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unraveling
28.Feb.06
"What is he, some kind of defeatist?"
One of Paul Pillar's cohort writes on TomPaine.com about
the peril of selective reality, what used to be (still is?) referred
to as "Groupthink." If you da man, and all you want to hear is upbeat
good news, than that's all you'll hear. Even when it's dead wrong.
The military's not the only governmental body that's having problems
enticing new recruits to join the fun: Linda Robinson and Kevin
Whitelaw, writing in
US
News & World Report note the "triple hex of plummeting morale, a
hemorrhage of field-tested veterans, and the drain of trying to counter
a seemingly intractable insurgency in Iraq" is putting the hurt on the
CIA's National Clandestine Service.
Admitting mistakes
Speaking of defeatists, William F. Buckley writes about our
Next Step in prose so turgid, one has to wonder why he's trying to
disguise what he has to say. It's not a happy message, certainly, nor a
happy admission for him? Even though our side is doomed in this war of
misadventure, "President Bush will be seen commanding his troops to
march on. He will speak of victory. One's guess is that there will be
attenuation in the definition of victory."
Yes, one's guess is.
How sad that "his political reputation" is of more interest to
bloviating gasbags such as Buckley than the thousands of dead left in
the wake of Bush and his team's miscalculation.
27.Feb.06
But have you had sex with that woman?
Oh wait, wrong impeachment. This case for a new one comes out of rather
more serious charges, as described at length by
the
minority report on The Constitution in Crisis.
Harper's editor
Lewis Lapham sums it up thusly:
We have before us in the White House a thief who steals the country's
good name and reputation for his private interest and personal use; a
liar who seeks to instill in the American people a state of fear; a
televangelist who engages the United States in a never-ending crusade
against all the world's evil, a wastrel who squanders a vast sum of the
nation's wealth on what turns out to be a recruiting drive certain to
multiply the host of our enemies. In a word, a criminal—known to be
armed and shown to be dangerous. Under the three-strike rule available
to the courts in California, judges sentence people to life in jail for
having stolen from Wal-Mart a set of golf clubs or a child's tricycle.
Who then calls strikes on President Bush, and how many more does he get
before being sent down on waivers to one of the Texas Prison
Leagues?
For $10, you can go to the
Town Hall
meeting this Thursday and join the discussion.
26.Feb.06
Unitary Vice-executive
Did Dick Cheney slip up in advertising the
Executive Order
that expanded the power of the Vice Presidency in his post-shooting
debrief with Faux News? Or was he bragging?
Sidney Blumenthal figures the "coup" was constructed with the help
of then-counsel David Addington. (He's Scooter successor as Veep Chief
of Staff now.) Section 1.3.a.1 puts the VPOTUS right behind POTUS in
classifying power, while he's "in the performance of executive duties."
1.3.c.2 and 1.3.c.3 let VPOTUS delegate his power under the same
circumstances.
The Boy Who Cried Wolf
David Brooks' observation that the port flap is hysteria
brings a fable
of Aesop's to William Greider's mind: "A conservative blaming
hysteria is hysterical, when you think about it, and a bit late.
Hysteria launched Bush's invasion of Iraq. It created that monstrosity
called Homeland Security and pumped up defense spending by more than 40
percent. Hysteria has been used to realign US foreign policy for
permanent imperial war-making, whenever and wherever we find something
frightening afoot in the world. Hysteria will justify the "long war" now
fondly embraced by Field Marshal Rumsfeld. It has also slaughtered a
number of Democrats who were not sufficiently hysterical. It saved
George Bush's butt in 2004."
Jonathan
Zimmerman argues that American newspapers should publish the cartoons
because "Muslims may not enjoy the scrutiny, but they can handle it."
On the other hand... they're only cartoons, and from what we have seen,
they really don't have that much merit. Just because they annoy some
people, and have been risable enough to incite riots is not a reason to
give them more attention.
This is your life on Meth
I remember the anti-drug ads as being slightly less ludicrous than
Reefer Madness, but not any more persuasive or compelling.
That was then. The "drug problem" is considerably more serious at this
point, and the
Montana
Meth Project ads are gripping. No laughing matter.
Is there a human available?
gethuman looks to be implementing
the ClueTrain Manifesto, rather than just fashioning some high-minded
text about the concept of de-corporatizing interactions. I got there
courtesy of William Taylor's piece in the NYT Business section,
Your Call Should Be Important to Us, but It's Not.
Countless chief executives pledge to improve their company's products
and services by listening to the "voice of the customer." Memo to the
corner office: Answer the phone!
That First Amendment Thingie
You know how people start to look like their pets after a while? Or how
some cars reflect the personality of the owner? Dwight Scarbrough has
one of the latter, and his pickup's decoration is as patriotic as you
can imagine. It rather defines "free expression." No parade flags, but
he's got ribbons and bumper stickers and signs, and the proud
declaration of his membership in Veterans for Peace Chapter 117,
Idaho.
PERHAPS GOD BLESSES EVERY NATION, NOT JUST
THE USA
But it seems that some forms of expression are more protected than
others, at least in the eyes of the Department of Homeland Security.
