A Bunch of Hot Air

Channeling Nixon?

2009-05-03T08:59:00.000-07:00

Can anyone point out to me any qualitative difference between these two statements?

Former President Richard Nixon, about Watergate:

"When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”

Former Secretary of State within the George W. Bush administration Condoleezza Rice, regarding waterboarding:

"By definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Conventions Against Torture."

Specter of Irrelevance

2009-04-28T17:37:00.000-07:00

Anyone reading this will have already heard Arlen Specter, Senator-PA, has announced a change in party affiliation, changing the 'R' after his name to a 'D'. While many Democrats are excited over this, I find myself with some mixed feelings.

The underlying assumption seems to be the switch, combined with Al Franken eventually being seated, will give Democrats the much vaunted 60th-seat, thus bringing an end to filibusters, and thereby ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity, a cure for cancer and aging, unlimited sources of clean energy and so on.

Reality says otherwise. No matter how much the Republican party may have "left" him by continuing to move to the right, Specter will unquestionably be one of the most conservative members of the Democratic caucus. He's already said he won't be an "automatic" 60th vote, and there is no reason to doubt his word on the matter. It's likely Dems will see Specter vote somewhat more often for cloture than he would have if he had remained in the Republican caucus, but how much more often remains to be seen.

If anything, Specter might be in a similar position to Ben Nelson of Nebraska, where he use the threat of withholding his vote to get changes to various bills he might want, but which don't really mesh with a progressive agenda.

On the other hand, it's quite likely Dems could do better if they were simply patient - Specter was motivated to switch affiliation because it became increasingly apparent he would not win a 2010 Republican primary against Pat Toomey. In the 2004 primary Specter narrowly edged Toomey, the definition of a hard-core conservative, but since then many of the voters who helped him squeak by have re-registered as Democrats. However, if Toomey does, indeed, win the Republican nomination, any Dem with a pulse would defeat him in the general ... so why not wait and get a candidate more in line with the full agenda?

In the near term, I suspect the ultimate effect of the swap will be minimal, other than further emphasizing (if any further emphasis was needed) how truly extreme the core of the Republican party has become. Any larger might have to wait until after the 2010 elections - if that vote were held now, Dems would be favored to collect 3-5 more Senate seats in addition to Specter's (which was already among those most likely to switch parties), which truly would give Democrats a filibuster-proof majority, and would consign Republicans to even greater irrelevance.

Kill the Lawyers, redux

2009-04-19T15:52:00.000-07:00

The Arizona Daily Star ran an Associated Press update today quoting White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel as saying the administration was not intending to prosecute any Bush administration officials for the acts of torture they officially sanctioned.

Not surprisingly, this position was happily accepted by Republicans. Quoting the article:

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the idea of “criminalizing legal advice after one administration is out of the office is a very bad precedent. ... I think it would be disaster to go back and try to prosecute a lawyer for giving legal advice that you disagreed with to a former president.”

The problem with this is it creates a backdoor by which the administrative branch can claim unlimited power. Want to spy on any US citizen without a warrant? Simply have a friendly OLC lawyer devise some half-assed argument supporting it. Want to drop a nuke on Canada because you can't stand the way they keeping adding 'eh?' to the end of every sentence? Call in the OLC! Nothing is so far out there we can't find some flimsy justification for it.

So what if, after the fact, the legal reasoning is found to be childish, amateurish, completely lacking of any professional standard - you got done what you wanted to get done. It's time to focus on the future, not look backwards to the past.

Supposedly, lawyers have professional standards, and if those standards are not met, or it is, at best, questionable those standards are met, then it is entrely appropriate to prosecute the lawyers who give such poor advice. The fact we are talking about lawyers making legal decisions which impact policy decisions for our entire nation makes this more imperative, not less.

If no other Bush administration official is prosecuted for these atrocities, at an absolute minimum the lawyers who provided the flimsy cover of legality which Bush, Cheney et. al. used as justification for their heinous acts must be. Otherwise, we are can no longer claim to be a nation of laws, only a nation of legal justifications.

Kill the Lawyers

2009-04-18T07:06:00.001-07:00

The Obama administration has released the memos the preceding administration used to justify it's torture regimen, and not surprisingly they are as ugly as one could expect. The callous disregard for human dignity can really only be appreciated by reading them first hand. The documents are linked to by a number of commentators, including x4mr here. For those interested in more legal analysis, I point you to Glenn Greenwald(here and here) and Anonymous Liberal (here and here).

Greenwald and AL have an exchange of posts discussing the discussing the decision to guarantee no prosecution of the individuals who committed these acts if they relied in "good-faith" on the legal advice provided them. Greenwald makes the case we are obligated to bring them to trial, AL argues as a practical matter any such trial is likely unwinnable, and thus would be counter-effective. From my position, while I understand Greenwald's reasoning and desires, I find myself persuaded to AL's point of view. (And, as has been noted, for those who went beyond what was authorized, or are found to not have acted in"good faith" ... well ... prosecution is too good for them).

However, as AL in particular notes, there is one set of individuals who simply must be prosecuted - the lawyers responsible for creating the flimsy cover which "justified" the abuse, beginning with Jay Bybee and, especially, John Yoo.

Even a cursory reading of the memos makes it clear there was no attempt on the part of the OLC laywers to make a "good-faith" effort to provide well-reasoned, defensible legal advice on the issue. Rather, it's quite obvious the conclusion that torture would be determined to be legal was pre-determined, and the argument would be twisted to support the conclusion - no matter how much that argument had to be tortured in order to make it comply.

The tactics found to be allowable included (from Greenwald) "nudity, "dietary manipulation" involving "minimum caloric intake at commercial weight-loss programs," "corrective techniques" (facial and abdominal slapping), water dousing, "walling," stress positions and "wall standing" (to "induce muscle fatigue and the attendant discomfort"), cramped confinement, and sleep deprivation.", and amazingly in 2005 then OLC chief Steven Bradbury (in one of the memos) affirms the legality of the methods, despite acknowledging the U.S. had termed the use of some of them as "torture" when applied by other nations (Indonesia is mentioned in his memo).

Get Bybee, Yoo, Bradbury, et. al. up on charges and when they are convicted, their punishment should include being subjected to the same regimen of torture they found acceptable when applied to others. After a full cycle completes, we can ask them again about their views regarding the Constitutionality of such actions.

Maybe it's for the best

2009-03-17T18:41:00.000-07:00

I had intended to make a post today lamenting the lingering, slow death of print journalism in this country. With the Seattle Post-Intelligencer publishing its final print edition today to go to a pure online format (a step taken late last year by the sorely under-rated Christian Science Monitor), and the Tucson Citizen closing up shop this weekend ... well, rumors of the death of newspapers may be exaggerated, but not by much. The patient is gout-ridden, racked by fever and cough, and clearly on the deathbed.

Instead, I find myself stunned at the reaction of various members of the Washington press corps to the exchange of words between Dick Cheney and White House press secretary Robin Gibbs.

For those who might possibly have missed it, Cheney was on the air last weekend busily deeming the Obama administration a failure, and ranting about how his decisions, particularly vis-a-vis Guantanamo, had weakened America's security. Considering he was in office when the greatest terrorist attack on American soil ocurred, one might recognize him as an expert on weak security ... but that's neither here nor there.

When asked about it during a press briefing yesterday, Gibbs responded "I guess Rush Limbaugh was busy, so they trotted out the next most popular member of the Republican cabal." He subsequently added shots about how Bush and Cheney had failed in their duty to bring swift justice to the 9/11 perpetrators, and the importance of not taking advice from Cheney on the economy.

The admittedly sarcastic tone Gibbs used was immediately sized upon by various reporters, who complained about the manner in which the former Vice President was being addressed. Those complaining included Chip Reid of CBS and Rick Klein of ABC.

Seriously??!! I mean, seriously?? For years these folks allowed Cheney to oversee the virtual destruction of our Bill of Rights as well as instigating a wide-spread regime of torture, just two name two of the hideous innovations he was instrumental in instroducing to our country, yet hardly a peep could be heard. If anyone deserves to be treated with a distinct lack of respect, Cheney is near the top of the list, yet apparently it's more important to defend his dignity than to defend our nation's integrity.

I'm embarassed for my former profession ... all-in-all, maybe it's for the best it's a dying field.

Update: Shortly after posting this, I saw via Tedski at R-cubed the Citizen has been granted at least a temporary stay of execution.

Pluripotent possibilities

2009-03-02T18:45:00.000-08:00

There has been great resistance in this country to using stem cells derived from embryos for medical research, even though the alternative for those stem cells is to see them simply be destroyed. I've never understood this viewpoint (it would make sense to me if there was some possibility the embryos in question might actually be brought to term ... ), but that doesn't change the fact the resistance is there.

Embryonic stem cells are prized because of their pluripotency, which in theory might allow them to be used for a wide range of difficult-to-treat problems, most notably spinal injuries. Partly because of the sheer amount of time it takes to go through the research process, and partly because of delay caused by the Bush administration's lack of support for the research, it was only this past January that the FDA granted approval for the first human trials involving embryonic stem cells. It will be at least a couple more years before any definitive conclusions can be drawn from this initial trial.

Meanwhile, recent years have seen the development of an approach which attempts to circumvent the resistance to use of embryonic stem cells. Termed induced embyonic stem cells, the approach involves taking normally non-pluripotent cells and transforming them to be pluripotent. This has been done by introducing various types of viruses into the cells. After a period of roughly a month, some small percentage of these cells exhibit pluripotency, and these cells can be separated out and cultured to grow more.

Until now, however, there has been concern about any serious use of these cells because of the use of potentially harmful viruses to create them - no one has been sure elements of the virus are not left behind in the cells.

However, in potentially big news, a team of researchers from Canada and Scotland announced yesterday they have succeeded in creating induced pluripotent stem cells using a non-viral process. If the procedure works out, it could remove any need for embryos, and thereby remove the primary sticking point for most of those opposed to their use.

That doesn't mean research using embryonic stem cells should stop - it's possible this process won't work well, or won't create cells as useful as embryonic strains. Still, it would be nice if the reason for resistance could be removed, and the research could move forward unfettered.

Settlement issues

2009-02-03T06:44:00.000-08:00

I often hear the assertion Israel's West Bank settlements are illegal, and I expected to be able to find a clear statute, treaty or some such which the existence of the settlements unquestionably contravenes. However, after several days of research, and with the full understanding I am not a lawyer (nor do I play one on TV), while I still feel the weight of the arguments supports the claim the settlements are illegal, I am forced to concede there is more murkiness surrounding the issues than I expected.

What isn't murky is there will be no lasting peace in the region until those settlements are removed, and Israel's prospects for future security necessitate removing them.

For decades now most parties have agreed a "two-state" approach is the only one which can be successful, and for a separate Palestinian state to be feasible Israel would have to cede control of the West Bank to a new, independent, Palestinian nation. Despite this general acknowledgment, however, the number of Israeli settlers in West Bank territories has continued to grow, from 110,000 in the early 1990's to nearly 300,000 today ... without counting East Jerusalem (which I see as a separate issue).

Not surprisingly, Palestinians view this continuing influx of settlers as tantamount to explicit sabotage of any peace negotiations. The logic is not hard to follow - if all parties agree peace requires a separate Palestinian state, and that state will be founded in the West Bank, yet Israel continues to actively claim more land in the West Bank, Israel must not seriously desire peace.

A number of Israelis have suggested any serious effort to forcibly remove the settlements might well lead to an Israeli civil war, which is not a pleasant prospect. It is, however, a threat which Israel has to stop tap-dancing around and confront the issue. Making a clear, large, concerted effort to remove the settlements would do more to promote peace and security in the region than any number of bombs dropped in Lebanon or Gaza.

The vast majority of Israeli settlers are themselves religious extremists, who hold the entire country hostage to their demands that Arabs be evicted from the "Promised land". Moderate Israeli's, by-and-large, seem fed up and exasperated with them, yet little is done to rein them in. Until Israel gets serious about dealing with its own extremists, why should they expect Palestinians to be serious about dealing with theirs?

One step closer

2009-01-31T05:23:00.000-08:00

Back a couple years ago, embryonic stem cell research was a hot topic, with many posts and comments flying about both for and against.

One ofthe specious arguments often used by those opposed to the funding of said research was statements along the lines of "not one cure has ever been found using embryonic stem cells" - a textbook example of lying by omission, as the statement itself is true, so far as it goes. What gets left out, of course, is that given how recent the discovery of how to reliably culture these cells was, and the need to to basic research, then animal research, then limited human trials before anything can be okayed for general use, of course no "cure" had been developed yet.

For some reason the topic has moved off the back burner, but last week the FDA approved the first human trials involving embryonic stem cells, to be implanted in a small number of paraplegics who have no use of their legs. The primary aim is simply to see if the cells are safe for human use, but there is hope some use of the lower extremities might be restored.

We're still years away, if ever, from seeing wide-spread results. However, if this first trial at least can show the cells are not actively harmful, it will open the door wide to FDA approval to future human trials for a variety of possible applications. It's just another step down a long road, but it's a big step.

New Math

2009-01-13T17:04:00.001-08:00

There has, of course, been a great deal of dialog about the Israeli assault on Gaza, a great deal of valid concern over the Palestinian civilian casualties while Israel persists in emphasizing the uninhibited rocketing of it's civilians over a number of months, and its intent to continue the assault until that capability is ended or, at least, severely diminished.

In particular, x4mr has posts here, here, here and here where he and people I generally find myself in agreement with emphasize the cruelty of the shelling and the civilian deaths ... and they are, of course, entirely correct - those deaths are cruel, regrettable, should have been preventable ... and they are, of course, correct that Israel has done much to encourage Hamas to fire rockets into Israel, including blockading food and medical supplies, doing nothing to about illegal settlements on Palestinian land, and so on. The list is long.

I still find myself disagreeing with them.

Ultimately, the calculus they apply seems to lay the responsibility of every civilian casualty, every death in Gaza, directly at the feet of Israel. This math, however, seems insupportable to me. While people might disagree as to how much effort Israel is putting into limiting civilian casualties in Gaza, I don't think anyone disputes they are, at least, making some effort. On the other side, though, the Hamas strategy seems predicated on willfully and intentionally creating the maximum possible number of civilian deaths.

I.e., Hamas is willfully sacrificing as many of their own population as they possibly can in order to place their blood on the altar of world opinion, a point which should have been made clear to all when Hamas joined Israel in rejecting Egyptian calls for a truce. Israel wants no truce until Hamas is broken, or at least more damaged than it is so far. Hamas wants no truce until they have managed to get more Palestinian civilians killed ... the more, the better.

Now, in terms of a military approach this is the best strategy they have available to them - certainly, Hamas can't hope to win a straight up fight against Israel. However, given they are the ones making the strategic decision to do so, why is Hamas not being held at least equally complicit in their deaths, if not more so, than Israel?

Ultimately, of course, Hamas' rockets into Israel were meant to provoke exactly the response it has. If Israel wants permanent peace, they will have to find some way to break the cycle of violence and show they are serious about helping Palestinians create a homeland. A good start would be, once they are done with their assualt on Gaza, to put a similar amount of effort into removing the illegal settlements in the West Bank, by force if necessary - then dare Hamas, Hezbollah and other such groups to go to the general Palestinian process and ask them if they are willing to continue the struggle, or if somehow a homelnd centered on the West Bank can be enough.

Boy, was Biden ever right

2008-12-23T04:24:00.000-08:00

During the vice presidential candidates debate last October, Joseph Biden referred to Dick as "the most dangerous Vice President in our country's history".

This past week or 10 days, as he looks forward to leaving office next month, Cheney has been appearing in different venues unapologetically defending his views and the actions of the Bush administration for the last eight years, pressing the notion of the "unitary executive". He claims it was wrong for the Supreme Court to allow Guantanamo detainees to be allowed to challenge their continuing detention without charge in US courtrooms (since the SC is the ultimate arbiter of such matters, this claim is wrong by definition). He claims the US has not tortured prisoners, while subsequently admitting to a major role in causing prisoners to be water-boarded.

One of his claims in the Wallace interview which has been the subject of outrage is the following:

"(The President) could launch a kind of devastating attack the world's never seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody. He doesn't have to call the Congress. He doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in."

This looks worse than it is, since the preceding paragraph has generally been left out. Here is the comment again, in full:

"The president of the United States now for 50 years is followed at all times, 24 hours a day, by a military aide carrying a football that contains the nuclear codes that he would use and be authorized to use in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States.

He could launch a kind of devastating attack the world's never seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody. He doesn't have to call the Congress. He doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in."

I think most people would agree that if our nation was hit with a massive nuclear attack there is not going to be time for Congress to meet before determining our response. However, this statement does do a lot to help explain Cheney's mindset - he's pushing the idea the nation has been in a constant state of emergency since 9/11, a state where the President essentially has ultimate power on all decisions.

This belief is, of course, horse shit.

The administration, largely at Cheney's urging, has consistently engaged in illegal activities, ranging from torture to illicit wiretaps. Cheney's recent appearances are almost brazenly daring his successor to do anything about these actions.

It's a challenge which must be accepted, or Biden will have been proven more correct than even he knew.

Perhaps now it will all become clear

2008-12-09T17:22:00.000-08:00

When the Bush administration and numerous supporters found time to focus on things other than pursuing needless wars, placing political hacks into positions they were not vaguely qualified for and various ways to expand presidential fiat at the expense of civil liberties, they often complained about how Bush was not getting enough credit for the supposedly burgeoning economy.

For all the economic growth which took place during the Bush year's according to various economic measures, people consistently reported that, on the whole, they were dissatisfied with their lot. The Bushies never seemed to figure out why, even though economists such as Paul Krugman repeatedly explained to them all that extra money was either going to corporations or being amassed in the hands of a very limited few, and not, in fact, "trickling down" the the citizenry as a whole.

Today, the Associated Press had an article laying out the numbers about as clearly as they can be presented, comparing data from 3 million households a year in the years 2005-2007 to data collected during the 2000 census. The key findings in the article:

* Median household income dropped in 79 percent of the cities and towns. Incomes dropped in the wealthiest communities as well as the poorest. Charleston, Ill., home to Eastern Illinois University, saw the biggest drop - 31 percent - to a median household income of just under $21,000.

* Nationally, incomes dropped by 4.3 percent during the period, to $50,007.

*The poverty rate increased in 70 percent of the cities and towns. Athens, Ohio, home to Ohio University, had the highest poverty rate, at 52.3 percent, in the 2005-2007 period.

Nationally, the poverty rate increased from 12.4 percent to 13.3 percent since the start of the decade.

* The unemployment rate increased in 71 percent of the cities and towns. Muskegon, Mich., a city of about 40,000 near Lake Michigan, had the highest unemployment rate, at 22.1 percent.

Nationally, the unemployment rate increased from about 4 percent in 2000 to 6.6 percent in the 2005-2007 period.

* Median home values increased in 92 percent of the cities and towns studied - doubling and tripling in many cities, mainly in California. Nationally, the median home value increased 26 percent, to $181,800.

Let's see ... lower incomes, higher unmployment, greater poverty ... no, I can't possibly see why people would think the great Bush economy wasn't helping them. Of course, all those negatives were offset by large gains in home values.

How's that working out?

Earmark follies

2008-12-08T16:51:00.000-08:00

Saw a very good article today discussing earmarks, and how they can be used as a form of institutionalized corruption. The specific earmark at the center of the article concerns differing forms of skin-decontamination, and how even though the army prefers a new lotion-based product, it has been forced, through earmarks over the past several years, to continue purchasing a powder-based product ... even though:

a) The army has no interest in the older product anymore because
b) The newer lotion is seven times more effective, and
c) It already has enough of the powder product stockpiled to last until at least 2012.

So don't get me wrong ... I think there are genuine, useful purposes for earmarks. For example, if money can be generated for a weapons system the military genuinely wants and is technically feasible, then fine. However, spending on products which are unnecessary and demonstrably worse than the competition, solely to bring revenue to local constituents and contributors represents everything which is bad about the earmark process, and is pure corruption at its finest ... to say nothing of the additional risk such incidents may impose upon our troops.

