Everyone’s paying attention to the Senate confirmation hearings of General Hayden today, but it looks like all the fun stuff is happening in the other Senate hearing rooms.
White House = Fox News
WH Press Secretary Tony Snow, yesterday:
MR. SNOW: "Well, as I pointed out — I mentioned this yesterday, and for — let me see if I can find my quote, because I pulled it out. Chuck Hagel, as you may recall, made a fair amount of news over the weekend when he first said that — let’s see — "Well, I want to listen to the details and I want to listen to the President," said Senator Hagel — he said this on ‘This Week’ on a competing network."
Either Tony Snow isn’t aware that he no longer works for Fox News, or the White House is competing with ABC.
The Biggest “Big Brother” Award Goes To…
Mayor Chris Napoli of Dillingham, Alaska.
The mayor received a $202,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security, and used the money to install 70 public security cameras in and around the town of Dillingham, Alaska — population 2,400.
That comes out to one camera for every 34 people.
Because al Qaeda has its eyes set on Dillingham, Alaska. Or something. I guess.
I’m sorry. Did I say "Mayor" Napoli? I meant "ex-mayor". The subject of outraged citizens who didn’t like being peeped on, he resigned last week.
Carbon Dioxide: Our Friend
Think Progress has a nice follow-up to my earlier post about the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a oil-industry funded group which is trying to convince Americans, through advertising, that there is no global warming.
One CEI ad argues that carbon dioxide (one of the root causes of global waming) is good and necessary. Specifically, the ad says carbon dioxide is “essential to life” because “we breath it out.”
That’s the sort of facile argument that will persuade 5 year olds, but not serious adults. As Think Progress notes:
It’s comforting to know that this is the best global warming rejectionists can come up with. There are plenty of things that are healthy and essential in reasonable quantities but harmful in extremely large quantities. (For example, drinking a few glasses of water is beneficial. Drinking 10 gallons of water can kill you.) We need some carbon dioxide, but too much causes global warming.
The other CEI advertisement simply misuses a particular scientific study. The ad says that the study found that glaciers on Greenland are growing. This is technically true, but misleading. What the ad doesn’t say is that the glaciers are growing on Greenland’s interior, due to localized weather patterns and elevation (sort of a cold El Nino of the North). Greenland’s coast, however, is still diminishing, due to global warming.
But what would you expect from an oil company funded institution? Honesty and fair play?
George Will Makes Sense
Yeah, I know. But when he’s right, he’s right.
George Will’s topic today is the so-called "values voter" and he begins like this:
An aggressively annoying new phrase in America’s political lexicon is "values voters." It is used proudly by social conservatives, and carelessly by the media to denote such conservatives.
This phrase diminishes our understanding of politics. It also is arrogant on the part of social conservatives and insulting to everyone else because it implies that only social conservatives vote to advance their values and everyone else votes to . . . well, it is unclear what they supposedly think they are doing with their ballots.
Will recognizes that liberals, moderates, libertarians, and conservatives of the non-social kind also vote their values, too. For example, isn’t environmentalism — the desire for proper stewardship of the Earth and its resources — a "value"? Isn’t federalism a "value"?
But as Will points out, social conservatives have usurped the phrase as if the only values worth discussing are values that matter to them — end of abortion, prayer in schools, etc. And to be sure, those are values, but certainly not the only ones. Freedom, for example, is obviously a value, but when you legislate morality (as social conservatives want to do), you necessarily deny freedom. That’s why pro-choice proponents can rightfully designate their position as one of value, too.
Social conservatives are quick to label those on the left as "elitist". But what could more elitist than assuming that you have the monopoly on values?
Can We Call It Vietnam Now?
Then: My Lai
Now: Haditha
Billmon writes:
Ugly? That doesn’t even begin to cover it. Dick Cheney is ugly. The Pentagon is ugly. An Abrams tank is ugly. Executing helpless women and children while they’re huddled on the floor, praying to their God, is a war crime committed by terrorists. It’s Lidice and Rwanda and Srebrenica and, of course, My Lai. The men who committed this crime aren’t really human any more — they shed their humanity like a snake sheds its skin when they walked into those houses and started shooting. All that’s left of them is a dark pit at the center of their reptilian brain stems, a place that knows no pity or remorse or even self-awareness. They’re lost souls — lost to the world and to themselves.
I don’t know if it’s better or worse that this atrocity seems to have been committed by a military unit completely out of control, instead of one that was following orders, as was clearly the case at Abu Ghraib. One one hand, you can argue that it’s simply a reminder that Americans are as capable of being beasts as anyone else: Germans, Japanese, Russians, Serbs, Arabs, Afghans, Israelis, Somalians, Afrikaaners, Salvadorans — the list goes on and on. There’s nothing exceptional about us, even in our war crimes.
