uh-oh...

When I read this story in the Arizona Republic, an admittedly slightly paranoid idea struck me: they know the voting machines are crooked.

Early voting strong in Maricopa County

Robbie Sherwood
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 28, 2006 12:00 AM

Voter turnout for the Nov. 7 general election could be high if early-ballot requests are any indication.

Early voting is strong in Maricopa County, with approximately 470,000 requests received by Friday's deadline, said Maricopa County Elections Director Karen Osborne. There are 1.5 million registered voters in the county.

She cautioned that Election Day turnout might not be very brisk because of a long ballot.

Osborne did note one "anomaly": Nearly 90,000 more Republicans than Democrats have early ballots but have not yet mailed them back. The gap is usually only half that large at this time, she said.

Republicans typically vote by mail in larger percentages than Democrats, but the numbers could be a sign of an extra effort by state and federal candidates to get out Republican voters in the GOP stronghold of Maricopa County, said Doug Cole, a campaign strategist.

Of the early-ballot requests in Maricopa County, 52 percent came from Republicans, 32 percent from Democrats and 16 percent from independents and unaffiliated voters.

More than 125,000 mail-in ballots have been cast.

Statewide, early-ballot requests were nearing 700,000 late this week

.

This is also an election that features yet another of those Constitutional amendments (Proposition 107) to prohibit gay marriage. According to the Phoenix New Times, it "would also eliminate health and financial benefits that normally accrue to a civil union or couples living together." If anyone reads this blog from AZ, please vote against such nonsense -- it's short-sighted, ideologically-driven bigotry that has no place in a free society.

(I realize I don't live there now, but I did, and think part of me still calls Arizona home.)

Reinventing the Middle East ... and more

Hmmm... Ralph Peters has an interesting concept of what a future Middle East could look like. Among other things, he proposes new nations like an Arab Shia state, "Free Baluchistan," and "Greater Kurdistan," and the "Islamic Sacred State;" significantly enlarged Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, and Yemen; and significantly shrunken Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Some of those things make sense, some don't.

Truthfully, I've thought along those lines, too. Being a map buff, I've played with maps of the tribes and languages in that area to craft an alternate Middle East, and it shares a few points with Peters. For example, I also came up with Kurdistan and Baluchistan, but his vision of a mega-Afghanistan makes no sense culturally. That nation even as it is today is a mess of peoples that don't function as a nation. It's Pashtun, Hazara, Tajik, Kyrgyz & other groups often don't share linguistic or cultural heritage. Some of them have significant numbers of their tribe in neighboring nations (namely, Pashtuns, who are also numerous in Pakistan, and Tajiks & Kyrgyz, who have their own countries), while others are seriously discriminated against (namely, the Hazara).

He leaves a rump Pakistan that has little cultural history at all -- the only reason Pakistan exists today is that it defined itself by its Muslim majority in the 1940s, after British India threw off London's yoke and Gandhi got assassinated. A real split based on cultural lines would eliminate Pakistan entirely, giving some (mostly the western regions) to other countries (above) and unifying the bulk of its people into what was, before and somewhat during British rule, a resurrected state of Punjab, which would include part of NW India.

Speaking of India, I think it's interesting that Peters only targets MUSLIM nations for dismemberment. Hindu India is the world's biggest polyglot nation, with literally hundreds of linguistic minorities and a history of being divided into many co-existing (and sometimes warring) nation-states. The nation's disunity stretches back millennia, to the days the first Indo-European tribes migrated from the north and settled in the Ganges valley, but left a large Dravidian population in the south.

To be sure, India has been unified numerous times in its history, but that unity was often a surface unity only, with urban areas (especially the Ganges Valley) accepting whatever the current imperial dynasty was but tribal areas (especially in the south) rejecting him. A great example is Ashoka's Empire, possibly the greatest Indian emperor. The top map is how his realm is typically depicted in historical atlases, but the bottom shows how puzzle-like it really was.

The fact that India is today a functioning democracy is largely despite those centrifugal pressures, but we still see them emerge at times. Today's most notable example is the Tamil Tiger revolt in Sri Lanka, where the Sinhalese Buddhist majority is trying to prevent the Tamil Hindu minority from slicing off the nation's NE third. Those Tamils have a significant presence on the Indian mainland, being a large majority in the state that bears their name, Tamil Nadu.

In some respects, I think Peters' proposal is merely a reflection of the current trend away from big nation-states and towards more ethnically-homogenous entities. Although he's unfortunately correct when he says that 5,000 years of experience shows that ethnic cleaning works, as we've seen in the Balkans and Iraq, I don't think a resurrection of tribalism or regionalism HAS to involve mass murder, as the mostly peaceful breakup of Czechoslovakia and the USSR proved.

In some cases, such breakups would probably be beneficial in the long run. Take Turkey: Why does Ankara WANT to keep the fractious Kurds in the country? Why not let them form their own nation and wash Turkish hands of the problems caused by the feuds with PKK & similar groups? The primary reason is probably a vestige of Turkish memory of imperial glory, since the Kurds are the last remnant of the dozens of nationalities the Ottoman Empire ruled for centuries. But the more practical reason I can think of is water -- the Kurdish population resides in the highlands that spawn the Tigris & Euphrates rivers, while most of Turkey itself is semi-desert. An independent Kurdistan would be a major regional player for that reason (not to mention oil wells near Kirkuk & Mosul).

At times, I think this concept should be extended to the US, too. As time goes by, it seems like the liberal, cosmopolitan Northeast and Pacific coasts seem to be sliding away from the conservative, more segregated South and central states in attitude, education, religiosity, dialect, and various other factors. Are we seeing the development of new cultures? Probably; every major state in history (except maybe China) has given birth to new societies rooted in the old one. Many of those spin-offs happened violently, either by invasion or revolution, but we can't afford that today.

