Hurricane Hillary - the Democrats' Own Katrina

The best thing that John McCain has going for him is Hillary Clinton. So long as she's in the race for the Democratic Party's nomination his popularity soars. By the time November has come and gone the toughest opponent McCain may have faced in his march to the White House could be Mike Huckabee.

David Brooks, writing in the International Herald Tribune, says Hillary simply can't help herself - or the Democrats.

"The door is closing. Night is coming. The end, however, is not near.

Last week, an important Clinton adviser told Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen (also of Politico) that Clinton had no more than a 10 percent chance of getting the nomination. Now, she's probably down to a 5 percent chance.

Five percent.

Let's take a look at what she's going to put her party through for the sake of that 5 percent chance: The Democratic Party is probably going to have to endure another three months of daily sniping.

For three more months (maybe more!) the campaign will proceed along in its Verdun-like pattern. There will be a steady rifle fire of character assassination from the underlings, interrupted by the occasional firestorm of artillery when the contest touches upon race, gender or patriotism. The policy debates between the two have been long exhausted, so the only way to get the public really engaged is by poking some raw national wound.

For the sake of that 5 percent, this will be the sourest spring.

About a fifth of Clinton and Obama supporters now say they wouldn't vote for the other candidate in the general election. Meanwhile, on the other side, voters get an unobstructed view of the Republican nominee. John McCain's approval ratings have soared 11 points. He is now viewed positively by 67 percent of Americans. A month ago, McCain was losing to Obama among independents by double digits in a general election matchup. Now McCain has a lead among this group.

For three more months, Clinton is likely to hurt Obama even more against McCain, without hurting him against herself. And all this is happening so she can preserve that 5 percent chance.

When you step back and think about it, she is amazing. She possesses the audacity of hopelessness.

Why does she go on like this?

Does Clinton privately believe that Obama is so incompetent that only she can deliver the policies they both support?

Is she simply selfish, and willing to put her party through agony for the sake of her slender chance?

The better answer is that Clinton's long rear-guard action is the logical extension of her relentlessly political life.

For nearly 20 years, she has been encased in the apparatus of political celebrity. Look at her schedule as first lady and ever since. Think of the thousands of staged events, the tens of thousands of times she has pretended to be delighted to see someone she doesn't know, the hundreds of thousands of times she has recited empty clichés and exhortatory banalities, the millions of photos she has posed for in which she is supposed to appear empathetic or tough, the billions of politically opportune half-truths that have bounced around her head.

No wonder the Clinton campaign feels impersonal. It's like a machine for the production of politics. It plows ahead from event to event following its own iron logic."

Maybe He Should Give Bush a Medal

According to Dick Cheney, the greatest burden of the Iraq War isn't being carried by those soldiers now enduring their fourth combat tours in that hellhole. It isn't by those who find themselves trapped beyond their enlistments thanks to the military's "stop loss" policy. No, the real burden is being carried by President Bush.

"The president carries the biggest burden, obviously," Cheney said. "He's the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans, but we are fortunate to have a group of men and women, the all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm's way for the rest of us."

There are no words to describe how vile this creature is. Dick Cheney knows a lot about fighting. He fought to bag five draft deferments during the Vietnam War to keep his ass safely at home while others went off to do his share of the fighting. This man is the poster boy of Chickenhawks. It's no wonder he has no idea, none, of the burden his country's trapped soldiers are truly bearing.

Hillary Under Fire

Hillary Clinton isn't having a good time of it lately. After running a pretty effective smear job on her rival, Barack Obama, to the enternal gratitude of Republican John McCain, Hillary has been pulled back into the realm of reality, her own reality, and she's not liking it.

To use the phrase of the judge at the McCartney divorce hearing about Heather Mills, Hillary has "over-egged the pudding." That's a polite way of saying she's been a bit carried away with her many claims to fame.

To hear her tell it, she was instrumental in helping her husband, the Big Dog, cope with the many crises he faced during his terms as president. Why she must've been right there by his side, guiding his hand. Except she wasn't. It turns out that some 11,000 pages of her record - pried loose by a Republican Freedom of Information proceeding - shows a considerably different picture to that painted by Hillary. Often she was on holiday at critical moments or having a tea social somewhere else.

Now Hillary is up against the "Phantom Sniper." This little, self-serving figment of Hillary's imagination came up in relation to her 1996 visit to Bosnia. Just last week Hillary told everyone how she had to brave sniper fire when she arrived at Tuzla airport:

"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base," she said in a speech last Monday.

