So Why is New Orleans in a bowl?

New Orleans' dysfunctional relationship with its environment may make it the nation's most improbable metropolis. It is flood prone. It is cursed with a fertile disease environment. It is located along a well-worn pathway that tropical storms travel from the Atlantic to the nation's interior. From this perspective, New Orleans has earned all the scorn being heaped upon it—the city is a misguided urban project, a fool's errand, a disaster waiting to happen.

Did you ever wonder why they built a city in a bowl below sea level? Well Josh Marshall's buddy from graduate school, Ari Kelman, explains over at Slate.
City of Nature
New Orleans' blessing; New Orleans' curse.

It answers a lot of the questions I had. Go check it out.

Katrina Hyperbole

We progressives have been the victims of right wing hyperbole for years. The temptation is to reciprocate. I have listened to Air America today and I have heard a lot of ranting on Bush's responsibility. We progressives have to be careful here not to rant too much. While I agree that actions of the Bush administration have made things worse and that Bush has appeared out of touch and callous. The country and the world know these things and Bush will pay. Bring the facts to people's attention but don't do one Limbaugh style fuming rant after another, and that's what I've heard on Air America today. I also heard Charles Krauthammer rip Bush a new one on Fox news. Krauthammer didn't do it because he cares he did it because he realized Bush is committing political suicide and is likely to take the Republican Party with him. Mellow out...don't try to kill a president that is committing suicide...and most importantly, don't sound like a left wing Limbaugh.

Taking the Long View for a Hopeful Progressive Future

I would like to submit to you today a bit of a hopeful missive for progressives in the United States. I offer this positive note though it flies in the face of the fact that our country is in trouble, and there's no doubt about that. This depressing situation has been building for going on five years. In fact, following the 2004 elections, my wife and I sat down for several very serious conversations about becoming expatriates in Ireland. In the end, though, it was too great a sacrifice for too little gain.

It took me no more than three minutes to flip through the headlines of the last 24 hours and find numerous examples of developments which would likely bring any progressive to despair. The ascendancy of the neocons and the "religious right" (very likely the most ironic oxymoron in the history of our nation) has seen the government attempting to stifle the reproductive rights of women at every turn, the relaxation of rules meant to protect us and our environment, and of course our president's seemingly neverending list of shifting reasons to continue the insanity in Iraq. We have even seen the Democratic Party, once a bastion of progressive thinking, flailing about to appease the born-again crowd. It's enough to make a progressive weep.

But even for all this, I think that it's important for us to put things in perspective. We need to earnestly take the long view of our country's history and get a grip on the big picture. Before we judge too harshly where we stand today, we need to remember from whence we came. Our nation was born into a cauldron where slavery was not only accepted, but critical to our economy. Blacks were counted as 3/5 of a human being. The idea of women voting, to say nothing of having personal power or freedom, was considered madness. We immediately embarked on a virtual war of genocide against the indigenous natives of our land. Were the founding fathers to be suddenly placed on their own sovereign nation today they would be considered some of the worst, despotic, repressive dictators or our time.

But we found a way to get better. We progressed. Slavery was abolished. The women's sufferance movement broke new ground for gender equality. The civil rights movement gained respect and equality for minorities. Sexual preference slowly moved from the realm of "disease" to a simple understanding of the differences between orientations.

This is hardly the first time that we've stumbled as a society. There was the repressive era of prohibition; the horror of our government experimenting on blacks in the Tuskegee syphilis studies; the tyranny of the McCarthy era; the battles by bigots against civil rights... the list goes on. When we became too comfortable and complacent we allowed a form of national hysteria to grip our society. Under such conditions extremist religious dogma and a nearly fascist dedication to what are currently termed "conservative" ethics can sweep up large portions of our society into repressive, regressive madness. That's what we're seeing today.

Yes, we have stumbled, but the general trend over the generations has always been in the direction of progressive progress. What our nation is witnessing today in the hands of the neocons is, in the long view, a passing thing. The masses of the middle and lower classes will always, eventually, catch on to the game and react. As long as we can ensure a fair chance at honest elections, the people realize when they've shifted too far towards repressive evil and move back in the direction of progress. Even the prospect of rigged elections, which we may have faced for the last few cycles, will right itself in the end. Our press may be weakened and cowed, but one thing they are good at is polling. When the poll numbers eventually reach a disparity from the election "results" which is drastic enough, serious reform will follow. Managed paper trails for all votes will be put in place, sooner or later, and reliable election results will be achieved.

Don't despair. These are dark times indeed for progressive thinkers, but it's always darkest just before the dawn. I have to believe that if I'm to get up every day and carry on with my life.

Leadership and Geroge W. Bush

Jack Grant (AKA the unrepentant curmudgeon) says it all.

…on leadership

Check it out.........

And over at the Left Coaster

Steve Soto explains now Bush is Monitoring The Catastrophe from on high.

Gulf of Mexico Oil Rigs missing!

According to this post at The Oil Drum we may be looking at a worst case scenario RE gulf oil production after Katrina.

Adios New Orleans

I made the unpopular suggestion that New Orleans should not be rebuilt here on Saturday and over at Running Scared yesterday. It may not be popular but I'm not alone. (Hat tip to Low and Left)
Nuevo New Orleans

Somebody has to be the first to say this, and it's probably not me, but I haven't actually seen it anywhere so will take the rap. Because it is a hard, hard thing to say:

New Orleans is dead.

It was a semi-stupid place to put a city anyway, everybody has long admitted. When you can't even bury the dead in the ground because the water table is so high the caskets simply bob to the top like corks, this is a clue. When the living put up with yellow fever on a hideously regular basis for centuries. Where every living thing is dependent on constantly-working pumps just to keep what's currently going on from making everybody grow gills like Kevin Costner in Waterworld.

At any rate everybody who has stopped to think about it has realized for years that New Orleans was doomed. But a city is a huge investment and something you don't just walk away from casually. So we build yet another dike, and raise the levees yet again, and put in more pumps, and hope to scrape by by the skin of your teeth just one more time.

There is more so head over to Corrente.

As I said yesterday:

It now appears that the destruction of New Orleans will be nearly complete. It is not only flooded but flooded with a toxic brew of salt water, sewage and hazardous chemicals. It will take weeks or even months to pump it all out. We can start making the painful decisions we are going to be forced to make by not re-building New Orleans in it's current location. Although we don't know the death toll it is safe to say that thousands have already died and more will die as the water continues to rise. Man does not own New Orleans the sea does. We should let the sea reclaim it. This will be only the first of such decisions we have to make. The warm water of the Gulf of Mexico that makes the Gulf Coast such a desirable place to live and visit also makes it unsafe for human habitation. A risk assessment of the entire Gulf Coast should be done taking into account the changing conditions. New construction should be controlled based on that risk assessment.

From Gulf to Gulf

Another poll yesterday showed George W. Bush's approval rating at an all time low.
President's Poll Rating Falls to a New Low

Rising gas prices and ongoing bloodshed in Iraq continue to take their toll on President Bush, whose standing with the public has sunk to an all-time low, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The survey found Bush's job approval rating at 45 percent, down seven points since January and the lowest ever recorded for the president in Post-ABC surveys. Fifty-three percent disapproved of the job Bush is doing.

Meanwhile Bush has decided to trade the unnatural disaster he created in the Persian Gulf for the natural disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. But as the true nature of the devastation on the Gulf Coast Bush spent only 1 minute and 25 seconds of a 45 minute speech in San Diego discussing Katrina and the rest comparing the debacle in Iraq to world war two.

There is evidence that the Iraq war has hurt rescue and relief efforts. As Bop News Reports:

This is the press release, while this is the reality.

FEMA's press release sounds OK, until you look at it more closely.

You have to read between the lines of this press release:

1. Staged/prestaged - that means not on the ground, but waiting to be deployed.


2. Bullet points with no action items such as "Voluntary agencies, important partners in disasters, are prepared to augment local government services with shelters, mobile feeding units, water and clean-up supplies." Mean nothing has actually been done.


3. Note what is missing - helicopters, national guard units to prevent looting, coast guard deployment, emergency power generation.


4. The number of trucks may sound impressive, but compare this with the roughly 2 million dislocated persons from this disaster, and it looks less impressive. Realize that flooding has made many road impassable.


