Roadkill Journal

I sat down to write a piece on society’s misplaced priorities on elections and election spending… I intended to start with the well-worn comparison of election spending vs. Halloween spending – the latter, by any estimate, far larger than the former.

I’m still going to write that piece, but another matter caught my attention…

While looking for some gee-whiz numbers on holiday spending, I ran into this from KRT Fort Wayne:

“Adults hijack Halloween goodies”

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/15864168.htm

According to Brianna Bond of Capital News Service, “we” will spend around $4.96 billion on Halloween and $438.6 billion on the winter holidays this year.

That $4.96 billion almost doubles what “we” will spend on the election, but that’s another post…

And then this crossed my bow: A piece by Matt Crenson of AP, writing on the Federal deficit and detailing the efforts of a few sturdy patriots who are trying, Paul Revere style, to wake Middlesex, village, and farm to the danger it poses. The Seattle Times links story here:

“Economists warn of nation's coming fiscal meltdown, call for hard choices”

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003328801_deficit29.html

You can get the same story straight from AP via MyWay:

“GAO Chief Warns Economic Disaster Looms”

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20061028/D8L1OC5G0.html

Alas, I fear Middlesex, village and farm will sleep through it once more…

After all, it’s so abstract; so … Tomorrow… So maybe. Today’s economists - like our worthy GAO Chief David Walker - squinting down the trendline connecting yesterday, today, and tomorrow, can only say that IF we continue along the same trend, we are in big doo-doo. The words barely leave their lips when they are answered by a host of theorists taking alternate squints and advocating fixes…

If we just raise the GDP by a percent or two and assume thus and such theory is the magic bullet that kills inflation while promoting growth and filling the Treasury to overflowing…

We’ll throw in cold Fusion on top of that, since we’re theorizing…

It’s a lot like Global Warming… What little we can see doesn’t look good… But “we” can’t see much, and greed is stronger than those dim, dark warnings…

But the holidays and the deficit. What an interesting coincidence.

The current annual budget deficit, recently widely reported in the media as $250 billion and falling slowly, was actually $437 billion in August: The $260 billion reported, and another $177 billion borrowed from the Social Security surplus…

Oh, yea… We’re still borrowing that, aren’t we? The entire surplus in Social Security payments is automatically “invested” in T-Bills… We’ve been doing that since the ‘80’s, when Reagan, that great fiscal conservative – NOT! – conceived a new way to juice the books…

$437 billion… Or just about the same amount “we” will spend this year on the Holidays…

How could “we” balance the budget today, for this year? Just spend nothing on Christmas, and forward the money saved to the Treasury.



I know, that’s an apples and oranges argument, even if apples and oranges would be on the list of things forgone. And no, this Grinchy Atheist isn’t suggesting it. But I think it is an apt comparison in one sense:

Christmas is all about joy, celebration, giving, and giving thanks. As we rack up the bill, we should consider that joy is just what “we” are stealing from ourselves and those who follow. Joy tomorrow.

Someday, there won’t be a choice anymore, if Dave Walker is right. If he’s right, the ghost of Christmas future will reveal a day when we won’t be able to afford Christmas cheer – or any cheer. Everything we will be able to produce in that someday will go to repay the past we’re making today.

Merry Christmas, kids…

My hat is tipped once again to Matt Drudge who links a window into a brilliant mind. From Salon:

“Salon Interview: Camille Paglia”

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/10/27/paglia/index.html

The best five pages I have read in years. Conservatives, you must read this, especially if you think the left is intellectually spent… Liberals, you must read this, especially if you think it isn’t…

She absolutely excoriates Democrats… A few gems:

On the topic of Democrats, defense, and our dearth of choices:

“What candidate do we have to offer when national security is the No. 1 item on the front burner? Democrats became so distracted by their focus on domestic issues over the past 25 years that they're weak on national defense…  My generation of baby-boom Democrats hasn't done much deep thinking about international issues except in terms of postmodernist fragmentation or fuzzy, smiley-face multiculturalism. We desperately need better candidates… John Edwards… Good Lord, that guy is such a lightweight! Are we really going to put America's national security in Edwards' hands? He has no relevant experience whatsoever… Except for Charles Rangel, who served in Korea, few Democratic leaders have military experience, so their rhetoric isn't likely to convince this skeptical and apprehensive electorate.”

Really nailed that one… But what are the choices?

“The country is being asked to take a gamble with the disordered Democrats or to choose nascent fascism on the Republican side -- the intrusion into personal files and phone records, the shadowy sweeps that may have imprisoned innocent people along with genuine terrorists. The electorate could be ready to accept abrogation of basic constitutional rights in a time of war.”

If we do, we will never get them back. But as Paglia notes:

“In this anxious atmosphere, the Democrats look addled and self-absorbed, with their handmaiden major media and showbiz sermonizers and celebutantes. All that vulgar posturing”…

On the Democrats’ characterization of Republicans as “fat cats:”

“The Democrats' portrayal of Republicans as fat cats out of touch with ordinary Americans just doesn't fly anymore, and they should drop it. I think the center of the Republican Party really is small-businessmen and very practical people who correctly see that it's job creation and wealth creation that sustain an economy -- not government intervention and government control, that suffocating nanny-state mentality.”

Nanny Pelosi…

“The Democrats are in some sort of time warp in always proposing a government solution to every problem. It's like Hillary's philosophy that it takes a village to raise a child. Well, does it? Or does it take a strong family and not the village?”

And that from a woman who supported Ralph Nader over her own Democratic party…

On Democrats’ fascination with right-wing media success:

“This overblown fear of Fox News is such a sentimentality on the part of too many Democrats. Talk radio is infinitely more powerful than Fox. Radio hosts are blanketing the country with round-the-clock conservative ideology -- not because they're dastardly conspirators manipulating the media but because they've achieved their success, market by market, in creating programs that millions of people want to listen to…

I think there is a connection between talk radio and the ordinary Republican Paglia so accurately characterizes: those “small-businessmen and very practical people” are a natural audience for talk radio. They run their own shops, and don’t have to be overly concerned with PC issues. They are mostly contrarian by nature – you need an independent streak to survive on your own these days – and the “stir the guts” nature of talk radio is a natural fit.

Perhaps most importantly, a lot of small business owners spend half of their lives in their cars…

And Air America?

“The recent filing for bankruptcy by Air America dramatizes my party's abject failure to produce shows that are informative and entertaining and that systematically build an audience -- the way all the top radio hosts did who climbed the ladder from obscurity to their present prominence. Aren't we the party of Hollywood? The fact that we've failed so miserably at this central medium of communication shows how something has gone very wrong in Democratic sensibility… Don't even mention Al Franken -- I can't listen to him for 30 seconds without falling asleep. A voice like molasses and never a fresh idea.”

On religion:

“To claim, as Democrats often do, that there has always been a separation of church and state in America is misleading: The U.S. simply has no official state religion. The formative influence in our intellectual heritage came from Puritan dissidents in New England. Major universities like Harvard and Yale were founded on religious principles.”

No revisionism there…

“As long as the Democrats are perceived as the anti-religion party, we're going to lose the culture wars… Religion is absolutely central to this country in ways that Europe's secularized intellectuals fail to understand. I'm speaking here as an atheist who studies religion and respects it enormously. In the history of mankind, the benefits that religion has brought to society in shaping behavior and moral choice are overwhelming in comparison to the negatives, which anyone can list -- like religious wars and bigotry. Without religion, we'd have anarchy… I think that the constant sniping at religion coming from liberal Democrats is really a dead end.”

I have to agree, with the qualification I think religion has outlived its usefulness – we’ve outgrown it. Our ancestors were barbarians and their religions reflected it… But seeing good aspects in our religious history in no way tempers my disdain for the evangelical jihadists of the religious right… Paglia offers a similar caution, continuing:

“But there's reason for alarm at the right-wing intertwining of religion and politics, where the Bible is seen as the prophetic master plan of the universe and where Israel as the Holy Land must be protected at all costs from Muslim infiltration -- duplicating the agenda of the medieval crusades.”

