Timeline Comparing The Lives of Bush and Kerry: Birth - 1998 - Independent Media TV

I feel ill after reading this.

"You know, I could run for governor but I'm basically a media creation. I've never done anything."
-- George W. Bush, 1994

Kerry's a Liberal. Kerry lied about his service in Vietnam. Kerry is a flip flopper.

The manufacturers of consent distract from the issues while the zombie public sets its mind on thier future vote.

Now the news:
---
Everyone wants to go to Baghdad; real men want to go to Tehran." That was the attitude in Washington two years ago, when Ahmad Chalabi was assuring everyone that Iraqis would greet us with flowers. More recently, some of us had a different slogan: "Everyone worries about Najaf; people who are really paying attention worry about Ramadi."

Ever since the uprising in April, the Iraqi town of Falluja has in effect been a small, nasty Islamic republic. But what about the rest of the Sunni triangle?

Last month a Knight-Ridder report suggested that U.S. forces were effectively ceding many urban areas to insurgents. Last Sunday The Times confirmed that while the world's attention was focused on Najaf, western Iraq fell firmly under rebel control. Representatives of the U.S.-installed government have been intimidated, assassinated or executed.

Other towns, like Samarra, have also fallen to insurgents. Attacks on oil pipelines are proliferating. And we're still playing whack-a-mole with Moktada al-Sadr: his Mahdi Army has left Najaf, but remains in control of Sadr City, with its two million people. The Christian Science Monitor reports that "interviews in Baghdad suggest that Sadr is walking away from the standoff with a widening base and supporters who are more militant than before."

more

Politics, It's just a game right?

Polls have become marketing tools for the candidates. According to www.race2004.net "during the 2000 primary race Karl Rove had pollsters call Republican voters in South Carolina asking if John McCain's black baby born out outside of his marriage influenced their decision on whether to support him. The question was not only racist, it was misleading. McCain and his wife adopted a baby from Bangladesh. The child isn't black in the "traditional" sense, and the baby was born outside his marriage because he was adopted."

U.S. Dead in Iraq
975
National Debt
$7,353,436,027,526.85

Is 'Not George Bush' Enough? (washingtonpost.com)

See now, I can't tell. The things Raspberry says (that Kerry is sort of a vapor) feel true to me, from what I've seen and felt when Kerry speaks, from the things that Dean said, that Nader says, and Kerry does not. And the tax rollbacks are really really insignificant, and that also exposes the ridculous profligacy of George Bush: a couple of K to a single person with 250K of TAXABLE income???
Or I am being played by the GOP machine?
Fast food, political advertising, and pornography: they all work on people way way down where no one is supposed to be without asking permission, bypassing our humanity.
Well, I can spot porn, I know about fast food, but all the advertising has a huge subliminal content...
I can't shake the feeling that Kerry is sort of a Manchurian candidate: chosen by them, for us, to lose. Could it possibly be that Kerry'll be harmless and ineffective after he wins?
Nah: when you're getting a beating, you just need the beating to stop. Anybody but Bush absolutely fills that requirement.

Flop Flipper

"We have a clear vision on how to win the war on terror and bring peace to the world."
-- George W. Bush
July 30th 2004.

"I don’t think you can win [the war on terror]. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are — less acceptable in parts of the world.”
-- George W. Bush
Aug. 29th, 2004.

September 11th returns to New York

The Repubs will focus the nation's reptilian brain on the September 11th boogie man. Fear them into voting for Bush.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Gone, it seems, are the days of the statesmen.

Speaking of fear...

The big picture is unforgiving

The U.S. economy faces problems that are much deeper than a shortfall in GDP here or a monthly job number there. Gross indebtedness in the U.S. is now well beyond its prior 1929 peak. Equally important, the dependence of the U.S. on massive and continued inflows of foreign capital – simply to finance existing levels of economic activity – can't be overstated. Foreign investors (particularly Japan and China) now own more than half the float in U.S. Treasuries.

In my view, it is nearly certain that the U.S. economy will experience a deleveraging cycle in the coming years (flat or declining gross domestic investment, tepid growth in consumption, and probably substantial dollar weakness as a result of excessive debt loads and foreign capital reliance).

I've made this argument enough times that I'll let somebody else make it. Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley recently made these remarks:

“America's $531 billion current account deficit in 2003 absorbed a record 79% of the world's surplus saving. Saving is the sustenance of long-term growth for any economy. And yet America is lacking in saving as never before. It has finessed that shortfall by consuming the wealth generated by asset appreciation and by drawing heavily on the world's pool of surplus saving. In my view, there is nothing stable about this arrangement. In fact, there is a growing risk that America's saving shortfall will only intensify in the years ahead -- especially given Washington's total lack of fiscal integrity. As always, the flows will give the impression that this outcome is sustainable. In the end, nothing could be further from the truth.”


More...

Talking Points

From J. Marshall's site

Isn't the press going to bludgeon John Kerry over this remark this morning?

