Friday, July 13, 2007
So many scandals its actually muddying the water
The Bush administration may have come up with a new tactic: Create so many scandals at once that none of them gets extreme coverage, and then claim that none of them are such a big deal, and wait for them to start dropping off the national radar. There's so many freaking scandals now that every time there's a new development in one of them, I kind of have to jog my memory of exactly what it was all about. It's really incredible how this guy can still be in office. I don't think he's gone more than a few weeks without a major scandal in months.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
$282 Million sounds like a lot until you put it in perspective...
I saw a huge front page story today about how a bank in Baghdad got robbed to the tune of $282 million dollars. Sure seems like a huge heist, right? Sure seems like terrorists are gonna end up with that money, right? Let me just point out two things.
First, what the hell is $282 US Dollars in cash doing in a bank in Iraq? That country is in the middle of a civil war. The only real surprise is that it took this long to get robbed. For that matter, along the same line, what the hell is a bank doing open for business in Baghdad? That city in under seige by multiple armies of desperate men. See above for the completion of this point.
Second, $282 million is a huge heist. Hell, that's bigger than the heist in "Ocean's 11", and that one was just cooked up by some screenwriter who could have said anything he wanted. He could have had Clooney say "Let's steal eleventy billion dollars from Terry Benedict", yet even at the limits of his imagination, that writer chose less than the REAL heist in Baghdad.
Yet let's think about the dollar amount the US spends in Iraq (not even counting the lives lost every day). The figure is ten billion a month. Break that down and you get...$333 million a day. So they stole less than one day's treasure in a war that has lasted more than five years. Ouch.
First, what the hell is $282 US Dollars in cash doing in a bank in Iraq? That country is in the middle of a civil war. The only real surprise is that it took this long to get robbed. For that matter, along the same line, what the hell is a bank doing open for business in Baghdad? That city in under seige by multiple armies of desperate men. See above for the completion of this point.
Second, $282 million is a huge heist. Hell, that's bigger than the heist in "Ocean's 11", and that one was just cooked up by some screenwriter who could have said anything he wanted. He could have had Clooney say "Let's steal eleventy billion dollars from Terry Benedict", yet even at the limits of his imagination, that writer chose less than the REAL heist in Baghdad.
Yet let's think about the dollar amount the US spends in Iraq (not even counting the lives lost every day). The figure is ten billion a month. Break that down and you get...$333 million a day. So they stole less than one day's treasure in a war that has lasted more than five years. Ouch.
What the hell does "Mixed Bag" even mean?
It never ceases to amaze me how Bush will take language that seems meant to describe a round of golf and apply it to the war in Iraq. Today he issued a progress report on Iraq that said the government there had made satisfactory progress on about half their benchmarks, and called the results there a "mixed bag". You know, a mixed bag, like "I hit a few birdies, a few too many bogies, I was in the rough a lot off the tee, but I putted pretty well." That's a mixed bag. "We quelled the resistance in Al-Anbar at the cost of hundreds of dead Americans and thousands of dead Iraqis, but Baghdad is still hostile despite the mass death there." That's not a mixed bag. That's an unmitigated disaster.
This administration's willingness to use rhetoric, and this President's ability to use his supposedly "simple" grasp of language to minimize problems is truly incredible. But what is really shocking is the way the mainstream press just reports this bullshit. Every single paper who reported this White House update as if it were factual in any way should be ashamed. In fact, the administration should not be allowed to report on the state of the war at all. It's like a parent telling a five year old to clean her room, and then taking her word that it's done instead of opening up the door and looking for themselves. Gee, I wonder if she's going to say she's made more progress than she really has.
What it is really like, though, is the Enron case. It's like during the trial, Enron issued an internal report saying that there was reasonable doubt about the defendant's guilt. And then, in the middle of the trial, Enron's defense lawyers pulled out the report and said, "See, this report says there's doubt, so they can't be guilty." And then the jurors (played here by the media) said "Well, they must be right, look, it's right there in that report." People are such GD idiots.
This administration's willingness to use rhetoric, and this President's ability to use his supposedly "simple" grasp of language to minimize problems is truly incredible. But what is really shocking is the way the mainstream press just reports this bullshit. Every single paper who reported this White House update as if it were factual in any way should be ashamed. In fact, the administration should not be allowed to report on the state of the war at all. It's like a parent telling a five year old to clean her room, and then taking her word that it's done instead of opening up the door and looking for themselves. Gee, I wonder if she's going to say she's made more progress than she really has.
What it is really like, though, is the Enron case. It's like during the trial, Enron issued an internal report saying that there was reasonable doubt about the defendant's guilt. And then, in the middle of the trial, Enron's defense lawyers pulled out the report and said, "See, this report says there's doubt, so they can't be guilty." And then the jurors (played here by the media) said "Well, they must be right, look, it's right there in that report." People are such GD idiots.
Okay I'm back
Hi Everybody, I'm back at it full swing as of today. I got all the footage I need for my movie, and with Bush releasing this BS progress report in Iraq and again calling it a "mixed bag", I just can't keep my mouth shut any more. Here goes...
