BUSH-SUPPORTING SUV OWNERS should rejoice that the sky-high gas-prices are enriching Bush's friends in the oil-industry: profits there now are unheard-of !
HoustonChronicle

 
EXCESS SAVINGS OUTSIDE AMERICA are causing the worldwide economic imbalance, says R.Samuelson in RMTNNEWS,30Apr.

Conventional wisdom says that wealthy people already have all the consumer goods they want, and will save, not spend, a large part of their income. As globalization shifts more money from ordinary people to the wealthy all over the world, this phenomenon is observed. Eventually, this should lead to worldwide Depression (underconsumption).

The exception to this rule is America. Money has been shifted from ordinary people to the rich--and no doubt the very wealthy CAN'T spend more. But the merely 'well-to-do' in America are spending like drunken sailors, keeping the world economy afloat.

(The U.S. Pentagon is also spending wildly. Years ago, a financial analyst said that wild Pentagon spending was keeping the world economy going, preventing world-Depression.)

Both the Pentagon and the 'well-to-do' spend much of their money on imports, so their spending doesn't create wealth for 'local' corporations or create U.S. jobs.(Ordinary Americans so far have foolishly spent above their incomes, and continue to spend on oil imports.) This creates a huge Trade Deficit for America: $61,000 millions in a recent month.This deficit is financed by our being able, so far, to borrow from savers overseas.
--------------------
Experts say this world imbalance can't last for much longer. Foreign Central Banks may quit buying our bonds or even start selling them.Then our interest rates will skyrocket, aggravating the stagflation here (rising prices without rising wages).
----------------
I'm not an economist; but this seems a reasonable interpretation of the facts Samuelson cites.

 
MORE ATTACKS ON MONDAY: ChinaView
-----------
116 killed since Thursday(thru Sunday)/including 11 GIs.
WashPost
------------------------------------------
FIFTY-SEVEN IRAQ CASUALTIES on SATURDAY .
(7 GIs killed on Friday & Saturday).
USATODAY
-----------
At least FIVE suicide bombers struck on Saturday.
WashPost It's amazing that guerillas never run out of suicide volunteers. That's an index of how much we are hated by Muslims..and there are 1000 millions of them, of many races and cultures, scattered all over the world.

How could we have been so dumb as to stumble into a fight with such a group, including many eager to die for Allah? !
---------------------------
A Survey of experts was taken by ABC/NEWS about the permanent impact of our Iraq invasion.

NOT ONE mentioned the real possibility that Iraq would split into 3 ministates. The present 'all/Iraq' parliament is pretty much a fiction. The 2 dominant sects (Shiites and Kurds) are not united by race, by religion, or even by territorial contiguity (they're separated by a very large Sunni/Arab region).

Moreover the Kurds have openly admitted that they want such an extensive autonomy as to count as a deFacto secession.

The Shiite militias (now composing most of the feckless native militia) can't even defend themselves, let alone squash the Sunni/Arab guerillas. This militia will be even more helpless if the combat-experienced ex-Saddamite leaders are purged, as the Shiite parliamentarians demand.

Result? The writ of the new Shiite Prime Minister (Ja'afri) will not run outside the Southern Shia region. Sooner or later, one would imagine, the Shiites will forget the pretence of ruling all/Iraq, and will settle for running their own ministate, as Kurds are going to do.

They'll have lots of oil, the ONLY oil-exporting port (Basra) and a friendly Shiite neighbor in Iran.

The only question will be: who will rule the middle (Sunni/Arab) region? One imagines that the ex-Saddamite officers will be allowed to come out in the open and run this region. (They could be expected to turn on their former allies, the Zarqawi-type religious fanatics.)

This middle region doesn't have much oil--so unless these new rulers are GUARANTEED a share of the oil-money from Kurdistan & Shiastan, they will go on trying to sabotage oil-exports.

Right now the populations are mixed; e.g., many Shiites living in the Sunni/Arab region (including Baghdad).
The minority in each region will be driven out.
But Kurdistan and Shiastan will both be wealthy enough from exported oil to support the new immigrants.

 
'NO PEACE TILL U.S. PULLS OUT' says the Council of Muslim Scholars (a main source of Sunni opinion).
Boston.com
So much for the fantasy that guerillas would be pacified by the naming of the ministers of the new government.

The only chance is that the new Shiite Minister of the Interior can organize the native militia (without leadership roles for Saddamite officers !) in a way that will squash the guerillas. Fat chance, at least in the Sunni/Arab region!

 
EUROPEAN GROWTH,CONFIDENCE SAGGING:
For many reasons (mainly the oil crisis) growth (increase in demand) is sagging, as is consumer confidence.
[FinTimes,29Apr]
When people must spend extra for gasolene,etc--then they have less to spend on other goods/services.

(These indices are also sagging in America. And Japan is in its 7th year of actual Deflation.)

The long-run trend is toward DEFLATION, followed by recession and world Depression), NOT toward inflation. The First World can produce FAR MORE THAN IT CAN SELL ANYWHERE.

"Beggar-your-neighbor"policies will increase (e.g., U.S. letting its dollar sag in value, tracked by sagging value of rimini. These sags are helping China's Herculean BalanceOfTrade, but not America's puny exports.)

Britain will have to let its pound sink; Eurozone must let its Euro sink (or devalue it openly). Else their exports--and their jobs & profits--will sink like a stone.

When all the competitors devalue their currency, then devaluation will help no country..but China will keep its advantage--unless the other countries have the good sense to forget 'free trade' dogmas and impose quotas on what Chinese goods can be imported into each country.

 
"U.S. NEEDS INTELLIGENT DISCRIMINATION AND PATIENCE to further democracy in Middle East--the kind of discrimination and patience U.S. showed in decades of 'Soviet containment'. Many different kinds of difficulty can be foreseen." [says Prof in FinTimes.]

He doesn't mention that U.S. is now not the same country as it was during the Cold War The Dumbing of America is no black-humor joke, but is very,very real and terrifying.

In the Cold War, we had leadership from sages like Truman, Marshall, and later, James Baker. Now we are led by the 3 stooges: Rumsfeld, Rice, and Cheney--I'm not counting their puppet Bush.

Given the childish, impatient ignorance of even the elite in our populace, and the borderline sanity of our present leaders, we should just abandon any idea of meddling beneficially in the affairs of the outside world.

We won't abandon that dream, of course--because childish ignorance is quite arrogant. But the rest of the world should realize that our meddling will NOT be beneficial.

 
U.S. profits, bonuses for execs surge up (especially in war industries and oil companies)--but general wage-increases were the lowest in decades. And inflation is more than 3% per annum. REUTERS

Actually, that means that PRICES have risen 3%. Price-rise without wage-rise is STAGFLATION. The jump in interest-rates which the Fed is planning is folly in the face of Stagflation.
---------------
The bad news: Bush's new Soc.Sec. proposal would lower benefits for top two in three Americans, exempting only those earning $25,000 a year or less.USATODAY29APR

The good news: Many more individual workers here WILL shortly be earning less than $25,000 a year. So many more will be spared any lessening of SS benefits, under Bush's proposal.

 
A LOONY MUSLIM SECT IN FRANCE: [tablighi jamaat]They imitate The Prophet in their beard-style and the length of their trousers. They put left foot first into bathroom, but put on right pants-leg first.They are very effective proselytizers, and a good number of their converts move on to sects like the murderous Salafi.
USATODAY, print edition,29Apr[link not possible]
see also NYTIMES,28Apr

RELIGIONS are stronger than ever, with mostly strange and evil effects.

Thousands of Muslims pray fervently and sincerely to ALLAH for guidance. The thought that follows these prayers (e.g., "We should murder unarmed infidels!") is taken as coming from ALLAH.

Hundreds (or thousands) of Zionist Jews pray earnestly and fervently to JAHWEH, then conclude that He did give them, 3000 years ago, in perpetuity, the entire Holy Land..He wants them to kill any rivals to that possession.

U.S. Fundamentalists like Bush used to hate Jews. But now(after sincere, fervent prayer) they've given a new interpretation of the Book of Revelations; they now think that the Zionist land-grab means the hastening of JESUS' return. (Bush has said several times that he gets direct guidance from GOD.)

Cardinal Ratzinger and his brand of U.S. Catholics have prayed earnestly and fervently; this has reinforced their belief that Kerry and his supporters are in a state of grievous sin.

They don't feel the same about the Bushies and their war (though it was condemned earlier by Vatican spokesman as 'unjust, illegal, and disastrous')--so of course they were guided by GOD to re-elect the goofy,murderous Bush.

Remembering that all these different believers shaped their ideas after praying sincerely for guidance, one wants to ask:

"Could we talk to Someone Else up there Who's more sensible?"

 
N.KOREA CAN LAUNCH NUKE-ARMED MISSILES? Yes ! says a honcho of the DefenseIntelligenceAgency.

Why say this? presumably to render less ridiculous the billions Bushies are spending on 'anti-missile-missiles.'(If N.Korea didn't exist, these guys would have to invent it. Everyone knows that no such A.M.M could stop sophisticated Russian or Chinese missiles from hitting U.S. Only N.K.'s missiles would be thought crude enough to PERHAPS be stopped by our absurd A.M.Ms.)

D.I.A. hurriedly qualified: "N.K. COULD make these nuke missiles; but we don't know they HAVE produced them." USATODAY,29Apr.
--------------
Two separate issues: A) COULD N.K. attack our West Coast cities with such missiles? Possible, not probable.
(B) Why would they want to?

