Tristero

Saturday, January 24, 2004

Okay, MoDo, That's It  

No one deserves the idiotic, vicious, and utterly gratuitous nastiness Maureen Dowd directed at Howard and Judy Dean. I don't know what her problem is, but I see no reason to read her any more. For a while, she held to her post 9/11 promise to engage issues. Now, she's back between the legs of all the candidates, and their spouses, and frankly it's really nothing I care about. What on earth is this column doing in a supposedly legitimate newspaper?

My God, what a group of op-ed bozos at the Times: a sex maniac, a conservative mental midget, a conservative liar, and then there's Tom Friedman. Yes, Krugman is great, Kristof is usually good even when he's infuriating, and Herbert can be good.

You'd think they'd consider getting some genuinely decent writers for a change. What a comedown from the heyday of Russell Baker.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 6:55 PM

Colin Powell Doubts Truth Of Colin Powell's UN Speech  

Whoa.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Saturday it was an "open question" whether stocks of weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq and conceded it was possible Saddam Hussein had none.
Powell made the comments one day after David Kay, the leader of the U.S. hunt for banned weapons in Iraq, stepped down and said he did not believe there were any large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons in the country.
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"The open question is how many stocks they had, if any, and if they had any, where did they go. And if they didn't have any, then why wasn't that known beforehand?" Powell said to reporters as he flew to Tbilisi to attend Sunday's inauguration of Georgian President-elect Mikhail Saakashvili.

The Bush administration's central argument for going to war against Iraq last year was that Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction that could threaten the United States and its allies.
No banned arms have been found in Iraq since the United States invaded and toppled Saddam.
Kay told Reuters on Friday he did not believe the country had any large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons produced after the 1991 Gulf War. Its nuclear activities had not resumed in any significant way, he said.
The comments dented the credibility of the administration's case for the war, which was presented most extensively by Powell at the U.N. Security Council on February 5, 2003.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 6:33 PM

Amazing But True! Bush Appointee Is Sometimes Reasonable  

He won't get away with it much longer, that's for sure:

[FDA commissioner] Dr. Mark B. McClellan, is a Republican and the brother of Mr. Bush's press secretary. Traditional Republican supporters, like large drug companies, praise him, so it might seem predictable that he would take a strong stand as he is doing this week against importing prescription drugs from Canada, a practice that undercuts prices here. But the decision has also put him in conflict with several governors — some of them Republican — and legislators who want cheaper drugs from Canada.

A number of other decisions by Dr. McClellan have kept the Food and Drug Administration in the spotlight as one of the more activist agencies in the Bush administration. Granted, critics say that some of the rulings — like banning ephedra — were years in the making, but other people note that unlike, say, the Environmental Protection Agency, the F.D.A. has not seemed in retrenchment on regulatory matters.

The agency's announcement last month that it would prohibit the sale of ephedra was a move sought by liberal Democrats like Senator Edward M. Kennedy and consumer groups like Public Citizen's Health Research Group. That tough stand was just the beginning of a crackdown on supplements, Dr. McClellan promised...

In another move that could be construed as hindering business, Dr. McClellan deferred a decision on whether to allow silicone breast implants back on the market after more than a decade-long hiatus. He said the F.D.A. needed more data on safety, especially on ruptures, how to detect them and what to do when they occur.

"I've been pleasantly surprised," said Cynthia Pearson, executive director of the National Women's Health Network, which wanted ephedra banned and more safety data on implants.

Other F.D.A. watchers were surprised when the agency signaled a willingness to consider allowing a prescription morning-after pill to be sold over the counter. The pill, called Plan B, can prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex.

Women's groups, like the National Women's Health Network, strongly support making Plan B available over the counter, but some religious groups strongly oppose it. Believing that pregnancy begins with fertilization, they say the pill can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting, and so it induces abortion.

But the agency put on its advisory committee people known to support offering the pill over the counter. And the committee voted overwhelmingly to make the drug available without a prescription. A final decision is expected by mid-February.

"Miraculously, I was appointed to the committee," said Dr. James Trussell of Princeton University, who has always wanted the drug to be offered over the counter.

Some consumer groups argue that the Food and Drug Administration is too cozy with the industries it regulates. In fact, even industry groups that appear to have been hurt by some of Dr. McClellan's decisions speak well of his approach to the job.

He "isn't what most people would have expected from a Republican administration," said Dr. Annette Dickinson, president of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a trade group for the dietary supplement industry. But, she said, "he's been a breath of fresh air."

She said her group wanted the agency to stop supplement makers from making false health claims or flouting good manufacturing practices, and supported the ephedra ban.

Others regulated by the F.D.A. like the attention they are getting.

Dr. Rhona Applebaum, the executive vice president and chief scientific officer of the National Food Processors Association, said that in her 20 years in the industry, she had never seen an F.D.A. commissioner pay so much heed to food. "So yeah, we're pretty excited."

Part of Dr. McClellan's success, said Dr. Alan M. Garber, an internist and economist at Stanford, is that he is a pragmatist, not an ideologue.

He also has a style that can be immensely appealing.

