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unraveling
30.June.08
We may be slow, but we're not stupid
In this last bastion of red-state support for the miserable presidency
of George W. Bush,
Idaho's poll numbers have gone over the hump: 54% of 500 likely
voters polled said they disapproved of the job President Bush is
doing.
Goldilocks Planet
It's been just a few short decades since we were able to step "outside,"
as it were, and look back upon the planet we inhabit, and to see how
incredible it is that we should be sitting on a watery oasis in the
empty vastness of space. There may be others, but time and distance
make them more about speculation than observation. We thrill to know
there's water on Mars, that perhaps it rained there, once upon a time. Maybe
a moon of Saturn has a hint of conditions that could support life,
if not life itself, or a remnant of it.
Whatever there may be in the distant reaches of our galaxy or in the
wider universe we can visit only in our imagination, the exploration of
our own vast solar system makes one thing abundantly clear: there's
no place like home.
Having been fruitful and multiplied, and having had some success with
technology, we now confront the potential problem of fouling our nest,
with no hospitable neighborhood for us to fledge to. Our home has been
no stranger to cataclysm, "natural" and man-made, and it's a matter of
what and when rather than whether for the next one.
Will it be global climactic disruption triggered by anthropogenic
greenhouse gas emissions? Or something else? We dodged annihilation at
our own hand through the near-madness of developing the means for
"mutually assured" destruction last century. It remains to be seen
whether such a balance can be maintained in a world populated by
unbalanced actors, some of whom welcome their own death for "religious"
(or, "insane") reasons, and by extension have no reason to fear wider
destruction.
I'm thinking of how flammable things on the surface of our planet are,
with our 21% oxygen atmosphere, as family news from California rolls in.
The
Shasta-Trinity complex, $9 million spent, more than 2,000 people
in 18 fire crews, with 263 engines, 9 helicopters, 61 bulldozers, 75
square miles burned and only 10% contained. Our family's safe, the
evacuation order lifted for their area, but the smoke still thick.
A little higher greenhouse gas concentration, a little hotter, a little
dryer could be a lot worse. Seems like an experiment we might
want to avoid if we can.
28.June.08
Stimulating Circuitry
Two interesting shows on NPR this week with Jill Bolte Taylor, more
about what she learned about her brain from the experience of having a
stroke and eight years of recovering from it: on
on Fresh Air with Terry Gross and
on Talk of the Nation Science Friday.
Not Available for Comment
The footnote at the bottom of
Brian Rich's take on the Senate race in Idaho made me think of that
scene in The Wizard of Oz where the gatekeeper laughs off Dorothy
and her friends' request to see the Great and Powerful Oz.
You want to talk to Jim Risch? How droll.
27.June.08
More Fire in the Family
California's a lot like paradise, except when the rain runs out, and it
starts to burn. News from family in northern California is that they had
to clear out, under a mandatory evacuation order yesterday. My brother
writes:
"There is a large fire camp (fire fighters from the Forest Service and
CDF, California Dept of Forestry) in Junction City... When we left
yesterday afternoon smoke was very thick with lots of ash fallout but
winds were relatively calm. Visibility was maybe a quarter to a half
mile.
"Getting information is difficult. Most of northern California is
blanketed with smoke, there are hundreds of fires, and personnel to deal
with them are spread thin. Usually, the fire season doesn't get going
until August. And rain here is very unusual between June and
October–or at least September, if we're lucky. Although last
summer it actually rained three or four times and there were no fires
here. Fire is a natural part of the California ecosystem. I've heard
that historically every five hundred years every square inch of
California has burned. So now, humans have moved in, and of course we
have houses, etc. Fire is not so convenient. Humans vs. nature. Wait -
humans are part of nature..."
Voting Your Conscience
I don't pretend to understand the inside baseball involved in
Congressional votes, but I do know there's a lot more than just
totalling up the "ayes" and "nays" to see if a bill has passed.
There's the counting before the bill is even introduced, for
example, the political calculations and recalculations for amendments
and procedure, and eventually, some legislative sausage that might be
tasty, or tainted. And then there will be the analysis and answering
for the vote afterwards. Lawyers generally want to know the answer
before they ask the question.
Who can vote aye? Who needs to vote nay? And which rare
bird wants to make a principled stand for something?
If you're about to retire, you might have nothing left to answer for
(but then again, you might be planning to cash your elected position
with its modest 6-figure salary from something bigger, in the lobbying
field).
