March 28, 2007
Dialing for Pentabucks
Perhaps I'm not paying enough attention but the Congress' votes to restrict Iraq funding have implications I haven't seen mentioned, let alone drawn out. Let's say the Tyrant does as he says and vetoes legislation containing restrictions. Then what? The administration has but few options, none good: (1) a number of different funding sources (as I understand it) wind up in the same Pentagon pot, thus other accounts in the regular defense budget could make up Iraq spending, probably for several months; (2) the Tyrant could request non-defense funds be used for Iraq, but that again requires congressional approval, or he could try to secretly transfer funds dedicated to other purposes, which is in fact precisely what happened in the spring/summer of 2002 when the administration shifted $200 million for Afghanistan to fund the pre-invasion Iraq buildup, except that then Congress was compliant, whereas now it is unlikely to be; (3) the Tyrant could seek arcane legislative loopholes — like the 1862 Feed and Forage Act, broadly used in the first Gulf War and several times since — but that would be ridiculous; (4) he uses the veto or signs the legislation while issuing a signing statement that he'll ignore its provisions, in either case spending money on Iraq anyway, breaks the law and sets up a huge constitutional crisis; or (5) he asks for a "do-over".
March 27, 2007
Islands of Thieves (Islas de los Ladrones)
What an apt name for the Marianas! At least insofar as the Justice (sic) Department is concerned, that is. While two members of Congress (George Miller, D-CA, and Nick Rahall, D-WV) recently have called for a renewed investigation into the demotion and stifling of U.S. attorney for Guam and the Northern Marianas Frederick A. Black, back in 2002, this question hasn't gotten the press it deserves. (Googling news for "U.S. attorney" and "Marianas" produces only three hits.) But at the time there was a lot of speculation Black had been removed because his investigations impinged upon Jack Abramoff's clients' sweatshops. If true, it would be a clear early case of political firing of a U.S. attorney, relevant to today's scandal. And a reason, perhaps, why we now see senior Justice (sic) officials preparing to take the Fifth before congressional oversight committees. The water Gonzales is sitting in is beginning to simmer...
March 18, 2007
Valerie Plame, the Washington Post, and the Ghost of Joe McCarthy
By Werther*
We will not recapitulate the testimony of Valerie Plame Wilson before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, as it has already received media coverage commensurate with a major story. The conclusion the press jumped on — that Ms. Plame was in fact a covert employee of the Central Intelligence Agency — was as anticlimactic as a headline announcing that Copernican Theory had been proven correct.
Continue reading "Valerie Plame, the Washington Post, and the Ghost of Joe McCarthy"...
Kudos to La Plame
It took enormous will-power, determination, and vision for Valerie Plame to keep her mouth shut for four years until she could tell her story to Congress. That's not just a cultured CIA "passion for anonymity." It's a very smart, very savvy understanding that she could unleash the maximum retribution on her assailants only in a certain way, at a certain moment. Now that moment's passed, what did she say? Two things: she was a covert officer and she had nothing to do with her husband's assignment to look into the Niger yellowcake report.
March 17, 2007
A Tale of Two Movements
There's a difference between marching to stop the war in Iraq, period, and marching to stop the war in Iraq and to free Mumia, and to bring justice to Philippine war whores, and to sing the praises of a free Cuba, and to stop the unfair deportation of illegal U.S. residents who happen to be lactating Mexican mothers, and to preach the salvation of American black Muslims, and [ ...your favorite radical cause here]. The organizers of Friday's candle-light march on the White House understood it. The organizers of Saturday's march on the Pentagon didn't. And, I must say, I am sick to death of seeing the so-called "Answer" coalition having anything to do with anti-war demonstrations in Washington or elsewhere. The net result of their organizing can only help pro-war forces: who in their right mind would want to associate with such fringe crazies? Legitimate anti-war activists must — as Friday's march on the White House demonstrated — abjure inclusiveness to bring a better focus to the movement.
