PSoTD

Seniors have paid to educate their children and shouldn't have to pay school taxes once they reach the magic age of 65. Maybe people at city hall and candidates in the provincial election should look at removing the burden from seniors by freezing property taxes and removing education taxes – especially when some seniors don't have children or have no children left at home who are being educated.

It's amazing to me how many people see "education funding" as use taxes. It isn't. They are societal improvement fees, like the costs of building hospitals and roads and police departments.

It's really, really, really, really, really, really sad that people can live to their 60s and not figure this out, or not care enough about the world to consider the stupidity of such a belief.

Roger Simon provides a truth for the Democratic Party in the case that Hillary Clinton wins the primaries:

If Hillary Clinton gets the Democratic nomination — and she certainly may not — her first and most important decision will be her choice of a running mate.

The rest of the article is sheer speculation and probably isn't worth even Roger Simon's brain cells used in the consideration, but there is this to be concerned:

Does this mean that only white males need apply to become Hillary’s running mate? Probably.

Which is why Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, former Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa, Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio, Sen. James Webb of Virginia, and even former Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri are all having their names tossed around.

If Clinton wins the nomination, she must consider the future direction that the VP selection might take the Party in future elections. The Democratic Party is still paying a price for the selection of Lieberman in 2000, as he is listened to and given more credibility than deserved due to that selection.

I do not want to see a U.S. Senator in the VP role, one on the ticket is enough. I do not want to see Vilsack, I think he's incredibly ordinary and uninspiring and of very little new direction. I don't know anything really about Strickland. But just to be lumped with the rest of these guys is damning with faint praise.

Here's my suggestion for anyone caught - and survives - going over 120 miles per hour in a vehicle on a public road in America with speed limits under 90 MPH:

life imprisonment

okay, maybe that's too much, but is 20 years too much?

I'm sorry, but clearly anyone who does this doesn't give a shit about the risk they incur towards other people - normal, average people who aren't expecting drivers to go 120 miles per hour. And in this case, society should return the favor. Nobody will miss them except for EMS and funeral industry professionals.

And it's not like it's that uncommon. There's this and this and this and this

Hell, 437 drivers in Oregon alone were busted for driving over 100 MPH in 2006.

It's just unacceptable, and as dangerous as improper use of any other weapon. I say screw them, send them away to prison for a long, long time. I don't want them on taxpayer roads. I don't want them near me. Innocent people get hurt and killed by these imbecilic actions all the time, and enough is enough. Put them away.

Note to Joe Trippi - sometimes less is more, and that includes your often much-too-liberal use of sending emails with just ordinary campaign content. I'm very close to removing myself from your list, even though I like Edwards' candicacy, because there's just WAY TOO MUCH PITCHMAN in those emails.

I'm not even going to think about that but Ana Marie Cox does ...

Unfortunately, the pleasure that comes from creating an LOLCheney is overwhelmed by the nagging question: What kind of disgusting, F-d up flavor could "Cheney" possibly be? I don't think it's "Chunky Hubby." Yellowcake Batter Swirl? "I'd Tell You the Flavor But I'd Have To Kill You" Mint? [Redacted]? Shoot-an-Old-Man-In-the-Face'n'Cream, maybe. Oh, I know: Super-fudge Oil Chunk, with Tortured Prisoner Tears.

Yuck!

Difficult to feel proud as an American when we have a murderous outfit like Blackwater on the payroll.

Take the case of the Blackwater guard who got drunk at a Green Zone party last Christmas Eve and reportedly boasted to his friends that he was going to kill someone. According to both Iraqi and U.S. officials, he stumbled out and headed provocatively over to the “Little Venice” section, a lovely area of canals where Iraqi officials live. He had an argument with an Iraqi guard, then shot him once in the chest and three times in the back. The next day Blackwater put him on a private plane out of the country—probably only because the incident involved a rare killing inside the Green Zone and the victim was a security guard for a high-ranking politician. That was it. The company has refused to disclose his name. (Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell did not return phone calls seeking comment.)