5. Note, for example, no mention of The National Hydrological Center which is now tracking the flooding threat.

According to what I am hearing:

1. The major disaster declaration came late and slow.


2. There is a lack of air transport, particularly helicopters - one can guess where they are.


3. There is a shortage of military police and other law enforcement units - one can guess where they are.


4. There was a "let down effect" when New Orleans missed the worst of the wind damage.


5. The flooding is hampering efforts generally, roads are out, moving material by boat is hazardous, and phone service is down, making it difficult to coordinate.

And then we have this, Bush Slashed Hurricane Funding For New Orleans

In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding…The cuts mean major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now.

[snip]

Landrieu said the Bush administration is not making Corps of Engineers funding a priority. “I think it’s extremely shortsighted,” Landrieu said. “When the Corps of Engineers’ budget is cut, Louisiana bleeds. These projects are literally life-and-death projects to the people of south Louisiana.”

The Gulf of Mexico may not be any better for Bush's approval ratings than the other gulf.

Katrina+2

The situation in New Orleans is not improving. After a levee break early today two to three blocks long, the New Orleans’ mayor asked helicopter crews to reinforce the levee by dropping additional sandbags from helicopters. Unfortunately, the helicopters did not receive this message and the water has been pouring into the city all day. It appears that a pumping station in the area will soon be inundated and fail (and as of 12:00 AM CDT, may have already failed) and the flooding will be even worse by dawn.

WWL-TV of New Orleans has its own blog, giving updates on the aftermath of the storm as they become available.

The country is providing help to the Gulf area as quickly as possible for the benefit of the unfortunate people caught up in this tragedy. At the same time, however, people are also looking at how this event will impact in their local areas.

Both the Miami Herald and Tampa Tribune report that Florida power companies are asking their customers to conserve electricity as much as possible in the next few days. Florida generates approximately 40% of its electricity from natural gas, and Florida’s natural gas comes from Louisiana.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution predicts that there will be $3 per gallon gasoline in the Atlanta area by the weekend, and shortages will occur. Atlanta normally has about 10 days of fuel in reserve at any time, but the pipeline from Louisiana with new fuel is shut down. After two days, Atlanta has about eight days of fuel left.

Gasoline is already in short supply in Mississippi. The Jackson Clarion-Ledger reports on long lines at gas stations in central Mississippi.

We in the Midwest are not immediately affected by this from an economic viewpoint (emotionally, it's very serious to all of us). Most newspapers here are not speculating on economic effects at this time. The Des Moines Register says that if the fuel supply can be from the Gulf can be restored quickly, we should be able to avoid $3 per gallon gasoline in Iowa. However, the more I hear from the Gulf, the more unlikely that fuel supplies will return to normal soon.

The Houston Chronicle reports on companies and activities that will profit from the recovery efforts. I suppose that somebody has to.

Finally, Bob Hill of the Louisville Courier-Journal shares a joke while writing about the excessive addiction to oil in this country. “Two blondes/Kentucky governors/newspaper columnists (pick one) were pumping gas at a service station, and one says to the other, "I bet these awful gas prices are going to go even higher."

To which the other replies: "Won't affect me; I always put in just $10 worth."

Holding out the tin cup

No not for me. I'm still managing to do this on Google's dime. If you would like to donate for Katrina relief Blue Oregon has a fundraiser for the Red Cross here and I'll put a link over on the sidebar.

Introduction To Peak Oil

We have talked here before about an event that results in a a sudden shortage of oil. We have usually talked about a terrorist attack in Saudia Arabia or another oil producing area. For the United States it looks like the Introduction to the realities of peak oil may have been very warm water in the form of Hurricane Katrina. The fact that people are thinking about peak oil today became obvious when I checked sitemeter for Middle Earth Journal and found multiple search engine hits for a post I did a few days ago on Gasoline from coal. Welcome to peak oil.

More on Global Warming continued....

I repeat my global warming rant on Saturday and add to it over at Running Scared.

Iraq, 1776 it's not!

The Portland Oregonian's Steve Duin has an excellent commentary on the Bush administration's attempts to compare the chaos in Iraq with the American Revolution in 1776. I'll give you a few snippets but go read all of the Drummers join 76 trombones in big parade

Desperate to avoid comparisons with the quagmire of Vietnam, the president and his advisers haul out a far more popular conflict, the American Revolution, to rally the troops at home. That the analogy is desperate, superficial and inaccurate doesn't seem to matter.

[....]

And Eifler sees no comparison between the two struggles for independence: "Another nation didn't come in and set up our constitution," he says. "We set up our own."

[....]

In the end, Eifler believes Vietnam is a more compelling analogy for Iraq because this country was trying to foster a government that "would be friendly to the United States and reflect U.S. values at a time when the people of Vietnam wanted their own government." Communist infiltrators, the insurgents of that day, added to the futility and chaos.

And if the Bush administration is determined to employ the U.S. Constitution to comfort us about what's ahead for Iraq, Eifler reminds us that we were still tinkering with the constitution 50 years later, desperately trying to avert the nation's long, steady slide toward civil war.

Iraq is not America in 1776, it's not even Vietnam. It's more chaotic than Vietnam.

Get Ready to Celebrate "Oh Crap Day" on Oct. 17

Why Oct. 17? Because that's the day when Bush's obscene Bankruptcy Bill will go into effect. (And you thought we forgot about it, didn't you? For shame.) Over at Huffington Post, Bob Cesca has an absolute must-read piece. He starts off primarily talking about a recent poll showing that most American who support the "Patriot Act" don't really know what's in it, and that the more they do know, the less they like it. (Insert large "Well, DUH" here.) Then he gets down to business with an analysis of the bankruptcy bill which would be laugh-out-loud funny if it weren't serious enough to make you cry.

The Bankruptcy Bill is going to foster a climate not unlike that scene from "Goodfellas". Planning to start up a small business with a $100,000 line of credit? Business doesn't go well? Fuck you, pay me. National Guardsman returning from Iraq? Can't pay the mortgage? Fuck you, pay me. Lose your insurance? Get in an accident? Medical bills pile up? Fuck you, pay me.

But it felt good to vote for George W. Bush in November because John Kerry seemed "too French" and gay people shouldn't get married. It was easy to support something called "The Patriot Act" or "Operation Iraqi Freedom" without knowing what it really meant.

Just as long as we don't have to think too hard.

I like Bob. He's willing to spread the blame around to the uneducated voters that put us in the situtation where we find ourselves now and not just kvetch about the people in power. Remember, we get the government we deserve. The nice thing about government, though, is that we always get another chance to fix what we messed up. At least until the mushroom clouds start showing up, and assuming we can get an honest count at the ballot box.

A Veteran Speaks

A 20 year NCO just back from Iraq tells it like it is. Head over to The Green Knight and check it out.

Divisions over Iraq

We have talked extensively about divisions in the Democratic Party over Iraq. I am certainly divided from the DC Democrats firmly believing we should start exiting now and complete it as fast as possible. There are those who say the country will descend into chaos if we leave. My answer to that is it has already with us there. The US is too much of the problem to ever be part of the solution. The DC Democrats like Joe Biden and and Hillary Clinton are unable to admit they were wrong and it's time for a mid-course correction. So yes, we are divided, but the Bull Moose reminds us they are just as divided on the other side.

However, it is not even clear that the Bush Administration is united on its war policy. Rumsfeld and the Pentagon often appear at odds with the White House over the drawing down of troops and whether this can even be called a war. Clearly, Rumsfeld has never been enthusiastic about nation-building which apparently led to his disastrous decision to go to war without a sufficient number of troops.

Now, the division between the White House and the Pentagon is even playing out in the editorials of the two flagship conservative publications - the Weekly Standard and the National Review.

So, while the Democrats are divided between the DLC Democrats and the real Democrats on the right they are divided between the White House and the Pentagon. Moose leaves out a few other division as well. The "old right", who were some of the first to oppose the Iraq war. We see their commentaries in The American Conservative and at LewRockwell.com. There is yet another group who supported the war but now think that Rumsfeld and the administration fucked it up so bad that it's time to get while the getting is good.

So if Divided you Fall who is going to fall first?

How long before Rove orders Pat Robertson "Taken Out"

Pat Robertson has become a real problem for the Republicans and the Bush administration. It seems fairly obvious that poor Pat has some serious mental problems. Last year, Robertson said President Bush told him before the Iraq invasion: "We're not going to have any casualties," but that "the Lord told me it was going to be (a) a disaster and (b) messy." Then last week he called for the assassination of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. Now Venezuela Wants Pat Robertson

(CBS/AP) President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that his government may ask the United States to extradite U.S. religious broadcaster Pat Robertson to Venezuela for suggesting American agents should kill him.

