July 2006 Archives

Why of course women and children are to blame for being bombed.

Thursday:

The US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice offered a "prayer for peace" at a gala dinner of Asia's largest security meeting last night.

The talented pianist played a Brahms sonata at the summit of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) to reflect her sombre mood following a diplomatic visit to the Middle East.

"It's a serious time," Dr Rice said before the gala dinner -- traditionally a night of song and dance performed by the diplomats themselves -- but others did not share her sentiments and went all out to entertain.

Yes, it is a serious time for world leaders, what with deadly bombs exploding like popcorn in the Middle East.

How are they dealing with the somber tremors of World War III back at the White House?

Friday:

"President George W. Bush welcomes nine of the top 10 American Idol finalists to the Oval Office at the White House."

Sunday:

"White House South Lawn Tee Ball"

Video

Yes, as President Bush briefly emerges from his bunker situation room for some fresh air, you can see that the strain of round-the-clock crisis management is clearly taking its toll on him.

Weighty times indeed.

A "noncommercial hearse"? That's one way to save money on vehicle registration.

A defense if you're sued by RIAA?

Bill would require federally-funded libraries and schools to block social networking websites. Isn't that basically why kids today use the Internet?

The world's 100 most valuable brands.

An overlooked (by history) sleeping sickness epidemic affected over a million people between 1916 and 1928.

President Bush on the conflict in Lebanon:

My goal is exactly what I said it was, and that is to hopefully end this as quickly as possible, and at the same time, making sure there's a lasting peace -- not a fake peace, not a fake, you know, kind of circumstances that make us all feel better, and then, sure enough, the problem arises again.

Uh, right. We have no interest in an artificial, feel-good peace. Which explains all the hoopla the administration made regarding the Iraqi elections, since those have undoubtedly ushered in permanent stability.

It almost seemed too good to be true: An American with a bad hip overcoming an eight minute deficit to win the Tour de France.

It looks like it was:

Floyd Landis, the winner of this year's Tour de France, has tested positive for a banned substance, according to his Phonak team.
. . .
According to sources in France, the rider concerned is said to have tested positive for testosterone after last Thursday's stage through the Alps to Morzine, which was won, after a 130-kilometre solo breakaway, by Landis who went on to secure overall victory in the Tour, which finished in Paris on Sunday.

This news comes to a Tour that had already been plagued by drug scandal when several big-name riders were disqualified from participating. It's going to be tough overcoming this black eye.

UPDATE: As commenters note here, the test reportedly failed isn't a conclusive finding that Landis is guilty. There's apparently another test and some sort of appeals process. Still, even if he is somehow cleared, this whole incident is still bad public relations for cycling.

I've never understood how to interpret the yield curve. This explanation helps.

I've still got a way to go.

By the way, I only recently discovered this weblog, and it looks like a pretty good one if your interested in learning economics.

Lance style.

Proving once again that no amount of stupidity will prevent Ann Coulter from getting more TV air time.

I've sometimes wondered how many people can be fooled into supporting a bill or policy simply because it has a cute name. You know, like "Patriot Act," "Clear Skies," "We Love Children Act," or whatever. I suspected that such marketing might have some sway on those who don't follow the particular issue. After all, what uninformed person wouldn't support whatever noble objective a catchy title claimed said law would achieve?

Apparently, it's not just Joe Blow on the street who can thus be tricked by a bill's name. Last weekend on Tim Russert Thomas Friedman admitted (boasted?) that he would support a proposal simply because it was entitled a "free trade" agreement. That's right: forget what a pact says (or doesn't say) regarding labor, the environment, or security; as long as its proponents use the magic words "free trade," our supposed guru on economics and world trade is on board.

It's remarkable what can learn from world-class big journalism.

Last week on Hardball with Chris Matthews, Former CIA operative Bob Baer had a couple interesting comments on developments in the Middle East:

MATTHEWS: [Regarding regime change in Iraq] Have we basically put the Shia, the more militant groups of Shia, into the driver‘s seat in the Middle East?