At this point, any national Republican who is not washing their hands from Bush and his Iraq policy shouldn't be considered credible. Sticking along for the ride with an imbecile driver isn't reasonable. There must be a large minority of Republicans - folks who believe in fiscal restraint and social responsibility - that are finding the current crop of Congressional Republicans absolutely depressing. Welcome to reality. These Congressional Republicans are people who are hiding behind the Bush mantra, behind a man with the level of intelligence that most of America wouldn't trust to do something as simple as figure out their income taxes. These Congressional Republicans hunker down frightened behind a person that will not be in power two years from now - the same person that will suffer some of the greatest immediate reputation trashing by his own party of any President, ever. By these very same Republicans currently in Congress. You can bank on Bushbashing by Republicans when they get the message in the next national election - America doesn't like their leadership, or lack of it, and won't be trusting them with it anytime soon.

I don't know how anyone with at least half a mind or half a soul could claim themselves to be a Republican at this point. Conservative, sure. Republican? No. Where do these conservatives go? Who will lead them? Will they continue to lower their expectations - and their self image - by following the Congressional Republicans? It's pretty depressing sometimes, as a progressive, to watch the Congressional Democrats, but it can't be anything like being a conservative questioning the Republicans.

Anyways, I guess perhaps the greatest questions for these conservatives about their party might be When Will The Republicans Be Serious About America? And the best case scenario - a scenario that there's really no evidence for at this point, but perhaps shock treatment will do it - is after they grotesquely lose the 2008 elections, everywhere. And those conservatives - those conservatives that believe that the current Congressional Republicans need replaced by a corps of responsible, intelligent, morality-based Americans - should be active in getting rid of the current rotten group.

If not, why does Mike Johanns get to go home, but the soldiers in Iraq have to stay?

Maybe they'd get to go home now if they promised to run as a Republican for Congress next year...

There's something incredibly wrong with this country when we decide it's a good idea for state government to actually own and operate casinos. What's next? State owned brothels?

Just because a state can make money doing something doesn't mean it should be doing something.

More of the same of that U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration failure to perform duties.

Federal regulators missed required inspections during the past two quarters at a Logan County mine where a worker was killed Sunday, government records show.

U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration inspectors had not conducted a complete review of the Mountaineer II Mine since March, agency records show.

Under federal law, MSHA is required to conduct a complete inspection of every underground coal mine once per quarter.

So, how often do inspections get missed?

This is so much bullshit.

Second, John Kerry did not handle this well at all. I liked him all right before — I voted for him, but what were the alternatives? — but now I really dislike the man. His behavior here is pathetic. Listen to him droning sonorously on in the background as a guy is dragged down the aisles and pinned the ground. He does say something like, "Officers, can we--" but then trails off ineffectually... and you can also hear him make what sounds like a joke about Meyer: "...unfortunately he's not available to come up here and swear me in as President..." At that point, fair enough, maybe it didn't seem as bad from the stage as it looks on the video. But then the guy is screaming in pain, and Kerry is still droning on, not agitated, nothing. He should have gotten off the stage and told the cops to get the hell off that guy. It's not what a politician would do, but it's what a fucking man would do.

I mean, c'mon, let's give Kerry the benefit of the doubt here. People have to stop acting like they have more testosterone than the average guy. How was Kerry supposed to know exactly what was going on? Okay, there's screaming, but Kerry's off in the distance, with lights in his eyes, trying to see what is going on - what do people really expect him to do at that point? Do we really expect a Senator to intervene in a police action if he doesn't know what is going on?

There are LOTS of different ways to respond to that situation, and only in hindsight does the best course of action become obvious. The guy wasn't armed. He hadn't committed any crimes. The police acted beyond the pale, but Kerry didn't know what circumstances were causing the police to act that way. We shouldn't be blaming Kerry for his response - he did what he did, and there was nothing wrong with what he did. It just didn't turn out to be the most "right" thing he could have done, based on the circumstances.

You want to pound on someone, pound on those police.

They've pulled their soldier out of Iraq.

Foreign Minister Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir has decided to remove an Icelandic Crisis Response Unit (ICRU) member from a NATO training program for the Iraqi army in Baghdad next month, causing disappointment among NATO leaders.

The ICRU member has been working in Baghdad for the last two years, primarily as a media representative, and will cease working there October 1, Morgunbladid reports.