Instead, maybe it's time for the people of various states and regions to consider whether their interests are truly best served by being part of a federal America, or whether democracy is best served by having several countries and maintaining friendly contact via modern communications technology and family ties, but not political ones. There's no reason the US couldn't be similar to Europe, with several independent nations linked together by economy, geography, shared interests, and more-or-less open borders to travel and commerce. I think smaller states enable people to watch over and participate in government more easily and are therefore able to be more genuinely small-d democratic. Since this is likely to happen in time anyway, we might as well manage it consciously so as to ensure as much as possible that the outcome is peaceful and orderly. Otherwise, history shows it's very likely to be bloody and chaotic.

Thanks to Kelly at Singularity for the tip.

"Common sense" & the Simplification hypocrisy

Over at David Brin's blog Contrary Brin, there are always intresting threads on the rampant misuse of "common sense," primarily by Republicans, to uphold their own influence at the expense of changes that would benefit the vast majority of the world (such as technological changes sparked by the effort to counter global warming). In one, he quotes former GOP White House staffer Peggy Noonan as saying:

"I note here what is to me a mystery. It is that people with lower IQs somehow tend, in our age, to have a greater apprehension of the meaning of things and the reality of life, than do our high-IQ professionals, who often seem, in areas outside their immediate field, startlingly dim. I don't know why intellectuals--or cerebralists or eggheads or IQ hegemonists--seem to miss the most obvious things, floating on untethered by common sense.”

Attitudes like this underlie and even create the kinds of blame games -- and, ultimately witch hunts -- I talked about a few posts ago in "Messing things up..." In those books, the fuel is religion, but as Brin & his readers note, the underlying problem is that some people have a vested interest in believing that if we win, they lose. Therefore, they feel they have to win at all cost, regardless of what that may do to our (and, by definition, their own) future generations or other long-term considerations.

Instead of blaming the truly responsible parties -- those who were unable or unwilling to negotiate or to look at the situation from someone else's viewpoint; those who put their own narrow wishes above the needs of the many -- the forces expressed by Miller's Simplification, or Brackett's New Mennonites, or any number of historical pogroms find scapegoats that are easy to identify. Ironically, those kinds of processes are often started by people who, by most reasonable definitions, are themselves intellectuals (for ex., Marx, Lenin, Neitzche), but achieve their bloodiest expression later under a second tier of leaders who are essentially thugs (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler). Anti-intellectual attitudes can be found on the fringes of the political spectrum under any label.


Noonan and many others are themselves intellectuals, and essentially recognize that their "zero-sum" perspective cannot survive over the long term if we as a species are to continue growing intellectually and technologically. So they hypocritically appeal to the mob mentality so easily created among those who aren't as well educated but see (accurately, in many respects) that the "eggheads" in fact have a less restricted life than they do. Zero-sum folks take that energy and target it at other people, pointing out the differences between "us and them" in terms of "their" failings (in Noonan's case, how "they" lack "common sense" or "morals" or whatever).

By contrast, people who see the benefits of a "positive-sum" approach take that energy and target it at the ideas and behaviors that are holding those people down, encouraging them to get educated, to question their situation, and to use their talents to benefit everyone including themselves. Instead of appealing to manufactured differences, it appeals to the common ground we all share. That is the basis of the practice of science, efforts for civil rights, and liberalism in it's broad sense -- expanding the numbers of people who are educated or at least feel like they're a valuable, equal part of the complex national (ultimately, global) community.

Senate panders to ignorance

Not long ago, the US Senate approved a bill to make English the official national language. I've always thought the concept is stupid, largely because people are going to speak whatever they want.

But the following line from a response over at Aging Hipster encouraged me to explore this issue in a lot more depth, so here goes:

You cannot bring weakness and illiteracy into the country and ask for all kinds of privileges.

Excuse me? There's so much HOMEGROWN illiteracy # needing serious correction that English-only bills like this are a complete waste of valuable lawmakers' time. Instead of pandering to base prejudices, let's see Congress pass bills funding our existing educational system to the level it needs, rather than patting itself on the back for confusing and contradictory legislation like NCLB while gutting and ridiculing the public schools.

One important element of that has to be investment in teaching multiple foreign languages in US schools, starting at a young age, when science shows it's most effective. MANY nations (not just Canada, as Hipster notes) have multiple languages in everyday use; most of the European schools routinely teach three or four tongues. When you live no more than a few road hours from several other countries, doing so is simply common sense.

With air travel, the same is true of the US today. We need to get our heads out of the sand and realize that insistence on English only (and many other policies) simply brands us as parochial ignoramuses and limits our ability to understand what's going on in the world at large.

Many of the people who come here as illiterates do so because they're coming from a situation of abysmal poverty that doesn't ALLOW them to get education. If we want uneducated poor people to stop coming here, we need to invest in stamping out ignorance and poverty everywhere. Our government could help there, but it consistently underfunds international aid and fails to pay its share of the budgets for global bodies like the UN that, despite their problems, are trying to improve conditions elsewhere.

The second example of recent pandering is even worse. While that proposal is largely ineffectual, the Senate Judiciary Committee's recent passage of a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is simply bigoted and contrary to the basic principles that make America great -- tolerance, respect for others, and the whole concept of opportunity for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

As typical of almost everything under this administration, it passed as a party line 10-8 vote, and a glance at the committee's makeup shows why. Several members are notorious for bizarre ideologies fueled by their twisted versions of Christian dogma. Three of them opposed the anti-torture bill last year: Coburn, Cornyn, and Sessions, and Brownback is well known as the anti-evolution flunky. These people do NOT deserve the power they have.

As some of my half-dozen or so readers know, I'm from Massachusetts -- and proud to be a citizen of the ONLY state to so far legalize gay marriage. But we still have wingnuts who think it's ok to rescind civil rights once people have received them; they've been trying to get an similar constitutional amendment on the ballot. It's temporarily in limbo -- the state Constitutional Convention scheduled to debate it earlier this month was postponed until July -- and I hope it dies the ignominious death it deserves.