Damn straight. Yet Paglia notes a powerful disconnect:

“The more liberal parents are, the less contact their children have with religious ideas. That will surely disable our future American leaders from being able to understand the religious commitment of Islamic fundamentalists. Liberal journalists often seem incredulous about how anyone would seek death for religious principles. But that was the entire history of early Christianity, when the saints willingly sought martyrdom. We're heading into that world again.”

I hope she is wrong. I think she is right.

And what does this liberal intellectual think of liberal intellectuals?

“What do contemporary intellectuals have to offer anyhow? What passionate engagement do they have to appeal to young people? Liberal secularism has become bourgeois and materialistic. It's snide, elitist, and politically marginalized… The intellectuals, with their cultivated internationalism, always counsel procrastination and leave it to the men of action to deal forcefully with fascist regimes”...

And finally the war:

“Of course Democrats are genuinely divided about how we should proceed. There are people like me who want immediate withdrawal of all American forces from Iraq... Withdrawal would probably plunge Iraq into civil war, and the Democrats don't want to be blamed for the blood bath. But it's going to be nasty whether we stay or go.”

That’s just it. Democrats – and liberal intellectuals in general - don’t want to be blamed for anything. So they do nothing, and get blamed for that…

And predictions about “staying the course:”

“I doubt withdrawal has ever been a possibility for this administration. Bush sees Iraq as a staging station to safeguard the oil fields by democratizing the Middle East. Our military bases may be permanently planted in Iraq. It will require a very strong and visionary future president of either party to get us out of this mess.”

Plus a lot more – Foley, Woodward, the first woman President…

A must, must, must read.

Matt Drudge gets the hat tip for a link to a must read from the BBC:

“Travelling with the Taleban”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6081594.stm

The by-line sums it well:

“The BBC's David Loyn has had exclusive access to Taleban forces mobilised against the British army in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan.”

Remarkable… Does he wave to Tommy as he drives by?

The article provides a few interesting insights into how the Taliban survive, move, and about the political forces and corruption that are helping to re-popularize them in the region.

But the sheer fact of his being there is the most singular of all.

You know, I hope the shrub is reading this story. There is a new strategy here he needs to consider. Fire all the CIA spooks and retire the special forces macho mutts… Bring their sorry, failing asses home…

Send in the reporters. In six months they’ll have the details every Taliban rat hole in Asia…

Assuming they don’t already…

The long anticipated New Jersey Supreme Court decision on “Gay Marriage” was handed down yesterday, and the winner is… Equality. One of many accounts:

“Gay Couples Can Get Marital Rights, N.J. Court Says”

http://www.kirotv.com/family/10151332/detail.html

For the full decision – 90 pages worth – go here:

http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;7006713;8704162;d?http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/glrts/lewisharris102506opn.pdf

The first three pages are a syllabus prepared by the Clerk as a public service. I am including it at the end of this post. It’s a worthy read. I’m taking the liberty of abbreviating their work.

As for the decision: Bravo!

First off, contrary to the slant applied to this decision by the right-leaning MSM, the Court did not find gays have a “right to marry.” Rather, the Court expanded on Appellate Division Judge Anthony Parrillo’s concurrent filing in the appellate action. Judge Parrillo elucidated “the twofold nature of the relief sought by plaintiffs -- the right to marry and the rights of marriage. He submitted that it was the Legislature's role to weigh the benefits and costs flowing from a profound change in the meaning of marriage.”

Thusly the Court held the “plaintiffs' equal protection claim to have two components: whether committed same-sex couples have a constitutional right to the benefits and privileges afforded to married heterosexual couples, and, if so, whether they have a constitutional right to have their relationship recognized by the name of marriage.”

The decision goes on to cite legal precedents for equal protections and against similar discrimination, and noted the existence of inadequate remedies.

Following this logic, the Court did not consider whether committed same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, but only whether those couples are entitled to the same rights and benefits afforded to married heterosexual couples. Cast in that light, the issue is not about the transformation of the traditional definition of marriage, but about the unequal dispensation of benefits and privileges to one of two similarly situated classes of people.”

The Court noted the State raised significant issues pertaining to preserving the institution of heterosexual marriage but concluded that in recognizing the separateness of the two issues the institutional arguments became collateral.

Thusly, “To bring the State into compliance with Article I, Paragraph 1 so that plaintiffs can exercise their full constitutional rights, the Legislature must either amend the marriage statutes or enact an appropriate statutory structure within 180 days of the date of this decision.”

Bravo!



Hopefully, this ruling will take the wind out of Republican hopes that a Court ruling for “gay marriage” would help to bring the bigots slithering out from under their rocks in record numbers on November 7th. Hopefully, by dropping this matter back on the legislature, the ruling will de-energize arguments that an activist court is pursuing an agenda.

Hopefully, it will pull a few more bigot’s fangs… The bottom line here is… The bottom line. There are still all too many people in this Nation who adhere to yesterday’s barbarisms, and seek to wield power over others to enforce their sick attitudes. The best weapon they have is the power to pauperize. Denying someone equal compensation due to a non-work related issue is vile. It’s even worse when the government becomes a defacto partner in the shagging. The more similar laws and rulings we have, the fewer opportunities the bigots will have to wreak their assaults.

If government has legitimate roles in the workplace, this is one of them.

The syllabus:

(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please note that, in the interests of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized).
Mark Lewis and Dennis Winslow, et al. v. Gwendolyn L. Harris, etc., et al. (A-68-05) Argued February 15, 2006 -- Decided October 25, 2006
ALBIN, J., writing for a majority of the Court.
Plaintiffs are seven same-sex couples who have been in permanent committed relationships for more than ten years. Each seeks to marry his or her partner and to enjoy the legal, financial, and social benefits that marriage affords. After being denied marriage licenses in their respective municipalities, plaintiffs sued challenging the constitutionality of the State's marriage statutes.
In a complaint filed in the Superior Court, Law Division, plaintiffs sought a declaration that laws denying same-sex marriage violated the liberty and equal protection guarantees of Article I, Paragraph 1 of the New Jersey Constitution. They also sought injunctive relief compelling the defendant State officials to grant them marriage licenses. (The named defendants are Gwendolyn L. Harris, former Commissioner of the Department of Human Services, Clifton R. Lacy, former Commissioner of the Department of Health and Senior Services, and Joseph Komosinski, former Acting State Registrar of Vital Statistics. For the purpose of this decision, they are being referred to collectively as the "State.")
Both parties moved for summary judgment. The trial court, Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg, entered summary judgment in the State's favor and dismissed the complaint. Plaintiffs appealed. In a split decision, the Appellate Division affirmed. Judge Stephen Skillman wrote the majority opinion in which he concluded that New Jersey's marriage statutes do not contravene the substantive due process and equal protection guarantees of Article I, Paragraph 1 of the State Constitution. He determined that only the Legislature could authorize same-sex marriages.
Appellate Division Judge Anthony Parrillo filed a concurring opinion. Although joining Judge Skillman's opinion, Judge Parrillo added his view of the twofold nature of the relief sought by plaintiffs -- the right to marry and the rights of marriage. He submitted that it was the Legislature's role to weigh the benefits and costs flowing from a profound change in the meaning of marriage.
Appellate Division Judge Donald Collester, Jr., dissented. He concluded that the substantive due process and equal protection guarantees of Article I, Paragraph 1 obligate the State to afford same-sex couples the right to marry on terms equal to those afforded opposite-sex couples.
The matter came before the Court as an appeal as of right by virtue of the dissent in the Appellate Division.
HELD: Denying committed same-sex couples the financial and social benefits and privileges given to their married heterosexual counterparts bears no substantial relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose. The Court holds that under the equal protection guarantee of Article I, Paragraph 1 of the New Jersey Constitution, committed same-sex couples must be afforded on equal terms the same rights and benefits enjoyed by opposite-sex couples under the civil marriage statutes. The name to be given to the statutory scheme that provides full rights and benefits to same-sex couples, whether marriage or some other term, is a matter left to the democratic process.