I don't know whose ax Politico might be grinding, but the
stories
of retiring Republicans bucking their leadership are entertaining
nonetheless.
26.June.08
One Frivolous Lawsuit to be Paid For, Maybe
Sisyphus reports that
social conservatives must pay to play, at least in the case of
losing their defense of keeping a movie advertisement on public property
in
Generation Life, et al. v. City of Boise, et al.
Bryan Fischer unrolls a remarkable
litany of
excuses for why they shouldn't have to pay, on the way to begging
for other people to donate money to him.
What Were They Thinking?
Back in the 18th century when white men had established themselves on
the edge of the great American wilderness (with significant help from
the "savages" who had been here for quite some time already, and
from their imported slaves), and they felt the oppressive weight of
distant autocratic rulers, having the general populace well armed seemed
like a good thing.
There were well less than a billion humans on the earth, but
things were
looking up, population-wise. Warfare was still very much a retail
phenomenon, although gunpowder, artillery and various other instruments
of modest-scale mayhem were familiar enough.
Our Founding Amenders wrote: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary
to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and
bear Arms, shall not be infringed" and we've been trying to figure out
exactly what they meant ever since.
Many feel that that stuff about a Militia is just preambulatory
window-dressing, and
Antonin Scalia and four of his activist buddies made it clear that
they feel that part of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is
superfluous. The message that matters is just the last 14 words.
The decision strikes down the outright ban on handguns in Washington
D.C., but it leaves plenty of other decisions about what, exactly, shall
not be infringed, and what else shall be infringed. The right to
bear full-auto assault weapons, shoulder-launched surface-to-air
missiles and backpack nuclear weapons are presumably still disallowed,
along with the rights for non-law-abiding, irresponsible citizens of
unsound mind who find themseleves in sensitive places such as schools,
government buildings, airplanes or non-shooting sporting events.
President Bush let us know that he "applauds" the decision. The leading
candidates to take over the job likewise were in favor. The new leader
of Idaho's Republican Party praised the affirmation of the "God-given
Second Amendment rights that Idahoans hold dear," but wasn't content to
stop with invoking a Supreme Being to his side. Norm Semanko found
Barack Obama's response to the Supreme Court decision
insufficiently enthusiastic.
The Democratic candidate for Idaho's 1st Congressional District House
seat, Walt Minnick, was enthusiastic enough,
saying "it's about damn time."
Other than the 4 Supremes dissenting, is anyone prepared to speak
against the decision? There is BinkyBoy's alphabetic inquiry,
WWJS? but those
who like to pack iron don't seem to carry irony as lightly.
25.June.08
See No Email
Gee, if we
just
pretend we never got the message, do you think it will go away?
The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the Administration was required to
determine whether greenhouse gases represent a danger to health or the
environment, the E.P.A. did their job, and... George Bush and pals
figured they wouldn't like the answer so they'll leave it sealed.
Same as for the war he started, Bush is real big on planning for the
future: someone else's future, in cleaning up the mess he's leaving us
in. We'll see to stopping the growth of greenhouse gas emissions
by 2025?
Pathetic.
Obscenity
Years and years ago, I got a taste of one of those immersive,
shoot-'em-up video games. At the time, the new PC's graphics and audio,
and the software's design was just good enough to absorb all the
attention you could give it, and pull for more. The "game" involved a
lot of twitching, shooting at monsters and what-not, the occasional
penalty for taking out a friendly apparition.
Interesting, and effective I guess, if the desired effect is to suck you
into more and more of the same. Fortunately for me, the machine had a
nominal business purpose, and in spite of it being parked in the cube
adjacent to mine, after one try I decided that I preferred getting my
heart rate up with soccer over simulated killing,
and spending my in-office time on work rather than play.
In the more than decade since, I'm certain the sound, and graphics, and
immersion have gotten much, much "better."
The dominant culture has decided that sex is a bigger threat to
civilization than violence, such a curious idea. "Social conservatives"
seem more concerned with committed homosexual couples than with war and
torture. 2,676 of them who bought
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and took the trouble to get
third-party software to uncover sex scenes that were supposed to have
been deleted (as the story goes), and found themselves offended can be
assuaged by $5 to $35, thanks to
a
settlement agreement for the class action lawsuit.
How about having 10 law firms involved in this? And their lawyers
asking for 40 times as much as all those offended users?
