The Staton Jones Report

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NEW YORK — Welcome, Republicans. You're proud Americans who love your country. In your own way, you want to make this country a better place. Whatever our differences, you should be commended for that.

But what's all this talk about New York being enemy territory? Nothing could be further from the truth. We New Yorkers love Republicans. We have a Republican mayor and governor, a death penalty and two nuclear plants within 30 miles of the city.

New York is home to Fox News Channel. The top right-wing talk shows emanate from here — Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly among them. The Wall Street Journal is based here, which means your favorite street is here. Not to mention more Fortune 500 executives than anywhere else.

You may think you're surrounded by a bunch of latte-drinking effete liberals, but the truth is, you're right where you belong, smack in the seat of corporate America and conservative media.

Let me also say I admire your resolve. You're true believers. Even though only a third of the country defines itself as "Republican," you control the White House, Congress, Supreme Court and most state governments.

You're in charge because you never back down. Your people are up before dawn figuring out which minority group shouldn't be allowed to marry today.

Our side is full of wimps who'd rather compromise than fight. Not you guys.

Hanging out around the convention, I've encountered a number of the Republican faithful who aren't delegates. They warm up to me when they don't find horns or a tail. Talking to them, I discover they're like many people who call themselves Republicans but aren't really Republicans. At least not in the radical-right way that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft and Co. have defined Republicans.

I asked one man who told me he was a "proud Republican," "Do you think we need strong laws to protect our air and water?"

"Well, sure," he said. "Who doesn't?"

I asked whether women should have equal rights, including the same pay as men.

"Absolutely," he replied.

"Would you discriminate against someone because he or she is gay?"

"Um, no." The pause — I get that a lot when I ask this question — is usually because the average good-hearted person instantly thinks about a gay family member or friend.

I've often found that if I go down the list of "liberal" issues with people who say they're Republican, they are quite liberal and not in sync with the Republicans who run the country. Most don't want America to be the world's police officer and prefer peace to war. They applaud civil rights, believe all Americans should have health insurance and think assault weapons should be banned. Though they may personally oppose abortion, they usually don't think the government has the right to tell a women what to do with her body.

There's a name for these Republicans: RINOs or Republican In Name Only. They possess a liberal, open mind and don't believe in creating a worse life for anyone else.

So why do they use the same label as those who back a status quo of women earning 75 cents to every dollar a man earns, 45 million people without health coverage and a president who has two more countries left on his axis-of-evil-regime-change list?

I asked my friend on the street. He said what I hear from all RINOs: "I don't want the government taking my hard-earned money and taxing me to death. That's what the Democrats do."

Money. That's what it comes down to for the RINOs. They do work hard and have been squeezed even harder to make ends meet. They blame Democrats for wanting to take their money. Never mind that it's Republican tax cuts for the rich and billions spent on the Iraq war that have created the largest deficits in history and will put all of us in hock for years to come.

The Republican Party's leadership knows America is not only filled with RINOs, but most Americans are much more liberal than the delegates gathered in New York.

The Republicans know it. That's why this week we're seeing gay-loving Rudy Giuliani, gun-hating Michael Bloomberg and abortion-rights advocate Arnold Schwarzenegger.

As tough of a pill as it is to swallow, Republicans know that the only way to hold onto power is to pass themselves off as, well, as most Americans. It's a good show.

So have a good time, Republicans. It could be your last happy party for awhile if all the RINOs and liberal majority figure it out on Nov. 2.

John Burns has an excellent article in the New York Times on the situation in Western Iraq:

While American troops have been battling Islamic militants to an uncertain outcome in Najaf, the Shiite holy city, events in two Sunni Muslim cities that stand astride the crucial western approaches to Baghdad have moved significantly against American plans to build a secular democracy in Iraq.

Both of the cities, Falluja and Ramadi, and much of Anbar Province, are now controlled by fundamentalist militias, with American troops confined mainly to heavily protected forts on the desert's edge. What little influence the Americans have is asserted through wary forays in armored vehicles, and by laser-guided bombs that obliterate enemy safe houses identified by scouts who penetrate militant ranks. Even bombing raids appear to strengthen the fundamentalists, who blame the Americans for scores of civilian deaths.

American efforts to build a government structure around former Baath Party stalwarts - officials of Saddam Hussein's army, police force and bureaucracy who were willing to work with the United States - have collapsed. Instead, the former Hussein loyalists, under threat of beheadings, kidnappings and humiliation, have mostly resigned or defected to the fundamentalists, or been killed. Enforcers for the old government, including former Republican Guard officers, have put themselves in the service of fundamentalist clerics they once tortured at Abu Ghraib.

In the past three weeks, three former Hussein loyalists appointed to important posts in Falluja and Ramadi have been eliminated by the militants and their Baathist allies. The chief of a battalion of the American-trained Iraqi National Guard in Falluja was beheaded by the militants, prompting the disintegration of guard forces in the city. The Anbar governor was forced to resign after his three sons were kidnapped. The third official, the provincial police chief in Ramadi, was lured to his arrest by American marines after three assassination attempts led him to secretly defect to the rebel cause.

The Bush Method of winning elections: get your shadowy henchmen to do the dirty work (remind you of Nixon?) while you remain "above the fray". Alas, Americans just aren't seeing this for what it is, and thus the "Swift Boat Vets for Truth" are eroding Kerry's lead over Bush despite their documented ties to the Bush re-election gang.

Here is a very good article about how the Bushies work behind the scenes.

Any student of Bush family campaigns could have seen the swift boat shiv shining a mile away. This old family has traditions – horseshoes, fishing, bad syntax and having the help do the dirty work in campaigns as well as the kitchen. And they are very good at getting jobs done without leaving fingerprints, without compromising their patrician image and their alleged character.

Even the audaciousness of this year’s episode is not surprising. Who would have believed that George Bush, with all the trouble over his National Guard service, could get John Kerry in hot water for his combat duty and medals in Vietnam? Well, anyone who saw what George Bush did to former POW John McCain in the 2000 primaries, which was even more outrageous.

The ancestral origin of Bush family gut fighting came in George H. W. Bush’s 1988 campaign against Michael Dukakis in the form of the infamous Willie Horton ad. (Historical footnote: Horton actually went by William, not Willie, and is referred as William in all legal documents; the ad makers thought Willie sounded scarier and blacker.)

