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17.May 2008
Move Along, Nothing to See Here
As I was driving back across Lucky Peak dam this morning (after
morning wind—in May!), I noticed the
sign that was put up after 9/11, NO STOPPING ON DAM and I thought about
the accumulated artifacts of our fears, and the utter disregard for
absurdity. Maybe it's because I visit during wee hours when only
the most die-hard of the fisherman and the wind junkies are on hand.
On a busy boating weekend (such as... today), I suppose there's plenty
of traffic, and the motorboats would stack up if someone were to stop in
one of the two narrow lanes with no shoulder. It would be annoying,
certainly. And maybe incite some road rage?
But for the non-suicidal terrorist, I don't see how traffic enforcement
would provide a deterrent. An excuse for action doesn't seem to be
required any more. Considering the story
from eastern Washington, where an employee of the Spokane Regional
Transportation Council was taking pictures of a deserted weigh station,
and had to explain to the State Patrol what she was up to... when he
called her on her cell phone 10 minutes later. (How about if she
answered "I'm sorry, but it's none of your business"?)
(h/t to Huckleberries, where you can read
another selection of comments.)
15.May 2008
Unconstitutional Discrimination
Speaking of Judges taking action that is bound to drive the right-wing
wild... here come the California Supremes
high-stepping their way ahead of the majority to rule that
same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry in that
state.
Is this a big, sloppy kiss for the McCain campaign, tailored to motivate
the enraged Base to come out and vote for the less liberal of the two
moderates running for President? Could be.
Let their Legislature call it what they will, the civil right of
committed couples to form their own more perfect unions is one giant
step closer to equality under the law.
(h/t to Gila, and
her mini civics lesson on the Liberal OC.)
Togetherness
One of our neighbors asked Jeanette how long we'd been married now, and
she got a chuckle out her answer that "we've been a number for 28 years,
this week." (The May 18, 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens provided us a
convenient marker for end of our first week together. Oh, and since
there are 7 days in a week, 4 years between leap years, and 4 x 7 = 28,
May 18 will be a Sunday again this year, how nice.)
This week—yesterday, in fact—also marks fortboise's
blogiversary: it's eight!
On Judicial Activism
I say we give a serious stink-eye on anyone from the Legislative branch
complaining about Judicial. If said Legislator is also running for
Executive, the double stink-eye. Consider George W. Bush's record of
making his own "law" with utter disregard not just for the will of
the people, but also the will of Congress, international treaties,
centuries-old established principles, and common decency. There is
plenty of room for improvement on the law-making side, with more
problems from bad law than bad interpretation of it.
If Republican-appointees were the ticket to a better Supreme Court,
we're already 77% of the way there, as
Alan
(and Wikipedians) point out. But here's John McCain trying to raise
money under the well-rubbed subject of "Combating Judicial Activism." He
can rest assured that the future of the U.S. Supreme Court, as he
emphasizes it, has been on my mind for several presidential elections
now, but his notion that Democratic appointees will "make law with
disregard for the will of the people" is about as cock-eyed as the idea
that Republican appointees will... what, make law according to public
opinion polls? Oh no, it's "strictly interpret the Constitution," a
magical prescription for a more perfect union. Republicans strict,
Democrats out-of-control libertines.
Apparently the Straight Talk Express has accidentally taken the siding
into Cooterville, where life is still conveniently black-and-white. (And
the white men are in charge. And
the black men are in jail.)
13.May 2008
The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight
Bill Sali blows off the Idaho Press Club, the League of Women Voters
and Idaho Public TV in one fell swoop. Why bother? He's got a busy
weekend, somebody on the radio wants to talk to him, a parade, a gun
show... He's not taking his opponent seriously, confident that
Republican primary voters will shoe him in. If they can find the time to
get to the polls.
By way of an excuse, his spokesman Wayne Hoffman said that they never
said he would, just that he might. That makes it so much
appropriate, don't you think?
12.May 2008
John McCain's Sparkling Surrogate
Ok, I took the trouble to see the original show, the video of her
segment on This Week with George
Stephanawatchacallit tagged with "McCain Surrogate Stresses
Innovation." It reminds me of seeing Sun CEO Scott McNealy at Comdex
(back when there was such a thing) responding to Fiorina's rollout of
that strategy at Hewlett-Packard: the new logo! "Big whoop," I think was
the sum total of his commentary.