[....]

Sunday, speaking to foreign delegations attending a meeting of the Organization of American States in Caracas, Chavez said Venezuela will "exercise legal action in the United States" against Robertson.

"Calling for the assassination of a head of state is a terrorist act," said Chavez, an outspoken critic of President Bush who has forged strong relations with communist-led Cuba.

"We could even request his extradition," he added.

Chavez told OAS delegates that Venezuela would consider bringing the issue to United Nations if the U.S. government failed to cooperate.

As firedoglake says

Should be interesting to see what the response of the National Lampoon's Crawford Vacation bunch will be -- after all, wasn't it Saddaam's threat to assassinate his father one of Preznit Hole Smoker's motivating factors in marching over Iraq like it was a large piece of dog offal?

Now I have no doubt that the Bush administration would just love to have Chavez "taken out" but they don't want a senile Christian con man announcing it in advance.

Gulf Oil Production

The Oil Drum is back on line and brings us this bad news.

Here are the final GOMEX numbers. They predict that 86% of Gulf oil production is predicted to be cut for less than 10 days, 50% of oil production is predicted to be cut for 10-30 days, and 22% cut for over 30 days. Natural gas is just about as bad (59-29-5). That, folks, is a big deal if it's right, we're talking about a lot of capacity in the gulf. (Ironically, that little jog Katrina took to the NNE at landfall may benefit NOLA, but may be worse for the oil industry, more rig damage and more exposure to the offshore areas of MS and AL)

The loss of refinery capacity is the big one here. Opening up the Stratigic Petroleum Reserve won't help if there is no place to refine it. It will probably be several days before we know the full extent of the damage to the oil infra-structure.

Alan Greenspan, smoke and mirrors economics

I have made it no secret that I don't buy the myths that surround Ayn Rand disciple Alan Greenspan. In February I posted on Stephen S. Roach's destruction of the myth in Alan Greenspan, myth and reality. Well, last week Mr Greenspan warned us about the very condition his smoke and mirrors economics had created and Paul Krugman explains.
Greenspan and the Bubble

Most of what Alan Greenspan said at last week's conference in his honor made very good sense. But his words of wisdom come too late. He's like a man who suggests leaving the barn door ajar, and then - after the horse is gone - delivers a lecture on the importance of keeping your animals properly locked up.

Regular readers know that I have never forgiven the Federal Reserve chairman for his role in creating today's budget deficit. In 2001 Mr. Greenspan, a stern fiscal taskmaster during the Clinton years, gave decisive support to the Bush administration's irresponsible tax cuts, urging Congress to reduce the federal government's revenue so that it wouldn't pay off its debt too quickly.

Since then, federal debt has soared. But as far as I can tell, Mr. Greenspan has never admitted that he gave Congress bad advice. He has, however, gone back to lecturing us about the evils of deficits.

Now, it seems, he's playing a similar game with regard to the housing bubble.

At the conference, Mr. Greenspan didn't say in plain English that house prices are way out of line. But he never says things in plain English.

What he did say, after emphasizing the recent economic importance of rising house prices, was that "this vast increase in the market value of asset claims is in part the indirect result of investors accepting lower compensation for risk. Such an increase in market value is too often viewed by market participants as structural and permanent." And he warned that "history has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low-risk premiums." I believe that translates as "Beware the bursting bubble."

Like everything else, the economic policy of the Bush administration has been driven by politics. The so called "recovery" has not created new wealth, only debt and Alan Greenspan has been a good Republican soldier first and an economist last. A recovery based only on debt is not a recovery and can't be sustained. As Krugman points out Greenspan is now warning us about the very things he was encouraging less than a year ago.

But as recently as last October Mr. Greenspan dismissed talk of a housing bubble: "While local economies may experience significant speculative price imbalances, a national severe price distortion seems most unlikely."

Wait, it gets worse. These days Mr. Greenspan expresses concern about the financial risks created by "the prevalence of interest-only loans and the introduction of more-exotic forms of adjustable-rate mortgages." But last year he encouraged families to take on those very risks, touting the advantages of adjustable-rate mortgages and declaring that "American consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage."

If Mr. Greenspan had said two years ago what he's saying now, people might have borrowed less and bought more wisely. But he didn't, and now it's too late. There are signs that the housing market either has peaked already or soon will. And it will be up to Mr. Greenspan's successor to manage the bubble's aftermath.

The debt recovery bubble was just waiting for a pin to pop it. We may have two pins, Hurricane Katrina's impact on oil price and supply and Mr Greenspan's own words.

Blogging the Storm Out

"Riding the storm out. Waiting for the fallout."
- R.E.O. Speedwagon

"When the levee breaks..."
- Led Zeplin

Ron has already put up some good information on the possible disaster in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina, as well as the effect this is having on oil prices. If you, like many of us, are trying to keep up with breaking Katrina information, CNN's Miles O'Brien is live blogging the storm from Baton Rouge. He already has some good entries to read, but apparently he's running on two hours sleep an no coffee.

The big fear everyone has is that if the levees are overcome by the storm surge, Lake Ponchetrain is going to become Lake New Orleans. And it's going to be a nasty, toxic mess.

Ok... there are more than 10,000 people holed up in the Superdome (which is starting to leak in places) and the latest report from the scene is saying that there is "Total Structural Failure" in parts of New Orleans right now. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but it certainly doesn't sound good. Let's all take a moment away from politics, etc. and send some positive thoughts and prayers down to the people stuck in that town.

Blog Pick of the Week

Since much of the news this week will concern the impact of Hurricane Katrina it seems appropriate that the blog pick of the week should be The Oil Drum. The folks there will keep us up to date on the impact of Katrina on oil supplies.
As usual you will be able to find The Oil Drum by clicking on under QUICK LINKS over on the sidebar for the rest of the week and find it in my blogroll after that.

Previous Picks
CommonSenseDesk
PSoTD
Peak Energy(Australia)
sine.qua.non...
Balloon Juice
Brilliant at Breakfast
Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Chuck Currie
Radio Saigon

This is going to be a big deal

Head over to The Oil Drum for the latest information on how Katrina is going to impact the supply of oil and gasoline in the United States. This may well be the US introduction to peak oil. We have discussed geo-political events impacting supply but for the US it may turn out to be really warm water in the Gulf of Mexico.

When Left and Right Just won't do

We have The Political Compass. Thanks to Dohyi Mir Both Stalin and Gandhi would be considered on the left side of the right/left scale. I'm sure we would all agree this is a bit misleading.
The Political Compass has both an X and a Y axis dividing politics into four quadrants.

In the introduction, we explained the inadequacies of the traditional left-right line.

If we recognise that this is essentially an economic line it's fine, as far as it goes. We can show, for example, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and Pol Pot, with their commitment to a totally controlled economy, on the hard left. Socialists like Mahatma Gandhi and Robert Mugabe would occupy a less extreme leftist position. Margaret Thatcher would be well over to the right, but further right still would be someone like that ultimate free marketeer, General Pinochet.
That deals with economics, but the social dimension is also important in politics. That's the one that the mere left-right scale doesn't adequately address. So we've added one, ranging in positions from extreme authoritarian to extreme libertarian.

You can get a full explanation and take a test that will tell you where you are at The Political Compass. Here are my results:

Hyperbolic irresponsibility

With a category 5 hurricane heading towards New Orleans we get this contribution from the wingnut crowd.
More Hurricane Hyperbole...

As Dennis loomed off the coast of Alabama and Florida, I warned people to chill the hell out. Common sense trumped the FX/NBC Primetime approach to meteorology and Dennis, thankfully, petered out before it made landfall near Pensacola.

It seems some folks never learn.

Granted, I don’t doubt Katrina will be bad news for New Orleans. And, yes, I’m glad I’m not on Bourbon Street right now. However, can we please back off the predictions of 40,000 deaths and mass destruction. Remember when the Nagin administration complained about not having enough body bags for Ivan? Well, they’re being a little more measured this time, as should everyone else.

These are not hick, stereotypical towns built out of plywood, beer cans, and tobacco chawls. Mobile, New Orleans, and Pensacola have been preparing for these situations for ages and will have every controllable factor in hand. Also, Ivan and Dennis cleaned out most of the loose debris: think of it as Darwinism for carpentry.