The local pseudo-constabulatory showed up at Dwight's place of work
earlier this month, set to enforce their interpretation of
"The CFR. 41, CFR, 102, 74, 415," which apparently provides for no
anti-war or anti-Bush bumper stickers (or "signs") on government
property.
Happily, Dwight had the presence of mind to tape record the conversation
that ensued, and share it with
The Boise Weekly. (It's since been picked up nationally, by
The Progressive, and
muchos gracias to Lee Killough for that link.)
"Bottom line: My rights are very dear to me. I served my country to
defend them," he says. "And one of the things I was defending was free
speech. It's the First Amendment for a reason--not the last, not the
middle. The first."
24.Feb.06
Who needs a "Democrat" like this?
In honor of Abraham Lincoln's birthday, good ol' Zell Miller came to
Boise and sucked $25,000 from the local Republicans who must have reveled
in the Schadenfreude of a "Democrat" who likes their party better than
"his." Feh.
He's a spent gasbag as far as I'm concerned, without the courage of his
conviction to admit he's changed parties. The
Statesman's interview with him is perfectly forgettable, a bland
selection of uninteresting opinions and this non sequitur in his
"thoughts on Iraq":
I supported the president when he went into Iraq, and I still support
the president. I think we've got to see this through and I think
history is going to judge that we did the right thing and I think
history is going to judge that there were Weapons of Mass
Destruction.
History judges stature, probable causes and the like. Facts may
come to light over time, but the Bush administration has worked much
harder at keeping that from happening that helping make it
happen. I have no doubt that if there were even slightly plausible
evidence in favor of there having been WMD, it would have been thumped
to beat the band long ago.
Our misadventure in Iraq is more likely to be judged the blunder of the
century.
23.Feb.06
Abandon ship?
Was it success or failure that had so many fathers, I forget? Francis
Fukuyama is bailing out, and using both barrels for his fussilade, to
the undisguised
glee of those who thought the necon agenda was looney from the
get-go. F. was a charter member of PNAC, however, close buddies with
Wolfowitz and others of the first rank. Now... he's drawing parallels
between their approach to world domination and Lenin's, only not so
generously. "It seems very unlikely that history will judge either the
intervention itself or the ideas animating it kindly," Fukuyama wrote in
the NYT Mag last week, speaking of the Iraq war.
Telling those who thought his last big book was
the neocon Bible that they were sadly mistaken, we now read:
The End of History
is in the end an argument about modernization. What
is initially universal is not the desire for liberal democracy but
rather the desire to live in a modern—that is, technologically
advanced and prosperous—society, which, if satisfied, tends to drive
demands for political participation. Liberal democracy is one of the
byproducts of this modernization process, something that becomes a
universal aspiration only in the course of historical time.
"The End of History," in other words, presented a kind of Marxist
argument for the existence of a long-term process of social evolution,
but one that terminates in liberal democracy rather than communism. In
the formulation of the scholar Ken Jowitt, the neoconservative position
articulated by people like Kristol and Kagan was, by contrast, Leninist;
they believed that history can be pushed along with the right
application of power and will. Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik
version, and it has returned as farce when practiced by the United
States. Neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of
thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support.
So what comes
After Neoconservatism?
We need to clean up the mess, first. "The legacy of the Bush first-term
foreign policy and its neoconservative supporters has been so polarizing
that it is going to be hard to have a reasoned debate about how to
appropriately balance American ideals and interests in the coming
years." Gee, you think?
Overreaction to fatal blunders is
"an indulgence we cannot afford," however, and we must now chart a
course between neoconservatism
(now "indelibly associated with concepts like coercive regime change,
unilateralism and American hegemony") and "realism"
We need "new ideas," and perhaps
his book due this month will have some beyond describing how badly
the ones he used to subscribe to have turned out.
"(W)e have to shift our focus to the reform, reorganization and proper
financing of those institutions of the United States government that
actually promote democracy, development and the rule of law around the
world, organizations like the State Department, U.S.A.I.D., the National
Endowment for Democracy and the like."
21.Feb.06
Road trip
We had better weather than we had any right to expect for traveling from
Boise to Port Townsend this weekend. A little bit of blowing snow and
slush in the Blues on the way up, some ice over
Umtanum Ridge, but sunny and clear over Snoqualmie and then dry from
end to end for the way home, via Portland and The Gorge.
Our friend Charlie said we should stop by Multnomah Falls, because it
would be decorated in ice. Good call.
Enjoy your meal
It turns out that's not just waiterly phatic, but rather
spot-on medical and nutrition advice. You get more from food that
you savor.
Reclassified
The implementation of the Memory Hole in the age of Google
and the Internet Archive is not
going to be easy, but that won't stop some from
trying.
(To say nothing of the ironically named
Memory Hole itself: intended
to combat the bureaucratic urge to bury mistakes.)
12 days before the Chinese crossed into North Korea, the CIA provided
an "intelligence estimate" (talk about ironic naming) saying that "a
consideration of all known factors leads to the conclusion" that
intervention by the Chinese "is not probable in 1950." Is discussion
of this now-laughable blunder affected by reclassification? Am I
breaking a law here, and thus available for rounding up on an as-needed
basis? Or is someone in the halls of spookery just trying to
reinstantiate SNAFU in our working lexicon?
