Posts from — January 2006

Why this is so secret that his press office doesn’t just tell people says more about the paranoia of Cheney’s people than the seriousness of the ailment. It is painful and some of the medications cause fluid retention, a side effect that he should have been made aware of before he was given the prescription.

Anonymously Annoying describes most of the news groups on Usenet. If P. Lapin can’t attack Muffy, International Kitten of Mystery, over Easter customs, what’s the point? [rec.org.mensa] People who complain about spam have never been part of a full-bore flame war.

Given the way this law was passed, Congress had better have given itself an exemption, because the law is definitely annoying, and it certainly was enacted in an anonymous fashion.

As the Pensacola Beach Blog noted, the media in the US were about the only people who honored the request not to announce her name while negotiations for her release were initiated.

I would assume that the request to withhold her name was to ensure that those who were going to negotiate could eliminate false claims and deal only with those who could supply them with her name.

Unfortunately, the media doesn’t always think beyond scoops, and the negotiators don’t provide reasons for their requests. This has been going on for a while, the kidnapping of journalists, and you would think that a procedure would have been established.

Of course, that doesn’t include what you have paid in management fees or the value lost to inflation. You would have been ahead stuffing the money in your mattress, but not as well off as putting it in a passbook savings account at your local bank.

The Shrubbery’s running joke about tax cuts for the wealthy encouraging investment and creating jobs sure is getting old.

The problem is that if I tore into Rohrabacher, like I really want to do, in the back of my mind I would hear my Mother lecturing me about not making fun of people who are “slower” than the rest of us.

On the other hand I have worked with “slower” people for decades, because, frankly, ARC provides some of the best work for your dollar when you use their services. Rohrabacher doesn’t measure up to the standards of ARC.

Is this something that afflicts everyone who worked as a speechwriter for the Reagan White House, this disconnect from reality? To say that Abramoff is a good person who made some mistakes – the man pled guilty to multiple felonies for crying out loud, what does it take to get listed as a “bad person”, other than being a Democrat?

[I have to stop. “My Mother’s voice” is using my middle name, always a bad sign.]

I cannot independently verify that the Shrubbery is hitting kittens with a hammer. That is almost as absurd as having an Attorney General who thinks calico cats are cursed, or a major leader “adopting” cats from an animal shelter to cut them up. Next they’ll be telling us that the government is tapping everyone’s phone…

Writer and entertainer Adam Felbers felt obliged to point out that not “everyone” believed in the “conventional wisdom” prior to the invasion of Iraq.

It does make one pause when you realize that a comedy writer has had more success at understanding the foreign policy situation and predicting the future than the current government.

Given that the most trusted “news program” is on Comedy Central, perhaps we should give up on think tanks and universities and start hiring the National Security Council from the ranks of stand-up comics.

At least this “American” can instantly size up a situation and take appropriate action.

While most of them “double dip”, I’ll wish them a Merry Christmas anyway.

I tend to be pragmatic about such things: if they worked, such actions might warrant some minor consideration in limited circumstances, but given the track record of those in power, more restrictions are in order.

We didn’t use the information we had before 9/11 effectively. None of the proposed powers deal in any way with the actual problems that blocked the efficiency of the old system. As I said before, we didn’t have enough people looking for the needle and their solution is to bring in more hay.

Hurricane Katrina was the Department of Homeland Security on display. The response shows the level of preparedness of this administration. You cannot be effective if you put political appointees into critical operational roles. Political ideology is not a replacement for training and experience.

When they get in trouble these people hold photo ops. Why gather this much experience in one place and then spend 10 minutes with the group? They say that even a blind pig can occasionally find an acorn, but not if the pig refuses to leave the barn.

The current FBI can’t be trusted to make a fingerprint match; the IRS is “auditing” our political party affiliation; Homeland Security is opening mail; and the Defense Department is tapping our electronic communications.

While the Pope considers eliminating Limbo, the Shrubbery has created a new version at Guantanamo.

With a Republican controlled Senate, recess appointments are used to fill critical positions with unqualified, inexperienced cronies.

Congress would seem to be filled with people more interested in their personal interests that the interests of the country.

Has any of this helped to capture Osama bin Laden? Did any of this prevent the bombings in Madrid and London, the capitals of two of our closest allies in the so-called “War on Terror”? Looking at the situation in Iraq it is fairly obvious who is trapped by the “flypaper theory”, and it isn’t the “terrorists”.

Just for that, I’m not going to tell them that the cat family tree has been deciphered.

R. Neal [the former SKB] wonders where the Religious Reich buys televisions that don’t have any controls on them. He assumes that the lack of power switches and channel selectors is the reason they keep trying to get stations not to broadcast certain programs.

™ ^{[Kevin Drum]}

Alpha Cat

Okay, Dot, I get it.

[Editor: Dot instructs Ringo on the hierarchy in the house.]

Friday Ark

Before anyone jumps to the conclusion that Nigeria has become a liberal hot bed, they are going to release people who have been in pre-trial detention longer than the sentence their crime would have brought, and the people whose files have been lost.

The average wait for a trial is about ten years, and if you can’t make bail you sit in prison.

It’s a new criminal justice concept: “Do the time, then we’ll check to see if you did the crime.”

In the US we go one better: Bush declares you an “enemy combatant” and you are held for the rest of your life, whether you get a trial or not.

Article. II.
Section. 2.
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
[snip]

they gave Congress the power to write the rules under which the Army and Navy operated:

Article. I.
Section. 8.
[snip]
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;–And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Notice that Congress is covered under Article I, the first thing they dealt with, not the President. Take special note of the last paragraph of Section 8, which charges Congress with making the laws concerning all other Powers vested by this Constitution. There are no Powers other than those granted by the Constitution, and Congress makes the laws.

If the President wants a new Power, the Constitution must be amended, and even then, the Congress defines the Power with laws. That’s the way the government was designed. Congress makes the laws; Congress declares war; Congress allocates the money.

The President can veto legislation, but Congress can over-ride a veto. The Courts balance things by ensuring that laws are Constitutional. The new government was constructed on what was known, the government of Great Britain, with modifications to deal with what were felt to be defects.

The Revolution was against the perceived excesses of the executive, the King, so the founders weren’t going to repeat that mistake with a strong executive.

There hasn’t been a native wild boar in Britain for several centuries, and local farmers would be as accepting of their reintroduction as most Western ranchers are of the reintroduction of wolves, except that boars are a good deal more destructive than wolves.

Boars are omnivores, like humans, so they’ll certainly not turn away from a lunch named Fluffy as well as every plant in a garden or farm. If cornered they are quite capable of killing a man.

The farmer who was raising them has rounded up about 40, so there are now 60 wandering around to be shot, hit by cars, or eat pets and small children.

This is the same group that engineered the mink release in August of 1998, resulting in the loss of massive numbers of small animal life by the minks that weren’t turned into “pavement paste”.

The problem with releasing farm-bred animals is that they don’t know the survival rules and they generally don’t have any natural limits on their reproduction, so most will starve. The action also displaces the local animal life by introducing an alien species. The people who introduced rabbits to Australia and kudzu to the South thought they were solving problems too.

Of course this is not a problem in the US because along with Vegans and Quakers our security forces are tracking these people. Apparently we have won the War on Terror, or these forces would be tracking people trying to attack the country.