Pray, prepare to send aid, and throw a finsky to the Red Cross if you must. But, let’s ease off on the doomsday scenarios.

The real thing

Over the last few years there have been a number of disaster films about floods, volcanoes, earthquakes, asteroid impacts and more. There has not been a film about a very real disaster that many have predicted, the destruction of the City of New Orleans. We discussed it here yesterday and I have some additional details over at Running Scared this morning. Like peak oil and global warming the inevitable destruction of New Orleans has been ignored. As the nation attempts to figure out how to relocate one half million people perhaps we should start thinking about peak oil and global warming as well.

Not a good day for Bush in the Times

David Brooks and Frank Rich both have commentaries in the New York Times today and both concern Iraq.
Brooks is very critical of the Bush administration and Rumsfeld and in fact has finally figured out the Bush has no strategy in Iraq.

Andrew Krepinevich is a careful, scholarly man. A graduate of West Point and a retired lieutenant colonel, his book, "The Army and Vietnam," is a classic on how to fight counterinsurgency warfare.

Over the past year or so he's been asking his friends and former colleagues in the military a few simple questions: Which of the several known strategies for fighting insurgents are you guys employing in Iraq? What metrics are you using to measure your progress?

The answers have been disturbing. There is no clear strategy. There are no clear metrics.

He then goes on to push Krepinevich's theory on fighting insurgencies. I'm doubtful that these theories would have ever worked in Iraq and at this point it's certainly too late for them to work. The column is important because it's an admission that the Bush administration has failed from a conservative.

Frank Rich is critical of everyone, Bush and the lame enabling Democrats.
Last week Richard Cranium at the All Spin Zone said:

It would seem that we've turned so many corners in Iraq that we're now moving perpetually in a circle.

Rich picks up this theme.

ANOTHER week in Iraq, another light at the end of the tunnel. On Monday President Bush saluted the Iraqis for "completing work on a democratic constitution" even as the process was breaking down yet again. But was anyone even listening to his latest premature celebration?

We have long since lost count of all the historic turning points and fast-evaporating victories hyped by this president. The toppling of Saddam's statue, "Mission Accomplished," the transfer of sovereignty and the purple fingers all blur into a hallucinatory loop of delusion. One such red-letter day, some may dimly recall, was the adoption of the previous, interim constitution in March 2004, also proclaimed a "historic milestone" by Mr. Bush. Within a month after that fabulous victory, the insurgency boiled over into the war we have today, taking, among many others, the life of Casey Sheehan.

Cindy Sheehan was a catalyst:

In the wake of Ms. Sheehan's protest, the facts on the ground in America have changed almost everywhere. The president, for one, has been forced to make what for him is the ultimate sacrifice: jettisoning chunks of vacation to defend the war in any bunker he can find in Utah or Idaho. In the first speech of this offensive, he even felt compelled to take the uncharacteristic step of citing the number of American dead in public (though the number was already out of date by at least five casualties by day's end). For the second, the White House recruited its own mom, Tammy Pruett, for the president to showcase as an antidote to Ms. Sheehan. But in a reversion to the president's hide-the-fallen habit, the chosen mother was not one who had lost a child in Iraq.

It isn't just Mr. Bush who is in a tight corner now. Ms. Sheehan's protest was the catalyst for a new national argument about the war that managed to expose both the intellectual bankruptcy of its remaining supporters on the right and the utter bankruptcy of the Democrats who had rubber-stamped this misadventure in the first place.

When the war's die-hard cheerleaders attacked the Middle East policy of a mother from Vacaville, Calif., instead of defending the president's policy in Iraq, it was definitive proof that there is little cogent defense left to be made. When the Democrats offered no alternative to either Mr. Bush's policy or Ms. Sheehan's plea for an immediate withdrawal, it was proof that they have no standing in the debate.

Yes, "the utter bankruptcy of the Democrats". That is the only way it can be described. As we saw last week, while Bush's approval rating continued to drop the approval rating of Democratic lawmakers did too.

Frank Rich had some kind words for Republican Chuck Hagel and Democrat Russell Feingold. He also took a serious swipe at president wannabe Hillary Clinton.

If there's a moment that could stand for the Democrats' irrelevance it came on July 14, the day Americans woke up to learn of the suicide bomber in Baghdad who killed as many as 27 people, nearly all of them children gathered around American troops. In Washington that day, the presumptive presidential candidate Hillary Clinton held a press conference vowing to protect American children from the fantasy violence of video games.

And yes, the DC Democrats are unpatriotic but not for the reasons given by the right.

The Democrats are hoping that if they do nothing, they might inherit the earth as the Bush administration goes down the tubes. Whatever the dubious merits of this Kerryesque course as a political strategy, as a moral strategy it's unpatriotic. The earth may not be worth inheriting if Iraq continues to sabotage America's ability to take on Iran and North Korea, let alone Al Qaeda.

As another politician from the Vietnam era, Gary Hart, observed last week, the Democrats are too cowardly to admit they made a mistake three years ago, when fear of midterm elections drove them to surrender to the administration's rushed and manipulative Iraq-war sales pitch. So now they are compounding the original error as the same hucksters frantically try to repackage the old damaged goods.

Update
Over at Preemtive Karma Carla has some thoughts on the Rich commentary and on the Democrats. She concludes with this:

The Democrats won't succeed until they stand for something more than just "Bush is wrong". Bush being wrong doesn't fix the power vacuum left in his wake.

I agree.

Gasoline from coal

Over at Blue Oregon Kari has a post of Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer's plan to make gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel from coal.

The Democratic governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer, is talking about an eighty-year-old technology that could help Montana alone "supply the entire United States with its aviation, gas and diesel fuel for 40 years without creating environmental damage."

"I am leading this country in this desire and demand to convert coal into gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel. We can do it in Montana for $1 per gallon," he said.
"We can do it cheaper than importing oil from the sheiks, dictators, rats and crooks that we're bringing it from right now."

What's that?

Turns out that it's possible to convert coal into gasoline and diesel with zero emissions of mercury and the other pollutants usually associated with coal. So, why haven't we been doing this all along?

The Fischer-Tropsch technology, discovered by German researchers in 1923 and later used by the Nazis to convert coal into wartime fuels, was not economical as long as oil cost less than $30 a barrel. But with U.S. crude oil now hitting more than double that price, Gov. Brian Schweitzer's plan is getting more attention across the country and some analysts are taking him very seriously.

Don't get me wrong, this is certainly something that should be investigated and probably done but I do a some concerns.

• Will it be used as an excuse to avoid weaning ourselves from carbon based fuels? My guess is yes.


• I guess I would need to see some evidence of this: "zero emissions of mercury and the other pollutants usually associated with coal".


• The same corrupt players would manage to get control of the entire operation and take us all to the cleaners with another resource. The robber barons at the oil companies won't let it happen as long as there is oil to be pumped and as long as the Bush crime family is in charge they will get what they want.

But as I stated earlier it should be investigated.

Update
As he indicated in the comments section, Big Gav at Peak Energy has more on this subject.

More on Global Warming

This is a good time to repeat my rant on Global Warming after taking on Oregon State climatologist, George Taylor, yesterday. For starters Mr Taylor is dead wrong, global warming is happening, it's here now. While there are plenty of good reasons to reduce carbon emissions an attempt to stop global warming is not one of them. Not because they don't contribute but because it's too late. It's here, Allstate Insurance Company knows.
Reeling from last year's hurricane season, Allstate to cut almost 100,000 residential policies

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Still reeling from last year's hurricane season, Allstate Insurance said it will not renew about 100,000 insurance policies in Florida and plans to gradually discontinue most commercial property coverage in the state.

Most of the Florida peninsula is less than 25 feet above sea level. Long before sea level actually rises enough to cover the peninsula strong hurricanes will make it uninhabitable. Warm water is what feeds hurricanes and global warming is first seen in the water.
Global Warming and Hurricanes

The strongest hurricanes in the present climate may be upstaged by even more intense hurricanes over the next century as the earth's climate is warmed by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Although we cannot say at present whether more or fewer hurricane will occur in the future with global warming, the hurricanes that do occur near the end of the 21st century are expected to be stronger and have significantly more intense rainfall than under present day climate conditions. This expectation is based on an anticipated enhancement of energy available to the storms due to higher tropical sea surface temperatures.