John Craddock, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe for NATO and the US European Command, said at a press conference in Iceland yesterday that Iceland is an important and active NATO member and that he was disappointed with Gísladóttir’s decision.

But Craddock added that he understands that NATO member nations have to make decisions according to their best interests and “estimate what they can do and what they cannot do, what they want to do and what they don’t.”

(Tip of the beanie to TPM)

From SSRN:

There is, however, another way to assess the Surge. This paper shows how data from world financial markets can be used to shed light on the central question of whether the Surge has increased or diminished the prospect of today's Iraq surviving into the future. In particular, I examine the price of Iraqi state bonds, which the Iraqi government is currently servicing, on world financial markets. After the Surge, there is a sharp decline in the price of those bonds, relative to alternative bonds. The decline signaled a 40% increase in the market's expectation that Iraq will default. This finding suggests that to date the Surge is failing to pave the way toward a stable Iraq and may in fact be undermining it.

One thing I was wondering by all the focus on Anbar is whether the Bushies are hoping for a re-emergence of the "flypaper" theory. If there was one obvious place where a knife could be struck in the heart of Bush's fantasy on progress in Iraq, it would now be Anbar province. I'm sure all the zealots on the other sides have figured that out, not sure about the zealots in the Bush administration.

But you have to think that the Republican members of Congress up for election in 2008 now know that their careers are linked to this simple equation - regardless of what happens elsewhere in Iraq, that there can be no major debacles in Anbar - without the whole premise, and Republicans along with it, being shown as pure fiction.

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo ...

With the president's speech tonight it appears we are back to the supposed 'Korea analogy' for the occupation of Iraq. We've been in Korea for more than a half century, as we have been in Japan and Germany. And for all the commitment of troops and money, we now have three highly prosperous allied democracies where in two of the cases we had ardent foes.

Forgive me for saying the obvious. Because it is obvious. But sometimes, apparently, the obvious needs saying.

We garrisoned troops in these three countries for half a century, as we did in Saudi Arabia for about a decade. The periods of military government in Japan and Germany were relatively brief. And most importantly we never mounted counter-insurgency operations in any of these countries.

This simple fact tells you that all these Korean, Japan, Germany analogies are bogus.

Few things annoy me more than the intellectually dishonest historical analogies the wing-nuts are constantly throwing around.

Saddam as Hitler
Congressional Democrats as Neville Chamberlain
Maliki as George Washington
Bush as Truman
Iraq as Korea

If you gotta distort history to make a point, you probably don't have a point to make.

According to Wikipedia, the Republicans have 3 presidential candidate debates in the next month:

September 17, 2007 - Fort Lauderdale, Florida
September 27, 2007 - Baltimore, Maryland
October 9, 2007 - Dearborn, Michigan

I have a question that I think someone should ask Ron Paul:

Would you vote for a Republican running for Congress that supports continuing the surge, and the Iraq War?
If so, why?
And if not, is that your recommendation for Republican voters?

In what was perhaps the most fantasy-driven speech given by Bush in years, we'll see how many in the media and the Congress now remain that just "want to believe".

In what was perhaps the best sign in a long time for broadcast media, Keith Olbermann set the tone for candid skepticism of Bush on MSNBC.

On the other hand, I don't know how big of a brown nose stain Wolf Blitzer ended with on his program.

Just in: Fred Hiatt believes in fairies.

I know, the title makes no sense, but neither did the action:

A Caribbean steel band returning to London was turned off a plane by armed police after a passenger thought they were terrorists.

The five British musicians, on their way home after playing at a festival in Sardinia, were taken off the Ryanair flight after one of their members, who is blind, was reported to the pilot as acting "suspiciously".

Michael Toussaint, a drummer with the Caribbean Steel International group who is registered blind, was led by the arm to his seat by his friends.

One of the other band members then read football scores to him from a newspaper while they waited to take-off.

However, a passenger near the men believed they were behaving suspiciously and reported them to cabin crew.

Italian military police were called and took the whole band off the plane.

Mr Toussaint presented his disability card and removed his sunglasses to prove he was blind yet even after he was cleared by the airport authorities Ryanair still refused to let him, or the rest of the group, reboard the plane.

