30 Jun

Crazy pinko-commie alternatives for half a trillion dollars

So much for doing this on the cheap. By the end of the year, we will have spent a half a trillion dollars on Iraq and Afghanistan (mostly Iraq). That’s a mighty big number and I have a hard time wrapping my mind around it. So I put together this little comparison:

  • Total in integer form is $500,000,000,000.00 (man that’s a lot of zeros)
  • It comprises 42.5% of the total U.S. GDP (yes, nearly half!)
  • It is 38.5% of the global debt (enough for the U.S. to forgive all bilateral debt)
  • Is enough to completely fund pre-war Iraq for nearly 6 years!
  • Enough to fund 15% of entire U.S. power requirements (30 times more than ANWR projections)
  • We could give $83 to every man, woman, and child on the planet (in many countries, people subsist on less than $1 per day).
  • It is enough to produce 250,000,000,000 bushels of corn (enough to give every man, woman, and child 42 bushels of corn)
  • We could have built 100,000 new schools (enough to build 500 nice, modern, full-sized schools in every single country in the world)
  • Or for that matter, 500 modern hospitals (enough to give every country on Earth 2-3 new, modern, fully-equipped hospitals)
  • Or why not just build 10,000,000 modern homes? (large enough to house 50,000,000 people comfortably)

If we would have done any one of these with the money instead, I very much doubt that bin Laden would find anyone willing to pick up a gun and shoot Americans. But then again, I’m just a nutty liberal.


30 Jun

This is just too easy!

In the spirit of this week’s poll, I posted this over at Kos and got some funny responses. Here’s a few of my favs:

  • Help Mommy, Cheney shot grandpa in the face!
  • Help! Mom! The CDC wants to innoculate me against HPV!
  • Help! Mom! The pollution is making me sterile!
  • Help, Mom! I somehow became President!
  • Help, Mom! I'm having an affair with a colored! (Depiction of Georgie in bed with Condi.)
  • Help mom! myritlinprescriptionranoutIcan'tfindmysoccercleatsmyipodisdeadourscienceteachersaid
    dinosaurswererealtheliberalswantttakemygunsawayandwearegoingtobelateformydance
    recital!
  • Help Mom! I've Been Left Behind!
  • Help! Mom! I'm pregnant! because abstinence-only sex education left me without useful information on birth control.
  • Help! Mom! The Coathanger Got Stuck!
  • Help! Mom! I Need a Ride Across State Boundaries!
  • Help! Mom! I Need a Parental Consent Release Form!
  • Help! Mom! The Nearest Clinic is 16 Hours Away!
  • Help! Mom! I Discovered I'm a Sexual Being!
  • Help! Mom! I Decided Not to Be Frigid Like You!
  • Help! Mom! Jesus is a Lousy Lay!
  • Help! Mom! The Thought of Liberals Regaining Control of Congress Just Made Me Sh*t Myself!
  • Help Mom! There is a scarey lady with a manly Adam's apple screaming at Liberals!
  • Help Mom! I have a giant chunk of debt as my birthright!
  • Help Mom! The beach is now at our front door!
  • Help Mom! I have no health insurance!
  • And for equal gender representation: Help Dad! Mom Doesn't Understand She Has To Be Subservient To You!

Keep 'em coming and I'll keep passing them along to the publisher!

30 Jun

An end to executive madness?

How dare these guys put a check on Bush’s fledgling dictatorship. Don’t they know we’re at war?

30 Jun

There's some fight left in 'em yet

AmericaBlog has a nice rundown on House Dems putting the smack down on the GOP’s efforts to stifle the free press:

Rep. Maloney (D-NY)
"The Republican party has become masters of cut and run, cutting from the issues so that they can run for re-election in November. This resolution is a diversion. If it was really about condemning leaks of classified information, it would also mention Valerie Plame, Karl Rove, and Scooter Libby. As the Member of Congress representing the district that suffered the greatest loss of life on 9/11, I believe that combating terrorism is a serious bipartisan issue, not a one-sided, last-minute, take it or leave it, Republican-only, political campaign stunt."

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY)
"They've called the disclosure of the swift anti-terrorist program a disgrace, they've accused a newspaper that first wrote it, the the New York Times, of forcing its "arrogant elitist left-wing agenda" on the rest of the country. If all of this is true, I have no choice but to conclude that our President, President Bush himself, is a disgraceful, arrogant left-wing elitist, because it was Mr. Bush who leaked the story."

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA)
"Let's be honest. We are here today because there hasn't been enough red meat thrown at the Republican base before the Fourth of July recess. That's why we are here. So just in the nick of time we have H.Res. 895."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
"Others have said yes, it's true that the terrorists learned from Bush Administration statements that we were tracking their financial activities. But apparently they didn't know that that involved banks. Did they think we were going through their pockets? I mean, how can you acknowledge that people knew that they were being tracked financially but no, it didn't involve bank records."

Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL)
"Maybe it's the devil who makes them do this. We have flag burning, proposal for constitutional amendments, we have gay marriage, proposals for constitutional amendment, yet, when it comes to the basic freedom and liberty of this country, the press, we are presented with a resolution that condemns them, that's all it does, it doesn't sanction, it condemns them, it's our opportunity to vent and say little things about The New York Times."

