Lawmaker says AIG executive should resign after resort event - CNN.com

YouTube - Dennis Kucinich Grills Neel Kashkari On Bailout Scam (Skeletor)
Should We Really Bail Out the Big Three Automakers with $73.20 Per Hour Labor? - Seeking Alpha
Bloomberg.com: U.S. Hartford, Lincoln, Genworth Buy Lenders, May Gain U.S. Funds

Leveraged ETFs With 300% Exposures Set To Launch - News In Focus
FT.com / Weekend / Reportage - Letter from Iceland
In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole? | The Onion

Mineral Kingdom Has Co-evolved With Life, Scientists Find
Dr Petra Boynton: Do women get bitchier as they get older? (Only if they’re faced with research like this)
Marine plankton found in amber

YouTube - Crazy Cat Attacking Spuds Dog
Failing hard drive sounds - Datacent.com
Elderly Ghetto Gospel Choir is Today's BIG Thing - NOV 13, 2008

Malcolm Gladwell asks is there such a thing as pure genius? | Books | The Guardian (10,000 hours to genius)
How to Run a Con | Psychology Today Blogs
Lolcats, "I Can Has Cheezburger?" | Salon Life

TPM Election Central | Talking Points Memo | Leahy Becomes First Senator To Demand Lieberman's Ouster From Homeland Security Committee
Sarkozy Chides Putin On Russian Tough Talk: "You Want To End Up Like Bush?"

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

While shopping at Costco today, a man loitering near the pickle jars noticed the "Hillary 2008" button (I volunteered at Obama's campaign HQ and found it in a pile of miscellany) on my jacket. He asked me, "What do you think of Hillary as Secretary of State?"

Surprised, I replied, "She'd be great. She's got the deception, the deviousness, studies up on the issues, and can turn on enough charm when she needs it."

The man stared at me, smiled and said: "You're not really a Hillary supporter, are you?"

"Well, sure I am. For Secretary of State. Better than Kissinger, if she takes it."

Didn't mention that I've been predicting this all year. Or that she bears a physical resemblance to Talleyrand.

The Way To Succeed In Iran

We need to focus diplomacy and enforcement not on Iran's uranium enrichment program, but its missiles. If Biden and Obama can de-rhetoricize the background noise, they can orchestrate a Mid-East summit and cut a deal. Iran will receive assistance from (US) nuclear technologists to build power plants, and we (Israel) will get a treaty limiting missile range. The IAEA is very capable of monitoring on-the-ground enrichment, and a combination of satellite surveillance, HUMINT, and integrating Iran fully into the region's will ensure peace. This has a realistic shot of working now, and Scott Ritter (former UN weapons inspector in Iraq), has written his usual clear, expert prescription on how to do it, "With Iran, Obama Needs More Carrot, Less Stick." His concluding paragraphs:

In the end, Iran will probably have three choices to consider: continue its indigenous enrichment program despite the severe economic burden; drop its uranium enrichment program in favor of a secure, reliable international source of nuclear fuel; or seek to integrate its uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing capabilities into a larger regional and global framework, one that not only provides economic relief for the Iranian effort, but also brings with it greater international scrutiny and inspection, adherence to international practices and procedures on the handling and accountability of nuclear material, and viability to any regional nuclear fuel bank that would incorporate the product of Iran’s enrichment programs. The integration of Iran more fully into the Persian Gulf economy is by far the best guarantor of long-term stability in that region. Iran’s nuclear program should be seen as an opportunity in this regard, not an obstacle.

As Iran heads toward a presidential election in the coming year, the United States—and the Obama administration—would achieve better and longer-lasting results by seeking solutions geared toward resolving the legitimate issues at play in the region, rather than creating short-term sound bites here at home. A clean break with the neoconservative policies of the Bush administration is a prerequisite for success, and achieving this requires great imagination and courage. President-elect Barack Obama has demonstrated the potential for both of those qualities. I hope that promise is realized.

And the rest.

New White House Gives Early Hints On Climate Change Approach

But first, they have to watch the out-going Bush Administration raid the annual UN climate summit in Poznan, Poland, next month. At last year's summit in Bali, after weeks of intense negotiations and sleepless nights, delegates punted at the final hour and decided to craft a successor to the Kyoto protocol in December 2009. The Poznan summit will be an interesting place indeed, and the new clues are unabashedly in favor of cap-and-trade. Via the New Scientist:

There is a campaign underway for Obama to go to Poznań, but few believe he will. Instead, he is expected to send an observer. All this means expectations for radically different US climate leadership will be piled high on Obama's desk when he takes over the Oval Office on 20 January, 2009.