Stay tuned.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 5:16 PM

Quote of the Day  

"I did not find election in the jurisprudence books. I did not go into the Koran and the prophetic tradition to derive the idea of elections. I derived the idea from a textbook on democracy."

Ayatollah Sistani
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 2:49 PM

5 U.S. Troops and 4 Iraqis Are Killed in Attacks  

Bad day:

raqi insurgents struck Saturday in the volatile Sunni Triangle west of Baghdad, killing five U.S. soldiers in separate bombings and narrowly missing an American convoy with a blast that killed four Iraqis and wounded about 40 others north of the capital.

The bloody attacks occurred as U.N. security experts began to study the possible return of U.N. international staff to play a key role in Iraq's transformation to democracy.

In Khaldiyah, some 70 miles west of Baghdad, three U.S. soldiers were killed and six more were wounded when a vehicle, possibly driven by a suicide bomber, exploded at a U.S. checkpoint near a bridge across the Euphrates river, the U.S. command said.

Iraqi witnesses said a four-wheel-drive vehicle drove up to the checkpoint and exploded in front of a U.S. Army Humvee trying to block it. At least eight Iraqis -- six of them women -- were injured, according to Dr. Ahmed Nasrat Jabouri of the provincial hospital in nearby Ramadi.

``It shook the whole area,'' Emad Ghareb Hamid said of the blast. U.S. troops sealed off the area while ambulances and helicopters evacuated the casualties.

Earlier Saturday, two other U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb that struck their four-vehicle convoy north of Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim city near Khaldiyah in a center of anti-American resistance.

The latest deaths brought to 512 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the United States and its allies launched the Iraq war March 20. Most of the deaths have occurred since President Bush declared an end to active combat May 1.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 2:45 PM

Friday, January 23, 2004

David Kay Calls It A Day  

Kay found zero, zip, nada

In a direct challenge to the Bush administration, which says its invasion of Iraq was justified by the presence of illicit arms, Kay told Reuters in a telephone interview he had concluded there were no Iraqi stockpiles to be found.

"I don't think they existed," Kay said. "What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last (1991) Gulf War, and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the nineties," he said.

The CIA announced earlier that former U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, who has previously expressed doubts that unconventional weapons would be found, would succeed Kay as Washington's chief arms hunter. ..

"I think we have found probably 85 percent of what we're going to find," he said. "I think the best evidence is that they did not resume large-scale production and that's what we're really talking about."

..."I think that Mr. Kay and his team have looked very hard. I think the reason that they haven't found them is they're probably not there," Duelfer [Kay's replacement] told NBC television earlier this month.

But in a statement included in the CIA announcement, Duelfer, who will be based in Iraq and as CIA special adviser to direct the WMD search, said he was keeping an open mind.

So am I. Seriously. I have no idea if there are any WMD there. Neither does Bush or Cheney. The difference is they don't care and never did.

via Tom Tomorrow
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 6:51 PM

Mars  

While we wait and hope for NASA to see whether or not Spirit can be revived, we can feast on these truly amazing pictures from the European Mars Express space probe. Check out that dustfall on the left, pouring into the crater.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:24 AM

Quote of the Day  

Judith Steinberg Dean:

I'm not a very thing person.

She's smart, organized, loyal, dedicated to her career and her family, utterly dependable, and totally unpretentious. So, all America asks:

Even if he doesn't win, can Dr. Steinberg Dean still be First Lady, please?
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 9:53 AM

The Wall Street Journal Finds A Subject Worthy Of Itself  

The $5000 toilet:

Is happiness a warm toilet seat?

Or perhaps automatic sensors to lift that seat, hands-free flushing, adjustable retractable spray wands, dryers, deodorizers and a "silent flush" cyclone flushing system? Or would the ability to flush 32 golf balls without clogging the bowl be more your preference?

Toilet technology, it seems, is marching ever forward as marketers take aggressive aim at an apparatus that hasn't changed all that much for a very long time. That has been due in large part to lackluster interest and, more importantly, cringing embarrassment by American consumers in paying for tricked-out commodes.

But Toto, a giant Japanese toilet maker, hopes to change all that. It recently introduced to the U.S. its luxe Neorest toilet, which has more features than an SUV. (And it is just as costly on a comparable basis, with a sticker price of about $5,000.) Meanwhile, American Standard, the big U.S. toilet manufacturer, has chosen to focus instead on drastically improving "flush performance," with a new model it calls the Champion that the company promises will allow you to toss out your plunger forever...

All the bidet toilets, despite the price and feature differences, have one essential mission -- to turn the toilet into what the company calls a "warm water-cleansing unit." That includes the ability to move a retractable wand aimed at a person's front and back areas, complete with odd little pictures to illustrate the point. Also adjustable is water pressure and temperature and a wand cleaning feature that empties the tool before each use to add fresh water. And there is a neat energy-saving mode that determines usage frequency and is able to put the unit into a sleep mode when not in use. Lastly, of course, there is the beloved warmed seat, which was met by universal acclaim for its comfortable 97-degree heat after a short period of shock when first sitting on it. Because of all the electronics involved, all such toilets require the installation of a GFI-protected plug near the units to make them work. Otherwise you'd be forced to use long extension cords, which would be problematic on many levels...