That ad was produced by an outfit allegedly independent of the official campaign. It wasn’t aired on TV much but got most of its play in the press. Papa Bush and his official staff maintained they knew nothing about such déclassé skullduggery. There was nothing blatantly untrue about the ad, but it was hugely misleading and subtly racist.

The ad also attacked Dukakis right where he was supposed to be strongest. If the Duke had a strength (a big if), it was as a highly competent government CEO who led the Massachusetts Miracle. The ad gave an emotional snapshot of a guy whose incompetence let a killer out of jail so he could commit assault and rape. It worked.

How many times will Congress enact a law that specificially protects unborns at the expense of the woman who bears them? The answer is "over and over". Why do the Religious Right think that a child bearing woman is nothing more than a vessel that, like a soda can, is disposable yet the contents are not? It's not a perfect analogy, but their reasoning, if there is any, is even worse.

Today a federal judge aborted the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. The irony is not lost on me.

A federal judge in New York ruled today that a federal law that banned a form of abortion is unconstitutional because it does not include an exception for cases where the procedure might be necessary to protect a woman's health. The law, the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, enacted in November, makes it a crime for doctors to perform any "overt act" to "kill the partially delivered living fetus."

Today's ruling, by Judge Richard Conway Casey of the Federal District Court for the Southern District, came in a case brought by the National Abortion Federation and seven physicians. Judge Casey determined that a decision in 2000 by the Supreme Court required that any law limiting abortion must have a clause allowing doctors to go ahead with the procedure if they determine that the risk to a women's health is greater without it.

"While Congress and the lower courts may disagree with the Supreme Court's constitutional decisions, that does not free them from their constitutional duty to obey the Supreme Court's rulings," Judge Casey wrote. In its 2000 ruling, he said, the Supreme Court "informed us that this gruesome procedure may be outlawed only if there exists a medical consensus that there is no circumstance in which any women would potentially benefit from it."

The decision is another victory for proponents of abortion rights, and a setback for the Bush administration, which supports the law along with opponents of abortion.

If they really wanted abortions to not happen, then why do they deny human, nay all sexual beings' nature and endorse birth control?

In a very clever move (unless you saw the end of the movie Dick), GOP protestors are painting huge "Re-defeat Bush" and other anti-GOP slogans on rooftops in NYC on known flightpaths into the major airports.

"We just hope that they'll look down and ask themselves, 'Why, why do they feel so strongly? Why is it that New York feels this way?'" said Genevieve Christy, who has painted more than 80 banners since thinking of the idea a few weeks ago.

The movement is so popular in her neighborhood that Christy, a 57-year-old consultant, is putting orders on a waiting list. She even brought supplies with her on vacation so she could keep working.

The banners and signs, Christy said, are a form of safe, silent protest that many New Yorkers prefer over the dozens of rallies planned throughout the week of the convention.

This is a very clever and effective idea that doesn't get anyone tear gassed (or worse). I just hope the drunken GOP delegates look out the windows of their American Airlines jets on their way in. They'll probably get a flyer telling them to shutter the windows, put a pillow in their lap and bend over on approach to NYC.

Prof. Juan Cole on how the Bushies are helping to breath new life into Shiite fanatics:

The debates about Iraqi Shiism seem to me to occur often in a sort of historical vacuum in which everyone ignores the elephant in the living room. That is Ayatollah Khomeini and his movement, the central tenets of which were rejected by Najaf but accepted by the Sadr movement.

That American neo-imperialists like Richard Perle, William Kristol, Douglas Feith, and Paul Wolfowitz thought they could remove Saddam and step in to reshape Iraq without having to grapple with Khomeini's legacy is an index of their ignorance and arrogance. Perle and Feith and David Wurmser even wanted to try to bring back the Hashimite monarchy in Iraq, seeming to think that it might still have influence with Iraq's Shiites. But the central idea of Khomeinism was that Shiite Islam is incompatible with monarchy, and the Sadrists would have made endless trouble about this. (Perle, Feith and Wurmser even thought a revived Hashimite monarchy could be used to "moderate" Hizbullah in Lebanon, which is ridiculous on the face of it, and you wonder in what world do these people live?)

It is true that Khomeinism seemed to have run its course in Iran, where it is now only a governmental ideology but lacks much popular support. But US actions like repeatedly bombing Najaf's sacred cemetery (where a lot of Iranians' loved ones are buried) and generally reducing much of this pilgrimage site to rubble, is strengthening Iran's hardliners and the Bush administration is succeeding in breathing new life into Khomeinism in Iran, as well. Khomeinism was ultimately about trying to construct a nativist cultural and political barricade against American-led globalization. As the chaos in Iraq gives the latter a black eye, it encourages the former.

Despite what you've read in the "mainstream press" an Army report due out soon will implicate military leadership right up the chain for the prisoner torture scandal at Abu Ghraib.

An Army investigation into the role of military intelligence personnel in the abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison reports that the scandal was not just caused by a small circle of rogue military police soldiers but resulted from failures of leadership rising to the highest levels of the U.S. command in Iraq, senior defense officials said.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the report has not yet been completed, said the 9,000-page document says that a combination of leadership failings, confounding policies, lack of discipline and absolute confusion at the prison led to the abuse. It widens the scope of culpability from seven MPs who have been charged with abuse to include nearly 20 low-ranking soldiers who could face criminal prosecution in military courts. No Army officers, however, are expected to face criminal charges.

Officials also said that the report implicates five civilian contractors in the abuse, and that Army officials plan to recommend that their cases be sent to the Justice Department for possible prosecution in civilian courts.

Of course, no one in charge will actually be punished for their role in all this, so they'll never be tried or punished for it. Instead, we'll just have to pay the price in endless wars in the Middle East as our infintessimal credibility wafts away in the breeze.

Bush's campaign religious advisor, Deal W. Hudson, has resigned after his illicit sexual encounter in 1994 was exposed.

The alleged victim, Carastona Poppas, was an 18-year-old Fordham freshman who had been in and out of foster homes since age 7. Hudson was her philosophy teacher, a tenured associate professor who had been a Baptist minister before converting to Catholicism.

"He knew I was a ward of the court, without parents, severely depressed, and even suicidal," Poppas told the Catholic newspaper. "He was extremely attentive and genuinely concerned."

