Okay ... what I just said ...
Paul Krugman's blog:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/grand-unified-scandal/
Read the comments, too ...
Last night, on one of the talk shows, some congresscritter insisted that waterboarding isn't torture ... what was done in our name wasn't torture. I wonder if he would change his tune if he were waterboarded six times a day for a month ....
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Torturous Logic
So torture was effective.
That's what our former Veep says, and a host of high-ranking intelligence officials back him up.
What we don't know is if we could have gotten the same (or similar) information using less harsh techniques.
The beef, as I see it, is this: even if the methods we used were effective in gaining "high value" intelligence, at what cost?
I maintain that our standing in the world's community — my "good word" — is much more important than an immediate resort to torture (according to what we're learning, we didn't even try more conventional interrogation techniques).
It's not worth it.
That's what our former Veep says, and a host of high-ranking intelligence officials back him up.
What we don't know is if we could have gotten the same (or similar) information using less harsh techniques.
The beef, as I see it, is this: even if the methods we used were effective in gaining "high value" intelligence, at what cost?
I maintain that our standing in the world's community — my "good word" — is much more important than an immediate resort to torture (according to what we're learning, we didn't even try more conventional interrogation techniques).
It's not worth it.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Senate repudiates Perry
Tia Rae just reminded me that the Texas Senate voted last week to accept the half-billion stimulus dollars for unemployment insurance that Perry eschewed.
The measure must still face the Texas House and a potential veto — not that there is any certainty any of that will derail it — so I think my comments about Perry's stand on the state's unemployed remains.
Still, it's appropriate to point out that not all of our state's politicans are whack-jobs.
The measure must still face the Texas House and a potential veto — not that there is any certainty any of that will derail it — so I think my comments about Perry's stand on the state's unemployed remains.
Still, it's appropriate to point out that not all of our state's politicans are whack-jobs.
Who's there?
I went home for lunch the other day to find a barn owl had taken up residence on the one of the trees in our back yard behind the garage. Beautiful bird. He doesn't like cats, unless the cat is small enough to be a snack, and the cats return the affection in full measure.
Who's the traitor now?
For nearly six years, my friends and I were routinely denounced as unpatriotic because we disagreed with Pres. Bush over the conduct of war in Iraq.
We believed it was a mistake, that the idea of a pre-emptive invasion ran counter to the fundamental respect of national sovereignty and that no country can export democracy at the point of a gun.
We believed that the erosion of our civil liberties under the guise of fighting some never ending War on Terror made us neither safe nor free.
For expressing these beliefs, we were branded as unpatriotic and accused of hating our country.
So, why isn't the super-patriotic, Republican, America-love-it-or-leave-it crowd up in arms over Texas Governor Rick Perry's threat last week to have this state secede from the Union "... if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people ..."
I beg your pardon?
How patriotic is that? Isn't this traitorous talk, especially from a man who represents the political party that led us down the primrose path of unfettered free market capitalism then ginned up a foreign war so fat cats could pig out on no-bid contracts and the military industrial complex could sell us more expensive weapon systems?
If not traitorous, it's at the very least seditious, right? Right?
There was this fella from West Texas who lived in a compound with a handful of fellow travelers and who, back in 1997, stood off the Texas Rangers for several weeks. He claimed that Texas had the right — and duty — to secede from the Union because of high taxes. Then-Gov. Bush sent in the Rangers and had him quashed but what Perry said last week sounds an awful lot like the bile separatist Richard L. McLaren spouted. (Lest we forget, McLaren is now serving a life sentence in a Texas prison.)
Wasn't Perry the same man who let Tom DeLay (a Washington politician) dictate a purely partisan, controversial, incredibly divisive mid-decade redistricting policy designed to further his goals in Washington?
(Just in case you've forgotten, Mr. DeLay had to resign in disgrace from Congress for things related to that little stunt and four of the five Texas Democratic representatives to Congress who were targeted in those efforts are still in office. Oh, and prison isn’t completely out of the question for him, either.)