The Neorest... with more bells and whistles than you would ever need, all of which worked perfectly in my test. It all comes in an exceedingly attractive and surprisingly compact footprint, mostly due to its lack of a tank. Without getting deeply into the specifics of its technology, cyclonic pressure, the lack of a rim, as well as a special glaze, makes the Neorest flush fast and completely. It's all controlled electronically either via an automatic setting or a wireless remote. The toilet can also sense if only liquid has been deposited in it and, if so, will use less water to flush it down. (Even Barbara Walters isn't THAT nosy.)

Other features include a deodorizer, a warm air dryer and water temperature, pressure and massaging options (oscillating and pulsating) for the self-washing wand, which has a wide range of adjustable motion too. I liked all these features except for the dryer, which was basically useless and had not, as a Toto flack suggested, "obviated the need for toilet paper."

But the Neorest did obviate much of the need for contact with the toilet itself. The seat can be set to rise automatically via sensors on the side of the toilet. Men can use the various remotes to lift the second seat without touching any part of the toilet. This is apparently a selling point with Toto, whose salesman noted to me that you don't ever have to touch any part of the toilet if you don't want to. He compared the Neorest to a Mercedes or a Lexus, noting "it's not just a toilet, it's a lifestyle."

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 9:45 AM

Seraphiel's Daily Cartoon Roundup  

1
2
3

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 9:37 AM

Thursday, January 22, 2004

Some Good News, Sort OF  

After a long, too long, hiatus and the death of her debian-driven laptop, Isabella V. is back. In her latest post, Isa tells us that's she's kept up the writing on paper and will now start to type in her posts from the Missing Epoch.

This is good news, but alas, not for the writer. For yes, Isa is still a fugitive and her precarious existence, creeping up on the one-year anniversary of her flight, can only be wearing and exhausting.

Welcome back, Isa and good luck, girl.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 6:25 PM

Some Good News, Sort OF  

After a long, too long, hiatus and the death of her debian-driven laptop, Isabella V. is back. In her latest post, Isa tells us that's she's kept up the writing on paper and will now start to type in her posts from the Missing Epoch.

This is good news, but alas, not for the writer. For yes, Isa is still a fugitive and her precarious existence, creeping up on the one year anniversary of her flight, can only be wearing and exhausting.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 6:24 PM

To The Press, Substance Is a Joke  

Terry Neal reveals a mean trick the press corps played on Bush during the 2000 campaign:

In one memorable but unreported incident in January 2000 in Pella, Iowa, members of the Bush press corps, including me, prepared ahead of time to ask Bush a series of questions on abortion. When he blew one of us off, another reporter would raise his or her hand and ask the natural follow-up questions.

We wrote out the questions ahead of time. A friend from another news organization happened to keep them and passed them along to me today. Here were the first two questions of six that were asked in succession:

1) You say you won't have an anti-abortion litmus test for the Supreme Court justices you would choose as president, but rather that you would appoint strict constitutionalists. How do you define "strict constitutionalist" and what does that mean to you?

2) Give me an example of a Supreme Court decision that is a paradigm of strict constitutionality correctly applied and tell me why it's so. And give me an example that deviated terribly from that standard and say how it deviated.

"Strict constitutionalist" is a term often used by conservatives to mean people who strictly apply the Constitution. Since abortion is not specifically addressed in the Constitution, in the area of judicial opponents, abortion rights advocates consider it a clear code word to mean anti-abortion judges. During the 2000 election, when asked if he would have an abortion litmus test for judicial nominees, Bush usually answered that he would appoint a strict constitutionalist to the bench, without explaining his definition of the word or how specifically it applied to the abortion question.

Bush looked horrified at our questions. His face turned red. His hands gripped the lectern. Afterward, a colleague told me Bush cornered him and asked, "What the heck was that?" But he didn't say heck.

That's right, they asked real questions. As a joke, or maybe to teach Bush a lesson. I bet they didn't do that again.

The rest of the article makes the point that Clark doesn't know too much about abortion. Duh.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 3:22 PM

Apparently, It Watched The SOTU On Mars  

Spirit has been spouting gobbledygook ever since. Seriously, this is bad, bad news.

NASA last heard from Spirit early Wednesday. Since then, it has returned just random, meaningless data -- and only then sporadically, scientists said. Initially, the scientists said they believed weather problems on Earth caused the glitch. They now said they believe the rover was experiencing hardware or software problems.

"This is a serious problem. This is an extremely serious anomaly," project manager Pete Theisinger said.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 3:06 PM

Seraphiel's Daily Cartoon Roundup  

And a doubleplus good roundup they are today, indeed:

1
2
3
4
5
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 11:03 AM

American Troops Treated "Like Toy Soldiers On Global Game Board"  

Who let this bozo out of the circus?

General Schoomaker said the attacks on America in September 2001 and subsequent events had given the US army a rare opportunity to change.

'There is a huge silver lining in this cloud,' he said.

'War is a tremendous focus... Now we have this focusing opportunity, and we have the fact that [terrorists] have actually attacked our homeland, which gives it some oomph.'

