January 2005 Archives

Fiscal responsibility:

Nearly $9 billion of money spent on Iraqi reconstruction is unaccounted for because of inefficiencies and bad management, according to a watchdog report published Sunday.

Just debit it to the "Freedom Account."

No pre-session dance acts. But should one break out later in the day, we have a couple hundred media folks on the scene to cover it.

Bloggermann smacks around "Focus on the Family" regarding SpongeBobGate.

This excerpt addresses the threat of the "pro-Homosexual" agenda:

More importantly, at some point, some of these people are going to wake up to find that the great secular assault they see on their children was, in fact, a bogeyman created to hide their own bad parenting. If they can't convince their own kids of the appropriateness of their religion and values, then the religion, the values, or the convincing, must not have been very good. Ask my folks if I was an easy sell - yet most of my tenets turn out to have been their tenets - not my teachers', not television's, not the secular world's.

It goes back to the core of the Dobsonian point of view here: the fear of the "pro-Homosexual" agenda. That may be the way he delicately phrases it, but it is not shared by most of his followers who emailed me. They were clearly angry that there was no anti-homosexual agenda. And one of the most fascinating things about the studies of homosexuality in this country is that while there is still debate between the creationists and the environmentalists, I've never heard anything suggesting that a child is more or less likely to be gay, depending on whether he's taught not to hate nor be intolerant, of gays.

Indeed.

This whole global warming debate would be easier to resolve if we had some physical evidence one way or the other.

This looks kind of fun. Well, not the camping part. Or hauling all the gear. Mainly just the bike riding.

Anyone want to drive an RV around for a few weeks at 20 mph?

From today's NOAA weather hazard advisory for Knoxville (less than 1 inch of ice/snow predicted):

ANY TRAVEL IS STRONGLY DISCOURAGED. IF YOU LEAVE THE SAFETY OF BEING INDOORS, YOU ARE PUTTING YOUR LIFE AT RISK.

Oh my! I'm risking my life if I walk around the block?

Last night a local official said this in support of installing traffic cameras in Knoxville (to catch "red-light runners"):

Deputy Chief Don Green added, "We're not trying to catch people, we're not trying to punish people. We're just trying to prevent accidents."

It may not be Mr. Green's personal desire to "catch people," but if the camera vendor gets a percentage of the fines, they'll certainly have a desire to punish people.

A family member recently moved to a city with these cameras, and he received a ticket because the front of his car was a couple feet over the painted line when he came to a stop. He said that the company running the lights gets at least 50% of the fines collected.

Nope, no incentive there.

Putting aside the pros and cons of spanking. And putting aside the alleged 4-foot-long paddle and emergency room visit. Isn't an an 18-year-old (or 17 for that matter) simply too old to spank?

Oh my! What will they say in Red State America?

The nation's largest employer is expanding the definition of "immediate family" in its ethics policy to include an employee's same-sex partner.

The Wal-Mart Stores Inc. policy change -- disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday -- accounts for the laws in some states that recognize domestic partnerships and civil unions, officials said.

Company spokesman Gus Whitcomb on Thursday declined to say if the change would affect employee benefits, or whether it meant Wal-Mart was taking a position on the issue of same-sex marriage or civil unions.

In practice I'm not sure how much difference this will make--how many Wal-Mart employees get benefits anyway? But I'm sure this will be good for some noisy protests and boycotts. Sad thing is that many would-be boycotters will have to drive a long way to shop somewhere else since all the other stores were driven out of business.

Via Steve Gilliard comes this:

Four workers in the United States have lost their jobs after refusing to take a test to see if they were smokers.

They were employees of Michigan-based healthcare firm Weyco, which introduced a policy banning its staff from smoking - even away from the workplace.

The firm says the ban is to keep health costs down and has helped 14 staff to stop smoking, but opponents say the move is a violation of workers' rights.
. . .
Weyco gave its staff a stark ultimatum at the end of last year - either stop smoking completely on 1 January or leave their jobs.

I'm a non-smoker who thinks that everyone would be better off if they didn't smoke. But I don't think employers should be mandating this kind of lifestyle choice on employees outside the workplace.

If the employer wants to have a smoke-free workplace, that's fine. I'm even okay with the employer charging employees extra to cover the higher health care costs. But at some point the employer's control should end and employee's rights should begin. And I think off-hours health choices which don't affect work performance are in the latter.

As the article points out, if this is okay we don't have to travel much farther down the slippery slope to the point where employers regulate employee's diet, exercise, and sleep. Do we want to go there?

Another huge corporate merger.

I sometimes wonder how long it will be before every commercial interest in America is owned by Wal-MartExxonMobilGeneralElectricRoyalDutch/ShellGroupCitigroupMicrosoft
GeneralMotorsSiemensSonyAllianzIBMDellCocaColaMcDonaldsGlaxoSmithKline
HPBankofAmericaPfizerAlcoaWaltDisneyDuPontBoeing.

I learn something new every day:

The facts in America today are that homosexuals have been elevated to be America's Super Citizens, above the law to the point where their psychological need for acceptance trounces even the most basic Constitutional rights of others.

This Super Citizenship sounds like a pretty good deal. I wonder if there are other ways of obtaining it besides homosexuality?

