The Healing Power of New Jersey

Almost anywhere, really!

It just feels good to be somewhere other than home for a change. For the last several weeks, my world of physical experience has been about 5 miles from one end to the other. I realize now I was starting to feel a bit claustrophobic.

The drive up here was pleasant. Hazy sunshine, warm. Misty mountains all over the place! Smooth traffic, remarkably little construction.

I did get irritated (briefly) when I stopped for lunch. Why does it bug me so much when someone says "I need two bags of chips and two cokes...." Why do I want to grab them by the shoulders, give them a strong shake, look them right in the eye and shout "YOU DON'T NEED ANY OF THAT CRAP! YOU JUST WANT IT! NOT BEING ABLE TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE IS A MAJOR MALFUNCTION!"

Of course I've always stifled the urge. So far.

Posted by Me at 20:10 link

Mission Fatigue

I'm burned out.

My posts the last three days have been perfuntory. Find one story of interest. Post part of it with a link to all of it. Say the first thing that comes to mind. Post. Publish. Sleep.

I think I've been focusing too much lately on the political world and not enough on my own little world. I know my actions in the world at large make a difference, but it's hard to see that on a day-to-day basis. It feels like trying to turn the tide with a teaspoon.

I'm on vacation for the next few days. Tomorrow I'll drive up to NJ to see my closest friend. Next week, my friend Ian's getting married to an amazing woman. They're both very lucky to have found each other. I'm looking forward to seeing them into the next phase of their life together, and to seeing a bunch of folks I haven't seen in years.

I'm looking forward to getting back in touch with myself (yeah, yeah, I know. Call me when the shuttle lands, Ms. Fleming). I'm hoping when I get back, I'll have more enthusiasm for web logging.

Got off to a good start today. Played frisbee with my dog Sage at a nearby school this evening, which was awesome. He turns nine next Thursday. Fortunately, he's not a stickler for dates, so he won't be upset that I'm not there for the actual day. He and Girlie Wulf are staying with my mom, who's a lot more generous with the scooby snacks than I am! So it's a vacation for them, too.

I'll probably publish fairly regularly over the next few days, but I'm not going to push myself.

One story, though, is so gripping I have to pass it on. A large cache of chemical weapons — over 2,200 tons — has been found, and will be destroyed starting next week, despite concerns for the safety of nearby civilians:

[Acting U.S. Army Secretary Les] Brownlee gave the order to begin destroying deadly nerve agent and mustard gas Aug. 6 despite critics' concerns. About 35,000 people live within nine miles of the depot, and more than 250,000 live within a 30-mile circle.

[full story]

Cross your fingers

An agreement in principle has been reached for a new round of talks with North Korea aimed at shutting down its nuclear weapons program, a senior Bush administration official has said.

In an "encouraging sign," the U.S. has heard through third-country contacts, including Russia, that the North Koreans have agreed to the U.S. demand that the talks be multilateral, not bilateral as Pyongyang had long insisted, the official said.

[full story]

In other news, I'll be on vacation for the next several days. I may or may not post much. I encourage you to turn off the computer and get some exercise! No, wait, that advice is for me...

Posted by Me at 23:56 link

Enough already!

The Senate on Wednesday narrowly rejected a plan to ban traders from manipulating U.S. electricity and natural gas prices that was designed to prevent a repeat of California's energy crisis.

Democrat Maria Cantwell of Washington's proposal would have required the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to halt trading strategies made notorious by bankrupt energy trader Enron Corp. with names like "Death Star" and "Fat Boy."

In a vote largely along party lines, the Senate rejected Cantwell's plan, 48 to 50.

[full story]

There's more where that came from, but I don't have the stomach for it tonight.

Music in my head:

• Norman Greenbaum — "Spirit in the Sky" (woke with it in my head)
• Neil Young — "Hey Hey, My My" (slow version)
• Jane's Addiction — "Been Caught Stealing"
• Steve Miller Band — "Take the Money and Run"
• Nicola Conte — "The In Samba" (Kyoto Jazz Massive Remix)

The Blah Blah Blahs

The Pentagon yesterday scrapped a plan to establish a futures market that would have allowed investors to bet on the probability of coups, assassinations, terrorist strikes and other events in the Middle East.

Confronted by a congressional outcry and widespread expressions of disbelief after news of the program suddenly emerged Monday, senior Pentagon officials appeared at a loss to explain how it got as far as it did.

[full story]

But then we have all this crap:

• "The [U.S.] Homeland Security Department is warning that al-Qaida operatives may try hijacking an airplane on the East Coast by the end of the summer, possibly using 'common items carried by travelers, such as cameras, modified as weapons.'" [full story] If you thought flying was fun before.... Can you say "papers, please"? Operation Piss Off The Planet^™ is really starting to bear fruit.

• "One out of 10 jobs in the computer services and software industry could shift to lower-cost emerging markets such as India by the end of 2004, a top computer consultancy said Monday." [full story] In other words, I'm just studying my ass off for the fun of it. At least it is kind of fun.

