NuKe (Is that too subtle. NK for North Korea, but made to spell nuke?)

So NK tested a nuke. Looks like it was probably a small one, but I think we can all agree they won't stay small (and that small's not neccessarily a failure, this type of nuke has to be small to fit on a war-head).

The question before the US is, "What now?"

Lot's of tough talk from W, but his proposals seem, well, weak. Here's what I've read so far. This,

The latest U.S. proposal, obtained by The Associated Press Wednesday night, dropped Japanese demands to prohibit North Koreans ships from entering any port, and North Korean aircraft from taking off or landing in any country. These sanctions would likely face strong Russian and Chinese opposition.

The resolution would still require countries to freeze all assets related to North Korea's weapons and missile programs. But a call to freeze assets from other illicit activities such as "counterfeiting, money-laundering or narcotics" was dropped. So was a call to prevent "any abuses of the international financial system" that could contribute to the transfer or development of banned weapons.

And,

a revised five-page text obtained by Reuters shows softer language on cargo inspections...Additionally, the resolution would impose a travel ban on people who support Pyongyang's weapons programs, Reuters reported.

Let's look at these ideas closer.

Freezing assests relating to the weapons and missle programs is good. But how do you identify those exact assets? Does Kim put, "From Nuclear transfer to Iran" in the memo section of the check he deposits? I also like that he's allowed to keep money form "other illicit activities." Now that sends a strong message about following the law. Plus, can't he just shift assets around? Seriously, this whole idea is rediculous. This is our plan? We'll go after him with accountants? Did whoever thought this up just watch the Untouchables? Is this what we're reduced to? Telling Kim he can keep making money by breaking the law but he can't use that money to break the law and develop nukes. Not only that, but we're not even "calling" on him to stop transferring or developing banned weaponry. I'm sorry, but you may as well just get rid of the pretence and welcome him into the nuclear family. This isn't a plan, it's a sham.

But it gets better. In the second part, we admit that we're certainally not calling on him to stop, and we let him know that we're also not going to inspect his cargo that close after-all. Wow, this will surely put an end to his nuclear desires. This administration loves to throw the word "appeasement" around, and this isn't?

The net result is that he's allowed to make money from illegal activity, develop banned weapons (but not use the illegal money to do that) and move things around without stringent oversight of cargo. But people who support NK's weapon's programs can't travel. Well, put a bow on this problem.

So let's look at where things are today. One, we're officially not safer than before 9/11. Anytime any politician makes that claim, you can remind them of a nuclear NK, which will soon have the ability to target the US, and also has a long history of selling weapons to people who don't like us. Bush's legacy will be his obsession with Iraq and a nuclear NK. Personally, I would prefer Hussein in power to a nuclear NK. The world just got a lot more dangerous. Here's why. Most of the nations in that area are techncially savvy enough to join the club in short fasion. A nuclear arms race in SE Asia is not a good development for world security.

However, the good news is that NK's actions will probably surround China, the most likey military challenger to US supreamacy, with nulcear powers. A nuclear Japan will act as a check on China's power and influence in the area. A nulcear S. Korea will act as a check against both China and NK.

Which is why I like giving Taiwan nukes. China will blow a gasket over this. The surest way to graduate from "runaway province under constant threat of re-aquisition" is to have a few nukes. Then you get "independent nation" status.

Which is why I don't understand China's play on this. Russia yes. They're acting by the book, anything other than what they're doing would be a weird. But China? They have to be aware of having their budding regional power dulled by a nuclear Japan (with the accompanying military build-up) and nuclear Seoul. They got their biggest benefit by having NK periodically spout off about nukes, but once it happened, their hand actually got weaker. Plus, they have to know that their ability to control Kim goes out the window when he has nukes. Not only does he not need China's protection, but what will happen next time they go to control him, or hold something back and he reminds them that he as nuclear missles pointed at Beijeing? Kims nukes can kill chinese just as easy as S. Koreans, Japanese or Americans. My bet is that China takes him out.

But until then, I think one way of getting China to step up is to embarrass them. US diplomats, such as they are, should be making comments like, "Kim clearly doesn't respect/fear/listen, etc to China." Or, "Kim's actions show how little influence China has over him, and demonstrates how far they have to go in diplomatic situations." Or, "NK's test was a humilitating act against China." Put the pressure on them.

Barring that, it makes more sense to hit NK now, before they have big bombs and big delivery systems.

Ahhhh, the power of moral relativism

Thankfully Christopher Shays (R) CT has put the Foley mess into perspective for us.

"I know the speaker didn't go over a bridge and leave a young person in the water, and then have a press conference the next day," the embattled Connecticut congressman told The Hartford Courant in remarks published Wednesday. "Dennis Hastert didn't kill anybody."

Well, there you go. No need to be worried about this anymore.

When you start relying on "We're not as bad as the collective mistakes of the Democrats, and we don't think we're as bad as the worst of world leadership" then its safe to say, that as a party, you're running out of steam. The good news for the GOP is that the Dems are already out of steam and are now running on, "The Democratic Party - We don't harbor pedophiles."

In summary, both parties are running on the inspiring platform of, "Vote for us, we're not as bad as the other party." Good times.

In Summary

Ken Gordon, Democratic nominee for Secretary of State for Colorado sums up the bizzare and frustrating nature of politics.

This process is so odd though. You work hard for years putting yourself in a position to run for an office. You raise money, travel the state, debate your opponent, walk door-to-door and then, depending on the sex life of some Congressman from Florida, you win or lose an election.

Thing is, he's right.

Just a reminder

With N. Korea going all nuclear Clinton's taking some heat for his actions, and rightly so. However, I came across this article from 2002 saying that the US will release $95 million to N. Korea to replace Dear Leader's nuke program (I translated from the English "programme" for all us American readers).

Key quote:

In releasing the funding, President George W Bush waived the Framework's requirement that North Korea allow inspectors to ensure it has not hidden away any weapons-grade plutonium from the original reactors. President Bush argued that the decision was "vital to the national security interests of the United States".

Ummm, oops.

But at least the new reactors were a fair exchange right? Not so said Mr. Sokolski

"These reactors are like all reactors, They have the potential to make weapons. So you might end up supplying the worst nuclear violator with the means to acquire the very weapons we're trying to prevent it acquiring,"

Well, Mr. Chicken Littleski, how do you feel now?

You read it here first!

Apparantly James Baker and the rest of the The Iraq Study Group (which, by the by, was set up by Congress with the Pres' approval, which means that the Hydrablog, since Baker and co clearly took from us, also has the Pre's approval - whoo-hoo!). OK, where was I, I lost track of where I was, I got some bubbly in my eye from the big celebration...oh, Baker and the Iraqettes may be reccomending that Iraq be split into "three highly autonomous regions."

Says a "source" and no it wasn't me,

“The Kurds already effectively have their own area,” said a source close to the group. “The federalisation of Iraq is going to take place one way or another.

Hmmm, where have I heard this line of reasoning before? That's right baby, at the ol' H-Blog. You'd think we'd get some props for the assist. But it's ok, we're just happy being part of the solution.

Again, when someone say's it better

From Chuck Todd of NationalJournal.com.

if the Republicans somehow keep control of Congress in the wake of all this, then the Democrats probably will file for Chapter 11 or be sued for political malpractice.

I think that sums up the situation better than anything I've said.

Signing Statement quick hit

On the issue of signing statements, I agree with both my High School Civics teacher and the American Bar Association .

a president has only two choices -- to sign a bill and enforce it as written, or to veto it and give Congress a chance to override the veto.

If the President doesn't like it, take it to court. The way I remember things, Congress makes the laws, the President enforces them, and the Courts determine their Constitutionality. Separation of power, pretty simple really.

And as if on cue...

Nancy, Nancy, Nancy...

I was reading this article where Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi discusses her plans if the Dems take over the house in Novemeber and things were going well. While I don't agree with all of her ideas for her "first 100 hours" plan, it is the first time I've heard a real agenda from the Dems. It's solid Dem populist stuff , reads well on paper, it certainly addresses concerns from their base, but most importantly, it's a list. So I'm thinking, "ok, now I have something to guage the Dems on. I can see how I like them on their own." Then things start wobbling for me.

"We believe in the marketplace," Pelosi said of Democrats, then drew a contrast with Republicans. "They have only rewarded wealth, not work."

"We must share the benefits of our wealth" beyond the privileged few, she added.

And.

Asked what offices should would occupy if in the Capitol if she becomes speaker, she laughed. "I'll have any suite I want."

Then it struck me. Pelosi doesn't know when to shut-up.

Look at the first block. The first sentence is fine. Good key words like "market place" and it also digs at the Bush tax cuts which did mostly help the highest tax bracket. And focusing on the middle class with the "work not weatlh" line is Dem bread and butter. Plus it's catchy. Lot's of real debate about how the middle class is doing and where it's best to target tax cuts. While you may disagree, it's solid ground.

