The Cost Of War

The debate over the war in Iraq, whether we should, or should not have gone in unfortunately rages between a majority and a minority of Americans to this very day. True, the majority has switched to those being against the war in the last five years but regardless, we are still paying the price. Big numbers can sound abstract to many people as they lead their busy lives, so sometimes you need to put things in perspective. Numbers like 3,908 and $483 billion can become mind numbing to all of us, even if they are shocking at first. So that is why I want you to read the last blog post from Major Andrew Olmstead. His words do what no others can.

From Obsidian Wings:

This is an entry I would have preferred not to have published, but there are limits to what we can control in life, and apparently I have passed one of those limits. And so, like G'Kar, I must say here what I would much prefer to say in person. I want to thank hilzoy for putting it up for me. It's not easy asking anyone to do something for you in the event of your death, and it is a testament to her quality that she didn't hesitate to accept the charge. As with many bloggers, I have a disgustingly large ego, and so I just couldn't bear the thought of not being able to have the last word if the need arose. Perhaps I take that further than most, I don't know. I hope so. It's frightening to think there are many people as neurotic as I am in the world. In any case, since I won't get another chance to say what I think, I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity. Such as it is.

"When some people die, it's time to be sad. But when other people die, like really evil people, or the Irish, it's time to celebrate."
Jimmy Bender, "Greg the Bunny"

"And maybe now it's your turn
To die kicking some ass."
Freedom Isn't Free, Team America

What I don't want this to be is a chance for me, or anyone else, to be maudlin. I'm dead. That sucks, at least for me and my family and friends. But all the tears in the world aren't going to bring me back, so I would prefer that people remember the good things about me rather than mourning my loss. (If it turns out a specific number of tears will, in fact, bring me back to life, then by all means, break out the onions.) I had a pretty good life, as I noted above. Sure, all things being equal I would have preferred to have more time, but I have no business complaining with all the good fortune I've enjoyed in my life. So if you're up for that, put on a little 80s music (preferably vintage 1980-1984), grab a Coke and have a drink with me. If you have it, throw 'Freedom Isn't Free' from the Team America soundtrack in; if you can't laugh at that song, I think you need to lighten up a little. I'm dead, but if you're reading this, you're not, so take a moment to enjoy that happy fact. Read on...

I never got the chance to read Andy's works until now, but I am glad I was able to find them. He was a brilliant yet humble writer who personifies the cost of the war. In that comment thread at Obsidian Wings there is a policy not to post political comments, since Andy's family is reading it, so please, if you like what he wrote, please leave a respectful comment down below.

Godspeed Andy.

A Scary Thought

And that thought is that this man could win New Hampshire for the Republicans in three days time. It is truly horrifying, to see someone's resurgence while clamoring for something that 2/3 of the country or more despises.

Bloomberg Finally Cracks Down On Parking Permit Abuse

I know the Mayor has been busy not running for President in the last few months so it has been hard tending to the city. However, he finally got to business on one of the city's longstanding ills.

From The Gothamist:

Mayor Bloomberg has announced that the city will crackdown on the abuse of parking permits issued to civil servants, reducing the overall number by 20%. The change comes after the Post revealed in November that “149 separate government entities had qualified for the coveted placards last year, ranging from the state lottery to the US Navy recruiting office, which was allocated an astonishing 110 permits.”

In fact, so many agencies produce and distribute the parking placards that the city has no idea how many are out there! The mayor's office guesstimates 70,000, but Transportation Alternatives, who run a website that posts photos of illegally parked cars with permits, says 150,000 is more like it because of all the counterfeit and expired placards out there.[...]

The new plan, intended to cut congestion and pollution as well as corruption, goes like this:

• Every city agency is to conduct an inventory of its permits and reduce them by 20%. This would eliminate roughly 14,000.
  
• They must stop issuing new ones as of March 1st. (Less than eight weeks to call in a favor to your buddy at the Navy recruiting office.)
  
• As of March 1st only the Police Department and the Department of Transportation will have the authority to issue the coveted parking placards.
  
• A multi-agency working group will implement and coordinate the various measures.
  
• The NYPD will create a new enforcement unit to ensure compliance and agencies will develop enforcement procedures to prevent the abuse of placards.

Now here is where change gets tricky, all of these new rules apply to the NYPD and they love their parking perks. Many officers are up in arms over this despite keeping the ability to issue the permits. Streetsblog found this rant indicative of what may ensue from all of this. Personally, those bastards can kiss my you know what. Also, they should re-arrange some funds by making the ticket-nazis (you know who I'm talking about) police the permit abusers instead of acting as blood-suckers to ordinary cars.