At a conference on carbon trading that took place on Wednesday, an environmental advisor to Obama sought to reassure business and policy-making experts. "The president-elect will move quickly on climate change," said Jason Grumet, Obama's lead energy and environment campaign adviser and possible choice for the new energy secretary.

"My suggestion to all of you is to enjoy the holiday season and rest up because I think it's going to be a very, very busy 2009," he said. He offered no specifics and answered no questions. He noted that the US has operated "a federal climate program with mandatory elements, for many, many years now."

(Picture above: dawn breaks through the mist over Colby Lake, New York, just above Saranac Lake.)

Psyche's News Roundup

Justice Dept. Overhaul - washingtonpost.com: Goal Is to Restore Confidence in Law Enforcement Actions
Alaska: Gems Election Results (Begich up by 800+ ; Democrats winning)
Matthew Yglesias » Blogger Solidarity (Rachel: we are all bloggers)

Republican Governors Meet, Glumly - washingtonpost.com Many See Bleak Future for Party
Bush, Out of Office, Could Oppose Inquiries - NYTimes.com (come and meet my little Cheney)
TPM: News Pages | Obama team expected to broker deal on subpoenas (Bolten, Miers and Rove to walk?)

Palin's First Press Conference Cut Short (Video)
YouTube - AC360: Dan Savage Takes on Tony Perkins Over Prop 8
Ted Nugent says a "Conservative revolution is brewing" | Crooks and Liars (wingnuts on parade)

Truthdig - Reports - America the Illiterate (our childrens ain't learnin')
Exiled Online - War Nerd: Bush Fought The Wars And The Wars Won - By Gary Brecher
TPMCafe | The Anatomy of Conservative Self-Deception

Bush Tells UN That Faith Sustained Him Through Presidency (plus hookers, booze)
The New York Times - Thomas Friedman apologizes for being wrong and quits job (gotcha)
The Supreme Court grapples with the Summum case. - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine

New Jobless Claims Pass 500,000 to 7-Year High - CNBC.com (just the beginning)
Bloomberg Sues The Fed For Disclosure | The LA Progressive
Bailout Lacks Oversight Despite Billions Pledged - washingtonpost.com - Watchdog Panel Is Empty; Report Is Unfinished ("why don't we get drunk, and screw?")

Alex Jones: Celente Predicts Revolution, Food Riots, Tax Rebellions By 2012
BBC NEWS | Business | Russia's role in rescuing Iceland (the price is right)
Robert Reich's Blog: The Real Difference Between Bankruptcy and Bailout

Once upon a time... on Vimeo (Capucine)
Humans may have prevented super ice age - environment - 12 November 2008 - New Scientist
How warfare shaped human evolution - life - 12 November 2008 - New Scientist
Atlas of hidden water may avert future conflict - environment - 24 October 2008 - New Scientist

All Extremists Should Be Shot

Or at least not rewarded for bad behaviors. Extremists are the real enemies within each political party, and right now conditions are perfect for them across the globe. We're traversing the sharp, narrow ridgeback of a very tall mountain. A misstep to the left will send us down the cliff to neo-liberalism, one to the right and we careen back down into neo-fascism. We should all be quite familiar with the dicta for nation-building abroad; now it's hitting home, and best practices in such ambitious endeavors also apply to parties.

Even if it tastes bad, you help the comparative moderates in a country, you reward them and isolate the radicals. That's how you de-escalate, win the middle, and create balances of power. Democrats in the US are faced with the need for pragmatic party-building, for isolating our radicals by embracing those who are only half a bubble off plumb. I'm not referring to Democrats rebuilding the Democratic Party--Barack Obama did that during the primary and campaign. I mean Democrats urgently need to help rebuild the Republican Party. If we don't...They will.

Of course we shouldn't be just a nation of two parties, but we are, and even if we became a parliamentary system overnight it wouldn't help. So mending the compound fractures in the GOP is a priority for us all. Yes, it's great fun to watch them tear each other apart, don't get me wrong. It's a sinful pleasure watching them try to hitch their busted yachts to blazing SUVs, and to hand the keys over to someone who out-Bushes Bush (yes, the doublay was entendried). The meme going around is to let them Palienate because she's good for fund-raising among the Know-Nothings, and hope they run her or a facsimilie in 2012 so they get thrashed again. Trouble is, I recognize the danger in that outcome. It would hurt us all. And the world. Enormously.

