Urging Congress to pass the Energy Bill

Chris Abraham, who works for SaveOurEnvironment.org, sent me a nice email inviting me to steal the following ad and put it in my blog. It is aimed at getting Congressman Kirk, one of the more conservative members of the Illinois delegation, to support the Energy Bill now being considered by Congress. The comprehensive Energy Bill has strong standards for fuel economy and renewable energy. It is being opposed by the auto industry among others, but has strong support among environmental groups (which apparently now includes a lot of church people -- check out the list of ad sponsors at the bottom.)

Representative Kirk:

Pass a Good Energy Bill and
Get Us Into the End Zone!

This summer, members of the House and Senate each worked hard to pass energy bills. Now it’s time for Congress to finish the job and pass a comprehensive bill -- one that will bring the nation’s fleet of cars and trucks to an average of 35 mpg and 15 percent of our electricity coming from renewable energy by 2020. This is a critical step in the fight to break America of its addiction to fossil fuels and a down payment in combating global warming.

This is our chance to make our country more energy independent, create good jobs, save consumers money, protect our natural resources, and reduce the growth of global warming pollution.

This ad is sponsored by:
Protestants for the Common Good - Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago - League of Women Voters of Illinois - Faith In Place - Environment Illinois - Defenders of Wildlife - Earthjustice - Environmental Defense - National Environmental Trust - IL members of Natural Resources Defense Council - Sierra Club - Union of Concerned Scientists - Alliance for the Great Lakes - Illinois Environmental Council - Lake County Audubon Society - Chicago Audubon Society - Alaska Wilderness League - Audubon Chicago Region - Alaska Wilderness League

Republicans protest claim that President is "amused"

As reported by the Associated Press:

Congressman Pete Stark (D-Ca), who's in his 18th term representing the liberal East Bay near San Francisco, took to the floor to accuse Republicans of funding the Iraq war but not children's health.

"You don't have money to fund the war or children," Stark declared. "But you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the President's amusement."
….

The outburst from Rep. Pete Stark as the House debated a children's health bill drew immediate condemnation from Republicans who demanded he retract it.

I guess I share Pete Stark’s impression that the President is more amused than concerned by the consequences of his decisions. If that is a false impression then I think the President may want to consider changing the way he presents himself in public. His current emphasis on how at peace he is with his decisions and his smirking and smiling at seemingly inappropriate moments while speaking may be giving some Americans the wrong impression.

Thom Hart leaving

Thom Hart is leaving the Quad Cities to take a job with the state of Iowa. It is a shame that he is not sticking around to see how accurate his predicitions about the benefits the proposed Triumph pork processing plant in rural East Moline would bring to the Quad Cities turn out to be. To refresh your memory he said:

In a news conference this afternoon announcing details of the proposed plant along Barstow Road, Quad-City Economic Development Group President Thom Hart recalled a decades-old effort to create access to 53rd Street from Interstate 74 in Iowa.

“The only thing we did wrong then was we underestimated,” he said of the resulting growth along the corridor.

Hart said that Triumph Foods’ new plant in St. Joseph, Mo., already is showing signs of new development related to the plant, which is not scheduled to open until after the first of the year. He said a truck wash already has “popped up” on land adjacent to the plant.

He expects additional developments, such as a strip mall and bank branch, to follow the construction in East Moline. He also expects as many as 3,000 new jobs to spin off the 1,000 that are created about a year after the plant opens.

read the entire article

I was skeptical about his vision of development arising around a pork processing in rural Rock Island County similar to the development we see in the 53rd St. corridor in Davenport. Perhaps he will return in a few years to assess the accuracy of his prediction.

David Brooks – "We’re the good guys"

In his column in today’s New York Times David Brooks continues to insist that the conservatives and the Republicans are the good guys and the liberals and Democrats are the bad guys even while reporting on an interview he had with a Republican Congresswoman whose decision to retire was largely fueled by her (and her mother’s) disgust with the ads the national Republicans aired on her behalf during the last campaign.

“I was appalled by what I had to do,” [Deborah Pryce – Republican Ohio Congresswoman] said. In close races, the national parties send teams of professionals to take over campaigns, and the candidates who resist their efforts generally lose.

When Pryce spoke about the direct-mail letters that went out under her name, she did so with a look of disgust. She said that her friends kept coming to her to complain about the TV ads she was running against her opponent. Finally, her own mother told her she was ashamed of the ads.

The truth is, Pryce’s opponents did worse. But it was her own ads that she kept dwelling on, and as she spoke, I could see that she’d been fighting the war that the best politicians fight — the war within herself to preserve her own humanity.

read the entire article

You almost have to wonder how David Brook's head does not explode from the cognitive dissonance. Only the reassuring thought that no matter how dirty the Republican campaigns were surely the Democrats must have done worse saves his sanity.

What part of illegal don’t you understand?

I came across an interesting article by Tim Wu at Slate.com:

This series explores the black spots in American law: areas in which our laws are routinely and regularly broken and where the law enforcement response is … nothing. These are the areas where, for one reason or another, we've decided to tolerate lawbreaking and let a law—duly enacted and still on the books—lay fallow or near dead.

Why are there dead zones in U.S. law? The answer goes beyond the simple expense of enforcement but betrays a deeper, underlying logic. Tolerated lawbreaking is almost always a response to a political failure—the inability of our political institutions to adapt to social change or reach a rational compromise that reflects the interests of the nation and all concerned parties. That's why the American statutes are full of laws that no one wants to see fully enforced—or even enforced at all.

You know when people say “it’s not about the money, it’s the principle involved” you know that it’s really about the money? In a similar manner when someone says “I’m not against all immigrants, I just cannot stand to see our laws being flaunted” you should know that they don’t like immigrants.

Death is Iraq’s commander-in-chief

Check out Jane Stillwater’s blog. She is reporting from Iraq, giving a point of view you will not hear on CNN or ABC.

What everyone here in Baghdad is really talking about is DEATH. Death is everywhere here. It permeates the very air we breathe. It seeps into our conversations and into our dreams -- which explains why, since I have arrived in this country, I almost never sleep.
….
But I know what the next question I should ask after that one should be. “How can the supposedly-idealistic United Nations, the supposedly-democratic United States, the supposedly-civilized European Union or even Russia or China allow a country to exist with Death as its commander-in-chief?“ They overthrew Saddam here. They should overthrow Death too. But they won't. Instead, Death has been given permanent membership on the UN Security Council. Death is now a member of the G-8.

link

This is the first reporting I have read from Iraq that seems honest to me. All the main-stream media reports from Iraq seem to be trying to present the situation in Iraq as if continuing to wage war was a perfectly reasonable option that sober and serious people could reasonably choose as the best foreign policy option. It is like reading a weird merger of George Orwell’s 1984 with Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. The current situation in Iraq is something that only a lunatic would choose. Hundreds of people are dying every week. Our dead are being flown home in flag-draped coffins which the news media are not allowed show. Politicians are saying if we stop the war bad things could happen, as if the current situation was not so bad. Those politicians should go over to Iraq and talk to the people Jan Stillwater has been talking to.

