Posts from — June 2005

[™ Kevin Drum]

Sam has a Fan

Wow, what a big cat!

[Edit: Ringo is actually following the cursor as she steps on keys.]

Friday Ark

It is fortunate for a lot of people that I no longer have the ability to call in airstrikes.

This is why you never apologize for anything. No matter what you say, they will say something worse and call you partisan if you object.

Karl, your boy prepared for war by telling people to go shopping. Karl, I’ve been in a few tight spots with people shooting at me and I have to tell you that “Go Shopping!” is the absolutely worst war cry I can imagine, although it is a fitting shibboleth for your party.

1. It’s Okay If You’re A Republican

These are not run down slum buildings being removed for low-cost housing, or a road, or a school; these are peoples’ well kept homes being taken so a private developer can built his project on their land.

This is the eminent domain taking of private property by Community Redevelopment Agencies to increase property tax revenues or provide new jobs except: there are no guarantees that the projects will ever be built, that what that gets built will actually increase property tax revenues, that any extra jobs will be created. What is guaranteed is that the property owners are being pushed out of their homes or businesses.

I have a history question for the Supremes who voted for this: how, exactly is this different from what Andy Jackson did to the Cherokee over your Court’s objection? If it was wrong for Jackson to steal land from the Cherokee, how can it be right for a city to take these peoples’ homes? Haven’t you just negated the value of real estate law in the US, I mean why bother to file a deed if elected officials can decide to take your property?

It is decisions like this that helped to create Timothy McVee, Ted Kaczynski, et alia. The militias will be pushing this as an example of various conspiracies. The people faced with being ejected now know there’s nothing the courts will do for them, that the majority has been given the right to oppress the minority.

Are they so isolated from reality that they don’t understand that this can lead to violence? They can talk all they want about “representative government”, but everyone knows that most local governments belong to the people with money, and it isn’t going to make much difference to the people who have lost their homes when some official goes to jail later for corruption.

Added Extra: Roger Ailes [the good one] fires up the “wayback machine” to remind us that Bush used eminent domain to “steal” a baseball stadium and make a fortune.

It doesn’t make any difference that no one in the US bothers to burn the flag anymore. Even flags that are supposed to be burned because they are really ratty looking tend to be stuffed in the bottom of the trash bag to be dumped in a land fill rather than contributing to air pollution and global warming by being burned.

Giving that Congress has never even bothered to pass a law specifying the dimensions of the US flag, [the military has a flag regulation specifying the various ratios, but there is no counterpart for non-military flags] it’s odd that they are showing so much interest.

I think it’s disrespectful for all of these people to be wearing flag patches, for General Myers to wear a flag shirt, for Bush I to have a flag on the back of his boating jacket, for Bush II to sign small flags, but I didn’t feel obliged to tell them that these are violations of the US flag code. Somehow I don’t think these violations are going to be punished under this new amendment, which means the purpose is to punish political expression.

If they want to pass an amendment to protect something that really fits the common definition of sacred, and which is burned a good deal more often than flags in the US, they could be pushing a bill to make it illegal to burn crosses.

[Update: Thanks to August J. Pollak for the flag signing.]

Just go and read it.

I don’t know a single male Senator that I would vote for, not one of them is worth spit.

Bovine excrement! Another example of no one being held responsible for anything in Rumsfeld’s Pentagon. The chaplain who spoke openly about the problem was being transferred early, so she has resigned rather than being jerked around by the Air Force.

Apparently no one explained to “Dick” the full effects of the KoolAid: they aren’t lying; they’re delusional.

CG has joined General J. C. Christian in Operation Yellow Elephant. Patriotic citizen participation – only in America.

I know my governor’s children would like to enlist, but they don’t want the appearance of political influence that would be involved in overcoming certain minor problems, mere youthful indiscretions, with their resumés.

Who knew that kangaroos were so covetous?

Well, it’s not a lot to ask and if he misses he might shift to CAPS LOCK WITH BOLD AND ITALICS.

If you feel inclined, please drop by.

[Update: 1655CDT < 80,000 to go.]

The Marines are in constant motion to and from war zones and it is taking a toll on their equipment. It isn’t receiving the maintenance and repairs that it should have and much of it is reaching the end of its scheduled life well ahead of normal.

This Pentagon can’t even handle the routine part of the military, the part that has direct civilian counterparts. Much of what is going wrong deals with inventory control, preventive maintenance, and scheduling. These things are available in manuals, and not arcane military lore. These people lack the competence to operate a pizza delivery service, much less the world’s largest military.

