Some hatin', true.

I'm working on another blog post right now, but I thought I would compile some recent Bush-related articles posted on The Onion*:

Bush Dies Peacefully in His Sleep
Spider Eggs Hatch in Bush's Brain
Single-Engine Cessna Crashes into Bush
Bush's Eyelid Accidentally Nailed to Wall
Bush Dragged Behind Presidential Motorcade For 26 Blocks
Bush Passes Three-Pound Kidney Stone
Crocodile Bites Off Bush's Arm
Bush Tumbles Wildly Down Washington Monument Staircase

I forget sometimes that the ills that have been visited upon our country for the past eight years were foreseen by many. Check out this classic Onion article entitled "Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity is Finally Over". This was posted January 17, 2001, just three days before Bush took office. A few quotes:

During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.

Turning to the subject of the environment, Bush said he will do whatever it takes to undo the tremendous damage not done by the Clinton Administration to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He assured citizens that he will follow through on his campaign promise to open the 1.5 million acre refuge's coastal plain to oil drilling. As a sign of his commitment to bringing about a change in the environment, he pointed to his choice of Gale Norton for Secretary of the Interior. Norton, Bush noted, has "extensive experience" fighting environmental causes, working as a lobbyist for lead-paint manufacturers and as an attorney for loggers and miners, in addition to suing the EPA to overturn clean-air standards.

Continued Bush: "John Ashcroft will be invaluable in healing the terrible wedge President Clinton drove between church and state."

An overwhelming 49.9 percent of Americans responded enthusiastically to the Bush speech.

"After eight years of relatively sane fiscal policy under the Democrats, we have reached a point where, just a few weeks ago, President Clinton said that the national debt could be paid off by as early as 2012," Rahway, NJ, machinist and father of three Bud Crandall said. "That's not the kind of world I want my children to grow up in."

"We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two," Bush said. "Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there's much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."

*I in no way wish pain upon Mr. Bush, although I whole-heartedly endorse him going through a war crimes trial.

You haven't lived...

...until you've heard Arnold Schwarzenegger say "Ponzi Schemes." Also, should any governor ever say this?:

Conan's sword could not have cleaved our political system in two as cleanly as our own political parties have done.

The answer is: this should never be a thing that an elected official says. Thankfully, from the audio feed I was receiving it seems that nobody in the room laughed (this was delivered as part of the State of the State Address).

Some life instructions

Picture this. You're driving down a highway and you see a car with a flat tire. Or you come across a car with a dead battery in a parking lot. The owner of the car is Jim Lehrer. You should stop and help him. It's like your prerogative. This is why.

Today our VP Dick was on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer. If you've never watched this show, it's a wonderful news program that I don't catch often enough because I don't watch a lot of TV. Strangely enough, KQED plays the Newshour over the radio every afternoon, which is kind of disconcerting since it isn't set up as a radio show and therefore you lose gestures and graphics and such, but that's neither here nor there. Jim Lehrer is an incredibly fair, patient man, and an extremely well-respected newsman.

Lehrer and Cheney discussed a number of things, and ranged into talking about the economy. The following exchange took place (italics are mine duh):

MR. LEHRER in a fair, patient tone of voice: What about - going back to the original question - about seeing this coming? Isn't that part of the stewardship of the president, of the vice president and of his administration - to see these things coming and try to prevent them from coming, rather than to act after they've happened?

VICE PRES. CHENEY in an asshole tone of voice: Did you see it coming, Jim? You're an expert.

MR. LEHRER winning: I'm not the president or the vice president of the United States.

MR. LEHRER: FTW!

Seriously? Does anybody buy this?

I am in the process of writing another post, but I just saw this bit of news. An interview with our VP Dick. He asserts that nobody at the CIA did anything illegal in interrogations. You can argue, from a certain point of view (which I and other, expert, people would not) that torture is the way to get information. You could argue that it's justified to protect the national security or what have you, although I think the ethical questions overrule any kind of other benefit. But to argue that it's LEGAL? Come now, VP, I know that you think we're stupid, but really. The lying has to stop some day.

For us to read the fine print, you actually have to print it.

Today is the 5th anniversary of Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech, which was delivered from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln. Since that speech, nearly 4,000 Americans have died in Iraq. Today, the administration is doing some backtracking on this subject. They are now stating that the banner (the big one that said Mission Accomplished) was not specific enough, and that the speech and the banner referred only to the mission of that particular carrier, which was just a few miles off of San Diego at the time, returning home from a tour in the Persian Gulf.

"President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said 'mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission," White House press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday. "And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year."

First, God forbid that the media brings up the fact that there have been almost 4,000 deaths since our president claimed that major combat operations were at an end five years ago (keeping in mind that we were only involved in WWI for 1.5 years, and WWII for less than 4 years). And second, does anybody really think that the speech referred only to that aircraft carrier? The quote above indicates that the entire misconception is due to the wording on the banner. Let's examine the speech itself, shall we?

Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.

Why would he address "my fellow Americans" to tell everybody that the carrier is home?

This nation thanks all of the members of our coalition who joined in a noble cause. We thank the armed forces of the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland who shared in the hardships of war. We thank all of the citizens of Iraq who welcomed our troops and joined in the liberation of their own country.

All of this past-tense formulation ("shared," "joined") certainly indicate that this sharing and joining is not going to go on any more, because it is no longer necessary.

And tonight, I have a special word for Secretary Rumsfeld, for General Franks and for all the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States: America is grateful for a job well done.

I think it is pretty clear that the president was referring to combat operations for everyone when he says, in the first third of his speech, "job well done" explicitly directed at "all the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States." I don't think that Dana Perino can justifiably state that there was an implied additional clause after "United States" that should have been "and happen to be sailors on the USS Lincoln."

The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001 and still goes on.

Victory! Victory in Iraq! OK, seriously, again we are supposed to believe that this was implicitly directed only at this group of sailors?

In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused and deliberate and proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten the victims of September the 11th, the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States, and war is what they got.

I didn't want to get into much anti-war sentiment in this post since that isn't the point, but does anybody still believe that our invasion of Iraq was "proportionate to the offense" when the didn't actually do anything to us? Our "proportionate" response to nothing is an invasion that leads to the deaths of nearly 100,000 Iraqi civilians (from Iraq Body Count)?

Only at the end of the speech did Bush actually talk directly about the sailors on board the Lincoln. The administration has tried to set itself free from the "Mission Accomplished" sign, correctly stating that that particular phrase was never actually used in the speech. But you make a speech that indicates that the military was victorious already, and you hang a "Mission Accomplished" banner in the background, and what do you expect? I have to believe (for my own sense of well-being) that the people that run our country are not actually dumb, and understand the full ramification of what they are doing; in this light I believe that the "Mission Accomplished" banner was there to give the American people something simple to see and identify with so that we would feel good about the war. Instead, the press secretary states that they regret not adding some (what would have been) fine print to the banner. Not buying it Perino, try again.

P.S. I love the implications of the following quote from today's news article, considering Bush's military record:

After being landed on the deck of the carrier in an S-3B Viking 30 miles off the coast San Diego (Ari Fleischer said the president "could have helicoptered," but "he wanted to see a landing the way aviators see a landing"), Mr. Bush appeared in a flight suit to the cheers of the ship's personnel and the glare of television lights.

Calling BS on Hillary Clinton

Let me start this blog by stating that I voted for Clinton in the primary here in NM because she actually talked about what she would do about the problems facing this nation at her rally. But a story from this morning's Morning Edition is making me change my mind. Can I go back and change my vote? I kind of want to now.

Why? Well, I'll tell you. We have this really bizarre and nonsensical primary system in this country whereby a few states (particularly Iowa and New Hampshire, extremely white states) get a huge say in who gets to run for president from each party. I don't think that this is a particularly fair system, and I would like to see it changed somehow. I haven't done any real research on the topic, but I have not seen a viable solution yet. Anyway, this time around a whole lot of states decided that they deserved to be the most important state in the primary process, and moved their primaries forward. This resulted in New Hampshire and Iowa moving their primaries even further forward, until they occurred ridiculously early. When these states (including both Arizona and New Mexico) floated this idea of moving forward, they knew full well that if they moved them too far forward, their delegates would not be counted. Florida and Michigan moved theirs too far forward, and so their primary results are not supposed to count. They did it anyway. And their votes did not count. In fact, candidates were not supposed to put themselves on the ballot. Clinton did it anyway. And shockingly, being the only major candidate, she carried both states (the second most popular choice was uncommitted).

Now that she's slipping further behind Obama, she suddenly wants those votes counted. Here are some quotes. Early on, she gave her reason for putting herself on the ballot as: "It's clear - this election they're having is not going to count for anything. I personally did not think it made any difference whether or not my name was on the ballot."

Now, the day before Florida primary, she said, "I want the voters in Florida to know that I hear them. Hundreds of thousands of Floridians have already votes, so clearly they are taking this seriously, they believe their voices are going to be heard and should be counted, and I agree with them." Sounds suspiciously like she was hedging her bets by putting herself on the ballot to me.

As I said, I disagree with the system the way it is currently set up, but if there are rules, and you know full well what those rules are, and you choose to break those rules, then you should be prepared to face the consequences. This is why I have little sympathy for anybody that gets a speeding ticket (I've gotten one, and paid it), stop sign ticket, etc. The stakes are higher here, of course. Tad Devine says, "If the margin in these two states represents a difference of who's going to be the nominee, it's going to be hard fought and it could be fought all the way through the credentials and the rules committee and to the convention floor itself."

