We just don't know anymore. The French can build a bridge across an enormous valley, and it's a thing of beauty. We can't even keep our bridges in place.
And people die.
A friend of mine asked me recently, "how long did it take to span the country with a new railroad? And how long is it taking to build a rail line from Tacoma to Seattle?" A distance of about thirty miles. We spent seven years arguing over the cost of putting in a monorail that everyone but the political leaders in Seattle and King County wanted, had five votes on it (the first four all came out a resounding "yes!"), and the last vote was a no because they were going bankrupt. Probably due to all the political infighting to keep the project from coming to fruition. And now we find out that the Light Rail alternative (which we didn't want, but is what we're getting), will be more expensive than originally planned. Duh.
And now, a bridge over the Mississippi has collapsed, taking something like fifty cars and their occupants with it. A bridge that in 2005 was judged to be substandard (but not a danger, yet). The Democratic legislature in the state of Minnesota had brought an infrastructure spending bill to the governor (a Repugnican), who vetoed the whole thing because of a 5-cent/gallon tax increase. He could have line-itemed that out, but he chose to veto the entire bill.
Shrub was doing his press-confrence thing after the collapse, and immediately went into blaming the newly-elected Democratic Congress for not passing the spending bills that were due (and none of which would have affected whether this particular bridge would have stayed up). He also pointed out that the legislature is going into summer recess without having passed the bill onto him yet. This from a President that has spent more time on vacation than any other President in history.
It seems to me that we, as Americans, have abdicated all responsibility for everything. We don't fix things, we don't build things (unless it's private enterprise, of course). We sit back, hiding behind our hands, and hope that the problems that we think might be coming down the pipeline won't affect us, but maybe the next guy. And we wait. We need a president who is willing to tell us not what we want to hear, but what we need to hear. It's pessimistic and unpleasant, but until someone in a leadership position gives us and the Congress the scolding we so richly deserve, this country will fall apart, one piece at a time, and we'll sit back, and watch it all on CNN.
Until, of course, our own roof caves in. "Gee, how did that happen?"
I'm no better. I work my ass off to make enough money to be pretty comfortable. My job sends me all over hell and gone, so I can't reliably volunteer for anything, unless the folks involved are really understanding. Most people are worse off than I am. But we keep electing people who tell us happy nonsense. I saw a bumper sticker on a guy's car this morning that said, "Proud to be American."
I'm not anymore.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Uncertainly Not!
Scooter gets a semi-free pass.
Still gonna cost him a few bucks, but maybe all those folks who were clamoring for his release will pony up the quarter million he owes in fines. The New York Times is all sad, but still thinks this was fair.
Poor wittle baby.
Shrub commutes Scooter's sentence to time served (none) and a fine, plus his felony conviction still stands. Which is good, maybe he won't be able to vote wherever he lives. Or something. Disbarred, one hopes. He'll have to make some sort of honest living.
Or else become a political consultant or lobbyist. (which one do YOU think is more likely?)
IdiotLand
Elsewhere the spin machines are in overdrive, the US Attorneys' scandal is now moving into the sixth or so month of controversy, and the phrase Executive Privilege is being tested for all it's worth in the newspapers of record. Hillary Clinton has said we're safer since 9/11. Barack Obama has stated with a straight face that the Bush administration has not yet done anything worthy of impeachment.
Do these people read the paper?
SiCKO
Michael Moore's film has started to make a fairly large splash. He reports on his website that the distribution company is letting it into at least 200 more screens. Moore may be strident, and a bit of a blowhard some times, but what he's talking about in SiCKO is where this country should have gone years ago. We're very low-ranked in terms of the health of our citizenry, and I suspect that part of the reason for this is how low-ranked we are in the intelligence of our citizenry. An uninformed, uneducated citizenry believes everything they tell us, no matter how transparently false it may be. And we've been sold, year after year, about the inefficiency of government-run anything. Except, of course, in places where these sorts of things actually work (France, England, Canada), or when perhaps the country doesn't spend every available bit of capital on new and better guns, planes, tanks and bombs.
We spend 43% ($420 billion) of our Gross Domestic Product on the military. The next highest spender is China, at 6% ($62.5 billion). They have about triple our population. For those leftos who want to protest the war, or protest the warrantless wiretapping, or anything else for that matter, protest this first. No country should spend this much of their capital on the machines of death, least of all when constantly talking about spreading peace.
