KIKO'S HOUSE

Thursday, December 14, 2006

An Update on The War on Civil Liberties

A federal court ruling on Wednesday would appear to be a victory for President Bush in that it upholds much of the vile Military Commissions Act, while acknowledging some habeas rights for Joe and Jane Sixpack.

I'm too busy frying other fish at the moment, but Glenn Greenwald has a detailed post at Unclaimed Territory about the implications of the ruling.

Click here.

A Dream Extinguished

Courtesy of Jesus' General

We're a Little Late to This Story . . .

. . . but J.C. Christian, Patriot responds to the shocking -- just shocking -- news that eating soy-based foods makes you gay and shrinks your wee-wee.

An excerpt from his letter to the jerk who started the whole thing:

"I do however disagree with your solution to the problem. Dropping soy from the American diet is not the answer. America's agribusiness heroes deserve better from us. The same goes for our automobile and oil industries as well. If we stop feeding soy products to our manchildren, who's going to buy tomorrow's Hummers, Dodge Rams, and Ford Excursions? After all, there'll be no incentive to spend that kind of money on a big, expensive, powerful vehicle if every guy is packing one of those huge, Italian 3+" man-cannons in his briefs. Men compensating for tiny thingies are what drive the American automobile market. The auto companies would need to retool without it.

"I think it might be better to feed our manchildren even more soy so that the nation's agribusiness, auto, and oil corporations can provide even bigger dividends to their stockholders. It's what Our Leader's ownership society is all about."

More here.

Jamaican Plants That Are Good . . .

. . . for you and aren't ganja.

Andrew reports at The Foundation Dub Joint that Jamaican researchers have identified two native species that are said to help cure five cancers, potentially giving that country's beleaguered economy a lucrative share of the global chemotherapy drug market.

More here.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Iraq: Buying Time, Taking Lives

Do you think Santa will leave coal in my stocking?

Under other circumstances, the announcement by the White House that President Bush is postponing making "tough decisions" on the Iraq war until after the New Years because of the complexity of the ongoing policy review would be outrageous.

Why the hay is the White House only now undertaking a policy review?

Go ahead. Just shoot me.

It is probable that what is driving the postponement decision is that there is nothing, in practical terms, that the White House can do to alter events on the ground in Iraq or perceptions at home.

How's this for perceptions:

* An L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll finds that 70 percent of Americans want a new direction in Iraq.

* A CBS News poll finds that Americans think the war in Iraq is going badly and getting worse, and think it's time for the U.S. either to change its strategy or start getting out. Some 43 percent say the U.S. should keep fighting, but with new tactics, while 50 percent say the U.S. should begin to end its involvement altogether. Only 4 percent say the U.S. should keep fighting as it is doing now.

* A WaPo-ABC News poll shows seven in 10 Americans disapprove of the way the president is handling the situation in Iraq -- the highest percentage since the war began. Six in 10 say the war was not worth fighting, while a majority say they agree with the Iraq Study Group's recommendations.

* A Newsweek poll finds that 48 percent of Americans say they want U.S. forces home within a year and 67 percent want them back within two years. Only 23 percent believe they should stay as long as it takes to achieve U.S. goals.

* A Gallup poll finds less than half of Americans are willing to say that they have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in Bush to recommend the right actions for Iraq.

Iraq & Saudi Arabia's Turki Trot

Is anyone buying the explanation that Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S., has abruptly resigned after only 15 months on the job "to spend more time with his family"?

Nah.

First of all, things change very sloowwwly in the Saudi kingdom. Turki's predecessor, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, was ambassador for 22 years.

Secondly, the departure comes only days after Turki dismissed a consultant for suggesting in a Washington Post op-ed piece that the kingdom would back Iraq's Sunni minority with money and weapons if the civil war grows wider. The ruling family and most Saudis are Sunnis.

Saudi Arabia denied the assertion, which nevertheless is widely viewed as accurate.

Thirdly, the resignation comes amid talk that the White House is considering a so-called "80 Percent Solution" for Iraq in which it would take sides with the Shiites against the Sunnis in the civil war.

Kind of adds up, don't you think?

More here., as well as a late-breaking story here on Vice President Cheney getting read the riot act by King Abdullah when he visited Saudi Arabia.

The Iraq Conundrum: Version 3.0

Stop presses!

The big news is that the Iraqi army is going to assume primary responsibility for security of Baghdad beginning early next year. Most U.S. troops would be withdrawn to the periphery and concentrate on fighting insurgents.