Brave stuff indeed, presidential even - except it didn't happen. She just made it up. Also along on that junket was the comedian Sinbad who said the greatest crisis they faced was figuring out where to eat.

Caught with her drawers down and unable to claim the dog ate her homework, Hillary did the only thing she could do, she says she "misspoke":

"I say a lot of things — millions of words a day — so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement."

Yes, Mrs. Clinton, you do say a lot of things - a lot about your Democratic rival, Mr. Obama, and a lot about yourself. Maybe if you focused on saying less - maybe by just sticking to things that are true - you would do yourself a lot of good.

A weekend poll found that 60% of American voters said that McCain and Obama were believable. 57% said that Clinton was not believable. This is a candidate with a serious credibility problem and it's all of her own making.

What Did My Father Fight For?

How dare you? That seems to be a popular line among blogging tories. How dare you?

They question a prominent Liberal's assertion that our fathers fought for certain values in WWII which he claimed included cracking down on white supremacists in Calgary.

These same tories then go on to clothe their own dads in values they espouse. Sort of like getting out the Barbies and playing dress up. My dad was in the army (perhaps the motor pool or quartermasters corps but hey) and so he therefore validated my point of view on this issue or the other and he certainly didn't fight for anything you support.

What a preposterous load of hooey. Read Barry Broadfoot's book, "The War Years," (1974) Doubleday Canada, an anthology of vignettes from Canadians who lived and fought in WWII. It's from original source works like this that you'll discover just what was in your dad's or granddad's mind when he turned up at the recruiting centre to sign on.

Notable by their absence are things like King and Country or stopping global tyranny. Many signed up out of the enthusiasm of the moment, looking to grab a bit of the glory before it was all over. FTA, sometimes taken to mean F*** The Army, also can refer to Fun, Travel, Adventure - lures that have gotten young men to take the hook since long before Caesar. One fellow told Broadfoot that he signed on for the boots. He was barefoot at the time and nothing looked so appealing as a pair of quality army boots. Some signed on for genuinely trivial reasons, others to escape something unpleasant at home. Some needed a job or regular meals or wanted to learn to fly or just thought it'd be great fun.

The point is that each serviceman showed up for his own reasons based on his own beliefs and perceptions, views that generally were proven naive and sometimes completely false.

The curious thing is that, the more intimately a soldier was involved in actual combat, the less likely that person was to find meaning in the reality of war. Why we insist on finding that for them now is beyond me.

Was the Manley Report a Sham?

The key recommendation of the Manley panel report on Afghanistan finally makes sense.

The notion of drawing a line in the sand over a demand that NATO provide an extra 1,000 soldiers to support Canadian forces in Kandahar always seemed curious. Why 1,000? It seemed like a political number to come up with in a report that was supposed to be an assessment of the mission, not the politics behind the mission. Why not something meaningful, say 5,000 or more?

Well, if Denis Coderre is right, one thousand was an entirely political number and the Manley Report was all about the politics behind the mission and nothing more. In effect, Manley played a willing shill for Stephen Harper.

The Liberal defence critic says the extra 1,000 troops was already arranged before the Manley report was revealed. From the Globe & Mail:

"What I have learned is that, even before the Manley report, there was already a deal that Americans, if they don't have anybody [to assist the Canadians], will step up to the plate and provide that 1,000 soldiers," said Mr. Coderre.

Steven Staples, president of the Rideau Institute, a policy organization that has been critical of Afghan mission, holds similar views.

"The additional troops will have more political than military significance. With the 1,000 troops, French President Sarkozy scores points with U.S. President Bush, President Bush claims victory at NATO next month, and [Prime Minister] Stephen Harper can keep Canada in the war for another three years," Mr. Staples said in an e-mail yesterday.

"What is most concerning is that Canada, surrounded by 1,000 additional U.S. troops, will become increasingly implicated with U.S. forces and their aggressive war-fighting approach to the conflict."

In this context the Manley report finally makes sense. John Manley's job was to be Stephen Harper's water boy - and he delivered.

Surge Politics

There's something for everybody when it comes to "surge politics."

George w. Bush has been playing surge politics as the only means he has to salvage something of his presidential legacy. John McCain is relying on surge politics as just about the only means for a Republican to retain the White House in November.

The Demutantes have been on the wrong end of surge politics. Overall it doesn't help them when voters believe Bush's 11th hour brainwave is somehow working. Then again, a lowering of violence does bolster the argument that America can declare "mission accomplished" and leave.