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)
"Well, there may be some motive that is political about the selective crying out about information. The swift story bears no resemblence to security breaches, disclosure of troop locations or anything that would compromise the security of individuals."

Rep. John Dingell (D-MI)
"They tell us that they're protecting our civil liberties while they're tapping our phones and spying in our libraries and looking into our bank accounts. They tell us to trust us on everything. They tell us to trust us on -- trust them on everything because they're protecting their civil liberties. Well, I don't think I can trust this administration to protect my civil liberties and those of the people that I serve."

Also, Enjoy this video of Pelsoi:
30 Jun

That about says it all

From August:

For those of your keeping score, here's the current tally:

Things that are putting American soldiers in harm's way

Things that are not putting American soldiers in harm's way
  • Flag burning
  • The Geneva Conventions
  • Questioning both the morality and legality of torture
  • Suggesting an eventual timetable for withdrawal
  • Disclosing numerous covert and possibly-illegal acts of spying by the U.S. Government on its own citizens
  • Requesting more body armor for troops
  • Requesting due process for prisoners of war
  • All but a handful of cable networks and publications within the entire United States news media
  • Certain song lyrics
  • Uppity librarians
  • Being in Iraq

 

30 Jun

Friday Link Vomit

Nice rundown on Mercado’s campaign in Mexico. Plus, top 10 reasons why we should be watching Mexico’s election. Also, check out this nice little piece on our lefty neighbor to the south.

Justice Department lies about signing statements.

Bush cutting social benefits to pay for his incompetence.

Katherine Harris is listening to the voices in her head.

Pakistan: we don’t need advice from your failing nation.

GOP thinks I should pay my taxes twice. So much for the double-taxation argument they trotted out for capital gains a few years back.

Pinko-commie Gore on TDS.

29 Jun

Richard Nixon speaking in 1973 about secrecy and leaking to the newspapers

Hat tip to FirstDraft:
29 Jun

Help mommy, Mexicans are taking my job!

We join our heroin in a parallel universe on a small planet known as Earth in an outer spiral arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. This is the story of an intrepid author of children's books who is despondent over the barrage of liberals attempting to thrust their crazy Judeo-Christian values upon the unsuspecting youth. Determined to counter their evil influence, our heroin takes it upon herself to publish a series of counter-indoctrination manuals designed to help the innocent children learn the benefits of corruption, greed, and malice. Her debut titles include:

By the way, in case you missed it, this is not satire. The publishing company is World Ahead Publishing, a publisher of conservative books which just recently launched a children's division known as Kids Ahead.

So let's help them out in any way we can. Take a moment and vote in the newest poll for our heroine's next title. And feel free to leave comments to suggest any future titles which I'll be sure to pass along to the publisher.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum's readers beat me to the punch with these little gems:

Help! Mom! There's a Homosexual in My Closet!(...hmmm, not quite right. Too many hidden meanings.)

Help! Mom! There's a Catholic Priest in the Rectory!(...again, no. People could read something into that.)

Help Mom! There are DEA Agents in my Viagra stash!

Help! Mom! A village in Texas lost its idiot!

Help! Mom! There's a Doughnut Hole in Grandpa's Prescription Drug Coverage!

Help Mom! I can't remember the Ten Commandments!

Help! Mom! The Religious Right Won't Stop Sniffing My Panties!

Help! Mom! I've got two moms!

29 Jun

The rise of blogofacism

Via TPMcafe:

Barack Obama gave a speech to bunch of fellow religious liberals gathered together to discuss the failure of progressives to connect with many religious voters-- and he actually analyzed what some liberals say and don't say that might be causing that failure.

And the blog reaction has been swift:
Chris Bowers- "So thanks Senator Obama, for reifying this Republican-driven talking point about Democrats."

Pachacutec- But this bullshit from Barak Obama is Bill Clinton’s fault.
And a furious backchannel debate among bloggers to boot.

I mean, honestly. So-called progressive bloggers clearly have less interest in ‘progress’ than they do in winning. I defy anyone to quote a single passage from Obama’s speech that betrayed any single progressive value.

If you hang out on sites like DKos, you’ll find folks rife with righteous indignation over the ability to out-centrist one another and reach out to the opposition. I think this is, in principle, a healthy stance to take. The process of such an outreach does not have to involve a betrayal of one’s values (nor should it) but rather a sincere attempt to acknowledge the worth of others’ opinions and to frame the issues in such a way that we can work towards conversion or consensus.

Exactly how did Obama differ from this platform?

Why is the left simply repeating the meme that all discussions of religion definitively belong to Republicans?

If you want to be a partisan, bully for you. If you want to reach out and unite people, even better. But if you abandon the very people who are trying to make inroads and unite the country, the only lesson you are teaching politicians is to ignore your values because they will never be able to please you. Bloggers are making strident inroads in political clout, but if we want to maintain relevance then we can’t behave like a bunch of petulant children who stomp our feet and moan whenever we are actually getting exactly what we asked for.

29 Jun

The peace deal that wasn’t

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.