Links - Things are going to Hell edition

Vote Tuesday, your last chance to read legalistic language and say Yes or No on billions of dollars.

"War with Iran would be a catastrophe that would make us look back fondly on the minor inconvenience of being bogged down in Iraq."

This isn't even up for the worst wingnutiest blog post of all time. There was some thought at first that Steven Den Beste at USS Clueless was a parody site until he was invited to write articles for the Wall Street Journal online and was recognized as a very serious blogger by the right. Now he just watches and blogs mainly about soft-core anime but swears he isn't looking at the dirty parts.

GOP Congressman blocks links from bloggers. What Steven Den Beste did but not as sophisticated.

My personalized Google News site.

It is the worst economy of our lifetimes - looking at slow job growth and declining median incomes.

But that assumes the government numbers are accurate. It is actually much worse because they are lying about jobs and inflation and incomes and GDP. This past quarter the Commerce Department assumed inflation was 0.8% in order to report good news. The year-over-year inflation of all items was 16.8% as The Economist reported. Even core inflation excluding energy and food, which for some reason the Fed does exclude, is going through the roof. Ever since Reagan the government economists have been playing with the numbers so that inflation appears lower and they can keep Social Security and other COLA payments lower.

The government statistics lies have gotten so bad there is a newsletter for businesses that need the real non-manipulated statistics. (Why did they stop reporting M3 - total money supply, because it would now show 15% annual increases.) If CPI was calculated with official 1980 methodology inflation would currently be shown as 10%.

Best case scenario is something like the late seventies and early eighties, which as those old enough to have live through them, were truly awful. Worst case scenario is we're walking into the next Great Depression.

Credit card debt is quickly accelerating as people are paying basic needs at usury rates. Also there are warning signs on defaulting car loans.

Want a new loan? Tough.

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Non-economic -

Newsweek: "After six years of propping up and making excuses for Pervez Musharraf . . . Washington doesn't have many friends left to call on in Pakistan -- perhaps the No. 1 generator of anti-U.S. terrorism in the world today. That's the dilemma that democracy crusader George W. Bush faces after Musharraf, one of his firmest allies, took the dictator's path and declared martial law on Saturday. . . . "

Despite billions of dollars in aid, Washington had no influence.

Rich state and poor state voters

A reason to put up with expensive cable or satellite - Keith Olbermann. BBC America, Comedy Central, Adult Swim, History, Current TV and Discovery have some good programs too.

Torture, the litmus test for Americans, Congress and Attorney Generals.

Blogging - petering out?

New study: Americans wait longer for health care than other wealthy nations. Don't hear that often.

The right finds yet another kid to beat up on. This time over global warming.

Will Rudy play the race and porn card to win? Krugman: Will Democrats, and Clinton, wobble?

Banana companies slashing wages, increasing hours, shirking taxes.

Some days I wonder if the only cure for burn out is a Blue Blazer.

The right has nominated for funniest blogger someone who's idea of fun was tormenting a guy dying of pancreatic cancer and screwing up his finances after accusing him of faking. Of course, he was winning as funniest, (let's kick a cancer patient, what a hoot), with all his Freeper friends until Sadly No decided to let his past actions speak for themselves.