…so darned inconvenient to not be a conspiracy freak. ‘Cause if I were (and I’m not), I’d be all over the news that FBI resources are now so heavily devoted to the “war on terror,” including assorted authoritarian dirty tricks, that the bureau conveniently can’t do much to fight “white collar crime”—you know, the high-level fraud and corporate shenanigans that are the beloved hobby of so many big GOP campaign contributors.

I’m sure it’s all just a big coindicence. Really.

No, really.

THE MAILBAG: Anne Silberman liked my rather less-than-reverent remembrance of B.C. cartoonist Johnny Hart:

“Hooray Clark!I’m proud of you for telling the truth about Johnny Hart and his B.C. strip!

May I just add that this man was a raging misogynist. The only two female characters in his strip were gross characterizations of female physical traits and they didn’t even have names!!! They were called “the fat broad” and the “cute chick”!!!!

May this dinosaur and his cave man ideology never grace the planet again!

Elsewhere in troglodite-land:

HELLO, IMUS BE GOING: So the original “shock jock” (on the air almost continuously since 1971) has been sacked from his MSNBC cable gig, and might lose his syndicated radio gig as well.

Over the years, Mr. Imus has “refreshed” his on-air schtick, and kept his share of the angry-white-male audience segment, by “borrowing” the most effective (i.e., loudest and dumbest) aspects of other talk hosts’ acts. Thus, he long ago embraced sexist, racist, and homophobic “jokes.” In pure macho-coward fashion, he often left the worst remarks to be spoken by his team of co-hosts, allowing himself plausible deniability.

He not only got away with this kind of “extreme” nonsense for so long, he was courted and sucked-up to by politicians and political operatives of all stripes, eager to get access to Mr. Imus’s “guy” audience. The “mainstream” media also loved the guy, or at least respected his ability to stay at the top of a volatile market.

But now, with one unfunny “joke” comparing a college women’s basketball team to common street prostitutes, he’s apparently on his way out of the bigtime. Will any of his many fellow airwave bigots follow?

…named Naill Ferguson, writing in Vanity Fair, claims the “American empire” is in inevitable decline, with Europe already further along the road to oblivion. He cites many of the usual cultural-conservative whinge targets–sexual libertinism, pop-culture dumbness, immigrants, cultural diversity, a lack of intellectual and fiscal discipline, kids who don’t respect their elders, disinterest in religious authority, and particularly diminished military capacity in the form of fewer foot soldiers who receive inferior training and, yeah, discipline.

Ferguson compares today’s western powers to ancient Rome. Like that decadent and overstretched power, he thinks we’re on a path of converging historical forces heading straight for a decline-n’-fall.

Ferguson doesn’t ask whether empires are, by and of themselves, a good thing to have, and whether ceasing to be an empire is, by and of itself, a bad thing to be.

I will ask.

And my answers, as you might expect: No and no.

As we all should have learned in recent years, military conquest/occupation is a crude, wasteful, and usually futile way to spread influence.

As we all should have learned from the Soviet debacle, militarist/authoritarian culture is a lousy way to foster democracy, self-reliance, artistic achievement, material prosperity, or social health. It doesn’t even do that reliable a job of keeping its own elites in power.

A post-imperial America, a post-imperial world, is worth promoting/defending. And you can’t effectively promote or defend such a world by imperial means.

As exhorted to here and elsewhere in the local mediascape, Seattle voters have said “no and no” on the two-part, non-meaning-anything Viaduct replacement advisory referendum.

Of course, that just means the yammering and debating continue.

…has proposed the impeachment of VP Cheney. The publication: GQ.

Seattle is now involved in the most absurd viaduct debate in American history. And that’s saying a lot. All we need now is for Nickels to don Groucho glasses and Gregoire to don a Chico hat.

…the same things from the progressives that Drinking Liberally wants–less pomposity, more fun in our revolutionizin’.

…a few kilos of respect for Presidential candidate John Edwards, now that he’s refused to fire two campaign staffers whose past blog entries had been bashed on right-wing talk radio by the usual “bullies and hypocrites.”

…to the opening-night schmoozefest at the Twist bar for Friends of Seattle, a political group devoted to all the progressive things all good progressive Seattleites like myself tend to like–parks, public transit, affordable middle-class housing, good schools, fewer cars, livable-wage jobs, environmental sustainability.

(Side note: In keeping with longstanding progressive Seattle priorities, the group’s manifestos mention nothing about ethnic minorities or poverty.)

The group’s concept seems simple enough: Declare an agenda. Round up perky, fun-lovin’ grownups. Get ’em to ring doorbells, make phone calls, and show up at meetings. Make everything lively, entertaining, and engaging.

As a good li’l Seattle progressive, I’m easily in FoS’s target market.

As a stubborn skeptic, I want to wait to see how it develops before I go all gaga about it all.

FoS’s first prime issue is that nearly-decade-long impasse of a passageway, the dreaded Alaskan Way Viaduct.

As I’ve written at the start of this whole long, slow dispute, I happen to like the Viaduct.

However, I’m ready to admit it may not be cost-effective to make the thing more earthquake-resistant.

And if the thing must go, let’s not spend another near-decade and umpteen billions on a tunnel road or another raised road. Instead, let’s spend those bucks on more transit, and give an EZ-access surface road to the truckers who need one.

“Bush Proposes Steep Cut to PBS Funding”

…in the ol’ reality-based commuity, folks. Columnist Molly Ivins has succumbed to cancer at 62. The Texas tornado was among Bush’s earliest and strongest observers/opponents, and never veered from her well-spoken progressive populist stance. She’s already missed.

…Here’s a ’40s-era abridged and illustrated version of Friedrich A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. The original book was an American “free market” economist’s thesis on how “centralized planning” would always lead to one or another flavor of fascism. Hayek (no relation to Salma) clearly intended an anti-liberal (specifically anti-New Deal), pro-libertarian statement. But, at least in this condensed version, it’s eerily prescient about modern pseudo-“conservative” ideology.

…points out exactly where the American left made its big wrong turn, in learning “to love ‘identity’ and ignore inequality.”

As predictably as the Sun rising in the east and the Phoenix Suns rising in the NBA’s West, the Sonics’ out-of-state owners have formally demanded a taxpayer-subsidized multiuse arena/palace as the prime condition for not packing up their sneakers and trucking ’em to Oklahoma City. The citizens of the state, the county, and/or Bellevue or Renton would pay to build it; the team owners would keep the profits.

It won’t be in Seattle because (1) Seattle voters passed an anti-arena-subsidy initiative last fall, and (2) besides, the team owners want a building that would be the only thing like it anywhere near it, so their own food concessions wouldn’t have to compete with off-premises restaurants and bars.

Consider this a first offer. Slam the plexiglass case over the red button and shout “No Deal, Howie.”

…the highly appropriate question, whether anything Bush has ever done I/R/T Iraq has ever not been a total disaster.

…Turns out the whole Iraq misadventure may have really been about the oil. At least, that’s a conclusion one might be tempted to make after reading about the proposed sweetheart deal that would allocate windfall profits to the big oil companies while giving ’em vast control over the future of that country’s oil industry.