Seems like a super idea until you consider that the Iraqi army has difficulty tying its own boots, let along playing a major role in tamping down the ongoing civil war where it is bloodiest -- in the capital.

This is an army that even the most optimistic observers say is at barely at half strength three and a half years after the U.S. foolishly disbanded it, where recruits are assigned to units based on their religious and political affiliations, where some units provide camouflage for the ongoing sectarian civil war, where desertion is widespread, where . . .

Okay, you get the idea.

More here.

Don't Cry For Me Mother Russia

Fifteen years ago, the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union began in a boozy meeting at a Belorussian hunting lodge.

The Guardian has marked this widely overlooked anniversary with a probing analysis asserting that the breakup actually the beginning of the end of the march toward democracy. This analysis is in turn probingly analyzed at Empire Burlesque.

Good stuff.

Score One For Clarence Thomas?

I can count on one hand the number of times I have agreed with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, but he seems to have hit the right note in crafting a majority opinion stating that a federal appeals court had no basis for overturning a state court ruling allowing the family members of a murder victim to wear buttons with his picture during a trial

Note that Thomas's main opinion in Carey v. Musladin garnered the full support of five other justices for a very narrow ruling based largely on federal habeas law. Three Justices wrote separately and each raised questions about allowing spectators to engage in courtroom activity that arguably might impair trial fairness.

Irony Alert: Thomas was far less concerned about the constitutionally-enshrined concept of habeas in writing a vitriolic minority opininion in Hamdan v. Rumseld, the top court's most important decision in many years.

More here, but be prepared to scroll down.

Meanwhile, the New York Times disagrees with Thomas et. al. in an editorial.

Cockburn's 'They Call It Democracy'

Padded with power here they come
International loan sharks backed by the guns
Of market hungry military profiteers
Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
With the blood of the poor
Who rob life of its quality
Who render rage a necessity
By turning countries into labour camps
Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom
Sinister cynical instrument
Who makes the gun into a sacrament --
The only response to the deification
Of tyranny by so-called "developed" nations'
Idolatry of ideology North South East West
Kill the best and buy the rest
It's just spend a buck to make a buck
You don't really give a flying fuck
About the people in misery
IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt
See the paid-off local bottom feeders
Passing themselves off as leaders
Kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
Open for business like a cheap bordello
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
See the loaded eyes of the children too
Trying to make the best of it the way kids do
One day you're going to rise from your habitual feast
To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
They call the revolution
IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

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Here is another in our series of anti-war and political songs appropriate for the trying times in which we live.

"Call it Democracy" may well be the only song ever writen about the International Money Fund, which Canadian singer-songwriterBruce Cockburn accuses of fostering insupportable debt in Third World countries.

(Painting: "Third World Madonna" by Wayne Forte. More here.)

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Code Blue for America's Hospitals

Just hope you don't get stuck in an elevator here.

When someone recently got stuck in an elevator at a New Jersey hospital, the serviceman wouldn’t make repairs until a check was hand-delivered as payment in advance.

When another New Jersey hospital completed construction of a flashy new building, it was unable to equip it because the hospital is overwhelmed by debt. The new building is sitting empty and the hospital is likely to be sold to another hospital – for nothing.

As noted here last week, there is no question that America’s health-care system is in crisis. But if you want to see where U.S. hospitals are likely to find themselves sooner rather than later, consider the number of hospitals in New Jersey that are on life support.

* The Passaic Beth Israel Regional Medical Center is so low on cash that it has been on the brink of shutting down twice. A bankruptcy judge has approved its sale to another hospital in Passaic that is in almost as bad shape.
* The St. Joseph's Healthcare System, which runs several North Jersey hospitals, has a $450 million budget, but is barely breaking even and can’t afford to replace important but aging equipment.

* The St. Barnabas Health Care System, the state's largest hospital group, is on its knees because it has been forced to cough up $265 million to settle a federal lawsuit over billing fraud.

* Repeated scandals have rocked the state’s premier hospital -- the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and an affiliate, University Hospital in Newark -- which I recently blogged about in a post entitled New Jersey's Biggest Crime Family.

Some of these hospitals’ wounds are self inflicted, to be sure. But with occupancy rates plummeting and other trends conspiring, odds are that at least 10 New Jersey hospitals will go bankrupt in coming months and the underlying reasons are beginning to eat away at hospitals in other states like an infection that is resistant to antibiotics.

