Catching Up

Not that there's anything more than coincidence here, but while I spent the weekend more or less internet-free, reading Rising Tide--which means another hat tip to Oyster, who had a couple of posts on it a short while ago (it's a VERY good book, btw--a history of the Mississippi Delta Country and New Orleans, with the 1927 flood being the equivalent of a center piece).

Anyway, while I was being old-fashioned with book reading, James Wolcott got busy, roaring back after a few fallow days with several must read pieces.

Already, based on his links, I've looked at a Molly Ivins op-ed that excoriates the Bush administration's nonsense masquerading as an energy policy...Molly nails it when she likens the head-in-the-sand reaction to global warning, complete with wingnut snikering, as the "Beavis and Butthead attitude on the subject," which is one thing when coming from idiots who are mere pawns, but quite another thing when espoused by members of Congress...

Moving on, via a Wolcott link to DC Media Girl, I saw the Vanity Fair write up on James Gukert ("Guk" rhymes with "cook"), which, if nothing else, proves that News of the Weird is now the normal mainstream fare in the 21st Century.

Another must read link--changing the subject pretty dramatically here--is a Common Dreams piece about independent versus "embedded" journalists...well, I don't know if the term "embedded" was used, since the matter at hand was Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the year was 1945. But even then, standards were standards, and censorship was censorship...

There's also a congrats to George Galloway (in contrast to a guest blogger at TPM rueing the selection), and, to conclude with a direct quote, a solid smack at the notion that Dubya will be more inclined to support any part of the Tony Blair agenda, given how badly Blair took it on the chin for sticking with the dauphin:

To reward Blair and express his gratitude, Watson said, don't be surprised if Bush bends a little on issues significant to Blair, such as global warming and international aid.

Allow me to hazard a counter-prediction.

George Bush will do fuck-all nothing about global warming.

He may exercise his tonsils and make concerned noises, but he will dedicate himself no more vigorously to global warming than he has done for the last four pissed-away years. Like his party and the rightwing media that pimps for it...Dubya places religion over science, refuses to acknowledge that global warming even exists as a planetary peril, and has never shown the slightest interest in conservation, mass transport, or anything else that might prevent the paving over of every inch of countryside. He would plant oil rigs in Arlington Cemetery and shovel straight through the bones of dead soldiers if reserves were discovered beneath the rows of white crosses, and chainsaw the last tree in the rainforest out of pure spite. (Just this morning USA Today ran a frontpage piece about new rules that will enable more logging of national forests. I mean, could the current energy bill be more ghastly and backward-looking?)

As for international aid, Bush will probably approve greater expenditures and outreach only if there are religious riders and other strings attached. No condoms and contraception information, etc. He's a great believer in abstinence, although his daughters probably aren't, bless their little thongs.

Hasn't Watson been listening and watching? In the past few years we've heard that Bush would show some "give" on issues significant to Blair, but if he didn't do it then, why would he do it now? To display largesse? He is a stingy man for whom largesse is a sign of weakness. Bush has the privileged soul of an inveterate ingrate. He may appreciate all Blair has done, but deepdown he feels that this is only what he and the U.S. deserved.

After all, Putin supported Bush in the war on terror, and for his pains has seen Bush and the neocons do everything they can to sandbag Russia and escalate the arms race. Putin, no fool, adapted accordingly. Blair never detached from the mind-meld, his messianic gaze the mask of a tragic dupe.