Soul-searching in the military

An article in today’s New York Times by Elisabeth Bumiller talks about the soul-searching over the War in Iraq going on in the army:

Discussions between a New York Times reporter and dozens of young majors in five Leavenworth classrooms over two days — all unusual for their frankness in an Army that has traditionally presented a facade of solidarity to the outside world — showed a divide in opinion. Officers were split over whether Mr. Rumsfeld, the military leaders or both deserved blame for what they said were the major errors in the war: sending in a small invasion force and failing to plan properly for the occupation.
…..
Much of the debate at Leavenworth has centered on a scathing article, “A Failure in Generalship,” written last May for Armed Forces Journal by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, an Iraq veteran and deputy commander of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment who holds a master’s degree in political science from the University of Chicago. “If the general remains silent while the statesman commits a nation to war with insufficient means, he shares culpability for the results,” Colonel Yingling wrote.

Read the entire article.

It seems strange to me that this discussion is going on in the military while no similar discussion is occurring among journalists. Journalists had a much greater obligation and duty to question the civilian leadership of the country before and during the start of the war than did the generals.

CBS news anchor Katie Couric said recently:

“Everyone in this room would agree that people in this country were misled in terms of the rationale of this war,” said Couric, adding that it is “pretty much accepted” that the war in Iraq was a mistake.

“I’ve never understood why [invading Iraq] was so high on the administration’s agenda when terrorism was going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that [Iraq] had no true connection with al Qaeda.”

Where is the soul-searching there? Why is she not asking herself why she did not speak up when it could have made a difference, as some in the military are now doing?

Making abortions illegal does not reduce the number

According to the Voice of America

A global study finds that abortion rates are about the same in countries where it is legal and where it is outlawed. As Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from Geneva, the World Health Organization study also says the number of abortions has dropped worldwide due to more use of birth control and better family planning.
Read entire article

If so-called pro-life people who want Roe vs Wade overturned and to make abortion illegal, at least in some states, are motivated by a desire to reduce the number of abortions then, according to this study, they should stop right now. Making abortions illegal does nothing to reduce the number of abortions. All it does is make the abortion riskier for the mother and to make life more difficult for everyone. If they want to reduce the number of abortions then they should abandon efforts to outlaw it and instead, make birth control and better family planning more freely available.

But, I suspect that abortion opponents already knew that. I suspect that most people who are working to make abortions illegal have little interest in the welfare of unborn babies or their mothers. Since the only thing their actions are accomplishing is creating difficulties for people working in and using the services of family planning clinics I suspect their real agenda is to punish people who don’t think like they do. In that respect their actions have been a great success in advancing their cause and the results of this study will not dissuade them in the slightest.

In war truth is the first casualty

On the October 6 edition of Fox News' The Beltway Boys, co-host and Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes claimed:

You know, I've thought for a long time that Obama's not in quite as strong a position on the war in Iraq as he really thinks he is. Remember, when he famously came out against the war, it was back in a time when the entire world believed that Saddam Hussein in Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that he would probably be willing to use them himself at some time or pass them along to terrorists who would use them. And yet, Barack Obama was against going to the war at that point. I don't think that shows that he is very strong on national security, which he needs to be. But that argument's not going to be used against him in the Democratic primaries. It would, however, by Republicans in a general election.

A lot has been said about this already in other blogs but I want to comment on how this quote illustrates perfectly how the debate over the war in Iraq is a battle in which we have truth on one side and lies and deceit on the other. In the quote above Fred Barnes is denying that in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq anyone believed what the Iraqis and the U.N. weapons inspectors and others were telling us, what we now know to be the truth, that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. Fred Barnes is claiming that Barack Obama believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (since that is what everyone believed) and yet still opposed the war. The possibility that Barack Obama opposed the war because he did not believe what the Bush Administration was saying, that he was right when so many others were wrong, does not seem to be a thought that Fred Barnes is capable of entertaining. Think about the implications of that.

These are people whose whole world view is so completely divorced from reality that they can not, as shown by this quote, recognize the truth when it is staring them in the face.

Deportee

The song that best expresses how I feel about illegal immigrants today was written over 50 years ago by Woodie Guthrie. In 1948 an airplane carrying illegal immigrants being deported to Mexico caught fire and crashed over California's Los Gatos canyon. Apparently in the radio news accounts that Woody Guthrie heard, instead of listing the names of the victims as he expected 'the radio said they were just deportees.' So, Woody wrote a song, entitled 'Deportee.'

The lyrics express the viewpoint of someone who has worked alongside of Mexican immigrants picking crops in fields and orchards and also picking up a knowledge of Spanish names and a few Spanish phrases. The lyrics also reflect the bond that has developed between Woody and his Mexican fellow workers that results in him resenting the treatment of Mexican immigrant workers when they are abused and demeaned because of their illegal status.

My brother just sent me a link of a video of Arlo Guthrie and Emmylou Harris singing Deportee. It is the best performance of this song that I have heard, powerfully conveying the emotional impact of the song. As you listen notice the poetry of the lyrics -- how Woody captured a viewpoint of this social and political issue that he had developed over a lifetime of experience in just a few words.

Don’t talk to me about Artificial Intelligence

My wife was at a function the other night without me and ran into an acquaintance. ‘Your husband is a computer programmer isn’t he?” she asked my wife. “I’d like to talk to him. I just read something about Artificial Intelligence and would like to talk to someone about it.”

“You don’t want to talk to Dave about Artificial Intelligence,” my wife replied.

The reason no one wants to hear my views on the subject is that I don’t believe in it. Among people who are interested in and talk about Artificial Intelligence some are very happy and optimistic about the idea that computers some day may became so intelligent that they no longer need human programmers to tell them how to solve problems. Others say they are fearful and apprehensive about that possibility. It turns out neither group wants to be told that it won’t happen.

You might think that the people who claim to be very worried about something would be relieved and grateful to be reassured that it won’t happen, but when it comes to worries about a future in which computers are more intelligent than their human creators you would be wrong. I’ve given the matter some thought and decided that there are two possible explanations. The first is that people like the feeling of being worried and apprehensive, at least about an exotic and intriguing future. The other possibility is that they are not really fearful and saying that they are is just some sort of conversational gambit – a role in some sort of unscripted human drama in which all the world is a stage and everyone is a player.

