We hold these truths

You know how the meaning of words and phrases can suddenly pop into focus, so to speak? I suddenly gained an appreciation for the meaning of the words "we hold these truths to be self-evident" but my friend Gary sort of helped turn it on it's head.

We hold the lies of the Bush crime family to be self-evident.

In Support of Cindy Sheehan

I went to the Buffalo gathering in support of Cindy Sheehan. I don't know if I would call it a vigil, but it was a nice sized group for a weekday evening and people had candles. People expressed their views, news cameras and the local NPR affiliate interviewed a few folks, and then people sang songs.

This was in front of the restaurant where Dick Cheney had his fundraiser in 2003. I wonder if they've conducted the appropriate spiritual cleansing rituals yet.

Presidential Salesmanship

This from Paul Krugman is spot on:

"But the campaign for privatization provided an object lesson in how the administration sells its policies: by misrepresenting its goals, lying about the facts and abusing its control of government agencies. These were the same tactics used to sell both tax cuts and the Iraq war."

Just so.

Iraq

I have had trouble getting in line with the "Get out now" crowd when it comes to thinking about the fiasco in Iraq. Juan Cole hits it for me in the August 15th issue of The Nation:

Cole: The United States cannot resolve the problems in Iraq militarily, and its policies have made things progressively worse. The Iraqi government has no military and won't have an effective one for five to ten years. If the United States simply withdrew, Iraq might well fall into massive civil war. That war would, moreover, likely draw in the Turks, Iranians and Saudis. Consequent guerrilla sabotage of Iranian and Saudi petroleum production is not impossible and would risk deeply harming the world economy, especially the poor in the global South. The Iraq situation needs to be effectively internationalized, preferably by giving it a United Nations military command, like that in Cambodia in the early 1990s. Obviously, that step will not be taken by the Bush Administration, and it will not be easy to accomplish under any circumstances, given how badly the Administration has alienated the international community and what a mess it has made of Iraq. In the absence of internationalization, and given the great likelihood that "Iraqization" will fail miserably in the near to medium term, America faces the choice of being stuck in Iraq for many years or risking a destabilization of the Middle East and of the world energy economy.

We're screwed.

The word for today

Cafouillage

Literally, 'misfiring', or messing things up
and leaving them more confused than ever.

Unnecessary Sweetness

While picking out a portion of coffeecake today, I came up with the term "unnecessary sweetness" and decided that it would be a good sports fault.

15 yard penalty, foul shot, take your base.