Then "she added" the line about sharing the wealth. This goes right back to the "Dems as socialists" attack. And with lines like that, the attackers are probably right (heh- right and from the right - got to be fast here on the Hydrablog). If she stopped before the her add, then she would have come out fine. But if I'm looking to hurt the Dems, the wealth redistribution line becomes the tag I talk about. Anyone who grew up playing Punch Out knows that you have to "stick and move." Don't linger with "adds," make your main point and move on.

Then she, as leader of the Democratic party (yes that very party that's been getting it handed to them for 10 years) starts getting all heady. "I'll have any suite I want." Seriously? Maybe win control first, then start redecorating. Why not just answer the question, "Well there's a long time to the election, we're focused on winning. I'm much more concerned with winning seats than which seat I'll sit in if we're successful." Her pary has proven to be woefully unable to compete with the GOP, just a week ago they got massively outmanoevered by the GOP on the Torture bill, "Hey McCain you handle this, we'll just be over here doing nothing. Thank you." My advice, Mrs. Pelosi, don't count your chickens before they hatch.

They just make it so hard to root for. They're like the Washington Generals, they can only win if the GOP completely falls apart, and even then it's a squeaker. It will be interesting to see how long they can hold on to control if they happen to bungle their way into it.

Yuck

Looks like the Foley ads are starting to run. I don't think they're a good idea. But as to why this particular ad is neccessary, from the write up.

Former Rep. Baron Hill, D-Indiana, criticizes Rep. Mike Sodrel, R-Indiana, for refusing to return $77,000 in campaign contributions "from the House leadership who knew about but did nothing to stop sexual predator Congressman Foley.

I can see going after Dennis Hastert or Tom Reynolds, but this guy? From the looks of it he's just some random congressman who happens to be Republican. The ad's not saying he was involved in a cover-up, or that he even knew of anything. Sodrel's "link" to Foley, according to folks from the Hill camp is,

"Basically, our point is there is a crisis in leadership and Mike Sodrel isn't doing anything about it," she said. "He is part of the problem."

Ham fisted at best, but mostly yucky. The dems need to be real careful here. If I was anywhere close to fence in this race I would move into the Sodrel camp. The thing is, Hill was up in a poll on September 17, as "53 percent of voters said they would vote for Democrat Baron Hill; 42 percent said they would vote for Rep. Mike Sodrel, R-9th." An stupid move on Hill's part. He's up, the Foley thing is national news so it has to be hurting Sodrel, so there's no need to get involved. Just let things work. This ad can only backfire, and I hope it does.

Moron.

Foley of it

I can't go too far into the guilt of the Foley matter as I won't read the IM's in question (I won't even link to them. If you want to read them, you can find them). All I've seen are the heavily edited excerpts that you can't avoid on TV and newspapers/websites (from that alone though, if he sent them to my son, or daughter, he would hurt real bad).

Instead I want to talk around it, but first I have to wonder why this simple solution didn't occur to anyone.

Since House Leadership knew about Foley for at least 2 years then was an easy solution that would have avoided a) An appearance of Homophobia (by the by, I think this is complete crap - the worst kind of excuse one could imagine. I'm sorry, but anyone who's buying this line of reasoning is an idiot, seriously, an idiot. I won't drone on here because I can't imagine anyone's taking the bait, but if you want to discuss it tell me in the comments section and I'll be happy to go into it). b) Kept the seat. Which seems like the real goal. c) Got ahead of the inevitable release of the the seedy information. d)Wrapped the whole mess up. All anyone had to do was simply go to Foley two years ago and tell him, "Look, this is bad. Maybe not jail bad, but bad none the less. We're not going public with it because we don't know all the details. BUT, you're not running again for Congress. This is your last term. Thank you."

He would have thanked Hastert, and that would have been that. It's a heavily GOP Gerrymandered district, so the seat was safe with a new candidate. Plus, this news most probably would not have broke, and if it did, so what? This election is about the new guy. If the news did get out, leadership could have said, "We had information, not as explicate as this, but troubling enough that we dealt with it." They may have taken some heat, but nothing like the burn they're getting now. "Ease outs" are historically the way these things are handled by insiders. Right or wrong, innocent or guilty, it avoids the mess, everyone saves face, and all parties have the chance to prosper - Foley could have raked it in as a former, and popular, congressman as a lobbiest, boardmember, etc. Why Hastert didn't do this is anyone's guess. What's even worse is that NRCC Chairman Rep. Tom Reynolds conviced him to run again when Foley was thinking about calling it a career. It's simply mindblowing. GOP leadership urged a possible pedophile to run for re-election. Wow, what a wrong turn. If that doesn't get you fired, nothing will.

I just can't get past that, but because I'm a pro (if one can be a pro-blogger) so here we go.

One, it show's messed up our politicians are. To me, this is pretty cut and dry. He's a sicko. Not only were his antics covered up, he was allowed to continue as Co Chair, Missing and Exploited Childrens Caucus (quick aside, here's his bio at Project Vote smart. Not for nothing, maybe the problem with Congress is too many Caucuses. If I read these on the Onion, I would swear they were fake.). Leadership knew and did nothing, putting more underage pages at risk. The clear answer is a mass cleansing of all involved. It doesn't matter if you're a Dem or a GOPer (or of course, a Libertarian), that's the solution. Yet, the GOP is trying desperately to make this a political issue by blaming the Dems, bringing up past Dem issues, and trying to create the impression that this was all orchestrated by the Dems. My favorites are Newt Gingrich, who I was starting to warm to, saying that Dem sex scandals are worse. Ummm, so what does that have to do with Foley and the cover-up? Can you imagine if Wal-Mart had a similar thing happen to it and said, "Oh yeah, well things are worse at Target!" Would that fly with anyone? Would anyone feel better about shopping at Wal-Mart knowing that? Look, I don't want to get too far off message here but maybe the GOP's problem is that it's completely lost its moral footing. It's all relative now. "Our version of torture is ok because Saddam's was worse." "Our sex scandals are ok because the Dem's are worse." There's no set standard upon which they hold themselves. As long as they perceive their transgressions to be less than the bottom example, it's ok. How do you support that? Plus, unless I missed something, chronic gay pedophelia sets a new low. I honestly don't recall worse than that from the Dems (Stalin you can correct me if I'm wrong on that).

Second, this notion that ABC released it to hurt the GOP. Apparantly Fox had the info as did at least the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald (here's the St. Pete Times response) and they knew for about a year. I don't have it in me to go do the research, but I've read the Times for years, and I occasionaly watch Fox, generally they have no problem reporting this kind of stuff. But memory is selective so I'm not calling them hypocritical. My piont with this section is that between them getting it, and the admitted Foley concerns by those around and above him, it was going to come out. The problem with avoiding a problem rather than confronting it is that you lose all ability to control timing. Had this come out a year ago, when it was essentially "out," and dealt with, then it would not be happening now. No one sat on this, except possibly Fox, the Times and the Herald, and released it to hurt the GOP right before the elections. The fact that the story was out a year ago kills that theory.

Third, as far as "media bias" goes, both Fox (on O'Reilly - seriously Stalin can we both at least agree that he's a hack, please. Just meet me halfway on this one point) and the AP labled Foley as "D-FL" not once, but several times. A mistake? Maybe. But it has to hurt the "liberal biased media" theory, or open Fox and AP up to "conservative manipulation" conspiracy theories.

And to come full circle, Snow's a real jackass. Calling Foley's IM's "naughty e-mails" is a pathetic, partisan attempt to cover the GOP. My bet is that if they were sent to Snow's underage child, he'd view them as slightly more than "naughty." Granted, he later back-tracked, but only after getting hammered by anyone and everyone who heard his initial comments.

That's about all I can take for now. The lesson, as always, is don't cover, don't hide, just deal. If the GOP just did that, they wouldn't be in this storm right now.

Hand me the whip, this horse isn't dead enough

More musings on Frist's ban of internet gambling, well not all gambling, lotteries and horses are a-ok, it's poker that Frist is after. Ironic that of the three, poker is the only one that requires real skill, but that's not the point of this post. Also, Radley Balko does a nice job of explaining how this ban, like most government attempts to save us from ourselves, may cause more damage.

What I'm curious about is the effect on poker boom. Over the last decade or so, poker has gone from a true niche game to a national phenomena. I remember when the one poker magazine in existance was about to close shop, now there are no less than three national glossy magazines that you can buy in the airport. I also remember special ordering Doyle Brunsen's Super/System by phone from a specialty book store in Vegas, now it's at every bookstore in America. For my last trip down memory lane, I remember staying up late to watch a Brittish Poker show that aired on Fox, Friday Night Poker it think (this was also before Tivo), now there are at least six national shows about poker. I also remember when comic books cost less than 50 cents, my hip hurts and those damn kids won't get off my lawn!