I won’t tell you the reasons why I don’t think Artificial Intelligence will ever exist, at least with the kind of digital computers we have now, because, like I said, my wife tells me no one wants to hear my views on that subject.

Conservatives Are Such Jokers

Be sure to check out Paul Krugman's column in today's New York Times (no longer requires a subscription).

Mark Crispin Miller, the author of “The Bush Dyslexicon,” once made a striking observation: all of the famous Bush malapropisms — “I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family,” and so on — have involved occasions when Mr. Bush was trying to sound caring and compassionate.

By contrast, Mr. Bush is articulate and even grammatical when he talks about punishing people; that’s when he’s speaking from the heart. The only animation Mr. Bush showed during the flooding of New Orleans was when he declared “zero tolerance of people breaking the law,” even those breaking into abandoned stores in search of the food and water they weren’t getting from his administration.

Read the entire article

Acting like Democrats

According the latest Washington Post - ABC News poll 52% of the public trusts the Democrats more than the Republicans to handle the federal budget deficit, while only 29% trusts the Republicans. In a television ad that Mitt Romney is running he refers to the Republicans in Congress as "acting like Democrats" when they irresponsibly run up the deficit. Of course, this ad is aimed at the Republicans who will vote in the primaries and caucuses. I assume this ad works for him since the target of the ad is people who are in the 29% who think that acting like a Democrat is a bad thing.

I assume that if Mitt Romney wins the Republican nomination then during the general election campaign he will have to start promising that in fiscal matters he will emulate the Democrats since at that point he will be addressing the 52% who think that in fiscal matters acting like a Republican is a bad thing.

In terms of acquiring nuclear weapons 'Iran is nowhere'

In an interview by Charles Hawley and David Gordon Smith of Der Spiegel posted today investigative reporter Seymour Hersh talks about how far away Iran is from having a nuclear weapon:

Spiegel Online: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was just in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. Once again, he said that he is only interested in civilian nuclear power instead of atomic weapons. How much does the West really know about the nuclear program in Iran?

Seymour Hersh: A lot. And it's been underestimated how much the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) knows. If you follow what [IAEA head Mohamed] ElBaradei and the various reports have been saying, the Iranians have claimed to be enriching uranium to higher than a 4 percent purity, which is the amount you need to run a peaceful nuclear reactor. But the IAEA's best guess is that they are at 3.67 percent or something. The Iranians are not even doing what they claim to be doing. The IAEA has been saying all along that they've been making progress but basically, Iran is nowhere. Of course the US and Israel are going to say you have to look at the worst case scenario, but there isn't enough evidence to justify a bombing raid.

read the entire article

But watch how the press reports claims by those who want the United States to bomb Iran about the imminent danger posed by Iran's nuclear program without contradiction. It will be exactly like the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. No lessons have been learned. It is as though the news media is saying "We have been studying the mistakes that we made and are prepared to repeat them exactly."

Only this time the consequences for everyone in the United States will be much greater. No Iraqis outside of Iraq have committed terrorist attacks against us as a result of the invasion of their country. In fact, most ex-patriot Iraqis supported the invasion. Very few, if any, of the hundreds of thousands of Iranians in the United States will support us bombing their country.

Christianized Health Care

Michael Moore was on Oprah today. One point he made that I thought was particularly apt was that the term Socialized Medicine as the name for the idea that everyone should have health care was inaccurate. The term Socialized Medicine implies that it is a recent idea thought up by socialists. In fact, as Michael pointed out, all the major religions have said for over a thousand years that it is our religious duty to heal the sick. Jesus said that we will be judged by whether we have fed the hungry, healed the sick and housed the homeless. A health care system that covers and treats everyone is more accurately called Christianized Health Care.

The economic consequences of xenophobia

From an article in today's New York Times:

RIVERSIDE, N.J., Sept. 25 — A little more than a year ago, the Township Committee in this faded factory town became the first municipality in New Jersey to enact legislation penalizing anyone who employed or rented to an illegal immigrant.

Within months, hundreds, if not thousands, of recent immigrants from Brazil and other Latin American countries had fled. ....

With the departure of so many people, the local economy suffered. Hair salons, restaurants and corner shops that catered to the immigrants saw business plummet; several closed. Once-boarded-up storefronts downtown were boarded up again.

Meanwhile, the town was hit with two lawsuits challenging the law. Legal bills began to pile up, straining the town’s already tight budget. Suddenly, many people — including some who originally favored the law — started having second thoughts.

So last week, the town rescinded the ordinance, joining a small but growing list of municipalities nationwide that have begun rethinking such laws as their legal and economic consequences have become clearer.

Read entire article

Boarded up businesses in a previously thriving downtown are among the consequences of measures that make immigrants feel unwelcome and drive them away on the local level. Farmers moving their operations to Mexico or having to contract with the government for convict labor in order to harvest their crops are among the consequences we are starting to see on the national level as a result of making it more difficult for illegal immigrants to enter the country.

What would be the economic consequences if we could, as some people claim to want to do, deport all the illegal immigrants form the United States? People who understand how important illegal immigrants have been to the nation's economic growth of the last 20 years or so talk about economic stagnation and recession -- the national equivalent to Riverside's boarded up downtown. The impact on the Social Security system would be huge -- the illegal immigrants have been paying in while getting nothing back.

As the baby boom generation starts to retire who would serve them in restaurants or make their beds in hotels and nursing homes?

Actions taken based on negative emotions such as fear and xenophobia often turn out to have been mistakes.

Baptist Church in Georgia Welcomes Immigrants

There was a wonderful article in this morning's New York Times about a Baptist Church in Georgia that decided their Christianity obligated them to be welcoming to all the refugees and immigrants that were showing up in their community.

“Jesus said heaven is a place for people of all nations. So if you don’t like Clarkston, you won’t like heaven.” - Rev. Phil Kitchin of the Clarkston International Bible Church, Clarkston, Georgia.

read the article

U.S. Diplomatic Travel Ends in Iraq

Since so many Iraqis have died as a result of the United States invasion and occupation it is may not be immediately obvious to us, half a world away, why the deaths of these 11 would so rouse the Iraqi government. Perhaps something about the recklessness and unnecessary nature of the shootings laid more bare than usual the fact that the U.S. diplomats, despite all their idealistic talk, value their own lives in particular, and United States lives in general, much more highly than Iraqi lives. Whatever the reason, Iraq has said they do not want Blackwater, the private firm that has been providing security for United States diplomats traveling around Iraq, operating in their country any longer. As a result the United States has been forced to suspend all diplomatic travel outside the heavily fortified Green Zone.

