Office of the Independent Blogger

Recently, I gave my Earth-shattering endorsement of Dick Holbrooke to be our UN Ambassador in the future. In truth, I’d let Dick Holbrooke take any position in government that he wants aside from Secretary of Defense. Or Secretary of Agriculture. He’s good enough for every other position except those two. Seriously.

This morning, while browsing the news, I saw that Dick Holbrooke is out again, and he’s got the wind at his back. At a time when the Congress is slashing away the money for Afghanistan, and the President is happy to accept it, Dick Holbrooke is paying attention and giving notice to the problems on the ground in that country.

The President and his allies in the Congress are slouching toward failure in Afghanistan rather than approaching the War whole-heartedly. It’s time for them to stand up straight and deal with the War we’re fighting or admit that they’re half-assing the effort. If George Bush asks for forty million, the rest of the Government wants more, the Congress gives him only four million, and he accepts it, we have a formula for failure.

Because the Congress gave us a bucket of warm piss rather than the tools needed to win the war in Afghanistan and stabilize that country, we have a formula for failure. For that matter, everyone is half-assing the effort in Afghanistan, Democrats included, whether it be directly or indirectly. When the Media ignores the issues in Afghanistan, and the Democrats don’t make a big deal out of it, we’re all shortchanging our soldiers and our war. And it’s a damn shame that policy makers in Washington, with the blessing of the American public, don’t care enough about Afghanistan to make it a priority. Maybe my mind’s from a different era, but I take the position that you fight Wars to win them, and that doesn’t happen when you shortchange their funds.

Or maybe the rest of the world is aware of some new-age way to wage war that includes using half your ass. I know Donald Rumsfeld’s a believer in “Fighting Wars on the Cheap,” but I do hope his belief isn’t so widespread as to be the explanation for our collective failure. I’d rather believe that sheer laziness and negligence is the driving force behind our failure in Afghanistan, along with the President’s lack of leadership in rallying the American public.

No matter how you look at it, our government in Washington has no clothes. And at the front of the line are the boys in the White House, at the Pentagon, and in the Majority Leader’s office. Think about their naked bodies slouching toward failure in every regard next time you go out to vote.

Today’s one of those days where nothing enormous happens and a variety of little things go on.

As a matter of policy and politics, I don’t consider the FCC the Second Coming of Fascism, although I don’t particularly care for their work, either. The FCC is a selective organization that doesn’t ultimately do much except when the masses begin to cry foul because someone said something to offend their sensibilities. My own view on this is that we’re a free country, and that means that no one has a right to never be offended. Neal Boortz is a nutcase, and perfectly representative of why I dislike the FCC.

Neal Boortz is perfectly capable of being offensive on the radio, but given that he’s a Conservative, there isn’t much the FCC will do to him, and for that they should be ashamed, because if someone said that Condi Rice looks like a “ghetto slut” or, hell, a dominant lesbian, the FCC would be on them faster than it takes to replay the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction.” Or maybe I’m wrong, and the tone in politics has gotten so bad that it’s acceptable banter to call a Congresswoman a “ghetto slut.” I know it’s how I respectfully refer to people over the dinner table!

Politics breeds some strange comments, doesn’t it? Strange people. Strange scenarios. Strange circumstances. So does money, and nothing in the last few weeks has struck me as more odd than this story.

America’s newest town is rising up in the midst of a dusty tomato field in southwest Florida. And if the Catholics building it have their way, this ultraconservative community with a 65-foot crucifix at its center will be the closest thing to heaven on Earth. They envision a town that adheres to strict religious values, a place void of adult bookstores, strip clubs, massage parlors and abortion clinics. At one time they had planned to prohibit the sale of contraceptives at drugstores and bar X-rated channels from cable television. But the law got in the way.

The town, to be anchored by a new Roman Catholic university, is mostly the vision of Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan, a devout Catholic who is pouring $400 million of his personal fortune into the project. Insisting that he is doing God’s will, Monaghan, who is well-known in conservative political and religious circles, has staked his reputation on the controversial project, the latest of his many philanthropic ventures designed to spread conservative Christian values around the world.

I’m absolutely sure that it was God’s will that this man become rich from pizza sales and then build a small town devoted to God — his task from Heaven was to fatten humanity with fat, and then fatten their brains with God. Now I know that might sound silly to all you who don’t believe in God, or understand where you find such instructions, it is true that the Bible never commands one to sell pizza and get rich off of it, then use your funds to make a village for God. But you can reasonably infer that from the King James edition of the Bible. Seriously.

