Five years ago today, a president costumed in a flight suit gave a speech declaring mission over, beneath a banner that simply said "Mission Accomplished". That is probably the defining image of his presidency, and not just because this was a photo-op that backfired. George W. Bush's presidency has been all about image. Bush has never sought to govern, or even to solve problems. Bush was the permanent campaigner, and campaigning is all about selling an image of yourself.

When Bush gives a press conference or holds a public event, the surrounds are always dressed with slogans of some such. "No Child Left Behind". "Securing our Economy". "Strengthening Social Security". Beyond that, he used federal documents as campaign propaganda. The 2001 tax rebates had a note serving as a campaign and GOP ad for George W. Bush. Beyond that, Bush does not govern. John J. Diiulio resigned in disgust when he discovered that Bush was more concerned with looking like he was helping the poor with his "Faith Based Initiatives" rather than actually helping the poor. That he treated matters of war and peace the same way is disgusting. I cannot really continue this post. Maybe I can collect my thoughts tomorrow.

States Consider Privatizing Lotteries

MONTPELIER, Vt. (Jan. 20) - Betting on the state lottery for some quick cash? Get in line: State governments across the country are thinking the same thing.

Courted by Wall Street investment houses, Vermont is one of more than a dozen states where proposals have been floated to lease state lotteries to private investors.

...

Lawmakers in Illinois, Indiana and Texas have rejected lottery lease proposals in the past two years, but governors in all three states have indicated they'll raise the idea again.

In Indiana, the plan was to use revenue from a privatized lottery for a scholarship program to stem a brain drain from the state, according to Tom Osborne, an official handling infrastructure investments at UBS Investment Bank.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, meanwhile, had cancer research on his lottery-earnings shopping list. In Vermont, Douglas wants to split the proceeds between stemming increases in the property taxes that pay for schools and chipping in for school construction projects.

"Not only will this proposal ease the financial strain on homeowners, it will help clear the backlog of school construction, giving our students 21st century learning environments in energy efficient buildings," Douglas told lawmakers in his annual State of the State address earlier this month.

Rachel Volberg, president of Northampton, Mass.,-based Gemini Research, which studies gambling and advises governments about it, said that when states run lotteries, the operations are tempered by concern for what's best for citizens. That could change if private companies were the ones drumming up the games, she said.

"Private operators running lotteries are going to be much more likely to try to introduce games that are going to be extremely profitable, and that could be very problematic in terms of gambling problems," said Volberg.

I'm not a big fan of lotteries, at least not when they are sold as a "new, addition" revenue stream, typically for school funding. Eventually, that additional revenue stream becomes the main revenue stream, replacing what would have come from general taxes. For that reason, many states already have reason to encourage gambling.

Dirty Pool shaping up in CA

(Yes, I read about it a month back, but this journal hasn't been a high priority in quite a while.)

This is what I get for stepping out for 30 minutes. Gonzales now choses to resign. What did they find in his bed last week: A dead girl or a live boy? He couldn't be shamed by the fact he tried to take advantage of a deathly ill man in order to authorize a secret spying program he knew (or at least feared would be seen as) illegal. Essentially all of his defense for his tenure while Attorney General was that he had no clue what his office was doing. We went through six months of "Who am I and why am I here?," and now he decides to go?

So, where's the body?!

I asked in my previous post, after reading this article:

I honestly wonder if future civilizations will ever fully comprehend the stupidity that led grown men and women to rename snacks.

Apparently they already can. Reminding people that they will die will lead them to wall themselves into tribalistic defenses.

Mortality reminders not only enhanced the appeal of Bush's political style but also deepened and broadened the appeal of the conservative social positions that Republicans had been running on.

For instance, because worldview defense increases hostility toward other races, religions, nations, and political systems, it helps explain the rage toward France and Germany that erupted prior to the Iraq war, as well as the recent spike in hostility toward illegal immigrants. Also central to worldview defense is the protection of tradition against social experimentation, of community values against individual prerogatives--as was evident in the Tucson experiment with the judges [where a group of judges who were reminded of man's mortality set fines against a hypothetical prostitute at over $450, while the group given no such reminder set the fine at just $90]--and of religious dictates against secular norms. For many conservatives, this means opposition to abortion and gay marriage.

Years ago, I came across a saying, paraphrased, that essentially says that if you come across a guy who point at the sky and calls it "the ground", there is just no point in debating him. That was pretty much my reaction when I saw a link in small type on WashingtonPost.com with the words Why Bush Will Be a Winner. Later on, I learned it was a piece written in earnest by William Kristol of The Weekly Standard, who on matters of the war in Iraq is the pundit who points to the sky and calls it ground.