On the other hand, the fact that U.S. Marines — the few, the proud, etc. — were capable of such bestiality says something ominous about the psychological state of the American military after three years of being stretched to the limit. These weren’t draftees or Guardsmen or pathetic losers like Calley. These were professionals, supposedly the best of the best, and yet they threw away their training, their code and their honor, and drenched themselves and their flag in the blood of innocents. They simply snapped, in other words, and it makes me wonder how many more like them are out there — one IED or ambush away from going beserk.
President Bush Responds To Flooding Emergency
…in the State of Washington!!! From floods that happened between January 27 through February 4.
Meanwhile, in New Hampshire…
With belongings and damaged materials strewn about the lawn, Rick Langelier and Terry Papagni take a break from cleaning up to eat pizza donated by a local restaurant. Island Drive residents began returning to their homes to tear out soggy carpeting and wallboard damaged by this week’s flooding as they try to save their homes along the Merrimack River. (Staff photo by Bob Hammerstrom, Nashua Telegraph)
God Talked To Pat Robertson Again
This is always a source of amusement.
This time God came to Pat in the guise of Al Roker. Or something.
Pat told viewers of the 700 Club:
"If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of America will be lashed by storms." On today’s show, he added, "There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest."
Okay. First of all . . . "If I heard the Lord right"?!? What — does the omniscient and omnipresent God mumble? Is there some static in the transmission?
And if there is, perhaps Pat is not very reliable as soothsayers go.
Of course, "if I heard the Lord right" and "There may will be something as bad as" both qualify as "weasel words". When the predictions don’t come true, Pat can just say, "Oh, my hearing aid was on the fritz. What God really told me was that we should all cut down on our cholesterol."
Secondly, the coasts of the Atlantic are "lashed by storms" every year. It’s called the "hurricane season". Climatologists and meterologists say there is a 64% chance of a hurricane hitting the east coast of the United States. Of course, their estimation is based on a silly thing known as science, not garbled transmissions from the Almighty — so what do they know?
ThinThread
Unbelieveable.
Back in 1999, the NSA developed a phone/email "monitoring" program (called ThinThread) that was (a) more efficient than the (illegal) wiretapping program they have now; and (b) had technology that "provided a simple solution to privacy concerns". This involved encrypting the phone numbers before it got to analysts. Then, if something got red-flagged, the intelligence officials would get a (judicially-approved) warrant to decrypt the phone numbers, and proceed from there.
It was scrapped due to "bureaucratic infighting". After 9/11, it was revived in a watered-down version — without the privacy concern prong. The Baltimore Sun has the scoop:
A number of independent studies, including a classified 2004 report from the Pentagon’s inspector-general, in addition to the successful pilot tests, found that the program provided "superior processing, filtering and protection of U.S. citizens, and discovery of important and previously unknown targets," said an intelligence official familiar with the program who described the reports to The Sun. The Pentagon report concluded that ThinThread’s ability to sort through data in 2001 was far superior to that of another NSA system in place in 2004, and that the program should be launched and enhanced.
Kevin Drum sums it up nicely:
The story here is that (a) ThinThread was awesome but was killed in favor of Trailblazer, (b) Trailblazer was eventually killed too, (c) a similar program was put in place after 9/11, but without the privacy safeguards, and (d) the new program doesn’t work worth a damn.
American Idol Update: Elliott, Phone Home
I didn’t see the show, but I hear that the voting was close — everyone within one percentage point of each other. (Of course, one percentage point could be 50,000-100,000 votes). But Elliott had the least votes, and Paula cried.
At this point, it’s hard to get revved up for the finales, because one of two things will happen:
(1) Taylor will predictably win.
(2) Katharine will stage an upset, proving once and for all that America confuses superlative talent with superlative looks.
So those are the options: a predictably nice ending, or a ridiculous one.
Say what you will, a Taylor-Chris finale would have been really interesting. American Idol Season 5 would have ended with a bang, not a whimper.
A Very Inconvenient Truth
Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, is opening one week from today, and if you live near a major city, you’ll have a good chance to see it (the rest of us will have to wait for the DVD).
But if you stay at home and watch T.V., you may get to see some "public issue" advertisements about “global warming alarmism and the call by some environmental groups and politicians to reduce fossil fuel and carbon dioxide emissions.” The ads are put out by a group called the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which widely publicizes its belief that the earth is not warming cataclysmically because of the burning of coal and oil.
Not surprisingly, the big donors to the Competitive Enterprise Institute are Exxon Mobile and other major oil companies.
Think Progress adds more:
Exxon’s spokesperson Tom Cirigliano has explained why the company is so dedicated to funding CEI’s pushback on global warming:
We want to support organizations that are trying to broaden the debate. … There is this whole issue that no one should question the science of global climate change that is ludicrous. That’s the kind of dark-ages thinking that gets you in a lot of trouble.