It's said one should never infer malice where stupidity provides an
adequate explanation, but you have to wonder.
16.Feb.06
Your devotion is frightening
Idaho's Senate did its part to help the state join the anti-gay
marriage chorus. Just having gay unions be illegal wasn't enough for a
lot of people in this state, and they feel the need to make it
anti-Constitutional to boot. (Anybody seen an activist Judge around here
lately?) The voters will get to decide the question with this November's
ballots. A simple majority (no pun intended, but there it is) is all
that's needed for the amendment to pass.
"Shall Article III, of the Constitution of the State of Idaho be amended
by the addition of a new Section 28, to provide that a marriage between
a man and a woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid
or recognized in this state?"
The sponsor of the bill, Senator Bob Geddes, tells us "The measure will
preserve all rights afforded Idahoans. There will be nothing taken
away." That was easy, wasn't it Bob?
Marty Trillhaase of the Idaho Falls Post Register pointed out
that our original Constitution kept Mormons from voting, serving on a
jury or holding any civil office. Chinese, people of Mongolian descent
and Indians who "had not severed their tribal relations" were thrown in
for good measure. The prohibitions were never enforced (thanks to the
13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution), but they were
on the books for 92 years.
Now we're fixing to put a new blot on our record for this new
century.
Let's hope this gives Gay-fearing married couples the strength they
apparently need to maintain their nuclear families against the
radioactive onslaught of loving commitment by same-sex couples..
Whirl and shoot
Cheney breaks silence and admits the stunningly obvious: it was his
fault. And he was sober. (Just a beer at lunch.) Still trying to
figure out how he got that tight pattern and great penetration with a
28 ga. at 30 yards on a cool day, but we hardly expect anyone in the
party (or the owner-spectator) to start talking about it.
Dick spoke from the "Vice President's Ceremonial Office," if you can
believe that,
to Fox News, if you can believe that. The decision to have his
friend, hostess and supporter tell the Corpus Christi Times? Well,
who's going to believe the Vice President's account, Cheney said. Hard
to argue with him there. And the local newspaper? It struck him
"that the Corpus Christi Caller-Times is just as valid a news
outlet as The New York Times is, especially for covering a major
story in south Texas."
At least he owned up to responsibility for what happened. "(I)t was not
Harry's fault. You can't blame anybody else. I'm the guy who pulled the
trigger and shot my friend. And I say that is something I'll never
forget." Worst day of his life.
♥.Feb.06
Dark times in the Long War
Seymour Hersh spoke at BSU last night, part of this year's
Distinguished Lecture
Series. Hersh is the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was
instrumental in breaking the My Lai story from the Vietnam war, and
the Abu Ghraib scandal in 2004, and is the author of
Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib.
Of George Bush, Hersh said "I don't think he's cynical; he's absolutely
committed to a cause." "A revolutionary." He sees himself as the man
who's going to change the world. He's not going to stop. He's got no
information, he's isolated himself and/or been isolated.
The two most stupid things we did in the latest Iraq war: we rebuilt the
Abu Ghraib prison, and we moved into the Green Zone, replacing Saddam
Hussein's autocratic and brutal regime with our own.
He said the Army's estimate is that more than 70% of the prisoners we're
holding have no business being detained. Local informants were happy to
identify "culprits" for purposes of extortion, or revenge. Less
generous independent estimates are that 90% of the prisoners are
wrongfully detained.
The practice of sexual humiliation that led to the scandal when revealed
started in September of 2003, when we were trying to "get more out of
the prisoners," to undertand Iran's participation, and the "chatter"
that would expand into the full-blown insurgency we continue to fight.
October, November, December... no one stopped what was going on at Abu
Ghraib. It was January before the oddball who didn't fit in with the
gang turned in a CD full of photos.
What didn't happen between January 22d, the date Rumsfeld testified
(in May) he told Bush what was going on, and late April when the story
broke was... anything to stop it. BUSH DID NOTHING.
That's the story of the scandal, but it's easy to miss what
doesn't happen. Reporters are biased to report what
does happen.
And as if Abu Ghraib weren't enough to poison the water between us and
the Middle East for a generation, we have
Extraordinary Rendition,
100 teams of commandos around the world, ready to violate sovereignty
and kidnap anyone we deem necessary. With impunity. We keep
statistics. One of the "rights" our current administration claims for
itself, "to protect the American people."
This administration is not so good at managing, but it's A-number-one at
the spin machine.
Time to try an alternative?
Nice piece by our county party chairman, Brian Cronin:
Maybe Democrats' values are more in line with your own.
"(A)fter a decade of Republican domination in Idaho, it's safe to say that
the very same culture of corruption has taken root in the Gem State."
Examples are unfortunately easy to come by.
Yet another war we shouldn't start
Patrick Buchanan was strident against going to war against Iraq,
and his objections to the adventure (as well as
my own) have been borne
out. Not surprisingly, he's
not keen
on attacking Iran, either.