That attention allegedly went too far one night in February 1994 when Hudson invited her and several older students to a bar in New York's West Village. They all got drunk, and he had sex with her in his car and office, the paper reported.

When confronted with this, all he had to say was that it was "now being dug up, I believe, for political reasons".

No shit, Sherlock. Now why on Earth would that be? Maybe because your back-stabbing political party chose to go this path with Clinton about the time you were dorking students in your car? You can't have it both ways (and in this case, I don't mean Missionary and Rear Entry) -- either you fuck over every two-faced politician or none. The GOP chose to harrass and expose every Democrat involved in illicit affairs, but that doesn't shield you from your own witch hunts.

BTW, this is the man who put Rove onto the idea of politicizing every conservative Catholic in America. I hope there really is a hell for him to burn in.

Look, there's nothing magic about $50/bbl. oil. Nothing. Still the same stuff -- black gold, Texas tea. It's just that, at $50 a barrel, oil will lower the U.S. GNP from an estimated 4.5% this year to 3.5% or lower.

And we're eight-five cents away from $50 oil. Oil closed at $49.15 on NY Mercantile pre-market trading today.

Market watchers said some investors had started to whisper about the possibility of a $60 barrel, even as the head of producers' cartel OPEC made soothing-but-vague comments about ``a significant outcome'' from its next members' meeting in September.

``Fifty dollars is, I would say, a foregone conclusion,'' said Esa Ramasamy, editorial manager for oil in Asia at Platts, the energy market analysts. ``Now the market is thinking $60, possibly.''

The Saudis keep saying, in effect, "we can replace the reduced production ... at a moment's notice ... just give us the word" and then do nothing to change their output. That's because even though it's going to hurt the world economy something fierce, $50 oil is, well, a frickin' bonanza for these guys. And maybe, just maybe, the price is that high because the Saudis really cannot make up the difference.

John Kerry has answered the Smear Boat Veterans Against Freedom. Addressing fire fighters today:

Over the last week or so, a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has been attacking me. Of course, this group isn't interested in the truth — and they're not telling the truth. They didn't even exist until I won the nomination for president.

But here's what you really need to know about them. They're funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Republican contributor out of Texas. They're a front for the Bush campaign. And the fact that the president won't denounce what they're up to tells you everything you need to know — he wants them to do his dirty work.

Thirty years ago, official Navy reports documented my service in Vietnam and awarded me the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Thirty years ago, this was the plain truth. It still is. And I still carry the shrapnel in my leg from a wound in Vietnam.

As firefighters you risk your lives every day. You know what it's like to see the truth in the moment. You're proud of what you've done — and so am I.

Of course, the president keeps telling people he would never question my service to our country. Instead, he watches as a Republican-funded attack group does just that. Well, if he wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: “Bring it on.”

I'm not going to let anyone question my commitment to defending America — then, now, or ever. And I'm not going to let anyone attack the sacrifice and courage of the men who saw battle with me.

And let me make this commitment today: their lies about my record will not stop me from fighting for jobs, health care, and our security — the issues that really matter to the American people.

Those scumbags still embracing Kerry's utterly reprehsible critics might want to check out the Washington Post, which features a front page article that sinks the Smear Boats in a volley of fact-checking.

I know this is going to be all over the news (except Fox), but I just like reading it.

Bush is going to get so creamed in the election.

As crude spot prices on NYMEX topped $48/bbl today (actually flirting with $49 before receding slightly to a session close price of $47.64), we would do well to ponder very seriously what the end of cheap oil means for every man, woman and child on the planet. In a contemporary setting, it seems almost hackneyed to suggest this, yet I can't escape a feeling that most folks really don't understand what this means.

The end of cheap oil? Could it be? While more and more economists are coming around to serious consideration of what petroleum experts have been hinting at (and, at times, screaming about), there is still no shortage of optimists to prop up the belief that we are fairly swimming in oil. But, if the recent rise of oil prices hasn't proven sufficient to do so, an article at Ocnus.net (while somewhat crudely presented) provides us with reason to re-evaluate our addiction to free-flowing, cheap oil.

"'At Ghawar,' he said, 'they have to inject water into the field to force the oil out,' by contrast, he continued, Shayba's oil contained only trace amounts of water. At Ghawar, the engineer said, the 'water cut' was 30%."

"The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Ghawar's water injections were hardly news, but a 30% water cut, if true, was startling. Most new oilfields produce almost pure oil or oil mixed with natural gas--with little water. Over time, however, as the oil is drawn out, operators must replace it with water to keep te oil flowing --until eventually what flows is almost pure water and the field is no longer worth operating."

"Ghawar will not run dry overnight, but the beginning of the end of its oil is in sight."

But this year at the Offshore Technology Conference some were talking about a 55% water cut for Ghawar.

To put this into perspective, check this out...

"BEIJING, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Chinese crude imports, up 40 percent so far this year, show no sign of slowing despite high oil prices and government efforts to calm economic growth, latest monthly import data showed on Friday."

The price of oil is within a gallon of gas' price of $50. I'm willing to bet that $50 oil will arrive ahead of the Republican National Convention. What a wonderful gift for the Rethuglians.

Oil closed at $48.20 today.

From the NY Times:

A relentless rise in the cost of employee health insurance has become a significant factor in the employment slump, as the labor market adds only a trickle of new jobs each month despite nearly three years of uninterrupted economic growth.

Government data, industry surveys and interviews with employers big and small indicate that many businesses remain reluctant to hire full-time employees because health insurance, which now costs the nation's employers an average of about $3,000 a year for each worker, has become one of the fastest-growing costs for companies. Health premiums are sapping corporate balance sheets even more than the rising cost of energy.

In the second quarter, the cost of health benefits rose at a 12-month rate of 8.1 percent - more than three times the inflation rate and the rate of increases in wages and salaries.

"Health care is a major reason why employment growth has been so sluggish," said Sung Won Sohn, the chief economist at Wells Fargo.

Sounds like a pretty good argument for universal healthcare, maybe something along the lines of the Canadian or French system. Of course, as the GOP would tell us, that would be socialism. So, would you rather have a job and healthcare or French socialism? You didn't need that job anyway, did you?

Need I say more? Oil at $47 a barrel.

Oil prices topped $47 a barrel early Wednesday, setting yet another record, as violence in Iraq threatened to engulf the country's main export pipeline.