Which leads to the quote of the day from him:

I've been pretty consistent, pretty upfront and straightforward about my views. I had the same views when they were reasonably popular as I do now when they're unpopular. It would really be pathetic to adjust one's analysis based on public opinion.

Not as pathetic I guess as revising opinion based on public fact. It's not like those views became unpopular by happenstance. But I'm not a highly paid pundit (and if they hire you on output of commentary, I wouldn't even be highly paid if these words appeared in the Washington Post itself).

In other news, I caught my first debate -- the CNN-YouTube debate. I'm still split between Obama and Clinton, which I have been throughout the year. Like I said in a chat, Obama is my choice in idealism, while Clinton is my choice in pragmatism.

I shall dub thee, "Albo Fees!"

Quite frankly, there's nothing funnier/scarier than Republicans looking to raise money but without "raising taxes". Of course, the problem most anti-tax Republicans discover when trying to "starve the beast", or shrinking the government to be small enough to drown in a bathtub, is that people like to feast from the beast. Government is far more popular than the people we elect to run it.

So we have the tax-masquerading-as-a-fee, which Virginia has decided to take to its absurd logical conclusion. Usurious traffic penalties on bad driving. Three, and four digit penalties for offenses like failing to signal, or speeding. Sure, I'd love to drive on roads without feeling like I'm taking life into my own hands, but this is insane.

Of course, it shouldn't be a a surprise that the man who created this law (which takes effect Sunday) and is most proud of it, David Albo, runs a law firm whose specialty is fighting tickets.

Since Albo is so proud of his work, I think we should all honor him. We should name these new fine "Albo Fees". Someone will go to court to challenge the constitutionality of this ("Equal protection under the law"). When you do, make sure to give credit where it is do. Let Dave know how you feel about those Albo fees.

Also: WUSA 9 News report on the Petition to Repeal the Civil Remedial Fees for Traffic Offenses

Dumb reason to object to seeing "An Inconvenient Truth". . .

"No you will not teach or show that propagandist Al Gore video to my child, blaming our nation -- the greatest nation ever to exist on this planet -- for global warming," the ironically named Frosty Hardiman wrote in an e-mail to the Federal Way School Board, when he learned his daughter's science class was screening the film. According to the Washington Post, the 43-year-old computer consultant is an evangelical Christian who says he believes that a warming planet is "one of the signs" of Jesus Christ's imminent return for Judgment Day.

Think of it as Heaven's Gate in slow motion.

By now, it shouldn't surprise me that the Bush Administration's efforts for anything never reaches beyond the words people use to describe things. People like to call these people, the faith-based administration, playing on both how the administration panders to the Christian-right as well as their comments they made years ago when they dismissed critics as being trapped in the "reality-based community".

Let's remember what Ronald Suskin wrote:

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

Today, from the realm of the folks who (used to) think they can create their new reality are now trying to will-away the reality of the problems in Iraq. This came a head largely because NBC largely said "Screw the euphemisms, this is a civil war."

Today's analysis in the Post tries to argue that this semantic point is actually important. It's not really, and in fact some of the reasons to fight the US news media on this are bizarre -- such that a graphic on MSNBC could cause Iraqis to take sides, which is particularly interesting since they haven't really solved the electricity problem in Iraq, much less the cable-TV issue there.
It's almost surreal. We seem to have a war being run by advertising executives.

This will be an entertaining two years at least. . .

President Bush has pledged to work with the new Democratic majorities in Congress, but he has already gotten off on the wrong foot with Jim Webb, whose surprise victory over Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) tipped the Senate to the Democrats.

Webb, a decorated former Marine officer, hammered Allen and Bush over the unpopular war in Iraq while wearing his son’s old combat boots on the campaign trail. It seems the president may have some lingering resentment.

At a private reception held at the White House with newly elected lawmakers shortly after the election, Bush asked Webb how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing.

Webb responded that he really wanted to see his son brought back home, said a person who heard about the exchange from Webb.

“I didn’t ask you that, I asked how he’s doing,” Bush retorted, according to the source.

Webb confessed that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief, reported the source, but of course didn’t. It’s safe to say, however, that Bush and Webb won’t be taking any overseas trips together anytime soon.

