Quote Of The Day

Quote of the day goes to Steve Clemons, via Talking Points Memo:

The White House is working hard to secure deals that yield fluffy, feel good commentary about the Obama White House. One American White House reporter used colorful terms to describe the arrangement. The reporter said, "They want 'blow jobs' first [in the press sense]. Then you have to be on good behavior for a bit or be willing to deal, and then you get access."

"Axe" and "Gibbs" know who needs access to get their books pushed forward. They know who will pay for play -- and are taking notes on who has been naughty and nice in their reporting.

Communications Corruption at the White House

If you've wondered why supposedly progressive reporters have been giving President Obama a pass on his regressive policies, I suggest you read this article. It provides an example, which is that there are reporters perfectly willing to fudge stories in exchange for the inside access necessary to write a successful book about Obama. Right now, books about Obama are in demand. Politics being what it is, that could change fairly quickly, so the time to sell out is right now.

Anyone familiar with Robert Woodward's books about George W. Bush will recognize this phenomenon. Woodward's books were initially overly respectful, one might even say "fawning", of Bush. The later ones, after Bush was re-elected and his poll numbers were in the toilet, were more critical.

Clemons' use of the word "corruption" in the title is apt. This is corruption, and since we depend on reporters for an understanding of what's going on in the White House, it's a particularly dangerous form.

Change, Baby, Change

Caption: Areas proposed to be opened to offshore oil drilling by the Obama Administration as part of the new energy bill.

Image credit: found it here

No one who actually understands what went on during the health care reform fiasco should be in the least bit surprised by any of this:

In proposing a major expansion of offshore oil and gas development, President Obama set out to fashion a carefully balanced plan that would attract bipartisan support for climate and energy legislation while increasing production of domestic oil.

Risk Is Clear in Drilling; Payoff Isn’t

By "domestic production", this New York Times article mostly means offshore oil drilling:

The American Petroleum Institute, using the high end of government estimates, hopes that the opening of the areas on the Atlantic and eastern gulf alone would make available more than four billion barrels of oil and more than 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas — enough to fuel more than 2.4 million cars and heat eight million households for 60 years.

Risk Is Clear in Drilling; Payoff Isn’t

According to the CIA World Factbook entry on the United States, we use roughly 19.5 million barrels of oil a day. Just multiplying that number by 365 shows that we use about 7.1 billion barrels a year. Subtracting our domestic oil production from that total, we import roughly 4 billion barrels a year. Everything they hope to find in the areas Obama is proposing to open up is about seven month's worth of consumption, or a year's worth of imports. For this, we will risk turning valuable beaches and fisheries into oil slicks.

Speaking of oil slicks, where they might occur if this new legislation is enacted should be no surprise, either:

Mr. Obama’s plan, delicately pieced together by the Interior Department with White House input, carved out a large coastal buffer zone in the eastern gulf to mollify Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, an opponent of drilling there. It also included continued access to the oil fields off the North Slope of Alaska to win the support of Alaska Senators Mark Begich, a Democrat, and Lisa Murkowski, a Republican.

Most New England officials, including Maine’s two Republican Senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, are considered swing votes on energy legislation. They strongly oppose offshore drilling, and the North Atlantic was exempted. And because there is almost no support for drilling and there is little recoverable oil off the Pacific Coast, the whole area was declared off limits, said Ken Salazar, the interior secretary.

But by opening the mid-Atlantic region, from Delaware south to Central Florida, for oil exploration, Mr. Obama angered New Jersey’s two Democratic senators, Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, who have been generally supportive of Mr. Obama’s push for climate legislation.

Risk Is Clear in Drilling; Payoff Isn’t

Lautenberg and Menendez didn't present a problem for Obama during the health care "reform" campaign, so I'm pretty sure they'll be pushed out of the way here, too. Nelson, Snowe, and Collins are people who matter, so you can bet there won't be oil washing up on their shoreline.