Most of this explosion is fueled by on-line poker sites. Super Satellites, a game where a $1 entry can get you a seat at the $10,000 main event entry fee for the World Series of Poker ballooned the event to consecutive record turn-outs, the "first day" was really multiple waves played out over several weeks. Plus the poker boom came about at a time when Vegas bookings, earnings and seats were all down. That changed when people wanted to take their on-line skills to the big show. Killing internet gaming kills the golden goose for an entire industry. A legal industry, that generates conciderable profits for it's investors and loads of tax revenue.

But is it dead? By targeting banks that issue credit cards, debit cards or wire transfers that pay for the gambling it does appear to choke the life out of the industry. However, if the will is high enough (and looking at the monster growth of poker players nation wide - and the incredible revenue they generate, $6 bln in the US for on-line poker alone, it looks like it is) then someone will find a way. I'm no expert on international banking, but I assume one could set up a credit card or bank account in a foreign jusidiction and avoid the whole mess. My guess is also that the internet will make this process easy. So, while it may temporarily dissuade a casual internet gamer from playing poker, the internet, and comfort with the internet, will create a way around it. My bet (heh) is that a work-around will crop up, internet poker will stay around, US companies will lose revenue, taxpayers lose revenue and possibly shady, and definitely foreign, organizations/nations will increase their income.

Genius Frist, absolute genius.

Don't fence me in

One of the last things Congress did before adjourning was to pass legislation authorizing the start of the fence between the US and Mexico and a $1.2 bln down payment on a 700 mile stretch. Here's the kicker, according to the article no one knows just how much the fence will cost. My rough calculation based on the San Diego fence is $6.325 bln for the 700 miles.

So let's have some fun.

Cost: Whatever cost is budgeted and/or publicized will be nowhere close to the actual cost. Personally, I think the over/under is initially three times. Anyone who's ever done their own building/remodeling, or followed government spending would probably agree. Long term costs will easily blow through the 3x figure owing to upgrades, maintenance, staffing, etc.

Effectiveness: We also know it won't work. Won't keep illegals out to any real degree and more importantly, it won't keep terrorists out. Look at the Berlin Wall, the only real example for our Mexican Wall. There's an entire museum show-casing the innovative ways people trafficked others past the guards. And this was a major wall with mines, guns, camera's and no pretense of privacy of citizen rights. Is the smart assumption that our "fence" will work better, or worse than the Berlin wall? The reality is that all it will lead to is ever increasing fortifications, at ever increasing costs, followed by the inevitable break down of civil rights for people moving legally across the border.

Additional expense: Like it or not, our economy relies on "undocumented" immigrants. Take them out of the labor pool and costs for a large basket of goods and services go up. So not only do American's pay for the wall, but they pay daily with higher priced goods and services. Which leads to...inflation. All this talk about increased technological efficiency keeping wages down ignores the fact cheap illegal labor also keeps wages down. Combine the two, and you get a super whammy bang on keeping prices down. But take out cheap labor, prices go up, the Fed increases rates to ward off inflation, and the economy tanks. Hurray! Sorry, but illegal immigrants are like oil. The simple fact is that our economy is dependent on both, like it or not. Getting rid of illegals is like banning oil. It may make some people feel good, but economically, it's a really stupid move.

Yet another reason why I love this country

Sgt. Patrick Stewart gave his life fighting in Afghanistan, was awarded the Air Medal, the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, the Nevada Distinguished Service Medal, the Combat Action Badge, and was set to be buried in Northern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Fernley. The only hang up was what symbol to put on his tombstone. You see, Sgt Stewart was a Wiccan. His wife wanted to put the Wiccan symbol, an upward facing pentagram, on his marker just as Christian's put a cross, Jews the Start of David, and Athiests and their cool symbol, which looks like something that would go on a superhero's chest (click here for a complete list with pictures). However, Wiccan isn't on the approved list, so no symbol for Sgt. Stewart (note that the article appears at Armytimes.com - love it. Cynic number one would say that the Army would try to squash such an article in one of their outlets). End of story? Hardly.

Mrs. Stewart appealed to the DVA, had strong community support, and Sgt. Stewart's brother's in arms in Afghanistan circulated a petition in support of her efforts. Here, cynic number two would say that the Christian's would clearly oppose the addition of a pagan symbol, especially the pentagram. Not so fast. ChristianityToday.com had this article by John W. Whitehead. A compassionate, well reasoned article in favor of allowing the pentagram.

So while Wiccan's have been seeking official recognition for more than a decade, Mrs. Stewart tried anyway. Cynic number three would say the DVA's bureaucracy is where petition's like this go to die. Well... maybe. On September 13, MSNBC.msn.com reported that Mrs. Stewart won state approval to put the pentagram on Sgt. Stewart's marker. The Nevada Attorney General found that the Feds have no authority over state burial grounds. The DVA is still deciding their official policy. So for now cynic number three is half-right. But after all this, I believe he will be all wrong.

A little something to help Stalin feel better

Time.com has a solid article on why the GOP is feeling better than polls suggest they should about the mid-term elections. I tend to agree, plus it just shows how much better the GOP machine is than the Dem machine (which is really more like a Tonka toy).

However, this Foley thing could be huge. With congress out of session there's nothing to refocus the nation on. The last thing that people will remember about this Congress is how sick Foley is, and wonder if the GOP leadership did or did not cover it up.

Go get 'em Killer

Calling Sen. John McCain a "Maverick" has officially become one of those ironic nicknames. Like when a fat guy is named "tiny" or having a chihuahua named "killer."

I'm sure Carter will screw this up too

Nothing really to add to this, I just thought it was really interesting.

Nicaragua is building it's own canal.

Here's why.

Opened in 1914, the Panama Canal cannot accommodate vessels that are more than 106 feet wide and 965 feet long. Panamanians will go to the polls on Oct. 22 on a referendum to expand their country's own facilities. The proposed $5.25 billion project would allow vessels with double the tonnage to use the 50-mile-long waterway.

Sneaky Frist

These day's you always hear 'bout politicians "politicising the war." It's happened during every war going back at least as far as the Pelopennisian War, both sides do it (vote GOP or the terrorists will kill every American, starting with the children v. Dems smell blood in W's bad poll's and pounce-well "pounce" is a bit strong, more like "flail about wildly a litte more", yet people still get all lathered up about it. In the end, its mostly just rhetoric, it's expected and it's easy to ignore.

However, Frist pushed his pet project, an anti-internet gambling law into the Port Security bill, a law that could get no traction on its own. Very smooth. A vote against this big government, nanny state, special interest protecting, anti-capitalism bill would be used as "Senator X voted against Port Security" by their opponents. Plus, remember when the you could rely on the GOP to be for capitalism, small government, and killing the nanny state? When did they become the democrats?

Anyway, again, there's words and action. The same people who get all worked up over silly words, ignore real action. When Frist talks about the need to reign in pork and create more transparancy, remember this. But more importantly, when Republican's get upset and accuse the Democrats of politicising the war, remember the astounding hypocracy of their Republican Senate Majority Leader.

What would Sid Meier say?

The Senate passed the torture bill, aka The Military Commissions Act of 2006, yesterday, W is expected to sign.

Here's what the bill lacks.

Any proof of guilt before torture is allowed.

Any threshold of what constitutes a torturable event. For example it does not say, "If a bomb is about to go off in NYC and the suspect knows where it is, then it is permissible to torture." There is no minimum offense, or standard of information required to allow torture.

No requirement to keep records of how many are tortured, why they were tortured and under what methods.

No recourse for the tortured if they are innocent or do not have the information. In fact, since there is no requirement period for releasing anyone brought into custody, if you are embarrassing enough, you may never get released. Innocent, tortured, and life in prison.

So to recap. After careful consideration by our House and Senate, and at the President's urging, we are now a nation that can torture a mysterious number of innocent people, for any reason, and keep them locked up forever, without oversight or recourse by anyone outside those who are doing the torturing.

Mr. Bush said this is a battle for civilization.

He's right, they are destroying our civilization.

I'll let you decide who "they" are.

McCain's compromise torture bill

AKA, "The Agreement Upon Common Article 3"

I have some opinions, but I'll let you read it on your own. Concider it homework.

What the pro-torture crowd is really supporting

When discussing torture its important to discuss who it is we're actually torturing. As it stands, those who are lined up for torture are the ones who don't have a right to trial, with some small sub-set being selected for military tribunals (which offer less defendant rights than our standard courts) at the pentagon's sole discression. However, both classes can be tortured at any time. In other words, you can be tortured without ever seeing even a tribunal.

The standard defenses for this are along the lines of, "this is better than they would treat us," or "these terrorists don't deserve better," or "terrorists must be dealt with," etc.