1. As this case presents no factual dispute, the Court addresses solely questions of law. The Court perceives plaintiffs' equal protection claim to have two components: whether committed same-sex couples have a constitutional right to the benefits and privileges afforded to married heterosexual couples, and, if so, whether they have a constitutional right to have their relationship recognized by the name of marriage. (pp. 19-21)


2. In attempting to discern the substantive rights that are "fundamental" under Article I, Paragraph 1, of the State Constitution, the Court has followed the general standard adopted by the United States Supreme Court in construing

the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. First, the asserted fundamental liberty interest must be clearly identified. In this case, the identified right is the right of same-sex couples to marry. Second, the liberty interest in same-sex marriage must be objectively and deeply rooted in the traditions, history, and conscience of the people of this State. (pp. 21-25)

1. New Jersey's marriage laws, which were first enacted in 1912, limit marriage to heterosexual couples. The recently enacted Domestic Partnership Act explicitly acknowledges that same-sex couples cannot marry. Although today there is a national debate over whether same-sex marriages should be authorized by the states, the framers of the 1947 New Jersey Constitution could not have imagined that the liberty right protected by Article I, Paragraph 1 embraced same-sex marriage. (pp. 25-28)


2. Times and attitudes have changed. There has been a developing understanding that discrimination against gays and lesbians is no longer acceptable in this State. On the federal level, the United States Supreme Court has struck down laws that have unconstitutionally targeted gays and lesbians for disparate treatment. Although plaintiffs rely on the federal cases to support the argument that they have a fundamental right to marry under our State Constitution, those cases fall far short of establishing a fundamental right to same-sex marriage "deeply rooted in the traditions, history, and conscience of the people of this State." Despite the rich diversity of this State, the tolerance and goodness of its people, and the many recent advances made by gays and lesbians toward achieving social acceptance and equality under the law, the Court cannot find that the right to same-sex marriage is a fundamental right under our constitution. (pp. 28-33)


3. The Court has construed the expansive language of Article I, Paragraph 1 to embrace the fundamental guarantee of equal protection, thereby requiring the Court to determine whether the State's marriage laws permissibly distinguish between same-sex and heterosexual couples. The test the Court has applied to equal protection claims is a flexible one that includes three factors: the nature of the right at stake, the extent to which the challenged statutory scheme restricts that right, and the public need for the statutory restriction. (pp. 34-3 6)


4. In conducting its equal protection analysis, the Court discerns two distinct issues. The first is whether same-sex couples have the right to the statutory benefits and privileges conferred on heterosexual married couples. Assuming that right, the next issue is whether committed same-sex partners have a constitutional right to define their relationship by the name of marriage. (p. 37)


5. New Jersey's courts and its Legislature have been at the forefront of combating sexual orientation discrimination and advancing equality of treatment toward gays and lesbians. In 1992, through an amendment to the Law Against Discrimination (LAD), New Jersey became the fifth state to prohibit discrimination on the basis of "affectional or sexual orientation." In making sexual orientation a protected category, the Legislature committed New Jersey to the goal of eradicating discrimination against gays and lesbians. In 2004, the Legislature added "domestic partnership status" to the categories protected by the LAD. (pp. 37-40)


6. Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is also outlawed in our criminal law and public contracts law. The Legislature, moreover, created the New Jersey Human Relations Council to promote educational programs aimed at reducing bias and bias-related acts, identifying sexual orientation as a protected category. In 2004, the Legislature passed the Domestic Partnership Act, which confers certain benefits and rights on same-sex partners who enter into a partnership under the Act. (pp. 40-42)


7. The Domestic Partnership Act has failed to bridge the inequality gap between committed same-sex couples and married opposite-sex couples. Significantly, the economic and financial inequities that are borne by same-sex domestic partners are also borne by their children. Further, even though same-sex couples are provided fewer benefits and rights by the Act, they are subject to more stringent requirements to enter into a domestic partnership than opposite-sex couples entering a marriage. (pp. 43-48)


8. At this point, the Court does not consider whether committed same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, but only whether those couples are entitled to the same rights and benefits afforded to married heterosexual couples. Cast in that light, the issue is not about the transformation of the traditional definition of marriage, but about the unequal dispensation of benefits and privileges to one of two similarly situated classes of people. (p. 48)

1. The State does not argue that limiting marriage to the union of a man and a woman is needed to encourage procreation or to create the optimal living environment for children. Other than sustaining the traditional definition of marriage, which is not implicated in this discussion, the State has not articulated any legitimate public need for depriving committed same-sex couples of the host of benefits and privileges that are afforded to married heterosexual couples. There is, on the one hand, no rational basis for giving gays and lesbians full civil rights as individuals while, on the other hand, giving them an incomplete set of rights when they enter into committed same-sex relationships. To the extent that families are strengthened by encouraging monogamous relationships, whether heterosexual or homosexual, the Court cannot discern a public need that would justify the legal disabilities that now afflict same-sex domestic partnerships. (pp. 48-51)


2. In arguing to uphold the system of disparate treatment that disfavors same-sex couples, the State offers as a justification the interest in uniformity with other states' laws. Our current laws concerning same-sex couples are more in line with those of Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut than the majority of other states. Equality of treatment is a dominant theme of our laws and a central guarantee of our State Constitution. This is fitting for a state with so diverse a population. Article I, Paragraph 1 protects not only the rights of the majority but also the rights of the disfavored and the disadvantaged; they too are promised a fair opportunity for "pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness." (pp. 5 1-56)


3. The equal protection requirement of Article I, Paragraph 1 leaves the Legislature with two apparent options. The Legislature could simply amend the marriage statutes to include same-sex couples, or it could create a separate statutory structure, such as a civil union. Because this State has no experience with a civil union construct, the Court will not speculate that identical schemes offering equal rights and benefits would create a distinction that would offend Article I, Paragraph 1, and will not presume that a difference in name is of constitutional magnitude. New language is developing to describe new social and familial relationships, and in time will find a place in our common vocabulary. However the Legislature may act, same-sex couples will be free to call their relationships by the name they choose and to sanctify their relationships in religious ceremonies in houses of worship. (pp. 57-63)


4. In the last two centuries, the institution of marriage has reflected society's changing social mores and values. Legislatures, along with courts, have played a major role in ushering marriage into the modern era of equality of partners. The great engine for social change in this country has always been the democratic process. Although courts can ensure equal treatment, they cannot guarantee social acceptance, which must come through the evolving ethos of a maturing society. Plaintiffs' quest does not end here. They must now appeal to their fellow citizens whose voices are heard through their popularly elected representatives. (pp. 63-64)


5. To bring the State into compliance with Article I, Paragraph 1 so that plaintiffs can exercise their full constitutional rights, the Legislature must either amend the marriage statutes or enact an appropriate statutory structure within 180 days of the date of this decision. (p. 65)

The judgment of the Appellate Division is MODIFIED and, as MODIFIED, is AFFIRMED.
CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ has filed a separate CONCURRING and DISSENTING opinion, in which JUSTICES LONG and ZAZZALI join. She concurs in the finding of the majority that denying the rights and benefits to committed same-sex couples that are statutorily given to their heterosexual counterparts violates the equal protection guarantee of Article I, Paragraph 1 of the New Jersey Constitution. She dissents from the majority's distinguishing those rights and benefits from the right to the title of marriage. She also dissents from the majority's conclusion that there is no fundamental due process right to same-sex marriage encompassed within the concept of "liberty" guaranteed by Article I, Paragraph 1. She is of the view that persons who exercise their autonomous liberty interest to choose same-sex partners have a fundamental right to participate in a state-sanctioned civil marriage.
JUSTICES LaVECCHIA, WALLACE, and RIVERA-SOTO join in JUSTICE ALBIN's opinion. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ filed a separate concurring and dissenting opinion in which JUSTICES LONG and ZAZZALI join.

The LA Times brings us a relatively evenhanded reminder of what we may be in for after this next election:

“Madam Speaker? Pelosi likes the sound”

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pelosi21oct21,0,3020800,full.story

Your basic bio stuff, a few short anecdotes… Including this story on “plotting to foil Bush's plan to privatize Social Security”:

“Acting on advice from marketing gurus after the 2004 presidential election, Pelosi ordered her ranks to assail the Bush privatization plan while offering nothing of their own that the Republicans could counterassault. Week after week impatient Democrats asked, "When can we propose a plan?" and week after week she intoned, "Never."”

