Not surprising

When I read this, I knew it was bullshit, because George Bush has never done anything that has indicated a real conern for the nonrich. Therefore, the idea that Bush would unveil a plan to help people with subprime mortgages was patently ludicrous.

Distraught homeowners facing the grim prospect their monthly mortgage payments soon will surge found hope Thursday they can hold onto their houses by qualifying for a five-year freeze in loan rates.

The plan is the Bush administration's biggest move yet to show it is dealing aggressively with the mortgage crisis. The escalating problem is becoming a political issue and threatening to push the country into a recession.

"The holidays are fast approaching and this will be a time of anxiety for Americans worried about their mortgages and their homes," Bush said. The administration's efforts, he said, are "a sensible response to a serious challenge."

If this doesn’t strike you as U.S. Grade A crapola, then you haven’t been paying attention.

I assumed that what was really happening was that banks were reposessing properties and then having a hard time reselling them, getting stuck with assets that are producing no revenue and losing value every day. I figured this plan was designed to keep the cash rolling in from mortgagees and to allow the White House to take credit for a politically popular initiative.

Turns out I wasn't cynical enough.

In fact, there’s a growing consensus among financial observers that the Paulson plan isn’t mainly intended to achieve real results. The point is, instead, to create the appearance of action, [kind of sounds like “it just looks like results,” huh? — Dr. S] thereby undercutting political support for actual attempts to help families in trouble.

In particular, the Paulson plan is probably an attempt to take the wind out of Barney Frank’s sails. Mr. Frank, the Democratic chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has sponsored legislation that would give judges in bankruptcy cases the ability to rewrite mortgage loan terms. But “Bankers Hope Bush Subprime Plan Will Scuttle House Bill,” as a headline in CongressDaily put it.

As Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard bankruptcy expert, puts it, “The administration’s subprime mortgage plan is the bank lobby’s dream.” Given the Bush record, that should come as no surprise.

There are, in fact, three distinct concerns associated with the rising tide of foreclosures in America.

One is financial stability: as banks and other institutions take huge losses on their mortgage-related investments, the financial system as a whole is getting wobbly.

Another is human suffering: hundreds of thousands, and probably millions, of American families will lose their homes.

Finally, there’s injustice: the subprime boom involved predatory lending — high-interest loans foisted on borrowers who qualified for lower rates — on an epic scale. The Wall Street Journal found that more than 55 percent of subprime loans made at the height of the housing bubble “went to people with credit scores high enough to often qualify for conventional loans with far better terms.”

And in a declining housing market, these victims are stuck, unable to refinance.

So there are three problems. But Mr. Paulson’s plan — or, to use its official name, the Hope Now Alliance plan — is entirely focused on reducing investor losses. Any minor relief it might provide to troubled borrowers is clearly incidental. And it is does nothing for the victims of predatory lending.

The plan sets voluntary guidelines under which some, but only some, borrowers whose mortgage payments are set to rise may get temporary relief.

This is supposed to help investors, because foreclosing on a house is expensive: there are big legal fees, and the house normally sells for less than the value of the mortgage. “Foreclosure is to no one’s benefit,” said Mr. Paulson in a White House interactive forum. “I’ve heard estimates that mortgage investors lose 40 to 50 percent on their investment if it goes into foreclosure.”

But won’t the borrowers gain, too? Not if the planners can help it. Relief is restricted to borrowers whose mortgage debt is at least 97 percent of the house’s value — which means that in many, perhaps most, cases those who get debt relief will be borrowers who owe more than their house is worth. These people would be nearly as well off in financial terms if they simply walked away.

And what about people with good credit who were misled into bad mortgage deals, who should have been steered to loans with better terms? They get nothing: the Paulson plan specifically excludes borrowers with good credit scores. In fact, the plan actually provides an incentive for some people to miss debt payments, because that would make them look like bad credit risks and eligible for relief.

Now, Mr. Paulson’s attempt to help investors, while doing little or nothing for distressed and defrauded borrowers, might make sense if his plan would reduce investor losses enough to seriously improve the overall financial situation.

But only a small fraction of subprime borrowers will qualify for relief, and many of these borrowers will eventually face foreclosure anyway. So the plan is unlikely to reduce overall mortgage-related losses by more than a few percent, at most — not enough to make any real difference to financial stability. Indeed, interest-rate spreads that have been signaling a crisis of confidence in the financial system didn’t narrow at all when the plan was announced.

Still, you might say that the Paulson plan is better than nothing. But the relevant alternative isn’t nothing; it’s a plan that — like Barney Frank’s proposal — would actually help working families. And that’s what the administration is trying to avoid.

So, much like Bush’s tax cuts, this plan is designed to help the rich and marketed as assistance to the nonrich. (Remember that “By far the vast majority of my tax cuts go to the bottom end of the spectrum” bullshit?) And, like Bush’s tax cuts, this plan does almost nothing to help the nonrich.

And why should it? After all, who among us considers millions of families facing the loss of their homes a more significant problem than investors facing reduced returns?