The problem is this. Because we are not fighting an enemy nation with uniforms, how do you know you have a terrorist and not a goat farmer who was named by someone a) being tortured and giving up a name, any name to ease the pain, or b) someone with another agenda (like wanting his land)? Keep in mind, there is no link, anywhere between torture an guilt. Not in any document, bill, or memo I've found. Furthermore, even those selected to undergo trial do not get the standard defense, they have lesser rights and a harder fight. Normally, when a punishment is unusual the trial is biased for the defendant, think death peanalty. Even with all the hurdles in place to insure that those on death row are guilty, many were freed years, or decades, later with DNA evidence or when the real killer came forth. Now, we're told to accept that a watered down defense, or even no defense, will have a lesser innocent conviction rate than our standard trial system? Just to trust some random guy that a detainee is a terrorist? Has this ever worked out?

So when you find yourself supporting torture, remember the administration has never, ever said anything about only the guilty getting the business. When you support this administration and Congress and their torture bill, you have to accept that you are supporting the torture innocent people.

It's not about "getting the bad guys." Never has been. Otherwise there would be a push to make sure those we have are guilty. This is about fear and vengance. When you're a coward and your afraid you'll hurt anyone to feel safe. When you're feeling vengeful, you'll hurt anyone to satiate your desire. American is about justice.

How far from justice will we stray, and how long will it take us to come back?

Clinton v. Wallace

In case anyone's interested, here's the transcript from the Fox broadcast of the Clinton Wallace debate, tirade, lie fest, ambush, where Clinton was brilliant, unhinged, set the facts straight, told more lies, hurt his legacy, helped his legacy.

I print, you decide.

Iraq, youraq,ouraq

So here's my proposal for Iraq. Divide it into thirds. Have a Kurdland, a Sunniland, and a Shiiteland.

Here's why. One of the great reasons people give for the turmoil in the Middle East is that borders were arbitrarily drawn, and did not take into concideration tribes, sects, etc. In Iraq, we can undo that by dividing it up. Kurdland to the north, and Sunniland and Shiiteland...well, wherever. Give everyone oil and a port, and give everyone a place to call home.

It has the benefit of cementing relations with the one group that likes us, the Kurds. Giving them their own country should give us another strong ally in the region. Plus, the Kurds, unlike the Sunni or Shiite's, have been actively fighting for independence for decades. They're ready. The Turks will complain, bitterly, but my bet is that Turkish Kurds don't rebel against Turkey, they'll move to Kurdland. Much easier and safer. I don't know how the Kurds get along with Iran, but if they're not allies, then we've created another check on Iran's growing influence.

Having an independent Shiite country will also act to check Iran. They can't meddle in the affairs of a Shiite nation, they have no "in." Also, the Shiite's will justifiably be concerned with Iran, and will watch, check, and othewise act to prevent Iran from gaining in the region.

And finally, yes a Sunni nation will likely closely ally itself with Iran. But think how much easier our foreign policy will be. We like you and you, but not you. You and you get these neat weapons, you don't. We have bases here and here, to watch you. Having them all together only complicates matters, gets us bogged down, and forces us all to wait until the inevitable civil war basicly does what I'm outlining. You could get it done now with negotiations, get our troops to friendly bases in Kurdland and Shiiteland.

Then we could look across the border to Iran and say, "Hey, we can do that to you too."

Bolton sings a good one

Don't know much about U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations John Bolton, or his brother Michael (except that both have a history of funny hair). Lot's on the left don't like him, but that doesn't mean much. Anyway, he has a sweet zinger on the Chavez Bush=Devil comments.

"The real issue here is he knows he can exercise freedom of speech on that podium, and as I say, he could exercise it in Central Park, too," Bolton said. "How about giving the same freedom to the people of Venezuela?"

Here you go buddy.

The link to the video mentioned below.

Torture works

UBlo, I sent you the video that makes clear that there are intelligence successes that come as the result of "coercive tactics" (I don't know how to attach it to the Blog). Personally, I consider it a no brainer that torture can work. I also consider it a no brainer that it doesn't always work. The clear truth is that it is a tool that works in some situations and not in others. Even the head of Human Rights Watch granted the point that torture can produce valid intelligence. However, she followed up with the very logical counter that perhaps a less "aggressive" technique could also have achieved those successes. I find that a reasonable challenge to the pro torture crowd. "Torture never yields good intel" is simply a false claim.

Again, where this discussion needs to be is "what price should we pay?". I'm not sure I'm on the pro-torture side. However, I would be intellectually dishonest to maintain it never works. I know it works, but I'm still not convinced we should use it. The woman from Human Rights Watch is correct, you must show that there is no other alternative that can work before you conclude torture is necessary. But since it does work, let's assume that there was no other viable way to get the info. Is it OK to torture then? Or should we be absolutists on this? Never, no matter what the cost.

Make that more than 200,001 registered voters

Hey everyone its official. I changed my voter ID to "Libertarian." That's our kickin' logo to the left. For the first time in my life I'm not a Democrat or a Republican. Ahhh, the sweet smell of freedom. Or maybe that's irrelevance, I can never tell the difference, both smell like cookies to me.

A little bit about my new club. From the web-site,

"We’re active in all 50 states and have more than 200,000 registered voters, which is more than all other third parties combined."

Suck on that Green Party. Ok, so now the party is 200,000 electrical engineers and me, but someone has to bring the flavor. And that someone is this here play-ah.

Later,

Around the USA there are Libertarian mayors, county executives, county council members and even a Libertarian sheriff!

That's right, "even a sheriff!" Unfortunately nothing mentioned about state legistalors, Governors, or national Congressfolks. But with that sheriff at least we have a cool car with sirens.

Finally,

In fact, Libertarians saved Americans over $2.2 billion in 2004 alone.

No idea in the world how they figure that, but if it holds true in 2007, that's almost $7.50 a citizen we saved America. Stalin you'll owe me a Happy Meal. Muscles, you're on the hook for a Moons over My Hammy at Denny's.

Get ready, country with 300 million citizens, to feel the awesome force of more than 201 thousand anti-social, aluminum hat wearing know-it-alls. And that's right, we're bringing our sheriff.

Torture; It's What's for Dinner

As Brian Ross of ABC News told Bill O'Reilly, water boarding has directly led to intelligence used to thwart terror attacks in this country. That is a fact. It also eliminates an argument mistakenly put forward that torture is not only wrong, but it is useless. It is clearly not useless. Now, this brings us to an interesting discussion. What price honor? I agree with UBlo that as Americans we should uphold the highest standards of decency. I also understand that that impulse is what led people to want to believe torture is useless. That way we could do away with it cost free. Well, not using torture (and American techniques are quite tame in the arena of real torture) now has a clear price - American lives. So I question is the moral high ground, in this case, worth the price?

Roman holiday

I have to admit, when I first read about this I snickered, then I started thinking about it, and i thought, "To the Hydrablog!".

Italy released 12,000 prisoners early (those with less than 3 years to go, certain crimes excempted) in an effort to releave prison overcrowding. Most papers are reporting a ruslting crime spree. However, in The Week Magazine's coverage (sorry no link-you have to buy the hard copy August 18, pg 6) also under "crime wave" says that "in less than a week several dozen were rearrested." Now I'm no mathmatician, but call in 24 out of 12,000 in a country with a population of about 60 million and it just doesn't qualify as a crime wave. I'm hamstrung by lack of follow-up data, but .002% hardly seems like evidence of a bad policy. I'm willing to bet that most people, on any project, would be happy with a 99.008 percent sucess rate. Furthermore, now the prisons can easily hold those rearrested.

I want to be clear, I'm not backing the Italian policy, my point with this entry is to point out how the headlines may not match the reality. Especially given that all the reports I found (except The Week) call it a "crime wave/spree" without mentioning how may crimes were commited, by how many of the released, or even to what degree crime rose over the period mentioned compared to previous periods. The reader has no reasonable base to draw their own conclusion.

Again, when it comes to numbers and reporting, you have to be careful.

Oooh U2, not you too

Yeah, I'm looking at you. Looks like U2 figured out that it's more fun to spend other peoples money. They recently moved part of their music business off-shore to avoid taxes, this after years of enjoying the tax amnesty that Ireland gives artist's and performers. But since Dublin recently capped the amnesty at 170,000 pounds (about $325,000) U2 jumped ship. So far, nothing really off about it, it's common practice to shelter income from taxes. But here's the rub. Bono travels the world asking governments to do more for poor nations, give money, forgive debt, etc. By itself a worthy and admirable goal (we could all do more to help the poor). U2 slips, however, by looking to minimize the taxes that go towards his goal. Since not everyone in Ireland is an artist or performer, nor can everyone afford to send part of their tax generating income to the Netherlands, who's left to fund the programs that U2 has successfully lobbied the Irish government to create to help poorer nations. If you guessed poor and middle-class Irish folks, you're right.