Of course, as will always happen, this has been turned by some into a matter of race. Surprisingly, Rev. Al Sharpton comes down on the side of reason (the side of reason always being my side): "I do not understand how you can say that you're going to have primaries that are not going to be respected, candidates not going to campaign, and then later change the rules [dumb sports metaphor omitted]. That is a civil rights issue." But Julian Bond, Chairman of the NAACP, sees it differently: "Under present rules, these voters will not be heard, they won't be seated, they won't have any recognition, or representation at the Democratic Convention. I'm old enough to have been through these credential fights at Democratic Conventions in '64 and '68 when the issue was in race, and in some ways the issue is race now. A great portion of the voters in both those states are black. They have a right to have their expressions heard and felt." Why does a credential fight automatically turn into a race issue? No idea. What kills me is that if any other state with a negligible minority population, say Minnesota, the exact damn same thing would have happened. The only possible way that this is a race issue is if black people are somehow more inclined to push their primaries way way early, which I do not think is the case.

The upshot of this whole thing is that Clinton is going back on what she said earlier as soon as it will benefit her. Now, I am not so naive as to think that, if he were in the same position, Obama would not be saying the same thing. And maybe with time I will back Clinton again. But it pisses me off that they are being such politicians, frankly. Tad Devine again: "This is a fundamental issue of fairness. For our party, we're holding ourselves out to be the party of fairness, on issues like taxes, on the way people live and their lives. If our own process doesn't appear to be a fair process, we're going to hurt ourselves. We need to figure out a way to make sure that these states are fully engaged in this political process at the Convention, and certainly in the general election. And that's not going to be an easy thing as long as the nomination is on the line." What would be fair? Sticking to the original plan, despite the fact that it hurts the candidate for whom I voted.

Morning Edition mentioned some solutions proposed for this situation. First, we could rehold the primaries, probably the most reasonable of the options, and the one that they term "unlikely." Second, we could split the votes evenly between the two candidates, which would be a BS solution since it would not actually do anything, just adding the same number of delegates to each candidate. Plus, if Clinton would have actually won real primaries in these two states, it would be only fair that she get her real proportion of delegates. Finally, split the votes according to the proportion of the national popular vote that each candidate holds; this won, again, would make zero difference to anything, since if Obama holds, say, 60% of the popular vote nationwide, he would still hold 60% after those two states were counted. I mean, what is the damn point? I suppose this would be the most popular option for those that want to placate Michigan and Florida and not disillusion them with the Democratic Party. I say, if you play with fire, you might get burned.

Weather and politics

So you know that I'm only going to half-piss off half of you!
This morning, when I woke up before 6 to get to the van, I walked out to the kitchen for some breakfast, I noticed that we got a fairly light dusting of snow overnight, well under an inch. However, the recent fairly warm weather combined with that overnight moisture input to turn Albuquerque into an icy mess. The van did not arrive because nobody got on at the first stop (my advisor said that there was a half inch of ice on the parking lot), so we had to drive a car. We had the radio on in the car (conservative talk radio, but I guess I can't complain about not having to drive myself) and heard that they were not only closing schools due to the light snow, but apparently nobody could drive on the ice as there were numerous rollovers reported, and one of the main northern roads connecting the western parts of the valley (Rio Rancho) to main Albuquerque was closed. There was a three hour wait for tow trucks, and they were asking that, if you were in a minor accident, that you wait for awhile to report it so that you don't tie up the police's time. Crazy.
Also, I read short article today about history repeating itself. Now, of course the author is a raging liberal like me, and so I am more inclined to agree, but the facts are I guess undeniable. Two things kill me about this:
1. If this happened in the past with this same cast of characters, why did we let it happen again? Why do we learn nothing from history?
2. Why the hell have I never heard about this until now? The so-called liberal media didn't bring this to our attention back in 2003. Why? I think that if the American public knew that Cheney and Rumsfeld had already tried to pull the old bullshit maneuver in the past to increase "defense" spending, we never would have gone for it.
Depressing. Have a great day!

Two in a row!

I think this a pretty accurate metaphorical history of the past decade. Two in a row from Mr. Rowland!

Prepare to be SHOCKED!

...and maybe even AWED.

As the result of another tidbit I heard on Morning Edition today, I'm writing another angry blog entry today. Curb your enthusiasm, people, I'm only one man.
A group called The Center for Public Integrity released a report called Iraq: The War Card - Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War. I know, sounds pretty exciting! This group meticulously documented 935 (!) false statements by administration officials regarding Iraq in the two years after 9/11, especially concentrated in the months leading up to our invasion. Now I'm sure you could find 260 things I've said in the past two years that turned out to be false (Bush's total). Three differences being: (1) Nobody gives a damn what I say, nor should they, since I am not an elected public official; (2) When I say things that turn out to be false I don't generally know beforehand that they are; (3) The harm that I can do by lying is many, many orders of magnitude lower than that Bush was able to accomplish. Following are a few excerpts from the summary:

False Pretenses
Following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

By Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration's case for war.

It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose "Duelfer Report" established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq's nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it.

