brainrow

In a blog post a few days ago, I linked to a map showing declines in median incomes across the U.S. Now I see The Washington Monthly reports a problem with the map.

they used a different measure for the 1999 figures than for the 2005 numbers, and that made the decline look worse than it was.

There is a chart (no map this time) at the Washington Monthly site with more consistent data.

I’ve heard it’s a good practice to correct your errors. Might as well give it a try.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman:

Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld told us we are in the fight of our lives against a new Islamic fascism, and let’s have an unprecedented wartime tax cut and shrink our armed forces. They told us we are in the fight of our lives against a new Islamic fascism, but let’s send just enough troops to topple Saddam — and never control Iraq’s borders, its ammo dumps or its looters. They told us we are in the fight of our lives against a new Islamic fascism, but rather than bring Democrats and Republicans together in a national unity war coalition, let’s use the war as a wedge issue to embarrass Democrats, frighten voters and win elections. They told us we are in the fight of our lives against a new Islamic fascism — which is financed by our own oil purchases — but let’s not do one serious thing about ending our oil addiction.

Hey, why should Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld get all worked up and lose sleep or quality leisure time to get this war right? It’s just the little people fighting and dying there.

Remember the Social Security fight? It ain’t over, baby:

In an interview published today in The Wall Street Journal, President Bush told editorial page editor Paul Gigot that next year he plans on partially phasing out Social Security and replacing it with private accounts, and that he thinks he can do it as long as the Republicans retain control of Congress, which he thinks they will.

…

It’s also no accident he raises the issue in an interview with conservative columnist Gigot. The White House doesn’t want to broadcast his interest in phasing out Social Security. But they very much do want to create what amounts to a paper trail so that after a potential Republican victory they can argue that they contested the election on the basis of privatization and their win gives them a mandate.

If the Republicans hold onto their Congressional majorities by even a single vote, they will declare a mandate for their Dark Ages agenda. That is why they must be defeated.

Why, oh, why did we have such inadequate post-war plans when we went into Iraq? Here’s why:

Long before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld forbade military strategists to develop plans for securing a post-war Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said Thursday.

In fact, said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Rumsfeld said “he would fire the next person” who talked about the need for a post-war plan.

…

“The secretary of defense continued to push on us that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we’re going to take out the regime, and then we’re going to leave,” Scheid said. “We won’t stay.”

Scheid said the planners continued to try “to write what was called Phase 4,” or the piece of the plan that included post-invasion operations like security, stability and reconstruction.

Even if the troops didn’t stay, “at least we have to plan for it,” Scheid said.

“I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that,” Scheid said. “He said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war.”

Rummy’s views have matured in the years since. Now that we’re in, the American public can go fly a kite.

(Via Think Progress.)