It gets better, of course. "Clean coal", that magical substance that only exists in the fevered imaginations of politicians from coal-producing states, is another big part of the upcoming bill:

He also announced a new task force to forge a plan for rolling out affordable carbon capture and storage technology in 10 years, including having 10 commercial demonstration projects up and running by 2016.

Carbon capture and storage is meant to capture the emissions from carbon-polluting coal plants and bury them underground rather than spewing them into the atmosphere but the technology is still being researched.

Obama Eyes Biofuels, Clean Coal In New Climate Push

Caption: A coal slurry pond in Martin County, KY from around the year 2000.

Image credit: Mine Safety and Health Administration/Red, Green, and Blue

Coal isn't clean. The detritus that remains after it's burned is among the most toxic substances on the planet. Using coal to generate electricity guarantees that there will be vast pools of toxic sludge like the one that broke not too long ago in Tennessee.

On December 22, 2008, the containment pond at the TVA Kingston plant collapsed, spilling more than 4.1 million cubic meters of ash into the surrounding environment.

In the weeks following the spill, the Duke [University] team analyzed toxic elements – including radium, arsenic and mercury – in ash, sediment and water samples they collected from standing water in a tributary of the Emory River in Tennessee that had been dammed by the sludge spill, and from multiple locations downstream and upstream on the Emory and Clinch rivers.

...

Their analysis of ash samples revealed that the spilled sludge contained high levels of toxic metals and radioactivity, including 75 parts per million of arsenic, 150 parts per billion of mercury, and eight picocuries of per gram of total radium. A picocurie is a standard measure of radioactivity.

Toxic Coal Ash Threatens Health And Environment

To its credit, the Obama Administration's Environmental Protection Agency has begun looking at new regulations for this waste, but that process is a long way from satisfactory completion. To its discredit, the real power in this area appears to belong to Cass Sunstein, who is infamous among environmentalists for weakening restrictions on toxic chemicals released by the coal industry. As is this Administration's penchant, the reformers are left to flail about, while the people who make things worse are getting a pass.

I think it's also a safe bet that no Senators who matter live near one of those sludge ponds.

This is all on top of the Administration's proposal that nuclear energy be part of our energy strategy, to the tune of $8 billion in loan guarantees. There is something absolutely crazy about proposing that we build more plants whose waste products we cannot find a home for.

Somehow, mention of nuclear power, offshore oil drilling, and more coal plants never made it into the Obama campaign's "fact sheet" on their energy and environment plans. Curiously, that document mentions that energy conservation will be an important part of their plan, along with a general cap and trade policy. Both, if implemented wisely, would be effective in reducing environmental hazards and making us more independent of foreign oil. Yet one hardly ever reads about these things, except in the negative.

Go figure. NOTE: The UPDATE below has a slight correction to this statement.

Kevin Drum sums up the political ramifications pretty well:

I guess this makes me a bad environmentalist, but I've never really had a big problem with opening up these offshore tracts as long as (a) the affected states are OK with it and (b) oil companies don't get sweetheart deals. But here's what I don't get. When it comes to energy, conservatives are crazy about two things: nuclear power and offshore drilling. Now Obama has agreed to both. But does he seriously think this will "help win political support for comprehensive energy and climate legislation"? Wouldn't he be better off holding this stuff in reserve and negotiating it away in return for actual support, not just hoped-for support? What am I missing here?

Obama Opens Up The Coast

As was true in the health care non-reform effort, compromising with Republicans is not the point. The point is keeping oil, utility, and coal dollars from migrating to GOP campaign funds.

Once again, the Obama Administration will propose legislation that will not actually solve the problem it is supposedly meant to address, but will make some of their supporters rich. The ultimate expression of the policy will have little or nothing to do with what candidate Obama promised. Most of the progressives who have been extolling the health care bill will be telling us how it's important to compromise, and to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

When did "something that actually does more good than harm" become "perfect"? Probably about the time this country was predominately populated by idiots who never bother to understand what they're talking about.