Analyst estimates that weekly data due later Wednesday will show a dip in inventories in the United States, the world's biggest oil consumer, also helped push prices to a new all-time high.

At about 8 a.m. ET, U.S. light crude eased to $47 a barrel, up 25 cents, after pushing the record price to $47.04 before 7 a.m.

Now why isn't gasoline racing to $2.50/gal. ?

Feeling safe up there in the SUV nosebleed section? You're dead wrong. America, you've been sold a bill of goods and it's called the sports utility vehicle. They pollute more than cars. They get worse mileage. And oh by the way, they kill you more often too, not that you (the buying public) seem to care.

People driving or riding in a sport utility vehicle in 2003 were nearly 11 percent more likely to die in an accident than people in cars, the figures show. The government began keeping detailed statistics on the safety of vehicle categories in 1994.

S.U.V.'s continue to gain in popularity, despite safety concerns and the vehicles' lagging fuel economy at a time when gasoline prices are high. For the first seven months of 2004, S.U.V.'s accounted for 27.2 percent of all light-duty vehicle sales, up from 26 percent in the period a year earlier, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank. However, sales growth for the largest sport utility vehicles has stalled lately, while small and medium-size S.U.V.'s, engineered more like cars than pickup trucks, continue to make rapid gains.

What kind of moron buys these stupid vehicles? Middle-class suckers, that's who.

Bob Herbert of the New York Times has an editorial about Florida officials visiting elderly black voters and threatening them with an "investigation" into voter fraud.

State police officers have gone into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando and interrogated them as part of an odd "investigation" that has frightened many voters, intimidated elderly volunteers and thrown a chill over efforts to get out the black vote in November.

The officers, from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which reports to Gov. Jeb Bush, say they are investigating allegations of voter fraud that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March.

Officials refused to discuss details of the investigation, other than to say that absentee ballots are involved. They said they had no idea when the investigation might end, and acknowledged that it may continue right through the presidential election.

"We did a preliminary inquiry into those allegations and then we concluded that there was enough evidence to follow through with a full criminal investigation," said Geo Morales, a spokesman for the Department of Law Enforcement.

The state police officers, armed and in plain clothes, have questioned dozens of voters in their homes. Some of those questioned have been volunteers in get-out-the-vote campaigns.

I'd wager that the Rove plan to eliminate 100K black voters from the fall election has begun. You may que The Empire Strkes Back theme song now.

A small victory for the few of us who still read the 1st Amendment as separating Church and State ...

A Florida law that lets students from failing public schools attend private religious schools at taxpayers' expense is unconstitutional, a state appeals court ruled Monday.

The 2-1 decision by the 1st District Court of Appeal upholds an August 2002 ruling by a trial judge, who said the law violates the separation of church and state and a provision of the state constitution that bans the use of tax dollars for religious schools.

The state has been allowed to issue vouchers during its appeal and that will likely remain true until the Florida Supreme Court ultimately decides the case.

Under the 1999 law, the centerpiece of Gov. Jeb Bush's education policies, students attending public schools that earn failing grades two years out of four are eligible for vouchers to attend private schools.

Vouchers are purely and utterly un-constitutional. There is no way to reconcile the very honorable desire to improve education for the poor with this craven attempt to bridge the Church/State gap.

The Washington Post has a biting article about how the Bush Administration has done fewer than a dozen press conferences in three and one-half years, but is holding a dozen "town hall" styled love-ins this month that pretend to be real forums with real voters asking Bush tough questions.

The press corps appears to have had about enough of those hokey "Ask President Bush" events.

Instead of taking questions from reporters, President Bush has become increasingly partial to playing talk-show host to an audience of sycophantic fans.

There were four "Ask President Bush" events last week and in each case, after a long speech and staged interviews with prepped guests, Bush opened the floor to some incredible softballs.

The format allows the president to come off as very smooth.

As John Harris writes in The Washington Post: "In loosening his style, Bush tightened his message. Fielding friendly questions at 'Ask President Bush' forums, or lathering up the crowds at pep rallies like the one here on Saturday afternoon, he presented his case for reelection with a force and fluency that sometimes eluded him at important moments over the past year."

There's never a nasty question, never a heckler, nothing but love. That makes for great imagery and great soundbytes.

But now the press is pulling back the curtain.

Well it's about goddamned time.

The Atlantic Monthly has a powerful and disturbing article about information taken from a Taliban hard drive in November of 2001. It contains emails from Usama bin Laden and Taliban leaders that reveal the quirks and inside conflicts of these groups (al-Qaeda and Taliban), and how they played out. Very insightful and of course, always frustrating to see how despite our highly regarded electronic easedropping technology, we couldn't read Usama's email.

PhysicsWeb is reporting a process for extracting hydrogen for fuel cells from ethanol.

Ethanol made from corn has already been used to power some car engines, but the process is only 20% efficient. Moreover, all traces of water must be removed before the ethanol can be used as a fuel, which adds to processing costs. Now, the Minnesota-Patras team says that if ethanol was used to make hydrogen for fuel cells, the process would be 60% efficient and the ethanol would not need to be pure.

Schmidt and colleagues passed an ethanol-water-air mixture over a porous metal catalyst containing rhodium. The reaction on the rhodium surface heated the catalyst to 800°C and produced a mixture of hydrogen, recyclable carbon dioxide and some minor by-products in a few milliseconds. The conversion rate of ethanol to hydrogen was over 95%. Furthermore, the process minimized the build up of carbon – normally observed when ethanol burns – that would have deactivated the fuel cell. This allowed the reactor to operate for as long as 30 hours.

The team believe that it should be possible to produce five molecules of hydrogen for every molecule of ethanol – rather than four as at present - once the process has been optimised. Electricity from a perfect fuel cell would cost only $0.04 per kilowatt-hour says the team, and the first applications could include small remote and portable devices.

As shocking as it is true, G.I. Joe, American War Hero is a fraud. He never served in all the various actions he has claimed, and most of his celebrated enemies are also fabrications, according to "G.I. Joe Veterans for Truth".

In interviews yesterday arranged by G.I. Joe Veterans for Truth, a nonprofit arm of a little-known think tank called Serpentine Enterprises, the veterans -- low-level G.I. Joe foot soldiers, all code-named "grunts" -- were unanimous in describing Joe as an incompetent leader unfit for command and not worthy of honor. Rogers, a blue laser gunner 1st class, described the ordeal he was put through during the celebrated incident in which the entire male leadership of the Joe team was hypnotized by the Baroness and her Conch of the Sirens.

