Bush just using Christians, says former faith office leader

MSNBC has the story, about David Kuo's new book, Tempting Faith:

More than five years after President Bush created the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, the former second-in-command of that office is going public with an insider’s tell-all account that portrays an office used almost exclusively to win political points with both evangelical Christians and traditionally Democratic minorities.

The office’s primary mission, providing financial support to charities that serve the poor, never got the presidential support it needed to succeed, according to the book.

...

He says some of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as “the nuts.”

“National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy,’” Kuo writes.

More seriously, Kuo alleges that then-White House political affairs director Ken Mehlman knowingly participated in a scheme to use the office, and taxpayer funds, to mount ostensibly “nonpartisan” events that were, in reality, designed with the intent of mobilizing religious voters in 20 targeted races.

Hat tip to stranger fruit.

McCain wrong about North Korea

Sen. John McCain has attempted to blame President Clinton for North Korea's development of nuclear weapons:

"I would remind Senator [Hillary] Clinton and other Democrats critical of the Bush administration's policies that the framework agreement her husband's administration negotiated was a failure," McCain said at a news conference after a campaign appearance for Republican Senate candidate Mike Bouchard.

"The Koreans received millions and millions in energy assistance. They've diverted millions of dollars of food assistance to their military," he said.

But McCain is wrong. In 1994, the North Koreans were producing weapons-grade plutonium. The Clinton Administration negotiated the Agreed Framework, under which they halted their program and allowed inspections of the plutonium they had produced. The North Korean plutonium program remained halted until 2002. In 2000, George W. Bush came into office wanting to terminate the agreement over plutonium, and in 2002 he did so on the basis of evidence that the North Koreans were trying to enrich uranium. As a result of U.S. withdrawal from the agreement, the North Koreans again began producing weapons-grade plutonium, which was used in their bomb test.

The evidence is that the Clinton Administration agreement kept North Korea from developing plutonium-based nuclear weapons from 1994 to 2002, and that the Bush Administration's withdrawal from that agreement and failure to replace it led to North Korea detonating a plutonium-based nuclear weapon on October 9, 2006.

Now, of course I place the blame for developing a nuclear weapon on North Korea rather than the United States--but if we're looking for who in the United States is most responsible for allowing them to do so, I don't see anyone with greater responsibility than President George W. Bush. McCain's attempt to divert blame to Clinton is ridiculous.

If Clinton's posture is criticized as all carrots but no sticks (which is itself in error, since war was threatened to get North Korea to the bargaining table in 1994), the accurate criticism of Bush's posture is no carrots and no sticks.

UPDATE: Condi Rice has made the same criticism as McCain.

Rep. Russell Pearce sends out email article from white separatist website

State Rep. Russell Pearce (R-Mesa), one of the most vocal opponents of illegal immigration in the Arizona legislature, sent an email out to supporters that contained an article from the National Alliance's website. The article, titled "Who Rules America? The Alien Grip on Our News and Entertainment Media Must Be Broken," criticized the media for promotion multiculturalism and racial equality, for depicting "any racially conscious White Person" as a bigot, and for presenting the Holocaust as fact.

Pearce says he does not agree with the article, but forwarded it after reading the first few paragraphs, which he agreed with. Once he realized the nature of the article, he sent out an apology to supporters and asked them to delete the original email and not forward it further.

The Arizona Republic quotes a Pearce apology, beginning with a quote that sounds like he's been taking grammar lessons from Yoda:

"Ugly the words contained in it really are. ... They are not mine and I disavow them completely. Worse still, the website links to a group whose politics are the ugliest imaginable. I am saddened and embarrassed that this went out with my name on it and I am also saddened at the loss of the friend who sent this to me. His heart is dark and I am unable to get him to see that what drives him is ugly and evil at its core."

This comes after Pearce has been under fire for his comments in support of a 1954 federal deportation program called "Operation Wetback." Pearce has defended himself by observing that this was, in fact, what the program was called. I don't know if he prefaced his references to it by pointing out that he recognizes that the name is offensive, but if he did so he shouldn't have been criticized for the use of the name. His support of the program, however, is certainly subject to criticism.

I wonder if Pearce also thinks the Jerome Deportation or Bisbee Deportation (both of 1917) were good ideas--both involved numerous Mexican workers (as well as European immigrants), though they were deported by train to New Mexico at the behest of vigilantes working for the mining companies, with the assistance of the local authorities.

Another new Richard Cheese album: Silent Nightclub

Hot on the heels of his "best of" album, "The Sunny Side of the Moon," which came out at the beginning of this year, is a new holiday album from Richard Cheese, "Silent Nightclub." The festive tracks:

1. Holiday in Cambodia (originally by The Dead Kennedys)
2. Like a Virgin (originally by Madonna)
3. Christmas in Las Vegas (an original song by Richard Cheese)
4. Jingle Bells (originally by The Barking Dogs)
5. Ice Ice Baby (originally by Vanilla Ice)
6. Do They Know It's Christmas (originally by Band-Aid)
7. Personal Jesus (originally by Depeche Mode)
8. Imagine (originally by John Lennon)
9. Last Xmas (bonus track)
10. Naughty Girl (originally by Beyonce)
11. Christmastime is Here (originally from A Charlie Brown Christmas)
12. The Trees (originally by Rush)
13. I Melt With You (originally by Modern English)
14. Silent Night

Phoenix home prices fall for first time in ten years

For the first time in the last decade, year-over-year median home prices in the metropolitan Phoenix area have dropped, from $263,000 to $256,900, down from the peak of $267,000 in June 2006.

