All these projects need to get started in 2007. The ideas can and should be explored in academy, government, and on the web. Some of the projects should be nearly finished in a decade; some just started in the decade.

1. Figure out how to divert melting land-based ice caps (both poles) into fresh water lakes, canals, rivers, and irrigation systems to turn deserts green and keep Florida from drowning. (I wish I were kidding. No jokes on this list.)

2. Cause developing Africa and South America to build their economies entirely on non-carbon based energy.

3. Determine how Al Gore can lead a global treaty-based effort to address climate change in all its dimensions.

4. Develop a broad and accurate consensus among economists on how to remedy growing income inequality within the United States, China, and other nations.

5. Find an emotional and rational fusion of religion and technology -- end the war between belief and science.

6. Put humans on Mars: a big step for a person and a staggering stride forward for humanity.

7. Prove that genetic therapy can cure cancer and double the length of human life; widely distribute such therapeutic practices based on a concept of right and not distributed through market-based techniques.

8. Cease American dependence on foreign oil and gas.

9. Make sure that the history of the United States will nevermore be the history of race.

10. Have equality of opportunity be the common theme for all people of all nations, and be the underlying purpose of American diplomacy.

11. Make the global Internet and all knowledge available at essentially no cost to everyone on the planet. (bonus!)

Two numbers summarize US consumer protection policies for financial products: 1) The SEC is considering a modification of a rule so that hedge funds cannot sell their high-risk investment devices to 98.7% of all Americans. 2) An estimated one in five recent subprime home mortgage borrowers will lose their homes. There it is: When you might lose your investment in stocks, the SEC imposes suitability rules that prevent brokers from selling high-risk products to all but the most sophisticated investors. But when you could lose your home in a refinancing, federal regulatory agencies have largely left consumer to the wolves.

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The Administration's strategy in Iraq -- maybe; too early to be at all sure -- can be divided into three phases:

Phase One: 2003-04 -- the creation of a national government led by American-friendly figures supported by a popular election, protected by American troops, and presiding over a free-market economy with little or no social safety net and an extraordinary indifference to indigenous policing of all kinds. This was a dream world projected by neo-con imperialism clad in a rhetoric of freedom that had no more than superficial appeal to the people living in Iraq. Inevitably it produced, beneath its own language, ideas, and systems of governance, a real world of tribal, ethnic, and sectarian rule that operated on an almost microscopic level and was almost invisible to the occupying foreigners. Gradually this fractionation of Iraq led to conflict among the myriad of bewilderingly varied groups; the breathtaking libertarianism of the occupying forces was an open invitation to staggering waste, fraud, and abuse; voting by people brutalized by Saddam for decades was more a function of self-interest, of course, than a commitment to allegiance to a consensually formed government; the lack of any guaranteed benefits (police, energy, education, you name it) produced overwhelming disapproval of the occupiers, whose act of liberation from Saddam was soon forgotten, as the occupied always forget what the occupiers came to do. By the time of the American presidential election all knew that this strategy was producing increasing violence, mounting casualties, and a rapidly accelerating pernicious cycle in which real governing occurred far beneath the purview of the occupiers. Unfortunately the Kerry campaign could not communicate the truth in the face of Swiftboating and a seemingly brainwashed mainstream media. The President was re-elected, which led to phase two, already decided upon in advance of the election.

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This week on TPMCafe's America Abroad, the bloggers are talking about... Iraq, a Concert of Democracies, the 2000 GOP Foreign Policy Platform, and Washington Foreign Policy Cliques. My full summary is after the break.

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Any policy process has to distinguish between premises and propositions. Premises are what are taken as givens. Propositions get tested. If you take something as a premise that should be treated as a proposition, you risk ending up with a policy built on a flawed foundation. That’s part of what got us into Iraq. One can’t know for sure from the outside, but it appears that in the current Bush Iraq policy review, key points are being assumed rather than assessed, and potentially viable policy options being dismissed more than analyzed.

Here’s the test for me:

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Two years ago, there was talk of a permanent GOP majority. The president had been reelected despite an increasingly unpopular war and the GOP political machine had an air of invincibility. Then it all fell apart.

