Edgewise

Words we'll soon retire

Farewell to...

--Like a broken record

--Carbon copy

--Trick photography

Kind of sad.

So far, we have replacements for two: Clone. Special effects (though with Special morphing to oblivion). We'll have to get to work on Broken record.

Lyons, Carnival, and FEMA oh my!

We talked on the phone to our friends in New Orleans last night as they were out on their front porch directing traffic onto sidewalks and neighbor's driveways for Mardi Gras parking. They sounded happy for the first time in a long while. Here's some pics of their neighborhood at Inside The Bowl

Global Warming Walking Points

http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/24/technology/fastforward_fortune/index.htm

Gore's speech enumerates well-documented scientific evidence that the global climate is changing significantly -- and fast. Here are a few data points:

Global CO2 levels are way outside what have been historical norms over several hundred thousand years.

All ten of the hottest years on record, globally, have occurred in the last 15 years.

Last summer, all-time heat records were set in both the U.S. West and East.

Global ocean temperatures are far outside of historical norms.

Even after last year's devastating Hurricane Katrina, the subsequent Hurricane Wilma was briefly the most severe hurricane ever recorded.

Last year Japan hit an all-time record for typhoons --10. The previous record was 7.

The largest downpour ever seen occurred last summer in India.

Thirty-five years ago there were an average of 225 days when Alaska's tundra was frozen enough for trucks to drive. Today there are only 75.

The Devils' Dictionary

The Nation has compiled and published a Dictionary of Republicanisms. Of the definitions they’ve published in the magazine (or rather, in this case, on the website), here are two of my favorites:

laziness n. When the poor are not working.

leisure time n. When the wealthy are not working.

(Both definitions by Justin Rezzonico of Keene, Ohio.)

Ex-America

Fast-forwarding through the umpteenth ad for Big American Car in my quest for 2 minutes of olympic athleticism, I am coming to the conclusion that our economy is in desperate straights. If you don't run out NOW and buy a Big American Car we're going to hit the skids, pass on, be no more, cease to be, expire and meets our maker, go stiff, bereft of life, rest in peace, push up daisies, go off the twig, an' kick the bucket; If you don't mortgage your house NOW and buy another huge honking SUV this country will shuffle off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and join the bleedin' choir invisibile!!

go team SUVica!

National Security--China and Everywhere Else

The Click That Broke a Government's Grip, Washington Post

The government has sought to control what people read and write on the Web, employing a bureaucracy of censors and one of the world's most technologically sophisticated systems of filters.

DKo: Only when the government has determined there is a danger to national security. If you are not guilty, you have nothing to worry about.
Article

Rocco lives

Niger Uranium Rumors Wouldn't Die - Los Angeles Times

and the White House lies won't die....

(Thanks to D. Wayman for the heads up)

Slight majority believe it was an accident

I was listening to one of those right-wing blowhards on KSFO (560) in my car driving home last night and whoever it was cited a Rassmussen poll claiming that a whopping 57% of respondents believed that Dick Cheney shot his friend acquaintance by accident. He was triumphant about this number and mocked the 38% who believed there was more to the story.

Personally, I think of course that it was an accident, if a foolish one possibly indicative of a pattern of reckless behavior. But I’m more amazed that the mini-Rush wannabe I was listening to was trying to spin it as a good thing that only 57% of people polled were willing to accept that it was simply an accident.

Cheney’s credibility in general must be incredibly weak if that few people are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

There's an irony in that irony (Plus me showing off).

In 2004, "radical Shiite Muslim cleric" Muqtada Sadr took control of the holy places in Kerbala and led a bloody, extended anti-US uprising there. In the end, the US military was compelled by Shiite leaders to allow Sadr's Mahdi Army to leave the city under the protection of a cease fire. However, the US still vowed to crush Sadr in the future.

I posted this on Edgewise on 11/11/04...
The Iraqization Program
DKo: The apparent reliance on former Kurdish militia as backup is explosive.... All of which tends to make Moktada al Sadr the tipping point, hence the kingmaker. Will the US accept that? Can Bush sell it as the success that vindicates the war?

And sure enough, per the NYT this Wednesday, 2/15/06...
Radical Cleric Rising as a Kingmaker in Iraqi Politics
Late Saturday night, on the eve of a crucial vote to choose Iraq's next prime minister, a senior Iraqi politician's cellphone rang. A supporter of the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr....said that there's going to be a civil war among the Shia if Mr. Sadr's preferred candidate was not confirmed....The widely favored candidate lost by one vote, and Ibrahim al-Jaafari...was anointed as Iraq's next leader.
"Everyone was stunned; it was a coup d'etat"....It was a crowning moment for Mr. Sadr....The man who led the Mahdi Army militia's two deadly uprisings against American troops in 2004 now controls 32 seats in Iraq's Parliament, enough to be a kingmaker. He has an Islamist vision of Iraq's future, and is implacably hostile to the Iraqis closest to the United States--the mostly secular Kurds, and Ayad Allawi, the former prime minister.

So, there's the first irony.