If the Republicans move back towards the center, however, it helps us all. It would keep the Democrats honest and greatly lessen the odds of a steep drop into unworkable neo-liberalisms. The magnitude of the opportunity is huge, and it cannot be retrieved if passed up. If the Dims listen to the devils of their lower natures and play NIGYSOB ("now I got you, son of bitch") we will be sentenced to a generation of over-reach, to another vertiginous political cycle intimately connected to the boom and bust we're experiencing economically. Ergo, the Pugs must be marginalized so the Republicans become and remain a viable threat in a balance of power.

We must reach out to moderate Republicans, the ones being ousted from the inner circle. David Frum, for example. was Bush II's early speechwriter. I despise him and his wretched mistakes, but he is a reformer, he saw this coming, and has written a book called "Comeback." Time to reach out. We need people like Reihan Salam, a smart young intellectual who co-wrote "Grand New Party." We need Peggy Noonan, Jim Manzi, Ed Rollins, John McCain, Chuck Hagel, and many disparate influencers who are center-right. Even Chris Buckley and David Brooks, who function as moderate double agents.

The alternative is we'll get more of Joe the Wife-Beater (really, I've seen the court docs), Jerry Falwell, and millenial apocalypsis. We get more of people who scorn wisdom with extreme prejudice, who always choose narrow ideologies over wider common goods. We need to marginalize Karl Rove and his American Taliban, who pandered to these lower natures in exchange for Phyrric victories which benefitted an unprecious few.

This means we must dampen our impulse to interpret the election as a paean to being liberal. The collapsing economy isn't proof of capitalism's failure. Capitalism works. So does communism, but incarnations of both have to be upheld by plausible myths and regulated by authority-wielding cops who beat the hell out of those who pollute or steal from the commons. Believe it or not, there are governments in which malefactors don't get bailed out, but get jailed in.

Now is not the time to revel in Schadenfreude, or to be small-minded in victory. It is the time to be magnanimous, and glory awaits if we choose to be. There may be very little room to maneuver, but regardless of the fix we're in, the most valuable thing we can have is a government capable of governing, of making good choices and compromises. Wearing the victory lightly will help achieve that. This notion of "all governments are bad" is the result of long brainwashing, and it's a lie. Maybe, just maybe, we can build one that's even good at it. Yes we better.

(Note: I have plagiarized from many sources above. My apologies and thanks to you all.)

Ins & Outs Dept.: Midnight F***-You Regulations Can Be Reversed

Ha-ha, good news! Those privatizin' White Hosers messed up. Again. Which isn't news, but this time their incompetence works out in our favor, so they can't put cyanide in our chewing gum and so forth:

Congressional Democrats are eyeing a little-known, Clinton-era law as a way to reverse Bush administration midnight regulations — even ones that have already taken effect.

It’s a move that would undermine the White House’s attempt to finalize its energy and environmental regulations by November so that Barack Obama couldn’t undo them after he’s sworn in as the 44th president on Jan. 20.

“Fortunately, [the White House] made a mistake,” said a top Senate Democratic aide.

Last May, White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten instructed federal agency heads to make sure any new regulations were finalized by Nov. 1. The memo didn’t spell it out, but the thinking behind the directive was obvious. As Myron Ebell of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute put it: “We’re not going to make the same mistakes the Clinton administration did.”

The law [Ed.: the Congressional Review Act of 1996] contains a clause determining that any regulation finalized within 60 days of congressional adjournment — Oct. 3, in this case — is considered to have been legally finalized on Jan. 15, 2009. The new Congress then has 60 days to review it and reverse it with a joint resolution that can’t be filibustered in the Senate. In other words, any regulation finalized in the last half-year of the Bush administration could be wiped out with a simple party-line vote in the Democrat-controlled Congress.

Now we'll see if the Spineless Ones can be motivated to follow through on their legal advantage over the Bastard Party. Visions of cattle prods do dance in the head. Read the rest here.

In Defense Of Religion, Part I

All cultures, to my knowledge, strove to convey and control the experience of transcendence, and to name it. The follies and tragedies we humans commit against ourselves and others would seem to belie, belittle, or invalidate attempts to reach and understand the divine, but religion is an indication that we're trying to become more than animals, and are succeeding. While we're still sandwiched tightly between the sacred and the profane, those persistent struggles to find god are actually testimonies that one might exist.