We who want the occupation to end can only hope that our diplomats in Baghdad, unable any longer to strut like conquering heroes over and through the Iraqi people, will start to realize that they do not belong there and explain that to their colleagues back in Washington.

Preparing to Bomb Iran

The marketing campaign to prepare the American people for an attack by the United States on the sovereign country of Iran is well under way. We are hearing about secret evidence that cannot be disclosed for security reasons that proves that Iran is complicit in the killing of American soldiers in Iraq. We are hearing vague talk about the need to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. (It has to be vague because Iran is years away from having a nuclear weapon and apparently we want to bomb much sooner than that.) We are also being told that we would be doing the Iranian people a favor by over-throwing their government. (Since no Iranians are asking that they be bombed or invaded we have to assume that they will come around to our way of thinking and agree that this was a good thing after the fact -- a retrospective sort of gratitude.)

As you may remember from the build-up to the invasion of Iraq this sort of public relations campaign requires a few other countries to publicly agree that a crisis is looming that may require us to go to war, after all other options are exhausted of course. Right on cue we have the foreign minister of France doing a neo-con dance:

France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, sought Monday to tone down remarks he made in a radio and television interview the day before that the world had to prepare for possible war against Iran.

Attacked verbally by Iran and quietly criticized within his own government, Mr. Kouchner shifted the focus away from the threat of war and back to a call for hard negotiations as the way to force Iran to abandon key nuclear activities.

“The worst situation would be war,” Mr. Kouchner told journalists en route to Moscow. “And to avoid the worst, the French position is very clear: negotiate, negotiate, negotiate, and work with our European friends on credible sanctions.”

On Sunday, Mr. Kouchner, a Socialist known for his blunt talk, said in an interview broadcast on RTL radio and LCI television: “We will negotiate until the end. And at the same time we must prepare ourselves.”

Asked what he meant in referring to preparation, he replied, “It is necessary to prepare for the worst,” adding, “The worst, it’s war, sir.”

...

Lost in the off-the-cuff and freewheeling remarks about war planning was his other, less alarmist message: that France is committed to using diplomacy to resolve the nuclear crisis with Iran, that no military action is planned and that he did not believe there would be an American military intervention while President Bush was in office.

Isn't that last sentence a masterpiece? The suggestion that President Bush is less likely to go to war with Iran than his successor is breath-taking in its sheer neo-con perversity.

Miracles still happen?

If you have ever wondered what the video would look like if witnesses to a religious miracle had video cameras and made videos of the event then you are in luck. A large crowd in Syria witnessed what they thought was a miracle and many of them had cell phone cameras. One of them posted the video on YouTube with the following description.

This is footage taken at the Zaynab mosque in Syria where thousands of bystanders witnessed the sealed shut doors to A Miracle happened in the Maqam of Sayeda Zeinab (A.S) in the Arba3en of Imam Hussein (A.S) in Syria (1428 hijri - 2007).. The Shrine was firmly closed and nobody inside, and suddenly a Light came from inside the Maqam and the internal Large Gate started to open spontaneously (by itself) all people there saw that, it was VERY CLEAR.. and the amazing thing is that the door was openning in the reverse side of what it would normally open in!!

Concert at the Moline Library

Los Tiempos Pasados

If you were not in the meeting room of the Moline Library between noon and 1 pm today you missed an amazing experience. The group Los Tiempos Pasados (which means Ages Past) from the Mexican state of Guanajuato performed using a mix of modern and early instruments, music mostly from the 13th and 14th Centuries in Spain. The crowd of approximately 85 people was so impressed that at the end of the concert they gave the first standing ovation Christina Conklin, the Children's Services Coordinator of the Moline Library, had seen in that room, in which concerts have been presented for a little over a year.

The music from Spain during that period is a glorious blend of Muslim Arab, Sephardic Jew and Spanish Christian traditions and influences. The leader of the group, Armando López Valdivia, pointed out that this synthesis of different traditions and cultures was like brothers working together, which is something we need to happen now and always.

One early instrument played during the concert that I had not heard of before was the chalumeaux, which is described in reference books as being a pre-cursor to the clarinet. Armando López Valdivia referred to it as a 3000 year old saxophone and then proceeded to play it in a way which made it sound almost exactly like a modern saxophone.

The concert was free, the expenses having been paid by the Moline Public Library, Casa Guanajuato of Moline, the Mexican state of Guanajuato, Ana Van den Bergh of the Cultural Institute of Guanajuato and the University of Guanajuato, where four members of the group are professors.

Mexico City Tolerance Zones

Check out this excellent use of sarcasm to protest police inaction and/or corruption in Mexico City. Also note how the sarcasm seems to be going over a lot of people's heads.

A small price?

It sounds like the punch-line of a very old and bad joke.

Question: How can GOP House leader John Boehner consider the deaths of 3768 men and women in the United States military in Iraq a small price to have paid?
Answer: Someone other than John Boehner is doing the paying.

An excerpt from an interview yesterday with CNN's Wolf Blitzer and GOP House leader John Boehner.

BLITZER: How much longer will U.S. taxpayers have to shell out $2 billion a week or $3 billion a week as some now are suggesting the cost is going to endure? The loss in blood, the Americans who are killed every month, how much longer do you think this commitment, this military commitment is going to require?

BOEHNER: I think General Petraeus outlined it pretty clearly. We’re making success. We need to firm up those successes. We need to continue our effort here because, Wolf, long term, the investment that we’re making today will be a small price if we’re able to stop al Qaeda here, if we’re able to stabilize the Middle East, it’s not only going to be a small price for the near future, but think about the future for our kids and their kids.

Does the War in Iraq make you feel safer?

The War in Iraq has been and continues to be extremely costly in terms of lives lost, dollars spent, prestige and reputation damaged. But we are told by sober, serious people in Washington that we cannot end it now because the “surge” is “working.”

According to Maureen Dowd in her New York Times column (requires a subscription) retiring Republican Senator John Warner asked General Petraeus during yesterday’s Senate testimony "Do you feel that the Surge is making America safer?"
"Sir, I don’t know actually,” General Petraeus replied. “I have not sat down and sorted out in my own mind."

President Bush’s goal is to keep the war going through the end of his administration. He recently admitted to his biographer that he was “playing” everyone and everything to that end. One has to presume that he, like General Petraeus, has other reasons for wanting to keep our military involvement at the present level than the "feeling" that this is making America safer.

A Defeated Military Causes Problem for a Society

This morning on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos program John McCain told George that one reason we should not set a time table for withdrawing the troops from Iraq would be that if we withdrew from Iraq without a clear-cut victory then our military would feel defeated. McCain said that a military that felt defeated resulted in great problems for our society after our withdrawal from Vietnam (suicide, alcoholism, homelessness, etc.) He felt that withdrawing our military from Iraq without a victory would cause these same sorts of problems again. Apparently it makes no difference that no one is suggesting that the lack of a victory is our military’s fault. If what John McCain says is true then it means that the military mind is incapable of conceiving anything more complex than either clear-cut victory or utter defeat.