I have some first-hand experience on this front. One of the software research projects I have worked with has been funded to the tune of several million dollars a year, despite the fact the army has no real interest in the project, which would serve no useful purpose even if it was viable. I have yet to see it achieve anything which has not already been done better and more cheaply by existing products/programs.

The military is well aware this is a waste of money, and also of the time of the personnel who are forced to oversee and evaluate the research in question. Still, each year the same U.S. Representative manages to earmark money to the same company, which returns the favor by contributing to his re-election coffers every year, and makes sure to praise him publicly at every opportunity.

Representative X will be attending their Holiday party later this month.

Charles Graner needs company

2008-12-01T16:58:00.000-08:00

Salon has an article today discussing the circumstances of Charles Graner, who is about four years into a ten-year sentence for his role abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib. He's spent about 2-1/2 of those years in solitary confinement, and is (according to the article) the only individual still serving time over the matter.

As the article points out, it has long since become abudently clear Graner and his compatriots (some of whom have served lesser time or had their sentences commuted) were acting on orders which emanated from some place high in the White House. Now, that doesn't make me feel all that sorry for Graner - any person who knew anything about morality and ethics knew what was being done was wrong by any standard, and "I was just following orders" has never been a valid defense - I do think he has some understandable reason to feel put-upon by the entire state of affairs.

As Graner's mother, Irma, says in the piece "They all did what they were told. And the ones that told them to do it escaped everything."

We have a responsibility as a country, as human beings, to change that, to make sure the ones who did the telling don't escape everything. Charles Graner deserves to do his time, or most of it ... but he deserves more companionship while he does.

When the chips are down ...

2008-11-21T06:08:00.001-08:00

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is being sued by a group of law students over the Justice Department hiring practices at the time he oversaw it. The matter at the core of the suit was the Department's rejection of a number of Ivy league-educated law school graduates who applied for positions within the Department largely on the grounds of their apparent political leanings rather than for any reason related to actual qualifications.

Instead, a number of applicants were chosen from 3rd and 4th-tier law schools largely on the basis of their conservative politics rather than their knowledge of the law.

Normally such a case would be defended by the Justice Department's civil division, and even though Gonzales is no longer a Federal employee it would be entirely appropriate for the division to represent him, given he is being sued for actions taken while he was head of the Department. However, instead Gonzales has asked for private counsel, and Justice has agreed to foot the bill, at up to $24,000 a month.

So I guess all those lawyers with proper political backgrounds are great for hiring when you are busy illegally politicizing the Justice Department, but when it comes time to actually be brought to court over the affair one wants those hoity-toity well-educated lawyers to handle your defense.

Secret Service likely to be busy

2008-11-17T16:53:00.000-08:00

To no real surprise, it came out last week the secret service has already been investigating an increased number of threats against the new President-elect. Already two "plots" have been broken up, although they apparently amounted to a lot of ranting and hot air rather than anything serious.

Which isn't to say racists with guns doing a lot of ranting and raving isn't threatening in and of itself.

Also to no surprise, the Secret Service announced there was a noticeable spike in threats at the time Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin was traveling the country spewing bile trying to draw a false image of Obama "pallin' around" with terrorists. Anyone who thinks Palin wasn't purposefully trying to stir up violent reactions is kidding themselves. Of course, if anything disasterous had acctually occurred to Obama or his family, she'd have claimed to as distraught as anyone at her words being "misconstrued".

No, I don't think Palin was hoping Obama would be shot ... but I do think she was aware of what her words might spawn, and simply didn't care. If winning the election meant increasing the likelihood of some nutcase killing her opponent, well ... that was a risk she was willing for him to take.

Bailout Follies

2008-10-06T04:49:00.000-07:00

To no one's surprise, after voting down the first bill and seeing the Senate put pressure on them by passing a bailout proposal, the House went along last Friday and passed a similar bill itself. Arizona's delegation, which had unanimously voted against the original bill split 4-4 the second time around (Giffords, Mitchell, Pastor, Shedagg were the yes votes).

I am not opposed to some form of throwing taxpayer money into the system. The situation is clearly dire, and by all accounts Federal reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, one of the chief originators of the bailout proposal, is an expert on the Great Depression ... so I accept the thesis something needed to be done, as galling as that is on many levels.

What I don't accept is that this was the only approach to be tried. While there has certainly been a great number of modifications added, the original framework - give $700 billion to the Treasury department to spend as it deems best - remains. As far as I can tell from what I have read, no other approach was ever considered at all, much less considered seriously.

Why not? Numerous other bright, well-respected economists have, since the original proposal came out, giving variations of the line "Well, it's better than nothing, but X would be a better approach". I am no economist, so take anything I say below with a large heaping spoonful of salt, but two other proposals which seemed reasonable to me included:

* Give money directly to the commercial banks. The idea was to encourage the commercial banks to lend money to each other again, thus unlocking the "credit crunch" which is supposedly breaking down the commercial gears.

* Use the money to purchase actual foreclosed homes. The idea was that by purchasing these assets outright it turns the bad investments into good ones. The money eventually would make it's way back to the companies holding the mortgage notes. Hey, if trickle-down economics is supposed to be so great, what's wrong with a trickle-up approach? As an added bonus, families would get out from under mortgages they can't sustain.

Either of these approaches (and others I have seen as well) would be more palatable to me than throwing money directly at the Wall Street companies that got themselves in trouble in the first place.

I'd be more understanding if the entire affair had been proposed and voted on in a 48-hour period. As things went, however, there was time (maybe not plenty of time, but time) to consider alternatives ... but apparently this never occurred.

What does it say about the Bush administration that it's first response to a crisis is a proposal that basically says "Give the Secretary of the Treasury $700 billion no strings attached" and the response of the Democratic Congress is to attach a few strings and then go along? Nothing good about either.

Free speech != Freedom from taxation

2008-09-29T06:27:00.001-07:00

Aliance Defense Fund, a Phoenix-based group, organized a form of clerical protest yesterday, encouraging a number of pastors across the country to use their sermons to explicitly express views as to how members of their congregation should vote in this year's presidential election.

The purpose of this organized demonstration is to bring a challenge to the 54-year old law which prohibits charitable and tax-exempt groups from openly supporting any candidate for public office. The hope is the government will bring a lawsuit against one or more of these pastors and their churches, a suit which the ADF hopes to win.

The Post article has several quotes from participants, including "The point is the IRS says you can't (openly support a political candidate during a sermon). I'm saying you're wrong."

The entire affair has been portrayed as a matter of "Free speech". However, you don't get free speech without also assuming some responsibility. In this case, the ADF and the 33 pastors who participated in the protest yesterday want the right to express themselves in the political arena without the associated responsibility of actually contributing money (taxes) to support the political structure.

Gosh -- I'd like to have all the privileges of being a citizen without paying any taxes too. Doesn't mean it's going to happen, or should.

There is no suppression of speech here. Any pastor and church which wishes to participate in the political process is free to do so at any time ... with the proviso they pay taxes on the income they receive (and, I believe, property they hold). There is no Constitutional right to tax-exemption. The courts have continuously held, in cases such as Branch Ministries v. Rossotti and United States v. Christian Echoes National Ministry such exeptions exist at the grace of Congress. What Congress provides, Congress may also restrict, or remove altogether.

The ADF should be granted what it wishes for -- all 33 ministries which participated yesterday should be immediately slapped with tax assessments for the full 2008 year on all taxable incomes and properties. When the suit is challenged, appealed, and lost, the ADF and all 33 ministries should be forced to pay the costs the government incurred in defending the the suit.

After all, with the bang-up job all those deregulated corporate financial geniuses have done, we're going to need every extra dollar we can find.

Who says Zimbabwe is a 3rd world nation

2008-09-01T06:35:00.000-07:00

Reading the news this morning, I ran across this story on the reprehensible state of health care in Zimbabwe, where medicine is unavailable and the system is in such general collapse, the best advice local doctors could give was "don't get sick".

Of course, given a 2005 Harvard study found nearly half of all bankruptcies in the US have been triggered by health crises, even among the insured, that same advice could be given to our citizens as well.

Further, as the DNC recently helpfully pointed out, McCain has been among those consistently voting to make it more difficult to claim bankruptcy protection. I suppose if you are among those who lose count of how many houses your family owns, a major medical bill isn't such a concern.

Safety first

2008-08-23T05:42:00.000-07:00

After being so disgusted at the way our Democratic Representatives and Senators rolled over for Telecom companies, I decided to take some time off. After a lengthy break, with Obama's veep announcement today and the national conventions fast approaching, it seemed like a good time to step back up to the plate.

Various news sources are reporting Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware will run on the ticket with Obama. Of the "safe" options, I think he's the best choice. He brings a sense of experience and gravitas to the position, and while Deleware is likely to vote Democrat no matter who the VP is, Biden's long-time service on the Foreign Relations committee and general recognition for his knowledge of foreign policy matters definitely helps shore up a perceived Obama weakness.

I can understand why, being the first major party Presidential nominee of non-white male extraction, Obama might feel he is already sufficiently challenging to the societal norms. Still, I would have liked to have seen Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius on the ticket. While she wouldn't help on foreign policy matters, she would shore up different areas, such as bringing actual governing experience to the slate, as well as possibly helping among women voters. She would also provide a decent chance of carrying Kansas, which in a close race could make all the difference.

If you are looking to make history, go big ... historical barriers are not often broken by those choosing to "play it safe".

Pathetic dogs

2008-06-19T16:25:00.001-07:00

Congressional Democrats rolled over like abused dogs and exposed their cute, furry bellies to be stroked by the President today while signing off on a "compromise" wiretapping bill that gives the White House virtually everything it wants, including effective immunization from prosecution for telecom companies which blatantly and repeatedly violated individual personal privacy laws.

What's worse is there was no reason or need to make this horrid deal. None. Whatsoever. The previous (bad) temporary agreement expired in February, and its not like there have been huge issues since then, or even a lot of political pressure on Dems to come to an agreement, any agreement. The FISA law which has been in effect since the 70's has been more than sufficient. The next time I see masses of Americans rallying along the Mall in support of providing lawsuit immunization for big corporations will be the first.

I assume telecom lobbyists made enough monetary promises to buy what they needed. Sometimes I wonder why we even bother.

Retch-inducing

2008-06-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

McClatchy is out with part two of its series on US abuses of prisoners, this time focusing on events at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, incidents which have been overshadowed by Guantanamo, but which McClatchy says may have been worse.

Two prisoners at Bagram were beaten to death. One of them suffered ... well ...

I played soccer somewhat seriously for more than 25 years before retiring from the game six or seven years ago. I have had multiple surgeries to both ankles and knees. Dozens of stitches to them. My shins have been smacked so often I have lost all feeling in them - I can (and have) had gashes to the bone there and had no idea until someone pointed out I was bleeding. I have at least some small idea of of the type of beating one's legs can take.

Nothing like this though ...

According to the article detainee Dilawar died at Bagram on Dec. 10 2002. The army medical examiner reported he had been repeatedly struck on his leg to the point the tissues in it were "falling apart" and had "basically been pulpified".

Of course, we don't torture prisoners. The administration says so.

The paragraph toward the end of the story has this boiler-plate statement from the Pentagon:

"The Department of Defense policy is clear — we treat all detainees humanely. The United States operates safe, humane and professional detention operations for unlawful enemy combatants at war with this country."

I'll laugh ... after I am done vomiting.

Much, much too late

2008-06-15T18:22:00.000-07:00

As everyone knows by now, the Supreme Court finally got around this past week to telling the administration "hey, you can't just torture prisoners indefinitely ... at some point you have to, you know, actually provide a reason for imprisoning them."

Dear leader declared from Italy that while he might disagree with the decision he would abide by it. I am not sure why he should all of a sudden feel bound to abide by our Constitution, a flimsy piece of paper has not stopped him before. Of course, in the same set of comments where he graciously agreed he might be bound by the ruling he also suggested his administration would immediately start looking for ways to legislate around it.

I'd admire his stick-to-it attitude much more if it was dedicated to something like a reasonable national health care policy, a responsible approach to resolving issues along our border with Mexico, lowering the national debt or developing a coherent energy policy rather than finding excuses to detain people indefinitely so we can torture them whenever it suits our whim.

Even if dear leader goes against form and does actually obey the Court's decision, it's too late, the damage has been done.

Without question some number of the prisoners are bad, evil individuals who deserve to be locked away for life. However, it's also indisputable some number are guilty of nothing other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most fall somewhere in between. One question would be should we resort to torture even with the "worst of the worst" (answer: no, we should be better than that), and another has been how many even merit that appellation. The administration has in the past claimed all of them do, that it has infallibly managed to send only those guilty of the worst crimes, or, at least, planning to commit the worst forms of misdeeds, to Guantanamo.

Of course, this has been provably wrong for some time, as some number of detainees have already been determined to not be guilty of what they were accused of and released ... generally after spending months or years in a prison where they were regularly abused.

McClatchy Newspapers published the first part of what will be a five-part series today detailing the findings of its eight-month investigation into the prisoners at Guantanamo. McClatchy has been, throughout, the best source of truly investigative reporting regarding the war and its motives, and this piece is yet another must-read. As it makes clear, administration officials have known for years that many, perhaps most, of the prisoners kept in Guantanamo had no reason to be there and were not sources of operational intelligence. However, in an administration which could not bring itself to admitting it was anything less than infallible, releasing these prisoners, or even moving them to another location where they might be treated humanely, was never an option to consider.

Instead, we set up a system where individuals have been held for reasons they were not told based on evidence they could not see provided by individuals they could not know about. Kafka would be so proud.

Darth Scalia has already predicted this ruling will lead to more deaths. Of course, this claim will never be able to be proven either way. What is provable is our nation has resorted to torturing innocent individuals. We have violated nearly every human right imaginable, all purportedly for the "best" of reasons.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Hopefully this latest ruling will help take their first steps down the road out of the abyss.

Unmentioned history

2008-06-04T17:30:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic nomination, and the NY Times is reporting Hillary Clinton will officially throw her support behind him this Friday. A black man as the Presidential nominee of a major U.S. Political party is unquestionably an historically significant event, and there has been much ink spilled and syllables uttered discussing the importance of his victory.

Even internationally this seems to be the case ... while listening to an international call-in show on NPR people from all over the world were commenting on how closely people in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, wherever had been following the race, and how significant Obama's victory was.

All of which is true ...

Had Clinton won the nomination it would have been nearly as historic. I say "nearly" because we have already seen women as the leaders of other major Western powers, Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel coming immediately to mind. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any black man who has held a similar position among the generally considered major states.

... but ...

As important as Obama's victory might be in a historical sense, what is more import in my mind is the lack of race as a major issue of either his campaign or his opponent's.

That's not to say race was completely excluded. Obviously it came up a different times during the campaign. Equally obviously some number of people voted for Obama because he is black, and some number voted against him for the same reason. How many voted each way we will never know.

However, at no point in during the campaign was race ever a singular, major issue. Health care was ... Iraq policy ... Experience vs. change ... any number of other topics ... but Obama did not ultimately win (or lose) the race because of his skin color, just as Clinton did not either win (or lose) the race because of her gender. The vast majority of voters, those who voted for him and those who voted against didn't see Obama as black, or colored, or a man of color, or even a man.

They saw him as a candidate ... one with positions they liked or didn't, but a candidate rather than a black candidate. Enough saw him as the best candidate he now has the opportunity to be president. He won based on his positions, his eloquence, his ability to convince voters to support him.

Which is how it should be, of course... but I confess I am surprised I lived to see the day.

Sympathy for some, not for others

2008-06-01T15:26:00.001-07:00

So Clinton staff and supporters are, not surprisingly, complaining about the decision on how to seat delegates from Michigan and Florida ... and I guess that's their job, since the decision essentially removes any last hopes Clinton had to win the Democratic nomination. Until Clinton actually concedes, her staff and supporters should be pressing hard for anything that might advance the cause of their candidate, as long as it doesn't reflect negatively on her opponent.

Regarding the states themselves, I have some sympathy for Florida's plight. It's my understanding Republicans in the state were the major force behind moving the primary date up, and that while numerous Democrats did vote in favor of moving the date, even had they voted against it wouldn't have made a difference. By state law, all candidates had their names on the ballot, and while I do believe the final gap in the state would have been considerably narrow had the candidates actively campaigned there (Clinton finished with 50%, Obama with 33%), at least the case could be made it was a level playing field - no one campaigned, and all names were on the ballot.

Michigan is a different matter ... the Democratic governor and legislature pushed for the early date, in contravention of clear party rules, rules they were informed would be enforced prior to their ever moving the date. They moved the date anyway, then are shocked ... shocked ... that the consequences they were told would ensue were actually applied.

If the voters and delegates of Michigan are upset about this (and they should be) then the proper direction to express their ire is toward Governor Granholm and the state officials who voted to change the date even after they were told any delegates would not be seated.

Trying to claim all the Michigan delegates should be seated, with the results standing as they were, a position pushed by various Clinton staffers and supporters, is not just laughable, but derisively laughable. If anyone actually made that case in front of me, I would consider them not even worth listening to. They wouldn't even be wrong. Obama and Edwards did the "right" thing by having their names taken off the ballot (something Florida law prevented) while Clinton chose to leave her name on. To think being the only real option on the ballot other than "Uncommitted" didn't have a major effect on the tally is ridiculous. To further claim Clinton should get the 54% of delegates she won while Obama should get none (since his name wasn't on the ballot) is ridiculous.

The last primaries are Tuesday. Once those are done, there will be serious pressure placed on any unpledged superdelegate (including Arizona's CD8 rep) to pick a side and announce it by the end of the week, or start of next week at the earliest ... at which point in time everyone needs to pull together and focus on McCain. Even if Dems win more seats in the House and Senate (which looks likely), it will be hard to achieve much on Iraq, spying on citizens, torture, bad health care policy or anything else Republicans favor and Democrats oppose while a Republian wields the veto stamp.

End game

2008-05-21T18:29:00.001-07:00

For the last month or six weeks Obama has been playing a winning Rook-and-pawn end game against Clinton, and while his technique hasn't been flawless, it has been sufficient to steadily grind towards the win, despite stiff, solid defense from his opponent.

With the results from Oregon and Kentucky, and counting pledge super-delegates, Obama crept past the majority needed to claim the race, assuming no last minute surprises vis-a-vis Florida and Michigan, or a wave of super-delegates switching back to Clinton. It's not all over until the opponent resigns, but the final stage of the game is clearly at hand now.

This has brought out a spate of articles I have read in a number of places recently about the bitterness Clinton supporters feel about the result, and how many are considering not voting at all, or even voting for McCain in the general election ... to which I have just one comment.

Get over it.

First, lets be fair to Clinton herself, who has consistently urger her backers to support Obama should he win the nomination (Obama has done the same in reverse). No, this is a matter of supporters, the vast majority female, who are expressing their disappointment at how the country "wasn't ready" for a female candidate, and how "betrayed" they feel by women who somehow had the temerity to think someone might not be the best candidate just because they were of the same gender.

I don't dispute Clinton had some extra hurdles to clear by dint of her sex, but it's not like being black wasn't a drawback in some areas for Obama (take a gander at the voting patterns in West Virginia and Kentucky, for example).

I found particularly amusing the hypocrisy of the woman who spoke about people not realizing how damaging it was when Obama portrayed Clinton as representative of "the old way of politics", how that created bitterness in strong Clinton supporters, and in the same breath noted she was unlikely to vote for Obama because the White House "wasn't a place to learn on the job". Surely no Obama supporter could take those words to be derisive.

As someone noted in one of the articles, the end of a long, hard-fought race is not the time to gather the most accurate polling date. People are understandably disappointed at seeing all their efforts and hopes come to an end, Clinton more so than anyone ... I still expect, in the end, most of these folks will come to terms with matters and realize another four years of Bush policies will do nothing to help this country, and end up voting for Obama, even if they don't do so enthusiastically.

However, it does point out the importance of wrapping this up once the final primaries are done in June, and not waiting for the convention to finalize matters. Get the super-delegates committed in June, and there is enough time for the mourning/healing process to run it's course. Wait until September, and their may not be.