We are all seekers, and even if inactive or atheistic we all confront the mystery of good and evil when we undergo bodily suffering, psychic pain, or loss, and when we genuinely express love or feel its overarching power. Many voices echo from the past, doing their best to honor this mystery and its nature, and the traditions of the major religions all set down principles of ethics which would help us live together and draw out better societies.

The resulting codes of ethics and senses of morals are strikingly similar, and in their basic precepts, they got it right. Although we often fail to do what we should, we come from traditions which contemplated over the basic questions of life and came up with the right answers. We have that much in common, and I try to remember that when someone asks if I have accepted Jesus into my life. Yes, but not for a distorted doctrine which redeems the irredeemable and excuses all manner of pomposity.

Tolerating differing beliefs, so critical a component for the world we hope to build, is a balancing act of respecting their wellsprings and gently but firmly pushing back when they flow too heavily upon the commons, one which newly encompasses not a lazy river or a village green but the entire earth. A path to tolerance is to listen to the other sources of belief and learn about them, and to consider lives in other societies which are unlike our own. Can the differing codas be reconciled, in a practical sense, now that distance has shrunk and we're so intertwined?

I think it's possible, but requires a great deal of luck in leaders, ones who believe a certainty in knowing god's will for application of policy is extremely dangerous. If there is an impulse to fight without reservation, it is religious certainty in government, deeply underscored by menaces recent and present. Governments always try to convert religion into civic religion, but the goals of the theocratic-leaning state show a strong tendency to diverge from the goals of the divine. We're far more likely to find god in what we don't know, and there will always be plenty of that.

Change We Need

The biggest obstacle Barack Obama now faces isn't Republicans or the will of the people. It's the Democratic congress, or as I call them collectively, the Dims. As crows gather into a murder, so do our elected critters, and Congress is first and foremost a finishing school for lobbyists. They have relished the eyes in our hanging bodies, and picked them out with their dark beaks. While there are laudable exceptions, and I live in such a district, the Democratic congress has it so good now that there's tremendous institutional resistance to change. Any change. They want payback, they want bounty, and the whole Beltway is abuzz with how to line up first at the pig-slop.

Obama's tip-top priority is Alternative Energy, because that's how you change our fundamental bellicosity. If you own a huge imperious tiger who needs 20 pounds of meat a day or else he eats your family, you better start raising sheep. (Whether he's appointed or not, Al Gore will be the de facto Secretary of Energy.) Obama's opening salvo for the Green Machine is going to be half a trillion dollars. Which Congress should love, but many in it will vehemently despise it for various reasons.

First, Obama will get the credit and he has them over (pun intended) a barrel. A Green Deal will impart no glory, for example, to Blue Dog Democrats. Nor to Nancy Pelosi, nor Harry Reid. Next, the Dims will have no ready grapple points for earmarks. Even worse, Obama wants to set up a five-member Infrastructure Committee tasked with analyzing all energy projects and giving ultimate go/no-go. There will be a furor of lunches, dinners, comfort girls, and big-screen TVs sent to the wrong addresses for those committee members, such that Jennifer Anniston would frolic with them atop the Lincoln Memorial if they would just approve a wind farm in North Dakota. And he'll pick people who won't care.

Republicans, of course, expect to get screwed. The biggest source of unhappiness will be from the Democrats who don't think they're getting their due. Obama is going to take a flamethrower to them, so they just might be outraged. (They have my sympathy. As much as I have for paint sniffers.) Obama is anti-lobbyist, and he knows the process is set up to bring ostensible damned-if-you-do-or-don't legislation chock-full-o-pork through. In a delicious irony, his biggest ally across the aisle may end up being John McCain, the Anti Earmarks super hero.

Farewell, Howard Dean

Done the job, made the point, built the dream in just 4 years. +45 Congressional seats, +13.5 Senate seats, and a Democratic President won Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, Colorado, and Nevada. (Yeaa-aaa-aaaahhh!)

Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Don't you love the sound...of the last laugh going down?

Psyche's News Roundup

The Crisis & What to Do About It - The New York Review of Books - By George Soros
NPR: Hear: A Tale of Intertwined Misery: school districts that bought some of the worst stuff on Wall Street.
American Express to Become Bank Holding Company - DealBook - New York Times (am I a bank, too?)