Perry doesn't speak for me, in this. He has violated one of the prime tenants Texans hold for our Governor: “Please Don’t Embarrass Us!” Come on ... this guy was re-elected with 39 percent of the vote and, quite likely, would have lost had there not been four people on the ballot.
Perry doesn't speak for the thousands of Texans whose unemployment will run out — or the small businesses in Texas who will soon have to pay higher unemployment taxes because the state is running out of money — because he thinks it is somehow un-Texan to have an effective, compassionate social safety net.
Perry — and the rest of the Republican right — is completely out of step. Neoconservative thought has been thoroughly discredited. Most Americans believe it was that unfettered, free market capitalism that got us into this economic mess. And, most Americans think maybe we ought to try some of that "European Socialism," especially if it comes with health care, a decent social safety net, good public transportation and a shot at a college education for our kids.
Perry is appealing to the worst of the Texas Republican Party ... and, it’s scary how many people actually seem to approve of what he’s said. Fortunately, that may be the only group paying attention to him.
If recent opinion polls are any gauge, most Texans — Republicans, Independents and Democrats — are tired of him, too.
Cross posted at Open Salon here http://open.salon.com/blog/richard2456
We believed it was a mistake, that the idea of a pre-emptive invasion ran counter to the fundamental respect of national sovereignty and that no country can export democracy at the point of a gun.
We believed that the erosion of our civil liberties under the guise of fighting some never ending War on Terror made us neither safe nor free.
For expressing these beliefs, we were branded as unpatriotic and accused of hating our country.
So, why isn't the super-patriotic, Republican, America-love-it-or-leave-it crowd up in arms over Texas Governor Rick Perry's threat last week to have this state secede from the Union "... if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people ..."
I beg your pardon?
How patriotic is that? Isn't this traitorous talk, especially from a man who represents the political party that led us down the primrose path of unfettered free market capitalism then ginned up a foreign war so fat cats could pig out on no-bid contracts and the military industrial complex could sell us more expensive weapon systems?
If not traitorous, it's at the very least seditious, right? Right?
There was this fella from West Texas who lived in a compound with a handful of fellow travelers and who, back in 1997, stood off the Texas Rangers for several weeks. He claimed that Texas had the right — and duty — to secede from the Union because of high taxes. Then-Gov. Bush sent in the Rangers and had him quashed but what Perry said last week sounds an awful lot like the bile separatist Richard L. McLaren spouted. (Lest we forget, McLaren is now serving a life sentence in a Texas prison.)
Wasn't Perry the same man who let Tom DeLay (a Washington politician) dictate a purely partisan, controversial, incredibly divisive mid-decade redistricting policy designed to further his goals in Washington?
(Just in case you've forgotten, Mr. DeLay had to resign in disgrace from Congress for things related to that little stunt and four of the five Texas Democratic representatives to Congress who were targeted in those efforts are still in office. Oh, and prison isn’t completely out of the question for him, either.)
Perry doesn't speak for me, in this. He has violated one of the prime tenants Texans hold for our Governor: “Please Don’t Embarrass Us!” Come on ... this guy was re-elected with 39 percent of the vote and, quite likely, would have lost had there not been four people on the ballot.
Perry doesn't speak for the thousands of Texans whose unemployment will run out — or the small businesses in Texas who will soon have to pay higher unemployment taxes because the state is running out of money — because he thinks it is somehow un-Texan to have an effective, compassionate social safety net.
Perry — and the rest of the Republican right — is completely out of step. Neoconservative thought has been thoroughly discredited. Most Americans believe it was that unfettered, free market capitalism that got us into this economic mess. And, most Americans think maybe we ought to try some of that "European Socialism," especially if it comes with health care, a decent social safety net, good public transportation and a shot at a college education for our kids.
Perry is appealing to the worst of the Texas Republican Party ... and, it’s scary how many people actually seem to approve of what he’s said. Fortunately, that may be the only group paying attention to him.
