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

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

...just another tragic Israeli mistake... 

...having gone through days and days of neither Gee Dub or Condi being able to shut up about how the U.S. won’t support a cease fire in the conflict between Israel and every single person in Lebanon regardless of allegience to Hezbollah, it shouldn’t come as any sort of surprise that we would come to this. After all, Israel had already been given a pass earlier in the conflict when they didn’t earn much in the way of international condemnation after killing several Canadians, so it should be perfectly reasonable to expect them to think that a little collateral damage here and there is not going to cause much trouble...

Something like this should have been expected in any case. For all the storied capability of the Israeli military, they have demonstrated in the past that they can be somewhat less than competent when it comes to target identification. The case of the USS Liberty clearly shows that, in using everything from aerial bombardment to point-blank fire from circling gunboats, they simply didn’t have the skill-set necessary to identify the large American flag flying from the ship they were machine-gunning to bloody pieces.

Donald Rumsfeld had it right, even though he got nothing but grief for the statement by all of us hard-hearted terrorist-loving lefties: you go to war with the army you have. The army that Israel has suffers mightily from incompetence at target identification and map reading and has for a long time, or so this growing list of 'unfortunate' attacks would suggest. They also suffer from a complete failure to understand human nature; they don’t know that yet, but the long-term consequences of their seemingly indiscriminate bombing of Lebanon - supposedly to turn Lebanese hearts against Hezbollah - will undoubtedly present them an opportunity for a learning moment. If there’s a bad guy in my part of town because of whom you bomb my neighborhood and kill my kin and neighbors, my red-hot thirst for revenge is not going to be directed at the bad guy. But maybe that’s just me...
Posted by: Jack K. / 10:03 PM 0 comments

Mt. Hood Wilderness - Leaving Well Enough Alone 

...it may not be so notable as it seems that Earl Blumenauer, a fairly liberal Democrat, and Greg Walden, a distinctly conservative Republican, could come together as Congressmen whose districts encompass both sides of Oregon’s Mt. Hood to craft legislation that creates 77,216 new acres of designated wilderness around that particular geographic and photographic icon. They have, after all, worked hard in collaboration over the last three years, including a notable backpack trip around the base of the mountain last August, in an effort to make this whole thing come together, and it is a sort of image-burnishing episode for both of them and especially for Walden. He has been forced to witness some of the population centers in Oregon District 2 shift before his very eyes away from the more rural, conservative, land-use-based population of years past to a more recreational, quality-of-life oriented constituency as places like Ashland, Medford, the Columbia Gorge, and Central Oregon become hot commodities as a place to live in part because of the wonders of the surrounding environment. It could, on the other hand, be notable that their bipartisan proposal actually passed the House without a single dissenting vote, indicating either a) the power of Walden’s senority, 2) extraordinary dealmaking ability on the part of one or both Congressmen, or III) an absolute absence of interest on the part of conservatives - who normally pull out all the stops to oppose this sort of federal land allocation - in the presence of the need to crank out a bunch of useless "values" votes on flag-burning and stem-cells and gay marriage. In any case, it is what it is...

Now, however, it’s time for a personal message to Oregon’s two Senators, Ron Wyden(Dem) and Gordon Smith (Repub)...

As Paul Harvey used to say (when I listened to him back in the day before I found out just how much of a wackjob he could be): "Closed-circuit for Wyden and Smith":

Just let it go, guys.

Don’t try to fix nothin’. Just support the House version.

For whatever reason, Wyden and Smith, in the course of their personal negotiations, are seeking more than the House version hammered out over three painful years, perhaps as much as 25% more. While I would normally say "more power to ya, boyz", the fact is that adding land to the Federal Wilderness system is a tough game to play these days, and anything that would result in the whole deal falling apart is a far worse prospect that getting a sizable amount added, even if it’s not all you personally wanted. Twenty years ago, on a trip to Disneyland in my early married years, the entrance to the roller coaster ride "Space Mountain" had numerous large lurid signs at numerous exits warning that pregnant woment, people with heart issues, and the terminally timid should abandon the line now and flee to safety, to best avoid the brutal, violent G-forces that this ugly monster of a ride was anxioiusly waiting to inflict all who continued onward. The public process of changing Federal land management allocations should be equipped with the same signs and escape routes, because it is not a game for either the casual or the neophyte. While it may not be all it could be, the Blumenauer-Walden effort is a lot, and barring some twisted misinterpretation of existing Wilderness management regulations, Wyden and Smith should agree over whatever table they find themselves sitting at that their best bet, if all parties are truly interested in adding to the Federal Wilderness System, is to support the House bill and not to run off on some tangent of their own. Sometimes you just have to leave well enough alone...
Posted by: Jack K. / 9:29 PM 0 comments

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