Obama Plans Guantanamo Close, US Trials
MSNBC’s Tag for Now - ‘The Power of Change’ - NYTimes.com
Bush leaving office more unpopular than Nixon - CNN.com (country afflicted with "Bush Derangment Syndrome")

Gallup: 68% 'favorable rating' for Obama - On Politics - UsaToday.Com
Dean Prepares To Step Down As DNC Chair (mission accomplished)
GOP at Odds with Country

Media Matters - Absurd View : Hasselbeck, Shepherd suggest clergy could have been jailed without Prop 8
Charlie Brooker: Is Obama really president or am I just watching a fantasy? It's almost too good to be true | Comment is free | The Guardian The Republican campaign was so horrible, it could only have been orchestrated by Skeletor

The Smoky Mountain Hiking Blog: PBS documentary on Appalachia in early 2009
Martin Eisenstadt’s Blog » Blog Archive » Eisenstadt the source for Sarah Palin "Africa" leak… and proud of it.
Deep Secrets of ‘The Daily Show’ - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com

Balloon Juice » Blog Archive » Your Morning F-Bomb
BBC NEWS | Europe | Mystery of lost US nuclear bomb

Yes We Will (Have A Depression) - The Market Ticker
Bloomberg.com: Exclusive Fed Defies Transparency Aim in Refusal to Disclose (surprise)
Ohio DHL layoffs - Nov. 9, 2008 - About 8,000 job cuts reportedly may be announced tomorrow (66% of whole city)

Fed won't give info on nearly $2 trillion in loans | Business | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle
A Quiet Windfall For U.S. Banks With Attention on Bailout Debate, Treasury Made Change to Tax Policy
A.I.G. May Get More in Bailout - NYTimes.com ("despite assurances" etc)

Mormons Continue to Try to Steal Anne Frank's Soul
Renaldi - Photographs - Touching Strangers
Bullies' Brains Light Up With Pleasure as People Squirm (Bush)

Thought

Not every thought has to be original.

The Wit And Wisdom Of Rahm Emanuel

I hate Rahm Emanuel. I hate him for being a shitty DCCC chair, for battling with Howard Dean over the 50-state strategy, for doing everything possible to undermine the winning strategy, then for taking credit when it worked. I hate him for running Bush-sympathizing 'Blue Dog Democrats' in red districts in 2006, and I hate him for being a smirking phoney smarm. He is rumored to hold an Israeli passport, to have volunteered for the IDF during Desert Storm, he is a Zionist and passes out Uzis to Jewish gangstas, "The Isros," in synagogues all over Chicago's north side. My mildest reaction to him as Obama's chief of staff was "Blerrrchh!"

But then I thought, "What would Saul Alinsky do? What would a community terrorist who has improbably seized power next do?" Get himself an enforcer. A Nastasi Beria, Luca Brazzi, knock-on-the-door-in-the-night Bad Cop. My hunch is it was also a "keep your enemies closer" move. By naming Emanuel, Obama fulfilled Chicago political machine payback in perpetuity and also removed a major, ongoing congressional pain in the ass, one which is now condemned to schedule meetings and incessantly listen to people bitch and whine about how they absolutely must see the President. Music, sweet music.

Is it any wonder Rahmbo didn't immediately accept the post? He's done it before, and knows it often requires arriving 5AM and leaving 9PM. Plus, it messes with his ambition to be Speaker of the House, so he only committed 2 years to the job from hell. A placeholder will take his congressional seat, but things aren't always predictable on that watch. Especially now. The shit that's being aerosolized will not have settled back down upon the turnip field a short two years from now.

So Obama has a (preferably hypoallergenic) pit bull for CoS, and past holders of that slot like Dick Cheney and John Sununu were noted for startling levels of unapologetic rudeness. You don't need to trust the holder of the post to be nice, you need smarts, stamina, effectiveness, and quick answers to your reins. Obama trusts his combat team: Axelrod, Plouffe, Valerie Jarrett, and his wife. Not the Merchant of Hyde Park, who will henceforth be Axelrod's responsibility. Emanuel scares the ever-living shit out of the Reich Wing, and he's as bipartisan as a broken nose. (See the cancelled SNL sketch above.) Politics is his blood sport. This is a good thing, if your President backs off from it.

Here's another Rahmbo angle: I suspect Obama will throw deep right away on the Palestine-Israel issue as a way to open up the options, because progress there, or the convincing illusion of it, makes everything else easier in the Mid-East. Emaneul knows how to work with the Clintons, is an intimate who maintained his neutrality, which pushes a few jigsaws together with Hillary as SecState. Baggage or no, the Clintons have mondo stature on the archway issue that's screwing the entire world up. They're the most recent people to make any headway on reconciliation and recognition, exact roboratives needed to free the Mid-East oxen from the desperate mire.