Responsibility, and Harry Whittington
Molly Ivins looks at the
not so funny part of this story, and provides a tribute to
Whittington, more appreciated with him back in the ICU with heart
problems from some of the shot from Cheney's gun. Ivins
was offended by the never-our-fault White House spin team. Cheney
adviser Mary Matalin said of her boss, "He was not careless or
incautious [and did not] violate of any of the [rules]. He didn’t do
anything he wasn’t supposed to do." Of course he did, Ms. Matalin, he
shot Harry Whittington.
Which brings us to one of the many paradoxes of the Bush administration,
which claims to be creating "the responsibility society." It’s hard to
think of a crowd less likely to take responsibility for anything they
have done or not done than this bunch. They’re certainly good at
preaching responsibility to others—and blaming other people for
everything that goes wrong on their watch.
13.Feb.06
The Veep who couldn't shoot straight
What, like I'm going to be the only blogger who doesn't weigh in on
Dead-eye Dick? I don't think so. I was prepared to let the
late night boys have their way with him and just keep quiet, but then I
was reminded that this was the guy who made fun of John Kerry shooting a
goose during the campaign.
I don't suppose the real story is going to be leaked on this one.
Just use your imagination as best you can: Hunting buddy wanders off
and then sneaks up on the Veep—and his Secret Service
detail?—flushes up some little gray birds, and Cheney whirls around
and yanks the trigger. Oopsadaisy! And then gosh, since this all
happened on private property, we won't bother mentioning it to anyone
unless somebody happens to ask. Maybe our hostess will tell us what she
saw while sitting in the car.
Start your own headline collection:
"Questions Raised about Cheney Hunting Accident"
"Cheney Hunting Accident Spotlights Safety Issues"
"Hit
me with your best (buck) shot"
"Cheney hunts quail and everyone else ducks"
And the winner is... Dan Froomkin, in The Washington Post, for
"Shoots, Hides and Leaves"
11.Feb.06
Some work to do on his way out the door?
This should fix the problem with cronyism and corruption:
the GOP will put a new man on the Appropriations subcommittee overseeing
the Justice Department. SoCal Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham made a seat
available by pleading guilty to charges relating to $2.4 million in
bribes for favors.
Make way for DeLay!
Evil is Relative, Apparently
Google implements the Memory Hole for China. What is the image of
the Dalai Lama if google.cn makes it go away for a fifth of the world's
population?
Making an Apple a Day More Likely
Someday,
sliced apples will replace sliced bread as the benchmark for neatest
things, I suppose. I'll mark myself as old school by still preferring
the whole fruit. (I'm not shy about the bags of Popeye spinach though;
perhaps from the early childhood appearance on the Popeye show?)
I'm hardly immune to the snackability factor, and all those
reprehensible feeding behaviors Mooallem describes apply to me along
with the rest of the local mob. It's the living, respiring, whole being
part that I like, the natural packaging, the durability, the shape,
color, smell, sound. And that problematic left over, the future
generation laced with cyanide. I like the challenge of minimizing the
waste, delicately incising around the endocarp, the occasional sepal and
stamen hanging on for the ride, holding on by the stem until it's ready
for... delivery to a friendly composting spot.
I can admire the engineering and science going into a fruit factory,
but for apples? Seems like gilding the lily to me.
The problem of pattern matching
...is that we're so darned good at it. We can find patterns
anywhere, whether or not they're really there. Intelligent
Design, for example. That's not this particular topic, though.
It's
another Cringely column, or rather a postscript in one.
He quotes "an old friend of mine who is conservative in the very best
sense and knows what he is talking about," summarizing the most
troubling aspect of NSA's electronic surveillance:
It's easy to see whatever pattern you're looking for. It's like curve
fitting in the stock market -- looks beautiful historically and maybe
even in the short run, but it's a disaster in the making. So we have
these guys running the country who saw a non-existent pattern in Iraq
that justified a war ... and now we're going to give them software that
will make it easy to create the illusion of patterns of conspiracy.
Your friend from the NSA was right, but it's worse than he suggests.
It's not just that social network analysis casts a wide net. It's that
without oversight by people who really grasp the mathematics and have
some distance from the whole thing, they're going to see patterns where
there aren't any.
They have a history of that.
Death of the 'net. Film at 11
Perhaps you've been getting the latest wave of email advocacy promotions
for protecting the internet? I've been skipping over them, figuring it
was another urban legend getting started, but there might actually be
something underfoot this time.
Robert
X. Cringely provides a useful analysis, describing the wildly
successful system we have as a "Best Effort" network with premium
quality (but not necessarily timeliness). The proposal from some big
industry players is new "diamond lanes" that they can get people to pay
(extra!) for.
The scenarios that have been presented so far are a) either overbuild at
huge expense or b) grant network providers the right to sell premium
packet space. That's it. But what we ought to be doing is leaning on our
real advantages and simply writing smarter applications that deal with
the problems.