And it won't be just Florida.
Hurricane Risk to New Orleans

"The hurricane is spinning counter-clockwise, it's now got a wall of water in front of it some 30 to 40 feet high, as it approaches the levees that surround the city, it tops those levees," describes Maestri. "The water comes over the top - and first the communities on the west side of the Mississippi river go under. Now Lake Ponchetrain which is on the eastern side of the community now that water from Lake Ponchetrain is now pushed on the population that is fleeing from the western side, and everybody's caught in the middle. The bowl now completely fills and we've got the entire community under water, some 20 to 30 feet under water."

It is estimated that 20 to 100 thousand people would die. New Orleans would not be rebuilt.

It is time to start thinking about how we are going to adjust to the inevitable global warming instead of talking about halting it. Millions of people are living where they won't be able to live much longer. And it's not just the Gulf of Mexico. The drought in the desert southwest will only get worse. The gulf stream will weaken if not stop altogether making much of Europe and the northeastern United States much colder. The list goes on. Global warming is here and it's too late to stop it, assuming that was ever possible. Adapt or die, it's a choice we have to start thinking about now.

And we are witnessing some of this right now.
Hurricane Katrina gains power in Gulf, moves west

MIAMI (Reuters) - Hurricane Katrina gained power over warm Gulf of Mexico waters and revved up for a second and potentially more deadly assault on the U.S. coast after a slow and punishing trek across southern Florida that killed seven people.

By 8 a.m. (12000 GMT) on Saturday, the hurricane was 430 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, with winds near 115 mph (185 kph).

The storm was larger and more powerful than when it hit Florida's southeast coast on Thursday and was expected to swing gradually west-northwest, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

The projected path could see it come ashore anywhere between the storm-scarred Florida Panhandle and the Louisiana coast west of the low-lying and vulnerable city of New Orleans. U.S. oil and gas rigs are potentially in its path.

Computer models pointed to a more westerly track, putting Katrina ashore on Monday near the Louisiana-Mississippi border.

"That's bad news for New Orleans and better news for us," said Florida's top meteorologist, Ben Nelson.

Small Events have Large Consequences

On Monday, prominent Christian leader and Moral Majority founder Pat Robertson urged the American Government to assassinate Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela. Many commentators have already written about the apparent moral contradiction of a person who spends his life demanding obedience to Christian doctrine, while urging an intentional violation of Moses’ 5th Commandment.

In fact, I know very little about morality and judging morality. As an engineer, what I really understand is cause and effect, and how events often work out in human history. So that is the prism that I will look through to consider Mr. Robertson’s comments.

Among people that I am familiar with, Hugo Chávez most closely reminds me of Louisiana Senator and Governor Huey Long. Like Mr. Long, Mr. Chávez is very egotistical and loves to talk (Mr. Long once delivered a 15-hour filibuster all by himself in the U.S. Senate, my father was a witness). They also have (had) an incredible desire for power, and built much of their power by being champions for poor people.

Among many Latin Americans, however, Mr. Chávez most closely resembles Jorge Eliécer Gaitán (1898-1948), who was a major political force in nearby Colombia.

Mr. Gaitán was from a very poor family and worked his way through college to become a labor and criminal defense lawyer. Because of his humble origins and his excellent speaking skills, he had a special connection with poor people. In 1946, as mayor of Bogotá, he ran for the nomination for President from the Liberal Party. However, the Liberals considered him too radical, so he had to run as an independent. With the Liberals split, the Conservative Party won easily.

By 1948, violence was increasing and social conditions were declining among the lower and middle class. Mr. Gaitán gained control of the Liberal Party, and was thought of by many as the next President of Colombia.

However, on April 9, 1948, he was shot dead in the streets of Bogotá on his way to lunch. To this day, his murder is something of a mystery. A crowd quickly set upon the killer and beat him to death, so he never had the opportunity to explain his reasons. Did anyone put him up to the act? No one has ever admitted to doing so. Mr. Gaitán’s daughter insists even now that the CIA arranged for his death, but no valid evidence has ever surfaced to support this.

What is known is that the citizens of Bogotá, suddenly deprived of their champion, went on a rampage. It killed more than 2000 people in the city by the end of April, and led to an upsurge in violence throughout the country. Conservatives, already fearful of the rise of communism in the late 1940s, responded with repressive measures, firing all Liberal provincial Governors and closing Congress. The frustration of the many Colombians who felt they had lost their one link to the decision-making process was too much. Paramilitaries formed on both sides, leading to a low-level civil war. By 1958, 200,000 to 300,000 people had been killed. In Colombian history, this period is called simply “La Violencia”.

Moderates in both parties managed to form a coalition Government in 1958 to reduce the violence, but the civil war begun in 1948 continues on a smaller scale to the present. The main participants are now the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). Each supports itself through involvement in the cocaine trade and kidnapping for ransom; and engages in targeted killings of anyone they consider an “enemy” and destruction of “enemy” territory. Each is a terrible cancer on Colombia that the country is unable to rid itself of.

Venezuela of 2005 is similar to Colombia of 1948. It is a society highly polarized around a central leader. Very few Venezuelans have only a mild opinion of Mr. Chávez, they either love him or loathe him. He is especially popular in the massive slums of Caracas, since he uses the Government’s great wealth to better the lives of the people who live there, the first time any Government has paid any attention to them. (Why does Venezuela have so much money? It is the fifth largest producer of oil in the world, and so is a beneficiary of the Bush administration’s “Reward People Who We Don’t Like Program”.)

Into this volatile mix, then, Pat Robertson proposes to throw in a U.S. Government-sponsored killing, as if the act will be a beginning and end all by itself, and have no other consequences. This is unfortunately typical of the mindset of many American leaders today, and not just the Bush administration. They believe that all bad things in the world are the result of one or at most a very few people - if you can eliminate those people, everything will be fine. Eliminate Saddam Hussein, and we will make Iraq a democratic paradise. Eliminate Hugo Chávez, and Venezuela will again be free and no longer a danger to the rest of South America. It is so short-sighted. Iraq of early 2003 was much more than just Saddam Hussein, and the Venezuela of 2005 is much more than just Hugo Chávez.

As Mr. Gaitán’s murder shows, things that people like Pat Robertson think are “so simple” actually have terrible reverberations that last for decades. We set these off at our peril, as Iraq has shown. Fortunately, the Bush administration says that it rejects Mr. Robertson’s remarks, so for now, at least, we will not so stupidly and callously set off a similar chain of events in Venezuela.

F15s to stay in Oregon

Rummy may not think it's important to protect the Pacific Northwest but the Base Realignment and Closure Commission felt otherewise.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A federal commission Friday afternoon blocked a plan that would have removed all but two F-15 fighter jets from the Oregon Air National Guard base at Portland International Airport.

[...]

The Pentagon had proposed transferring the 142nd Fighter Wing's 15 F-15 jets to Air Force bases in New Jersey and Louisiana, as well as moving eight KC-135 tankers flown by the Air Force Reserve 939th Air Refueling Wing to Oklahoma and Kansas.


Under the Pentagon plan, two jets from an undetermined base would have been sent to Portland to be on alert status, but the nearest permanent fighter base would be in Fresno, Calif. -- 750 miles away, said Air Guard officials who praised the commission's rejection of it.


"It's a clear sign that security in the Pacific Northwest is a vital concern," said Maj. Gen. Raymond Rees, the Adjutant General of the Oregon National Guard.

Bush giving Tricky Dick a run for the money

Today's Gallup Poll has George W. Bush's approval rating at 40% matching the Harris Poll earlier in the week.
Gallup compares Bush's approval rating with other two term presidents at this point in the second term. Eisenhower, Johnson, Reagan and Clinton were all in the low to mid 60s. The only other president near 40% was Richard Nixon who had a 34% approval rating. That was related to Watergate.
As we have said before the real significance of this may be that Republicans running for reelection in 2006 will see Bush as a liability and start distancing themselves from him making him a lame duck early in his second term. So much for political capitol.

How are things in Iraq....Don't Ask

Bill in DC sends us a couple of links that would have to lead us to believe that things are not going well in Iraq.

One Hundred Thousand Shi'ites Protest Iraq Charter

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A hundred thousand Iraqis across the country marched on Friday in support of a maverick Shi'ite cleric opposed to a draft constitution that U.S.-backed government leaders say will deliver a brighter future.

