McCain's frustration

John McCain is obviously a very, very frustrated fellow.

The other day he said that Barack Obama "would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign." One cannot go much farther over the edge than that.

Lots of frustration. Lots of anger.

Plenty has been written about John McCain's anger. He himself has even quipped about it. In today's New York Times, columnist Bob Herbert quotes two of McCain's fellow senators. Thad Cochran, a Mississippi Republican, has said about McCain: “The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine.” The New Mexico Republican Pete Domenici told Newsweek in 2000: “I decided I didn’t want this guy anywhere near a trigger.” (There seems to be no place as wishy-washy as Washington. Both Cochran and Domenici have announced their support for McCain as president.)

Now the frustrated McCain (think of all the impressive footage from Obama's overseas trip) is turning up the volume on his flip-flop accusations. I just wonder how many of McCain's avid fans have looked at their own man's flippity-flop record. Writer Steve Benen (The Carpetbagger Report, July 10, 2008) has listed 61 "clear 180-degree switches by McCain on the biggest issues of the day." To read them, copy this URL into your browser:
http://www.alternet.org/story/90956/

Sigh. And there are still 99 days before the election.

And still they worship Bush

I just about fell out of my chair when I heard the details. The Decider, flying into Tucson to support Tim Bee, a Republican who hopes to unseat Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in November, starred in a Friday morning gathering of some 400 people at a private home. He brought in at least $500,000 and was on his way to Houston before 10:30 a.m.

This was not an IHOP morning. People put up at least $1,000 apiece to get in the house. Some of them paid, get this now, $10,000 to have a photo taken with Bush.

Bee is not stupid. According to the Arizona Daily Star, he stayed away from TV and newspaper cameras during the imperial visit..

I just don't get it. Bad enough that, according to the latest poll I've seen (June 30), 23% of US registered voters still support Bush. But $10,000 for a photo op with a man who should be impeached and then indicted?

Why would any thinking person want to be in a photo with the man who has--with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Gonzales--gone against US and UN law to attack and occupy Iraq, lied to Congress and the UN, authorized attacks on civilian sites, done illegal wiretapping and spying through the NSA, authorized kidnapping and torture, zapped Habeas Corpus, ordered indefinite detentions, authorized secret military tribunals, monitored the privileged communications of attorneys and their clients, criminally neglected the victims of Hurricane Katrina, done racial and religious profiling, kept records from Congress and withdrawn from international treaties?

Why would people want to be in a photo with George W. Bush? What on earth do they value?

A P.S. on global hunger

Consider this a postscript to my July 9th blog.

In the last three years, global food prices have risen more than 80%. Wheat is now at its highest price in almost 30 years. The price of corn has doubled in two years. Rice has risen 147% in just a year. And, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, food prices will continue to rise for at least the next ten years.

Of course part of this overwhelming disaster is due to drought and flooding. Biofuels, most especially corn, are diminishing the food supply. (About 20 percent of US-grown corn is used to make ethanol.) But the foremost cause is the growing middle class of China, India and other developing countries. They want to eat more meat. But it takes about 10 pounds of grain to produce a pound of pork and 20 pounds of grain to produce a pound of beef.

Maybe it is time to paraphrase "going to hell in a hand basket." We may already be going there in a grocery basket.

Global big shots pig out

World leaders (from the US, France, Britain, Germany, Canada, Japan, Italy and Russia) have just met in Japan for their annual "G8 summit." This year they met to talk about the growing global food crisis. (Note: the World Bank has just estimated that rising food prices could drive as many as 105 million more people below the poverty line.)

In the course of their meeting, the G8 delegates had a six-course lunch and an 18-course dinner.

For lunch:
White asparagus and truffle soup
Chaud-froid of Kegani crab
Almond oil foam and tapenade
Supreme of chicken with stuffed thigh, nuts and orange savoury and beetroot foam
Cheese selection
Peach compote, ice cream and raspberry coulis
Coffee and petits fours
and two 2005 wines

For dinner:
Corn and caviar
Smoked salmon and sea urchin
Hot onion tart
Winter lily bulb and summer savoury
Kelp-flavoured beef and asparagus
Diced tuna, avocado and soy sauce jelly and herbs
Boiled clam, tomato, shiso in jellied clam soup
Water shield and pink conger with soy sauce vinegar
Boiled prawn with tosazu vinegar jelly
Grilled eel and burdock
Fried goby fish with soy sauce and sugar
Hairy crab bisque soup
Grilled bighand thornyhead fish with pepper sauce
Milk-fed lamb flavoured with herbs and mustard
Roast lamb with cepes and black truffle
Cheese, lavender honey and carmelised nuts
G8 "Fantasy" dessert
Coffee and candied fruits and vegetables
and six wines

I didn't know what the hell half of these words meant, so I ran the lists through my spell checker. It choked. As did, I am sure, just about everyone around the globe who heard about this grandiose festival of gluttony and hypocrisy. In ancient Rome, it was the feasters who threw up. In this case, I'd bet on the observers.

Of course it was for Oil

How many millions of us said from the very beginning--even before Bush and Cheney unleashed their Shock & Awe--that it was all about oil?

Now the Iraq Oil Ministry has given a two-year, no-bid contract to the Western companies evicted by Saddam Hussein in 1972: Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, Total (French) and BP (UK). Indian, Chinese and Russian companies were turned down.

The contracts are for oil-field repair work and technical support. Of course the next step will approval of drilling for the estimated $30 trillion of Iraq's untapped oil. Condoleezza Rice--who yesterday delivered another paean to the Emperor's conquest of Iraq--said the US had no part in arranging these contracts. (Oh yeah. Sure, Condi. And you and your two Bosses are going to be out of office when the Shia, the Sunnis and the Kurds go for each other's throats over how to split the local profits.)