GLOBALIZE THIS!

Friday, October 15, 2004

LIFE IMITATES ART: IRAQ

John Stewart and the geniuses at the Daily Show have coined the best word for expressing holisticly our ever-deteriorating war on Iraq: Mess'o'Potamia.

Enter this NYT's late edition teaser:

"In other violence in Iraq today..."

Escalation in journalistic ennui such as this is rather frightening: mapping diminished expectations and defeatism onto the collective conscience.

Fox News ran a headline on tonight's ticker that read something about Bush extending warm Ramadan wishes to people of the Muslim faith.

Meanwhile, just below the aforementioned teaser, another NYT gem of a headline: "US Pounds Fallujah in Ground and Air Assault."

We can draw but two conclusions:

1. Bush's utter lack of connection with reality is simply staggering: he must be battier than Napolean. Or,

2. Bush knows exactly what the reality is but is lying through those gap-buck-toothed-chromosome-deficient teeth of his to dupe the overworked, information-bombarded masses. But this guy couldn't be selling us all a bill of goods, could he?

I think people might readily make compelling arguments for either one of these theses. But it should be clear that neither one is a good choice for American voters...and g-d knows for the rest of the world. If only those monobrowed Nader supporters would just grow up, this thing might just be a lock for Kerry.

¶ 10/15/2004 10:30:13 PM

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Wednesday, October 13, 2004

OPERATION BUBBE

This is important:

Get active.

UPDATE: More Bubbe Madness!

¶ 10/13/2004 10:45:52 AM

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Tuesday, October 12, 2004

BUSH'S JOBS RECORD

Before tomorrow nights debate on domestic issues, I thought it would be useful to stop and look back at Bush's jobs record of the last 4 years. Nothing particularly ground breaking here, but it doesn't hurt to make this point over and over again until it bores its way into our collective consciousness.

In last Friday's debate, he claimed the economy had added 1.9 million new jobs in the last 13 months. Not quite true, as the chart below illustrates.

The economy has added only 1.8 million in this time. Moreover, only 1.7 million of those jobs were in the private sector.

Here it is real simple. The US economy entered recession in March 2001 shortly after Bush took office. I note this not to blame Bush for recession (no way he could have caused it yet), but to note that at the peak of the business cycle total US employment reached 132.5 million jobs. The recession was pretty short--over by November of the same year when employment stood at 130.9 million.

But the economy kept shedding jobs (hence, the "job-loss" recovery), so Bush and the Republican Congress passed a whopper of a tax cut. Man was it big, with almost all the benefits going to people who already made a sh@t ton of money. The tax cut, he told us, was necessary to create jobs. How many jobs? About 1.4 million more than the 5.1 million or so the economy would create on its own without a tax cut or other change in policy. These jobs would all come by the end of 2004.

Finally, the job market hit rock bottom in August 2003 at 129.8 million (what mathematicians might call a local minimum) and began clawing back to 131.6 million jobs in September 2004. At this point, trillions of dollars into deficit from Bush's tax cuts, the president was some 3.7 million jobs short of those he promised--not to mention 800,000 jobs shy of the level when he took office.

In the words of Dick Gephardt, "A miserable failure."

¶ 10/12/2004 05:28:40 PM

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Monday, October 11, 2004

POLITICIZING THE WAR IN IRAQ

Simply shameless:

The Bush administration plans to delay major assaults on rebel-held cities in Iraq until after U.S. elections in November, say administration officials, mindful that large-scale military offensives could affect the U.S. presidential race

..."When this election's over, you'll see us move very vigorously," said one senior administration official involved in strategic planning, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Once you're past the election, it changes the political ramifications" of a large-scale offensive.

Securing Iraq now (rather than after Nov. 2) means less opportunity for opposition to mobilize, which means less American casualties, which could mean a more stable Iraq, which could mean better prospects for political change, which could mean that those poor kids could come home soon instead of serving as proverbial cannon-fodder. Brilliant, selfless leadership yet again from the President pro tem.

¶ 10/11/2004 11:47:53 AM

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Sunday, October 10, 2004

ADIEU, DERRIDA

Jacques Derrida is gone. No no one will ever know what the f*@# he meant.

¶ 10/10/2004 01:09:58 AM

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