Sunday, July 8, 2007
This has nothing to do with the news
News update, everything is still turning slowly into shit. I just finished my first day of shooting on my first short film. Holy shit, it was awesome. This is totally out of context for this blog, but fuck it. I'm not reporting the news to you, my few but faithful readers, because there is too much shit going on in my personal life. We shot interiors today, and I don't know what is going to happen tomorrow. It went fabulously today, I couldn't have asked for more. Our insurance is fucked up, I'm not sure how we're going to get our exterior shots, but I'm living the dream, and I'm happy. For today, at least, I'm happy.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Scooter Libby gets what's coming to him
Bush did it. I knew it was coming, but this halfway bullshit doesn't fool me at all. Scooter Libby got a pardon, whether they call it that or not. He got two and a half years of his life back, and as for the fine? As for the loss of reputation? I'll bet anybody a million dollars that Scooter Libby doesn't have any trouble getting a job somewhere, and I'll bet he makes waaaay more than a quarter million dollars (the amount of his fine) in the next thirty months.
I actually don't have a problem with Scooter getting a pardon. In fact, Bush SHOULD have pardoned him, since Scooter was clearly doing exactly what Bush wanted. If he hadn't pardoned him, it would have been a supreme act of disloyalty. What I have a problem with is Bush pardoning him, in the context of Bush's unwavering support for tough sentences and mandatory minimums. I've written on this blog about the kid who got a DECADE in prison for having consensual sex with a fifteen year old girl when he was seventeen. Bush took a look at that case and decided not to intervene with a pardon. But now less than three years is too much for a guy who perjured himself to obfuscate the process by which this country was led into a war has resulted in thousands of deaths. Seems a little strange to me.
The question this raises is whether Scooter was, as I just heard someone so eloquently put it, a "designated defendant" for Bush and Cheney. It is interesting how quickly Libby changed his tune about putting Cheney on the stand in his trial. He just kind of took his lumps...almost as if he knew he was going to get off the hot seat when it came down to it.
So although Bush has the power to pardon anybody he wants, isn't it fair to say there's a conflict of interest here? The guy was supposed to go to prison for protecting Bush. Now Bush is pardoning him. So you know what? I think that's what they call a flaw in the system.
I actually don't have a problem with Scooter getting a pardon. In fact, Bush SHOULD have pardoned him, since Scooter was clearly doing exactly what Bush wanted. If he hadn't pardoned him, it would have been a supreme act of disloyalty. What I have a problem with is Bush pardoning him, in the context of Bush's unwavering support for tough sentences and mandatory minimums. I've written on this blog about the kid who got a DECADE in prison for having consensual sex with a fifteen year old girl when he was seventeen. Bush took a look at that case and decided not to intervene with a pardon. But now less than three years is too much for a guy who perjured himself to obfuscate the process by which this country was led into a war has resulted in thousands of deaths. Seems a little strange to me.
The question this raises is whether Scooter was, as I just heard someone so eloquently put it, a "designated defendant" for Bush and Cheney. It is interesting how quickly Libby changed his tune about putting Cheney on the stand in his trial. He just kind of took his lumps...almost as if he knew he was going to get off the hot seat when it came down to it.
So although Bush has the power to pardon anybody he wants, isn't it fair to say there's a conflict of interest here? The guy was supposed to go to prison for protecting Bush. Now Bush is pardoning him. So you know what? I think that's what they call a flaw in the system.
All the coverage in the world doesn't change policy
Washington Post has a profile of Bush today, and it crystallized something that had been nagging me for a while. There's no shortage of administration coverage out there. Quite the opposite, in fact. The problem is that every story I read diagnoses the same problem. It just diagnoses the same set of incorrect decisions and refusals the change, over and over and over. There is never a prescription for a set of concrete steps that would fix any of these problems.
Now by "these problems" I don't mean specific issues. There are plenty of articles and Op-Ed pieces on what to do about immigration, or the war in Iraq, Social Security, whatever. I mean what to do about the problem of the prospect of the next year and a half with a President that is an embarrassment and a danger to himself and others.
The article today on WaPost quotes some pundit as saying that Bush has "a knack for not looking in the rearview mirror". He reads some limited newspapers, but he doesn't really read about himself or his failings that much, and he considers the stubborn support of his positions a virtue.
The logical end of this line of thinking is that talking about how shitty Bush is will simply not have the desired effect. I want to see an article about what we, outside of the President's purview, can do to change policy. Basically, I want somebody to start talking about impeaching this guy. Why did Nancy Pelosi say that is off the table? What the fuck is her problem? I want this guy gone. Not in 18 months. Now.
Now by "these problems" I don't mean specific issues. There are plenty of articles and Op-Ed pieces on what to do about immigration, or the war in Iraq, Social Security, whatever. I mean what to do about the problem of the prospect of the next year and a half with a President that is an embarrassment and a danger to himself and others.
The article today on WaPost quotes some pundit as saying that Bush has "a knack for not looking in the rearview mirror". He reads some limited newspapers, but he doesn't really read about himself or his failings that much, and he considers the stubborn support of his positions a virtue.
The logical end of this line of thinking is that talking about how shitty Bush is will simply not have the desired effect. I want to see an article about what we, outside of the President's purview, can do to change policy. Basically, I want somebody to start talking about impeaching this guy. Why did Nancy Pelosi say that is off the table? What the fuck is her problem? I want this guy gone. Not in 18 months. Now.
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