CapitalistImperialistPig

Juan Cole has ten rather dark but thoughtful prophesies for 2006. A couple of points particularly caught my eye: ...7. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization composed of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan as members and India, Iran, Mongolia, and Pakistan as observers, will follow up on its success in getting US troops out of Uzbekistan and on strengthening energy cooperation between Kazakhstan and China on the one hand, and Russia and Kazakhstan on the other, as well as security cooperation between Russia and Uzbekistan. The conjuncture of gas, petroleum, Islam, terrorism and great power jockeying will keep the new Great Game going, this time with Russia, China and the United States all playing. The US hand is weak... 10. The United States will continue to lose global political influence because its government is running large deficits and going ever deeper into debt. In the 1950s, President Eisenhower routinely used the threat of calling in loans from...

Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo was the first blog I regularly read, and it's still the very best. He has some end of the year advice for Democrats and liberals that I consider spot on. First, he says, we have to attack and oppose. There is no point in being an opposition party if there is nothing to oppose, and I think all Dems and liberals find plenty to oppose in current policies and governance. He goes on to give some penetrating advice about writing, politics, and life in general. Bad writing is usually imprecise writing -- and its badness usually stems from the bad writer not having taken the time to think through just what he or she means to say. The cobwebs and vagaries of their minds are revealed in bad prose. Bad politics usually stems from people not having a clear idea of what they're trying to achieve, where they're trying to go. Once you know where you're trying to lead the country, strategy and tactics and optics and gutting the othe...

Drudge links to this Jerusalem Post story that says the US is preparing for a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. The United States government reportedly began coordinating with NATO its plans for a possible military attack against Iran. Many rather similar stories have talked about a possible Israeli strike against these facilities, but most doubt that Israel can carry off such a strike in convincing fashion. Compared to the strike Israel carried out against the Iraqi reactor way back when, attacking a dispersed and possibly largely underground Iranian nuclear program is much harder and much farther away. No one doubts that the US could carry out such attacks, but whether they would succeed is a question, and so is the resulting backlash in Shiite Iraq. My guess is that at the moment, we are just seeing more saber rattling, intended to pressure Iran into abandoning uranium enrichment. If and when the strike comes, and I guess it will if Iran doesn't blink, I suspect t...

Via Josh Marshall . R. Jeffrey Smith outlines how Tom Delay and the Republican Party sold out America to Russian oil interests, foreign sweatshop owners, and almost anybody else with cash in this Washington Post story. A key component of this Abramoff-Delay operation was a slush fund called the U.S. Family Network (take that, George Orwell). The former president of the U.S. Family Network said Buckham told him that Russians contributed $1 million to the group in 1998 specifically to influence DeLay's vote on legislation the International Monetary Fund needed to finance a bailout of the collapsing Russian economy. Now we know what Bush meant when he looked into Putin's eyes and saw "a good man." There is a lot more in the story, all equally depressing. These swine have sold their country out at every turn. It makes me ashamed to call myself a pig.

Tropical Storm Zeta is now spinning out in the Atlantic. It won't live long, but it surely is a freak. I wonder if there has ever been a January Tropical Storm before? (learned about this from Brad Delong )

Here are some predictions I made for 2005, but unfortunately neglected to publish in a timely manner. (1) GW's Social Security plan will collapse in ignominious failure. (2) The Iraq War, contrary to Bush's claims, will make little progress in 2005. (3) The Endemic corruption of the Republican House will begin to stink up the courts as well as the country. (4) The Senate will get tired of rubber stamping dubious Bush nominees. (5) String Theory will continue to dominate the landscape of theoretical physics, crushing all rivals. Or have I mixed up the word order? (6)The Pig will become a must read blog for the nation's movers and shakers.

William Safire has his multiple choice prediction for 2006 up here at the NYT. I found that my answer to most of his possibilities was "who cares," but his finale was: 14. As Bush approval rises, historians will begin to equate his era with that of: (a) Truman; (b) Eisenhower; (c) L.B.J.; (d) Reagan; (e) Clinton. My pick was (f) Caligula , but Bill went with (a).