More from the Washington Post

Here's something entertaining. I see the right-siders are raising money to pay Bolton's salary themselves (hoping that Bush appoints him as a sort of unpaid acting ambassador which apparently doesn't require Congressional approval). Yes, it has come to the point where the blogosphere (and particularly, the most unhinged portion of it) is attempting to run US foreign policy themselves. (Essentially, Bolton would be more beholden to the blogosphere than the US. Don't think so. Imagine if Bolton decides to give peace and diplomacy more than lip-service. Do you think the "Bake Sales for Bolton" would continue if he pushes for policies opposed by the wingnuts?)

If they get to send their own ambassador to the UN, I think I should be able to send an ambassador of my choosing to the UN too, to articulate my own foreign policy.

What an interesting campaign season Campaign 2006 turned out to be. It has been over a week since the Democratic Party won control of both the House and more improbably (at least by predictions of the majority of pundits and of the Iowa Elections Market) the Senate.Given some of the hyperventilating of the conservative blarghosphere, I was expecting to wake up to scenes of this last Wednesday morning. Maybe Apocalypse starts on January 4th.

Mining through the handy archives of the conservative polling and news aggregation site "RealClearPolitics", I got the chance to see how coverage and opinion flowed about this campaign. It's nice to have the filter of history to give a sense of neutral detachment to the endeavor, as well as freeing me from having to come up with something to say quickly enough for it to be relevant, but to focus on snark. Such as cruelly mocking this article by Ralph Z. Hallow of the Washington Times which was hopefully optimistic on the Republican Party's chances of retaining control of Congress. Titled "GOP's uptick just in time for Election Day", it was published on September 26 -- forty-two days before the election. Or the day before the widely-read Wonkette blog would link to explicit emails that Representative Foley sent to a Congressional page. Two days before ABC News published a story about those emails. Three days before Foley resigned, and a scandal broke that helped to destroy a party. Three days after the Hallow declared that all was well.

If there is any justice in the world, George Allen will lose tonight. A man who can simultaneously claim that "he wanted to run on the issues" while shopping passages of a fiction book written by the opponent to the media in an attempt to savage that candidate's character shouldn't be allowed any level of governmental power. The only good thing to be had from watching the George Allen campaign is to see him repeatedly shoot himself in the face -- nonstop -- since August.

You'd think someone who has had race-issues throughout his life would think better than calling someone a monkey.

Lets ignore the fact that the WMDs that Rick Santorum is pimping in his campaign to save his seat was as useful as weapons as milk the same age for putting on cereal. (Just humor me for a second.) The question conservative pundits are having difficulty answering is why the administration hasn't hyped this as a vindication.

No, not intellectual honesty you jokers. That hasn't played any role in this administration before.

Now, here's the insane suggestion as posited by a Fox News military analysis... they were silent to protect our allies France, Russia and China from a WMD to Iraq scandal.

China.

Russia.

and France.

There's absolutely nothing in that sentence that makes sense in the universe that I'm living in.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute may have managed something extraordinary -- It appears that the internet is in unanimous agreement that the "We Call it Life" campaign sucks. (Though I should be careful... Technorati still sucks at indexing the internet, or staying online, but an IceRocket search seems to confirm the internet sentiment.)
In fact, I've only found two jottings that can't be deemed negative: both PR posts. One on National Review and one from the libertarian Reason Magazine's blog that was for some reason reposted to a MySpace account.

These ads were released to counter Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. Again, this is an interesting retreat by climate change skeptics, as until now they could simply counter by simple mockery and accusations of scare-mongering (i.e. South Park with their recent episode "ManBearPig"). Now they're switching tack -- engaging the fact... well, spinning the facts, and trying to present a false dilemma, built on hyperbole. "Outlaw carbon dioxide -- which you and every animal creature produces -- and society will be sent back into the dark ages." I.E. the skeptics themselves have been reduced to scare-mongering. This may as well be a vindication of "Ozone Al".

One thing I find remarkable is how bad these ads are. The overwrought narration over stock footage (including a particularly poor choice of images... that of a very hazy sky with a factory visible in the foreground). Of course, there was not much one could do to salvage the questionable premise of presenting CO₂ as something more noble than a waste product. Imagine trying to present crap as something wonderful. I can't imagine anyone previewing these ads thinking "This will convince people that exhaled breath/factory smog is good" or "Time Magazine is part of a conspiracy to scare you about climate change", as opposed to "Is this a SNL/Mad Magazine/The Daily Show parody?"

This is almost funny in that these ad play more like an Onion parody* than an actual piece of propaganda from the energy industries in trying to convince people that pollution is good. "Carbon Dioxide -- its produced by people, animals, the ocean, the earth, and oh yeah a few factories here and there, lets not think about that now... but it's life. It lets you move and fly and if them crazy environmentalists outlaw it, we'll instantly be thrust back into the stone age! It's not pollution, it's progress!"