The five men are now seeking compensation after they were stranded in Sardinia last New Year's Eve.

Or not work.

If you're going to support the surge until next summer, then there's no nuancing this. At all. At least McCain has proven himself to be the proverbial suicide king, and stuck his war sword in his head for everyone to see. He is for the war. He is for the war, under any circumstance, at any cost. For all we know he may be brain-damaged, but you know where his heart is. For war.

And so, members of Congress, if you support the surge until next summer, then forget any sense of nuance. Don't try to softsell it, don't say it's the best of all bad options, don't say we owe it to the troops. YOU OWE YOUR DECISION TO AMERICA, AND AMERICA IS NOT ONLY THE TROOPS. PERIOD. You vote for it this time, then screw it, you'll vote for every time, because you are for the war. Don't try to fool us about your vote with pussyfoot language. We know what you are.

Because voters aren't going to fall for it. Voters are going to remember, and if it turns out that you're wrong in your vote, again, like you have so many times before, then accept the consequences. Because Voters Will Make You The Election Target For Removal. This is the last line for you. You can pretend you were fooled, and you were surprised, and you were disappointed, and you were chagrined, and you are now changed. Voters aren't going to pretend. We've been all those things, you dumb wads, and we're tired of being that. You got in this mess, you let the mess get worse, and now you won't vote us out of the mess. FAILURE TO PERFORM IS GROUNDS FOR TERMINATION. It doesn't matter what party you're in - there's a "get out of Iraq now" element of the Republican Party that is growing and ready to vote - Ron Paul can fill you in on the details.

Speaking of Ron Paul, if he's really ready to push the button about ending this war, then he needs to drop the E-bomb at the next Republican debate. If a Republican member of Congress votes for the surge, that incumbent should not be returned to Washington. Put your cards on the table, Ron Paul, if you mean all this.

Dear News Media,

Can somebody ask Fearful Larry his opinion on the percentage of people in prison in the USA who pleaded guilty to a crime they didn't commit?

Oh, and as a followup, maybe they can ask Larry the Scared how we can trust information received in terrorism investigations based on the threat of Guatanamo or other relocation if our public legal system (let alone the secret system of whatever it really is) is so scary that a powerful United States Senator can't even provide the truth.

Republicans of Congress - you are a national embarrassment.

How many more 9/11 anniversaries will we have to go through with an expectation of some media package from Osama bin Laden?

Why do we have to wait until the next President before bin Laden is captured or killed?

A rare example of common sense from a wingnut.

Fred Thompson came to the offices of National Review some years when he was still in the Senate. I liked him fine. He has done nothing, anywhere, ever. The Hubble Telescope could not find what he has done, because he has not done it.

It would be unwise to put such a man in the White House at this moment in history.

Hey, you don't have to convince me.

I'll confess to not paying much attention to OBL's latest rantings. The right wing wack-o-sphere was intrigued by his new beard color.

The beard looks odd to me. It seems curly or frizzy, for one thing, not at all like the stringy beard of yore. In fact "Osama" looks like a muppet, not like the real thing. Rush had a lot of fun today comparing the video to the time when the terrorists claimed to have captured an American soldier, and provided a photo, which turned out to be a G.I. Joe doll.

Whatever.

But would anyone have guessed that this creep would still be at large six freaking years after taking the Twin Towers down? And they called Jimmy Carter ineffective? Another fine job, Dubya, another fine job!

Dear DCCC,

I took your call yesterday and listened to your spiel in a request for funds. Not a word about Iraq. And I told you no. Not today. And not until there's actual progress made in stopping the Iraq War. Everything that you've done so far is overshadowed by the need to do your duty in bringing a close to the Iraq War. It hasn't happened.

I told you to call again in 4 months, and we'll see, because good behavior deserves rewarded. But here's the truth - I really don't want to give you any money. It's not that I don't want candidates getting the money - I just don't want you determining which candidates, and how much. I'm not convinced that your organization is a good investment of my money, and I am pretty convinced that I can make a better investment in governance directly, by giving to a specific candidate. So...

Perform, and perform very strongly, or you'll get the same answer next time. Because I am not impressed.

Really, he will, right on cue.

Send Bush to make a speech there.

Riverbend is now in Syria.