Obama is going after Israel, and it will be leaned on hard, with all the remaining US leverage available. Right where it should've been placed for the last decade and more. It may be tool late, as Israel is busy sucking up to Russia with all possible speed, but having Rahm as CoS is like establishing an open channel to Tel Aviv. He will communicate what's doable, what's not, and he'll be believed.

For everything else domestic, he'll be diabolically effective, and will use his time in the White Cabin to gather power, not burn bridges. Aaron Sorkin's scheming character on the West Wing, Josh Lyman, is supposedly based on Emanuel's three-ring performances with the Clintons. Which, if true, means he gives a shit about liberal causes. And as for the rest, I'll take Machiavellian over Vaudevillian any day.

Naomi Klein Is Hot

As a firecracker on the Fourth of July. So, here's the deal...if you entered "Naomi Klein is hot" into a search engine and dropped into here, you owe me a comment. Right after you read her Rolling Stone article, "The New Trough," excerpted below. Funny how the Wall St. bailout looks a lot like Iraq--a "fraud-free zone:"

See if any of this sounds familiar: As soon as the bailout was announced, it became clear that Treasury officials would hire outsiders to perform their jobs for them — at a profit. Private companies wanting to help manage the bailout were given just two days to apply for massive, multiyear contracts. Since it was such a mad rush — after all, the entire economy was about to implode — there was no time for an open bidding process. Nor was there time to draft rigorous rules to make sure that those applying don't have serious conflicts of interest. Instead, applicants were asked to disclose their conflicts and to explain — and this is not a joke — their "philosophy in fulfilling your duty to the Treasury and the U.S. taxpayer in light of your proprietary interests and those of other clients." In other words, an open invitation to bullshit about how much they love their country and how they can be trusted to regulate themselves.

The first major contract to be awarded in the bailout was for legal advice — and the choice Treasury made was Halliburton-esque in its audacity. Six law firms were invited to bid, but four declined, either because they didn't want the contract or because they had too many conflicts of interest. Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the fact that so many law firms chose not to bid "shows that the guidelines are sufficiently rigorous."

Or it may just show that the bidder who won the contract — Simpson Thacher & Bartlett — takes a more relaxed approach to conflicts than its colleagues. The law firm is a Wall Street heavy hitter, having brokered some of the biggest bank mergers in recent years. It also provided legal support to companies trading mortgage-backed securities — the "financial weapons of mass destruction," as Warren Buffett called them, that detonated the banking industry. More to the point, it was hired to provide legal services to the Treasury in its negotiations to spend $250 billion of the bailout money purchasing equity in America's banks. The first stage of the plan involves buying stakes in nine of the country's top banks. Incredibly, Simpson Thacher has represented seven of the nine: JPMorgan, Bank of New York Mellon, Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch.

According to its contract, Simpson Thacher has agreed not to represent any of the banks "against the U.S." when they negotiate with Treasury for the equity money.

There were two kinds of people who wrote, passed, and signed that bailout contract: bumbletwits and goniffs. Naomi Klein, on the other hand, was sagacious enough to decode the shpiel. Her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism describes the long prelude to this series of unfortunate events, and it won't put you to sleep. (At least not if you Googled the title.) Her work will endure, she's the Upton Sinclair of international finance, and richly deserves a Pulitzer Prize. Here's the rest of the article and here is her blog. Now tell me why you think she's hot--me, I've always been a sucker for smarts.

Vetting the Obama-Dog

If you have a hypoallergenic shelter-dog handy, now's the time to notify the Obamas. Charming bark a plus, biting reporters a no-no. (Barack is a friend of dry humor.)

The Republican Party's Head Is Examined

One cold and wet night about four years ago, I was listening to the radio, driving near my house. A professor was talking public policy with an audience at Town Hall, speaking with scholarship, clarity, authority, and humor; I pulled over and turned up the sound. "Geez," I thought. "Why can't somebody like this guy be President? Dream on, kiddo." I listened to the end of the program just to find out the gent's name: Barack Obama. Four years and many downpours later, the Novelty Generator that is my country has thunk the unthinkable. As blogger Frank Paynter at Listics remarked, "Historic? This beats the effing moon landing."