It just looks like results

Tell me you're suprised:

The U.S. government is not doing enough to protect nuclear weapons from terrorists and its handling of terrorism suspects is undermining America's image in the Muslim world, members of a commission that investigated the September 11 attacks said on Monday.

Although President George W. Bush calls arms proliferation the country's biggest threat and al Qaeda has sought nuclear weapons for a decade, the former commission's chairman Thomas Kean said, "the most striking thing to us is that the size of the problem still totally dwarfs the policy response."

"In short, we still do not have a maximum effort against the most urgent threat ... to the American people," he told a news conference, noting that half the nuclear materials in Russia still have no security upgrade.

[snip]

"This kind of grade -- unfulfilled, insufficient, minimal progress -- those grades are failing grades ... That is an unacceptable response," Commission member Timothy Roemer said.

In this administration, it's not results that matter, it's the appearance of results. But how it appears to me is that George Bush stops thinking about a problem right after he promises to do something about it. And based on his latest poll numbers, a majority of Americans agree with me.

Lower

Another poll, another new low. Ho hum.

President Bush's approval ratings hit a series of new lows in an AP-Ipsos poll that also shows Republicans surrendering their advantage on national security — grim election-year news for a party struggling to stay in power.

[...]

• Just 36 percent of the public approves of Bush's job performance, his lowest-ever rating in AP-Ipsos polling. By contrast, the president's job approval rating was 47 percent among likely voters just before Election Day 2004 and a whopping 64 percent among registered voters in October 2002.

• Only 40 percent of the public approves of Bush's performance on foreign policy and the war on terror, another low-water mark for his presidency. That's down 9 points from a year ago. Just before the 2002 election, 64 percent of registered voters backed Bush on terror and foreign policy.

Like rats fleeing a sinking ship, GOP lawmakers will go to great lengths to avoid being photographed with toxic George. But they still want money, so its likely you'll see a lot more fundraising events in the coming months that feature Bush, but not the candidate he's stumping for.

The story also points out that

There is more at stake than the careers of GOP lawmakers. A Democratic-led Congress could bury the last vestiges of Bush's legislative agenda and subject the administration to high-profile investigations of the Iraq war, the CIA leak case, warrantless eavesdropping and other matters.

You don't think an administration with a history of questionable election results is going to leave these elections, and possibly their own fates, to chance, do you? Watch for all kinds of crazy shit on election night -- things we've seen before, like results that differ widly from exit polls and hassles at polling places in Democratic precincts, and probably some ugliness we haven't even thought of yet, not being professional election riggers and all.

Financial reform

Rolling Stone examines the legislative process that produced the financial reform that the Obama administration is so proud of.

“The bill Congress just passed doesn't go after the criminals where they live, or even make what they're doing a crime; all it does is put a baseball bat under the bed and add an extra lock or two on the doors. It's a hack job, a C-minus effort. See you at the next financial crisis.”

It’s not a C-minus effort. Congress didn’t pass meaningful reform because they weren’t trying to pass meaningful reform. They were trying to pass some bullshit that looked like reform to a public that doesn’t really understand what’s going on and is barely paying attention anyway. They accomplished what they set out to do.

The law does exactly what it is designed to do: It causes no serious threat to the profits of our representatives' biggest financial sponsors, and it gave Democrats something, anything, they can take back to the voters and say, "Look, we reined in Wall Street, we passed financial reform!" In that regard, it's no different than George Bush's Medicare "reform" -- it improves nothing, but allows for lots of self-congratulation.

Of course, it also gives Republicans something they can point to were they to argue that "Democrat" leadership is ineffective. And they'd be right. But, for Republicans, even this Band-Aid on a bullet wound is too much fettering of financial markets. Rather than argue -- correctly -- that this law will do nothing to prevent future financial meltdowns that taxpayers will have to clean up, the GOP will argue that this Marxist-style takeover of our uniquely American free-enterprise system must be repealed, along with healthcare reform, Social Security and, perhaps, the right to vote and own property.

I had a post label that I used for so many Bush-era efforts, "It Just Looks Like Results," that I used when describing the many, many photo-ops and half-assed efforts that replaced actual governing in this country from 2001-2008. Looks like it's time to dust off that label, because the change we were promised during the campaign just ain't coming. Sure, the Obama administration is light years better than the alternative that Republicans half-heartedly threw out there ("OK, the election is unwinnable but, hey, we gotta run somebody, and we're not about to waste a real candidate" [think Bob Dole in 1996 and Lynn Swann's running for the PA governor's seat in 2006]), but the real power in this country doesn't change every four years or even every eight years. It's an entrenched aristocracy whose only interest is maintaining its wealth and power. And it never faces re-election. If Obama were the threat to the status quo that he appeared to be during the campaign, he never would have gotten out of the primaries. Ask Hillary Clinton and John Edwards how the media covered their candidacy.

If you still think real change is possible working within the system, click the link above and see what the system did to the financial reform bill.

No White Child Left Behind

Don't ya just wish this were surprising? But because under the Bush administration it just has to look like results, this is pretty much standard operating procedure.

States are helping public schools escape potential penalties by skirting the No Child Left Behind law's requirement that students of all races must show annual academic progress.