"Our entire platoon was ordered to attack Cobra base just to free all these addlepated G.I. Joes," Robertson said. "We risked our lives to save the Joes -- not the other way around." During the pitched battle, Robertson disarmed and captured three Cobra soldiers by shooting a nearby tree with his blue laser gun, causing the tree to fall on the enemy, trapping them. "I was dodging red lasers left and right," Robertson added. "G.I. Joe said he'll fight for freedom wherever there's trouble. That was a lie."

...

In a press conference today, the public faces of G.I. Joe -- Hawk, Lady Jaye, Flint and Sgt. Slaughter -- assembled outside G.I. Joe headquarters. They were flanked by much of the Joe team, including the mysterious ninja Storm Shadow, silent and brooding, and the Native American tracker Spirit, feeding mice to his eagle Freedom in a dignified manner. (Joe himself resides in seclusion; the few glimpses the public has been offered suggest he is a giant of a man, up to four times as tall as the rest of his soldiers.)

Flint stepped back as Sgt. Slaughter took the microphone, shouting that two of the veterans in the TV ad bought by G.I. Joe Veterans for Truth were obviously Crimson Commander twins Tomax and Xamot in disguise. Lady Jaye came to the microphone and gently dismissed Slaughter's accusation. "We are, however, worried that the ads might be secretly funded by Cobra," Jaye added. "You reporters should remember that politically motivated advertisements aren't always what they seem. Often, back in the shadows, the people pulling the strings might not be interested in telling the truth."

When collecting footage for Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore's team filmed Florida Rep. and Bush's choice to head the CIA admitting he was unqualified for the job.

"I couldn't get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified," the Florida Republican told documentary-maker Michael Moore's production company during the filming of the anti-Bush movie "Fahrenheit 9/11."

"I don't have the language skills. I, you know, my language skills were romance languages and stuff. We're looking for Arabists today. I don't have the cultural background probably," Goss is quoted in an interview transcript.

"And I certainly don't have the technical skills, uh, as my children remind me every day: 'Dad you got to get better on your computer.' Uh, so, the things that you need to have, I don't have."

When Moore released the footage, the White House went into over drive denouncing the interview. But the irony is that Goss himself didn't realize he was giving an interview to Moore's producers.

"You'd think the person who was the head of the intelligence committee would ask a few more questions," said Moore.

"The reality is that Porter Goss was in charge of the oversight of the CIA during a time when the CIA didn't do its job, which in part resulted in the loss of lives of 3,000 people," he said via telephone from New York.

Michael Moore? Al Franken? Hollywood slime? No, Soldiers.

Soldiers? Yes. Soldiers hate America? Well, as we know, anyone who doesn't love George W. Bush and his moronic international policy hates America, right?

Well, no, but when the dittoheads are around, just pretend you believe that — it will save you some hassles.

Documentary film maker Mike Tucker released his film, Gunner Palace at the end of June, and it is currently making its way through art cinema from Berlin to... probably other parts of Berlin. Gunner Palace presents a cinema verité-style look at the soldiers in Iraq. If you have a system than can play Apple Quicktime video (sorry Xine/Linux users), there are some interesting previews here and here.

A more detailed about the film was run in the the Gardian (UK), and, of course, there's the film-maker's site linked above. It may not make it to a theater near you, but a DVD release is in the works.

On August 24^th many veterans from the lastest made-for-TV war will be involved in a new campaign: Operation Truth.

Operation Truth will educate the American public about the truth of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from the perspective of the soldiers who have experienced them first-hand. We will provide returning veterans with national, regional, and local podiums from which they will expose the preventable hardships that they endured as a result of failures at the top levels of leadership. We intend to publicize how poorly-planned policies and approaches have manifested themselves as problems on the front lines and back at home. We will act domestically to protect our troops and to aid them in their fight to protect us.

The Operation Truth Web Site is up and they are asking for donation to support their national launch. Let's see the drooling "Support Our Troops" Freeper crowd tell these guys to shut up.

Thanks to $46 oil, this month's trade gap surged to $55.82B, a galactic high.

The Commerce Department's monthly trade report showed the June imbalance was up a sharp 19.1 percent from a revised May imbalance of $46.88 billion. Exports of goods and services fell by 4.3 percent to $92.82 billion while imports climbed 3.3 percent to a record $148.64 billion.

The far bigger-than-expected jump in the deficit caught analysts by surprise. They said it would act to further slow an economy already struggling with what Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan described as a “soft patch” in the early summer.

“America is bleeding badly in the trade area,” said Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Wells Fargo in Minneapolis. “This implies not only weaker economic growth but a weaker dollar, which will contribute to inflation down the road.”

Our economy is tanking and our spending is spinning out of control. Do. The. Math.

Oil closed at $46.60 today. This is not a short term trend.

Most oil market commentary still makes it sound as if high prices are a passing phenomenon. Each spike is attributed to the threat of a loss of Iraqi exports, or possible Saudi instability, or Yukos's problems in Russia, even though what is happening there seems unlikely to affect oil production, just to change who profits from it.

But the markets are smelling something different. Oil to be delivered next year now fetches $39 a barrel, and oil to be delivered in 10 years costs almost $35.

The problem is not a lack of oil in the world. The problem is getting the oil to refineries and then to market. The large undeveloped resources are in West Africa, around the Caspian Sea and in Siberia. Two of those areas have issues of political stability and the third has severe weather.

The trend now, Mr. Currie said, is to ''have new oil produced in West Africa, shipped to Asia to be refined, and the product then shipped to North America.''

If he is right, many arguments in Washington have been irrelevant. It does not make much difference whether oil is pumped from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska because a shortage of oil is not the biggest problem. ''The real problem is the shortage of infrastructure to obtain and deliver the commodity,'' Mr. Currie said. ''That seemed to go completely unnoticed until the last six months.'' Neither Europe nor the United States shows any indication of willingness to build new refineries.

Mr. Currie says the oil industry invested about $100 billion a year in the 1990's, a figure that has grown to $150 billion but needs to rise to perhaps $250 billion. Until that investment bears fruit, the world faces both higher prices and the possibility that supply interruptions could have severe effects.

