Insurgent groups offer peace accord:

Eleven Sunni insurgent groups have offered to halt attacks on the US-led military if the Iraqi government and President Bush set a two-year timetable for withdrawing all foreign troops from the country, insurgent and government officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The demand is part of a broad offer from the groups, who operate north of Baghdad in the heavily Sunni Arab provinces of Salahuddin and Diyala. Although much of the fighting has been to the west, those provinces have become increasingly violent and the attacks there have regularly crippled oil and commerce routes.

The groups do not include the powerful Islamic Army in Iraq, Muhammad Army and the Mujahedeen Shura Council, the umbrella label for eight militant groups including al-Qaida in Iraq. But the new offer comes at a time when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government is reaching out to militant Sunnis, including a new amnesty plan for insurgent fighters.

We’re dreaming if we think Team Chimp would ever accept these terms. First of all, its not so much an offer than it is a reiteration of the same demands implicit from the very beginning and merely echoes bin Laden’s and the World Islamic Front’s for peace in exchange for regional withdrawal. Secondly, it flies in the face of Bush’s overall plan to establish 14 permanent military bases in the country. Yet I’ve little doubt that the administration will tout this as progress and milk it for all it’s worth.

Link via TAP:

This week, Slate hosted an interesting debate between progressive economist Jason Furman and labor-liberal champion Barbara Ehrenreich. The topic was Wal-Mart, namely, Furman's contention that Wal-Mart is, in fact, a progressive success story, having driven down prices more than they've depressed wages.

I hate Wal-Mart and everything they represent. I’m also quite poor and, when I visit the U.S., I never fail to pop in for a quick stock-up. Before you criticize my hypocrisy, you should know that the entire time I am there I’m filled with self-loathing and you couldn’t possibly make me feel worse than I already do. When I finish my Ph.D. and reach the point where I can afford to pay a fair price for goods, I vow never to set foot in their warehouses again.

That said, fair play to Furman for framing the issue in a lucid and reasoned manner. Which is, of course, complete and utter bollocks. While he does have some good points to offer, Wal-Mart remains the quintessential embodiment of everything sick and evil with neo-liberal globalization. Yes, they are one of the world’s largest employers and have indeed managed to depress commodity prices. But there are severe tertiary consequences to this business model.

Wal-Mart competes in a global economy in which they prey upon third-world countries to essentially rape manufacture goods and raw materials far below fair or living wages. Since they employ outside the jurisdiction of U.S. law, they routinely shirk human rights conventions by thrusting unreasonable working conditions upon a desperate population. In return, they are able to export all profits out of their host countries and into the U.S. marketplace, thereby driving down wages beyond the level at which small (and even manyt large) businesses can reasonably compete and further widening the North-South GDP gap.

While this does have the effect of driving down short-term CPI, it markedly lowers our overall GDP by depressing local economies, driving the middle-class entrepreneur out of business, and maintaining a stranglehold on wages. In the process, their largesse affords them a swollen clout with the American government which they wield to manufacture a harmful affect on everything ranging from health care (see Maryland) to national security (see port container inspections). I fail to see how any of this is worth the pennies I can save on the suffering of my fellow global citizens.

More in the continuing saga of the GOP’s obsession with druggies, pimps and hos:

Sen. Charles Grassley (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, wants the Internal Revenue Service to chase after pimps and sex traffickers with the same fervor it stalked gangster Al Capone for tax evasion.

Grassley, R-Iowa, would hit pimps with fines and lengthy prison sentences for failing to file employment forms and withhold taxes for the women and girls under their command.

I can’t find the link, but I remember they tried this a few years back by issuing tax codes for marijuana sales. Of course, that backfired on them when city hall was barraged with stoners trying to purchase the required stamps.

I would say that the idea behind this policy initiative is actually rather sound. This kind of tax and regulate plan seems to be far better (in countries like Holland) at controlling the black market than prohibition plans. Not only does it ease up on prison overpopulation, but it also generates revenue which can then be used to finance treatment and outreach programs.