When asked whether we can "win" the "war on terror" Senator Kerry said: "Can we win? I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are — less acceptable in parts of the world.”

Oh, sorry. That was President Bush who said that.

So forget what I said about press bludgeoning ...

Conservatives for Kerry? Here's Your Man. (washingtonpost.com)

"LITCHFIELD, Conn. -- Utter three words -- George Walker Bush -- and watch eminent author Kevin Phillips, a longtime Republican, a former Nixon aide and past party theoretician, pucker like he has inhaled a pickle. "
I saw him on Bill Moyers "NOW"... He was very coherent. And now I see this in the Post... excellent read.
But, all in all, I must say: NO republicans: this is NOT on the job training for ex storm troopers. Note that McCain and Arnold will speak FOR Bush. Nope. Drown them when they are young. You think that's mean? Grover Norquist, THE GOP "brain", wants to "drown the whole government in a bathtub". I take offence at that!

ABCNEWS.com : Brian Ross Multimedia Archive

ABC is doing a real job here: Ross is following the incredible money trail of the so-called conventions.
Gads, but it stinks like the failing Roman Empire!
The US is corrupt.
If you were ANY other county (OK, not Sudan) would you want the US "culture" in your country? Hell no.
Thanks, Brian Ross. Thanks ABC. Thanks PBS Bill Moyers NOW.
Cry, the Beloved Country ?

Billionaires For Bush: Our Candidate

Got a bumpersticker from these folks today. Put it and a Kerry/Edwards sticker on my car, leaving room for the "Canada here I come" sticker, if things should go poorly.

THE REAL ISSUE: BUSH IS INCOMPETENT

Hello, Mainstream Press. Is There Anybody Home?

Ok, so maybe blaming the mainstream press isn't fair since it is the mainstream press that got the news and the mainstream press that I got the news from BUT... This sort of incompetence should be making HEADLINES.

"Showing none of the alarm about [North Korea's] growing arsenal that he once voiced regularly about Iraq, [Bush] opened his palms and shrugged when an interviewer noted that new intelligence reports indicate that the North may now have the fuel to produce six or eight nuclear weapons."

A Prairie Home Companion: "Homegrown Democrat", Chapters 1-4

An "adapted excerpted" that Ken found somewhere:

_____________________________________
How did the Party of Lincoln and Liberty transmogrify into the party of Newt
Gingrich¹s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid
man, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to
walk?


By Garrison Keillor

August 26, 2004



Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it was
the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles
who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and
supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were
good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party, the
paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and Prohibitionists, the
antipapist antiforeigner element. The genial Eisenhower was their man, a
genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it OK for reasonable people to vote
Republican. He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the
Interstate Highway System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in
Vietnam, and gave us a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly)
American arts and letters flourished and higher education burgeoned‹and
there was a degree of plain decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were
giants compared to today¹s. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to
feel a Christian obligation toward the poor.

In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward
down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public
service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against the
Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and
fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed
flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in
World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon
moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion of angry
white men who rose to power on pure punk politics. ³Bipartisanship is
another term of date rape,² says Grover Norquist, the Sid Vicious of the
GOP. ³I don¹t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the
size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.² The
boy has Oedipal problems and government is his daddy.

The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of
hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists,
fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance
racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats,
nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons,
hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who
believe Neil Armstrong¹s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little
honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt¹s evil spawn and their
Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of
information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of
badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the
rest of the world thinks we¹re deaf, dumb and dangerous.

Rich ironies abound! Lies pop up like toadstools in the forest! Wild swine
crowd round the public trough! Outrageous gerrymandering! Pocket lining on a
massive scale! Paid lobbyists sit in committee rooms and write legislation
to alleviate the suffering of billionaires! Hypocrisies shine like cat turds
in the moonlight! O Mark Twain, where art thou at this hour? Arise and
behold the Gilded Age reincarnated gaudier than ever, upholding great wealth
as the sure sign of Divine Grace.

Here in 2004, George W. Bush is running for reelection on a platform of
tragedy‹the single greatest failure of national defense in our history, the
attacks of 9/11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a
tailspin, a failure the details of which the White House fought to keep
secret even as it ran the country into hock up to the hubcaps, thanks to
generous tax cuts for the well-fixed, hoping to lead us into a box canyon of
debt that will render government impotent, even as we engage in a war
against a small country that was undertaken for the president¹s personal
satisfaction but sold to the American public on the basis of brazen
misinformation, a war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous
transfer of wealth taking place in this country, flowing upward, and the
deception is working beautifully.

The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few is the death
knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has survived
this. The election of 2004 will say something about what happens to ours.
The omens are not good.

Our beloved land has been fogged with fear‹fear, the greatest political
strategy ever. An ominous silence, distant sirens, a drumbeat of whispered
warnings and alarms to keep the public uneasy and silence the opposition.
And in a time of vague fear, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip
the bark off the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies, bring
public education to a standstill, stupefy the press, lavish gorgeous tax
breaks on the rich.