The infrastructure is not able to produce the refined products that North America, Europe and now China are competing for. The demand has overrun the infrastructure, and has done so quickly and without any (seemingly) any planning. The Iraq War has made things worse by destabilizing the world's 3rd largest producer. In trying to steal 1/6th of the world's reserves, we've made it worse.

Will $50 oil be the real "October Surprise"? A surprise for the American public, who will start to really feel the burn at $2.50 gas, and a bigger surprise to George W. Bush who's Saudi masters cannot save now.

Ok, kids. Now's the time for grass-roots movement to get Bush and Dick out of office. Here's an appropriate and extremely innovative opportunity to get organized to do just that.
From www.fthevote.com...

"Let's face facts. Liberals are better-looking, sexier and more fun in bed."

(Thanks to Brad for noticing this on an Indywire blog!)

American Icon, Julia Child died today, just three days short of her 92^nd birthday. Ms. Child introduced French continental cuisine to America, so memorials will undoubtedly be picketed by brain-dead Freepers. She also (literally) set the stage for future celebrity chefs such as Emeril Lagassi, Paul Proudhome and Debbie Fields (how is a woman who makes cookies that hot?).

The Smithsonian web site has an interactive page about Julia Child's Kitchen. Enjoy and Bon Appetit.

From the Washington Post:

Since 2001, President Bush's tax cuts have shifted federal tax payments from the richest Americans to a wide swath of middle-class families, the Congressional Budget Office has found, a conclusion likely to roil the presidential election campaign...

The analysis, requested in May by congressional Democrats, echoes similar studies by think tanks and Democratic activist groups. But the conclusions have heightened significance because of their source, a nonpartisan government agency headed by a former senior economist from the Bush White House, Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Indeed, the study will likely stoke an already burning debate about the fairness and efficacy of $1.7 trillion in tax cuts that the president pushed through Congress.

The rich get richer and middle-class idiots continue to vote Republican...

For a while, I was seriously considering driving down to NYC to join in the protests that will surround the Republican National Convention at the end of the month. But today Salon ran a story that's convinced me to stay the heck away:

On the evening of June 11, over 100 people gathered at Saint Marks Church for one of the monthly No RNC Clearinghouse meetings, in which organizers plot strategy and apprise each other of their progress. The room was stifling and the meeting tedious until a strikingly pretty dark-haired woman stood up and electrified the crowd with her call to civil disobedience.

"The Republicans are coming," she began. "In a shameless effort to exploit the tragedy of 9/11, they will craft an agenda that erodes the very freedoms they claim to fight for.

"This is where we step in," she continued. "On Tuesday, Aug. 31, a day of nonviolent civil disobedience and direct action will commence." It will start, she says, with a shout. "As clocks strike 11 a.m., two days before the renomination of George W. Bush, the people of the world will shout 'no' with one voice. From Brooklyn to Baghdad to London to Lisbon, from Selma to Sao Paulo, we'll raise our voices in this global expression of outrage ... Here in New York we will converge on Madison Square Garden. We will sit down in the streets and refuse to move ... We want more than speeches and protest pens. We want change!"

Never before has so much law enforcement -- aw who are we kidding? Military Rule -- been applied to a major U.S. city before this fiasco in the waiting. From the sounds of it, the violence in the streets will only be a backdrop to the pandemonium in Madison Square Garden as these anarchists infiltrate the convention and disrupt it where ever they can.

I certainly feel the rage and if I didn't have a strong desire never to be arrested, let alone shot with rubber bullets and pepper sprayed, I wish I could be there. Bush will be in the bubble, but his closest followers are in for a rude awakening; America really, really hates the GOP.

This came to me from a Rabbi friend in San Francisco:

During Bible study in the Oval Office on Thursday we turned to Mark 5:12-13, where my favorite philosopher, that Jesus guy, tells us that, when it comes to things that get rid of demons, pigs are like little demon sponges. We are taught by the Lord that when looking for something to cast in front of swine, expensive jewelry like pearls are not a good choice, but demons are just the ticket.

- President George W. Bush

President Bush is backing funding of a Demon Shield to protect America from Hell's Angels. Literally.

The remaining Social Security funds will be used to build a multi-billion dollar National Demon Defense Shield that will protect Americans from the threat of foreign-launched incoming evil spirits. Mr. Bush's decision to back the controversial project came in response to the heartfelt Christian concern expressed by General Dynamics' Government Contracting division and feasibility studies by creation scientists at Reverend Falwell's Liberty University. "While many secular scientists scoff at the idea of intercepting Satan's demons," said Pat Robertson in response to the President's decision, "the technology is employed in the Bible, so it must work. And aren't these the same so-called 'scientists' who laughed at our $40-billion program to build mid-priced condominiums in whales?"

Honestly, I can't tell if this is satire, parody, or another policy paper from the Wolfowitz/Perle think tank. But I wouldn't be surprised it they were serious about it ...

This graphic makes my day:

It's amazing how it corresponds to "Blue" states.

From economist Paul Krugman in the NYT:

Last year's tax cut was officially named the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 - and administration economists provided a glowing projection of the job growth that would follow the bill's passage. That projection has, needless to say, proved to be wildly overoptimistic.

What we've just seen is as clear a test of trickledown economics as we're ever likely to get. Twice, in 2001 and in 2003, the administration insisted that a tax cut heavily tilted toward the affluent was just what the economy needed. Officials brushed aside pleas to give relief instead to lower- and middle-income families, who would be more likely to spend the money, and to cash-strapped state and local governments. Given the actual results - huge deficits, but minimal job growth - don't you wish the administration had listened to that advice?

Oh, and on a nonpolitical note: even before Friday's grim report on jobs, I was puzzled by Mr. Greenspan's eagerness to start raising interest rates. Now I don't understand his policy at all.

Iran lowered it's petroleum output today, sending crude up to within three cents of $45/bbl. I'm predicting $50/bbl. oil on or before the election in November. When does $44/bbl. oil start driving gas back up over $2/gal.?

USA Today is reporting that Computer Science majors are dropping in U.S. colleges.

Nationwide data aren't available. However, last year, the number of newly declared computer science and computer engineering majors in the USA and Canada fell 23% vs. the year before, says the Computing Research Association, a college trade group. The figures aren't expected to improve this year.

