Yearly Archives: 2008

The rising cost of the Iraq ‘surge’

This entry was posted in Periodic Posts and tagged Traq War on by

Follow this link to an article on, of all places, alJazeera online magazine. If you don’t see me around too much anymore, you’ll know that George Bush’s minions read my blog.

The article, written by Robert Parry, states the following:

Despite strong evidence to the contrary, it has become established conventional wisdom among mainstream Washington journalists that the “surge” was the singular reason for the recent decline in Iraq’s violence. It’s also agreed that McCain deserves great credit for pushing the “surge” idea early.

The Robert Parry biography at the end of the article states the following:

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush , can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’ are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.

Rescued by Barney Frank

This entry was posted in Periodic Posts and tagged Democratic Record Economy on by
So here’s the record – 12 years of Republicans, including John McCain being a committee chairman for much of that period. Zero – zero enactment of any reform. Democrats take power, and in a year and a half, we have passed a bill that did everything the administration asked for, in terms of enhancing the regulatory structure.

McCain’s Temper Caused his Keating Five Scandal

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Follow this link to an article on Buzz Flash which summarizes some parts of the Savings and Loan Scandal involving Charles Keating and Senator John McCain. Besides the illegality and bribery involved, there is also the issue of McCain’s temper.

I have not vetted this article, but it appears that much of the information may have come from a book for which there is a link in the article. The book is Trust Me: Charles Keating and the Missing Billions.

So You Think You Understand the Iraq Situation?

This entry was posted in Periodic Posts and tagged Iraq War on by

Follow this link to an article in the The Independent in Great Britain.

This is a view of what is really going on in Iraq that you probably won’t find in the U.S. media. It is another indication that, to be successful,  our leaders need to know the truth about what is going on rather than pretending that they do.

If you are going to vote in an election for President, don’t you think you ought to know what is really going on, too?

Can You Stand Four More Years Of This?

This entry was posted in Periodic Posts and tagged Economy finance on by

Follow this link to the New York Times story on the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the sale of Merrill Lynch, and probable troubles for AIG.

On Friday, the news was that Lehman Brothers was in much better shape than Bear Sterns had been when they went belly up.  I guess that story was like the predicted $200 per barrel oil. As soon as you start hearing stories like this, you check to make sure your wallet is still safe.

Can you stand four more years of this stellar performance by the regulators, the treasury, and the Federal Reserve? How about the proposition that Sarah Palin knows what to do? I think it is time to get serious, folks.  The situation is far too dire to keep fooling around.

Even Alan Greenspan Realizes We Have A Problem

This entry was posted in Periodic Posts and tagged economics on by

Follow this link to the story on Bloomberg about Alan Greenspan’s latest thoughts.

Let me try a few quotes to see if I can scare the pants off of you.

“There’s no question that this is in the process of outstripping anything I’ve seen, and it is still not resolved,”

“This is a once in a half century, probably once in a century type of event,”

The former Fed chairman also said he’s “fearful” the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may be “extraordinarily expensive.”

Follow this link to another Bloomberg report on Alan Greenspan.

Greenspan, a lifelong Republican and longtime friend of McCain, said today on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt” that “I’m not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money.”

Here is another exerpt from the story:

Greenspan said the widening income disparity among Americans is a “very serious” issue, and requires both raising the pay of lower-income workers and reducing higher incomes. “The best way of doing that is to remove what is essentially protectionism for those skilled workers in the United States who are helped by keeping out their competition,” he said, referring to the issue of “skilled immigration.”

The U.S. education system is “critical” to help “cutting-edge technologies”replace older industries that will be phased out over time, Greenspan said.

Does this sound like stuff that McCain/Palin understands?  Of course Greenspan’s remarks about “skilled immigration” have nothing to do with the really wealthy.  Most of the people he is talking about make considrerably less than Obama’s $250,000 per year income cutoff for tax relief.

Why The Bush Foreign Policy Fails 1

This entry was posted in Periodic Posts and tagged strategy on by

The Bush foreign policy of retaliating against our adversaries may feel satisfying to the more forceful and aggressive folk in our country, but it is still not a wise policy in the end.  I am thinking of situations involving Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Vladimir Putin in Russia, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran, and Sadam Hussein in Iraq.  Do not get me wrong, I am not defending the strategies of our adversaries. They are making the same mistake we are.

Follow this link to a Wikipedia discussion of the Tit for tat strategy which is the one we seem to be using in the above mentioned situations. The article starts off by saying “Tit for tat is a highly effective strategy in game theory for the iterated prisoner’s dilemma.”  If you follow the link in the Wikipedia article to The Evolution of Cooperation, you find what I think is a more succinct and complete definition of the whole Tit for Tat strategy.

No matter which definition you read, when you get to the section on Problems in the original article you see why the strategy starts to fall down in exactly the situations we find ourselves.

A one-time, single-bit error in either player’s interpretation of events can lead to an unending “death spiral”. In this symmetric situation, each side perceives itself as preferring to cooperate, if only the other side would. But each is forced by the strategy into repeatedly punishing an opponent who continues to attack despite being punished in every game cycle. Both sides come to think of themselves as innocent and acting in self-defense, and their opponent as either evil or too stupid to learn to cooperate.

With so much published about how to conduct yourself in these situations, one could wish for more intelligent players on our side.  Here is where I connect to current politics.  I think that Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the intelligent actors that could take advantage of this research.  I also think it is clear that John McCain and Sarah Palin will never find enlightenment so that they will be able to follow a more winning strategy.

Obama/Biden represent our chance for a more peaceful world.  McCain/Palin represent our chance for more war.

I  credit ChuckS for getting me to research this topic. He mentioned this research in a conversation or two that we have had over the years.

Why McCain is going so negative, so often

This entry was posted in Periodic Posts and tagged campaing strategy on by

Follow this link to an article on politico.com.

The following quote from the article should give you an idea of what you will learn:

McCain strategists now have became even more sure of themselves after the picture-perfect reaction — in the GOP’s view — to the decision to put Palin on the ticket. The choice provoked derision from elites, jubilation among conservative voters long skeptical of McCain and uncertainty from Obama about how to respond. If you are a McCain staffer, it doesn’t get better than that — so who cares that the candidate had met her only once and her chief foreign policy credential seems to be that she lives closer to Russia than other Americans.

Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes

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Follow this link to the New York Times article on Sarah Palin’s political history.

Just for the record, I am not too thrilled with the New York Times for its recent history of promulgating administration propaganda without caring to look into its veracity.  This means I am not necessarily endorsing or trusting the report to which the above link points.  Just take it in as a piece of data to consider.

While I am at it I might as well include this link to the Huffington Post item that pointed me to the above story.

While reading comments on Huffington Post, I found this link to a guest column in the Juneau Empire.

Oh, what the heck, this link points to a Washington Post story titled Report: Palin Did Not Visit Iraq. In turn, that mentions this link to a Bloomberg.com story titled McCain-Palin Crowd-Size Estimates Not Backed by Officials.

I hate to pile on, but this link shows a video of some reactions from Alaska residents about the choice of  Palin as VP. Then there is this link to the story on an Anchorage TV station Alaska Women Rally Against Palin And Are Threatened.