BAER: Absolutely. And this is—you know, what happened when we invaded Iraq was we essentially turned the country over to radical Shia, and the leadership in Baghdad is radical Shia. I know most of these guys. In the ‘90s, they took refuge in the southern suburbs of Beirut, with Hezbollah. There‘s a close connection between the government in Baghdad and Hezbollah.

And what we‘re seeing now is the development of a radical Shia arc, which goes from Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut now, which is what has the Sunni—and that‘s Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf and Egypt and Jordan—so worried, and this is why they‘ve come out against Hezbollah.

MATTHEWS: You know, I‘ve heard that from the mouth of one of the leaders of one of those Sunni countries. As you just describe it is the wave he described it, the fear of an emerging Shia crescent across all the Middle East.

The Sunni governments which tend to be moderate are now being overwhelmed by something we may have had a hand in triggering, the continuity now from Tehran, through Baghdad, down through Beirut. We may have created our worst enemy. Do you believe that?

BAER: Chris, this is a catastrophe, Iraq, and this is going to go on for years. Iraq is going to change us. We‘re not going to change Iraq. I got calls from Damascus just before I got on the phone with you, and the Sunni are worried. They‘re leaving Damascus, afraid that this war in Lebanon is going to spread to Syria, and they‘re going to pay the Sunni. You know, they‘re going to flee to the Gulf, wherever they can.

The division between the Shia and the Sunni in the Middle East is our greatest threat to the United States. When people talk about World War III, it‘s not a traditional war against us from nuclear bombs or anything, it‘s from the split that will lead to a regional war which will ultimately and I repeat—will affect oil supplies.

Generally, I've thought of a looming Iraq disaster in a domestic framework: the nation becomes embroiled in civil war and perhaps fractures. This regional scenario is obvious far worse, and quite disturbing in its plausibility. Baer's comment about Iraq "changing us" rather than the other way around is a telling suggestion that those running the show don't understand the Middle East. But we already knew that.

One last note: it's interesting that the warmongers currently beating the drums for strikes against Iran and Syria (for their ties to Hezbollah) aren't mentioning Iraq's role in this. I wonder why that is?

A tool once used for finding stolen cars will soon be available so that anyone can track a license plate as a vehicle moves around.

Big Brother marches forward.

TPM, quoting The Nelson Report

The announcement by Secretary of State Condi Rice that she was going to the region, but would not seek direct meetings with Syria, the country the US claims to be at the heart of any “solution” to the Lebanon crisis, has sparked much international criticism, and rekindled debate in the US over the basic lack of Bush Administration policy.

Or, put another way, the Lebanon situation has exposed, once again, that US policy, under Bush, is largely whatever the Israeli government says it wants. So the long term effect of this on US-Arab relations generally, and the US ability to be constructively involved in any serious peace process, is once again under debate.

Mixed messages do abound, not the least of which being Rice's promise of U.S. aid to Lebanon, even as America rushs to send more weapons to Israel. Seems we could save money on the aid by simply not sending the bombs.

It seems like just a few months ago that we were being told the regime change in Iraq would set the dominoes of peace and freedom falling across the Middle East.

Things have been falling over there, alright, but not quite what we were lead to expect. Operation Flowering Freedom is going so swimmingly that CNN currently has a story entitled " Iraq: The forgotten war."

No doubt there are some who would like us to forget Iraq. To some degree, I suspect some are using this "World War III" mantra to change the subject from their earlier prognostications on that mess. Let's wipe the slate clean and start with a fresh war.

There are plenty of distractions. Billmon identifies the following feuds:

We've got: Israeli Jews fighting Lebanese Shi'a and Palestinian Sunnis; Palestinian Fatah militants who've stopped fighting Hamas militants, but only because they're both fighting the Israelis; Saudi Sunni fundamentalists issuing fatwas against Hezbollah Shi'a fundamentalists; Egyptian Sunni fundamentalists backing those same Hezbollah Shi'a fundamentalists; Iraqi Sunnis killing Iraqi Shi'a and vice versa; Iraqi Shi'a (the Mahdi Army) jousting with Iraqi Shi'a (the Badr Brigade); Iraqi Kurds trying to push Sunni Arabs and both Sunni and Shi'a Turkomen out of Kirkuk; Turks threatening to invade Kurdistan; Iranians allegedly shelling Kurdistan, Syrian Kurds rebelling against Syrian Allawites who are despised by Syria's Sunni majority but allied with the Lebanese Shi'a who are hated and feared by the House of Saud and its Sunni fundamentalist minions. Oh, and American and Israeli neocons threatening to bomb both Syria and Iran.

