Along with the other 48,000 not disclosed, their $15 billion represents 1.5% of the money in secret accounts. That's a trillion.

Four years ago a hurricane slammed into the Gulf Coast of the United States. Early in the morning it looked like the threatened city of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the storm's path, might have "dodged a bullet." The rest of the Coast had been whacked hard, but the storm, unlike Allison in Houston, hadn't "parked" above New Orleans. Then the levees failed. We all know what happened after that. Not all the stories were tragedy; heroes arose, as they'd done in September 2001 in Pennsylvania and DC and New York.

Some of you may have noticed that a certain recent thread has been embroiled in the endless discussion of the primary and the general, and 11-dimensional chess, and progressive A-list bloggers and so on and so forth. It would be pointless not to acknowledge at the outset that that isn't the initial motivation for writing this post. And some of my critics are ultimately correct in pointing out after a certain point, it's not productive. So let's abstract away from it for a moment.

So, it's also been suggested that I "be the change I want to see" or whatever. Well, the change I want to see is, actually, more serious discussions of what I'll call "process issues". Leaving aside the fact that I have done this before, I'm going to ask the question again: can anyone spell out the process by which you see leftist political blogging parlay itself into elected power and policy?

Now, Bob Somerby has an excellent post up about the obsession with earmarks:

Those high-profile spending measures total nearly $2 trillion. By way of contrast, the EARMARKS which have Sheneman frightened total $7.7 billion. (No one has made the slightest attempt to show how much of that is “wasteful.”) But guess what? Trillions are much larger than billions! In fact, those EARMARKS represent roughly one two hundred and fiftieth of the total spending in these high-profiles measures. That amounts to one quarter of one percent—one dollar of every 250.

But to Sheneman, these EARMARKS are larger than human life. They may swallow the White House itself.

(The YouTube title for this vid is NYC Wall St. Bailout Protest 25 September 2008. Did you see it on the teebee? Me neither. But it strongly suggests that the consensus on TARP outside the Village is at least as strong as the consensus inside - just in the opposite direction.

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From The Boston Globe / boston.com

It seems that millions of credit card accounts have been hit with a "mysterious credit card charges" of $.25 from a "Adele Services" in Melville, N.Y. It doesn't seem to exist as far as anyone can tell, yet the charges went through. You can and should contest this charge if you find it in your CC bill, don't let it slide, as the thieves may want to see if possible targets of a later, larger fraud are monitoring their account.

There is the possibility that it is just a massive attempt to get a lot of small amounts of money from many people into one large amount for one person or as ( to quote the article ):

Her name is Gracie.

She made it from Florida to Fort Worth in her owner's luggage. Her story is here.
Now, about that Level Orange Alert, Secretary...

Today, when most of you get to work, the Canadian polls will open. Aux urnes! as they say in French. So, I've been in Canada for the past week or so, and I had grand plans of not only finishing off some posts which I owe some people, but writing a sort of last-days political travelogue of the Canadian election, as I've been wandering around southern and eastern Ontario. But not least due to the surprising spottiness of Internet access, I have failed. *hangs head*

Just askin', 'cause it's under $3 a gallon in my hometown today.
Could there really be a de-flation cycle starting?
If so, how close are we to 10/29/29 well-and-truly screwed?

So, I've been wracking my brains attempting to come up with a way to introduce what the issues are in this Canadian election, including calling up family currently living in Canada and asking them, but I still haven't found the right approach. I mean, not only am I writing for a USAmerican audience, which means a different national context, but I do believe that for a country so small in population compared to the USA, the politics are much harder to describe.

Perhaps this isn't fair, but I have an easier time discussing US politics with Canadians than Canadian politics with Canadians. Maybe it's just easier to paper over the real complexity in US politics, but I really do feel that Canadian politics are just more convoluted.

So now that, due to my loose fingers and Corrente's illiberal policy towards the back button, you will not see my post on Canadian vice-Queens and their electoral meaning, I will salvage my pride with a short post on what just happened on the Canadian electoral front. ie, an election was recently called.

...as we say in Canada.

