Three Thousand

As of today, officially, 3,000 American troops have died in Iraq.

Happy New Year, Mr. Bush. You did this. Now go to Hell.

Before Bush does that, he must first experience a political hell of his own making. Funny thing about that... putting a noose around Saddam's neck cannot prevent the 3,000 troop deaths from turning into an albatross about Bush's neck. Indeed, the coincidence only highlights Bush's indifference to the human costs of his personal vendetta.

To all the troops still fighting this evil, meaningless, preemptive, invasive war: my prayers go with you, every day, every minute. Do what you have to, to stay alive, however many times Mr. Bush sends you into one untenable situation after another, ill-equipped and inadequately supported. Hang on. Hold fast.

To those who have lost loved ones, I can only offer my grief and my outrage, however little they can possibly compare with your own. Your sons and daughters deserved better.

If I could be granted one wish in 2007, it would be that the Madman-in-Chief and his henchmen be thwarted in their determination to wage war whenever possible, indifferent to the damage to America and to the deaths of her children.

Happy New Year to all people of good will.

Steve
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Saturday Signs

Part of the promised silliness. Start of a series of signs? Maybe... I have quite a collection.

Steve
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The Obligatory Post - UPDATED

In truly random order, because I'm tired of the crap...

• The obligatory disclaimer: Saddam was a right bastard, one of the most cold-blooded killers of our era, and in no way, shape or form do I feel sorry for him, not even a little bit. (Got that, trolls?)
• An observation: Neither the people of the U.S. nor those of Iraq are any better off now than they were a few hours ago.
• Another observation: I've seen no reports of miraculous resurrections of Saddam's victims. It was in the hope of such miracles that they executed Saddam, right?
• A question: Do you feel safer? Has any part of our preemptive, invasive war on Iraq made you feel safer?
• Another question: To whom, exactly, does the execution send a message? Over more millennia than I care to think, one ruthless dictator has been assassinated, only to be replaced, usually immediately, by another. I personally think that is the likeliest outcome of Iraq's current civil war.
• Another observation: genuine life in prison without parole, a compulsory fading into obscurity, especially for a megalomaniac like Saddam, would have been far more effective punishment than execution, with its ever-present possibility (at least in the mind of the condemned, and possibly in actuality through his surviving supporters) of becoming a martyr.
• A question: Has the inevitable snuff video hit the web yet? Will you watch it when it does? (My answer: no.)
• Another question: Will Shrub get a bump in his JAR polls from this?
• Yet another question: How will Rove and company use this as a distraction? What will they do while Saddam occupies at least two daily news cycles?
• A final question: How civilized do you feel tonight, knowing that your nation initiated the chain of events leading to utter chaos in Iraq, for which Saddam's execution is scant compensation?

Enjoy your weekend. I think I may post either fun stuff or at least stuff unrelated to Iraq for a couple of days. I'm about as friggin' fed up with the whole business as I can be. I presume if the choice is for me to post amusing pictures and non-war-related news for a couple of days, or hang it up, you (well, all of you readers of good will) would prefer the former.

One exception: if we actually cross the 3,000 mark in American troop deaths (CNN said it was 2,977 as of 12/26; it may already have occurred), I'll blog about that. Otherwise, expect silly drivel for a while.

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UPDATE: Yeah, I know what I said. But you have to read Riverbend. God help us all, what have we (as a nation, not you and I as individuals) done.

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UPDATE: One more thing: please read the statement issued before the execution yesterday by Richard Dicker, international justice director of Human Rights Watch:

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The trial judgment was not finished when the verdict and sentence were announced on November 5. The record only became available to defence lawyers on November 22. According to the tribunal's statute, the defence attorneys had to file their appeals on December 5, which gave them less than two weeks to respond to the 300-page trial decision. The appeals chamber never held a hearing to consider the legal arguments presented as allowed by Iraqi law. It defies belief that the appeals chamber could fairly review a 300-page decision together with written submissions by the defence and consider all the relevant issues in less than three weeks.

This follows a trial whose serious flaws rendered the verdict unsound. The trial was undermined from the start by persistent political interference from the Iraqi government. Furthermore, the rights of the defendants were systematically denied by failures to disclose key evidence to the defence. There were also serious violations of the defendants' rights to confront witnesses testifying against them. Most disturbing were the frequent lapses of judicial demeanour by the trial's second presiding judge. In January, the first chief judge resigned in protest over the public criticism of his trial management practices by leading officials.

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The momentary elation over Saddam's demise among those who suffered under his regime will not outweigh or outlast the loss of a unique opportunity to establish a clear record of his regime's criminality. The flawed trial and a fast-track execution send a clear signal that political interference is still very much a feature of the judicial process in the new Iraq.