"We have to incent innovation..."
Now her "business" is being Chairman of McCain's "Victory 2008," and her
#1 talking point is that "nothing could be further from the truth" than
the ugly rumour that John McCain is running for a 3rd Bush term. He is
so anti-Bush, "it was John McCain, after, all who
spoke—loudly—for four long years saying that Don Rumsfeld
was the worst Secretary of Defense in history" and stuff.
In her vignette of the "typical American family sitting around the
kitchen table," wondering whether they can send their kid to college in
the fall, she doesn't explain how $30 or $50 of gas tax holidy is going
to get junior any closer to registration day.
It appears that Fiorina is being pushed forward as the chief economic
strategist for the McCain campaign, if not a tantalizing possibility for
Veep. Did we need further illustration that economics is
not
something McCain has understood as well as he should?
Mothers' Day
Just a Regular Gal
I can't wait to see Carly Fiorina on The Daily Show; even on
Sunday morning, she's cracking me up. According to
Sarah Lai Stirland's report of her stint on
This Week with George Stephanopoulos (a "brief" yet
"wide-ranging" interview, go figure), "Fiorina said that she couldn't
name a credible economist who supports the idea of a gas tax
holiday."
"I don't think it matters. I'm a business person," she said, saying that
economists' arguments are too theoretical, and don't address the
everyday budgetary realities facing Americans.
I'm trying to imagine what Ms. Fiorina might know about anything having
to do with the "everyday" since she blasted through the glass ceiling
to top management positions at Lucent, and then Hewlett-Packard, before
HP booted her out the door with only an 8-figure (or was it 9? I
forget) golden parachute for consolation.
I wouldn't say she's a business person so much as a marketing
professional, and lord knows, John McCain is going to need someone
with those skills to put lipstick on the economic pig that George W.
Bush has turned loose.
How Much Would it Have to Cost?
About a week ago, gas was $3.40-something at the corner pump, but we
drove a few more days before filling up. It had jumped to $3.599 by the
time I made my selection of the lowest octane and replenished the Prius'
tank. It didn't startle me into doing anything different, but it did
make me wonder: how much will gas have to cost before I change my
lifestyle? When I will I decide not to drive somewhere because it costs
too much? $5? 8? 10?
And in the sea of SUVs raised on cheap gas, I wonder about how those big
car owners are feeling about their choices. In the oil shock of the
1970s, there was a moment when big cars became anathema, "lead sleds"
that no one wanted to buy. One guy I knew had a yard full of old
Cadillacs that he was collecting, cheap because no one wanted to pay to
drive them around any more.
The guy in front of me at the gas station opened the cap on his Corvette
convertible, and made his selection on the other end of the octane
scale. "91," I said. "Yeah baby!" He said "'93, actually," thinking I
was talking about the model year. He bought something less than 2
gallons, I imagine because he hardly ever drives the thing and didn't
want stale high-test in the tank. He's preserving its value as a work of
sculpture, and for the (very) occasional thrill of go-fast.
Krugman mentions the
NYT
report of a surge in transit ridership, along with the observation
that it has a long way to go. The neighborhood Pacman is still the
single-occupancy vehicle; a great, big, gas-guzzling SUV SOV.
Two Interesting Conventions This Summer?
There's something oddly comforting about the hand-lettered signs that
persist around town, even after the direct appeals for Ron Paul have
subsided into quixotic clues, New Age signposts to this millennium's
version of Burma Shave.
Dan Popkey's digging around the stealth campaign to take over the
state's GOP convention in some fashion, on the way to making a statement
at the national convention this summer. The only ones not looking
forward to the possibility of that entertainment are the bosses, who
would be perfectly happy to keep everything on-script and on-schedule.
Annoint McCain, thrill over his choice of V.P. and then on to the final
run to November.
But wait! There could be more!
40 contested races (out of 141) for precinct committeeperson in Ada Co.
alone, and who knows how many others out of 44 counties and 900 races
across the state, as the Republicans get an unaccustomed taste of
democracy in their ranks. Will we add an Idaho chapter to the tales of
insurgency?