Slate has a chart of who's friends or enemies with who. Go here and click on "The Middle East Buddy List."

What you see is a picture that I'm afraid is too complicated for our one-dimensional, morally clear leadership to deal with.

(Map source)

Above are the states I have been in. Many of them were just quick drive throughs.

It's been a while since I got out and explored America. California is the only new state I've added in the past decade.

But I assume someday I'll get out there again. Which state will be the next to fall? If I had the extra coin today and the opportunity to escape for a couple weeks, I'd load up the Madone and test my metal on some of the big mountains in Colorado (here or here) or Montana (here or here). In that event, "nearby" Utah or Idaho are strong contenders. On the other hand, New England is shorter trip. If the history bug strikes again I can kill four birds with one short stone's throw.

Time will tell.

Through the back door:

The federal government is moving to eliminate the jobs of nearly half of the lawyers at the Internal Revenue Service who audit tax returns of some of the wealthiest Americans, specifically those who are subject to gift and estate taxes when they transfer parts of their fortunes to their children and others.

The administration plans to cut the jobs of 157 of the agency’s 345 estate tax lawyers, plus 17 support personnel, in less than 70 days.
. . .
[S]ix I.R.S. estate tax lawyers whose jobs are likely to be eliminated said in interviews that the cuts were just the latest moves behind the scenes at the I.R.S. to shield people with political connections and complex tax-avoidance devices from thorough audits.

Sharyn Phillips, a veteran I.R.S. estate tax lawyer in Manhattan, called the cuts a “back-door way for the Bush administration to achieve what it cannot get from Congress, which is repeal of the estate tax.”

If the executive branch refuses to enforce the law, it won't be enforced, will it?

William Bennett, on CNN yesterday: "Not to be flip, but give war a chance."

The self-proclaimed "America's Anchorman" on embryonic stem cell research:

I'm telling you, and I have from the get-go, who is behind this -- is the -- the militant pro-abortion crowd, because you need abortions to get these.

Uh, fertility clinics perform an abortion as part of the in vitro fertilization process? I wasn't aware of that. That would defeat the whole purpose, wouldn't it?

If that wasn't comical enough, he then added this:

This -- the -- I think we need to re-examine this whole term "scientist." You know, there are certain things in our culture that are never questioned. They have instant credibility. If a scientist says anything, [gasp] it's gotta be true. Scientists have this aura.
. . .
Science is not politics -- well, it's absolutely BS. Science is all about politics, and science has been so wrong about so many things.

Yes, in offering brilliant insights like the one above, Limbaugh demonstrates that we should drop "scientists" all together and get our information from those holding Ph.D.s in radio punditry. Because clearly they don't have a political agenda.

As they stand up, we'll stand down run for cover:

U.S. officials have long claimed that as America trains more Iraqi forces the violence in the country will subside. Actually, the exact opposite has happened, veteran Iraq correspondent Tom Lasseter (formerly with Knight Ridder, now with McClatchy after the sale) calculates today.

"Despite the addition of almost 100,000 U.S.-trained Iraqi troops in the past year, American efforts to pacify central Iraq and the capital appear to be failing, challenging a central assumption behind the U.S. strategy in Iraq: that training more Iraqi security forces will allow American troops to start going home," he observes.

Of course, one problem has been that some of these newly-trained forces are joining in the sectarian carnage. Uniformed officers or official police vehicles are often spotted the scene of killings.

The raw numbers: the number of trained Iraqi soldiers and police grew from an estimated 168,670 in June 2005 to some 264,600 this June. "Yet Baghdad's morgue is receiving nearly twice as many dead Iraqis each day as it did last year," Lasseter notes. "The number of bombings causing multiple fatalities has risen steadily. Attacks on American and Iraqi troops last month grew 44 percent from June 2005."