With the federal government's permission, schools aren't counting the test scores of nearly 2 million students when they report progress by racial groups, an Associated Press computer analysis found.

Minorities — who historically haven't fared as well as whites in testing — make up the vast majority of students whose scores are being excluded, the AP found. And the numbers have been rising.

"I can't believe that my child is going through testing just like the person sitting next to him or her and she's not being counted," said Angela Smith, a single mother. Her daughter, Shunta' Winston, was among two dozen black students whose test scores weren't broken out by race at her suburban Kansas City, Mo., high school.

Look on the bright side: It's great practice for the future, when your minority child will vote just like the person next to her and she won't be counted.

I guess we will never really know the answer to that rarest of questions: Is our children learning?

Show business

Remember, it only has to look like results.

The Energy Department said it has come up with $5 million to immediately restore jobs cut at a renewable energy laboratory President George W. Bush will visit on Tuesday, avoiding a potentially embarrassing moment as the president promotes his energy plan.
[snip]
The ensure the Colorado laboratory will have the people to carry out that research, the Energy Department transferred $5 million over the weekend to the Midwest Research Institute, the contractor that operates the renewable energy lab, to restore all the jobs cut earlier this month due to budget shortfalls.
[snip]
The Energy Department took the money from other accounts. The DOE said it will try to restore those funds by using money from several projects mandated by Congress in 2001 and 2002 "that have failed to make progress."

You mean like No Child Left Behind?

And if those funds can't be restored by piling more burden on the backs of the poor (you don't think they're going to fund this by raising the capital-gains tax, do you?), I guess those workers will just be laid off again -- quietly, after Bush has left town and taken the spotlight with him.

If the administration were serious about renewable energy and reducing dependence on Middle East oil, these positions would have been funded in the first place and their continued existence wouldn't be attributable to the happenstance of a Bush photo-op.

Profiles in Conservatism

Here's a little background on one of Bubble Boy's inaugural guests.

Martha Bell founded and operated the Ronald Reagan Atrium I Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Robinson, PA, outside Pittsburgh. She had been a contibutor to candidates and political parties since 2000, mostly Republicans and the GOP.

In 2005, Bell contributed $1,200 to the National Republican Congressional Committee. She attended George Bush's inaugural in January. She received the Alzheimer's Association's Genesis Award and was named a 2004 Pennsylvania Businesswoman of the Year by the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The honor was because of her work with Alzheimer's patients, committee spokesman Ed Patra said.

One of those patients was Mabel Taylor.

On Oct. 26, 2001, Ms. Taylor wandered through a door propped open so employees could go outside to smoke. She was locked in a courtyard outside the building in 40-degree weather, where she died, according to a 38-page police affidavit.

Three state inspections found Atrium was not in compliance with state and federal regulations in January 2001. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services decided Atrium could not admit new Medicare or Medicaid patients. That is, until Sen. Rick Santorum, at Bell's urging, requested a fourth inspection of the facility. At the fourth inspection, Arium was finally in compliance with regulations, so Medicare and Medicaid funding were not withheld.

A July 2003 inspecion report by the Pennsylvania Department of Health found that patients at the nursing home wandered around unsupervised. The health department also found evidence of patients falling down and losing weight.

In October 2003, Bell was charged with involuntary manslaughter in Ms. Bell's death. Prosecutors say that Bell told workers to move Ms. Taylor's body from the courtyard where she was found to her bed. Her family was told that she died of natural causes.

In addition to involuntary manslaughter charges, Bell was charged with neglect of a care-dependent person, reckless endangerment, conspiracy, health care fraud, making false statements and theft of payroll money.

The state closed the nursing home in January 2004.

In August, Bell was convicted in federal court of one count of health care fraud and eight counts of making false statements. Her sentencing was scheduled for Friday, but delayed until December 2. Her manslaughter trial in the death of Ms. Taylor was scheduled to begin this month but has been delayed while her attorneys appeal a denial of their motion to dismiss.

Patra, of the Republican Congressional Committee, said the committee was unaware of the charges when they honored her in March, which makes you wonder if the research into their awards goes beyond "did her check clear?"

For all conservatives' bluster about earning things, it seems that either they don't apply that standard to themselves or they're convinced that they earned everything they have, all their money, all their success, all their accolades. In this instance, a woman who just might go to federal prison for the way she did her job was named a businesswoman of the year, apparently only because she gave money to the body that hands out the awards. Similarly, George Bush took the presidential oath of office in January 2001, only because he sued to have counting of votes stopped; and was admitted to Harvard and Yale, only because of his last name.

If it looks like success, it must be success. That, of course, isn't a far cry from the defining principle of the Bush administration: It only has to look like results. And that might explain who the 35 percent are who still approve of how Bush is doing his job.

Nice try, but ...

Tell me you're surpised.

The Bush administration deserves credit for issuing a comprehensive plan to combat pandemic influenza and for seeking $7.1 billion to get it started. But the lengthy document recently issued by the Department of Health and Human Services looks like a prescription for failure should a highly lethal flu virus start rampaging through the population in the next few years. The plan sets lofty goals but largely passes the buck on practical problems. The real responsibilities wind up on the shoulders of state and local health agencies and individual hospitals, none of which are provided with adequate resources to handle the job.

