Category: News

NYTimes.  Long analysis piece on the war in Iraq.  Blueprint for a Mess. On the streets of Baghdad today, Americans do not feel welcome. United States military personnel in the city are hunkered down behind acres of fencing and razor wire inside what was once Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace. When L. Paul Bremer III, head of… Continue reading analysis piece

Boston Globe.  A good review of a neo-con patriarch:  Richard Pipes.  He was one of the intellectual architects of the Reagan administration's strategy of confrontation with the Soviet Union.  He had some choice bits to say: He bluntly dismisses the promise of a democratic Iraq — “impossible, a fantasy” — citing obstacles similar to Russia's. “Democracy… Continue reading Boston Globe

CNN.com – Worries grow over new voting machines' reliability, security. Touchscreen machines not the cure-all some expected Doubts about the trustworthiness of electronic voting machines are growing among election officials and computer scientists, complicating efforts to safeguard elections after the presidential stalemate of 2000. With just over a year to go before the next presidential… Continue reading Worries grow over new voting machines' reliability, security

E-Vote Software Leaked Online. For the second time this year, software used in an electronic voting system has turned up on the Internet. This time, the company is Sequoia Voting Systems. By Kim Zetter. [Wired News]

Post 9/11: How America Went from a Republic to a Fascist State. Every time I have suggested that America has become fascist, I get looks of ridicule from the Right and a few nods from the Left, but no one wants to admit that Bush’s “trifecta” has issued in fascism. By using Dr. Lawrence Britt’s The… Continue reading Post 9/11: How America Went from a Republic to a Fascist State

Issue #1 for the Democrats. According to Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren, interviewed on Salon, “Today's two-income family has 75 percent more income than the one-income family had a generation ago, but by the time they make four basic payments and their taxes they have less money to spend than their one-income parents.”  One consequence… Continue reading Issue #1 for the Democrats

State Dept. Study Foresaw Trouble Now Plaguing Iraq. Several officials said the study's warnings on security, utilities and civilian rule were ignored by the Pentagon until recently. By Eric Schmitt and Joel Brinkley. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

'Why America Slept': Conspiracy of Silence. Gerald Posner, who has built his career on debunking conspiracy theories, proposes one to explain the the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. By Eric Lichtblau. [New York Times: Books]

Can the Dems ever recover?. So 62% of Californians voted for a Republican gubernatorial candidate (48% of them for Ahnold), and 35% for a Democrat. This in a state that was so Democratic in 2000 that candidate George Bush didn't even bother campaigning there. I love the energy around Howard Dean and his Net-savvy tactics.… Continue reading Can the Dems ever recover?

Stories like this from the AP demonstrate beyond a doubt that we are in a full scale LIC (low intensity conflict).  The seriousness of this goes beyond Vietnam analogies.  The fact is that no major conventional power has ever won a LIC in the last 50 years.  Period.  We will lose if we stay (and humiliated… Continue reading like this