Surge politics, however, is also played by the Iraqis insurgents and by the terrorists who've insinuated themselves into that country since 2003. With US voters beginning to make up their minds about who they'll support in November and the US media losing all interest in the place, it behooves the bad guys to get their faces front and center again. They need to be on American voters' minds if they're to have any prospect of influencing the November ballot.

My guess is that the key players in Iraq are ready to play Mesopotamia - the Home Game. In other words, they would like the US forces out so they can have at each other without meddling foreigners. If the surge can be made to appear a failure it's more likely the American people will elect an anti-war president. If the surge is seen as a success, however, John McCain will reap a lot of votes.

I had thought there would be an outbreak of major violence this summer - beginning in May or June. However the recent wave of bombings suggests this may be beginning already. Suddenly more American troops are getting ambushed and killed, Iraqi civilians are again falling to sectarian violence in big numbers.

The New York Times reports that a barrage of 20-mortar rounds was fired into the Green Zone bunker district today while, across the country, 58-Iraqis were killed. According to the paper, witnesses claimed the mortar attack came from a Shiite neighbourhood. More ominously, they said the attack was launched by a group of militia men belonging to the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al Sadr.

If al Sadr's forces are initiating fresh attacks it could spell the end of the militia's ceasefire which largely gave the surge the illusion of success. It could just be the next example of surge politics, Iraqi-style.

Update

The NYT is reporting that four American GIs were killed in Baghdad by a roadside bomb, bringing the total US combat death toll over the 4,000 mark.

If, as it appears, this is the beginning of a second insurgency - an end to the ceasefire of the past months - then - sorry, I don't know what to even guess. There are so many forces in play including Bush's last months in office, McCain's election prospects, the Dems (for whom Hillary is probably more lethal than al Sadr), the Shiite establishment and its militias, the Kurds and Turkey and the Iraqi Sunnis with their pan-Arabic backers. Oh, and I left out the Wahabist terrorism movement.

It's far too early to tell whether this is just a huge blip or the overture to some group's political agenda. There'll probably be morgues stuffed with cadavers before the subplots are revealed.

Damn Them All

This is about the most fitting tribute to the malevolence and carnage of Bush/Cheney and their minions. It's a couple of years old but it's perfect for the fifth anniversary of the war on Iraq.

Just Dickin' Around

Rick Mercer on Harper/Cadman

Here it is, Kids. This one is definitely worth the price of admission.

America's Racist Media Laid Bare

They spent the better part of a century and a half warning us that "the South will rise again" and the decent world didn't listen. Yet since the days of Lyndon Johnston the South has indeed arisen and a lot of the ugliness it once championed has been resurrected.

Under George w. Bush, in particular, racism and bigotry have crept back. Even America's media, wittingly or otherwise, are getting into the act. Look at the way they're focusing on Barack Obama and Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Then look at the way they're abjectly ignoring those other preachers - the white boys - and their political allies.

This article is from Alternet. It's long but it deserves to be read:


Rudy Giuliani's priest has been accused in grand jury proceedings of molesting several children and covering up the molestation of others. Giuliani would not disavow him on the campaign trail and still works with him.

Mitt Romney was part of a church that did not view black Americans as equals and actively discriminated against them. He stayed with that church all the way into his early thirties, until they were finally forced to change their policies to come into compliance with civil rights legislation. Romney never disavowed his church back then or now. He said he was proud of the faith of his fathers.

Jerry Falwell said America had 9/11 coming because we tolerated gays, feminists and liberals. It was our fault. Our chickens had come home to roost, if you will. John McCain proudly received his support and even spoke at his university's commencement.

Reverend John Hagee has called the Catholic Church the "Great Whore." He has said that the Anti-Christ will rise out of the European Union (of course the Anti-Christ will also be Jewish). He has said all Muslims are trained to kill and will be part of the devil's army when Armageddon comes (which he hopes is soon). John McCain continues to say he is proud of Reverend Hagee's endorsement.

Reverend Rod Parsley believes America was founded to destroy Islam. Since this is such an outlandish claim, I have to add for the record, that he is not kidding. Reverend Parsley says Islam is an "anti-Christ religion" brought down from a "demon spirit." Of course, we are in a war against all Muslims, including presumably Muslim-Americans. Buts since Parsley believes this is a Christian nation and that it should be run as a theocracy, he is not very concerned what Muslim-Americans think.

John McCain says Reverend Rod Parsley is his "spiritual guide."

What separates all of these outrageous preachers from Barack Obama's? You guessed it. They're white and Reverend Jeremiah Wright is not. If it's not racism that's causing the disparity in media treatment of these preachers, then what is it?