But that's not the depth of obscenity here. The game itself, the part
people were happy to pay for and give to their children, features
rewards for stomping pedestrians to death and then robbing them, and
for killing policeman.
Perhaps it's just seen as
job training.
Solstice
Confirmation Hearing
Scott McClellan's testimony to Congress today had more verisimilitude
than most of what he had to say from the podium in the press room. Nice
to hear him speaking his own mind instead of playing a puppet reading a
made-up script.
And yet, there was
reportedly little new information in his testimony beyond what
(little) he put in his tell-some tales from "inside the Bush White House
and Washington's culture of deception." It was evident that "senior
White House officials (were misleading) the nation about the reasons for
invading Iraq" not quite 6 years ago; and we had the first confirmation
5 years ago. As the 2004 election showed however, a large proportion of
the American public wasn't ready for the news quite so soon.
C-SPAN was the next best thing to
being there at today's hearing of the House Judiciary Committee. After
Chairman Conyers' introduction to the hearing, Rep. Lamar Smith
(R-Texas) got the first word, joking that they were having a "Book of
the Month Club" hearing, and then saying that "it's hard to take Mr.
McClellan or this hearing too seriously." He went on to accuse McClellan
of not having any facts to report, and of not reporting them for money.
(Nice work if you can get it. But then Smith is making most of $500 a
day, and what does he have to say that's worthwhile?) He wrapped
up his mini-dudgeon by opining that opining that "Scott McClellan alone
will have to wrestle with whether it was worth selling out the president
and his friends for a few pieces of silver."
Confession is good for the soul, they say, so I'm guessing it
was a win-win for Scott McClellan, even though he won't be on any
Republican guest lists for the summer's parties. Even Judas Iscariot's
role in history
has been reconsidered and realistically, George W. Bush is no Jesus
Christ, regardless of how he (or his fellow Texas politicians) may see
himself.
Perhaps Bush will come clean himself some day, and we can learn whether
his assurances to McClellan were the same sort of facile lies that Karl
Rove and Scooter Libby fed him to parrot to the White House press
corps.
In the meantime, we can consider the incisive wit and wisdom of Lamar
Smith's questions: "Who was it that suggested the title for your
book?" "You're aware that every book that sells means more money to you
as well?"
Or when he tried to punch the fall-guy, and asked one of his lawyerly
leading questions, "is it true that Deputy Secretary of State Richard
Armitage has admitted that he was the source of the Valerie Plame leak?"
That didn't go so well, as McClellan gave more than the "yes" answer
Smith was looking for.
"Well, to Robert Novak, but there were other reporters that that
information was revealed to prior to it being public and there was a
report in The Washington Post that at least 6 reporters were told
about her identity..."
Smith gamely kept trying to get McClellan to agree that everything had
been pinned on Armitage, and Scotty wouldn't stop, even after being
interrupted by his lawyer for a private sidebar.
"He was the initial source for Robert Novak, Karl Rove was the
confirming, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and Ari Fleischer also—can I
finish my response? [as Smith kept interrupting] They also
revealed her identity to other reporters prior to it being published
publicly."
Fresh-faced Representative Ric Keller (R-Fla.) offered McClellan the
chance to take back or reword of any of his book, but Scotty wasn't
interested. How about that stuff about how the Administration "shaded
the truth, used innuendo and engaged in a propaganda campaign?"
McClellan stands by all that. When Keller tried to pin the former Press
Secretary down on whether President Bush had ever done any of
those things explicitly, was he expecting to demonstrate that McClellan
was just waving his arms and talking in general terms with nothing to
back him up?
Q: Did the President ever mislead you or withhold information from
you?
A: "Well, I think that one episode that I recount in the book is when I
learned that the President had secretly authorized the Vice-president
to get out some information of the National Intelligence Estimate
on Iraq to reporters, and do it anonymously. We had decried the
selective leaking of classified information for years, the
President and myself as his spokesman, ah, and so that was certainly
something that caught me by surprise and was a very disillusioning
moment for me, to say the least."
I trust some of the Republican members of the Judiciary Committee were
able to gain some greater respect for the Washington press corps, in
regard to their inability to get satisfaction from sessions with
McClellan. Let's just say he's pretty good at thinking on his feet
and sticking to the message he wants to stick to. By the time Keller's
time expired, I was feeling sorry for the guy, he'd made such a mess of
his effort to discredit the witness.
19.June.08
Power Play
We've got the Elmore County Sheriff, the Glenns Ferry Mayor and...