There are some technical details, but the Big Picture he summarizes
sounds familiar enough:
These companies want protection yet offer little or no reason why they
ought to be protected—especially since the very protection they seek
hurts the network they ostensibly see as the source of their future
success.
10.Feb.06
Warning: sticky meme
Perhaps worse than the sticky tune, which can be driven out with
another. How are you going to get rid of
this? 'W' is the only polysyllabic letter. Check it out. A,
B, C, D, EFG... Read it (aloud) and weep: w w w dot... (I've tried
"three dub" from time to time, and always got quizzical looks. I'm
doing my part to free double-yous by having fortboise.org not require
the webbly prefix for its hostname.)
Strange idea
f/k/a's fine haiku
might help
Cliché killer snowclones
Surfing the
Language Log
turns up lots of interesting stuff, but caveat lector: now that I
know about
snowclones, how can I write anything cute without being
clichéd anymore?
Cadillac King Welfare Cheats
It's not corruption that led to $493 million in royalty payments being
withheld, just business as usual: collect as soon as you can, pay as
slowly as you can. 38 of 41 righted their accounts when notified by the
government that the "royalty relief" they'd assumed was off, due to
prices being above thresholds in 2004. (Hey, just because you're making
record $billions in profit doesn't mean you stop looking for
relief!)
Three did not, according to
The New York Times' report:
"We pride ourselves on operating legally," said John Christiansen, a
spokesman for Kerr-McGee, which is based in Oklahoma City. "Now the
Interior Department is claiming it has the power to cancel royalty
relief granted by Congress."
Mr. Christiansen said Kerr-McGee would fight the case if the government
did not back down. "We'll take this issue to the federal court system if
necessary," he said.
River run
They've turned up the tap past 4,000 cfs, and things along the river are
getting their feet wet. I'd been meaning to get down there during the
day, but kept forgetting, so on our way home from listening to
The Coats
last night, we took a Greenbelt stroll to the weir just above the
Americana bridge, and I tried some night photography. Next time, bring
a tripod for more flexibility, I suppose, but I liked one of the three
shots I tried. I set the camera on the concrete sidewall, looking
through the chainlink fence (since no opening presented itself), and
took about a 12 second exposure.
You can see the shadow of the fence, and us, cast by the lights of the
building behind us. The moon's coming full, and I'd imagined it was
going to be a moonlit shot, but realized the city is more about city
lights.
(Speaking of The Coats, they were
wonderful, and I see they keep a sort of blog of their tour going
on their home page. This morning, last night's performance is recapped.
Turns out we were a few rows behind Doug's family holding down the third
row.)
8.Feb.06
11 dead for cartoons
The NY Times timeline of events, starting with Sept. 17th last year
("Politiken, a Danish newspaper, reports that a writer cannot find an
illustrator for a book about the Prophet Muhammed, because artists fear
reprisals from extremists") has this entry for Feb. 3rd: "The
International Association of Muslim Scholars calls for a "day of anger."
In Gaza, 50,000 people demonstrate. Protestors in London call for
execution of those who insult Islam."
In other
news, "Iran's top-selling newspaper launched a competition this week
to find the best cartoon about the Holocaust."
These are supposed to be some sort of religious responses?
The French weekly, Charlie Hebdo, says it'll be happy to increase
its circulation with the Holocaust stuff, too. (It's up 4X for the
latest issue.)
7.Feb.06
Dialing for (and against) Dollars
The automated dialers did a lot of work before Tuesday's library bond
election in Boise. Our household ended up collecting at least half a
dozen, split between pro and con. When the first poll results were put
up, it was 40-60 against; somebody convinced a lot of absentee voters to
vote no. By the time 10 precincts were counted (totalling 2500 votes
with the absentees) it was approaching 50-50, still far from the 2/3rds
majority needed to pass.
The percentage crept up and briefly surpassed 57, but then fell back.
With 74 of 80 precincts counted at about 10pm, 8,852 in favor,
but the 6,697 "no" votes are going to rule the day.
Killer Cartoon Questions
How to explain the murderous outrage over caricatures? How to respond
to a religion that takes itself so seriously that its need for "dignity"
must trump the rights to free expression around the world? Is it
possible to blaspheme against a faith you don't have? Do we owe
allegiance to a mob? From
the NY Times report:
An official at a religious affairs ministry in the United Arab Emirates,
speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "You have no choice but to
join the chorus. Anyone who doesn't speak up will look as if they
tacitly accept the prophet to be insulted."
Do you really believe the prophet can be insulted by cartoons
when governments are supporting rioting that kills people, busing in
"protestors"?
Everything's just fine, we're looking out for you
Jim Lehrer had a
"newsmaker interview" with Vice President Dick Cheney today, and
Dick wore his flag pin on his lapel, just so we knew where his loyalties
lie.
Dick Cheney believes that he and his administration has "all the legal
authority we need" for the spying program. (Just ask his Attorney
General, he'll tell ya.) He "believes" that the sacrifices his
administration have made to civil liberties are justified, because
"thousands of lives have been saved." But he can't give any factual
basis to support such a belief. That's all confidential. Questions we
have that weren't asked include "isn't that impossibly too convenient
for you, Mr. Vice President? I mean, you tell us you're going a great
job, but the facts supporting your claim are all secret?"