The author of the unconscionably flawed process leading to Saddam's rushed execution does not reside in Iraq: he occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, DC, USA. Apparently, the rule of law means nothing to him. If he short-circuited judicial due process in Iraq for his own political purposes, why would anyone think he would not do the same at home?

Steve
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Friday Holiday Cat Blogging

Samantha volunteers as a holiday table decoration...

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Stella shares a bad habit with Tabitha, but Tabitha is interested only in the condensation of water on the outside of the bottle...

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Taking a licking; giving a licking...

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Next week's feline blogging will probably be more holiday pictures.

Steve
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I-R-A-Something

Bush is in Crawford, allegedly formulating a new strategery for Iraq with his top advisers. Is anyone else as nervous as I am that he may, in reality, be plotting an invasion of Iran before Democrats take control of Congress in a few days? Or does my tinfoil need adjusting?

Steve
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Billmon Retires

It appears from this post that Billmon is finally hanging up his keyboard. Swopa strikes just the right note of farewell. Of course, Billmon has retired before...

I decline to engage in gnashing of teeth about it. Billmon was inarguably one of the greatest among us, and I will miss his writing, wisdom, snark and Photoshop wit more than I probably realize at the moment. But as I reminded Fallenmonk a short while ago, the life of our nation does not depend on any one blogger among us... it does, however, depend desperately on the efforts of all of us taken together. However you feel about the so-called "great man theory" of history... personally, I think its adherents would do well to pay more attention to great women... the blogosphere has never worked that way, and never will. I read recently that there are about fifty million blogs. Individuals will, inevitably, come and go. Some will be missed a great deal; some, not so much. But anyone who thinks that the totality of the 'sphere has not wrought significant changes in the social and political complexion of our nation and the world simply isn't paying attention.

Farewell, Billmon. You're retiring, but the larger whiskey bar will stay open. The rest of us will try to avoid wrecking the place, consuming the entire stock without replenishing it, and smashing all the glassware... just in case you should decide to reopen.

Steve
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Secret Tapes Again

... and Woodward again. I wouldn't go so far as to say Woodward... and in this case Gerald Ford... preferred their own interests over the nation's here, but there's more than a hint of self-service in Woodward's interview of Ford about subjects which, had Ford come forward during his lifetime, might actually have impacted the course of events. Here's Woodward, writing in (where else) the WaPo:

Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration.

In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney -- Ford's White House chief of staff -- and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.

"Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do."

In a conversation that veered between the current realities of a war in the Middle East and the old complexities of the war in Vietnam whose bitter end he presided over as president, Ford took issue with the notion of the United States entering a conflict in service of the idea of spreading democracy.

"Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people," Ford said, referring to Bush's assertion that the United States has a "duty to free people." But the former president said he was skeptical "whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what's in our national interest." He added: "And I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security."

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Even if the interviews had been published earlier, I doubt Ford's opinions would have influenced Bush. Nothing influences Bush these days; he's gone clinically insane. But if Ford would have even attempted to persuade his old buddies Rummy and Cheney, he might well have spared America a great deal of grief.

I remember one of his catch-phrases back in the day: "I'm a Ford, not a Lincoln." And so it is. The interviews were conducted in 2005, and I can understand why a 92-year-old man would choose to avoid direct participation in the day's events. But if not Ford, who? and if not 2005, when? Put it down as another opportunity lost, another right action not taken.

Given that Ford just died, and that under other circumstances he did service to the nation, I had hoped not to have to emphasize the partisan aspect of these interviews, but the connection to all the usual GOP methods and approaches is pretty obvious. The Eleventh Commandment seems once again to have prevailed over the other ten.

And for what it's worth, I call upon Bob Woodward to live up to the standard he set in his youth. Yeah, I know; he really listens to me.

Steve
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Myth List

Juan Cole's list of the Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2006 is, not surprisingly, right on target (pardon the expression).

(Via firedoglake, in turn via Rants from the Rookery, which you really should be reading every day.)

Steve
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Caption This

Hey, fellas,
I liked the
halo better!
Or maybe
a crown,
that's it,
gimme a crown!

Steve
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Gerald Ford (1913-2006)

Former President Gerald Ford is dead at 93. The writer of the AP obit said it well:

Not imperial. Not reclusive. And, of greatest satisfaction to a nation numbed by Watergate, not dishonest.

A man who ascended to the presidency in the most awkward possible manner, during arguably the nation's most troubled times (to that point) since W.W.II, Ford handled the situation with aplomb and forthrightness. No one could have fixed what was broken in American government at the point Ford became president, but his sensitivity to the situation and to the nation's need for healing was admirable. I'll say it plainly: Ford was a better man than his predecessor, in either office he held. Nixon, despite his protests, was, indeed, a crook. Agnew was not only a crook, but the lowest kind of crook, resigning over a bribery scandal. Ford... Ford was a contrast to both of them. Whatever flaws he may have had, he was a breath of fresh air.