Via Sadly, No!

Dollar vs. yuan:

China has lost faith in the stability of the U.S. dollar and its first priority is to broaden the exchange rate for its currency from the dollar to a more flexible basket of currencies, a top Chinese economist said Wednesday at the World Economic Forum.

At a standing-room only session focusing on the world's fastest-growing economy, Fan Gang, director of the National Economic Research Institute at the China Reform Foundation, said the issue for China isn't whether to devalue the yuan but "to limit it from the U.S. dollar."
. . .
"The U.S. dollar is no longer - in our opinion is no longer - (seen) as a stable currency, and is devaluating all the time, and that's putting troubles all the time," Fan said, speaking in English.

"So the real issue is how to change the regime from a U.S. dollar pegging ... to a more manageable ... reference ... say Euros, yen, dollars - those kind of more diversified systems," he said.

With that kind of talk, it doesn't appear the dollar will be making major upward headway any time soon. Which should help reduce America's trade deficit. But if foreign investors reach a breaking point with the dollar and put the breaks on financing U.S. debt, it won't be pretty for the economy.

President Bush, this morning:

Millions of Iraqi voters will show their bravery, their love of country, and their desire to live in freedom.

Then later:

I know thousands and thousands of Iraqis want to vote. I know they cherish the idea of being able to vote, and I hope as many Iraqis vote as possible.

Wow. "Millions" to "thousands" of voters in just a few hours. By the end of the week we'll be hearing how remarkable it is merely for someone to set out the ballot box.

Heh.

The most entertaining part of the Orange Bowl was when Ms. Simpson got booed off stage.

Sometimes you feel like a nut
Sometimes you don't
The O'Reilly Factor's got a nut
California's U.S. Senate delegation don't.

Always playing up bad news from Iraq.

UPDATE: Regarding this crash, exactly what kind of "routine" mission do they have going on during bad weather at 1:20 a.m. near Syria? If that's "routine, " what constitutes a "non-routine" mission?

Tsunami? What tsunami? This story is so 2004. I applaud TV news for moving on. There's still some uncovered angles on the Scott Peterson trial to explore.

Worst actor--ouch. But true on so many levels. . . .

There's reality:

The White House announced on Tuesday that the federal budget deficit was expected to rise this year to $427 billion, a figure that includes a new request from President Bush to help pay for the war in Iraq.

The White House's announcement makes it the fourth straight year in which the budget deficit was expected to grow; as recently as last July the administration had predicted that the deficit, which was $412 billion last year, would fall this year to $331 billion.

And then there's fantasy:

In a briefing for reporters on Tuesday, senior administration officials insisted they were still on track to fulfill Mr. Bush's campaign promise of reducing the federal budget deficit by half by 2009.

Perhaps this stems from my background in the humanities, rather than math, but how are four years of growing budget deficits putting us on a path of halving the red ink within five years? If you were to plot that on a graph, it would require an awful bizarre equation.

The entire article highlights how the White House claims are even more laughable when you factor in the costs of upcoming expenses: entitlement increases, permanent military bases in Iraq, and, of course, permanent tax cuts for millionaires. We're at war, after all.

Steve Gilliard is correct in pointing out that there's not much common ground available between abortion rights and anti-abortion interest groups. And to the extent that there is any, Senator Hillary Clinton certainly isn't the one who will find it.

Now American "fertility tourists" are seeking cheaper eggs and sperm abroad. Where will it end?

Freedom on the march:

As Iraq's campaign season winds into its final week, voters will have to make their choices in a fog of limited information.

Because of the constant violence and death threats against them, candidates will not hold rallies. Instead, they are relying on religious and tribal networks and Islamic holiday feasts to spread their message.

Laconic posters and television ads round out the campaign. As a result, people's perceptions of the candidates, and their understanding of the election, are as vague as the candidates' platforms.

The neat thing about this election is that it's irrelevant whether or not Iraqis are making an informed, meaningful decision. The really important outcome of this election will be in producing video footage of Iraqis voting, which will be used by certain US politicians offering meaningless grand pronouncements on "liberty" and "freedom."

Don't you love the smell of a fresh Congressional term in the morning? When our elected representatives set out to tackle the most pressing issues facing our country?

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) wasted little time before introducing two bills that would require the Ten Commandments to be posted in both the Capitol and the Senate and House chambers.

Stearns introduced the bill Jan. 4, the first day of the 109th Congress. He first introduced a similar resolution in the 105th Congress and subsequent versions in the 106th and 108th.

"Posting the Ten Commandments in places like the House and Capitol would merely serve to remind members that we have the responsibility as lawmakers to be as fair and just as possible," Stearns said.

That's for sure. I can't imagine how many times a Congressperson, in the midst of a floor debate on a transportation bill, has had to send a page out to check on the wording of the third commandment. It really would be better if they could just glance up on the wall.

And why stop there? Wouldn't lawmakers be more inclined to be "fair" if there was a prominent cross erected at the rostrum? And how about some hymnals distributed around the floor? Representatives could sing hymns during roll calls to remind them of justice.