If that is true then it suggests that the military is the wrong tool to use in any but the most clear cut situation of national defense or a situation in which the goal is to utterly defeat an entire nation. The current situation, in which the goal was supposed to be to leave Iraq better-off (rather than a smoldering ruin) a clear-cut victory was never a likely outcome – creating a democracy will always be a messy process. What George Bush and John McCain are saying is that once we have committed the military to battle we must, in the absence of a clear-cut victory, continue the war forever. This makes the military sound like a rogue weapon – similar to a torpedo that, if it misses its target, is likely to circle around and sink the ship that launched it.

What part of illegal doesn’t Rudy Giuliani understand?

According to an Associated Press story Rudy Giuliani has thrown cold water on the widely believed idea that the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States are criminals and that when cities instruct their employees to not inquire about immigration status they are turning a blind eye to criminal behavior.

"[Illegal immigration is] not a crime," Giuliani said Friday. "I know that's very hard for people to understand, but it's not a federal crime."

How can that be Rudy? What does the illegal in illegal immigrant mean?

"I was U.S. attorney in the Southern district of New York," he said. "So believe me, I know this. In fact, when you throw an immigrant out of the country, it's not a criminal proceeding. It's a civil proceeding."

Oh.

Scott Ritter on Waging Peace

Did you catch Scott Ritter on CSpan BookTV last week talking about his new book?

Link

Scott Ritter points out that a lot of people who currently oppose the War in Iraq do so not because we should never have invaded in the first place. They are only opposed now because the war is not going well. One clear sign that someone only opposes the war because we are losing is if they are in favor of bombing Iran. This would include most of the Democrats in Congress and the top 3 Democratic candidates for President.

I think Scott Ritter is right to talk about opposing this war the way Gandhi and his followers opposed the British in India. The media, the Congresss and the entire Washington power structure have been bought off. To stop this thing before it becomes World War III the people will need to stop waiting for leaders and just rise up the way the people of India rose up behind Gandhi.

5 Reasons why bombing Iran would be a worse mistake than invading Iraq

1. Population of Iran = 71 million. Population of Iraq = 20 million.
2. Number of Iranians in the United States = 235,000. Number of Iraqis in the United States = 90,000
3. In Iraq the Shiites and the Kurds (about three fourths of the population) did not initially oppose our invasion. All the experts agree that if the United States attacked Iran it would unite the Iranian people against us.
4. Most of the Iraqis in the United States welcomed our invasion of their country. Very few if any of the Iranians in the United States would support the United States attacking Iran.
5. Iraq had been weakened by 10 years of sanctions before we invaded. Iran is very strong and currently very wealthy because of high oil prices.

The only sources of information I have are the same ones you have. I googled to get the population figures for Iran and Iraq. I have never met President Bush. I have never looked into his eyes and taken his measure in person. And yet when Congress gave him authorization to take military action against Iraq I knew he was going to invade and Hillary Clinton, who had much more access to insider info than I, says she thought he was going to use that authorization only as a bargaining chip.

In the same way that I knew then that he was going to invade Iraq I know now that President Bush is going to bomb Iran unless someone stops him. It is obvious that the Democrats in Congress have no intention of stopping him. If you pay attention to what happens in other countries it is clear that if a large enough number of citizens take to the streets the government has to listen. Will you join me in the streets to stop the United States from bombing Iran?

A massive air strike against Iran has been planned

According to an article in the Times of London (this article is not likely to be withdrawn)

THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.

Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,” he said.

Read the entire article

Remember that Congress has already authorized any action President Bush feels is necessary to protect our troops in Iraq and President Bush has already asserted numerous times, without objection from Congress, that Iran is providing weapons and support to our enemies in Iraq. Also remember that the top 3 Democratic candidates for President are on record as not ruling out military strikes against Iran. In fact, all three refused to rule out their support for the use of nuclear weapons against Iran.

Since President Bush has already asserted that the actions of Iran are threatening our troops in Iraq he need not give any more advance notice or justification than he already has before the bombing starts. Since a massive and sudden bombing campaign is being planned this raises the possibility that the 1200 sites in Iran will be bombed before the American public is officially informed that military action will be taken.

In other words, to stop this we would need to take action before there is conclusive proof that an attack is planned, likely or even possible.

Deleted

I have deleted the last blog entry I posted yesterday because the blog entry on the Daily Kos that it referred to has been deleted. (Thanks for alerting me to that, Huck.) The Daily Kos article was deleted apparently because it had come under attack as being a fabrication and the author had no evidence to counter the charges. Now that it has been pointed out I guess I should realized that at most only a handful of the most senior navy officers on board a carrier would know if and how all the cruise missiles on board had been targeted and that, unlike the National Guard soldiers on the ground in Iraq, the majority of the career Navy people on board ships are probably not losing faith in Bush Administration.

If you were gay it would be OK

Video of Avenue Q
telling Senator Craig that
if he were gay
it would be OK.



Avenue Q did not mention it but I think it should be added that whether you are gay or straight you should not be soliciting strangers in public bathrooms. That is not OK.

Republicans debate immigration reform

From an article about the Republican governor of Texas’ trip to Mexico by DUDLEY ALTHAUS of the Houston Chronicle

Leading a large delegation of Texas executives trying to drum up business in Mexico, Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday criticized the U.S. Congress for failing to pass an immigration bill that would legalize millions of workers.

"I don't think this is that difficult an issue if Congress would have the maturity to sit down and really discuss it and cut out all the mean rhetoric," Perry said during a break in the third day of meetings with Mexican officials and business executives.

…..

Perry's statements seemed to put him at odds with many in the Republican Party's base who regarded the immigration overhaul bill that collapsed in the Senate in June as nothing more than an amnesty for illegal immigrants.

By mean rhetoric Perry probably is referring to statements like this by Republican Tom Tancredo.

We are destroying the concept of citizenship itself. America, and indeed Western civilization, are in a crisis.

Or this by Mitt Romney

"McCain-Kennedy isn't the answer," Romney said in a well-received speech to conservatives in Washington this month, describing it as an amnesty plan that would reward people for breaking the law and cost taxpayers millions to provide them benefits.

You may notice that the neither Perry nor Romney is discussing this as a moral issue or an attempt to be fair to anyone. The difference between them is that Perry sees immigration reform as necessary for business while Romney opposes it as giving something away. They both seem kind of mean to me.