I would get it if U2's stance was along the lines of, "helping the poor is the right thing to do, so we're donating loads of money, and ask others to voluntarily do so as well. We feel that the people have a better say in how they spend their money than governments so we, like lots of others, are doing just that by legally sheltering part of our income." But when they lobby governments to spend, which is essencially a forced donation from the Irish people, then opt out of the system leaving others to fund their mission, well, as much as I hate to do it because I'm a huge fan, they get a mean write-up on the 'ol blog.

It hurts just to write it.

Schneier on Security

I like Bruce Schneier's blog on security issues and terrorism. Particularly this post on terrorism and security.

I do fall into the traps of fear that come's with terrorism, which is, of course, what they want. Like all challenges, the issue isn't fear, it's dealing with fear and moving on. Which is why I think it's shameful when politicians play into that fear for their own gain.

When W and the Blogger Agree

W says we're in a "a struggle for civilization." And I agree. What I don't understand about W is why he want's to bring our civilization down to the enemy's level. Why is he pushing so hard for the right to torture? Why is he looking to undermine equal protection under law? Why turn our our civil rights? In a battle for civilization, doesn't it make sense to display the proud dominance of our civilization by highlighting what makes ours so special? Why are we shedding the very things that we're protecting. It's amazing, it's not so much what the enemy is taking away as what we're so willing to eject. Either way the end result is the same, our civilization is diminished.

This is where I think W misses the point. He has the right grand idea, but he fails to create the right plan to achieve his goal. To me, he seems like the stereotypical college professor. Great ideas, can inspire others, but can't "do." He get's bogged down in the details, the reality, and the cause/effects. You can't save a civilization by destroying what makes it, just as you can't create democracy amidst chaos. This is why, ultimately, W's not a bad guy, he's overmatched in the real world. I think he see's things in the simplistic terms of a philosopher, not with the strategic mind of a tactician. I think he would have been a fine peace-time president, but his weaknesses in detail, strategy and tactics make him a weak commander-in-chief.

Good points

My friends over at Cato, well friends is a little bit of a reach. Much like my friends in high school, I like them but they don't know I exist, but that's a whole nother story. Anyway, John Mueller writes a solid article on "Are we safer?" I don't like to post without comment, but because the article is pretty long, I won't take up more of your time with my own long-winded prose.

Please sir, may I have some more?

Chicago's city council couldn't muster the votes to over-ride Mayor Daly's veto on an ordinance that would force "mega-retailers" (see - Wal-Mart) to pay higher wages.

This outcome, which I favor, gives me a chance to talk out of both sides of my mouth.

First, my problem with mandatory wages, especially those above minimum wage. The problem is the potential for a lose-lose situation. If a person is willing to work do a job for a given wage, and an employer is willing to hire someone for that wage, but a law exists that says the transaction can't take place, then both the potential employee and the employer lose. You may be willing to work, want to work and able to work, but because you and a potential employer agree that you're services are worth less than the law, or a union agreement allow, you aren't allowed to work. If an employer want's to hire someone for a given task, but it is of only marginal worth, they cannot seek out anyone to fill that need unless the value is above the law, or union, stated wage. Both sides lose. Not because of any evil master-plan, but because some (well intentioned) third party has decided what's best for you.

Quick aside, sports unions have perfected this. They've acutally made it impossible for an athlete to work for less than the several hundred thousand league minimum. If I'm an aging vet willing to work for $100k, possibly the last big income year of my life, and I can't because of the veterans minimum, I'm not sure I'm real jazzed with my union. Anyhoo...

Back to the minimum wage. As it stands, it's way, way to low. Even if it's just used as a guide line (which it mostly is, no one makes the minimum wage for any length of time, but everyone know's how their pay relates to the minimum wage) it's not an accurate measure of income to survive. The minimum wage should be scrapped or brought to a more reasonable level. I like the idea of using it not as a legal floor, but as a national guideline.

But, I can't get my stomach to take the idea that Congress get's an annual pay raise, while the minimum wage stays stagnant. Yes, yes, Congressfolk always make noise about not spending the money of small business owners, but those same business owners are also tax-payers. Well, Congress sure has no problem spending that money on themselves. Jackasses. So here's my proposal. Link Congressonal pay increases to the minimum wage. Minimum wage goes up, so do Congressional salaries. No minimum wage increase, no Congressional pay increase. One further note one Congressional salaries, I think the state they represent should pay the salary, not the nation. Makes much more sense to me. Whether they choose the former or the latter, I'm happy.

And that's what this is really all about anyway.

Wait, they've sold 23,000 of those things?

Segway recalls 23,500 Segways.

First, the article says there's competition. I didn't even know there was a market for Segways, much less competition for the space.

Among Segway's competitors in the electronic vehicle market are the Japanese company Sanyo (Charts) and U.S.-based Zap (Charts)

I also liked,

There have been six reports where the scooter has not operated properly, resulting in head and wrist injuries for users

So first you have to explain that you actually own a Segway, then you have to say that you somehow hurt yourself on it. I'd pay money to be there for that conversation.

Finally, a quick comment on the pictures (which came from their website). No way, no how anyone like the guy on the right owns one. My bet is that most users look like the guy with the orange shirt on the left, only they're never that close to an actual girl.

When three really equals two

Joe Scarborough's recent article in the Washington Monthly is not only yet another example of a Government Conservative coming out against the NeoGOP (I could fill this blog with examples, but I won't bore you), but he also backs into a point I've been trying to make for a while now. That we don't realy have three branches of government, what we have in today's USA are two branches of government, the Dems and the GOP. Needless to say, I think this is bad.

Using Scarborough's words as an example (and I'm not saying he means it my way).

The fact that both parties hated each another was healthy for our republic’s bottom line. A Democratic president who hates a Republican appropriations chairman is less likely to sign off on funding for the Midland Maggot Festival being held in the chairman’s home district.

And later,

But in Bush’s Washington, the capital is a much clubbier place where everyone in the White House knows someone on the Hill who worked with the Old Man, summered in Maine, or pledged DKE at Yale. The result? Chummy relationships, no vetoes, and record-breaking debts.

The first quote regarding the benefits of having the two parties controlling different branches describes what the founders intended as a constant state when creating the nation. Conflict between the branches was not supposed to be an occasional effect, rather the norm. Now we can only get the intended benefit when the Dems and the GOP happen to be in controlling conflict.

The second paragraph is an example of why the founders wanted to separate out the roles of Congress and the White House. But the two party, party first system exposes the loophole, and we've seen the consequenses.

What the founder's created was a system where Congress and the White House were at odds, with the Supreme Court acting as a sort of referee, giving us the fabled "checks and balances." Now with the two party system so dominant and pervasive, the only way you get checks and balances is if the two parties are in a position of conflict, as exemplified during the Clinton years. When one of the two parties controls both Congress and the White House, the only checks and balances we have are writing the checks to cover the growing negative account balances.

Until something happens to shake up the two party system (which is unlikely as the two parties would have to agree to anything that allowed this) American's have to come to grips with the fact that Congress, the White House, and even the Supreme Court are becoming irrelevant against the increasingly dominant two party, two branch system.

Rice Pudding

I thought Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's recent comment's on terrorism, and the link between Hussein and Binny were telling.

First the good news (sort of):

"I think it's clear that we are safe -- safer -- but not really yet safe,"

Then let's call this "War on Terror" a victory. We'll never be totally safe, we haven't been totally safe since, well...ever. But safer, that's great. Granted, I didn't know the goal was total safety, and yes, she didn't say "totally safe" but I think the word "totally" is superfluos, either your safe or your not. Kind of like being "totally pregnant." Anyway, safer is like totally awesome, and also a winning campaign platform, "Hey we won the war on terror!" Yes, yes, probably a touch hard to pull off with Binny running around free and all, but it's time to highlight some success.

Second, I was very interested in the Hussein/9/11 link, non-link.

"as far as we know," Saddam had no knowledge of or role in the Sept. 11 plot. "If you think that 9/11 was just about al Qaeda and the hijackers, then there's no connection to Iraq. But if you believe, as the president does and as I believe, that the problem is this ideology of hatred that has taken root, extremist ideology that has taken root in the Middle East, and that you have to go to the source and do something about the politics of that region.

Ahhhhh, now I get it. Yes, there was no direct link between Al Qaeda and Iraq (welcome to the show Mrs. Rice, we saved you a seat. It's right here next to the rest of the world - Stalin, we have one for you too). However, if you look at Iraq in a certain way, tilt your head to one side and kind of squint, then...then you can almost see a connection.

Sometimes I get a cramp trying to contort myself into position to follow the logic of this administration.

Something to make you feel better

Thomas Green at the Register says that apparantly it's really hard to make liquids go boom. Way out of my league, but for me it's win-win. Either it's true (win) or it's not and I think it is (ignorance is bliss = win).