So, in other words, us Canadians will have voted in a new government before you USians have voted in yours.

The stakes are high. Canadians have to decide whether they can get over Stéphane Dion's personality issues enough to stop Stephen Harper from dismantling the country, basically. So far, the most likely outcome in my opinion is that Canada will have another Conservative minority. But I'm terrified of the fact that they are in majority territory.

...don't worry, I didn't write them.

Poem the First, many more here.

She Calls It The London

She calls it the London because it is hers.
From up out of all of the aching years,
burned by memories of her arching fears.
Form up out of where her life began,
smuggled out of Pakistan,
sold to a twisted needy man,
to feed his ugly depredations,
fed to the lusts of many nations,
turned and tapered to shapes that adult lovers cannot know
a tiny vessel into which their sewage flowed.

To be that age and carry his seed inside,
to be at nine a hallowed concubine,
and then again, again at ten,
his pixie sparkly little bride.

Very recently, this thread on Clinton Derangement Syndrome erupted into flame over Bill Clinton's famous Sister Souljah Moment when I mentioned it as a possible cause of dissatisfaction with him felt by some people (me included) during his presidency. You know, things were different then, and we never imagined things could get this bad. Ah, the memories.

It has been kindly pointed out to me that there is an error (in good faith, based on not checking the facts on another post and/or misreading the post) in my last post on flags. I feel obliged to correct this with another post, because I feel the content of my post still stands even after the factual error has been corrected.

Hillary Clinton did not participate in the attempt at adding a flag-burning amendment to the Constitution. She instead attempted to defuse it by proposing a non-amendment that very narrowly fit the Constitution as interpreted generally by the courts. Consequently, this paragraph,

There are reasons to prefer Clinton to Obama. There are easily arguable reasons to be angry that Clinton is not presently likely to be a Presidential candidate in the general election. You can even make a case for not voting for Barack Obama. You can make an even better case for not voting at all.

But there are a few moderately popular reasons for preferring Clinton to Obama that disturb me. A variant of one of these is present in this post at The Confluence.

Think of it all as a hostile takeover, not yet accomplished but well on the way. Steps as follows:

1. OFB are noisy shareholders generating buzz

2. Investment bankers (the funders) supply the capital (teebee!)

3. Loss-making divisions -- working people, the poor, the old, anyone who needs government to work -- are downsized or cut loose; Donna Brazile was sending a message to the backers; it's just business.

4. Assets -- remaining reputation of Dem Party -- are stripped to repay the investment bankers (coal, nuclear)

5. The shell of the Party is sold to a bigger fool

6. All the players get good jobs in the Village and sleep the sleep of the righteous!

[This started out as a comment to Paul's piece, but it feels too long for a comment, and some of the issues are different. My animal spirits are a little low this morning; hopefully that's just the hangover.]

And as I have been saying all along: I'll vote for Obama in the general, but that will be the extent of my investment in his campaign. No doubt many of Obama's supporters feel that's a good thing; and surely they have the privilege of working with people with whom they feel comfortable.

Mighty Corrente Building Manager Lambert brought something up in the comments to this post by bringiton that I thought deserved its own, entirely new thread. Maybe; it's part of the "What To Do With The OFB" issue that I think is a fairly important matter.

Anyway, Lambert quoth:

How about they go fuck themselves?

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It's become a political cliché in this election season that Obama and his campaign have been largely about process issues ("politics, not policy") and that there is a large segment of the Democratic Party that is surprisingly passionate about process issues and see in Obama a way to bring process issues to the fore. This attitude towards process issues stretches back to the Dean campaign. Whether this attitude is justified is another matter, but it's becoming clear that it's not an issue that is likely to win a general election, and that the Obama campaign's focus on meta issues has been at the expense of issues that matter to another important voting bloc, and this might even cost him a nomination that for a time seemed to be practically his.

Although old news, it's news to me and worth talking about. What kind of people are these, really? We talk about sexism a lot on this blog, but as many have noted: what would it take to get you to use language like that, about your partner, in public? I honestly can't imagine that.