In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003. Not surprisingly, the officials with the most opportunities to make speeches, grant media interviews, and otherwise frame the public debate also made the most false statements, according to this first-ever analysis of the entire body of prewar rhetoric.

..............................

Consider, for example, these false public statements made in the run-up to war:

* On August 26, 2002, in an address to the national convention of the Veteran of Foreign Wars, Cheney flatly declared: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." In fact, former CIA Director George Tenet later recalled, Cheney's assertions went well beyond his agency's assessments at the time. Another CIA official, referring to the same speech, told journalist Ron Suskind, "Our reaction was, 'Where is he getting this stuff from?' "
* In the closing days of September 2002, with a congressional vote fast approaching on authorizing the use of military force in Iraq, Bush told the nation in his weekly radio address: "The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. . . . This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year." A few days later, similar findings were also included in a much-hurried National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction — an analysis that hadn't been done in years, as the intelligence community had deemed it unnecessary and the White House hadn't requested it.
* In July 2002, Rumsfeld had a one-word answer for reporters who asked whether Iraq had relationships with Al Qaeda terrorists: "Sure." In fact, an assessment issued that same month by the Defense Intelligence Agency (and confirmed weeks later by CIA Director Tenet) found an absence of "compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al Qaeda." What's more, an earlier DIA assessment said that "the nature of the regime's relationship with Al Qaeda is unclear."
* On May 29, 2003, in an interview with Polish TV, President Bush declared: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories." But as journalist Bob Woodward reported in State of Denial, days earlier a team of civilian experts dispatched to examine the two mobile labs found in Iraq had concluded in a field report that the labs were not for biological weapons. The team's final report, completed the following month, concluded that the labs had probably been used to manufacture hydrogen for weather balloons.
* On January 28, 2003, in his annual State of the Union address, Bush asserted: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." Two weeks earlier, an analyst with the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research sent an email to colleagues in the intelligence community laying out why he believed the uranium-purchase agreement "probably is a hoax."
* On February 5, 2003, in an address to the United Nations Security Council, Powell said: "What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources." As it turned out, however, two of the main human sources to which Powell referred had provided false information. One was an Iraqi con artist, code-named "Curveball," whom American intelligence officials were dubious about and in fact had never even spoken to. The other was an Al Qaeda detainee, Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, who had reportedly been sent to Eqypt by the CIA and tortured and who later recanted the information he had provided. Libi told the CIA in January 2004 that he had "decided he would fabricate any information interrogators wanted in order to gain better treatment and avoid being handed over to [a foreign government]."

The false statements dramatically increased in August 2002, with congressional consideration of a war resolution, then escalated through the mid-term elections and spiked even higher from January 2003 to the eve of the invasion.

..............................

The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war. Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, "independent" validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq.

The "ground truth" of the Iraq war itself eventually forced the president to backpedal, albeit grudgingly. In a 2004 appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, for example, Bush acknowledged that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. And on December 18, 2005, with his approval ratings on the decline, Bush told the nation in a Sunday-night address from the Oval Office: "It is true that Saddam Hussein had a history of pursuing and using weapons of mass destruction. It is true that he systematically concealed those programs, and blocked the work of U.N. weapons inspectors. It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As your president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. Yet it was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power."

Bush stopped short, however, of admitting error or poor judgment; instead, his administration repeatedly attributed the stark disparity between its prewar public statements and the actual "ground truth" regarding the threat posed by Iraq to poor intelligence from a Who's Who of domestic agencies.

(All emphasis mine.) Am I the only person driven to blind rage by this? They lied knowingly on hundreds of occasions, or at least distorted the truth. The end result of this? Here are some statistics taken from some sort of Liberal Politics website using numbers culled from reports from The Brookings Institute:
- $600 BILLION taxpayer dollars spent on the war, with another $200 BILLION requested this year. (Holy shit! We're in a recession? Seriously? I wonder if each household would want its $4,100 each back right now.)
- 3,927 U.S. Troops killed so far. (Less 18% killed by non-hostile causes leaves 3,220 soldiers killed in combat.)
- Almost 29,000 U.S. Troops injured, 20% seriously
- 30% of troops develop "serious mental health problems" within 3-4 months of returning home
- At least 50,000 to 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed, and maybe as many as 600,000 (for comparison, about 625,000 Americans died during the Civil War, although a full 2/3 of those deaths were non-combat; total combat deaths equalled 213,000 - and we were the antagonist and protagonist).
- Approximately 4.4 to 4.5 MILLION Iraqis displaced internally and to Syria and Jordan.

All of this happened because our administration made a concerted effort to mislead its own citizens. And now they refuse to even make a mistake. I personally want all of our troops out of Iraq A.S.A.P. I realize, of course, that we broke it, and therefore we should fix it. But do the Iraqi people need more of our brand of fixing? Signs point to our recent activities making some improvement, but it has been too long, with far too great a cost of both money and lives, for our continued presence there to be accepted any longer. Yet even the most popular Democratic presidential candidates refuse to state unequivocally that they would pull us out posthaste.