Here's A Stat The Traditional Media Won't Show Much

This has to have the Republican party shaking, trembling and quivering with fear. Not only did one of the anti-establishment candidates win (e.g. Huckabee), they were destroyed in the overall vote.

From The Group News Blog:

Total Voter Turnout (approximate)

356,000

Percentage of total vote
24.5% Obama
20.5% Edwards
19.8% Clinton
11.4% Huckabee (R)

I can't wait to see how the numbers turn out in New Hampshire. They do not have dedicated evangelicals in that state on the scale of Iowa. That was what propelled Huckabee to victory last night, now the hottest ticket in the small state of New Hampshire is John McCain. If you can tell me something thrilling about that old fart, it would be shocking.

Karma Visits Glenn Beck

Aww, the poor dear. It seems that Glenn Beck's recent surgery went awry and the obnoxious talk show host with the worst ratings on CNN/CNN Headline News was doused with drugs to stop his pain.

In all seriousness, I hope he recovers fully and leads a normal, happy life (I just want him out of the public's earshot). In this video he talked about contemplating suicide from the pain and is deciding whether he will "name names" on his come back show on January 7th. His YouTube site calls this a tease for his show, so talking about being some sort of anti-corporate born again might just be a cry for better ratings.

East Village Is Looking To Protect Itself

While crime has dropped significantly throughout the city and even the "scary" Alphabet City is no longer a place where you must be loaded to walk past Avenue B, there is a huge problem in the neighborhood. It doesn't have anything to do with violence, but everything with having to preserve the character of the area. As anyone who has gone to Astor Place knows, there are two Starbucks within a few hundred feet of each other and a third that lurks nearby. Starbucks and other corporations (especially banks) are trying to take over the East Village as much as they have across the rest of the city. Well now the community is trying to do something to stop it.

From The Villager:

To address the encroachment of chain stores, some members of the East Village Community Coalition have taken the first steps toward what they hope will be a “formula retail” zoning plan for the neighborhood that could limit or change the character of chain stores opening in the area.

The concept — initiated by Michael Rosen, E.V.C.C.’s co-founder and a 19-year East Village resident — seeks to eventually implement changes to the city’s Zoning Resolution that would prevent so-called formula chain establishments such as Starbucks from displacing local businesses or appearing out of context with the neighborhood.

The organization has only just begun to investigate the idea, after publishing its second annual pocket guidebook featuring hundreds of independently owned shops in the East Village to encourage locally based commerce. E.V.C.C. also recently enlisted the help of the Pratt Center for Community Development to research possible solutions in the increasingly gentrified area, which Rosen worries could become like “your basic strip mall” if preventive action is not taken.

Strip malls may be the fixture of suburbia, but they have no place in communities such as the East Village. Thankfully they, the community, is fighting back against the corporatization of America. If we can't save (some) of the character of New York, what chance does the rest of the country have?

Dodd May Have Dropped, But He's Not Giving Up The FISA Fight

Now that the Iowa Caucus is behind us, it was inevitable that some of the candidates on the lower tier would start dropping out of the race. One of those was Connecticut's Democratic Senator, Chris Dodd. He never really stood a chance against the likes of Obama, Clinton and Edwards, but he certainly does have a record of great repute. And to back that up, he is dedicated to adding to that record by continuing the fight against retroactive immunity.

From Chris Dodd via Daily Kos:

I count the past year of campaigning for the presidency as one of the most rewarding in a career of public service.

Unfortunately, I am withdrawing from that campaign tonight.

But there is no reason to hang our heads this evening -- only the opportunity to look towards a continuation of the work we started last January: ending the Iraq War, restoring the Constitution, and putting a Democrat in the White House.

I know a lot of you came to this email list through a shared desire to return our nation to one that respects the rule of law, and I want to make one thing clear to all of you:

The fight to restore the Constitution and stop retroactive immunity does not end with my Presidential campaign. FISA will come back in a few weeks and my pledge to filibuster ANY bill that includes retroactive immunity remains operative.

You've been an invaluable ally in the battle, and I'll need you to stick by my side despite tonight's caucus results.

So, one more time, thank you for all of your efforts throughout the course of this entire Presidential campaign.

We made a real difference in shaping the debate, and we'll continue to do so in the coming days, weeks and years.

I'll never forget you, and what we've fought for, together, over the past year.

Chris Dodd

Now that is a man with class, spirit and a determination to uphold the Constitution while Bush and his gang are doing their best to destroy it.