And (B) is subdivided: (B1) Would they want to launch a first-strike at us (thus assuring that N.K. would get nuked off the map)? Hardly.

(B2) If we launched a first-strike at them, would they want to use nuke-missiles to retaliate? (That's what's most worrying to Bushie hawks, who want to bomb N.K. so bad they can taste it--even though we'd gain nothing by doing so.)

Then another pair:
--B2a) Would they COUNT ON being able to launch such missiles after we bombed the shit out of them?
Doubtful .

B2b) Would they have easier methods than ICBM's to strike at our homeland in retaliation? Of course they would.
--they could launch a cruise missile from any freighter near our coasts in the Pacific. There is no pretence that our A.M.Ms could counter such mobile missiles.
----------
--They could load a nuke into any one of the TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND gigantic SHIP-CONTAINERS entering our ports each DAY--UNINSPECTED!
--------
REFLECTIONS:
--Bushies lied about Saddam's alleged nuke-preparations as threats to the world;thus they lied us into war.

But then they let N.K. ACTUALLY DEVELOP nukes (!), which DO threaten the world--e.g., if N.K. sells them to other volatile regimes. Indeed, their bellicose talk actually provided the excuse and incentive to N.K. for hurrying nuke development.
----------
--Earlier, Bushies said "We can't let N.K. develop Nukes,because then JAPAN would insist on doing so !" (they could do so in a trice). Well, in retaliation, N.K. could easily destroy Seoul (even without nukes!) and could easily destroy many Japanese cities with short-range nuke-missiles. They could also slaughter tens of thousands of American GIs stationed in So.Korea and Okinawa. (Bushies don't seem to care about this contingency.)

So far, Japan's militaristic govt. has played 'tame poodle' for the Bushies. But once their people realize that their alliance with bellicose Bushies involves the possible destruction of their country by N.K., this could change fast.
------------------
In general, the billions spent on our silly A.M.M program are completely wasted as a way to block N.K. attacks on us, first-strike or in retaliation.
----------
On the other hand, who cares what the DIA says? Their predictions have the same accuracy-value of those from an old psychic gypsy woman in New Orleans.

 
GUERILLAS CAUSE OVER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY CASUALTIES ON FRIDAY,29Apr. (including 9 GIs). Targets were mainly our native militia, (plausibly regarded as 'collaborators with infidel invaders' by the guerillas.)

As usual, U.S.spokesman said, "These are the acts of desperate men "(presumably they know they are losing). USATODAY

Sure they do.

 
MOST MINISTRIES NAMED: in the new Iraq interim regime--but some important posts were not yet filled.
----------
INTERIOR ministry (in charge of suppressing guerillas) went to a Shiite. REUTERS
(Will he purge the Saddamites from our native militia?
Will this cripple the militia by removing the only competent leaders?)

 
IRAQ & VIETNAM: [ltr to USATODAY ]
J.Goldberg(28Apr) cites several difference between the Viet war and our present Iraq war.

But he ignores the important similarities:

--In both cases, we launched an unprovoked invasion.

--Our invading force didn't speak the language, or understand the local culture.

--We provoked a nationalist insurgency which we couldn't suppress.

--We caused thousands of civilian deaths and tens of thousands of GI casualties. (In Viet war, millions of civilian casualties and about 300,000 GI casualties.
Iraq casualty numbers are still rising.)

--The Viet war was for nothing; we got thrown out. The Iraq war will likely have a similar outcome.

 
LATIN DEFIANCE: Half-a-dozen Latin American countries are defying the Bushie attempt to force 'free-trade' agreements on them, and indeed seem to be forming an anti-Bush alliance. InformationClearinghouse

Elsewhere, China is sniffing out alliances with Russia, with India, with African nations.

 
POLLS (as of 25Apr):
Bush in general, approve: 47%
But: disapprove STRONGLY is 13 % higher than approve STRONGLY (worst in his career).

Bush on Soc.Security: yes 31%, no 64%

He has squandered his 'pol.capital'. He's now a real lame duck. Perhaps we'll see less of him as salesman.

'Change Senate rules? [abolish filibuster?]
yes 31%/ NO 64%. ABC/NEWS

But was this before or after silly TV deluge of 'filibuster is
vs. Christians' ? (poll was 21Apr->24Apr..the deluge was last Sunday, 24Apr).

Approve of B's energy policies? yes 35%, no 54%
---------
"War worth fighting?" NO 56%
"Approve of B's handling of Iraq?" NO 56%.
Another poll showed that 50% now say Bush misled us on Saddam's WMDs (vs. 'Bush was mistaken').

Another poll: 'We shd pull out some troops!" 23%
"We shd pull out ALL troops!" 33%
Total 56%. [Marist poll, cited by Juan Cole]
---------------
(One wonders if 45% still say that an Iraqi was among the '9/11 Nineteen' !)

In all the polls, the anti-Bush people never number over 57%! One suspects that 45% of Americans would go to Hell with Bush...one suspects they will.
------
In spite of Bushies' refusal to fund adequate Homeland Defense--56% still approve of B. on 'Security' !

(That's probably because we haven't yet seen a repeat of 9/11 attack. What's sad is that when this repeat happens, foolish Americans will cuddle even closer to Bushies!)
----------
"If you had 15 minutes to talk to Bush, what would you say?" 'GET OUT OF IRAQ!' said 1 in 4.
8% said "Fix Energy crisis."/6%: "Leave SS alone!'
Gallup Poll, cited by Monsters&Critics.com

 
U.S. GRABS ZARQUAWI'S LAPTOP?
"We nearly got him!" but some doubt he was in that truck.
"Well, we got his laptop, with lots of info!"
ABC/NEWS

However, if he could escape, why wouldn't he take his laptop with him? Perhaps the laptop is filled with DIS information!

 
THREE SENIOR TALIBAN HONCHOS HAVE RECENTLY SURRENDERED (OUT OF 150).
U.S. GENERAL ANNOUNCES THAT PAKISTAN WILL START AN ANTI-TALIBAN OFFENSIVE. Pak.general says this claim is irresponsible AND FALSE.
Pak. won't let U.S. come fight in Pakistan. They have shot U.S./Afghan infiltrators.

Pak. generals say they're concerned not to enrage local tribal leaders.But some say that Pak. intelligence agency is
HELPING Taliban! Guardian
----------
Kharzai declared a 'holy war' vs. opium. (Taliban managed somehow to cut opium exports.) U.S. said its troops were now helping in cutting opium growth.
But opium is still grown and exported (80% of world's opium!) ABC/NEWS

(Practically all heroin exported to England is from Afghanistan. That's their payment for joining in our nutty invasion there.)

 
FOUR HUNDRED ATTACKS EACH WEEK, with 60 casualties a day (Iraqi, U.S.,or foreigners)..about where things were in the last half of last year (after photos of our prison atrocities circulated). ABC/NEWS,26Apr
In other words, U.S. has made NO PROGRESS in Security for the last year!

(An INDEPENDENT reporter says GIs have been told not to report any attacks where no GIs were killed or wounded.)
----------
SOMETHING' S FISHY! The figures above are released by Pentagon. But 60 attacks each day cause only 60 casualties each day? That's very unlikely..especially since the number of attacks is understated (see above).

 
TERROR ATTACKS DOUBLE OR TRIPLE THIS YEAR.

Bushies said number of terror-attacks worldwide was down (which meant they were 'winning the War on Terror'.)

Then they had to admit that instead, the number of attacks has sky-rocketed.

If you count the terror-attacks involving Kashmir, the number of attacks has tripled from '03 to '04. If you don't count those, the number has doubled. ABC/NEWS,26Apr

 
WORLD OIL MAY BE 'PEAKING'. That is, less will be produced each year, and it will be more expensive each year. A longtime oil expert claims this in INDEPENDENT.26Apr

World must turn to COAL (with disastrous effects on global warming) or to new sources (e.g., wind-power, sun-power and tide-power for electricity which would power vehicles). The second possibility is unlikely, because only a few experts admit the crisis. So it's coal--back to the 19th century, only with 21st-century disastrous consequences.

 
'SOVIET COLLAPSE WAS GREATEST GEOPOLITICAL CATASTROPHE OF 20TH CENTURY'--says Putin, astonishing everyone.
INDEPENDENT
It certainly was a catastrophe for the Russians;
thousands found themselves living in foreign and unfriendly countries. And in Russia itself, population has dropped in a way unheard of in world history, except in times of famine or war!

But with high price of oil, Putin is now in catbird seat; he doesn't have to appease Western investors.
He warns that any 'velvet' revolution in Russia (involving non-violent demonstrations) will be squashed.

 
ATTENTION BACK TO NORTH KOREA!
Bushie hawks are determined to get UN Security Council to impose a blockade/embargo on North Korea, to punish them for their nuclear advances.

N.Korea says again that it would regard UN sanctions as an 'act of war'. This might mean that it would launch a first strike against the tens of thousands of GIs still vulnerable in SouthKorea and Guadacanal.
INDEPENDENT,26Apr

Bushies might love this, as an excuse to nuke N.K. off the map.

But let's hope that the Security Council will flatly refuse the insane measure of sanctions..why in the world would they yield to U.S. after the flat insult offered to UN by the naming of frothing Bolton as our ambassador to UN?