“kick him in the shins and give him nothing to attack”…

Sounds like down and dirty politics to me… She clearly has the biggest pair of balls in the Democratic caucus…

But it was the last line that really caught my eye – and reminded me of what I dislike most about Democratic control:

“"I think the fact that I am a woman will raise expectations in terms of more hope in government, and I will not disappoint," she says.

"The gavel of the speaker of the House is in the hands of special interests, and now it will be in the hands of America's children. I don't mean to imply my male colleagues will have any less integrity…. But I don't know that a man can say that as easily as a woman can."”

In the peanut butter and jelly coated hands of the children… Who may soon be reassured that they are protected, coddled, and ruled to the nth degree by the nanny state, with the Speaker, Nanny Pelosi, leading the way…

Vox Populi becomes pox populi… What a pass. On one hand we have a criminal, someone who helped gut the rules the House of Representatives for his parties benefit, ignored graft, corruption, and perversion in the ranks of his followers… Someone who has and likely will do anything, ethical or not, to preserve the power of his degenerate and degenerating cabal…

Or we can hide under Momma’s skirt…

Why is there never a good-sized asteroid handy when you need one?

The Washington Post provides a pair of must reads on the upcoming election this morning; one an analysis, the other an editorial from E. J. Dionne jr.:

“Rising Radical Center”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/23/AR2006102301034.html

Mr. Dionne opines:

“President Bush's six-year effort to create an enduring Republican majority based on a right-leaning coalition is on the verge of collapse. The way he tried to create it could have the unintended consequence of opening the way for an alternative majority.

This incipient Democratic alliance, while tilting slightly leftward, would plant its foundations firmly in the middle of the road, because its success depends on overwhelming support from moderate voters…

The strategy pursued by Bush and Karl Rove has frightened most of the political center into the arms of Democrats. Bush and Rove sought victory by building large turnouts among conservatives and cajoling just enough moderates the Republicans' way. But this approach created what may prove to be a fatal political disconnect: Adventurous policies designed to create enthusiasm on the right turned off a large number of less ideological voters.”

Bravo.

I have often noted the abandonment of the center by the Republican Party, held hostage as it is by the neoconservatives and beholden as it is to the radical evangelicals. I have frankly despaired there is an independent middle left - Dionne suggests we’re still out there, and we’re done with the neocons…

Meanwhile, Dan Balz and Jon Cohen give us a little data to consider:

“Independent Voters Favor Democrats by 2 to 1 in Poll”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/23/AR2006102300766.html

“The independent voters surveyed said they plan to support Democratic candidates over Republicans by roughly 2 to 1 -- 59 percent to 31 percent”…

It’s the war coupled with a general lack of trust. Voters [in general] “trust Democrats more than Republicans to deal with the war, the economy, North Korea and ethics in government. On terrorism, the two parties are at parity. But independents, the key swing voter group, strongly trust the Democrats on all of those issues by margins ranging from 14 percentage points on terrorism to 23 points on Iraq and North Korea and 26 points on ethics in government.”

And the economy? The zillion point Dow matters to people getting ahead, but that’s a mighty slim slice of the American pie:

“Republicans appear to be getting little tangible benefit from the growing economic optimism, which has come amid declining gasoline prices and a record high in the Dow Jones industrial average. Those who cite the economy as the most important issue favor Democrats by 18 percentage points, 57 percent to 39 percent.

One reason is that only a quarter of those surveyed said they are getting ahead financially. About the same number said they are falling behind. Most, however, said they are just able to maintain their standard of living. Republicans have an advantage only among those who say their financial condition is improving.”

An economy in which 75% of the participants are either treading water or drowning can only be called “good” by… By the kind of people who think “we” are winning in Iraq and those WMD’s are still out there waiting to be found… Those of us paying attention are looking at Ford, GM, and the plethora of multinational corporations who are making a “profit” by laying off their American workforce and outsourcing every job they can – preferably to overseas slave labor.

It’s only a poll, and they have been wrong before. But I’ll be cautiously optimistic – for now – that there are still enough of “we the independents” left to save this country. I’m hoping for the return of divided government and the safety of gridlock…

I can only speak for myself on this, but I do not consider myself safe in a Nation dominated by either the loony left of the rabid right. With either group really dominant, my wallet and my livelihood are threatened, albeit in different ways. If the left is in control, my property isn’t safe – with the right in the driver’s seat my privacy isn’t safe and neither is my freedom from religion… And without those things, the other “rights” really don’t matter.

So I’ll leave off with another plug for my new personal issue, the gridlock amendment:

Proposed as an amendment to the US Constitution:

“In any situation where majority control of the US House of Representatives and the US Senate vests in a single party and the President likewise is elected from that party, special veto authority equivalent to Presidential veto authority will be conferred on the House and Senate minority leaders in acting in concert. The veto will only apply to bills already signed into law by the President.”

Think about it and the idea will grow on you…

If the House and Senate go “blue” two weeks from today, it may start to sound real good to the remains of the Republican Party…

The Washington Post provides a pair of must reads on the upcoming election this morning; one an analysis, the other an editorial from E. J. Dionne jr.:

“Rising Radical Center”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/23/AR2006102301034.html

Mr. Dionne opines:

“President Bush's six-year effort to create an enduring Republican majority based on a right-leaning coalition is on the verge of collapse. The way he tried to create it could have the unintended consequence of opening the way for an alternative majority.

This incipient Democratic alliance, while tilting slightly leftward, would plant its foundations firmly in the middle of the road, because its success depends on overwhelming support from moderate voters…

The strategy pursued by Bush and Karl Rove has frightened most of the political center into the arms of Democrats. Bush and Rove sought victory by building large turnouts among conservatives and cajoling just enough moderates the Republicans' way. But this approach created what may prove to be a fatal political disconnect: Adventurous policies designed to create enthusiasm on the right turned off a large number of less ideological voters.”

Bravo.

I have often noted the abandonment of the center by the Republican Party, held hostage as it is by the neoconservatives and beholden as it is to the radical evangelicals. I have frankly despaired there is an independent middle left - Dionne suggests we’re still out there, and we’re done with the neocons…

Meanwhile, Dan Balz and Jon Cohen give us a little data to consider:

“Independent Voters Favor Democrats by 2 to 1 in Poll”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/23/AR2006102300766.html

“The independent voters surveyed said they plan to support Democratic candidates over Republicans by roughly 2 to 1 -- 59 percent to 31 percent”…

It’s the war coupled with a general lack of trust. Voters [in general] “trust Democrats more than Republicans to deal with the war, the economy, North Korea and ethics in government. On terrorism, the two parties are at parity. But independents, the key swing voter group, strongly trust the Democrats on all of those issues by margins ranging from 14 percentage points on terrorism to 23 points on Iraq and North Korea and 26 points on ethics in government.”

And the economy? The zillion point Dow matters to people getting ahead, but that’s a mighty slim slice of the American pie:

“Republicans appear to be getting little tangible benefit from the growing economic optimism, which has come amid declining gasoline prices and a record high in the Dow Jones industrial average. Those who cite the economy as the most important issue favor Democrats by 18 percentage points, 57 percent to 39 percent.

One reason is that only a quarter of those surveyed said they are getting ahead financially. About the same number said they are falling behind. Most, however, said they are just able to maintain their standard of living. Republicans have an advantage only among those who say their financial condition is improving.”

An economy in which 75% of the participants are either treading water or drowning can only be called “good” by… By the kind of people who think “we” are winning in Iraq and those WMD’s are still out there waiting to be found… Those of us paying attention are looking at Ford, GM, and the plethora of multinational corporations who are making a “profit” by laying off their American workforce and outsourcing every job they can – preferably to overseas slave labor.

It’s only a poll, and they have been wrong before. But I’ll be cautiously optimistic – for now – that there are still enough of “we the independents” left to save this country. I’m hoping for the return of divided government and the safety of gridlock…

I can only speak for myself on this, but I do not consider myself safe in a Nation dominated by either the loony left of the rabid right. With either group really dominant, my wallet and my livelihood are threatened, albeit in different ways. If the left is in control, my property isn’t safe – with the right in the driver’s seat my privacy isn’t safe and neither is my freedom from religion… And without those things, the other “rights” really don’t matter.