Yesterday in the National Journal, there was an article entitled “Why Murray’s Big Idea Won’t Work,” but upon reading it, I thought the article should’ve been titled, “Murray’s Plan Needs to be Seriously Tweaked.” It raises the most solid points in it about the plan’s solvency, and I think they have to be addressed. I never said the plan was perfect, just that I thought it to be innovative and a model for future reforms — I’m sure that may seem like a copout, but it isn’t. I stand by the program and I like it very much. I’m just not blind, and I understand that a few things have to be taken into account. But, however, as it stands, I think Murray to be a brilliant theorist. An honest one, too, since his work exposes itself to proper, literal rebuttal, unlike other Social theories. I’m looking at you, Libertarian Municipalism.

Venezuelan Leader Hugo Chavez apparently has some influence with some E-Voting machines. So now the Republicans are worried about them. Fair enough. I, personally, despise E-Voting and have no problem with the way things have been for ages. The 2000 Election, as infuriating as it was, angers me more for the Supreme Court’s Treasonous Role than because of Pregnant Chads. Although the thought of pregnant Chads is a tad unsettling!

All right guys, listen up. It’s time to get serious. I have a friend, and he’s looking for help running his business. He inherited this agency, and he’s looking for someone to manage it. I thought I’d help him out and pass the word along because he’s having trouble finding help. All I know is that he’d better be smart and not hire an illegal immigrant to do it, even if they’d be willing to work for less money. Bill Frist wouldn’t like that very much. But if you’ve got no significant experience in anything other than horse breeding, you’ll likely have a better chance.

I don’t mean to drop names, but last night I was speaking to a certain Senator from Tennessee, and he told me that he considered this a problem. He doesn’t like the trend of divorce in America, and he hates that people are now meeting online, because it just means new marriages and more divorces. To defend the Sanctity of Marriage, he told me that he might introduce legislation this week banning online relationships and websites such as eHarmony.com

And gay marriages.

Actually, I’ve always wanted to ask Senator Frist if he has a Gay Marriage. I asked a Conservative teacher of mine that (he happens to be a very good friend, actually) and he got really silly and goofy and tripped all over himself trying to avoid admitting to a gay marriage. It’s funny how shy people get over words sometimes. Don’t we all want gay marriages and civil unions?

In his latest article, “Y is for Yahoo,” Bill Kristol shows me that “S is for Surprise,” and my surprise comes at the fact that he is being logical in regard to immigration and political reality.

First: the belief that it’s surprising that he’d bend to political reality comes from his support of Iraq even though it’s been an albatross for the Republicans over the last, oh, year and a half. The subtitle of his article, “Turning the GOP into an anti-immigration party could dash Republican hopes of becoming a long-term governing party” sets the tone of his article as a warning about political reality. Bill Kristol is a brilliant man, and I haven’t seen him as a political animal over the years. Policy and politics are, of course, closely interrelated but Kristol’s never been much of a poll watcher, and so this tone in his article is a pleasant surprise.

The second reason his article surprises me is that he’s not just anti-losing Republican elections, but pro-immigration.

Let’s not talk about substance–since the pro-immigration forces have in fact been winning that debate easily. Let’s talk about ballot boxes. Dana Rohrabacher has represented a safe GOP seat in Orange County for almost two decades. He’s chosen never to run statewide. In California, Republican governor Pete Wilson exploited the immigration issue to help get reelected in 1994, and the voters passed a Republican-backed anti-immigration measure, proposition 187. No Republican candidate except the idiosyncratic Arnold Schwarzenegger has won statewide since.

Virgil Goode has a safe GOP seat in Southside Virginia. He’s never run statewide. Last fall, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Jerry Kilgore, tried to exploit illegal immigration by denouncing a local community that wanted to build a shelter that might accommodate some illegals. He lost, in a red state, a race he had been favored to win.

Anti-immigration yahoo Tom Tancredo carried the sixth district of Colorado comfortably in 2004 (though running slightly behind pro-immigration George W. Bush). But in Tancredo’s state, the GOP did miserably in 2004, with Democrat Ken Salazar winning the Senate seat and Democrats gaining control of both houses of the legislature. Meanwhile, in the safe fifth district of Iowa, Steve King did run two points ahead of George W. Bush in 2004. King was able to outspend his challenger 10-1, while Bush faced a huge Kerry effort in that swing state.