Former housing bull Jay Q. Butler of the Arizona Real Estate Center at ASU says:

Even though mortgage interest rates have been declining for the last few months, limited home appreciation and household income continues to raise concern about the ability of some homeowners to maintain their homes. ... This may be especially evident for those that have used some of the more creative financing instruments, such as option payment plans and initially low interest rate adjustable mortgages.

Florida is seeing growing foreclosures, especially among those with Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) with negative amortization options. There are $200 billion in ARMs resetting their rates in 2006 and another $1 trillion plus will be resetting in 2007, expected to lead to more foreclosures. This will apply further downward pressure on prices, and we should expect to see some of the same here (an increase has already been seen in Maricopa County notices of trustee sales), though I think Arizona has had a lower percentage of ARMs, interest-only, and negative amortization option loans than other parts of the country.

Kolbe knew of inappropriate Foley emails in 2000

It just keeps getting pushed back farther and farther.

Arizona Representative Jim Kolbe (R-District 8) has informed the Washington Post that he knew of inappropriate Foley emails back in 2000, which he confronted Foley about and brought to the attention of clerk of the House Karen Haas. Another source claims those emails were sexually explicit, but Kolbe press secretary Korenna Cline disagreed with that description, saying that the emails had only made the former page who received them uncomfortable.

Kolbe, one of three openly gay Congressmen (the other two are Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)), was identified by multiple pages interviewed by the Post as one of the only members of Congress to take interest in them.

UPDATE (October 10, 2006): Kolbe now disagrees with his press secretary about some details--he says he didn't see the emails, didn't directly confront Foley, and didn't personally pass on the complaint to the clerk of the House, but simply recommended to the page with the complaint that it be done.

Housing bubble, U.S. and Arizona

Here's a nice chart from Yale economist Robert Shiller showing U.S. housing prices back to 1890. What will the regression to the mean look like over the next few years?

On Wednesday Moody's issued a widely-covered report on housing prices with predicted price declines by region. Here are their predictions for Arizona cities:

                            Peak-to-Trough              Peak            Trough
                   % House Price Decline      Year/Quarter      Year/Quarter

  Tucson, AZ                      -13.4               06:1              08:2
  Phoenix, AZ                      -9.3               06:1              08:2
  Prescott, AZ                     -2.0               06:1              08:2

I think that their predicted 9.3% decline between first quarter of 2006 and second quarter of 2008 for Phoenix is wildly optimistic--it wouldn't surprise me if we saw that level of decline by the end of this year or first quarter of next year. It depends on whether Phoenix continues to have rapid population growth, which in turn depends on job growth (especially outside of real estate-related jobs, which will be declining).

Foley scandal a Cliff's Notes version of how Bush administration operates

Glenn Greenwald:

But for so many reasons -- its relative simplicity, its crystal clarity, the involvement of emotionally-charged issues, the salacious sex aspects -- this Foley scandal circumvents that whole dynamic. People are paying attention on their own. They don't need pundits or journalists to tell them what to think about it because they are able to form deeply held opinions on their own. None of the standard obfuscation tactics used for so long by Bush followers are working here. To the contrary, their attempted use of those tactics is making things much worse for them, because people can see that Bush followers are attempting -- through the use of patently dishonest and corrupt tactics -- to excuse the inexcusable. And seeing that, it gives great credence to all of the accusations voiced over the last five years that this is how the Bush movement operates in every area, because people can now see it for themselves.

In that regard, this scandal is like the Cliffs' Notes version of a more complicated treatise on how the Bush movement operates. Every one of their corrupt attributes is vividly on display here:

The absolute refusal ever to admit error. The desperate clinging to power above all else. The efforts to cloud what are clear matters of wrongdoing with irrelevant sideshows. And the parade of dishonest and just plainly inane demonization efforts to hide and distract from their wrongdoing: hence, the pages are manipulative sex vixens; a shadowy gay cabal is to blame; the real criminals are those who exposed the conduct, not those who engaged in it; liberals created the whole scandal; George Soros funded the whole thing; a Democratic Congressman did something wrong 23 years ago; one of the pages IM'd with Foley as a "hoax", and on and on. There has been a virtual carousel -- as there always is -- of one pathetic, desperate attempt after the next to deflect blame and demonize those who are pointing out the wrongdoing. This is what they always do, on every issue. The difference here is that everyone can see it, and so nothing is working.

Read the rest. Greenwald suggests that this scandal almost appears to have been divinely inspired.

Robert Anton Wilson nears the end of his life

Robert Anton Wilson, co-author of the Illuminatus! trilogy (which was the inspiration for my domain name and computer naming scheme on my home network), is now bedridden and under 24-hour care. Some fans on the Internet have helped him raise funds for his continuing care, and you can buy a Robert Anton Wilson T-shirt to help out.

UPDATE (January 11, 2007): Robert Anton Wilson died this morning at 4:50 a.m., PST.

Jesse Walker reports on his final blog post, and Brian Doherty offers some interesting reflections.

Though my only published writing about Robert Anton Wilson was rather critical, I greatly enjoyed and own most of his published work.

UPDATE (January 12, 2007): And there's more from Nick Gillespie here.

Nietzsche Family Circus

What happens when you randomly pair a Family Circus cartoon with a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche?