sfarber

This brief visit to the People’s Daily tells us of the arrival of the 1.3 billionth Chinese citizen. China regards this as a success insofar as they managed to put off this day (thanks to brutally repressive family planning measures) for over four years (the target date for this number was the end of the 20th century). Well, one massive, now mobilized labor force, all working for low wages, and kicking our ass, while acquiring claims against our assets. What can you say. A scary number. Obviously, it could be a lot more, if the family planning measures were lifted...

Obviously, we’re not talking about Iraq. Iraq will have something called an election in precisely three weeks’ time, but “democracy” implies something different from the Kurdish/Shiite self-governance referendum and Sunni boycott/aremed assaults with a preposterous “national list” system (used only in “I” countries Italy and Israel, both notorious for a lot of fringe parties and wildly complex parliamentary maneuverings and frequent failed governments; it means literally that if party A gets X% of the national vote, it gets X% of the parliamentary seats; not ideal where an ethnic group of around 20% of the country probably can’t vote because of...

Coalition forces apparently bombed the wrong house near Mosul , killing at least five, and letting “the targets” get away. No word on whether an Islamic wedding ceremony was taking place inside the house. Doubtless, just more winning of Iraqi hearts and minds as the election on which we are banking everything draws near. If it weren’t going to show Al Qaeda “our sensitive side”, to quote a mocking Dick Cheney, perhaps a sound truck blaring “We’re terribly sorry for any inconvenience” (in English, of course) might be dispatched. Would that any of this were funny.

In this week’s visit to Pravda, we get this good old assault on Western values, noting not without bitter irony that the cost of our butchery in Iraq (I may use that term more regularly) hovers at around $200 billion (it’s really much more, of course), whereas the entire Western world got together for a mere $4 billion in relief aid for tsunami relief (and less than 10% of that is from the American government, the one that committed hundreds of times their aid package for the purpose of murdering swarthy people in Iraq (for some still unexplained reason that...

And so day one of the Alberto Gonzales, Arlen and Leahy Circus, a/k/a Alberto Gonzales’ senate confirmation hearings to become our nation’s 80th attorney general. As to his prior advocacy of torture and dictatorial presidential powers and the purported obsolecence of the Geneva Conventions, Gonzales told senators something like “mistakes were made”. Well, the right honorable gentlemen will duly grill Mr. Gonzales, and then debate. My advice, not that anyone wants it, is that the Senate Democrats express their disgust, and then note that they have no interest in undermining the President’s choice of “his team”; the people elected the...

The White House has manufactured another “crisis”, requiring immediate (and thereby, preferably, swift and thoughtless) Congressional action. Joining the panacea January 30th Iraqi elections, which will solve all problems in the Middle East, if not the universe, and removing the “security” aspect of social security, the President brings his brand of Texas cruelty to the nation writ large, by proposing at Collinsville, Illinois, a venue purportedly where large medical malpractice verdicts are reached, proposing that all pain and suffering awards in medical malpractice cases be capped at $250,000. What the President will not tell you is that the National Practitioner...

The House Republicans themselves took action to reverse themselves on a revision to an ethics rule that would have permitted Majority Leader Tom “Bugs” DeLay to maintain his leadership position, even if a Texas prosecutor decided to indict him. I understand perfectly why rank and file Republican House members would have wanted to make this rule change reversal. What is astounding is how suicidally worthless the Democrats are. I mean, I swear, the so-called leaders of my own party make me sick– they are really that bad. And I would say that Congresswoman Pelosi should be ousted as Minority Leader,...

I’d be referring to the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to the post of the nation’s 80th attorney general, succeeding the thankfully inimitable John Ashcroft. Gonzales is “expected to receive criticism” of his memoranda suggesting, if not “legally” justifying, unlimited dictatorial presidential power (which includes the power to usurp the Congress and judiciary and lock up who the President pleases, forever, without charge or trial). But Democrats, knowing that the President picked up around 9% more of the Latino vote in 2004 than in 2000 must be very, very wary of seeming to come down too hard on the first Latino...

From our weekly (more or less!) visit to Beijing’s People’s Daily, we give you this analysis that projections show that within the next four or five years, Taiwan will become the number one foreign purchaser of American armanents. We don’t see the usual railing in the piece about American intervention in Chinese “internal affairs”, but it’s never very far away. All oh so complicated; for example, a major crisis for Israel is brewing associated with its agreement to upgrade a number of Chinese airborne unmanned drones (said drones originally supplied to China by… Israel). Washington desperately doesn’t want Israel to...

Ah, yes. A young reservist, whose unit has not yet been deployed to Iraq… give it time, lad… has raised around $3,000 in an auction of sports memorabilia intended to be used to fund body armor and other necessary equipment for his reserve unit. Despite reports that the $87 billion “for our troops” (which was, if our troops were smart enough to have large defense contractors”, but didn’t mean body or vehicle armor), many military men and women report having to scrounge around for what we would consider basic safety equipment– as roadside bombs have killed a fair part of...