Still gonna cost him a few bucks, but maybe all those folks who were clamoring for his release will pony up the quarter million he owes in fines. The New York Times is all sad, but still thinks this was fair.
Poor wittle baby.
Shrub commutes Scooter's sentence to time served (none) and a fine, plus his felony conviction still stands. Which is good, maybe he won't be able to vote wherever he lives. Or something. Disbarred, one hopes. He'll have to make some sort of honest living.
Or else become a political consultant or lobbyist. (which one do YOU think is more likely?)
IdiotLand
Elsewhere the spin machines are in overdrive, the US Attorneys' scandal is now moving into the sixth or so month of controversy, and the phrase Executive Privilege is being tested for all it's worth in the newspapers of record. Hillary Clinton has said we're safer since 9/11. Barack Obama has stated with a straight face that the Bush administration has not yet done anything worthy of impeachment.
Do these people read the paper?
SiCKO
Michael Moore's film has started to make a fairly large splash. He reports on his website that the distribution company is letting it into at least 200 more screens. Moore may be strident, and a bit of a blowhard some times, but what he's talking about in SiCKO is where this country should have gone years ago. We're very low-ranked in terms of the health of our citizenry, and I suspect that part of the reason for this is how low-ranked we are in the intelligence of our citizenry. An uninformed, uneducated citizenry believes everything they tell us, no matter how transparently false it may be. And we've been sold, year after year, about the inefficiency of government-run anything. Except, of course, in places where these sorts of things actually work (France, England, Canada), or when perhaps the country doesn't spend every available bit of capital on new and better guns, planes, tanks and bombs.
We spend 43% ($420 billion) of our Gross Domestic Product on the military. The next highest spender is China, at 6% ($62.5 billion). They have about triple our population. For those leftos who want to protest the war, or protest the warrantless wiretapping, or anything else for that matter, protest this first. No country should spend this much of their capital on the machines of death, least of all when constantly talking about spreading peace.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Globulization
A dear friend of mine is currently getting her Master's in International Relations. I think that's what it is. She is sending me articles by Tom Friedman, all about the wonders of globalization, and how the United States is so far behind everyone, mostly in terms of education.
Which is unfortunately true. We crank out the dumbest bunch of louts the world has seen in many a decade, who don't read the newspaper and don't think for themselves very much, and who don't speak out much, except for the phrase "I want..."
Yes, I'm a curmudgeon.
Friedman goes on and on about how great it is in India, to where many things (such as software development) are outsourced, and how it's the US' fault, because we don't educate our children well enough to compete against these people. What he doesn't mention is wages, which are quite a bit lower in India.
It would be great (in that old world, the ideal one) were we to have a fully educated populace, where everyone gets a shot a college (because we're all so darn smart), or else physically gifted and can play sports for money. The proponents of globalization all talk about outsourcing this and outsourcing that, while American workers are supposed to somehow benefit from all this outsourcing by having everything made elsewhere for cheaper. Meanwhile, with better eucational programs, more Americans can become Systems Engineers, Software Engineers, Architects, Lawyers, Doctors, Tailors, Road-pavers, toilet attendants... experimental subjects...
How does America's economy perform when we manufacture nothing anyone else wants, except consumers? How do the rank and file benefit? Is everyone going to be playing the stock market, while people in other countries do the actual work? As Phil Knight once so famously said, "Maybe Americans don't want to make shoes..." If we lay off all our workers, and they can get work at factories built by foreign companies in the United States, who send all their profits back to Japan or Germany (or wherever). Meanwhile, General Motors makes all of their cars in Mexico or Brazil, where labor & safety standards are lower, and these are sold in the US, to people who don't have to work?
How will it all, well, work?
Which is unfortunately true. We crank out the dumbest bunch of louts the world has seen in many a decade, who don't read the newspaper and don't think for themselves very much, and who don't speak out much, except for the phrase "I want..."
Yes, I'm a curmudgeon.
Friedman goes on and on about how great it is in India, to where many things (such as software development) are outsourced, and how it's the US' fault, because we don't educate our children well enough to compete against these people. What he doesn't mention is wages, which are quite a bit lower in India.