[snip]

The voluminous document is mostly a laundry list of things state and local health agencies and hospitals should consider in getting ready. Professional groups and academic experts who have pored over the details find them disturbingly incomplete as a guide to action.

The chain of command is unclear, with myriad agencies and multiple levels of government playing a role. Medical or public health interventions are sometimes suggested without enough information to judge their likely effectiveness or downsides. Liability protection for health workers and compensation for those injured by vaccines are not addressed, nor is the issue of how the United States would respond to requests from other countries for vaccines and medicines. Health departments and medical institutions would be left to scramble for extra vaccines or drugs from private suppliers once stockpiles have been exhausted, setting off a race that should be averted by centralized purchases.

As usual, it only looks like results.

Cadmium

Corporations manufacture items in China and then ship them to the United States to sell rather than just make and sell them here for a reason: It's cheaper. They can pay the kind of exploitive wages that would get them thrown in prison here, and they can use whatever cheap shit they want in their products. Sure, the American public finally caught on to lead and now manufacturers are being forced to phase it out, but they were selling their lead-laced shit for years. They had a great, extremely profitable run.

Now they've turned to some shit that's so fucking toxic that we may one day look back fondly on the days when they were poisoing us with something as relatively benign as lead. Say hello to cadmium.

Barred from using lead in children's jewelry because of its toxicity, some Chinese manufacturers have been substituting the more dangerous heavy metal cadmium in sparkling charm bracelets and shiny pendants being sold throughout the United States, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The most contaminated piece analyzed in lab testing performed for the AP contained a startling 91 percent cadmium by weight. The cadmium content of other contaminated trinkets, all purchased at national and regional chains or franchises, tested at 89 percent, 86 percent and 84 percent by weight. The testing also showed that some items easily shed the heavy metal, raising additional concerns about the levels of exposure to children.

Cadmium is a known carcinogen. Like lead, it can hinder brain development in the very young, according to recent research. [...]

Some of the most troubling test results were for bracelet charms sold at Walmart, at the jewelry chain Claire's and at a dollar store. High amounts of cadmium also were detected in "The Princess and The Frog" movie-themed pendants.

"There's nothing positive that you can say about this metal. It's a poison," said Bruce A. Fowler, a cadmium specialist and toxicologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On the CDC's priority list of 275 most hazardous substances in the environment, cadmium ranks No. 7.

Jewelry industry veterans in China say cadmium has been used in domestic products there for years. Zinc, the metal most cited as a replacement for lead in imported jewelry being sold in the United States, is a much safer and nontoxic alternative. But the jewelry tests conducted for AP, along with test findings showing a growing presence of cadmium in other children's products, demonstrate that the safety threat from cadmium is being exported.

A patchwork of federal consumer protection regulations does nothing to keep these nuggets of cadmium from U.S. store shelves. If the products were painted toys, they would face a recall. If they were industrial garbage, they could qualify as hazardous waste. But since there are no cadmium restrictions on jewelry, such items are sold legally.

While the agency in charge of regulating children's products, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, has cracked down on the dangers posed by lead and products known to have killed children, such as cribs, it has never recalled an item for cadmium — even though it has received scattered complaints based on private test results for at least the past two years.

There is no definitive explanation for why children's jewelry manufacturers, virtually all from China in the items tested, are turning to cadmium. But a reasonable double whammy looms: Cadmium prices have plummeted as factories grasp for substitutes now that lead is heavily regulated under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008.

Nope, no definitive explantion. But do you think that "it's cheaper" reason I mentioned above might have something to do with it?

But it looks like federal regulators have taken notice.

Federal and state watchdogs opened a new front Monday in the campaign to
keep poisons out of Chinese imports, warning Asian manufacturers not to
substitute other toxins for lead in children's jewelry and beginning an inquiry
into cadmium found in the products around the United States.

Regulators reacted swiftly to an Associated Press investigation reporting that some Chinese manufacturers have been using cadmium in place of lead in children's charm bracelets and pendants, sometimes at extraordinarily high levels. Congress clamped down on lead in those products in 2008, but cadmium is even more harmful.

I just hope they plan to do more than warn.

Bankrupting us to prosperity

It's surprising that Treasury would say this publicly, considering that John Snow knows how George Bush feels about truth tellers.

Key White House tax proposals would cost the U.S. government tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue, the Treasury Department said on Monday, although the administration says they will help boost revenues in the long run.

Making permanent expiring tax breaks for dividends and capital gains, which expire at the end of 2008, would cost the government $7.74 billion in 2008 and $37.02 billion in 2009, Treasury said in its "Blue Book" description of revenue proposals in President Bush's fiscal 2007 budget.

Making dividend and capital gains tax breaks permanent is a central Bush administration goal in 2006, but critics say the administration will be hard-pressed to both keep the tax breaks and achieve its other priority, cutting the federal budget deficit starting in fiscal 2007.

The White House projects the deficit will widen in the current fiscal year.

