Want some fun? Look out for the new "liberty dollar." Yes, there are curmudgeons who want to move away from federal reserve notes back to coinage backed by gold and silver. They claim it is not inflationary. Not quite. The value of gold and silver notes fluctuates with the value of... wait for it... gold and silver. The 1849 California gold strike was inflationary, by creating money out of the ground. With population growth, however, it is deflationary. People multiply faster than gold. In fact, the crazy thing about the gold standard is that, if you try to explain it to college students today, their eyes bug out. I have often asked people to consider why gold is valuable. Answer: it is pretty and doesn't oxidize. That's it. Otherwise, it was, historically, the softest, most useless metal on earth. It has some uses now for electrical conductivity, but these only came into widespread use relatively recently. The US government is finally cracking down.
The amazing thing is that there are now millions of dollars being spent on this idiotic venture. It is, of course, even if "successful," still fraught with all the problems that free silver would have faced in the 1890s.
I personally think it's a marketing scam based on the very high prices for gold right now ($570/oz). Sell a bunch of gold to roobs, then leave them holding the bag when the market tumbles.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Free Silver is Back
Unconquerable Nation
The RAND corporation hsa published an excellent monograph by Brian Jenkins: Unconquerable Nation. Jenkins served as a Captain in the U.S. Army Special Forces during the Vietnam war, and he is now one of the nation's foremost experts on terrorism. In an article excerpted from the book, Jenkins argues that we have allowed ourselves to succumb to fear.
At home, we in America have spent the past five years scaring the hell out of ourselves... What else but fear can explain the readiness of Americans to tolerate tossing aside the very Geneva Convention agreements the United States had fought to implement? What else but fear could have led Americans to even entertain public arguments in favor of torture and against any restrictions on how we might treat those in custody?
Instead of scaring us, Jenkins says the government should have been reassuring us and helping us defend ourselves.
In the wake of 9/11, Washington’s continual reminders of imminent threats induced Americans to think of themselves as victims instead of protagonists... But the federal government does not provide homeland security. Citizens do. Our most effective defense against terrorism will come not from surveillance, concrete barriers, metal detectors, or new laws. It will come from our own virtue, our courage, our continued dedication to the ideals of a free society.
Perhaps most provocatively, Jenkins says that at least some of the terrorists can be redeemed and transformed into a force for good.
Those in custody should be offered the opportunity to quit jihad, repent, publicly recant. We should not let our desire for revenge or our determination to see justice done get in the way. We must be pragmatic. We are not settling blood debts... Would it not be better to try to enlist at least a few detainees as spokesmen against al Qaeda’s brand of jihad, having them tell their stories to would-be jihadists - explaining their initial illusions and their eventual disillusionment?
Jenkins writes much, much more than I have quoted here. His book is the most lucid discussion I have ever read of how we should be fighting terrorism. It opened my eyes, and I highly recommend it.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Why Foley Matters
The graph on the left is the result of the Foley scandal. But without the information on the right, you wouldn't understand why it matters. They 10/6 portions are mirror images. These Republicans aren't teflon anymore, they're greasy. That's why Foley sticks. It is salt in voters' wounds. The two issues are just one -deceit- as they feed off one another.
The Crowning Failure?
The number and scope of failures of Bush's foreign policy make a stunning list.
1. Bush abandoned the Kyoto protocol, scuttling a decade of effort by the international community to build a cooperative framework to fight global climate change. In terms of both diplomacy and climatology, these lost years can never be recovered: meeting the challenge will be much harder now. We will all feel the loss of those years in the century ahead.
2. Bush let the Doha round of the world trade talks fail. Insisting on his deal or no deal, he got the latter. His stubborness will cost America jobs and will slow the development of the poorest nations.
3. Bush's war in Iraq began with a diplomatic debacle at the U.N., was compounded by a military miscalculation that scattered former Iraqi army units everywhere and left us with too few "boots" on the ground to fight them, and now Iraq has become a humanitarian catastrophe as tens of thousands lie dead and hundreds more civilians die every week. The word on everyone's lips is not "liberation" but "civil war."
4. Bush's so-called "war on terror" has failed as well. As the attacks in Madrid, London, and elsewhere demonstrate, Al Qaeda remains alive and dangerous. Osama bin Laden remains at large. Afghanistan is falling apart and the Taliban rise again, turning to ashes the lone "success" Bush had once been able to claim in the war on terror. Jihadism is on the rise around the world and America is hated more than ever before: by any measure, there is more terrorism now than ever before.
5. Bush's attempt to control Iran's nuclear program has met with zero success. His "Axis of Evil" mentality has alarmed the warmongers in Iran and given ammunition to the extremists. Mounting American casualties in Iraq, due in part to Iranian influence, reveal our impotence in the region.