Followup on Senator Craig

Yesterday I speculated that Senator Craig was influenced to waive his right to counsel and plead guilty by some new method of coercion adopted by the police and prosecutors. (Perhaps I was, in the interests of sarcasm, giving too much weight to his protestations of innocence.)

According to an article in the New York Times, Senator Craig is now blaming the Idaho Statesman newspaper

Today he implored his constituents and the larger public to consider his state of mind in the days and months leading up to June 11, the day of his arrest.

“For eight months leading up to June 11, my family and I have been relentlessly and viciously harassed by The Idaho Statesman,” he said. “If you’ve seen today’s paper, you know why. Let me be clear. I am not gay and never have been.”

"Enemies of Reason"

The Enemies of Reason is a two-part television documentary, written and presented by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins that was recently shown on the BBC in the UK. Click these links to view the video.

Part 1: Slaves to Superstition
Part 2: The Irrational Health Service

Many people seem to think that astrology, "fortune telling" and such things are harmless diversions. Science and reason have won the battle. In all important matters society looks to and is guided by experts with empirical knowledge gained through the scientific process. This victory of science and reason over superstition and the occult is permanent and is in no way threatened by some people's fascination with ancient superstitions. That is not how Richard Dawkins sees it.

Why would an innocent person plead guity?

According to the Washington Post

Sen. Larry E. Craig pleaded guilty earlier this month to misdemeanor disorderly-conduct charges stemming from his June arrest by an undercover police officer in a men's restroom at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, a court spokeswoman and the senator's office said yesterday.

Craig issued a statement confirming his arrest and guilty plea, which were reported in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. But the Idaho Republican maintained that he had not engaged in any "inappropriate conduct" and that the airport police misunderstood his behavior.

"At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions. I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct," Craig said. "I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously."

If a 62 year old United States Senator can be intimidated by the police into waiving his right to counsel and falsely confessing what chance do the rest of us have?

Biologists Helping Bookstores Blog

I want to recommend a blog I have been reading. This blog has a very narrow focus and, at least so far, does not deviate from its mission. It is solely devoted to talking about scientists reshelving books devoted to Intelligent Design from the science section to the religion section of bookstores they visit.

http://biologistshelpingbookstores.blogspot.com

Mother Teresa’s Secrets Emptiness

In her Nobel Peace Prize acceptance lecture, Mother Teresa

suggested that the upcoming Christmas holiday should remind the world "that radiating joy is real" because Christ is everywhere — "Christ in our hearts, Christ in the poor we meet, Christ in the smile we give and in the smile that we receive."
…
Yet less than three months earlier, in a letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, that is only now being made public, she wrote with weary familiarity of a different Christ, an absent one. "Jesus has a very special love for you," she assured Van der Peet. "[But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have [a] free hand."

read the entire news article

People I know who were raised Catholic seem to react to these revelations that Mother Teresa did not feel the comfort of the presence of God by admiring her even more than they did before. It seems to make the nobility and power of her sacrifice even greater for them to know that she did not feel any compensating comfort of the presence of God. She was doing all those good works without any reward, even a spiritual one.

I have a different take on it. Publicly she was preaching a “Christ in our hearts” that she herself did not feel. She was making promises that if people would devote themselves to God they would be rewarded – promises that had proven false for her. Doesn’t that make her some kind of spiritual scam artist?

Rush Limbaugh knows why we want to stop genoicide in Dafur

Rush Limbaugh knows why white Democrats would want to help stop genocide in Dafur. As reported by Media Matters:

Summary: On his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh claimed that Democrats "want to get us out of Iraq, but they can't wait to get us into Darfur." He continued: "There are two reasons. What color is the skin of the people in Darfur? It's black. And who do the Democrats really need to keep voting for them? If they lose a significant percentage of this voting bloc, they're in trouble." A caller responded, "The black population," to which Limbaugh said, "Right."

A great deal could be said about such opinions, including the fact that very few Democratic (and, of course, even fewer Republican) elected officials have proposed the United States do anything about Dafur. But what I find most interesting is what this reveals about Mr. Limbaugh. Mr. Limbaugh thinks any white American who proposes helping black people in Africa must have a selfish reason for doing so. In other words he does not believe that white Americans really have altruistic motives for wanting to prevent genocide, at least genocide involving black people in Africa, and thinks any white American who claims to have such motives is a liar and a hypocrite. It is interesting that he apparently does feel that black Americans have some intrinsic interest in helping black Africans.

Think about that for a moment. Rush Limbaugh feels that black Americans have a stake in what happens to black Africans, but white Americans do not. In Limbaugh’s view white Americans have more in common with white Europeans than they do to black Americans and black Americans have more interests in common with black Africans than they do with other American citizens of different skin colors. Isn’t that a profoundly un-American point of view?

The IAM union to hold discussion with 5 presidential candidates

I just received a nice email asking me to mention the following on my blog:

Five presidential candidates confirmed they will take part in
discussions of key domestic issues before more than 600 representatives of the
International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) on
August 27 and 28 at the Disney Yacht and Beach Club in Orlando, FL.

The schedule for the IAM Conversation with the Candidates is as
follows:

Mon. Aug. 27, 3:30 pm New York Sen. Hillary Clinton
Mon. Aug. 27, 7:30 pm California Rep. Duncan Hunter and former
Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee
Tue. Aug. 28, 7:30 pm Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards
and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich

The candidate conversations will be moderated by Erin Moriarty of CBS
News.

The event will be streamed, live, from the www.GOIAM.org web site.
Streaming provided by ustream.tv.

It was touching that someone assumes that if they can get me to mention something on my blog it will have a positive effect.

The crack down on illegal immigrants is having an effect

Working men and women in this country have been sold a bill of goods again by demagogue politicians. They were told that their wages were stagnant because illegal immigrants were allowing employers to keep wages low. If we crack down on illegal immigrants then employers will be forced to raise wages, we were promised. Farmers who had been using illegal immigrants to pick their crops are among the first to have to change what they have been doing as a result of the crackdown on illegal immigrant labor. Are they raising the rates they pay enough to attract legal American labor? Not according to this story in the Christian Science Monitor.

As states increasingly crack down on hiring undocumented workers, western farmers are looking at inmates to harvest their fields. Colorado started sending female inmates to harvest onions, corn, and melons this summer. Iowa is considering a similar program. In Arizona, inmates have been working for private agriculture businesses for almost 20 years. But with legislation signed this summer that would fine employers for knowingly hiring undocumented workers, more farmers are turning to the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) for help.