It would be great (in that old world, the ideal one) were we to have a fully educated populace, where everyone gets a shot a college (because we're all so darn smart), or else physically gifted and can play sports for money. The proponents of globalization all talk about outsourcing this and outsourcing that, while American workers are supposed to somehow benefit from all this outsourcing by having everything made elsewhere for cheaper. Meanwhile, with better eucational programs, more Americans can become Systems Engineers, Software Engineers, Architects, Lawyers, Doctors, Tailors, Road-pavers, toilet attendants... experimental subjects...
How does America's economy perform when we manufacture nothing anyone else wants, except consumers? How do the rank and file benefit? Is everyone going to be playing the stock market, while people in other countries do the actual work? As Phil Knight once so famously said, "Maybe Americans don't want to make shoes..." If we lay off all our workers, and they can get work at factories built by foreign companies in the United States, who send all their profits back to Japan or Germany (or wherever). Meanwhile, General Motors makes all of their cars in Mexico or Brazil, where labor & safety standards are lower, and these are sold in the US, to people who don't have to work?
How will it all, well, work?
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Oh My GOD
Dear King George the W:
Stop talking.
Just stop f**king talking.
No one wants to listen to you mangle the English language any more. Adding "er"s to words does not make new words, it just makes you sound really really stupid, and it embarrasses the rest of us, your loyal (comatose) subjects.
Suiciders
Beheaders
Decider (actually, this is a word - it just sounds kinda dumb)
I mean --- come ON...
And the whole bringing peace to Afghanistan and Iraq thing? When would that be happening? Why would you even think of saying that with a straight face to a Mosque fulla Muslims?!?
woof
In other news, Patrick Leahy's committee has issued subpoenas to pretty much everyone in the Executive Branch, the Justice Department, and the NSA concerning documents relating to the warrantless wiretapping of, well, everyone else.
This is the miracle stain-remover that VeeP Cheney has been trying to get the morality bleached outta his underpants for the last five years, only now the mean old Senate ain't buying. Cheney didn't think the Senate had any right to Nixon's tapes, either. Unfortunately, the Supes back then aren't the same Supes now, and Scalia is likely to say, well, Executive Privilege does apply in this case, as we're at war. Secrets are important to be kept from the American public. Like whether the White House was wiretapping protest groups or commies or subversives like that there. That's a secret.
More interesting news - thanks to the Stephanie Miller Show (AM1090 in the Seattle area), we now know the names of some of the new Army operations occurring in Iraq at the moment. And they're funny without meaning to be. Like Operation Commando Eagle.
As the SM show says, so this is an eagle without underpants?
My other favorite - Operation Arrowhead Ripper.
(cue loud heavy metal music)
Silly little boys, making up names for their green army men games.
Actually, the last one makes a certain amount of sense. There is a character in Stanley Kubrick's "Doctor Strangelove: Or How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love The Bomb" (yes, that's really the full title of that movie): General Jack D. Ripper, who sends his entire Air Force bomber wing to attack their Soviet targets in order to "preserve our precious bodily fluids."
Stop talking.
Just stop f**king talking.
No one wants to listen to you mangle the English language any more. Adding "er"s to words does not make new words, it just makes you sound really really stupid, and it embarrasses the rest of us, your loyal (comatose) subjects.
Suiciders
Beheaders
Decider (actually, this is a word - it just sounds kinda dumb)
I mean --- come ON...
And the whole bringing peace to Afghanistan and Iraq thing? When would that be happening? Why would you even think of saying that with a straight face to a Mosque fulla Muslims?!?
woof
In other news, Patrick Leahy's committee has issued subpoenas to pretty much everyone in the Executive Branch, the Justice Department, and the NSA concerning documents relating to the warrantless wiretapping of, well, everyone else.
"EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE"
This is the miracle stain-remover that VeeP Cheney has been trying to get the morality bleached outta his underpants for the last five years, only now the mean old Senate ain't buying. Cheney didn't think the Senate had any right to Nixon's tapes, either. Unfortunately, the Supes back then aren't the same Supes now, and Scalia is likely to say, well, Executive Privilege does apply in this case, as we're at war. Secrets are important to be kept from the American public. Like whether the White House was wiretapping protest groups or commies or subversives like that there. That's a secret.
More interesting news - thanks to the Stephanie Miller Show (AM1090 in the Seattle area), we now know the names of some of the new Army operations occurring in Iraq at the moment. And they're funny without meaning to be. Like Operation Commando Eagle.