As someone once said, you do NOT make civil liberties subject to vote. When that happens, anything deemed unpopular could come under the gun and potentially be banned simply because it IS unpopular.

In this case, the concept is itself ridiculous also because gays have been marrying for a couple years now and guess what effect it has had on the institution of marriage overall -- NONE. Personally, I think it encourages marriage even among straight couples, but couldn't point you to data. Regardless, it should be left as state law because the state should be encouraging (but not forcing) committed, loving, responsible relationships of any kind, given all of the factors in today's society that promote discord and animosity.

*********************

# I'm only addressing the illiteracy side of this statement because labeling such folks as "weak" is both incredibly prejudicial and inaccurate. Physically, many of them are quite healthy -- they often work at manual labor here and were strong enough to GET here, often under dangerous conditions. Many literate Americans couldn't survive the deplorable conditions in their homelands, and some of us don't know what real work means without our technology to do half of it....

Thanks to Silly Humans for the tips.

Challenging the terror mindset

Battlestar Galactica
SciFi Channel series
RATING: ***1/2 (of 5)

There's never enough good science fiction on TV or in the movies, especially with today's trend of rehashing shows/movies from decades ago.
Battlestar Galactica, however, is one of the exceptions. The modern version deals with thought-provoking (and sometimes worrisome) ideas the original 1970s series lacked. It has interesting characters with very real human reactions (or, in the case of some of the Cylons, believably inhuman ones), none of them stereotypical. It has far more depth than the typical TV SF staple of things blowing up in space, despite being war-themed. And more.
Rolling Stone recently praised it for addressing a very timely concept -- what it's like to be in a society under seige by terror. I agree, the new BG does that well. But what RS doesn't mention is that the show is also an exploration of the seductive madness of messianic religion, particularly monotheism.
The bulk of the Cylons, you see, are obsessively salvationist; their single-minded belief in their one god's "destiny" for them to supplant natural humans makes many of them inhumane and gives them a worldview that justifies the massacre of billions of sentient beings. (The fact that the series starts with just this happening due to nuclear weapons is what makes it fit with this blog's theme....)
By contrast, the natural humans and a handful of Cylons who have had extensive contact with them are largely secular polytheists, although their whole space voyage is predicated on the semi-salvationist belief that a 13th tribe of humans escaped to Earth long ago. They seek Earth, but more importantly, they seek safety from the unpredictable but recurrent terror of the Cylon pursuit.
There's an obvious real-life parallel here in today's near-obsession with the "War on Terror," but we need to realize that the enemy symbolized by the Cylons isn't any particular religion, it's the fanaticism that comes from believing one way is the only way. We can see that in fundamentalist Islam, in dominionist Christianity, in theocratic leanings of any stripe, and even in some ostensibly non-theological political systems. In all such cases, the paranoid ideology has no outlet for doubt and therefore leaves no room for unforeseen occurrences or errors, instead attributing those to "sin," "treason," or something similarly bogus. The underlying common ground isn't belief, it's the distortion of belief into authoritarianism.
Sometimes, authoritarianism sneaks up on a society in the guise of reform or hope, but it's almost invariably a product of popular deprivation and desperation. In BG, that seems to be symbolized by Baltar's presidential campaign -- he promotes the idea of stopping at a newly discovered habitable but semi-desolate planet not because he really believes in it but b/c it's a winning political issue... and is promoted by his Cylon lover/alter ego Six.
Their relationship is itself interesting -- it's an example of natural or functional plurality on both sides. On Galactica, Baltar constantly talks to Six in his mind, while on Caprica, Six does the same with him... or, at least, versions of each other. (There's no evidence to indicate they're in contact in real-time, although they were before the war.) In both cases, the relationship is a rather uneasy one.
A different version of plurality exists in the other Cylons, who usually have one psyche sharing several bodies. Take Sharon (aka "Boomer"): Everybody thinks she's human, including herself, until she tries to assassinate Cmdr. Adama. After she subsequently gets murdered on Galactica, a ground crew finds her on one of the colony worlds and we see her having trouble fitting into Cylon Caprican society. In both of the latter cases, she comes to realize she remembers details from all three (and possibly more) "lives." That other-memory theme also exists in various SF, especially the Bene Gesserit characters of Frank Herbert's Dune series, although there it's serial.
As you might've guessed, the Cylons often look just like us. Unlike the old series, they aren't all clunky robotic lifeforms that speak electronically. The symbolism is obvious: not only is the "enemy" among us, the fact that some humans are willing to spare Sharon (and if she's capable of bearing a child, doesn't that make her human???) despite knowing she's a Cylon is a reflection of what we should be doing to deal with real-world problems. Curiously, Sharon and Six on Caprica come to the reverse conclusion -- that humans deserve to live.
Both sides do it for the same reason, one that real-life politicians often refuse to acknowledge because it threatens their concept of power: Relationships make people far less likely to kill each other. If we spent far more time, energy and resources on creating opportunities for people of different faiths and cultures to interact as equals, we'd see more of them become friends and there'd be fewer wars.
That may sound simplistic, but sometimes the simplest solution is the only one worth trying.

***********************

On a lighter note, I found a quiz on which scifi crew I'd fit in best with. It seemed appropriate given this subject, even though Galactica didn't rank as my best fit under their scoring system. (Had to delete the photo b/c it screwed up the layout of my blog):

You scored as Moya (Farscape). You are surrounded by muppets. But that is okay because they are your friends and have shown many times that they can be trusted. Now if only you could stop being bothered about wormholes. Moya (Farscape) 88% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 81% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 75% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 75% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 75% Serenity (Firefly) 69% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 56% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 56% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 50% SG-1 (Stargate) 50% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 50% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 38% Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

new nuclear weapons doctrine...

