The Command Post

Nuclear power is the future (for now)

2009-11-13T16:34:00.001+10:00

I’ve recently taken to reading David Frum’s blog, simply because I’ve been looking for places to read serious conservative thought which doesn’t involve screaming or insane comparisons of health care reform to Nazi death camps. My old conservative magazine of choice, National Review, has been overtaken by the ideologues, I fear, and Bill Buckley is dead. The Weekly Standard is not a serious choice, either. Frum, on the other hand, seems willing to acknowledge the fact that good government sometimes means bending on one’s principles, since there is no “one size fits all” set of ideas. I’m also willing to make that concession. The Democrats seem to be showing how limited their toolbox really is, and at the risk of being bitten, I’d like to re-engage American conservatives in a serious discussion.

I’ll start with something at once controversial and non-partisan: nuclear power.

Frum writes:

http://www.frumforum.com/more-nukes

The big cost in wind and solar is not the turbine or the solar panel. The prices of turbine and panels could fall to zero, and still wind and solar would cost much more than coal or nuclear. Electricity cannot be stored and it is expensive to move. Cheap power is power that flows at predictable levels and is generated near to its users.

A modern nuclear reactor can generate about 1300 megawatts of electricity. A single nuclear plant with two or three reactors can generate enough power to sustain a fair-sized city – and can be sited as close to the population center as politics permits, so long as there is a body of water nearby for reactor cooling.

A modern wind turbine generates at most 2 megawatts. To equal a single reactor you’d need 650 turbines – probably many more, since they are so unreliable. Now think of the cost of the land assembly to support this vast array of machines. Next – think about the wiring required to connect them to a grid. Finally – think of the cost of moving that power across the country, because wind blows strongest in places like west Texas and the Dakotas, about as far as you can get from the nation’s big consumer markets. It’s the wiring that makes wind so costly, and that cost is not going to be reduced anytime soon by technological improvements.

Solar of course confronts this problem in even more radical form. The basic solar panel we’ve all seen emits only about 120 watts. You’d need acres of them to equal even the output of a wind turbine. And again, the sun shines brightest where people don’t live.

Frum makes a few points I hadn’t previously considered, but while electricity cannot be stored as such, there are ways to store other forms of potential energy which can be easily converted into electricity. However, Frum is correct that such technology does not yet exist and as such our beloved renewable energy sources (which are wonderful, don’t get me wrong) cannot yet replace the amount of energy which coal currently produces. Nuclear can.

It emits no greenhouse gases, and it produces less radioactive waste than coal plants.

Huh?

Don’t take my word for it:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste

Over the past few decades, however, a series of studies has called these stereotypes into question. Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy. * [See Editor's Note at end of page 2]

At issue is coal's content of uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur in such trace amounts in natural, or "whole," coal that they aren't a problem. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels.

Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food. People living within a "stack shadow"—the area within a half- to one-mile (0.8- to 1.6-kilometer) radius of a coal plant's smokestacks—might then ingest small amounts of radiation. Fly ash is also disposed of in landfills and abandoned mines and quarries, posing a potential risk to people living around those areas.

In short, replacing coal plants with nuclear plants would reduce the amount of radioactive waste current being introduced into our environment. Disposal is also at issue: it is much easier to dispose and contain the small amounts of radioactive waste from a nuclear plant than it is to contain all the fly ash from a coal plant. Trying to contain all of that would be a logistical nightmare.

Nuclear energy is by no means a perfect solution, but it is one which would buy us more time to come up with something better.

Matthew Yglesias’s take largely revolves around the ideological inconsistencies inherent to conservatives backing nuclear power, due to the large government subsidies needed to stand up nuclear power on a large scale:

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/11/nuclear-socialism.php

What I find especially odd about it is that it’s so at odds with American conservatives’ ardor for the free market. You see this mismatch in a small sense in that their nuclear agenda in congress consists basically of asking for subsidies. But in a larger sense the issue is that the big example one can find of a country living the nuclear dream is . . . France. And it’s not just an irony or a funny coincidence, nuclear power in France is deeply tied to the genuinely socialistic (i.e., not just high taxes and a generous welfare state) aspects of the French economy.

Which is all well and good, but I’m less interested in whether or not an idea is ideologically consistent than I am in whether or not it will work. Yglesias’s blog stems from a New Republic article written by Brad Plumer:

http://www.tnr.com/environment-energy/nuclear-option-0

The debate over nukes has long exacerbated the deadlock over climate policy. Of the handful of Republicans who think global warming is a serious problem--like Alexander--most refuse to address it unless nuclear power gets a starring role. But many Democrats and green groups are loath to lavish even more money on an industry that has received countless subsidies to date--including $18.5 billion in federal loan guarantees in 2005--yet still struggles to procure financing for new plants, to say nothing of concerns about safety and waste disposal. John McCain has chalked up his refusal to support the very cap-and-trade policies he once championed to "left-wing environmentalist organizations that are not allowing us to move forward with nuclear power."