Ford was right to pardon Nixon. It is not something I believe I could have done, and I admire Ford for his courage in doing the right thing when it almost certainly cost him election to the office to which he ascended by appointment and resignation. Trying Nixon would have served no purpose other than exacting revenge, a revenge an already bitterly divided nation could ill afford.

As a young man at the time, one who was a liberal independent provoked by Nixon into making the transition to being a registered Democrat, I cannot really regret that Ford was never elected. Rather, I regret that Ford's thread of tradition was not followed up in the GOP, and that Nixon rather than Ford became the model for future GOP leaders. How was Ford regarded, once his short term as president was over?

Ford was never asked to the White House for a social event during Reagan's eight years as president.

And thus it has been ever since. With rare exceptions such as the collaborations between Carter and Ford, and later Clinton and Bush 41, in charitable matters, anyone of any party who crossed a Republican president has received a sharp stick in the eye for his or her troubles.

Ford was not the model ex-president. Carter has written two dozen books, participated in efforts to promote fair democratic elections worldwide and organized a number of charities. Ford used his retirement from the presidency to get rich, in part from his status as former president. But in his brief tenure, he did a great deal for us all, at a time when a lesser person could easily have led the nation into a bitter schism of the sort not seen until... well, until today.

R.I.P., Gerald R. Ford.

Steve
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The Christmas Post

For a heartwarming read at the end of Christmas Day (here, anyway), you could not do better than Mark Evanier's POV column on Mel Tormé and The Christmas Song ("Chestnuts roasting..."). Hope yours was a good one! (H/T Avedon.)

Steve
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Happy Whatever You Celebrate

Bryan of Why Now? has an excellent list of winter solstice holidays from various traditions, along with some of the customs associated with those holidays. I wish you each and every one of you a happy merry instance of whichever one you celebrate. If yours is not on the list, there's always NODWISH (NOn-Denominational WInter Solstice Holiday), created by the excellent MercuryX23. Or you can make up your own holiday; that would be in the UU spirit (although most of us choose to celebrate everyone's traditional holidays instead... there's more food and drink that way).

Personally, I celebrated the winter solstice. Like most people who experience seasonal depression related mostly to dark days (literally dark, all metaphors aside), I am overjoyed that the days are lengthening. Like most Terry Pratchett fans, I also celebrate Hogswatch. But of course I respect other traditions, and I know many Republicans celebrate Hogwash, though I think that's all year round...

We did some celebrating with a friend yesterday, and we're headed for a celebration with other friends today, another friend tomorrow, and with Stella's family on 12/25, and who knows, maybe more later on. I've arranged with my client to take the remainder of the year off work, so there will be blogging here next week... presuming I still fit through the door after consuming all the goodies.

Whatever. Have a happy one!

Steve
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'A Rational Animal' Returns

... and unless Lilith, a founding member of The Liberal Coalition, has changed a lot in the intervening three years, that means that a rational animal returns as well... also a sharp-witted animal, a frequently snarky animal, an animal who doesn't suffer fools gladly. Welcome back, Lilith; you've no idea how much we've missed you.

Steve
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Teen Drug Use Shows Unbelievable Decline

Teen use of illegal drugs is down... waaay down:

Illegal Drug Use by Teenagers Is on Decline, U.S. Study Finds
By MICAH COHEN
Published: December 22, 2006

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 — The percentage of teenagers using illegal drugs continued a decade-long decline in 2006, but the illicit use of prescription drugs remains worrying, according to a survey released Thursday by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

“I think we’re seeing a generation that has gotten wiser about drugs,” said Lloyd D. Johnston, the survey’s principal investigator. But more attention, Dr. Johnston said, should be paid to prescription drug abuse.

The survey showed a decline of 23 percent since 2001 in the percentage of students who said they had used “any illicit drug” in the month before taking the survey, with 14.9 percent saying they had used such drugs.

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A decline of twenty-three percent since 2001... wow! It looks as if Mr. Bush is doing something right in the War on Some Drugs Used by Some People (™ Avedon), right? A veritable miracle! So... what was the methodology in this study?

The 32nd annual report was based on a survey of almost 50,000 students in the 8th, 10th, and 12th grades in more than 400 public and private schools nationwide. The survey was financed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and carried out by the University of Michigan.

So... they asked the teens themselves whether they used illegal drugs? And they're surprised and delighted that they answer "no" more often over the past few years than in previous years? Gimme a friggin' break!