The protest could reinforce the opposition of Sunni Arabs who dominate the insurgency and are bitterly against the draft.

Iraq's Marginalised Sunnis Rally for Saddam

BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - Thousands marched in adoring praise of Iraq's deposed leader Saddam Hussein on Friday, offering a stark display of the loss of power and leadership felt by some of Iraq's Sunni Arabs.

Drawing inspiration from the Baath party strongman, who now languishes in jail awaiting trial, marchers in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, danced and chanted his name and condemned plans by the Shi'ite and Kurdish-led government to push through draft constitution to create a federal Iraq.

They accused the Shi'ite Islamists in government of kowtowing to Iran, Iraq's non-Arab neighbor where many Shi'ites sought refuge during Saddam's rule, and the United States, which backs the government with some 140,000 troops.

``Bush, Bush, listen well; We all love Saddam Hussein!'' crowds chanted. ``We reject the American and Iranian constitution'' and ``No to a constitution that breaks up Iraq,'' their placards read.

Meanwhile.....
Bush urges Iraqi Shi'ites not to alienate Sunnis

BAGHDAD (Reuters) -President Bush stepped in to resolve a row over Iraq's constitution, calling a key Shi'ite leader to warn him not to alienate Sunni Arabs whose resistance to the draft showed no sign of weakening on Friday.

Bush's call to cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a driving force in the Islamist-led coalition, betrayed concern in Washington that a referendum in mid-October could turn into a divisive sectarian showdown rather than the unifying celebration it had hoped would bury the authoritarian past of Saddam Hussein.

Thousands of Saddam supporters and followers of maverick Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr took to the streets on Friday in separate demonstrations to protest against provisions in the draft constitution aimed at creating a federal Iraq -- a step many fear could lead to the country being divided.

And America's finest are in the middle of what looks to be a long civil war. Bring them home now!

What's Wrong With This Picture?

The eco friendly blue state of Oregon has a state climatologist, George Taylor . Mr Taylor is an ex-hippie vegetarian who rides a bicycle to work. No surprises so far. Now for the surprise; "Taylor is one of the leading circuit riders for the church of Global Warming Ain't Happening."

His views have been read on the floor of the U.S. Senate and, most recently, influenced global-warming bills in Salem. In the past, he also has tried to undermine global-warming legislation in Canada.

"Look, it's not that complicated," says Taylor, who, as head of the Oregon Climate Service at OSU, is known as the state climatologist. "It's not clear that we are seeing unprecedented warming, and it's definitely untrue that any warming trend can be assigned to human activities. Natural variations in climate are much more significant than any human activities."

A bad scientist with credibility
Taylor is considered a very dangerous man because he has more credibility as the climatologist from Oregon than scientists working for Exxon-Mobile. When he talks bad science people listen.

Taylor's position as the leading climate expert in Oregon, a state with a national environmental reputation, has given ammo to those who are hostile to the idea that the earth is warming up. On Jan. 4 of this year, Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a Senate floor speech, "As Oregon State University climatologist George Taylor has shown, Arctic temperatures are actually slightly cooler today than they were in the 1930s. As Dr. Taylor has explained, it's all relative."

Inhofe was wrong on two counts. First, Taylor is not a doctor; he has no Ph.D. (he received his master's in meteorology at the University of Utah in 1975). And second, Taylor is flat-out mistaken. Temperatures in the Arctic have, in fact, reached unprecedented levels, according to an exhaustive study by two international Arctic science organizations published last November that confirmed previous, similar results.

Bad Science
It would appear that Taylor is guilty of cherry picking data.

The Arctic report said the North Pole is losing its permafrost, and frozen bogs are melting in Alaska and Siberia, spewing vast amounts of methane, another greenhouse gas. Sea ice and glaciers are retreating, temperatures are rising, the growing season is extending and robins are now living above the Arctic Circle for the first time in history.

Taylor's review said the authors of the Arctic study looked at only the last 35 years, ignoring data from the 1930s that show conditions were comparable to those of today. "Why not start the trend there?" he wrote. "Because there is no net warming over the last 65 years?"

It's not clear what report Taylor was reading. In fact, the Arctic study takes into account an entire thousand years and places the Arctic in the context of the entire globe.

Taylor acknowledges he reviewed only 55 pages of a 140-page summary of the full 1,200-page report, yet still found fault with its sourcing. "Oddly, the [report] does a very poor job of documenting its sources of information," Taylor writes. "For such an ambitious document its science consists primarily of blanket statements without any sort of reference or citation."

If Taylor had waited to review the full report (preliminary versions of chapters are posted on the Web; the final version is due in September), he would have noticed the report's detailed documentation and lengthy list of references.

A dangerous man indeed.

Update (02-07-2007)
The latest on George Taylor here.

More Stupid Women

This is going to cause yet another stir. Why do people keep trying to apply studies to these questions?

Academics in the UK claim their research shows that men are more intelligent than women.

A study to be published later this year in the British Journal of Psychology says that men are on average five points ahead on IQ tests.

Paul Irwing and Professor Richard Lynn claim the difference grows when the highest IQ levels are considered.

Their research was based on IQ tests given to 80,000 people and a further study of 20,000 students.

Is a five point spread on that scale even significant and outside the margin of error? Apparently they think that the big differences come at the high end of the scale.

As intelligence scores among the study group rose, the academics say they found a widening gap between the sexes.

There were twice as many men with IQ scores of 125, for example, a level said to correspond with people getting first-class degrees.

At scores of 155, associated with genius, there were 5.5 men for every woman.

Ok. I'm just going to open up the floor for discussion. What in hell could account for a more than five to one ratio of genius level IQ people? It's hard to imagine what this could all mean.

The Free Market Doesn't Guarantee Survival

Many economic conservatives say that the free market will quickly and automatically put everything right if and when we reach the time that we run out of oil, with no special action by anyone. MaxSpeak explains why this reasoning is erroneous at best and dangerous at worst.

I can only say that there is a chance that we can avoid the crisis described if we start moving now – if we start making economic system changes now to create the free-market solutions of the future, that people say will naturally arrive when the free-market desires them. If nothing else, moving on these solutions now will postpone the arrival of the day of reckoning.

But I am certainly not counting on us doing that. Unless something extraordinary happens, it appears this disaster may play itself out just like many other disasters, with people suddenly discovering that the worst conditions are already upon them and their very lives are in great jeopardy. Humans are simply not inclined to grasp the adage that “the person who excels at solving difficulties does so before they arise”.

Social Security

Steve Soto at the Left Coaster tells us we should expect a stealth attack on Social Security. I don't have anything to add so head over there and check it out.

Lessons not learned

William L. Anderson believes it not just the lessons that should have been learned in Vietnam that the neocons ignored when they invaded Iraq but in fact they igonored the lessons of every invasion the US has participated in.

Today, as it is painfully obvious that while the Iraqi insurgents are not wearing black pajamas, they have been as effective in blocking U.S. military initiatives as the Viet Cong and their North Vietnam allies were in demoralizing the Yankee invaders two generations ago. Indeed, there are lessons of Vietnam to be learned, and we will learn them – yet, not learn them – again and again.

[.....]

While readers will disagree on the "real" lessons of Vietnam, I would like to cite what I believe are some lessons that we should have learned from that fiasco there many decades ago – and what we should have learned from all of our military escapades, and especially those invasions since 1898.

• Lesson #1: An occupation is not a "liberation."


• Lesson #2: A standing army is no match for determined guerrilla fighters.


• Lesson #3: The "sunk costs" argument is not a viable reason for continuing a war.

You should recognize #3, as we reported here it's the latest "reason" given by Bush for "Staying The Course". Newsfare explained the "sunk costs" argument very well.

We are fighting because we were fighting.

Anderson explains the wrongness of "sunk costs".

The best way to "honor" those who have died in Iraq is for those who made the decision to invade to resign their positions and to apologize to the families of the dead, the nation, to the Iraqis, and to the rest of the world. Instead, we have people scrambling for political cover while they continue to speak of the "heroes" of Iraq, as though they were mere political pawns and not the sons and daughters of real people.

Think Dark Chocolate

I would normally be loathe to waste precious MEJ posting space by even mentioning Peggy Noonan's name, say nothing of linking to and quoting her. On nearly every occasion I've had to read her tripe I've avoided calling her writing "crap" simply because it would be an insult to feces everywhere. Today, though, she's apparently suffered from some particularly serious lapse in intellectual acuity and mental stability, and it really needs to be refuted. Her topic is "Think Dark."