Maybe it's time to head back to the drawing board again.

Funny how history repeats itself. I predict that just as in Afghanistan, we will sooner or later be fighting some (many?) of the same people we are currently training in Iraq.

Senator Tom Harkin:

Virtually everytime a couple goes to a fertility clinic, leftover embryos are created...if that's murder, how can the President permit it to continue? Where's his outrage at the IVF clinics in this country? Why isn't he up here proposing legislation to shut down in-vitro fertilization in this country? Make it a crime, a federal crime, to conduct in-vitro fertilization? In the President's narrow, moral universe, it seems to be just fine to destroy embryos, to throw them away, as the by-product of producing babies through IVF, but it's murder to use the embryos to conduct life saving research. Someone please explain the logic of that to me.

And why isn't the President prosecuting the many thousands of American men and women who use these IVF clinics? If their attempts to have children results in leftover embryos and these embryos eventually get discarded, aren't they complicit in murder? Under the President's narrow, moral logic, and I'd hate to call it logic, the President's narrow, moral view, any man or woman who allows their embryo to be discarded, something that happens everyday, is authorizing murder. Why is the President standing idly by? Why isn't he putting all these men and women in jail?

Good questions. Perhaps someday someone in the White House press corps will manage to ask about it.

Lebanese refugees: keep logging into the State Department website for updated information.

The White House daily press briefing is currently underway. Since Mr. Bush threatens to veto the stem cell research bill, I'd love for some member of the corpse to ask the following question:

What does the president believe should be done with the 400,000 unused embryos at fertility clinics? Does he propose that enough women be found (or forced) to carry the eggs so that not one of them is ever destroyed?

Feel the progress:

"The message is clear, and the message confirms the sectarian differences," said Fadhil Sharih, a leader of the Sadr movement. "It seems clear that it's been moving toward the direction of civil war."

U.S. and Iraqi government leaders have argued that the 150,000-strong foreign troop presence has kept the country from descending into full-scale civil war. But many Iraqi officials fear the threshold has been crossed.

"What is happening in Iraq is a disaster and a tragedy," Adnan Dulaimi, a Sunni Arab leader, said in an interview.

"It's bloodshed and killing of the innocents, killing the elderly and women and children. It's mass killings. It's nothing less than an undeclared civil war."

Many members of Iraq's political class spoke gravely of the massacres and bombings of the last few days, even as two U.S. Cabinet officials visiting Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone this week touted Iraq as a potential bonanza for private investors.
. . .
The surge in violence has terrified residents of Baghdad and other mixed Sunni and Shiite areas. The Baghdad airport has been flooded with Iraqis of modest means seeking to escape even temporarily the country's upswing in sectarian slayings.

According to a U.N. study based on Health Ministry statistics, 2,669 Iraqi civilians were killed in May and 3,149 were killed in June. And this month, the violence appears to be accelerating, particularly in the Baghdad area that is the target of a sweeping security crackdown aimed at quelling the violence. U.S. and Iraqi troops launched the sweep, to great fanfare, after a visit in mid-June by President Bush.

What a mess. How can we expect a effective reaction to this situation when leaders in Washington refuse to even acknowledge reality?

Senators Alexander and Frist vote in favor of increasing federal funding.

The Decider promises to exercise his first veto.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who has survived two types of cancer, said he believed "it is a clear-cut question to use embryos to save lives, because otherwise they will be destroyed." Fertility clinics hold about 400,000 unneeded embryos, he said, and only 128 have been "adopted" by families that played no role in creating them. "A century from now people will look back in amazement that we could even have this debate when the issues are so clearly cut," Specter said.

Many of us don't need a century of hindsight to be amazed.

There's got to be some left from the 1990s, right?

An interesting moment during the G-8 summit. Presumably, this is another instance where Mr. Bush didn't realize the camera was running.

"U.S. to Aid Americans' Lebanon Evacuation"

To be fair, if I was stuck in a conflict zone, I'd be thinking about getting out too. My point is that mindless slogans can cut both ways.