We live in an era in which a 17-year-old Georgia boy received a 10-year sentence... upheld by the Georgia Supreme Court... for receiving a blow job from a 15-year-old girl, despite repeated testimony by the girl that the act was consensual, and despite the fact that the law has changed since the boy was charged, such that the act would not be illegal today.

Ten years in the slammer for a BJ between adolescent kids two years different in age. And we expect teens to tell us the truth about whether they committed other acts that are, by and large irrationally, still illegal?

We live in an era in which honesty about mistakes, the kind of honesty that might lead to some sort of process by which these kids could learn why their actions are mistakes, is punished by jail time. How constructive is that?

If I were the father of a teen, and that teen confessed to me that they had used an illegal drug regularly, I'd tell them what a stupid thing it was to endanger themselves, take them to our family physician who (I should hope) would help us find a suitable detox program, and tell the kid never, ever, ever to mention it to anyone other than me or a doctor we hired. Do I mean I'd tell them to lie if asked about it? Damned right I'd tell them to lie if necessary. No one should spend a decade or three in jail because they used an illegal drug. And I wouldn't be the only parent who looked around, saw the absurd manner in which the "war on drugs" is waged, and advised his or her kid the same way.

Until much better evidence is available, I'll assume the NIDA study shows a 23 percent drop in self-reported drug use by teens since 2001. Big friggin' deal. Dr. Johnson is right that we're "seeing a generation that has gotten wiser about drugs." They've gotten wiser about not saying things that will result in their being sent to jail for the rest of their youth.

The press reports this as if something real has happened. And we pay tax dollars for the kind of crap "found" by such studies. I can't even really blame U. Michigan, which surely would lose the contract if their studies came up with the "wrong" answers. But I'm getting really, really tired of the abuse of the scientific process in pursuit of political-agenda-driven "right" answers.

Steve
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Friday Catherine Blogging

Catherine, Lotus's human, one of my best friends for about three decades, turned 60 yesterday.

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Catherine, sporting a new "do" and a dashing red silk shawl, sits at home in front of a Mexican metal Christmas tree and a variety of Mexican figures of people and animals assembled into a nativity scene (as well as a couple of more serious statues in the background). Catherine noted that the cat figure (lower right) appears to have absconded with Baby Jesus.

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Lotus condescends to be scratched by Catherine, the only human privileged to do so. Lotus is very affectionate in general, but is reluctant about being scratched on the head. I can identify.

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Stella and Catherine at the restaurant, Baba Yega. The place is more a big old house than a hut, located in the Montrose, and it does not rest on chicken legs as far as I can tell. But it does have a dozen vegetarian items on its menu, and the chef knows how to cook.

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This chocolate cheesecake with raspberries, a masterful creation by one of Stella's coworkers who also runs a one-man business providing first-rate handcrafted cheesecakes, could illuminate a room... even without any candles.

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Happy Birthday, Catherine... may you live at least 60 more years!

Steve
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All Hail The Change In Seasons

Here it is the Winter Solstice, and in Houston, we're just seeing the transition from Fall to Winter. The picture on the left was taken just one week ago; those leaves are gone now. But that's a Chinese tallow, which is not a native tree... the natives all still have their leaves. The picture on the right was taken a couple of hours ago, after a brief but intense thunderstorm that turned out to be a hailstorm as well. I didn't even realize it had hailed until I opened the door.

It's still comfortable shirtsleeve weather here. Eat your hearts out, denizens of the frozen North!

(Click images for larger versions.)

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Aside: for Lotus's human, today is a major birthday ending in zero. Stella and I are taking her out to celebrate, so cat blogging this Friday will probably not happen on the dot of midnight.

Steve
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Pottering Around With Titles

The finale of the Harry Potter series now has a name... a name to conjure with, I suppose... but still no indication of a date of publication. The name is revealed in a game one can play at Rowling's official web site. Or you can read the article linked above and find a spoiler at the end. I chose the latter; I'm too old for games. Heh.

Children of friends have assured me the final volume will be published on 07/07/07. Who am I to say they're wrong. Or right. All I know is that the story has a happy ending. Potter's story? Who knows; I was talking about Rowling's. Most of us will cheer that an author of children's books... well-conceived and well-written children's books... has actually become wealthy beyond belief. There is, after all, some justice in the world.

Steve
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Imagine All The Peepholes

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The Gift Of The Magi

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The Licking Of Republican Chops

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REPRESENTATIVE Ciro D. Rodriguez!

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Uninformative Headline

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December 7, 1941

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Iraq Report In The Real World

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Hard Work... Hard Work...

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Olbermann On Gingrich

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Rainbow Coalition - UPDATED

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No Sex For You!

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Tossing Cookies In Firefox

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Friday Mighty Hunter Blogging

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