 
OUR VIET BUG-OUT: A Brit journalist stayed to watch the ugly end of our 'campaign to bring democracy to Vietnam." This crusade brought death to FOUR MILLION viets, (injury or sickness to how many more?)and caused about 300,000 U.S. casualties. GUARDIAN,26Apr

It was all for nothing. The 'enemy' took over (their own country). We'd been told that if Saigon fell, then other 'dominoes' would fall to the Communists. But they didn't.
We were told that the VC were the advance army of the dreaded Chinese Communists (in spite of the fact that Chinese and Viets had been enemies for 3000 years).
Instead, Communist Vietnam and Communist China were shortly at war (briefly) with each other.

For a while, Americans were traumatized against further meddling overseas. But they had the memory of mayflies--and sure enough, other (much smaller) crusades in Panama, in GRANADA (!), in Iraq, in Kosovo, were tried out. Then the dumb giant blundered into another huge fiasco in Iraq.

 
5% DROP IN MARCH (FOLLOWING 2.5% DROP IN PREVIOUS MONTH) in key index of U.S. 'durable' purchases. FinTimes
-------------------
JAPAN FACES DEFLATION: While Greenspan & other GOP flaks are chattering about the danger of inflation, and the national danger from 'too much consumer spending and not enough saving'--Japan is a grim example of what happens when people decide to save instead of spend.

Their prices have dropped FOR SEVEN STEADY YEARS ! ..in spite of desperate govt. attempts to 'prime the pump' by spending, and encouraging consumers to spend. FinTimes,26 Apr.

There is a 'deflationary spiral' conceivable as well as the 'inflationary spiral' we hear about from right-wing economic journalists here. If I expect prices to go on dropping, I'll postpone big purchases until I can buy them cheaper--thus aggravating deflation.

Nincompoops here talk about replacing the income tax (in spite of all tax-breaks, still perceived as too hard on the wealthy!) with a national sales tax, which would discourage spending. Consumer confidence here is dropping fast--but spending by the half-wealthy, and addictive spending by those who can't afford it--these so far have prevented price drops--though they haven't allowed price-rises.

But in the long-run: there is a worldwide excess of productive capacity. NO 1st-world country can sell all the goods/services it could produce. (That's why they're all so rabid in competing to export!) Sooner or later, deflation will be observed..then recession & perhaps another Great Depression.
---------
Germany has been on the edge of recession, with unemployment about 10%, for some time./NYTIMES27Apr

 
MILD EMPHASIS ON U.S.YOUTH LEARNING LANGUAGES:In '94, feds started funding university studies in languages. (How much funding?) In '02, after 9/11 alarm, they emphasized Arabic,Chinese, Korean, Russian.

Today, 11 years after start of emphasis, NINE PERCENT of Americans speak their own language plus one other. (Most of them,one suspects, speak Spanish. They are in demand to deal with all our immigrants (legal and illegal) from LatinAmerica. Many of these learning a second language may be from immigrant families--too suspected by CIA to be trusted as spies.And of course more competent spies and translators are what we need.)

...Whereas FIFTY-THREE PERCENT of Europeans speak a second lanuage. REUTERS

 
STILL NO LIST OF MINISTERS ! Three months after the Iraq election, the elected members haven't yet agreed on who will hold the important ministries in the new government headed by Shiite Ja'afri as Prime Minister.

The Shiites suspect that the Kurds are deliberately stalling because if ministries are not quickly filled, then Ja'afri will be automatically ousted and a new PM must be chosen. (Kurds don't like Ja'afri's devotion to Shiite religion.)
-----
It's all very well for Bushies to say, "This is the messiness of new democracy". The question is, how long Americans will be willing to shed GI blood and spend U.S. treasure just to set up a squabble among pols over who gets which lush job.

New poll shows that SIXTY PERCENT of Americans are pessimistic over chance that Iraq will have a stable democratic government, even a year from now. alJazeera

Bushies make matters worse by constantly blaming recent upsurge in guerilla attacks on the squabbling pols.
That reminds Americans of the low likelihood of 'success' in Bushies' claimed project of installing workable democracy in Iraq.

 
CONSUMER CONFIDENCE DROPS for 3d month in a row: '100' is the level of confidence in 1985. Confidence dropped 5 points in March,down to 87.
Yet, bizarrely, housing and car purchases went up! USATODAY
A possible explanation: the confidence survey asks ALL Americans, poor as well as rich, how they feel about the future.
Car & home purchases are likely made mainly by the upper third of Americans, who may indeed be faring well under Bushies! (By the way, Americans buy mainly FOREIGN cars--so that figure doesn't augur well for U.S. job-seekers.)

 
GENERAL ASSASSINATED ON TUES.26APR./MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT ON WED. 27APR. NYTIMES
----------------------------------
HOSTAGES KILLED? WHO KNOWS? The new Sunni President (formerly part of U.S.puppet Allawi's gang) announced that, in a troublesome town, Sunni guerillas had kidnapped over 50 Shiites last week. This justified an invasion of the town by our new native militia ('an excellent training exercise' said a U.S. general).

The guerillas denied any hostage-taking, saying this was just an excuse for the invasion. Indeed, NO hostages or corpses were found.

A few days later, 60 or so corpses washed against a dam downstream. This President announced that they were the murdered hostages; but some of them had been dead for weeks !

This confusion illustrates the chaos in Iraq already: Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites each have several independent militia-forces, not subject to the so-called 'Iraq' army. Each sect has a complete propaganda service ready to spread their version of what's happening (it turns out that the Shiite propagandists always note how Shia are being suppressed--also true of Kurdish & Sunni propagandists.)

The chance is dim indeed for an effective 'all/Iraq' government which can put down the guerillas (so Bushies can 'declare victory' and bug out) .

The unelected Sunni officials were trying to place former Saddamite officials in some of the new ministries !
They gave up in the face of adamant Shiite resistance.The ministries were still unfilled Monday night. NYTIMES24APR

 
MANPADS ON THE LOOSE: Anti-aircraft, shoulder-fired missiles are called 'Man-Portable Air-Defense systems'. They are a perfect weapon for poorly-armed guerillas fighting awesome first-world planes and helicopters. They've hit planes 29 times so far, killing over 500 people.

Each costs between $50,000 and $250,000, well within the reach of Islamists funded perhaps by covert oil-sultan allies. (U.S.generals have said that the Iraq insurgents seem to have unlimited money)


It turns out that 4000 of Saddam's manpads have disappeared, tripling the number estimated to be available to terrorists worldwide.

(Because Rumsfeld grossly underestimated the number of U.S. troops needed for the occupation--he fired the Army Secretary who said far more were needed--the overstretched GIs had to just watch while looters made off with dozens of truckloads of munitions.)
[NYTIMES24APR]

 
PAPAL CALL FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY: a customary call for there to be 'one flock and one shepherd' (a German Shepherd!)

Years ago, an Anglican wag put it this way: "The Roman Church wants Christian unity on the model of the tiger and the lambs--with the lambs inside of the tiger."

 
U.S. LEADERS LESS OPTIMISTIC: Recently, generals have triumphantly announced the new insurgent weakness, even hinting that we could withdraw sooner than expected. They say the export of oil has not been diminished (presumably from Basra in the South).

But recently the fewer attacks have been more effective.
And the slaughter of Shiites perhaps foretells a full civil war, with U.S. caught in the middle. Boston.com

About the latter problem: the final result (after much blood!) would be the partition of Iraq into: Kurdistan in North, Shialand in South, and the middle, Sunni/Arab region run by guerillas, openly or covertly. (In an area where the groups are mixed, the minority would have to flee to their new 'homeland'.)

Some say Israel, America, and the oil companies WANT this partition. It would be easier to bargain with weaker ministates than with a united, hostile Iraq controlled by Shiites.

 
TWO OIL-ATTACKS MONDAY: Pumps were set afire near Kirkuk, and a one-hour gun-battle took place over some oil-tankers. GUARDIAN

REFLECTIONS:
--Attacks on the oil-industry are infinitely better than attacks on Shiite mosques, during prayer-time!

--Whether the Kurds can cash in on oil-soaked Kirkuk region does NOT depend on the new elected regime.
Kurds will try to grab Kirkuk no matter what the new, semi-fictional 'all/Iraq' regime decides. Whether they succeed will depend on the sabotaging guerillas. Eventually the Kurds will have to negotiate with Sunni/Arab guerillas.

 
MARINES BLOW WHISTLE, PAY FOR IT: In 6 months, a Marine company in Ramadi had 1 in 3 of its men killed or wounded.

Returning to U.S., they blew the whistle on unarmored vehicles, manpower shortages, and command failures.

The captain took photos to show that the vehicles were not properly armored. He was relieved of his command. NYTIMES

 
POPE RATHER SILENT ON WAR: He finally reached out to Muslims (no mention of them in his Installation Homily, despite fulsome references to Jews; this might have enraged 1000 millions of Muslims worldwide.) He mentioned peace abstractly--but there was no vehement denunciation of war. GUARDIAN

(Paul VI came to Yankee Stadium during Viet war and said urgently, "NO MORE WAR!" Of course he was ignored by U.S. Catholic clergy,who generally endorsed the war.)

In America there is a strange alliance between Sharonista Jews and Protestant fundamentalists. (Catholics also join in emphasizing "Judaeo-Christian' morality: condemning abortion, same-gender-sex, & euthanasia--little emphasis on social justice or peace.)

