New Graphic!



from fubar at Needlenose, thanks guys!



"He Tried To Kill My Dad!!"

Uh George, after a review of over 600,000 captured Iraqi documents, no one seems to be able to find any mention of that particular plot (looks like you lied to us yet again). But there is a great quote from you in that CNN article linked above, namely

Houston is the adopted hometown of the president's father, former President Bush, and in discussing the threat posed by Saddam, the current president offered his staple list of complaints about Iraq's defiance of the United Nations and his contention that Iraq is working aggressively on chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. "This is a man who continually lies," Bush said.

Takes one to know one, eh?

Here's ABC News' link to the executive summary of the military study that the Bushies have now decided not to release after all...

update 26 March - the entire report (big *.pdf) has finally been released and is available here. The FAS also has an overview.

Tin-Foil Hat Alert!

Via Digby, we learned tonight that Bushco may be on the verge of firing CENTCOM commander Adm. William Fallon, replacing him with someone more 'attuned' to the Bushco world view. This is important as Adm. Fallon last year personally blocked the deployment of a third aircraft carrier group tp the Persian Gulf last summer, vowing

privately there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM, according to sources with access to his thinking.

& just in time for a new war w/Iran late September/early October, too. Hmmmmm...

update 26 March - Admiral Fallon is gone! Worse, Cheney was just in Saudi Arabia and now (22 March) we read:

RIYADH - The Saudi Shura council will secretly discuss national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may affect the kingdom following experts’ warnings of possible attacks on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactors, media reports said Saturday.

The Saudi-based King Abdul-Aziz City for Science and Technology has prepared a proposal that encapsulates the probabilities of leaking nuclear and radiation hazards in case of any unexpected nuclear attacks in Iran, the Okaz Saudi newspaper said.

The Saudi Shura or consultative council plans to debate the proposal on Sunday.

The power plants in the south-western Iranian port of Bushehr were built with German assistance in 1974 and resumed with Russian aid in 1992, after it had been stopped by the Islamic revolution.

Let The Markets Decide!

Or so 'they' say, as they warn you of the "evils" of socialism or of governmental regulation. So what if there's lead in the finishes on your children's toys, melamine in your cat's food, ethylene glycol in your cough medicine instead of propylene glycol or major explosions because of unsafe practices at your place of work. It's the "free market" and only the "free market" that will keep you safe. Funny thing about that socialism, however, certain types like single-payer healthcare or public highways, that sort of socialism is anathema to the ruling class but government-bailouts of for greedy, foolish investors? No problem at all - the motto of the capitalists these last twenty years or so? Privatize the profits, socialize the risk. Once upon a time the whole reason for the corporation/investor making profits was justified by the corporation/investor taking on the risks of a particular investment, but not anymore. Just look at the current housing bubble crisis: not only was Bank Of America looking for a $740,000,000,000 bailout last week, today I read Treasury Secretary Ben Bernanke asking for the same thing only bigger.
What got me to thinking about this was a post at Corrente called "Mailing in the keys to my citizenship" which in turn was inspired by a post at Scriptoids. Normally I won't quote so much of another's, but this was too good to pass up. From Scriptoids a reminder of some of the recent "free market" bailouts -

* US Federal Reserve and Treasury relief package to Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil during their debt crises (1982-1992)
* $4 billion Federal Reserve, Treasury, and FDIC rescue package for the Continental Illinois Bank (1984)
* $250 billion bailout of hundreds of mismanaged/insolvent Savings and Loans (1989-1992)
* $4 billion bailout of the Bank of New England plus government help in infusing Saudi money into Citibank (1990-1992)
* US Treasury-arranged rescue of the Mexican peso in support of US investors in high-yield Mexican debt (1994-1995)
* Asian currency bailout, in which the US government pressured the International Monetary Fund to rescue East Asian currencies to save American and other lenders (1997)
* Greenspan-arranged bailout of the shaky Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund (1998)
* Y2K Federal Reserve liquidity extravaganza, which helps to inflate the final Nasdaq bubble (1999)
* Federal Reserve interest rates cuts, reaching nearly 50-year lows, to reflate US financial and real estate assets (2001-2005)

The bailouts and rescues are bad enough, but it’s the unabashed and unhinged free market/deregulation boosterism that sends me into a rage. Like nobody knows the game is rigged, and who’s always on the losing side. There are days when I really do feel like mailing in the keys of my citizenship.

Just how dependent is the moneyed class on keeping "we, the sheeple" ignorant and uninformed on recent history? Isn't it about goddamned time to start coupling the rhetoric of the moneyed class to the actual deeds of the moneyed class? Remember, much of the current housing bubble would not exist if Glass-Steagall Act has not been repealed thereby allowing commercial banks into the retail banking sector and thus enabling the perils of structured-finance to enter the housing markets? And "we, the people" are going to bail the financial sector out, the same sector that for years has been paying millions to their executives and their buddies? Reprehensible.