Marlon Brando Quote from The Godfather, urr no, Paul Wolfowitz Quote

``The more people I meet with, the more will understand.''

as reported by Bloombergs

The Free Market Solves Discrimination Problem

Overheard at a McDonalds:

White man says to black man, "Yeah you should definitely check them out. They used to be real racist, but they need truckers really bad now."

Sports and Government

"Of all areas of life, sports should be the arena least touched by politics. For the glory of being a sports fan is precisely that we are engaging in fun and play, that we are permitted the freedom to be "irrational"; that is, to be Yankee or Mets fans, to love our team and to hate the enemy, without having to ground these passions in a systematic, moral or metaphysical theory. So it is particularly obnoxious when the gaggle of left Puritans invades and takes over the field of sports. Which they have done, of course, with a vengeance."

-Murray Rothbard, November 1990

Finally Someone Spitzer is Afraid to Mess With

The New York Post reports:

Warren Buffett need not fear being pushed from his CEO position at Berkshire Hathaway.

That was the word seeping out of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office yesterday after two days worth of speculation about the fate of the world's second richest man.

Who Owns Your Urine?

Matt Welch reviews the matter:

Does your urine belong to Congress? Should private citizens not suspected of any wrongdoing be hauled up to Capitol Hill and grilled under oath, on live TV, about what substances they've put in their bodies?

Congressman Henry Waxman sure thinks so. The Los Angeles Democrat is convening hearings Thursday, March 17 on the pressing national security issue of ballplayers using performance-enhancing steroids. Last Wednesday, subpoenas were sent out to seven current and former Major League Baseball players to testify about their hormones in front of the oxymoronic House Committee on Government Reform.

Only one player, recent retiree Jose Canseco, has enthusiastically accepted the committee's invitation, though he's lobbying hard for immunity. By crazy coincidence, the former Bash Brother has a new, factually-challenged and universally-panned bestseller on the market, titled Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big.

"Canseco's allegations about steroid use by Mark McGwire and other baseball players have received enormous media attention," an apparently envious Waxman wrote in his Feb. 24 letter requesting the hearings. "Many of the individuals have denied the accusations. Mr. Canseco insists his information is accurate. ... There is a simple way to find the truth in this matter. ... [H]ave them testify under oath."

Using the enormous power of the federal government to arbitrate literary disputes seems a little much. We wouldn't dream of forcing George W. Bush to swear on the Holy Bible just because Kitty Kelley reported that he snorted coke at Camp David, yet a private citizen's alleged use of a substance that's actually legal (with a prescription) is enough for Washington to set the wheels of publicity-masquerading-as-justice in motion.

The Solution for the Social Security Crisis: Try The Truth

Lew Rockwell says try the truth:

There is something about politics that convinces people that the truth is always the worst strategy. I just don't see it. Let's say that some president were open with the public and said:

"Social Security is an unsustainable tax-and-spend program. It taxes half the population to fund the other half at any point in time, but over time we are all victims. Everyone would be better off without it, eventually. I propose that all who want to stop paying the taxes be allowed to do so, in exchange for which they give up all future benefits. If you want to surrender benefits, you may do so in exchange for dollar for dollar tax reductions. Currently promised benefits will be paid out of general revenue. Yes, this will blast a hole in the budget. But the liabilities at least have a stopping point. Folks, there is a name for this reform: freedom. Take it or leave it."

Wanniski: As The World Bank Turns

Wanniski on Paul Wolfowitz as the new World Bank president:

If you really don’t know what the “World Bank” is all about, you would think that President Bush was joking in nominating Paul Wolfowitz to be the new president of the Bank, replacing Jim Wolfensohn. One of the chief architects of the Iraq war, Wolfowitz is a political theorist, a 61-year-old man who spent most of his adult life at blackboards and lecterns teaching students about international politics. He may know how to operate an Automatic Teller Machine when in need of ready cash, but he knows absolutely nothing about banking....

[The World Bank] not only promotes unnecessary industrial complexes in Ghana, which rust away in bankruptcy when they prove to be uneconomic. The aim of the military-industrial complex is not only “industrial,” but also military. The name most closely associated with Halliburton, of course, is Vice President Cheney, who was Defense Secretary in the first Gulf War, with Paul Wolfowitz even then at his side (urging all-out war with Iraq even after Saddam put up the white flag and retreated to Baghdad before the war began!!) Rats.

The name most associated with Bechtel is George P. Shultz, once its top dog, now a mere director. Shultz was Treasury Secretary under Richard Nixon (helping talk him into floating the U.S. dollar), Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan, and currently a member of the Defense Policy Board, which until last year Richard Perle chaired.