There is a stink drifting through this election year. It isn¹t the Florida
recount or the Supreme Court decision. No, it¹s 9/11 that we keep coming
back to. It wasn¹t the ³end of innocence,² or a turning point in our
history, or a cosmic occurrence, it was an event, a lapse of security. And
patriotism shouldn¹t prevent people from asking hard questions of the man
who was purportedly in charge of national security at the time.

Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying along Park Place or getting
off the No.1 Broadway local, hustling toward their office on the 90th floor,
the morning paper under their arms, I think of that non-reader George W.
Bush and how he hopes to exploit those people with a little economic uptick,
maybe the capture of Osama, cruise to victory in November and proceed to get
some serious nation-changing done in his second term.

This year, as in the past, Republicans will portray us Democrats as
embittered academics, desiccated Unitarians, whacked-out hippies and
communards, people who talk to telephone poles, the party of the Deadheads.
They will wave enormous flags and wow over and over the footage of firemen
in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and bodies being carried out and
they will lie about their economic policies with astonishing enthusiasm.

The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by
Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln
spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to
death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag
burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their
sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and
mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the corporate
takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.

This is a great country, and it wasn¹t made so by angry people. We have a
sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however
we found it. We have a long way to go and we¹re not getting any younger.

Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time
of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, dear
reader. It¹s a beautiful world, rain or shine, and there is more to life
than winning.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Garrison Keillor is the host and writer of A Prairie Home Companion, now in
its 25th year on the air. This adapted excerpted from Keillor¹s new book,
Homegrown Democrat (© 2004) is reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a
member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc

10 weeks to change the world

With Base Hit - Rove Hopes for a Homerun.

Now we can see why the Bush team spent so much time reaffirming their base. I thought it might have been due to Kerry’s momentum out of the convention and the sense in Rep circles of doubt, a lack of hope. I still believe that some of this is true but from what I’ve seen in the last week there also seems to be a reaffirmation of the base because the Bush team is moving away from them. In the past week we’ve seen Cheney admit his daughter’s homosexuality and make the statement that same sex marriage should be a state not federal decision. In the past week we’ve seen the administration state that greenhouse gasses are responsible for the warming we’ve been experiencing. Then today we learn that Bush now states that he “miscalculated” on post war Iraq. Wow, count them, three Flip-Flops in one week. All this, no doubt, stems from polls that Karl Rove must have that shown Bush losing if he doesn’t reach out to the middle and stop appearing arrogant. Roves original strategy worked really well. Let’s see how this angle pans out…

Dirty Tricks, Bush Style

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.

But despite Kerry’s own Brahmin lineage, patrician bearing and vast wealth, he's a poor relation when it comes to hiring help to do the dirty work.

Poor Georgy, he can't help it, he was born with a silver spoon up his nose.

Answering propaganda with propaganda

Is this guy presidential or smut?

Kerry On Iraq

http://www.kerryoniraq.com/images/tvscreen.swf

Momentum Shift

It seems apparent that the momentum of the campaign has shifted. What was clearly Kerry full steam ahead is now neck and neck with the Ape man. This means that the cowardly lies of the Bush team have been effective. This Bush momentum is particularly bad just before the convention where he is sure to pick-up support.

It will be interesting to see how many TV programs and news articles there will be that will reference 9/11 and terror in general. Re-igniting fear is the only hope of Rove and company since issues, like the economy, Iraq, employment, just are not on their side.

U.S. Report, in Flip-Flop, Turns Focus to Greenhouse Gases

OK, so I changed the headline a bit...



In a striking shift in the way the Bush administration has portrayed the science of climate change, a new report to Congress focuses on federal research indicating that emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases are the only likely explanation for global warming over the last three decades.

Russian Computer Expert Predicts Internet Terrorist Attack

Terrorists will paralyze the Internet on August 26, a Russian expert in antivirus programs said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a conference hosted by Russian Information Agency Novosti, Aleksandr Gostev from Kaspersky Labs said information on this terrorist attack was published on special websites. He did not elaborate.

First of all, the United States and Western Europe will suffer from the attack, Gostev was quoted by the agency as saying. The head of the labs, Yevgeny Kaspersky, reminded the audience that similar attacks had earlier paralyzed the Internet in South Korea. He added that it would be “impossible” to stop terrorist organizations if they “get down to business”.

The executive director of Dr.Web antivirus lab, Mikhail Bychinsky, quoted by Lenta.ru web agency said he had not heard of such an attack. “I do not believe in mass internet attacks because the main servers are defended, and Kaspersky Labs has been foretelling doomsday for a long time.”

Rambo Patriotism

After 9/11, Mr. Bush had a choice: he could deal with real threats, or he could play Rambo. He chose Rambo.

---
One of the wonders of recent American politics has been the ability of Mr. Bush and his supporters to wrap their partisanship in the flag. Through innuendo and direct attacks by surrogates, men who assiduously avoided service in Vietnam, like Dick Cheney (five deferments), John Ashcroft (seven deferments) and George Bush (a comfy spot in the National Guard, and a mysterious gap in his records), have questioned the patriotism of men who risked their lives and suffered for their country: John McCain, Max Cleland and now John Kerry.