It's a "tragedy" that we're now discussing the spying program; it
may not be as effective as it used to be. "We haven't been attacked in
over 4 years," the Veep notes, and he's prepared to (a) infer that it
was because of actions we've taken, and (b) take the credit for it.
He's also prepared to blame those who have lifted the rock and shined
the light under it, just as soon as the next attack occurs. He also
believes "the vast majority of the American people support this
program." But he can't give any factual basis to support such a belief,
of course.
They can't tell all of the members of Congress who are in responsible
positions, because we can't trust all the members of the Intelligence
Committees to keep our secrets. Hummm. They just brief eight: the
Speaker, the majority and minority leaders, the chairmen and ranking
members of the Intelligence committees.
Don't you want to attack Iran, Mr. Vice President? Aren't they more
dangerous than Iraq actually was when we invaded that country?
Do you regret your ludicrous estimate that the insurgency was in its
"last throes"? Nope, confident history will support our notion that 2005
was the turning point.
Bush's Attorney General
The LA Times editorial board pans Alberto Gonzales' performance
before Congress:
It's hard to say what's more disturbing: the attorney general's unsound
legal reasoning or his transparent efforts to avoid a legal conversation
altogether in favor of emotional appeals aimed squarely at the court of
public opinion. Practically the first words of his opening statement
were: "Al Qaeda and its affiliates remain deadly dangerous."
As several senators reminded him, the hearings are not a contest to see
who hates Al Qaeda more. They're to find out about the NSA's secret
program and to see whether the White House accepts any restraints on its
power. If the attorney general can't be independent, the least he can do
is explain the law.
The NYT
editorial board described Gonzales' act as "a daylong display of
cynical hair-splitting, obfuscation, disinformation and stonewalling,"
given without the formality of his taking an oath to tell the truth.
Not that that would have mattered: he wasn't telling anything.
Church? State? Separation?
Competing expressions of piety to open the the Boise City Council
session, as seen on local access TV. A prayer? To "Father God"?
Man, that's offensive. And the Cub Scouts troop in (tuck in your
shirts, boys) to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. "Under God,"
thankyouverymuch.
Local boy makes it big with cabal and conspiracy
Our representative to the House of Representatives, Mike Simpson,
is close buds with new Majority Leader John Boehner, and hoping to
parlay that friendship to greater power.
Dan Popkey describes the secret he's been holding for 2 years:
"(Simpson) was part of a cabal conspiring against DeLay."
"It's not that I don't like Tom," Simpson's quoted by Popkey, "and I'm
not speaking ill of the dead, but he's not the face we needed for the
party."
I can just hear Tom DeLay in a Monty Pythonesque voice, "I'm not dead
yet!" Maybe not, but Boehner and Simpson are looking like a much
stronger play than The Hammer at this point.
'Lection Day
If you live in Boise, and you haven't voted yet, and you're in favor of
a bond to finance
building branch libraries GET OUT AND VOTE. You have until 8pm.
Call the city clerk's office (384-3710) if you're not sure where to
vote. (Some precinct locations have been changed for this election.)
Of course, if you oppose the bond issue, sit on your hands and stay
home.
6.Feb.6
The War on Science is still on
Our new House Majority Leader is apparently a proponent of Intelligent
Design, with his
writing skills scoring high on the subterfuge scale. "Students are
entitled to learn that there are differing scientific views on issues
such as biological evolution," he infers.
Such as... such as? No, that one stands alone, I'm afraid. And by
"differing scientific views," we of course mean "differing religious
views." "Censoring" means the limiting of science class to discussion
of science, and so on.
Chris Mooney invites someone to ask Boehner The Question.
We don't negotiate with terrorists
But William Lind
suggests we missed a chance to "seize the moral high ground" by
accepting Osama bin Laden's truce offering. Lind suspects the offer
fulfilled the Koran's obligation "to offer such a truce before (Muslims)
attack," but that no one seems to have taken it as alarm bells for
another major terrorist act. No new color for the Terror Alert, for
example. Maybe closer to the November election?
Did they use Diebold machines?
It wasn't until I saw the Comedy Central treatment
that I heard about the "voting irregularities" in the first ballot of
the
House majority leader election last week. But there it is:
"Unfortunately, they found out that more ballots were cast than actual
lawmakers in the room. They were afraid about voting irregularities, so
they ended up having to do a revote." That "revote" was the
second ballot, and it was the third that gave Boehner the
nod. Blunt thought he had it in the bag on the first go.
Sublime and absurd support for Idaho marriages
Last week's Idaho Reports
reported on the controversy over the renewed attempt to amend Idaho's
Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, now out of a House committee and
ripe for another wave of public testimony.
Julianne Russell gave a beautiful statement as a teacher, wife and mother,
with her family of seven (!) on display. She held one of the boys, and he was
fidgeting with her hair and necklace, and she never missed a beat while
speaking without notes. As a teacher, she asked if the legislators had
really assessed any of the "thousands of studies," that proponents say
are out there.