My family is filled with passionate, flawed people who aren't afraid to raise a voice (but never a hand) to each other. Harsh language is the salt of life, obviously I was raised to believe that too. But I don't understand how something like this is 'normalized' into the habits of two people married to each other and for whom public image matters. Recklessness? Carelessness? Lack of intelligence, tact? Hatred of women? Any answer is one that reflects poorly on McCain as a national figure, as someone we want to have a finger on the bomb.

Like I said, this is old news but it's time to talk about it again, and again. Women will be really turned off by this, and should be reminded, McCain isn't for us. I was reading some depressing statistics about low information people this morning, so let's all do our part to keep the conversations and opinions properly focued. On McShame is a good place.

Via Those Who Rise From the Ashes, comes this promising series that looks to be worth bookmarking, for the next time you are talking about "coattails." I have no opinion on them and how/if they will be important in this race, yet. But reading this, I'm likely to develop one quickly. Mr. Subliminal wants you to also think about "electability" arguments.

See, GOS is still doing "interesting" and valuable work. I think that's another meme we need to kill. Sure, it's a festival of poo-throwing monkeys most of the time. But then you get a hard working newbie or low information but good information type who doesn't know where else to post. Kick individuals there all you want, including Lord Lucifer himself, I don't care. But the site retains some usefulness and we shouldn't forget that. If for no other reason than there isn't really an alternative community like it, yet.

Why is it that Black and Native (and now Latina/o) people are just supposed to "get over" genocide and slavery and segregation, but White folks get to mourn the loss of the Confederacy for ever and ever?

(h/t Phila)

warning: heavy snark ahead

What a crazy idea, eh? Go ahead and take a gander, it won't hurt! Here, I'll give you a warm up:

GLEN FORD: Well, Dr. Dyson doesn't seem to know what a rightwing interest is. An expanded US military, 100,000 new troops, isn't a rightwing interest? An expanded military budget that sucks up all of the money for healthcare, for revitalization of the cities, for a rebuilding of America's infrastructure, for all the projects that black folks hold dear, all of which would go down the tubes, will be postponed indefinitely with the kind of expanded military budget that clearly follows from Barack Obama's proposal for 100,000 new troops. And so, it is not in black folks' interest. It's really not in anyone's interest, of course. But it is diametrically opposed to the historic black political consensus on domestic development to be proposing expanded military activities and budgets for the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: We only have thirty seconds. Michael Eric Dyson, your response?

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: Well, listen here. I think that that is a legitimate comment to be made in terms of the critique of a potential Barack Obama presidency. Let's see it get here first. I think that a Barack Obama presidency at least holds out the possibility of engaging these forms of critique, engaging the form of the black political consensus about which Mr. Ford has spoken, but also to deal with the fact that we have to be bifocal. The presidency-the people who are making critiques of the system, if he's part of the system, he will be critiqued legitimately. And African American people will be able to enjoy the victory of the grassroots being able to speak, while at the same time being part of a political process that includes us in a very serious way. I think a Barack Obama presidency-

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They're asking questions over at MoA. Questions I like to think upon:

Suicide Bombing in Iraq continues unabated:

A suicide bombing Wednesday in the city of Baqouba killed seven people and wounded 22, police said, while authorities increased the death toll from a Baghdad suicide attack at a funeral the previous day to 36.

Could just be me, but it seems like the SCLM has made a very concerted effort not to speak about Iraq. Good, bad, schools painted...no, forget all that. We're told, daily, that "Iraq is no longer the #1 issue to voters." Right. Because 'the voters' are too stupid to understand that 1/2 trillion Over There = a shitty economy over here. Whatever.

The wikipedia list of suicide attacks in Iraq ends in October. There were more than one bombing every two days throughout 2007 except for October where only 11 are listed (October may be incomplete.)

The bombings are usually attributed to 'Al Qaida in Iraq'. At the same time:

[A] spokesman for Iraq's Interior Ministry said Saturday that U.S. and Iraqi forces had destroyed 75% of the Al Qaeda in Iraq network

This begs some questions:

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