Al-Qaeda's favored candidate

2008-05-15T19:20:00.000-07:00

John McCain has recently taken to referring to Barack Obama as Hamas' favorite candidate, apparently because Obama has advocating dialog with Hamas leadership to try to further finding a solution to the Israel-Palestine problem. Our glorious President joined in yesterday, equating Obama to Neville Chamberlain attempting to appease Hitler.

Hamas is certainly an unsavory organization, but like it or not it also has a political aspect, and is the party duly and freely elected to head the Palestinian government ... and currently does so in the Gaza Strip. As such, it behooves us to engage them - no peace is likely to be found in the region if we refuse to do so. Even McCain himself recognizes this ... or, at least, he did two years ago:

"They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."

That's some pretty bent-talking there, slamming someone for holding the exact same view you have previously expressed ... of course, that was before McCain become the Republican candidate for President and had to sacrifice his actual beliefs to the party extremists.

McCain was right the first time ... only a moron (and our President certainly qualifies on this count) would speak in absolutes about such matters, and fail to recognize the infinite shades of gray in between. Not surprisingly, Eggplant has drawn the wrong lesson from Chamberlain's errors. The mistake was NOT in opening discussion with Hitler's government, but rather in agreeing to Germany's forceful annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia in exchange for "Peace for our time" ... a time which lasted less than 12 months.

Talking to someone or some organization is NOT the same as "giving them everything they want".

Meanwhile numerous studies and stories (here, here and here for just a few examples) have noted how the US presence in Iraq has helped al-Qaeda garner new recruits (although this appears more difficult now in past years). Bent-talk express himself has voiced his support for being in Iraq 100 years if necessary ... which certainly seems like it would make him al-Qaeda's favored candidate.

Copper or water

2008-05-13T18:14:00.000-07:00

There was a meeting in Elgin last night to discuss the state of debate over whether or not mining corporations will strip still more mountains south of Tucson searching for copper ore.

I have heard estimates of up to $8 billion worth of copper in the area, based on today's prices ... and if prices go up (which, given the demands of the emerging Indian and Chinese economies seems the way to bet) the value of that copper will only go up as well.

That's a lot of money coming into the area, and also a fair number of jobs. A no-brainer, one would think, particularly given the recession right now, huh? Not so fast.

Not surprisingly, a number of farmers and environmentalists are less than thrilled at the notion. There is a bigger problem, however. As x4mr noted in early April the real concern isn't just the ugliness of open pit mining and the waste it produces, but rather water ... or, more particularly, lack thereof. This link provides a short overview on how much water mines used in 1997 ... hint: a lot.

If Tucson were located where Seattle is, say, that wouldn't be such a big deal ... sadly, that's not the case. Tucson is, in fact, located in a desert, a fact the mining companies (and, for that matter, golf resort owners) try to get everyone to overlook.

Since those who graduate with science and engineering jobs and quickly get out of town in search of the actual well-paying jobs ... you know, jobs like those TREO and other organizations repeatedly promise Tucson is on the verge of getting, but which continuously fail to arrive, through no fault of TREO et. al., of course ... fail to offset the influx from retirees and other sources, the metro population figures to to keep on expanding beyond the 1 million mark it hit last fall. All those people need water ... jobs are nice, but water is a necessity.

Giffords and Grijalva have both come out against the mining, and it's my understanding Giffords was at the Elgin meeting to discuss what she was trying to do to prevent it. Since this falls within her district, Grijalva can provide advice and support, but it's really up to her to lead any fight. Given how favorable current law is toward mines (the statutes in question date back to the 19th century), it's an uphill struggle. How it turns out will effect everyone in Southern Arizona, one way or another.

Complain, complain, complain

2008-05-08T17:52:00.000-07:00

Tuesday was a disappointing day for Hillary Clinton, as a smashing defeat in North Carolina was only minimally offset by a narrow victory in Indiana, a state she had hoped to win by double digits. Barack Obama widened his lead in both the popular vote and the delegate count. It's reached the point where even if the DNC caves and allows the Michigan and Florida delegates to be counted (I can't see it happening, but if ...) she would be unlikely to win.

There was a great deal of speculation, from talking heads and in the blogosphere, she might finally be willing to step out of the race ... but Clinton has ended that notion, at least for another week, by confirming her intent to stay to the bitter end. This decision hasn't been met with popular acclaim by anyone other than Clinton supporters, and not even all of them.

I don't understand the wailing, rending of garments and gnashing of teeth.

Obama has reiterated the decision does, and should, lie only in Clinton's hands. As Clinton pointed out yesterday, anyone who voted for her in the primary should think twice before voting for McCain if Obama wins the nomination. Obama has made similar statements in the past, noting how unlikely it was his supporters wouldn't vote for Clinton in November should she be the nominee.

I recall, during nearly every Presidential race in the last 30 years, a great deal of discussion about how meaningless late primaries were, and the need to find some means to make every state count. There have been proposals about rotating primary dates by state, or region, and other ideas as well ... yet we finally have a primary that will run to the wire, where every state and vote actually matters ... and suddenly it's the end of civilization.

What people seem to overlook are the good points. How much coverage has there been of McCain? Some, but not much. The Presidential news is completely dominated by Obama and Clinton, and has been for months. Meanwhile, huge numbers of voters continue to turn out and express their choice, energized by the contest.

If Clinton concedes soon, well and good ... but I refuse to get worked up over the matter.

Eager ears are listening

2008-05-01T19:05:00.000-07:00

Remember back in January and February, when there was a great deal of huffing and puffing and general hoo-hah over the desperate need to renew the Protect America Act or President Bush would not be able to protect our country. The Act was allowed to expire on Feb. 17, and from all the overblown rhetoric, one can only presume it's a miracle of God we all are still alive despite such folly.

Of course, when the house passed a bill which (unlike the Senate version) did not include immunity for past indiscretions which Telecom companies may have committed, it became apparent that protecting the business issues was even more important than protecting the country, as Bush immediately threatened a veto for any bill without the immunity clause. Not that we didn't all know where his priorites lay, but it was nice of him to spell it all out so clearly for us.

Back to the PAA and eavesdropping ... as it turns out, the Act was never necessary ... the required tool has always been in place, in the form of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which (among other provisions) allows for requesting wiretap permission in front of a secret court, and also makes allowance for immediate wiretapping when time is critical, and retroactively applying for a warrant within 48 hours.

Our government made steady use of this law last year, gaining a record 2,370 eavesdropping warrants last year. That's 9% more than 2006, and more than double from 2001. Meanwhile, a grand total of four requests were denied (even one of those was only partially denied). That's a 99.83% success rate. How, exactly, is this an overwhelming burden on our government? Given those figures, consider how ridiculously unfounded those four requests must have been in order for the court to have denied them.

On the other hand, for a President who is used to getting his way 100% of the time, having someone say "No" to you even once, much less four times within a year, is tantamount to letting the terrorists win.

Re-education

2008-04-21T12:30:00.000-07:00

China has begun a program of "patriotic re-education" of Tibetans, where the benefits of Chinese rule are stressed, and the Dalai Lama is reviled. Thank goodness we don't resort to such obvious propaganda tactics here.

No siree ... nothing like that here. Nope. Instead, we engage in sophisticated data manipulation to stampede the country into an unnecessary and unjustified conflict. Should some few prove resistant to such tactics, we simply shout them down as "unpatriotic" or "anti-American".

When three, four, five years later those dissenters turn out to have have been correct in nearly every particular, and the shouters equally wrong, anyone who has the temerity to point out such matters is "unpatriotic", or "anti-American". Besides, to leave with the job undone, even though a job which should never have been started in the first place, would "dishonor" those who died in the cause.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice taunted Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, for residing safely in Iran while directing Mahdi Army forces to fight against US and Iraqi army forces. From his front-line command post in the White House, President Bush had no comment.

The Blind Pig Finds an Acorn

2008-04-16T17:32:00.000-07:00

Not even President Bush, no matter how desperately he strives, can manage to be wrong all the time ... and he made the right decision this week when he quickly responded to an emergency call from the World Bank for $500 million more in food aid by pledging $200 million more from the U.S.

There has been a fair bit of discussion recently about the rising cost of food here at home, but matters are far worse elsewhere, and there have been outbreaks of food riots in Egypt and Mozambique. As the cost of fuel helps drive prices higher, things will only degenerate.

The most important part of the President's statement, however, wasn't the pledge of more money, but rather the push to loosen current U.S. law, which requires all food purchased for aid purposes to be bought here and shipped to its foreign destination.

That requirement limits the effectiveness of the aid in a multitude of ways. Not only does the greater shipping distance mean less money spend on actual food (particularly given the increased cost of shipping is a major cause of the current crises) and more time for food to arrive where it is needed, but it also prevents the ancillary benefits which might come from providing some monetary influx to farmers in African nations, for the companies there which would handle the shipping, etc.

It all makes sense ... unless you are, say, a member of the US shipping industry, in which case the suffering of people of a different nationality means little compared to the extra money in your wallet ... as group representative Gloria Tosi told the NY Times last fall, expecting shippers to give up some of their little pot of gold, even if it might save some hundreds or thousands of lives, is "politically naive".

She's right of course ... but it's also the right thing to do. Let's hope this is an issue the President and Congress can manage to find some actual bi-partisan agreement on.

VP of Torture

2008-04-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

It came out this past week Vice President Vader was ultimately responsible for signing off on and even "micromanaging" the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" against suspected terrorist agents during a series of meetings in 2002 and 2003 which included, among others, such noted figures as Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and then CIA Director George Tenet.

What's remarkable is the sheer lack of newsworthiness about the revelation. It's been something everyone has "known" for years, it's just a question of the details being confirmed.

The torture inflicted involved more than dressing Condi up in kinky latex and whips, and even more than tying the terrorists to chairs, propping their eyes open with toothpicks and forcing them to watch around-the-clock reality television (which would either have forced confessions, true or not, or reduced the participant to the blithering state many of our fellow citizens sadly reside in). No, we're talking about all forms of physical abuse, up to and including sleep deprivation and water boarding.

For those who brush off the effects of water-boarding, or like to hide it behind euphemisms such as "enhanced interrogation techniques" or "simulated drowning", I encourage you to read this thread, written by someone who decided to find out for himself what the process was like last December. It's worth noting that, prior to conducting the experiment, the author favored the use of the technique. His thoughts after the experiment I leave for you to discover.

Don't just read the initial post ... there are a number of interesting questions and responses by the author throughout.

As has been noted, here and elsewhere, many, many times, these are techniques applied to individuals who have been found guilty of absolutely nothing. They have not been tried. They have not had a chance to confront their accusers in an open court. Many of them have been arrested under rather flimsy circumstances. A number which have been found to be innocent have been released.

This week a number of protests were organized around the world to highlight China's human rights' abuses, timed to coincide with the running of the Olympic torch prior to the Beijing Olympics this summer. Some of those protests were planned for San Francisco and the Golden Gate bridge ... something I am sure the Chinese government found quite hypocritical. Why should they be asked to adhere to standards we clearly refuse to hold ourselves to?

Eight years ago we were a beacon for the world, not perfect, but at least striving to be better, and encouraging other nations to join us in that search. Today, we are a bully who threatens and bullies smaller nations and takes away their lunch money if they don't mold their foreign policy to fit our self-interest.

I am not a pacifist ... there are just wars, and our presence in Afghanistan is, in my mind, fully justified. The leaders of that nation knowingly provided safe haven to a coterie of people who viciously attacked and killed our citizens. By doing so, it provided a legitimate cassus belli.

However, there are unjust wars as well, and Iraq unquestionably falls in that category (as will our future war with Iran, should McCain win election this fall ... but that's another issue). Our presence there, our continuing unjust occupation, and our continuing violation of basic privacy and civil liberties, both abroad and at home, have destroyed our nation's credibility for a generation, at least ... if we can ever regain it at all.

When trust is violated, it's rare to ever get it all back, no matter how contrite and sincere the subsequent remorse ... and this administration hasn't just violated trust, it's thrown it on the ground, ground it's heels on it, spat and shat upon it ...

Ultimately, it's not just the prisoners of Guantanamo, or those individuals who have suffered rendition, who have been wrongfully abused by this administration, it's all of us, the nation in it's entirety. When this leadership team came into the White House there was a great deal of talk and blather about the new "CEO" administration. I wish they had stuck with that ... at least then they might have limited their torture to our economy.

Uneducated effects

2008-04-06T05:55:00.000-07:00

X4mr had a post a week ago about the increasing degree of anti-intellectualism in this country, one of the indicators of which is the high school drop-out rate, which is around 25% nation-wide, but up to 50% in the worst urban areas.

So what happens to those drop-outs?

Not surprisingly, a disproportionate number of them are poor, minority and male. In 2001, only 50% of black males, 51% of American Indians and 53% of Latinos graduated within four years. Those numbers do rise as a few more trickle through the system in more than four years.

It becomes a vicious cycle, though. The poor drop out, and the drop outs remain stuck in poverty. Fifty, even 30 years ago it was possible, even without a high-school diploma, to find a job on a factory line somewhere which paid well. A lot has happened since then, however, and many of those jobs have vanished, either to technology, or outsourcing. Today, those jobs don't exist, or if they do they are being held onto with a death grip by the current job occupant, who is desperately hoping the job won't go away as so many others have before he (or she) retires.

Those who do find jobs are generally in the most tenuous of positions. Their jobs are likely to be among the least necessary, and thus first cut, when economic trends angle down rather than up. Just this week it was reported our economic recession saw 80,000 jobs lost in March, and nearly 250,000 since the turn of the year. Those axes, so far, have fallen almost entirely on the uneducated - while the unemployment rate for those with a Bachelor's degree or higher remained flat at about 2.1%, for those without a high school diploma it's reached 8.2%, up from 7.3% in February.

Our military has a target of 90% of first-time enlistees having a high-school diploma. In 2007, for the third straight year, the percentage of recruits who had graduated with a regular high-school diploma declined. Hey, the one's who graduate, at least, aren't stupid - they know there's a war on. Military enlistment figures again failed to meet their goals in terms of raw numbers, which is likely to mean lower standards for recruitment, and maybe the only place where job opportunities for high-school dropouts are rising. Why not send them over to Iraq? It doesn't take a diploma to eat a bullet (or a mortar round, grenade fragment, IED) for the cause.

Without much in the way of job prospects, other means must be found ... 59% of federal inmates and a stunning 75% of state inmates are high school dropouts. I know it's often said half-jokingly, but there is an element of truth - at least in prison they know where their next meal is coming from, they have clothes to wear, shelter. Of course, there are some drawbacks to this as well, such as curfew, lack of freedom, a few other things ...

It would be nice if there were, say, some opportunity available for customized job training to help these individuals learn skills their employers need. For those with a lot of time to read a fascinating account of how this pans out in Tucson, at least, I point you to Something Else.

First-hand observations

2008-03-26T05:40:00.000-07:00

I had an opportunity to listen to John McKay discuss his feelings and beliefs about the 2006 Attorney General scandal, the same issue Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolton were recently cited for contempt of Congress for failing to testify about, and which Congress is now taking the Administration to court over for it's refusal to press the contempt charges.

Given the amount of time which has passed, I'd prefer Congress should just send the the Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest Ms. Miers under the inherent contempt statute, but that's a different matter.

Back to McKay. What makes his thoughts on the subject particularly compelling to me, in addition to the fact he was one of the Attorney General's directly affected by the mess, is his background. His family among the prominent Republican families where he lives, and had had, prior to being named Attorney General, been actively involved within the Republican party. Whatever else he might be accused of, he can't be accused of party-based bias.

As McKay noted, though, upon being named Attorney General he tried to lay the pasty aside and follow the law rather than a party agenda ... an approach anathema to this administration.

He said when the events first occurred he didn't have much of a strong opinion, but as time has passed and more information has come out, he is now strongly of the opinion at least some of the firings were clearly politically motivated. In particular, he cited David Iglesias of New Mexico (who refused to pursue an alleged voter-fraud case), Carol Lam of Southern California (who was actively pursuing several high profile cases against Republicans in the area, and Todd Graves of Missouri (another failure to pursue voter fraud).

McKay noted he felt the Graves case was especially egregious, given his successor rushed to bring the voter fraud charges up shortly before the election that November. Five months after the election, in April 2007, the case was summarily thrown out of court, something McKay noted is extremely rare, and which points to the weakness of the claim.

McKay was asked about his own firing, and did feel his case was similar to that of Iglesias and Graves. In the 2004 elections Democrat Christine Gregoire defeated Republican Dino Rossi in the Washington Governor's race by a mere 129 votes after a recount which initially saw Rossi as winning (the two are scheduled for a rematch this fall). He talked about the pressure he received to bring voter-fraud charges to court over the race, but said on looking at the evidence there just wasn't anything there. He didn't feel, however, there was the level of evidence in his case that the matter was key to his firing as there is for the Iglesias and Graves removals.

All-in-all an interesting discussion. While he never came out and said as much, McKay's tone on several questions definitely implied disgust with the Bush administration and the whole sordid tale. The investigation has been stalled long enough, and if it takes marching Miers in under armed guard to get her to testify, well, it's time to do it.

Carville symbolizes Clinton attitude

2008-03-23T14:47:00.000-07:00

This past week former Democratic presidential candidate and current New Mexico governor Bill Richardson gave his endorsement to Barack Obama in the nomination battle. As has become apparent, this does not sit well with Clinton supporters.

Given Richardson server as both UN ambassador and Secretary of Energy under former President Clinton, some amount of strain can at his announcement is to be expected. Richardson described his discussion with Hillary when he let her know of his plans as cordial, but heated. One Clinton staffer noted that Richardson's announcement came too late to make a difference, presumably alluding to the fact that states with significant Hispanic voting populations such as Texas (Richardson is the nation's only Hispanic governor) had already had their primaries. Snide, yes, but of course the Clinton campaign has an interest in playing down the announcement.

The reaction of Clinton adviser James Carville is a different matter.

The New York Times reported Carville described the act as "An act of betrayal", and went on to say "Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic."

Just how much does Carville think Richardson was paid for his endorsement? On exactly what grounds does Carville consider Richardson to be a disciple of Hillary? When, exactly, is she scheduled for her cross-fitting? Inquiring minds want to know.

No, the reaction of of the Clinton campaign is the reaction of someone who feels they were "owed" something and didn't get it, sulking 10-year-olds denied a much-desired toy or a sleepover outing with a friend. The truth is Richardson owed neither campaign anything other than his sincere opinion ... and the fact the decision was clearly a difficult and painful one for him simply points out how heartfelt his choice is.

The reaction of the Clinton camp, and Carville in particular, points out why it's the right one.

Third-world Venture Capitalist

2008-03-18T20:48:00.000-07:00

I first heard about kiva.org maybe two years ago. It was my first exposure to the concept of micro-lending, and I found the concept intriguing ... for various reasons, however, it was never quite intriguing enough for me to join in.

Still, I would poke back every couple of months or so, and look at some of the options, and even created an account last summer ... but still didn't take that last step.

The last couple months, though, the wife and I have talked about it off-and-on, and tonight we finally took the plunge. We both connected to the site, did some research separately, and found some candidates we liked. In the end we contributed $100 in $25 amounts to two separate women in Nicaragua, and $50 to a group of three women in Peru. We also kicked in $10 to help Kiva pay it's bills.

Not a huge amount overall for us, but maybe enough, along with a number of other people around the country and the world, to help some families make a better life for themselves and their families. As an added bonus, it was a nice bonding experience for the evening as well, and something we plan to do on a monthly basis for the foreseeable future. Hopefully we have invested wisely and the loans will be repaid so we can roll them over into more loans.

I encourage anyone who might read this to take a look at Kiva site. The organization has an excellent reputation, and the site is pretty easy to get around. You, too, can become a venture capitalist, just like those guys on Sand Hill road.

All quiet on the (South)Western front

2008-03-16T08:28:00.000-07:00

A little over two years ago I was drawn into the blogging milieu by the race for Arizona's 8th district, an affair made interesting by the retirement of the incumbent. The Democratic side soon coalesced into a hotly-contested three-way primary in which the Giffords organization machine managed to overrun former former TV personality Patty Weiss and military hero Jeff Latas (who was the only one of the three to declare before Kolbe announced he was stepping down).

