Wednesday, December 30, 2009


Congratulations to ABC News for getting the photo of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's underpants. The explosives, we are told, already had been removed, and it seems some portion of the nefarious underpants were destroyed by fire — but they still look pretty skimpy to me. Really, they don't look like my concept of Muslim underpants at all. They look, well, suspiciously European.

Anyway, I was disappointed to hear major media referring to Abdulmutallab as "the Christmas Day Bomber," which does not in any way reflect the crazed fanaticism of a man willing to use his cock as a fuse. I was leaning towards "the Underpants Bomber," a parallel to "Shoe Bomber" Richard Reed. Then, on American Public Radio's Marketplace, I heard Abdulmutallab referred to as a "crotch bomber."

Thank you, as always, Public Radio! Perfect!

Monday, December 28, 2009

The Naughts

Everybody seems to agree that the past decade has been pretty crappy. Some like to blame the Bush administration, but I don't. Granted, Bush and his cronies were incompetent and corrupt, but they were just the culmination (I hope) of a process that started with Reagan in 1981.

How anybody ever managed to believe in supply-side economics and monetarism is beyond me, but when you consider how many people believe the world is less than 6,000 years old, I guess making the jump to supply-side is not that difficult. Anyway, I don't think that political leaders ever bothered to believe any economic theory at all. Starting with Reagan, they were just corporatists — dancing at the ends of strings in the hands of lobbyists and bankers.

The result is our current plutocracy — a system that neither the Obama administration nor any significant portion of Congress seems at all inclined to unwind. The fact that the events of the past 10 years have demonstrated, over and over, that the "magic of the market" is entirely mythical makes no difference to those in power. They feel obliged to keep spouting the same anti-regulatory, anti-tax nonsense — and for good reason.

They're bought and paid for.

Don't expect much to change. Health reform won't be allowed to infringe on the profit margins of hospitals, insurance companies, or pharmaceutical manufacturers. If our troops ever are withdrawn from Afghanistan (or even Iraq), there will be new places to invade for the benefit of military contractors. Somewhere on Wall Street, the next bubble is taking shape, and nothing will be done to break up the banks that are "too big to fail."

I'm guessing the "naughts" will go on a while longer. There's nothing in sight to bring them to an end.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Oh Bloody Hell!

You all remember (who could forget?) the outcome of "shoe bomber" Richard Reed's attempt to blow up his sneakers. Well, our latest failed bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had his bomb materials hidden in his underwear. Yes. His underwear.

Granted, naked air travel might be more comfortable — but there still wouldn't be enough leg space for anybody who wasn't a midget or a double amputee. More immediately, though, the airlines now have an excuse to stop providing blankets.

Personally speaking, my air travel hasn't been curtailed by terrorists — the fucking airlines managed it all on their own.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Reinhold Niebuhr?

Yes. Reinhold Niebuhr. Evil exists, and sometimes we have to respond in ways we might not like. Okay — but what does that have to do with escalation in Afghanistan, especially when there are other alternatives? True, Obama is not Bush — but who the hell is, except Bush (or somebody else with Cheney's arm up his ass)? Nobel Peace Prize. Bah!

When a country is as corrupt as Afghanistan, the best way to bring peace is to buy it — not with troops and blood, but with money. Nobody can convince me we can't buy every last warlord and Karzai relative for a hell of a lot less — not even including lives — than we're currently spending on goddamned "nation building." Someday, perhaps, Afghan girls will be able to go to school, choose abortion, and belittle their husbands' dick size — but it won't be a result of anything American troops do in Afghanistan over the next ten years or so.

In the meanwhile, I couldn't care less that the Senate looks ready to kill the so-called "public option." The CBO has reported, as anybody with half an economic brain could have predicted, that the House version of the public option probably would cost more than private plans. The only way a public option can make a difference is if it is available to large employers, or others who can guarantee large numbers of plan participants.

The idea of people in the 55 to 64 age bracket being able to buy into Medicare is a lot more interesting. If the employers of people in the 55 to 64 age bracket are allowed to buy them Medicare instead of whatever they're buying for the rest of their employees, there could be some real savings. That, of course, won't happen.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

The Plan for Afghanistan

Well, I suppose it's nice that there's some kind of plan for the continuing US involvement in Afghanistan, even though I'm afraid it was shaped at least as much by domestic politics as by any sort of strategic considerations or overriding international objectives. As usual, the President weaseled down the middle: he offered up three-quarters of the troops the military (and the Republicans) wanted, plus a probably futile attempt to get the other 10 thousand from NATO; a promise to start drawing down troops in 18 months; and an unenforceable threat against Hamid Karzai that is very unlikely to persuade someone quite so corrupt to crack down on corruption.

Here's my prediction: eighteen months from now, the usual warlords will continue to be the real rulers of the Afghan countryside, although, if we're lucky, some will be nominally on our side rather than nominally supporting the Taliban. If we're really lucky, the major population centers the administration plan seeks to protect will be a little safer, although protecting a city like Kabul against suicide bombers requires a degree of authoritarian rigor likely to be beyond the powers of Karzai and McChrystal.

The generals, as usual, will be whining for more troops. Generals don't understand "relatively positive outcomes" — they're taught to believe in an obscure 19th century concept called "victory." Of course, even in the 19th century, nobody achieved that in Afghanistan.

Most important, though, the 2010 elections will be over, and the 2012 elections still will be roughly half a year away. There will be time to maneuver around both contests. What else matters? Both parties are committed to enhancing the prospects for their major contributors, so, of course, the rest of us are left eating their shit.

As for how to go about financing the new Afghan "surge," Obama was totally vague. Here's a suggestion: how about a tax surcharge on war profiteers? Some have done extraordinarily well, especially with their connections to both government and military decision makers. To me, it makes sense to spread some of the pain to those who raked in the profits from Bush's wars.

Want to end all the current bullshit? Easy. Bring back the draft.