That is really, really, really not a plan. A plan has a “and then we’re gonna to this” and a “and next we’ll do this”, and sometimes a “and if that part doesn’t work, then we’ll do this other thing instead.” A plan involves planning, with beginnings and middles and ends. “We’re gonna give this guy $700 billion” is missing quite a few steps.

Well, okay, the Bush plan does have a Step 2: “then the smart guy will buy a bunch of the bad companies.” Funny story there, though. That Smart Guy? Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson? He used to run Goldman Sachs. Y’know, one of those big investment banks that’s about to tumble through the floorboards. He’s the guy who’s supposed to save us.

So yeah, we’re all pretty fucked.

A friend of mine pointed out this Bush quote to me yesterday:

I’m a strong believer in free enterprise, so my natural instinct is to oppose government intervention. I believe companies that make bad decisions should be allowed to go out of business.

Under normal circumstances, I would have followed this course. But these are not normal circumstances. The market is not functioning properly

No, the market is working exactly as it should. “Free enterprise” doesn’t mean “things always go great”. Under free market capitalism, sometimes the economy tanks. Which is brutal, but we don’t even live under capitalism in this country. We live in some sort of crazy, rigged, old boys’ plutocracy, where the hyper-rich are guaranteed diamond-studded bandaids for their tiniest papercuts, the middle class are dangling over their threadbare safety net, and the poor can fuck off and die.

For example, these folks are a few beads short of a rosary*.

Focus On Family Pulls Controversial Obama ‘Rain’ Video- right-wing Christian group produces a video asking fellow Christians to pray for torrential, road-swamping rains and floods during Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Done in a light-hearted way, till the star lets slip the desire for “Biblical” levels of rain. I presume Bibilical as in The Flood. As in “please god, please drown and kill those filthy liberals at their convention.”

GOP Rep. To Environmentalists: Jesus Already Saved The Planet- craziest wingnuttery I’ve seen in years. Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota says that we don’t need to “save the planet” from global warming, because Jesus already “saved the planet” 2000 years ago. Good to know that the soul of the Antarctic ice shelf will be cleansed of sin when it’s last floe melts.

Church Signs That Won’t Make You Go To Church- assorted Christian wackiness. I love #5, and someone needs to tell Faith United General Baptist Church that that saying doesn’t mean what they think it means.

—
*okay, so I couldn’t think of a funny religious joke there. Sue me. If I hadn’t been on the religious theme, I would’ve used my favorite “not the most balanced part of this nutritious breakfast.”

Wal-Mart is apparently forcing its managers to sit through meetings explaining that unions are evil, that if Democrats win the 2008 elections then there might be more unions, and that how much this potential Axis of Labor Evil could hurt Wal-Mart, and possibly bring about the apocalypse maybe.

But, insists Wal-Mart, they are in no way trying to tell its managers how to vote.

Perish the thought.

(interesting factoid at the bottom of the article, though: “Twelve years ago, 98% of Wal-Mart’s political donations went to Republicans. Now, as the Democrats seem poised to gain control in Washington, 48% of its $2.2 million in political contributions go to Democrats and 52% to Republicans”)

Yes folks, school officials in New Jersey actually felt that an alleged ninja sighting was enough of a security threat to shut the school down.

Ninjas.

Sweet fucking christ.

It reminds me of an interesting essay I read recently which argued that the US has as a sort of “autoimmune disease, where an organism’s defense system goes into overdirve so much that it fails to recognize itself and attacks its own cells.” In some ways, that seems amazingly accurate. All manner of police, security and authority officials live on a hair trigger, and will attack their fellow citizens rather than actual threats.

Of course, this analogy breaks down quickly when you realize that America’s police, security, and authority officials don’t actually exist to protect the “body” or its “cells”, but to mantain public compliance with a system of rules and structures that benefit their ideological masters and the guys who sign their paychecks.

In conclusion, ninjas are awesome.

There has been even more reason to be scared lately, with the revelation by journalist Seymour Hersh that the Bush administration has already budgeted $400 million this year to “prepare the battlefield”, supporting various dissident/terrorist groups inside Iran to “destabilize” the government.

But now, the good news. Apparently, the Iranian government has “agreed to freeze its enrichment program for six weeks and begin negotiations with the P5+1 group of states as early as next week” (”P5+1″ being the US, France, Russia, China, Germany and the UK).

This is a positive direction, in that it takes away the major US excuse for invading Iran. Of course, the real reason that the US wants to invade Iran is to destroy its influence and power in the Middle East (”damn Iranians, thinking they’ve got the right to make decisions about their nation, their resources, and the general neighborhood they live in!”), so it might simply be a matter of moving on to the next excuse to put their plans of idiot stupid evil into action. I mean, when the US screeched about Iraq’s WMDs, Saddam Hussein’s move to allow weapons inspectors into the country should have cooled down the war fever. But goddamit, we were determined to bring death daisycutters depleted uranium-tipped anti-tank shells torture DEMOCRACY to the not-suffering-enough-yet people of Iraq.

In conclusion, I am less scared tonight of an assault on Iran than I was this morning, possibly for no good reason.

In an unrelated story, Hillary Clinton may or may not be vowing to continue her fight to win the Democratic presidential nomination, no holds barred! Or not. Whatever.

Some guy at the bus stop told us, why do you ask?

Bolton dodges attempted ‘war crimes’ arrest

Author/columnist/activist George Monbiot shows up at an event where neocon John Bolton is giving a speech, and tries to make a citizens’ arrest, claiming that Bolton has committed war crimes and violated the Geneva Convention. Bolton managed to escape when security blocked Monbiot’s way.

“I’m disappointed I couldn’t reach him, but I made what I believe to be the first attempt ever to arrest one of the perpetrators of the Iraq war, and I would like to see that followed up.”

Right fucking on. Who’s next to try to Arrest John Bolton?