He said it was no use having an army that did nothing but train.

'There's got to be a certain appetite for what the hell we exist for,' he said.

'I'm not warmongering, the fact is we're going to be called and really asked to do this stuff.'"

Makes ya just wanna run down to the local recruiting station and sign up! (Not to mention the conflation of Iraq with the "war on terrorism." Didja catch that one?)

There was a time, when this gung-ho stuff was considered brain-damaging:

Albright, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a strong advocate of using force to end ethnic slaughter, is said to have stared at Powell and asked: 'What's the point in having this superb military you are always talking about if we can't use it?'

In his book, Powell said of the incident: 'I thought I would have an aneurysm. American GIs were not toy soldiers to be moved around on some sort of global game board.'

Exactly right, General.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:38 AM

CIA Warns of Civil War In Iraq  

Not surprising, but troubling.

CIA officers in Iraq are warning that the country may be on a path to civil war, current and former U.S. officials said Wednesday, starkly contradicting the upbeat assessment that President Bush gave in his State of the Union address.

The CIA officers' bleak assessment was delivered verbally to Washington this week, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the classified information involved.

The warning echoed growing fears that Iraq's Shiite majority, which has until now grudgingly accepted the U.S. occupation, could turn to violence if its demands for direct elections are spurned.

Meanwhile, Iraq's Kurdish minority is pressing its demand for autonomy and shares of oil revenue.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:21 AM

Senate Republicans Used Computer Glitch To Spy On Democrats  

Simply unbelievably outrageous:

Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.

From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.

Heads should be on the chopping block over this. As Atrios says, this is worse than Watergate. Much worse.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:06 AM

Objectively Pro-Nonsense  

While tending to my sick seven-year-old last night, I tried to read myself back to sleep by leafing through Raymond Aron's masterpiece, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations. In a chapter entitled "Dialectics of Peace and War," I came across this rather curious passage:

In every war the defeatists are accused of preparing the defeat which they announce, and sometimes they actually contribute to it. How can the established party help but be weakened by those citizens who question its action or its legitimacy? The Frenchman who cast doubt on Algerie francaise objectively gave assistance to the Algerian nationalists. With disregard to his intentions, he was called a traitor, since in fact he was aiding the enemy. Similarly, the Moslem [sic] who refused to obey the FLN abetted the French cause. He was a traitor to his Algerian fatherland just as for the the Ultras the liberal Frenchman was a traitor to France. [page 171 of paperback edition, bold added, typed by hand]

As I read this I was inevitably reminded of that ugly meme apparently started by Instapundit, that sensible Americans who were not supporting the buildup for war in Iraq were "objectively pro-Saddam." It appears at first glance that Reynolds (Instapundit's handle in meatspace) cribbed his political hate speech from Aron, but in fact Aron was saying the exact opposite.

Remember: the chapter is entitled ""Dialectics of Peace and War" and, true to its title, Aron presents dispassionately various ideas in the most logically consistent manner possible. He is not "taking sides" so much as observing and articulating positions and arguments. And yes, Aron says that a Frenchman who doubts the validity of French Algeria is certainly helping the nationalists build their case. But he starts his next sentence with a telling, and contemptuous, dismissal of the idea: "With disregard to his intentions," many other French will call him a traitor.

Now I've just begun studying Aron (about 5 months and counting) and he is a complex, loquacious thinker - Peace and War runs over 750 fascinating pages. But there are a few things that are obvious. For Aron, context and accurate perceptions of intent are vital, crucial starting premises for effective thinking about peace and war - how to prevent war, how to know when war must be fought, how to recognize friends and enemies. A man of Aron's intelligent is quick to dismiss the notion that a Frenchman who criticizes French Algeria simply must be "objectively pro-Nationalist" until he knows that Frenchman's intentions. He would be the last to call those who criticized Bush/Iraq "objectively pro-Saddam" and he would be appalled to read further that, without naming a single person, Reynolds stoops to the level of a cheap paritisan hack when he presumes to label critics of Bush "anti-American" if they don't easily sink to the level of being "objectively pro-Saddam." Reynolds is talking about loyal Americans like Theodore Sorenson, Arthur Schlesinger, General Anthony Zinni and General Eric Shineski as being "anti-American."

I'll try to blog more about Aron. Like Strauss, he was profoundly shaped by the experience of World War II and Nazism. Unlike Strauss, his intellectual response was not to reject modernism and pine for a neverland Platonic utopia, but rather to confront the modern world, understand it, and suggest not solutions but possible ways to think about the world to minimize catastrophic wars and oppressive political systems. I really haven't grasped all he has to say as there is far too much to absorb easily. Some if I agree with, some not too sure about. Stay tuned.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 9:51 AM

SOTU: What Wasn't Mentioned  

As is often the case, the most trenchant observations in the New York Times can be found in the letters column:

It's interesting to note that in George W. Bush's State of the Union address there was no mention of 'Osama bin Laden'; 'Mullah Omar' of the Taliban, who is still at large; 'Israel'; 'Palestine'; 'fiscal responsibility'; 'balanced' or 'balanced budget'; 'debt'; 'environment' or 'environmental'; 'Democrat' or 'Democrats' (although he did use 'bipartisan' once).

