UPDATE To Previous "Going #1" Post

Earlier today, I indicated that posting may be interrupted as I would be going Number One.

However, following that post, Number One unexpectedly turned into Number Two, so for the time being I will be switching to Mobile Twitter.

I regret any confusion this may have caused.

President's Speech on Iraq

Sure to reassure some; disappoint others.

Aggregation 4 Dummies

First-name-chummy + link.

Will and Conor talk about Winnie.

See?

Charts

They can be meaningful.

Wanker of the Month

James Fenimore Cooper

Executive Boldly Promises

to take product or service "to the next level".

Those Crazy Politicians

What will they say or not say next?

Senator Vows

To continue not resigning.

Election Close

Results expected within reasonable period.

Power Crisis Breakthrough Inspirationalism

The powerful power of unleashing the real you within! Includes real life testimonials.

Celebrity Breasts.

But whose?

Do We Already Have

All the nurses we need?
Either way, I'm sure competent professionals are working on it.

Atrios might be right

About this matter.

But only time will tell.

As Summer Winds Itself Down

It seemed like a good time to try out a new aesthetic for awhile.

Americans Remain Anxious/Hopeful

About a variety of issues

I'm Going Number One Now

so light posting.


UPDATE: Welcome "Vanity Fair" readers and thanks again to Mr. James Wolcott. Vital new information about this post awaits you here.

Numbers

Because numbers sometimes represent things in the real world.

A Kitten

Because who doesn't luv 'em!

Rock On

What Digby said.

about this issue.

Everybody Should Be More Reasonable

From the Daily Dish:

Stating the Obvious
30 Aug 2010 12:34 pm

by Conor Friedersdorf

In the course of American history, if either liberals or conservatives disappeared entirely from the American scene, leaving the right or left to pursue their best ideas and most flawed excesses alike, this country would be in far worse shape than it is today.
...

Open Thread

Advice on Iraq

Maybe we should just listen to the experts?

In Korea, a Model for Iraq
By PAUL D. WOLFOWITZ

Washington

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN, who traveled to Iraq this week to mark the formal end of United States combat operations there, has claimed that peace and stability there could be “one of the great achievements” of the Obama administration. Of course, the largest share of credit belongs to the brave men and women of the American military, who have sacrificed so much and persevered through so much difficulty. Credit also goes to the Iraqi Army and police forces who have fought bravely and increasingly well, and to Iraq’s people, who have borne a heavy burden. But it is good that President Obama and his administration also claim credit, because success in Iraq will need their support.

My hope is that the president understands that success in Iraq will be defined not by what we withdraw, but by what we leave behind. At a minimum, we need Iraq to be a stable country, at peace both within its borders and with its neighbors. And we should help Iraq to one day become a leader of political and economic progress in the Middle East.
...

Whoric Goldwinger

The day when he can no longer get rich lying to dolts, is the day Mr. Beck will scurry off to the next scam.

Because some scales

will never fall from his eyes.

Still Waiting...

Sunday Morning Comin’ Down -- Part 2

I can think of nothing more appropriate to post on the occasion of this terrible anniversary than this essay written by the late Steve Gilliard on September 03, 2005 entitled "We Told You So".

Typos and all, it remains one of the most searingly accurate snapshots of the mood on the Left during those days, and a brutally candid assessment of why so many of us believe that much of the Right is simply beyond redemption.

WE TOLD YOU SO

An American failed by Bush

A note to our conservative friends:

Ever wonder why New Yorkers detest George Bush?

Because we experienced his incompetence up close and person. We knew this guy was full of shit, absolutely full of fucking shit, after they started to play games with the funding and gave Wyoming terrorism money. We knew he was an assclown then.

We thought DC 9/11 was a comedy, because the Bush we saw hid in AF One like the scared bitch that he is.

But did you listen?

Fuck no. Until last week, Ann Coulter was calling New Yorkers cowards for not endorsing Bush's folly in Iraq.