This week in the Coffee House we've been discussing what happened these past two years that so dramatically turned the political tides. Todd Gitlin, Jo-Ann Mort, Ed Kilgore, E.J. Graff, and Reed Hundt each cite major events: Katrina, Iraq, Katrina and Iraq, Katrina and Terry Schiavo, and Falluja . Mark Schmitt and Greg Anrig, on the other hand, see the political collapse as an inevitable result of the conservative movement itself; Schmitt puts the blame on their high-risk political strategy and Anrig on the wrongness of the movement's basic ideas. Steve Clemons, though, questions the premise of the conversation and argues that "until Dems forge a compelling alternative and sell that to the nation, Bush will remain powerful by default."

What do you think? Were there one, two, or five events that you think explain the difference between the politics of 2004 and the politics of 2006? Or was the difference simply the inevitable pull of gravity on the conservative machine? Or is GOP power still alive and kicking despite the midterm loss? Write up your thoughts and post them to your TPM blog. I'll add a link on this post to whoever wants to join the conversation.

The past year should be noted as the year the glacier cracked which, in this context, is good news. For the first time in memory, Congress rejected Palestinian-bashing legislation authored and promoted by the status quo wing of the pro-Israel lobby.

Instead, it passed alternative legislation backed by moderate pro-Israel and pro-peace groups (Israel Policy Forum, Americans for Peace Now, American Task Force for Palestine, Churches for Middle East Peace, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace) which favor bold US moves to advance the two-state solution.

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Anyone notice that John Negroponte wasn't at the Crawford "non-decisional meeting" on Iraq yesterday? As Director for National Intelligence, Negroponte is the only statutory member of the National Security Council who wasn't actually there.

Guess Bush and Co. don't think they need any intelligence information on what's going on in Iraq. They think they already know. And given their record, we can be sure that their "new way forward" on Iraq will have nothing to do with what is actually going on.

The crushing defeat of Islamist forces by the Ethiopian backed Somali transitional government underscores a central truth of all civil wars — such wars typically end only when one side decisively defeats the other. For all the debate about what to do in Iraq, we seem to have lost sight of this essential truth. So the questions for President Bush is this: Which side in Iraq’s civil war are we going to back decisively?

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The Bush Administration took the key step toward its unpopularity at home and failures abroad when the President ordered the invasion of Falluja(h) soon after the November 2004 election. This attack was planned before the election, and postponed until after the vote so that the American people would not see the dangers and death toll that would accompany re-election of the President.

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In the comments’ thread responding to Steve Clemons’ post, “Red Planet” earned deservedly high ratings for writing: “I don't see anything that leads me to believe the age of radical conservatism is over. In fact, the undead remain with us -- Bill Bennett, Newt Gingrich, even Tom Delay are being resurrected. We should never forget that many of the prime movers of the mess we're in have been there, done that before. And were pardoned, rehabilitated and put back in power. How many times has the beast been put down? The defeat of Goldwater. The impeachment of Nixon. The defeat of Bush I, which brought the Reagan-Bush era to a close. Now the defeat of the Republican Congress.”

Which is why it is so critical that the failures of the Bush administration, prompted by Josh’s question, need to be tied to the conservative movement that’s responsible for them. The president isn’t just some renegade incompetent making up mindless decisions as he goes along. Bush was implementing the right’s ideas when he invaded Iraq, when he pushed for privatization of Social Security, and when he politicized FEMA. That Bermuda Triangle of failure was not the consequence of the misjudgment of an individual who was in over his head; he was doing exactly what the conservative movement said ought to be done in all three cases.

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[I received the following from a U.S. soldier who works in intelligence and has just finished his third tour in Iraq. He's a thoughtful soul and has the benefit of having fought on the frontlines in this madness. Since he wants to continue with his military career I am protecting his identity. He uses typical military jargon and I have tried to provide the appropriate explanation of the various acronyms. Larry Johnson]

FROM A U.S. SOLDIER:

I have a lot of assessments and opinions that are based on my experiences in Iraq, so keeping this document unclassified was difficult. I am limiting my suggestions to broad, theoretical statements and am avoiding very specific recommendations. To keep it unclassified, I am only using open source reporting (Public Affairs Officer [PAO] releases) as evidence for my assessments. I’ve deleted any statements that I think could be considered classified assessments. I am sure you understand the need for that. If in a more appropriate forum with security clearances, I could be more forthcoming. Of course, all of the opinions in this document are my own opinions and in no way reflect any official organizations.

