] This has been rumored in Washington for several days. And
] now the Nelson Report has broken the story.
]
]
] Some 350 tons of high explosives (RDX and HMX), which were
] under IAEA seal while Saddam was in power,
] were looted during the early days of the US occupation.
] Like so much else, it was just left unguarded.

[ It's all over the media now, in varying degrees of aggressiveness. The NYT article (iirc) puts the number at 380 metric tonnes, almost a million pounds of easily transported, safe-to-handle, high explosive material, now in the hands of enemies. Such a bad situation for our troops. -k]

TPM : Missing TONS of High Explosives

] Eminem%u2019s fan base tends to poo-pooh the arguments of
] the more politically sensitive hip-hoppers, which breaks
] down as a sort of rap-world street-feud of Hobbesians
] versus Rousseauvians that has been brewing since at least
] the mid-eighties.

[ Uhhh. Yeah. This is an interesting read... -k]

Eminem on Bush and Iraq: Comments by Hale and White

Jon Stewart was on 60 minutes tonight... Hopefully this will hit the web. CBS will sell a tape for $30, but not until November... He also appeared recently on cspan... This seems to be a clearing house for information:

http://www.jonstewart.net/news.html

[ I TiVo'd it, but didn't watch... I'll update when I do, as I anticipate it'll be good. -k]

CBS News | Jon Stewart Roasts Real News

] Eliot Spitzer, the New York State attorney general, has
] recently taken on a procession of corporate powers from
] Wall Street analysts to mutual funds to insurance
] brokers. Now he is casting his eyes on the music
] industry, particularly its practices for influencing what
] songs are heard on the public airwaves.

[ Spitzer is one tough motherfucker, man. The dude does not abide. -k]

Record Labels Said to Be Next on Spitzer List for Scrutiny

This year Child's Play is expanding to help Children's Hospitals across the United States. Each star on the map below represents a Children's Hospital that needs your help. Selecting one will direct you to that particular hospitals Amazon wish list. Any items you purchase from that list will be delivered directly to the hospital you selected. Also be sure to choose the shipping address to the hospital instead of your own!

[ For those of you who don't know, this is a project that the comic geniuses and latter day rennaissance men over at Penny Arcade started last year. The response was pretty astounding and as far as charities go, this one is as good as any. Not to mention, it's easy to trust that the donation will go where it's meant to.

Anyway, if you're of a mind, i recomend it as a good cause. -k]

Child's Play Charity

] My own opinion is that the rich already pay too
] much -- it seems patently unfair to ask anyone to pay
] over 30 times as much as his neighbors (unless he
] receives 30 times as much in government services, which
] strikes me as implausible). If you share my sense of
] fairness, you'll join me in condemning the president's
] tax policy.
]
]
] But if, on the other hand, you believe that the tax
] system should soak the rich even more than it already
] does -- or, to put it more genteelly, that the tax
] system should be more progressive than it already
] is -- if, in other words, you are a mainstream
] Democrat -- then George W. Bush is your guy.

[ Hm. Without getting too deeply into the issue, the fundamental flaw i see here is the analogy of taxes as a direct payment for government services. They are not, never have been, and should not be. They are an investment in the infrastucture of the nation, physical and societal. Tax dollars fund education, health care and food and environmental protection, among other things -- spending which, by its very nature, is difficult or impossible to treat in a payment-for-services-rendered context. Investments do not always pay back directly to the investor. In this case, they pay back the future generations of americans, who will be better equipped to succeed with the benefits conveyed to them by current taxes. And are likewise payments into a system that provided the rich with the framework on which they could build their own success.

The rich have their success, in a large part, to hard work, personal ambition and shrewd action. However, it seems like many fall into the trap of assuming that such things are the entire cause of their success. That they are self-made in the most pure sense of the word. In reality, of course, they reap the benefits of a national infrastructure which was built and funded by earlier generations of americans. No one exists in a vaccuum, and it is interconnectedness which permits success to thrive through the exploitation of relationships. In the best case, these are positive-sum relationships, yeilding improvement for all parties, as opposed to the enrichment of one to the detriment of others. I see the progressive tax system as a way to ensure that positive sum result, by ensuring that those who have benefitted most from the world are paying back into the system, enhancing opportunities for future generations.

This argument doesn't even touch on issues of philanthropy, or helping others, but stems from a pure argument of fairness. Entitlements and government programs are often couched in the rhetorical framework of a reward for freeloaders... lazy people at the bottom of the food chain who can't be bothered to invest themselves in their own survival. Certainly, there are those who fit this description, but it seems untenable to assume they are the majority. Rather, the proper application of government funds as investments in the future serves to provide the very opportunities that will be exploited by a new generation of enterprising people. To succeed greatly, and then fail to return the favors granted to you by the society you live in is just as much freeloading as demanding unfettered welfare checks. Progressive taxes are right. -k]

Bush's Tax Cuts Are Unfair ... - To the rich. By Steven E. Landsburg

] "Newton was not the first of the age of reason," Keynes
] said. "He was the last of the magicians, the last of the
] Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind which
] looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the
] same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual
] inheritance rather less than 10,000 years ago." Newton
] opened a door to our world, sure. But he belonged to the
] world we have left behind.

[ Neat. James Glieck informs, as always. -k]

Isaac Newton's Gravity - How a major new exhibition gets the scientist wrong. By James Gleick

] "It is actually quite hard to read RFID at a distance,"
] said Want.

[ Is it? -k]

Wired News: American Passports to Get Chipped

[ Read this. it's now almost a week old, but it's long and I don't like recommending things i haven't read thoroughly. It was worth it. Certainly, it's not news to anyone who's been paying attention, but it's ever so important to understanding the philosophy that has overtaken the power structure of the Right in America.

If nothing else, scroll to the end and read the last few grafs. The Bush presidency seems really to have been nothing less than an all out attack on the very notion of rational investigation, honest and open discourse and nuanced thought. He's peddled a black and white vision desired by so many who've consumed it in droves... but the world is seldom black and white, and it's escapist to live in that binary world. -k]

The New York Times - Magazine - Without a Doubt

] On Sept. 9, as it must frequently do, the U.S. government
] turned to Wall Street to raise a little cash, and Paul
] Calvetti bet that demand for $9 billion worth of
] long-term Treasury bonds would be "huge."
]
] But at 1 p.m., as the auction opened and the numbers
] began streaming across his flat-panel screens, the head
] of Treasury trading at Barclays Capital Inc. slumped in
] his chair. Foreign investors, who had been voraciously
] buying Treasury bonds, failed to show up. Bond prices
] cascaded downward, interest rates rose, and in five
] minutes, Calvetti, 38, who makes money by bidding on
] bonds at one price and hoping market demand lets him
] quickly resell them at a profit, had lost $1.5 million.

[ I couldn't even pretend to be an expert on macroeconomics, but the things I am able to understand are really quite scary. It's easy to focus on local issues like tax cuts for the rich and vague handwaving about the national debt during an election. I've been reading a lot more lately that points to serious trouble for our entire economy. I'm not seeing a lot of positive indicators for the US and a lot of disturbing stuff.

Here's another article : http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_10361.shtml

And God help us if we're already in the midst of the Peak Oil era -- it'll be bad enough if it comes in 30 years. If it's already upon us, we're completely buggered. -k]

Bearish on Uncle Sam? (washingtonpost.com)