We have been screaming for two years that Bush and his team sucked. That they had no clue. They sent soldiers to be wounded in Iraq without armored anything. And you idiots cheered him on from the safety of your keyboards. We told you he was fucking up Iraq. But no, we supported Saddam, we were racist, we blamed America.

You say this isn't about politics? Fuck you, this IS politics, real time, real life politics, where the insanity of all your ideas are exposed to the world for the fraud that they are. Tax cuts kill. Ask the relatives of the dead of the Gulf Coast.

Well, motherfuckers, the alligators are feasting on dead nigger and there isn't an Iraqi in sight. And Bush is trying to gladhand his way through a mess which has stunned FOX reporters. I mean, Shepard Smith is calling Fox's talking heads liars ON THE AIR.

CNN rips Bush in print and online after nearly five years of sleep.

Instead of hearing what we had to say about Bush, you called John Kerry a coward, mocked Max Cleland, blamed everything but herpes on Bill Clinton. You enabled Bush into this mess and now you're shocked?

Now, Fox can be outraged, now, Wash Times and Union Leader call Bush weak? Well, his coward ass disappeared in 2001. But you rather blame Michael Moore for that.

He can't even explain the Iraq war to a grieving mother.

So what did you do?

Write the most vile things about her and her dead son. Attacked her patriotism and her honesty.

Well, motherfuckers, and that means you, fat ass Goldberg and your master, Rich Lowry, PNAC Bitch Beinart, the racist wannabe white Malkin and the little fucktards at LGF, Bareback Andy and "Diversity" Instacracker, all you backstabbing, fag hating uncle tom ministers, you can see Dear Leader in action. America's largest port is gone, maybe forever, gas is $5+ a gallon and FEMA is coming. Whores come faster with old men than FEMA is getting to NOLA.

How did your wartime President react? Like Chiang Kai-Shek when the Yellow River flooded in 1944, with corrupt indifference.

Bush, the man your fever dreams built into the next Winston Churchill when he is really the live action Chauncey Gardiner, has failed to everyone, in plain sight, without question. Rick Perry is trying to save his ass, but it ain't working. NOLA looks like ANGOLA and that ain't flying.

Say 9/11 changed everything now, motherfuckers. Ooops, 9/11, 9/11. 9/11. Doesn't work anymore? Gee, maybe the sea of alligator MRE's once known as the citizens of New Orleans has something to do with that. Now you can shut the fuck up about 9/11. Bush just proved what would happen with another 9/11. Dead Americans as far as the nose can smell.

Drunken Chris Hitchens muttered some nonsense about blacks having it so good here. The poor man needs to stay in his bottle or go to Betty Ford before someone beats his treasonous ass stupid. Islamofascism means what, now motherfucker? Shove Islamofascism up your well travelled ass. The most dangerous thing to average Americans is not some mullah in Iraq, not even Osama Bin Laden, but George Bush. If he doesn't get you killed in Iraq, he'll fuck up saving your city so it turns into Escape from New Orleans. Armed junkies roaming the streets, looking for a fix, robbing and looting like Serb paramilitaries and about as sober.

George Bush's ineptitude has killed far more Americans than Osama could have dreamed of.

Some of you still try to see the clothes on the Dauphin, but he's as naked as Peter North around Jenna Jameson. Bush fucked up so bad, FOX turned on him like a rabid dog.

You can't hide behind racism forever. Bush fucked up, Bush is a weak, callous leader and the world knows this like it knows few other things. And all the stolen TV's in the world cannot hide that.

The sharp-eyed reader may have noticed that virtually every member of Steve's "motherfucker" Roll of Honor -- as well as virtually every gutless member of the infamous Yellow Elephant brigade -- still retains their privileged place and still makes a handsome living within the American punditocracy.

I'm sure there is a lesson in there somewhere.