Seriously, as long as Congress in the posting mode, how about adding the Bill of Rights? I recall something there about Congress not passing laws establishing religion. But I don't have the Constitution posted on the wall in my blogging chamber to remind me, so I could be wrong.

Apparently the Bush administration isn't as secretive as I sometimes portray it. No worry, though, as all the terrorists are desperately fighting in Iraq and probably never bother to surf the Internet.

Per capita amount Tennesseans spent playing the lottery run by "the best lottery director America has ever known'' during the first 12 months: $147.

Comparable national average: $161.

Amount I spent on Tennessee lottery games in the past 12 months: $0.

Big Orange Michael rings in 2005.

A Republican Dictionary.

Vice President Cheney yesterday:

Well, we are, I'd say, very concerned about Iran, because for two reasons, again, one, they do have a program. We believe they have a fairly robust new nuclear program. That's been developed by, or being pursued I guess would be the best way to put it, by members of the E.U.--"the Brits, the Germans and the French--"have been negotiating with the Iranians to get them to allow greater transparency in their program so the outside world can be confident they're not building weapons, that it's for peaceful purposes.

The other problem we have, of course, is that Iran is a noted sponsor of terror. They've been the prime backers of the Hezbollah over the years, and they have, in fact, been--used terror in various incendiary ways to kill Americans and a lot of other folks around the globe, too, and that combination is of great concern.

We'll continue to try to address those issues diplomatically, continue to work with the Europeans. At some point, if the Iranians don't live up to their commitments, the next step will be to take it to the U.N. Security Council, and seek the imposition of international sanctions to force them to live up to the commitments and obligations they've signed up to under the non-proliferation treaty, and it's--but it is a--you know, you look around the world at potential trouble spots, Iran is right at the top of the list.

Hmm. "Nuclear weapons program" . . . "sponsoring terror" . . . "enforcing U.N. resolutions"--it all sounds so familiar. I wonder where we have heard those before?

Juan Cole notes how would-be leaders in Iraq are pondering a withdrawal timetable for US troops.

It's going to be interesting to watch what happens if powers that be in Iraq go public with such a request in the next few months. The more naive among us might ask, "Well, we went in to liberate the Iraqi people, isn't this naturally the next step in that process?"

Actually, we didn't; we invaded Iraq to fulfill the neocon's vision of securing America's interests in the region. And as long as those interests remain vulnerable (nothing would be secure in Iraq right now absent the US military) I'm hard pressed to see a major American troop withdrawal. So it will be fun to watch if our supposed interest in Iraqi sovereignty comes into conflict with the Bush administration's real, unstated interest in expanding American dominance over the region.

Boom:

A series of suicide car bomb attacks rocked Baghdad yesterday killing up to 26 people.

At least four separate bombs went off within 90 minutes of each other in a coordinated strike. The US military said 26 people were killed, although Iraqi officials put the toll lower at around 12 dead.

Four car bombs in one morning: what does that suggest regarding the supply of cars, bombs, and suicide bombers in the region? They've apparently got an assembly line in operation there.

We're continually told that these bombings are an effort to thwart the upcoming elections. I'm not up on the insurgent play book, but if I was planning toward that end, I'd be storing up the big fireworks for the week of the election. Which makes you wonder: if we're seeing this level of violence now, how much worse might it get by election day?

Great headline:

A poll of 21 countries published yesterday - reflecting opinion in Africa, Latin America, North America, Asia and Europe - showed that a clear majority have grave fears about the next four years.

Fifty-eight per cent of the 22,000 who took part in the poll, commissioned by the BBC World Service, said they expected Mr Bush to have a negative impact on peace and security, compared with only 26% who considered him a positive force.

Count me in with the 58%.

WaPo strives to entertain readers with an A1 "analysis" piece on the reflective, more accommodating George W. Bush:

President Bush is a politician with large ambitions and few doubts, someone not easily given to mea culpas. But in the run-up to today's inauguration, he has at least hinted at some of the lessons learned in office. From his relations with Democrats in Congress to his approach to the rest of the world, Bush has suggested he will try to strike a different tone -- without abandoning principles or policies.

Let's see, if the White House isn't changing any "principles" or policies, what's left to change? Some cosmetic packaging? No more "bring 'em on"? A few policy of honesty?

I'm not buying this spin, and I hope Democratic leaders aren't either. Thus far, we've seen just the opposite of accommodation, such as when Bush renominated the federal judges the Democrats had held up last term. So Democrats, don't fall for this Rovian spin, until you start seeing substantive changes. And don't start wetting your pants over being labeled "obstructionist" if you don't play along with Rove's game. Someday soon it might be politically advantageous not to be affiliated with team Bush.

Positive thought for the day:

America has survived bad presidents before.

Today's forecast for the coronation on The Hill: mostly cloudy, cold.

Four-year forecast for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: mostly incompetent, 50% chance of disaster.

Viewing tip: Don't watch the festivities on a full stomach.

One day closer to freedom in Iraq.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but if we haven't been able to stop people from coming across the border before, what makes the election commission think they can shut down the border over the election period?

Google says it's taking on comment spam.

I'm not an expert at this type of thing, but it appears they are just taking a step to prevent their web scanners from reading the comment spam; it won't hinder the spammers in generating the comments to begin with.