I'm willing to listen to other possible explanations. And I am inclined to believe that the people these preachers go after are more important than the race of the preacher. It's one thing to go after gays, liberals and Muslims - that seems to be perfectly acceptable in America - it's another to accuse white folks of not living up to their ideals.

I think there is another factor at play as well. The media is deathly afraid of calling out preachers of any stripe for insane propaganda from the pulpits for fear that they will be labeled as anti-Christian. But criticism of Rev. Wright falls into their comfort zone. It's easy to blame him for being anti-American because he criticizes American foreign and domestic policy.

If Rev. Wright had preached about discriminating against gay Americans or Muslims, there probably would not have been any outcry at all. That falls into the category of "respect their hateful opinions because they cloak themselves in the church."

But one thing is indisputable - the enormous disparity in how the media has covered these white preachers as opposed to Rev. Wright. Have you ever even heard of Rod Parsley? As you can see from what I listed above, all of these white preachers have said and done the most outlandish and offensive things you can imagine - and hardly a peep.

If the disparity in coverage isn't racist, then what is it?"

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/80253/

Hillary Likes Unions - Now That She Needs Their Support

But she wasn't interested in union rights when she sat on the board of directors of WalMart, no not one bit.

In six years on the board, Clinton sat mute as the mega-retailer carried on a relentless war against labour unions trying to get a foot in the door.

ABC News got its hands on tapes of WalMart board meetings and, nope, nothing from Hillary there. Then there's the tape of her appearance before a shareholders' meeting where she said, "I'm always proud of Wal-Mart and what we do and the way we do it better than anybody else."

Clinton now says she no longer shares WalMart's values and believes unions have been essential to America's success. Yeah, right.

Meanwhile, Florida's Democratic organization has ruled out another primary to allocate the state's delegates. Apparently they could fine neither the money nor the consensus of both candidates.

Newsweek reports that the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal has diminished Bill Clinton's political capital, leaving people asking, "Can the Big Dog stay on the porch for eight years?"

Obama is conquering YouTube with his 30-minute "A More Perfect Union" speech. In took but 19-hours for it to receive 1,000,000 hits, obliterating the popularity of Clinton's 3 AM ad and McCain's top ad of Bill Clinton endorsing his political skills.

McKay on Afghanistan - a "Tremendous Success"

According to DefenceMin Peter MacKay, Canada's mission to Afghanistan is a "tremendous success." This from a guy who, nearly seven years after this dog and pony show began, still has to fly in secretly and keep his presence quiet until he's stepping on the aircraft to get the hell out.

MacKay, spinning so furiously that his head nearly exploded, said, ""the insurgency remains a real challenge, but you have to look at it in relative terms. You have to do a retrospective occasionally, look at where we were five short years ago, two years ago."

Okay, Pete, you want to take us back in time, say "five short years ago," to yesteryear before the Karzai government was totally corrupted and compromised, before the Taliban were resurgent and Afghanistan raced to set endless consecutive records for opium production. Yeah Pete, let's kick back with a cold one and do that retrospective stroll down memory lane - or maybe not.

Five short years ago. That'd be the time that America bugged out to go play in the sandbox of Iraq, right Pete? Five years ago today. Great timing pal. Idiot. Psst - Pete, the day you can visit Afghanistan without having to sneak in, sneak around and sneak out you can parrot "tremendous success" but, until then, try to come up with something that doesn't sound completely insane.

Eyeing Each Other Over Open Sights

The great military rivalry of the 21st century is bound to be between China and the United States.
Gwynne Dyer, in his latest book, contends that a key reason for America's invasion of Iraq was to achieve military control over the Persian Gulf to thwart China's influence in the Middle East and be in a position to cripple its access to the region's oil should that be necessary.

The Chinese government today announced an increase of 18% in the nation's defence budget this year. The Pentagon figures China's disclosed budget is but half to perhaps just one third of its actual spending which would still leave China spending well less than a third of the US defence budget. That said, the Chinese appear to be getting more bank for their buck out of their defence appropriations, spending that Chinese analyst Chen Zhou explained and defended in an interview in today's Der Spiegel:

Chen: If we grow economically, we must also strengthen our military. We must protect our sovereignty, our unity and the country's security. Historically our military consisted primarily of land-based forces that were meant to protect our homeland. Since 1980, we have also been arming ourselves for other local conflicts and wars. Please do not forget the activities of the separatists in Taiwan ...