... includes preemptive use against nations or groups threatening attacks.... or just possessing biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. I haven't read it in detail yet, but this seems like a HUGE step in the wrong direction. What jumped out at me from a quick scan was the repeated reference to the fact that using nukes isn't technically illegal under international law -- blatant self-serving justification if I've ever heard it.

Obviously, this administration doesn't care that some things that are legal simply should not be done. But we all know that by now.

Anyway, read the document if you have time; I'll do so sometime soon and post on it in more detail.

Until then, here's the Washington Post article about it, with my emphasis and comments:

Strategy Includes Preemptive Use Against Banned Weapons
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 11, 2005; A01

The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

Apparently, it doesn't matter that these weapons aren't USED, may have been there for years, and may even have been given to said nation BY US.

The document, written by the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs staff but not yet finally approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, would update rules and procedures governing use of nuclear weapons to reflect a preemption strategy first announced by the Bush White House in December 2002. The strategy was outlined in more detail at the time in classified national security directives.

At a White House briefing that year, a spokesman said the United States would "respond with overwhelming force" to the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, its forces or allies, and said "all options" would be available to the president.

That's NOT what this says. It says we'll INITIATE nuclear war if President Caligula determines nation X has WMDs, even if they aren't attacking anyone. Couldn't possibly be aimed at IRAN, could it?!?

The draft, dated March 15, would provide authoritative guidance for commanders to request presidential approval for using nuclear weapons, and represents the Pentagon's first attempt to revise procedures to reflect the Bush preemption doctrine. A previous version, completed in 1995 during the Clinton administration, contains no mention of using nuclear weapons preemptively or specifically against threats from weapons of mass destruction.

Titled "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations" and written under the direction of Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the draft document is unclassified and available on a Pentagon Web site. It is expected to be signed within a few weeks by Air Force Lt. Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, director of the Joint Staff, according to Navy Cmdr. Dawn Cutler, a public affairs officer in Myers's office.

Meanwhile, the draft is going through final coordination with the military services, the combatant commanders, Pentagon legal authorities and Rumsfeld's office, Cutler said in a written statement.

A "summary of changes" included in the draft identifies differences from the 1995 doctrine, and says the new document "revises the discussion of nuclear weapons use across the range of military operations."

The first example for potential nuclear weapon use listed in the draft is against an enemy that is using "or intending to use WMD" against U.S. or allied, multinational military forces or civilian populations.

How do they determine INTENT? By this doctrine, we should immediately nuke about half a dozen countries who have promised to used WMDs if attacked under various circumstances. And if directed at non-national groups, how do we distinguish between them and the innocent populations they live within? Wouldn't using nukes against such groups violate this concept itself?

Another scenario for a possible nuclear preemptive strike is in case of an "imminent attack from adversary biological weapons that only effects from nuclear weapons can safely destroy."

That and other provisions in the document appear to refer to nuclear initiatives proposed by the administration that Congress has thus far declined to fully support.
Last year, for example, Congress refused to fund research toward development of nuclear weapons that could destroy biological or chemical weapons materials without dispersing them into the atmosphere.

No surprise there. This admin couldn't care less what Congress wants.

The draft document also envisions the use of atomic weapons for "attacks on adversary installations including WMD, deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons."

But Congress last year halted funding of a study to determine the viability of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator warhead (RNEP) -- commonly called the bunker buster -- that the Pentagon has said is needed to attack hardened, deeply buried weapons sites.

I think I've already posted links showing how RNEPs don't work as they claim. The Bushites don't care how effective it is; it just has to make some of them millions and/or further their armageddon-fueled religious delusions.

The Joint Staff draft doctrine explains that despite the end of the Cold War, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction "raises the danger of nuclear weapons use." It says that there are "about thirty nations with WMD programs" along with "nonstate actors [terrorists] either independently or as sponsored by an adversarial state."

To meet that situation, the document says that "responsible security planning requires preparation for threats that are possible, though perhaps unlikely today."

That's true... but promoting more US policy reliance on nukes is not responsible and doesn't promote security. It promotes destabilization, by ENCOURAGING more nations to seek nukes. That's what's a big factor driving the Iranians -- they're afraid of US. I don't want my country feared; I want it respected, but Bush is incapable of comprehending the difference between those. (Drunks usually are.)

To deter the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, the Pentagon paper says preparations must be made to use nuclear weapons and show determination to use them "if necessary to prevent or retaliate against WMD use."

Hmmm... prevent WMD use by USING the world's worst WMDs. Why didn't I think of that?!?

The draft says that to deter a potential adversary from using such weapons, that adversary's leadership must "believe the United States has both the ability and will to pre-empt or retaliate promptly with responses that are credible and effective." The draft also notes that U.S. policy in the past has "repeatedly rejected calls for adoption of 'no first use' policy of nuclear weapons since this policy could undermine deterrence."

Technically true. We adopted a "no first STRIKE" policy, saying we wouldn't launch ICBMs first. But the distinction means shit if our use of tactical weapons causes someone else to launch ICBMs and/or causes the same kind of destruction and death using ICBM warheads does. Any nuke weapons use is likely to make Chernobyl, Hiroshima, and Katrina look like games.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee who has been a leading opponent of the bunker-buster program, said yesterday the draft was "apparently a follow-through on their nuclear posture review and they seem to bypass the idea that Congress had doubts about the program." She added that members "certainly don't want the administration to move forward with a [nuclear] preemption policy" without hearings, closed door if necessary.

This issue is way too important to the world for such hearings to be closed-door. Secrecy is what has gotten us into this mess.

A spokesman for Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said yesterday the panel has not yet received a copy of the draft.

Hans M. Kristensen, a consultant to the Natural Resources Defense Council, who discovered the document on the Pentagon Web site, said yesterday that it "emphasizes the need for a robust nuclear arsenal ready to strike on short notice including new missions." Kristensen, who has specialized for more than a decade in nuclear weapons research, said a final version of the doctrine was due in August but has not yet appeared.