(FYI, Part One of this week's Sunday Morning Comin' Down is available here, and for those interested in what I was doing with my own pen five years ago, my post entitled "Oh by the way, which one's Pink?" remains up and available, as well as the pre-YouTube video created by Joe Max out of much of that original slide-show.)

Your Tax Dollars At Work

From the AP:

AP IMPACT: US wasted billions in rebuilding Iraq
By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer Kim Gamel, Associated Press Writer 17 mins ago

KHAN BANI SAAD, Iraq – A $40 million prison sits in the desert north of Baghdad, empty. A $165 million children's hospital goes unused in the south. A $100 million waste water treatment system in Fallujah has cost three times more than projected, yet sewage still runs through the streets

As the U.S. draws down in Iraq, it is leaving behind hundreds of abandoned or incomplete projects. More than $5 billion in American taxpayer funds has been wasted — more than 10 percent of the some $50 billion the U.S. has spent on reconstruction in Iraq, according to audits from a U.S. watchdog agency.

That amount is likely an underestimate, based on an analysis of more than 300 reports by auditors with the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. And it does not take into account security costs, which have run almost 17 percent for some projects.

There are success stories. Hundreds of police stations, border forts and government buildings have been built, Iraqi security forces have improved after years of training, and a deep water port at the southern oil hub of Umm Qasr has been restored.

Even completed projects for the most part fell far short of original goals, according to an Associated Press review of hundreds of audits and investigations and visits to several sites. And the verdict is still out on whether the program reached its goal of generating Iraqi good will toward the United States instead of the insurgents.

Col. Jon Christensen, who took over as commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region District this summer, said the federal agency has completed more than 4,800 projects and is rushing to finish 233 more. Some 595 projects have been terminated, mostly for security reasons.
...

You know, I remember how many on the Left were s-c-r-e-a-m-i-n-g at the time -- citing one news report after another -- that in addition to lying us into Iraq to begin with, and then catastrophically botching the war once they'd gotten their way, the Bush Administration was literally pissing tens of billions of American taxpayer dollars away into the sands of Babylon.

How virtually every critic from the Left included phrases like "blood and treasure", "breaking the bank", "impoverishing the nation", "looting the treasury", etc. in their critique.

I remember how vigils were held; how tens of thousands of dirty fucking hippies were busily protesting here, there and everywhere. But without a cool name like "Tea Party" and tits-a-poppin' leaders like Sister Sarah, I guess we didn't rate the obsessive, 24/7/365 coverage of our every itch and sniffle that real patriots deserve.

Funny, how during this entire period, I also can't seem to recall a single protest from the Right.

Not one AstroTurf "Take Back American" rally organized by Fox and funded by the Koch family to protest the inanely profligate spending of the Bush Administration. Not one gun-waving, third-rate Republican radio turd or Rand-spewing has-been rock star yawping on and on about taking Their Dang Freedomses Back! In fact, as far as anyone can tell, during the entire clusterfuck that was the Age of Bush (at least until he got the loser stink on him and the rats starting fleeing the garbage scow) history does not record one, single tea-bag being tied to one, single, tri-corner hat by one, single, pasty, white lard-ass Patriot.

I do, however, clearly recall how the Left earned many a colorful nickname for its desperate, and desperately-unpopular attempts to call attention to the serial, and pan-dimensional fuck ups and treason of the Right; all those cute little sobriquets like "Bush-deranged, America-hating, French-loving, cut-and-run, white-flag-waving, surrender-monkey, 'Moran'."

I guess these millions of flag-waving, Fox-watching, Beck-worshiping, Limbaugh-quoting, Constitution-spouting, Town-hall-meeting-storming Heroes of Conservatism were off doing other Very Important Things -- working their way though some decade-long Tantric orgasm , or inventing cold fusion, or curing the Hanta virus or something -- during the whole Cheney Administration.

I guess they were all just too darned bury to notice that the Dear Leader they had elected and re-elected was razing their beloved country and taking a big, steaming dump on the rubble of their future.