So I’ll leave off with another plug for my new personal issue, the gridlock amendment:

Proposed as an amendment to the US Constitution:

“In any situation where majority control of the US House of Representatives and the US Senate vests in a single party and the President likewise is elected from that party, special veto authority equivalent to Presidential veto authority will be conferred on the House and Senate minority leaders in acting in concert. The veto will only apply to bills already signed into law by the President.”

Think about it and the idea will grow on you…

If the House and Senate go “blue” two weeks from today, it may start to sound real good to the remains of the Republican Party…

Micky Klaus over at Slate has devoted quite a bit of space in his Klausfiles blog lately to the ongoing saga of the Secure Fence Act, which GWB has yet to sign, apparently because nobody actually knows where the Bill is…

“Read My Lips: No New Jaguars!”

http://www.slate.com/id/2151609/?nav=fix

On the 18th, Mickey leads off the discussion, acerbically suggesting “Bush Picks Secret Signing Over Winning Midterm Election,” citing a bit of analysis from The Washington Times, which is looking high and low for the bill…

“Border-fence bill awaits signing”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20061018-123040-8481r.htm

According to the Times:

“The White House is pleading with Congress to send over the bill authorizing 700 miles of fence on the U.S.-Mexico border so the president can sign it immediately, but Republican leaders on Capitol Hill want to wait until closer to the election and to have a public signing ceremony…”

Apparently the Congressional Leadership is holding onto the bill, hoping for a really big show really close to the election – but the administration would rather this be a low-key affair, because… Mickey Klaus picks up the refrain there, providing all kinds of speculation built around the Times assertion a White House “official” “rejected a signing ceremony, and said the White House doesn't want voters to expect too much out of the wall.”

A good read if you are a political junkie needing a fence fix…

A day earlier, Klausfiles takes on a naysayer’s piece from the Washington Post by staff writer John Pomfret detailing why the fence won’t work, will cost too much, will offend Mexico, and will stifle “Efforts to protect pronghorn sheep and encourage the jaguar to return to the United States”…

“Fence Meets Wall of Skepticism”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/09/AR2006100901006.html

Klaus notes, “Pomfret makes no attempt at balance--it's a straight "let's let fence critics piss all over the idea" piece.”… Klaus does a good job of pissing on the critics…

I don’t know… As an animal lover, I may have to change my mind on this issue… If it is, as Klaus suggests, a question of “Which will it be: No new jaguars or no new illegal immigrants?” well, we need to get our priorities straight here…

But the germ – rapidly fermenting – of an idea formed as I read that line “No new jaguars or no new illegal immigrants”… If we could just change one little couplet and moderate “no”… “No” is soo negative…

After all, if GWB can proclaim operation Enduring Bullshit to be a mere comma in history, I can change an “or” to an “and”…

So let’s consider a better, more ecologically sound initiative:

“New jaguars and fewer illegal immigrants!”

Consider it. We import a lot of nice, fat Jaguars. Just think of them as very big black kitty cats. We populate the border with them, and teach them to eat border crashers! Let’s scrap that fence and build a wildlife preserve instead. Make it maybe five miles deep along the whole border… We’ll collar the Jags and set up “invisible fence” on our side to keep them where they belong and let nature do the rest…

There are wins all around this scenario.

First off, Americans don’t really want to stop Pedro from sneaking in. There’s work to be done north of the border, and business will suffer if it has to pay a fair wage to an American. Pedro will pick those apples or clean the “biohazardous materials” off those hotel walls for half of what one of those lazy white dudes will, and he won’t ask for any safety gear, either!

No, Americans want to stop Pedro’s wife from sneaking in and dropping an anchor baby on our side of the Rio. And this is where the Jaguar system will be a real win-win: The cats will go after the easy marks – kids, 8 months’ pregnant women, fatties who can’t run… Those are the ones who will just overload our social services. We don’t need their kind…

And if Pedro wants a wife, well, there are millions of available American women, since the millions of American men they would be sleeping with are part of the largest prison population on the planet…

We could even get a new reality show out of this: Those fancy cameras some want for watching the border can watch the cats hunt…

And don’t forget the new government program possibilities: As part of a physical fitness initiative, we can create a program whereby anyone who manages to outrun kitty is automatically granted citizenship – we can call it the paper chase.

Oh, and deportees? When we do decide to deport somebody, we’ll just lead them to the five-mile line, jab them in the ass with a cattleprod and let some white militiaman chase him on in with near-misses from an M-16…

We have humor??? John McCain style today, courtesy of Reuters:

“McCain jokes about suicide if Democrats win Senate”

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2006-10-18T193648Z_01_N18365054_RTRUKOC_0_US-MCCAIN.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

“Arizona Sen. John McCain, a likely Republican presidential contender in 2008, joked on Wednesday he would "commit suicide" if Democrats win the Senate in November…

"I think I'd just commit suicide," McCain told reporters, to accompanying laughter from Republicans standing with him. "I don't want to face that eventuality because I don't think it's going to happen."”

I’d be happy to lend the bastard a gun…

But this is an illuminating example of the real difference between diehard Republicans and Democrats… When threatened with defeat, Democrats threaten to move to Europe… Republicans just threaten to die hard…

Which is a good argument for lots of electoral turnover… All the commie Democrats will move to France… All the Nazi Republicans will fall on their warmongering swords…

And perhaps, for a while, the Republic will be safe…

Anne Applebaum over at Slate makes a simple and concise case for where international responsibility for North Korea’s continued intransigence lies:

“Blame China”

http://www.slate.com/id/2151635/?nav=tap3

From the article:

“There is one significant country, after all, that has the military, economic, and political power not only to pressure North Korea to discard its bomb but to topple its regime altogether.

That very large superpower is, of course, China… Beijing could bring North Korea into line tomorrow—if it really wanted to”…



First question: Why don’t they want to?

And a darker question I haven’t heard anyone ask…

Since the DPRK’s first test, there has been a lot of interconnected speculation as to whether or not the test was a success and how big the bomb yield “should” have been. Much of the groundwork for this speculation was based on intelligence estimates of the limits of the DPRK’s bomb-making technology. Dogma stated Korea’s expertise was very limited; hence, evaluation was based on the assumption Korean bomb makers could only make a fairly simple bomb, which meant it had to be of a certain minimum size and yield.

Hence, when the expected multi-kiloton blast turned out to be much smaller, we were treated to a week of speculation that either the bomb wasn’t a nuke – a fake, perhaps - or it was a dud, or perhaps a partial dud… Finally on the 16th the US government confirmed the DPRK did in fact set off a bomb:

“U.S. Confirms North Korea Set Off Nuclear Explosion”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,221182,00.html

Still, the assumptions held, and the dogma remained unchallenged:

“The official said that the North Korean device was believed to be roughly the equivalent of 200 tons (181 metric tons) of TNT, suggesting to analysts that it was probably a partial failure. Experts in and out of government had expected a detonation of at least several thousand tons.”

Fatal errors often arise from obsolete assumptions…

Once there was a Pakistani scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who founded a little enterprise… “Bombs R Us,” so to speak… Khan’s stock in trade was technology – some of it was physical but most of it was the equally dangerous informational variety.

If our government knows for certain who bought what at Bombs R Us, they aren’t telling “we the people”…

But the customer list included Iran, Libya, and the DPRK. – while the products list likely included some very good plans for very small nukes.

Is it possible? I haven’t read anyone else addressing this possibility. What if their “dud” wasn’t? The yield would have been right on the low edge of a small bomb.

And would our government conceal this – if they could???

Did Howdy-Doody have wooden balls???

Assumptions…

It is assumed that although Korea has missiles, including the recently crash tested long range Taepo-dong-2, a nuke wouldn’t be any good to the DPRK because any design they could come up with would be far too large for even the Taepo-dong-2. So short of smuggling, the only way they could deliver their bomb would be in the back of an old truck, which pretty much limits the targets to Seoul and the troops on the DMZ.