As hotly contested as the Democratic primary was, it never approached the bitterness of the Republican primary, which eventually saw border hardliner Randy Graf win the nomination despite opposition from Kolbe and the local GOP money men. That bitterness certainly helped ease the way to Giffords' victory in the fall.

All-in-all, though, with two hotly contested primaries, followed by an anticipated general election, the local blogs were continuously abuzz with posts and comments, some thoughtful and insightful, many ... not so much. Good times .... good times.

This time around it's very different. With an incumbent now in place there was never going to be a serious primary on the Democratic side, while the Republican's twisted whatever arms were necessary to clear the path for challenger Tim Bee. With neither primary contested, there is a notable lack of discussion about the race. It seems all parties seem content to keep their guns loaded until mid-summer arrives. While the 2006 race felt like a marathon, this year's is shaping up to be a sprint.

In some ways that may make the fireworks, when they arrive, that much larger and louder ... there will be a lot of pent-up energy to be released and a lot less time to release it in ... but it sure does make things quiet now.

An overdue fight

2008-03-12T20:14:00.001-07:00

The US House of Representatives has finally decided to assert itself and push back on the ever-increasing reputed powers this administration has claimed it possesses. A couple days ago, the Judiciary committee filed a lawsuit in federal court to force former White House aides Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolton to testify before Congress on what they knew (or didn't know) concerning the Attorney General firing scandal.

The Bush administration has been blocking their testimony, claiming Executive privilege allowed him to do so, despite the fact neither is any longer a part of the administration, nor are the matters in question ones where such privilege has traditionally been considered to apply. The House originally asked for their testimony last summer, but it wasn't until last month they finally got around to pressing contempt charges - charges which U.S. Attorney Michael Mukasey promptly declared would not be pressed by his office, which would be responsible for prosecuting the case.

So Congress has taken the only option short of impeachment, and taken the case to court.

The response from the White House was predictable, with spokeswoman Dana Perino referring to it as "partisan theater" ... and maybe she's right, insofar as the matter Miers and Bolton have been asked to testify about is concerned. On the larger issue, however, she's not just wrong, she's so far off base she's not even wrong.

The real, important issue here is the ruthless expansion of spying and secrecy powers Bush, Cheney et. al. have promoted for seven years now, nearly unchallenged up to this point ... and there is nothing partisan about that agenda. Should a Democrat win election this year, or some time in the future, Republicans in the House will have (and should have) the same right to expect co-operation in it's investigative and oversight role that this Congress is finally trying to enforce.

It's worth noting that a little over a decade ago, Bill Clinton became the first President to assert Executive privilege and have that claim overturned in court, over l'affaire Lewinsky. Hopefully Bush will become the second.

Is it a sign?

2008-03-08T20:50:00.000-08:00

Democrat Bill Foster won a run-off election last night to win the seat for the Illinois 14th district, long held by former Republican speaker of the house Denny Hastert, who retired mid-term last year so he could spend more time with his family and make a lot more money a lot faster by getting out of dodge before new laws requiring a longer delay before an ex-congressman can begin lobbying former compatriots kicked in at the turn of the year.

Republicans can't be cheered by the news.

The district is counted as Republican +5, meaning there is a fairly solid built-in edge for the party. After having been represented by Hastert for over two decades, and having Hastert's active support for Republican candidate Jim Oberweis, the race was initially considered to be a fairly safe hold. However, just within the past few days the race was shifted from leaning Republican to toss up, and Foster actually ended up winning by a fairly respectable 6% margin.

Or, in other words, he performed 11% better than expected.

The two are slated for a rematch in the fall ... but unless something drastic happens, there is not much reason to expect a different result. Just another sign the Republicans are finding themselves looking for a miracle this year, as it appears to be all that might save them.

I feel prescient

2008-03-07T04:41:00.000-08:00

The New York Times has a piece this morning about discussions among Democrat movers and shakers about some kind of "do-over" for the Michigan and Florida primaries.

I'm feeling mildly prescient, since I mentioned this about three weeks ago. I even calculated the estimated costs correctly (well, close enough ... I said $30 million, the article says $28 million). I'm sure others had the idea before me ... but I'm still gonna take credit, gosh-darn-it. Nice to know leading Democrats are stealing my ideas.

Here's where we differ, however:

Ms. Granholm (the governor of Michigan - Sirocco), a Clinton supporter, said Thursday that there would be a noisy protest at the Democratic convention if the Michigan delegation was not seated. But she left open the possibility of a new Democratic primary, as long as the taxpayers or the state party do not have to foot the bill.

...

In Florida, Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat who supports Mrs. Clinton, and the state party chairwoman, Karen Thurman, who is neutral, said the national party or some other source should pay for any do-over.

So let's get this straight. The two state parties, knowingly and willfully, violated clearly defined rules in setting their original primary dates. They were told if they did so, their delegates would not be counted at the national convention.

It's not like any of this happened in secret. The rules were set, they broke them, and they are being held accountable. Yet the state organizations seem shocked - SHOCKED! - those rules were actually enforced.

I'm completely ok with the state taxpayers not paying more for a new set of elections. The state parties, not so much. The problem was created by those state parties. Their decisions are the reason their state delegates are not being counted. To try to avoid all responsibility and pass the bill along to the national committee or some other group is pathetic.

If the state parties want to be represented, they need to step up, admit they made a mistake, and help make up for the repercussions of their decisions - including foot all, or at least a big chunk of, the costs of a new set of primaries.

It's her decision

2008-03-03T18:17:00.000-08:00

Much as I hope Obama sweeps the primaries tomorrow (unlikely) and Clinton opts to withdraw shortly after (even less likely), don't count me among those "encouraging" her to do so.

One of the things I have always found tacky in sports in when fans or, worse, sportswriters/broadcasters insist on opining athlete X needs to retire because he's getting old, skills are slipping, we want to remember him (or her) in their prime, etc. Ultimately only the player and the teams get to make the decision on that, and they should be left to make that decision on their own. After all, you don't hear them opining about how columnist so-and-so has been getting trite the last few years, and needs to retire his byline.

I feel much the same way about those calling for Hillary Clinton to step out of the race, which has been coming in increasing volume and pressure from Obama supporters. While there may be good reasons to favor it (let's stop fighting each other and start fighting McCain), it still strikes me as self-serving and slightly distasteful.

Clinton remains a viable candidate who, while an underdog, still can seriously hope to win election. Despite a hiccup in late-January, early February she has plenty of money for continued campaigning.

Moreover, this opportunity likely represents her one-and-only shot to gain the Presidency, clearly something she has been working hard to achieve and laying the groundwork for not just the last 15+ months, but the last 15 years. She turns 61 this year. Should Obama win the primary and the general, she's looking at 69 before she seriously runs again. Even if McCain were to win, she's looking at 65 - young by McCain's standards, but not anyone else's ... and that's assuming she gets through the primary four years from now after losing in this one.

No, it's her dream, and it's a dream she's had a long, long time. It's hard to lay down a dream, especially when there remains a reasonable chance of that dream still being attainable. Only she should decide when (or if) she's willing to let that dream go any sooner than she is forced to.

Fear-mongering at its finest

2008-02-27T06:29:00.000-08:00

ThinkRight has a post about a recent Republican ad describing how we will all die horrible deaths if we don't immediately give the President everything he petulantly demands in terms of wiretapping, etc. He follows it with another post listing a press release Senator Kyl discussing the same matter, and ascribing the same horrible eventualities.

It's enough to make you wonder how we've managed to survive the last two weeks.

Both the ad and the press release are misleading or downright false. For example, Kyl's statement:

"So long as a call is routed through a U.S. telecommunications network – which virtually all calls are these days because of changes in technology – U.S. agents now need to obtain a warrant in order to monitor a call between a Taliban chief in Pakistan and an al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan. "

... is simply wrong. There is no limit whatsoever on monitoring of communications between foreign individuals in foreign locations. None. What's more, Kyl either knows this, in which case he is outright lying, or he doesn't, in which case he's incapable of very basic reading comprehension (i.e., he's a moron). Actually, those aren't mutually exclusive.

Warrants are needed when a communication involves a U.S. citizen (or legal permanent resident) who is currently within the U.S. Foreign communications, fair game, doesn't matter where they are routed through. Even if a U.S. citizen within the country is involved, intelligence agencies can still monitor the communications. However, they must then retroactively (within 48 hours if memory serves) apply for a warrant in front of a secret FISA court. These applications are reputedly rarely denied.

No, the real goal of the administration and it's mouthpieces such as Kyl is made open in this statement:

"And Congress must protect the private companies who cooperate with our intelligence agencies to collect the information. Allowing litigation against these companies not only will promote highly damaging leaks about terrorist surveillance programs; it also will ensure that U.S. agents will not receive full cooperation from the telecommunications companies they rely on for access to these calls."

In other words, those Telecom companies who for years let us illegally listen in on your phone calls, read your email, etc., are frantic they might actually be held responsible for their actions, and god forbid we can't be having actual accountability - what kind of bad precedent would that set?

Recall, that "full cooperation" the companies gave so nobly, so patriotically, came to a screeching halt when the bills weren't paid on time. Qu'elle surprise. What Republicans are demanding is amnesty for the telecoms in the truest, purest sense of the term.

Weren't these guys against "amnesty" before they were for it?

Test Anxiety

2008-02-24T09:46:00.000-08:00

The NY Times has an intriguing article today about the conflict people have between getting DNA screening to help determine what illnesses they may have a predisposition for and the fear of letting that information get out to their insurance companies.

The sheer fact this is even a concern is a sever condemnation of the way health insurance works in this country.

At issue is the fact people are worried getting a DNA screening through traditional medical channels would make that information part of their public health record, information which insurance companies might then use to deny access to health insurance (or companies might use to turn away job applicants, a different, but related, matter).

As the article makes clear, there are few, if any, examples of this actually occurring. However, given the propensities of the health insurance industry, no one can reasonably deny this is a legitimate concern. For a recent example, I refer the reader to this LA Times story discussing how Health Net canceled a woman's insurance while she was in the middle of costly chemotherapy treatment ... and how policy cancellation was a key component of the company's bonus plan.

Should information from DNA screenings become public, one can hardly blame the insurance companies for using the information to weed out applicants with increased risk of costly conditions. After all, we are a capitalistic society, and that's the way capitalism works - maximum your income and minimize your expenses. In the end, the bottom line for the insurance companies is the health their bottom line, not the health of their policy holders.

Somehow, conservatives see this as being a good thing in the long run ... and if some people, through no fault of their own, but rather as a result of genetic pre-disposition or, worse, simply being poor and unable to afford health insurance end up not being covered ... well, that's ok with them apparently.

A national health-care plan would have a far different set of incentives than a private health insurance company. It would have an incentive in promoting healthy life-styles and preventive medicine. It would not be driven by the notion of making a profit, even at the expense of the patient. It would (at least in theory) not be as tethered to making money for stock-holders and executives, but could instead pump that money back into the system.

Even with a national health care plan, there would be niches for private insurers to fill, to provide faster access to surgery for needed, but not life-threatening, conditions for example, or a higher level of service. Of course, to encourage people to spend more of their hard-earned money on top of what they would pay in taxes for the national plan, these companies would, just maybe, have to actually show they care about their customers.

It's ludicrous that people are, in many instances, refusing to get testing to find possible issues which could be addressed early because they know that information can, and likely will, be used against them. What they don't know might kill them, but what they do know could end up ruining them financially. It's not a decision anyone should have to make.

Wisconsin winnings

2008-02-20T06:10:00.000-08:00

So Obama continued his February roll with a decisive win in Wisconsin last night (Hawaii too, but Wisconsin was the focus). Clinton responded with a notably ungracious non-concession speech, which the Obama campaign let go for about 15 or 20 minutes before deciding if she wasn't going to be generous neither were they and had Obama start his speech, effectively knocking Clinton off the air.

Yes, folks are getting a bit testy out there now ...

Obama's 17-point margin was about double what was expected based on polling data, and the results showed Obama seriously cutting into or even winning demographics which have been seen as Clinton strongholds:

* He beat Clinton among women, 51-49.
* He beat Clinton among voters with familiy income less than $50 K, 51-49.
* He lost among Catholics, but only by two points, 49-51.

Clinton did retain a big margin in one of her key demographics, winning the vote among those 65 and older 60-39. The race this fall is not going to be decided by voters 65 and older.

I think the Wisconsin result is a precursor of things to come. The state, in many ways, set up for Hillary - it's predominantly white, working class, a stronger union state than most, more conservative than many states that vote Democratic. It's worth recalling the last two presidential elections, the margins were very close ... and it definitely seems like, from the results, the state is declaring whom they would like to see if Dems want to win comfortably there, especially when you realize about 25% of the primary voters were Independents - yet another category Obama smashed Clinton in.

Meanwhile, Obama is crushing the opposition on the money front too, apparently having raised $36 million in January to Clinton's $13.5 million and McCain's $12 million according to the NYTimes.

I tuned in to some post-primary TV analysis for about 20 minutes last night, just long enough to listen to Chris Matthews try to push some panelists to declare the race over. No one was going that far, but with Texas showing as a dead heat it seemed clear some were starting to lean that way. John McCain seems to be in that camp as well, as his victory speech apparently saw him start hammering Obama and omit mention of Clinton.

I'm not willing to go that far yet ... but I'm hoping.

Do it again

2008-02-17T15:56:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of discussion in the Democratic camp about what to do with the Michigan and Florida delegates. Clinton and her supporters, unsurprisingly, are arguing they should be seated. Obama supporters point out the DNC rules were violated, both states were told their delegates would not count, and they opted to move their primary dates up anyway ... why reward bad behavior.

Clinton got most of the delegates in both states, and given the constraints one can see why - with no one campaigning in either state name recognition was always going to be the deciding factor, and given how early both primaries were held (which is what led to this issue in the first place) her name recognition was still far higher than Obama's. Further, her name was the only one of the leading candidates to appear on the ballot in Michigan. Of course she won, and of course she now wants those delegates, since without them she's likely to lose.

On the other hand, there is a point that the will of the voters in those states should count too ... after all, it's not the voters who decided to move the dates up. Furthermore, with the Obama camp arguing that super delegates should adhere to the will of the majority of general primary voters, it would be inconsistent to not include the will of those who voted in these two populous states.

Sooooo ... let's have a do-over.

There's time. The Democratic National Convention is not until late August. There is plenty of time to pick a date in, say, late July for both states and schedule primaries for them, primaries which would count. Heck, given the state of the race the two primaries would probably be more influential for being held late in the season rather than early. There would be plenty of time for both campaigns to gear up advertising and re-create whatever ground operations they need there.

No, time isn't an issue. Money is the issue. My guess is it would cost something on the order of $30 million to hold new primaries in both states. So, ask both campaigns to kick in $5 million (or, perhaps, since Obama has more money available at this point, maybe $6.5 million from him, 3.5 million from Clinton), have the DNC contribute $5 million, and the states foot the rest.

If the states aren't willing, then say to hell with them - they knew the penalties, and their votes don't count.

The wheels of justice turn ...

2008-02-14T18:30:00.000-08:00

... they just turn at a glacial pace.

The House of Representatives finally got around to issuing contempt citations for Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolton for refusing to respond to a summons to testify about their knowledge of the fired U.S. Attorney scandal.

Hey, it only took eight fricking months to finally take this much needed step. Good thing they expedited it.

In response, House Republicans had a sit-in, most of them leaving the chambers for the vote and terming it a "witch hunt". If I were Harriet, I wouldn't put up with being called such names by such people.

There was a nice side-effect of the Republican pouting though - the House adjourned without resolving the FISA issue, meaning the current temporary bill lapses this weekend, despite all our President's foot-stomping over the need to get a new bill or he can't protect us, even as he threatened to veto another temporary extension, or a bill which didn't include telecom immunity, which clearly demonstrates his priorities are, in order:

1. Getting his way.
2. Protecting his telecom friends from the angered reactions of their repeated law-breaking.
3. (At best) Protecting the country. I suspect this is actually well down his list.

I suspect the country will get along just fine without the administration minimally less fettered abilities to spy on U.S. citizens within in the U.S. without benefit of court oversight, and without the telecom companies being pardoned for their misdeeds.

Omentum and other things

2008-02-13T06:45:00.000-08:00

Obama continued to roll last night, sweeping three more primaries and taking the delegate lead for the first time over Clinton.

Recent reports in various papers report a Clinton campaign team in increasing turmoil. She replaced her campaign manager two days ago, and the deputy campaign manager resigned yesterday. The Clintons have loaned $5 million of their personal funds to the campaign as Obama continues to pull ahead in the fund raising race at a record clip. Even previously "committed" superdelegates are talking off-the-record of switching their allegiances.

The Clinton campaign seems to be bunkering in with a Rudy Giuliani approach - hoping to take the large state primaries of Texas and Ohio on March 4 to stop the Obama march, which by then is expected to have garnered a full month of uninterrupted victories. Even Clinton campaign staffers are admitting if she doesn't win both, her campaign is likely doomed. We saw how well this approach worked for Rudy9/11.

I have seen some Clinton campaign remarks trying to downplay the effect of the recent String of Obama wins, pointing out how his win in Iowa didn't carry over to New Hampshire, but the circumstances are entirely different. First of all, the win in Virginia last night was especially indicative, as Obama swept every voting demographic, showing strength with constituents outside his "base". Clinton has yet to show anything similar in any primary.

Second, going into New Hampshire only one state had been settled, and there was only one week in between. Going into March 4 Clinton will be facing a full month of losing primaries, along with the associated "Obama on a roll" stories. Unlike in New Hampshire, Obama can be expected now to significantly outspend Clinton on advertising in both of the big states. The Obama wave after Iowa was a small swell. The Obama wave going into next month won't be a tsunami, but it will be a nice 40-footer, and much harder for Clinton to break.

In other news ... the US Senate yesterday decided sure, we're fine with expanding the wiretapping of US citizens, even though we already have the FISA act which allows federal agencies to conduct wiretapping without a warrant if time is of essence, and get the warrant retroactively. Just as an added bonus, they decided to throw in retroactive immunity for all the communications companies which violated the law by allowing the government to tap their systems without warrants.

The House did pass a bill without the immunity clause, and the two bills still need to be reconciled. One hopes the immunity clause dies there, but one shouldn't be holding one's breath.

Finally, the government presented a tortured legal justification for waterboarding yesterday. I'm not sure how to feel about this ... certainly, I don't find the justification at all convincing, but on the other hand if it might one day allow me to legally justify waterboarding the Senators who voted in favor of the wiretapping immunity legislation (particularly the Democratic ones) I could be persuaded to see the usefulness of the technique.

DNC in a bind, McCain looking fine

2008-02-06T05:59:00.000-08:00

The much-anticipated super-Tuesday primaries went off largely without a hitch (except in New Mexico, where weather and lack of ballots apparently were issues), and by now the results have been hashed over and hashed over until they have been turned into just so much ... well ... hash.

On the Republican side, John McCain has now firmly grasped the front-runners mantle, and barring catastrophe will be the Republican nominee, much to the consternation of Rush, Anne and other such screeching screed-mongers. Huckabee did well enough in the south and bible belt to merit serious consideration as a potential VP for McCain, but not well enough to be considered a long-term threat. Meanwhile, the Romney campaign is reportedly to have serious discussions today about whether to stay in the race.

I think he drops out ... he's sunk a lot of personal funds into the race, clearly is not gaining traction, and given neither McCain nor Huckabee apparently care for him, he is not likely to have much influence at the Republican convention no matter how many delegates he might have.

Meanwhile, as expected neither Clinton nor Obama landed a decisive blow, although Clinton may have gained a very small edge in delegates awarded last night. Numbers should be out later today (I hope). In general, reports are Clinton won among women, Hispanics and older voters, Obama was favored by the young, men and Blacks.

I do think Clinton needed a "knock-out" more than Obama yesterday, for several reasons:

1. The upcoming slate of states seems to favor Obama more than Clinton.

2. Fund-raising seems to have tilted heavily in Obama's favor over the last month. If the race continues into the late Spring, and Obama continues to hold a significant fund-raising advantage, that's going to be a factor.

3. The more spread-out schedule now helps Obama more, in my opinion. Clinton possesses a name-recognition edge, and with so many states to campaign in at once, it was difficult for Obama to make a strong impression in all of them.