UPDATE: The Obama campaign also released a "fact sheet" on energy. It does mention nuclear energy, but states that it should only be considered once safety and other issues are addressed. It does not mention offshore drilling, though it does float the possibility of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Perhaps that should have been our clue. They don’t mention expanding the use of coal, but do mention that it should be made "cleaner". I suppose that was a clue, as well.

What Day Is It?: 2010 Edition

Just be careful out there.


Image credit: I Has A Hot Dog

Quote Of The Day

Quote of the day honors go to Lt. Col. Barry Wingard, who is:

the U.S. military attorney for Kuwaiti detainee Fayiz Al Kandari, who still awaits his day court more than eight years after he was sold into US custody.

The Abandonment Of American Principles

according to his autobiographical sketch at the end of the article. His summation of the people who have been calling for the continued torture and imprisonment of people without trial on suspicion of terrorism is:

We in the military do not – and have never – supported harsh interrogations. We understand that we lose more than we gain if barbarity becomes the guiding force behind our military efforts. Ironically, I find that those who support torture and indefinite detentions tend to be amazingly light in military service. Meanwhile, those who oppose these un-American policies and practices are serving side-by-side with me and also fill the ranks of my senior leadership. As senior officers we must do a better job at making our voices heard to the world and, more importantly, the young members we lead.

The Abandonment Of American Principles

As my own profile indicates, I have an association with the Defense Department as well. I've gotten to know many people like this over the years. They have been ill-served by the cowards who brag about their courage and the misanthropes who abetted those policies, and continue some of those policies to this day.

I have no idea when, or if, this will end, either, and for that I am truly sorry. Being a soldier is hard enough. When the country our military serve can't elect leaders who will lead them properly, it's pretty clear that country no longer deserves them.

Afterword: Needless to say, neither my opinions nor those of Lt. Col. Wingard represent the official position of the U.S. Department of Defense.

Tuesday Special Photo

Since I haven't gotten anything else written today, I thought I'd share this:
Image credit: Cujo359

It's a part of the first panorama I published Sunday. That image file is actually at half the resolution of the original. This section of it was taken from that original. As you can see if you click on the photo to enlarge it, there is a ferry and a sailboat clearly visible, as well as some buildings along the far shore. Take a look at the original picture to see how far away I was when I took that shot.

Digital cameras are amazing, aren't they? This is a starter model camera I'm using, a Kodak C763. In bright light, though, it can take very clear pictures with some incredible detail.

Health Care Reform: Cleaning Out The E-mail

I spent part of yesterday going through all the self-congratulatory e-mail that various "progressive" organizations sent me last week when the health care "reform" bill was passed. Some of the celebrants included:

• Democracy NowTrue Majority


• Democracy For America


• Democrats.org


• Progressive Congress Action Fund


• Washington (state) Democrats


• MoveOn.org

There were also a number of congressmen whose mailing lists I was on only because they promised to not vote for a health care bill that didn't have a public option.

I unsubscribed myself from all of them. If you're incensed about how these organizations helped make us all hostages to insurance companies by supporting the bill, I'd recommend you do the same. These organizations' only real power to raise money is in their e-mail lists. They use them for direct appeals, and as the basis for requesting grants and other support from big donors. If you remove yourself, you remove a little bit of that power. Failure needs to be punished more among America's political class. This is one small way of making that happen.

As for the politicians, I responded to them somewhat along these lines:

When Rep. <insert name here> lied to us that she would never vote for a bill that had no public option, she declared that she didn't want my support. That's the only reason I was on this list in the first place.

If I receive further e-mail from this list, I will add it to the spam filter.

In other words, don't expect me to thank you for screwing us.

If nothing else, you'll be less likely to miss important e-mail for all the political spam.

UPDATE: I don't know how I got them mixed up, but True Majority should have been on the list, and since I can't find evidence of offending e-mail from Democracy Now, they should not have been. Apologies to the latter, and thanks to selise for pointing out the error.