As the SM show says, so this is an eagle without underpants?
My other favorite - Operation Arrowhead Ripper.
(cue loud heavy metal music)
Silly little boys, making up names for their green army men games.
Actually, the last one makes a certain amount of sense. There is a character in Stanley Kubrick's "Doctor Strangelove: Or How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love The Bomb" (yes, that's really the full title of that movie): General Jack D. Ripper, who sends his entire Air Force bomber wing to attack their Soviet targets in order to "preserve our precious bodily fluids."
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Cheney vs Cheney
I want to use the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of reference for the things Dick Cheney is saying these days, but as he's both Mr. Hyde and Mr. Hyde, there isn't an individual that even comes close.
Sybill?
Back in the early days of the Cheney Vice-presidency, he told us that he couldn't give us all the names of the folks he had on his Energy Task Force. "Executive Privilege." oooookay.
So we don't know if anyone from Greenpeace was there (unlikely), but we're pretty sure "Kenny-Boy" Lay was probably invited.
And now that the National Archive has come calling to determine what and how Cheney's office classifies, he's saying he doesn't have to give up anything, as (by virtue of the fact that he's also President of the Senate), his office is in the Legislative Branch of government, not the Executive.
Rahm Emmanuel has said, Well fine, if he's only part of the leigslative branch, then we're not funding his office under the Executive Branch anymore, and he's going to have to start laying off all those people whose names he won't give us.
Oh, yeah, that's another little anomaly: Cheney won't tell anyone who works for him at all. I guess we only find out about them if they get indicted for lying to the FBI. Or maybe if he shoots them in the face, and they're forced to apologise for putting Cheney and his family through the awful ordeal.
Tony Snow refers to the de-funding as "Playing Politics." I have news for Mr. Snow - politics is money. And Cheney started this little game when he claimed Executive Privilege with one breath and the opposite with the next. It's fine if you want to claim insanity, Sybill, but don't act all surprised if we take you at your word - and have you committed.
Sybill?
Back in the early days of the Cheney Vice-presidency, he told us that he couldn't give us all the names of the folks he had on his Energy Task Force. "Executive Privilege." oooookay.
So we don't know if anyone from Greenpeace was there (unlikely), but we're pretty sure "Kenny-Boy" Lay was probably invited.
And now that the National Archive has come calling to determine what and how Cheney's office classifies, he's saying he doesn't have to give up anything, as (by virtue of the fact that he's also President of the Senate), his office is in the Legislative Branch of government, not the Executive.
Rahm Emmanuel has said, Well fine, if he's only part of the leigslative branch, then we're not funding his office under the Executive Branch anymore, and he's going to have to start laying off all those people whose names he won't give us.
Oh, yeah, that's another little anomaly: Cheney won't tell anyone who works for him at all. I guess we only find out about them if they get indicted for lying to the FBI. Or maybe if he shoots them in the face, and they're forced to apologise for putting Cheney and his family through the awful ordeal.
Tony Snow refers to the de-funding as "Playing Politics." I have news for Mr. Snow - politics is money. And Cheney started this little game when he claimed Executive Privilege with one breath and the opposite with the next. It's fine if you want to claim insanity, Sybill, but don't act all surprised if we take you at your word - and have you committed.
Monday, May 14, 2007
My Top Ten - Starting with 10 (and no particular order)
We could do so much better...
10. School of the Americas
To quote SOA Watch:
10. School of the Americas
To quote SOA Watch:
The School of the Americas (SOA), in 2001 renamed the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation,” or WHINSEC, is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers, located at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Initially established in Panama in 1946, it was kicked out of that country in 1984 under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty. Former Panamanian President, Jorge Illueca, stated that the School of the Americas was the “biggest base for destabilization in Latin America.” The SOA, frequently dubbed the “School of Assassins,” has left a trail of blood and suffering in every country where its graduates have returned.
Over its 59 years, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. These graduates have consistently used their skills to wage a war against their own people. Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others who work for the rights of the poor. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, disappeared, massacred, and forced into refugee by those trained at the School of Assassins.