The world will be watching and listening--hopefully but warily--to the new Pope.

 
INSURGENT LEADERS ARE SWINE: Now they use the 'double-bombing' tactic: to set off a second bomb to maim or kill the people who come to rescue the wounded from the first bomb! [nytimes,25Apr]

Of course they're swine. So are the U.S. leaders who destroyed a whole city (Fallujah) to punish Sunnis for not turning in guerillas.They have slaughtered innocent women and children with their bombs and missiles and shells.They have sent GIs out in vehicles not well-armored, with their legs, arms, faces, eyes brains unprotected.

As I've often said, wars are demented enterprises, with personnel and policies corresponding.

 
NEW POPE PUSHES FREEDOM,JUSTICE:
FinTimes,24Apr.
But as Card.Ratzinger, he helped re-elect warmonger Bush, who has shown no special care for either value.

Ratzinger issued a letter denouncing Kerry (implicitly) for favoring abortion, but never denounced Bush for starting a bloody, pointless, unjust war.
-------
Justice? Ratzinger also wrote a confidential letter demanding that accusations of priestly child-rape be sent first to him, before local tribunals dealt with them. Such accusations would count as 'pontifical secrets' (protected by threats of excommunication) until the accuser was 28 years old! OBSERVER
--------------------------
Maybe in his new role the Pope had a change of heart.
But Jeb Bush doesn't think so. He just gushed over this man's election to the Papacy.
---------
Critics sometimes called Ratzinger: 'God's Rotweiler'--but a cleric recently suggested that we should soften this label to 'Our German Shepherd'.

 
ASIAN/AFRICAN ACCORD: representing THREE OUT OF FOUR HUMANS ON EARTH !

The accord covered trade, terrorism, crime, and undemocratic rule.

U.S. was not included.

We don't know yet if the accord will be implemented effectively. REUTERS,24Apr

 
MINISTERS TO BE NAMED; ALLAWI'S GROUP IS OUT!

Kurds wanted U.S. puppet Allawi's group to get ministries, to balance religious Shiites. But he insisted on 4 ministries or none. He got none.

They have to name ministers quickly; else a new Prime Minister must be selected. REUTERS

 
U.S.TROOPS SHOOT WILD, WITH IMPUNITY:Whenever a car gets too close to a U.S. convoy, the occupants have a good chance to be killed. GIs, alarmed, shoot at anybody around when they are threatened--and they are never punished.

Our allies say this is one reason our occupation is so unpopular. Hearing that U.S. doesn't count civilian deaths, Iraqis rightly conclude that for Americans, Iraqi lives don't count.

This attitude is especially foolish in a society where relatives must avenge any Iraqi killed. Their retaliation is as random as are the killings by GIs.
INDEPENDENT

People talk about the new government as pacifying the Sunni guerillas. GIs being removed from the country might do more for pacification.

 
NEW MILITIAS: all around Iraq, private militias are blooming (not really under the control of the main army).
The U.S. is backing and financing some of them, hoping they can serve as 'death squads' (e.g., Saddamite breakaways knowing how to find and kill the Saddamites leading the guerillas). But many are Shiite militia, which might be used either vs. Sunnis, or as troops commanded by rival Shiite leaders.

By now, there's no way U.S. can stop this process.
It may lead to total chaos.
[WallSt.Journal, cited by InformationClearinghouse.]

 
100 CASUALTIES SUNDAY! USATODAY
---------------
SIXTY CASUALTIES SATURDAY: (including 20 killed): most by (at least 5) car-bombs. 3 Americans included among the wounded.
REUTERS
One GI killed Saturday. ChinaNews
-----------------
As usual, Reuters story says that delay in forming govt. has 'bolstered guerillas'. This suggests--implausibly, and with no evidence--that the violence will subside when the ministries are filled.
-----------
U.S. media gives the impression that the guerilla leaders have decided to slaughter Iraqi civilians, just because they can't get at the GIs.

However, one article questions this assumption, citing evidence from a respected non-government agency, and also a U.S. government agency.

The plausible suggestion here is that small groups of crazy fanatics may be aiming at innocents (say at Shiite mosques), but that the guerilla leaders are still (rationally) trying mainly to kill GIs, and secondarily to kill 'collaborators with infidel invaders' (e.g., our native militia). 'LeftHook'(?) cited by InformationClearinghouse.

 
INDIAN CONDOMS: Govt. makes, circulates 1 billion condoms each year.
But three in four are used (for lubricant) in non-sexual ways ! abc/news Why in the world aren't they being used to protect sexual activity?

Many men don't like the feeling of condoms during sex. So they persuade their women not to insist on them.
Thus unwanted pregnancies and STDs (including AIDS) keep happening.

The Roman hierarchy probably does its most damage in discouraging use by AIDS-infected men of condoms. (not just in India).

Why this special effectiveness of THESE Church edicts? Because such men (self-selected sample of childish, selfish men) may use Papal disapproval as an excuse for persuading devout Catholic women not to insist on condoms.

 
HIP-HOP VIOLENCE (verbal and actual) may be encouraged by music corporations. ABC/NEWS,23Apr

Al Sharpton makes the point that IF Congress has time to hold hearings on baseball-steroids, and sexual-obscenity, then the government should investigate this really dangerous fad!
-----------
A deeper connection: U.S. suffers from a great glut of excess producer-capacity: we can't sell--here or overseas--anywhere near all the stuff our corporations could produce. (Part of the problem is that Bushie GOP, in control of all 3 branches of govt., has shovelled money away from ordinary persons--who would LOVE to consume more!--shovelled this money to the very rich, who could hardly spend more than the tiny proportion of their obscene wealth that they now spend.)

So, to postpone the coming recession/Depression, the corporations have a vested interest in making ordinary Americans childish and foolish, so they'll consume hysterically.

Trouble is, such childishness extends beyond consumption: to corrupt marriages, to encourage impulsive violence, to vote foolishly.

 
TURKMENISTAN, OUR ALLY: The 'president-for-life' has a gold-leaf statue that rotates all day to face the sun.

He has renamed the month of January after himself.

In spite of fabulous oil/gas wealth, he's closed all health svcs. outside the capital. "If they're sick, let them come here." INDEPENDENT

Hearing all this adds new poignancy to Secy.Rice's recent comment that the ruler of Belaruss (Russia's ally) is the 'last traditional dictator in the world.' Well, maybe this guy is not 'traditional' !

 
"ARMY CLEARS TOP GENERALS RE: PRISON TORTURE." [GUARDIAN]

Who's surprised? Who cares?
----------
I don't pay much attention to retail, one-by-one atrocities.
The real issue is wholesale killing--by huge car-bombs, or by artillery, bombs and missiles.

 
ZARQAQI is the new binLADEN?
ABC/NEWS has a long, important article suggesting that Zarqawi (the prominent terrorist leader in Iraq) is moving to head the GLOBAL terrorist movement, to replace bin Laden!

What's interesting is several mentions in the article of the assumption that our Iraq fiasco (just like the Soviet fiasco in Afghanistan) is giving the terrorists a chance to recruit and train NEW terrrorists for use in other places!

This shows the stupidity of a common reaction by U.S.hawks to any criticism of Bush's Iraq campaign:
"Better to fight them there than here."

It turns out that 'fighting them there' is strengthening 'THEM' for fighting us here!

 
2 POPES AND PRIESTLY SEX:
The LEGION OF CHRIST is a new Catholic 'religious order'-- well-financed, favored by JPII, and theologically conservative. Its founder was accused 7 years ago of having sex with seminarians (back in the 50s).

Cardinal Ratzinger was in charge of investigating such matters. He noted that 'LESS THAN ONE PERCENT'of priests were guilty, so the obsession of U.S.press on the subject was a plot to discredit the Church ! When pressed by reporters, he got upset and slapped the hand of one reporter. "Even priests are tempted," he said forgivingly.

(Of course, sex with seminarians is more forgivable than sex with altar-boys. But given the absolute subordination of seminarians to prelates, such sex can hardly be called 'consensual'!)

Now it turns out that ONLY THE DAY AFTER DEATH OF JPII (who had praised the accused priest on his retirement) were the self-styled victims questioned under oath.

Now the alleged victims have been told they must keep silent on the matter, because it's under investigation. ABC/NEWS

Maybe it's a good thing that criticisms of the new Pope are coming out now; people will shortly be bored with them.

 
TRADE NOMINEE GROWLS AT CHINA:

Bushies are furious that Chinese currency is forcibly pegged to U.S. dollar, so our letting $ float down doesn't help our trade-balance with China.

The nominee defended our letting China into WTO--that really helped our EXPORTS..On the other hand, our imports from China exceed our exports each year by
$162,000 MILLIONS. FinTimes

"China often doesn't play according to the rules!" This from a Bushie-gang that scorns all international rules (of war or of trade) !

 
SHIITE MOSQUE IN BAGHDAD BLOWN UP (25 casualties) on Friday--while Shiites were at prayer!
REUTERS

The guerillas seem intent on either (a) triggering civil war--when Shiites finally start retaliating--a civil war these Saddamite generals would likely win! or (b) at least discrediting idea of a new 'all/Iraq/Shia/dominated' government.

Sooner or later this dream will be abandoned; the new regime will have to set up a capitol, not in Baghdad, but in a safe region of Southern Iraq. The minorities in each region will flee to their homeland.