Regardless of Ron Paul's other political positions, it is good to have somebody at the Republican primaries telling the other candidates in front of the voters that they are nuts - Nuts - NUTS - in their zeal for war. And it's at least a bit promising that there's so much applause for such comments at the debates.

MR. WALLACE: Congressman Paul — (interrupted by cheers, applause) — Congressman Paul, your position on the war is pretty simple: Get out. What about, though, trying to minimize the bloodbath that would certainly occur if we pull out in a hurry? What about protecting the thousands of Iraqis who have staked their lives in backing the U.S.? And would you leave troops in the region to take out any al Qaeda camps that are developed after we leave?

REP. PAUL: The people who say there will be a bloodbath are the ones who said it would be a cakewalk, it would be slam dunk, and that it would be paid for by oil. Why believe them? They’ve been wrong on everything they’ve said. Why not ask the people — (interrupted by cheers) — why not ask the people who advise not to go into the region and into the war? The war has not gone well one bit.

Like I said, it's good that this message is being said at the Republican debates. It's sad, though, that only one of the Republican men running has the courage to say it.

And Chris Wallace HAS to try to reinterpret what Paul said:

MR. WALLACE: So, Congressman Paul, and I’d like you to take 30 seconds to answer this, you’re basically saying that we should take our marching orders from al Qaeda? If they want us off the Arabian Peninsula, we should leave? (Laughter.)

REP. PAUL: No! (Cheers, applause.) I’m saying — (laughter) — I’m saying we should take our marching orders from our Constitution. We should not go to war — (cheers, applause) — we should not go to war without a declaration. We should not go to war when it’s an aggressive war. This is an aggressive invasion. We’ve committed the invasion of this war, and it’s illegal under international law. That’s where I take my marching orders, not from any enemy. (Cheers, boos.)

So Wallace is running? What kind of bullshit way is that to ask a debate question?

syc·o·phant

—Synonyms toady, yes man, flunky, fawner, flatterer.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3 — A previously undisclosed exchange of letters shows that President Bush was told in advance by his top Iraq envoy in May 2003 of a plan to “dissolve Saddam’s military and intelligence structures,” a plan that the envoy, L. Paul Bremer, said referred to dismantling the Iraqi Army.

....

“We must make it clear to everyone that we mean business: that Saddam and the Baathists are finished,” Mr. Bremer wrote in a letter that was drafted on May 20, 2003, and sent to the president on May 22 through Donald H. Rumsfeld, then secretary of defense.

After recounting American efforts to remove members of the Baath Party of Saddam Hussein from civilian agencies, Mr. Bremer told Mr. Bush that he would “parallel this step with an even more robust measure” to dismantle the Iraq military.

One day later, Mr. Bush wrote back a short thank you letter. “Your leadership is apparent,” the president wrote. “You have quickly made a positive and significant impact. You have my full support and confidence.”

...

The reference from Mr. Bremer’s note to Mr. Bush is limited to one sentence at the end of a lengthy paragraph in a three-page letter. The letter devoted much more space to recounting what Mr. Bremer described as “an almost universal expression of thanks” from the Iraqi people “to the U.S. and to you in particular for freeing Iraq from Saddam’s tyranny.” It went on to recall how Mr. Bremer had been kissed by an old Iraqi man who was under the impression that Mr. Bremer was Mr. Bush.

Bremer doesn't like getting the finger pointed at him but I don't have much sympathy. He offered one sentence on a critical decision to dismantle the Iraqi Army and spent the rest of the letter sucking up to Bunnypants.

Of course, that's probably exactly how Bush likes it.

Our country has a tough time dealing, directly, honestly, about the oppression of Americans by Americans. Look at how we treated the stories of the Native Americans. The story of slavery, pre-Civil War.

In fact, the story of slavery clearly fits into the story of our country's very anguished labor history. Add to it such examples as Chinese and other imported labor, child labor excesses, the wars over unionizing, the treatment of women and minorities in the workplaces, etc., etc., etc., and we see a theme of oppression - or if you sit on the other side of the fence, at least "extreme advantage taking", by the haves over various have-nots throughout our history.