It is also assumed the bomb used plutonium scavenged from the spent fuel of their recently reactivated reactor complex. Within that larger assumption are collateral ones: How much was available, and how well they could separate out the useful isotopes from the rest. “How well” bears not only on how much but also how small – a smaller bomb needs purer separations. Purer separations require better centrifuges and chemical process controls –especially centrifuges.

It is assumed the DPRK DID NOT obtain really first-class centrifuges or centrifuge designs from Bombs R Us…



Perhaps I’m chasing ghosts here but if so I would like to hear it from Ghostbusters. Conventional wisdom holds the DPRK has enough material and the appropriate technology to build 8 or 9 large, crude bombs that might or might not work and couldn’t be delivered against a strategic target in any case.

The bombs are therefore something between a gesture and a suicidal urge – kind of a National suicide by cop…

Even Korea’s opting to spread their technology wouldn’t mean much, since so much better is easily available.

But if this is otherwise… 8 or 9 bombs might suddenly be 10 or even 20 times that number of smaller, deliverable weapons useful not only as a fatalist’s deterrent but also as tactical weapons one might actually use on a battlefield.

Perhaps that explains China’s failure to act. Perhaps swatting this hornet’s nest isn’t worth chancing the sting to the rulers in Beijing… Or perhaps not all scenarios including a really nuclear-armed Korea displease the Communist leviathan…

In any case, let’s hope we know more in 20 days. It would be nice to take this bit of ire to the polls November 7th…

The Washington Post carries this from AP:

“7 Plead Guilty in Stolen Body Parts Case”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/18/AR2006101800624.html

From the article:

“Seven funeral home directors linked to a scheme to plunder corpses and sell the body parts for transplants have secretly pleaded guilty to undisclosed charges, prosecutors announced Wednesday.

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes also announced that a grand jury had voted to bring a new indictment in the case that adds allegations involving funeral homes in New York City and Rochester.

"It is clear that many more funeral home directors were involved in this enterprise," Hynes said.

The seven unidentified directors all agreed to cooperate in an ongoing investigation into what investigators describe as an enterprise to steal bone and tissue from cadavers and sell the material to biomedical supply companies for profit, Hynes said.”

Well, the dead hand of Adam Smith works on other dead body parts… We shouldn’t be surprised. You have a huge demand and a potentially huge supply being held apart by an artificial barrier, which, needless to say, makes the commodity very profitable…

I’m surprised it took this long for the death industry to grow an offshoot…

And one final observation: Stem cell technologies will probably make this kind of “harvesting” obsolete… So the sooner the wackjobs in the religious right abandon their silly prejudice against stem cell research, the sooner the dead will be safe…

The New York Daily News thinks it has a big scoop:

“McCain team mocks Hil torture loophole”

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/462237p-388764c.html

According to the News:

“Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) said she supports legalizing the torture of a captured terror suspect who knows about "an imminent threat to millions of Americans"”

This isn’t news… Bill was an “imminent threat” for eight years, and we saw how she tortured him…

Just in case you’re not completely numb to this yet, FoxNews links AP, who adds a little more salt to the wound:

“Iraqi Gov't Postpones Reconciliation Conference; Violence Kills 63”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,220941,00.html

“BAGHDAD, Iraq  —  Iraq's government indefinitely postponed a much-anticipated national reconciliation conference on Sunday as at least 83 people were reported dead in a two-day spree of sectarian revenge killings and insurgent bombings.”

Reading Owl scat reliably reveals that the Iraqis will reconcile just as soon as one side or the other is extinct…

Oh, and by the way:

“The U.S. military reported the deaths of a Marine and four soldiers… 54 U.S. military personnel have been killed in the first two weeks alone.”

Question: What is the difference between “cut and run” and “stay the course?”

Answer: Three dead US soldiers per additional day.

Either way, we lose.

Joel Connelly over at the Seattle P-I wrote an excellent piece yesterday chronicling this year’s Senate campaign in Montana, where the race between the Republican incumbent and his Democrat challenger is close enough to make for down and dirty politics:

“Montana tires of senator's shtick”

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/288268_joel11.html

The two candidates have engaged in several debates in different areas of the state. Connelly sees and describes the race not only in its own context but also as a referendum on the Republican Party and one-party control. Quoting the Democratic candidate, Jon Tester, on Republican Conrad Burns’ positions, Connelly ends with an interesting bit of Montana History:

“"I'll tell you where his (Burns') priorities were, with Jack Abramoff and his lobbyist buddies, and with giving the Bush administration everything it wanted," he argued. "Congress is there to be a check on the executive. It's not just a rubber stamp."

Echoes of Montana history came in Tester's closing remarks.

In the late 1930s, a progressive Montana Democrat, Sen. Burton Wheeler, took on a president of his own party -- Franklin D. Roosevelt -- and led the effort to block FDR's plan to pack the U.S. Supreme Court.

There was fire in Wheeler, as recounted in a very good new book, "Welcome to the Homeland" by National Public Radio's Brian Mann. The senator said of his president:

"It is an easy step from the control of a subservient Congress and the control of a Supreme Court, to a Hitler or a Mussolini."

Words worth remembering.”

Bravo…

And it should be remembered that in the late 1930’s Hitler and Mussolini were still operating – barely - within the framework of international law… And Nazism was a model of “get the job done” efficiency… Nazis didn’t cut & run…


My “moderate credential” has been criticized quite a bit recently by people who insist I can’t be middle of the road if I consistently criticize Republicans. But of course that is a fool’s argument: I criticize those who I think need it. At this time, there is almost nothing to recommend the Republican Party, and as for “the middle,” the Republicans have, I assert, totally abandoned the middle, cynically deciding the very few left there have become politically insignificant.

There is no longer any moderation in my former party.

I haven’t been this disgusted with our Federal government… since 1993, when the Democrats had full control.

Not the party… It’s the power. It’s the one-party power. Neither of our parties is fit to the task of one-party rule. I have become convinced one-party rule will ruin America, disaffecting millions and Balkanizing the Nation. A Nation of laws that respects minority rights and cherishes individual and political freedom cannot operate under the control of any single, exclusionary political philosophy.

No party could ever have a big enough tent for everyone.

If only we could ban one-party rule.

You can’t. It’s practically impossible to eliminate a one-party possibility and still adhere to free elections.

After all, “We the People” have the sovereign right to screw ourselves…

But maybe we can blunt one-party rule – like this. Proposed as an amendment to the US Constitution:

“In any situation where majority control of the US House of Representatives and the US Senate vests in a single party and the President likewise is elected from that party, special veto authority equivalent to Presidential veto authority will be conferred on the House and Senate minority leaders in acting in concert. The veto will only apply to bills already signed into law by the President.”

A new kind of check on the runaway train. Neither minority leader would be able to exercise veto power alone – they would have to act in concert, and could only intervene after the President signed a bill into law.

Thoughts?

I’m intrigued by this:

“Study: 655,000 Iraqis Died Due to War”

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/10/10/D8KM6GL80.html

From the article:

“In the new study, researchers attempt to calculate how many more Iraqis have died since March 2003 than one would expect without the war. Their conclusion, based on interviews of households and not a body count, is that about 600,000 died from violence, mostly gunfire. They also found a small increase in deaths from other causes like heart disease and cancer…”

The rise in “other causes” is probably due to hardship and lack of preventative care…

What if it is correct?

The results are sure to add a little more shit to the fan. According to the article, return fire is already coming in. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington criticized the way the estimate was derived and noted that the results were released shortly before the Nov. 7 election.

“"This is not analysis, this is politics," Cordesman said.”

But wait a minute, it is analysis. It is just a different method. How do you count chaos?

All bodycounts in Iraq right now are somebody’s SWAG. There are multiple data sources tracking different segments of the population in different ways. Each of Iraq’s three significantly involved Ministries – Health, Interior, and Defense – keeps their own tallies derived from different sources.

Then there are watchdog groups and the UN…

As I said, I’m intrigued. I’m not considering the magnitude – any is too many – but rather the idea. It is an interesting sort of thinking outside the box… Ask the actual people who are burying actual relatives? Whoda thunk it…

And it will be interesting to see if anyone has any spare energy left to argue about this, considering how much else there is to argue about. The number can only be discussed in relativistic terms. It may be “big” compared to other estimates, but more civilians have died in many other wars in other times – Vietnam, for example…

Still, any is too many, and for a Nation that seems to pride itself on its great skill in waging “bloodless war” – enemy combatant blood excepted – this may be a sobering realization.