Noonan is making an argument against the pending military base closures. On the surface, that's fine. I agree that a case can be made against this plan, even if I don't agree personally. (More on that below.) It's Peggy's basis for the argument that I have a problem with. I'll let the Queen of Morbid Fascination speak for herself here.

The federal government is doing something right now that is exactly the opposite of what it should be doing. It is forgetting to think dark. It is forgetting to imagine the unimaginable.

Right now the federal government is considering closing or consolidating hundreds of military bases throughout the U.S. A government commission is meeting this week to vote on specific base-closing proposals in the Pentagon's plan. Yesterday they voted to close big bases like Fort Monmouth, N.J., and Fort Gillem, Ga. (They voted to save the naval base in Groton, Conn.)

But they're wrong. What they ought to do, and what the commission reviewing the Pentagon's plan ought to do, is sit down and think dark.

Among the things we may face over the next decade, as we all know, is another terrorist attack on American soil. But let's imagine the next one has many targets, is brilliantly planned and coordinated. Imagine that there are already 100 serious terror cells in the U.S., two per state. The members of each cell have been coming over, many but not all crossing our borders, for five years. They're working jobs, living lives, quietly planning.

Imagine they're planning that on the same day in the not-so-distant future, they will set off nuclear suitcase bombs in six American cities, including Washington, which will take the heaviest hit. Hundreds of thousands may die; millions will be endangered. Lines will go down, and to make it worse the terrorists will at the same time execute the cyberattack of all cyberattacks, causing massive communications failure and confusion. There will be no electricity; switching and generating stations will also have been targeted. There will be no word from Washington; the extent of the national damage will be as unknown as the extent of local damage is clear. Daily living will become very difficult, and for months--food shortages, fuel shortages.

Noonan then goes on to talk about how all of these military bases will be a "source of great comfort" to the people milling about in confusion. She speaks at length about how the military will be needed to restore order in the streets and bring the shattered nation back "under control" if you will.

This is exactly the wrong headed sort of thinking that Bush and Cheney relied on to get themselves apparently elected a second time. Keep the people living in fear and they'll vote for an aggressive military strategy. Unfortunately for Noonan, we already have the example of America on Sept. 11 and 12, 2001 to draw on for an example.

In those dark days we didn't see evil, opportunistic Americans rushing into the streets to loot, pillage, rape and throw down the government. We saw concerned citizens turning out in their thousands to help complete strangers in need. We didn't see anger at "the establishment." We saw anger at the rat bastards who did it and a coming together of national spirit which hadn't been observed for a very long time. We didn't need the military marching down Wall Street. Emergency services personnel, police, firemen, ambulance drivers... that's what was needed.

Yes, there are situations where we need an armed militia to help maintain order and security, but that's what we have the National Guard for. (Well, at least we used to have them for that until Bush sent most of them off to his misguided adventure in Iraq.) But for the most part, our military needs to be ready to go abroad when we absolutely must use force in other parts of the world. Peggy's supposition relies on a fundamentally flawed premise. In order to picture a massive need for the military here at home following the nightmare scenario she lays out, it would have to be followed by a large scale land invasion of our country by terrorist troops. It's not going to happen. That's not how they work.

Trying to equate the formula for how many troops and bases we need to the terrorist threat is faulty at its core. You have about as much hope of solving the problem of global terrorists with armies as you do of wiping out all of the cockroaches in your house by stomping on each one you see. For every one you kill, there's a lot more which are unseen and they are breeding all the time. You may have to apply some poison to kill the cockroaches today, but the way you keep them out in the long run is by stopping leaving food crumbs and filth all over your floors to attract them. The way you wipe out the terrorists is by understanding what's causing them to behave so violently and changing the conditions that breed them.

Look, I personally believe that our military is long overdue for an overhaul. I try to not shrink from commenting on the rare occasions when this administration does something right, and the government is addressing a need that's been plaguing us for a while now. We have too many bases, many of which are crumbling under the weight of ancient infrastructures and obsolete equipment and services. I do believe that, heading into the future, we need a streamlined, more centralized, highly mobile, high technology military force which can be rapidly deployed as needed. This is going to require the closing of some bases and the expansion and modernization of others.

I also fully understand the devastating effect that base closures can have on states and local communities. The responsible thing for Bush's team to do would be to take some of those billions of dollars that these closures are supposed to save us and pour it back into those communities, providing massive education and retraining programs and fiscal incentives for businesses to move in or start up and replace all of the lost jobs. That's the right thing to do - the responsible thing to do. Unfortunately the words "responsible" and "Bush" don't cross paths in the same sentence much these days unless you're talking about your latest positive results on an STD screening test.

The one argument we don't need to hear against base closings is the worn out, "Oh my God! Terrorists! We're all going to die!" argument. Peggy Noonan needs her walking papers, and the sooner the better.

We don't need no friggen vote

Iraq Lawmakers Won't Meet on Constitution

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Parliament announced it had no plans to gather Thursday night and no date for a future session, signaling Iraqi factions were failing to agree on a new constitution before a self-imposed midnight target.

[......]

Shiite representative Khaled al-Attiyah said there was no need for an assembly vote because the constitutional committee met its legal obligations by handing in a draft by the Aug. 22 deadline. Another Shiite, Nadim al-Jabiri, said there would be no vote Thursday because the draft will be approved or rejected in a popular referendum Oct. 15.

Iraq set formally to adopt constitution draft

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi government said a final draft of a constitution would be adopted by parliament on Thursday, despite its rejection by minority Sunni Arabs and clashes between rival factions among the Shi'ite majority.

[......]

"It will be approved. The National Assembly will then rubber stamp it," he added, saying that the government was prepared to take the risk of it being rejected at an October referendum -- a result that would usher another year of provisional rule.

Kubba said the provisions of the interim constitution that parliament had to draft the new constitution by a deadline in August had been met and there was no need for parliament to vote.

What can I say? As Iraq moves closer to an Islamic Republic and a civil war it increasingly looks like a bad novel. The Mullahs in Iran and Osama bin Laden will like the ending, the American's who sacrificed their sons and daughters won't. Hell of a legacy Dubya.

War on the UN

Bolton fires the first shots. Jazz has the details.

When is winning losing and losing winning? (Revisited)

Last September in the post When is winning losing and losing winning? I wondered if a Bush win would be a long term loss for the Republicans and a win for the Democrats. I quoted Andrew Sullivan:

I wonder if either candidate has pondered the benefits of actually losing this election? If Kerry wins, you can see how the Republicans would then blame all the inevitable mess in Iraq on his vacillation (even if he doesn't budge an inch), and marshall a Tet offensive argument that implies that if only Washington hadn't given up, the Blessed Leader would have seen the war to victory. Kerry wouldn't be able to win, whatever he does. And because he'd be more fiscally responsible than Bush (could anyone be less fiscally responsible?) he wouldn't have much in the way of domestic goodies to keep his base happy. But if Bush wins and heads into a real, live second Vietnam in Iraq, his party will split, the country will become even more bitterly polarized than now (especially if he's re-elected because he's not Kerry) and he'll become another end-of-career Lyndon Johnson. The presidency of the U.S. is never an easy job. But it could be a brutal one these next four years. Which sane person would want the job?

Saddam is no longer in power, and that's all the Bush administration and the neocons are going to get. Billions of dollars and thousands of lives latter all we are going to get is an Islamic Republic and years of civil war that will spill over into the rest of the middle east. The loss for the neocons is more than the loss in Iraq but a loss of credibility for the foreseeable future. The loss for Bush is his legacy, a legacy of failure.

What can you say......

....except "Oh Fuck"

• Down the River


• Is Anybody Listening?


• Aid and Comfort


• Settling All Family Business


• Shit Happens

Thank you Bilmon for these reality checks.

Taking it to the Media RE Iraq

Over at Editor and Publisher Greg Mitchell takes it to the media over their coverage of Bush's debacle in the sand. Go read the entire commentary but I'll give you the last few paragraphs.

The Cindy Sheehan protest in Texas, whatever one thinks of it (and her), has energized the antiwar movement, and emboldened a few mainstream politicians, besides Hagel, to call for withdrawal. Sen. Russell Feingold became the first Democratic senator to call for a pullout by the end of next year, and hearings on this proposal will take place soon.