We cannot seem to face up to this in a meaningful way that can promise an improvement in the future. It still happens today, you only have to give a precursory look at the news to know it. Our government is built to achieve for the haves, and whenever the have-nots are in the way or have something the haves wants, we know how the government will act. There have been short periods of time where the government has acted contrary to this tradition - if even accidentally - but those are the exceptions, and are looked upon as brave moments in our history. Lincoln ending slavery. Roosevelt busting up the trusts. The labor laws of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Labor laws? How did I sneak that in there? Do you remember being taught much about that in public school? Yeah, me neither. But how did we get X-hour work weeks, and sick pay, and safety protections, and the like? How did this happen? Was it magical? Was it given to us by the Lord? Was it due to the benevolence of the haves, just thinking that they should give these things to the have-nots?

The failure of education to provide an adequate understanding to each generation as to how the current conditions of the workplace have been arrived at is a glaring and painful hole in our educational system. Youth should know some history of the tools, processes, and beliefs that have worked in the past in the constant push between the haves and the have-nots. School - which is a basic training ground for the workplace - is the obvious place for that to occur. And yet - how informed are our kids about these things? How many 18 year-olds know who Eugene Debs was? Or any other labor leader? Or of the strikes and other labor actions taken to make work life a bit easier for people? What was the impetus for child labor laws?

Public education not only fails to teach kids this information, but fails to provide a context in which it is rightfully important. The question today, are unions important in the 21st century, ignores that context completely. Why wouldn't effective unions be important in the 21st century? Why wouldn't the power of the collective labor force be important to the individual employee as he/she tries to navigate a workplace growing more and more hostile to individual needs?

Many of the folks that posted, based on my question last week about what American should do on Labor Day, wrote about education. I have been impressed upon that there's a valuable message there. Organized labor should grasp it. Individual parents should grasp it. As workers - and most of us are workers - we are failing to maintain our hand by failing to teach each generation about the advances made in the American workplace by American institutions, such as unions, and by American standards, in government.

When kids leave high school, they ought to be able to answer a simple question - how did they get to go to high school instead of working in a sweat shop or mine or restaurant all day?

I think, somehow, that a country full of people who appreciated the answer to that question would be a country better prepared to deal with the workplace issues of the future. But I don't think it's even being asked in the schools.

A few days ago I asked bloggers:

"What should the federal holiday, "Labor Day", mean to America? And how should we appropriately honor the day?"

and the responses are thought-provoking. Eventually, I hope to post something about what everyone has contributed, because I think this is a conversation the blogosphere should embrace and expand upon until we actually can honor Labor Day in a way that is meaningful in this country. We have a lot of work to do to get to that point. I recommend checking out every post below - there's a point of effort everywhere.

I agree with Thomas at a minimum: whatever we do, we shouldn't use it as a starting gun for a war-with-Iran campaign.

More directly, Pen-Elayne thinks we're celebrating Labor Day at the wrong time of year. And CEOs aren't included.

It should be a day of rest, Ang recommends. A real day of rest.

Mustang Bobby suggests we ponder the question, "Who Do We Work For?" Agreed.

Deb says we should quit homogenizing ALL the holidays, and yes, that's true.

Organize. We are all part of the Labor Movement now. Monkeyfister speaks. Listen.

One that I'll write about later today, because I completely agree, is 42's assessment that it would behoove most Americans to learn a little of the history of the labor movement and the reasons that unions arose in the last century.

Whatever you do, go read John Morgan's post about it. And let's work to get that to eventually happen.

Other posts to consider:

Gort42: Labor Day
Alternate Brain: "And the company takes"
B12 Solipsism: Haymarket Memorial
cannablog: Labor Day music
Fact-esque: A Day Late

At George W. Bush's "Freedom Institute"...

Then he [Bush] said, "We’ll have a nice place in Dallas," where he will be running what he called "a fantastic Freedom Institute" promoting democracy around the world. But he added, “I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch.”

It did not, but soon enough, somebody else will make the decisions on Iraq. And then, Mr. Bush said, he would still be pursuing his "freedom agenda" at his institute, modeled on Stanford’s Hoover Institution, where young democratic leaders from around the world would study.

Freedom from common sense. Freedom from responsibility. Freedom from objectivity. FREEDOM!