We're in a new era. For the first time in 49 years, a Texas Oil Man is neither the President nor Vice President of the United States. The only civil war being fought so far, one which tempts an urge to incivility, is between the Whack Jobs (Palin Wing) and the Gippers (Noonan Wing) in the Grumpy Old Party, which the Whack Jobs are destined to lose. Their war is a good thing for all of us, being one only of ideas, and what emerges will figure out how to win the mainstream back. Being right under their nose, there's a decent chance they'll find the answers, and the upshot is this: Republicans can do Progressive Politics, too. Call me crazy, but the GOP will soon cast itself as the Party of Small Business.

Consider, if you will, Newt Gingrich. He's a genuine intellect, was the leader of the Republican congressional takeover in 1994, the architect of the "Contract With America." He was an extremely prolific fund-raiser and earned the loyalty of his peers by sharing the wealth generously. Christians love him. Business people love him. He's a master of crafting agendas, and he is going to wind up running the Republican Party.

The GOP as a whole worships authority. That's what the God Thing in the Base is about. While managing those impulses can be tricky, Gingrich grasps the absolutely tremendous potential for positive activism that's scurrying around in there, and he's got the smarts and the bona fides to bring it out. The departure from the current GOP will be radical, it needs to be, and the exit won't turn in Palin's direction. It will far more likely be a mirror image of Obama Community Activism. Gingrich has suggested, for example, that kids be paid for getting good grades. He has held forums on health care, communities, and the environment. And he came within a hair's breadth of being the real kingmaker in this election.

Gingrich wanted McCain to pick Bobby Jindal, the Louisiana governor, as his running mate. Jindal is a Rhodes Scholar of Punjabi/Indian descent, a convert to Catholicism who has convincingly testified to his faith in front of numerous evangelical congregations. He's the youngest governor in the country and the blackest in Louisiana's history. Jindal would have noise-cancelled Obama's thunder in terms of race, scholarship, and youthful vigor. If Gingrich had succeeded with McCain, you would've heard cries of despair from here, because the election would've been a lot closer. Or lost. But I trusted Karl Rove's Boys to block Jindal--they won't work with political clay that's smarter than them, and that was their undoing.

The Republican Party has to re-evaluate its environment to re-forge its platform. The environment is sick to death of imperialists (neocons) , radicals (fundies), and thieves (supply-side economists), and the platform begs for a more enlightened, more inward-looking pastoralism. With better fences, and the best Republican course is to steer away from Big Business. They must drag their dream of success back down to a more accessible financial level, precisely where the Democrats won, and be even more aggressive. Gingrich is quite capable of distilling energy policy down into slogans like "We Are The Grid" and turn everybody with a roof into a wind farmer. Meantime, while it's unlikely Big Business will get hit with cap and trade, it's very likely that tax breaks will be used to reward non-carbon sources. Republicans will support that. In fact, Gingrich probably has a better appreciation of renewables than so far exists in the Obama Administration.

The very basis of Obama politics was the hypothesis that small donor contributions could scale up and beat out K Street and large corporations. He was right. The victory will extend with pronounced effect on policy and law, eventually at every level of government. Households like mine saw how changing where the money for politics came from would change the country, so we gave all we could to Barack. Justifiably disaffected people criticized us for being fools, but they're the political Has-Beens who refused to learn that laws are written with money. That's what this election was about: if we pool our money to buy candidates, we'll beat the corporations. There's nothing to stop Republicans from playing the same game.

Obama's victory upended all the old political models, lobbyists are weakened, and every politician in the country knows the jig is up. We are the heralds of the next stage of American Greatness, and Republicans will be swept along. There have been only a few major developmental stages in the sweep of US history: the Founders created a highly scalable federal system; Jefferson sent it to the shining seas; Lincoln nationalized it; Roosevelt socialized it; and Truman globalized it. Now we're going to energize it. Now it's up to the other wing of the Property Party to try and out-dance us at a Second Declaration, and I bet we'll be seeing Mr. Jindal again.

The Shawshank Redemption

Get busy livin'. Or get busy dyin.' That's goddamned right.

"I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope. I hope! "

--Ellis Boyd 'Red' Redding, The Shawshank Redemption

44th

Landslide: President Obama

Fox News called Ohio for Barack Obama while Karl Rove was in the middle of an electoral map analysis that said John McCain will have a nearly impossible road to victory without Ohio.

"If he loses Ohio," Rove said of McCain, "he goes from 286, which the Republicans carried in 2004, down to 266, and that puts him below the 270 threshold needed to win the White House. So he'd not only need to sweep the rest of these states which were won by the Republicns in 2004, he'd also need to pick up something as well."

"Guess what Karl," Brit Hume broke in, "I've just received word that the state of Ohio has gone for Barack Obama."