Yet even so, if North Korea's small, underground nuclear explosion is confirmed,it may well represent the crowning failure of Bush's foreign policy. Recall that in the 2004 Presidential Debates, both Kerry and Bush identified nuclear proliferation--not terrorism--as the number one danger facing America.
Bush had no time for diplomacy, and abandonded everything Clinton had done. Where Clinton had held out a hand, Bush held up a finger. Bush thought he could push North Korea around if he treated North Korea as a "bad actor" and refused to negotiate. Instead, all he did was give North Korea cause for fear and anger, and he left us with no tools but bluster.
In today's explosion we see the fruits of Bush's policy toward North Korea. We would have been better off if U.S. foreign policy merely had been rudderless. Instead, our Captain looks determined to ram the ship of state into every iceberg he can find. Thanks to Bush, we have now arrived at the worst of all impasses with the North Koreans: they've got their backs to the wall and they've got nukes in their hands. God help us if they ever get their missiles working.
Gay Old Party
According to the Washington Post, Jim Kolbe (R-Tucson, AZ) was told of Foley's emails in 2000 by a couple of pages. He told them to talk to Clerk of the House. Why, exactly, did they go to Kolbe? He's the only openly gay Republican congressman. So, let's put this together. Foley comes on to teenage pages. They go to... another gay man for help. Obviously, the pages didn't confuse gays with pedophiles. Obviously, these (presumably right-wing/"christian" Republican) pages were not afraid of gay men, nor horrified by homosexual activity. Obviously, they were not told to stay away from the evil queer Kolbe, nor did they. They came to him for help.
Furthermore, these pages also plainly assumed, perhaps wrongly, that Kolbe knew Foley and could talk to him. This suggests that it is known on the hill that there is a network of gay men throughout the Republican delegation and staff, and Kolbe - being the "out" one - is sort of the contact person. Note that they did not talk to Barney Frank or the openly gay Democrats. Either they knew the politics would be deadly, or they did not assume that "all the gays knew each other," just that the Republican ones did. Interestingly, these pages must have known that telling Barney Frank would stop Foley by creating a scandal, but they chose to handle it quietly by going to Kolbe for help.
Pity he offered little. He was still more loyal to being a Republican than anything else, and did not directly communicate with Foley (it seems) or take any further steps to protect these kids. He protected his party first. Kolbe was my representative for a good number of years, a moderate Republican, and this is the first time I was ever truly disappointed in him, and disgusted. The pages thought he was a good man who would help them. So did I.
Missouri Senate Debate
I watched a portion of the Missouri Senate debate between incumbent Jim Talent, who won in a razor-thin victory over Jean Carnahan (Ashcroft's old seat - when he was beaten by the dead Mel Carnahan), and Claire McCaskill, State Auditor. This article describes much of the debate. I was surprised at how impresive McCaskill was, and how wormy and squirmy Talent was. He was asked whether GWBush was a great president. He couldn't answer. Then, for contrast, Russert threw it to McCaskill: do you think Clinton is a great president. Answer, "Absolutely I do. I have problems with his personal choices, but I've said before he's a great leader, although I wouldn't let my daughter near him." Smell that fresh air! I think she's going to win that race. She stressed her independence and Talent's connection to Big Money. She said, of stem cells, that "her faith tells her to heal the sick." Talent looked ill.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
All the king's horses and all the king's men...
According to the London Times, the Baker Commission (James A. Baker III) is going to propose dividing Iraq into three "highly autonomous" regions. I guess it worked for Caesar (omnia gallia in tres partes divisa est). Seriously thought, what do the Citizens think? I think that keeping Iraq intact is, by itself, a silly goal, insofar as its borders are arbitrary and were imposed from without by the last set of English-speaking conquerors. Still, it seems a total admission of defeat, doesn't it?
Saturday, October 07, 2006
The Constitution, Such a Pain in the Ass
I am reading Newsweek's excerpt from Bob Woodwards's new book, "State of Denial".
In the excerpt, Woodward describes Rumsfeld's frustration at what he termed the "Anchor Chain" mentality at the Pentagon. In other words, Rumsfeld wanted changes, big changes. He wrote in 2001,
The maze of constraints on the Department force it to operate in a manner that is so slow, so ponderous and so inefficient that whatever it ultimately does will inevitably be a decade or so late.
He isn't entirely incorrect in his assessment. But his approach to it was all wrong. This is part of what became known as the "Anchor Chain Memo" where Rumsfeld was laying out his idea of "transformation". What I can derive from this is the result. Contractors. Obviously, since the Pentagon was chained to its anchor, you get around that by privatizing. So we are forced to contract our work to a private firm. But guess what? The private firm doesn't really know how to do our job. So we have review their work, check, and fix it. So the government pays twice for the same thing rather than fixing its own problematic regulations, which is really a more sustainable solution. Go figure.