I don't have a "natural ability" in math either. So I better not go here.

Another curious website. The "Faceanalyzer" claims to have "a patented process that correlates certain facial types to personality features."

I can see how face recognition technology can assess certain facial characteristics to determine race. But I'm not sure about the science of determining "intelligence," "politeness," "promiscuity," "gay factor," and more from a picture.

You may not have observed it at your place of business, but yesterday the Mississippi Tax Commission was closed for "Robert E. Lee and Dr. Martin Luther King Junior's birthdays."

I wouldn't have been so surprised to hear that from some small southern county office, but from a state office? I guess that's Mississippi.

I didn't realize until today that Knoxville will be hosting a marathon on March 20.

From time to time I've had a fleeting interesting in running a marathon someday, just to say I did one. But that desire has never been strong enough to translate into actually train for one. In fact, the longest distance I've ever run is 11 miles, so 26 miles sounds painful.

Is there some sort of "marathons made easy" training program out there?

Saturday afternoon I was bicycle riding down Murdoch Drive and saw a police car blocking off passage to one of the side streets. As I rode by I glanced down the street and saw at least 6 more police cars 1/3 of a mile or so away. It's unusual anytime you see a police congregating on a side street, but this was even more notable because it's a mostly commercial area that's quiet on the weekends.

At the time I didn't know what it was, but apparently it was this:

Man found dead with bicycle in West Knoxville ditch Authorities are investigating the discovery of a man who was found dead alongside a bicycle in a ditch on the side of a West Knoxville road.

The man was found about 4 p.m. near Cogdill Road. It was not immediately clear if foul play was involved in the man's death.

Authorities were not available Saturday to provide any additional information about the discovery of the body.

Oy. I hope we don't have a murderer stalking bicyclists in West Knoxville.

UPDATE: Information from an e-mail list indicates that the rider, Tom Olmstead, died of a heart attack. Apparently Mr. Olmstead was active in Knoxville bicycling for many years and would have just turned 60.

It's only a matter of time until Iran comes to the fore, I suppose:

The United States has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to help identify potential nuclear, chemical and missile targets, The New Yorker magazine reported Sunday.

The article, by award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, said the secret missions have been going on at least since last summer with the goal of identifying target information for three dozen or more suspected sites.

Hersh quotes one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon as saying, "The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible."

One former high-level intelligence official told The New Yorker, "This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign."

I'm very surprised to see Pentagon correspondents relaying official denials to this story today. Government officials are usually quick and forthright in coming clean about secret operations.

South Knox Bubba photo blogs the Tennessee Theatre. I'll have to get down there sometime.

Interesting:

The U.S. military rejected a 1994 proposal to develop an "aphrodisiac" to spur homosexual activity among enemy troops but is hard at work on other less-than-lethal weapons, defense officials said on Sunday.

The idea of fostering homosexuality among the enemy figured in a declassified six-year, $7.5 million request from a laboratory at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio for funding of non-lethal chemical weapon research.
. . .
"One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior," said the document, obtained by the Sunshine Project. The watchdog group posted the partly blacked-out, three-page document on its Web site.

Tax dollars at work in the Department of Defense.

Good news. There is accountability in the Bush administration . . . at least a moment's worth:

President Bush said the public's decision to reelect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath.

"We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. "The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me."

Great. Now that we've used up our "accountability moment," what do Americans have to address the "mistakes or misjudgments" of the next four years?

I bet you didn't know government agencies made New Year's resolutions? Well, it appears the Social Security Administration is in the midst of starting anew.

Old resolution: manage Social Security

New resolution: Push President Bush's political agenda

Over the objections of many of its own employees, the Social Security Administration is gearing up for a major effort to publicize the financial problems of Social Security and to convince the public that private accounts are needed as part of any solution.

The agency's plans are set forth in internal documents, including a "tactical plan" for communications and marketing of the idea that Social Security faces dire financial problems requiring immediate action.

Social Security officials say the agency is carrying out its mission to educate the public, including more than 47 million beneficiaries, and to support President Bush's agenda.

Better gear up folks. The Bush administration is pulling all the stops. This one is going to get nasty.

Lovely. Joan Rivers comments on the Prince Harry's Nazi outfit during Larry King Live:

KING: What's your read on this royal scandal? I know you know Prince Charles.

RIVERS: I adore him. I feel very sorry for Harry. It's a mixed message world. You can't go (UNINTELLIGIBLE) "The Producers" where they have chickens doing the Nazi salute. The kid is at a private party. The invasion of privacy that a friend takes a picture on a cellphone, it's sad. And he did apologize. Leave him alone.

KING: But they don't, right? The tabloids will never let this...

RIVERS: You know the tabloids. They're still about me and my breasts. How low can they go?

So it's okay for him to dress as a Nazi as long as there aren't any public cameras around? And what kind of "mixed message" is someone in the British royal family receiving about donning a swastika? Sheesh.

Seasoned Resonance readers may have gathered that I don't have much use for the celebrity hype industry to begin with. So Ms. Rivers is standing in a pretty deep hole to begin with. And for her, a person who has created an identity in analyzing what celebrities wear, to ridicule others for commenting on the inappropriateness of someone's dress is pathetic.