"This doctrine does not deliver on the Bush administration pledge of a reduced role for nuclear weapons," Kristensen said. "It provides justification for contentious concepts not proven and implies the need for RNEP."

One reason for the delay may be concern about raising publicly the possibility of preemptive use of nuclear weapons, or concern that it might interfere with attempts to persuade Congress to finance the bunker buster and other specialized nuclear weapons.

If that's their thinking, they're right, it will. (I hope!) But I suspect they're trying to give themselves time to come up with something convincing and/or something that will distract the public from this issue. Release now might do that, with Katrina on everyone's mind.

In April, Rumsfeld appeared before the Senate Armed Services panel and asked for the bunker buster study to be funded. He said the money was for research and not to begin production on any particular warhead. "The only thing we have is very large, very dirty, big nuclear weapons," Rumsfeld said. "It seems to me studying it [the RNEP] makes all the sense in the world."

Sure it makes sense to him. Bizarre things always make sense to delusional people.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

photo ops while cities suffer

Have you seen this commentary from LA Sen. Mary Landreiu:

“I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate significant numbers of victims – far more efficiently than buses – FEMA again dragged its feet. Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency.

“But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast – black and white, rich and poor, young and old – deserve far better from their national government.

Or this, in Biloxi, as reported by German TV ZDF (copied from The Carpetbagger Report; a slightly different translation is at DailyKos):

On the ZDF web site, see

video is here

text is here

The relevent paragraphs are labeled
"Räumarbeiten nur für Bush?" My (non-expert)
translation follows.

Wo der US-Präsident das Katastrophengebiet besuchte, räumten Hilfstrupps vorher ordentlich auf - aber nur dort. Aus Biloxi zitierte ZDF-Korrespondentin Claudia Rüggeberg verzweifelte Einwohner, Bush solle in seinen Limousinen statt lauter Bodyguards und Assistenten lieber Hilfsgüter herbeischaffen.
Entlang seiner Route hätte Räumtrupps vor Bushs Besuch Schutt weggeräumt und Leichen geborgen. Dann sei Bush wieder abgereist "und mit ihm", so Rüggeberg, "die ganzen Hilfstrupps". An der Lage in Biloxi habe sich sonst nichts verändert, es fehle an allem.

------
Whevever the US President Bush in the catastrophie
area visited, helpers cleaned up beforhand, but
only there. In Biloxi, ZDF correspondent
Claudia Rüggeberg quoted demoralized residents
who said that Bush should bring food and water
in his limosine instead of bodyguards and
assistants.

All along his route, before his visit,
debri was cleared and bodies removed. Then
Bush travelled on and with him, according to
Rüggeberg, the entire troup of helpers.
As for the situation in Biloxi, otherwise
nothing changed, everthing is lacking.

I don't know German, but my stepmother IS German, so I'm going to send this text to her for translation. If it's very different, I'll post it here.

Fucking incredible. Bush and his stage managers piss me off so much I don't even have words for it. Both of these events are crass frat-boy selfishness on Bush's part, but SO typical of his entire admin. Make it look like things are getting done, but when the cameras shut down, go back to playing games and leave the suffering to the everyday people he abuses. How come there are prison terms for spousal abuse and child abuse and animal abuse but not nation abuse?

When the people in danger are once again in a position resembling stability and safety, We the People need to do some homeowrk and find criminal charges to throw at Bush and company. One that seems plausible is negligent homicide, defined generally as "Unintentional killing(s) in which the actor(s) should have known they were creating substantial and unjustified risks of death by conduct that grossly deviated from ordinary care." Ordinary care in this case would've meant funding the levee reinforcements, ensuring the poor city folks had a practical form of transportation out of the city, ensuring the Guard and supplies got into the city without delay immediately afterward and other things. This horror, as I noted in a previous post, had been predicted in detail years ago, and those warnings were ignored.

What excuse does FEMA have for dilly-dallying? Other than its leader's ineptitude, I mean.

According to the N.O. Times-Picayune, LA is turning to a real FEMA administrator to clean up the mess, rather than some shmuck who got fired from tending horses:

Blanco Appoints Witt

Gov. Kathleen Blanco has appointed former FEMA Director James Lee Witt as a special adviser to help her manage the recovery and restoration efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Witt was FEMA director under former President Clinton, serving in that position from 1993-2001.

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From Der Speigel's English version (the quote's from the cover story):

This isn't just any old city sinking into the water like some reincarnated Atlantis before the eyes of a horrified and still seemingly paralyzed America. It's one of America's legendary cities. It's New Orleans, "The Big Easy," the place Americans have always flocked to whenever they wanted to get a dose of sinful pleasure in the Deep South, a place whose seemingly well-functioning multiculturalism, whose largely harmonious blend of black, white and Latino has always been a beacon for the rest of the world.

I've always wanted to see that, but now doubt I will. We all hear talk of rebuilding N.O., but I'm not sure that makes much sense where it is. Maybe we should rebuild on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain, where the land's a lot more stable, and build a big canal from there to the Mississippi River for the boat traffic. Since the French Quarter was largely unflooded, maybe that area can be cleaned up and reinhabited as a town in its own right.

Given people's tendency to be rather superstitious about visiting places of terrible calamity, it will take a long time for N.O. to get back on its feet even if it is rebuilt, and that points to something that hasn't gotten much discussion yet. That city, and LA in general, benefited hugely from tourism. Was that included in the official pronouncements that Katrina wouldn't have a long-term economic effect on America? As usual, they're talking just about money (even if it is $100 BILLION and rising), not about the impossible to measure things that make up the culture of such a city as N.O and the other devastated areas. It's almost impossible to rebuild that, because it wasn't manufactured; it evolved over 200+ years.

Also, did they include the ripple effects on such things as food prices? Probably not.