Unfortunately, that is not what this bill is about. Rather, this is an attempt to add further criminal charges to activities that are borne more out of illness and deprivation than they are from malice. All prohibition has ever accomplished is to make the underground market a more lucrative business to be in, so I can’t see how adding additional expenses will do anything but drive prices up thereby encouraging more illegal sex and drug trafficking.

That’s what the kids call ‘puttin’ the smack down’:

Republican Sen. George Allen (news, bio, voting record) attacked his Democratic challenger's opposition to a flag-burning amendment, and James Webb retaliated by calling Allen a coward who sat out the Vietnam War "playing cowboy at a dude ranch in Nevada."

The statement by a senior adviser to Webb, a decorated veteran and former secretary of the Navy, went to extraordinary lengths to question Allen's fortitude, even repeatedly using the middle name the senator detests and never uses, Felix.

"While Jim Webb and others of George Felix Allen Jr.'s generation were fighting for our freedoms and for our symbols of freedom in Vietnam, George Felix Allen Jr. was playing cowboy at a dude ranch in Nevada," said Webb strategist Steve Jarding in the statement Tuesday.

I myself have never worn a uniform. I don’t know what it is our soldiers have to endure on the ground and, frankly, I never want to know. Maybe this is why I have not only the utmost respect for our soldiers, but am also completely cautious about disparaging the work they do. For draft dodgers and trust-fund deferrers to claim the moral high ground in situations of national defense is one thing. After all, we’re all entitled to our opinion as to how the country should be run and that is the whole point of civilian leadership. But to question the patriotism of those who served is the apex of hypocrisy. Fortunately, we’re starting to see some of these folks, Like Jack Murtha, fighting back.

In the runnup to the 2004 elections, Kerry put an awful lot of stock in cultivating his war-hero persona, something that should have been a clear winner against our AWOL frat-boy, only to have it blow up in his face against baseless swift-boating. If only Kerry had come forward forcefully with this kind of rhetoric, who knows where the country might be today.

Hat tip to ATR for the link:

Americans, led to believe that their soldiers and Marines would be welcomed as liberators by the Iraqi people, have no idea what the occupation is really like from the perspective of Iraqis who endure it. Although I am American, born and raised in New York City, I came closer to experiencing what it might feel like to be Iraqi than many of my colleagues. I often say that the secret to my success in Iraq as a journalist is my melanin advantage. I inherited my Iranian father’s Middle Eastern features, which allowed me to go unnoticed in Iraq, blend into crowds, march in demonstrations, sit in mosques, walk through Falluja’s worst neighborhoods.

I also benefited from being able to speak Arabic—in particular its Iraqi dialect, which I hastily learned in Baghdad upon my arrival and continued to develop throughout my time in Iraq.

My skin color and language skills allowed me to relate to the American occupier in a different way, for he looked at me as if I were just another haji, the “gook” of the war in Iraq. I first realized my advantage in April 2003, when I was sitting with a group of American soldiers and another soldier walked up and wondered what this haji (me) had done to get arrested by them. Later that summer I walked in the direction of an American tank and heard one soldier say about me, “That’s the biggest fuckin’ Iraqi (pronounced eye-raki) I ever saw.” A soldier by the gun said, “I don’t care how big he is, if he doesn’t stop movin’ I’m gonna shoot him.”

I was lucky enough to have an American passport in my pocket, which I promptly took out and waved, shouting: “Don’t shoot! I’m an American!” It was my first encounter with hostile American checkpoints but hardly my last, and I grew to fear the unpredictable American military, which could kill me for looking like an Iraqi male of fighting age. Countless Iraqis were not lucky enough to speak American English or carry a U.S. passport, and often entire families were killed in their cars when they approached American checkpoints.

Really great article, go check it out.

Keith strikes back at the New York Times SWIFT report. Big secret terrorist program? Well … not so much. Count the number of times BushCo told the world they were going after the boogeyman’s money. Not to mention that it is either stupid or racist to assume that Al-Qu’eda agents wouldn’t already expect this to happen.

Delay, right on cue, comes out hard against leaks and Matthews calls him out for being a hypocrite. Meanwhile, Dennis Persica muses about an FBI raid on the offices of the New York Times.

Net neutrality defeated by a tie, though the momentum has proved a victory of sorts.