• "A jury in Los Angeles today deadlocked on charges that a white police officer used excessive force while arresting a black teenager after a traffic stop last year. The incident was captured on videotape and shown repeatedly on television." [full story] Have you seen the video? The suspect had his hands cuffed behind his back. First the officers slammed the suspect's face into the hood of a patrol car, then punched him in the face. Hard. If that's not excessive force, I'd hate to see what is. The suspect's original "crime"? Expired license plates.

• Texas Democrats flee again [full story] Those with half the story are thinking "cowardly Democrats." The rest of the story is that the Republicans changed the rules of order so they could force through a vote to redraw the electoral districts to their advantage. Current law has the districts redrawn every ten years after the census is published. This case illustrates how "might makes right" is replacing fairness as the standard operating procedure of all public arenas.

• "The Senate rejected a proposal to require a sharp increase in automobile fuel economy Tuesday after concerns were raised that it would lead to a loss of auto industry jobs and limit consumers' ability to buy larger cars and SUVs." [full story] God forbid we should interfere with consumer choice for something as corny as the common good. Jello Biafra said it best: "Give me convenience, or give me death." I mean, who really needs to breathe, anyway?

Yeah, I'm in a lousy mood today. Splitting headache. Allergic reaction (cats!) including sneezing, itching and blurry vision. Worst of all is having to postpone my vacation for another day!

But here's another bright spot: a website devoted to exposing the many deceptions of the Bush administration. Bushliar.com. They're just getting started, but already it looks pretty interesting. Check it out!

Posted by Me at 23:43 link

Bush administration jumps the shark

The Pentagon is setting up a stock-market style system in which investors would bet on terror attacks, assassinations and other events in the Middle East. Defense officials hope to gain intelligence and useful predictions while investors who guessed right would win profits.

[full story]

DARPA has come up with a number of good ideas. For example, they developed the basic idea that led to today's Internet. But this is just dumb, dumb, dumb.

Quote: "Futures markets have proven themselves to be good at predicting such things as elections results; they are often better than expert opinions." Well, gee, aren't the people doing the buying and selling the same people making campaign contributions and voting? Hmm? I surely hope it's not supposed to work the same for terror attacks or assassinations.

What's next? How about poor families fighting each other to the death for food stamps and other government benefits?

Obituary:

Justin Garvey, 1980-2003

There will be a funeral service in Vermont this morning for Army Sergeant Justin Garvey, who was killed in Iraq on July 20th. Garvey, who served in the 101st Airborne Division, was 23 years old. He lived with his wife, Kate, in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. And, in recent years, Garvey's mother, brother, and sister have lived in Townsend, Massachusetts. Garvey grew up in Proctor, Vermont, where he's left a lasting impression.

[Full audio story and photos]

Recent events suggest that our time for winning hearts and minds on our own may be running out.

Bob Hope 1903-2003

Thanks for the memories! And the laughs, of course.

Posted by Me at 23:42 link

Wolfowitz sticks his foot in it

Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary who is the architect of the White House policy on Iraq, said Sunday that "murky" intelligence guides much of the administration's anti-terrorism policy.

Wolfowitz made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows defending the Bush administration's reasons for going to war in Iraq and its postwar plans.

"The nature of terrorism intelligence is intrinsically murky," he told NBC's Meet the Press.

....

Wolfowitz said he had not read the recently released 900-page House-Senate report on intelligence before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, but he used it to make the administration's case for war.

"It's saying we should have connected these murky dots ahead of time," he told CBS's "Face the Nation."

"Well, you can't have it both ways. If you wait until you have absolute certainty about terrorism, you are really saying, 'We'll wait until after the fact and deal with it.'"

He told NBC, "If in 2001, or in 2000, or in 1999, we had gone to war in Afghanistan to deal with Osama bin Laden, and we had tried to say, 'It's because he's planning to kill 3,000 people in New York,' people would have said, 'Well, you don't have any proof of that,'" he said

"It surprises me sometimes that people had forgotten so soon what September 11 ... should have taught us about terrorism," he said. "And that's what this is all about."

But Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had a different perspective.

"Boy, it sure didn't sound murky before the war," he said on CBS. "There were clear connections, we were told, between al Qaeda and Iraq. There was no murkiness, no nuance, no uncertainty about it at all. It was very clear, very certain. That's the way it was presented to the American people."

[full story]

The point of the 9/11 commission's investigation is to identify the flaws in our intelligence gathering and dissemination operations, with an eye to preventing future terrorism.

Before 9/11, we knew that specific individuals were plotting a terrorist attack against US targets. We knew who these people were, and we had a good idea where they were. We had strong hints what form their attack might take.

First of all, that doesn't seem too "murky."

Second, given what we knew, it would have been prudent to bring these people in for questioning. It would have been prudent to increase airport security. Those steps might have prevented the attacks. The problem was that this valuable intelligence wasn't analyzed and shared quickly enough.

Obviously, waging war would have been wrong, probably as wrong as attacking Iraq was wrong. Does Wolfowitz believe war is the only way to fight terrorism? Preemptive war, based on "murky" intelligence, sold to the public with deception, playing on our deepest fears?

Once again, I'm left wondering: are these people stupid, are they liars, or are they just incompetent?

Posted by Me at 23:50 link