Shhhhhh

Today, I give the 4th Amendment a break, and focus on the 1st. This post from Jacob Sullum over at Reason.com kicks off the 60-day blackout period for electioneering communications. This is part of the campaign to "clean up elections." Like most of what comes out of Congress and the White House, all it really does is tangentially address the issue (at best), while taking away a huge chunk of our rights, all the while missing the meat of the issue. Personally, I think you would get a much bigger bang (meaning closer elections with more turn-over if you got rid of gerrymandering - a politician is much less likely to be on the take if they know that people are watching and that they're not guaranteed re-election - but hey, suppressing free speech while not getting closer elections or more turn-over is much more fun). Isn't it intersting that the Feds tend to "solve" our problems by taking away our power and consolidating theirs (think injury award caps).

Anyway, dumb law. He uses the Wisconsin Right to Life group as his example and does a nice job with it.

Also worth noting, those screaming pro-abortion left wing whackos the ACLU supports the Wisconsin Right to Life group in their petition for an allowance. His synopsis of the ACLU's point does a great job of pointing out how the law of unintended consequences works.

Finally, I don't like the Supreme Courts reason for upholding the law. It's a negative burden of proof. You have to prove why your ad is ok rather than the state having to show why it's not. Huge, huge difference between the two, and the court should know that.

Hey everybody look. I'm going to defend Bush!

Report says that Bush say's "Jews are going to hell." I don't know what he really believes, but as described in the link I think the comment was clearly a joke.

Bin Landin wants to reunite the Rhineland!

"Bin laden and his terrorists' allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them," says Bush.

If I were Poland, I'd look out.

But what's interesting is that W says it's very clear what the terrorist's want, but then he doesn't say what the terrorist's want. He does say, "The question is `Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?"' But he doesn't mention what they're saying. Which leads me to the question, "what do the terrorists want?" And are we talking about just Al Qaeda, or all terrorists?

I pay some sort of attention to this, and I have to admit, I have no clear answer to the question. Yes, yes, they hate us, but hatred is hardly an "intent." And, yes Israel is a problem for them, but I've also heard that maybe Israel is a red herring. But even if getting rid of Israel is their clearly spoken intent, are we at war with Iraq to defend Israel? Do they want to destroy the US? I don't think I've heard that. I have heard that they want us to stop meddling in the region. I've also heard that Binny wants to take over Saudi, so maybe we're at war to protect the Saudi government and their territorial integrity. Neither Hilter nor Lenin were big fans of Democracy, maybe the terrorists want to overturn democracy? But there's only one real democracy in the region and that's Israel, so I'm not sure that's it. I'm honestly not trying to be coy here, I'm not sure I do know what the clearly spoken intent is of the terrorists, or even who constitutes the voices I should be hearing.

What I do know is that when someone tells me something is obvious, but doesn't tell me what it is, well, either they don't know or I'm being manipulated. It would be real easy for W to say, "The terrorists have made their intention clear, they want 'blank,' and we're not going to let them have it." But he didn't. He left a pause there for all of us to fill in and everyone could be right. Honestly (again with that word) I would have loved it if he filled it in, give me a reason, give me a solid "why," or just plain lead for crying out loud.

Interesting data regarding Justice Department Terrorist Arrests

First, how's that for a boring header? Two, having been married for more than a decade I've learned that when I'm not sure if something is good or bad from the wifes perspective, to lable it "interesting." So this bit of news is "interesting"

It seem's that the Justice Department is prosecuting terrorists at about the same level as pre-9/11. I think this is good news and it makes sense. There are several possible reasons mentioned, but I'll add some more (hey that's what you don't pay me for). One, it may indicate that the knee-jerk "we're afraid, arrest everyone!" mentality may be waning, which is great news for a nation that hopefully has found it's spine. Two, it may also show that real police work is being done. One would expect that as law enforcement agents do better detective work, arrests go down (you get less false positives with better research), more potential good news.
Finally, maybe the Justice Department has decided to spend it's time investigating crimes that have a higher chance of affecting the lives of Americans than a terrorist attack. Nation-wide the total number of people who have died in a terrorist attack over the last 20 years is less than those that die from many more mundane reasons each year (yes-this is totally unsubstaciated, but here's how I arrive at my guess. About 3,000 people died on 9/11, add to that the couple of hundred at OK and the several at the first WTC attack. Estimate a total of 4000. There were 17,000 drunk driving fatalities in 2005 Madd. And there were 18,000 people murdered in 1997. I could take this out farther (further?), but I think I've illustrated my point).

But I think the thing that best describes the decline is this. I'm just not convinced that there was this massive, conserted, constant terrorist plot against the US. The reaction to 9/11 always , understandibly, seemed more emotional that factual. Yes, there are those who wish either to do harm to, or that harm would come to, the US, but how many really have both the will and the capability to do something? Here are the attacks I remember. Oklahoma 1995 (domestic not-al Quaeda affiliated-remember those simpler times) the first attempt on the World Trade Center 1993, 9/11 2001 (I left out the Cole attack 2000. I'm not sure how to categorize it. It was an attack on a military vessel and usually terrorism is reserved for non-military targets - I leave it to you to decide). Sooooo, the fact that the Justice Department isn't arresting a lot of terrorists with designs on the US, is that there just may not be a lot of terrorsts with designs on the US.

Finally, take the last sentence,

"An empirical study like TRAC's cuts through the rhetoric, lets us see just how many terrorists are being brought to justice," Aftergood said. "The data suggest that some of the official rhetoric is misleading."

Ironically, that statement is misleading. It makes it sound like maybe not much is being done to arrest terrorist afterall. What it doesn't say is that no one knows how many terrorist exist to arrest. Maybe lots is being done, and the Justice Department is doing a great job because they've arrested 90% of the possible terrorist pool. Or maybe they're doing a terrible job because they've only arrested 5% of the pool. No one knows. So TRAC's empical study doesn't cut through the rhetoric, and Aftergood is only adding to the rhetoric. This report has lots of numbers, but it doesn't really tell the reader anything. The reader can speculate, as I've done through this entire post, the report can give the reader ideas, maybe spark some new thoughts, but it's hardly a report card as it does not give you the whole picture (nor could it). But as it stands, its like me telling Stalin that MFJ took a test and got five right. Stalin has no idea if that's good or bad, five out of five is great, five out of 100 is terrible. Don't get fooled by numbers alone, get fooled by me. It's better for both of us.

Save the Drama for Your Ma Ma

I admit that I may not be the best blogger, but at least I'm not this guy.

Key quote, "This is the moment to say that there are things in life worth fighting and dying for and one of 'em is making sure Nancy Pelosi doesn't become the speaker."

Two things. First the minor. That is exactly the kind of hyperbole that normally brings the left under justified mockery. Still not sure why the right continues to adopt those wildly successful liberal tactics, but at least they're having the same success.

Second, while we're in the middle of two actual wars where people are actually fighting and dying, I cringe at the statement. To be fair, I also cringe whenever some athlete or commentator refers to a game as a "war." I fairly certain that Sean Hannity doesn't actually want someone to die to prevent the dems from taking over the House, and I'm sure he isn't planning on it, it's some weak attempt at a motivational speech. But seriously, doesn't he have the chip in his brain that says, "maybe we should go with a different allegory."

Anyway, I don't know much about the guy, he seems like a derivative of Limbaugh, and like all derivatives he's not nearly as good as the real thing.

Which means I did pass 10th grade science

So Pluto's not a planet. Meaning the old helper My Very Elegant Mother Just Baked Us Nine Planets is a bit more Brothers Grimm, as now My Very Elegant Mother Just Baked Us Nine.

Also like, "'It could be argued that we are creating an umbrella called 'planet' under which the dwarf planets exist,' she said, drawing laughter by waving a stuffed Pluto of Walt Disney fame beneath a real umbrella."

And you say astronomers don't know how to PAAAAR-TEY!

The day after

The FDA approved the morning after, or Plan "B" pill for over-the-counter sales if you're 18 or older.

All in all, I think its a fair compromise given all the issues. However, I don't buy the "I’m convinced adolescents are a different group, they require special analyses, sometimes special data," argument, for most other things, pesticide levels in baby food for example, they use the same data and but just adjust the ratio based on weight. Not being a scientist I can't discuss if its safe for 14 year olds, but what does make the 18 age limit acceptable is that it fits in with existing law. If you're 18 you can get an abortion, and since this is "abortion like" at least 18 fits the scale.

What is interesting is where Plan B fits in on the abortion discussion. It doesn't work if you're already pregnant, but it does prevent the normal path of pregnancy. I, myself am pro-life, but I have to admit this is a real gray area. Which is probably why its moving along. It's not ending a life, but it does prevent one from starting. If it comes down to it, I'm against it, but I have to admit it doesn't cause me nearly the angst of a "true" abortion, at the Plan B level its more philosophical.