SPIEGEL: ... who you have threatened with military force, should Taiwan declare its independence.

Chen: We will defend our sovereignty with all means. If, in fact, we are forced to stop a secession attempt with military means, our navy and air force are not yet effective enough. In that sort of a conflict, we must be superior in the water and in the air, at least locally.

SPIEGEL: Does this mean that you plan to measure up militarily to Taiwan's most important ally, the United States?

Chen: It is not necessary for China to challenge America's position of supremacy. Our concern is to prevent an intervention by the Americans during a crisis in the Taiwan Strait. Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, and no one else, should resolve the Taiwan issue. Whether this is done peacefully or militarily is purely a matter for the Chinese.

SPIEGEL: How does Beijing intend to prevent the Americans from intervening?

Chen: Both sides hope to preserve peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. China wants to develop economically. We don't want a war, not even a crisis. But to ensure that this is the case, we must be militarily prepared.

SPIEGEL: In other words, Beijing stresses deterrence?

Chen: Exactly. Deterrence is one of our strategies. Our goal is to preserve peace and stability on the Taiwan Strait. In the past, we did not pay sufficient attention to studies about deterrence. Now we are very interested in the effects of deterrence. We must be able to prevent, resolve and control crises. Crisis management is our top priority. We can resolve a crisis if we are in a position to deter.

SPIEGEL: You have demonstrated that you are able to give the Americans a shock. For example, one of your submarines surfaced directly next to the aircraft carrier "Kitty Hawk" without having been previously detected.

Chen: That was a coincidence. Our navy is still very small compared with the US Navy. Our range of operation has just reached the so-called first island chains, that is, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines.

SPIEGEL: Do you plan to venture farther afield in the future?

Chen: Traditionally China has seen itself as a land power. In our recent history, foreign powers were able to invade us because we had no navy. Now we want to defend ourselves at sea. To more effectively protect our national interests, we will develop our capability to operate on the high seas. Our navy will travel farther afield. But our goal is always defense. We are not an offensive power.

The US/China/Soviet/Indian arms race continues apace. It seems as though we're about to enter a brand new Cold War.

Afghanistan - Awash in Opium And Democracy

Thanks to their brilliantly thought-out constitution, Afghanis are scheduled to go to the polls 11-times over the next 17 years. They'll be voting to elect presidents and parliamentarians and provincial and district counsellors.

Karzai's job comes up for a vote next May and most of his parliamentarians face elections the following year. For a country wracked by insurgency, this is a real security nightmare.

But, according to The Economist, Karzai remains the favourite to win the presidential runoff.

"Mr Karzai has not said he will run, though most people expect him to (not least, the Western governments which back him). His popular support, however, is lukewarm at best. His government has been tarnished by charges of incompetence and corruption, while his international backers have struggled to fulfil promises to rebuild the country. Large parts of the south, Mr Karzai's heartland, have descended into insurgent-inspired chaos. The president has become increasingly critical of the West, and particularly of Britain, the Afghans' historic foe.

"But, as in 2004, Westerners think Mr Karzai will prove the worst Afghan leader except for all the others. He is from the dominant Durrani federation of the majority Pushtun tribe. He participated in the jihad against the Soviet occupiers but does not have blood on his hands from the civil war that followed. He did not leave his homeland for sanctuary abroad. (Those who did are called dogwashers: the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, said they washed the dogs of rich Americans.)

"No other prominent politician has that mix. Afghanistan may have capable technocrats on call, such as Ehsanullah Bayat, a telecoms mogul, Amin Arsala, a former vice-president, and even, improbably, America's (Afghan-born) ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad. But they lived abroad. It also has former mujahideen commanders such as Burhanuddin Rabbani and Younis Qanooni, both Tajik leaders, and Gul Agha Sherzai, the energetic major of Jalalabad, whom Mr Karzai dubs the bulldozer. But they are tarnished by warlordism. An excess of would-be leaders, in short. And an excess of ways to vote for them."

Bush - Iraq War an Undeniable Success

What else was he going to say? The truth? C'mon we're talking George Walker Bush here, the hellspawn of George Herbert Walker Bush and his darling Babs.

It's the glorious fifth anniversary of the George Bush Memorial Clusterf__k more commonly known to academics as the Iraq war. Five years, doesn't time just fly?

So they popped George in some clean undies, a shirt and tie and stood him up before a crowd at the Pentagon to crow "Mission Accomplished All Over Again." From McClatchey Newspapers:

President Bush on Wednesday declared that "the successes we are seeing in Iraq are undeniable" [provided you're well and truly in denial] as he gave a rousing defense of the war on its fifth anniversary before a receptive but not overwhelmingly enthusiastic Pentagon audience.