3Ministates will result: Kurdistan in North, Shialand in South, and the middle (Sunni/Arab) region will be controlled--openly or not--by the Sunni guerillas.

 
"GLOBAL RISK OF MARBURG VIRUS IS SMALL."
says a scientist. It's spread only by contact with bodily fluids.
It's very unlikely to mutate (e.g., to become airborne.)
REUTERS HEALTH ALERT,22Apr.

He doesn't mention what would happen if terrorist-scientists learned how to trigger such awful mutations.

 
POWERLESS PAPACY: Just as 'superPower' America has surprisingly little control over other countries' conduct, so the 'Supreme Pontiff' has surprisingly little control over 1 billion Catholics throughout the world.

The Parliament of Spain ("the most Catholic country in Europe") has just legislated a surprisingly strong defense of the rights of the same/sex/oriented, triggering a howl of outrage from Rome. LondonTIMES.ONLINE

Papacy will have extra power in U.S. from devil's-alliance with crazy Protestant fundamentalists and crazy Jewish fundamentalists on 'sex/life' issues ['Judaeo-Christian Morality' ], vs. social justice or peace.

 
GIs WOUNDED IN BAD HUMVEES:
[ltr to USATODAY]
Even this late in the game, the army is short over 800 armored humvees for our wars. (The army said it had met the goal--but it counted those outside the war zone!) Sen.Kennedy guessed that 400 GIs have died because of Pentagon malfeasance in not providing adequate humvees.
But the real news is the much larger number of GIs maimed or wounded in these vehicles. Kevlar vests protect the torso when the vehicles get bombed--so fewer GIs die--but there is no protection for arms, legs, faces, eyes or brains.

The dead will rest in the ground when this fiasco-war is over--as invisible as the Bushies keep their coffins now; but the maimed GIs will remind us for decades of the uncaring folly of the Bush-team--and their supporters.

 
WAR ISN'T FOUGHT IN HEADLINES:
A colonel who worked with our Iraqi militia warns, in NYTIMES, that the ultimate outcome will not be determined by counting how many attacks happen this week, how many GIs were killed last week.

Rather, we would succeed in Iraq only if the Iraqis themselves rebuilt their country--now, after 2 years of benevolent U.S. control, hardly any big Iraq cities have a sewage system! [USATODAY, 22Apr]

This rebuilding presupposes that the guerilla attacks on our Iraqi 'collaborators' can be countered. This colonel praises the civil servants who keep coming to work, under the real threat of assassination.

Are we doing our part? First we have not provided enough TRANSLATORS, people who can speak both Arabic and English. The U.S. advisors and their Iraqi counterparts are 'fighting blind'.

Well of course; an army from X country invades Y country, even though hardly anyone in the X force speaks the language of Y. nutty.

We had the same situation in Vietnam. A multilingual observer noted an exchange between a U.S. officer and his Vietnamese officer-counterpart. The American would say something; his translator would distort what he said; the Viet guy would reply, and his translator would distort his reply.

This situation is not easily remedied. We have to trust those few people who speak both languages; they may not be on our side--or they may not be fluent in one or the other language.
----------
Secondly, this colonel points out that the scandal of unarmored transport vehicles for Americans is grossly worse when it comes to transport for our native militia. And he remembers that he could hardly get money out of the central U.S. command, even though we were spending billions, somehow, in Iraq.
---------
Thirdly, he warns that success for us will take years and years.How in the world does he think U.S. patience will last that long? ! Enlistments and reenlistments are plummeting. Our national budget is more and more running on the red. [Congress just voted $80,000 millions more for this fiasco, bringing the total to over $300,000 millions.]
-----------
The main reason our people will not have the patience needed is that they SHOULDN'T give the govt. a blank check to spend our blood and money for years more in a conflict where success will really not help us, where failure will only be humiliating, not harmful.

We have no real stake in the Iraq conflict, any more than we had in the Viet conflict.The disgrace will NOT be when Americans (even GOP legislators!)finally rear up and say "Enough!" The disgrace was the Bushies plunging into this fiasco and then staying on for whatever reasons they have (the dream of oil? obeying Israel? Bush's stubborn, stupid ego?) ENOUGH!

 
ABC NEWS has article on puzzles facing youth in 20s. Not just earning a living, but finding their 'passion',etc.

The statistics are sobering: 1 in 2 face college debt (averaging $12,000)./ 40% in LATE 20s are getting $ from parents./ 60% of men and 43% of women under 30 are living at home (or planning to move there).(A satirical anti-Bush version of 23d psalm ends with this line: "And my jobless child shall dwell in my basement forever.")

No mention is made in the entire article about the threat to their job-prospects from automation, from unrestricted imports, from outsourcing!

Their passion had better be to get a secure job!

 
GREENSPAN HUFFS & PUFFS: He warned Congress again that present budget tendencies will lead to increasing federal deficits (now at $400,000 MILLIONS per year) and could lead to 'stagnation OR WORSE' (i.e., another Great Depression?)
He chattered about cutting spending, and cutting Social Security benefits--of course!. [REUTERS21ap]

But this GOP flack never mentioned possibly revoking the Bush tax-cuts for the wealthy, or cutting the Pentagon budget.(We shovel over $400,000 MILLIONS to Pentagon each year; the rest of govt. is living within its means; we should call it the 'PENTAGON DEFICIT'.

 
U.S. HAS BEEN COUNTING CIVILIAN CASUALTIES !
Bushies have claimed that they have no idea how many civilians are getting killed in Iraq. Never mind that they were required to count these by the Geneva Convention! [But hawks denied indignantly the most careful outside estimate, (by a JohnsHopkins team--this estimate reviewed and printed by respected Brit Journal LANCET) of 98,000 people killed, most of them women and children.]

For more info on the J-H study, (interview with study leader, and link to official LANCET report, click on
SocialistWorker .
-----------
The saintly U.S. AID worker Marta Ruzicka, just before she was killed, wrote that she DID get a general to admit that they DO keep track of those civilians killed in ground-exchanges..it turned out that 29 bystanders were killed in Baghdad in March, 4 times as many as our police killed by the guerillas! Her article quoted directly in INDEPENDENT, cited by InformationClearinghouse

Of course most civilians are killed,not in firefights, but by our artillery and airpower. It was this larger number that the Johns-Hopkins estimate referred to.

 
HOW MANY GI CASUALTIES IN IRAQ?
Let us compare 2 scenarios (starting from now):

a) Suppose the guerillas manage to kill 20 GIs EVERY DAY and wound 50 more. Americans are so horrified by this carnage that they demand an immediate withdrawal of our forces--and, given an election coming up in '06, the Bushies do withdraw them a month from now--suddenly,as in Vietnam.

vs.b) Suppose the guerillas manage--as now--to kill only 1.7 GIs a day, and maim/wound only 6 a day. Americans at home bear this much GI suffering bravely--so Bushies can delay our withdrawal by, say, two years--until just before the '08 election.

Under scenario (a), 600 GIs are killed before we bug out, (starting the count now) and 1500 are maimed or wounded.

Under scenario (b), starting the count now, 1241 GIs end up getting killed and 4380 end up maimed or wounded.

And under scenario (b) many new guerillas (enraged by the slobby arrogance of many of our troops) get recruited and trained, for use in other places.

Those who care about GI welfare should wish that cataclysmic scenario (a) happens, not bland scenario (b). The frog put into hot water jumps out; the frog in cold water, gradually heated, perishes.

 
"NEW POPE WILL 'PRIORITIZE' RELATIONS WITH OTHER RELIGIONS":
FinTimes
Sounds good--but will he be open to the fairly liberal heads of the 'mainstream' Protestant Churches--the Anglicans, Presbyterians, Lutherans?

Another, less happy possibility is this: in America, the Catholic hierarchy has recently been allied with the Protestant Fundamentalists: the Southern Baptists, the Pentecostals,etc.--as well as fundamentalist Jews. They have cooperated in promoting 'Judaeo-Christian' morality: on abortion, gays, and euthanasia--while ignoring issues of social justice and peace.

Perhaps Pope Benedict intends to strengthen this reactionary version of the 'Ecumenical Movement'.
------------------
As Cardinal Ratzinger,he did help re-elect war-monger Bush.

HOWEVER: People note that the last Pope Benedict was known as the 'Pope of Peace'. He opposed the insane First World War.

Churchmen like the late Pope who are rigid about sexual matters are sometimes 'liberal' in opposing the war-mongers. Let's hope--against hope-- that this new Pope is one of that breed. (If so, let's also hope he is more loud and forceful than JPII was, in opposing the Iraq fiasco!)

 
CHEERLEADERS,NOT ANALYSTS: "Inflation rose in March at twice the rate predicted by economists."
FinTimes

I can't remember when the economists quoted by journalists ever erred on the PESSIMISTIC side.
We're always reading that the actual economic data, when it finally comes in, was MORE GLOOMY than these 'experts' predicted.

So one learns to discount optimistic predictions from these cheerleaders.

 
SHAMELESS! Reuters (a news-service mainly for investors) worries about U.S. inflation topping worker-income-rises: this may slow consumer spending, and CUT U.S. ECONOMIC GROWTH!

This is like worrying that an epidemic among birds (the workers) might spread to humans (investors).

 
RICE: 'PUTIN HAS TOO MUCH POWER!" REUTERS,20APR/

This from a member of the gang that, winning only 51% of the vote, now controls ALL THREE BRANCHES of the federal government!