Long-term, this should dramatically decrease the number of "true" abortions and, I think, actual births. While most moms would not abort an unplanned pregnancy, I do think a large percentage of those same moms would take the Plan B pills. Also, as the number of abortions decrease, how does this shape Roe v. Wade. If the number is small enough, and Plan B exists, it seems like it would be really hard for Planned Parenthood or NOW to make their case. Also, if the number is small enough, how much pressure will there really be to overturn Roe? Personally, I think Roe stands, if it doesn't fall before the effects of Plan B are felt. With all the issues facing the nation, I'm not convinced that the public outrage will be enough to muster the will to change it. Of course the same exact arguemtent could be made about saving it. A group gets the judges nominated to overturn it, and not enough outrage exists to fight it. In fact, down the road, I don't even think its a question Presidential hopefuls even have to answer. So if the right judges were "slipped in" Roe would surely fall, and with Plan B, most American's would say, "Hey, you have your window" and that would hit the threshold for overturning Roe.

There, a nice, circular stream of thought post. In the end, I'm now covinced Plan B will be good for folks like me who want to see the end of abortion on demand.

"There is little doubt that Iran has been the chief beneficiary of the war on terror in the Middle East."

I just love it when a plan comes together.

Article in the Guardian quotes from the Chatham House a think tank that bills itself as, "one of the world's leading organizations for the analysis of international issues."

To channel Chrissy snow, the article says the think tank says that when the US took out the Taliban the Saddam it created a power vacuum that Iran was ready willing and able to fill, giving them more power and influence in the region than previously possible. Maybe this changes if Afghanistan and Iraq stablize, but even then it will be awhile before either nation is able to check Iran on their own.

So to recap, years before either Afghanistan or Iran stablilize (best case scenario) and years after that before they are capable of countering Iran on their own. Thus, even under best case planning, Iran (a potential nuclear power, known sponsor of terrorism and all around good guy) has a potential run of decades to do their thing.

Ahhh, the sweet smell of success.

Because everyone knows that kids playing basketball in the front yard is a turn-off to prospective buyers

This debate, disallowing basketball hoops in the front yard of homes in University Park, has actually been going on for years. I've always thought it was dumb.

A few things to keep in mind when reading this.

One, University Park is a city, not a deed restricted neighborhood.

Two, this city is something like 95% Republican. You know, small government, less regulation types.

Three, this city is sports crazy. I've never understood the attack on basketball hoops in a town where basketball games regularly sell out and during the playoffs "Go Scotts" (the HS mascot)signs dominate lawns.

Four, check out the fine. Up to $2000 a day! I wonder what matrix the town town used to come up with that fine? Where does $2000 a day for a basketball hoop stand against other fines? Does anyone think its excessive that if a family forgets to bring in the hoop and goes on a two week vacation that it could cost the family $28 grand?

Just plain silly.

Straight from the horse's mouth

BUSH: What did Iraq: have to do with what?

QUESTION: The attack on the World Trade Center.

BUSH: Nothing, except for it's part of...the lesson of September the 11th is take threats before they fully materialize.

Full transcript here.

OK Stalin, Bush himself says no link. That statement has to mean something to you. While I hope this finally ends the Hussein-Al Qaeda-9/11 discussion, with something like 50% of American's And one Hydrablog blogger) thinking we went to war in Iraq because Saddam had something to do with the 9/11 attack, I doubt it.

Makes sense, given how well it worked out last time

According to this story, VP Dick Cheney is bypassing the CIA on information regarding Iran and instead relying on one of the guys he bypassed CIA intellegence for leading up to the Iraq war, Abram Shulsky. Two possible reasons for this. One, "It's different this time" or two, "Ok, so it was a disaster last time, but the idea is due, man, it's due!"

Later the article says:

"In the build-up to the Iraq war, Cheney relied on intelligence almost exclusively from the OSP, which leveled allegations that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. This was later debunked, but no OSP or DOD officials were held accountable for what many believe was a "deliberate effort" to mislead the nation into war."

No surprise here, there is no accountability in this White House. In fact, if you lucky enough to really screw up, you get a medal.

I have a hard time imagining we have the ability to invade Iran, much less the will, but I guess we'll see.

I'd say I was surprised, but I'd be lying

Looks like $4.7 billion in direct aid to Columbia and appx $40 billion annually have put a combined strangle hold on cocaine over "past quarter century shows that the price of cocaine has tumbled and that purity remains high, signs that the drug is as available as ever."

Stay the course...

(PS. Yes Stalin, I know that every Pres since Nixon has made a big deal about the "war on drugs." "Stay the course" is my new phrase for general ineptitude and a refusal to create a successful plan based on facts. I'm sure I'll be using for either President Clinton or McCain.)

Cato puts Liberal in Libertarian

Interesting smackdown happening over at Cato over a Weekly Standard article.

So what do conservatives do when it's not liberals squacking but other conservatives?

Just to pre-empt the inevitable debate, I support team Cato -Go Mighty Bald Eagles!- and Stalin probably supports team Weekly Standard -Go Big Brother!- ratings will be all about the swing viewers.

Dog's don't kill people, people kill people

Cato has a post 'bout a Kansas City law to ban and euthanise all "Pit Bulls." The original article states that a 71 year old citizen was attacked and killed by a pit bull, but it doesn't mention how many other deaths have occured due to pit bulls, nor does it mention what percentage of dog maulings are from pit bulls, or what percentage of the pit bull population mauls people in KC. So I did some digging, and as near as I can tell here's your reason, 'After I saw the photos on TV of that man in Independence after he was attacked, I thought it was necessary to have a pit bull ban in North Kansas City,' Martino said. 'I want to be proactive rather than reactive.' say's the Councilman. Genius. Also, I think this is the guy he's referring to.

Also, here's the story on the 71 year old lady, Jimmie McConnell. Very, very sad. And I don't mean this in that off handed politician way. This poor nice lady was gardening when she was mauled. Horrific only just describes that day. The mistake was that nothing happened to prevent the attack she felt was coming. The council should be focusing on how this lady was let down.

This seem's like a situation where something needs to be done to peanalize irresponsible owners, not ban and euthanise houshold pets.

Take it fine, but at least pay me

Being the greenie that I am I do think the Endangered Species Act is a well intentioned idea gone awry. But, it needs to be fixed. As it currnently stands the Act runs smack into one of my least favorite governmental provisions, Eminent Domain, only it's worse. In this Slate.com article economist Tim Harford (one of my faves-see when I was a lad I was uncool and into comic books, now I'm uncool and into economics) makes a point that conservation laws can actually cause more damage to what is being protected than no laws. He then ends the article with the idea that governments should just buy the land they want to protect. Land purchase is the standard argument put forth by those who want to end the Act and I have to admit I agree. Preventing a landowner from developing his land as he sees fit amounts to a "taking" without compensation. Kind of a double whammy. We're effectively taking your land, but we're not going to compensate you for it. In fact, in some areas the vaunted triple whammy applies thanks to developers and realtors. Thanks to their efforts undeveloped land is taxed higher than developed land which is pretty egregious.

Presenting both sides of this debate I should point out that landowners are handicapped by how they can develop their land all the time through zoning laws. While there exists a difference between some development and no development the basic concept is the same, I can't decide to turn my suburban lot at the end of the cul-de-sac into a landfill, thus I'm restricted so pay me.

I'm not a black-and-white type so I'm comfortable with the inhernent shades of gray that supporting, or more accurately complaining about, zoning laws and pushing for governmental compensation for enforcing the ESA bring about.

"When the press behaved in an amateurish fashion, it was generally because they were relying on amateurish investigation by the police and prosecutor"

See Stalin, the media's not biased and mistakes aren't their fault. What you see is the result of how things are presented to them. The media is like a computer, garbage in-garbage out. They're not responsible for distilling anything, in fact it would be insulting if they applied their superior intellect when reporting on the events surrounding us poor dumb yokelsh.

I feel I understand the media better. When their reporting is bad, it's because someone is doing a bad job of giving them information, but when reporting is rational it's because the press got wise and became "sharper and more skeptical" (one can think Slate.com's Jack Shafer is off on this, but it's almost exactly what happend with the Iraqi war). Which makes sense. I think we can all agree that the right time to be sensationalistic and mentally slow is when a crisis is first happening. Then after a while, when things have calmed down, that's the time to get sharp and skeptical. I've always said, if I'm on a sinking boat I plan to run around in a panic and push old ladies down in a desperate attempt to get to a life-boat. Then when I'm safe at shore, I'll calmly review my actions and investigate what I should have done and what I should do going forward. See panic when everyone else is panking, be calm when everyone else is calm.

I mean it works for the press, and we all know how much they're looked up to.

I thought all news was fake

FCC says its going to investigate the use of packaged "news" stories created by third parties, pushing an agenda made to look like actual news stories put together by local affiliates. These are introduced by the anchor and no indication is given that viewers are watching what is essentially a commercial.

Personally I hope the FCC bans them, but we'll see. Maybe that new "indecency" fine can be put to good use.