Wikipedia has the general information while ReligiousTolerance.org covers the celebrations associated with this astronomical occurrence.

Timed with the Solstice is the launch of Cosmos 1 from a Russian nuclear submarine. The spacecraft is designed to be propelled on its mission by the pressure of photons against its pinwheel of sails.

In this article, Solar spacecraft set to blast off, Reuters tells us:
“The project started as a dream held by Planetary Society founders Carl Sagan, the late science fiction writer, and Louis Friedman, who proposed sending a solar sail craft to rendezvous with Halley’s Comet in the 1970s when he worked at NASA.”

I rather think that Carl Sagan is better remembered as an astronomer and astrophysicist who popularized science, than his meager output in the science friction genre. His seminal program on PBS, Cosmos, is the source of the vehicle’s name and the licensing of that program was the genesis of the entertainment company still run by his widow, Ann Druyan, which, along with contributions from Planetary Society members and philanthropist Peter Lewis paid for this mission.

Of course the Beeb also noticed the effort: Cosmos 1: Sailing on sunlight. The BBC has a link to the Planetary Society’s page, but I could never get through.

[Update: The Planetary Society’s blog on the mission.]

[Update2: Telemetry was lost during the insertion burn and the craft was not picked up by the Russian site at Petropavlovsk or the American sites at the Pacific atoll of Kwajalein or Shemya at the end of the Aleutians.]

[Update3: 6/22 1700CDT Looks like the Cosmos 1 didn’t make it. The Russians believe that there was a problem with the first stage and the craft never achieved the necessary altitude.]

Giving the predilection of the US for kidnapping people from other countries and the propaganda value to the Shrubbery of having Osama in US custody, I find it impossible to believe that the CIA has a clue about bin Laden’s current address.

I’m really thrilled to find out that Illegal immigrants accessed nuclear weapons facility.

Y-12 National Security Complex near Knoxville, Tennessee is not a power plant, this is where the US builds nuclear weapons. All of the parts and the owner’s manual are on site and they are letting undocumented aliens wander around and build structures there.

I would be really upset if South Knox Bubba got vaporized because of a remote controlled bomb got inserted into an assembly building. This would be a quick “dirty bomb” with the taxpayers supplying the nuclear material that would spread out over the Knoxville area.

Via The Light of Reason Glen at A Brooklyn Bridge offers: Bring Your Own, about a Marine who needs about $600 worth of equipment before he gets shipped to Iraq.

This kid needs to get his own body armor and water bag, because there is no guarantee that the equipment will be waiting for him when he gets to his assigned area.

Excuse me, but no one should be sent until they are issued this personal gear and had it adjusted. The taxpayers are dumping money hand over fist into the Pentagon and they keep claiming they can’t afford to buy these essentials. This is pure bovine excrement – they are stuffing money into a slush fund and need to be audited by Congress immediately.

I maintained that a religion needs a book of ancient lore, some form of ritual, at least one special place, a recognizable form of architecture, and funny hats. You can’t have a good religion unless you do something that people not in the religion would consider a bit odd.

Many of the Protestant sects have eschewed hats recently, but those who started them had weird head gear.

My position was: anything with a total philosophy that fits on a post-it note, and which lacks any other of the forms cannot be adjudged a religion, no matter how obnoxious certain people who call themselves atheists might seem to theists. This statement does not include religions which take no position on gods, but which have all of the other traits, like Buddhism.

PZ Myers has an interesting post on the American Street: Planet of the Hats, which looks at societies from his individual viewpoint. [requires a sense of humor]

In addition to playing blues artists, Greg features local musicians and sports. It’s a little disconcerting to switch from Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown to the Pensacola Ice Pilots hockey team or the Pelicans baseball team, but it may be the price paid to get his two-hour show.

Lately he has been breaking into rants during his show. First he expressed his opinion on the direction of the FCC and its effect on radio broadcasting. He was unhappy. After a couple of weeks he brought up his opinion of the actions of the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and their introduction of politics into the sphere of NPR stations. Of course, the entire station went into crisis mode following the Congressional funding cut attempts.

Tonight he was responding to someone complaining about NPR reporting being biased. Greg stated his party affiliation and pointed out that the Republican Party has the White House and the US Congress, the Florida governor and legislature are also Republican, so get a grip, if the news is negative, it is going be negative about Republicans. If people want to elect some more Democrats, and give them control of something, then the news can be negative about them.

I figure he’ll be a Democrat any time now after he realizes how futile it is to attempt to use logic on his fellow Republicans.