Posts from — July 2007

the marsupial master of minuscule and coiner of the word “blogtopia™”, skippy the bush kangaroo, is ready for kindergarten as today is his fifth blogiversary™.

i wish the entire crew many hoppy rebounds of the day.

Andante of Collective Sigh has her selection of the Seven Wonders of the World

Liberty of Corrente has a great free verse/essay: Come Home America.

Sue Sturgis of Facing South reports on the problem of rebuilding: Gulf Watch: ‘Our biggest hurdle is the United States government’.

Sharon Weinberger of Danger Room shows that Dick was always a dick in: The Whistleblower’s Tale.

Manan Ahmed of Informed Comment Global Affairs has a solid background piece on the Red Mosque stand off in Pakistan in: The Mosque and the Ballot. You should read it, Grasshopper, to discover why he calls members of the women’s school attached to the mosque “the Shaolin Burqas of Jamia Hafsa.”

CBS has a preview of a 60 Minutes piece with U.S. Comptroller General David Walker which tells us what we already knew – “borrow and spend” doesn’t work.

CNN reports that comity went out the same window as stare decisis on the Roberts Court in: Justices take potshots in opinions.

Update: a clarification – the “the Shaolin Burqas of Jamia Hafsa” are not a Pink-Pistol-Packing Lesbian Gang. Just so there’s no confusion.

Via Steve Bates of Yellow Doggerel Democrat in comments CNN is reporting: National Hurricane Center director leaves position

(CNN) — National Hurricane Center director Bill Proenza has left his position, CNN has learned. Sources say Proenza is still employed with the center, but the nature of his new position is unclear.

Deputy Director Ed Rappaport has been temporarily placed in charge.

Proenza, 62, became the director in January after the retirement of Max Mayfield.

Hopefully the soap opera is over and they can get back to work.

Most people should be familiar with fable [not by Aesop BTW] of The Scorpion and the Frog – the scorpion promises not to sting the frog in exchange for a trip across a river. Half way across the scorpion stings the frog ensuring that they will both die. When asked by the frog why he did it, the scorpion replies “because I’m a scorpion.”

Ellroon felt heartened about ‘Net Neutrality after reading NTodd’s explanation of the issue.

NTodd has a great exposition of why it shouldn’t be a problem from a technical perspective. Yes, technically it should just work and everyone should be thrilled with the results, except he forgets that the telecoms are scorpions.

Melanie of Just a Bump in the Beltway demonstrates part of the meaning in this Associate Press story, Verizon Copper Cutoff Traps Customers, about a major reason for switching to fiber optics.

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I fully intended to comply with the subpoena I received last week, but it was lifted. Somebody in the county has missed their opportunity to have me decide their fate by sitting on their jury. Maybe they heard I was in the jury pool and decided to settle.

If I lived in Utah I would love to be on the jury for this incident reported by the BBC: Woman jailed for ‘neglected’ lawn

A 70-year-old US woman has been left bruised and bloody after an unexpected clash with police who came to arrest her because her lawn was dry and brown.

Trouble flared when Utah pensioner Betty Perry, 70, refused to give her name to an officer trying to caution her for not watering her lawn.

I wonder if her decision not to water her lawn had anything to do with Fierce heatwave fans US wildfires

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Florida License Plates

Beneficiary

A weekend feature of Why Now.

Both Michael’s There’s a Mr. Kettle on line 4, Mr. President and Dave Johnson’s The Fall Lie-Attack Started Today deal with the bizarre claims made by the Shrubbery in his liar-side chat™ this morning.

Congress has barely finished cleaning up the mess left by the 109^th Congress and started to seriously discuss this year’s funding and already they are guilty of “tax and spend.” This from a guy who has been maxing out the national credit cards every month and stealing from retirees to fund his personal vendetta against Saddam.

Somehow it became the Democrats’ fault that he couldn’t convince the RepubliKlan to vote for his immigration bill. It is past time for the Shrubbery to look behind him and discover that no one is following where he’s leading. The party leaders are looking at his numbers and telling candidates to keep their distance.