The science is not questioned because the science behind global warming is indisputable. Science Magazine analyzed 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on global warming published between 1993 and 2003. Not a single one challenged the scientific consensus that the earth’s temperature is rising due to human activity. The U.S. Climate Change Science Program concluded that humans are driving the warming trend through greenhouse gas emissions. And the EPA has said that the recent warming trend “is real and has been particularly strong within the past 20 years…due mostly to human activities.”
For the oil industry, Al Gore’s film exposing the truth is perceived as a threat, and they have no shortage of funds to try to distort it.
American Idol Update: Elliott In Bad Shape
As predicted, Taylor is getting the most votes; Elliot the least. All according to ZebaSearch. [Ryan Seacrest would probably want me to remind you that the phone lines are still open].
Behind The 29%
A conservative blogger writes:
George W. Bush isn’t at 29 percent because he’s lost support among moderates and liberals – he’s at 29 percent because he has been too willing to cave in to moderates and liberals.
The recipe for restoring his popularity to above 50 percent is simple: Bush must screw the Left every chance he gets.
The premise is facially misleading. When Bush was at the mid-30’s, most conservatives were on his side. So although the dip to 29% can be attributed in part to conservatives leaving the reservation, his low approval numbers are primarily because of disenchantment by liberals and moderates of both political parties, as well as independents.
And it’s not because of immigration. People of all political stripes are abandoning Bush for the same reasons that liberals rejected him years ago: Iraq.
The latest ABC/WaPo poll confirms this. By nearly a four-to-one margin over the next highest reason given, those who opposed Bush do so due to Iraq (46% Iraq, 12% just a bad job overall). Only 2% said it was because of immigration:
3. (IF DISAPPROVE) Why do you say so – what’s the main reason?
5/15/06 War in Iraq 46 Doing a bad job overall 12 Economy 9 Disagree with him on issues overall 7 Gasoline prices 5 Dishonest/not truthful 5 Doesn't care about average people 3 Don't like him personally 2 Immigration issues 2 Doing a bad job on terrorism/hasn't caught Osama bin Laden 1 Environmental issues 1 Favors the rich 1 Republican * Not protecting privacy/civil rights * Other 5 No opinion 1
So while many conservatives are passionate about the immigration issue, it seems like most of America, including most conservatives, aren’t latching on to it, or at least not blaming Bush for it.
The poll has other good news: Democrats were preferred to handle every issue over Republicans, even the campaign against terrorism. Who would have thought it possible a few years ago?
Speaking of illegal immigration, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has fessed up that his grandparents may have been illegal immigrants.
You Know It’s Bad When…
Cheney appears to have lost the support of Rush Limbaugh:
It’s worth noting that Cheney was on for 13 minutes — and there wasn’t a single softball question during the entire interview. Consider some of Limbaugh’s queries:
* Is the President — are you and the President, the administration aware of the dissatisfaction on the whole issue of illegal immigration that exists not just within the Republican base, but within the country at large?
* Why is it that so many people don’t think that the steps the President is outlining and has outlined over the years will address the seriousness of the problem?
* Let me ask you this on behalf of my audience, simply because of the number of emails. People don’t think that this number of 6,000 [National Guard troops] — which probably will add up to 2,000 or 3,000 on duty at any given time — is actually going to make much of an impact.
* The Dubai Ports deal, American people spoke out loudly against it, "we don’t want any part of it," it got killed. The illegal immigration deal is generating just as much negative response, but the American people are not getting the reaction — the same reaction from government to that, that they got on the Dubai Ports deal — a little confused, asking questions, "what’s different here, we’re still talking security."
Six Months
Heh. NYT foreign affairs columnist Tom Friedman has six-month-itis when it comes to Iraq:
New York Times, 11/30/03:
"The next six months in Iraq—which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there—are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time."
CBS‘s Face the Nation, 10/3/04:
"What we’re gonna find out, Bob, in the next six to nine months is whether we have liberated a country or uncorked a civil war."
NBC‘s Meet the Press, 9/25/05:
"I think we’re in the end game now…. I think we’re in a six-month window here where it’s going to become very clear and this is all going to pre-empt I think the next congressional election—that’s my own feeling— let alone the presidential one."
CBS‘s Face the Nation, 12/18/05:
"We’ve teed up this situation for Iraqis, and I think the next six months really are going to determine whether this country is going to collapse into three parts or more or whether it’s going to come together."
NBC‘s Today, 3/2/06:
"I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq."
MSNBC‘s Hardball, 5/11/06:
"Well, I think that we’re going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six months—probably sooner—whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we’re going to have to just let this play out."
Hat tip to FAIR, who has documented fourteen example of this.