And, per the LA Times today, 2/16/06
Iraqi Shiite Bloc Showing Cracks
Leaders of [Muqtada Sadr's] party threaten to break away if the alliance doesn't reach out to Sunnis and restrain paramilitary groups.

And there's the second.

At Last! A Voice for "The Aspirations of the Iranian People"

Rice Asks for $75 Million to Increase Pressure on Iran, Washington Post

"...including expanding radio and television broadcasts into Iran and promoting internal opposition to the rule of religious leaders....'[W]e are going to work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom in their own country,' Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee..."

DKo: At last! A voice for "the aspirations of the Iranian people." For far too long, we have just stood by and left Iranian politics to be dominated by special interests.

(The Post article)

Cultural Conservatism--Eerily Apt from Lenin

"In civilized Europe [i.e., the USA of his day], with its highly developed machine industry, its rich, multiform culture and its constitutions, a point of history has been reached when the commanding bourgeoisie, fearing the growth and increasing strength of the proletariat, comes out in support of everything backward, moribund, and medieval ..."

(V. I. Lenin, "Backward Europe and Advanced Asia," Collected Works, Vol. 19, pp 9pff. Quoted from Against Method, Paul Feyerabend, page 147)

This calls for at least 200 recommendations!

Disaster Response Changes Promised
Administration Admits Katrina Flaws, Moves to Retool Homeland Security

[A] government-wide review due later this month...[will] make more than 100 recommendations..."

Washington Post

DKo: I think this calls for at least 200 recommendations.

Big American Car (Sports) Moments

"When did Michelle Kwan get old,"

And then I blew up my TV.

If it was unlawful, they are whistleblowers

Inquiry Into Wiretapping Article Widens NYT
"...a rapidly expanding criminal investigation into...a New York Times article...that disclosed the existence of a highly classified domestic eavesdropping program..."

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DKo: I have no legal expertise, but this is my instinctive lay-person's reaction:

If the NSA eavesdropping was unlawful, or even if it's lawfulness was so seriously questionable as to require a legislative/judicial review, or if the secrecy surrounding it was illicit, then the leakers and reporters involved were whistleblowers, and are entitled to the standard legal protections due to whistleblowers.

(And the rewards: If the program is halted, or if the spending on it was unlawful at the time--prior to some future enabling legislation--then they should be paid a percentage of the spending, the standard whistleblower's reward.)

If they do face punishment, that may give them legal "standing" to compel judicial review of the program's legality in their trials, independently of congress. But if congress proceeds with investigations or even considers remedial legislation, without invoking protection for the people who showed the courage to bring it to their attention, it will be sickening cravenness.

World-Class Complacency

Bush acknowledges problems in drug plan's rollout Reuters

[Bush] said officials were trying to make sure more information is shared by Medicare, the health plans and the states, and that it is up-to-date. "We're making good progress," Bush said.

DKo: Sharing information. Keeping it up-to-date. What a good idea! And now is the perfect time for it. You don't want to peak too early.

Imagine a Fire-chief saying, when asked when his trucks were going to make it to the scene of a fire, "We're making good progress."

The White House Lied While New Orleans Died

“FYI from FEMA” said the e-mail to Homeland Security on the night the 17th Street Canal levee broke. The White House knew of flooding, stranded people and fires in the Crescent City by midnight. Then they all went about their business as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile the City of New Orleans fought it’s greatest battle - with the elements - and lost.

Today, the streets of New Orleans are broken, empty, filled with debris. A thousand or more are dead. Hundreds of thousands are “missing” and may never return to their homes. Their homes are gone. Of the 21,000 requests from New Orleaneans for FEMA trailers, only 3,000 have gotten them—more than five months after the hurricane and flood.

That FEMA e-mail said the situation in New Orleans was, “…far more serious…” than the media were reporting. The media had not seen what the FEMA staff had seen, flying over the 17th Street canal in a Coast Guard helicopter. What happened between that e-mail message and the vacationing president’s sigh of relief that the stricken city had “dodged the bullet”? Somebody lied.

Bush's Dream Headline

Would any news organization fall for Bush's ludicrous attempt to associate the LA plane-threat story with the totally unrelated surveillance he is currently defending in Washington? Well, there's at least one born every minute. The AP came through for the Dunce award:

Bush: U.S. Surveillance Helped Stop Attack AP
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060210/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_35

Not Just Single-Blind

Low-Fat Diet Does Not Cut Health Risks, Study Finds NYT 2/8/06
The largest study ever to ask whether a low-fat diet reduces the risk of getting cancer or heart disease has found that the diet has no effect.

DKo: Remember to avoid health advice drawn from traditional Chinese medicine, Hindu Ayurvedic medicine, herbalism, etc. It is really flaky.

Are You Lying?

It occurs to me that under the humbling burden imposed on the Commander-in-Chief in wartime, especially in a harrowing war without borders that could last virtually forever, the President--strictly as required to protect equally extraordinary implicit wartime powers--might be compelled to authorize an Attorney General to give false testimony to a Senate committee.

They should ask him.

"Stuck in the middle with Jews..."