Extending lower marginal tax rates for individuals, which are set to expire at the end of 2010, would push foregone tax revenues to $119.39 billion in 2011, Treasury said.

The (Alternative Mimimum Tax) fix would forego $13.66 billion in revenues in the current fiscal year and $20.5 billion in income to the government in fiscal 2007, Treasury said.

The president's proposals to expand health savings accounts, which allow people set aside pretax earnings to pay for medical expenses, would total $5.48 billion in lost revenue in 2007 and $10.24 billion in lost revenue in 2008, Treasury said.

But the Bush administration would have you believe that magically, from 2007 to 2009, government revenues will climb, cutting the deficit -- which was created entirely by this administration -- in half.

Let's face a couple of facts here. The economy is going to be in worse shape in January 2009 than it is now, because the administration doesn't intend to address it. The Bush administration's real goal is to redistribute the nation's wealth up the economic ladder. The results of the last seven years look like a nonstop money grab by the wealthiest Americans because they have been a nonstop money grab by the wealthiest Americans.

The Bush administration's economic policies have led to the deficit we have now. Let's not forget that the policies of the Clinton administration led to budget surpluses of $69.2 billion for fiscal year 1998, $122.7 billion for FY 1999 and at least $230 billion in FY 2000.

Such results are inconceivable under the current regime, which proposes cutting taxes for the wealthy and attacking the budget deficit by cutting vital programs that assist the poor. Despite Bush's tortured explanations that this approach will lead to prosperity, all it really does is widen the gulf between the rich and poor in this country. We've lived with this approach for seven years now, and look where we are. But Bush would have us believe that we're right on schedule, that the economy will take an unprecedented 180-degree turn in 2007, and we will hit his claimed goal of halving the deficit he created.

Oh, I'm sorry. That 9/11 created. Like the Iraq war, the failure in the face of hurricane Katrina, the failure to capture Osama bin Laden, the nuclear capability of North Korea and soon Iran, and the train wreck that the administration calls a prescription drug benefit, the deficit and the economy are not George Bush's fault.

More accurately, they're not his problem. In January 2009, Bush will return to his 1583-acre (nearly 2.5 square mile) "ranch" a very wealthy village idiot and spend the rest of his days telling fictions in an attempt to polish his legacy to anyone who will listen.

Through the looking glass

The following paragraphs appeared in an AP story headlined "EPA report shows no hazardous waste, chemical spills from Katrina":

At a Pascagoula test site near Chevron's oil refinery, DuPont's First Chemical Corp. and Mississippi Phosphates, the metals arsenic and chromium, byproducts of industry, were discovered above recommended cleanup levels, the EPA said.

At the Polychemie site in Pearlington, the EPA said arsenic and benzopyrene, a compound created when organic materials are not burnt completely, were found above recommended cleanup levels.

Arsenic was also found at elevated levels at the Ershigs Fiberglass plant in Biloxi. The EPA report said that the contaminants, though above recommended levels, fell within an acceptable range of possibly causing cancer in somewhere between one in 10,000 and one in 1 million people.

What's more troubling -- that the EPA can look at these results and conclude "[b]ased on the sampling results, EPA does not believe these sites were impacted by Hurricane Katrina" or that the news media plays right along? The paragraphs above were the ninth through 11th grafs in the story and didn't make the cut on some news organization Web sites, like here and here.

Perhaps a better headline for this story would have been "EPA report on Katrina impact doesn't reflect reality." That way, people who don't or can't read down to the ninth paragraph get the story. After all, is the story what the EPA concluded or how inconsistent that conclusion is with the agency's own findings?

Bullshit like this make one wonder how long it will be before the Bush administration announces that it does not believe that New Orleans was impacted by Hurricane Katrina.

By the way, why do news organizations cut the length of stories that appear online, where there's an unlimited amount of space available?

Feeling safer yet?

If I had any confidence in the Bush administration, it would be shaken. But as it is, I'm not really surprised by this.

Undercover investigators carried all the bomb components needed to cause "severe damage" to airliners and passengers through U.S. airport screening checkpoints several times this year, despite security measures adopted in August 2006 to stop such explosive devices, according to a new government report.

Agents were able to smuggle aboard a detonator, liquid explosives and liquid incendiary components costing less than $150, even though screening officers in most cases appeared to follow proper procedures and use appropriate screening technology, according to an unclassified version of a report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress's audit arm.

After all, stories of undercover agents, news organizations and even private citizens sneaking banned items past airport screeners abound. So yeah, it’s troubling that six years after 9/11 airport screeners appear to see less than WWE referees. But given the incometence of the Bush administration and the failures of its anti-terror efforts, it’s hardly surprising.

And when it’s revealed that six years after anthrax attacks killed five people and scared the crap out of everyone who receives mail, the government is ill equipped to deal with another such attack, it’s just, sadly, par for the course.

The United States has done too little to prepare for another potential domestic anthrax attack six years after spore-laden mail killed five people, a former CIA director and other experts said on Wednesday.

"I think we're very poorly prepared," James Woolsey, who headed the CIA from 1993 to 1995, said at a news conference to unveil a report by a security consulting firm warning of U.S. vulnerability to another anthrax attack.