 
FIFTY CORPSES IN RIVER: they were pulled out of the Tigris river. Apparently they were the (Shiite)hostages kidnapped by Sunni gunmen last week in the town of
Maidian. BloombergNews

The above was what a Shiite spokesman said; but Reuters cameraman at this location found NO EVIDENCE of drowned bodies!
A puzzle. REUTERS

Several batallions of our Iraqi militia invaded the town after the reported kidnapping--presumably to RESCUE these hostages. U.S. officers said the invasion was a good 'training exercise' for our militia.
(alQuaeda had said the whole 'hostage' story was invented just to give U.S./Allawite forces an excuse to invade.)

How long will 'Pope' Sistani be able to restrain Shiites from counter-violence (which could lead to open civil war between Sunnis & Shia)? What would be the role of U.S. troops in such a civil war?

One can see why Saddamite guerilla leaders think they'd win such a civil war: when Sadr's Shiite militia rose up in conventional battle earlier vs. GIs, they were slaughtered.
----------
TWENTY of our native militia were captured and shot in a town North of Baghdad. Bombings killed/wounded 10 other Iraqis. Several GI casualties Tuesday.REUTERS

 
SALVATION BY ETHANOL? Farm-state legislators (representing mainly the huge agri-business corporations)
are telling us that we can liberate ourselves from the tyranny of Mideast oil sultans by using a higher percentage of ethanol (alcohol made from corn) in our gas-tanks.

HOWEVER: it is said that U.S. corn farming is so mechanized that it is basically turning gasolene into corn.

So we must depend on the Mideast oil-sultans to provide the oil to make the gas to grow the corn to make the ethanol!

How dumb must these propagandists think Americans are?
They're probably right.

 
CAN IRAQI MILITIA REPLACE GIs? so GIs can come home?
TIME magazine, 25Apr [link not possible] has a feature article pretending to give both sides of this question, but actually--of course--predicting victory (but with enough qualifications as not to be disgraced if this doesn't work out.)

I'm sure you could find similar TIME articles in the early '70s about our replacing GIs with Viet soldiers--this article actually compares our move now to 'Vietnamization' (which of course was a historic failure).

Two interesting points:
In this successful episode,the commander of the Iraqi forces is a SADDAMITE COLONEL! Of course he'd command competently. However, the income Shiite Prime Minister & his regime WILL NOT STAND for such officers to command their milita! (They have not forgotten that Allawi--who with U.S. has restored these guys--was himself a SADDAMITE officer! Nor did he quit because he objected to the awful slaughter of Shiites!)

[Imagine the horror/ridicule if we had let OUR native troops in Vietnam be commanded by VietCong officers who assured us that they had changed sides. When the war ended, Americans found out that a far larger percentage than they had suspected of 'our' troops were actually VietCong infiltrators.]

Secondly,one reason this episode was successful was that 'there are no Americans here'. In other words, the slobby arrogance of many U.S. troops helps the guerillas. (A GI just manhandled one of the elected members of the new Parliament!)

This gives the guerillas all the more reason to attack the militia, NOT the GIs. French hostages were told by their captors that they wanted Bush re-elected, so the GIs would stay on, continuing to help recruit new terrorists.

Because of the poverty, we have no trouble recruiting new replacements--mainly Shiites--for the dozens of militiamen killed/wounded each week by the guerillas. The question is: are these replacements as competent as the men who were knocked out of action?

Are they screened adequately to prevent guerillas from infiltrating our militia? (We have to rely on Iraqis to do the screening--our men DON'T SPEAK THE LANGUAGE! Are we sure the screeners have been adequately screened?)

Eventually we'll find out..IF the militia, purged by Shiite regime of the worst Saddamites, manage to repress the guerillas, fine--then we can really declare (belated) victory and come home.

 
WHY THE FUSS OVER THE 'AFTER-SEX' PILL? Are there that many people (besides the Encyclical-ridden Catholics) who think that killing a baby is no worse than flushing out a fertilized egg?

This pill most probably flushes out an UNFERTILIZED egg; but it RISKS flushing a fertilized one out before it can 'nest' in the uterus.

Of course, the fundamentalists (Catholic or Protestant) do not condemn all WARS--even though modern war, by its very nature, takes a very big risk--amounting to practical certainty--of killing innocent humans! So why can't they count the occasional egg-flushing from this pill as regrettable 'collateral damage'?

Obviously widespread use of this pill (if only the ordinary people knew about it) would cut the number of real abortions. This pill would cut grievously the income of the evil abortionists! You'd think the 'pro-life' people would favor it.
----------
But of course the right-wing pols fear nothing worse than a big drop in the number of regular abortions. (They would also fear a drop in same-sex-unions). These are the issues that bring in the money from the goofy; these are the issues that can swing a close election.

(You can bet these pols are mourning over the recent silence about 'partial-birth' abortions. You can bet they're out right now shopping for a new 'Sciavo' case!)

 
HABEMUS DISASTRUM: Cardinal Ratzinger, the Grand Inquisitor (literally!) has been named as the new Pope. Those who love the Roman Church should mourn.

Those, like me, who now see that agency as harmful to the human race, can rejoice that the Papacy will be further discredited among moderate people. (His fans won't care about the self-styled 'moderates'; like him they want a 'smaller,purer' Church. They'll get it.)

In his youth the new Pope was an (unwilling) member of the Hitler Youth, and an (unwilling) member of Hitler's military. USATODAY
He did serve time as prisoner in an allied POW camp.
BBC

This distinguished theologian and powerful cardinal (sometimes called 'God's Rotweiler') described himself in his first Papal address as a 'humble and simple worker in God's vineyard.' This is conceivable--but it may be a sign of his sense of humor.

He is not averse to political intervention, advising U.S. priests to REFUSE COMMUNION to a) any politician campaigning for abortion and/or euthanasia, and (b) any voter who chooses a pol BECAUSE of his advocacy of abortion,etc. (And most once-a-week Catholics voted for Bush.)
-----------
Ratzinger said the U.S. fuss over priestly child-rapists was an attack on the Church. (No doubt this fuss often INVOLVED a distaste for the Roman Church--especially after disgraced Cardinal Law was embraced by the Roman curia.)

One good omen: Catholic Church has always protected priests--by elaborate due process--from arbitrary 'defrocking'. But U.S. bishops--goaded by accusations of being accomplices to priestly child-rapists--want power to quickly dump priests from active ministry against whom 'plausible accusations' have been made.

Of course bishops are now just flunkies for the Roman Curia; those bureaucrats were hesitating to give that new power to U.S. bishops! But now we hear from Cardinal George that in private talks with Cardinal Ratzinger,he was assured that this prelate would back this emergency power for U.S. bishops. Whew! GUARDIAN
----------
Cardinal Ratzinger has explicitly condemned 'radical feminism'. Fat chance for any women priests now!

All churches have relied on bequests from rich widows.
Will this new generation of rich Catholic widows continue this tradition of generosity?
------------
A thought: this may be a plot by the liberal cardinals: "Let Catholics taste the RIGIDITY of JP II, without his SWEETNESS!" (After all, this GrandInquisitor is 78, the oldest to be named Pope in centuries; and cardinals over 80 yrs. are now disqualified for voting for Pope! Will he think that he's qualifed to BE Pope after 80?)

 
'THEY'RE OUT TO DRIVE SUNNIS OUT OF BAGHDAD' claims Zarquawi (alQuaeda leader).
ZAMAN (Turkey)/19Apr.cited in Google.News

This is a plausible claim, given Sunni support for the guerillas. But it would be a foolish effort, given that Baghdad is in middle of Sunni/Arab region, and the new regime has VERY LITTLE chance of controlling that region. (It would make more sense to locate offices of new regime in safest part of Shiite South!)
-----------
50 Iraqi casualties (militiamen & civilians) in Baghdad on Tuesday, besides a top officer assassinated on Monday.
WashPost

Just before he was killed, this honcho announced that the number of guerillas was grossly exaggerated. FinTimes
(Perhaps it's not just the number that counts!)

 
NUMBER (VS. PERCENTAGE) OF THE WRETCHED:
Vincent Carroll [RMtnNews,19Apr] reproaches Gorbachev for dwelling pessimistically on the NUMBER of destitute people in the world; we should dwell optimistically instead on the improved PERCENTAGE of prosperous people (over the percentage centuries ago).

However: suppose a couple's second child was born horribly deformed. They want 6 children, but the doctor tells them that, if they go for this goal, the odds are they'll have another deformed child. Should they go ahead without hesitating, figuring that the percentage of their deformed children will go down from 50% to 33%? Hardly.

The prosperity of two people does NOT 'make up' for the lifelong wretchedness of a third.

If humans had instituted birth-control at the same time as they managed improved death-control, then we wouldn't face more than a billion destitute people in the world today, with increased prospect of wretchedness:
--as the world runs out of fresh water, and
--awful diseases get immune to our drugs, and terrorists set out to CAUSE PANDEMICS.
--as tsunamis kill far more people than ever, because far more people must live on beaches;
--as rising sea-levels threaten TENS OF MILLIONS of destitute humans in Bangladesh,the Egyptian Delta, and lowland China.

 
N.KOREA CLOSING NUCLEAR PLANT CAUSES JITTERS: (FinTimes)Now that's an odd headline !--but it makes sense on reading the story.The closed plant is a plant for generating electric power, using 8000 rods of nuke material.