How have they been able to get away with it? The answer is that we have been living in what Roger Ebert calls "an age of Rambo patriotism." As the carnage and moral ambiguities of Vietnam faded from memory, many started to believe in the comforting clichés of action movies, in which the tough-talking hero is always virtuous and the hand-wringing types who see complexities and urge the hero to think before acting are always wrong, if not villains.

More...

GOP Plan Calls for Revamping Intelligence (washingtonpost.com)

A two page summary of the proposal was presented a few hours before Meet the Press by GOP Senator Pat Roberts to whatshisname, the moderator, and a day before it was going to be presented to the Senate. It was endorsed by eight other Republicans on the committee.
Carl Levin, who is the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee did not get a copy. Not before the show, not during the show, and unless he took the copy from whatshisname, he wasn't going to get a copy after the show.
Thus did the GOP present a "bi-partisan" intelligence plan.
Lenny Bruce said "If you can't say 'fuck', you can't say 'fuck the government.'"
Poor Carl Levin. He didn't say "fuck!" But he surely would have been well within his rights to reach over and punch the shit out of Pat Robertson. Damn! Actually, I feel a little bit a naked Democrat that Levin did not. I think the Democrats need to trade in the Donkey for a Pussy. No offense to the ladies of the senate who are sporting some large balls.

Tensions escalate between Israel and Iran

Iran threatens to attack Israel’s nuclear installations. Israel ominously warns that it “knows how to defend itself.” Tensions between the two archenemies, at odds for more than two decades, have suddenly escalated.

Iran threatens preemptive strike

IN A marked escalation of a war of words between Iran and its arch-enemies Israel and the US, Tehran has for the first time threatened a preemptive strike against US troops in the region.

President's Remarks at Traverse City, Michigan Rally

Ok, here's the test: rebutt these statements. In simple, short sentences. What is it that you know, for sure, and can state, with certainty, that convinces you NOT to vote for Bush?
For extra credit: what convinces you to vote for Kerry, besides the fact that he is not Bush.
You may discount all the non information things like "I'm sorry Laura is not here": we'll leave that one to Monty Python.

Bush Q&A's Are All on the Same Side (washingtonpost.com)

Can you say "1984"? Yes. I thought you could!
And here we thought no one was going to like it. Gee. I guess the whole book was told from the weak, liberal complaining point of view. No wonder it looked so bad.
1984: it's cool. Sissies need not apply.

Google Shares Begin Trading on Nasdaq (washingtonpost.com)

"'The thing that hurt them the most was the spurning of Wall Street,' said Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch, an online publication that monitors the search industry. 'If this had been a traditionally run IPO where investment banks were going to cash in, they would have been supportive of the higher price, and you would have seen less criticism. They felt locked out of the process, so there was no incentive for them to move things along.'"

Yessir, one pound o' flesh, coming up!

Just because you're paranoid, does NOT mean they are NOT out to get you. Likewise, conspiracies. The left hand does NOT need to know what the right hand is doing... they need no contract, just a consistent and illegal activity that each benefits from their actions and the others. Not sure if RICO attaches.

The week so far...

It seems someone in the administration forgot to mention an important little fact that emerged from an analysis of Department of Education data. Apparently the darling of the right, Charter Schools (basically private schools run on public funds) not only are no better than regular public schools, they’re worse! The administration released the data without comment. It took a teacher's union to sift through the data to get the news released. (How much do you want to bet had the news been different it would have been announced by the White House) Now it may seem like I'm being critical here of the administration but truly... I find it amazing that this administration released the data at all. I could easily see how it could be a national security issue. Now that Al Qaeda knows that our charter schools are failing the nation is truly in trouble.

So we need a wake-up call. Not to be overly depressing but the likelihood of a nuclear attack in the country is VERY high. Nuclear terror “experts” (how does one become that?) say that there is a better (better?) than even chance of a 10-kilo ton nuke blast in one of our cities in the next ten (yes, 10) years. This should send chills down anyone’s spine. What do either our present administration (our brave chicken hawks) or the incoming (oops too soon) Kerry administration have in mind to prevent this from occurring? Not much really. It seems that we need a two fold approach to this issue. Try to prevent shipments in of such a bomb and preparing for the worst. What should we do, for example, if we find that the bomb was purchased from Pakistan or North Korea?



The FBI has been knocking on doors intimidating potential protesters. Do you think that there MIGHT be something just a LITTLE better for them to do?

In Florida, state police are knocking on the doors of black get-out-the-vote organizers. It stems from an investigation into voter fraud. The state has claimed that there were voting irregularities in municipal elections in Orlando. The state investigator explained why they were only looking into the activities of African American voting campaigns by saying, "That's just the people we selected out of a random sample to interview."