How do these people get air time?

The blogging ethics police have dictated that everyone come clean.

I have never been paid by anyone (campaign or otherwise) to blog. Anyone wishing to pay me should contact me at the e-mail address on the right column.

As far as I know, I have only met two bloggers who people in this neighborhood might be familiar with: I was once a classmate of Bjorn, and I was in one of Instapundit's classes in the pre-blog era.

I am currently blogging on a HP computer.

I am currently browsing using Mozilla 1.7.2.

From an interview with Barbara Walters:

"I watch what I say. I said some things in the first term that were probably a little blunt. 'Bring it on' was a little blunt. I was really speaking to our troops, but it came out and had a different connotation, different meanings for others," he told Walters.

Sorry, false alarm. He doesn't admit to saying anything wrong; we're the ones who made the mistake in misunderstanding his meaning. And we're not the only ones:

More recently, guerrillas in Iraq have used the president's words in a propaganda video narrated in English, according to the Reuters news agency. The narrator of the video says, "George W. Bush, you have asked us to 'bring it on.' And so help me, [we will ] like you never expected. Do you have another challenge?" The video then shows explosions around a U.S. military vehicle.

Wonderful.

Then:

Two years ago, I told the Congress and the country that the war on terror would be a lengthy war, a different kind of war, fought on many fronts in many places. Iraq is now the central front. Enemies of freedom are making a desperate stand there -- and there they must be defeated.

President George W. Bush
September 7, 2003

And now:

Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.

Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries."

"Iraq New Terror Breeding Ground"
Today's Washington Post

Well, we didn't find those weapons of mass destruction, but we did succeed in making Iraq the central front in the "war on terror." Great job guys.

From The Daily Show, here's what the White House means when they say September 11 "changed the equation":

September 11 + x* = Shut up!

* Whatever we say.

Vice President Cheney today:

Now, the year 2018 may seem like a long way off, and in politics there is always a temptation to kick the can down the road -- hoping that long-term problems might simply disappear, or leaving them for someone else to worry about. That is not how President Bush views his job. As he's said many times, he ran for the presidency to confront big challenges, not to pass them along to future Presidents and future Congresses.

Yes indeed. We wouldn't want leaders who passed long-term problems off for someone else to fix, would we?

Conditions are about to make a dramatic change, but currently it's 72 degrees at Resonance world headquarters.

Thus far January has been a month that even I'm hard pressed to complain about. I've already gotten over 80 miles of bicycling in, and it could have been even more. Daylight has been more of a limiting factor than the thermometer.

This is the way winter should be.

Q: How much air time have the news channels given to that rescue of the guy with no pants dangling from a bridge over a swollen California river?

The Poor Man has an informative comparison of the fallouts from the forged 60 Minutes documents and the phony claims regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. A couple more:

	RatherGate	Iraq WMD
Apologies offered	2+	0
Presidential Medals of Freedom Awarded	0	3

Alert: a new weapon of mass intelligence destruction has been discovered:

North Korea has launched an intensive media assault on its latest arch enemy - the wrong haircut.

A campaign exhorting men to get a proper short-back-and-sides has been aired by state-run Pyongyang television.

The series is entitled Let us trim our hair in accordance with Socialist lifestyle.
. . .
It stressed the "negative effects" of long hair on "human intelligence development", noting that long hair "consumes a great deal of nutrition" and could thus rob the brain of energy.

Just another example of how a government can fool the masses into believing stupid stuff if it has the assistance of a compliant media.

The United States Supreme Court rules that judges must consider prison sentencing guidelines, but they are not mandatory.

TalkLeft has links to the six opinions.

Via Talking Points Memo, I see our "values voters" have another legal cross to bear: the undoing of a Secret Service ban on crosses at the inaugural parade. Imagine what the Founding Fathers would think about the destruction of our Christian nation!

Elsewhere at the website, I notice this:

A journalist is making an impassioned plea for radio, TV and newspaper outlets to invest in hiring qualified religion news writers, noting that since many media gatekeepers attach little importance to religion, they often don't hire the best people for the beat.

In an article written for Poynter Online, a Web site for the professional improvement of journalists, Washington Times chief religion reporter Julia Duin said many media outlets have no one covering religion regularly or have someone with little knowledge covering the topic.

That's a good point there. Unfortunately, it applies to reporting on a lot of issues, not just religion. Our news outlets are equal opportunity offenders.

Bill O'Reilly has once again appointed himself national charity policeman and has set his sights on an upcoming NBC tsunami relief telethon. Per Bloggermann, George Clooney has apparently had enough:

Clooney, whom O'Reilly had also attacked after a similar celebrity telethon for 9/11 victims, released a letter he wrote to the bizarre Fox host. "So all right, Mr. Journalist... come on in. I'm booking the talent for the Tsunami event... and you, Mr. O'Reilly, are now officially invited to be a presenter... either you ante up and help out AND be that watch dog that you feel we clearly need... or you simply stand on the sidelines and cast stones... This is your chance to put your considerable money where your considerable mouth is."

"Considerable mouth." Heh. It's about time someone stood up and fired back.