As the war entered its sixth year, Bush refused to concede any setbacks in the conflict, where nearly 4,000 Americans have been killed and the country has been plunged into sectarian violence. About 158,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq.

Bush said, "my administration understood that America could not retreat in the face of terror. And we knew that if we did not act, the violence that had been consuming Iraq would worsen and spread and could eventually reach genocidal levels."

The 2007 American troop buildup "opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror," the president maintained.

He then looked ahead, saying that the goal is to "consolidate the gains we have made and seal the extremists' defeat."

Oh yeah, speaking about undeniable success. Yesterday marked the opening of reconciliation talks in Baghdad. I guess there were a lot of empty chairs. The Americans showed, so did Maliki's representatives. Sadly missing, however, were the Baathists, the Shiite militias and the Sunni insurgency. They chose to give it a pass.

Oh yeah, the other good news. The War Without End on Terror has been going so gosh-darn well that the top White House counterterrorism post was left to sit empty for the past 15-months! I guess George must have picked up on that when one of his aides glanced through the latest Newsweek. That got George going and, today, he announced the appointment of Ken Wainstein to be his new White House-based homeland security adviser.

McCartney One, Mills No Score

Every now and then a matrimonial case comes along that's worth a giggle, like the guy who bails out on his missus when he discovers he's holding on to a winning lottery ticket. It's good for the soul to see these people get their comeuppance.

And then there's the former Mrs. Paul McCartney, Heather Mills. A brief disclosure - I haven't cared much for Sir Paul since the Beatles broke up but I have a lot of sympathy for him at the moment. For some reason he managed to wed the Shrew from Hell. I'm sure that today he figures the 24-million pounds it cost him to rid himself of Ms. Mills was worth every hapenny.

Mills may have walked away with a tidy fortune, the equivalent of 17-thousand pounds for each day of their marriage, but she wound up leaving any discernable shred of dignity remaining to her on the courthouse floor.

Oh, how the judge, Mr. Justice Bennet, laid into Ms. Mills. He had a lot of trouble with a lot of her claims - well all of them to be accurate. For example, she said she had millions of pounds in savings when she met McCartney yet there was no evidence of any of it in her tax records. She said she gave 80 to 90% of her earnings during coverture to charities but, again, not the slightest sign of that in her tax records - or anywhere else apparently. The judge found that her "tax records disclose no charitable giving at all."

"Having watched and listened to her give evidence, having studied the documents, and having given in her favour every allowance for the enormous strain she must have been under (and in conducting her own case), I am driven to the conclusion that much of her evidence, both written and oral, was not just inconsistent and inaccurate but also less than candid. Overall she was a less than impressive witness.

"If the wife feels aggrieved about what I propose, she only has herself to blame. If, as she has done, a litigant flagrantly over-eggs the pudding and thus deprives the court of any sensible assistance, then he or she is likely to find that the court takes a robust view and drastically prunes the proposed budget.

"She is entitled to feel that she has been ridiculed, even vilified. To some extent she is her own worst enemy. She has an explosive and volatile character. She cannot have done herself any good in the eyes of potential purchasers of her services as a TV presenter, public speaker and a model, by her outbursts in her TV interviews in October and November 2007. Nevertheless, the fact is that at present she is at a disadvantage. The wife would say she is at a severe disadvantage. I think she overplays her hand."

"In my judgement the picture painted by the husband of the wife's part in his emotional and professional life is much closer to reality than the wife's account. The wife, as the husband said, enjoys being the centre of attention. Her presence on his tours came about because she loved the husband, enjoyed being there and because she thoroughly enjoyed the media and public attention. I am prepared to accept that her presence was emotionally supportive to him but to suggest that in some way she was his 'business partner' is, I am sorry to have to say, make-belief.

"I have to say that the wife's evidence that in some way she was the husband's 'psychologist', even allowing for hyperbole, is typical of her make-belief."

I do pity Mills but I have no sympathy for the situation she's placed herself in - because she did this to herself, all by herself. She tried to use McCartney's reputation to manipulate him and to his credit he stood his ground as she repeatedly and unrelentingly defamed him.

Worst Woman In The World - Heather Mills.

If You Can't Beat'em, Bleed'em Dry

Napoleon's soldiers marched on their bellies. George Bush's soldiers march on America's frayed financial future.