This brings us to the whole problem of the upcoming election. As long as this election is close it may well be “won” by fraud. Crude tactics like the above and the “ethnic” cleansing of the voter rolls not withstanding, far more can be made of simply making votes disappear. In another twist to the whole electronic voting thing is news from, you guessed it, Florida of election records disappearing due to a hard drive failure.

The good news. The latest poll shows Colorado now dead even with 47% for Kerry and 47% for the ape.

Latest Poll Numbers: Kerry 317 Bush 202

Iranian Judo Champion Refuses to Face Israeli

What old George said : "Former President George Bush told members of the United States Olympic team yesterday that winning a medal is not as important as representing their country 'with class and dignity.'"Not bad. Certainly easier coming from George Sr, than Jr, who is acting quite in opposition to his fathers principles and indeed without his support.

What an Amreican president should say:
"Winning a medal is not as important as competing with class and dignity. Although you compete under the flag of the United States, you represent and compete with your brothers and sisters of humankind. You are there to challenge mankind, to raise the bar: no man or woman will succeed passing under the bar you set. You and everyone there together contribute to this noble athletic effort of mind and body."
You are our contribution to this effort, and we cheer you, everyone. Surely, your achievement and your efforts lift our spirits."

Media scripts

Today's media script: "The economy is improving"
Everything will be stretched to that script. News to the contrary, if it cannot fit the script, will be moved to some obscure page in the paper. Other economic news (eg, huge deficits and the future costs and effect) will be glossed over if mentioned at all.

Czechs In Balance

The Post on WMDs: An Inside Story
Prewar Articles Questioning Threat Often Didn't Make Front Page

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 12, 2004; Page A01

Days before the Iraq war began, veteran Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus put together a story questioning whether the Bush administration had proof that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction.

But he ran into resistance from the paper's editors, and his piece ran only after assistant managing editor Bob Woodward, who was researching a book about the drive toward war, "helped sell the story," Pincus recalled. "Without him, it would have had a tough time getting into the paper." Even so, the article was relegated to Page A17.

No, the Bush Disministration is not politicizing terror warnings...

"The goal of the next attack is twofold: to damage the U.S. economy and to undermine the U.S. election," the official said. "The view of al Qaeda is 'anybody but Bush.' "

What utter BULLSHIT. They LOVE Bush. He's the best thing to happen to them.

The New York Times > Business > Tech Company Settled Tax Case Without an Audit

Remy Welling is a senior auditor for the Internal Revenue Service with 22 years' experience. But when she was handed the file on a company suspected of underpaying its taxes, it contained something she had never seen before in such a case: an agreement to close the audit before it had even begun....

(Here's another way the rich avoid taxes: the IRS gets told "don't touch this guy")

Presidential Election Futures

This is the "Iowa Electronic Market", a real futures market that trades in things like election results, FED policy, the Google IPO outcome, etc. The stakes are small, maximum investment $500, which I think seriously limits the ability of this market to accurately predict an outcome.

Current Quote
How it works

why wall street wants google to fail

So, the "script"* you hear is that google is going to take everyone for a ride. And that's the script that will be played again and again. Like the script you heard when there was an energy crisis in California, that they had brought it on themselves, that there was no collusion.
No, I don't see conspiracy everywhere, not at all. I can read. I can see that Google's offer is one that is chosen to maximize the money that goes to them, and not to the underwriter or friends of the underwriter.
So, did you try to buy any of the Netscape IPO? It simply was not for sale. Not to you. But you can bid on google. Just like anyone else. But that's not the big story... the big story is the guys that used to get handed the IPO? They are just like everyone else, like you, and how shitty is that?
*media script": a story line that shapes coverage, often in the teeth of the evidence.
paul krugman

Surprise surprise

September (two months before the election and the month of the Rep. convention in NYC) is going to be...

National Preparedness Month!

Using the threat of terrorism to scare voters: all of September will be "National Preparedness Month"


Overview
Throughout September 2004, the US Department of Homeland Security, American Red Cross, American Prepared Campaign, the National Association of Broadcasters, the US Department of Education and other partners, will host a series of events to highlight the importance of citizen emergency preparedness.

During National Preparedness Month, coalition partners will promote the basic steps all Americans can take to prepare for emergencies through a variety of activities. You are encouraged to heighten your awareness and preparedness. For a good resource on personal and family readiness, visit www.Ready.gov, or www.OPM.gov. Great information is available and should be accessed to Get a Kit, then Make a Plan and Be Prepared.

Should you have any questions about personal preparedness and also what GSA is doing to help this agency be prepared, contact your regional Emergency Coordinator or the Office of Emergency Management at (202) 501-0012.

We will keep all associates informed as developments occur.

Most Liberal Lies of Cheney and Company.

The most liberal member of the United States Senate. The most liberal member. The most liberal member of the United States Senate. Most liberal The most liberal member. Most liberal The most liberal member of the United States Senate. The most liberal member of the United States Senate. most liberal most liberal most liberal most liberal most liberal most liberal most liberal most liberal most liberal

Not true.