Yeah, that looked kind of bad. Yesterday Howard Dean announces his candidacy for DNC chair; hours later Joe Trippi endorses Simon Rosenberg on Hardball. Party politics are heating up.

A job well done:

The man who insisted that President Bush make the claim that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium for nuclear weapons in Africa is poised to assume a top State Department job that would make him the lead US arms negotiator with Iran and North Korea, according to administration officials.

Robert G. Joseph, a special assistant for national security to President Bush until a few months ago, is on the short list to become undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, the nation's senior diplomat in charge of negotiating arms control treaties, said the officials, who spoke on the condition they not be named.

In a related story:

The hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq has come to an end nearly two years after President Bush ordered U.S. troops to disarm Saddam Hussein. The top CIA weapons hunter is home, and analysts are back at Langley.
. . .
Four months after Charles A. Duelfer, who led the weapons hunt in 2004, submitted an interim report to Congress that contradicted nearly every prewar assertion about Iraq made by top Bush administration officials, a senior intelligence official said the findings will stand as the ISG's final conclusions and will be published this spring.

Mission accomplished! We took care of those weapons threatening America. Good job, guys. Promotions all around. Never mind those stretchers and transfer tubes returning from Iraq. That's a small price for achieving a war.

Part of an interview with Clark Kent Ervin, former Inspector General (watchdog) at the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Ervin wrote a number very critical reports about DHS:

ZAHN: At any point during your two years of service as inspector general, did anybody try to silence you or mute your criticism?

ERVIN: Happened all the time, and I resisted it very, very fiercely.

ZAHN: Clark, can you explain to me how pressure was put on you to mute your criticism along the way?

ERVIN: There were times I was urged not to release reports.

ZAHN: By whom? Would these be members of Congress?

ERVIN: Not by members of Congress but by senior members of the department. It happened on a number of occasions. And I resisted each time. The good news is that the law gave me the authority to do just that.

ZAHN: So you say you felt pressure from high-ranking members of the Department of Homeland Security?

ERVIN: Yes.

ZAHN: Did Tom Ridge ever come to you personally and say, "You can't do this, Clark. This is making us look bad"?

ERVIN: To his credit, the secretary never did that. He did not. There's no question that on a number of occasions, there were hard-hitting reports about very, very sensitive topics that the senior leadership in the department -- I don't want to personalize this or name names -- would just as soon had not been released publicly or to the Congress.

Upper-tier Bush administration officials attempting to silence realistic assessments of how effectively government policy is working? I'm shocked.

Mr. Ervin is doing interviews now because the administration refused to reappoint him; apparently he was doing his job too well.

Interesting comparison:

Specialist Charles Graner Jr is the first soldier to go on trial on charges related to the Abu Ghraib jail scandal, which came to light last year with the release of demeaning photographs of prisoners, including pictures of naked inmates apparently being paraded on leashes and being stacked in piles.

The lawyer defending him at the court martial in Texas, Guy Womack, said: "Don't cheerleaders all over America make pyramids every day?" He added: "It's not torture."

Yeah, pretty close. Except the inmates at Abu Ghraib were stripped naked. And imprisoned. And probably threatened with deadly weapons if they didn't pile on. Other than that, they are about the same.

Want to know how the Democratic National Committee chairperson is elected? If so, Matt Stoller has a short guide. Not a very simple process.

Tsunami photo galleries here and here.

President Bush, today:

I suspect if you were asking me questions 18 months ago and I said there was going to be elections in Iraq, you would have had trouble containing yourself from laughing out loud at the President.

Actually, we'd still be laughing if the consequences of your policies weren't so tragic.

Kevin Drum: "One way to cut down on medical malpractice suits is to cut down on medical malpractice.

Funny, we aren't hearing much about that side of the equation. Perhaps America needs a "Hospital Patients for Truth" group to run some TV ads.

This is hardly a testimony for equal justice, but I'm thinking the alleged victim in this case didn't suffer as much "harm" as the victim in this incident, if you know what I mean.

Should that be a factor in sentencing?

Herbert:

There are few things more dangerous than a mixture of power, arrogance and incompetence. In the Bush administration, that mixture has been explosive. Forget the meant-to-be-comforting rhetoric surrounding Mr. Gonzales's confirmation hearings. Nothing's changed. As detailed in The Washington Post earlier this month, the administration is making secret plans for the possible lifetime detention of suspected terrorists who will never even be charged.

Due process? That's a laugh. Included among the detainees, the paper noted, are hundreds of people in military or C.I.A. custody "whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts." And there will be plenty more detainees to come.

Who knows who these folks are or what they may be guilty of? We'll have to trust in the likes of Alberto Gonzales or Donald Rumsfeld or President Bush's new appointee to head the C.I.A., Porter Goss, to see that the right thing is done in each and every case.

Americans have tended to view the U.S. as the guardian of the highest ideals of justice and fairness. But that is a belief that's getting more and more difficult to sustain. If the Justice Department can be the fiefdom of John Ashcroft or Alberto Gonzales, those in search of the highest standards of justice have no choice but to look elsewhere.

Krugman:

Apologists for the administration would like us to forget all about the Kerik affair, but Bernard Kerik perfectly symbolizes the times we live in. Like Rudolph Giuliani and, yes, President Bush, he wasn't a hero of 9/11, but he played one on TV. And like Mr. Giuliani, he was quick to cash in, literally, on his undeserved reputation.