America's trained chimp, George w. Bush, assured his people that he didn't need 300,000 soldiers to conquer Iraq and fired his top military man, General Shinseki. He assured his people the whole thing would cost $50-billion, $60-billion tops and fired his first economic advisor, Lawrence B. Lindsey who had the audacity to claim the war would cost $100-billion to $200-billion annually.

Then there was Cheney who promised that American troops would be greeted as liberators and Rumsfeld who said the whole thing would take six weeks, six months at the outside.

America has the mightiest military machine on the planet, perfect at rolling up a battered and disabled Iraqi army in 2003, and utterly useless at controlling the country ever since. There is simply nothing quite so pathetic looking as a main battle tank without another tank to shoot.

The conquest of Iraq was supposed to be an object lesson to little, unfriendly nations around the world of what happens when America plays hardball. They watched and learned but the lesson played out wasn't the one America wanted to send.

Mainstreet America may believe that the "surge" is working and it is until you factor in the dormant Shiite militias and Sunni resistance. They've taken a break from slaughtering each other and passing American troops but they're still there and they're still ready to go and there's no reason to think they won't be heard from again - soon.

The success of the surge has been measured in body counts, a bit of foolishness that America hasn't been able to shake since Viet Nam. If you want to measure the surge you need to look at other signs - the lack of electricity, water, sanitation, even gasoline; the lack of meaningful political progress; the corruption of the Iraqi government and the infiltration of its security services. If you leave the body counts out of it, this surge has accomplished precisely nothing.

Another object lesson from the Iraq war is how astonishingly ineffecient and profligate America is at this sort of thing. It's now spending roughly $12-billion each month on direct operational costs alone for its war. That's money it doesn't have. That's money it has to borrow - on foreign markets, money that will be bequeathed in the form of interest-bearing debt to America's youth and their children.

What happens if Asia and Europe decide they're not interested in funding America's wars any longer? Better yet, what happens if they decide they will keep lending money but they want the IOUs in Euros, not American greenbacks?

When you fight an unwinnable, war without end, entirely on borrowed money that you squander like a manic-depressive on crack, you're playing a mug's game. It's something only a trained chimp would consider worthwhile. Happy legacy, President Numbnuts.

Cheney to the American People - "Go F__k Yourselves"

He was born a Dick, he's been a dick his whole life and a dick he remains. On the 5th anniversary of the Great American Fiasco, aka the Iraq War, Dick Cheney sat down for an interview and made clear just what he thinks of his "fellow Americans." From the New York Times:

Martha Raddatz, chief White House correspondent for ABC News, sat down with Mr. Cheney in Amman, Jordan, one of several stops on a Middle East tour that includes Iraq, Israel, the West Bank, Oman, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

After Ms. Raddatz asked about the economy — which he said was in “a rough patch,” not a recession — the subject turned to the deep unpopularity of the Iraq war. Here’s a transcript of the exchange, released by the network:

Raddatz: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.

Cheney: So?

Raddatz: So? You don’t care what the American people think?

Cheney: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls. There has, in fact, been fundamental change and transformation and improvement for the better. That’s a huge accomplishment.

You know, he might be right. Under Saddam, after all, the Iraqi people had to endure functioning hospitals and electricity and they didn't even have any sewage flowing down the streets in front of their homes. There has been fundamental change.

So You've Defunded Your Government, Now What?

BushCheneyRove set out to defund the government of the United States. It was their policy coming into power in 2000. Like the conquest of Iraq, it had nothing to do with 9/11.

The idea behind defunding government was to dismantle the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal," to put America back on an every man for himself basis. Privatize everything, especially Social Security, and by every means keep health care out of the public sector.

Defunding government was a complicated business. One aspect was tax reform to free those who didn't actually work for a living - coupon clippers - from the burden of taxation, shifting their fair share to wage earners. The next step was to direct big tax cuts for the wealthiest income earners, again shifting the burden of those cuts to those "left behind", the working and middle classes.

The War on Terror offered enormous possibilities. For the first time, America privatized warmaking itself with billions of dollars shuffled off to Halliburton and Kellog Brown & Root, among others lining up in Baghdad for corporate welfare on the grandest scale.

Defunding government also entails debt and deficits. Run huge deficits funded by foreign borrowings and so burden the government with debt that it has no choice but to scrap any vestiges of New Deal thinking.

But now there's an even better way to submerge America's taxpaying classes - the subprime mortgage fiasco. It's America's new economy, a legacy of the Reagan years. Grow a bubble, create notional wealth, strip wealth, collapse bubble and clean up the mess with government bailouts.