Now, however, that deadlock may be dissolving. In October, John Kerry, the lead sponsor of the Senate cap-and-trade bill, co-authored a New York Times op-ed with Republican Lindsey Graham outlining a possible bipartisan deal that would include offshore drilling and nukes. "Nuclear power needs to be a core component of electricity generation if we are to meet our emission reduction targets," they wrote, endorsing the need to "jettison cumbersome regulations" and help utilities "secure financing for more plants." Graham has hinted that sufficient nuclear incentives could get "at least half a dozen" Republicans on board--allowing a climate bill to squeak through the Senate. As a result, many liberals and environmental groups are gritting their teeth and nervously bracing for a possible compromise. But that raises the question: If Democrats do haggle on nukes, will Republicans actually step up and agree to tackle global warming?

This is a compromise which I support, of course. There’s a saying about not making the perfect the enemy of the good. Nuclear power is a good option for now, and it will carry us for a long time while we continue research and development into renewable energy sources. Environmentalists and Luddites need to recognize that we aren’t going to go back to horse-and-buggy without a steep drop in our population and life expectancies.

New chairs

2009-09-21T15:31:00.000+10:00

I know I haven’t blogged in a while, but I thought I’d share this little tidbit of information with you all. There has been a lot of discussion about excess government spending, but despite efforts by our President and Secretary of Defense, the universal culture of fraud, waste, and abuse in the Department of Defense continues unabated.

A few months ago our unit needed to fund a trip to another island to conduct a mandatory inspection. It wasn’t an optional thing – it was required by Air Force Instruction. The whole trip cost roughly $2,500, but there were still other places we needed to go. The other trips may have been more expensive, but they were still mandatory. My leadership wanted to know who was going to pay for it, and from the way they were talking, it was as though the money tree had just died and we were going to have to start picking coconuts and hunting the range chickens for food.

Today my replacement was tasked with shopping out 30 chairs with roughly $13,000 to spend. We’ve reached the end of the fiscal year, you see, and if we don’t spend all the money allocated to us, it’ll be taken away the following fiscal year.

So. We skimp on spending money to do our jobs and then splurge at the end of the fiscal year to buy non-essentials like new chairs, just because we have the money. I’ve seen this in every unit I’ve been with – Baghdad was the worst. The system needs to change. There needs to be better oversight of how money is spent, and if a unit goes on a spending spree in September year in and year out, then there needs to be an audit of their finances to determine if they’re wasting money on frivolous items like $400 chairs while neglecting important mission-related items.

Open letter to President Obama

2009-07-16T10:14:00.001+10:00

Mailed this morning:

-----------

Mr. President:

Good day. I write to you on the issue of U.S.C. Title 10 § 654, the governing statute regarding the

separation of military members for homosexual conduct and UCMJ Article 125, the provision

prohibiting “unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex”. During the

campaign last year and through the course of your young administration since, you have spoken of your

opposition to the first law, typically and from this point forward referred to as “don't ask, don't tell”

(DADT). Whereas the UCMJ article in question predates DADT and in fact was indirectly referenced

as justification for continuing restrictions on homosexual activity while passing the 1993 law, it should

be addressed as part of the larger question with regards to privacy rights for military members,

especially in light of the implications of the finding in Lawrence v. Texas (2003).

The prohibition on homosexual conduct in the military was incorporated at a time when anti-sodomy

laws were prevalent through the United States. Since then, much has changed in the political landscape

regarding not only the acceptance of people's right to live as they wish, but also our understanding of

what is encompassed in Constitutionally-protected privacy. As Justice Kennedy wrote in the majority

opinion for Lawrence, “liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct

their private lives in matters pertaining to sex... [t]he State cannot demean their existence or control

their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due

Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without the intervention of the

government.” Prior to Lawrence, Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) was the established precedent, and

therefore DADT was consistent with the Court's opinion on whether or not there existed a right to

privacy in the sexual affairs of consenting adults. In Lawrence, however, the Court overruled Bowers

and stated that such a right to privacy exists. Indeed, Justice Kennedy also wrote that “[t]he Texas

statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private

life of the individual.”

It has been argued that the military is a special case with unique circumstances and thus that the

findings in Lawrence do not apply to it. In fact, the government argued just that in United States v.