If I had my druthers, my ideal solution would involve a total troop withdrawal accompanied by a public apology from our president for what he has wrought. That would, of course, not bring back any of the almost 4,000 dead Americans, or any of the $600B we've frittered away, but it would at least prevent further waste.

I have a number of conservative friends, but I expect that they avoid my blog like the plague because it probably makes them as angry as I am when I write my entries. But if they read, I'd like their take on this administration, and their reply to my statements.

Maybe I'm just mad because I bought a Mountain Dew out of the machine and it came out goddamn frozen. Who is in charge of these things? It's sitting on my office floor right now in an effort to have some diffuse solar radiation and sensible heat flux help out the melting process.

Taking the plunge

I finally spent some (way too much) time today trying to figure out for whom I should vote in the Democratic primary coming up on February 5 (Tsunami Tuesday) here in New Mexico. The Washington Post has a candidate quiz that actually gives the candidates' answers to a questionnaire. This quiz has one extremely mega-major flaw, in that it only provides answers by Clinton, Obama, and Edwards, neglecting my favorite candidate, Dennis Kucinich. Of course, I know that he has no chance, and I may end up voting for him anyway if he's still in the race, because of my quiz results.
Not surprisingly (to me), the quiz tells me that I should vote for John Edwards (29 points) because of a variety of things. Clinton and Obama come in second and third at 16 and 15 points, respectively. If Edwards is somehow out of the race by that point, it appears that there will be no major candidates about whom I am particularly excited; in that case, ol' Kucey gets my vote. Things I like about Kucinich: he wants to impeach Cheney; he wants to form a Department of Peace; he's been against the war in Iraq from the beginning; he wants us to sign onto Kyoto (the ONLY developed nation not to do so now); and he supports same-sex marriage.

Of course, I found a second quiz, which has given me different results, as these things often do. This one includes all of the minor candidates, and is much much faster to do (and therefore probably less accurate). Edwards comes in a whopping 6th on this quiz. The order, with their point totals:
Kucinich (69)
Gravel (54)
Obama (40)
Clinton (39)
Dodd (38)
Edwards (36)
Biden (33)
Richardson (24)
Paul (-6)
Giuliani (-22)
T. Thompson (-22)
McCain (-26)
Cox (-35)
Brownback (-40)
Huckabee (-47)
Romney (-56)
Tancredo (-63)
Hunter (-67)
If you don't know much about the candidates, this should be a good demonstration that Kucinich is the most whacked-out liberal amongst the group. Again, unfortunately he will not get the support he deserves.

Good news and bad news

Let's start with the bad. Pervez Musharraf has declared a state of emergency in Pakistan, and suspended the constitution, as well as taken all non-government stations off of television. Sound like some sort of Military Dictatorship? Wikipedia agrees. Now, our government has an expressed interest in turning dictatorships into democracies, yet we are staunch allies of Pakistan. Sounds awfully two-faced. Some of our other allies: India, Thailand, Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Russia, and Morocco. Some other spots that are not free: Sudan, Chad, China, Vietnam, Russia, and others. We don't do much about situations about these other countries. I assume this is because they are either too large, or they don't have any oil.

The good news is that I got all around Albuquerque yesterday without using a vehicle. Alison went to work, and I decided to take the bus to lunch. I took my $1 and my LG Chocolate and hopped on the #5 that runs from Downtown to the east side of town. It takes just about an hour to get out there, so I did some reading on evaporation and stable isotopes. Once I got off the bus (finally) I stopped at the Subway to get myself lunch, and the Pizza Hut to get some for Alison. We ate lunch outside of her office, then I headed back down to Montgomery to get back on the bus. This time the ride was pretty short. Also, the bus was very quiet because it's one of the new CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) buses. Go Abq! Importantly, the Target and the Wild Oats are both along the route, so I can do pretty much all of my shopping and wife-visiting on this single bus route. The drop off is probably about half a mile from our house, so it will be kind of an annoying slog carrying groceries home, but oh well. These are the sacrifices we have to make to live with minimal impact. Later last night, Alison and I walked downtown to the theater (a 3-mile roundtrip walk) to see The Darjeeling Limited, a Wes Anderson movie. It was a pretty good movie, and I liked the fact that there were no truly likable characters. Go see it and decide for yourself. Another nice thing is that all of the previews before the movie consisted of seemingly intelligent movies; no Fred Claus, or Saw IV, or Spongebob movies, etc. People didn't talk much during the movie either (except for me - I have this annoying habit of having to whisper something to Alison every like 10 minutes).

Why are people so terrible?