Josh Marshall writes:

Thinking back through the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s -- with key crises in each decade -- I don't think there's any example where an American administration has so thoroughly marginalized itself or shown such impotence and irrelevance.

In watching Mr. Bush yucking it up with pig jokes on the world stage, I don't know how you can conclude anything other than that we're not seeing leadership from the world's supposed leader.

Oh my, an uncoordinated rightist message. Guess that's what happens when the party talking points don't address an issue.

Wikipedia offers a good answer:

A world war is a military conflict affecting the majority of the world's major nations. World wars usually span multiple continents, and are very bloody and destructive.

The term has usually been used to apply to two conflicts of unprecedented scale and slaughter that occurred during the 20th century. They were the First World War, also known as the Great War (1914–1918) and the Second World War (1939–1945).

Some have claimed that the Cold War should be termed a "World War III" and some that the current "War on Terrorism" is "World War IV". However, these characterisations have attracted little support outside the (largely ideological) groups that have used them.

Note the parenthetical in the last sentence.

Just as they used September 11 as a pretext to march into Iraq, the neocon crowd is now heralding the current conflict in Lebanon as an opportunity to strike Iran. I expect the drum beats to get even louder in the coming days.

UPDATE: Limbaugh calls conflict a "gift" to the world. In a moment of candor, he also admits that the Iraq war was never supposed to stop at Iraq.

If it ever works, this one-wheeled concept "motorcycle" looks kind of cool.

On the other hand, this chainless bicycle doesn't.

Randy Neal scores an interview with Senator John Edwards.

I supported Edwards in the 2004 primary. And I think it's key for the Democrats, if they ever want to win another election, to get back to their blue color roots by embracing the Senator's message regarding poor and working class Americans.

Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine has a piece identifying the greenest cities in the South.

The list:

Carrboro, NC
Charlottesville, VA
Asheville, NC
Chattanooga, TN
Greenville, SC

Getting Greener:

Charlotte, NC
Washington DC
Virginia Beach, VA
Maryland (the whole state)

No sign of Knoxville. Interesting.

Must be taking a slight detour. But any minute we should expect the dominoes of peace, freedom, and democracy to start falling!

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020608-4.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020626.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020610-1.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/07/20020718-3.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/08/20020801-2.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021016-13.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030314-4.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030509-11.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/06/20030604-1.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/06/20030604.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/06/20030615.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/07/20030729-2.html

Just when you think you've heard all the weird stuff, something new comes along.

Billmon speculates that poor bottom lines for the health care industry may mean even greater health care woes for the uninsured.

The first time I saw a reference to this, I thought it was a joke. Apparently, it's not; there really is a position in the White House entitled "Director for Lessons Learned." Pays $106,641.

Talk about a rough job, I imagine Mr. Baker's daily routine goes something like this.

(1) Arrive at work.
(2) Turn on computer.
(3) Check messages.
(4) Open file "What we learned today."
(5) Review text: "What we did yesterday was exactly right."
(6) Save file.
(7) Print and send or email file to Oval Office.
(8) Turn off computer.
(9) Go home.

Crooks and Liars has a clip from last night's The Daily Show, comparing Bush 1.0 to Bush 2.0, WMD version.

Via TalkLeft, an interesting quote from one of the Court's non-liberal activist card carrying members:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy yesterday criticized the federal Sentencing Guidelines and the lobbying efforts of correctional officers' unions.

"The only thing worse than sentencing under the guidelines is sentencing without them," he told judges and lawyers from across the Ninth Circuit yesterday. "I think the guidelines are far too severe," he added, explaining that spending money on prisoners while failing to invest in efforts to inform at-risk groups about sentencing undermined the principle of deterrence.

"The fact that the prison guards' association lobbies for higher penalties is sick," he added emphatically.

In most of the get-tough-on-crime debates, I don't hear much regarding the role of the prison guards' association. I think it's a point to disclose that interest in the discussion.

No wonder I get hungry:

Riders can burn 10,000 calories on hard mountain stages, about five times the amount an average person might consume in the course of a normal day, said Denise Demir, doctor for Landis' Swiss team, Phonak.

