by Sebastian Junger, published in Vanity Fair – February 2002
Afghanistan’s master guerrilla commander, Ahmed Shah Massoud, was assassinated by suspected al-Qaeda suicide bombers just two days before September 11. But his Northern Alliance coalition became the U.S.’s most important weapon against the Taliban in a war that combined 19th-century slaughter and 21st-century technology. As alliance soldiers marched on Kabul—with a massed-infantry assault amid the deadly shadows of B-52 bombers—the author saw Massoud’s legacy revealed, in the Afghans’ hatred of foreigners fighting for the Taliban, in their readiness to die for freedom, and even, poignantly, in one man’s act of mercy.
~~~
An unnatural fluttering of the plastic over our windows woke me. It sucked in and snapped back three times, as if the whole world were out of breath, and then it lay quiet.
A gray light leaked into the room. Dogs were barking somewhere across the fields. I got up and pulled on my clothes and climbed onto the mud roof of the house we were staying in. The moon was midway in the sky, waning toward Ramadan, and the east was shot with red. A single B-52 bomber was making its way silently across the sky at 30,000 feet, laying four thin contrails out behind. It continued past me and then made a perfect arc far to the south, where the front lines were.
I couldn’t hear the bombs—they were 20 miles away—but I could feel them: four distinct pressure waves in the air that bumped past me and on up the valley. A few days earlier I’d talked to a mujahid who had fought the Russians in the 1980s. He described a Russian rocket hitting the mouth of a cave he was hiding in. The explosion itself didn’t touch him, he said, but the concussion had made his ears and eyes bleed for days. That was just a Russian rocket; these were 2,000-pound bombs.
I got this from an article about Rudy Guiliani’s clients one of whom was the manufacturer of the now infamous drug Oxycontin:
To drive OxyContin’s sales, Purdue, beginning in 1996, set in motion what D.E.A. officials described as perhaps the most aggressive promotional campaign for a high-powered narcotic ever undertaken. It promoted the drug not only to pain specialists, but to family doctors with little experience in treating serious pain or recognizing drug abuse.
I don’t think it is news that Rudy is a dirt bag who would work for anyone willing to pay his fees. I think it is more interesting how irresponsible the company was to market a highly addictive drug to almost anyone, while at the same time it is mind boggling how a doctor would prescribe a drug like this when he or she did not understand the side effects.
I keep trying to make the ame point about health care that the entire system is messed up and needs an overhaul from top to bottom. The industry is not going to police itself, and the market seems to reward the worst behavior. Hopefully someone will decide that the health and safety of the American population is worth more than a few dollars that they can make selling bad drugs or performing needless procedures and start looking out for their patients. Are their any doctors out there listening? You guys are the one who took the oath to do no harm, maybe you should start living up to it.
Fred Thompson in an effort to get a few votes as decided that people who speak spanish are partially to blame for the mortgage crisis:
During what must’ve been a strenuous day of campaigning in Iowa, GOP candidate Fred Thompson told potential voters at his one-and-only appearance that immigrants deserve some of the blame for the mortgage crisis.
“A lot of them couldn’t communicate with the people they were getting the mortgage from,” the lagging Republican told an Iowa audience during his “Clear Conservative Choice bus tour,” according to the Los Angeles Times
I wonder how long it will be before one of the republican presidential contenders blames immigrants for the Iraq war.
From the 2005 book ‘Greenspan’s Fraud‘ by Professor of Economics (SMU, Dallas) Ravi Batra:
The verdict of history is that ethics works, and deception designed to foster the interests of the few does not. Ethical policies start out with direct benefits to the poor and the middle class, whereas deceptive policies directly favor the affluent in the name of benefiting the poor and the middle class. Ethical actions generate a trickle-up of prosperity, whereas deceptive actions offer a trickle-down. Trickle-up means that the poor benefit the most, followed by the middle class and the affluent. Trickle-down, by contrast, signifies that the wealthy reap maximum reward, possibly followed by the middle class and the destitute.