Let's start out with this: I am against the war in Iraq, and I always have been. It is a politically motivated exercise that seeks to secure our access to Middle Eastern oil in the future. Now I believe that the $465 BILLION that we've spent on the war could have been better applied to improve security and, gosh, I don't know, research some alternative energy sources. I thought there would be a big uproar back in September of 2006 when the death toll in Iraq passed that of the number that died on September 11, 2001 (not sure how CNN calculated the 9/11 casualties (Iraq is now up to 3,157 combat casualties), whether it includes people who have developed health problems due to rescue work, and their likely early deaths). That came and went fairly quietly, with few holding it up as an example of the uselessness of our time there (sorry, friends of mine who have been there).

I realize that my personal opinion has no weight on what will happen, but I surely hope that the opinion of over half of America should count for something, and that we should get out ASAP (it is depressing to note that, according to that poll, while almost half of Americans want our troops out in less than a year, only 10% believe that they actually will be out that quickly; the largest bin is 2 to 5 years).

Having ranted that, I am not against our troops. Except the bad eggs, which I hope are the exceptions. They're doing the job they are told to do, and I would certainly be afraid in their situation. Nearly everybody supports the troops, except for a few whackjobs. And those whackjobs are all super leftist liberals, right? Wrong.

In case you missed the news today, a federal jury awarded a Maryland man $10.9 million in damages in his suit against the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas. This group protests outside of soldiers' funerals. Their reasoning? Not disgust at the concept of war, or the futility of the exercise, or anything that actually has anything to do with Iraq, our military, the War on Terrah®, or our general security policies. No, they're protesting a completely unrelated (to anybody sane) governmental stance. Not our slipping liberties; our worsening human rights record; this administration's terrible environmental record; the unsatisfactory response to Hurricane Katrina; etc.

No, the group is protesting at funerals because it believes that the war is punishment for this country's supposedly lax treatment of homosexuals. This being the same country where gay people are obviously held in disdain by most of the populace. The same country where gay people can't get married because it destroys the idea of a family (I think our 50% divorce rate does a fine job of that, thanks). The same country that voted with Iran on an anti-LGBT bill in the U.N. (at least we have a starting point for negotiations with Iran now - hatin' queers!). How much less lax can it get? Worse than treating these people as second-class citizens? Didn't we learn our lesson with black people (and don't give me the "you can't choose to be black, you can choose to be gay" claptrap, Michael Jackson proves you wrong)? I wonder if it is comforting to gay people everywhere that they can rest assured that, one day, they will be accepted by our society, or if it is terrifying that it took black people pretty much an entire century from the abolishment of slavery to an actual governmental approach to make them equals, and that the same may very well apply to the LGBT community.

In any event, the news today was refreshing. I hope that this suit bankrupts the church and their apparent ability to travel around the country at will to disrupt one of three events that should never, ever be interrupted (the other being births and weddings) by undue scrutiny. I just tried to get on their website (www.godhatesfags.com), but it seems to be down. I hope it got flamed. Hate is a terribly strong word to throw around, and my personal conception of God provides no room for it. Nor should a purportedly Christian heart.

Another post bringing to your attention something someone else did!

"Look!"
"What?"
"Look!"
"Whoa...what is it?"
"It's..."

Another post bringing to your attention something someone else did!

From the genius webcomic, Overcompensating by Jeffrey Rowland (whom I have met, oh lucky me...I've even seen his brown recluse scar):

Enjoy!

Note: I changed my blog layout because it was too skinny for my liking before. Hope it is not now more annoying than before.

OMG Guys

OK. I haven't blogged in almost a month for a variety of reasons. I have an opus in the works, and I was going to not blog again until it was finished, but then I saw this:

One would think. If you haven't been introduced to the wonder of I Can Has Cheezburger, consider yourself introduced. Hizzah.

Does anybody else think this is a terrible idea?

So dubya is going to undergo a colonoscopy tomorrow; I hope it goes well and that he's ok. What I am pretty sure is not going to go well is the temporary promotion of our erstwhile, shotgun-wielding (and not in a rugged, Teddy Roosevelt kind of way) veep, who will be taking over while dubya is under. Now, one thing that I admire about the Republican party is that they have set it up so that there could never be a really serious push to get Bush impeached; they did so by putting somebody in the vice president's office that is so bat shit crazy that he actually believes (and states publicly!) that his office is not part of the executive branch. (Note: this article restores the tiniest bit of my confidence in the current Democrat-run house...but still I am wildly disappointed) What could be worse for American than Bush being president? Bush not being president.
Now, while Dubya is under, he is going to hand over presidential powers to Cheney. How can this not go wrong? This man is the single most power-hungry person in the history of persons, and we're going to suddenly have him in power. With the precedent sent by Bush's use of signing statements, I predict that Cheney will issue some sort of proclamation once he's officially in office that nullifies the section of the Constitution that puts Bush back into office when he is able. A year and a half of Cheney might actually be worse than 6.5 years of Bush. Get ready for the executive branch not being part of the executive branch, a total abolishment of checks and balances, replacement of the Supreme Court justices with various demons and devils (although the Court will no longer have any power), pogroms against the legislative branch, death penalties for any crime except fraud and extortion, the use of gay people as cannon fodder, and sending of atheists into the sea. Just see if it doesn't all happen.
Note: I'm kidding about all of this. Bush had the same procedure done in 2002, and handed power over to Cheney temporarily. Presumably, nothing terrible happened.