Blame the bleak tech job market. In the past, a computer degree meant "instant riches, or at least a well-paying, secure job," says San Jose computer science chair David Hayes. "Now, the perception is jobs are going overseas, and people are being laid off."

You'd have to be insane to spend $100K on a CS degree today.

CNN.com is reporting that the US national elections will have international observers for the first time.

Good. The cretins currently in power played particularly dirty last time and it's not unreasonable to suppose that they've been laying groundwork for similar or worse this year. Having some oversight from the UN won't stop them, of course, but it'll make things harder on the forces of evil to get away with their perfidy.

More to the point, Shrub & Co. are going to lose in November, and we need to make sure that the loss is fair and proper. If it takes some additional eyes to verify that the stake is placed properly and driven home, so be it. The rest of the world is pretty pissed off at BushCo (as are many of us living under their odious thumb), and I welcome the participation of observers to validate the proper execution of the exorcism to come.

Bring 'em on.

CNN.com also has a poll, which of course is voluntary and therefore non-scientific, which shows majority support for the observers. Last I checked, it was running 53-47, with 31,600+ votes cast.

Slashdot is running a story about the 15% drop in IT employment this year.

According to Information Week, the lastest Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows that the number of Americans calling themselves IT professionals has decreased by nearly 160,000 in the last 3 years, and the number of programmers, analysts, and support specialists has fallen 15% since the first six months of 2004. According to IT World, the number of employed Software Engineers fell by 15% from April to July of 2004 (from 856,000 to 725,000).

The U.S. is experiencing a dramatic "brain drain" that in the Cold War would have triggered a massive response by the Federal Government to keep these folks employed. Mr. Bush, where is the "job stimulus" for IT?

The CIA's, er, Iraq's new PM Allawi has reinstated the death penalty.

Does this mean that he'll be tried and put to death for murder after shooting, point blank, six insurgents in front of several witnesses? Not very likely, I'd wager.

Thirty years ago today, Richard Milhouse Nixon became the first President of the United States of America to resign.

Nixon was a man who had a twenty-point lead going into the 1972 election cycle, but who was so paranoid he paid a gang of quasi-professional thugs to break into the DNC offices in the Watergate Hotel and steal info on his competition. Nixon was a sitting President who not only broke the law but made the situation infinitely worse by trying to cover up what was "out of the bag" over at the Washinton Post. And he wasn't hiding his sex life from miscreant GOP perverts in the Congress.

If you're a Democrat, I recommend sitting down and watching Dick, a brilliant comedy about Nixon's demise which answers the nagging question, "who was 'Deep Throat' ?" If you're a Republican, I recommend self-flagulation, or if that doesn't work for you, consider how you'll feel when Bush is impeached.

The BBC has a retrospect on the whole ugly mess here.

From the latest Newsweek:

My fellow Americans, drop the fantasy that we'll return to cheap gasoline, and pump it for as long as our withered hands can steer an SUV. As the prophet saith, the end is nigh. Demand for oil is running high—in fact, we're gobbling up the stuff. But world production grew by only 0.6 percent a year for the past five years. At some point, supplies will shrink, not grow.

The two oilmen in the White House maintain that we can drill our way out of this hole. George W. Bush is campaigning on subsidies for more oil production at home, especially in the Arctic. John Kerry says he'd invest in alternative fuels, raise mileage standards for cars and SUVs, and subsidize energy efficiency. For their part, consumers don't want to hear that oil could run out. That Escalade in the showroom just looks too good.

Am I crying wolf? If so, I'm in the company of some pretty big guns in the oil biz—geologists, merchant bankers, analysts and petroleum engineers. They note that the major companies aren't building new U.S. refineries, investing in drilling or enlarging the tanker fleet—suggesting that they don't expect much new oil to appear. Saudi reserves, which the world depends on to fill every energy gap, remain a state secret; outsiders wonder how big they really are

Princeton geology professor emeritus Kenneth Deffeyes, who's writing a book due in 2005 called "Beyond Oil," waggishly names an Armageddon date: "World oil production will reach its ultimate peak on Thanksgiving Day 2005," he says. Then the long, slow decline begins (for a fuller discussion, see oilpeak.com).

At least one of the men who served in Vietnam with Sen. John Kerry is now openly regretting his participating in the Roveian stealth campaign to discredit Kerry.

a key figure in the anti-Kerry campaign, Kerry's former commanding officer, backed off one of the key contentions. Lieutenant Commander George Elliott said in an interview that he had made a ''terrible mistake" in signing an affidavit that suggests Kerry did not deserve the Silver Star -- one of the main allegations in the book. The affidavit was given to The Boston Globe by the anti-Kerry group to justify assertions in their ad and book.

I think this guy actually has some inkling that his oath as a military officer means that he shouldn't be falsely accusing his fellow vets, and that his conscience caught up with him. Perhaps he was approached in a way that misled him to think his participation wasn't what it ended up being.

Here's a link to a story about the nutjobs behind the vets attacking John Kerry.

The New York Times is covering serious problems with Provisional Voting, a methodology intended to prevent disenfranchisement, appears to be aiding and abetting it instead.

In the primary, provisional ballot problems were more likely to disenfranchise minority voters in Chicago than white voters, exactly the problem in Florida four years ago that provisional voting was intended to address. In wards that are 80 percent or more minority members, the rate of disqualified ballots was double that of wards that are 80 percent white.

Florida 2000, here we come again.

NOTE: This entry should be in "Slouching Towards Washington" but the SJR has an "official policy" of categorizing any story that mentions Alan Keyes in the "Wingnuts" category. You have been warned.

The GOP has chosen Alan Keyes to run against Barack Obama for the Illinois Senate seat that opened this year.

(Take a few minutes to stop laughing, and when you are down to a gentle giggle, return to this piece.)

(On second thought, just keep laughing. This kind of political theater is what gives Molly Ivins a reason to get up in the morning and write a wry commentary.)

Illinois Republican leaders asked two-time presidential hopeful Alan Keyes on Wednesday to be their Senate candidate, but like a string of previous possibilities, Keyes said he needed a few days to think about it.

Keyes told a news conference Wednesday night that he would make an announcement by Sunday.

"If I do step forward to accept this challenge, I will be laying it all on the line," he said.