As a story in the Bergen Record of Hackensack, New Jersey, notes, the reasons so many New Jersey hospitals are in so much trouble include:

* Payments from government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid are falling increasingly short of the costs of running hospital.
* Charity care costs are rising precipitously, some 25 percent in the last year alone for some hospitals.

* The consolidation of health insurance companies has given them more negotiating clout than hospitals.
* The regulation of the rates that hospitals could charge insurers ended in 1992 and hospital administrators have been ill prepared to negotiate with managed-care companies. As a result, hospitals have few capital reserves and can ill afford to invest in new equipment.
* Doctors are doing their part by diverting healtheir and better off (ie., insured) patients to their own out-patient surgical centers, leaving sicker and uninsured patients for hospitals. New Jersey physicians also order more tests and procedures and keep patients in the hospital longer than their counterparts in other states.

The ramifications for New Jersey may be disproportionately large. Hospitals represent the state's fifth-largest industry with 150,000 employees.

But in any event, what we have here is a national Code Blue:

Trends in health insurance and health care are working against hospitals that don't have an affluent clientele and deep pockets, very often hospitals that provide good care to small but loyal communities.

Competition between hospitals for the same patients is cutthroat.

Lax federal and state oversight is encouraging ethically challenge administrators to cook their books when it comes to federal reimbursements.

Doctors, perhaps the most influential group after insurers, also are contributing to the problem.

In the end, of course, it is the quality patient care that suffers the most.

So Many Tipping Points, So Little Time . . .

. . . and so many tragedies, so little time.

Chief among them -- for the moment, anyway -- is how The Decider let the war in Afghanistan (aka the War on Terror) get away because Donald Rumsfeld and other members of his brain trust convinced him that he just had to fight another war that had zip to do with Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda or the Islamic jihad against the West.

Word comes that The Decider's short attention span has resulted in the Taliban establishing a mini-state in northern Pakistan.

This means that sooner or later -- and you can be rest assured that the commander in chief will be back at the ranch in Crawford licking his wounds -- the war that was fought in Afghanistan with some success after the 9/11 attacks will have to be fought all over again against a re-energized and re-entrenched Taliban.

More here.

Cheney, Iraq & The '80 Percent Solution'

In a backdoor acknowledgement of what everyone else knows -- that Iraq is in civil war -- there is talk of the White House endorsing a so-called "80 Percent Solution" by throwing its weight behind the Shiite majority.

As awful as abandoning the minority Sunnis in favor of the Shiites (who make up 80 percent of the Iraqi population) would be, such a solution is in keeping with an willfully arrogant administration.

Never mind that lip locking with the Shiites would be an endorsement of further sectarian slaughter, not to mention the outrage it would provoke in the Arab world at large, where Sunnis are the majority.

It would buy the administration that most precious of commodities -- time -- at a crucial juncture in a three and a half year old conflict when the American public has turned against the adventure and the Iraq Study Group and other gray beards are declaring that the war cannot be won.

Not surprisingly, this scenario is being leaked by the White House itself. (Can you say trial balloon?)

Not surprisingly, the mastermind of this perverse piece of statecraft is Vice President Cheney, who as defense secretary in 1991 witnessed the wholesale slaughter of Shiites by Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War.

Does the veep have a guilty conscience? No way, Jose.

The administration continues to cling to the threadbare notion of "victory" in Iraq.

The "80 Percent Solution" is just a calculately craven attempt to grab that victory from the jaws of defeat.

Fever Chart du Jour

At What Point Does a Blogger Become . . .

. . . a narcissistic asshole? Tutakai takes a whack at that question here and provides some much-needed perspective on the semi-frenzy over the blogosphere's version of Chicago ward politics, a competition known as the Weblog Awards.

Then there's Ezra Klein's take here, as well as Jill's at Feministe here.

As a target of several attacks from The Diva, who is the win-at-any-costs blogger mentioned by these good folks, I am reminded of something that Kurt Vonnegut wrote:

"Some of us never graduate from high school."

Finally, there's the reliably wicked take of a blogger who shadows The Diva like a bad hair day.

Incidentally, Kiko's House will be entering the Weblog Awards competition next year after the cats become practiced at repeatedly hitting the "refresh" key on the computer in return for extra kibbles.

AT WHAT POINT DOES A BLOGGER BECOME . . .

. . . a shill for the companies who advertise at his site or because of the personal endorsements he makes?