Shultz also introduced Governor George W. Bush to Condoleezza Rice, who in turn introduced Paul Wolfowitz to Governor Bush back in 1999. Shultz of course knew at the time that Wolfie and Perle and their neo-con Cabal were planning a war in Iraq, and we know nice, little “doable” wars (Wolfie’s word), are meat and potatoes for the military-industrial complex. Instead of squeezing nickels and dimes out of the taxpayers to persuade Ghana to build a steel mill it doesn’t need and can’t run, even little wars run into the billions. And everyone gets into the act. The arms makers who produce airplanes, tanks, guns, jeeps and humvees get to blow up a country (like Iraq) and Bechtel and Halliburton come in right behind to rebuild it. In announcing the Wolfowitz appointment today, President Bush said the World Bank is a big organization and Wolfowitz has experience running a big organization, the Pentagon!! As far as the military-industrial complex is concerned, Wolfowitz did a FANTASTIC job. He was only expected to plan for a $30 billion war and he screwed up so badly that it is now a $200 billion war, and counting. Anyone who can screw up that badly deserves a promotion, to the World Bank.

So you see it doesn’t really matter that Wolfowitz doesn’t know the first thing about banking or the economics of development projects. He will sit behind the biggest desk at the Bank and take the telephone calls from the Big Banks and the Multinationals, telling him what to do...When the White House needs a big favor for one of its big hitters, it need only put in a call to Wolfie, who will throw the right switch. That’s exactly the way it worked with Jim Wolfensohn these past ten years, and if you don’t believe me, look around and you will note how many poor countries got poorer during his reign, and how many big bucks were made at Bechtel and Halliburton.

Questions the Regular White House Press Corps Forgets to Ask

This excahange took place in the White House briefing room:

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, there's still a few days off until the date that we began the liberation of Iraq, and --

Q The invasion of Iraq.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think the Iraqi people showed that they appreciate the sacrifices of the coalition forces, of Iraqi forces, and our men and women in uniform of the U.S. military, who helped --

Q Well, we're still there and we're still fighting, aren't we?

MR. McCLELLAN: -- to provide them with the opportunity to determine their own future, and to move away from their past of oppression and terrorism. And, obviously, we will --

Q How is the President going to mark the anniversary?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, we will have more to say as we move closer to that, to express our eternal gratitude to the men and women of our Armed Forces who have served and sacrificed in the defense of freedom, and who have helped to liberate some 25 million people in Iraq. We are --

Q That isn't why you went in.

MR. McCLELLAN: We are forever grateful to our men and women in uniform. And the Iraqi people have expressed their gratitude, as well, and showed that they are committed to defying the terrorists who want to return to the past by going to the polls and voting for a future based on freedom and democracy. And the National Assembly that was elected by the Iraqi people, the transitional National Assembly, will be meeting for the first time tomorrow. It's an important step on the path to democracy. And we stand with the international community in doing everything we can to support the transition to democracy in Iraq. We stand with the Iraqi people, and we are greatly appreciative of our men and women in uniform who continue to serve and sacrifice for this important cause. We are also grateful to their families who have made sacrifices, as well.

Q How many people are dead?

MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, April.

(link via Antiwar.com)

Now This is a Mark-Up

The Houston Chronicle reports:

Iraq needed fuel. Halliburton Co. was ordered to get it there — quick. So the Houston-based contractor charged the Pentagon $27.5 million to ship $82,100 worth of cooking and heating fuel.

Randian forgets to pay taxes...feds hot on his trail

Jacob Hornberger reports:

Why are the feds really so angry at Walter Anderson? I suspect it has to do with more than just cheating the U.S. socialistic-interventionist welfare-warfare state out of badly needed moolah. I think what actually might have caused them to go ballistic against him was something else:

According to the New York Times, “Walter Anderson, the telephone entrepreneur accused of being the biggest tax cheat in American history, started playing with his name when he was 12 years old. Acquiring aliases became a habit that the government now says is central to how he evaded taxes on at least $450 million in income.... The most intriguing alias listed in court papers is Ragnor Danksjold, a variation on the character Ragnar Danneskjold in the Ayn Rand novel Atlas Shrugged. Danneskjold is a sort of Robin Hood in reverse who steals from the ships of socialist governments and gives the booty to the rich, including a solid gold bar he presses into the hands of an industrialist, Henry Rearden, partly to repay Mr. Reardon for taxes he paid. According to court papers, Mr. Anderson’s Gulfstream IV jet was owned by a company named Dankjold Reed, another variation on the name.”

Free the Bloggers!!!

From Curt Hopkins, director of Committee to Protect Bloggers, in the Los Angeles Times:

Arash Sigarchi, a blogger and daily newspaper editor, was sentenced to 14 years in jail on charges of "espionage and insulting the country's leaders." Another Iranian blogger, Mohamad Reza Nasab Abdolahi, was given a six-month jail sentence, also for insulting the country's leaders. Blogger Mojtaba Saminejad was arrested in November, released on bail in mid-January, then rearrested less than a month later after his bail was doubled and he could not pay. Abdolahi's pregnant wife, Najmeh Omidparvar, also a blogger, was arrested March 2.