National Journal: Most liberal senators, lifetime voting
1. Mark Dayton, D-Minn.
2. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md.
3. Jack Reed, D-R.I.
4. Jon Corzine, D-N.J.
5. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
6. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.
7. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa
8. Richard Durbin, D-Ill.
9. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.
10. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt

Golf, God, and Kerrybunkport

"Our material gifts do not have to be a wall -- they can very well be a door," Agnew said. Then referring to Luke 12:33, the priest said, "Jesus says, 'Sell your possessions and give alms.' "

"I'm convinced that what we keep owns us, and what we give away sets us free," he said.

"The System was Blinking Red."

An interesting read from the 9/11 report: you don't hear this or see this in mass media. You cannot read it and not conclude that the president did not mismanage information.
And IMHO, that's old hat.
It's not what he did that's troubling. It's not even what he's done since. It is what he is doing NOW and what he is GOING to do!
After Bush is removed from office, he should be asked (we cannot by law require it) that he leave the country.

Veteran retracts criticism of Kerry

WASHINGTON -- A week after Senator John F. Kerry heralded his wartime experience by surrounding himself at the Democratic convention with his Vietnam ''Band of Brothers," a separate group of veterans has launched a television ad campaign and a book that questions the basis for some of Kerry's combat medals.

But yesterday, 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.

BW Online | August 6, 2004 | On the Street, the Tough Crowd Rules

Ruthlessness and randomness prevail thanks to hedge funds, leverage, and program trading. What's a small investor to do?
Imagine the prototypical professional investor. If you picture someone sitting behind a desk, reading annual reports and pondering the valuations of companies like Coca-Cola (KO ) and General Electric (GE ), you'd better think again."...

I got a question: given that I KNOW (indeed I KNEW) what would happen to oil prices under Bush, what could I have one about it? Buy Mobil Oil?

Fox Poll

The latest FOX News poll shows Kerry receives 46 percent to incumbent Bush's 43 percent in a head-to-head matchup among registered voters. The results are unchanged when independent candidate Ralph Nader (search) is added to the race, with two percent backing Nader, 46 percent Kerry and 42 percent Bush. Kerry's advantage is within the poll's three-percentage point margin of error.

In the two-way matchup, Kerry went from being dead even against Bush to having a three point edge. In the three-way race, Kerry went from being one-point behind to having a four-point advantage. And while the bump may be less than what the Democrats had hoped for, the 46 percent Kerry receives in the new poll is his best showing so far.

Previously, polling showed men more likely to back Bush, while support among women broke in Kerry's favor. In the latest poll, Kerry increased his vote among men by six percentage points and is now even with Bush, while still holding a nine-point edge among women. The Democrat also increases his support somewhat among independent voters this week, up four points since before the convention.

While Bush still has a small advantage over Kerry as the candidate more voters see as being a strong leader, the gap is much narrower — Bush had a 19-point edge before the convention and today that has closed to four-percentage points.

Kerry made gains on other characteristics as well, including now holding a seven-point edge over Bush as the candidate seen as being "more honest and trustworthy," and an 11-point lead as the candidate who "understands the average American better."

President Bush's job performance rating dipped in the last two weeks, with 44 percent today saying they approve and 48 percent disapprove, which is the lowest job rating he has ever received in a Fox News poll. Bush lost ground among both men and women, but his approval rating also fell seven points among Republicans.

Checkpoint!

Nicholas Baker's new book. If you have not read at least Mezzanine, then you have two of his books to read.
But Checkpoint is a must read. I cannot wait to get my hands on it.
Freedom of the Press, and Homeland Security bullshit is going to get a stress test.

The Race: 8-6-04

Electoral Vote Predictor 2004: Kerry 280 Bush 258

From: http://www.electoral-vote.com/

"Here is an excellent website about electronic voting. It is maintained by Ronald L. Rivest, a professor at M.I.T. and one of the world's foremost authorities on computer security. It has dozens of links to articles, some of them are technical (what is actually wrong with the voting machines and how they could be manipulated), but many of them are popular articles for laymen and politicians, editorials, etc. If these machines fail (or are hacked) in November, as they have been many times in the past, they are going to be to 2004 as the pregnant chads were to 2000, except that recounts are not possible with them because there is no paper trail. California has banned some of the worst ones, but Ohio and other states are still planning to use them. You would think that a country that can send men to the moon could at least build a voting machine that worked."

Here's a really good article on Kerry's service in Vietnam. It shows the grays of what was going on for Kerry. And while Kerry did this W and Cheney and Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld were doing their best to avoid service. Bastards!

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did not serve alongside Kerry

FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes and MSNBC's Scarborough Country both gave free airtime on August 4 to a new, misleading ad sponsored by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a recently formed group dedicated to attacking Senator John Kerry's record during and after his service in Vietnam. Both programs devoted segments to the ad, airing it the day before its scheduled release, but left out key facts that discredit Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

In an August 5 interview with the Associated Press, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), "a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, called the ad criticizing John Kerry's military service 'dishonest and dishonorable' and urged the White House on Thursday to condemn it as well."