Frankly, I’d like to know exactly what the Bush administration is equipped to deal with. Even protecting a major American city destoryed by a hurricane two years ago ... well, you already know where this is headed, don’t you?

Dozens of construction projects launched by the Army Corps of Engineers to protect the New Orleans region from the most catastrophic floods are behind schedule by an average of nearly eight months, an internal audit shows. Local officials are concerned the completion date will have to be pushed back a second time.
The audit reviewed 60 ongoing projects to make southern Louisiana's flood protections far more robust than when Hurricane Katrina destroyed the system in 2005. USA TODAY got a copy of the Army Audit Agency's report under the Freedom of Information Act.

Nearly 85 percent of construction contracts for upgrades to the region's flood-control system are behind schedule by an average of about 230 days, the audit says. About 74 percent of pre-construction design contracts for other improvements also are lagging, by an average of 122 days, or about four months.

So the government has done pretty much nothing to protect us from pretty much anything over the last several years. But at least it isn’t actively poisoning its citizens. Is it?

"It seemed like some mornings it was just criss-crossing the whole sky. It was just like a giant checkerboard," described Bill Nichols. He snapped several photos of the strange clouds from his home in Stamps, in southwest Arkansas. Nichols said these unusual clouds begin as normal contrails from a jet engine. But unlike normal contrails, these do 'not' fade away.

Soon after a recent episode he saw particles in the air. "We'd see it drop to the ground in a haze," added Nichols. He then noticed the material collecting on the ground.

"This is water and stuff that I collected in bowls. I had it sitting out in my backyard in my dad's pick-up truck," said Nichols as he handed us a mason jar in the KSLA News 12 parking lot back in September after driving down from Arkansas.

KSLA News 12 had the sample tested at a lab. The results: A high level of barium, 6.8 parts per million, (ppm). That's more than three times the toxic level set by the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA.

The source of this toxic dusting is unknown, so I can’t say with any certainty that the government is behind it. But if someone else is doing it, the government failed to prevent it.

Is there one thing, one fucking thing, that this administration has done right? The Bush administration’s record of failure on every single score is incredible. And unprecedented, which is why there can be no doubt that George Bush will go down in history as the worst president this country has ever had. And probably ever will have. Imagine what kind of monster a future president would have to be to make this legacy of failure look good by comparison.

It’s going to be a very long 431 days.

The aforementioned visuals

I told you: When you're zooming around in the desert playing border guard, try to look presidential.


A reminder of exactly what we saw today, from Time Magazine, May 1.

1 DEPLOY GUNS AND BADGES. This is an unabashed play to members of the conservative base who are worried about illegal immigration. Under the banner of homeland security, the White House plans to seek more funding for an extremely visible enforcement crackdown at the Mexican border, including a beefed-up force of agents patrolling on all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). "It'll be more guys with guns and badges," said a proponent of the plan. "Think of the visuals. The President can go down and meet with the new recruits. He can go down to the border and meet with a bunch of guys and go ride around on an ATV."

In other words, bullshit.

It just looks like results.

Disaster alert

Truth is waaaaaaaaay stranger than fiction.

Former FEMA Director Michael Brown, heavily criticized for his agency's slow response to Hurricane Katrina, is starting a disaster preparedness consulting firm to help clients avoid the sort of errors that cost him his job.

"If I can help people focus on preparedness, how to be better prepared in their homes and better prepared in their businesses -- because that goes straight to the bottom line -- then I hope I can help the country in some way," Brown told the Rocky Mountain News for its Thursday editions.

Brown said officials need to "take inventory" of what's going on in a disaster to be able to answer questions to avoid appearing unaware of how serious a situation is.

Now, you would think Mike Brown would know a little something about "appearing unaware of how serious a situation is." But can he really think his failure was due to his inability to answer questions? What about the fact that New Orleans was under water while you dined out and traded e-mail about your wardrobe, Mike? Or the fact you didn't know the Superdome was being used as a staging area? Do you think that might have something to do with the fact that all literate Americans consider you a complete failure?

With his focus on the appearance of competence, it seems Brown is still fuctioning under the guiding principle of the Bush administration: It just has to look like results.

Back to the article:

In the aftermath of the hurricane, critics complained about Brown's lack of formal emergency management experience and e-mails that later surfaced showed him as out of touch with the extent of the devastation.

The lawyer admits that while he was head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency mistakes were made in the response to Katrina. He also said he had been planning to quit before the hurricane hit.

"Hurricane Katrina showed how bad disasters can be, and there's an incredible need for individuals and businesses to understand how important preparedness is," he said.

Whoa, what? Disasters can be bad? I guess that's why they're called disasters.

Brown said companies already have expressed interested in his consulting business, Michael D. Brown LLC. He plans to run it from the Boulder area, where he lived before joining the Bush administration in 2001.

"I'm doing a lot of good work with some great clients," Brown said. "My wife, children and my grandchild still love me. My parents are still proud of me."

