January 31, 2008
Bill's Business
It must be a hoot, being a billionaire at 50. Maybe even better, being an ex-president who's buddies with the billionaire so he can quietly line his pockets in style. Billary has always been about corruption — as a number of people have pointed out the scandals didn't stop happening when Bill left office, they're just less frequently in the news. It's a refreshing reminder then to see how Bill sealed the deal for his bud in Kazakhstan, picked up several tens of millions of bucks for his services, and left bilateral U.S. human rights policy (such as it is) devastated in his wake. If Billary were elected this cycle it'd be fascinating, I must admit, watching Bill skirt the rules.
January 27, 2008
E Pluribus
If you missed Obama's victory speech from South Carolina last night, it's worth watching. Extremely intelligent, finely crafted, inspirational. Not quite one for the ages but head and shoulders above most of the dreck one sees on the campaign trail.
A couple random thoughts about all this: Obama's convincing win in South Carolina should bring in a lot more endorsements from fence-sitters who reassess their relationship with the Clintons. And Caroline Kennedy's endorsement will help a lot (while pushing Ted in the right direction). Michelle Obama seems like a wonderful person who would make a great first lady. The contrast with the Clintons couldn't be more stark. And finally, what's up with Florida?
January 26, 2008
1$/Gallon Ethanol
Being a techno-optimist I was hugely pleased to see this item from Wired about a new process for making cheap ethanol from just about any organic material. Note that while the process seems firmly established the company that figured it out won't have a pilot plant running for about a year — and then it'll only produce about 40,000 gallons per year. Even allowing for over-optimistic reporting and an underestimate of the net energy required to get the ethanol (how much energy goes into harvesting hay, or weeds?) shouldn't innovations like this benefit from more aggressive government funding support? Some member of Congress should consider a generic earmark for subsidizing energy research once proven efficiency exceeds a certain point, awarding funds in proportion to existing private investment, first come first served until the earmark runs out. And thinking about it, why don't we ever hear about government subsidy incentives of this sort? Is it possible that they don't exist?
Movable Type 4.1 Installed
This afternoon — thanks to excellent assistance from William — EP upgraded to the latest Movable Type release, version 4.1, which adds a few features internally but will look the same for now. One change, however, is that we finally got comments working properly (there was a javascript variable that had needed to have been set, but wasn't, and a div that needed to be added) such that posting a comment should now be simple and straightforward. It works, anyhow, when I tested it. Thanks, by the way, to all those intrepid souls who managed to comment up to now despite often not being able to preview their comments! If you'd had trouble in the past and didn't want further fuss you might like to try taking the new comment system for a spin.
January 24, 2008
Bust A Move
Bill Clinton can't control himself. It doesn't really matter, when he rips a reporter a new one, that Bill might be right or have a better argument or whatever — as a former U.S. president he has a responsibility to the dignity of the office, something that he's never entirely understood. When in public former presidents simply don't muscle reporters or other idiots. Nobody likes it. The good news for all of us is that Bill's acting out makes Hillary pretty much un-electable (if she gets the nomination), despite what the spineless, money-grubbing Democratic leadership may think. I'm bracing myself, accordingly, for the grim possibility of another four years of Republican rule...
January 20, 2008
There Is No "War on Terror"
By Edward S. Herman and David Peterson
One of the most telling signs of the political naiveté of liberals and the Left in the United States has been their steadfast faith in much of the worldview that blankets the imperial state they call home. Nowhere has this critical failure been more evident than in their acceptance of the premise that there really is something called a "war on terror" or "terrorism"[1] — however poorly managed its critics make it out to be — and that righting the course of this war ought to be this country's (and the world's) top foreign policy priority. In this perspective, Afghanistan and Pakistan rather than Iraq ought to have been the war on terror's proper foci; most accept that the U.S. attack on Afghanistan from October 2001 on was a legitimate and necessary stage in the war. The tragic error of the Bush Administration, in this view, was that it lost sight of this priority, and diverted U.S. military action to Iraq and other theaters, reducing the commitment where it was needed.
January 16, 2008
Bubbles, Bailouts, and Free Money
How Government Privatizes the Profits and Socializes the Losses
By Werther*
Throughout the Bush dispensation, whenever economic conditions have been remotely tolerable for the majority of people, the president and his liegemen would consistently exaggerate the alleged prosperity, and then say how their economic policies made it all possible. When, however, the economy might deteriorate to a state that was undeniably weak, our elective monarch would decree that the only thing that could bring prosperity back would be an intensification of the economic policies already in place.
January 15, 2008
The Iranian Speedboat Threat
By Chuck Spinney
A recent AP report provides a good example of how carefully words are parsed in Versailles on the Potomac to create a certain impression: it says that Admirals Mullen and Fallon are contending that the incident in the Straits of Hormuz may signal a shift to a new Iranian military strategy.
While Mullen admits the Navy does not know where the radio threat to the Navy's ships came from, both Fallon and Mullen imply that the timing of the radio threats makes it probable that the speaker of the threat was a part of the Iranian provocation. The unstated assumption is that to be otherwise is an unlikely coincidence. And they use this assumption of a low probability to support their contention that the incident was a major provocation that might signal a shift by Iran to a more aggressive strategy.