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did not serve alongside Kerry

In the new ad, members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth claim that they "served with John Kerry." Hannity & Colmes co-host Sean Hannity echoed the false claim, saying that the veterans in the ad are "the people that know him best," and referred to them as "some of his fellow crewmates." Even Pat Halpin, who was filling in for co-host Alan Colmes, called them "some of John Kerry's crewmates." Scarborough echoed Swift Boat Veterans' misleading claim that they "served with John Kerry in Vietnam."

While the veterans attacking Kerry in the ad are veterans of the Vietnam War and may have served at the same time as Kerry, as The New York Times reported on August 5, the Kerry campaign noted that "none of the men had actually served on the Swift boats that Mr. Kerry commanded." Adm. Roy F. Hoffman, one of the veterans in the ad, has even "acknowledged he had no first-hand knowledge to discredit Kerry's claims to valor," the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on May 7, "and said that although Kerry was under his command, he really didn't know Kerry much personally."

Who is this Freud guy anyway?

From a news conference this morning the White House resident lets the truth slip out.

"Third, this bill meets our commitment to America's Armed Forces by preparing them to meet the threats of tomorrow. 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. We must never stop thinking about how best to defend our country when we all must always be forward-thinking."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040805-3.html#

added by gmb 8/8/2004
Bob Herbert calls it A Failure of Leadership
It seems so simple: just a failure of leadership. How bad could that be?
Maybe just a failure to be careful with the gun, a failure to be careful with 200 thousands guns and bombs, a failure to pay attention.
After Bush is defeated, won't you please join me in asking him to leave the country?

Colorado is a swing state

I note that the Wall Street Journal is finding serious fault with Bush: see, for instance, Thursay 8/5 WSJ, p.2, Capital, by David Wessel. He quotes another who says "By cutting taxes now, but not cutting spending, Mr. Bush is guaranteeing tax increases in the future."
What he fails to note is that tax increases that come in desperation are altogether different from tax increases that come from prudent planning.

Aint that the truth, well sort a

There are three sides to every story.
Your side, my side and the truth.
And no one is lying,
--Movie Producer Bob Evans

Talking points memo

Today's blog is someone else's...

---
Today the Times reports that the the SEC has fined Halliburton $7.5 million for, in effect, defrauding its shareholders.

The charges stem from a change in accounting methods Halliburton made in 1998. The SEC found that the old and the new accounting methods were both permissible under accepted practices. The key, however, is that Halliburton did not inform investors of the change. That allowed Halliburton to "report annual earnings in 1998 that were 46 percent higher than they would have been had the change not been made ... [and] a substantially higher profit in 1999."

This change came just as Halliburton was struggling with falling share prices that threatened to sink its proposed merger with Dresser Industries.

Again from the Times ...

It reported a 34 percent gain in profit for the quarter, far better than other oil services companies were reporting, and Mr. Cheney said then that "Halliburton continues to make good financial progress despite uncertainties over future oil demand."

The commission said yesterday that the gain would have been just 6.7 percent without the undisclosed change in accounting policies.

This is sorta like, "Hey, we just changed the temperature reading in our refrigeration trucks from Fahrenheit to Celsius without telling you. So what's the problem?"

The SEC and the even the Times goes to some length to avoid the colloquial term for this sort of behavior: i.e., fraud. The SEC did levy the fine. And it did point the finger of blame at two lower levels Halliburton officials. Yet the SEC, in the words of the Times, "did not detail the extent to which [Cheney] was aware of the change or of the requirement to disclose it to investors." And not surprisingly, in the article, Cheney's lawyer, Terrence O'Donnell is trumpeting the results of the investigation as a clean bill of health for Cheney.

Now, with a whitewash, you might at least expect that Cheney would be denying knowledge that this took place, as implausible as it might sound. But he won't. After taking down O'Donnell's crowing about the results of the investigation, the Times asked whether Cheney "had been aware of the effect of the accounting change on the company's profits." But O'Donnell wouldn't answer.

So here you have the Vice President of the United States. His company gets caught in about as clear a case of cooking the books to inflate profits as you can imagine during the time he was CEO. (His salary and bonuses are tied to company profits.) And he won't even go to the trouble of denying that he was aware of the wrongdoing.

Can we have some more aggressive reporting on this one?
-- Josh Marshall

that much of the surveillance of those buildings took place three to four years ago.

Ok, now what? When do you STOP watching the buildings? Now that you're watching those, where do get people to watch, say, well shit, any place else.
We are a rich nation, but we cannot afford Bush. He WILL get us all killed.

The Race

A SAUDI prince lavished nearly $130,000 of fine jewellery on US President George W. Bush, his wife, children and top aides in 2003, but the weightiest gift for the first family last year was kilos of raw meat.
---
Effective September 15, 1973, four years into Bush’s six-year duty requirement, the Air Force placed Bush on inactive status. This document, in Bush’s military record, was dated January 30, 1974, suggesting that it was backdated.