"We are contacted almost daily by different companies needing labor," says Bruce Farely, manager of the business development unit of Arizona Correctional Industries (ACI). ACI is a state labor program that holds contracts with government and private companies. "Maybe it was labor that was undocumented before, and they don't want to take the risk anymore because of possible consequences, so they are looking to inmate labor as a possible alternative."

read the entire article

Doesn’t this remind you of what we have heard about China, using convict labor in order to keep costs low? It appears that instead of China becoming like us, we are becoming more like them. In farming states like Iowa and Illinois are we going to have police and the courts under pressure to convict and imprison more people in order to get the crops harvested?

Cousin to Bill Gates and President Bush

A line of descent for Bill Gates, founder and chairman of Microsoft Corp., from the immigrant Henry Whitney (1620-1673) who came from England to Long Island, NY in 1635, has recently turned up on the internet. I have combined this with information posted a few years ago showing President Bush's line of descent from Henry Whitney and also, in my modest way, my line of descent.

Henry Whitney m. Sarah Salmon	Henry Whitney m. Sarah Salmon	Henry Whitney m. Sarah Salmon
John Whitney m.Elizabeth Smith	John Whitney m.Elizabeth Smith	John Whitney m.Elizabeth Smith
Elizabeth Whitney m. Joseph Keeler	Elizabeth Whitney m. Joseph Keeler	Joseph Whitney m. Hannah Hoyt
Silas Keeler m. Abigail Elmer	Elijah Keeler m Sarah	David Whitney m. Elizabeth Hyatt
Lydia Keeler m. Jeremiah Keeler	Rebecca Keeler m. Lemuel Bangs	Ebenezer Whitney m. Ruth Raymond
Polly Keeler m. George Brush	Elijah Bangs m. Esther Stackhouse	Aaron Whitney m. Sarah Bennet
Emeline Brush m. Harvey Woodworth	Mary Bangs m. Joseph Beaky	Bennet Whitney m. Susan Curtice
Louisa Woodworth m. Thomas Maxwell	Martha Beaky m. David Walker	Henry Whitney Bertha Stoddard
James Maxwell m. Belle Oakley	George Walker m. Lucretia Wear	Edith Whitney M Jay Whitson
James Maxwell m. Adele Thompson	Dorothy Walker m. Prescott Bush	Bertha Whitson m. Hugh Barrett
Mary Maxwell m. William Gates	George H.W. Bush m. Barbara	David Barrett
“Bill” Gates	George W. Bush

I only vouch for my own line of descent. The descent shown above for Presidents Bush has been on the internet for a few years with no challenges that I am aware of. The descent shown for Bill Gates has just appeared and some experts have expressed reservations about one of the marriages. If correct it would make Bill Gates and President George W. Bush 8th cousins and I would be 9th cousin once removed to both of them.

The sergeants speak

Six sergeants and one infantryman with the 82^nd Airborne, near the end of their deployment in Iraq, have written an opinion piece published this morning in the New York Times

VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

Read the entire piece.

Reading this will inoculate you against any rosy assessments of how its going in Iraq from generals and White House staffers. Our soldiers are being wounded and killed by roadside bombs set by the Iraqi police and army that are supposed to be our partners. [Read the last paragraph of the article online for the details.] Young American men and women are being sacrificed for nothing other than a bunch of old men in Washington’s opinion that admitting defeat would be worse. Worse for whom?

Bill O'Reilly reveals his own lie, without admitting it.

As reported on Media Matters

On The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly read a letter criticizing him for "erroneously report[ing] that a poll found most Americans would not vote for a presidential candidate endorsed by a gay rights organization." But while O'Reilly noted that the poll was taken "in a few states," not nationally as he had earlier suggested, he did not acknowledge that his original assertion that the result applied to a "majority" of respondents was false.

…. While O'Reilly noted that the poll was taken "in a few states," not nationally as he had earlier suggested, he did not acknowledge that his original assertion that the result applied to a "majority" of respondents was false. Rather, he simply cited the Quinnipiac poll results from Florida -- which found that 28 percent of respondents would be "less likely" to support a candidate endorsed by a gay rights group, while 60 percent said it "would make no difference," and 10 percent said it would make them "more likely" to support such a candidate -- and added, "That's what I was referring to."

This has to make you wonder whether Bill O’Reilly really does not realize that those poll results undercut rather than support his assertion that “most Americans would not vote for a presidential candidate endorsed by a gay rights organization.” I have to suspect that Bill O’Reilly really knows that, but he thinks that if he asserts a lie with enough bravado you will be more influenced by his show of confidence than by the facts.

Who originally championed religious freedom in America?

One of the blogs I read had a post recently that quoted parts of an email Barak Obama wrote to a Christian Broadcasting Network correspondent:

[From an email by Barak Obama]
For my friends on the right, I think it would be helpful to remember the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy but also our religious practice. Folks tend to forget that during our founding, it wasn’t the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the First Amendment…. It was the forbearers of Evangelicals who were the most adamant about not mingling government with religion, because they didn’t want state-sponsored religion hindering their ability to practice their faith as they understood it.

Whatever we once were, we’re no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of non-believers. We should acknowledge this and realize that when we’re formulating policies from the state house to the Senate floor to the White House, we’ve got to work to translate our reasoning into values that are accessible to every one of our citizens, not just members of our own faith community.

Someone wrote a comment:

[explicative deleted].. go retake your basic American history; it was not the “forbearers [sic] of evangelicals” but Deists like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson who were so adamant!

With people so ignorant of their history these days it is unfortunate that the quoted excerpt left out the part in the original email where Barak made it clear who the “forbearers of Evangelicals” he referred to were:

...It was the persecuted minorities, it was Baptists like John Leland...

A quick search in google turns up the following information. The first recorded use of the phrase “separation of church and state” involved the Baptists.

The phrase "separation of church and state" is derived from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to a group identifying themselves as the Danbury Baptists. In that letter, referencing the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, Jefferson writes: "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State

Who were these Danbuy Baptists to whom Jefferson was writing? Wikipedia explains:

The Danbury Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut sent a letter, dated October 7, 1801, to the newly elected President Thomas Jefferson, expressing concern over the lack in their state constitution of explicit protection of religious liberty, and against government establishment of religion.
In their letter to the President, the Danbury Baptists affirmed that "Our Sentiments are uniformly on the side of Religious Liberty — That Religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals — That no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious Opinions - That the legitimate Power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor..."
As a religious minority in Connecticut, the Danbury Baptists were concerned that a religious majority might "reproach their chief Magistrate... because he will not, dare not assume the prerogatives of Jehovah and make Laws to govern the Kingdom of Christ," thus establishing a state religion at the cost of the liberties of religious minorities.

Of course, these Baptists in Connecticut who were so concerned about protection of religious liberty were a persecuted minority. Now, especially in places where their religious point of view is a political majority, are Baptists still concerned about religious freedom? Not so much.