Ethical prescriptions keep the tax burden low on the poor and those in the middle, while unethical policies transfer the tax burden from the wealthy to the poor and the middle class. Ethical ideas keep aggregate demand high through high wages stemming from free enterprise, whereas deceptive practices try to revive demand in the name of free enterprise by generating debt. Ethical measures work for the benefit of all, while unethical measures benefit the few and torment the most.
Let’s take another look at the 1950s and the 1960s, when high economic growth coexisted with confiscatory income tax rates, as high as 90 percent on top incomes, but never below 70 percent. Those were the halcyon days of ethical economic policy. The sales tax rate hovered around 2 percent, whereas the Social Security tax for an individual worker barely averaged 3 percent on the first $5,000 of wages.
The tax system was ultra-progressive in the 1950s and the 1960s. In addition, the minimum wage in the period averaged $1.25, which is about $8 in 2004 prices. The economic policy was highly ethical; it was designed to provide a living wage to the unskilled and minimize the burden on those who can least afford to pay taxes. It produced vast benefits for society. Growth averaged 4 percent in the 1950s and 4.4 percent in the 1960s even without the bonanza of the computer evolution; real waged soared for all, at the average rate of 2.5 percent per year; consumer, corporate, and government debt was extremely low. Unemployment fell to as low as 3.5 percent in 1969.
Now let’s see what unethical policies, such as Greenomics, have accomplished. Between 1981 and 1983, the tax system became ultra-regressive, and has remained so to this day. Today the payroll tax is 6.2 percent on a wage base of $87,900, along with a Medicare tax of 1.45 percent. Overall, the Social Security tax burden is now much higher than in the 1950s and the 1960s. You can see what an enormous weight these levies place on the poor and middle-income groups. The top-bracket income tax rate is now just 35 percent, with capital gains and dividends barely facing taxation. The ultra-regressive system is going to be even more regressive in the future, because just as tax rates fall at the federal level, those enacted by states are expected to rise to make up for lost federal aid.
What did Greenomics have to show for itself in 2004? A trade deficit exceeding $600 billion a year? A federal budget deficit in excess of $400 billion? A federal debt over $6 trillion, compared to just $366 billion in 1969? An overall debt level that is twice the level of GDP? Net foreign debt in excess of $3 trillion, compared to a surplus in 1969? An after-tax production wage, earned by 80 percent of working Americans, that is just three-fourths of its level in the 1960s? And, of course, a CEO wage that is several hundred times the production wage, compared to just 40 times during the 1960s. It is abundantly clear that the CEO club now owns the government and economic policy.
The fall in the after-tax minimum wage is really unbelievable. In 1968, the hourly minimum was $1.60 per hour. Since the cost of living has risen by a factor of five, the equivalent minimum wage in today’s prices is $8, compared to the actual level of $5.15. This amounts to a wage decline of 36 percent. Furthermore, the Social Security tax rate in 1968 was just 4.4 percent, compared to 6.2 percent today. So after the payroll tax deduction, the minimum-wage drop approximates 40 percent.
I got this from Matthew Yglassias who is talking about Shannon Brownlee:
Even better, the thesis is admirably clear: A system in which health care workers are paid for “providing health care” rather than for providing good health outcomes is a system that’s set-up to generate lots of wasteful and counterproductive spending.
This may explain part of the reason that the current health care mess is not completely the fault of insurance companies, these companies are stuck with a system that is designed to generate revenue for health care workers, even in cases where those workers are not producing better outcomes for their patients. To fix the system people will have to take a rational look at what kinds of care offer real benefits and what kind of care do nothing more than provide a good living for doctors. The same can be said for drug companies. People should have access to drugs that improve their lives, but it is stupid to suggest that the government should help people pay for drugs like Vioxx that do nothing but cause heart problems and early death. Â
 The more I look at health care the more I think it is hard to find one villain, the insurance companies certainly are cold hearted and don’t seem to care about the people they insure, the drug companies seem to be more worried about how to market a drug, than whether or not it really works or is even safe. Doctors seem all to happy to prescribe drugs based on the reccomendation of their pharmacutical reps. It seems like all the people who should be looking out for the best interests of the patient are far more concerned with their own interests. Even the patient who insists on being given anti-biotics for a viral infection is not without blame. Â
 Everyone needs to look in the mirror and ask themselves why the US spends twice as much on health care as any other devoloped country without getting any better health outcomes. While at the same time almost 50 million people do not have access to health care.