The Man That Beat Out Clinton

What an amazing speaker, and what a great President he would be for our country:

This Is Why Sheldon Silver Needs To Go

This morning the NY Post rightly slammed the Assembly Leader for his reckless bailout for lenders and borrowers alike in the mess that is the subprime mortgage market. I generally do not agree with a lot of what the Post writes about but when it comes to this, they are right on. Giving $180,000,000.00 to the banks and institutions that lent this money is ridiculous, not only because New York is facing a budget crisis (that makes it bad enough though) but because the banks do not deserve to be given anything back. It was wrong for them to lend the money in the first place and I believe it should be criminal.

Also, the Post points out that these millions will be taken from the millions of responsible borrowers through their taxes to those that borrowed without reading the details of their mortgage agreement. Now I believe that it wasn't entirely their fault, there was a reason why the banks preyed on many of these people specifically. The people that run these programs at the banks aren't stupid, they know how to spot easy marks like any hoodlum on the street, the only difference is that they wear suits.

Another difference between the criminals on the street and the ones in the midtown and downtown banks is that the suits have friends in Albany. You would never hear a legislator talk about bailing out loan sharks and shylocks who had gamblers and druggies who defaulted on their payments, would you? Yet the banks know how to have friends like Sheldon Silver and Darryl Towns.

From The NY Post:

Most astounding about Silver's plan, though, is that it not only seeks to hold harmless those who take on more than they can handle, but it also essentially legitimizes that practice - by doing the same thing itself.

We repeat: There's no money to fund it. And when asked about this wee oversight, Silver gave the classic response of those who can't say no: The state would just have to find the money, he said, for the 50,000 households "in some state of foreclosure" - just as it does for cops and other key public servants. (That is, the financially responsible other 19 million New Yorkers will have to pony up.)

"We have to be creative," said Banking Committee Chairman Darryl Towns, in trying to close the budget gap. But "this is one of our priorities."

Their priorities are to their friends in the banks. While many borrowers are let off the hook here and will escape foreclosure, the banks are the real winners here because they still get some money back from their abysmal failure of not trying to be good stewards of money and capital.

That $180 million should have not been spent at all or at the very least be put to programs that have better use for New Yorkers. And while you are at it, why not prosecute the banks for the crap they pull, then we would have less trouble with our budget shortfall.

Insert "9/11" Here

Many pundits and "experts" on both sides are talking about many different things now, but one thing is for sure...Rudy is finished. He drew 4 percent of the vote last night and finished behind everybody. Even Ron Paul more than doubled his numbers. Now Rudy is looking weak in New Hampshire and his "late-state" strategy is falling to pieces as his support drops in places like South Carolina and especially Florida. So one must beg the question, are you scared Rudy?

From The Daily News:

"None of this worries me - Sept. 11, there were times I was worried," Giuliani said.

"We're sitting in a pretty good position right now. So we're not worried and not concerned," he told a news conference here. "Maybe other people acted nervous in a situation like this, but this is not unexpected."

Good position eh? You mean like when after you sit down on a giant water slide and you are slowly moving into the tube, right before you rocket down to Earth?

The truth is, Rudy is scrambling and scrambling fast. His advisers pushed him to go on a barnstorming tour of New Hampshire for the next five days so he can hopefully gain some ground up there before all hope is lost. Unfortunately for Mr. Giuliani, the more people see of him the more they want to vote for someone else.

Perhaps we should add Rudy's name to the definition of a Catch-22.

"The Day That Would Never Come"

You got to hand it to the man that got 38 percent last night in Iowa:

Caucus-mania!!!

It is just a little past ten here on the East Coast and the first part of Election 2008 is now over. So what does it all mean? Obama takes 1st for the Dems, Huckabee crushes Romney et al. and now Clinton and Edwards are digging it out for second, though it looks like Edwards is going to eek it out past Ms. Inevitability at the moment.

The punditry class is going nuts and Chris Matthews is helping to lead the charge. Everyone is going to be talking and they have five days to do it before New Hampshire becomes the first state to cast actual ballots in their primary. From there on out the "momentum" is supposed to be cast and for now Obama is looking good and Clinton is looking bad, while Edwards is going to hang in there. Despite which way the Iowa Dems voted, they came out large, and attracted a massive amount of Independents. That means the Republicans should be running scared about where the "middle" of the country is going.

Speaking of Republicans, they got less than half the turnout of the Democrats. A minister turned governor swept the state out from an area not too far from "Nowheresville," Romney came in a distant second and the rest of the old farts are way down near 10 percent or below. The national front-runner is polling somewhere around four percent and McCain is somehow the winner in all of this, at least according to pundit-extraordinaire Chris "Tweety bird" Matthews.

Well enough about that, I'm going back to watching Cenk Uygur at the Young Turks/Brave New Films election special.