"As a wife, I can assure you that no one is capable of eroding
the sanctity of my marriage, save for my spouse, and myself. To suggest
that anyone else is responsible for the strength and sanctity of our
union is to relieve us, and in my opinion rob us of our responsibility
to our commitment. It has nothing to do with gender. It has
everything to do with love, and fidelity, and a strength of commitment
to the promises we made. We keep our union sacred. No one else."
Elise Barrett, of America's Renewal, gave the counterpoint reading from
a script that she was "concerned about the society that my younger
siblings are growing up in." She staked a big chunk of turf as "a
representative of my generation," not in the least self-conscious about
speaking for others, or using her self-proclaimed Representative status
as a "reason to listen to my testimony."
"But the most most compelling reason to listen is because I speak the
Truth. The interesting thing about Truth is that it can be discussed
and debated. For our mental stimulation, we can discuss these issues...
but Truth never changes; Truth remains the same, timeless and
unchanging. Marriage is a God-given, divine institution..."
(If you can't get the web page's link to video to work, try
this
direct mms: URL, which is what I had to use to get it to go in
either IE or Fx. This issue starts at about 16:00 in the half-hour
show.)
One never-changing Truth
Betty Richardson followed up on the Truth theme in the panel discussion
of this latest attempt to amend Idaho's Constitution to make gay marriage
even more illegal than it is now, with former legislator Henry Kulczyk
giving the coded religious counterpoint:
Betty Richardson: ...We're talking about truth. The question is,
"whose truth?" We live in a complex and diverse society, and Henry's
truth and my truth are the same on a couple issues, but they're also
different. But, should one of us have the right to tell the other that
our truth is somehow to be imposed on the people as a whole? So I think
this is a very divisive issue, and I also think that the sponsors of the
bill knew, and I really do think this is all about politics, Republican
party politics. I think the sponsors of the bill knew at the outset that
they did not have the votes in the Senate, but "damn the
torpedoes, full steam ahead." But I don't think the votes in the Senate
are there, and I applaud the Republicans in the Senate who are standing
up to the move by the far right and who are voting with the Democrats to
defeat this legislation.
Henry Kulczyk: Well I want to take issue with Betty's comment a
little bit about her truth being her truth, and my truth being my truth.
Truth is truth. Now, she can have her view on an issue, and it
may be true. And I could have the opposite view and it may or may not
be true. But we cannot have opposite views and both be... have the
truth. There's only one Truth. Though I'm sure Betty thinks she's right
most of the time, and I, surely think I'm right most of the
time—ask my wife—but...
BR: I'm open to the possibility that I might be wrong....
I was still thinking about this while listening to yesterday's sermon
on the not-exactly related topic of "Art and Soul," and made some notes.
Can humans know "God" as they conceptualize "Him" (or Whatever)?
Can humans conceptualize some thing they cannot fully know? It
would seem to be the case.
We have no use for a God no larger and greater than we ourselves,
and hence our understanding of that larger being is proscribed by
our own limitations. In other human endeavors, we advance by
shared learning, experience understanding: working together, we
can know more, do more, learn more than we can alone.
And so we consider Truth. Is Truth relative, or absolute? Is there
one Truth that we all come to know as best we can, or are there
many Truths, as many as there are seekers after the Truth?
How would we know the difference? Who is to say what the One Truth
is, if One Truth there be? We have books that some say contain--nay,
embody--such a One Truth. But we cannot all read them as written;
some recite from deeply embedded memory, giving their life and breath
to Truth. Some settle for what partial translations they find.
There is more than one Book, more than one claim to One Truth,
and no way to settle the question. Surely the first step on a path
to wisdom is to recognize this fact and agree to consider the
ramifications peacefully.
God is testing us, you might say. No "social promotion" in this
school; we will be held back as long as we keep failing.
5.Feb.06
Captain Smartypants
The passing of a friend's father brought us tickets to a local
fundraiser for BGLAD, featuring
Captain
Smartypants. They're fun, funny, and good. If you get a chance,
check 'em out.
Stupor Bowl XL
Here are the parts I remember from our little neighborhood get-together:
the ejaculating Diet Pepsi cans, the send-up of the Carl's Jr. ad that
managed to be even more obscene than the original (you know, the Lust
and Gluttony one?) and for... a local mortgage company?! Mick Jagger
actually sang rather than lip-synched, and his wrinkly buddies really
played that old-time rock and roll, for all of two tired songs. I was
hoping he'd bear one of his breasts for comedic effect, but that didn't
happen. Just wholesome family entertainment between the commercials.
(Stuart Elliott was more impressed than I was with this year's crop and
slathers kudos more generously than I. His list does remind me that
I enjoyed the Busby Berkeley endup for BK, though.)
Oh, the game? That was alright, I guess. The M.V.P. was the guy
with the stripy shirt and the R on his back. Bad calls racked up
at least -7 points for the Seahawks, and probably 14 or more.
Worst officiating I can remember seeing, ever. The red challenge flag
could only turn one of the ridiculously bad calls around.