“Will Smith’s Bummer” – I took Aaron to “I Am Legend” for his birthday. I wouldn’t bother if I were you. Once the dog dies, you stop caring. (And no, that’s not a real spoiler, so spare me the emails. If you don’t see the German shepherd heading for oblivion within the first five minutes, you need cognitive assistance.) In general, the increased cardiovascular skills of zombies these past few years have been a great disappointment. The novelty wore off pretty quickly. The great thing about the old-school zombies was that they staggered toward you slowly, menacingly and you could even bob and weave around them a bit. Now they come at you like bats out of Gitmo. No suspense. Just jumps. Whatever happened to suspense?
Sounds like this one is another mind-numbing CGI orgy. What’s Woody Allen been up to lately? Something funny I hope!
Jim recommended Idiocracy, and I have to back him up on that. Mike Judge (Office Space, King of the Hill, Bevis and Butthead) hit the nail on the head with this one. The bit where they’re talking about electrolytes is what I’ve been reminded of most in my day to day.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 10:34 PM GMT+4
O.K., more seriously, it’s actually Mr. Obama who’s being unrealistic here, believing that the insurance and drug industries — which are, in large part, the cause of our health care problems — will be willing to play a constructive role in health reform. The fact is that there’s no way to reduce the gross wastefulness of our health system without also reducing the profits of the industries that generate the waste.
If I understand him, he is saying that insurance companies and pharmacutical companies cannot have any role in health care reform, and it is naivete on the part of Obama to expect them to do anything to help correct the problems in the healthcare system. To me it seems like Krugman is the one being naive, most Americans like their current healthcare, the goal should should be to insure every American and provide the best medical care. Like it or not the insurance companies and the drug companies have the expertise to do that, it is just a matter of creating the incentive.
Krugman seems to feel that the only way to make anyone cooperate is through force, no wonder he supported the Iraq war. The only way health care reform can succeed is if everyone has a stake in it, especially those who work in it every day. To suggest that a new healthcare system can be created without the assistance of insurance companies and drug companies is more naive than talking with them to see what they want. and what they can offer.
Joe Lieberman is Gollem, and this storyline (Lieberman Endorses McCain) connecting him with McCain is Tolkenesque in that two men who had been considered in the past as throw-backs to a time when the Senate was occupied by men whose willingness to toe the party line at the expense of the country wasn’t nearly what it is today. These were two men who each got close enough to the ring for it to horrifically deform the both of them. The success that President Bush has enjoyed all these years, running around with the same shameless playbook, combined with their aspirations to create the monsters of today. After the 2004 election you could almost hear the rusty wheels turning, as the war continued to get worse by the day, by being forcefully dishonest and impugning the patriotism of his opposition, even a sleazy lout like Bush could pull it off. Obviously, “being real” wasn’t going to work, so the two tired old men figured they’d scheme out a way to win in 2008, and the devil had a contract for them to sign.
The game plan was to stake out an area over to the right of just about everyone else when it came to Operation Kill Brown People, and if possible, to somehow master the trick of getting the entire country to quiver on command when hearing the word “terrorism”. To be able to set up their base camp way out there in Bauersville, theoretically it would be difficult for another candidate to outflank them. Just blabber on about progress, Iran, terrorists in the heartland if we lose in Iraq, and pull out the bear mace on whoever talks back (see Ron Paul). That was and continues to be the game plan for Lieberman and McCain, and the ticket was set long before anyone mentioned how their positions curiously became identical overnight.