Previously, N.K. turned 8000 such rods into plutonium, enough to make 8 nuke bombs! Now they could repeat that feat.

They say plausibly that they need nukes to deter U.S.(Bushies) from attacking them.
--------
Bushies announced in Sept.02 that they'd feel free to launch preemptive first-strike on any nation they deemed 'hostile', for even trivial reasons. Since then they've showed they mean it, by invading Iraq without real provocation; and they've signalled that N.K. and Iran are next.

More and more nations will develop 2d-strike deterrents vs. Bushies:"You can destroy our cities; but our survivors can make you regret it."

Rich countries like Iran would do well to buy COMPLETE nuke bombs (e.g., from N.K. or Pakistan), rather than develop their own in bombable plants.

Poor countries will develop germ-war weapons to retaliate vs. Bushie bombs, to counter Bushie intimidation.

Our super-vulnerable Homeland effectively de-fangs the Bushie bombers. 'All Sword and No Shield' doesn't work in today's world.

 
NO HOSTAGES! In the Shiite/Sunni town of Maidaian, stories of up to 150 Shiite hostages held by Sunni gunmen--such stories brought out several battalions of Allawi's militia (backed by U.S.troops and weapons) to invade the insurgent-friendly town.

But it turned out there were no hostages! (They said they found 'many weapons'--but they always say that!)

Some Sunnis said the false info was a Shiite conspiracy; but the insurgents claimed that it was just an excuse to attack the town--this seems much more plausible--because U.S./Allawite forces DID launch an unprovoked attack on the town.
SIFI

Why would Allawites NEED an excuse to invade a fairly-hostile town? Because he resigned as PM at the assembly;
he no longer has the authority to level towns (as he did in Fallujah). So he & U.S. had to cook up an emergency (hostages!) to justify the invasion.

 
PURGING SADDAMITES: Shiite Islamists--now in power through their honcho Prime Minister--are enraged that U.S. & their puppet-Allawites have admitted 'thousands' of former Saddamite functionaries into leadership roles in 'our' native militia.

New Shiite rulers intend to investigate all these people and eject (and perhaps prosecute) any who had any role at all in Saddam's bloody purges of Shiites & Kurds before '03.


Rumsfeld warned against such a purge, saying it would deprive our militia of much competent leadership(in police/military work). Also, it would be seen by Sunnnis as an 'anti-Sunni' purge, and would block Sunni cooperation, turning in guerilla leaders. Shiites right now are defying U.S. on this issue.
[WashPost/18Apr, cited in TRUTHOUT. ]

The Shiites have no answer to the first problem; right now they don't have trained police leadership of their own..(though such leaders could perhaps be trained eventually by their Shiite allies in Iran.) But they certainly don't intend to submit to Saddamite-led police-forces!

About the second problem, Shiite pols say openly that they won't rely on negotiations with the Sunnis; they'll simply CRUSH the guerillas.The only drawback here is that the mainly-Shiite militia under Allawi have been simply unable to defend themselves, let alone wipe out the guerillas.(Shiites might retort,"Yes, they're unable--UNDER SADDAMITE LEADERSHIP!" But that response is only partially relevant.)

Observers say that U.S. won't allow a thorough purge--which will show Iraqis that the new govt. is not really sovereign, is just another U.S. puppet.
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This impasse was predictable in the hopeless project of trying to form an effective, sovereign 'all/Iraq' government. The Kurds demand openly the right to deFacto secession. The Shiites in no way can control the Sunni/Arab guerillas. The new Prime Minister's regime will control ONLY the Southern Shiite region. (Some Shiites are talking openly of forming an independent ministate, whose capital would NOT be Baghdad!)

Either the 3 groups will separate peacefully, as Slovakia split off peacefully from Czech Republic, or--most likely--the separation will follow a bloody civil war, in which the minority in each mixed region will be driven out.

 
MORALS VS. ETHICS:
A cartoon in RMtnNews on 18Apr showed a sap saying"The new Pope must adjust to modern morals!" while fitting the white robe onto Bill Clinton, waving his immoral cigar.

One interesting fact about American idiom is that 'immoral' refers only to sexual misconduct; political or financial misconduct is described as 'unethical'.

The second interesting fact is that U.S. once-a-week churchgoers seem not to care much about 'unethical' conduct..they must think that the courts will counter that. What fascinates them, enrages them, is 'immoral (sexual) conduct."

Observers are fascinated to see that these churchgoers ignore GOP crookedness, & evidence fabricated to justify a neeedless, pointless, winless war..but they still remember that Clinton lied under oath about his sex- life.

Such people should remember this slogan: "When Clinton lied,nobody died!"

 
'NOT WORTH THEIR KEEP"(ltr to FortCollinsWeekly)
Paul Craig Roberts notes that outsourcing (and production overseas of goods that are then returned here for sale)will reduce even our elite techies to '3d-world' living-standards. (He mentions an engineer who emigrated to Thailand to work for $900 a month--he'll at least find a much lower 'cost-of-living' than he'd face here!)

A software engineer I know was getting $75 an hour; his work is now being done by an engineer in India for $7.50 an hour.

Roberts says these people'cannot compete' with such cheap labor. Sure they can, and they will. They should come to survivors like myself of the Great Depression, to find out how they can cut their spending drastically.
(I remember my promotion, in high-school, from 18cents to 25cents per hour.) Many prices will drop--they'll have to, because otherwise stuff won't be sold.

First, don't have children--the most expensive luxury there is! Then, forget about your own quarter-acre; share a big apartment with other renters, on a busline--forget about cars. Cut out restaurant meals. Those are just the beginning cutbacks.

This is a social earthquake: no conventional wisdom will suffice. Why go to college at all--let alone major in tough technical subjects? The biggest college expense is giving up real wages for four years--even more important, giving up 4 years of attested work-experience!

Smart parents will hire tutors for their kids in inadequate high-schools, to make sure they graduate fully literate and numerate. That would be cheaper than paying all the costs of college. (Then they must hope that employers get smart enough NOT to mechanically decide they won't even interview anyone without a bachelor's degree.)

There is still a great difference between income of college grads and that of high-school grads! [USATODAY,22Apr]

Twenty years ago, firms figured that anyone who hadn't finished high-school was somehow defective (in intelligence or in industry). Nowadays firms seem to feel the same way about college/high-school!

But if I were hiring, I'd prefer a high-school grad with high SAT orACT scores, trained only in 12 years of laziness, to a typical college grad, trained in 17 years of laziness!
--------
All levels of workers will suffer. The elite techies (intelligent, self-disciplined) will bump less qualified people from every job above the bottom--for instance from jobs managing fast-food places.

The lucky ones will be those trained in 'hands-on, face-to-face' careers that can't be outsourced or automated: plumbers, electricians, construction workers, teachers, nurses, prostitutes...

As things are now, U.S. workers--elite or ordinary--are not worth their 'keep'--they often don't add enough value to firm's revenue to justify the high costs of hiring them. (One problem: our government actually puts EXTRA TAX BURDENS on firms that hire Americans, instead of using computer, robots or foreigners for production ! )

One partial solution would be a form of--shudder--Protectionism! For instance, the government could give tax breaks to firms in proportion to the money they spend on U.S. workers. But this is not likely, not with GOP agents of the wealthy in charge of all 3 branches of the federal government.

So young Americans--like their great-grandparents in the 30s--had better get ingenious in learning how to live on very low wages!
--------------
Housing Starts PLUMMETED by nearly 1% last month!
All over U.S. Boston.com
This is the start of the dropping house prices we can expect--as American workers get poorer--and the increase in the number of repossessions. (Austin,TX was HQ for yuppie richies--but since OUTSOURCING began,there are many houses for sale or rent in Austin!)

 
THE MOSQUE ON TEMPLE HILL IN JERUSALEM IS CRUCIAL TO JEWISH/MUSLIM TENSIONS.

This latest intifada started when Sharon,with a large bodyguard, 'trespassed' on the grounds of this mosque.

Now Jewish extremists, out to sabotage any peace-process, have threatened to attack this mosque. Sharon's army successfully defended the mosque.

But just the story of the attack-plans roused 100,000 INDONESIANS to demonstrate against Israel.
GUARDIAN
--------------------------
Significance: a domestic chess-game in Israel suddenly roused 100,000 on the other side of the world.
Israel is, as always, playing with fire--enraging 1,000 millions of Muslims worldwide, of many races and cultures.

And Bush's America is playing with the same fire by constantly backing every move Sharon makes. If only 1 in 1000 of those Indonesian demonstrators makes the further move to enlist as a terrorist, that's 100 new terrorists just from this one occasion, ready to die killing Americans.

 
BUSHIE DEFICITS ENDANGER WORLD ECONOMY:
All the experts agree on this: if a plunge in the dollar led central banks to start dumping our bonds, everyone would suffer.

All agree, but nothing will be done. The Bushie executive branch and Congress are acting in ways that will INCREASE the federal deficit. WashPost

The huge Pentagon expenses now are mainly spent overseas, and count as 'IMPORTS' (unbalanced by our pathetic exports). So our TRADE deficit also will continue to grow--until the blow-up.

 
STROLL BACK WITH US DOWN MEMORY LANE! Before the invasion, Secy.Rumsfeld decided that not many U.S. troops would be needed, because we'd be welcomed by liberated Iraqis. (He fired the Army Secy. who said we'd need far more troops.)