UPDATE 2: Here's a video of Democracy Now's Amy Goodman on CNN discussing the health care bill. She didn't sound happy with the bill.

Quote Of The Day

Quote of the day honors go to Ian Welsh, for summing up so eloquently what's going on with our federal government right now:

The bottom line in America today is that while everyone who isn’t paid not to know, knows how to fix what’s wrong with America (for example, instead of the mess called Health Care Reform, pass single payer), nothing that really fixes anything fundamental will be allowed to occur.

America is controlled by what economists call rent-seeking behaviour. Virtually everyone important has a revenue stream, and they don’t want anyone to take that revenue stream away. So pharma and insurance companies, who would have been damaged badly by single payer (they would have lost hundreds of billions) made sure that a plan to provide everyone with better health care for a third less than current costs was never even considered.

The most important game in America today is the contest for control of government, so that government can directly or indirectly give you money. Health care “reform” in which the government decided to force Americans to buy private health insurance or be fined is merely the latest (and most blatant) example. Virtually every industry, from finance to telecom to agriculture is involved in this game. It is in all their interests to make sure the game continues, but they do fight amongst each other for the spoils.

The Tea Party and the Ancien Regime

What's really depressing is that there will always be a crowd of meatheads like the ones who were urging that we "pass the (health care "reform") bill already" so we can start making "progress". The will to make our government do what needs to be done is so weak right now that our elected officials clearly have no fear of failing to do it. They aren't even trying, and there are lots of people who are willing to make excuses for that behavior, and to describe the objections of people who see where this is taking us as "shrill" or "unreasonable".

Accepting this level of malfeasance has become as American as overeating.

Sunday Photo(s)

Last weekend I was in the area of White Center, a suburb of Seattle. Like many of the cities and towns in the area, it resides along the Puget Sound. This is a view from there, looking toward the Olympic Mountains. If you look carefully off in the distance, you can see sailboats on the Sound.
Image credit: Cujo359

For once, I'm not happy that there are power lines in the picture.

It must be fun to live in a neighborhood where you can see something like this after walking a few blocks:
Image credit: Cujo359

Click on the photos to enlarge. Enjoy your Sunday.

A Jack O'Neill Moment

Most fans of Stargate SG-1 will know what I mean when I write that I'm having a "a Jack O'Neill moment". For those who don't, click on the screenshot to be taken to an instructional YouTube:
Image credit: Screenshot of YouTube by Cujo359

For all those days when the details just get too overwhelming.

What Bibi Taught Us

Updated Saturday, March 27

Caption: Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office, May 18, 2009

Image credit: The White House/Wikimedia

President Obama did one thing right this week. No, it wasn't signing the health care "reform" bill, or the "correction", or the "correction to the correction". No, it was reminding Israel's bombastic leader who the senior partner in our alliance is, as the Israeli publication Ha'aretz reports:

Details emerging from Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington remain incomplete, but the conclusion may nonetheless be drawn that the prime minister erred in choosing to fly to the United States this week. The visit - touted as a fence-mending effort, a bid to strengthen the tenuous ties between Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama - only highlighted the deep rift between the American and Israeli administrations.

The prime minister leaves America disgraced, isolated, and altogether weaker than when he came.

Instead of setting the diplomatic agenda, Netanyahu surrendered control over it. Instead of leaving the Palestinian issue aside and focusing on Iran, as he would like, Netanyahu now finds himself fighting for the legitimacy of Israeli control over East Jerusalem.

Netanyahu leaves U.S. disgraced, isolated and weaker

Leaving Bibi to find his own way to dinner wasn't a bad touch, either. As Patrick Lang put it:

Bibi was "dissed." Good, he needed the lesson. I think there will be more such lessons. Obama is a patient man. I now see that he favors the "ambush" style. Israeli hubris and arrogance favors an "adversary" who employs such method.