Boise City Councilman Jim Tibbs?! Not sure how he got into the
moderating moonlighting business, but thank goodness there was enough
combined political power to quash
the disturbance at the "public" meeting for AEHI to tout its
business plans for a commercial nuclear reactor in sourthern Idaho
on Monday night.
They'd already announced that only people from Elmore Co. would be
allowed to speak (excepting Mr. Tibbs, we presume), thus momentarily
silencing the
anti-nuclear forces of the Boise and Ketchum ilk. A charge of
battery and one of trespass were added on to try to slow down
the most strident of their opposing forces.
War Profits
Whether it's the
newfangled electronic commodities trading method, or the old school
colonial powers approach of sending in the corporate behemoths after
the shooting has (kind of) died down, the comment down the thread under
Carl Pope's essay,
"The
Unbearable Arrogance of Oil" pretty much sums it up:
"The Cheney energy policy is working exactly as planned. Remember his
closed door meetings with energy companies to make policy? They're
making all the oil guys rich, all the people Bush/Cheney care about are
benefitting. What's the fuss? It's working."
War Crimes
If Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba (ret.) were using Dick Cheney's
speechwriter, he might have said "Simply stated, there is no doubt that
the current administration has committed war crimes."
What he
did say is pretty much just that:
"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts
and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any
doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war
crimes," Taguba wrote. "The only question that remains to be answered is
whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to
account."
Kids Say the Darnedest Things
Rich Rammell's kid, speaking of of the GOP nominee to take over
Larry Craig's Senate seat, "I think he's a weasel." Leave it to
The Wall Street Journal to dig up some good mudslinging for a color
piece on the yokels out in Idaho. They lead with "the mud pit and the
monster trucks," and "would-be supporters too drunk to think about
the election." The only tough decision was which way to juxtapose
the "sex-sting operation" that caught Larry Craig and the Moyie Mud Bog
in the 2nd paragraph. (Sadly, only a few seconds of video of the Mud
Bog.)
They make us wait more than half the article before they reveal that Dr.
Rammell's daughter's comment was on the occasion of her refusing to have
her picture taken with Mr. Risch (during his short stint as Governor,
presumably) after she was crowned Miss Idaho USA. (As opposed to Miss
Idaho Non-USA?)
And a nice touch at the very end, when we learn that Dr. Rammell's lawyer
"will depose Mr. Risch this summer." Some Idahoans have been looking
forward to Risch's being deposed for some time.
Sadly, only a few snippets of the Mud Bog in the accompanying video, but
it's fun none the less. (h/t to
Kevin Richert)
NewWest provides
a thorough rundown with links to stories over the years, as well as
to the whole baboon butt-picking ad that Rammell's team came up with for
the Super Bowl.
17.June.08
Fiddle dee dee
Welcome to
the other GOP, the one with a permanent chip on its shoulder.
Dennis Mansfield still feels the sting of rejection from 32 years ago:
"Those scars just never healed... Never."
I don't know about the "less bark" end of his site slogan, but he sure
has "more wag" with "Norm Semanko backed by Bill Sali, Tom Luna, Rod
Beck" leading the Party. "Just who's the crazy aunt now?" he asks, as
he warns against "warming up to" the old-fashioned GOP-ites, those RINOs
responsible for Rockefeller, Ford and Kempthorne.
Holy cow. Who's the crazy aunt?! Somebody put the crazy aunts in
charge! Let's see how well they get along with the crazy uncles who are
the other half of the coalition that succeeded in unseating at least the
top of the old guard ticket at last week's convention.
Going to the Moon
The headline drew me in, as intended, "NASA wants to send average
Americans to the moon." I'm figuring it's too late for the promise of
one of my childhood books
to come true for me personally, and while this really isn't the next
best thing, it's a start: my name (and Jeanette's) will be on
its way ("no earlier than Nov. 24, 2008"), courtesy of the
NASA Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter's promotion
16.June.08
Thanks for calling together the historians
You could try to make this sort of thing up, but it couldn't possibly be
as comedic, or pathetic. Ann Treneman, on
George Bush unplugged. Or unhinged.
Looking for a Summer Job
It'll be interesting to see how Robert Wexler's constituents feel about
his strident opinions come November. Reward him with another term? Throw
the bum out? I don't know if he has a serious challenger, but he
continues to make waves as one of the very few voices in Congress
calling for impeachment of Bush and/or Cheney.