Best article ever (VI, VII)

Alison had an article out on Sunday that was the centerpiece of the California section. First, I'll point you toward another article that she helped out with, that was released back on the 5th. I never got to posting about it here.
Go here for the text of the article. It talks about the status of endangered species and the efforts of the administration to gut protections. A few choice quotes:

"The Bush administration has added 58 species to the endangered list, 54 of those in response to litigation. . . By comparison, 231 mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, insects and plants were protected by the president's father, George H.W. Bush, during his four years in office."

"Julie A. MacDonald, a deputy assistant secretary of the Interior who oversaw the endangered-species program, resigned last month after the inspector general found that she had ordered scientists to change their findings, and shared internal documents with lobbyists for agricultural and energy interests."

"To date, the Bush administration has taken 15 species off the endangered list — more than any other administration."

America, how is this OK? I am pissed off at you for voting for this man. A-GODDAMN-GAIN. Where is your righteous indignation? Why do so few cry foul when power over the protection of species is given to those who would rather not have those species protected? If you are interested in this issue (you should be), read Bush versus the Environment by Robert S. Devine. Then get angry and do something!

The new article (the aforementioned best article ever) can be found here. The subject is deaths in the All-American Canal, which runs close to and roughly parallel to the U.S.-Mexico border from the Colorado River west into California's Imperial Valley. Basically, what it boils down to is that the Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the canal system delivering water to various sprawling desert metropoli (rather than allowing it to go to the ocean - you may not know that the Colorado River now barely - or doesn't - flows in in Mexico; quote from the Wikipedia article - "The lower course of the river, which forms the border between Baja California and Sonora, is essentially a trickle or a dry stream today due to use of the river as Imperial Valley's irrigation source. Prior to the mid 20th century, the Colorado River Delta provided a rich estuarine marshland that is now essentially desiccated, but nonetheless is an important ecological resource.") doesn't want to bother with making the canal slightly safer. Read it and, if you live in California, write your Congressperson. Rock the Vote, 41.3% of Americans!

This is what's it's like when it all comes full circle

I recently wrote about the Bush commuting the prison term of Lewis Libby. Today our erstwhile president gave a press conference, during which he actually called his commutation "a fair and balanced decision". If that's not a shout-out to the administration's favorite "news" service, I don't know what is. See, it all comes full-circle. That is, if you could make a circle by connecting two points.

The Blind 29

I was going to write about last night's wedding, but was instead thrown into a rage over a bit of news I just heard. Apparently, our fearless leader has really gone out on a limb, and commuted Scooter Libby's jail sentence. I've written about this case before, and was not at all surprised by the news today. Not surprised, but still angered.
The facts:
- Libby still will have to pay a $250,000 fine
- Libby is on probation for 2 years
The surmissions (by NPR, not me):
- Libby's reputation is ruined
- Libby will not be able to work as a lawyer again
The following quote from Bush's statement on the matter:
"The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged," Bush said. "His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation. The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant and private citizen will be long-lasting."
My reply:
Tough shit. $250,000 would be a lot of money for someone like you or me (assuming you're like me, economically). $250,000 is a lot of money for someone like Libby too, to be sure, no pocket change. But when you make $170k per year (I have assumed an approximately similar per-year raise rate), it's certainly much easier to take. Especially when you have worked as a top lawyer for years and years.
He's going to lose his ability to practice law? Oh no! Of course, considering that he was hired by the conservative think tank Hudson Institute in January of '06, this along with the previous salary thing are probably not that big a deal. (Fun Facts aside! Google hudson institute libby. The first link is to a Hudson Institute staff bio page that is, shockingly, now blank, except for Libby's title at the top, "Senior Advisor." You can bet the farm that anybody working as a Senior Advisor for the Hudson Institute is making a boatload more money than you or I. Another Fun Fact, if you click on the second link in the google search, you get to the Hudson Institute's press release about hiring Libby. He is not listed in their staff directory (despite still having a blank page under their staff bios), but even better if you search for "Lewis Libby" on their webpage, you get 0 results! They are actually covering up the fact that he works for them.)
Furthermore, I am pretty sure that as a direct result of his actions, a certain Ms. Valerie Plame can never again work in her goddamn chosen field. And, unlike the case of Mr. Libby, where he won't be a lawyer again because he was found guilty by a jury of his peers of a number of crimes, Plame was brought down because her husband was a little too critical of the administration for their liking; I don't think anybody denies this. Plame was a victim of the administration's croneyism; in another way, so was Libby.
The speculation is that, what with Bush's poll numbers so low (29% - worst since Tricky Dick!), he had to do something to appease what is left of his base, the real neo-cons ("The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article or section are disputed" I bet they are!). Gotta get Libby out of jail to stop the leaking boat. Well, I for one hope that it doesn't work. Keep your 29%, you douchebag, but I expect that the 5% that were on the fence on that approval poll will now firmly be in the "disapprove" category.
Somebody deserves to go to jail for what happened. I think it criminal that this guy was pardoned.
I know that I have a number of conservative friends, although they may have stopped reading this blog about 25 liberal rants ago, but if they look at this, does anybody think this president character is on the right track? Does anybody approve of anything he does? Inquiring mind wants to know.

