hard logic

I finally understand the rationale for the latest FISA revisions.

When George Bush signed into law the Fourth Amendment Abrogation Act of 2008 (known to some as the FISA “compromise”) he praised the bill for granting him the powers necessary to fight the “ter’ists” who “hate us for our freedom.”

By enacting a piece of legislation that eliminates much of our freedom, the terrorists now have less reason to hate us.

QED. GWOT™ won. Mission accomplished.

. . . .

Earlier this week, John McCain made a joke after being asked about the high volume of cigarettes that the US exports to Iran. “Maybe that’s a way of killing them,” said Senator Chuckles.

McCain caught flack, and rightfully so, for throwing more impolitic fuel on the tinderbox that is US-Iranian relations—but we already know how bad a mercurial, hot-tempered, loose-lipped President McCain would be for a world that has already suffered too much at the hands of bellicose Republican foreign policy.

The thing that caught my attention about the McJoke—the thing that made my ears prick up—was that McCain just conceded that cigarettes kill people.

McCain later went on to brag that he hadn’t had a cigarette in—"How long has it been, Cindy?"—twenty-four years. On the flip side, we know that Barack Obama still likes to enjoy the occasional cigarette.

So, who out there is suddenly feeling better about Obama’s chances in Virginia and North Carolina?

. . . .

Speaking of jokes: President Bush. . . .

[rimshot]

But seriously—speaking of jokes, President Bush had some heeeeeeelarious parting words for other world leaders at the G8 meeting.

The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

Shameful, right? I mean, if the guy is going to joke about our status, he could at least get his facts straight. Not that the US doesn’t do its part, but, as with so many things during the Bush years, America has lost its leadership role, this time to a booming China, which now coughs up even more greenhouse gasses than the good ol’ U.S. of A.

They’re, like, drinking our milkshake and burping it up, too.

(I’m sure GW would have found that joke funnier if I had made reference to the other option for gaseous emissions, but this is a classy blog, so I won’t go there.)


(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

is diesel smarter than the new york times?

That would be denim-inspired apparel manufacturer Diesel, and the answer is “yes.”

The scientific debate over global warming may not be entirely settled, but in the American clothing business, at least, it is over. The apparel maker Diesel ran magazine advertisements this year proclaiming that its cold-weather clothes — in one ad, a woman’s puffy coat and shorts — were “global warming ready.”

I suppose you could also ask the question this way: Is the American clothing business smarter than Times reporter Michael Barbaro? It’s hard to say who’s responsible for the obviously hedged construction “may not be entirely settled.” But, anyway, one of the two—or both—should be ashamed of themselves. You’d think, in a year where the Nobel Prize for Peace went both to a group of scientists that have demonstrated that global warming exists and is influenced by human activity (a group that is cited later in the same Times article without reference to the Nobel), and to the man that convinced popular culture to pay attention to the science, that the New York Times would get with the program. You’d think that because the facts clearly show that the scientific debate is entirely “settled,” that the paper of record would report the facts.

Now, if the Times had reported that the political debate—the one between people who believe in science and the people who believe in taking hydrocarbon industry baksheesh—was “not entirely settled,” well, that would be something. . .

. . . something called journalism.

In fact, if Barbaro had done just the tiniest bit of digging, he might have noticed this:

WASHINGTON [11/30/07] Some of the world's top business leaders are demanding that international diplomats meeting next week come up with drastic and urgent measures to cut greenhouse gas pollution at least in half by 2050.

Officials from more than 150 global companies - worth nearly $4 trillion in market capitalization - have signed a petition urging "strong, early action on climate change" when political leaders meet in Indonesia.

Maybe Friday was too near to Barbaro’s deadline. Well, uh, there was this (from the same article):

In January [of 2007], the CEO's of 10 major U.S. companies urged President Bush to support mandatory industrial greenhouse gas emission cuts. The White House is against that policy. Since their January plea, the industry group, the United States Climate Action Partnership, has grown to include 27 of the world's largest firms.

Other companies [in addition to Shell UK, GE International, Coca-Cola Co., Dupont Co., United Technologies Corp., Rolls Royce, Nestle SA, Unilever, British Airways and Volkswagen AG] signing the British-based petition include Nike Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Virgin Group, Barclays PLC, Gap, Nokia, Pacific Gas and Electric, and the Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp., which runs the conservative Fox News Channel.

Hmmm, Nike—why, that sounds like an apparel company! Maybe someone from the Times should have called them for a quote.


(h/t gem spa for sending Barbaro’s article my way)

(cross-posted to The Seminal and Daily Kos)

do the newly homeless of Southern California owe their large insurance payouts to George W. Bush?

I’m asking. . . because I don’t really know.

At writing, the wildfires in Southern California have burned over 420,000 acres, destroyed over 1,100 homes, and displaced nearly a million people. In less than four days, this year’s fires have nearly surpassed the record destruction of October 2003. While, to my mind, the long-term drought and record heat wave of earlier this year owe much to the global warming crisis that has received something less than lip service from the Bush Administration, my opening question has more to do with fighting the fires than with their cause.