But he did use the words 'America' or 'American(s)' more than 60 times.

I will leave it to your readers to draw their own conclusions.

RANDALL HENSLEY
Wilton, Conn., Jan. 21, 2004

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 6:43 AM

The Issue For 2004 Is...Beat Bush  

Before I forget, I don't want this pithy summary of the real issue in 2004 by Josh Marshall get lost:

Bennett’s theory is that this whole race is about who can beat Bush, and that candidates like Kerry --- until quite recently --- have been completely missing the boat by talking about their plan for the environment, or their plan for this, or their plan for that.

What people care about is who can beat Bush. Beat Bush, they reason, and everything else will fall into place. So who cares what your plan is.

Exactly. I would add only this:

Beat Bush Badly.

And while you're at Josh's site, check out his fabulous interview with George Soros.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 6:22 AM

Two U.S. Soldiers, Three Iraqi "Collaborators" Killed  

The war continues:

A mortar and rocket attack on a U.S. military base near Ba'qubah on Wednesday night killed two American soldiers and wounded three other soldiers, U.S. military sources said Thursday.

The wounded have been treated and have returned to duty.

In other violence, three Iraqi women were killed by anti-coalition insurgents after the mini-van they were riding in came under fire near Fallujah, U.S. military sources said Thursday.

The attack took place at 8 a.m. Wednesday (12 a.m. ET) as the van carried nine people to work at FOB Ridgeway -- a forward operating base.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 6:08 AM

The Character Of A Rich Brat  

In the SOTU, Bush said something that struck me as so incredibly idiotic that it could only have been left in there if he genuinely believed it.

"America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country."

Bush has spent the last 4 plus years marketing himself as America Incarnate (and his enemies as un-American). So really what he is saying, of course, is, "I will never seek a permission slip to" [fill in this space].

And indeed he won't, ignoring Congress, ignoring the courts, ignoring the UN, ignoring scientists and experts in every field, ignoring the entire world. What he wants, Bush will take. And if you get in the way, well fuck you.

I've known people like that, people so morally corrupt and so certain of their entitlement that they can crack up their Jag, slug the cop who arrests them, and then give the cops at the station the finger when their father bails them out, confident that Dad will make sure the whole incident never sees the light of day 'cause Pops goes drinking and whoring with the police commissioner and will say a few words.

I always wondered where people like that ended up.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 12:32 AM

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

October Surprise  

Dave Neiwert reminds us of the infamous Reagan October Surprise. This hasn't been the only October Surprise, of course. The worst of the many real crimes of the Nixon Administration is the "non-October Surprise:" in order to win in '68, Nixon undermined the Paris peace negotiations by hinting to the South Vietnamese leaders that they would get a better deal if they stalled at the Paris peace talks and waited until Nixon was in office. Then Nixon bashed the Democrats for failing to make progress at peace in Vietnam. To say the least, that is treason. American soldiers died needlessly to make Nixon president.

But both Reagan and Nixon are history. I'm worried about next October, and thereabouts. What "Surprises" does the Bush admin have in mind? And I do mean the plural. As they have overdone Nixon in sheer mendacity, illegality and nastiness, Bush surely has plenty up his sleeve. Here are some of the most likely:

1. bin Laden and al Zawahiri will be captured or convincing proof that they died will be made public late in the campaign.
2. A major terrorist alert for New York City during the Republican Convention, to prevent protests, with Bush bravely flouting it to lay his wreath at WTC on Sept. 11.
3. Token withdrawal of troops from Iraq (but see below; they will go back right after the election, if Bush wins).
4. Bush will have to skip at least one debate so that he deals with a terrorist emergency.
5. A major terrorist alert during the Democratic Convention, or trumped up -and totally spurious- "good" news from Iraq/Afghanistan, such as WMD discovery, timed to distract from the Democratic Convention.

If you think any of these are unlikely, I suggest you read a little late 20th Century American history. And remember the 2000 election debacle.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 6:05 PM

US Ramp Up Of Combat In Middle East/South Asia?  

Someone at Stratfor thinks so:

The Defense Department floated an interesting idea on Jan. 6. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that the Pentagon was considering putting a four-star general in charge of Iraq to facilitate the transition to Iraqi rule and to remain in command of U.S. forces in Iraq after the transition...

The question is why? It is possible the answer is political, but this seems wrong. The Defense Department wants to counter the influence of Paul Bremer -- or the influence of his successor -- and sending a four-star to Baghdad reporting to the Joint Chiefs will do that. Not only is this a lot of effort for some bureaucratic gamesmanship, it is also futile. The White House determines who runs Iraq policy. It is a national security issue of the highest order, so slipping an extra star into the deck isn't going to have much influence. Secretary of State Colin Powell is not likely to buckle at the sight of a four-star general.

The other explanation is that the Defense Department is expecting intensifying conflict within CENTCOM's area of responsibility, so that command responsibilities will outstrip the capacity of Abizaid and his staff. CENTCOM has three potential theaters of operation in its area of responsibility. Apart from Iraq, operations are possible against Syria or in Saudi Arabia, should the House of Saud start to totter...