Three years of war… The siege of Leningrad lasted just about 3 years, and according to Soviet figures, about 670,000 civilians died.

But those pesky unofficial estimates are much higher…

So the more it changes the more it stays the same… The same for dead people, whether intentionally targeted by an implacable enemy or dead as part of “collateral damage.”

And the same for body counters.

I can’t help it… This one brings on a chuckle…

VIA FoxNews, word of what may be the luckiest shot of the whole war:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,219422,00.html

“Insurgents hit an ammunition dump on a U.S. base in Baghdad with a mortar round, setting off fiery explosions through the night that shook buildings miles away…

The Islamic Army in Iraq, a nationalist anti-occupation insurgent group, claimed responsibility for the Tuesday night attack on the U.S. Forward Operating Base Falcon in southern Baghdad near the Dora neighborhood that caused stockpiles of tank and artillery shells to explode through the night in spectacular bursts of flame and sparks…

The authenticity of the statement could not be immediately verified, but the U.S. military did confirm that the base's ammunition depot had been hit at 10:40 p.m. Tuesday by an 82mm mortar round fired by insurgents from a nearby residential area.

"Intelligence indicates that civilians aligned with a militia organization were responsible for last night's mortar attack," base spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington said.

There were no injuries reported, and Withington said the attack had no strategic effect.”

No strategic effect… I’ll bet it affected that mortar crew…

Well, it looks like as America slept last night, the Doomsday clock ticked ahead another second: North Korea – excuse me, The Democratic People's Republic of Korea – set off an atomic bomb.

Unofficial sources claim George W Bush immediately called Kim Jong-il, President of the DPRK, and thanked him for diverting public attention from Foleygate…

Ta Da Bum!

For a look at what people were saying yesterday, Fred Kaplan over at Slate is as good as any:

“Kim Jong-il and His Quest for the Magical Atom Bomb”

http://www.slate.com/id/2151039/?nav=tap3

Doesn’t look as if Mr. Kaplan will have too much crow to eat… Like most of yesterday’s analysts, he didn’t expect the test so soon, assuming “the bomb” would be used as a bargaining chit – as it has been used before.

For an early appraisal of where “we” are today, The Washington Post is a good start:

“Reported Test 'Fundamentally Changes the Landscape' for U.S. Officials”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/09/AR2006100900047.html

I’d like to be in the first wave to offer my thanks to Kim Jong-il…Thanks, shorty. You have done us all a stack of favors…

You have done much to relieve the anxiety that uncertainty always adds to any plan and you have replaced that with happy certainty!

First off, we are now happily certain you had a bomb… Had… You now have a radioactive coal mine. We can furthermore be comfortable in the likely certainty you either have a few more or at least can make more.

We’ve been arguing about this for years. Now we can argue about something else…

But most importantly, we can now be certain that the Bush foreign policy is a complete disaster without even the slightest glimmer of success to show for it…

This is, after all, the direct result of one more of the shrubs geopolitical miscalculations. As the Post notes:


“When Bush became president in 2000, Pyongyang's reactor was frozen under a 1994 agreement with the United States. Clinton administration officials thought they were so close to a deal limiting North Korean missiles that in the days before he left office, Bill Clinton seriously considered making the first visit to Pyongyang by a U.S. president.

But conservatives had long been deeply skeptical of the deal freezing North Korea's program -- known as the Agreed Framework -- in part because it called for building two light-water nuclear reactors (largely funded by the Japanese and South Koreans). When then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell publicly said in early 2001 that he favored continuing Clinton's approach, Bush rebuked him.

Bush then labeled North Korea part of an "axis of evil" …”


You know the rest. The shrub turned Slick Willie’s patient, almost successful negotiations into a pissing contest. The DPRK fired their reactor back up, started reprocessing spent fuel rods for plutonium… And now they have pissed on the toe of our cowboy boot…

It’s probably callous to say it, but this really doesn’t threaten us directly. North Korea has no suitable long-range delivery capability. North Korea is pretty much cut of from the rest of the world – except their communist Chinese brethren – and today we’re threatening to blockade their sealanes, which we can easily do. That action, normally an act of war, is considered “legal” in this sense because the blockaders would be looking for contraband nuclear materials. So the chances of them getting near America proper with a bomb are pretty small.

Our allies, on the other hand… This must be a blow to the South Koreans. And Japan – the world’s most nuked nation – is clearly worried about nuclear weapons in the hands of people they brutally oppressed for most of the first half of the last century…

They’re not going to use it. A nuclear arsenal is only really valuable as a deterrent. A single bomb, or even a dozen, has no deterrent value against the thousands of bombs the US possesses. Once the bombs – or in their case, probably bomb – flies, retaliation sufficient to guarantee “regime change” is inevitable. Their bomb is only valuable as a tactical weapon in a conventional war, and only if they are losing. They won’t use a bomb unless they are directly attacked.

And if they are, I wouldn’t want to be a US soldier on the DMZ… Or anywhere else in Korea, for that matter.

Besides, they don’t have to use it. They have made their point: America doesn’t rule the world, and an American administration that tries to do so will exhaust itself in conflict on one level or the other. In “winning” the cold war we lost many things – one of which was respect for the ability of others to fight back. Even small fry can be more fight than the fight is worth. We’re learning it in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now here.

So thanks again, shorty! And congratulations on the timing: America needed another reminder of just how far into that state of denial the current administration is, and how chimeric is the Republican claim to being “better” on national security issues. The Iraquagmire, the NIE… And now this. They’re batting zero in this game of chess…

Maybe they would do better if they stopped batting and started playing the game as it is, instead of as they wished it was.

And hopefully the people will begin to understand the failures, and send the failing parties packing next month.

If the Republicans do lose the majority, maybe we should give Kim a medal…

Condi Rice put on her best “pretty please” smile for a visit with Massoud Barzani, the President of the Nation of Kurdistan – OOPS! I mean the northern Kurdish Province of Iraq…

“Rice Urges Kurdish Cooperation With Iraqi Government”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,218178,00.html

The President and the Secretary of Begging met last Friday in Irbil. Rice made a point of thanking Barzani for the cooperation America has received from the Kurdish people, stating “I appreciate also your important participation in the process of national reconciliation. Thank you.”

Barzani reaffirmed Kurdistan’s commitment, saying “Kurdistan, "like any other nation, has the right to self-determination." However, he said he is committed to a "federal democratic and pluralistic Iraq."”

I am reliably informed a more literal translation from the original Kurdish Barzani spoke was “fuck you very much, Iraq can be democratic and pluralist without us”…

Chalk this part of the ongoing disaster up to wishful thinking 50% and unintended consequences one-half…

The article reminds us that the Kurds have been pretty much on their own, protected by the US air Force since 1991. I’ll remind you that before that, they were attacked and brutalized by everyone around them… I’ll remind you there has been a movement to establish a Kurdish state for a very long time.

I’ll point out they have had 15 years to build that Nation, it’s infrastructure, police forces… And military arms, I’m sure.

And I’ll ask you: Now that they have achieved their dream, why should they give any of it back?

But as the article notes, that was just what Rice sought:

“Convinced oil revenue is the long-term key to economic independence for a unified Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appealed Friday for cooperation from the autonomous and oil rich Kurdish north.”

I’ll also ask: If they tell us – and the rest of Iraq – to piss off, what are we going to do about it?

So many “ifs”… If some means can be found to convince the insurgents to surge somewhere else… If an uncommon fit of common sense seizes the kill for god crowd… Still it is for naught if the country fragments along more or less ethnic / religious lines: The issue can be simply defined:

“Sunni Arabs, who had enjoyed control over Iraq under Saddam, now fear the Kurdish push for secession under the nation's new federal system. Should the Shiite majority in the oil-rich south follow suit, the Sunnis would find themselves with little more than date groves and sand.”

Well, some might say that’s Karma for supporting the old bastard… But then the practical question becomes, how can such an arrangement ever produce a peaceful, stable Nation or Nations where Iraq once was?