If recent opinion polls are any gauge, most Texans — Republicans, Independents and Democrats — are tired of him, too.
Cross posted at Open Salon here http://open.salon.com/blog/richard2456
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Clean coal? No, really?
Recent news out of China should make us here in the States sit up and pay attention.
According to this story (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-birth-defects2-2009feb02,0,3417123.story) in the LA Times, government officials acknowledge birth defects among Chinese babies are increasing at an alarming rate and the culprit is the degradation of the environment.
The particular culprit leading to the nearly 40 percent increase in birth defects over a five year period is the fact that the Chinese get their electricity from burning coal. The increase is the highest near those coal-burning power plants.
These findings reinforce US research that links pollution to the incidence of birth defects.
Coal is one of the nastiest fuels out there. In fact, it's hard to find a fuel that is dirtier or causes more harm than coal, especially the coal burned in Texas.
In Texas -- as well as in much of the south -- power companies burn lignite. Lignite is a very soft coal and usually easy to mine. In fact, there is a seam of lignite that stretches from about Uvalde, near the Texas/Mexico border, through Central Texas and into the Appalachians.
Find a map showing the locations of coal-burning power plants and you'll see a correlation between electric power and that seam of lignite.
Here's the rub. Burning lignite to produce electricity also produces extremely high concentrations of pollution including heavy metals like mercury. Heavy concentrations of mercury are easy to find in stock ponds around Central Texas power plants. Mercury is highly toxic, so toxic that folks who live near those power plants are well advised to limit how often they eat the fish stocked in those ponds.
I bring this up because we're talking a lot these days about "clean coal technology." First of all, we have to acknowledge that this simply does not exist, yet. Secondly, we need to take a very hard look at the waste generated by our current coal technology ... and how "capturing" more of the pollutants from burning coal will increase the hazardous nature of that waste.
The mercury will still be there. So will the carbon and the rest of the toxic stew.
Indeed, a lot of that stuff is still around. There is over 314,000 tons of the stuff stored in Milam County, Texas ...
Is it really all that safe? "They" say it is but the people who say that are the same ones who, for nearly five decades, told us that asbestos was perfectly safe.
According to this story (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-birth-defects2-2009feb02,0,3417123.story) in the LA Times, government officials acknowledge birth defects among Chinese babies are increasing at an alarming rate and the culprit is the degradation of the environment.
The particular culprit leading to the nearly 40 percent increase in birth defects over a five year period is the fact that the Chinese get their electricity from burning coal. The increase is the highest near those coal-burning power plants.
These findings reinforce US research that links pollution to the incidence of birth defects.
Coal is one of the nastiest fuels out there. In fact, it's hard to find a fuel that is dirtier or causes more harm than coal, especially the coal burned in Texas.
In Texas -- as well as in much of the south -- power companies burn lignite. Lignite is a very soft coal and usually easy to mine. In fact, there is a seam of lignite that stretches from about Uvalde, near the Texas/Mexico border, through Central Texas and into the Appalachians.
Find a map showing the locations of coal-burning power plants and you'll see a correlation between electric power and that seam of lignite.
Here's the rub. Burning lignite to produce electricity also produces extremely high concentrations of pollution including heavy metals like mercury. Heavy concentrations of mercury are easy to find in stock ponds around Central Texas power plants. Mercury is highly toxic, so toxic that folks who live near those power plants are well advised to limit how often they eat the fish stocked in those ponds.
I bring this up because we're talking a lot these days about "clean coal technology." First of all, we have to acknowledge that this simply does not exist, yet. Secondly, we need to take a very hard look at the waste generated by our current coal technology ... and how "capturing" more of the pollutants from burning coal will increase the hazardous nature of that waste.
The mercury will still be there. So will the carbon and the rest of the toxic stew.
Indeed, a lot of that stuff is still around. There is over 314,000 tons of the stuff stored in Milam County, Texas ...
Is it really all that safe? "They" say it is but the people who say that are the same ones who, for nearly five decades, told us that asbestos was perfectly safe.
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