However, now the pace slows down again, and the campaigns will be able to focus their time and energy on specific states again. Generally, trends have shown the more uncommitted voters see of Obama and Clinton, the more they tend toward Obama (New Hampshire being a notable exception).

All-in-all, though, the Democratic race now looks like it will go the full distance ... and it's entirely possible the convention could be reached with, say, Obama ahead, but by a margin close enough that counting the Michigan and Florida delegates would swing things in Clinton's favor ... in which case, the convention might become the ugliest any of us will see in our lifetimes. The DNC has only itself to thank for that possibility.

A memorable event

2008-01-28T10:37:00.001-08:00

Twenty-two years ago today I walked into the Flandrau planetarium for a lab associated with a Planetary Science class I was taking. Heading in I noticed there were a number of large televisions set up around the planetarium, and some classes of young school children already arriving, but none of this really registered on me.

Some 90 minutes later I exited the lab classroom back out into the main area, and stepped into chaos - just moments before the Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded in large, bright, billowing clouds of smoke for several hundred local first-, second- and third-graders to see on all those thoughtfully provided TVs. I, and many of my classmates, were immediately pressed into service as supplemental emergency crowd control.

It's really the first "I remember where I was" moment in my life. I wasn't born yet when Kennedy was shot, and am too young to recall MLK. I only have vague recollections of the moon landings. I wasn't really into music, so John Lennon's shooting didn't have as much impact on me as it did many of my friends. I do recall the famous Roger Staubach to Drew Pearson pass which led to the phrase "Hail Mary" being introduced to football jargon, but that pales in comparison.

No, for me, Challenger was the first such event. I can recall the images, the noise, clearly, as if it had all happened yesterday, or maybe, at most, last week.

We, as a species, have an imperative to explore. Not everyone possesses this trait ... but enough of us do that there is never a shortage of people willing to take that next step into the great unknown, to see what lies over the next hill, up the next river, across the next ocean. With our geographical frontiers now being largely discovered, many of those looking for new vistas to explore are looking for them internally - how can one improve one's memory, or live longer, or sleep less.

Space remains out there, waiting for us. It's a hideous, harsh, dangerous place, unbelievably cold, filled with cosmic radiation, completely unforgiving. Any little mis-step will kill you. All things considered, our safety record in space exploration has been excellent.

Yet we no longer reach for space. We first landed a man on the moon nearly 40 years ago. The last time a man walked on our moon was over 35 years ago. Our technology has become immeasurably better, yet our goals have become immeasurably smaller.

Twenty-two years ago I had hopes and expectations I might live to see us walk on Mars, pull mineral resources from asteroids. I am older and wiser now, and have no such dreams.

We talk of landing a man on the moon again maybe 10 years from now ... wohoo! Better than nothing I guess, but all it would mean is we would have once again reached the point we were at in 1969. There is speculation of manned lunar bases, treks to Mars. Worthwhile goals in my opinion, and I desperately hope they occur ... but I am a cynic now, and will believe it when it happens, not before.

We can not allow ourselves to be limited to just this one rocky orb circling this one small star in a large, dangerous galaxy. We must find some way to spread out, first to our solar system, then beyond, even if such trips take thousands or millions of years. If we don't, our species will die out, either slowly (through resource depletion and, eventually, the sun's destruction) or quickly (by, say, passing near a super-nova ... who knows, that event could already have occured and we have but years to live) ... and we will disappear from the annals of the universe having left no mark or trace of our existence, other than some odd radio signals which some distant, alien intelligence might one day stumble upon and wonder about.

Kennedy said we needed to go to the moon not because it was easy, but because it was hard. For some reason, we seem to have lost our appetite for achieving the "hard" things, and strive for lower-hanging fruit instead. We need to change that. We need to go back, not just to the moon but beyond it, not just because it is hard, but because it is necessary.

Ignorant opinions

2008-01-28T10:21:00.000-08:00

As a blogger and blog commentator, if there is any subject I know well it's publicly proclaiming one's opinion on some matter about which one knows little or nothing. I'm an expert.

ThinkRight provided a post yesterday in which he helpfully provided link to letters the Arizona Daily Star received vis-a-vis their simultaneously published articles on Gabrielle Giffords (discussing her 1st year in Congress) and Tim Bee (announcing plans to run against Giffords this fall), as well as a response by the Star's Debbie Kornmiller.

Not surprisingly, a number of the letters submitted took the respective length of the two articles (the Giffords article was considerably lengthier) as signs of clear bias on the Star's part. I take the letters as clear evidence the writers have no clue what they are talking about.

Full disclosure: Way, way back in the dawn of time I worked as a reporter for the Star, and knew both Bobbie Jo Buel (slightly) and Debbie Kornmiller (somewhat better). I haven't seen or spoken with either in at least a decade, mind you.

What I do know is Kornmiller's explanation rings true. There is no way, given the amount of time invested in the two different subjects those articles were ever going to be the same length. If the Star was going to run them the same day (which the Giffords article had apparently been scheduled to do for some time before Bee scheduled his announcement), then they made they best choice they could by featuring them with equal prominence on the front page.

One might argue they could have moved the Giffords piece a week earlier or later ... but, frankly, shifting something which had months of work invested in it just to accommodate Bee's story would have given more weight to Bee's announcement than it deserved.

The Star may have its biases, but the length of the articles in question is a thin reed on which to make the case.

The (un)consciousness of voters

2008-01-25T10:33:00.000-08:00

X4mr has a throw-away comment in this thread on Arizona8th where he essentially claims bloggers and the issues they blog about don't have much effect on the general voting populace.

I find myself agreeing with him.

By-and-large, it seems those who blog about politics, or regularly read and comment on political blogs, are those who are already active followers of the political opera. By-and-large, we have already chosen up sides and enter into our debates with positions already held. That doesn't mean we are immune to persuasion, but it does make it less likely.

Meanwhile, the voting populace, which in general does not get overly interested in matters politic until the time to vote actually draws near (if then) is generally not aware of the existence of blogs yet. There are exceptions, of course - tech savvy types who already follow blogs to keep up on, say, the latest music news may think to peruse what is available in the form of political blogs when their thoughts turn to (I hope) informing themselves before they vote. Most voters, though, don't possess that savvyness.

At the national level, blogs are starting to gain influence. A recent example is the hoopla related by lefty blogs over Chris Matthews' recent comments vis-a-vis Hillary Clinton, said hoopla eventually leading to Matthews apologizing on-air. Still, while such incidents are becoming more common, I would still assert they remain notable because of their rarity.

At the local level, or at least the local level in Arizona, we are all largely talking to walls.

(And yes, x4mr, in case you ever read this ... since I suspect that last phrase will jog a memory for you ... I did write that phrase initially over on the DailyKos thread last year, posted as ChessGuy ... I can't tell you how much amusement I got out of you subsequently referencing it.)

Showing one's work

2008-01-22T11:08:00.000-08:00

Trent Humphries, otherwise known as Framer, the founder of and still (somewhat irregular) contributor to the blog Arizona8th, is running as a Republican candidate for the Arizona House of Representatives from district 26. As such, he has a brand spanking new web site up where he promises to provide regular updates and further details about his views and positions.

It's still a work in progress (links to a couple sections aren't active yet, for example ... presumably those are still under work), but just in the couple days the site has been up he has already added a new page titled Restoring Expectations, an explicit list of what voters can expect from him as a candidate and, should he be elected, as a Representative.

What particularly caught my eye was item #6:

An expectation of "showing my work." I intend to keep a blog after I am elected to discuss, most if not all of the votes I make and how I came around to that decision. Often, a politician assumes that they vote on an island and will sometimes hope that a particular vote goes unnoticed. I will carefully lay out my arguments, and hope that I am persuasive to my constituents.

If Trent wins election and carries through on this (and I fully believe he would), this, done right, could be a very important marriage of politics and the internet. Trent would be forced to lay out his positions in careful, reasoned manners for all to see and critique. He would be accountable for his positions, and there would be no chance of "confusion" or "misquoting" in transmitting his views through traditional media, since Trent himself would ultimately be responsible for the content of the blog.

Constituents would have a direct line into the reasoning of their Representative, and could decide for themselves whether they agreed, disagreed, partially agreed, felt Trent overlooked some things about the issue, or even ... in certain, rare cases ... might find Trent had considered something they had overlooked.

Without question, this could be very risky - Trent's thoughts would be out there for all to see, including opponents, and his words could easily be used against him in later races. Still, it's a cutting-edge idea, and one I think should be encouraged of all candidates.

Oil opportunities

2008-01-22T09:49:00.000-08:00

With fears of a sustained recession widespread, oil prices have continued a recent decline. As I write this, the price per barrel is at $89.37, down $1.20. Prices had briefly cracked $100 per barrel a couple weeks ago.

Still, anything over $80 per barrel is supposed to be sufficient to spur private investment in alternative power research. Traditionally, this has included items like the new solar powersheets which Nanosolar began shipping last month, alternative bio-fuels like ethanol, or wind-power such as the wind turbine farms one sees from I-10 when making the drive out to LA.

In the wind-power arena, however, I can't help but be fascinated by the German company SkySails, which attempts to make what was old new again by harnessing the win to help modern vessels traverse the oceans, much as our ancestors did in the not-so-distant past.

These aren't sails in the traditional sense. Instead, the company attaches massive parachutes to the ships, said parachutes to be used in addition to, rather than in lieu of, standard motive power. We aren't talking about small ships here - the web site claims the devices can be added to cargo ships 320 meters in length (roughly 1000 feet) and weighing many, many tons (more when loaded) . The company claims savings of between 10% and 35% on an annual basis, provides an example video of the device in use and says it will begin major production this year.

I'm suspicious about the claims ... those savings seem high to me when compared to a ship making a lengthy trans-oceanic crossing in the same time as a ship not equipped with the device. I'd want to see some serious numbers crunched before I bought in. Still, the (fanciful) image of a massive, laden container ship para-sailing across the whitecaps seems quite evocative to me.

Liberal Dissonance

2008-01-17T09:22:00.000-08:00

I clearly recall supporting our invasion of Afghanistan, but adamantly opposing invading Iraq. I felt at the time the case for WMDs hadn't been convincing, and certainly there didn't seem to be a clear link between Iraq and 9/11.

Then I read this paper discussing people's opinions and the 2006 elections, and I had to reconsider.

The paper's primary topic is how individual's views on the Iraq war affected the voting. It discusses the unprecedented polarization Bush's presidency has engendered (while his popularity among Dem's fell to single digits, and Independents to low double-digits, among republican's it remained around 80% ... which says everything one needs to know about whether he really is a uniter or a divider), and also discusses the forms of cognitive dissonance many conservatives suffer under (36% of FOX news viewers still believe the US discovered WMDs in Iraq) and folks like myself like to smugly mock, the really interesting part for me was the discussion of liberals reconstructing their recollections (this part begins on page 22).

Table 9 on page 24 sums everything up nicely. To summarize, surveys before the war found 46% of Democrats favored the Iraq war, 72% thought Iraq possessed WMDs, and 44% thought Saddam Hussein had been personally involved in 9/11. However, surveys taken last year asking people what they recalled of their views prior to the war found only 21% of Democrats remembered supporting the war, only 26% recalled thinking Iraq had WMDs, and a mere 14% recollect thinking Saddam had a hand in 9/11.

That, folks, is an example of cognitive dissonance. Clearly, a number of people have rearranged their memories based on what they think now, as opposed to what they actually felt at the time.

Of course, there is a difference between the dissonance liberals (and, to a lesser extent, independents) labor under, and that of conservatives - as the paper makes clear, the former group has been revising it's views as more information has come in (such as the fact Irag did not actually possess WMDs, and Saddam was not actually involved in 9/11), while the latter group has opted to retain its views and ignore contrary data.

I went and dug up some old correspondence of mine, which confirmed I did, in fact, oppose the Iraq war even prior to its beginning. At least on this topic, I am not revising my memories.

Quelle surprise!

2008-01-17T08:47:00.000-08:00

An Investment News article from earlier this week declared the thing which scares financial advisers most is the notion a Democrat (shudder) might win the Presidential election.

Not the unceasing war in Afghanistan and Iraq (wasn't this mission accomplished already?). Not the looming recession. Not energy, not education. Certainly not health care - these guys can easily afford any care they want. Not the mortgage lending crisis and its spillover. Nope. The possibility of Democrats taking control of the White House is what keeps them from sleeping well at night.

Of course, the reasoning makes sense from their prospective - God forbid we actually tax capital gains at a rate comparable to other forms of income. Heavens forfend they actually be expected to provide any additional penny to the betterment of the country. The notion of actually increasing taxes to lower our national debt, pay for better health and education for the masses, or any similar program - why it's enough to make a strong man weep in fear.

Meanwhile, they will continue to make money hand over fist, pay for elite-level health care, pay more to send their children to the best private schools, and otherwise do all they can to avoid actually having to deal with the tired, the poor, the huddled masses this country purportedly welcomes.

Election Rigging

2008-01-15T10:48:00.000-08:00

Freakonomics has a very interesting Q&A post up with a gentleman named Allen Raymond, who has just written a book titled How to Rig an Election.

For those who don't recognize the name (I did not), Raymond was the G.O.P. political staff person who oversaw an operation to jam phone lines run by the Democratic party in the 2002 New Hampshire Senate primaries, so he's familiar with his topic. He spent three months in prison for his role in the affair.

I encourage people to take a look at the post. I may have to buy the book.

Romney's Last Stand?

2008-01-15T10:21:00.000-08:00

Michigan holds it's primaries today. On the Democratic side of things, because both Edwards and Obama have had their names removed from the ballet while Clinton has not (all over a dispute on Michigan moving it's primary date earlier than the national committee desired), Clinton is expected to gain the majority of the delegates in a walkover. Supposedly, those delegates won't be counted in the nomination race. Yeah, right.

Because of that, all the interesting going-ons involve the Republican race, where McCain and Romney are essentially neck-and-neck, Huckabee trailing them by a little over 10 points. If McCain were to edge Romney here, the consensus seems to be Romney's campaign would be effectively over.

This seems odd on one level - after all, if Romney runs a close second he would have had a 1st and 3 seconds in the initial primaries, which would be a series of successful results in most endeavors. Given the current allocation of delegates it is very likely a close second by Romney would see him actually leading the totals at the end of the evening, and still be considered a dead candidate.

Of course, logic has nothing to do with a political campaign ... it's all about perception, and finishing second is simply being the first loser. All that seems to matter is actually winning a state, no matter how small the margin. If McCain were to edge Romney out again, after doing the same in New Hampshire, McCain would be perceived as having all the momentum while Romney would be seen as a lost cause after not taking any of the three states in which is heavily invested his efforts.

Some subset of Democrats, led by Markos Moulitsas, have reached the conclusion keeping Romney is the race is good for Democrats, and since the Dem primary has no real meaning this year are advocating progressive voters in Michigan take advantage of the state's open primary laws and vote in the Republican primary instead (someone even created a Democrats for Romney YouTube video). Given how close the polling shows the race to be, a few thousand liberal voters crossing over as a bloc to vote for Romney might be sufficient to push him past McCain.

Primary proposal

2008-01-11T10:29:00.000-08:00

Opinion seems to be coalescing around the idea our primary system needs an overhaul, and I think there is good chance it will be for the 2012 race. If it is not, the reason will likely be because agreement can't be reached on what work better - a regional approach, random order, time zones, etc.

For whatever reason I was musing about this the morning of the New Hampshire primaries, and thought up a scheme I haven't seen elsewhere, so I wanted to throw it out for consideration.

Anyhow, the basic notions would be to start with the smaller population states and work up to the larger population ones, combined with spreading the primaries out over a regular period.

Pick a day, say the second Tuesday of January, as the day for our first primary. Take the two smallest states in terms of population and hold their primaries that day. One week later hold primaries for the next two least populated, etc. Continue until all primaries are held.

One complaint I can hear already is we already have two small-population states with undue influence on our nomination process. However, to some extent I want to keep that in play. No matter how much time a candidate spends in California or Texas, there simply is not going to be enough time for voters there to truly get to know the candidates in the same way voters in a smaller state can, given a few months of exposure.

I do think, however, this approach does help water down that influence a bit. Rather than having a flood of primaries one month after the leading ones (as is the case this year), it allows time for a candidate to gradually build up, or to overcome early missteps. The entire process would take 24 weeks from the first pair of primaries to the last, plenty of time for things to develop. On the other hand, having only the two primaries each week, and always a week apart, allows sufficient time for the candidates to get to and spend time in each state if they wish (they may opt to use time elsewhere of course if they wish).

I don't advocate going strictly by population. Shuffling things around a bit to keep paired primaries geographically closer seems like a good idea to me. As an example, the least populated states in reverse order (2000 census) are:

Wyoming (least populous), Vermont, Alaska, N. Dakota, S. Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Hampshire

Given this list I would suggest the following order for the first five weeks:

Week 1: Wyoming, Montana
Week 2: Vermont, New Hampshire
Week 3: Alaska, Hawaii
Week 4: N. Dakota, S. Dakota
Week 5: Delaware, Rhode Island

And so on.

While the least-populated states allow for voters to get to know candidates more personally, and allow candidates to start building some momentum, the greater mass of the delegates is always late in the process, which would allow for the possibility of late comebacks, voters reacting to events during the campaign, etc.

As I noted before, I haven't seen any proposal along these lines (although they are probably out there somewhere), so it's either inspired or stupid (or both). Feel free to let me know which, and why

It's ... alive!

2008-01-09T06:15:00.000-08:00

In the best tradition of zombie movies, Hillary Clinton proved reports of her (political) death were greatly exaggerated, rallying to edge Barack Obama in the New Hampshire primary last night. John Edwards was a distant third.

I imagine Liza and Roger were very disappointed with those results. I know I was.

Yesterday morning there was discussion of Obama having double-digit leads in polling, reports of a number of uncommitted Senators being in discussions to declare their support for his campaign, questions about whether Clinton's financing was drying up, discussion of an overhaul of the Clinton campaign staff, even speculation about Clinton ending her campaign if she was decisively defeated for a second time.

I haven't checked the blogosphere yet today, but I would guess there's none of that talk now.

I can't think of anything I read or heard the last two days that anticipated this result. Literally the only item I can recall that pointed in this direction was a one-sentence statement I saw somewhere (and now can't find) indicating that focus groups watching the NH debate tended to see support for Obama move over toward Clinton, but even that was buried in a much longer story discussing the Obama surge.

As in Iowa, voters turned out in record numbers, and as in Iowa far more votes were cast in the Democratic primary than the Republican one. ABC news found about 40% of the voters in each primary were Independents, and ultimately this likely cost Obama - Clinton has consistently drawn more support from established Democratic voters, while Obama beats her decisively among the unaffiliated. With McCain also drawing heavy support among Independents, it appears he may have attracted enough of them to vote in the Republican primary to condemn Obama to second in the Democratic one.

Clinton will get more help in a week when she wins Michigan in a walkover. Yes, I know the DNC has said the state's delegates won't be counted at the convention, but you don't really believe that, do you?

I do believe Obama and his campaign did a very poor job of managing expectations in New Hampshire in the few days between Iowa and yesterday. Just as Iowa is in his backyard, New Hampshire is the same for Clinton. She should have do well there, and polls for months had shown her with a massive lead. Handled correctly, finishing within 8,000 votes and 3% of her would have been viewed as a victory. Instead, it's being viewed as a defeat ... and I am afraid this defeat hurts Obama far more than losing Iowa hurt Clinton.

Edwards can't be under any illusions at this point, he knows he will not garner the nomination. Still, with neither Clinton or Obama looking inevitable now, it's entirely possible for Edwards to earn enough delegates to play a substantial role in determining which of the other two does win the primary, and that likely is worth staying in for the long haul. I would think he would be far more likely to align with Obama than Clinton when the time comes ... but last night's results have already shown what can happen to expectations.

Expected form did hold on the Republican side, where McCain comfortably defeated Romney, everyone else being much further back. For whatever reason, voters there really like him, and that carried him through despite New England being Romney's "home region" and dropping big sums of money into the state.