"(T)he Nevada GOP (was prompted) to abruptly adjourn its convention last
month. Paul delegates stormed the Spokane County, Wash., convention and
passed an anti-war platform plank. Paul forces have skirmished with
mainstream Republicans in Georgia, Oklahoma, Minnesota and
Missouri."
Traffic Jam at the Top of the World
Alan Arnette's dispatches are flowing again, as this year's narrow
window of opportunity to stand on the summit of Everest opens... Fixed
ropes and lashed-together ladders bottle-neck the increasingly
well-traveled path between Base Camp and the upper camps, his guess that
there were 150 climbers between camps 2 and 3, more than four miles
above sea level.
Dale Oliver Hall
Yet another of my Boise father figures gone before,
Dale had a more remarkable life than the small part we shared in our
time together on social occasions, from being a young draftee in WWII,
to earning a Ph.D. in ecology in 1971, before most people had even heard
that word. For his memorial this Friday, I know we'll feel the resonance
of who he was through the family and friends gathered to honor his life.
8.May.2008
I'll never release my tax returns!
Hillary has Bill, and John has...
Cindy. She'll give up her tax returns when we pry them from her
cold, dead hands!
My wife and I have been married for 26 years, and we filed joint returns
for 26 years. Of course, we've been living in a community property state
the whole time where mostly what's mine is ours and what's hers in ours.
Not so much chance she might be rich and me an ordinary guy with a
$169,300 a year job, trying to keep from looking elitist.
Funny thing about accumulating riches; they allow you to live well, but
apparently part of the deal is doing all you can to keep the details
secret. Even if you're married to the President of the United States
of America?
Maybe Cindy McCain won't face that problem.
6.May.2008
Don't Bogert those records, Dirk
Front page news today, about our former governor keeping his
records from 7 years in office secret, in violation of state law.
Two years ago, the Idaho Attorney General's office told Dirk Kempthorne
to give his gubernatorial records to the Idaho State Historical Society
- like every governor before him.
There's so much wrong with this, where do we start? He's been "too busy"
in his new job as SecInt to "vet" the records, and "cede control" of
them. And his lawyer, Michael Bogert is acting like nothing's wrong,
weaseling that the state has "jurisdiction" of the stuff, parked in the
Department of Administration... even though yeah, "any public records
request has to be approved by the former governor."
How does that work? They're the state's records, in the state's
possession, and Dirk Kempthorne has no state position, but he and his
lawyer get to keep everybody out of the boxes?
Kempthorne is also a former U.S. Senator from Idaho, and as such he has
records from his one elected term in the federal government; those are
sealed for 25 years, legally, and he figured the state would let him do
the same thing?
No, it doesn't, and Kempthorne and Bogert have known that for at least
two years now. So what is so important and so confidential that
Kempthorne feels the need for this extreme secrecy?
4.May.2008
Press On
The nice thing about
the Idaho Press
Club Best of 2007 Annual Awards is that there seems to be something
for everybody; looks like more than 400 prizes. Good advertising
vehicle for the Idaho Press Club, certainly; all those news outlets will
be saying their name for weeks to come.
The less nice thing about the awards is that there isn't a hyperlink to
any of the award-winning newspapers, websites, magazines, television
stations, radio stations, public relations firms, students, or "new
categories." They typed out a few domain names for us, but that was
it.
Maybe next year.
3.May.2008
Crippleware Update?
Last month, my copy of Quicken 2005 started sending me "Second Notices"
of its plans to go on the blink as of April 30th. No more updates, or
on-line connection. Time to send more money! Get a new version!
Except I like the old version ok. It's getting the job done, I'm used to
its features (and shortcomings), and it's paid for. It's convenient to
have it update stock and fund quotes, but I could live without that for,
oh, ever. If I had to. I forwarded a piece of my mind to Intuit, which
they redirected to /dev/null as usual, with an autoreply to tell me how
much they appreciated hearing from me, whatever it was I said. Please
don't reply to this message, we'll ignore that even moreso.
The warnings stopped, or at least stopped catching my attention, and I
looked after other things, April ended, and here it is the 3rd of May.
I started up Quicken for the first time in more than a week, and it
wanted to know, would I like to update?
Same old update screen as I've had 6 or 8 times over the years with this
copy. But... they said I wasn't getting any more updates after April 30,
didn't they? You don't suppose... no, they wouldn't do that,
would they? Sucker me into asking for an "update" that cripples my
copy of the software so it doesn't work as well?