NOTE: Biloxi & negiligent homicide material added Monday early AM. I had to convert Carpetbagger's original written-out links to hyperlinks to make them fit.

this was predicted... years ago

Before I vent a little steam, let me suggest an idea my girlfriend came up with to help the stranded people in N.O: Have the various cruise ship lines send their ships to the city to provide floating housing. It'd be a lot more comfortable than the Astrodome or any other refugee camp, and would also serve as a form of transportation for maybe 1,000 people per ship (far more than any bus!). Maybe they could then arrange to take the groups to various cities nationwide so that the cost of helping them doesn't all fall on one region.

I understand the Navy is sending a carrier there, and that would provide space for many more people than a cruise ship, but the Navy's noted for pretty spartan accomodations. Given how much these people have already suffered and the poverty many of them have been facing for years, it's long since time they got treated well for once.

OK, now for the rant:

Anyone who's awake is sad at the suffering in New Orleans and/or mad at the fact that this could have been prevented. Obviously, Katrina herself couldn't have been, but the fact that N.O. flooded could have.

The following comes from National Geographic, Oct. 2004 (yes, 2004):

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.

"The killer for Louisiana is a Category Three storm at 72 hours before landfall that becomes a Category Four at 48 hours and a Category Five at 24 hours—coming from the worst direction," says Joe Suhayda, a retired coastal engineer at Louisiana State University who has spent 30 years studying the coast. Suhayda is sitting in a lakefront restaurant on an actual August afternoon sipping lemonade and talking about the chinks in the city's hurricane armor. "I don't think people realize how precarious we are,"
(Hurricane expert Joe) Suhayda says, watching sailboats glide by. "Our technology is great when it works. But when it fails, it's going to make things much worse."

Suhayda also comments in some depth in this PBS transcript from 2002.

Also, they had a "dry run" of this last year, with Hurricane Ivan, and apparently learned nothing...

Of course, Bush doesn't bother to read, especially anything that might have some semblance of science behind it. Instead, he told the world Tuesday he'd magnanimously cut his vacation short on FRIDAY, and when he did go to N.O., he flew OVER the city, but didn't bother to land in it. Any REAL leader would've gotten off his ass immediately and taken the next possible flight there. (Same's true of Dick(head) Cheney -- he apparently doesn't feel the loss of an American city by "merely" natural catastrophe is enough to even tell the country where he IS for six days. SO, wait... If BOTH Bush and Cheney are vacationing at the same time... who is running the show?!?

Oh, BTW, he apparently believes he can shut down food deliveries at will, :

Bush visit halts food delivery
By Michelle Krupa
Staff writer

NEW ORLEANS TIMES-PICAYUNE

Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush’s visit to New Orleans, officials said.

The provisions, secured by U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, and state Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom, baked in the afternoon sun as Bush surveyed damage across southeast Louisiana five days after Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 storm, said Melancon’s chief of staff, Casey O’Shea.

“We had arrangements to airlift food by helicopter to these folks, and now the food is sitting in trucks because they won’t let helicopters fly,” O’Shea said Friday afternoon.

The food was expected to be in the hands of storm survivors after the president left the devastated region Friday night, he said.

The more this goes on, the more convinced I am that Bush and others who took funds from the Army Corps of Engineers' plans to strengthen the levees should be prosecuted for the deaths the flooding and chaos have caused -- many counts of negligent homicide, at least. Politically speaking, Bush is a kind of father figure, and his treatment of the American people can be considered neglect, at best. Any real father who was warned that his children were in a situation that would harm them but did nothing about it would be prosecuted, and so should Bush & Cheney.

Oh, and if THAT's not enough to be pissed about, the Houston Chronicle reported that Halliburton is making money off the disaster by cleaing up the region's Navy facilities.

!@#$%^&&*^%$#@!!!!!

OK. Enough venting for now.

If you haven't already visited them, here are a couple of good sites on the unfolding crisis in The Big (Un)easy:

The Tattered Coat
The Interdictor
Broken Windows
Larry King interview re: Red Cross not being allowed into N.O.

And a list of major places to donate here. but if you go here, PLEASE ignore "Operation Blessing." That's terrorist preacher Pat Robertson's outfit, and if that's not enough reason to avoid it, see this.

NeoCon arrogance...

In response to Alternet's article A Declaration of War, about the Bush/Bolton assault on the UN, a Canadian calling himself "JohnnyM" posted the following:

I fear this is the beginning of the end. WWIII is just around the corner, started by your arrogrance(sic), but declared by us out of necessity. My government may side with Washington, but us citizens will not.

Bring it on NeoCon...

That's something that I've thought could happen for some time. Eventually, the rest of the world will feel it has no choice (and may indeed not) but to combine militarily to oppose the US's aggressive attitudes and contempt for international cooperation and law.

Such a war would probably be an unmitigated disaster for most people, but could result in the citizens of many countries realizing what many already know: That everyday people have far more in common with each other regardless of nationality than we have with those who are power-obsessed and/or ultra-wealthy. Given the global issues we need to deal with and the potentially destructive technology we have, isn't it long overdue time for us to think of ourselves as human beings and Earthlings first, and Americans or any other nationality second?

Obviously, I'd like to see us do this without war, but I'm afraid some people have a too selfish, delusional view of their own importance to let that happen, because it would prove something they've been hiding from themselves for a long time: the fact that they and their worldview are unnecessary impediments to most of humanity.

Political mess is a family crisis

The following was inspired by a post at Distance, where a version of it is also posted. It's admittedly speculative, but I think it suggests things that could in fact be scientifically tested...

Today's sociopolitical situation in the US is a lot like having a very weak parent (the Dems & moderate Repubs) to turn to when a strong parent (the right-wingers & corporate cronies) is brutalizing you.