Speaking as a Jew, can I say: how classic is it that Iran is responding to those Danish Mohammed-themed cartoons by sponsoring a cartoon contest about the Holocaust? I mean (speaking rhetorically now, but still as a Jew), how did we get caught in the middle here? Couldn't they sponsor a cartoon contest about Hans Christian Andersen?

How Very Modest the Rule of Law Turns Out to Be

"Lawmakers cannot reverse wrongdoing that has already occurred. But they can express outrage (in a resolution or on the floor) that the president saw fit to usurp Congress's power to set the ground rules for secret surveillance."
--From legal commentary by NYU law professor Noah Feldman in the NYT Magazine 2/5/06

DKo: Similarly, when a Mafia boss is found to be carrying out a program of murder and mayhem, the law "cannot reverse wrongdoing that has already occurred," it can, however, express outrage--exerting pressure to cease the murder and mayhem in the future.

Shooting Indians in a Barrel: The Trust Scandal

It’s nearly as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Gale Norton’s Department of the Interior is so far winning the Bush Administration’s fight against the Indians. A ten-year-old struggle to right 118 years of wrongs against American Indians is at an impasse with the Bush government holding most of the trump cards. The fight, embodied in the class-action lawsuit, Cobell v. Norton, has been likened to the legendary lawsuit in Charles Dickens’ Bleak House that brought nothing but trouble and despair to generations of family heirs.

Norton’s Interior department, refusing to accept defeat after losing the lawsuit, filed an appeal, which it also lost, and is now seeking to remove the judge who ruled for the Indians. And if that ploy doesn’t work, there’s the Dear Tribal Leader letters dated Jan. 26, and signed by Associate Deputy Interior Secretary James Cason, telling the Indians that Interior plans to pay the $7.1 million in court and lawyer fees they were ordered to pay through cuts in various Indian programs.

The lawsuit, filed in 1996, came out of Indian tribes’ attempt to find and recover billions of dollars in revenues from government leases of their lands since 1887. Since that year, 11 million acres of Indian tribal land have been held in trust by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, or BIA, within the Department of the Interior, which was to collect and distribute over $300 million in annual revenues from agriculture, oil, mining, and timber leases on the Indian lands. In fact, an audit of the Interior department’s Individual Indian Monies (IIM) trust revealed that no records could be located before 1973, and between 1973 and 1992 more than $2.4 billion in revenues owed to Indians was missing or unaccounted for. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who has presided over the decade-long suit and appeal, told one Interior witness in the trial, “You know any banker would be in jail for handling funds like this, don’t you?”

And if you don’t think the Bush Administration is out to get every last dime they can cheat from Indians going into the future take a look at the article by D.C. Attorney Lee Helfrich, writing for Nieman Watchdog who notes that:

Both Senator John McCain (R. Ariz.) and Representative Richard Pombo (R. Ca.) have introduced legislation that would preclude Indians from acting collectively by filing class actions. Instead each Indian will be left alone to seek relief from the federal government—no level playing field for them. The bills only mandate that the government consider the money that actually “passed through” an individual Indian account in paying on a claim, not what Interior left uncollected for a century because of its “honor system.”

That “honor system” allowed gas, oil, and mining companies to pay what they wanted—including nothing—for public and Indian land leases.

Over at Daily Kos, Wampum blogger MB Williams points out that the Abramoff influence buying and campaign contribution scandal is part of a bigger picture that involves Bush’s cabinet appointees and Republican legislators:

The story of Jack Abramoff’s buying of influence goes well beyond a few Congressional players. While those relationships are key to the story, they’re secondary to his cozy relationship with CREA director Italia Federici, her former boss, Sec. of the Interior, Gale Norton, and Deputy Sec. Steven Griles, and this seedy gang’s take-over of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).

Williams points out that Republican attempts to “settle” the Cobell v. Norton lawsuit at the expense of Indian plaintiffs is likely to be helped by the current characterization of “Abramoff tribes”:

McCain and Pombo are once again pushing for a settlement, and in the increasingly hostile environment for Indians due to success in portraying Abramoff’s tribal clients as villains, not victims, they’ll most likely get it, at rock-bottom prices.

"Drop a dime, and we'll bust a cap."

AP today:

As Democratic lawmakers argued for more details, CIA Director Porter Goss lamented the leak of classified information on a variety of ongoing intelligence operations.

"I'm sorry to tell you that the damage has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission," Goss said. "It is my aim, and it is my hope, that we will witness a grand jury investigation with reporters present being asked to reveal who is leaking this information."

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DKo: At least we know how to deal with snitches.

Last Minute Request

Reuters tells us that the Supreme Court refused last night "to let Missouri execute a death-row inmate contesting lethal injection...turning down Missouri's last-minute request to allow a midnight execution."

That's right, the "last minute request" was from the state. They were irreparably deprived of their last opportunity to kill this man yesterday at midnight.

I know what a "last minute request" is to stay an execution. If you don't get immediate relief, then at one minute after midnight, you are dead.

A "last minute request" to allow an execution? If you don't get immediate relief, then at one minute after midnight, it is such a disappointment.

Killing Me Softly

“…based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute— I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program…”