Now America is in the midst of yet another collapse. The fiscal banditos have made their fortunes and split, leaving the aftermath to society. As ever it's the government that has to step in to protect the economy from total collapse and, as ever, that means pledging the good credit of the taxpaying classes against the chicanery of the non-taxpaying elite. You see, the US government doesn't have the hundreds of billions of dollars, trillions perhaps, this will ultimately cost. It's defunded. That money has to be borrowed and that crushing debt can only serve to suffocate any remaining, reasonable expectations the taxpaying classes may have of their government.

By the way, this is another page that Harper has torn out of the Republican playbook. It's just his cup of tea.

In Defence of Privacy, Our Fundamental Right

I believe in rights. I believe there isn't a single right we have today that hasn't been bought and paid for - in blood - often several times over. I believe there isn't a right that can't and won't be taken from us unless we defend it. But in order to defend rights, they have to be understood and valued.

One right that's rapidly being lost is our right to privacy. Our privacy is being invaded, even trampled upon at every turn. Use your credit card and you're yielding a bit of your privacy. Use the phone, same thing. Hell the grocery store now records your favourite brand of frozen pizza and your preference in feminine hygiene products. Now in British Columbia, the government has our health records processed in the United States which means, thanks to the Patriot Act, our assurance of health care privacy is shattered.

Britain, home of Magna Carta itself, has become astonishingly indifferent to the right of privacy. Britain has become a surveillance society with its precious architecture defaced by batteries of CCT security cameras. In some communities the police operate aerial reconnaissance drones over their own streets. These are things designed to aid the war against al-Qaeda, not to surveil ordinary Britons.

There was a story over the weekend about a proposed new British transit identity card. Leaving aside the right of privacy, it's pretty cool technology. It functions as a cash card and a security/surveillance device. Want to hop a train, get on a bus or ride the Tube? Swipe your card or else submit to inconvenient human scrutiny. I mean, after all, if you're not using your card you must be up to something, eh?

In no time they've got a detailed history of Charlie Banks of 54 Melbourne Grove, SE 22. They know where he goes, when and for how long - every day, every month, every year of his life. Computers can immediately spot something out of the ordinary and, very quickly, "out of the ordinary" becomes something suspicious, something to be watched. You call extra surveillance upon yourself by choosing to try something new and, Heaven help you if that something new just happens to be in or near a place that's already being watched.

"If you have nothing to hide, there's no reason to worry." That's the vile excuse they always use when stripping away another layer of your privacy. That's right, only wrongdoers need to be worried, right? Wrong, dead wrong. It's a set up whereby defending your fundamental right to privacy becomes analogous with trying to hide something in your dirty, devious and undoubtedly criminal or subversive life.

Surely the onus ought to be on those seeking to narrow your rights, not on those defending their rights. You want to take away my rights then first show that it's truly necessary. Show the purpose is valid. Show there are no other ways to achieve the same purpose, not just no other ways that are as inexpensive. Show just how much intrusion is actually required and for just how long. No blank cheques. No indefinite powers. The focus has to be on restoring that right as fully and quickly as possible. Figure out who will watch the watchers, who will represent the public interest in monitoring their intrusion of the public's rights and give those watchers genuine powers to intervene when they detect abuse.

Sadly, this isn't what happens. After all, it's so much easier to cast suspicion on objectors when the rest of the public is complacent and all too willing to be herded into the surveillance corral.

If you've ever served your country or had a family member who went off to war and maybe didn't come back, these are rights you have fought for, rights that must belong to your entire society. If you don't defend them you cheapen that service, that sacrifice. Freedom, after all, is more than just hoisting another pint in The Legion.

Addendum:

I forgot to explain why I consider privacy our "fundamental right." That's because the strength of our right of privacy impinges on so many of our other essential rights including free speech, association, assembly, equality; thought, conscience and religion; arrest and detention and due process. Undermining privacy can also powerfully undermine those other rights.

Another concern that arises out of the erosion of our privacy rights is the almost Newtonian rise in secrecy that results from it. It's an action/reaction process. As our privacy is stripped from us, government secrecy inevitably increases. We don't know who is watching us, when we're being watched and what is being recorded and catalogued much less how it will be used on or against us or others, often without our awareness even of that. It sets up government against the individual in an adversarial relationship.

It's vastly more troubling when it's done at the same time we are "dumbing down" society, weakening us against the shelling out of our rights. That's what I meant by my reference to the masses being complacently herded into the surveillance corral.