Kristol is right that the Republican Party is going to face some major challenges as a result of the House insisting on a hard-line bill, but they don’t particularly care. They’re aiming to please their base, and nothing more. It’s like the Kerry Filibuster of Samuel Alito, where no good can come of it but for, possibly, the people introducing it.

In the “S is for Surprise” category, let’s look to Robert Novak’s latest column, shall we, and find out the Inside Report?

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is giving Sen. John McCain, his potential rival for the Republican presidential nomination, an opportunity to show his new openness to tax reduction by scheduling repeal or reduction of the estate tax for consideration the week of May 4. McCain was prepared to vote for cloture on repeal of the estate tax shortly after Labor Day last year, but consideration was postponed indefinitely after Hurricane Katrina. Backers of McCain for president have promised he will support at least reduction of the estate tax, going along with his recent vote for reduced dividend and capital gains taxes. A footnote: McCain disturbed supply-siders during the recent budget debate by being one of five Republicans supporting a Democratic proposal mandating, in effect, tax increases to compensate for higher spending. It failed on a 50 to 50 vote.

I wonder why he would display newfound openness. I’m sure it has everything to do with raw conviction, however. Seriously, is it any surprise that John McCain would talk out of two sides of his mouth on an issue? It’s what he’s done all his life — all his life. Surprise surprise, he’s flip flopping all over the Senate Floor. With all seriousness, does he think the Right Wing is stupid enough to embrace him as the Media has? Does he believe that a few shallow votes now will make Grover Norquist stop hating him, or bring the Christian Coalition to his side?

I know the Left has seen McCain as some sort of Revolutionary Republican in the same vein as Theodore Roosevelt (although that itself would be a bad thing), but you can’t fool all the people all the time, and McCain’s not going to be able to trick the Right as he has the Left. Not at the ballot box, anyway.

A few nights ago, a friend and I stayed up for much of the night arguing over whether or not Dueling should be a Legal Practice in this nation. Only half-joking, I took the position that I should be able to challenge someone to a Duel — Pistols at dawn! — and, if they accept, they should be able to consent to the challenge and if I kill them, then I kill them, and it’s okay because they consented to the possibility. Emma countered that you can’t, and shouldn’t be able, to consent to death and that it would lead to a slippery slope of things. “Besides, we’re not in the Stone Age. And you’re in Chicago, not the Wild West!” All fair points, of course.

Although I am from the City of Al Capone. Except it isn’t the 1920s anymore.

I was kidding her about the legality of dueling. I’ve been cracking that joke ever since Zell Miller made that comment in seriousness, actually. I don’t think, in general, that you should be able to consent to death — I do take the position, affirmed by the Supreme Court in the Assisted Suicide Case, that assisted suicide is a matter left to the states, however — but I do believe we should be able to consent to certain harms. Smoking, of course, is a nasty habit, and anyone who does it consistently is shortening their life by at least a decade. I don’t think it should be criminalized, however.

One of the most difficult things about a Democracy is the balance between Majority Rule and Minority Rights, and between giving the people what you presume they need balanced with what they declare that they want. Which brings us full circle in regard to the concept of Dueling Necessities, and brings us to this post’s subject:

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to allow higher levels of contaminants such as arsenic in the drinking water used by small rural communities, in response to complaints that they cannot afford to comply with recently imposed limits. The proposal would roll back a rule that went into effect earlier this year and make it permissible for water systems serving 10,000 or fewer residents to have three times the level of contaminants allowed under that regulation.

I don’t envy the EPA’s position on this. What do you decide — that making the small towns pay money they can’t afford is the best course of action, or that they should be able to lessen their town’s life cycle by having more arsenic, if they so desire? I think that the Latter is a more proper course of action, but both leave me a bit wanting. Do you allow the cities to lower their own standards, or impose them because we know that living a long, healthy life is better than a shorter, happy but possibly sicker life? Should we assume that it’s in their best interest to spend the extra money and purifying their water of arsenic? What if we do take the position that we should let them do as they please in this regard — does that open a Pandora’s Box?

I think that people should generally not be handcuffed or babysat by the Government in regard to taking care of themselves. If a person wants to, for instance, drink a gallon of paint, should the Government make it an explicit criminal act for a family member to not prevent the drinking of paint by a family member? I don’t think so. Should we criminalize the act of putting paint in someone else’s coffee? Of course.

