Well, I'm off . . .

. . . for a week's holiday. See you next Sunday. In the meantime, here's a great cartoon: the Sunday, July 11 Doonesbury - Doonesbury@Slate - Daily Dose

What, $15 million isn't enough for you?

Lotto winner says jilted lover didn't sign wedding deal Ah, it is to laugh -- why do people DO this to each other and to themselves? Why do people get so greedy? The simple truth is that he was married when he won the $30 million. Therefore his wife is legally entitled to a share of it, regardless of how they were getting along or who lied to who or whatever. Just accept it, fella, and move on.

The real issue

Bush Presses Case Against Gay Marriage This AP story shows that Americans, even Democrats, just don't get it.
Yost writes "The vote puts some Democrats and Republicans in a difficult position. One senator acknowledged the political risk in trying to walk a line supporting both traditional marriage and gay rights."
But this isn't the issue at all.
During the Canadian election campaign, Martin clearly laid out the real issue -- it is not whether someone does or doesn't support gay marriage, but whether people do or do not support the duty of the provincial and federal Supreme Courts to interpret the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It was charter challenges which led to the legalization of gay marriage in BC, Ontario and Quebec -- the courts said that, under the charter, all people had the right to marry. Period.
Now, in the US, courts are dealing with the same issue, and, not surprisingly, they're concluding the same thing -- that their state and federal Bills of Rights say all citizens are to be treated equally under the law. Therefore no right given to one person can be denied another person.
And THAT'S the issue, folks.
So the question really is, does the US Congress support the Bill of Rights, or not?

No nuance, no detail - just cut to the chase

Billmon is back with a lengthy and complicated piece on the Enron scandal Play It As It Lays
One problem with this story is the complexity of the narrative -- people prefer simpler tales of good and evil. Just look at Billmon's last sentence: "Right now [the Republicans are] desperately trying to sell the proposition that because Kenny Boy ate dinner at Teresa Heinz Kerry's house two years ago (along with the other members of the board of the Heinz Center for Science, Economy and the Environment) the Democrats are just as tainted by the Enron embrace as the [Republican] party, and the [Bush] family, that accepted millions of dollars in soft and hard dollar contributions from Enron insiders, that placed Enron-recommended appointees in critical state and federal jobs, that pushed through legislative and regulatory changes worth billions to Enron, and that dutifully adopted the policies that allowed Lay and his crew to amass huge personal fortunes while systematically robbing Enron's customers, shareholders and employees."
How unlikely it is that most journalists will understand this complexity and be able to construct this into a narrative which can be covered on the evening news.
Its one of the biggest problems that the left-wing and the democrats have to deal with -- the complexity of the problems are hard to explain in a few words. But it is important that Kerry try to construct narratives about the Republican record and his own vision that are easier for the public to grasp.
My advice - discard nuance, reject detail, just cut to the chase. Let the RNC be on the defensive for a change. So what if they attack these constructions as simplistic, which they may be, as long as there is truth at their core?
Lay cheated the American public, and his Republican friends helped him do it.
Bush and Cheney used false evidence to start a war that killed a thousand Americans.
Republican tax cuts for the rich, if maintained, will mortgage America's future.
When faced with recession and job losses, the Republicans did nothing.
And Kerry has to develop a simple narrative for his own policies:
America must throw off the shackles of dependence on middle-east oil.
The American people deserve decent health care.
Terrorism must be fought strategically and decisively.
10 million new jobs for Americans.
You get the idea.

We have to save our phoney-baloney jobs, gentlemen*

United Press International: Senate: Iraq intelligence was faulty
Now questions are being asked about why Senate democrats were so eager to endorse the intelligence report when it did not deal with the pressure issue from the White House.
I think I know why.
Here's the key quote -- "'We in Congress would not have authorized that war ... if we knew what we know now,' said Sen. John Rockefeller, democrat, to the news conference.
Basically, the Senate democrats could hardly wait to endorse a report which took them off the hook for their pro-war votes. In the end, it did not matter to Congress whether the Bush administration pressured the CIA to inflate intelligence; this is an issue which would only affect whether voters support Bush or not in November. No, what mattered to the Senate democrats was finding their own political cover for their own reelection campaigns.
*one of my favourite lines from Blazing Saddles

Nice reach, George

Bush skips NAACP meet due to hostile comments So Bush wants to "reach out" to African-Americans -- but won't speak at their convention because they have said mean things about him.
Another president, you know, might actually respect an organization like the NAACP, and might decide to explain his point of view and maybe win them over. But not Good Ole Gutless George -- reading My Pet Goat to grade schoolers is about as hostile an audience as he ever wants to deal with.

A "reality show" I like

Now, we almost never watch all of the reality shows on TV these days -- which relegates us to reruns of CSI and Law & Order this summer. But here is a reality show I could like.

The best ball player in the world today

is Derek Jeter.
He's what my daughter's softball coach described as an "impact" player -- someone who, when the chips are down, can be counted on to come through. He doesn't always hit or field perfectly, of course, but when his team needs him he creates the opportunity for the team to win. Derek Jeter's top 10 clutch moments Its a joy to read, just to relive all those great baseball moments.