Or maybe they


Their noble leaders






and their stalwart Ministry of Information


were all


busy


doing


something

else.

Sunday Morning Comin’ Down -- Part 1

Life in the K-Hole.

The mood was brooding and feverish today at the Mouse Circus, where the Three Rings were evenly divided between the fascism-dressed-up-in-a-clown-suit Buffoonionism of Glenn Beck's tent-revival freak show

the sobering fifth anniversary of Katrina, and the somewhat fatuous discussion of the failure of the US Education system led by a man whose credentials consist mostly of running the Chicago Public School system for about 11 minutes under Da Mare...and being in the right place at the right time with the right outside jump shot to earn him a place as one of Barack Obama's b-ball buddies.

It came across as a strangely unrelated grab-bag of odd ends, unless you were inclined look at it from a different angle...

Consider that we pissed away the Clinton Surplus on tax breaks for George Bush’s friends.

Then we pissed our way into endless deficits so that Dick Cheney’s friends could loot Iraq on the American taxpayer’s dime.

Now we find ourselves dead-ass broke and with really serious problems.

We find that we have not spent nearly enough money to fix New Orleans (Conservative answer: blame the darkies.)

We have not spent nearly enough money to fix our busted education system (Conservative solution: blame the unions.)

We have not spent nearly enough money to rebuild our economy on fundamentally sound foundations (Conservative solution: blame...well...anybody but us.)

So, what should we do?

Well, according to the commercial I saw today by the newly-embearded Fred Thompson on Fox News, apparently the Greatest Threat to Our Way of Life are scary, America-destroying “Automatic Tax Increases”.

This guy

is in danger people!

Call!
Write!
Email!

Fred Thompson’s shilling for the plight of poor, victimized billionaires was directly preceded by 30 minutes of babbly incoherence by Glenn Beck as one of Rupert Murdoch's employees interviewed another of Rupert Murdoch's employees on what he thinks of yesterday’s epic flop of an exercise in one-man Rupert Murdoch-promoted ego-onanism.

Exclusively!

Beck’s advice? He thunders that the country's troubles have nothing to do with economics or social justice. He rages and weeps that we are in trouble exclusively because people have turned from God.

Just like the Founders warned about!

Got that?

The Fox prescription for American salvation is a nation on it’s knees: half the time servicing the wizened dicks of its plutocrats, and half the time praying to Glenn Beck and his Mormon Mammon for salvation and redemption and maybe, petty-please, someday if you are very, very good you can have a nice paper route with enough benefits so you can take your sick kid to a doctor.

And don't forget to never look up and into the eyes of your masters, but instead to always, always, always blame your plight on "Those People". Whoever your masters designate as "Those People" this week.

Because this is all part of your New and Better Life inside the K-Hole.

Never heard of the K-Hole?

I’m not surprised.

It is an expression with two, distinct meanings -- one drug-related, and one borne out of the Katrina experience that never took off because I think it was just too damned depressing. The Katrina-inspired meaning comes from the idea that we are now not only seeing big, important pieces of America break down at genuinely catastrophic levels, but in our Brave New Conservative nation -- for the first time in our history -- we are also seeing leaders who really didn’t give a shit about it.

Sadly, the primary definition of the term --

“When consuming too much special k (ketamine)...you fall into this thing where you’re awake and know what’s going on but can’t move or do anything...”

-- works identically well to describe both a drug-induced wide-awake-coma, and the status quo in American politics.

Life in the American K-hole means life inside the cultural bubble of an empire whose rulers have begun a long, craven retreat from the responsibility of maintaining the nation’s basic territorial and economic integrity.

Life in the American K-hole means life under leaders who are content to let whole cities slide into oblivion. Who plunged us into disastrously ill-conceived wars. Who watched the whole nation -- the whole world -- teeter on the brink of economic oblivion, slapped a few Band-Aids on the problem, and then moved with lightening speed to further enrich the looters who nearly killed us in the first place.

