Here's my own prediction for the coming new year: How about more people than last year heading to court?

Upon emerging from the constitutional convention which formed the basis for our government, Ben Franklin was supposedly asked by a woman outside the hall, "Mr. Franklin, what kind of government have you given us?" To which Franklin replied, "A Republic, madam, if you can keep it."

If you can keep it.  A sage answer.  Neil Young knows that "rust never sleeps."  Franklin knew that corruption doesn't, either.

Although the U.S. media didn't pick up on this until yesterday, foreign news sources started reporting it on Thursday--borrowing a card from the U.S. political deck, the Iraqi government apparently waited until after the recent elections there to raise the price of oil, gas and other fuels.  Actually, they just cut the subsidies that kept the prices low, and they did it because an agreement with the International Monetary Fund required it as a condition of an agreement to forgive loans to Iraq.

Readers in America know what that means, and they know which segment of society really takes a hit when something as basic as fuel prices go through the roof.

Making matters worse, according to an AP report dated today is that "In Baghdad, hundreds of cars lined up at gas stations as word spread that Iraq's largest oil refinery shut down two weeks ago because of threats of insurgent attacks."

The result so far?  Massive gas lines, some violence, and, according to the Washington Post, the return of Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi as oil minister.

Time to say good-by to 2005.  Not soon enough for my taste.  My parting observation on 2005 (all of the 21st century, so far, actually) is that if today looked any more like yesterday, it would probably be tomorrow.

Or, as a schizophrenic supposedly once actually said to some doctors:
"If I should return while I'm out, please keep me here until I get back."

Why do I have the feeling that the leaders of my country would find that a perfectly ordinary sentence?

Anyway, keeping up with end-of-year traditions, I did a survey of news items dated 12/31, just to see how representative today's news is of the year as a whole. Pretty representative, I'd say.

Here are 11 selected items, all but one dated today, to ease the slide from 2005 to 2006.

In the US, just after WWII, there was a consensus that we really were all in it together.  Policies favoring the rich at the expense of the poor were mostly put on hold, at least for a while.  An American middle class grew up out of nothing, with union wages providing many blue collar workers a decent living, their own home, and the chance to send their kids to college.

In Afghanistan, after the war with the Soviet Union, the reign of the Taliban, and the ensuing war that ended with Northern Alliance victory with the help of America, there was almost nothing left.  No upper class, no middle class.

Now, from a Washington Post story it kind of looks like we're both working toward the middle of the gap between us, which in this case, unfortunately means creating sizable upper classes, but with no middle class in sight.

As we drift toward the 6th year of a particularly nasty century, much of America's attention remains on Iraq.  This is partly because we still have more than 150,000 Americans roaming that country, and partly because we now have so much political, economic, and social capital invested there.

The White House and many in the mainstream media continue to push the idea that we're making "progress" and they point to the recent elections, rebuilding projects to restore the infrastructure of Iraq, and the like.  Many others point to the apparently growing dislike of our presence and our policies, and predict that the touted elections will be the first step in a process that ends with an Iraqi government as hostile to the U.S. as Iran is.

Below is a summary of some recent news on the subject.

Check out this Media Matters story debunking 12 myths about Bush's warrantless spying program.

If only a few of the mainstream media reporters would check it out.  How many times have you seen a news show do a lead-in promising that their reporter really asked Bush, Cheney or another one of "them" the hard questions about the warrantless spying program?  How many times has the actual interview clip included a hard question, or a follow-up to the politician's nonanswer?

I know this is Hell, so why is it so cold?  

The numbers change all the time, but...as of 7:20 pm on 12-23-05, 85% of more than 137,00 respondents to a "live" MSNBC poll thought Bush's actions justified impeachment.

And, World Net Daily, of all places, has a column examining Bush's many abuses of power, and noting that 45% of respondents to a World Net poll thought Bush should be impeached.

A friend sends me this about how the long train of "interventionist" stuff we do is going to "blowback" in our faces.

If you want to laugh yourself silly and get so depressed you wish you were laughing, pretty much at the same time, check out America Blog's piece on the former National Security Administration Director's explanation of why they didn't bother to get after-the-fact FISA approval for the secret wiretaps.

A little piece:
"The whole key here is agility," [Gen. Michael Hayden] said at a White House briefing before Bush's news conference. According to Hayden, most warrantless surveillance conducted under Bush's authorization lasts just days or weeks, and requires only the approval of a shift supervisor. Hayden said getting retroactive court approval is inefficient because it "involves marshaling arguments" and "looping paperwork around."

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