“I think every decade has an iconic blonde — like Marilyn Monroe or Princess Diana — and right now, I’m that icon.”

Paris Hilton.

Kind of makes sense. In her day, nearly every man fantasized about sleeping with Marilyn Monroe. Today, with Paris, nearly every man has.

Ramsey Tragedy

I have to admit I didn't follow the JonBenet Ramsey tragedy at all, but unless you were the unibomber you couldn't help but get the basics, which I won't go into here. It looks like they finally found the murderer, and it wasn't Mr. Ramsey. My point with this blog is that the American public was absolutely convinced that the father and possibly mother were responsible, and there were persisitant rumors of even more disturbed things going on. While I can never have proof, my gut says if there were some kind of election for Mr. Ramsey guilt or innocence he would have been voted guilty.

This is why we have courts, protections and process. Those who argue for lesser court protections in the name of quick "justice" need to remember that the public does get things wrong. Furthermore, what information we get is often wrong. And that hysteria, and/or the need to find someone "guilty" severly biases the court of public opinion. This notion that if you can get 51% of the people to agree then it must be right is misguided. The bottom line is while we live in a democracy, the democracy only works with a strong, somewhat undemocratic court system.

While the Ramsey's lives were destroyed when their daughter was murdered, and then further devestated when the public relentlessly hounded them as the murderers, at least they never went to jail.

Dukakis cried last night (well a week ago, but I was out of town so...whatever)

While I was out I missed yet another injustice perpretrated against the Greek peoples. So You Think You Can Dance voted of the brilliant Greek dancer Natalie Fotopoulos. You know, I just don't understand. We give you people democracy, yet every chance you get you torment us with your votes against us. First there was the Duke, and now poor Natalie feels the selfish sting of your ingratitude.

For shame people, for shame...

The war on terror is a battle of convenience

Just to throw out a philosophical argument, it seems that the "global war on terror" is more about inconvenience than effect. Take travel. One way to get to near perfect security is to not allow any take-on's or checked baggage. Just send what you need ahead. Wildly inconvenient on planning your travels, but very safe and there would be no need for background checks, x-ray machines or invasive searches of your stuff, but think about how much faster the lines would move and as an added bonus it would cripple the drug trade. Plus, while it seems like a hassle now, I'm 100% positive some entrepreneur somewhere would find a way to handle the hassle on the cheap.

Or imagine if rather than just seemlessly flicking a switch to monitor all your calls, someone had to come by your house and install the federally approved data recorder in your home. Do you think people would be as blase about governmental monitoring if were an invasive process, and not invisible as it is now?

Because giving up our privacy (and by my count our rights and our security) does not get a check-mark for "inconvenient" it happens easily and with our consent.

Because giving up the "security" of traveling with our stuff gets a check-mark for inconvenient, we are willing to sacrifice our actual security.

Those who wish to do us harm sleep on the dirt in caves, convenience is not their real concern.

Well duh, the Jews control the media

While I agree with Israel, the article is right there was a noticible lack of debate on the topic.

MINO's

Someone soon is going to jump on the concept of MINO's or Minority in Name Only. As the Hispanic popluation continues to grow, at some point they can't, as a group, be considered a "minority." According to this AP article, hispanics make up 14.5% of the population, and non-hispanic whites are a "minority" in four states plus DC. Clearly, no matter what, non-hispanic whites will never merit "minority" status, but when does a named minority group lose it's status. Is it nation wide? At the state level? Can you qualify for minority perks at the federal level, but not at the state level? Since Texas is one of the states where non-hispanic whites are a minority, I'm assuming that statistically hispanics are not a "minority." Does this affect hispanic preferential hiring agreements with fire and police departments? Like I said, whites will never get overt preferential hiring status, but should hispanics get to keep theirs when they're no longer a statistical minority?

My bet is that minority status is a forever lable, there's too much at stake to give it up. But while immigration is a non-sensical platform, a politician could get the same boost from his targeted base from taking up the more rational argument for taking away minority status from hispanics, freeing them of the lable, freeing up tax dollars, and getting rid of hiring/admission quotas. The obvious counter to this is to furhter segment "hispanic." "Cuban's aren't Mexican's" and will be the chant, and you will be called racist for grouping them together. Fun, fun, fun.

In any case I get the copyright on MINO's. You read the it here first.

Leibercrats

Thinking more on Leiberman, his strategy and problems are striking similar to the dems in general. Afraid to make a stand (burn the boats and run as dem-forcing the voters to make a real decision), after all it may fail, mostly hoping the other side makes some mistakes and lets him win, and basically hoping for things instead of making them happen. Leib's is changing that, late and reluctantly, but up until the primary he ran his campaign exactly like Kerry ran his.

The GOP may have screwed up so badly that the dems will gain the house, but it will be hard to say "the dems won the house" its more likely that the "gop lost the house."

Miss me?

Well I've been out for the last 10 days, at least not much happened...

In no particular order, here are my quick thoughts on the news I managed to see over the last week and a half. Going to try to go fast without a lot of links. You were there, you can remember.

Mel...Kiss My Grits!
So Mel went on a drunken anti-Semtic, sexist rant. Wow, who saw that coming? Well I mean besides some controversial film that supposedly had anti-semitic undertones. While I can't speak to this (never saw the movie. I prefer my gore to be dished out by the son of a husbandless woman who uses a chainsaw to cast out sexed up teens and who can't be killed, sort of the same, but not really) but I'm imagining all those who dismissed the case that the movie might be somewhat anti-semetic feel a little...I don't know...silly for so ardently defending a man they never met who's father is a holocaust denier? Personally I think this speaks volumes about people. Folks like to defend or attack people they don't know, like they've know them for years. JLo's a real gem, JLo's a whore. Kerry's a hero, Kerry's a coward. Terrel Owens is a great team mate, Terrel Owens is a cancer. And people get really tied to these points. Some of the most heated arguements I've ever been in involve the "true" personalities of people I've never met. Really silly when you get down to it. The reality is that we don't even know the tips of famous people. For all I really know Arnold Swhatrzernagger is a total wimp, but man can he deliver a stare. As for Mel...I don't know. .13 or whatever hardly counts as drunken stupor, but mix in fear of getting busted, shame, etc, and oh yeah we've all said things and thought, "Wow, where did that come from?" I'd care more if I was a jewish friend of his, but then I'd probably have more to go on too right? Have to say this, one of the great apologies of all time. Not one of those, "To the extent my words may have inadvertantly offended anyone, I apologize" types of weenie apologies. But then he is an award winning actor, writer, director. Quick note, I thought it was interesting that it's been something like three years since Mel said he'd do a film on the holocaust and nothing, nada, zips been done. It's not like he can't greenlight a project...

Leibs Loses.
This was the expected outcome as soon as he made the motions way back when to run as an independent. As soon as he stepped into that second canoe his fate was sealed. This way not voting for Leibs could be protest vote and not one voter had to really decide what they wanted. They could all yell at Leibs for being too cozy with W, and still vote for him in November. I would have been shocked if he lost as a Dem, and will still be somewhat surprised if he loses in Novemember. I do think he's exposed now, and the anti-Leib forces now have the mo'. US voters tend to punish those who try to have it both ways or get cute. Personally, I think he should have put the voters to the test, burned the boats and ran as a Dem. If he wins, he puts all this noise behind him, if he loses, at least he has his dignity. Real quick, I don't get this stuff about "fringe" CT voters punishing him for his war stance. Last poll I saw, most American's now think the war was a mistake, and want the troops home yesterday. Polls move with the wind, and maybe Leibs got caught in a gale, but right now, the majority opinion moved him out.

London Calling.
Interesting thing 'bout the London terror catch, it happened the old fashioned way, good cops doing good investigations. And that's great. As far as it's reported so far, no one was tortured and no nation's were invaded. Imagine that. I'm betting I could buy a lot of good cops for $1 trillion. I'm also betting $1 trillion could buy a lot of machines that could catch bomb making material, both carry-on and checked. I may even several hundred billion left over to do something about the ports. I'm not sure how Iraq will pan out, but I do know that I'd feel a whole heck of a lot safer if that $1 trillion was spent in the above manner. Throw in something to get us off foreign oil and I'd be postively giddy.

Random crazy thought for the day.
Hezbollah's showing how to fight a stronger enemy. Win the hearts of the people. Use Iranian oil money to build hospitals, pay for funerals, give loans, etc. This bears watching. One way to get to America would be to do the same with our disenfranchised. Funnel money either from drugs or oil into a real campaign to separate them from the rest of the nation by giving them what they want for free, and making them feel like someone cares about them. In fact, this is just begging to happen in England and France where the schizm is already larger and angrier. I'm not saying it will, but if it's successful in Lebanon, it will happen again, its a good plan. A long-burn plan for sure, but one that has a real chance of working. You can't beat the US from without, someone will try to do it from within.