As he was signed up to fulfill a military service requirement, the only reason the military would have placed him on inactive status was if they intended “complete severance of military status.”

In order for him to be placed on inactive status, then, the military would have planned to discharge him – and not honorably.

Like with many regulations in the military, there are, of course, exceptions. Lieutenant Bush could have told the Air Force he intended to become a clergyman. He could have informed them he was disabled, or he could have been dead. He could also have been court-martialed.

But aside from those options – none of which he fit – the only reason Bush would have been placed on inactive status was if the military had found him to be absent for three months – precisely the number of months Bush had been AWOL from in fiscal year 1973.
---

WASHINGTON, July 31 — President Bush's campaign plans to use the normally quiet month of August for a vigorous drive to undercut John Kerry by turning attention away from his record in Vietnam to what the campaign described as an undistinguished and left-leaning record in the Senate.

Mr. Bush's advisers plan to cap the month at the Republican convention in New York, which they said would feature Mr. Kerry as an object of humor and calculated derision.
---
A Bush ad?
---
Electoral College Poll Snapshot: Kerry 307 Bush 231

Creationism, Flat Earth Society, and...

Could it be that God is not something that was, but rather something that is to be?

NYTimes on Bush and Terror

Mr. Bush gave no specific timetable for when he might name someone to the position, and the White House did not answer questions on whether the legislation creating the job could be completed before November. But White House and Bush campaign officials have long said that the details matter far less than the pictures and sounds of Mr. Bush talking in any way about his campaign against terrorism, which polls show is still his strongest card against Mr. Kerry.

A real estate market commentary with some social mood mixed in

Mr. Arries., AKA "Easy Al", (one of our less frequent contributors) was kind enough to email the following post to our blog.

The current real estate market seems to me to be the classic fear vs. greed scenario (with each having their productive place in decision-making, at times). I think Steven Saville explained it best, although he was writing about stocks. I will paraphrase and substitute real estate for this example:

if you are planning to take profits in real estate and you know that the market has a 70% probability of going higher in a year's time, should you take your profits now or wait for next year? The correct answer is: it depends on the expected magnitude of the upside relative to the downside risk. For example, if you assess that the real estate market has a 70% chance of rising 10% over the next year and a 30% chance of falling 25% then you should take the profits now.
The above question is relevant to the real estate market's current situation because although there is a reasonable chance that real estate will sell above today's levels, it does NOT look attractive from a risk/reward perspective. It could go higher, but at its current prices the downside risk exceeds the probable upside.

It seems important to factor in rates (at 40+ year lows) and household debt levels (at all-time highs both in nominal terms and in debt service as % of income). Where will the upside come from? The liquidity that has been supporting ALL markets, even those that usually run counter to one another, appears to be drying up. I would put the odds of real estate appreciation from this point forward at 50/50 at best. And even if it were to rally one more year (or two), the upside seems very limited and the downside could be devastating (have I mentioned 10 cents on the dollar?). Every successful long-term investor that IÂ’ve read about has capital preservation as the number one priority.

Of course, personal residence has consumer value to it, as well. If someone wants to live in a house for emotional reasons, then bubble-or-no-bubble it might make sense to stay in that market (but I would leverage to the hilt! Like the old saying, "If you owe the bank $1000, they have you by the balls if you owe the bank $1 million, you've got them by the balls").

P.S. On the Kerry front, I don't see him winning. Kerry has played up that he is the optimist, that things can be better. I would love to see Bush defeated, but it seems to me the social mood is growing toward pessimism and fear. The US is not looking for an optimist right now. I can envision a scenario where the economy/markets continue to decline to the election, Iraq is in no better shape, our civil liberties are being usurped, and Bush STILL wins. It occurred to me the other day that perhaps there is another election snafu (electronic voting, maybe?) that sows the seeds for future acceptance of a different form of government. OK, I'm done.

Sincerely,

Mr. Arries

Google

Here comes the IPO. Off topic, but this is like Netscape, only a lot more radical. I think they are gonna make waves.

Ron Reagan

"There is a surreal quality to all this: Occupation is liberation; Iraq is sovereign, but we're in control; Saddam is in Iraqi custody, but we've got him; we'll get out as soon as an elected Iraqi government asks us, but we'll be there for years to come."

August 2009: How Google beat Amazon and Ebay to the Semantic Web (Ftrain.com)

"It's hard to believe Google - which is now the world's largest single online marketplace - came on the scene only a little more than 8 years ago, back in the days when Amazon and Ebay reigned supreme. So how did Google become the world's single largest marketplace?"
Well, the short answer is “the Semantic Web” ....

A work of fiction. A Semantic Web scenario. A short feature from a business magazine published in 2009.
Please note that this story was written in 2002.

www.mnftiu.cc | get your war on | page 38

My filing technique is unstoppable: strip number 38 in what is called a "frank and productive discussion"