It seems to us, however, that what the Defense Department envisions is a command responsible for the Afghan-Pakistani theater of operations -- a Southwest Asia Command or Indian Ocean Command; another command responsible for operations between east, west and north Iraq; and the Arabian Peninsula being assigned as events dictate. In other words, the Defense Department is putting forward the idea of another regional command because it anticipates the possibility of intensifying combat operations throughout the region. The war in Iraq might be coming under control, but from the standpoint of the Defense Department, the end of the Iraq campaign is the preface to follow-on campaigns.

If the four-star is appointed in the spring, he will be able to pull his staff together by summer. That will allow him the fall for planning, which would mean that operations under his command could begin by late 2004. Put another way, a bit more crassly, Baghdad Command will be good to go right after the November elections. [Emphasis in original]

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 5:41 PM

Send Your Name To A Comet  

That's right. There's gonna be a mission to a comet and they're collecting names to put on a cd that will go to the comet. So send your name to a comet.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 5:34 PM

More Voting Hijinks  

This time, the company is not Diebold, but Accenture:

A new $22 million system to allow soldiers and other Americans overseas to vote via the Internet is inherently insecure and should be abandoned, according to a panel of computer security experts asked by the government to review the program...

The authors of the new report noted that computer security experts had already voiced increasingly strong warnings about the reliability of electronic voting systems, but they said the new voting program, which allows people overseas to vote from their personal computers over the Internet, raised the ante on such systems' risks.

The system, they wrote, "has numerous other fundamental security problems that leave it vulnerable to a variety of well-known cyber attacks, any one of which could be catastrophic." Any system for voting over the Internet with common personal computers, they noted, would suffer from the same risks.

The trojans, viruses and other attacks that complicate modern life and allow such crimes as online snooping and identity theft could enable hackers to disrupt or even alter the course of elections, the report concluded. Such attacks "could have a devastating effect on public confidence in elections," the report's authors wrote, and so "the best course to take is not to field the SERVE system [the name of the Internet voting system] at all."

An official of Accenture, the technology services company that is the main contractor on the project, said the researchers drew unwarranted conclusions about future plans for the voting project. "We are doing a small, controlled experiment," said Meg McLauglin, president of Accenture eDemocracy Services.

By the way, exactly who or what is Accenture? Turns out that's the new name for none other than (offkey trumpets, please ) Andersen Consulting, as in Arthur Anderson, as in the firm that audited Enron's books. As in the firm that gained a video clipped endorsement from then President of Halliburton, Dick Cheney, praising their "good advice" which goes "over and above" standard bookeeping practices.

And guess what? Accenture and Halliburton are business partners.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 4:57 PM

Blacklist  

Speech police at University of Colorado. But I have some sympathy. I once had a teacher who was so rightwing he turned me into a Newt.

Republican students at the University of Colorado launched a Web site to gather complaints about left-leaning faculty members, saying they want to document discrimination against conservative students and indoctrination to the liberal viewpoint.

"We want concrete examples of bias in our arsenal when we go to the administration, the regents and the Legislature," said Brad Jones, 20, chairman of the College Republicans, who launched the Web site last week.

The CU College Republicans are affiliated with Students for Academic Freedom, a national organization started by California conservative activist David Horowitz, who is pushing a Colorado effort to protect students from what the group sees as harassment or discrimination based on political beliefs...

"I'm shocked the students would resort to this," said Barbara Bintliff, a CU law school professor and chairwoman of the Boulder Faculty Assembly. "I'm concerned they may wind up with a blacklist"

Travis Leiker, 22, president of the College Democrats at CU, said classrooms are full of different perspectives. "I think the conservative students who feel there is a bias are more afraid of hearing points of view different from their own," he said.

Lawmakers are also involved. Republican State Senate President John Andrews called for all state universities to submit their anti-discrimination policies in November.

Conservative lawmakers introduced a resolution last week calling for the defense of students' First Amendment rights, including expression "based solely on viewpoint."

What the hell is "expression based solely on viewpoint?" Does that mean that if you are in bio class and the teacher prevents you from spouting creationist crap when she's explaining the facts of evolution, you have had your First Amendment rights violated? Does that mean that if your roommate wants to start a Klan Klaven, you have no right to become alarmed and inform the school?
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 4:35 PM

"Quasi-War", My Foot  

Matt Yglesias continues to find excuses to rationalise his initial support for the Bush/Iraq War, a support he has (rightly) come to regret. Here's his latest and worst excuse:

Even well before Bush came into office there was a state of quasi-war between the US and Iraq, and a lot hinges on what the alternative to Bush's war would have been.[emphasis added]

It is simply not the case that a state of "quasi-war" existed between the US and Iraq before Bush took the oath. If this were so, Perle and the PNACs wouldn't have had the effrontery to write an open letter to Clinton demanding he take military action against Saddam (a letter which makes no mention of the humanitarian reasons to do so that have figured so prominently as rationales). As I recall the flyovers were a multilateral, UN mission, not a unilateral US engagement. [UPDATE: I recalled wrong. See below.]