No matter how you slice it, Romney is now in trouble. He had been counting on winning one of Iowa or New Hampshire to indicate viability and open up the money spigots. However, with Huckabee cutting into his religious votes and McCain the independent ones, Romney is looking increasingly like a candidate with just enough support to stay in the race, but not quite enough to win.

Sooner or later, you figure he's got to decide he can't keep throwing his own money into the ravenous maw that is a Presidential campaign. I saw somewhere yesterday he's up to $53 million so far. Maybe Bloomberg has some spare change lying around he could pitch in.

Agent of CHANGE?

2008-01-07T11:07:00.000-08:00

"Change" was the new mantra for the Domcratic party presidential candidates in the recent New Hampshire debate over the weekend. X4mr already touched on some of the reasons for this in his post last night, but anyone who didn't watch the debate missed how overwhelming a theme it was - at times it seemed the candidates felt the need to stress "change" the same way Giuliani reflexively spits out "9/11" in every other sentence.

Apparently the lesson Clinton took from Iowa was the message of "change" promoted by the Obama and Edwards campaigns trumped her message of "expertise" there, and she immediately set about putting that lesson to use. Whether it's good use or not remains to be seen.

Being cynical about such things, I have a hard time believing Clinton, who has unquestionably been running the most cautious campaign among the Democrats, who clearly has the closest ties to the party institutions and apparatchiks, truly embraces the concept the same way many of the Iowa voters did.

Don't get me wrong - should Clinton win nomination, and subsequently the Presidency, there will be changes from the way the country has been run the past seven years, and (in my opinion) many of those changes would be for the better. However, they would also be incremental, small change, changes within the existing structure.

If Clinton wins, things may change, but they won't CHANGE. If Democratic voters really hope to break out of the current structure and promote some form of seismic change, changes which will truly alter the political discussion in long-term ways, then they need to look to Obama or Edwards. Electing either is not a sufficient condition to create such change, but it is a necessary one.

This Justice isn't blind ...

2008-01-04T11:26:00.000-08:00

... at least not that I am aware of, but I don't think much of his reasoning abilities.

I found this recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling interesting not just for the case itself (although it's interesting in its own right), but for the stupidity of the judge quoted at the end of the article.

Synopsis: a man agreed to be a sperm donor for his ex-girlfriend on the grounds he would have no responsibility for child support (and also no visitation rights). The girlfriend subsequently reneged on the agreement and requested support. The lower court ruled in her favor, awarding $1,500 a month in support as well as ordering the man to find $66,000 in back support.

Now, if I were in his shoes I might have begrudgingly agreed to pay the monthly support. I'd probably have felt screwed, since we did, after all, have a contract on the matter, but I probably would have come around to doing it for the sake of the children involved.

However, asking for $66,000 more on top of that, money we specifically agreed I was not liable for, would have driven me to outrage ... and to court.

The state Supreme Court did overturn the award, on the basis that if the original contract was not honored it would threaten the entire sperm donation system. After all, who would ever willingly contribute if they could then be held liable for child support years after the fact, in spite of a contract both parties willingly entered into?

One judge dissented, from the article:

Justice J. Michael Eakin, in a dissent, said a parent cannot bargain away a child's right to support. "The children point and say, 'That is our father. He should support us,'" Eakin wrote. "What are we to reply? 'No! He made a contract to conceive you through a clinic, so your father need not support you.' I find this unreasonable at best."

Of course, without that contract, the children would never have existed in the first place, and the donor wouldn't be paying child support ... so really, which is better for the children? Exist and no child support or don't exist and no child support?

I find the judge to be a moron.

Market analysis

2008-01-03T10:19:00.000-08:00

I've written about prediction markets before, and with the start of the primary season officially upon us, and the race on the Democratic side expected to be tight, I couldn't resist revisiting Intrade to see what the speculators think will happen in the Iowa primaries.

As I write this, the market is trading Obama shares at 66.1, meaning the feeling is there is just about a 2/3 chance Obama wins tonight. Clinton shares are at 19.3, Edwards at 15.0. Also interesting is the change just today - Obama closed last night at 56, so he's up 10.1 points. Most of that has come at the expense of Clinton, who is down 9.2 from yesterday's close, while Edwards is down 2.1

I suspect the fairly steep change is in reaction to a Reuters/C-Span/Zogby poll which shows Obama moving out to a four-point lead over Edwards, with Clinton another three points back. Looking at the history, Obama shares were down to about 30 as recently as Dec. 31, meaning traders are extremely bullish about his chances.

Obama's had some good news this week, particularly in light of the Reuters poll and Des Moines Register poll yesterday which also showed him taking the lead. Still, that's a huge surge in Obama confidence, and seems much more "reactive" than I would have expected from a predictions market.

It's also worth noting that investors have far less confidence in Edwards than his polling results would seem to merit. He might be a good investment, if anyone is so inclined.

On the Republican side, investors are heavily backing Huckabee, who is trading at 70.1, up 11.1 today and also the beneficiary of a large surge in confidence over the past five days or so. Romney shares are at 29.7 (down 8.3 today) and no one else is given a chance - McCain is third favorite at 0.9, and looks like good value at that price, to be honest.

Looking ahead at upcoming primaries, I see shares of Fred Thompson winning in Nevada are currently trading at 8.9. I suggest you sell, quickly.

Modern Earls of Warwick

2008-01-02T10:41:00.000-08:00

Over the long weekend I read a book about the Wars of the Roses, the struggle in the latter half of the 15th century between the houses of York and Lancaster for the English throne, a struggle which eventually saw Henry Tudor, a distant Lancaster claimant, found the dynasty bearing his name.

Among the leading figures of the era was Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, who earned the sobriquet 'Warwick the Kingmaker' by first providing the military support needed to place Edward IV, son of the Duke of York on the throne in 1461 in place of the Lancastrian King Henry VI and later, when his influence with Edward waned, helping overthrow Edward in 1470 to briefly restore Henry to the kingship.

This last success proved short-lived, however, as Edward didn't take his exile in Burgundy lightly, returning to England the following year, where he gathered an army and defeated Warwick at Barnet, with the Earl among the dead. Edward consolidated his victory by defeating another Lancastrian army at Tewkesbury the following month, and secured his throne until his death in 1483.

If not for the machinations of his brother Richard and the entire affair of the Princes in the Tower, it would likely have been the House of York, not the House of Tudor, which dominated the next 125 years. All-in-all, one of the more interesting eras of English history.

Which leads us an interesting date of our own, tomorrow night in the state of Iowa, where the caucuses will officially kick off the presidential nomination season, which, while not officially over when Super Tuesday arrives on Feb. 5, will most likely be over in any practical sense. A year or more of posturing and politicking, millions of dollars of campaign expenditures, all get compressed into this next month-plus, and that month begins tomorrow.

Polling of both parties in the last month has shown very tight races, and no one really knows what to expect - historically, accurate polling of the caucuses has been hard to come by. However, the latest set of data from the Des Moines Register shows Huckabee has overtaken Romney on the Republican side, which McCain a distant third, while on the Democratic side Obama has opened a gap on both Clinton and Edwards.

Considering the difficulty of accurate polling and margins of error, it's still a three-way race on the Democratic side, and it won't be a shock should any of the three win. The race will likely be determined not by the supporters of those candidates themselves, but rather by supporters of the other candidates: Richardson, Biden, Dodd and Kucinich.

In the caucuses, voters will initially group up by what candidate they support. However, any candidate who does not reach at least 15% support of all the voters at that caucus meeting (of which there was 1,781 around the state) is declared "not viable". At this point, supporters of viable candidates get 30 minutes to lobby these new free agents and attempt to garner their support. Once this period ends, supporters of non-viable candidates now get a chance to switch their preference.

All of which makes the polling difficult - what matters is often not just who a voter's first preference is, but their second preference as well.

The Register poll shows three "viable" candidates, then Richardson tied with Uncommitted (6%), Biden (4%), Dodd (2%) and Kucinich (1%). Given the closeness of the tally among the "big three" it's entirely possible for some combination of these candidates (or even Richardson alone, depending on how uncommitted voters split) to tip the final result to any of Clinton/Edwards/Obama by encouraging their supporters as to whom to support as a second choice.

Kucinich has already expressed his preference in the matter, encouraging his backers to move to Obama if his candidacy doesn't meet the 15% standard. However, it's Richardson and Biden who are the big guns here, and either might be able to extract some meaningful commitment in exchange for encouraging their supporters on who to back as a "plan B".

It will be interesting to see if either one has designs on becoming the new Warwick.

Lost and Found

2007-12-28T11:57:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I lose my faith in humanity.

I suspect anyone reading this will have already heard about the killings in Carnation, WA a couple days ago, where a woman and her boyfriend first killed the woman's parents, then for an encore when the woman's brother showed up with his family while the murderer's were hiding the original pair of corpses, they shot him, his wife, their six-year-old daughter and three-year-old son.

Six bodies, two of them two young to really understand what was occurring, all for reasons which remain unclear, although apparently a money dispute between the woman and her brother may have been involved.

How do you cold-bloodedly put a bullet into the head of a six-year old? A three-year-old? Especially children you have likely known, hugged ... perhaps just given a Christmas present to a short time before? How do people ever get to a point where this seems like a good decision?

Then there is this story about how a group of Panamanians spent their Christmas voluntarily searching through the mountains for a small plane crash, persevering in horrid weather that caused most searchers to turn back. They were fortunate enough to find the wreckage, along with the 12-year-old girl who had miraculously survived.

While most of the group stayed with the girl, helping keep her warm and awake, one brother made his way back down mountains, in the dark, the cold, the winds, the rain, returning with more help at dawn to extract the girl from the plane, after which the group spent five more hours struggling to move her to a location where a helicopter could airlift her out.

All for someone they had never met, never known.

I find my faith in humanity restored.

Joyous Kwanza, Happy Boxing Day

2007-12-26T10:57:00.000-08:00

Since x4mr was nice enough to provide us a thorough overview of the origins of Christmas, I thought I would provide a similar (but much less thorough) introduction to a pair of Dec. 26 traditions.

I'm not sure if Kwanzaa really merits the term "tradition" yet though, as it was created from scratch just four decades ago. Dr. Ron Karenga, an activist in the civil rights movement of the 1960's, invented the festival as a means of uniting different African American cultures and celebrating their heritage. The festival begins Dec. 26 and runs for a week, concluding on Jan. 1.

The name of the festival derives from the Swahili word "matunda ya kwanza", meaning "first fruits". The extra 'a' was purportedly added to the original Swahili term in order to give the name of the festival seven letters - one for each of the seven principles of Kwanzaa: Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (Self-Determination), Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility), Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity) and Imani (Faith).

Kwanzaa is intended to be celebrated in addition to, rather than in lieu of, other traditional festivals of the season (such as Christmas or Hanukkah).

Boxing Day, on the other hand, has a much more established tradition within Commonwealth Nations, the tradition dating back to at least the middle ages. On the day after Christmas, lords, business owners, etc., would distribute gifts to their servants or employees, although the origin of the name itself seems unclear.

The day is celebrated differently (and named differently) in different nations of the Commonwealth. Some treat it as a national holiday, in some retailers are closed while in others it's a traditional day for big holiday sales and so on. In general, though, it's another excuse to eat lots of food and watch lots of sports (soccer in Britain, hockey in Canada, cricket in Australia, etc.) ... and, really, what more could one hope for on a day off?

Greenspan, Rand and Reality

2007-12-21T12:53:00.000-08:00

NY Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman has a piece up today the housing bubble. I found it an interesting read, particularly this passage discussing Ayn Rand's influence on Alan Greenspan:

In a 1963 essay for Ms. Rand’s newsletter, Mr. Greenspan dismissed as a “collectivist” myth the idea that businessmen, left to their own devices, “would attempt to sell unsafe food and drugs, fraudulent securities, and shoddy buildings.” On the contrary, he declared, “it is in the self-interest of every businessman to have a reputation for honest dealings and a quality product.”

I have read before about Greenspan's allegiance to Rand's philosophies, particularly her belief in "unfettered capitalism" (Krugman's term). Krugman goes on to discuss how such a belief might have led Greenspan to discourage economic regulation in general and encouraged the bubble to develop.

Greenspan's belief in the honesty of businessmen seems naive to me. Yes, there is some level of truth to it when one is thinking about small, local businesses. It might also be true if all businesses always weighed long-term benefits/cost with the same care they weigh short-term gains.

In an ideal world this would extend to large, faceless corporations as well .... but it doesn't of course.

In an ideal world, where everything is transparent, maybe all businesses and businessmen could be trusted to do the right thing. However, in the real world (you know, the world where we don't "make our own reality"), given enough leeway large businesses inevitably seem to find a way to push beyond the boundaries. Ultimately, when everything goes bad, it never seems like those who most contributed to the problem end up being those who suffer most.

In an ideal world, unfettered capitalism might work, and markets might be perfectly efficient, and everyone might earn rewards in proportion to their hard work, and life would always be sunny and bright.

In the real world, market-based incentives are not always best, incompetence and nepotism thrive ... and sometimes capitalism needs to be fettered. Unless there is some realistic expectation of suffering consequences, businessmen have, with sad consistency, demonstrated a willingness to engage in improper behavior in order to rake in immediate profit, as long as it was others who were suffering any costs which might be entailed.

Rand herself was never able to live up to the ideas her philosophy espoused. Why Greenspan would expect "every businessman" to be rise to these standards, I don't know. I do know history had already demonstrated many counter-examples to his claim when he originally made it, and is in the process of showing to him once again just how misguided his beliefs were.

End the strike now!

2007-12-20T12:59:00.000-08:00

President Bush was quoted this morning, in response to a question about Hillary Clinton's notion of sending Bush pere and Bill on a world-traveling goodwill trip (hat tip Tim Grieve at War Room):

"It's what I do during my presidency," Bush said. "I go around spreading goodwill and talking about the importance of spreading freedom and peace."

You just know ... know ... there are some striking writers on their knees sobbing with grief at missing out on such a comedy-ready line.

Immigration matters

2007-12-20T09:22:00.000-08:00

BusinessWeek has a recent piece discussing the impact of Republican immigration positions on some portion of Republican voters. In particular, they discuss how the emphasis all the current Republican presidential candidate's place on "enforcement-only" approaches is driving some members of the "fiscal" wing of the party to re-register as Independents, or even to actively support Democrats (Oh, the humanity!).

Arizona's new law features prominently in the article:

Arizona Goes After Employers

One state where employers are becoming especially concerned is Arizona. A new state law (BusinessWeek.com, 12/13/07) scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1 will suspend for up to 10 days the operating license of any company caught knowingly employing an undocumented worker. If caught a second time, the company loses its license altogether. Business groups—including the Arizona Contractors' Assn. and an employer coalition called Wake Up Arizona—tried to fight the law on legal grounds, but their case was thrown out by a U.S. District Court. The business groups are asking for a preliminary injunction while the case is under appeal.

In the meantime, employers are looking to make a statement with their votes. "The Republican Party has held a corner of support from the business community, but the level of frustration is high," says David Jones, president and chief executive of the Arizona Contractors' Assn., which represents about 300 general subcontractors and suppliers. "They're so wrapped up in ideology that they're willing to throw anything else out the window. That's why the Democrats are starting to realize a potential friend in the Arizona business community."

The most strident advocate of the "throw the bums out" approach has recently ended his campaign, but that seems unlikely to lower the rhetoric. The Republican field seems to have decided winning the primary requires tacking waaaaaaayyyyy out to the extreme on this issue, and whoever receives the nomination is likely to find it impossible to then successfully tack back to the middle. It's not like Hispanic voters don't notice these things.

It seems so recently that conservatives would regularly accuse Democratic candidates of "catering to their extremist liberal base" or some other, similar, formulation. Now the shoe seems to be firmly on their foot, and they seem to be busily pelting said shoe with shotgun pellets.

A large majority of people prefer some form of comprehensive solution to the problem (and it is a problem), perhaps something similar to what x4mr recently proposed, or the bill which died this past summer. Particularly given the significance of the potential Hispanic votes in closely divided states (Florida, Arizona, New Mexico for example), it seems unquestionable this immigration rhetoric is hurting Republican chances (a topic ThinkRight has regularly addressed). Unless McCain somehow rallies to win the nomination, this will just be another weight around the neck of the Republican nominee.

A happy discovery

2007-12-14T10:13:00.001-08:00

A blog post I saw somewhere yesterday mentioned a BBC radio show which, undoubtedly, will sound like the epitome of tedium for most people, but pegged my interest meter at the high end.

The show is titled In Our Time, and features a weekly episode where the host and a panel of three scholars discusses some esoteric topic for about 40 minutes. The most recent show, which I just finished listening to (you can subscribe to the podcast for free on iTunes), discusses the Sassanian Empire, which was centered in modern-day Iran, succeeded the Parthians, fought the Romans, and lasted for over four hundred years before themsleves being overthrown by the Islamic expansion of the 7th century.

I knew a little bit about Sassanian military institutions, but learned a great deal about their religious traditions, culture, influences, etc. Absolutely fascinating, absolutely terrific ... not to mention the British accents were mesmerizing.

It looks likes the entire backlog of previous shows can be found here, broken into categories labeled Science, Religion, Philosophy, History and Culture (a quick scan showed some broadcasts were placed in multiple categories). A small sample of titles includes:

* The Discovery of Oxygen - feuds and revolutions at the birth of modern chemistry
* Zero - everything about nothing
* The Devil - A brief biography
* The Mind/Body Problem - does the mind rule the body, or the body rule the mind?
* Tea - an empire in a teacup
* The Epic - from Homer to Joyce

I realize things like this will put most people to sleep, but for me it's a near-religious experience. I will be grinding through all of them over the next few months, as I find time.

You, too, can be a terrorist

2007-12-13T09:12:00.000-08:00

This account details a 17th-century trial for witchcraft in Bamberg, Germany (h/t Digby), during the course of which the accused was subjected to thumb screws, leg screws (also known as the Spanish boot) and strappado during the course of the "investigation".

For a week, including through five days of torture, the subject of the inquiry, one Johannes Junius, continually protested his innocence of all charges. Enough was finally enough, however, and he eventually "confessed" to everything, after which he was further tortured until he eventually bore false witness against fellow townsmen so as to end the torment.

His "evidence" was likely used against those he named, just as they were tortured until they named him, said "evidence" used to justify his torture ... and the vicious circle wound merrily along.

At least he didn't suffer water boarding.

If anyone thinks they wouldn't confess to anything they thought their tormentors wanted to hear when subjected to such abuse, they are childishly naive.

Framer, x4mr, TR, Liza, AZAce, et. al., when they take me in I plan to implicate all of you ... just so you know.

Republican obstructionism

2007-12-12T09:28:00.000-08:00

How much gall does it take for the President to complain about not getting things done, while his own party sets records for blocking legislation (and the President declares he will veto anything that accidentally gets passed that doesn't match exactly what he wants)?

I'm not sure, but however much it is, the President has more than enough.

One would think getting crushed in the 2006 elections would have indicated to Republicans the voters wasn't happy with the direction they were leading country. Apparently not, as earlier this month Republicans set a record for most bills filibustered in a Congressional session. With the session not even half completed, and Republicans openly declaring their intent to continue their behavior, the new record, once established, will shatter the previous one.

Their obstructionist tendencies have become completely reflexive at this point (from the second linked article):

In fact, the Senate Republicans are so accustomed to blocking measures that when the Democrats finally agreed last week to their demands on a bill to repair the alternative minimum tax, the Republicans still objected, briefly blocking the version of the bill that they wanted before scrambling to approve it later.

Which would be funny if it were not so ... not funny.

The reason Republicans filibustered the ATM bill? Because the original version tried to recoup some of the billions of dollars of lost revenue from not applying the ATM by raising the tax rate on certain forms of income of hedge fund managers which is currently taxed at the capital gains rate of 15% (and which exploits an unintentional tax loophole to manage it) at 35% instead.

This post by ThinkRight is a good illustration of how conservatives will attempt to spin things. Of course, reality is different - Republicans demonstrated firm, unwavering willingness to do everything in their power defend the unwarranted lower tax rates for a small number of mega-millionaires at the expense of millions of middle-class families.

Yes, Republicans are the proud defenders of you average, middle-class ... multi-millionaire.