Just asking, because Volvo the carmaker and Pfizer the drug maker had a big day at Instapundit yesterday.

I wouldn't bring this up because I am so in awe of Glenn Reynolds, who in in his spare time tests and endorses kitchen appliances.

But I was unable to locate any mention in Instapundit's vast archives about a recent Volvo recall for a funky cruise control mechanism in some models, or Pfizer taking a multi-billion dollar powder on a new heart medication because it increases heart attacks.

Like I said, just asking.

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

The organge lilium or fire lily is a thing of beauty. This close-up was taken by Mark Holder, a photographer in Australia. Click here for more of Mark's fine work.

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Want to share a beautiful photograph?
Send it as a .jpg attachment in an email to kikokimba@gmail.com

Monday, December 11, 2006

The Iraq War Blame Game

Triple A doesn't offer roadside assistance in Falluja. Blame the Iraqis.

Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross famously identified the five stages that patients experience when told that they are dying as DENIAL (This isn't happening to me), ANGER (Why is this happening to me?), BARGAINING (I promise to be a better person if I live), DEPRESSION (I don't care anymore) and ACCEPTANCE (I'm ready for whatever comes).

It is my modest suggestion that insofar as the war in Iraq is concerned, a stage be added between BARGAINING and DEPRESSION:

Let's call it BLAME (It's not my fault that this is happening).

That is pretty much where an increasing number of people who should know better are going these days. Peter Beinert sums up this blame game thusly at The New Republic:

"Across ideological lines, American politicians and pundits are finally coming to a consensus on Iraq: It's the Iraqis' fault. 'We gave the Iraqis their freedom,' pronounced liberal California Senator Barbara Boxer . . . 'What are they doing with this freedom? They're killing each other.' The next day, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer heartily concurred, writing: 'We have given the Iraqis a republic, and they do not appear able to keep it.' "

Iraq II: Fastest Growing Refugee Crisis & More

In another signal accomplishment for The Decider, the U.N. now estimates that Iraqis now consistute the fast-growing refugee crisis in the world, according to Refugees International.

According to the report, the U.N. estimates that:

* 2.3 million Iraqis have fled violence in their country; 1.8 million have fled to surrounding countries.

* Some 500,000 have vacated their homes for safer areas within Iraq.

* An estimated 40,000 people are leaving Iraq every month for Syria alone.

* Other countries through out the Middle East, including Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran and Turkey are also seeing increased flows.

* Most Iraqis are determined to be resettled to Europe or North America, and few consider return to Iraq an option.

More here.

PROVIDING COVER

The conventional wisdom had it that the Iraq Study Group report would provide the necessary political cover for The Decider to make some badly needed course corrections.

Now the CW is that conservative harrumphing over the report will provide the necessary cover for The Decider to reject much of the report.

More here.

UPDATE ON THE AL-MALIKI DEATH WATCH

Way back in September, when the world seemed a simpler place and the war a simpler war, I predicted the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki was not long for this world.

A whole lot more folks are agreeing with that assessment.

TALK TO THE INSURGENTS? NAH

Some much for the Bush administration assertion that it would never talk to, let alone negotiate with, terrorists.

The Times of London says that earlier this year senior American officials, including several generals, engaged in two months of secret talks with Iraqi insurgent commanders -- something that the Iraq Study Group urged in its report.

The talks eventually collapsed because of disagreements among the insurgents and an increase in insurgent attacks.

More here.

Iraq III: Quote du Jour on the War

"War spews words. They make up its fog. Washington was awash in them last week as the damage control exercise called the Iraq Study Group culminated with a proposal to extract all American combat brigades by early 2008, leaving a few tens of thousands of troops to train the Iraqi Army or protect the trainers. As befits a bipartisan report on what looks like a lose-lose situation, it was a fudge.

"But beyond the words — from President Bush’s chagrin at 'the pace of success' to the report’s 'grave and deteriorating' situation — lie people, the millions of Iraqis who have to get their kids up in the morning, those dimly discernible objects of the myriad political contortions. One of them, a 32-year-old Iraqi engineer encountered earlier this year in Baghdad, had this to say in a desperate e-mail message:

'I am facing the most difficult times of my life here in Baghdad. Since I am a Sunni, I became a target to be killed. You know that our army and police are Shia, so every checkpoint represents a serious threat to Sunnis. During the last three weeks, two of my friends were killed at check points belonging to the police. They first asked to show IDs and when they saw the Sunni family name, they killed them.'