Some might take the position that allowing small towns to do this is the equivelant of pouring paint into their citizen’s coffee, and that very well might be true. But to reconcile this is the fact that we’re in a Democracy, and the voters would have their chance, at most, every six years to boot their leaders out, and often-times shorter. I’m not sure what the best course for the EPA is on this, because of things such as this:

EPA’s new proposal would permit drinking water to have arsenic levels of as much as 30 parts per billion in some communities. This would have a major effect on states such as Maryland and Virginia, which have struggled in recent months to meet the new arsenic rule. Last summer, the Virginia Department of Health estimated that 11 well-based water systems serving 9,500 people in Northern Virginia might not meet the new standard for arsenic.

Maryland has a high level of naturally occurring arsenic in its water, and its Department of the Environment has estimated that 37 water systems serving more than 26,000 people now exceed the 10-parts-per-billion arsenic limit. These include systems serving several towns as well as individual developments, mobile home parks, schools and businesses in Dorchester, Caroline, Queen Anne’s, Worcester, Garrett, St. Mary’s and Talbot counties.

It would be best, it appears, to ease the standards for states like Virginia and Maryland. And because of this, I think I tend to lean toward Federalist Thought to Solve this Problem. Set a basic standard that all reasonable states must adhere to: let them figure out how far their state and their cities want to go in going above and beyond your call of duty for them. Let the voters know what their local representatives and leaders are doing for them, and if they like it, they keep them. If not, they don’t. Either way, people’s basic health are secured and the Structure of our Federalist Republic remains intact.

Or, that’s how I think, now, that we should balance our dueling necessities. Too bad Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton aren’t around to discuss it like gentlemen and settle our differences for us.

I have always attempted to look at the Bush Presidency objectively, and that attempt has led to my supporting him on Iraq, Immigration, and to believe, in principle, that Social Security has to be reformed. On the other hand — well, I’d need a dozen other hands to count the many ways he’s let me down or disgusted me. Sometimes he confuses me and leaves me scratching my head clumsily. His State of the Union address, for instance, was a mediocre speech with a mediocre message that was quickly forgotten and ignored by the Republican Congress. But the message behind it — the single great message in it — about Oil was one of the braver things that a President has said.

It’s too bad that the Courage to call a Spade a Spade doesn’t translate to playing that Card. I give Bush credit for stating the obvious by stating that America is “addicted” to oil and that this addiction must be broken. It was a bold thing to say, considering his background, his party, his political situation. If he actually followed through on making it so that we break our dependence on foreign oil, I think his Presidency would be remembered as the nation’s most visionary of the last hundred years, easily. The problem is, of course, that as time passes, I wonder if he was making an attempt at the History Books or if he meant what he said.

Then I read articles such as this one, and the answer comes to me:

For decades, brewing ethanol from the waste fibers of sugarcane or spinning plastic pens entirely out of white sugar was just an elusive dream for most researchers — until now, say two Brazilian companies located in the country’s No. 1 sugar and ethanol state of Sao Paulo. By 2008, both technologies should be phased out of pilot programs and implemented for use in commercial production, in a crucial development that should help ensure that Brazil maintains its leading edge as the world’s most competitive sugar and ethanol producer for decades to come, say local millers.

Perhaps the most-eagerly awaited technology is the process of recycling waste biomass into ethanol at low cost, a procedure that is currently being perfected by sugar and biofuel equipment maker Dedini SA Industrias de Base. “Within a year or two, we’re hoping that we can move into producing on an industrial scale, or about 50,000 liters per day,” said Jose Luiz Oliverio, Dedini’s vice president of operations. “That’s the technology that (U.S.) President Bush was mentioning in his State of the Union address, when he talked of converting cellulose to ethanol (in six years’ time),” said William Burnquist, the technology director at the Sao Paulo-based Center for Sugarcane Technology, or CTC. “And the Dedini process is closer to commercial use than switchgrass at the moment, and a very pertinent technology.”

This bothers me and can keep me up at night, if I allow myself to dwell upon it for too long, because it makes me believe that Bush was playing to the Historians of the Future rather than to the Reality of Today. If Bush were serious, wouldn’t we have something similar to this in the pipeline? And when I think like that, it makes me angry that the President would say such a thing as “America is addicted to oil” but not mean it when he says he wants to solve for that. It seems shameless.

