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

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Speaking Truth to Leadership on The Other Side of The Pond 

...as they say around these parts when a feed lot steer figures out how to open up a gate and make a break for it down the highway, "There's somethin' you don't see every day." And in the case of British General Gen. Richard Dannatt, it's more certainly true than you could ever even guess. Imagine a member of the United States Joint Chief's of Staff, in the climate that we have endured over the last few years, suggesting that our only logical choice for a variety of really good reasons is to 'cut and run'. OK, so don't, if the mere idea is going to give you a sick headache or something, but still, the simple idea that a current leading member of the British military is speaking the sorts of truths that American generals can only seem to find in their vocabulary just moments before or after in the days after their retirement sends the mind off in directions that probably aren't healthy...

Nothing that 'Sir Richard' says comes as a surprise; his comments are only remarkable in that he is the current British version of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. It's just another ratification of the very fact that 'mishandling' is just another cheap bit of shorthand for the failure that the invasion of Iraq and, perhaps more painfully for those of us who supported the Afgan invasion, and the risk to which we are now subjected as a nation because of that stark failing. The general is on some strange singular journey, walking himself all the way out to the edge and dangling some toes over the edge. Everything he's saying is true, but truth isn't a particularly valued currency these days amongst the architects of our current nation-building exercise. It will be interesting to see how well this fellow survives the predictable fallout that his statements will engender in Tony "Lapdog" Blair's inner circle as Blair plays out his own personal endgame, trying to hammer out a positive legacy from his own blind willingness to sign on to George W. Bush's disastrous military policy in the War on Terra while the leader of his military calls Tony's efforts "naive"...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:42 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

One Small Step For Man Against Measure 37 

...it is needless to say that Measure 37, the successful Oregon ballot measure that granted either compensation or release from land use regulations that restricted their use of their land any way they saw fit to land owners whose ownership predated those regulations, has made a complete hash of anything that might reasonably resemble logical land use planning in the Beaver State. It was a snow job from the start, being foisted off on voters as an effort to rescue poor little old 94-year-old ladies trapped with land made worthless by onerous land use requirements while actually being backed primarily by large development interests mostly interested in turning prime farm land into much more lucrative subdivision, and the actual damage that it will inflict on the rural quality of life is yet to be fully measured, but the early returns haven’t looked good for anyone who shared Tom McCall’s views about why Oregon was and should remain such a great place to live. Victories for the anti-37 gang have been few, with the most notable exception being the yet-to-be-litigated interpretation that development rights granted under Measure 37 aren’t transferable - you can turn your land into a subdivision, but you can’t sell it to someone else to turn into a subdivision. Yesterday brought one more little victory in the battle against Measure 37 when, by a resounding 71% majority, voters in Jefferson County (county seat - Madras) refused to recall County Commissioner Walt Ponsford because of his efforts to apply Measure 37 (in particular his refusal to agree to waive development fees that weren't in place when when some Measure 37 petitioners bought their land, an issue that wasn't addressed in the ballot measure)...

It would hopefully be instructive to the voters of Washington and Idaho, who will be voting on similar measures next month, if they would only understand just exactly what the ramifications of such a measure are. It’s all about the conversion of open spaces and agricultural land to tract housing and other development, with a likely downstream conflict between all those homeowners and John Q. Farmer who is still working his land because of the smell or the noise or the dust. Recall elections have become the misused tool of the true muscle behind 37; they want what they want and won’t even let the sloppy design of their measure to stand in the way of getting what they want. They’ve attempted to recall judges who don’t rule in their favor, taken runs at elected officials who won’t bend to their will, and even tried to recall the Jefferson County Clerk when recall petitions were rejected because they were on the wrong forms, only to withdraw the effort when a judge sided with the Clerk. Powerful passions may be involved, but they mostly are so because there is big money riding the outcome of decisions in this era of dramatically increasing prices for housing. For now, however, the limits of the power that M37 supporters are trying to exert over the proper role of government has been defined, and the amusing part of this beatdown of a failure their recall effort is that it was their own friends and neighbors who told them, quite frankly, to shove it...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:43 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Going to the Well Once Too Often, Part II 

...six years of economic policy that has served few but the more well-to-do amongst us coupled with wild, almost irresponsible spending in an effort to make sure that Repub members of Congress could claim to having brought the bacon home. Six years of failed foreign policy that now makes us look like half-witted cheap empty-threat-spouting losers now that all of Gee Dub's bellicosity toward North Korea has led to...well, even lipstick on this pig makes it look remarkably like failure. Five years of nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq that has made both of those war-torn countries some of the most dangerous places on earth rather than bright shining beacons on some hill. Five years of assaults on some of the most fundamental values that have been the core of this country for over two centuries. After all of this, what does the President of the United States think that he needs to talk about?

Gee Dub wants to talk about how Democrats are big spenders and big taxers. That's what he wants to talk about, when he's not talking about how Democrats could somehow be less concerned about the safety of Americans in the face of terrorist threat. It's almost impossible to imagine a more out of touch series of talking points than what the Rovian machine is cranking out right now, but there it is. The creator of the most dangerous situation that America has ever faced and the engineer of most brutal economic situation middle-class workers have faced in a dozen years is going to fling the Democrats' strenght back in their face, only this time even the most casual voter is beginning to have pretty serious questions about just where the heck this stage coach is heading and whether anybody is actually holding the reins. It's almost embarassing, really, and if we were talking about some sympathic character that was floundering around on the national stage there might be a certain bit of compassion that could be engendered...

But that's not the case. The case is that a gang who came to power under questionable circumstances and decided to parlay a narrow second-term victory into some sort of manufactured "mandate" is pretty much fetched up against the shoals of its own hubris. "Silk purse" and "sow's ear" don't begin to cover the problems that they have created for themselves, both in their ham-handed mishandling of foreign affairs and in their abandonment of both traditional conservative values and the twisted viewpoints of their fundo-fascist base. The putrid scent of "loser" is permeating every move that they make, but it doesn't guarantee a victory for the needed changes. Diebold voting machines and recent Rebub GOTV organization may still win the day for these clowns and keep them in power despite all the polling data to the contrary. This is the time for Democrats to pour it on, hammering away at the failures and organizing GOTV campaigns (absentee ballots and all). It's time for all of us to step up and serve as we can; the restoration of this country's values call for no less...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:45 PM 0 comments

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Stick a Fork In Macaca-Man 

...it wasn't even supposed to be an important race, even though it featured recent Repubican James Webb as the Democratic opponent for George Felix Macacastein Allen, a sitting US Senator, former governor, former US Congressman, and leading candidate for the '08 Repub presidential nomination. But you just simply can't discount the inbred racism and hubris of those who view themselves as being part of the entitled class, and Allen is nothing if not a member of that class, at least in his view. So it's no surprise, really, that he can't even understand why this sort of action is somehow wrong...

Entitlement is a powerful engine for those who believe they are a member of the entitled. How the hell Macaca-boy got here, based on the strength of being the son of a former NFL football coach is something that must be left for those psycho-knowledgable amongst us, but the fact remains that Allen seems to lack at least the genes that scream out warning signals when a fellow is getting out on the ragged edge of propriety. Whatever other failings George Felix Allen may be suffering from, he has single-handedly converted his reelection campaign from a pro-forma exercise into a real-live by-God contest. With this latest revelation piled upon all of his previous gaffes, mistatements, and mistakes, a person is left to wonder what other than the most vicious of negative advertising could convince anyone with more brains than some barnyard animal to even consider voting for him...

...of course, one should never doubt the dedication of the Repub base, eh?
Posted by: Jack K. / 9:09 PM 0 comments

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