I said [Cancel]. And updated the stock and fund prices as usual, no
complaints, warnings, or errors. Go figure.
Free Pander!
Gail
Collins takes a few shots at an easy target.
"(T)here is nothing worse than snobs who live close to the office making
fun of a gas-tax holiday that would in the best possible circumstances
save real hard-working Americans 30 cents a day. The point is
particularly piquant when made by a guy who flies around the country in
his wife’s private plane."
2.May.2008
No More Credit from FOB
Thanks to
Red State Rebels for the links to the burgeoning story about Bill
Sali's campaign fundraising adventure, now that the Club for Growth has
apparently thrown him off the bus. I especially liked Sali's spokesman
Wayne Hoffman's saying that his creditors "are extremely understanding,"
even if they are demanding cash for new transactions, thankyouverymuch.
(Quoted in the Spokesman-Review.)
Resurrection... and Rejection?
It turns out that the report of our cat's demise
was an exaggeration. (These things
can happen.)
Color us surprised, and a little embarrassed to learn that she's been
seen further afield in the neighborhood before this week than we ever
imagined, and after her middle of the night departure on Tuesday,
took up up residence under a backyard shed, four yards north. Those
folks have a better fence, keeping tom cats out, and their female
cats, now augmented by the one we thought was "ours," in.
After 17 years, if we were chopped liver, we might be more attractive to
her. As it is, she did come out on our second try to lure her, eat a
healthy portion of soft cat food out of a dish set in front of me, but
wasn't about to be grabbed and taken "home" afterward.
Ain't we been good to ya?!
Update: She came on out for Jeanette, later, got carried home and
brought inside. She's had some lap time, still talking and checking
everything out, she'll want to go out and we won't let her, not right
away.
Share the Waste
We get to burn up their oil, so it seems only fair for us to
take some of the contamination back. (But... it was an accident.
While we were over there liberating their country!) 13 million pounds of
sand, loaded with depleted uranium and lead, headed to
American Ecology
in Grandview, Idaho. (They must have done a marketing study and found a
better response to that name than "Radioactive Waste, Inc.")
We presume—hardly anyone's talking—that they're taking
advantage of our low population density, our state's Republican
management, and our apparently well-connected waste disposal company.
Sure, it's a little out of the way getting most of 7,000 tons of sand
from Kuwait to Idaho, but where there's a will, there's a way. We've
moved a lot more oil that distance.
What isn't explained in
The Daily News (Longview, WA) coverage going back to the
middle of last month is why, if "we're talking about levels that you see
in nature," according to AE's project manager, we didn't just leave
those natural levels right where they were, but instead took the trouble
to move them halfway around the world. Part of George Bush's economic
stimulus plan, perhaps.
TDN said the AE project manager also told them that "any contamination
on foreign lands must be shipped back to the United States for
disposal." This particular boatload turned into two trainloads, moving
from Longview up the Columbia and into the Snake River basin is
"contamination" from 1991. Imagine what a growth industry we'll have
when we start moving the contamination from Afghanistan and Iraq for
2001-2008 (and counting... up to 10? 15? 100 years?).
We may run out of oil to be shuffling sand before it's all shuffled to
meet that standard. If the risk is negligible, and from the numbers
cited, it sounds like it is, maybe we should get smarter sooner and get
agreement to leave it where it is. The hardest part is getting the
diplomats not to laugh when we say "trust us on this..."
Update: Hmm,
smells like money. Naturally.
May Day
$10.9 billion and it's not enough
ExxonMobil's profits up 17%, but folks wanted more. More, more,
more. They made $11.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007,
after all. Less is apparently not more in the oil business, and
certainly not for the largest corporation in the world.
I don't know how much ExxonMobil's profits were reduced by the necessity
of paying taxes on their 12-digit quarterly gross (plenty, one would
hope), but it seems strange to have the relatively paltry federal excise
tax on gasoline under attack, an idea "so ridiculous, so unworthy of the
people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away," as
Thomas Friedman puts it.
"(T)he biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to
be serious – the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and
intelligent way. We are in the midst of a national political
brownout."
raveling
Tom von Alten
tva_∂t_fortboise_⋅_org
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Saturday, 17-May-2008 15:28:30 MDT
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