4.Feb.06
Seymour Hersh comes to Boise
Here's something for the local calendar: Pulitzer Prize-winning
investigative journalist Seymour Hersh will be in town and speaking at
BSU's Distinguished Lecture Series, 7pm, Feb. 13th.
"Chain
of Command: From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib to Now" should be interesting.
Get there early if you want a chance at one of the free seats!
IT out the door at GM
$700 million here, $500 million there, after a while it adds up.
To maybe
$15B of information technology spending that General Motors is
outsourcing. I was thinking "China and India," and it may well go there,
but much of it transits through big multinationals on the way: EDS, IBM,
HP (and Capgemini and Wipro and more).
Turn it up
Time to make way for the runoff from a larger-than-average mountain
snowpack. The Boise River has been cranked up from 1,000 to over 3,000
cfs in the last couple of days, headed for 4,000 on Tuesday. (Still
well below flood stage, though.) Our
western groundhogs might have had a different take on the weather if
they'd popped up on this week, with temperatures over 50°F on
Wednesday and Friday. Chance of a thunderstorm today. I'm hoping that
Wednesday's ride on new (and a bit heavy!) snow wasn't the last for the
Bogus season.
Groundhog Day
And what of Punxsutawney Phil? Word is,
he saw his shadow, so we're in for 6 more weeks. We like that out
west, since essentially all our water comes in winter. An early spring
means drought. We still have
room for
more than has come so far, although
it's been a good winter to date.
Repubs Repudiate Scandal
By a narrow margin: DeLay pal and protégé (and current
majority whip) Roy Blunt didn't make it to Majority Leader. On
Wednesday night, Blunt let out a list showing he had 100 of the 117
needed to win, and indeed he got 110 votes on the first ballot. That
was confused by third-pace support for John Shadegg of Arizona, and the
110-to-79-to-40-to-2 (for Jim Ryun of Kansas, last know for running
sub-4 minute miles in the 60s) result meant there needed to be a
runoff.
Blunt lost one vote in that, and everyone else piled on the Boehner
Bandwagon, for a 122 to 109 win.
Yesterday, 85 Republicans had voted in favor of opening all 7 leadership
slots below Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, but 107 (gee, the same
ones who voted for Blunt?) didn't want to clean House quite that much.
(
NYT report)
1.Feb.06
It finally sunk in...
far enough for Mr. Bush to spell it out: "America is addicted to oil,
which is often imported from unstable parts of the world."
So what should we do? "The best way to break this addiction is through
technology." You think? What other addictions succumb to technological
fixes? I think a change in attitude is the required first step,
and I'm not convinced this administration has taken it.
I don't think "wood chips, stalks, and switch grass," or ethanol derived
from them are going to get us out of the woods.
Tom Friedman called on Bush to proclaim an initiative on this subject
beforehand. Afterwards, he had
more to say
on the subject than the 3 paragraphs and 2¼ minutes Mr. Bush
could devote.
So far the democracy wave the Bush team has helped to unleash in the
Arab-Muslim world since 9/11 has brought to power hard-line Islamic
fundamentalists in Iraq, Palestine and Iran, and paved the way for a
record showing by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. If we keep this up,
in a few years Muslim clerics will be in power from Morocco to the
border of India. God bless America....
(O)nce you sweep away the dictator or king at the top of any Middle East
state, you go into free fall until you hit the mosque — as the
U.S. discovered in Iraq. There is nothing between the ruling palace and
the mosque.
The NYT editorial board put it directly: "This is not a matter to be
lumped in a laundry list of other initiatives during a once-a-year
speech to Congress. It is the key to everything else." (My
emphasis.)
The health care initiative foundered
Bush calls for more tweaks on the system, promoting health savings
accounts that will help the well-to-do and leave a gaping hole in
Americans' ability to find affordable insurance coverage. The only
thing a piecemeal approach will do is enrich some well-positioned
businesspeople. By the time this comes out of Congress it will be
another convoluted ball of red tape and insufficiency.
We need universal, single-payer health care
insurance.
The State of our Union
2245 DEAD
How many more?
The current cultural norm is that "strong" must be at the end of the
sentence (and there must be made-for-TV heroes in the gallery), but
after
reading Cindy Sheehan's account of getting the bum's rush last
night, I have to infer that the Union is in a perilous state.
The President sees his address to the Congress as
all about him, no doubt, and his Secret Service agents are never in
the mood for shenanigans.
I was prepared to make a positive interpretation of his speech, but
perhaps it was because my attention drifted, surfing among the
opinions concerning the tradition's irrelevance and
the need for a wary audience.
But this. The alarm call, "Protestor!" We can't have that, now can we?
Mr. Bush said "we have a duty to speak with candor," last night.
I'm sure he'd love to have us speak with one voice, as in the rousing
cheer both sides gave to his call for us to stand behind our military.
What of sacrificing our military preparedness, our wealth, two thousand
two hundred and forty five soliders on a misbegotten mission?
We are a house divided, and Mr. Bush has a lot to answer for in our
division. Let us speak with candor.
raveling
Tom von Alten
tva_∂t_fortboise_⋅_org
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Saturday, 04-Mar-2006 15:21:41 MST
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