Wow! I’d have thought it’d become more popular in a recession.

NYTimes report.

… in 1973, the US Supreme Court handed down its Roe vs. Wade decision, which legalized abortion.

The Boston Globe has a fabulous set of photographs of inauguration Day.

The most satisfactory sight yesterday was that of Dick Cheney, looking for all the world like Dr Strangelove, being wheeled off the scene in a wheelchair. The only problem is that he was then helped into a limousine rather than a police van. Much as I enjoyed Obama’s stern denunciation of the Cheney/Rove/Bush perversion of the presidency and their abuse of the Constitution, I had the sinking feeling that he is going to grant the bastards the kind of unconditional pardon that Gerald Ford gave to Richard Nixon. And that would be his first big mistake.

The omens are not promising. Last Sunday he was asked whether he would seek an investigation of possible crimes by the Bush administration. “I don’t believe that anybody is above the law,” he responded, but “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

Oh yeah? As Paul Krugman put it in the New York Times:

I’m sorry, but if we don’t have an inquest into what happened during the Bush years — and nearly everyone has taken Mr. Obama’s remarks to mean that we won’t — this means that those who hold power are indeed above the law because they don’t face any consequences if they abuse their power.

Let’s be clear what we’re talking about here. It’s not just torture and illegal wiretapping, whose perpetrators claim, however implausibly, that they were patriots acting to defend the nation’s security. The fact is that the Bush administration’s abuses extended from environmental policy to voting rights. And most of the abuses involved using the power of government to reward political friends and punish political enemies.

Yesterday, Obama swore on Lincoln’s bible to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” And, says Krugman, that’s not a conditional oath to be honored only when it’s convenient.

“To protect and defend the Constitution, a president must do more than obey the Constitution himself; he must hold those who violate the Constitution accountable. So Mr. Obama should reconsider his apparent decision to let the previous administration get away with crime. Consequences aside, that’s not a decision he has the right to make.”

Mark Anderson is even more incensed.

Who cares what Obama decides to do about Bush? Excuse me, but I just could not care less. When criminals break the law, we don’t ask candidates-to-be if we should prosecute. I would suggest that ANY comments by the Obama team indicating a lack of will to prosecute would, of itself, be worth examining as being in some way accessory.

In other words, Obama: on this subject, please shut up. We are not interested in your first big mistake: not prosecuting the most evil and dangerous villains ever to misuse power in the U.S. government.

Therefore, regardless of the Obama political calculations, we should be resolved, as we have in past similar situations (Iran Contra, Watergate) to put these crimininals to trial.

There are so many crimes, it seems almost impossible to list them; I certainly won’t try to here, but will leave it to experts in each department and field to do so. Krugman says he has counted six different departments wherein crimes were committed; that seems too small a number, but it does not matter.

Here is a simple question: who is responsible for nearly a million civilian deaths in a faked war? There was never, ever a need for an Iraq war; and that statement will stand the test of history. Given its truth, we should not be talking about the few thousand GI deaths as the cost of the war, but should recognize that the United States, without cause or any particular aggression on Iraq’s part, and without any proven concern for its own safety, did cause the deaths of between 600,000 and 1,000,000 civilians in that country.

Let’s see now, is Dick Cheney ready to stand up and pay for this? Exactly how, Mr. Cheney, are you planning on doing that?

As Cheney was wheeled away I’m afraid my composure slipped and I uttered a phrase much beloved of my mother (a fanatical catholic): “May he rot in hell”. I take that back. I merely want him to rot in gaol.

… in 1924, Lenin died at the age of 54. Just thought you’d like to know. My favourite saying of his is “those who make revolutions by halves are digging their own graves”.

… in 1981, Iran released 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days, minutes after the presidency had passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan. In effect, by humiliating Carter, the Iranians ensured Reagan’s election, and with it ensured the dominance of neocon ideology for the next three decades.

Official forecast:

“Bone-Chilling Inauguration Weather”

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Washington in January/February is the coldest place I’ve ever been. When I first went Sue bought me what she called an “arctic coat” and I cursed it because it made me so hot and sweaty in airports and planes. But then I found myself walking across Du Pont Circle in minus 20 degrees one night and never complained again. I still have it.

Wonder how the VIPs at the ceremony keep warm. A case of politically incorrect patio heaters perhaps?

Just think: no matter how fed up you are with the prospect of recession etc. this morning, imagine how you’d be feeling if McCain/Palin were being inaugurated today.

From Reuters.

HARARE, Jan 16 – Zimbabwe’s central bank will introduce a 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollar banknote, worth about $33 on the black market, to try to ease desperate cash shortages, state-run media said on Friday.

Prices are doubling every day and food and fuel are in short supply. A cholera epidemic has killed more than 2,000 people and a deadlock between President Robert Mugabe and the opposition has put hopes of ending the crisis on hold.

Hyper-inflation has forced the central bank to continue to release new banknotes which quickly become almost worthless.

There is an official exchange rate, but most Zimbabweans resort to the informal market for currency transactions.

In addition to the Z$100 trillion dollar note, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe plans to launch Z$10 trillion, Z$20 trillion and Z$50 trillion notes, the Herald newspaper reported.

Every time I think that things can’t get any worse under Mugabe, they do.

… that this is the last weekend the Bush regime will be in power.

Alexander Cockburn, for one, will miss him. Here’s his valedictory message, from Counterpunch:

I’ve always been a fan of George Bush, on the simple grounds that the American empire needs taking down several notches and George Jr has been the right man for the job. It was always odd to listen to liberals and leftists howling about Bush’s poor showing, how he’d reduced America’s standing in the family of nations. Did the Goths fret at the manifest weakness of the Emperor Honorius and lament the lack of a robust or intelligent Roman commander?

On Bush’s Jr’s fitful watch Latin America edged nervously out of Uncle Sam’s shadow. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia boldly assert their independence and thumb their noses at Uncle Sam. Twenty years earlier, and even when Bush Sr sat in the Oval Office, the “strong leadership” craved by Americans of all political stripes would have seen Chavez and Morales briskly toppled, their estimable reforms swiftly aborted and the kleptocrats handed back the keys to the presidential office by the CIA and their local right-wing allies…

Thanks to Kevin Horgan for the link.