Once the New York newspapers began digging, it became clear that Mr. Kerik is, professionally and personally, a real piece of work. But that's not unusual these days among people who successfully pass themselves off as patriots and defenders of moral values. Mr. Kerik must still be wondering why he, unlike so many others, didn't get away with it.
. . .
As White House counsel, Mr. Gonzales was charged with vetting Mr. Kerik. He must have realized what kind of man he was dealing with - yet he declared Mr. Kerik fit to oversee homeland security.

Did Mr. Gonzales defer to the wishes of a president who wanted Mr. Kerik anyway, or did he decide that his boss wouldn't want to know? (The Nelson Report, a respected newsletter, reports that Mr. Bush has made it clear to his subordinates that he doesn't want to hear bad news about Iraq.)

Either way, when the Senate confirms Mr. Gonzales, it will mean that Iokiyar remains in effect, that the basic rules of ethics don't apply to people aligned with the ruling party. And reality will continue to be worse than any fiction I could write.

Indeed.

Q & A with Bill Gates:

[Q] In recent years, there's been a lot of people clamoring to reform and restrict intellectual-property rights. It started out with just a few people, but now there are a bunch of advocates saying, "We've got to look at patents, we've got to look at copyrights." What's driving this, and do you think intellectual-property laws need to be reformed?

[Gates] No, I'd say that of the world's economies, there's more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist.

Right. People who don't agree that US corporations should have copyright protection for 100+ years (it keeps getting extended) are "communists." I'm very surprised that the leader of Microsoft doesn't have a higher regard for promoting competition. Shocking.

Knoxville doesn't appear in Men's Fitness magazine's lists of America's top 25 fattest and fittest cities. Memphis earns the honor of 4th fattest city. Nashville is the 25th fittest city. The ranking indicates that:

Almost 9 out of 10 Tennesseans get so little exercise that they risk health problems, according to a study by the CDC. In fact, in the same study, one out of three people hadn't gotten any physical activity in the past month.

Curiously, in the report card Environment section under "Air" Nashville receives a "B," while Memphis gets an "F." In contrast, for "Climate" Memphis earns a "B," while Nashville gets a "D." Are these two cities, 200 miles apart, that much different with respect to air quality and climate? I haven't spent a lot of time in either, but I would have guessed that if there was a difference between the two cities, it would have run the opposite way--air quality worse in Nashville, climate worse in Memphis.

Josh Marshall nails the ongoing White House Social Security con job:

So now you can see from memos emerging from the White House itself that this isn't about 'saving' Social Security. If it were, what would that sentence mean -- ("For the first time in six decades, the Social Security battle is one we can win")? The first time in six decades they can save it?

Clearly, this isn't about 'saving' Social Security. It is a battle to end Social Security and replace with something that Wehner clearly understands is very different, indeed the antithesis of Social Security.

This entire debate is about ideology -- between people who believe in the benefits Social Security has brought America in the last three-quarters of a century and those who think it was a bad idea from the start. There is an honest debate to have on this point, a values debate. Only, the White House understands that the belief that Social Security was always a bad program isn't widely shared by Americans. So they have to wrap their effort in a package of lies, harnessing Americans' desire to save Social Security in their own effort to destroy it.

Yep. We've seen them follow this misdirection play on issues concerning regulation, the environment, even Iraq. This time they may have gotten too greedy. I think it's time for them to go down in flames.

Another leaked memo:

The U.S. Army Reserve, tapped heavily to provide soldiers for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is "degenerating into a 'broken' force" due to dysfunctional military policies, the Army Reserve's chief said in a memo made public Wednesday.

"I do not wish to sound alarmist. I do wish to send a clear, distinctive signal of deepening concern," Lt. Gen. James Helmly said in a Dec. 20 memo to Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker.
. . .
"While ability to meet the current demands associated with OIF (Operational Iraqi Freedom) and OEF (Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan) is of great importance, the Army Reserve is additionally in grave danger of being unable to meet other operational requirements including those in named OPLANS (operational plans) and CONUS (continental United States) emergencies, and is rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force," Helmly wrote.

Hmmm. Sounds awful similar to the "our military is being stretched too thin" argument that a certain presidential candidate was making three months ago.

Thought exercise: if America's social security issues are a "crisis," and malpractice lawsuits are a "crisis," does this not constitute a "crisis" in our military?

What happens when a "Pineapple Express," an "Arctic Express," and system from the Gulf of Mexico all meet? We may soon find out.

"Don't sound the alarm," weather service meteorologist Johnny Burg said. "But tell everybody to just pay attention to future forecasts."

The three storms are likely to meet in the nation's midsection and cause even more problems, sparing only areas east of the Appalachian Mountains. Property damage and a few deaths are likely, forecasters said.

"You're talking a two- or three-times-a-century type of thing," said prediction-center senior meteorologist James Wagner, who has been forecasting storms since 1965. "It's a pattern that has a little bit of everything."
. . .
The same scenario played out in 1937, when there was record flooding in the Ohio River Valley, said Wagner, of the prediction center.