Maybe if a bunch more are voted out next year, the message will sink in.

Freedom and Religion

2007-12-12T08:49:00.000-08:00

In his speech last week, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney quoted founding father and former President John Adams, saying "Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom."

It's clear religion can exist without freedom, as, for example, the Taliban have illustrated in Afghanistan in the past. However, if one wants to interpret this as saying open, free practice of religion requires freedom, then of course this statement is true - it's impossible to freely exercise anything, including one's religious views, without freedom.

As to whether or not freedom requires religion, on a theoretical level it clearly does not. As I noted in a thread at Arizona 8th, consider the possibility everyone in our country wakes up tomorrow and decides they no longer have a belief in religion. Nothing prevents them from practicing religion, they simply and freely choose not to. In such a situation, no religion exists, yet freedom has in no way been abridged.

Whether this is possible in a practical sense is a different matter. Clearly spritualism and faith is deeply ingrained within nearly all cultures (I'm not actually aware of any exceptions, but I am hedging my bets). Yet, is it necessary? Certainly, one of the benefits of religion is its promotion of some set of standards for individuals to lead moral lives. It's hard to see where freedom can exist for all in a society without such standards.

Still, ultimately creating a free society depends on enforcement of socially agreed laws, not on religion. You often hear concerns expressed about how our nation is becoming increasingly secular, and certainly demographic trends support those views - roughly 1/5 of Americans now self-identify as atheist/agnostic.

Somehow, freedom has managed to withstand the assault.

For anyone interested, or looking for a means to be lulled to sleep, Framer and I had a fairly lengthy exchange of views about this topic in comments to this post.

Romney hates me

2007-12-08T06:07:00.000-08:00

X4mr beat me to the punch, and has a good post up explaining why a "secularist", a category into which I would unquestionably fall, might be very concerned by Romney's speech. I'd like to take a moment to note as of 2001 15% of Americans, minimum, fell into that category, with the numbers growing rapidly.

To put that in perspective, that's more than 10 times as many secularists as Mormons. Secularists would be second only to Christianity in terms of their views vis-a-vis religion in this country (a very distant second, admittedly). If you were to view secularists as their own religious sect (which Romney, incorrectly, does) it would rank third, behind only Roman Catholics and Baptists ... and given trends, secularists have likely moved past Baptists since the linked survey was completed and into second place.

In other words, that's a pretty big minority of people Romney is expressing intolerance for. There are considerably more secularists in this country than Blacks or Hispanics.

X4mr also does an excellent job of explaining why the John Adams "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom" quote doesn't mean what Romney would like everyone to interpret it as meaning. Sadly, he'll get away with it - the vast majority of his intended audience will seize on it as evidence our revered founding fathers always intended our government to be steered by religion, regardless of constraints built into the Constitution. "Oh, they really didn't mean that."

There is another statement out there, Article XI of this document, a document Adams very publicly avowed his support for and signed into law, supported unanimously by Senate, the opening clause of which states in no uncertain terms:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion ..."

Oddly, Romney didn't see fit to include that Adams statement in his address.

Lies and videotape (no sex ... yet)

2007-12-07T10:25:00.000-08:00

The NYTimes has an article this morning discussing the CIA's decision last year to destroy videotapes of interrogations the agency had conducted with terrorism suspects. The agency destroyed the tapes during a period when it's secret detention practices were under investigation, and the tapes were never handed over to either the 9/11 commission, Congress or to the courts - all of which, at different times and for different reasons had made requests for information which the tapes would seem to have fallen into.

Legal concerns were among the major motivating factors to destroy the tape was:

"The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terrorism suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. The tapes were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that video showing harsh interrogation methods could expose agency officials to legal risks, several officials said."

So, to be clear, the CIA engaged in activities it knew were, at best, skirting the edge of the law, and likely well beyond what the law would permit. It apparently disregarded legitimate requests from both our judiciary and our elected officials to turn the tapes over, and finally decided to destroy the evidence so as to not suffer (or limit) any potential consequences which might derive from their actions.

This isn't the first set of interrogation tapes to be lost. Tapes of interrogations of Jose Padilla conveniently went missing when they were requested as evidence earlier this year as part of his criminal case. But wait! There's more! As Glenn Greenwald documented last spring, this administration has compiled a lengthy list of documents and other evidentiary items which have wandered off or "been overlooked" or "accidentally deleted" or what-have-you at times coincidentally most convenient to the administration itself, and least convenient to whatever investigating body wanted them.

Of course, destruction of evidence only needs to be relied on when Executive Privilege claims simply won't do.

Still, I am sure there are some number of members of the alleged party of "personal responsibility" (as long as, you know, members of a Republican administration aren't actually held responsible for outing a CIA agent, or illegally torturing prisoners, etc.) who will say "why the fuss - we're talking about terrorists, after all."

Except we're not. As this Washington Post article (and this) make clear, even actually being declared innocent by US intelligence wasn't sufficient to earn Murat Kurnaz his release from imprisonment, where he was kept for four years for no cause whatsoever. It took a personal plea from German Chancellor Angela Merkel to achieve that.

Meanwhile, who knows what indignities Kurnaz suffered. I'm sure any videotapes have been destroyed.

Zogby poll follow-up

2007-12-05T14:12:00.000-08:00

There was a small burst of comment last week, both in the blogosphere and the MSM, when a Zogby online poll purported to find Clinton trailing all major Republican presidential candidates in potential-head-to-head match-ups.

If the data were valid it would certainly be newsworthy, but for a number of reasons (which I discussed here), the poll results did not appear credible.

Sure enough, a subsequent traditional Bloomberg poll from 11/30 to 12/3 continues to show Clinton beating both Giuliani and Romney in head-to-head contests (for that matter, Obama beats them both as well). The results are quite consistent with prior polling, and further supports the notion the Zogby poll suffered from bad sampling.

It would have been interesting to see daily result breakouts to see what effect, if any, Giuliani's public financing of his affair had on the polling. The incident was just breaking as the poll started, and garnered a fair bit of publicity as the poll went on.

Green families

2007-12-04T10:22:00.000-08:00

A number of news sources are discussing a recent study finding divorced families are worse for the environment. The idea is there is an economy in energy use (electricity, gas, etc.) and other resources when people are unite din one family as opposed to split in two.

Now, I agree with the interviewee at the end of the linked article who opines no one is going to stay in an unhappy marriage for the sake of the environment. I just wanted to use this as an excuse to note myself, Framer and ThinkRight, among many, are doing our best to support the environment.

X4mr, on the other hand, is clearly blowing it for all of us.

Clinton disconnect

2007-12-04T10:01:00.000-08:00

I've seen discussion lately about the possibility of a "reverse coattails" effect if Hillary Clinton garners the Democratic presidential nomination. The idea seems to be Democratic members of Congress who won seats in 2006 in traditionally Republican districts are concerned the prospect of a Clinton presidency will cause conservatives to rally to the polls, voting against not just Clinton but the Democratic congress-person as well.

Reading this makes be think both sides are having metal disconnect issues concerning Clinton.

One the conservative side, no matter how much one might dislike Clinton's views, she's indisputably the most "centrist" of the leading Democratic candidates ... or all the Democratic candidates for that matter. Not that any conservative would be happy with any Democratic president (just as I am not likely to be thrilled if a Republican wins next year), but I would still think a truly informed conservative voter would be much more concerned about the prospect of a Edwards administration, say, than they would be about a Clinton one. If Obama or Edwards wins office there will be a much sharper "yank" to the left (in my opinion) than if Clinton wins.

From the liberal side, there is concern about Clinton's views, that she's not "progressive enough" ... and I share those concerns. She won't be getting my vote in the primary. Still, to label her as "no different" than the Republican candidates, or to call the prospect of a Clinton candidacy as "Bush's third term" (which Liza does in comments in this thread, with Roger agreeing, and I have heard the expression elsewhere) is going much too far.

There are reasons conservatives are up in arms over Clinton. Yes, a lot of those reasons are historical, but that history includes some real differences on positions. Anyone who doesn't think Clinton is far more likely to promote "progressive" policies on health care, foreign policy, stem cell research, immigration, education, etc. than any of the Republican candidates has blinders on. She may not be as progressive as desired, but if she wins the nomination she'll be more progressive than the alternative, and by a significant margin.

More credit that isn't due

2007-12-04T09:33:00.000-08:00

I posted last month about the inappropriateness of the administration trying to claim some of the credit for recent stem cell research which may allow the cultivation of pluripotent stem cells without the need to destroy human embryos.

Late last week, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, who knows a great deal about spin but apparently very little about science, authored a column lauding Bush's foresight on the matter, and claiming vindication for his his approach. Krauthammer ends the piece by lauding "moral disquiet" of scientist James Thomson, who is one of the leading researchers of embryonic stem cells and who led the Wisconsin team which announced the breakthrough last month (along with a separate Japanese team).

Well, Thomson had an op-ed piece of his own at the Washington Post yesterday, where he correctly trashes the Krauthammer column as the complete piece of s*** it is. He notes the Japanese team developed it's research independent of any decisions by Bush or his administration, and that teams in a number of other countries unaffected by US limitations are progressing far faster than US researchers are.

Thomson also notes the impossibility developing stem cells with the same properties of ESCs without first understanding what those properties are, a process the President's policies can only have hurt, not possibly helped.

In other words, this research has proceeded despite, not because of, Bush's "line in the sand", and in all likelihood has been hampered by those limitations, although we can never know for sure. If there had been more government funding for more stem cell lines, might this achivement have been reached three years ago?

Thomson (and his co-author Alan Leshner) conclude their piece by pointing out the uncertainty that their research will fully pan out, something we won't know for several years, minimum, and encourage Congress to override the President's veto of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. It won't happen - too many Republicans in Congress are more committed to supporting the President and furthering their own ideologies than they are to actually furthering a policy a considerable majority of their constituents support.

Maybe though, just maybe, the Thomson op-ed will help stop the wave of idiocy trying to allot some credit to the President for a breakthrough his policies did nothing to help, and much to hinder.

Recent interesting stuff

2007-12-04T09:11:00.000-08:00

Some posts from other sites I have found particularly interesting:

1. x4mr has a terrific post on some of the issues with for-profit prisons.

2. ThinkRight, who has experience in the mortgage lending field, has been making a number of posts about the recent crisis and some possible approaches to dealing with it. The most recent are here and here.

However, the most interesting, and horrifying, doesn't deal directly with the crises itself, but rather a victim of mortgage-related fraud. The post is here. Make sure you click through the link he provides and read the full Seattle Times piece.

3. How The World Works provides a pair of YouTube clips of British comedians discussing the subprime lending crises, it's causes, potential impacts, etc. Quite funny in the typical dry, British way, and educational as well. (Note: you will likely have to sit through small Salon.com ad to access the post, it's well worth the inconvenience.)

I'd like to include something from Arizona8th, but they, like I, have been in hibernation the last few days. Wake up! :)

A poll by any other name

2007-11-28T10:11:00.000-08:00

AZAce over at Arizona 8th had a post up yesterday about a new Zogby poll showing Clinton trailing all major Republican candidates. Of course, AZ8th isn't the only site to post this, as numerous other bloggers and news outlets have jumped all over the data.

At first glance this looks to be significant news, deserving of prominent display. After all, it would represent a roughly 10-point slide by the presumed Democratic front-runner in a very short span of time.

However, what AZAce didn't mention (and I suspect simply missed, because it isn't noted until you get to the small text all the way at the bottom - I missed in on my first fast read-through) is that this latest poll is not a traditional phone poll, as all the prior surveys Zogby cites were, but instead an online interactive poll. This changes things considerably.

First, there are clearly some self-selection issues with online polling (old folks, poor, etc., are less likely to vote in it). This can be adjusted for with proper weighting, but it does take more care.

Second, Zogby's interactive polls do not, shall we say, have the best reputation for accuracy. In general, they have been shown to be far less accurate in predicting actual outcome margins than traditional phone polls.

Third, a more traditional poll done by Gallup about 10 days earlier showed Clinton with a small, but steady, lead on all Republican candidates.

Given the result of the Gallup poll is entirely consistent with across-the-board trends over the last several months, while the Zogby interactive poll represents a dramatic break from those trends, it might be best to wait for a few more sets of polling data to come in and confirm the Zogby result before concluding the entire dynamic of the race has suddenly shifted.

If I were to place a bet, it would be that the Gallup poll will be found to be consistent, and the Zogby results an outlier.

Presidential quotas

2007-11-27T10:06:00.000-08:00

Apparently, at a recent fund raiser, Mitt Romney answered a question about the possibility of including a member of the Muslim faith within his cabinet by saying he “cannot see that a Cabinet position would be justified” based on the percentage of Muslims in the U.S.

I wasn't aware any positions within our government were alloted by religious belief (or lack thereof - atheists will want their seats in the cabinet too), and in fact I thought the Constitution explicitly prohibits such calculus (although apparently the US Attorney General's office didn't get the memo).

Still, leaving aside such trivial items as our nation's founding document, as well as the fact Republicans are allegedly against the used of quotas in hiring, school admissions, etc., one could certainly make a pretty strong case, based on the fact that only about 1.4% of the US self-identifies as Mormon, that one "cannot see that a Presidential position would be justified" for Romney, based on the percentage of Mormons in the US.

Surge failure

2007-11-27T09:29:00.000-08:00

No, no, not the Iraq surge ... rather, the citizenship surge.

Not surprisingly, this past summers debate on how to deal with immigrants, legal or otherwise, inspired a number of individuals to turn in their citizenship applications in hopes of
becoming citizens in time to vote in next year's elections. However, despite a large increase in the application fees, an increase allegedly intended to help develop the necessary infrastructure to speed the process along, new applicants are being told the backlog for processing is now reaching 16 to 18 months.

For those who are to lazy to count, the elections are less than 12 months away.

As the linked piece notes, this isn't a backlog due to visa limits or any other issue. This is simply a matter of not having enough people on hand to deal with the influx. Once again our "corporate administration" proves its core competency is incompetence.

Official Republican Policy

2007-11-26T11:14:00.000-08:00

In the run-up to the 2006 elections there was a great deal of invective about Jim Pederson's willingness to sink a great deal of his personal money into his Senate campaign, numerous postings in comments about his wanting "to buy the election", etc., etc.,

Apparently "buying elections" is now official republican policy.

The linked articles discusses the ramifications of the difficulties the RNCC is having in raising funds for the 2008 races, where it currently finds itself at a roughly 12.5-1 disadvantage in cash on hand compared to the DNCC. The discrepancy is especially start when compared to the vast advantage in funds the RNCC had is past years, even 2006.

Among those ramifications is Republicans are actively seeking candidates who can "self-finance" their campaigns, without help (or, at least, much help) from the party fund raising institutions.

That lack of funding is a real issue when looking at the 2008 campaign map, where 17 Republicans have already retired or announced plans to not run for re-election next year, with more such announcements on the way. That's a lot of open seats to defend without much money to do it, not to mention some number of incumbent candidates who will find themselves in hotly contested elections, and it won't leave a whole lot, if any, left over to challenge sitting Democratic incumbents, no matter how new or how vulnerable they might seem.

If this guy decides to run, he might want to save his pennies or win the lottery ... or both.

Credit where credit isn't due

2007-11-22T19:12:00.000-08:00

The NY Times has a follow-up article on the recent announcement of a stem cell research breakthrough which may allow the creation of pluripotent stem cells without the need to destroy human embryos. The article provides some historical background, and some context as to what the breakthrough potentially means for future research and development in this country.

Midway through the article comes this:

On Tuesday, senior aides to Mr. Bush said he drove the experiments by holding his moral ground.

“This is very much in accord with the president’s vision from the get-go,” said Karl Zinsmeister, a domestic policy adviser to Mr. Bush who kept the president apprised of the work. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that the president’s drawing of lines on cloning and embryo use was a positive factor in making this come to fruition.”

Of course, this completely overlooks two points:

1. While the recent announcement was a joint one between teams from Japan and Wisconsin, it is in fact the Japanese team which has been the primary moving force in this line of research. It was their seminal announcement last year of a method which worked in mice that both teams built on to apply to human cells.

Bush's views and policies had nothing whatsoever to do with the Japanese research.

2. These developments would have been entirely impossible without initial research with actual embryonic stem cells. You can't create a method for developing cells with the same properties as embryonic stem cells unless you actually know what those properties are.

Bush's policies have done nothing whatsoever to promote research of pluripotent stem cells in this country, much to hinder it. There is a reason the leading research in this field comes primarily from Japan and South Korea.

Sadly, there is nothing unusual in this President taking credit for accomplishments he had nothing to do with, or weren't complete. "Mission Accomplished" anyone?

Just out of curiousity ...

2007-11-22T18:51:00.000-08:00

The Star had an interesting article today about legitimate AZ businesses working to help smugglers get illegals across the border and deeper into the country.

Soooo ... lets say, hypothetically, Giffords were to introduce some piece of legislation to help address this issue (a special investigative unit, extra penalties/fines, whatever) ... anyone care to wager just how much time would pass before the first conservative blog had a post up citing it as evidence she was "anti-business"?

Compassionate Conservatism in action

2007-11-21T09:05:00.000-08:00

This has already been posted about in a number of place, but apparently the US Army is attempting to recover some of the bonuses it paid to soldiers who were injured in combat seriously enough to not be able to fulfill their terms of enlistment.

As noted at the link, Dem Congressman Jason Altmire has already introduced legislation to prevent this practice, which should never have occurred in the first place. I'm sure by challenging the army on this, he will shortly beheld up as yet another Democrat who "doesn't support the troops".

After all, once they are severely wounded and can't hold a gun or take a bullet anymore they're no longer "troops" but civilians, so Conservatives don't feel the need to pretend to care about them anymore.

Extremist != Disagreement

2007-11-20T13:31:00.000-08:00

Fellow blogger ThinkRight has a post up proclaiming Giffords isn't a moderate, but rather an extreme left-wing wactivist who wants to take away all our guns, open our borders to anyone who wants to visit, raise the taxes to 110% of income and destroy all industry so we can revert back to living in harmony with nature.

Well, he doesn't go quite that far. In making his case, however, he cites the fact she supported the resolution by Dennis Kucinich to impeach Dick Cheney last week as an example of an "extremist" position.

Polling results from just this month indicate 43% of voters feel Cheney should be impeached. A further 9% feel he has committed impeachable offenses, but should not be impeached. Let's see ... 43+9 = 52. Hey, what do you know - a majority of voters in this country think Cheney has committed impeachable offenses. For the record, that's far more than ever felt that way about Clinton, which didn't stop Republicans from, you know, actually impeaching him.

In all fairness, TR was against impeaching Clinton, so he's consistent at least.

However, this does bring up the matter of what qualifies as "extremist". I mean, when your position is actually in line with the majority view it certainly can't be labeled as "extreme", but must, at least, be labeled as "mainstream". I don't see how this can even be quibbled with, debated, or even "agree to disagree" - when your view is the majority view, labeling it "extreme" is simply ... well ... wrong.

Still, is there some metric to be applied? Without any real thought at all, it seems to me that I tend to (unconsciously) use the following metrics:

If there is a matter where one position garners more than 50% support, then any view which has less than 25% support is "extreme". Any view with less than 10% support is "fringe".

That seems pretty crude, though, and I am sure if I thought about it long enough I could come up with counter-examples from my past which disprove it. It does seem like an accurate rough guide to my thought process, though.

In the end, I may disagree with TR's views regarding Cheney impeachment, but his opinion is, by no means, extremist. After all, 48% of voters don't think Cheney should be impeached.

Skin Cell Stem Cells

2007-11-20T12:28:00.000-08:00

The NY Times, among others, has an article this morning discussing a possible new manner of gathering pluripotent stem cells for research purposes which doesn't involve the destruction of human embryos. I recall the announcement last year by the Japanese team of a method which worked in mice, and claims they saw no reason the approach would not work with human cells. Apparently they were correct.

This is a great step forward as, if the approach is ultimately found to be successful, it removes any real ethical concern to embryonic stem cell research.

Still, it unsurprisingly a spawn of ignorant posts and associated comments from certain parts of the blogosphere such as this one.