"There, in plain enough English, you have it. The Iraqi Army and police whose proposed reinforcement lies at the center of the Iraq Study Group’s plan for American extraction are often less neutral institutions supporting the nation than a flimsy camouflage for Shia to settle accounts with Sunnis, while the Kurds bide their time and hope the child of chaos will be an independent Kurdistan."

-- ROGER COHEN in the NEW YORK TIMES

Iraq IV: There's Gold in Them Thar Wells

People desperate to point out that good things are happening in Iraq are noting that the parliament is near an agreement on how to distribute the country's oil wealth. The distribution of oil revenues, the mainstay of Iraq's economy, is at the heart of some of its most contentious political issues.

But Mohammmed at Iraq the Model, a reliably pro-U.S. blog, calls attention to a fundamental disconnect:

"[I]f oil export levels retain the current level and under stable prices, the coming year will witness a record income that was never reached in the history of modern Iraq and revenues will jump up to 40 billion dollars; a huge figure given the humble plans of the government and a figure that will put the government in a position where it must come up with new and ambitious plans to match the new revenue figures.

"In fact and from what can be read in papers and heard from official statements it seems most government departments failed to spend the funds allocated by the government for those departments to execute their projects.

"That's not because of security challenges only since there are several regions in the country that are relatively stable and where work can be done but more because of bureaucracy and corruption that make it extremely difficult to implement plans and make sure the money is spent in the right direction."

More here and here.

The Princess Diana Freak Show

The story from a London newspaper that a forthcoming report states that the U.S. Secret Service was bugging Princess Diana's telephone conversations (without the approval of the British security services) in the hours before she was killed in a car crash in Paris is shocking but not surprising.

Click here for more on my take.

Update on The War on Civil Liberties

"La Justice Caricaturée" by Rober LeVigan

As expected, the Justice Department has asked a federal judge to set aside the the habeas challenge by Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld fame, and to wipe out an earlier order that barred his trial by a military war crimes tribunal.

Writes Lyle Dennniston at SCOTUSBlog:

"Aside from comments the government brief made specific to Hamdan's case, its legal arguments closely paralleled those it has made in several other pending detainee cases: the detainees have no constitutional rights to assert in U.S. courts, Congress has taken away any right they had before to challenge their detention or potential prosecution, that withdrawal does not viiolate the Constitution's bar on suspending habeas because Congress has set up an adequate review alternative in D.C. Circuit, and that there is no merit in the argument of detainees' lawyers that Congress did not intend in its October legislation to keep alive any pending habeas cases."

More here.

A Footnote on Augie the P & Henry the K

So we don't have former Chilean dictatory Augusto Pinochet to kick around any more. I'm shedding crocodile tears.

Let's not forget that Henry Kissinger, who was President Nixon's national security advisor, played a key role in Pinochet's power grab.

Kissinger, as chairman of a secret panel that oversaw covert U.S. operations, was deeply involved in the plot to assassinate General Rene Schneider, who was the commander in chief of the Chilean army and opposed a coup led by right wing groups against democratically elected Socialist President Salvador Allende. After Schneider was murdered, Allende was overthrown by a junta that installed Pinochet, who subsequently detained and killed thousands of his countrymen.

An amazing thing about Kissinger is not that he has blood on his hands, but he has the blood of so many different people on his hands. Pinochet could relate.

Meanwhile, click here for Christopher Hitchens' stinging Pinochet send-off at Slate.

Calling All Bobcats: A Cool Contest

Slate has a really cool contest going in conjunction with the premier of "Thunder on the Mountain," the new Bob Dylan video.

You have to date 20 images of the bard and the winner gets a guitar signed by Dylan.

In the event of a tie, the tiebreaker is a hoot.

Entries must be received by December 15. Click here to enter.

Beautiful Photograph du Jour

Holiday lamps in Hue, Vietnam

Another eyeful from Steve Goodman. Many more here.

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Do you have a beautiful photograph that you'd like to submit?
Send it as a .jpg attachment in an email to kikokimba@gmail.com

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Gratuitous Kitty Shot of the Week

Samuel the Supervisor is a helpful sort. When Samuel was found 15 years ago he was eating out of a dumpster. As you can see, he helps Holly by sitting on her blueprints and paperwork.

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Do you want your kitty to be world famous like Samuel?
Send a .jpg in an email to kikokimba@gmail.com