They must be the clients he's referring to. Who else would seek advice about disaster preparedness from someone so apparently unsuited for the job? What's next? Michael Jackson starting a babysitting service? OJ becoming a marriage counselor? Ken Lay teaching a business ethics course?

I have a feeling there's another disaster in Mike Brown's future. And it's called Michael D. Brown LLC.

Sike

George Bush really fooled New York, huh?

Congressional budget negotiators have decided to take back $125 million in Sept. 11 aid from New York, which had fought to keep the money to treat sick and injured ground zero workers, lawmakers said Tuesday.

The tug-of-war over the $125 million began earlier this year when the White House proposed taking the money back because the state had not yet spent it.

New York protested, saying the money was part of the $20 billion pledged by President Bush to help rebuild after the Sept. 11 attacks. Health advocates said the
money is needed to treat current and future illnesses among ground zero workers.

"It seems that despite our efforts the rescission will stand, very sadly, and that is something of a promise broken," said Rep. Vito Fossella, R-N.Y. "We will try
hard in the coming weeks, but ultimately Congress will have something of a black eye over this."

Being that it was the White House that originally floated the idea of taking the money back, does that make Bush something of a liar?

Don't worry, New York. Next time you need someone to appear for a photo-op on a pile of rubble and bodies, George Bush will be there.

It just looks like results.

War Inc.

Conservatives like to espouse the virtues of the free market. In doing so, they like to talk about “incentives.” In the conservative worldview, everything people do is motivated (“incentivized”) by some personal gain. People, and companies, do everything they do — and don’t do what they don’t do — based on what’s in their own best interest. One Kool-Aid drinking friend of mine, a very smart person, once followed this logic right off a cliff when, during a discussion of taxation, argued against higher taxes for the wealthy because it would “create a disincentive to become rich.” (I won’t tell you what I said in response. You can judge that statement for yourself.)

Incentives also keep companies behaving as responsible citizens. After all, bad practices such as inattention to quality and product safety are prevented by competition, right? If Company A suddenly starts producing an inferior product, customers will take their business to Company B. If Company C injures customers with shoddy workmanship or cheaper but dangerous components, customers will run to company D.

So when company KBR kills people because it cut corners, company KBR is on the express train to out of business and probably will see the inside of a courtroom before too long, right? But what if company KBR is the recipient of a no-bid government contract? Where’s the competition that’s supposed to keep costs down, and where’s the incentive not to cut corners in vital areas such as safety?

What these fucking idiot conservative shitheads fail to mention is that money is a pretty powerful fucking incentive. If a company can cut a few corners and save a few bucks with little or no risk to its bottom line, what the fuck is stopping it? After all, the company would be acting in its own best interest, the only way it can possibly act in the conservative worldview. And if it’s a public company, it has not just an incentive, but a responsibility to its shareholders to save every dime it can. And if that means cutting a few corners when running some electrical wires, fine.

Unfortunately, Ryan Maseth wasn’t essential to KBR’s bottom line. And he’s only one of at least a dozen other U.S. servicemembers whose lives did not have a material impact on the financial results of the company BushCo hired to help administer its war.

In other words, there was no “incentive” for KBR to keep them from being electrocuted.

Tax calculator

Click here to calculate how the Obama/Biden tax plan will affect you. The calculator also allows you to compare the results with those of the McCain/Palin tax plan.

Or you could just take John McCain’s word for it when he claims “that one” wants to raise your taxes.

This calculator is a good idea, and just might sway a few undecideds when they see the numbers for themselves.

While we’re having such a friendly chat about taxes, I’m so sick of politicians treating taxes like they are the greatest evil ever to darken the planet. Do you like competent teachers? A fully staffed and equipped police force? Fire department? Roads in good repair? Bridges that don’t collapse? A safety net for workers who lose their jobs (which is especially useful these days)? Then you don’t exactly hate taxes.

But what else besides the Frankenstein view of “taxes bad” does the Republican party have to run on? It’s spiel about deregulation isn’t very convincing these days, and the party’s domestic and foreign policy records speak for themselves.

I have the love of community journalism you’re looking for

Another in my ongoing public audition for The Onion.

Dear managing editor:

I saw your help-wanted advertisement for a night desk copy editor and page designer, and all I can say is, “Look no further, for I have the passion, nay the love, of community journalism you’re looking for!”

I’m sure you have been flooded with responses to your ad, because who among us isn’t excited about a school board debating whether to pay for an impact study to help it decide whether or not to build a new pool at the high school? And who isn’t enthralled at the possibility that township supervisors may not have a quorum on the very evening they’re scheduled to vote on installing parking meters on Main Street?

But for me, it’s more than that. Sure it’s the issues, but it’s also the lifestyle. It’s the rush of an off-year election night (and the accompanying free pizza!), frantically editing stories about voter reax to local results as the clock speeds toward deadline. Wow!

Some people call me an adrenaline junkie, but I just laugh right along with them.

Community journalism has given me so much. For instance, before I began working on copy desks, I had no idea that the word “Dumpster” is properly spelled with a capital “D.” For years I used a lowercase “d” and nobody corrected me, probably snickering behind my back at my ignorance. Well, those days are over!