And in my Time Zone and past it, Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, and Hawaii will net 74 Electoral College votes for Obama. The champagne is chillin.'

Vote For A Black, You Never Go Back

From the think tank cat-lobbyists at Zoey & Me:

True story. I'm waiting in line to vote and this redneck behind me says, "you votin for McCain"?

I says, "no".
He says, "why you ain't votin for McCain".
I says, "because he's white".

Redneck swallows what sounded like a fireball. "White"? he says.

I says, "Yeah, we had 8 years of a white guy and I ain't votin for another one".

One lady was laughing so hard she choked. Remember, I'm in Florida.

Good hard laugh but can't sit still. Pins and needles, one way or another we'll have a different country.

Picture Of The Day

Mary Beth Goring gets a pat on the shoulder from another voter as she is overcome with emotion while voting at the Beauty Market hair supply shop in Inglewood, California. Goring said she never thought the day would come where she could vote for a black president and she became more emotional than she thought she would while placing her vote. (Danny Moloshok/Reuters)

Barack Obama Is Trying To Kill Me

Why is Obama trying to give everyone infarctions?

He not only chose Grant Park in Chicago as the venue for his election night party, he announced it two whole weeks ago. It's a ginormous field with only enough trees to hide, say, a company or so of white-robed Klan members who've had plenty of time to get lickered up and load their dingy old vans with lethal weapons. Just look at those trees--I mean, gee-zus!

He's going to give a speech with lights shining on him, and everyone else is going to be in the dark. Saints and rabbis preserve us.

Of Monies, Markets, Minds And Gods

Monies are coin and specie, the basis of kingdoms. In the times and places where carrying much is perilous enough to precipitate bonds of trust, we create tokens, symbols of promise and obligation. Every promise, when exchanged, creates untold more, every obligation kept or broken extends over manifold relationships. When these spread and cross sufficient distance, an economy is born, formed as fecklessly as grexes chain their way across shaded forest pools, as reflexively as greens sprout under the blessings of rain and sun. Monies are the flashing fruits of the earth, intoxicating distillations of expansive holy things. When seashells or oxen are used to signify and calculate its power, the greatest invention of mankind redolently imbues humble placeholders with ostentatious shine.

Markets are crucibles made for melting gold, harbors for the rolling seas of silver which bubblingly leap on torrents of light and heat. As with all the arts of man each has its own distinctive style, one expressed on a spectrum between the high-ordained rites of Mayan sacrifice down to bashi-bazouk excesses in furtive torch-shadowed bazaars. Markets, never free, require high walls and protections if they endure to allow the veiled fundaments of ever-present fears to politely meet the vengeful, sexual howls of unslaked greed. Sometimes sublimated, sometimes not at all, amongst cultured company the activities conducted in them are often called investing.

Minds imagine reflections of Gods, law-givers who set the cycles of heaven and earth, forces which wove the tapestries of space and time. Gods whisper reasons to the great and small, channelling their motivations, suggesting what to build. Histories become legend, legends become myth, and myths are echoes of godly conversations which distantly delighted in every human action. You can discern the names of a land's Gods in its taller buildings, you can read the interpretations of their priests in statues. I write this so my children might know the circumstances which one day will seem far-off, far as another country with other gods. If, my sons, you find yourselves carried off to strange kingdoms, you must learn their deities, while remembering how easily primitive needs puncture high pretensions.

Our priests, their hearts corrupted, had us worship consumption. They betrayed gods who should not have been forgotten and traded the respect of the world to be landlords of hell. Our armies have been beaten by peasants, our gold and silver have been stolen by the courtly and squandered on destruction. The priests are gathered in dark rainments, murmuring incantations to the horned god of Optimization, they're burning offerings to the fertility goddess of Capacity Utilization. The name of their favorite spell is Arbeit Macht Frei. It is the greatest of all their lies, lies which were beloved because they seemed merciful, to the indentured. And now only the truth can set us free.

The truth. What a fantastic monument to the better instincts of the human race this country might have been, and might improbably become. If there is any road to that redemption, it will be long, and paved with truth. In the mirk beyond the firelight, I see the outlines of an altar made for sacrifice. Not another of unfortunate enemies, but of us. One torch to set righteous fire, or one to light a funeral pyre. Tomorrow we will decide what goes up on that altar, whether it will be our children or our lies. Go, souls, our bodies' guests, upon these quests and errands. Fear not to hope in the West, and the truth will be our warrant.