Being a guy with bills to pay, mouths to feed and no press credentials, it’s up to professional journalists to finally get to the bottom of this. Triangulation is the word that gets correctly associated with Hillary’s logarithmic politics, but in the case of McCain/Lieberman, the word doesn’t work. It’s not bloody enough…
Here’s my previous coverage of this McCain-Lieberman deal:
(h/t Think Progress) I’d had a feeling for a while that McCain and Lieberman had made a deal, and now that McCain is all but out of the race, here come the neocons to try and rescue Lieberman. I can’t wait for the staffers w/ knowledge of all this to start talking with Bob Woodward about it. The beltway writers didn’t seem willing to point out or even aware of how the senator’s positions appeared to be so closely aligned with McCain’s, and typical of the beltway echo chamber, Lieberman’s gravitation towards power – this Greenspan-esque character flaw of his – wasn’t given the attention it deserved. Presidential politics regularly ravage the minds of human beings, never more so than when someone who was at the top suddenly finds himself at the bottom in the blink of an eye. After failing to come close to the nomination in 2004 or a VP slot on Kerry’s ticket, Lieberman went out hunting for coattails willing to drag him along. McCain took him in, and seemingly overnight, Lieberman became a Teddy Ruxpin doll loaded up with a tape of familiar talking points. He has taken it to the extreme, and if his goal of attaining Presidential power isn’t advanced at all following the 2008 election, expect him to either drift off into obscurity or immediately identify the Republican with the best chance to win in 2012 and do the same thing that he did with McCain this time around.
I don’t think any writers pre-dated my assertion below.
Al on 7/17/2007 – In terms of the latter, Senators McCain and Lieberman, whose backroom deal to share a Presidential ticket having been made (my gut tells me this) a long time ago, who now flail and sputter violent predictions of what’s to come, how it would be fun to kill Persians for a while, yet assessing Iraq’s security situation today as positive, reassuring, not so bad, safe…
And now we have the circumstantial evidence to go along with this theory:
Say It’s So, Joe Vice President Lieberman?
by William Kristol – Weekly Standard, 11/19/2007, Volume 013, Issue 10
I shit you not – they brought in an astrologer to predict the FED’s rate cut. Keep in mind that Rupert Murdoch’s tendency to dumb down everything within his domain, is about to be applied to my beloved Wall Street Journal and Barrons. If this is an example of what that’s going to be like…
Don’t let your beloved Bauer-heads catch wind of this fun fact…they might break out in a rage and start torturing your pets.
(HuffingtonPost) Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Ron Paul have little in common politically, except their opposition to the Iraq war. Both top a new list of presidential candidates receiving campaign contributions from people who work for the four branches of the military and National Guard, according to a study released Thursday by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. Obama, an Illinois senator, brought in more donations from this group than any White House contender from either party. The Democrat announced Wednesday his plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2008.
This is one of those a broken clock is right twice a day things, although in the case of Dana Perino it is more like an old calander being right.Â
Since the Iran NIE was released, conservatives have desperately tried to discredit it. Former Vice President Cheney aide David Wurmser questioned “how much it can really be banked on.†John Bolton called for congressional investigations into the “politicized†intelligence community.
Some conservatives in Congress are following these calls, proposing a “second look†into the NIE in the form of a commission “based on similar review panels convened in the mid-1970s to reconsider the intelligence agencies’ analysis of the Soviet Union.†“We just see politics injected into this,†claimed Sen. John Ensign’s (R-NV) office.
Today, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino rejected the partisan witch-hunt into the intelligence community. “They assessed all of the intelligence,†she declared. “I think that they should be supportedâ€:
This does seem like good news as a war with Iran is a bad idea. Hopefully, this is the end of the war mongering towards Iran, but with Dick Cheney in charge you never know.
With the new schedule, I’m really behind on my research when it comes to this story right here. Have the Pentagon and VA been cooking the books? Why on earth would they feel compelled to do something like that?