In the past, such conditions would've sparked the growth of third parties, but corrupt electoral laws and widespread self-absorption today make such parties very difficult things to get off the ground. It doesn't help that the courts and government watchdog agencies have largely been corrupted, social services are underfunded, and the wingnuts are constantly screaming that liberals are "traitors" (or worse). That kind of atmosphere is much like that found when an abused child tries to run to an outside adult, only to have the door slammed in his face because the parent has already passed around word that the child is "a troublemaker" or just "making it up."

The right wingers often decry the common focus on self-improvement, therapy, psychological exploration, and the like, but they seem to be benefiting from it at least in the short-term. I'm sure, if such a study could be done, we'd find that those who are most likely to seek therapy & otherwise try to deal with their past are also most likely to be of a progressive bent culturally. In effect, such self-exploration takes progressives out of the loop ... but only temporarily. Often, they return with a vengeance to use the knowledge thus gained to help others, b/c it almost invariably results in finding common ground with lots of other people struggling with the effects of this dysfunctional society.

Our best hope is that we can forestall the right-wing agenda long enough to give a new generation of self-aware and socially/ecologically connected people a chance to act.

The right-wingers don't care about facing their demons -- in fact, they tend to deny they exist internally, thereby projecting them onto everyone else. They, however, are probably more likely than progressively-raised folks to have actually experienced serious trauma during childhood, not b/c conservatives are by nature more vicious than progressives (they're not), but b/c conservatives have a much greater tendency to keep other people out of "family business" and are more likely to see children as being subordinate to their parents. That attitude sometimes approaches paranoia the farther toward the right fringe you go, especially when it gets wrapped up in supposedly literal religious proscriptions, social isolation, and lack of education.

When abuse does exist in such an environment, it's much more likely to be hidden for longer -- and thereby have more severe impact -- than when children are raised "by a village" and seen as having rights separate from but dependent on their parents. In the latter case, openness gives the kids and stressed parents somewhere to turn and tends to minimize (although not entirely prevent) abuse.

Today's politics represent these two attitudes writ large: A "go it alone" view that cloaks itself in morality while projecting its pain onto other countries and segments of society and a "reach out" view that seeks to engage the outside and learn from it while accepting the real cost of our history to ourselves and others.

DOE report is height of delusion

Title: Recommendations for the Nuclear Complex of the Future
Authors: Nuclear Weapons Complex Infrastructure Task Force (David Overskei, Chair)
Draft report from US Dept of Energy, July 2005.

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"As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities." ~Voltaire

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Amazing. Just when I thought public policy regarding nukes couldn't get more absurd, I found this DOE task force report released July 13.(All quotes below, unless clearly stated otherwise, come from the report, but all emphasis in them is mine.)

The absurdities and, worse, blatant contradictions litter the reports 36 pages (excluding appendices, which go on forever). Repeatedly, the task force writers argue a need to support non-proliferation efforts by developing a new generation of nuclear weapons based on what they call the "Reliable Replacement Warhead." and more than that, instituting a system by which the US can continuously develop new weapons over time once new ones get old.

"To demonstrate the US is committed to arms reduction, the Task Force recommends that Pantex focus on the aggressive dismantlement of the Cold War stockpile, while the Complex begins replacing the Cold War stockpile with the sustainable stockpile of the future." (vii)

WTF?!? This is a lot like taking the print version of Hustler away from the kids but giving them internet access to the VoyeurWeb. How does this promote arms reduction?

At one point, they acknowledge that the existing Moscow Treaty calls for reduction to a total of 1700-2200 "operationally deployed strategic nukes" by 2012. That number, however, DOESN'T include the rest of the stockpile, much of which can be made operational very quickly. Later, the report says the total will be "substantially smaller" than present, but also says DOD requires a stockpile "if force augmentation is needed to meet an expanding threat." In essense, the DOD is saying we have to be ready for another arms race, even though the whole objective of this report is to ensure more accurate, effective wpns, which would make huge quantities irrelevant.

Obviously, you know where I stand -- we need to abolish them as soon as possible. But even if we assume there's a need to keep the ability to produce them (as, for example, some of James Morrow's characters suggest in This is the Way the World Ends), we do not need more warheads. With just the existing submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), the US is perfectly capable of dealing unprecedented damage and suffering to any nation who threatens us. (Not that any really do.)

"Cost-benefit" stupidity

The report often talks about cost savings by creating a new Consolidated Nuclear Production Center (CNPC) to replace the several locations that now manufacture nuclear weapons and parts. And "cost-benefit" talk is rife, as in, "A risk-informed cost-benefit analysis should be performed on all programmatic, safety and security recommendations. Rational decisionmaking should balance risks and benefits while implementing change."

"Cost analysis of designs should extend from inception to disposition," they write. That makes sense if you're talking about toasters or computers, but it leaves out some very important calculations when the item in question is intended to obliterate whole cities. Will this analysis include the low-probability but incredibly high-negative-outcome risk that the things might be used?!? If it does not, then anything the "cost-benefit" report says is bullshit.

To me, this nonsense is similar to their various references to "margin", as in creating "high margin conservative designs." What does THAT mean? I assume they intend it to mean "high effectiveness," but since there's no benefit to ever USING them, the only "high margin" I can see in this process is high PROFIT margin for the industries they want to make them... but I'll come back to that.

The way the entire report is written strongly implies that they intend to build a ton of new nukes, let them sit there for a few decades, then dismantle them without ever using them. Obviously, we should never use them, but if we design them intending to never use them, then let's not build them at all.

This is an economic black hole of limitless depth, a perpetual siphon for billions in taxpayer funds with no redeeming cultural value.

Instead, let's save the money, resources, scientific time, unnecessary risks, and other things wasted by their production for use in more socially beneficial scientific pursuits like the space program or cleaning up our environmental errors.

In fact, they claim that "implementing all recommendations now will increase near-term costs substantially, but with substantial future cost reductions" once the CNPC is fully operational. However, the very next line is directly contradictory: It says the plan assumes "accelerated dismantlement rates" and "no reduction in the currently supported stockpile." Which is it? How can you assume both???

