Iraq 10 years later

I’m a day late for the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, but I should mention it because it and the Bush administration are why I got into blogging (although it’s not obvious from my first post). The Bush administration had become so relentless in its attempts to demonize any opposition, that I had to find a place to yell or go crazy. The things to remember about the war: lies (and it was obvious at the time), propaganda, and bullying were used to start the war (Weapons of mass destruction! Hussein is Hitler! Liberals are traitors! We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud! Hussein=Al Qaeda!);  it led to Guantanamo and all that entailed (secret prisons, jail without evidence, torture, indefinite incarceration without trial); it led to a huge expansion in secrecy and the police state (warrantless wire-taps, a large increase in National Security Letters, the expansion of executive power without oversight (it can’t be brought to trial because of Secrecy!!!)). And Iraq really isn’t much better off now than it was before the invasion.

The reason the anniversary isn’t as high-profile as it should be is that most people were wrong and people don’t like being reminded. Also, President Obama said that we should look ahead not back and so we haven’t tried to punish any of the people who lied us into war which would have brought the issues back to the foreground. Those of us who didn’t back the war need to try to remind people how wrong the people pushing the war were whenever they pop up again, although I’m sure we’ll just be ignored again.

Anyway, this is an anniversary to make me cynical so fuck all those who made the war possible.

Gee, why don’t they want to come back

Via here, it seems that there’s a surge in construction:

Nationwide, sales prices rose 7.3 percent over the course of 2012, according to the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller index, ranging from a slight decline in New York to a surge of 23 percent in Phoenix. Tracking more closely with the national trend were cities like Dallas, up 6.5 percent; Tampa, which rose 7.2 percent; and Denver, which gained 8.5 percent.

In many areas, builders are scrambling to ramp up production but face delays because of the difficulty of finding construction workers and in obtaining permits from suddenly overwhelmed local authorities. At the same time, homeowners — many of them lifted above water for the first time in years — often remain reluctant to sell, either because they want to wait and see how much further prices will climb or because they are afraid of being displaced in the sudden buying frenzy.

There’s one bit that is telling:

Some, like the 38-year-old electrician Gideon Jacks, are gingerly returning to construction work after taking a hiatus (in Mr. Jacks’s case, the hiatus was in several low-paying jobs at restaurants), but others remain reluctant to return to the hard physical labor and unstable job prospects.

“They say, ‘That’s the last time I’m riding that roller coaster,’ ” said Rick Wylie, president of the Beutler Corporation, a Sacramento air-conditioning and plumbing company. In 2005 he employed 2,100 workers, but by 2009 Beutler had only 270 employees. Mr. Wylie, who currently employs about 550, is now having trouble luring back many workers he let go.

“I don’t mean to complain,” he said. “This is a good problem to have, a world-class problem, to not be able to find workers to do all the work you’re getting.”

Gee My Wylie, I wonder why you’re having trouble finding people? Perhaps because they see that you got rid of almost 90% of your workforce the last time there was a problem? It’s funny how a lack of loyalty to your workers can cause problems.