They will not learn the lesson implied in this Ha'aretz editorial because to do so would require a basic change in the way they think [of] themselves in relationship to the outer world and gentiles. They carry this burden in trying to deal with difficult situations. In the same way they will continue down the road of trying to deal with the Palestinians by treating them as sub-humans. That road leads to a dead end.

"Netanyahu leaves U.S. disgraced, isolated and weaker." By Aluf Benn

Lang spent some time as an observer of the Israeli Defense Forces. He comes by his opinions of Israeli society at least partly by observation. Netanyahu's treatment of Vice President Biden two weeks ago should convince just about anyone that at least when it comes to Netanyahu and his immediate circles, their attitude toward the rest of the world sucks.

Something James Ala wrote last week seems prophetic in this context:

It is clear by recent events that Israel is totally contemptuous of the U.S. executive. The last U.S. President that Israel paid any heed to was the big dog, Hillary’s husband.

Big bad Bill got respect because he placed his foot up Bibi’s backside the last time the Likud leader got a bit too big for his britches. The WH at the time basically engineered the electoral defeat of Bibi back in the glory days of the 1990’s. Bill’s brass-knuckled brush back of the Israeli leader set the course for the near miss of Clinton’s Oslo efforts.

The ADL Attacks The Four Star

Bibi will eventually learn his lesson. Americans have a lesson to learn, too. As Pat Lang also noted indirectly, this should remove any doubt people might have had that Obama is either weak or incompetent at politics. This was a move you'd expect of a competent leader of a world power when dealing with a lesser power that has become a troublesome ally.

It should make clear that something I wrote some time ago is really true, Obama isn't going to do anything he either doesn't want to do or doesn't have to. Assuming that he's tentative or timid is a mistake, and it's one that quite a few people have made, particularly among progressives. In short, he isn't failing to do the right thing on health care or regulating finance because he's afraid to; he's refusing to do it because he doesn't want to, and no one has figured out how to make it worth his while.

Perhaps if I keep writing this, with sufficient examples, people will pick up on this. I'm not holding my breath, though. As Bibi is proving by surviving repeated humiliations at the hands of American presidents, stupid dies hard.

UPDATE: Over at Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, James Ala has written a response to this article. I think the only real disagreement he had is this:

[Netanyahu] lost the top spot the last time because he pissed off the Big Dog and he found out exactly what kind of bite the Arkansas mongrel packed. Clinton basically ran him out of office. Thus, in one respect, you are not correct Cujo359, Bibi has zero learning curve. His learning curve is flatter than a Kansas landscape. Thus one more time a U.S. President has kicked him to the curb because Bibi didn't know when to stop.

What Bibi Taught Us—A Response to My Favorite Canine

In one sense, it doesn't matter if Netanyahu learns the lesson or not. If he doesn't, he will probably be voted out. He almost certainly will if this contretemps leads to reduced support by America. That loss of support is a possible, if unlikely, outcome.

There's also something to be said for the idea that sometimes people require repeated lessons. If nothing else, Bibi is stubborn. Like James, though, I also think the man is stupid. I just haven't watched him enough to be sure how stupid. Time will tell.

The other point James made that I found interesting is that he thinks this all had its genesis in Obama's lack of response to Netanyahu's implicit declaration last year that the concept of "natural growth" of Israeli settlements in occupied territory would continue. I suspect he's right. It was a mistake for Obama to not respond to that point at the time. No doubt that mistake led Netanyahu to assume that Obama would simply allow continued expansion as his predecessor had.

Incidentally, while doing research to recall just what happened back then, I found this article by The American Prospect on the settlements. In it, the author called real estate agents in Israel to see if there were homes for sale in the settlements. Guess what? There were. So much for "natural growth".

How this all plays out will depend on many things that I can't predict. It should be clear now, though, that the Obama Administration doesn't support the expansion of settlements under any circumstances. Anyone who doesn't get that now would make Bibi look like a genius. The question is what the White House intends to do beyond words and snubs.