"The CNPC should be designed to handle 300 weapons per year" including "producing and dismantling at a rate of 125 devices per year" by 2030 on just one shift, with the possibility of a second (and third?) shift if more wpns are desired. I don't see how that's going to reduce our overall number of nukes, even if the existing site (called Pantex) is devoted solely to destroying old weapons. They later note the entire system is 20+ years behind in dismantling existing wpns "under current planning of dismantlement rates."

Industrial follies

As I noted earlier, the Task Force aims to hand off much of the production process to private industry. That's scary, especially since they argue, "The DOD should work to relax the military chracteristics of its nuclear weapons" so they can be more easily manufactured. WTF??? There should never be anything BUT military characteristics of nukes! This sounds (unintentionally, I'm sure) like they want civilian nukes. Can I buy one? I'll take the blue one on that shelf there. It's a little heavy so make sure you double-bag it.

Snark aside, they mean that the process should be simplified so that fairly common automated industrial processes can build future nukes, thus reducing the number of people actually handling dangerous materials, making the weapon parts more interchangable, and supposedly reducing costs. That's great in theory. But I have a problem with that, too, for a few reasons.

I. Simplicity: They want "pit designs that are simpler to fabricate and thus conducive to lower production cost and higher throughput." Translation: easier to make lots of them for fewer bucks. Sounds like a market for terrorists, who would find it easier to steal the ideas than the weapons themselves.

The effort to convert most of the process to an automated one is ostensibly to reduce costs, increase efficiency and reduce human exposure to the toxins... But I think this will simply further dehumanize the horrors nukes present. If a human is actively building these things, there's always a chance they'll realize how awful they are and begin to fight for a nuke-free world (maybe even sabotaging production so it doesn't explode at all?), but more distance will make them more likely to just see it as "another job." Building nukes should NEVER be seen as "just a job" any more than serial murder or dumping toxins in rivers should be.

II. Security: The report is probably accurate in saying that the current system of "guards, guns and gates" at the 8 wpns-related facilities "increases cost with no apparent limit." By consolidating the system, it would certainly be easier to maintain security of the weapons and facilities, although the weapons' existence is itself the cause of that insecurity.

They want to improve security, but why is the "more economical industrial security" model better? As we've seen, computers have been responsible for numerous false warnings due to errors or outside hacking that could've led to nuke war if a human being hadn't been there to prevent it. Likewise, industrial computers are often being hacked, as the recent spate of "identity theft" cases proves. Industrial security is no panacea. Given the horrible nature of these devices, we should have both technology and well-armed human beings guarding them. Again, the fact that they exist at all means insane wackjobs will want them because of the destruction they can do.


III. Staffing: "The enduring key to maintaining a safe, reliable stockpile of nuclear weapons is the quality of people who make expert judgments and their sustained dedication to their work." In general, that's true, but given what we're discussing, it's also incredibly absurd in two key ways:

1. Reliable nukes are by definition NOT safe for civilization to have. Period. They're only somewhat less dangerous than unreliable nukes, especially if the unreliability might cause the bomb to go off in storage. Of course, if the unreliability would prevent the bomb from detonating at all, that's a different issue!

They argue their proposed changes "should lead to a new family of nuclear weapons ... incorporating state-of-the-art surety requirements." Huh? Do they mean certainty of explosive effectiveness, or safety of handling? I suspect latter, which makes this incredibly delusional. That feeling is reinforced elsewhere by references to older weapons containing beryllium and other toxic materials "now subject to environmental, safety, and health restrictions." Let's see... the builder can go home sure he's not being poisoned except by the knowledge he's building a thing designed to kill millions. If he has any conscience, that's a great trade-off -- healthy body with a traumatized mind.

(Oh, and I also love the "family" reference. Mr. Bomb, can I take your daughter to the prom? I promise she'll be home by two minutes to midnight...)

2. A key goal of this report is to automate as much of the system as possible, thus eliminating the human element, at least from direct production. Having fewer people consolidates expert judgment into the hands of those who have more vested interest in continuing the insanity and usually those who can't see how absurd their work is. The world can do without that kind of "dedication."

Logically, nobody should have first-hand experience of how these weapons work, b/c thet means they've been used. Unfortunately, as we all know, they have been. But the fact that we've had a test ban since the early 1990s and nobody's used one in combat since 1945 is seen as a problem by the nuclear delusion squad.

They wrote, "In some critical skill areas, this on-the-job training takes 5 or more years to gain sufficient experience, and such training may not be possible in the future." (I sure hope so!) Specifically, they note the declining numbers of people with testing experience, saying, "This reinforces the absolute necessity of resuming design activities now...."

That would give the upcoming generation of weapons scientists opportunity to train with those who tested the existing nukes, a rational thing to do if we were talking about anything but nuclear weapons. With nukes, however, we run into an obvious moral quandary: How will that give the upcomers, or future generations, test experience themselves? At some points they mention that computer tech makes it possible to design "for certification without (underground tests)", but elsewhere say the new CNPC will have the capability to put a new weapon through such a test w/in 18 months of starting design work and recommends keeping the Nevada test site operational.

To me, this seems like a between-the-lines suggestion that resuming testing is itself the "absolute necessity" in their eyes. Between real tests and Chernobyl, we've had decades of experience in what that does to people...

There were several other disturbing points, but I think I've made my point. This is a bad plan from any genuinely long-term point of view, since our survival may require eliminating nukes altogether.

They claim centralizing the process will enable them to "Record lessons learned from the past." Obviously, though,they haven't learned much, have they? They clearly slept through the crucial class in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wiped off the planet. Yes, they were rebuilt, but that's only b/c there were outsiders to provide care who hadn't experienced the Bomb firsthand. Encouraging this plan only makes future Hiroshimas and Nagasakis more likely.