But here is the more shocking thing Woodward reveals. On May 1, 2006, Rumsfeld circulated a 6 page memo proposing some fixes for the mess he had created with this attempts at "transformation". This memo was called, "Illustrative New 21st Century Institutions and Approaches" (title makes no sense in English). Still deeply frustrated by the Pentagon bureaucracy (which has only gotten worse with Rummy at the helm), he wrote that not only was the DoD tangled in its anchor chain, so was the whole government, the whole world. He wrote,
"The charge of incompetence against the U.S. government should be easy to rebut if the American people understand the extent to which the current system of government makes competence next to impossible."
Yeah, I guess all those Constitutional limitations, like checks and balances are a real bureaucratic drag.
He later says in a interview with Woodward,
We're facing a set of challenges that are different than our country understands . . . they're different than our Congress understands. They're different than our government, much of our government, probably understands and is organized or trained or equipped to cope with and deal with. We are dealing with enemies that can turn inside our decision circles. . . . They [the enemy] don't have parliaments and bureaucracies and real estate to defend and interact with or deal with or cope with. They can do whatever they want. They aren't held accountable.
Wa wa. I don't see anyone holding Rummy (I could do a whole post on his poor English and tendency toward redundancy) accountable for anything. I don't see a Congress getting in his way. How can they? They are incompetent in his book and can be ignored.
Call me crazy, but, reading between the lines, it seems Rummy would be an advocate of dissolving of our current system of government and replacing it with a new one (like say, the type they have in Iraq). The man is a megalomaniac.
Bush must be impeached and he and his administration tried for treason.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Friday YouTube
US West recommended this to me and I thought I'd share it with everyone. Happy Friday!
California Gets Bluer
The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) released a survey this week. A number of interesting findings emerged.
1. "Do you favor or oppose allowing gay and lesbian couples to be legally married?"
Note the majorities among both Democrats and Independents. For the first time, a survey has shown more support than opposition to gay marriage among likely voters in California (albeit within the margin of error).
................. Dem Rep Ind... Likely Voters
.....Favor: 58% 27% 49% 47%
Oppose: 35% 66% 43% 46%
2. "Should immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally be allowed to apply for work permits which would allow them to stay and work in the United States, or shouldn’t they be allowed to do that?"
Note majority approval by Californians across all political parties.
................. Dem Rep Ind... All Adults
.....Favor: 67% 51% 62% 65%
Oppose: 29% 46% 35% 32%
3. "Do you think of the war with Iraq as part of the war on terrorism, or do you think of it as separate from the war on terrorism?"
Note the opinion among the Independents.
................... Dem Rep Ind... Likely Voters
Separate: 76% 32% 61% 57%
......Part of: 22% 56% 33% 40%
GOP Misses Monica
Here's the predatory behavior. It's shocking that a Congressman would flirt with disaster like this. Seems like he almost wanted to get caught. It's also totally unbelievable that his staff would not know of his predilections.
Lies of Commission and Omission
I did not believe it until I saw the screenshot. FOX News labeled former representative Mark Foley (R-FL) as a Democrat several times. Furthermore, FOX News is by far the most prominent of a handful of news outlets that were given copies of the Foley e-mails a year ago, but did nothing. If Foley really had been a Democrat, you can bet FOX would have run the story immediately as a breaking news headline. FOX's notorious bias has now become just outright lying.
By the way...
In case you've forgotten, Congress and the President removed for many the centuries-old right to Habeus Corpus last week. We all tend to focus on the latest new thing, especially if it's a juicy sex scandal. But we must not allow the really important Republican crimes to be swept under the rug and forgotten.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
National Popular Vote Update
I could only find one source where the Kindergarten Governor explains himself on vetoing the NPV bill, and here it is. The explanation is, as you might have guessed, nonsense:
This is counter to the tradition of our great nation which honors states rights and the unique pride and identity of each stateHe also added that it "disregards the will of a majority of Californians", which is not nonsense, but probably wrong.
Anyway, thought you all might like to know. I have tried calling the Governor's office but couldn't get through -- I'll try again later.
A Possible Smoking Gun
OK, remember the first rule of scandal...the cover up is the fatal mistake! Well, Kirk Fordham, a former aid to Mark Foley (R-FL) who later transferred to work for Reynolds (R-NY) has resigned his position with Reynolds and gone public with information that he personally warned senior staff at Speaker Hastert's (R-Ill) over three years ago!! This is three years before Hastert originally admitted hearing of it and two years before his current version of events. Hastert of course denies this. But then Hastert has already been caught in one outright lie about this affair and his story still conflicts with the versions of other House Republican leaders - including Reynolds and Majority Leader Boehner (R-OH).