It's ALWAYS the staff's fault

Report: CIA Gave False Info on Iraq
Poor Bush and poor Cheney, just a couple of good ole boys, poor country bumpkins really, so badly misled by their staff. Why, don't you remember all those speeches from Tenent and his analysts promoting the war? All that terrible pressure they were bringing onto Bush and Cheney and Rice in 2002 and 2003 to be more agressive against Iraq, saying all the time that containment wouldn't work, that war was the only answer? Don 't you remember all that?
One thing that staff in a government bureaucracy must remember at all times -- whenever anything goes wrong, its ALWAYS the staff's fault in the end. And when it goes spectacularly wrong, as it has in Iraq, then the blame is spectacular, too.
Politicians almost always try to save themselves by blaming their staff. No matter that Cheney and Gingrich made innumerable trips to Langley to yell at the analysts who didn't evaluate intelligence to their liking -- no matter that Rumsfeld set up his own baby CIA "Office of Special Plans" to stovepipe defector stories directly to the President, no matter that the CIA and State analysts said over and over and over that Iraq could be handled by containment, that the tubes were for industry, that there was no evidence that Iraq was trying to import yellowcake. Nope, before the war, the analysts were all wet.
So, to save their miserable jobs, the analysts finally caved -- well OK, maybe you're right, I guess maybe the intelligence could be interpreted that way. . . -- and now, kaboom, the whole war is their fault, and their careers are over anyway.
Well, those who live by the sword die by the sword.
There will be a lot of lessons learned from the Iraq war, many unintentional.
And not the least will be, by bureaucrats, that they MUST NOT give in to political pressure to distort their results. If they lose their backbone, as the CIA analysts did, then they have failed the public which pays their salaries. Politicians come and go, but the staff stays. They work for the pubic, not for the politicians, so their public trust is to maintain the standards of their profession. So, in that sense at least, they actually were to blame.

No wonder

Pentagon Says Bush Records of Service Were Destroyed
No wonder the world is full of conspiracy theories these days.
Now, the particular set of destroyed records, according to the story, only cover payroll records for three of the eight to 12 months for which Bush's service records are in question.
But when records disappear, its no wonder there are theories about why.

Well, its over

U.S. Pilot Fined for Killing Canadian Soldiers
But this leaves a sour taste -- so at least he won't be flying again, and at least the general said he "acted shamefully on April 17, 2002 over Tarnak Farms, Afghanistan, exhibiting arrogance and a lack of flight discipline" but four Canadian boys are still dead and he's paying a fine of $1,418 per.
I guess what galls is that he is STILL whining -- he has never shown remorse, and acknowledged that his cowboy attitude was wrong - at least the other pilot resigned voluntarily.

It's John-John

Kerry picks Edwards as VP candidate
This is great news -- Edwards brings his youth and energy to the ticket.
And it carries on with the subtle reincarnation theme -- first we have JFK (now standing for John F. Kerry), who is married to a glamorous, aristocratic Terry (its not quite "Jackie" but the stylish similarities are there). And now we have "John-John" again. And Edwards has a son named Jack.

Oh, sure

C.I.A. Held Back Iraqi Arms Data, U.S. Officials Say Another headline for The Project.
But, you know, it occured to me that the one positive thing resulting from the whole flap over WMD intelligence is that nobody has to take John Bolton seriously anymore.

Clean sweep

Sorry for the lack of new posts -- we've been doing one of those once-a-decade projects of cleaning everything out of the laundry room and the storage room, repainting, repacking everything into plastic storage bins, plus throwing tons of stuff out. My goal was a 50 per cent reduction -- we didn't quite achieve that, but it's close!
This is the kind of exciting holiday event that you, too, can look forward to when you've been married for 30+ years!

It's a beginning

Ted Rall often strikes me as a bit of a left-wing nutcase, but I can appreciate the feeling behind his latest screed
We are at war, but the terrorists aren't foreigners. We are fighting for our nation's soul. The right-wing Republicans who control the government and the media have no intention of sharing their power. Thus they present themselves and their ideas--that we should spend our national treasury on invading oil-producing nations but not on national healthcare, that it's acceptable to throw people into concentration camps--as the living embodiment of what it means to be American. Meanwhile the neofascist bullies slime everybody else--the majority--as 'anti-American.' The United States is living under ideological apartheid. There are a many more of us than there are corporatist neofascists, but as any prison inmate can attest, numerical superiority does not assure victory. Excluded from access to mainstream politics and media, measured and even-toned opponents are ignored and marginalized. The current situation calls for radical, loud, even ugly, tactics. Nelson Mandela, fighting the racist white minority government of South Africa, resorted to building bombs to loosen the grip of apartheid. Here in America, one unfair, dissembling movie by a liberal loudmouth like Michael Moore, no matter how successful, could never be powerful enough to counter the millions of conservative lies disseminated by thousands of talk radio stations and newspapers every minute of every day of every year. But it's a beginning.