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With the return of a Democratic Congress and the commitment of Republican governors like Mitt Romney and Arnold Schwarzenegger to inching their states towards expanding health care coverage, universal health insurance looks to be making a return to forefront of national debate. With the number of the uninsured swelling to nearly 47 million this year, the issue remains the great unresolved public policy challenge of the day. At the same time, with commitments by prominent Republicans to a significant expansion of coverage and the beginning of the 2008 presidential campaign season upon us, the possibility for a bipartisan commitment to universal health insurance in the coming year exists if the left and the right prove willing to compromise.

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Josh asked the blog about turning points in the Bush presidency that led us to our current state of affairs. I want to ask a similar question, but about the future instead of the past. BC stands for “Before Christ”, and AD is shorthand for the Latin phrase meaning “year of our Lord”. CE now indicates the “Christian Era”. What will we call the “Post Bush” era? PB 1, then PB 2, etc. etc.?

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Quick! In foreign affairs do you consider yourself to be an “American Skeptic”; a “Come Home American”; a “Truman Democrat”; or a “Globalist?” Inquiring minds want to know. For explanations read Campbell and Chollet’s ‘tell all’ piece in the current Washington Quarterly. But also consider this.

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Josh Marshall posits that the Bush Era has quickly unraveled and come to naught; that the president is radioactive and unloved by leaders in his own party.

Marshall has then asked some of TPMCafe's coffee house addicts how this precipitous decline in Bush-brand conservatism occurred.

First of all, it hasn't -- or not to the degree implied in Marshall's comments.

Despite losing both Houses of Congress, and losing on social security reform, stem cell research, and John Bolton, this president continues to be one of the strongest-placed and strongest-willed presidents in American history.

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On Josh's question, let me agree with everyone below that there is no single cause to Bush's (and the Republicans') drop, that the Republican juggernaut was overestimated, and that the bankruptcy of the non-reality-based community was waiting to be exposed. But if we get to give our hunches for what finally yanked back the curtain, let me give mine: Katrina & Terri Schiavo.

My sense is that ordinary Americans--the ones too busy to pay much attention to the news--wanted to, and were willing to, trust and believe their president on Iraq. If their president said we were winning, by gosh, give him the benefit of the doubt. The media did the same, "typing" rather than reporting, as Colbert noted in his infamous and hilarious White House Correspondents talk. But watching the horror, incompetence, and flat-out refusal to acknowledge reality in New Orleans erased both citizens' and the news media's willing suspension of disbelief.

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My answer to Josh’s question, “Was there a key galvanizing event [in Bush’s downfall]? And if so, what was it?” -- might be a bit of a cop out. My answer is that it’s not an important or useful question. The probability of eventual collapse was built into the system. And when such a collapse comes along, it’s not the specific event that matters, but really all the reasons that the system failed to prepare for or adjust to an event of that type. Pinpointing the triggering event is as relevant as saying that the assassination of Franz Ferdinand started World War I – it did, but to understand World War I the key thing is to see the way in which the web of treaties and alliances among the European powers could create the situation in which an assassination in Sarajevo could trigger the death of 10 million.

In one day, the average CEO earns more before lunchtime than a full-time minimum wage worker makes in a year.

That's the lead statistics in a new DMI Injustice Index. Just in case anyone missed the point, DMI reports that the ratio between CEO pay and the minimum wage is the highest in US history (821 to 1). And the SEC chose this moment when everyone is distracted by the holidays to reverse an earlier rule so that it will be easier to underreport CEO pay through stock options.