The second half of Matt's sentence is equally askew. As he most certainly knows, there were plenty of alternatives to war, detailed by the United Nations, The Carnegie Endowment and others, as they desperately tried to get their ideas heard. These included coerced inspections and a changed sanctions regimen.

Matt doesn't leave it there, by the way. He is of the opinion, regarding the Democratic candidates that

...at the end of the day where you came down on the specific issue of Bush's war doesn't necessarily tell you very much.

Of course it does.

A foreign policy such as as the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive unilateralism (PU) falls on the Mental Wellness Scale somewhere between the categories of "You're kidding, right?" and "Screaming Yellow Bonkers." In other words, where the candidates stand on Bush's war tells the rest of us how crazy they are.

It's time for Matt simply to admit his mistake, examine the premises that led to his misjudgement about Iraq, and, um, move on.

[UPDATE] DB writes in (typos corrected):

You recall wrong. The no-fly zones never had anything to do with the UN. They were a criminal act of aggression by the US and UK. IE a war, yes. Not a land war - any more than Kosovo was.

As justification for this DB refers us to this article:

The two no-fly zones over Iraq were imposed by the US, Britain and France after the Gulf War, in what was described as a humanitarian effort to protect Shia Muslims in the south and Kurds in the north.

The justification was that an acute humanitarian crisis made it necessary to infringe the sovereignty of Iraq in this way.

However, unlike the military campaign to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait, the no-fly zones were not authorised by the United Nations and they are not specifically sanctioned by any Security Council resolution.

The Western powers - led by President George Bush senior - argued that their action was consistent with Security Council Resolution 688 adopted on 5 April 1991.

The resolution condemned the repression of the Iraqi civilian population and demanded that Iraq end it immediately.

It said the repression amounted to a threat to international peace and security - a phrase often used to justify intervention.

But critics of the no-fly zones point out that the resolution did not say the Security Council was acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which provides for enforcement action.

Nor did it say that all necessary means could be used.

Critics add that whatever was justified in 1991 is not necessarily justified more than 10 years later, when the reasons for continuing the air patrols may have changed.

I stand corrected. My recollection was wrong. Regarding DB's characterization that the air patrols were a "criminal act of aggression," I will leave that an open question as I am not conversant with the complexities of the situation back then and would need to be more so before accepting (or rejecting) DB's conclusion. In any event, I believe that their "success" or "failure" in containing Saddam in no way justifies the invasion and conquest of Iraq.

I try to back up everything I say instead of simply "recalling." This was one of the very rare exceptions. I was rushed and inexcusably did not research this point. DB was right to call me on this and I thank him
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 4:04 PM

Kicking Ass Misses Bush  

The marvelous DNC website Kicking Ass gives Bush the benefit of the doubt here, on the subject of the anti-marriage amendment Bush supports:

President Bush's willingness to support such a mean-spirited measure shows that he is more interested in pleasing his right-wing base demonstrating any compassion towards GLBT families.

No. In fact, Bush actually believes in it. He is his own mean-spirited base. So the question again arises:

Why does Bush hate Cheney so much that he wants to deny Cheney's daughter the right to marry?
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 1:28 PM

Don Rumsfeld To Stand Trial In Iraq?  

No wonder the US is opposed to real democracy in Iraq:

"Saddam should not be the only one who is put on trial. The Americans backed him when he was killing Iraqis so they should be prosecuted," said Ali Mahdi, a builder.

"If the Americans escape justice they will face God's justice. They must be stoned in hell."

Oh, dear. I'll bet that wasn't in the contingency plans.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:59 AM

Seraphiel's Daily Cartoon Roundup  

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posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:07 AM

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

Jobs, Or Rather, The Lack Of Them  

WorkingForChange-It's about money

Under Bill Clinton, the economy gained an average of 236,000 jobs every month. Under George W. Bush, the economy has lost an average of 66,000 jobs a month. Nor is the news getting better. Last month, the economy, supposedly in full recovery, added 1,000 jobs. The economy needs to generate 150,000 jobs a month just to absorb new workers.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 1:33 PM

Seraphiel's Daily Cartoon Roundup  

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posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 9:53 AM

Sunday, January 18, 2004

Blast From The Past  

Juan Cole reminds us of US spying at the UN during the runup to Iraq. The woman who blew the whistle on it faces up to two years in prison. Apparently, the exposure of these dirty tricks persuaded some countries, such as Chile, to harden their positions against Bush and Blair.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 11:09 AM

On The Democratic Primaries  

I've blogged very little about the primary race, except when it clearly crosses the line into self-destructiveness. My reason should be obvious and I think it is representative of the vast majority of Americans who are alarmed at the prospect of another four years of Bush:

I don't care who wins the Democratic nomination for president. Anyone of the top 4 candidates is so superior to Bush that it makes no difference. But that is really damning with the faintest of praise. I'll go further:

Clark, Dean, Edwards, and Kerry all have the potential to be great presidents. In short, for the first time in years, the Democrats have an abundance of riches. These are superb candidates.

What I do care about, passionately, is that the Democratic leadership back with enthusiasm whomever wins the nomination and that the grassroots organizations that have worked so hard for the candidates refocus their energy on destroying Bush.

