The fundamental flaw of the Iraq Study Group is the assumption that there is still some sort of a national nucleus that can be called 'Iraq'. It's absolutely not true.

Remember that even though we hold the House and Senate, Bush can still do incredible damage.

For example, he still runs the various Federal agencies.

Follow me after the break...

Bush has just come out in support of The Redoubtable Mr. H!

From the AP...

Hours after a conservative Washington newspaper called for Hastert's resignation, Bush referred to the speaker as a "father, teacher, coach" and said he supports Hastert's call for an investigation.

I know Denny Hastert. I meet with him a lot. I know that he wants all the facts to come out," the president said.

Or, if the Dems win both the House and the Senate this fall...

and it looks like the big guns are going to be seriously investigated, I predict that Cheney, et al will be pardoned; in fact I predict that if the investigations get close enough to indictments, then convictions; Bush will pardon Cheney, resign, and Cheney will pardon Bush.

I don't seem to recall anything in the Constitution about a power of presidential pardon... did I miss something? I think it's time to take that power away... follow me over the flip.

We won't be able to clean house. Even if a miracle occurs, and we get back both the House and Senate, and even if a greater miracle occurs, and we are able to hand over Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al. over to the Hague, we still won't be able to clean house.

I think that everyone who cares about the evacuees from Katrina has given all they can, with the exception of the very wealthy, who I predict will not respond with the same generosity for Rita. I think the middle class will still give all they can (and are still contributing to Katrina relief) but the numbers seem to be falling off even though the situation is far from stable.

I am personally starting to call this the 'Autumn of the Displaced', as it seems to me that the population of several states has scattered across the country, and more are about to follow. If I get time, I will do an analysis of how many displaced people the rest of the US can actually absorb.

Pretty soon many of the people who made it out before the storm hit are going to start running out of money. And unlike most natural disasters, these people's jobs are gone too, so they have no money coming in. Does anyone know how to help them? We'll have to find temporary housing for upwards of a million people, and support them completely until they can find new jobs.

Each and every life lost in New Orleans is worth more than that... but the utterly banally evil Administration officials and the media slavers who enable them are eager to claim their 30 pieces or less (30 pieces of silver, at say $14/ounce, times what I suspect will be at least 10,000 dead, will certainly be more than what many of these evil scum make yearly) have shown that they'd gladly line up along the road to Gesthemane, if only the Romans would toss them a week's bread.

The Senate exists only and exactly because the Minority was worried about being overwhelmed by the Majority.

One of the brilliant balances designed by Our Founders (tm) was that the Minority always had a strong voice.

Who was in the minority in 1776-1800? The states of New England and Pennsylvania. The warm and temperate and most fertile states had the greatest population.. the only way to get the Northern States to sign on to the Constitution (after the disastrous failure of the Articles of Confederation) was to Guarantee each State the right to have their say, and to protect the minority population against the majority.

Coulter is a sideshow. All pundits are a side show. Who among all our threats actually has THE POWER to change things? Congress certainly has the power to change things. Bush's catastrophic appointments certainly have the power to change things. Bolton: not so much... and any threats he poses are at least a year out. The current rule change hidden deep within the current budget allowing AN APPOINTED COMISSION to determine which Federal Agencies are allowed to survive until 1/2006 certainly has the power to change things.

I put this in a very very crude diary yesterday, and was excoriated for it. You all pride yourselves on being 'reality based'.... get fucking real, then!

Look, why are so many leftists straining at the gnat in their eye when the enemy is beating us blind with the beam in their eye?

The very first lesson of mass communication, mass action, mass ANYTHING is that the PERFECT is the ENEMY of the GOOD ENOUGH.

Hello. I have deep and exquisite expertise in mathematics and computer science. What I have noticed is that the MSM (Main Stream Media) have a 2-7 day (48-168) hour response time to being seared from the left, if they even respond at all.

I predict that if GannonGate takes off, we won't see the full effects until Monday Feb 14. Any takers?

We've won several important battles in the last two days. Gannon and Social Security. But these are merely the latest local excesses/overreachings of the cabal trying to bend America to its will.

How do we win the next battle? Inquiring minds want to know. Where are we gaining traction? Where are we losing traction? How do we, a relative larva in the mind-wars, pick our next battles?

I think a good way to approach this is not the cost in human lives, but in monetary cost. $200B/300M Americans is $666.00 per person, $2,664 for a family of 4. Has it been worth it?

The annual cost is say $400/year... are YOU willing to pay another $400 in 2005 to support the Iraq War?

For the vast majority of Americans, $400 is not an amount to be casually discarded. $400 could buy:

groceries for 2 months
A year of cable
A completely new wardrobe
A major repair for a car
Lessons for a child

I welcome any additional analogies and am eager to hear where my figures might be wrong.

What you need to know to understand this diary:

1) the definition of recrudescence, second definition at dictionary.com

What I want to say:

Despite the recent election, the basic American tropes are 1) fair play 2) bullies suck, especially when they want you to suffer while they prosper 3) we're willing to sacrifice to keep old people off the streets.

I am interested in developing a measure by which KosInes (long "O", long "I") can determine who knows what in given fields.

For a first approximation of this measure, I am expert in mathematics, statistics, economics, computer science, American history and (mostly) world political and economic history, and the history (historiography in the case of history) of each and all of these fields. I also know a fair bit about mass psychology, and about how individuals construct narratives to explain the behavior of the masses to which they belong. Are these useful filters for determining probability/possibility?

I welcome any and all input.

This is absolutely unFuckingBelievable. A perfect example of Bush's malignant narcissism and fundamental willingness to sacrifice all of us and the Constitution and basic human decency for his own gain. However, I have no faith that even this egregious display will be a tipping point of any sort.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12450-2005Jan15.html

Who benefits... all our puerile analysis of policy is focused on 'who is hurt', not 'who benefits'. This diary is completely focused on 'who benefits'.

I have three analyses to share:

1) The neo-con agenda:
If the neo-cons win, all 300 million of us will be focussed on how to maintain 'American' superiority in the face of 20-1 odds (in the long run, we have 5% of the population of the planet... how do we maintain superiority (ref: all western powers, Greece, Rome, Venice, France, England, America)). This focus is futile, given its axioms. However, the people currently guiding neo-con policy benefit personally: if the dollar goes to a 1000:1 ratio, they will still be positioned to elevate their children far above the local norm.

that's enough for now. If there's a rational, psychologically aware and statistically aware response to my diary, I will respond with more....