It would appear that the Shrubbery’s legacy will be as the individual who destroyed the dream of a permanent GOP majority. He will be cast as Lucifer in their creation myth.  You have to wonder if this wasn’t a plot by Nixon loyalists to improve Tricky Dick’s standings.

Fortunately the Atlantic Basin continues to be quiet because the National Hurricane Center definitely isn’t.

The new head of the center, Bill Proenza, is attempting to remake things in his own image, and, as Dr. Jeff Masters reports, he is meeting with a lot of resistance from both above and below.

This is Supervision/Management 101, a new boss making too many changes, too quickly when taking over an established organization. Everything should have been left until after the season was over in December. People need time to adjust, especially when they have been working together as a team for more than a decade.

It isn’t just that Proenza is reordering priorities, he is doing it based on what some feel is weak scientific justification.

Hopefully everyone will calm down enough to provide the necessary forecasts that those in those of us in the coastal areas depend on for personal planning.

Steve Benen notes the White House complaints about the number of investigations that Congress is engaged in at the moment.

First off, this isn’t a Hastert/Frist Congress of two-day work weeks and only one item at a time. Congress can “walk and chew gum.” It takes concentration, but they can do it. They were slowed down by having to clean up the mess of unpassed funding bills left by the last Congress, but they are coming up to speed.

As for investigations, Zachary Roth wrote an article, Investi-Gate, in the June, 2006 issue of Washington Monthly about the Congressional investigations during the Clinton administration which provides context to the issue, and I found a statement by Rep. Henry Waxman on one of those Republican investigations, White House Christmas Caper.

I’ll make a personal commitment to create a series of really sarcastic posts if Congress starts investigating Barney for damaging the White House lawn. That has to be the “moral equivalent” of investigating Christmas card lists.

Sara Robinson covers Salon’s Biden piece in Biden Bites Bloggers Back, and includes this quote:

But I think — and this is naive maybe — I have confidence that the American people will put this in perspective. Like when one of the bloggers said, “We’re going to take back the Democratic Party.”

Ah, Eli Pariser of Moveon said that, not a blogger, and the “We” is the same one found in “We the people of the United States.” You do remember the Constitution, don’t you, Joe? The credit card corporations you shill for didn’t make you forget it, did they? He was talking about getting the party to listen to the people, and stop listening to the consultants who couldn’t figure out how to win elections.

Joe shouldn’t take other peoples quotes out of context and then complain about his quotes being taken out of context. Not everything written on the ‘Net is written by bloggers, and Moveon does most of its work via e-mail.

Mr. Biden’s problem isn’t bloggers or Moveon, his problem is a long record of votes on issues that affect people’s lives.

July 7^th, 2005, London

BBC In Depth and the Wikipedia articles on the bombing.

Update: Jams O’Donnell has more on the observances and a nice bit of the London mayor’s speech after the tragedy.

Rude Awakening

Why do you do that?

[Editor: Property is not pleased that her nap was disturbed by that light thingee.]

Friday Ark

EDB at Anecdotes from a Banana Republic reports on the US taking sides in the Lebanese government crisis by imposing a Travel ban for Lebanese opposed to Saniora government.

Just as the US has unilaterally decided that Fatah must rule the Palestinian territories, the US has decided that Saniora’s collection of warlords must be the government of Lebanon, and no vote should be held.

You have to wonder how the US government would respond if China started dictating the leadership of Mexico or Canada. The truth is, Syria is involved with Lebanon because they are neighbors with a long common border, and Iran is concerned with Iraq because they are neighbors with a long common border.

It may come as a shock to some in the Hedgemony, but the US isn’t the only country in the world that has a foreign policy, and vital interests in other countries.

The Maine visit doesn’t seem to have impressed Volodya [Владимир Владимирович Путин]: Russia issues new missile threat

Russia has raised the idea of moving new missile forces to Kaliningrad, close to Poland and Lithuania.

First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov linked the possible move to US plans for a missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Russia has already threatened to hit back by targeting missiles at Europe.

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