It's been a laborious six-week search as Republicans have sought a candidate willing to tackle the daunting task of taking on Democratic rising star Barack Obama in the Senate race.

Republican primary winner Jack Ryan dropped his bid amid embarrassing sex club allegations that surfaced when records from his divorce were unsealed in June.

The GOP, party of God, family values, etc. had to ditch the handsome and very white Jack Ryan because despite being married to the sexiest woman in SciFi, he couldn't get it on with her without an audience. Then they asked Mike Ditka, noted diplomat, to run. He (in what has to be a career best) demurred, noting his propensity for pulling a Dick Cheney on the Senate floor. Now the GOP has hit rock fucking bottom (uh, excuse my Cheney there!) and selected a certified Wingnut™ to run against probably the strongest candidate the Dems. have offered in decades.

Let the games ... uh ... continue.

July's job growth was a statistically insignificant 32K new jobs (expect it to be revised to below zero next month, unless Rove successfully "adjusts" the numbers ahead of the election), virtually guaranteeing that Bush's job losses will remain significantly above zero, despite all the predictions by economists (except, notably, Paul Krugman) that sustained job gains on the order of 150 ~ 220K per month would obvious follow Bush's insane tax cut for the rich™.

Economists, however, look more closely at the payroll figure as a better barometer of the health of the jobs market. The 32,000 net jobs added in July represented the smallest gain in hiring since December and followed a revised gain of just 78,000 in June, even less than previously reported. May's payrolls also were revised down to show a gain of 208,000.

Analysts were expecting the economy to add anywhere from 215,000 to 247,000 jobs in July. They were predicting the jobless rate to hold steady at 5.6 percent.

Job growth for the last two months is revised down and yet the drumbeat from Washington continues to be "happy days are here again". What a bunch of election year crap. This Administration's economic policies have brought us $44.41/bbl. oil, the first net job loss since the Great Depression and crushing, insane deficits in both Federal Spending and trade imbalance.

Isn't it time for the "shareholders" of the United States to fire it's "CEO"?

Excerpts from President Signs Defense Bill
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT THE SIGNING OF H.R. 4613, THE DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

'Nuff said.

Poor Krispy Kreme (and their investors). Thanks to the non-discovery that carbohydrates make you fat, their stock has fallen 45% this year. So how does Krispy Kreme respond to changing dietary trends? Simple, they make a drinkable version of their donuts. Their proudest acheivement is a drink that captures the flavor of their signature candy-coated glazed donut (a pastry that is so sweet, I can't stand to eat it).

Too busy to wolf down half a dozen sugar-globs? No problem, slurp it down in drink form! Now people who've had their jaws wired shut to keep them from overeating can overeat anyway. Genius!

You can read about it at the CNN/Money site.

Note to Krispy Kreme: the low-carb trend is not a "fad," it's an epiphany. What do you feed cattle to fatten them up? Fat? No, carbs.

Duh.

Asia Times is running an article that claims that Pakistan has already captured many "high value targets (HVTs)" wanted by the United States and is doling them out, piecemeal, to keep Washington (as it were) on the hook. Since the U.S. has a nasty history of 'catch and release' with it's foreign policy (e.g. Afganistan, Iraq, Libya), the theory goes that Musharraf is holding these HVTs to keep on Washington's good graces (and by that, we do mean the money train).

The contacts say that Pakistan's strategic circles see the high-value al-Qaeda operators as "bargaining chips" to ensure continued US support for President General Pervez Musharraf's de facto military rule in Pakistan. Had Pakistan handed over top targets such as Osama bin Laden, his deputy Dr Aiman al-Zawahir, Tahir Yuldash (leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan) and others - assuming it was in a position to do so - the military rulers would have lost their usefulness to the US in its "war on terror".

Considering that President Bush is running on a platform of security and against terror, the fact that his Administration is propping up a corrupt regime that already has many of the terrorists we seek in custody but which won't hand them over is appalling. His record on the "war on terror" is bad enough, but now with Karl Rove and Musharraf deciding when and how Al-Qaeda operatives are to be transferred to U.S. custody is digusting and it politicizes the entire issue to the point of absurdity.

So the State Department decided that they should bring a delegation of Iraqi civic leaders to the United States, and show them how a free country operates. Sadly, they included a stop in Memphis Tennessee.

The Chairman of the Memphis city council refused to allow them into City Hall to meet with Carol Chumney, a city council member. Elisabeth Silverman, head of the Memphis Council for International Visitors is hosting the group, and probably thought that a visit to her home town would be just peachy.

Wrong.

According to Silverman, Brown threatened to call the bomb squad, should they enter.

Is Al Gore really from this state?

Well, no doubt the Iraqis learned something about America: it's currently full of shit. But Iraqis already knew that, didn't they?

The meeting between Ms. Chumney and the delegation happened elsewhere. This incident was reported in the Seatle Post-Intelligencer.

Pretty damn evil.

That's right, you have to be pretty damn evil for the Republican Party to distance itself from you, but that's what the Shelby County (Tennessee) Republican party is having to do with candidate James Hart. Hart is running unopposed in this Thursday's primary to choose candidates for the Congressional district. The Republicans would like to unseat the incumbent Democrat, and they've decided Hart isn't going to do it for them.

Since they didn't get a chance to put a more reasonable candidate on the ballot, they are urging a write-in campaign to unseat Mr. Hart. The problem? Oh, where to start... but lt's just say that Mr. Hart has a particularly stringent take on the "purity" of marriage; he wants to keep it racially pure.

Remember, the Republicans didn't mind David Duke.

Hart says he is not a racist, but that some races are "favored."

Interesting distinction.

Interesting alternative to Gross Domestic Product from Redefining Progress. The claim is that GDP inaccurately reflects economic health by blinding looking only at the money we spend. There are other factors, such as volunteer work, crime, pollution, environmental degradation, resource depletion, etc. According to the GPI, our nation's economy is not nearly as rosy as GDP would suggest.

Looking forward to discussion amongst SJR's economic pundits.

USA Today published a list of most and least "literate" cities (measuring the quality of their reading habits and options. Here are some of the worst:

• #10 Garland, TX
• #8 Arlington, TX
• #3 Corpus Christi, TX
• #1 El Paso, TX

Way to go, Texas. And for the record, no Texas city made the top ten list. The list is here.

This is the funniest damn thing I've seen in quite some time.