And the answer, most likely, is by balancing it on the back of GI Joe and funding it from the US treasury…

Thanks, George… Oh well. You wanted bases over there… Looks like we’ll have them whether we want them or not. Forever…

MSNBC brings us the news this morning of some incredibly valuable new research:

“Marijuana may help stave off Alzheimer’s”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15145917/

Now, if only they can remember where they put the study…

From the article…

“New research shows that the active ingredient in marijuana may prevent the progression of the disease by preserving levels of an important neurotransmitter that allows the brain to function.

Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in California found that marijuana’s active ingredient, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, can prevent the neurotransmitter acetylcholine from breaking down more effectively than commercially marketed drugs.

THC is also more effective at blocking clumps of protein that can inhibit memory and cognition in Alzheimer’s patients, the researchers reported in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics.”

The article notes “Those afflicted with Alzheimer’s suffer from memory loss, impaired decision-making, and diminished language and movement skills.”

I think you see where I’m going with this. There is a National Alzheimer’s emergency, an epidemic that threatens America itself… And now we can combat it!

We need to get a whole bunch of this stuff – all the hempsters could contribute a week’s worth of stash, maybe – and we need to get it to Washington DC ASAP. We need to fill the ventilation systems of all of the Congressional, Administrative, and Judicial offices, and then set it off all at once.

We can let them out after about a week to see if they are better. Meanwhile we’ll just send in Doritos, burritos, pizza and beer…

It’ll be for their own good… They will thank us later…

Robert Jamieson over at the P-I has some somber reflections on a country gone bad:

“It's time to revisit the power of war protest”

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/287327_robert03.html?source=rss

He turns us on to an organization that wants to do just that:

“The World Can’t Wait!”

http://worldcantwait.org/

They are planning a “drive out the Bush regime” protest October 5th…

Watch it Bob… And remember your birth certificate… If you’re going to protest the Bush regime, you better be ready to prove you’re American: Otherwise you might end up in Guantanamo, held incommunicado as an “alien enemy illegal combatant”…

And you might end up there anyway…

Really, there is only one reasonable response for the Bush administration in this situation: Call out the guard!

Tin soldiers and Bush is coming… We’re finally on our own… This fall I hear the drumming…

After all, he’s fucked everything else up.

The Dow is at an all-time high, corresponding to the rape of the real US economy by fat cat globalists and their exportation of the family wage jobs of the middle class … Meanwhile, illegal aliens, flooding the labor markets, willing to work for nothing under any conditions, undo 100 years of American labor progress.

The war in Iraq is a quagmire with, we have recently discovered, Henry Kissinger calling the shots in the background – Now that’s a real Vietnam parallel… It’s making the phony war on terror less winnable by the day, creating enemies faster than they can be killed or placated – in the best judgment of the US intelligence community, that is.

We still don’t have an energy policy even as foreign competitors tie up more and more of the available world oil supplies, guaranteeing we will see the return of ultra-high prices soon. But we do have a shredded constitution, courtesy of the boy who would be King and the neoconservative cabal who pulls his puppet strings…

But the Republicans are too busy not noticing the homosexual predator in their midst to worry about any of that…

Yep, it’s heaped to overflowing – there is only one thing left. We need a few dead college students shot by guard members breaking up antiwar protests. Now that would ice the cake.

So come on, Liar-in-Chief Bush! Send in the troops! There still must be a few National Guard remaining Stateside. Maybe you can conscript some of the ‘Nam era vets – some of your Swift-boat character assassins, perhaps… They will know what to do with leftist college rabble.

Send ‘em in. You and the rest of the Republican misleaders are running out of stuff to fuck up, and you have an election to lose…

It’s perverse, but I find this amusing…

Via MSNBC, David A. Fahrenthold of the Washington Post chronicles a new environmental dilemma:

“Wildlife waste is major polluter”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15053738/

From the article:

“Scientists have run high-tech tests on harmful bacteria in local rivers and streams and found that many of the germs -- and in the Potomac and Anacostia rivers, a majority of them-- come from wildlife dung. The strange proposition that nature is apparently polluting itself has created a serious conundrum for government officials charged with cleaning up the rivers… Part of the problem lies with the unnaturally high populations of deer, geese and raccoons living in modern suburbs and depositing their waste there. But officials say it would be nearly impossible, and wildly unpopular, to kill or relocate enough animals to make a dent in even that segment of the pollution…That leaves scientists and environmentalists struggling with a more fundamental question: How clean should we expect nature to be? In certain cases, they say, the water standards themselves might be flawed, if they appear to forbid something as natural as wild animals leaving their dung in the woods.”

“A majority of the germs come from wildlife dung”… Part of the problem lies with the unnaturally high populations of deer, geese and raccoons living in modern suburbs”…

No shit? It’s worthy of a little consideration how this came about…

Once upon a time there was an ecosystem in balance here… Not a paradise, not an Eden, just a system in balance. There would have been representatives of all the major animal, plant, and insect groups filling their respective niches. Ground dwelling mammals, insectivores & root eaters – moles, groundhogs, etc. Then there were fur-bearing plant eaters – rabbits, squirrels and the like, up to beaver. They lived with – and sometimes were food for – mostly larger furred predators – meat eaters from weasels to badgers, omnivores like raccoon. There were sea and river otters. Maybe an occasional alligator… All manner of birds with various diets. Teeming insect populations – including dung beetles. Hunting cats and canids – cougar, bobcat coyote, wolf, fox… And then deer and bear.

The waters were well-populated with a variety of fish.

It surely wasn’t as neat, clean, or tidy as we modern Americans would like, but it was self-sustaining.

Fish was the most important dietary staple of most of the relatively small numbers of Amerinds who lived in the area. They did a little farming and gathering and competed with the bigger predators, trapping and hunting rabbits, wild turkey, squirrels, and the occasional deer. They were probably mostly immune to the local diseases due to acclimation.

When Europeans moved into the area, they re-created the ecosystem. It is important to see the difference between changing and ruining – the spread out populations lived off the land, living much the same way the first people did but with more emphasis on farming. Remember, in 1800, most staple food was local, even for cities. As the populations grew, people asserted themselves more and more, hunting out the larger, dangerous predators that competed for game, killed livestock and even occasionally somebody’s great Aunt…

But it was still a working ecosystem. Man was the dominant predator. Species that fit “our ecosystem,” including plants and animals we added to it thrived, and the species we considered undesirable dwindled. The more man dominated, the more complete the transformation became.

Then “we” moved off the land.

How many people hunt today? In the Washington DC area, I’ll bet there isn’t too many. Somehow, toting a rifle – or even a bow - around Maryland’s remaining woods strikes me as being a good way to end up guilty until proven innocent…

So what hunts the deer?

Nature got along fine without us as general manager – even when we were a major player, we were still part of the game. Now, as we try to write the rules, we find out just how inadequate we are. A suburb is a lot of things but it isn’t a balanced ecosystem. It’s a mostly sterile place where native plants are “weeds,” insects are discouraged, moles are targets, and deer are “pets”… And when it rains, all the unrecycled poop from all the deer – and raccoons, rats, squirrels, coyotes, dogs, and cats – heads straight into the water, facilitated by the drainage systems we made for our convenience. Then the bacterial counts skyrocket and the nitrogen promoted algae blooms kill fish which rot and make matters worse…

Beach closed… No fishing, for your safety. Man once lived on fish here…

Manage it or let it alone, if you can. In this case, leaving it alone would mean reconstituting an ecosystem – bringing back all the species we eradicated when we made the place into what we thought we wanted… Managing it means taking a very unpopular action: becoming the predator once more.

Lesson: The highest form of intellectual exercise is the attempt to foresee the unexpected consequence…

It’ll be interesting to see how this issue develops. Maybe the best idea is habitat reconstruction. If we reintroduced, for example, cougar into the Capitol…

Dateline Washington DC… The Office of Congressman Smith announced today he will not be running for re-election, as he was eaten today by Sarah the cougar as he was jogging near the House office buildings… Sarah, who has eaten several lawmakers recently, had no comment… But analysts note she is eating Republicans, two to one…

This idea might just grow on you…