In North Korea, there’s nothing to fear but fear itself, whereas if you’re Palestinian, you’d better start stocking up on bottled water and canned goods.

Important net neutrality vote tomorrow. Here are the Senators with their pudgy wet fingers in the wind:

• Chairman Ted Stevens, Phone: 202-224-3004
• Sen. John McCain, Phone: 202 -224-2235
• Sen. Mark Pryor, Phone: 202-224-2353
• Sen. Bill Nelson, Phone: 202-224-5274
• Sen. Frank Lautenberg, Phone: 202 224 3224
• Sen. David Vitter, Phone: 202 224-4623
• Sen. Trent Lott, Phone: 202-224-6253
• Sen. Conrad Burns, Phone: 202-224-2644
• Sen. Ben Nelson, Phone: 202-224-6551
• Sen. John Ensign, Phone: 202-224-6244
• Sen. John E. Sununu, Phone: 202-224-2841
• Sen. Gordon Smith, Phone: 202-224-3753
• Sen. Jim DeMint, Phone: 202 224-6121
• Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Phone: 202-224-5922
• Sen. George Allen, Phone: 202-224-4024
• Sen. John D. Rockefeller, Phone: 202-224-6472

Please-oh-please pick up the phone if you haven’t already and request support for the Snowe/Dorgan amendment. You can also contact them via the main switchboard toll free at 1-888-355-3588

Clinton the First and Bush the Elder – snuggle-bunnies in love?

Since their friendship, the two presidents from opposite parties have not changed their political opinions, Clinton said. Instead, the pair have looked beyond their differences to areas where they agree and can help others, an example he hopes other politicians will follow.

"All this bitter partisanship has been poison for this country," he said.

Through his friendship with the current president's father, Clinton said his respect for the current president has grown. Bush has a better take on immigration than the more conservative members of his party, Clinton said, and he got Congress to spend millions fighting AIDS

Say what you will about either man’s politics, but the two of them as individuals are whip-smart (thanks Liz). Bush may have cared very little about domestic affairs, but was undoubtedly one of the sharper foreign-policy minds to have held the office in modern times. Clinton may have been a shameless self-promoter, but, for better or worse, was one of the chief architects of modern neo-liberal globalization, effectively ushering in the modern global economy and presiding over one of the most lucrative epochs (for some at least) in American history.

Many of you know that I am now mere months away from completing my Ph.D., after which you may all call me Dr. Urthwalker. But seriously, the longer I am in this academia game, the more I encounter people with whom I just plain disagree with on a fundamental ideological level. I love these people. Sometimes they even change my mind, sometimes I change theirs. But either way, we each have a lucid, reasoned rationale behind our opinions and engage one another with intelligence and respect.

I meet a great many people like this throughout the world and especially through the rise of the blogosphere. I also meet their doppelgangers, the mindlessly partisan, vacuous, sensationalists who see the world only in sharp dichotomies and empty sound bites. God help us all if one of these is currently running the country.

Flag burning amendment loses by a single vote. As predicted, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry spent the night dousing Old Glory with tequila and setting her ablaze outside the halls of congress. Party animals.

He’s not Kinky, he’s our governor! “Kinky” Friedman jumps 5 points, but still trailing demon-seed incumbent Rick Perry. If Kinky, then why not Grandma?

Something you just never see on left-wing boards.

Bush terror-scare #4,987 – more B.S.?

Hillary, welcome back. We’ve missed your carefully crafted persona and plastic opinions. Glad you decided to mix it up in the mud with the rest of us.

A corporate scandal that dwarfs Enron?

The rape is almost complete, Iraq. To paraphrase one notorious Texan, ‘you can’t do anything about it so just lay back and enjoy the ride.’ New puppet government considering investment structure allowing 100% foreign ownership with, gulp … tax-free profit transfers? Way to rebuild an economy, bub!

Will Rush’s doctors be held accountable for aiding and abetting his drug addiction?

Ahh, those lazy, crazy days of my youth, putting myself through school schlepping trays around and running to get your drink refills for my meager tips. You people suck. Of course, this was back in those naïve days before blogging. Man I wish I’d done this first!