You, sir, are a racist.

If you're like most Americans, you don't really care what goes on in DC. So you may not know that the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, limited school districts' ability to use race as a factor in school admission. Why should you care? I mean, you're (probably) white so this (probably) actually makes things easier for you. I'm white, so this would make things easier for me if I ever actually needed to apply to a school ever again (which I don't) (although there are woefully few american-born minorities in hydrology anyway). You should care because we it is unjust, and I believe it is at heart a racist view.
Just consider this view, from one Roger Clegg, who appeared on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer this evening. Go here to check out the transcript of the conversation. But I want to point you toward a particular passage from the interview:

JUDY WOODRUFF: Just quickly, are you trying to pretend that racism doesn't exist?

ROGER CLEGG: Absolutely not. Racism does exist. We've made enormous progress, and I think that anybody who thinks that we haven't is delusional, but racism still exists.

Define "enormous." A member of the Ku Klux Klan made a run for president in 1988 and 1992, and held several offices in Louisiana. One of the most popular radio hosts in America believes that black people shouldn't get to swim. In one poll, 49% of black people said that racism is "a serious problem." But I guess it's a hell of a lot easier to say that we've made great strides if you're a successful, middle-aged white man.

But the best way to fight discrimination is not by piling more discrimination on top of it, not by creating new victims of racial discrimination.

Black people have had a terrible time for the past couple centuries, and, as white people, it is our fault. The Native Americans are having an even worse time, and, yes, that is also our fault. We did terrible, unconscionable things. Human rights violations on scales rarely seen. I don't understand why we don't consider it our duty to make things right for these people. Instead, we complain about bullshit like reverse racism, ignoring the fact that, if another group had done these terrible things to us, we would probably be pretty angry at them, and wary as to their intentions toward us. We once officially (and then unofficially) considered black people "less than." Now we expect them, despite extreme issues of poverty, incarceration rates, job discrimination, and political underrepresentation, to get themselves up to our economic, economic, and social level without help. I watched the All-American Presidential Forum on PBS tonight, and Dennis Kucinich said something that gave me a laugh: "They tell you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, then they steal your boots." You hold a person's head underwater until they're too tired to get back out, then you expect them to save themselves. What have we done for them to give them the skills to get out of their situation? Nothing. The best way to fight discrimination is to give people the tools to improve their situation, and that includes giving them priority for schools admissions, as well as giving the poor free health care, improving job placement and prison rehabilityation, and reforming our drug policies. My favorite thing that Clegg says in that last line is that giving minorities entrance priority is equivalent to "piling [on] more discrimination" because we all know that the only people being descriminated against are white people. He actually believes that white people are in danger of becoming less dominant because WE ARE BEING DESCRIMINATED AGAINST.

The best way to fight discrimination is by enforcing the laws that we have on the books against discrimination and by helping impoverished people, who come in all colors, but regardless of their skin color.

No, the best way to fight discrimination is to make all the racist people non-racist, but that ain't never going to happen because people are people. If blacks are at a greater disadvantage due to "unofficial" discrimination, should we not try to counteract that to make life fair and just?

If there are poor kids or kids who are not getting a good education, help them improve their schools, but it should be done for all of them, regardless of their skin color, whether they're white or black or brown or yellow.

Yes I agree. But you are deluding yourself if you actually believe that wealth and race do not go hand-in-hand. I bet that middle class and rich people would also be upset if you started changing your admissions requirements to give poor people preference. Justice is facing the consequences of your past actions; in our case, it is holding people down because of their race, and justice (and ethics, and morals) dictates that we do what we can to help them out.

Hoo boy.

So I'm currently watching Frontline on PBS. The episode tonight is titled Endgame. It's about the steps we took that got us into the mess we're in now. Now, I started writing this because I heard a great quote by dubya that I wanted to get right, but I can't find it anywhere. This was a quote from early in the was, something to the effect of the life of the people of Iraq is an example to the other peoples of the Middle East of what it is like to live in a free country. That considered, I'm sure that nobody will ever want to live in a free country again, what with conditions there being what they are.

Here's a pretty apt quote:
Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction.
George W. Bush
Fact: The United States has more than an order of magnitude more active nuclear warheads than any other country on Earth other than Russia.