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel (from his Florida neighborhood)
is in the "get over it" school, opining that impeachment is
"not worth another minute of anybody's time."
"This is a president so unpopular, presumptive Republican presidential
nominee John McCain won't make many public appearances with him. This is
a president who is such a non-entity, peace activists didn't even bother
to protest his appearance in Berlin this week."
Not surprisingly, Wexler has
a rebuttal, which the Sun-Sentinel ran today.
"Sadly, the war is only the beginning. We now know that this
administration illegally ordered the torture of prisoners, obstructed
justice by lying about the outing of a covert CIA agent and authorizing
warrantless spying on U.S. citizens.
"No one can deny that, if proven, these allegations amount to high
crimes. Our failure to act sets an awful precedent and enables future
presidents to break the law and violate our Constitution without
sanctions from Congress...."
Our local McClatchy paper had the
2nd of
five articles in the GUANTANAMO: BEYOND THE LAW series today. They
describe their work as "an eight-month investigation of the detention
system created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks," finding that "the
U.S. imprisoned innocent men, subjected them to abuse, stripped them of
their legal rights and allowed Islamic militants to turn the prison camp
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba into a school for jihad."
Meanwhile, that presumptive Republican nominee who would prefer not to
be seen in public with George W. Bush is interested in stacking our
Supreme Court with more judges like Alito and Roberts, to preclude any
more of the "worst decisions in history," as he characterized last
week's affirmation of habeus corpus.
(Andrew Cohen provides
useful back story on McCain's response, citing the Military
Commissions Act of 2006 that McCain helped broker, after his unequivocal
anti-torture stance was equivocated for the benefit of the Bush
administration. H/t to
Juan Cole. "Without McCain's pander, there would have been no bad
law for the Court to strike down last week. Without McCain's
grandiloquent appeal to Democrats and moderates during that lame-duck
session, there quite possibly might have been a better law that
just might have passed its constitutional test this term.")
Impeachment would certainly be a distraction from some important work.
Still, it's hard to make a really convincing argument that it isn't
the most important work that Congress might undertake this
session.
15.June.08
Party Diversity
While the Republicans were sorting out their new-found
anti-establishment (!) coalition of fundamentalists, Ron Paul
libertarians and Rod "sour grapes" Beck to
depose their good old state party chair, the Democrats arranged to
send what can only be called
a wildly diverse delegation to the national convention in
Denver.
Norm Semanko's victory, against the tide of endorsements that
included our Governor's (not so much the Party leader one would
expect?), was not quite the landslide Rod Beck had predicted (70/30),
but at 57/43 was certainly enough to show that Kirk Sullivan had lost
his vote-counting mojo.
My expectation is that we'll look back at the period from 2004-2008 or
so and mark it as the high-water mark for the Republican Party in Idaho,
conveniently coinciding with Boise State football's high-water mark of
their Cinderella Fiesta Bowl win. There may be a
mighty edifice or two erected in glorious celebration, but these
will be more for the benefit of anthropologists than those currently
living.
The Democrats, at least in my memory here, have always had the task of
coordinating diverse factions as job #1, and it seems like we may
actually be starting to get good at it. Compare the almost 50-50 split
in the Republican's internal dispute about closing their primaries with
the Democrats approving their platform with only 4 dissenting votes.
Supporting "national immigration reform that is visionary, practical and
humane" leaves quite a bit of work to be done to actually make something
happen, but it points to the future, unlike, say,
abolishing the Federal Reserve and returning to the gold standard,
a mythological Holy Grail which has not yet lost its luster for
some. Then there was the
(almost very) secret ballot the Republicans had...
14.June.08
How many times does he have to lose...
before he goes off and starts his own party or something? It was a
close vote, but the 491 Republican delegates came out
narrowly in favor of keeping their primary open, 199-192.
Rod Beck, who quit the race for party chair after the more electable
Norm "White Knight" Semanko stepped up and declared himself the unity
candidate, and who is the loudest voice in favor of closed primaries
now cries foul! He blames "the most manipulative delegate process
the Republican Party has ever had." Not counting the 192 who voted his
way, presumably.
Maybe he could sue or something.