Alumni of this little School include: Former Salvadoran army officer Gonzalo Guevara Cerritos, convicted for the 1989 murder of six Jesuit priests, a housekeeper and her 14-year-old daughter, arrested by federal agents on October 18 in Los Angeles, California; Army Commander in Chief Efrain Vasquez and General Ramirez Poveda, who helped lead a failed coup in Venezuela in 2002; Roberto D'Aubuisson, who, in 1980, planned and ordered the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, beloved champion of the poor in El Salvador. D'Aubuisson was the first person I'd ever heard associated with the term "Death Squad."
This is just a very, very tiny sampling of the SOA's alumni. And it still exists.
The simple fix: Shut it down.
Now and forever. It does us no good to be training people in how to oppress their own citizens. Several Latin American countries have withdrawn all of their soldiers or cops or both from the school, as they feel it is anti-democratic. Interestingly enough, these folks include Oscar Arias (Costa Rica), Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), and Argentina and Uruguay. All fairly left-wing. Your average right-wing dictator loves the SOA!
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Things that make you want to go hfruhhuhhh
What am I - STOOPID?
Oh.
So the Shrub gets his war funding bill and in an inspired moment of Presidential Comedy, VETOS it.
2nd veto of his presidency. First one was for stem-cell research.
Right. Parkinson's Disease is good for you, so is more war.
My wife and I are discussing children, but every time we talk about the education system, and how it pretty much sucks, but we can't afford private education, and then how the political situation is affecting the economic situation, and do we want to bring our children into a world where the middle class has vanished, and we just start spiraling and I want to drive my car into a bridge abutment.
I just saw An Inconvenient Truth. If anyone is interested in a used Ford Ranger, I'm desperate to sell this gas-guzzling behemoth (and it's a SMALL truck), and replace it with a tiny hybrid or electric car. I'm also reading The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, by Greg Palast, and he doesn't make me feel too good about Mr. Gore either. That or Al Gore is a little gullible in his dealings with big smokestack industries. Carbon Trading indeed...
There is no market-based solution to improve the environment! Can we just agree on that? Markets work to increase capital, not for the betterment of people. Government has to step in and step on many corporate toes to get them to behave. Regulation does actually work. It may be onerous, but other countries manage to have many regulations and still have corporations that work just fine.
Meanwhile, back in the land of "let's kill us some commies" - oops, sorry - "aaa-rabs," Mr. Shrub feels it is important not to tell the enemy exactly when we will be bugging out of Iraq. He wants it to be a surprise. Better still, he wants the next president to arrange the surprise party for the troops that are still there (assuming any are left).
yes
Oh.
So the Shrub gets his war funding bill and in an inspired moment of Presidential Comedy, VETOS it.
2nd veto of his presidency. First one was for stem-cell research.
Right. Parkinson's Disease is good for you, so is more war.
My wife and I are discussing children, but every time we talk about the education system, and how it pretty much sucks, but we can't afford private education, and then how the political situation is affecting the economic situation, and do we want to bring our children into a world where the middle class has vanished, and we just start spiraling and I want to drive my car into a bridge abutment.
I just saw An Inconvenient Truth. If anyone is interested in a used Ford Ranger, I'm desperate to sell this gas-guzzling behemoth (and it's a SMALL truck), and replace it with a tiny hybrid or electric car. I'm also reading The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, by Greg Palast, and he doesn't make me feel too good about Mr. Gore either. That or Al Gore is a little gullible in his dealings with big smokestack industries. Carbon Trading indeed...
There is no market-based solution to improve the environment! Can we just agree on that? Markets work to increase capital, not for the betterment of people. Government has to step in and step on many corporate toes to get them to behave. Regulation does actually work. It may be onerous, but other countries manage to have many regulations and still have corporations that work just fine.
Meanwhile, back in the land of "let's kill us some commies" - oops, sorry - "aaa-rabs," Mr. Shrub feels it is important not to tell the enemy exactly when we will be bugging out of Iraq. He wants it to be a surprise. Better still, he wants the next president to arrange the surprise party for the troops that are still there (assuming any are left).
Bang.
You're dead.
SURPRISE!
Seriously. The troops need to come home, now. We need to stop building the world's largest American Embassy. We need to re-think how we approach foreign policy altogether. Every single administration since Teddy Roosevelt has dabbled in foreign fun for the sake of American Interests, and pretty much none of it has turned out well for the indigenous population or (ultimately) the American Interests in question. It's called blowback, and we do it better than most. See my previous posts for Interventions.
Next week: the top ten reasons why America is not a moral beacon for anyone, but how it could be.
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