He was worried about the Ohio and Tennessee River valleys as the places where the three nasty storm systems could meet, probably with snow, thunderstorms, severe ice storms and flooding. Some of those areas already are flooded.

I don't put much stock in long-range weather forecasts (or short-range ones for that matter), but this is something to keep an eye on.

More evidence to file into the we-already-knew-that files. Simply put, the system cannot cope when there are three or more teams vying for supremacy. So if there are multiple undefeated teams in contention, the two with the highest preseason rankings will get to go to the championship game. Or if there are several one-loss teams in the hunt, it will likely feature the two which lost earliest in the season.

Either way, teams--and college football fans--get screwed. And we'll continue to miss out until the NCAA implements an eight (or more) team playoff.

Thus far South Knox Bubba has done a good job of keeping Tennessee bloggers unified under the Rocky Top Brigade banner. But now I'm getting a whiff of Volunteer State factionalism in the air.

Bill Hobbs is calling for Nashville bloggers. Meanwhile, Brock at Dark Bilious Vapors is working on a fancy icon for Memphian bloggers.

What could this mean? Might we be headed toward a contentious civil war blogging supremecy? And what about the Knoxville bloggers? And the south of Knox wannabes? Are the K-Towners going to be left in disorganized obscurity while the sister cities coalesce?

Stay tuned.

Are Senator Frist's pants on fire?

UPDATE: From comments at Eschaton: a "Frist-flop." Heh.

Expansion Management Magazine ranks Knoxville 14th on it's list of "America's 50 Hottest Cities" for businesses looking to expand or relocate their facilities. Nashville is 1st; Memphis is 16th.

TDOT to the rescue:

A Tennessee Department of Transportation program in the state's largest cities to provide roadside assistance to accidents and breakdowns is helping ease traffic congestion and improve safety, officials say.

The program, called HELP, came to the aid of more than 92,500 motorists during the fiscal year that ended July 1, according to a recent annual report. That was up 9 percent from the previous year, TDOT spokeswoman Kim Keelor said.
. . .
The program costs $5.1 million a year, making the average cost of each HELP stop about $55, the report shows. HELP truck operators in Chattanooga, Knoxville, Memphis and Nashville offered assistance ranging from boosting batteries to transporting stranded motorists to rounding up cattle that escaped from a livestock truck.

The distinctive neon-green HELP trucks operate on assigned routes in the core areas of each city. The program strives to clear an accident or breakdown site quickly, because national statistics show as many as 20 percent of collisions on interstates and other controlled-access highways result from an earlier incident still congesting traffic.

A good program, I think. But one I'll hopefully never have to use. It never ceases to amaze me how much traffic can slow down around here merely because there's a vehicle sitting harmlessly on the road's shoulder.

Speaking of easing traffic congestion, whose bright idea was it to shut down two lanes on Kingston Pike for a long, long time? Sheesh.

Oh brother. This is a couple weeks old, but it illustrates why TV news continues to be so bad:

New CNN president Jonathan Klein is taking his "Security Watch" seriously. Klein has encouraged producers and correspondents to prepare stories that fit under the "Security Watch" banner, and anchors have been careful to "tease" the segments on-air.

On Monday morning, 'Inside Politics Sunday' was reprimanded for not promoting the feature correctly, two CNN insiders told TVNewser. Kelly Wallace referred to CNN's Security Watch twice while introducing segments, but apparently didn't include the correct final sentence. The show was fined $5,000 for the error.

(For the record, here's what anchors are apparently supposed to say: "Remember here at CNN we always have the latest stories about your safety and security," Paula Zahn said last week. "Please stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security," Wolf Blitzer said on Tuesday.)

There you have TV news priorities: management penalizing on-air people if they don't use the proper buzz words to promote the terrorism coverage.

Imagine if someone put that kind of effort into adding facts and context to their reporting.

A Nation Divided

More blue versus red . . . and yellow.

Well, one does need to vacation at Christmas, right?

After being AWOL for days, President Bush's speech writers and handlers are finally responding to the tsunami disaster and firing up the teleprompter. Bush could have gotten out there and said the same things a week ago, but I guess he had to balance the demands of one of the greatest natural disasters ever versus his overgrown brush.

Anyway, it was pretty funny to see him standing with President Clinton today, after the official excuse makers took a shot at Clinton last week when explaining why Bush had disappeared. It looked like Clinton appreciated the irony of the moment as he stood there.

Ahh. Now this is the America we all love:

Administration officials are preparing long-range plans for indefinitely imprisoning suspected terrorists whom they do not want to set free or turn over to courts in the United States or other countries, according to intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials.

The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions, including for hundreds of people now in military and CIA custody whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts. The outcome of the review, which also involves the State Department, would also affect those expected to be captured in the course of future counterterrorism operations.
. . .
As part of a solution, the Defense Department, which holds 500 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, plans to ask Congress for $25 million to build a 200-bed prison to hold detainees who are unlikely to ever go through a military tribunal for lack of evidence, according to defense officials.

Indefinitely imprisoning "terrorists" without charges--how is this different than the Soviet Union? What's next on the docket? Gulags in Georgia?

The obligatory January 1 post.