January 14, 2008
Flood Predictions
If you're not a scientist and you observe (1) reports of increased ice melting at the poles and in Greenland and (2) the reports, over a period of several years, detail an increase in the rate of melting, then it's entirely reasonable (but unscientific) to conclude (3) the rate of increase will continue to increase. I've been saying for a couple years I wouldn't be at all surprised to see sudden, very dramatic changes in ice melt, but this post isn't an update with the latest news and an "I told you so." What's interesting about new reports of significant ice melting in Antarctica is not that scientists have changed their warnings about potential sea level rise from centimeters to meters, but that it appears they still do not consider a common-sense rule of thumb estimate for an increasing rate of melting, instead focusing narrowly on known melting in new areas. I still think the question isn't about centimeters or a few meters, but many meters, possibly in just a few decades. I'm not a scientist — and, hey, what do I know? — but as a matter of public policy it would be prudent to at least study the implications of what may appear to be an extremely improbable event so as to maximize our options.
January 13, 2008
A Libertarian Spring
If it were Hillary Clinton versus Ron Paul in the general election I'd vote for Ron Paul. Hell, if it's Hillary Clinton versus any other Republican candidate and Ron Paul runs as an independent I might vote for him, provided Ralph Nader doesn't jump in and then I guess I'd vote for Ralph again, for the third time. Ron Paul, naturally, has no chance whatsoever of being the Republican nominee — whether he'd run as an independent, who knows? (And belatedly thinking about it, the Daily Kos' advice to Michigan Democrats to vote in Tuesday's open primary for Mitt Romney so as to sow confusion in Republican ranks might constructively be amended that instead they vote for Ron Paul.) I'm skeptical, nevertheless, that whatever it is that Ron Paul has tapped into represents a coherent Libertarian movement or, indeed, whether Libertarian ideas ever translate into a method of governance.
January 12, 2008
A Quaint Anachronism
New Hampshire doesn't make sense. But neither do its foes. John Dean, for example, normally an astute observer, starts a thundering critique but ends on a faintly naive note: kludge a new, rotating, regional primary system, he says, to replace the old. The fix, however, can't be made at the endpoint of the national presidential primary process. We don't have better choices because we don't have a sufficient number of seasoned politicians working their way up from lower rungs of the national ladder, not — though this is a problem too — because the primaries have turned into a gated marketplace for ladders.
January 6, 2008
Watch This Show
Network television is so bad it's not worth watching. Maybe network news (particularly if it's a habit), but even there any casual observer (let alone a really informed one) cannot help but notice a rising tide of internal inconsistencies, omitted key facts, and poor priorities. The exception that proves the rule: Scrubs. Stalled in its seventh season due to the writers' strike, the show has won all sorts of critical acclaim. I only became aware of it, however, a couple weeks ago, when I channel surfed onto a cable repeat. It's hilarious, poignant, witty, surreal — very human, very smart. Laugh out loud, tears in the eyes captivating. Missing the verisimilitude of a hospital chaplain, but they probably figured that would then too closely resemble MASH. If you're like me and had never heard of Scrubs, do yourself a favor and order some DVDs
January 5, 2008
Faith Community
It's interesting reading pundits who think they're so smart talking about Obama's win in Iowa and what it means for New Hampshire. Interesting because they don't mention (and probably are not even aware of) one critical ingredient of Obama's past and future success: Iowa and New Hampshire are chock-a-block full of UCC congregations — and that would just happen to be Obama's own denomination. Though not exactly animatronic the UCC does support its own. Moreover, though I couldn't quantify it, UCC members tend to be smarter, better educated, more affluent, and generally more successful in life: what you'd call natural community leaders. No doubt this tradition helps energize turnout. So when perusing news and blog items about New Hampshire see if you can spot any mention of the UCC. Real news, overlooked.
January 3, 2008
Server Glitch
Yesterday the BlueHost server which contains EP experienced some problems, starting about noon Eastern time and lasting sporadically for ten-twelve hours. I still don't know exactly what happened — throughout the day BlueHost technicians had different ideas, tried different fixes, and then late just shut the box down to give it a complete overhaul. Whatever it was the server is working now, knock on wood.
January 2, 2008
Presumptive Politics
Whenever it was the NYT decided to abandon their foolish firewall strategy, it's taken me some time to begin to get used to reading their columnists again. I like Maureen Dowd. She's often way off base, but she's a good writer with an acid tongue — when applied to appropriate targets a joy to read. Such is her column today, "Deign or Reign?", which captures perfectly the choice of Obama or Hillary. Worth a gander.
January 1, 2008
Operation Tin Cup
When I resigned from the U.S. State Department in 1991 I was a career officer (e.g., I had the government equivalent of tenure), but I was not then eligible for a pension, nor will I ever get one. Since I left the service I have relied upon somewhat meager (and always somewhat uncertain) investment income. EP is a personal project paid for out of my own pocket with the help of your donations. If EP is to grow to its potential it must have your support.
EP is growing, and donations are growing, too, but not by enough. And the fact is, a small core of generous supporters, many of whom began their support for EP in 2006, are carrying thousands of other listeners. I'm not fond of pleading for funds but I believe we can do quite a bit better. So to encourage those who are regular listeners but haven't yet donated I'd like you to consider the following, my version of an EP annual report.