In years past, the California National Guard has played a large part in fighting brushfires, especially in cases where there were multiple fires burning simultaneously over the region. What is the toll of having a large percentage of the California Guard deployed to Bush’ Iraqi sinkhole? What about the equipment that went with them?

The California National Guard numbers roughly 20,000, of which, somewhere between 8,000 and 9,000 are now serving overseas (more than any other state with the exception of Texas). I can find nothing on the numbers and kinds of heavy equipment that has left California for Iraq. Since it became clear after tornadoes in Kansas earlier this year that response was seriously slowed by the strain put on their Guard by the Iraq war, it doesn’t seem a far out question to ask what effect this fiasco is having on California’s firefighting capabilities.

And, yet, it is not a question I can find asked or answered in any establishment media reporting.

The most I have been able to dig up are these two paragraphs from the Orange County section of the Los Angeles Times:

Local fire officials were similarly frustrated, arguing that if the state had provided adequate aircraft and personnel, the devastation could have been prevented and the Santiago fire could have been quickly extinguished. Now the fire will take at least two weeks to contain and could enter the national forest, they said.

"It is an absolute truth -- if we had more air resources we would have been able to control this fire," said Orange County Fire Authority Chief Chip Prather.

While I could infer that there might have been more resources available had it not been for Iraq deployments, Chief Prather might simply be referring to resources that were allocated to fires burning elsewhere in the Southland—I just don’t know (the story does not make it clear). I can find no other reporting or analysis—beyond repeated statements that resources are stretched to the limit—about what might have been had all the National Guard and their equipment been available to respond to this disaster.

I feel it is important to document all of the costs of Bush’s ego-gratification, local and global. If anyone out there has seen or read anything on the repercussions of administration policy with regard to the California wildfires, please send it my way or leave a comment (preferably with a link to a source). Thank you.

UPDATE: Six hours after I ask my initial question, Think Progress answers:

The San Francisco Chronicle reported last May that the California National Guard had been depleted and warned that severe “equipment shortages could hinder the guard’s response to a large-scale disaster,” such as a “major fire”:

In California, half of the equipment the National Guard needs is not in the state, either because it is deployed in Iraq or other parts of the world or because it hasn’t been funded, according to Lt. Col. John Siepmann. While the Guard is in good shape to handle small-scale incidents, “our concern is a catastrophic event,” he said.

“You would see a less effective response (to a major incident),” he said.

At a press conference five months ago, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) echoed these concerns, stating, “A lot of equipment has gone to Iraq, and it doesn’t come back when the troops come back.” The Chronicle reported that the California National Guard was missing about $1 billion worth of equipment.

. . . .

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said, “Right now we are down 50 percent in terms of our National Guard equipment because they’re all in Iraq. The equipment — half of the equipment, so we really will need help.” California Lieutenant Gov. John Garamendi (D) said on Harball yesterday, “What we really need are those firefighters, we need the equipment, we need, frankly, we need those troops back from Iraq.”

When asked about California’s concerns of depleted equipment caused by the Iraq war, White House spokesman Dana Perino said yesterday, “I haven’t heard that specifically.”

(cross-posted on The Seminal)

this just in: Nobel committee uses paper ballots

After learning this morning that Al Gore is the co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace, officially sharing his victory with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, everybody is asking the same question:

Will the Supreme Court intervene and give the award to George W. Bush?

Well, assuming that they don’t, let’s ponder some other questions: Taking into account this year’s prize for work on global warming, and Dr. Wangari Maathai’s 2004 win for her contributions to sustainable development, does environmentalism now equal peace? And, considering that the IPCC is a group dedicated to nailing down the science of climate change, is promoting verifiable fact now an act of peace-making?

Considering how many wars are fought over scarce resources such as food, water, or arable land, the answer to the first question is a rather obvious “yes.” Considering the pro-pollution lobby’s work to prevaricate, misinform, and deny the inconvenient truths about what their backers are doing to the planet, and considering the assault on reason perpetrated by the polluters’ cronies in Congress and the White House, the answer to the second question is unfortunately just as obvious.

(cross-posted to Daily Kos)

finally, someone that will benefit from global warming. . .

The makers of aluminum bats.

Baseball bats going extinct. At a baseball bat factory tucked into the lush tree country in northwestern Pennsylvania, the operators have drawn up a “three-to-five-year emergency plan” if the white ash tree, which has been used for decades to make the bat of choice, is compromised by the effects of global warming.

There is also some emerald beetle that may or may not like it hot, but the article makes it pretty clear that if the beetle doesn’t finish them off, ash forests—along with the other tree of choice for baseball bats, maple—will move much further north or disappear because of the warming climate. And, even before the trees disappear, the longer growing season of a warmer climate will produce a softer wood that will not be suitable for major league duty.

the food at the Kempinski’s terrific no doubt. . .