Where else but in the newsroom of a community newspaper could I spend my evening debating the merits of the serial comma? (I’ll eschew it, but you’ll never convince me the AP is right on that one!) On nights when we have those spirited chats, I can’t microwave my dinner and take it back to my desk fast enough!

After all these years in community journalism, I still get a swell of pride when I walk into the all-night supermarket to fetch next week’s Lean Cuisines and am greeted by the professional-looking, error-free front page I helped produce just the evening before. Sometimes my flair for headline writing is on display right there in the store. I feel like a secret celebrity because nobody knows it was me who wrote the headline they’re enjoying, but I don’t get a swelled head. Sure it’s a glamorous job, but I’m no big shot.

And when I think of all the money I might have wasted on entertainment and who knows what else if I weren’t working on Saturday nights, I just shake my head.

Every night when my cat and I go to bed, I replay the evening’s events, stories, conversations and controversies in my head, sometimes wondering if I actually made a particular correction or meant to and forgot. Usually I did, but not knowing can be stressful, so I’ve learned not to worry about it so much. Still, sometimes you can’t help but wonder, “What if?”

Without such important issues to think about, I would probably just lie in bed and dwell on nonsense like quietly wishing a meteor the size of a Greyhound bus would crash through my roof and land right on top of me.

Wow, how much fun would it be to edit that story?

American pariah

Big deal, lots of people want to be on American Idol. You’ve seen the length of those lines at the auditions.

Nigel, 58, also spilled that during the planning for the second annual Idol Gives Back fundraising special, which aired in April, America’s biggest TV show had a spat with no less a power than the White House!

He said that the show’s producers were so disappointed with President Bush’s efforts to combat the very poverty that the show was trying to relieve that they were embarrassed to have him on their TV show.

But Nigel said that Idol relented under pressure from the Pres's people, and allowed him to speak during the star-studded broadcast.

“The President is always saying ‘I want to be on [Gives Back],” said the Brit.

“We didn't ask the President this year to say anything because we are all a bit embarrassed about him, and the office insisted that, because the [primary] candidates were on it, the President would like to come on and say ‘thank you.’"

Of course Bush begged to appear on Idol Gives Back. Given that Bush has done exactly nothing about poverty in eight years, the television show appearance is basically his entire anti-poverty agenda.

Seriously, Bush just wants to be seen in the context of caring about poverty, and near people who are doing something about it. It’s all part of the stagecraft, the appearance of action and results in place of actual action and results, that has marked his entire term in office. In short, it’s insincere bullshit, backed up by nothing.

UPDATE: I agree with Richard Clarke.

A tale of two ballgames

How do you turn a pitchers' duel into a slugfest? Just add bullpens.

Curt Schilling went toe-to-toe with John Smoltz Sunday night, and the results were as one might expect: The starters gave up a combined five earned runs, with 6 walks and 12 strikeouts between them.

By the seventh-inning stretch, the starters were gone. Over the last 2 1/2 innings, the bullpens combined to give up a dozen earned runs.

Needless to say, neither starter was involved in the decision, which went to the Sox, 10-7.

For the fifth time this season, John Smoltz handed his bullpen a lead and ended up with nothing to show for it. Don't expect him to be too eager to veto a trade as the deadline nears and the Braves, who are now 14 games out in the NL East, fall further out of contention. Unfortunately, Detroit probably has the inside track for Smoltz's services: He's a Detroit native and the Tigers look to be playoff-bound, for a change.

The Sox have the back end of their bullpen locked up. It's the middle relief that's a problem, and last night's game was a prime example: Rudy Seanez gave up a 3-run shot to Jeff Francoeur and Mike Timlin was shaky, giving up three hits and two runs in the eighth before pinch-hitter Chipper Jones grounded into a fielder's choice for the second out of the inning, allowing Terry Francona to bring in Jonathan Papelbon to stop the bleeding.

The Sox's middle-relief problems are going to be exposed by the probelms with the starting rotation. David Wells and Matt Clement are both on the DL, but neither was terribly effective before being shelved. Josh Beckett is maddeningly inconsistent of late, and you never know if Tim Wakefield's knuckler is going to feel like dancing (although, fortunately, most of the time it does). The Sox need a starter who can go deep into games and get them to the back of the bullpen, and Smoltz looks like he would be a nice fit. Hopefully the front office was doing more in Atlanta than watching the games.

Tonight the spectacle of interleague play continues, with the Sox at home against the Nationals. And speaking of starting pitching probelms, the Sox send Kyle Snyder to the hill. Snyder was picked up off waivers from the Kansas City Royals.

Off waivers from the Kansas City Royals.

Interim pitching coach Al Nipper told the Providence Journal that Snyder has "had problems elevating balls in the zone. If he can keep the ball down in the zone, being the tall kid that he is, he can create a good downward plane."

Snyder appeared in one game this season for the Royals, a slugfest against the Texas Rangers that the Royals won 16-12. Snyder pitched two innings, giving up 10 hits and 5 earned runs, for an ERA of 22.50. He also notched two strikeouts.

Snyder will be opposed by Tony Armas Jr. (6-3, 4.18).