Tis almost the ides of August

J & I had a lovely dinner at the Melting Pot last night for our birthdays, courtesy of my mom.

I woke up this morning to a note left on our door in probably 92pt font: ROVE QUIT. I think I'll consider that a birthday present. Now if they'll just get him to testify!

So I get online and jump on some of the political blogs to see the details, and while I'm reading various and sundry articles, I see a link to an article in The Observer (a UK paper) "Fatigue cripples US army in Iraq" and after reading it, I think to myself WOW, that's pretty blunt - gee, I wonder if any US news organizations are reporting on this?

Can't find much. Found an article in the magazine The American Conservative talking about how Bush has broken the military - but all the rest of the articles I've found are elsewhere. For example:
"For an exhausted, disenchanted army there is still no end in sight" - The Independent (UK)
"Army Chief calls for return of draft to ease fatigue" - New Zealand Herald


Well, here's one from the US - but you note the article's title doesn't mention exhaustion:
"Military Is Ill-Prepared For Other Conflicts" - Washington Post
I'm guessing that the title is meant to point out, AHEM, that BOMBING IRAN IS STUPID. (Cheney has evidently been walking around chanting "bomb Iran" - given the amount of oil that China buys from Iran, wouldn't that bring China into a fight? Or is that what he wants, a proxy war with China?) After reading the article, I'm thinking maybe the title understates the problem.


So in looking for US articles about our exhausted military (you get slightly better results if you look for "broken" military, since several high ranking US people have used those words) I notice that our War Czar has basically called for the draft to be reinstated. I'm surprised I've not heard the administration backpedaling furiously.

In other news - watch out, the market is looking scarier and scarier. I'd like to point out that I saw this coming 6 months ago. Here's a quote:

Bottom line: there are a ton of problems in the credit market that aren't going away anytime soon. The main reason for that comment comes from Countrywide Financial's report on Thursday. Countrywide is the largest mortgage lender by volume. That means they have a ton of stature and clout in the market. The problem is simple: they can't find liquidity for their mortgages right now. They had to place $1.8 billion of loans into their investment portfolio and devalue both investments by between 14% and 20% when the transferred those assets. The devaluation tells me that buyers are pretty scared about the whole mortgage mess right now.

Add to this the news that BNP stopped withdrawals from some of its funds, a Goldman Sachs fund lost over 20% since the beginning of the year, Washington Mutual agreeing with Countrywide's assessment of the credit markets, and the central banks pumping liquidity into the market, and you have a recipe for increased volatility and concern.

And in case you thought that wasn't enough:

But, he adds, the full weight of resets on adjustable-rate mortgages have yet to been felt. From the beginning of 2007 through the middle of 2008, over $1 trillion ARMs will reset, many from low "teaser" rates. Then the extent of the declines in home prices and the financial fallout will be apparent, Magnus observes.

The news has continued to come out in a very negative vein. And it's the big players who are making the announcements. That is all the more concerning. When the mortgage mess first started in last 2006/early 2007 it was the smaller players making the announcements. While this was disconcerting, it wasn't earth shattering. Now the big boys are saying, "boy is it rough out there". That should concern everybody.

There's just too much to comment on. I've got the bad news fatigue that seems to be hitting almost everybody. US military lost over 100,000 weapons in Iraq? Whatever. Our people are probably getting killed by our own weapons. Gotta love it. FEMA tries to hide the toxic outgassing of its emergency trailers that is making people sick? No surprise. Bush now talking about creating tax cuts for corporations? Sure, why not.

I think I'd better stop reading the news today. You'd think news of Rove resigning would make me happy... *sigh*