But then, I remember that the Congress is Conservative, and very Rightly so. Might he have been making a statement for the future, for future Presidents, future Congresses, future leaders — a message meant to engrave it into the American public’s conscience that things have to change? A subtle first push, knowing that the current Congress wouldn’t do what needs to be done but that others will, with the right, consistent support — with the right pokes and prods? Perhaps I’m giving him too much credit by considering that he understands the limits of a Congress dominated by Special Interest Oil Groups and a Vice President from Halliburton.

Maybe reporters should ask him probing questions about his conviction. Questions about how deep his convictions are, about how Deeply he Believes in Energy Independence, about how far ahead he’s planning, and about whether or not his statement was mere pandering for the sake of his place in history. More than anything, they should be asking why Brazil can do this but we can’t — or aren’t, at least. They’d be better questions than, oh, questions about the innocents he’s “murdered” in Iraq, if for no other reason than that they’re more likely to get an answer. Questions like these make me long for a visit to the White House or a weekend with the President — simply to get an idea of what he believes, how he feels, and what he sees around him. Honestly.

Supreme Court Justice David Souter might be hated by the Right Wing for not having a “Conservative” backbone, but he sure knows how to make his points loud and clear. A while back, a group of young men tried to mug him but he fought them off. Souter is also on the record as having stated, quote, that “the day you see a camera come into our courtroom it’s going to roll over my dead body.” Strong words.

This week the Congress is pushing for television cameras in the Supreme Court,

Supreme Court hearings could be shown on TV under a bill approved by a Senate committee Thursday but opposed by some high court justices. Two bills that, if they became law, would allow more federal court proceedings to be televised moved a step forward in the Judiciary Committee. One, which passed 12-6, would require the Supreme Court to permit television coverage of all open sessions unless a majority of the justices decide that coverage in a particular case would violate the due process rights of a party before the court. Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said the Supreme Court becomes a “super-legislature” when it decides far-reaching public policy questions, and should make its proceedings more accessible. “The public has a right to know what the Supreme Court is doing,” Specter, R-Pa., said.

A big problem with our society, for one, is the idea that something has to be “entertaining” for it to be worthwhile, and that’s a problem because it implies a simplification of things to levels at which they shouldn’t be simplified. I, personally, enjoy reading Presidential transcripts, and it’s entertaining to me. Should we raise other people’s entertainment standards to mine — should Britney Spears have to sing a song about the Bill of Rights because people like me would enjoy that better than her typical garbage? Through that same vein runs the idea that “the public has a right to know what” the SCOTUS is doing.

I don’t like Arlen Spectre. He’s odd in ways that a Senator shouldn’t be, whether that be voting “Not Proven” in the Impeachment Trial of President Clinton, assaulting Anita Hill or dueling with Robert Bork while embracing George W. Bush. That’s not to mention that he’s complaining about the SCOTUS becoming a “Super Legislature” while advocating such rulings as Roe v. Wade. In addition, he says dumb things like this, “The public has a right to know what the Supreme Court is doing.” Questions like that lead me to ask, Why does that mean, that their proceedings should be televised? The public has newspapers. The public has audio clips. The public has transcripts. There are a million ways to know what the SCOTUS is doing, and those that really care what the Supreme Court is doing will find out.

I’m not fond of the idea that we should have cameras in the Supreme Court largely because I am sure that the SCOTUS would be turned into a laughingstock much like criminal courts have been. We don’t even allow cameras into Michael Jackson’s trial — why should Constitutional issues be settled under the auspices of possible out-of-context moments on Sixty Minutes? Worse, what if Antonin Scalia tells someone that his point is absurd in a curt, witty manner (as he often does) and it gets replayed over and over again in the media, as it likely would be. Wouldn’t that lead to a nasty simplification of the cases and a mischaracterization of what American Justice is?

Would we like to take the Supreme Court — America’s Aristocratic Branch, and rightfully so — and turn it into the Congress? That’s not even the worst probable harm from this pointless and menial idea. Putting Cameras in the Supreme Court would strip the Justices of their clothes, and if you look at their lineup, you see why that would be such a bad thing…

I’m not sure why people are so trigger happy about putting these cameras inside the Court, but they should be a little more camera shy. If they don’t like the way the Supreme Court rules now, I can’t imagine how they’d like a SCOTUS forced to make decisions based on fear and apprehension over whether Americans will be prompted to riot by some ultimately trivial soundbite or audio clip. I think it’s representative of the poorness of the idea that the sitting Justices oppose this. Congressmen would be a bit more camera shy if they had to make complex rulings on Constitutional issues under the limelight of Fox news, too.