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, the same one who admitted to not knowing what the Cuban Missile Crisis was, got a little bit more than she bargained for the other day. How do you think she handled it? Check out the look she shoots back at Helen at the end:
This one was from last week, but seeing as how this guy is the minority leader in the senate, also in light of how Republican policies have led directly to the Walter Reed scandal and the decimation of our military (both active and otherwise), with Iraq taking a back seat in most campaign coverage I thought it was important to remind people of what their attitude towards the military has been throughout this war.
At least four men have already paid with their lives in Mexico during the ensuing confusion which followed the crash of the CIA-connected Gulfstream business jet which was carrying more than 4 tons of cocaine as well as an yet-unspecified amount of heroin, in the jungle outside of Merida in Mexico’s Yucatan on September 24th of this year.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Al Swearengen at 10:14 PM GMT+4
This one’s a bit long (35 minutes), but it’s one of those speeches that define a moment so perfectly, that it will represent what a person is remembered for long after they’re dead. Dig this…
I had one of these camped outside the living room window. The boys said hello to it every morning, but the wind this week was too much for the little guy to take. This video cheered me up.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Video at 12:18 AM GMT+4
When Hilary Clinton voted for the Kyle-Lieberman amendment, which designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization she signaled that she was quite happy with the way the neo-cons conduct forign policy. Designate someone a terrorist, refuse to negotiate with them, and then lose a war to them. If one vote shows that Hillary does not have the judgement to be president it was probably that one.  It looks like some of her democratic opponents are starting to notice the same thing.
Clinton came under criticism from her rivals, who highlighted her September vote in Tuesday’s debate, which came the day after release of a new intelligence report that says Iran stopped development of a nuclear weapon four years ago.
Edwards said Clinton gave President Bush just what he wanted when she voted to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. Clinton said her vote was meant to encourage diplomacy.
The problem with saying that she voted for the amendment to encourage “diplomacy” is that “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” so she knew or should have known that the amendment was designed to pave the way for war, if one thing that Hillary Clinton has done should keep her from being president it is her vote on this amendment.
The Las Vegas Sun has an interesting article regarding illegal immigration. The author seems to be warning republicans about exploiting anger towards immigrants, not because racism is wrong but because it might cost them money.
And American business leaders – especially in agriculture and in two industries crucial to Las Vegas, construction and hospitality – should also be concerned, as it looks more and more likely that the nominee of their preferred party will have committed himself to policies that will cut off the flow of low-cost undocumented workers they’ve relied on to pick their fruit, build their homes and clean their hotel rooms.
In fact he does not seem to see anything wrong with exploiting undocumented workers, and does not seem to see anything wrong with exploiting the anger towards these workers, accept for the fact that it might cost business owners money. Welcome to the modern republican party where the only problem with pandering to hatred is that it might cost you money.
Here are the details. Another one bites the dust…HBO really knows how to murder a good thing. In this instance it probably wasn’t their fault. Either way, this will be a classic. I’ll try to get some clips posted later on. If anyone has a favorite, leave it in the comments and I’ll get it posted. Here are some clips (High on that Pats game! Can’t sleep…)
Posted by Al Swearengen as Comedy at 7:19 PM GMT+4
In 1997, Huckabee claimed that Jesus would have agreed with him on supporting the death penalty. Shortly before a triple execution in Arkansas in Jan. 1997, a caller called into Huckabee’s show on Arkansas Educational Television Network and asking how he squared his Christian teachings with his support for the death penalty. As the Arkansas Times reported on Jan. 22, 1997:
“Interestingly enough,†Huckabee allowed, “if there was ever an occasion for someone to have argued against the death penalty, I think Jesus could have done so on the cross and said, ‘This is an unjust punishment and I deserve clemency’.â€
(Think Progress) Jesus, though, did not ask for clemency. Therefore, according to Huckabee’s logic, Jesus must have been in favor of capital punishment.