. . . so sang Ella Fitzgerald in her classic Berlinification of Mack the Knife—“the food at the Kempinski’s terrific no doubt”—but don’t tell that to George Bush. That would be George W. Bush, who, if we are to believe reports this morning, has a stomach that reacts to international banquets much like his father’s did. They just don’t fry bologna (or whatever the heck it is this guy considers “real” food) the way they do back home.

Yes, President GW Bush is playing hooky from the G8 this Friday—he says it’s on account of his stomach ache, but I say he’s playing at sick today because yesterday he just got played.

Vladimir Putin gave everybody a lesson on how to stand up to a bullying Bush by countering the American plan to abrogate the ABM treaty and destabilize yet another part of the world with a shrewd offer of his own.

The Bush Administration was angling to put early warning radars on Russia’s doorstep—in Poland and the Czech Republic—as part of the fantasyland boondoggle the guys who don’t believe in science call the “Strategic Defense Initiative,” but you and I affectionately remember it as “Star Wars.” Forget that Bush and his crazy mad brain trust want to risk reigniting the Cold War (can you do that—reignite cold?) on a multibillion dollar scheme that absolutely does not work, and let’s just focus on the not in the least bit accidental side effect that moving towards building this thing—or things that look like they would be this thing if this thing actually were a real thing—has produced: a face-off with a resurgent Russia.

Yep, always jonesing for regime change, no matter how foolhardy and brutally irresponsible, the neo-nut wing of the Republican Party is seeking to recapture the glory of the Reagan years by again beating back the red menace (that they have misread history and overestimated Reagan’s role in the downsizing of the Soviet Union goes without saying). And if you can do so while lining the pockets of your defense industry friends, then all the better!

They know that SDI won’t work—hasn’t to date, never will—but they hope that in rapidly developing it and pushing it right up against Putin’s backside, they can provoke another arms race that will bankrupt and/or destabilize Russia.

Can you imagine a more inaccurate assessment of the current situation?

Russia of the mid-oughts is not the USSR of the mid-eighties. For one, they’re leaner and meaner, with oil and gas reserves that are still underexploited at a time when Middle East oil is past peak and mired in the logistical nightmares of conflict. The wealth that is rapidly accruing from that oil and gas is not only available to fund its own military expansion, it is there to buy influence at a time when the US is strapped for cash. Maybe you can’t make friends with salad, but you sure can with oil.

Further, back in the 1980’s, the USSR was bogged down in an unwinnable conflict with Islamic insurgents—in Afghanistan—now, well, gosh, what a difference a day (or 20 years) makes.

Knowing that they know that we know that they know what we’re up to, the Bush Administration has decided, all-of-the-sudden-like, that this “missile shield” isn’t directed at Russia (how you direct a shield is another thing altogether)—no! Never! We’re doing this to protect ourselves. . . or Europe. . . or ourselves. . . wait, no. . . whatever. . . against the threat—the imagined threat—from Iran. Yeah, that’s it—Iran!

So. . . you’re deploying a nonworking system against a nonexistent threat?

Please ignore the man puking behind the curtain!

OK, where was I? Oh, right. . . So, President Bush thought it would be funny/a political coup to tell Putin to cool his jets because we can make our magic shield protect you Russians, too.

What’s that old Peanuts cartoon about playing chess with a checkers mentality?

Really, as if Putin didn’t likely have the situation gamed-out already, Bush’s bullying combined with his bogus offer really just laid it all on a silver platter. Russia leases an airbase in Azerbaijan that is perfectly placed for monitoring Iranian air-space—what could be easier for Putin than to offer it as a staging ground for the new extra-special x-band radar the US was going to put in the Czech Republic?

This is not meant to be all rah-rah Vladimir—by no means. I think Putin is a frightening figure—despotic, repressive, possibly expansionist, probably brutal—which is what makes the situation we see playing out in the Heiligendamm Kempinski all the more disturbing. The US simply doesn’t have the sort of quality leadership capable of going head-to-head with the Russian president.

Instead, the best we can muster, it seems, is a sort of bull in a china shop approach to our interests. Bush can completely dishonor his host, Angela Merkel of Germany, by derailing the climate change agreement that had been negotiated at lower levels for months, and he can posture about security while acting to make everyone less secure, but the administration is so ideologically constipated that it can’t show up at a high-powered summit with the stomach for the real hard work of international diplomacy. Global warming, nuclear proliferation, Islamic extremism, population control, globalization, immigration, food safety, disease control—just look at what needs to get done on a high-level, multinational scale!

But that’s not what does get done—not when George W. Bush is seated at the dinner table. Instead, time is wasted, face-saving proclamations become placeholders for action, the undemocratizing Russia is allowed to claim the title as grand master of statecraft, and the US president throws up his dinner—if not his hands.

Meanwhile, it is the rest of us that are left feeling ill.

(cross-posted to capitoilette and Daily Kos)