Result? Just after the invasion, huge stockpiles of Saddamite weapons and explosives were looted, while the over-stretched Americans just watched. (One observer said that 300 trucks full of loot a day moved on one road to neighboring borders.)

Obviously some of the loot was hidden, not disposed of immediately--because it's showing up now in Iraq black-markets!And the most valuable stuff has already crossed into Syria, Iran, and Jordan. NYTIMES
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When Rummy was grilled by the upstart GI about the lethal shortage in Iraq of armored humvees, he shrugged it off:" You go to war with the army you have, not necessarily the army you want."

Remember though that this was for us a 'war of choice,not of necessity." If you see beforehand that the army you have is far short of the army you NEED, then--if you're minimally sane--YOU DON'T START A WAR!
-----------------
Just a reminder of the splendid earlier performance of Rumsfeld, which warranted his reappointment by Bushies as Secy.of Defense.

 
GUERILLAS NOT 'DONE FOR'! Patrick Cockburn, of INDEPENDENT, is still 'putting his ass on the line' in Iraq--UNLIKE (he says) other Western correspondents who hide out in hotels, passing on 2d-hand news.

That's why the Pentagon can get away with saying that the 'pacification' process is going SO WELL that we can count on pulling out some U.S. troops soon. (We tried the same trick in Vietnam, 'Vietnamization', announcing that our native militia could take over the fighting.But it should have been obvious all along that they couldn't. The NorthViet army trampled them and threw us out of Vietnam.

Our old trick is 'Declare victory and bug out.' Bugging out we have to do; the robot-infantry are nowhere near ready, and we're running out of enlistee GIs to plug in.

So most of our troops are now 'training' Iraqi milita, instead of fighting the guerillas themselves. That, says Cockburn, is why the number of dead GIs each month is dropping. (He says our claim about the dropping number of guerilla ATTACKS is plausible because no attack is reported as such unlesss there are GI casualties.)

Our 'training' of the mostly Shiite troops is superficial; the militia are likely infiltrated by the guerillas (that is certainly true up by Mosul!), (as 'our' Viet milita was infiltrated). And of course we may be training Shiite troops to man a Shiite ministate, NOT an all/Iraq government. Some Iraqis say the U.S. WANTS a 3-nation Iraq, a weak Iraq--easier for international oil companies to bargain with.

Whether we want it or not, a 3-nation outcome is most likely.

 
AFGHAN OPIUM: Taliban succeeded in cutting opium exports. But under U.S. control, Afghanistan now produces 87% of world's opium!

This is bound to annoy Britons; practically all the heroin sold there is from Afghanistan. This is Britain's payment for joining in our nutty invasion of Afghanistan.

Americans are now hiring mercenaries to destroy poppy crops. But farmers say they will fight to the death to protect their crops, since they have no other way to live. (Taliban is stirring up such resistance).

Prediction: result of U.S. invasion will be a narco-state, with Taliban remnants sharing in the drug-profits. GUARDIAN
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Pentagon brags that Taliban are 'done for'. But yesterday they killed 5 of our native militia; and today they blew up 5 oil trucks supplying our troops. (In a guerilla war, the supply lines of the 1st-world invaders are always the most vulnerable parts of their force.) REUTERS

Pentagon claims of the imminent death of Taliban movement in Afgh. & guerilla movement in Iraq--these claims seem grossly exaggerated.

 
HOW MANY SHIITES KIDNAPPED? 3? 150?
Allawi's puppet regime in Baghdad claimed that, in a town So. of Baghdad, up to 150 SHIITES were kidnapped by Sunni gunmen. Our militia has surrounded the town to search it.

But some locals said that only THREE men kidnapped; and Iraq/alQaeda said the whole story is a lie concocted by Allawites/Americans to justify an attack on the (guerilla-sympathizing) town.
[ABConline]

[So far this search has NOT found any hostages!]

Both sides lie continually, so we won't know for a while.
But Iran has condemned this alleged attack on fellow-shiites, so it sounds as if it might be serious.
see also [ FinTimes ]
---------------
True or not, this alleged kidnapping symbolizes the real possibility of full civil war between Sunnis and Shiites. So far, 'Pope' Sistani has held back his Shiite followers from violent reprisal--(and his rival-for-leadership Sadr has actually sided with the Sunni insurgents!)

But the example of Yugoslavia is ominous: a dictator disappears, who had held the muti-ethnic 'nation' together by force--and then the different ethnic groups turn on each other.

In the past, Shiites have proved plenty violent. (For one thing, they revere martyrdom!) Under continuous Sunni provocations, they will sooner or later fight back. (Sunni militia would be led by sophisticated Saddamite officers; but IRAN is allegedly still housing thousands of Shiite/Iraqi refugees from Saddam, trained to fight by Iranian military.)
---------------
After a bloody interval, 3 wounded nations will emerge: in the North, Kurdistan/ in the South, a Shiite ministate/ in midIraq, a regime run by former Saddamite guerilla leaders.

Poor Sistani is trying to get his dream implemented of all Iraq dominated by Shiites. He nags the new pols to get on with writing the new Constitution, instead of fighting over ministries. But perhaps they realize there will never be an effective all/Iraq constitution; so they're scrambling for the lucrative ministries now available, while the 'all/Iraq' myth still seems plausible. They'll "..take the cash and let the credit go--nor heed the rumble of a distant drum".
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On Sunday, Allawite/U.S. spokesmen announced there were NO kidnappings..the story was spread, they said, to embarrass the central government. This, after they launched their unprovoked attack on this town. Nonsense--the Allawite/U.S. p eople are incapable of embarrassment.
--------------------
While attention was on this possible kidnapping, FOUR AMERICANS were killed on Saturday in other parts of Iraq, with many more wounded. REUTERS

 
INTEL FAILURE: (ltr to DenverPost):[Link not possible]

'MEDIOCRE' INTELLIGENCE:
David Ignatius (17Apr) is understating terrifically when he says our national intelligence is 'mediocre'. This service is absolutely incompetent and corrupt, willing to tell the White House what it insists on hearing (e.g., to justify a goofy invasion!)

In fact, the former CIA head told Congress that we won't have a functioning intelligence service for at least the next five years.

Ignatius says correctly that the problem will not be solved by inserting new layers of incompetent personnel. He says we need fewer, smarter agents. But he never mentions the basic problem: there are too few 'smart' Americans available (knowledgeable about foreign languages and cultures) !

For now, we should quit meddling overseas altogether--until we can change our youth-culture to produce an educated, world-informed elite. This should be an urgent project, like the rush to produce scientists after the Soviet 'first-in-space' shock. As things are, the Bushies go for blind interventionist lunges based on isolationist thinking.

We have enough to do with our minds and money just to block or mitigate possible terrorist attacks on our Homeland. We can't manage a 'distant-warning' defense: our spies are incompetent, and the Bushies have forfeited the cooperation of former allies.

So we must try to work within America: e.g., to inspect, for possible nuclear weapons, the 25,000 huge ship-containers entering our ports each DAY. Also, we must have an urgent program to recruit and train enough medical personnel to prepare for a probable germ-war attack. And so on.

Such necessary precautions would take hundreds of billions of dollars,at a time when our government is practically bankrupt. But wait ! We're now shovelling $1200 MILLIONS EVERY DAY to the Pentagon, whose bombers and missiles are useless against individual terrorists; we're like a leopard relying on its awesome claws and teeth to fight off hornets. Perhaps our 'teeth/claws' budget should be cut.

None of these urgent reforms will happen, of course. (The Bushies are shamelessly underfunding Homeland Protection, while ignorant Americans say they trust Bush on 'security'.) This prescription, neglected, will actually serve as our epitaph.
==========
The folly of trusting Bushies on 'security' is emphasized by news that 2004 (after Bushie lunges in Iraq & Afghanistan) saw more terrorist attacks throughout the world than in any other year since 1985, when they started counting.
[Scripps-Howard, cited in TRUTHOUT] So much for Bush's chatter that his policies have made the world 'safer from terrorism' !

It is a mystery why the expected big attack on our Homeland has not yet happened. But no informed person doubts that terrorists still have the capability and the will to repeat or top 9/11.

 
MOVE TOWARD SENSIBLE PROTECTIONISM: The Senate & the House are making separate moves to restrict trade with China--trade that now involves a great export surplus for China, and a deficit for U.S.
So the Bushies have quit urging patience, and are now demanding that Chinese quit pegging their currency to U.S. dollar, demanding that they let it float like other currencies. (The belief is that it would float UPWARDS, making their exports more expensive--less attractive--and their imports cheaper.) FinTimes

You can see why EUROPE would demand this: cheap dollar plus cheap rimini really hurt European exports, make Europe more vulnerable to undesired imports.

But why do AMERICANS have the nerve to complain? The rimini now tracks the dollar; they're not getting any unfair trading advantage over us.

It's good to know that U.S. politicians are seeing the danger of cheap Chinese imports, which easily outcompete U.S. corporations, say, on textiles. That encourages joblessness here, AS DOES U.S. corporations moving components overseas, which process goods using cheap labor, then 'selling ' the products back to U.S.Also, 'outsourcing' is a way of substituting cheap foreign labor for U.S. workers; also automation substitutes machines for U.S. labor. All these factors keep down U.S. wages and salaries.

Impoverished U.S. workers are pulling back from buying. That's one reason for the staggering drop this week in U.S. stocks: DowJones down below 10,100!