This new revelation is critical. First, it places the original notification to the GOP leadership prior to the 2004 elections. This might explain why they didn't do anything. 2004 was expected to be very close. Second, Fordham was an aid for not just one but two of the principal actors in the affair (Foley and Reynolds) and seems to have been instrumental in sounding the alarm about Foley.
Third (and take this with a grain of salt). This places the initial decision to cover up firmly in the era of Tom Delay (R-TX). Delay was widely believed to be the real power rather than Hastert. He was also widely believed to "play hardball" with other Republicans to enforce loyalty. A friend of mine has suggested to me that if it came out that this goes back to Delay's time (it now has) it might be that Delay suppressed the information in order to hold it against Foley (a libertarian leaning Republican who might be inclined to support Delays theocratic agenda). Once Delay made that choice, he would have committed the entire GOP leadership to keeping the secret or else be exposed as covering up the scandal. This is a bit conspiratorial. But given how we have seen the current batch of Republican leaders behave it's not that crazy.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Voting in the Dark
One of Republicans' pernicious schemes to depress voter turnout is hidden in the 2005. Daylight Savings Time will no longer end on the last Sunday in October, but a week later - the first Sunday in November. Election day is the "first tuesday after the first monday" in November. So the new rules put the time change (almost) ALWAYS 48 hours before election day (unless November 1 is a Monday, as in even-numbered election years 2010, 2032, 2038 and 2060).
Right now, the last Sunday in October is 48 hours before election day only during those years listed above. The only other times that happened in an election year were: 2004, 1982, and 1976 (note: universal rules on DST not adopted until 1966).
My antipathy to DST is well known by some, but this is another reason to be angry. Grogginess will depress voting, I am sure. Was 2004 a lesson that encouraged Republicans? Did Kerry lose Ohio because it got dark earlier than people were used to? DST affects northern states more dramatically than southern ones also.
Dammit, I know this is a conspiracy...
Washington Times Calls for Hastert to Quit
The Washington Times is one of the most conservative newspapers in the United States. They have published an editorial calling on Speaker of the House Hastert to resign. This is huge. The Washington Times is normally a shameless Republican rag - second only to the WSJ for partisan editorial policy. For them to turn on the Republican Speaker of the House is a big big deal.
In other news, as I listen to the radio, NPR is also starting to interview former pages and is reporting that Republican staffers were informally warning pages to stay away from Foley as early as 2001. If the staff knew, how can the Members claim they didn't know? This sounds like it was an open secret among Republicans on the Hill for years!
Finally, NPR is starting to open up phase 3 of this. What about millions of dollars Foley raised for his reelection campaign? Some of it has been transferred to national party funds. The GOP is saying they are going to keep the money and use it to get Republicans elected around the country. We'll see what this does to their base's turnout.
The story has officialy gone way beyond the behavior of a single Congressman. This is about a GOP coverup! This is about the way we have come to expect the GOP leadership from the White House on down to behave when in positions of authority. Iraq, Katrina,... now this.
I thought I was angry about these guys before this broke. But I didn't realize how angry I could get. Let this be the end of it!! Enough!
Sunday, October 01, 2006
No Reform For You
The LA Times is reporting that yesterday, Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed the 'National Popular Vote' compact that would, in effect, have established a popular vote for the President instead of the electoral college. It is not clear why he has done this, and the Gov's website says nothing about it. I cannot find the veto message online yet. For whatever reason, he has waited until the last day (9/30) then buried the veto.
The interesting thing is that Angelides would not be expected to sign the bill, because (as a party hack) he thinks that the near-guarantee of 55 EV for Democrats is more valuable than the possibility of a national popular election. One reason Arnie might have vetoed the bill is that Republicans (and Dems) use CA as a money trough, since they don't have to spend much here during a presidential election. Another possibility (which the Dems may not realize) is that, in a real national campaign, Dems could massively turn out the CA vote and obliterate the current GOP advantage from small state victories.
I'm disappointed and waiting to here what the "official" reason was, also what Angelides approach is. He would do well to do the unexpected and promise to sign the bill, since that puts him in the position of a reformer vis-a-vis Arnie. But I doubt he is that bold.
Foley More than Just a Local Scandal
This Foley-page abuse scandal is going to be big. There are now reports coming out (on CNN.com and NPR) that Republican House leaders, including Speaker of the House Hastert and Majority Leader Boehner knew about Foley's behavior months before the story broke and covered it up!! NPR reported this morning that some of them may have known as long as a year. If these leads turn to out to be true it would be an unbelievable abuse of power, and even more morrally bankrupt than is usual even for this Republican leadership!
This is the only kind of abuse of power, by the way, that Republican voters will actually hold their candidates accountable for. I sincerely wish this had not happened, for the young pages' sake if nothing else. But if this is what it takes for this morrally bankrupt party to be pushed from power, I'll take it!
