<$BlogRSDURL$>

Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Saturday, May 13, 2006

So Who Said He Was Innocent? 

...there wasn't ever any reason that any objective person could look at the whole "Plamegate" scandal and assume that Scooter Libby was some sort of loose cannon running around blowing a CIA agent's cover on his own hook. The whole thing was a piece of down and dirty politics that has the fat smudgy fingerprints of a Karl Rove all over it...or maybe even a Dick Cheney. Now we have evidence of Cheney's casual scrawling of Valerie Plame's CIA background on a newspaper clipping. In itself this is remarkable, given that the CIA made it very clear that she wasn't supposed to be known under any circumstances as a CIA employee, and yet Big Dick is casually scrawling that very identification onto the margins of the editorial, presumably in a situation where people who didn't have a prayer of even acquiring the clearance to know of her background would end up having the pleasure of such knowledge...

Libby's a little fish, a small-potatoes actor who essentially did what he was told in an effort to bitchslap an opponent. If he is the only one to sit uncomfortably at the defense table in some federal courtroom over this whole Plame episode, we will have witnessed a complete, perfect failure of the judicial system as a check on official misbehavior. The only question in that event would be whether one buys more and larger firearms or makes that move to Canada...
Posted by: Jack K. / 5:33 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Muddling the Forest Management Issue One More Time 

...maybe it’s because it’s been a long week already, or maybe it’s because I’ve just had enough of having to listen to every half-witted maroon with some cockeyed take, but I now find myself violating my self-promise to refrain from commenting on various aspects of Congressman Greg Walden’s so-called ‘forest recovery’ act that would streamline the fire salvage planning process. Crazy talk has abounded on both sides of the issue, and now a group I’ve not previously heard of, Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology (FUSEE, pronounced - I’ll just bet - with long ‘u’ and long ‘e’ sounds, as a bit of an insider’s joke), has denounced the bill in part because young, densely packed plantations create the risk of extreme fire behavior...

This is - quite simply - nonsense.

No, not the contention itself - that’s true as far as it goes - but the apparent logical underpinnings that support it. Whether these FUSEE clowns just don’t know it, or whether they’re just making crap up, the fact remains that burned forests, if they can, are eventually going to reforest themselves anyway and the density of small trees - and in some cases highly flamable brush - will be as high - if not higher - than in any plantation created by human hand. The risk of “blowups” somewhere down the line is going to exist in any case. FUSEE's other point, regarding the potential loss of funding for wildland-urban interface fuels reduction, is shakey at best because it's fundamental misunderstanding of the appropriation process and the actual impacts of Walden's bill, but it, at least, rises to the level of a reasonable concern. The suggestion of increased danger because of human-caused plantations, on the other hand, is simple stupidity...

There are all sorts of reasons that a person can be opposed to Walden’s bill, just as there are reasons to support it; it’s just another skirmish line in the on-going battle over how formerly multiple-use public land is going to be managed in the future. Sadly, the leading edges of both sides of the argument are generally so overwhelmed by fact-free bullshit that knowledgable people can't get a word in edgewise...but that's become the way of the world, eh? This most recent entry into the discussion is a perfect example of that problem...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:20 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Being All Somebody Else Wants You to Be 

... The idea that Jared Guinther could have been recruited into US military service under any circumstances, given the fact that he was originally diagnosed as being autistic at the age of three and had no particular understanding of the circumstances of his recruitment and its ramifications, is the sort of ugly nightmare that no parent should have to endure. At the bottom, his parents efforts to try to provide Jared with a degree of normalization in his life almost blew up in their faces when military recruiters, hungering to make up for last year's failure to meet recruiting goals, swept him up in this year's effort to meet those live body-count numbers, no matter what....

Jared's parents had to go to lengths to which no parents should have to go to get this mess fixed. The hunger that the military maw has for fresh meat is powerful, especially given the need that Gee Dub's Grand Iraqi Nation-Building Adventure has created. Jared Guinther wasn't a viable candidate, except in the eyes of some recruiter who had a quota to fill and no particular direction on how to get there. Only the bright light shining on this issue by the Oregonian and the attention of Congressman Earl Blumenauer have saved what could have been a truly tragic situation from manifesting itself...