Marlise Simons and the New York Times on the International Court of Justice Decision on Serbia and Genocide in Bosnia
A Further Study in Total Propaganda Service
By Edward S. Herman and David Peterson
On many issues the New York Times serves as a propaganda organ of the state, latching onto a position that meets an ongoing state interest and then adhering undeviatingly to the party line that ensues. This was true on a stream of Cold War issues, including decades of inflated claims about the Soviet military threat, with the vastly greater U.S. military spending framed as if the U.S. were merely responding to a Soviet challenge; [1] the Times editors also swallowed whole and steadily propagandized the false claim of Soviet involvement in the shooting of Pope John II in 1981. [2] More recently, as is well known and even acknowledged by the Times editors, the paper played an important role in disseminating disinformation on Saddam's non-existent weapons of mass destruction (WMD), helping to set the stage for the U.S. invasion-occupation of Iraq. [3]
March 15, 2007
Payback for Alberto
The important thing to keep in mind as we watch the Department of Justice (sic) Gonzales Follies, is that Alberto had it coming. In a healthy polity he would've been brought to heel long ago for his torture memos, his approval of unconstitutional surveillance of citizens, his willingness to 'disappear' suspects, his notion of 'signing statements', and a raft of other misdeeds. All issues the cowards in Congress can't yet handle. But their resentment simmered. If the current question were just about the political firing of a handful of U.S. Attorneys, while there would have been a hue and cry it would most likely have subsided leaving Alberto only mildly shaken. Now, however, there's a bone to chew — and it will be chewed with gusto. Besides which, the longer the spotlight's on Alberto the more likely congressional pursuit of the deeper abuse of power becomes. Whether he survives is uncertain, but for as long as he stays the Tyrant, et. al. face a serious rear-guard action.
March 12, 2007
The Eyes Have It
Folk ideas often have a solid basis in fact. The idea that the eyes tell us something about the soul has always made sense to me. Even back on my first State Department tour, doing visa work, I always took seriously the ability to look somebody in the eye — once I nailed a French car thief on his way to an auto show in Florida, by looks, but that's another story... I didn't get around to posting a comment on this item when it first came out, but I marked it then and it's still interesting. Indeed, it's one of the most interesting bits of science "trivia" I've seen recently. Turns out, according to Swedish researchers, that the iris reveals warm-heartedness and trust or neuroticism and impulsiveness. No word from the study whether these qualities can be detected through casual visual observation, but I'm quite sure they can, even if perhaps only in a subliminal way. Fascinating, and no doubt of interest to those who deal in trust, perhaps also those who work on automating iris recognition systems (the latter probably a bad thing).
Sound Thinking
The first of two science news items for EP this morning. Danish scientists, who thought to study something that's been routinely accepted — nerves transmit information via electricity — didn't find any heat produced during nerve impulses, a violation of the laws of thermodynamics if electricity were involved. Their explanation: nerves propagate information via sound. Interesting. And combine that with two other recent reports, the first from German scientists that axons as well as dendrites are sending signals, thus implying a rather more chaotic brain environment than previously understood, and the second, from Middle Tennessee State University that sound pulses can travel faster than the speed of light, and what have you got? The ingredients for some good science fiction, at least, and a number of hypotheticals about how we react to sound in our environment.
Keeping the Pressure On
If you watch this YouTube video of David Obey, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, as he flips out trying to browbeat a couple of anti-war activists it's obvious that he's a difficult character. (Note that his office was smart enough to issue an apology immediately after.) Nor does Obey, a faux Wisconsin liberal, have the greatest voting record. But all that's neither here nor there: Obey is not charting the course on the Democrats' anti-war strategy, Nancy Pelosi is.
March 5, 2007
Stranger Than Fiction
Four of five stars. I think this one got mixed reviews, though Roger Ebert liked it, and I think I liked it more than he did. What's unusual is to have so many major stars in something that could just as well be an experimental "indie" film. It's also unusual to see a Hollywood film that plays with the audience's intelligence in a genuinely funny and human way, without becoming pretentious or excessively self-aware. Will Ferrell leads as Harold Crick, an IRS agent who discovers that he's actually the character in a writer's (Emma Thompson) almost finished novel, but that she's known for killing her main characters in imaginative ways. Bad timing, as Harold has just fallen in love with the tattooed baker (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who he's auditing. Now he has a reason to live, can he escape the trap he's in? What is an author's voice? Can a Latin style of mystical realism make sense in contemporary America? It can, and the result is absolutely charming. I hope Will Ferrell does more of this serious sort of acting, as opposed to the slap-stick he's known for, as he's definitely got the depth to carry it off.
March 1, 2007
Can Iraq Be "Fixed"?
The good news is, the panel was brilliant and I'll make a podcast out of the proceedings. Two hours of pure gold. Which I'll get to editing this weekend and will try to make available by mid-week next week. The bad news is we didn't get much in the way of attendance at the National Press Club.† Nevertheless, I know the podcast will reach several hundred and possibly up to a few thousand depending how well it gets publicized.