13.June.08
Party Unity
I have no idea where exactly Norm Semanko falls in the political
spectrum, but I'm guessing on the right (so to speak) half of the Idaho
Republican party, and somewhere in the vast distance between Rod Beck
and Kirk Sullivan. In the Age of Incumbents, and the convocation of an
unquestionably successful party, it seems strange for a "unity
candidate" to show up and
suggest that the other contestants stand aside. But that's where we
are on this Convention weekend.
You can bounce around Erica Curless' posts, fragmented in
Huckleberries
Online, or go see how
Adam's keeping up with his
whirlwind daze.
"Finally, [Bill Sali] reminded us that no matter who wins the Chairmanship race,
we need to unite after the convention’s over. On that point, I’m totally
agreement."
Among the many important resolutions to come forward was the one to
abolish the Federal Reserve, and get us back to the gold (or maybe
silver? Could just be pandering up there in silver and lead country)
standard.
Then there's the fishing for sympathy for how tough it is to make it in
the oil business. I'm sure the rank and file can unify behind that
one, as they bust their wallets to buy the gas to drive all the way up
to Sandpoint for their convention. Our nearest "cheap" gas station
finally put up the big 4 on unleaded overnight. Not like $3.959
was much different than $4 a gallon, but it's psychological,
don't you know.
Lest we forget, ExxonMobil is making tons of money on the current
bloat in oil prices. In just one quarter, they made the
highest profit ever for a U.S. corporation, $11.66 billion. (Year
ago, "only" $10.25B.)
Rule of Law on the Comeback Trail
When I heard about
the
Supreme Court decision yesterday, my first thought was it was good
news for the rule of law. My second thought was 5-4? We were just one
Justice away from affirming the Bush administration's attempt to
(and the Congress' complicity for) resetting jurisprudence 800
years.
Rather than continue to have an offshore prison where "detainees" picked
up from anywhere in the world can be held indefinitely, without charges,
and with no recourse beyond cocked-up military tribunals, they will at
least have "the fundamental procedural protections of habeas
corpus."
You know, that King John,
Magna
Charta sort of protection?
John McCain
apparently thinks this was "one of the worst decisions in the
history of this country."
"We are now going to have the courts flooded with so-called ... habeas
corpus suits against the government, whether it be about the diet,
whether it be about the reading material. And we are going to be
bollixed up in a way that is terribly unfortunate because we need to go
ahead and adjudicate these cases," he said at a town hall meeting in New
Jersey.
Can we simply disqualify a Presidential candidate on the basis that he
is too ignorant of history to actually defend our Constitution? I'll
stipulate that there may be some "bad people" at Gitmo, but then
there are some bad people in Washington, D.C., too. Given how easy it is
to fabricate lies, just hearing from the Emporer or Darth Vader or a
Senator about how bad these people are is not enough. Three branches of
government, John. With good reason.
This issue is sufficient to determine my vote for President. I
choose Obama:
"The Court's decision is a rejection of the Bush administration's
attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo... This is an
important step toward re-establishing our credibility as a nation
committed to the rule of law and rejecting a false choice between
fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus."
11.June.08
Springtime in the Rockies
We were burning natural gas to stay warm this morning. Mid-June and the
high thirties?! News is, there was 3 inches of snow on the Boise
front, 10" in the Blues above Pendleton.
Coldest, rainiest, windiest June I can remember. I'm not complaining,
understand. We don't have
flooding,
tornadoes,
earthquakes,
cyclones.
Just a little chilly. And windy, which the local
sailors like just fine. And this evening, it was sunny and 60, and
couldn't have been more pleasant.
10.June.08
And then there were two
Beck bailed, throwing his weight behind Semanko. We'll see who knows
how to count votes. Rod Beck thinks Norm Semanko will win the race for
state GOP chairman by more than 2:1; the establishment pick, Kirk
Sullivan, thinks it's close enough to stay in the race.
All this because Rod Beck thinks Democrats voting in the Republican
primary are responsible for his truncated career. If only they could
close the primaries, their vision of a more extreme Party could reach
fruition. The Idaho Republican Party, with an overwhelming majority in
both houses of the Legislature, and all the statewide offices in one of
the reddest states in the nation, is not extreme enough for Beck.
Go figure.
Resolved,
That President George W. Bush be impeached for high crimes and
misdemeanors...
ARTICLE I.—CREATING A SECRET PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN TO MANUFACTURE A
FALSE CASE FOR WAR AGAINST IRAQ...