On Sunday, Feingold revealed that when he visited Iraq he asked a top general what he thought about setting a timetable for exiting. The general, he said, replied: "Nothing would take the wind out of the sails of the insurgents better."

But where do the editorial pages stand on this? Only a few, such as the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, have really staked out what could loosely be called an "antiwar" position. A few columnists, besides Neuharth, have turned hyper-critical, including the intrepid Joe Galloway of Knight Ridder. Neuharth and Galloway each have received high military honors; Hagel is a decorated Vietnam vet.

Galloway, unlike so many editorialists, has no trouble understanding that withdrawing is hardly dishonoring the thousands of Americans who had died or been badly wounded in Iraq. Perhaps that's because he has covered wars for 35 years, including each of our Iraq adventures.

When he wrote the following this month, Galloway was addressing the White House and the Pentagon, but he could have aimed it just as easily at the media: "Don't tell me we are going to stay the course. We are on the wrong course, and it only leads deeper into the quicksand. Tell me how we are going to change course."

I think this applies equally to the DC Democrats as I discussed below.

Harris Poll

There are some interesting numbers in today's Harris poll. Bush's approval has taken another nose dive, down 5 percentage points since June to 40%.

The fact that much of the decline is related to the war in Iraq shows up in responses to the question "What do you think are the two most important issues for the government to address?". In June the number for the Iraq war was 24 and in the most recent poll 41.

Related I think, and very disturbing, are the responses to the question "And how would you rate the job Democrats in Congress are doing – excellent, pretty good, only fair or poor?". The positive number has declined from 33 to 31. If the Democrats in congress (and the DLC) don't see this as a repudiation of their "don't critisize the war" mantra all hope is lost. The only conclusion we can draw from this poll is "it's the war stupid". How long before the DC Democrats realize this?

Greg Walden

Doran left this comment in a post below.

I'm looking for an Oregon political junkie to set me straight, and picked this site out of the BlueOregon bloglist as I wasn't getting anywhere there:

Are any Democrats declared to oppose Walden? I live in PDX too, but want to focus some of my energy to this state and think that we need to oppose him in our goal to run someone in every Congressional district. Given how much Bush is tanking, we may well be able to ride his unpopularity to a win if we can hang him around the neck of every Republican out there, including Walden.

Any news of anyone? Is McColgan running again?

An excellent question. Could a Democrat challenge Walden in the red east this time? The Bend area is growing and becoming increasingly blue. Bush's coat tails may act more like a boat anchor in 2006. Any thoughts?

Update
Chris Anderson over at blog for Oregon has asks the same question.

An Extremist Nation

Who is this good looking woman? A fashion model? An actress? No, this would be none other than media whore Norah O'Donnell.


Why is she a "media whore" you ask.







Well, lets look at this interview with Colleen Rowley, the former FBI analyst who is now running for Congress as a Democrat.
Hardball August 22, 2005

O`DONNELL: You`re a Democrat running for Congress. It was reported that Republican leaders in your state were just thrilled that you had decided to align yourself with anti-war extremists. Do you think that this could affect your race for Congress?

ROWLEY: Well, I will quickly correct the record, that they are not anti-war extremists. The majority of the people I saw down in Crawford were actually veterans groups. There were military families and—

O`DONNELL: But, Colleen, they do oppose the war in Iraq, do they not?

In addition to being a media whore Norah proved beyond all doubt she was a mindless twit when wingnut Mark Williams joined in.

O`DONNELL (8/22/05): Let me bring in Mark Williams, who is a radio talk show host and is launching his caravan tour from California, heading to Crawford today. Why have you launched this tour?
WILLIAMS: Well, the pontifications of a self-serving Democrat political candidate notwithstanding, this tour is neither anti-Cindy Sheehan nor is it pro-war. I have not spoken with a single individual in the last three years who is pro-war, nor anybody who is anti-Cindy Sheehan. What we are against is the damage she is causing. I just got back from Iraq, talking with the troops, talking with the Iraqis. And I see the damage that`s done by pathetic creatures like the woman I`m talking to and Cindy Sheehan.

O`DONNELL: What specifically do you mean, Mark?

WILLIAMS: We`re actually working towards supporting our troops and help the Iraqis build a country. What is this Democrat congressional representative candidate doing, besides flapping her jowls on MSNBC?

O`DONNELL: All right. Well, we have more anti-war people headed to Crawford. We have more that support the war headed to Crawford.

WILLIAMS: No, we`re not supporting the war. We`re supporting our troops.

O`DONNELL: Understood.

WILLIAMS: Big difference.

O`DONNELL: All right.

Ms O'Donnel acccused 54 pecent of the American people of being extremists and then went right along with Willaim's character assasination of both Rowley and Sheehan.





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Only in New York

In both politics and the legal field, New York is just a funny place. Not so much funny as in "funny ha ha", but more along the lines of "isn't that just damned peculiar?" There's a low profile, local/regional article in the Gray Lady today which may well leave you scratching your head. The title is "Choir Member Surrenders in Child Snatching Attempt." Now, if you read Running Scared regularly, you know that I just love a good story where child abductors are thwarted. With that in mind, try putting this string of facts and events into a cohesive stream.

• Lawrence Craig, 44, of Riverside Drive in Upper Manhattan, is a singer in his local church choir and is registered on record as a "minister" though it's not known if he has an active congregation anywhere.


• Crag is apparently a close friend of State Supreme Court Justice Donna Mills. Such a good friend, in fact, that she let him borrow her car last Saturday.


• Justice Mills and her car often turn up on odd situations for some reason. She was charged with driving that car while intoxicated and hitting two police cars last year.


• While driving Mills' car, Craig showed up at the Bronx home of Nora Davis and her two sons Saturday afternoon. Nobody in the home knew or recognized Craig.
• 
  
• After claiming he was looking for their mother, Craig pushes his way into the apartment and grabs Davis' four year old son by the wrist and tries to drag him out of the house.


• The mother attacks Craig like... well, like any mother defending her young, frees the boy and drives the intruder out of their home. They watch him drive away in a nice car clearly marked with Supreme Court license plates.


• Justice Mills places a call to the police saying that Craig was using the car with her permission and will surrender to the police presently.


• Further inquiries reveal that Craig has, over the last four years, had three charges of sexual assault on children brought against him - one count of second degree felony sexual assault on a child and two counts of fourth degree sexual assault on a child.
• Craig has pleaded no contest to at least one of the charges, paid a fine of $1,500 and served zero jail time. And he's not only still roaming the streets, but doing so in the car of a State Supreme Court justice.


• And now it appears that he's been granted bail and is once again wandering the city.

I'd love to add some pithy commentary to this bizarre story, but frankly I wouldn't even know where to begin. Maybe we should get Donna Mills to run against Hillary in '06. Man... this is just mind boggling.

Oregon Governors Race

Blue Oregon has a discussion on the upcoming gubernatorial election. This is certainly a possible loss for the Democrats. Kulongoski nearly lost to wingnut in chief, Kevin Mannix, the last time around. Let's be honest Teddy Boy has not done anything to inspire the Democratic base much less independents. I can't see a scenario where Mannix is not the Republican nominee once again. The only thing that might save Kulongoski would be a widespread dissatisfaction with Republicans in general, a possibility. Check out the Blue Oregon Post and the comments section for some other thoughts.

Another Day and more nonsense from Bush

Well it would seem that the bubble that protects George W. Bush traveled to Idaho with him. Once again Bush speaks on Iraq and once again the nonsense meter went off scale.
Bush: Iraq's Sunnis face choice on constitution

"This talk about Sunnis rising up, I mean the Sunnis have got to make a choice. Do they want to live in a society that's free, or do they want to live in violence?" Bush told reporters at a resort in Idaho.

Translation: sell out to the theocrats or start a civil war. And it's not just the Sunnis.

He described the Iraq constitution as guaranteeing "minority rights, women's rights, freedom to worship."

Kurds, however, have complained that U.S. diplomats, who have insisted that women and minorities should enjoy equal rights, had conceded ground to the Islamists in order to have the draft constitution ready to submit to parliament.

And of course Mr. Clueless in the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld, had to add his moronic comments.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld played down worries about civil war, saying, "Obviously it's something that one has to be attentive to and be concerned about, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that the risk is greater today than it was yesterday or the day before."

You know, for once he may be right. It was inevitable yesterday, the day before yesterday and today.