For it is not only crucial for a Democrat to win, which should be relatively easy to accomplish if the party truly unites behind one of these great men. (I know that flies in the face of the CW, but the difference between them and Bush is so dramatic that I don't hesitate in asserting its truth.) Bush, and Bushism, also must lose. The kind of hateful, cynical, and dangererous directions into which the Bush regime has led this country must be reversed. Bushism must be discredited and the Republican party once again become a party of right center probity.

This is harder than defeating Bush. But it is vital if we are to preserve our country and restore credibility abroad.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:39 AM

Who Hold's Bush's Leash? (No, It's Not Karl)  

A fellow named Sistani:

The most important political figure in Iraq today is Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, an elderly Shiite Muslim cleric. He has not set foot outside his home in six years, yet the white-bearded ayatollah has effectively commandeered the Bush administration's planning for postwar democracy.

His pronouncement on who may write a new constitution (only Iraqis elected by Iraqis) forced Washington to upend its timetable for granting the country its independence. Last week, the ayatollah rejected the American proposal for choosing an interim legislature through caucuses, immobilizing the transition. His backers took to the streets to support him.

Read all about him. I dunno if Sistani's a a good leader for Iraq or not, but I do know one thing. Bush is Sistani's Poodle. If he can't get Sistani's approval it won't fly in Iraq.

Juan Cole has some informed comment on the level of support Sistani enjoys.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:27 AM

In Case You Thought Pickering Was Not So Bad  

Michelle Goldberg in Salon summarizes how awful Pickering is, and how cynical his recess appointment is:

With its customary sensitivity, the Bush administration celebrated the upcoming observance of the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., by thwarting Congress and installing a judge on the Federal Court of Appeals who is notorious for his early support of segregation and his ongoing hostility to civil rights law.

Mississippian Charles Pickering is commonly considered among the most right-wing of Bush's extremely conservative judicial nominees. His dismal record on race begins with a law school article he wrote defending anti-miscegenation statutes. In the 1960s, as Sean Wilentz reported in Salon last year, "Pickering worked to support segregation, attack civil rights advocates who sought to end Jim Crow, and back those who opposed national civil rights legislation, above all the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. Or, in the words of a public statement he signed in 1967, Pickering wanted to preserve 'our southern way of life,' and he bitterly blamed civil rights workers for stirring up 'turmoil and racial hatred' in the South."

In the 1970s, as a state senator, he voted to appropriate money to the the Sovereignty Commission, a group dedicated to resisting desegregation. (During his confirmation hearing, he claimed that not only did he have nothing to do with the commission, but that it didn't even exist during the years in which records show he voted to fund it.) Later, he dismissed an employment discrimination case by contemptuously noting that courts "are not super personnel managers charged with second guessing every employment decision made regarding minorities." Speaking to the Congressional Black Caucus, Virginia Democratic congressman Robert Scott said of the judge, "It's hard to imagine a person more hostile to civil rights."

And not just black people's civil rights. In speeches, he has said that the Christian Bible is the "absolute authority by which all conduct of man is judged." As People for the American Way points out, a lawyer who has practiced before him once said, "He is the judge who concerns me the most. He's a fine person, but he's almost so pious that it interferes with his assignment as a judge." Not surprisingly, he backs a constitutional amendment to ban abortion...

...on Friday, Bush used a recess appointment to put Pickering on the bench. Recess appointments allow presidents to fill vacancies without Senate confirmation when Congress isn't in session, and last until the next congressional term -- in this case, until January 2005, when Bush evidently hopes to have enough Senate votes to deny the Democrats one of the last tools they have for restraining the GOP.

I hope Salon forgives my quoting so extensively from this article, but it is an important one and should serve as a good reason for you to consider subscribing to them. Now.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:13 AM

And There's A Bridge I'll Sell You If You Believe This  

I can't believe they think we'll buy this:

Why is Nasa abandoning one of the most productive scientific instruments of all time?

The main reason is safety. It is said that the decision was made solely by Nasa's chief, Sean O'Keefe, and that it was not related to President George Bush's new space plan for a return to the Moon and missions to Mars. Money was not an issue.

Suuuuure.

And now, get a look at what we're giving up, and the dangers:

Hubble's next servicing mission was due in 2005. During it two major instruments - the Wide Field Camera 3 and the Cosmic Origins Spectrometer - would have been installed. They would have been magnificent additions to Hubble, significantly boosting its performance.

Now they are not going the scientists concerned will be devastated and will want to explore other ways to get them into space. Even if they are successful in flying them, it will be on a smaller mission and they will not benefit from Hubble's extraordinary ability to intercept light from the cosmos.

Although abandoning Hubble solves one problem it raises another - a big one.

Left alone, Hubble will fall back to Earth sometime in 2012 and it is big enough not to burn up completely.

"Its main mirror, and its titanium support ring, will survive and reach the ground," Steven Beckwith told BBC News Online.

It is estimated that left alone there is a one in 700 chance of human casualty being caused by an uncontrolled Hubble re-entry. That is, everyone agrees, unacceptable.

It is also unacceptable to abandon Hubble.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:06 AM