Life in the American K-hole means life under a new aristocracy who have decided they no longer want to be burdened with performing the basic functions to governance, and who know they have finally rigged the game to completely that they let us the rest of us rot without any personal consequences to themselves. Who know they can shrug it all off because they own the media and the government.

Who have slapped their own, private padlocks on the levers of power.

Who are perfectly happy with feudalism, because they are its Lords and Ladies.

Who are perfectly cool with an exhausted and distracted America slowing collapsing into a totalitarian corporate state, because the power of that State will never be pointed at their heads.

Who believe the world is a pretty fine place as long as they and are theirs are still piling up obscene profits.

And if the rest of us are basically fucked, well maybe you should just pray harder, loser!

Understanding life in the American K-hole means understanding why this creepy exchange between two of of Rupert Murdoch's employees on Rupert Murdoch's “Fox News Sunday” makes such weirdly perfect sense on the 5th anniversary of That Huge Bush Fuckup Which Must Never Be Mentioned during which the call-and-response consisted of Wallace asking "questions" and Beck barking out clusters of 10-syllable wingnut bumper stickers.

Chris Wallace: There may have never been anything like Glenn Beck’s Whitestock on the D.C. Mall, ever in all of American history. What was the message of the day, Glenn?

Glenn Beck: Message for the day? Screw that. This was a message for the fucking ages!

Wallace: Whether it was tens of thousands…or hundreds of thousands…or billions and billion of people…what was the political message?

Beck: Whether it was 300,000…or 600,000….or a scajillion -- however many it was -- I don’t know what they’re trying to say. They were saying that they’re unhappy. They want to know “Where are you taking us?”

Beck: I don’t know what they want.

Beck: You should demand the truth!

Beck: Stand in the Burning Bush!

Wallace: As to the date, you claim it was both a coincidence and “divine providence” (yes, he literally said “divine providence”). What exactly are you reclaiming?

Beck: People talk about the “damage I have done to racial politics”. But speaking as a rich, white demagogue, I think race shouldn’t be in politics. I wasn’t even born during the Civil Rights movement.

Beck: We’re seeing justice perverted. This is about people of faith and not politics!

Wallace: But the civil rights movement had an agenda. Had some fucking direction or purpose. The civil rights movement was always about an economic agenda.

Beck: That’s part of the part of the Civil Rights movement that I disagree with. Just like the New Black Panthers! OMFG!

Wallace: But Martin Luther King was assassinated while leading the “Poor People’s Campaign.” Which was explicitly about economic justice.

Beck: I didn’t intentionally put it on 8/28. Believe in the power of one person. Everyone wants a shot. Beyond that it’s politics. This not about politics.

Beck: People of faith!

Beck: Equal shot!

Beck: Justice!

Beck: Equal shot!

Beck: Justice!

Beck: Shot!

Beck: Justice!

Beck: Shot!

Beck: Justice!

Beck: Shot!

Beck: Justice!

Beck: Content of character!

driftglass: And regarding your hideously bigoted comments about Obama being a racist which would have gotten your ass fired from any organization other than Fox or Aryan Nation.

Beck: Obama’s viewpoints are Black Liberation Theology. That’s what I was sensing at the gut level.

Beck: But this is not about politics!

Wallace: The central message was to get straight with God. Who made you the God Squad?

Beck: Obama is Marxism disguised as religion!

Beck: But this is not about politics!
Beck: What does Obama believe? That your salvation it tied to Collective Salvation! Because he is the fucking radical Marxist stalking horse for Jeremiah Wright!

Beck: But remember, this is not about politics!

Beck: The country is in trouble because people have turned from God. Just like the Founders warned about!

Beck: But let me repeat, this is not about politics!

And now let us pause for a word from Fred Thompson about the Evil Marxist Democrats and their radical plans to destroy the Greatest Country in the History of the World by taxing the blood-money of American Heroes like Rupert Murdoch to help pay the maintenance costs of the Greatest Country in the History of the World.

End of Part 1.