Iran is hardly alone in repressing bloggers. Malaysian authorities recently dragged in Jeff Ooi for questioning. Ooi's blog included critical comments about Islam Hadari, a philosophy of Islam promoted by the Malaysian prime minister.

And on Feb. 27, Bahraini authorities detained Ali Abdulemam, one of the moderators of a popular online bulletin board, BahrainOnline (www.bahrainonline.org), whose contributors are frequently critical of the government. Two of his fellow moderators were also detained; yet to be formally arrested, they reportedly will be held for the duration of an investigation.

Government Steroids

Congress continues to run the base paths, moving closer and closer to a showdown with major league baseball players over whether the players should testify about home run enhancing steroids.

Curiously, while this circus goes on, government has used its ever so popular illegal steroid of its own. Yes, the government, that so publicly wants to investigate home run enhancing drugs, has used and will never investigate the juice it uses to bolster its team.

The steroid I am referring to, quite like athletic steroids, is generally administered in the butt. The one difference is that ball players stick the stuff in their own butts, while government officials stick the needle into anyone's butt if they just happen to be snooping up that butt. The steroid, the juice if you will, is the well placed leak by an "unnamed source" of supposedly confidential information.

Eliot Spitzer is of course a master at sticking it into the butt of anyone, when it will result in his getting front page publicity.

But our congressional leaders are no less willing to stick it into someone's butt if it will result in a juiced up story for the government team.

Some years back, a steroid investigation took place, headed by the FBI, which produced a questionable character who claimed he provided steroids to both Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco. (How creditable is this sleazeball? Not even Jose Cancesco, who has written an entire book about steroids and baseball, admits to dealing with him opr even knowing him.)

So just when do the details of this investigation leak to the press? Just days before baseball players are to testify before congress. Curious, very curious. Now that's a nice stick in the butt of McGwire. Who would do such a thing? Who would leak such sleazeball information just before MLB players are about to testify? Who would want to juice the press for the coming showdown between congress and the home run sluggers? Just who would have this confidential info, the Boys of Summer? Or government's butt stickers?


Personally I would rather see a steroid induced Barry Bonds rocket shot home run into McCovey cove, than the butt sticking, juiced up stories that are leaked by the ever manipulating, cheating, spit ball throwing, power hungry members of congress.

The Problem of Foreign Occupation Troops; The Problem of WMD

Juan Cole writes today:

Some Iraqis find it ironic that President Bush called for a withdrawal of foreign troops from Lebanon before the elections, but that elections were held in Iraq under conditions of foreign military occupation. Some quotes from the Knight Ridder story:

"He must have forgotten that his army is occupying Iraq," said Sa'ad Abdul Aziz, 21, an engineering student at Baghdad University. "What about the Republican Palace that they are using as a U.S. embassy?" . . .

Although the US military was supposed to have gone to Iraq to protect us all from weapons of mass destruction, Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, actually allowed the most sophisticated weapons sites to be systematically looted, doing nothing about it. It is almost as though he did not actually care about WMD and went to Iraq for other reasons. The NYT writes Sunday


In the weeks after Baghdad fell in April 2003, looters systematically dismantled and removed tons of machinery from Saddam Hussein's most important weapons installations, including some with high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms, a senior Iraqi official said this week in the government's first extensive comments on the looting.

The Iraqi official, Sami al-Araji, the deputy minister of industry, said . . . "They came in with the cranes and the lorries, and they depleted the whole sites," Dr. Araji said. "They knew what they were doing; they knew what they want. This was sophisticated looting." . . .

Dr. Araji said equipment capable of making parts for missiles as well as chemical, biological and nuclear arms was missing from 8 or 10 sites that were the heart of Iraq's dormant program on unconventional weapons. After the invasion, occupation forces found no unconventional arms, and C.I.A. inspectors concluded that the effort had been largely abandoned after the Persian Gulf war in 1991.

. . . his account raises the possibility that the specialized machinery from the arms establishment that the war was aimed at neutralizing had made its way to the black market or was in the hands of foreign governments.

"Targeted looting of this kind of equipment has to be seen as a proliferation threat," said Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control . . . '

The Time Has Come To Take Your Life Private

"The time has come to face up to an unpleasant reality. This system of keeping personal information on computers inside the government and corporations isn't working. It does not matter what laws are passed, it does not matter how much software protection we buy for our home computers; the crooks just form companies and buy the info they need, or get hired into the offices where vast collections of the data are there for the taking. Corporations and government have proven their untrustworthiness with our critical data. Expressed concerns about privacy rights are cosmetic at best. Time and time again we are shown that there is no privacy once your critical information is in the hands of corporations and government.
The ID society does not work. It is time to take your life private. It is time to stop leaving records of everything that you do. It is time to go back to using cash for all purchases. It is time to become invisible to the INsecure systems the government and business use to track us. " --from What Really Happened