(That's only a slight exaggeration of their ad called Energy.)

Their other ad goes about misrepresenting climate science. "It's snowing slightly in a small section of Greenland, so why are they scaring you with all of these reports of glacial melts occurring everywhere else in the world. Crazy environmentalists have infultrated the media and want to send you all back to the stone age!"

This developments actually makes me feel good about the state of climate-change debate. These ads are just like the lobbying done by the tobacco industry just as popular opinion was turning against them as people found out they lied and lied repeatedly about how addictive and deadly smoking is, and that they've known this for almost forever. And the tobacco industry's efforts were far more slick and professional than the exercises in absurdity that the "Competitive Enterprise Institute" has produced.

Hot air! It powers Congress.

*If someone has a link to something from the Onion about someone producing pollution is good ads, please leave me a note!

Fred Kaplan responds to the story by Hersh in the New Yorker in the only possible way someone could: "Is Bush out of his mind?!"

Pre-emptive war—attacking a country to keep it from attacking us or an ally—is sometimes justifiable. Preventive war—attacking a country to keep it from developing a capability to attack an ally sometime in the future—almost never is. And preventive war waged with nuclear weapons is (not to put too fine a spin on it) crazy.

In the 60 years since, the world has declared and observed a clear threshold between the use and nonuse of nuclear weapons. To violate that threshold—for a purpose that falls far short of pre-empting an imminent threat or protecting our national survival—would not only be immoral; it would incite outrage across the Middle East and the Muslim world; it would inspire vast recruitment drives by anti-American terrorists (and any resulting sequels to 9/11 would be seen, even by our friends, as just deserts); and it would legitimize nuclear weapons as everyday tools of warfare and spur many nations into building their own arsenals, if just to anticipate and match their neighbors' impending arsenals.

In short, it would be a disaster of head-spinning proportions.

Of course, Kaplan wonders if this is chess playing by either the Bush administration (play the madman, so that cooler heads are forced to opt for the policy you were gsming for -- in this case, tougher sanctions), or by military officials (to make a conventional attack look like a gesture of goodwill or to derail the Dr. Strangelovian plans in the deep of the Pentagon). Unfortunately, I'm not inclined to think Bush has suddenly learned tatical diplomacy -- he doesn't seem to plan his next move when it is his turn.

So, my answer to Jason Spalding of Just Curious at JadeCastle.com, attacking Iran with nukes would be absolutely worse than doing nothing. It will lead to everybody else to launch nuclear programs, and simply destabilize relations between every single nation in the world.

PS: Bush today said he's not planning on going to war with Iran. He pretty much said the same thing with regard to Iraq, the entire time he was planning on going to war with Iraq -- possibly going so far as suggesting to Blair that we should provoke Iraq into attacking us.

One of the things you should fear when a political leader becomes unpopular, and his ideas have not only fallen out of favor with the public, but has proven to be catastrophically disasterous, is the increasing urge to gamble all or nothing in order to gain vindication. Seymour Hersh is reporting in the New Yorker than plans are being discussed to wage war with Iran. Nuclear war. From an anonymous source, he quotes that Bush sees "saving Iran is going to be his legacy." Once again, we have at the chess-table someone who has yet to master Connect Four. Of all the possible but diminishing options we have against Iran (thanks in part to the wonderful display of incompetence we gave the world in the run-up and execution of the Iraq War), the one option guarenteed to make things worse is a full-out attack.

Today's not the day to be stumbling around the internet. Everybody is a joker, and some sites go to remarkable lengths to make an April Fool. So, when I checked the Fark Politics Page -- after fighting through a squirrel, and guinea pigs with laptops -- I find this: "Bush Regrets Global Warming"! With this, and the president coming out on the more reasonable side on immigration policy -- I've come close to agree with George Bush twice on policy, I'm fearing that the world will be ending soon!

I absolutely thought it was an April Fool's prank! This is closer to an admission of error than I recall him ever giving for disasters like Iraq or Katrina! And especially on a subject where he could have probably have continued obsfucation on for the remainder of his presidency! Just ask Michael Crichton (TNR) or Steve Milloy (TNR). (Maybe that Time Magazine cover scared him straight.) OK, he still thinks that there is a debate as whether it is just a natural occurance, but that's almost immaterial since he admits that something needs to be done. Unfortunately, given 5 years of his history, and his current status as lamer than a dead duck, I doubt he will do anything that exeeds symbolic. He'll stage a press conference to show off banners with a catchy slogan to present a policy through which once again we'll understand that the vast majority of the discussion was spent on the slogan.