Replacing those calories and the 20 pints of liquid they can also lose through sweat requires them to drink and eat in such large quantities that it frequently gives riders stomach aches and diarrhea, Demir added.

OK, so I don't ride the equivalent of a tough Tour De France stage. But I find that even an hour or two of riding lays the groundwork for a pretty hearty meal.

This weekend I did a tougher ride in the mountains, then proceeded to a friend's house for an overnighter. My friend subsequently wrote that I "ate up most of our food." Ooops.

As far as eating while cycling goes, there's a bit of a trick to that. Most of my rides are short enough that I don't take food along. So I haven't yet gotten a feel for how it's best to eat on the long rides (organized centuries) were I have to do so.

That caught up to me on my last ride when I found myself battling not only a mountain and the heat, but also a bit of an upset stomach from bad timing with my eating/drinking. (Fortunately, however, no diarrhea.) I guess the best way of figuring out what works best is the process of trial and error.

Tragically, a series of bombings have rocked trains in India. The talking heads are busy speculating on the cause. Whatever the case, I'm sure the facts will quickly be reshaped to conform to the American political rubric ("fighting those who hate freedom over there").

It's a sad reflection of my world knowledge that I didn't realize until now that Bombay has been renamed as Mumbai. The name was officially changed 11 years ago. Where have I been?

One learns new things every day.

Also noteworthy:

There are no more vibrant libertarian components left of the Bush movement. Libertarians (in the small "l" sense of that word) have either abandoned the Bush-led Republicans based on the recognition -- catalyzed by the Schiavo travesty -- that there are no movements more antithetical to a restrained government than an unchecked Republican Party in its current composition.

Yes, anyone against "big government" can't be happy with the past five years.

I understand that there isn't much competative primary action going on, and that many of the writers for the larger progressive blogs live in or near Connecticut.

That being said, aren't a number of thse sites going overboard with this Lieberman/Lamont race? Who are they going to support if Lieberman actually wins the primary?

Here's President Bush today:

We take -- and we all should take threats seriously. That's one of the lessons of September the 11th, is that what takes place in other parts of the world can come home to hurt the American people. See, a failed government in Afghanistan enabled plotters and planners to train and them come and kill 3,000 of our citizens. And so it used to be that's it's okay if something were happening from afar, oceans could protect us. I presume that's how some in Canada used to feel. The lesson of September the 11th is, is that we're vulnerable, and therefore, we've got to deal with each threat.

A lesson Bush learned from September the 11th: that the oceans don't protect us from threats. Was he talking about nerve gas found in Iraq? An anthrax stash found in Afghanistan? No, he was talking about North Korea test launching a missile which could supposedly travel 5,000 miles.

Can we infer from Bush's comment that on September 10, 2001, he wasn't aware that a nuclear state with long-range missiles was a threat to America? Really, hasn't he played the September the 11th card enough?

Over the holiday weekend I passed the 5,000 mile mark on the Madone. I've had the bicycle since last June. So far, so good. I've had an issue with a wheelset I subsequently purchased. But as far as the original bike goes, all I've had to replace are a few tubes, tires, and the chain.

I didn't go out for any longer distance holiday rides; just did a few shorter rides close to home. It was hot and I've had a little knee issue. The traffic was relatively light the past few days, so that was better.

The route takes me by a soccer "complex" which has six or so sets of goals. Recently, with the World Cup in progress, I've been noting how many people are actually playing soccer there. You know, the sport supposedly being popular and all. I think the largest number of people I've seen is six.

What a waste of space.

The bicycle:

Comparing energy used per passenger-mile (calories), they found that a bicycle needed only 35 calories, whereas a car expended a whopping 1,860. Bus and trains fell about midway between, and walking still took 3 times as many calories as riding a bike the same distance.

An added bonus: those 35 burned calories come from your weight total, not from a Saudi oil well.

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Ted Stevens explains the Internets to us. Yes, this guy is the chair of the committee in charge of legislation regulating the Internets.

Your U.S. Senate Republican leadership in action.

Well, this is one way for a church to spend $260,000. No doubt many people in the community will benefit from it.

One commenter's reference to graven images seems appropriate.