I understand the the guy (and it still is a guy in most companies) in the corner office gets paid more than everyone else. I'm not filled with class resentment over that fact. But I am filled with outrage over the fact that in good times and bad times, CEO salaries keep going up while workers' wages remain essentially flat.

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Josh's question about the genesis of Bush's rapid political decline, and Jo-Ann's and Todd's answers, revolve around the plausibility of a Single Bullet Theory of what happened between 2004 and 2006.

My own hunch is that the Bush collapse was a bit more complicated: a tale of two cities, Baghdad and New Orleans, where events unravelled the myth of Bush as the wise and resolute leader who had somehow kept America safe despite the questionable nature of so many of his decisions. And then the Bush-Rove polarization strategy imploded, sending the administration and the GOP into a downward spiral of ever-more-fruitless base-tending, even as their non-base support evaporated.

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Today at TPMCafe, Greg Sargent is compiling obits of Gerald Ford (and I'm watching pre-obits), reader Jose Luis Fernandez is explaining how Bush's Internationalism has led us to "dark and turbulent waters," and Jo-Ann Mort and Todd Gitlin are riffing on Josh's question about what turned the political tides these past two years. If you've got an answer to Josh's question, post it in the Reader Blogs (post to your TPM blog and it will go there). If we have enough, I'll do a wrap-up of everyone's thoughts later today.

That's it for the House Brew. Stay caffeinated and share some wisdom.

Thanks to Josh for kicking off the discussion-what signaled Bush's demise? Not simply the end of Bush, but the end of the stranglehold that the conservatives had on our era...I agree with Todd that Katrina was monumental. The Democrats (and progressives generally) sometimes get so defensive about our belief in government doing good (in the face of the onslaught of liberterians and conservatives of all stripes) that we forget that in fact, the American public believes that government has basic responsibilities to its people--and to keep them safe, to respond to disaster--well, these are among the most basic. On that score, the Administration was shown to have no ability to deliver. But still--I can't help wondering--without Iraq, would the Dems have won Congress?

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Thanks to Josh for ending my post-Christmas mellow by finding a new quote from that flatulent fake, Dennis Prager.

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A good place to start on Josh's question is with Dr. Pollkatz's indispensable compilation of Bush approval data. From just after election day 2004 through the end of February 2005, Bush hovered around 50 percent. By the end of August 2005, when Lake Pontchartrain was still where it belonged, Bush was already down in the very low 40s. That would seem to rule out Katrina as a turning point all its own.

Since then, he's barely poked 40 again--from below. His ceiling is 40 percent.

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Time magazine has come in for a lot of grief for punting in its annual person of the year award. I've got a different question -- one that's uniquely keyed in to American politics, though perhaps American society and culture more generally. In November and December 2004, President Bush and the Republican party looked set to dominate US politics and perhaps remake our national government. Many thought that the GOP had a system of money, influence and ideology that could ensure permanent political majorities. Two years later we have one of the great turnarounds in American political history. The Democrats are back in the majority in Congress. And far from having the political capital he boasted of in November 2004, President Bush is positively radioactive in much of the country. Certainly, he is more consistently unpopular than probably any president in modern American history.

So here's the question. Was there a key galvanizing event? And if so, what was it? Katrina? The failed Social Security gambit? Abramoff? Or was it simply the long political fuse of Iraq finally catching up with the president? Certainly all these events and trends played a role. But what was the tipping point? Looking back, what mattered most?

Over the holiday weekend, things were still happening here at TPMCafe. Clinton and Obama, the 2000 GOP foreign policy platform, Darfur, and... a miracle: all in this morning's House Brew.

On Saturday, America Abroad's Ivo Daalder took a surreal look back at Bush's original foreign policy and how the Administration managed to make every problem it cited then worse. In the Coffee House, Jo-Ann Mort offered some hope on Israel/Palestine, citing a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Abu Mazen as a possible Miracle in the Holy Land.

On Sunday...

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I saw the 1979 film, "Hair," last night. I think Milos Forman made one of the most powerful anti-war films ever.

It ends with thousands of kids running to the Ellipse behind the White House ultimately creating a frozen tableau of anti-war youth which, in the film'a last shot, goes from color to black and white.

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