Yet another "Free Market Miracle". Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, speaking of the $50 Billion worth of needed upgrades to transmission systems in the aftermath of the Big Blackout, has declared that, "Rate-payers, obviously, will pay the bill because they're the ones who benefit. And that's where most of the responsibility, ultimately, will be assigned."

Obviously. Indeed, what could be more logical? The electrical grid is unilaterally deregulated, allowing private corporations with close connections to the White House to reap huge profits, while passing on associated costs to their customers. You know, it's right there on page one of the Free Market Bible: industry the public shall assume all the risks and costs of private property ownership, so is thus entitled to all none of the profits.--Eddie Tews

Mid-June brought news of the disappearance of a Boeing 727 from Luanda Airport in Angola--and that US officials feared that it "may be in the hands of terrorists".

Two months later, the big old jet airliner is still at large, prompting State Department Spokesman Phil Reeker's admission that, "Basically, we don't know where it is. But we really need to find out. This is a serious matter." Yeah, no shit!

A new report ranking the United States as "the fourth most likely of 186 countries to be the target of a terrorist attack within the next 12 months" might, er, heighten the urgency.

Of course, there's still that other option for reducing the likelihood of continued attacks upon US "interests"--most recently propounded here a few weeks ago ("Shut Up, Little Man", ETS! #7.24): stop fucking over the Third World, and its inhabitants will stop using the methods available to them to hit back.

Killing Hope author and former State Department employee William Blum put this option rather eloquently the week-before-last in a piece on the Counterpunch website:

"As I've written elsewhere: If I were the president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently. I would first apologize--very publicly and very sincerely--to all the widows and orphans, the impoverished and the tortured, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism. Then I would announce that America's global military interventions have come to an end. I would then inform Israel that it is no longer the 51st state of the union but -- oddly enough--a foreign country. Then I would reduce the military budget by at least 90% and use the savings to pay reparations to the victims and repair the damage from the many American bombings, invasions, and sanctions. There would be enough money. One year of our military budget is equal to more than $20,000 per hour for every hour since Jesus Christ was born. That's one year. That's what I'd do on my first three days in the White House.

On the fourth day, I'd probably be assassinated."--E.T.

Why didn't they think of this sooner? The Pentagon's latest brilliant idea is to paste up all 'round Tikrit parody posters of Saddam. See him now dressed up as Elvis, now as Billy Idol, now as Zsa Zsa Gabor.

Explains Lt. Colonel Steve Russell: "Most of the locals will love 'em, and they'll be laughing. But the bad guys are going to be upset, which will just make it easier for us to know who they are."

So there it is. Never mind that they're under a patently illegal military occupation, that they've no electricity, that thousands upon thousands were murdered in cold blood, that chaos still rules the streets, that the country's resources have been sold off to Bush Administration cronies, that hospitals are barely functioning, that historical artifacts covering millennia were destroyed, that uranium particles and unexploded munitions litter the country, etc., etc.: as soon as the posters go up, the "locals" will be laughing. Or if they're not laughing, they can be safely shot on sight.

With the "bad guys" thus out of the way, the "Provisional Authority" should have the country back to normal by the end of the month, one would expect.--ET

The war in Iraq got one notch stupider this week with the revelation that British Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, had commented in an e-mail that it would be wrong for the British government to claim that Iraq posed an "imminent threat" to the world. Of course, the British government did just that after Blair's office rewrote--or "sexed-up," in the words of one BBC reporter--much of the intelligence released in the British government dossier. This document, remember, formed the basis for George W. Bush's early reasoning for the war. Jonathan Powell's admission takes the deception right into the heart of Tony Blair's inner circle of advisers and cabinet members, and it should be enough to bring down his government for having lied to the British people and the world.

Simultaneously, a similar parliamentary inquiry in Australia has revealed that John Howard's government also grossly exaggerated the evidence against Iraq. Said Andrew Wilkie, a high-level Australian intelligence analyst who resigned over the whole affair: "Sometimes the exaggeration was so great, it was clear dishonesty." Shortly after Wilkie testified, former chief UN weapons inspector Richard Butler took the stand. Folks who've followed the UN inspection process may remember that Butler is the hard-line true believer who replaced Scott Ritter when he resigned as chief inspector in 1996, after saying that there was nothing left to find in Iraq. Butler has, until very recently, always maintained that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and would use them. Well, Butler told the Australian parliament that he was "shaken" by the failure to find any WMD in Iraq. This is a 180 degree turn-around for him. He also stressed that the least the US could do would be to release the substance of its interviews with captured Iraqi government officials and scientists. "Why aren't they putting us out of our misery by telling us the truth of these matters?" he queried. Of course, he still hasn't admitted that Scott Ritter might have been right all along.

Meanwhile, there's not a peep from the US Congress about investigating George Bush's inner circle and how it sexed-up, and perhaps even fabricated, evidence for war with Iraq. Surely, enough Republicans are disgusted over this fiasco, that it should be possible to get something started. If the Democrats can't show some leadership here, it's time to declare the party dead. Speaking of the dead, has anyone hit John Kerry or Joe Lieberman with a cattle prod recently just to see if they're still alive?--M.T.

When developer and former Paul Schell crony Joel Horn was appointed executive director of the Monorail, it should have been the first clue that something was seriously wrong with the oversight process. Now we find out that revenue collections for the Monorail are only about half what was budgeted: $2.2 million per month versus the hoped-for $4.2 million per month. No amount of cutting back on construction cost overruns will make up for a loss of 50% of the Monorail budget. Of course, a big problem is that the Licensing Department isn't charging the tax on people who move into the state (why the hell not? They live here now, don't they?). The other major problem is that the Monorail Authority doesn't have the power to audit used car dealers or the Licensing Department to make sure the tax is being charged and paid consistently. And when the state legislature tabled a bill that would have levied penalties on people who register their vehicles to post office boxes or phony addresses, it stripped the Monorail Authority of any ability to safeguard its income stream. Even worse, no one is asking if the original budget estimates for the Monorail were based on overly optimistic economic happy-talk--the same pitfall that led the City of Seattle to write an overly optimistic budget that now has a huge hole in it.

And now Monorail board members are complaining that Joel Horn never informed them of the revenue shortfalls; they had to read about them in the newspaper. What a disaster! These folks are supposed to be providing oversight, but instead they've been cut out of the loop. Board member Steve Williamson, who also heads the King County Labor Council, has called for an external audit of the agency's governing structure. Horn is resisting, but Williamson is right to be doing this, especially now, when the problems are just emerging and before we end up with a disaster similar to Sound Transit's long-hidden fiscal nightmare. Is it too much to hope that Horn will lose his job over this?--Maria Tomchick

Another group that could use some oversight is the Regional Transportation Improvement District. Remember the much-vaunted concept of a regional transportation plan that was supposed to supplement the stripped-down state transportation plan passed by the State Legislature? The regional plan was supposed to be put together by politicians from King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties, who had received the okay from the State Legislature to form a regional district for Puget Sound transportation projects. They would draw up a list of mega-projects and a multi-billion-dollar budget that would go on the ballot for voters to approve or reject, ostensibly early this year. Well, multiple deadlines have passed, the politicians have missed five chances to put a plan on the ballot, and now they're saying they won't have anything ready for voters until the fall of 2004. Don't plan on it ... unless a few Puget Sound citizens or grassroots groups start setting a fire under them. Hint. Double hint.--M.T.