The author, who links to the same Time piece, is wrong in her very first sentence: "And once again, the news has nothing to do with embryonic stem cell research:"

I fact, the breakthrough has everything to do with embryonic stem cell research. The two groups are claiming to be able to create cells with the same properties as embryonic stem cells, just via a method which uses skin cells as the starting point rather than blastocysts.

The comment that really gets to me though, is the statement (oft-repeated by those opposed to embryonic stem cell research) "... to date, there have been no “cures” developed on the embryonic stem cell research front. Not a single one."

She's correct of course, but is intentionally obfuscating the matter by not discussing why there are no cures. It's a straw man claim. She knows that, she just doesn't care, which is generally true of most any pundit who makes a similar statement.

Cures or treatments don't just magically appear, they are developed over the span of years. It's been less than ten years (as a comparison, research in adult stem cells has been going on for decades, since the early 60's) since the seminal paper describing how embryonic stem cells could be isolated and developed (and thus viable for research purposes) was written (1998).

After that, you have to do the initial basic research and get it published and reviewed. Then you need to get approval for animal trials, get those results analyzed and published, then apply for permission for human trials, do those, analyze and publish again ... and only then, if the results seem promising, can you actually talk about developing a formal cure or treatment approach.

This is a 12-15 year process minimum. We're in year nine. It's like asking a 12-year-old why they haven't finished their college degree yet. Saying they haven't finished their degree may be factually true, but lies by inferring it's a failure on their part rather than just a function of the process.

In comments to that same post, some moron says: "Now we have one less reason to kill babies. Expect the leftards to get angry."

No baby has ever been killed to further embryonic stem cell research. Some number of embryos have been destroyed .... however, those embryos were going to be destroyed anyway, stem cell research or no. The embryos used for these purposes were among those headed for the incinerator. Even if one is among those who think a simple blastocyst is a human being, it doesn't change the fact those blastocysts were to be destroyed with or without stem cell research being involved. That being the case, what possible rational argument can be made against their destruction possibly being used to generate some good in the end?

Gaza siege

2007-11-19T14:10:00.000-08:00

The NY Times this morning has a short article and associated multimedia presentation about the effects of the current lock down on regular Palestinians within Gaza, something I talked about a little bit last week.

Surge, al-Sadr, speculation

2007-11-19T12:56:00.000-08:00

The NY Times has an article today discussing the decreasing number of attacks in Iraq, which have reportedly fallen to levels not seen since Feb. 2006. The number of Iraqi deaths in October is expected to be the lowest monthly total since then as well. Meanwhile, US troops deaths in Iraq, which had been at record or near-record highs through the end of August, dropped to 38 last month, the lowest figure since Mar. 2006.

In discussing the various factors involved, the 11th paragraph begins: "Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric, has ordered his militiamen to stand down."

If one only read this article, one might think this was a recent development. As in, "things are going sooooooo well, even al-Sadr thought it was safe enough to stand down his militia."

One would be wrong. In fact, al-Sadr called for the militia stand down at the end of August.

Let's connect some dots. The surge began in January of this year. Throughout the year, as US troops levels increased there was no indication they were having any clear effect in decreasing violence. Each month, US casualties were higher than the corresponding month in 2006 (which was already a high-casualty year). As late as August, Iraqi civilian casualties were high, but September saw a significant drop, which apparently continued last month.

Through the summer there were comments about the lethality of explosively formed penetrators, supposedly provided by Iran ... which most certainly was not providing them to primarily Sunni groups, such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, but rather to Shi'ite organizations, such as, just to pick a random example, al-Sadr's militia brigades.

So which is the bigger factor, the surge or al-Sadr's proclamation? There will, of course, be a spate of articles, talking heads comments, blog posts, etc., which claim the former, but the numbers don't bear that out. The surge occurred over a period of months during which violence and casualties were extremely high. Al-Sadr opens his mouth, and immediately violence and casualties drop spectacularly.

Sometimes the timely words of a self-interested lunatic mean more than a few 10's of thousands of American soldiers. Unfortunately, he could open his mouth again and reverse the trend nearly as quickly.

Long talk with an old friend (part II)

2007-11-14T12:44:00.000-08:00

Part I is available here. As with Part I, any comments in quotation marks are my best recollection, and portray what was said with good accuracy, but should not be taken as verbatim quotes.

* * *

As part of the same rambling conversation, my friend mentioned the electricity situation in Gaza. For those who are unaware, an Israeli air strike in the summer of 2006 knocked out the only power plant within the Gaza strip. Since then, Gaza has been largely reliant on fuel for generators and Israeli sources for its electricity.

However, fuel supplies are running dry, and the Israeli government recently indicated it planned to stop sending electricity to Gaza, although those plans were at least temporarily placed on hold last week by a ruling from Israel's Supreme Court.

"It's not as simple as not having lights or air conditioners," my friend said. "It's all the things you never think of, you take for granted. People in hospitals will die. Medicine which needs refrigeration will spoil. Almost all of the water in Gaza comes from the ocean. Without electricity, the desalination plant can't run, there will be no water."

She also discussed her frustrations with the situation.

She felt she had been in her position long enough she was no longer effective in it - that as she became acclimated to the day-to-day problems thrown in her way they no longer outraged her, and without that outrage her effectiveness decreased.

She gave an example of a colleague of hers arriving recently in Jerusalem, and on arrival being asked why he was there. As soon as he mentioned he hoped to work to further peace between Israelis and Palestinians he was sent back to the US and told he was not welcome to return for a 10-year period.

"When I first began, I'd have been furious," she said. "This time, I just divied up the extra work among everyone and we all continued on."

She talked about the difficulties of making treks to Gaza. Israel doesn't allow people to cross into Gaza unless they have some powerful reason for doing so, such as overseeing what money a group has sent to Gaza is being spent on. To go on a certain day she has to apply long in advance to be placed on a list. On the specified day she has to arrive at the checkpoint and go through a two-hour process to get clearance to pass through, and a similar process coming back. Any approval is only for a single day, so just getting through the border takes up a big chunk of your allotted time.

She discussed how blase she had become about having guns pointed at her. I've had guns pointed at me a handful of times in my life, and can vividly recall each of them. She clearly has lost count.

"I think I can do one more year, then it will be time to move on to another lost cause," she told me. "Maybe immigration issues here."

I'm of two minds about this. In the abstract, my friend is exactly the person I would want in Jerusalem working on such matters. She is bright, caring, driven, tactful, trustworthy, dedicated ... name a trait you would want in an individual working on the ground to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and she has it in spades. I can't think of anyone else I would prefer in that position ... in the abstract.

In reality, she's my friend, and I'll be glad when she and her family are back in the states, and she (hopefully) no longer has guns pointed at her on a regular basis.

* * *

In part I my friend mentioned her belief that, if elections were held again Palestinians would never vote for Hamas, but Hamas will never allow more elections because they also know they would lose. Certainly, events like this just support that view.

I link this poll because it cofirms my biases

2007-11-13T11:15:00.001-08:00

A Zogby poll conducted this past summer, with results only recently released, finds liberals are far more likely than conservatives to expose themselves to media content (television, radio, movies, etc.) which contains views contrary to their own. Conservatives tend to stick solely to outlets which confirm their already held views. (The poll itself addressed a wider range of issues, comparing individual politics with a range of entertainment preferences.)

There is some other interesting stuff in there - supposedly everyone likes classical music, which helps explain why there are so many classical stations on FM radio.

Unfortunately, other than the overview on the linked page above and the press release the page links to, there is nothing more about the data underling the conclusions.

However, the page does provide a link to this PDF file which provides some interesting information about the demographics involved in the study. In particular, I found the following through-provoking:

* It's within the margin of error, but more moderates agreed with the statement "Security is more important than liberties" than agreed with "Liberties are more important than security".
* I was similarly surprised to see most moderates agreed with the statement "The American Dream is for those who help themselves".
* I knew "An abortion is a private decision between a woman and her doctor" would be favored over "Abortion is murder", but not by such crushing margins. Even 25% of conservatives agree with the former statement.
* I was surprised at the margin by which moderates favored the statement "Government it too involved in regulating morality".
* I was shocked to see moderates favor privatizing social security by a 5% margin.
* I was shocked and dismayed to see 61% of moderates favored "It's important to teach evolution side-by-side with other theories on the origin of man".
* Conservatives continue to skew older.

Anyhow, I suspect just about anyone can find something which will surprise them in the demographic data. It's worth spending a little time looking through.

Long talk with an old friend (part I)

2007-11-13T10:27:00.000-08:00

Over this past weekend I had the opportunity to catch up with someone I've known nearly 30 years. For whatever reason, the last couple years whenever we ran into each other one or both of us were hurrying off to somewhere, so this was an opportunity not to be missed.

She is married to an Israeli citizen, lives in Israel, and has spent a number of years working for a Palestinian-affiliated group hoping to promote the peace process, so I was very interested in her take on the current state of affairs. Not surprisingly, she wasn't optimistic.

We discussed the elections which brought Hamas to power, and she had a different take on matters. I am presenting her comments as quotes, but they should be taken as reasonably accurate recollections of what she said, rather than a verbatim word-for-word recounting.

"(Tip O'Neill) said 'all politics are local', and that's what the election was. People, especially in their first election, don't consider foreign relations in casting their votes, they worry about who will do best filling the potholes in the roads outside their homes."

"They knew Fatah was corrupt, they knew what Fatah was, they knew Fatah left the potholes. They'd had years of Fatah. They hoped Hamas might do more to make things better locally. They didn't think of the election, their first election ever, as a referendum, on their foreign policy views."

"Now, if there were a vote again, and Hamas won again, then I think the international community would have a legitimate concern ... but if an election were held again, Hamas would never win. Which is why Hamas won't allow more elections."

I have to confess, I hadn't considered the notion the Palestinians wouldn't realize the international significance of their choice when casting their votes ... and I still think, on some level, most of them were aware of it. The stated goals of Hamas are not exactly secret. Still, faced with two bad choices between:

* A corrupt group with some international legitimacy, or
* A (possibly) less corrupt group which has made serious efforts to help local citizens, but which had little (if any) international legitimacy,

it's not so unreasonable they might have opted for the devil they didn't know and hoped for the best.

Misguided Mantra

2007-11-07T10:03:00.001-08:00

It's become a matter of faith among Republicans that, should Hillary Clinton win the Democratic nomination next year, a horde of ravenous Hillary-hating zombies will match down the streets of America chanting for blood and voting for Republican candidates.

How desperate must party feel about it's chances to place it's best hope not on the strength of its own candidates but rather on the perceived lack of viability of the leading opposition candidate - "Yeah, all our choices suck, but if you nominate Hillary we can still win! Boo-Ya!"

Still, two years ago they might have been right. These days, not so much.

You still hear pundits, on TV, in the newspaper and in the blogosphere harping on "Hillary's negatives", how high they are, how they make her unelectable, etc., completely ignoring clear trends showing those numbers dropping steadily over the last 12 to 18 months.

In hypothetical head-to-head matchups as far back as 2005, McCain led Clinton 43-41 Quinnipiac University poll. Last December, McCain led 50-36 according to Bloomberg. In a Dec. 2004 Quinnipiac University poll, Giuliani led Clinton 45-43. Last April, Giuliani led 48-42 via Bloomberg.

In polling taken the middle of last month, Bloomberg shows Clinton leading Giuliani 47-41, leading McCain 48-38.

In fact, a CNN poll from last week shows Hillary with the second lowest set of negatives, only Barack Obama scoring lower by one percentage point. Every major Republican candidate scores higher - Giuliani 1% more, McCain 6% more, Thompson 13% more, Romney 16% more.

The next time we here a TV talking head discussing, say, the teeming masses of John McCain haters who will turn out to vote against him should he win the Republican nomination next year will be the first time we hear about it.

Conservatives may chant their mantra as much as they like, they can close their eyes and _wish_ with all their hearts that what they hope for turns out to be true ... but the actual data doesn't care about what Republicans hope for, and the data indicates Republicans might want to look for something else to pin their hopes on.

My debate teacher would have failed him

2007-11-06T12:44:00.000-08:00

ThinkRight has a post up today about Fred Barnes, editor of The Weekly Standard and regular Fox News contributor, arguing Republicans "have a chance" in the 2008 Presidential race.

TR provides a link to the full audio, and summarizes Barnes' case with the following four points:

Hispanics – instead of alienating the Haispanic vote by the recent stance on illegal immigration, the Republicans must hit the issue at hand instead of anti-Hispanic rhetoric. The Republicans need to explain the cause and effect of illegal immigration & stay off the race issue.

Voter turnout – get out the vote & not let the base & the middle stay home. The Dems have the Soros money & the labor union workforce that is paid to GOTV, so the Republicans need to rally the troops. Hillary may do this for the GOP.

Ohio – no President has won without Ohio. Not much we can do here from Southern AZ, but support candidates that may have great machines that could use the cash.

Bush – Bush's approval ratings are around 35% & no party that had a sitting president with such low numbers has won the presidency. However, some presidents with high numbers have not delivered as well (Clinton & Ike).

In a larger sense Barnes is, of course, correct - Republicans do have a chance, and a good one, of retaining the Presidency next year. However, the case he makes for it is astonishingly weak.

Point 4 is incoherent - somehow the fact past sitting Presidents with high approval ratings couldn't help their party maintain control of the White House is supposed to provide optimism for a party who's leading figure possesses record-setting negatives? Huh?

Barnes is also simply wrong regarding Ohio. As just one example, Nixon won Ohio by about seven points in the 1964 campaign, but Kennedy won the election. In a more general sense, it is certainly true Ohio is likely to be a key battleground state in next year's election, but it's perfectly feasible to draw up reasonable scenarios where either party loses Ohio but still wins the election.

I agree with Barnes as to the importance to the GOP of finding some means to mend its deteriorating image among Hispanics, but I am of the opinion it will be unable to do so in time for the 2008 election. Continued bitterness over immigration policy, or vetoing of new SCHIP legislation will help ensure that. Maybe by 2010.

Finally, no matter how he tries to slice it the Republicans have had the edge in GOTV operations for most of the past two decades. Analysts from both parties have cited this advantage as being key reasons for Bush victories in both 2000 and 2004. Rove was renowned for his ability to organize in this realm, it was a large part of his purported "genius". Democrats showed in 2006 they were narrowing the gap again, but they won't close it entirely by next year.

Barnes also gets in a shot at Clinton, but here too he seems to be grasping at straws. Of course, he's not the only one who is pinning his hopes for Republican victory on an "anti-Hillary" movement rather than any actual strength of the potential Republican nominee, but I think I will save that topic to post tomorrow.

Historical figures

2007-11-06T12:40:00.000-08:00

From USA Today:

Meanwhile, Bush reached an unwelcome record. By 64%-31%, Americans disapprove of the job he is doing. For the first time in the history of the Gallup Poll, 50% say they "strongly disapprove" of the president. Richard Nixon had reached the previous high, 48%, just before an impeachment inquiry was launched in 1974.

Dead-end game

2007-11-06T06:29:00.000-08:00

After months of inaction, the House Judiciary Committee yesterday forwarded Contempt of Congress charges against former White House aides Joshua Bolton and Harriet Miers to the full House of representatives.

Considering the original subpoenas Bolton and Miers refused to comply with were issued last summer, and the committee voted to find both in contempt on July 25, it can hardly be said matters have been rushing to a head. Still, I guess it took a while to scribe the 862-page document forwarded to the full House describing why the committee feels the two need to be charged.

Bolton and Miers each cited Executive Privilege in refusing to comply with the subpoenas. I am not a lawyer, but it does seem their case is very weak:

* The Supreme Court has found the privilege is "not absolute".
* Bill Clinton, as President, had his privilege claims overturned by the court and was forced to testify over a matter (the Lewinsky affair) which was of far less significance to the national well-being than concerns of politicization of the U.S. Attorney General's office.
* It would seem in order to assert such privilege one must, at a minimum, appear. Some questions asked may clearly not be covered by the privilege claim, in which case Bolton and Miers would be expected to answer.

I would certainly expect the full House to vote in favor of bringing contempt charges against both Bolton and Miers on a straight party-line vote ... at which point it would be the responsibility of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Colombia to prosecute the case. Hmmmm ... a Bush-administration attorney responsible for prosecuting contempt charges against two former Bush aides in a matter concerning Bush's politicization of the AG department. Anyone want to guess the odds of the case actually being prosecuted?

White House press secretary Dana Perino seemed insouciant in responding to reporter's questions on the matter yesterday afternoon, predicting "It won't go anywhere."

Of course it won't - she knows the fix is in.

Assuming this scenario plays out as expected, Dems should remember this in early 2009. If a Democrat wins the Presidency a year from now, the matter can always be revisited then - and should be.

Fits of whimsy

2007-10-31T08:04:00.000-07:00

Apparently frustrated by no longer having his every childish whim treated as imperial demand by the House and Senate, The Worst President In History is now planning to increase his use of Executive Orders to implement his ludicrously unpopular policies.

So ... what does this mean?

First of all, the Supreme Court has ruled (in this case) the President can't use orders to create new law. Since that time, Presidents have typically noted some law they were abiding by when issuing an order, to give it at least a veneer of legality. Most orders aren't controversial, and it's worth noting only two have ever been overturned in court (the above case and one issued by Clinton in 1996).

That limitation, however, still leaves plenty of room for misuse and abuse. Perhaps the most infamous Executive Order in our history was #9066, which resulted in tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans (and German- and Italian-Americans as well) being rounded up after the US entry into WWII and spending years in internment camps.

Given this administration's history of ignoring constraints on its power, it's quite easy to envision scenarios where it issues Executive Orders privatizing social security, drilling in the ANWR, or whatever - pushing policies Bush knows he no longer has any chance at all of getting through Congress. As a practical matter, any order would be virtually impossible to overturn - lawsuits would be appealed past the end of his term of office, and any attempt to counter his order by passing a bill in Congress would be vetoed, said veto upheld by the Republican minority.

Something we won't see, however, is an Executive Order to attack Iran. The administration thinks it already has sufficient authority to do that, regardless of what the Constitution might actually say.

Now for something completely different

2007-10-29T10:19:00.000-07:00

Apropos of virtually nothing I have discussed in this blog, if this technology pans out it will change all our lives unimaginable ways.

That's a pretty big if though. I'll have to remember to check back on this in the summer of 2009.

Feeling a draft

2007-10-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

Apparently things are going so well in Iraq the US State Department is having to turn away applicants in record numbers, as hundreds of young staffers surge to be associated with the ongoing success in Baghdad.

"A lot of our personnel, particularly the younger staffers, see an Iraq posting a a prestigious resume-enhancer," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. "We don't have one-tenth of the positions it would take to fill all the requests. Honestly, being able to pick-and-choose the best-of-the-best is a nice problem to have."

Oops ... my bad ... that's not our reality .... that's some other reality the Republicans created.

In our reality, which is, unfortunately, the only reality we all share, matters are slightly different .... as in up to 300 diplomats were recently informed they were being considered to fill one of 40 to 50 vacancies in Iraq, and refusal on their part would be grounds for dismissal.

Now, outright refusal to do something your boss tells you to do, assuming it's legal and relevant to your job, is usually a perfectly reasonable basis for getting fired. On the other hand, most of us who took "civilian" jobs don't expect to get sent to war zones involuntarily either.

I've said before I am not, in principle, opposed to a draft - one constant throughout this war has been the administration's absolute refusal to spread the impact of it across the nation as a whole. Instead of raising taxes to help pay for the war the President pushed through massive tax cuts, primarily for the wealthy (yeah, that makes sense - we know we're going to have to layout billions of dollars we didn't originally budget for, lets pay for it by decreasing our incoming revenue). As the strain on our army has become increasingly apparent, the administration has responded not by re-instituting a national draft, but rather by increasing the length of time units stay on rotation overseas.

This might have made sense four years ago, when we were going to be greeted by rose-throwing natives and the total cost of the war was going to be $50 billion. Four years down the road, however, as the only thing the natives are throwing at us are grenades, and the cost approaches $1 trillion, it makes no sense whatsoever.

If you're going to institute a draft for the state department, lets be fair about this and open it up to everyone - including the children of wealthy Republicans, sitting Senators and Representatives even.

Let's see how long we stay in Iraq then.