Those of us who are parents have only one purpose in life: to raise those children that we created to be the best people that they can be. We hope faintly that they may somehow grow up to become the sort of people who can make a difference in the trajectory of society, but if they just end up being stable wage-earners who contribute positively to society, we're OK with that, too. But we spend 18 years trying to keep these creations of ours safe from the dangers of the world, and we trust in our government to play its own role in making the right decisions and keeping them safe. It appears that this pact with our government, previously so well understood, has been ruptured because of that government's compelling need to provide fodder for the improvised explosive devices that have uselessly killed and maimed so many American troops. The effort to recruit Jared Guinther is an embarrassment that never should have happened. The fact that it did is is something that we should neither forget or be quiet about...
Posted by: Jack K. / 9:12 PM 0 comments

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Militarized Intelligence 

...it's natural to assume that Washington politicians, especially in an election year, are going to start slide-stepping away from a President of their party who has approval ratings approaching those of the worst Presidents this country has ever had to endure. This weekend's display, however, in response to the suggestion that Gee Dub will appoint Air Force General Michael Hayden to be the new head of the CIA, is noteworthy in a couple of important respects.

In the first place, it has traditionally been somewhat uncommon to see such widespread concern expressed over a presidential appointee by members of the President's own party, especially since Republicans took over the majority in Congress. Republicans made all the right non-partisan noises in the recent spate of Supreme Court nominees, even putting on a brave face while the true believers ripped Harriet Miers to shreds below the surface like a pack of tiger sharks on a blood trail. The response in the media and on the Sunday talk shows to the nomination of Hayden's nomination is - in the normal world of partisan politics - a remarkable event to witness given that even Senator Saxby Chambliss, who is beholden to the Bushies more than just about any other Senator, objects to this nomination at the outset. Right now, Gee Dub and the gang don't need this kind of action...

It is also noteworthy that it is Republicans expressing concern about a military man taking over an otherwise civilian agency. All by itself, such a proposal would starkly illustrate the degree of tone-deafness with which this administration is inflicted with respect to their own supporters. The 'thiry percenters' will continue to be right there with George and his minions, of course; they have hitched their hopes to this dilapidated wagon for good or ill, and they're going to ride this thing out to the end. That other 20 or so percent of his electoral support consists of a whole lot of traditional conservatives, many possessing a certain libertarian bent, and the whole 50 percent or so that put him in office is riddled with anti-government types who have a whole lot of problems with anything more than a master/servant relationship between the civilian government and the military. The reluctance of some leading Republicans shows that they, at least, have a better feel for the lay of the land than does this administration. They understand that there are going to be a sizable number of their constituents who won't be cool at all with the idea of an Air Force General, especially one who just looks like he's lying as he tries to coo reassuring sweet nothings about how they would never eavesdrop on your phone calls, taking over a civilian agency like the CIA. I mean, come on; the CIA is spies and undercover action and James Bond and Mission Impossible, and not some guy who looks like the character that Central Casting sent down to play the evil banker eager to foreclose on the family farm, especially when you swaddle him up in all that Air Force Blue and campaign ribbons and medals and such. This "We're at War" chatter is only going to go so far, and it isn't exactly a readily accepted currency on the American street right now in any case. What we're seeing is smart politics being played by a number of Congressional independent agents who clearly understand that Bushco isn't much of a powerbroker right now (well, OK, so John McCain has decided to become its best friend in the world, but his views are easily rejected out of hand because he would drink Gee Dub's bathwater if it would gain him the Republican nomination). They may coyly "have their minds changed" somewhere down the road by the honesty, forthrightness, and pure goodness of General Hayden's words and heart, but for now they're playing to their constituencies because they know this is going to be a hard sell in their corners of the heartland, even though the gang in the White House can't figure it out...
Posted by: Jack K. / 6:49 PM 0 comments

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?