Congress no longer works for the people

Public opinion polls show that an overwhelming majority of the American public, around 70%, want our troops brought home from Iraq. Yet, when any bill comes up for a vote in Congress that would require that a date be set for bringing the troops home almost every single Republican and about a third of the Democrats vote against it – even though everyone concedes that pro-war politicians running in 2008 are likely to be defeated. What is going on here? Our ability to vote the bums out at the next election is what is supposed to insure that Congress heeds the will of the people. But that no longer seems to work.

I have a theory about what is going on here. What do Congress people do after they leave office? Most of the time these days they stay in Washington and get lucrative jobs lobbying or working for one of the industries they regulated while they were in Congress. I suspect that as long as they do the bidding of the corporate-military power structure they are guaranteed a cushy and well-paid job once they leave Congress. They no longer listen to us. We have been outbid.

Homeland Security is going to be the workplace police

According to the New York Times the Department of Homeland Security, in addition to their duties protecting us from terrorists, are going to start policing the workplace.

In a new effort to crack down on illegal immigrants, federal authorities are expected to announce tough rules this week that would require employers to fire workers who use false Social Security numbers.

Officials said the rules would be backed up by stepped-up raids on workplaces across the country that employ illegal immigrants.

The scuttlebutt I hear is that most “good” jobs (lasting longer than a few months and paying more than minimum wage) already require valid social security numbers. This means that many illegal immigrants are using the social security numbers of someone else. It appears that in most cases these are purchased rather than stolen identities and the buyers are careful not use the name for anything other than obtaining work – the buyer knows that if he/she runs up debts or committed crimes using the purchased identity the seller would blow the whistle on them.

Knowing this you can tell if they are really serious about cracking down on illegal immigrants in the workplace by whether or not they do anything to track down Social Security numbers being used by more than one person. If all they do is make announcements that employers (who are already not hiring anyone without a valid SSN) must fire all workers without valid numbers and stage a few well publicized raids then it is all for show.

Unforeseen by whom?

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates appears to be more honest than many others in the Bush Administration. According to the Los Angeles Times news article headlined “'Depth of mistrust' in Iraq unforeseen:”

ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates acknowledged Thursday that the Bush administration underestimated the difficulty of getting a political truce in Iraq, where Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's government has been crippled by a walkout by Sunni Arab ministers.

Gates said he was optimistic about military progress in several Iraqi regions, particularly Al Anbar, a western province that was once a haven for insurgents.

But he said he was discouraged by the Shiite-dominated government's inability to reach a compromise to pass legislation aimed at reconciling the country's ethnic and sectarian groups. Reaching such political agreements, a central goal of the troop buildup strategy, may still be a long way off, he said.

"I just think in some ways we probably all underestimated the depth of the mistrust and how difficult it would be for these guys to come together," Gates said.

I can only assume that when he says “we probably all underestimated the depth of the mistrust” he is referring to the Bush Administration or the neocons, because there certainly were a lot of people who were predicting exactly this inability of the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds to work together to form a stable democracy before the United States invaded, overthrew the government, disbanded the army, and occupied the country. If you are having trouble remembering those predictions perhaps you do remember the neocons’ response to them. They were saying these objections to an invasion of Iraq must come from people who thought that the Arabs did not 'deserve' democracy or were not 'ready' for democracy.

Of course, the accurate predictions of the chaos we are now seeing were not based on ideology or prejudice, as were the rosy predictions of the neocons. The accurate predictions, as is usually the case, were based on knowledge of the region and its history. As is clear from everything the American neocons said they were ignorant of this history. And we all know what happens to those ignorant of history.

Like an Alaskan mink

Most Americans are rating Congress as doing very poorly these days on the things like solving the country’s problems, keeping us safe and making sure the Executive Branch is spending our money wisely and effectively. However, Congress is providing some moments of welcome comedy. As reported on the tpmmuckraker.com blog:

Rep. Don Young (R-AK) cited his and his wife's health problems as reasons for his bizarre outburst on the House floor two weeks ago, where he threatened to bite Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) like an Alaskan mink "that kill their own.

Young lost his temper when Garrett tried to yank money Young wanted for native Alaskan students. He told the Republican Study Committee today that he regrets his aggressive response: “I come to you as a weakened man whose weaknesses are greater than my strengths at times,” he said

A video of Don Young's outburst can be seen here.

Most of the dangers we face have nothing to do with terrorism

How did you react to hearing that the bridge collapse in Minneapolis yesterday did not appear to be an act of terrorism? I suspect that most people reacted the way I did – relieved to know that we were probably not being deliberately attacked. Well, that is NOT the way right-wing columnist Michelle Malkin reacted.

DHS issued a statement that the collapse “does not appear to be an act of terrorism.” Isn’t it too early to say anything meaningful about what it “appears” to be? Couldn’t they maybe, I dunno, say nothing until they actually know something?

Doesn’t it sound like she hoped it would turn out to be terrorism, or at least thought it would be good if the whole nation were worried that it was an act of terrorism for a while longer.

You might want to remember what this reaction reveals about her and her priorities when reading or listening to her in the future.

Number one in google

Among the tools that bloggers have are ones telling us the links that people followed to get to our blogs, including the phrases they typed into search engines if they got to our blogs by selecting our site from among the sites listed by a search engine in response to a search. That is how I know that about 5 times in the last couple of days someone has visited my blog after typing ‘Why must I dial 1 if I speak english’ and clicking ‘Search’ in Google.
Click here to see what Google returns for ‘Why must I dial 1 if I speak english’
I do not know if they considered what I wrote a satisfactory answer to their question, but I would like to think they did. After all Google seems to think this blog is the best match on the web to that question.

"Personal Responsibility" - Last refuge of scoundrels?

I just heard on the news this morning about a company that there are a lot of complaints about. The company is telephoning people with bad credit and offering them a credit card. They ask for bank account information before disclosing that there is a fee of $150. People are complaining that even if they refuse the card upon hearing about the fee the company deducts money from their bank account anyway. When a reporter asked a company spokesperson about this the reply was, "These people willingly gave out their bank account information. They need to take personal responsibility for their actions."

Asking your victims to take "personal responsibility" for their decision to trust you after you have abused that trust strikes me as unbelievably arrogant. Is "personal responsibility" becoming the new last refuge of scoundrels?

No more anonymous comments

I have noticed that people seem to be more likely be insulting and rude when posting comments anonymously than they are when they have signed their names. Also when a number of people are posting comments anonymously it can become difficult to follow the flow of the conversation. As a result I have disabled anonymous comments on this blog. To post a comment you will either need a blogger or gmail account. It is easy and free to create an account if you do not already have one. You could even create an account just for posting comments.