ARTICLE II.—FALSELY, SYSTEMATICALLY, AND WITH CRIMINAL INTENT
CONFLATING THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 WITH MISREPRESENTATION OF
IRAQ AS AN IMMINENT SECURITY THREAT AS PART OF A FRAUDULENT
JUSTIFICATION FOR A WAR OF AGGRESSION...
ARTICLE III.—MISLEADING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND MEMBERS OF
CONGRESS TO BELIEVE IRAQ POSSESSED WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, SO AS TO
MANUFACTURE A FALSE CASE FOR WAR...
ARTICLE IV.—MISLEADING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
TO BELIEVE IRAQ POSED AN IMMINENT THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES...
ARTICLE V.—ILLEGALLY MISSPENDING FUNDS TO SECRETLY BEGIN A WAR OF
AGGRESSION...
And 30 more charges, spelled out in detail in
pages H5088–H5107 of the Congressional Record of our House of
Representatives, June 9, 2008.
Which charges will be voted first,
Cheney's, Bush's, or
Musharraf's?
But Does He Have a White Horse?
Norm Semanko is stepping up for the Good Of the Party, and invites
Kirk Sullivan and Rod Beck to just step aside and let him be in charge.
"With great reluctance."
It's a bit mind-boggling to imagine Sullivan taking his suggestion,
after garnering the endorsement of the Governor, the Ex/Lt-Governor, the
Ex-Governor, at least half the Congressional delegation and the complete
set of our state's constitutional officers. It'll be interesting to see
if this week's GOP convention works on the simple winner-take-all
majority rules principle, or if compromise wins the day.
Thank goodness it's a closed convention, and I won't have to make up my
mind which of the three to vote for, choosing between the infiltrating
spoiler approach, "the best candidate for Idaho," or the goodest of the
good old boys (much less which is which).
Maybe they could just agree to disagree and reinvigorate
the Libertarian Party (potluck
BBQ in Caldwell on Saturday!) so that we could have
a three-way in
state politics?
8.6.8
Chattering Classes
I was struck by the bold
History.
above the fold in the Statesman's SundayInsight, and wondered if
there would be some "other voices," or just the name brand newspaper
opinion. Looks like the mainstream, but wait! Jonah Goldberg weighs in
as alternative, useless, buffoon. Does this man actualy have nothing
worthwhile to say at a historical turning point?
But Jeanette noted the "dog whistle" message in Goldberg's seemingly
random blather. The question is not "is he the Messiah?" nor is the
point "aren't some people daft?" but rather Is he the devil?
Satan, too, works in mysterious ways; perhaps Goldberg is unaware of
what a tool he is, or thinks his tabulated hit counts of idiocy are
insight in some form. Perhaps our local excerpt didn't do justice to
the original? No, that's not it. Apart from his either witting or
unwitting amplification of the Obama demonization theme, Goldberg's
central point is that we don't need a Messiah, thankyouverymuch,
because things are really Just Fine.
"Now Jesus don't like killing no matter what the reasons for, and your
flag decal won't get you into heaven anymore."
– John Prine
The Second Amendment keeps government from fixing your soul, plenty of
us have all the health care we need, and jobs, and the sea level isn't
changing that he can see.
Goldberg is happy to ridicule Obama's personal answer to the question of
what sin is, pretending it foreshadows more liberal government intrusion
into our perfectly good lives. You can see the succinct response Obama
gave to a direct question for yourself (in
Cathleen Falsani's 2004 interview), and wonder what moral expression
Goldberg may have ever made for us to assess in comparison.
If the personal is too personal, we can look at the bigger picture.
The war in Iraq, that was sin. Bearing false witness. Torture. Killing.
Some of us are not looking for a Messiah, but rather a thoughtful,
inspiring, self-aware, honest leader who can admit mistakes, and who is
willing to listen, and talk. We can dismiss the infatuation of
"apostles" as easily as the hissing of the Pharisees.
7.June.08
What Were They Thinking?
The little men behind the curtain are
standing in
unaccustomed scrutiny, blinking. Gee, they used to run things so
well, and now we see them backing a
California émigré nutjob
Idaho's District 22 sprawls over two counties and the Congressional district
line to the right of Ada Co., includes Mountain Home Air Force Base and
our old territorial capital, Idaho City as well as Cramer's adopted
Horseshoe Bend. According to Popkey, the reason Clayton ran against the
incumbent State Senator was because Corder "co-sponsored a failed
bill to make workplace discrimination against gays and lesbians
illegal."
The IACI President's take on Corder: "He's an honest guy and everything,
but his philosophy doesn't line up well with the business community."
Honesty is nice and all, but really, we need legislators who will do our
bidding, and stay out of our way.
The 3,000-some voters in the Republican primary preferred Corder by a 24%
margin.
6.6.08
The Softer Side that Sears
I think those were a couple nice words for Carly Fiorina from Tom
Perkins in
Elisabeth Bumiller's piece about the high-profile feminine face in
McCain's campaign, imagine that. Maybe he's feeling generous after
having his way
with Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes.
Bumiller reports that "a number of Republicans" "say it is hard to see
why a woman widely criticized for mismanaging one of Silicon Valley’s
legendary companies is advising and representing a candidate who
acknowledged last year that he did not understand the economy as well as
he should."
Uh, maybe because he doesn't understand the economy as well as he
should? Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of the Yale School of Management gets the
prize for summary dismissal:
"What a blind spot this is in the McCain campaign to have elevated her
stature and centrality in this way. You couldn't pick a worse,
non-imprisoned C.E.O. to be your standard-bearer."
"Simply stated, there is no doubt..."
That statement by Vice-president Richard B. Cheney in late August, 2002,
when the Bush Adminstration was rolling out its new "product" with a
storm of marketing that culminated with the U.S. raising its more than a
decade-long war in Iraq from simmer back to boil keeps echoing in my
mind, his bared teeth showing how much business he meant.
When the latest headline about mistakes, misconceptions and outright
deceptions crossed my table, I confess I just rolled my eyes and didn't
read the story. As if, this is news? Of course it isn't, but yet
it is.
The truths about the war in Iraq are going to matter for decades to
come. The President "should have known that important claims he
made about Iraq did not conform with intelligence reports. In other
cases, he could have learned the truth if he had asked better
questions or encouraged more honest answers." My emphasis.
"Over all, the report makes it clear that top officials, especially Mr.
Bush, Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, knew they were
not giving a full and honest account of their justifications for going
to war."
This is the NYT Editorial Board being careful, given that they
"cannot say with certainty whether Mr. Bush lied about Iraq"
(again my emphasis). Perhaps there remains some uncertainty in
particulars, but in the Big Picture, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and a long
list of members of their administration obviously lied to escalate this
misbegotten war.
It's late, but still not too late to
bring them
to account. Our country, and the world would be better for it.
May We Live in Interesting Times
It's been a quiet week here in Lake Woebegon... oh wait, not my schtick
(and for that matter, Boise's not my home town). Seems strange to go
almost 7 days without posting anything, but I don't suppose I was much
missed. Pulled my finger out of the ocean, and left no hole behind.
I've been working, of all things. And working on a computer for 5, 6, 8
hours a day (and keeping up with volunteer commitments that involve
email, and website maintenance) reduces the attraction of computer-based
hobbies.
But what a week! The Democratic primary series finally came to
an end, with the same result that was pretty clear, what was it, 2
months ago? There was more suspense than Huckabee's refusal to get off
the stage, but maybe not so much as whether the Ronulans would be able
to hijack a state Republican convention or two.
Oil rocketing up $11 a barrel today, to
a record
$138, $4 a gallon gasoline feeling like it might seem cheap by the
end of the summer, the stock market plunging, those stimulus checks
feeling like barely an inflation adjustment to what we're paying at the
grocery store, and now
California's water shortage is throttling development in the
Golden State.
3.June 2008
Measuring Patriotism
Given the flappage over whether or not your least favorite politician is
sporting a flag lapel pin, imagine the hue and cry if a candidate were
to stomp on a real-live American flag.
Etiquette is nice, but it's only symbolic, after all. We honor the
symbols because of what they stand for. What they stand for
depends on us, what we stand for, and what we do.
That—and the likely duration of the damage—is what makes the
Bush/Cheney adminstration such a profound injury to the Republic for
which it stands. Abrogating treaties, ignoring obligations to the rest
of the world, and so many other failures in leadership will haunt us for
years to come. Sometimes the best leadership is following, as well; such
as folowing the lead of
111
other nations that have repudiated cluster bombs. Certainly being
the "number 1" producer, stockpiler and user of cluster munitions is
nothing to be proud of. They're the weapon that keeps
taking—limbs, and lives—after the war is over.
raveling
Tom von Alten
tva_∂t_fortboise_⋅_org
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Thursday, 10-Jul-2008 18:26:57 MDT
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