Marcum (2004) when upon appeal, the Air Force Criminal Court of Appeals considered whether or not,

in light of the then-recent Lawrence ruling, Article 125 was unconstitutional on its face. The

government argued that Lawrence only applied to civilian conduct and was inapplicable to the military,

despite the fact that no such stipulation was made in the majority opinion. However, this was not the

finding of the court:

“Constitutional rights identified by the Supreme Court generally apply to members of the military

unless by text or scope they are plainly inapplicable. Therefore, we consider the application of

Lawrence to Appellant’s conduct. However, we conclude that its application must be addressed in

context and not through a facial challenge to Article 125. This view is consistent with the principle that

facial challenges to criminal statutes are “best when infrequent” and are “especially to be discouraged.”

Sabri v. United States, ___ U.S. __, __, 124 S. Ct. 1941, 1948 (2004). In the military setting, as this

case demonstrates, an understanding of military culture and mission cautions against sweeping

constitutional pronouncements that may not account for the nuance of military life. This conclusion is

also supported by this Court’s general practice of addressing constitutional questions on an as applied

basis where national security and constitutional rights are both paramount interests. Further, because

Article 125 addresses both forcible and non-forcible sodomy, a facial challenge reaches too far.

Clearly, the Lawrence analysis is not at issue with respect to forcible sodomy.”

The court was unwilling to invalidate Article 125 in this case because special circumstances existed in

the case which made the member's activity contrary to good order and discipline: namely, that he was

engaged in a sexual relationship with a subordinate. Also, the court determined that the provisions

regarding forcible sodomy did not fall under the scope of the Lawrence ruling and thus that Article 125

was not, on its face, unconstitutional. However, other provisions within the UCMJ already address the

two uniquely military issues at hand. Article 120 deals with the issue of rape and sexual assault, and

Article 134-23 deals with the issue of fraternization. Clearly, from a chain of command stand-point,

engaging in sexual activities with a subordinate of the opposite sex would also have an adverse effect

on morale and discipline. A specific prohibition on sodomy with subordinates is superfluous and

regardless, it is not addressed in Article 125. It is a blanket prohibition on all sodomy. The portions of

Article 125 regarding forced sodomy are redundant with relation to Article 120 and are clearly a post

hoc rationalization to regulate the private sexual activities of military members with only a vague claim

of “good order and discipline” to justify it.

In truth, the findings outlined in DADT could just as easily be applied to any minority group with

whom someone could be uncomfortable. A devout Christian may not be comfortable serving next to an

atheist or a Muslim, but that Christian has to move beyond that discomfort just as much as the atheist or

Muslim would have to move beyond the discomfort of serving next to a devout Christian. Whereas we

live in a pluralistic society and have specific prohibitions outlined in the Constitution and in U.S. law

against racial and religious discrimination, the military has to accommodate the minorities as well as

members for whom the presence of these minorities is disconcerting, just like any other government

agency. Aside from religious sensibilities of the majority, there is no case to be made as to why the

presence of a homosexual would be bad for unit cohesion. We do not accommodate racists who does

not regard a black man as his equal or misogynists who will not take orders from a woman. No reason

exists to accommodate homophobes who cannot coexist with someone who does not love the same way

they do.

The Congress's claim of exclusive authority in setting standards for admission is specious at best. The

Constitution does invest the Congress with the authority to raise armies and provide navies per section

8 of Article I of the Constitution, but they are still subject to other requirements laid out in the

Constitution with regards to civil rights and civil liberties, and they are still subject to judicial review.

Significant precedent exists stating that American citizens do not check their civil liberties at the door

when they enter the military, except to the extent that a valid mission need to do so exists. Justice

Ginsburg, in her written concurrence with the majority ruling in Weiss v. United States (1994) stated,

“men and women in the Armed Forces do not leave constitutional safeguards and judicial protection

behind when they enter military service.” Only when the application of those civil liberties would be

harmful to the mission may they be curtailed, and then only to the extent necessary. Advocates of

restricting military members' sexual activities have never made a case where private, consensual sexual

activities between two clear-headed adults have any mission impact, save for in a war zone, where all

sexual activities are prohibited anyway. The United States Army Court of Appeals recognized this in

United States v. Bullock (2004) when, using Lawrence as precedent, they ruled that an act of sodomy as

defined by Article 125 did not demonstrate any “additional factors relevant solely in the military

environment that affect the nature and reach of the Lawrence liberty interest.” They thus overturned

his conviction for an act of sodomy with a civilian woman, since prosecuting him for that was a

violation of his civil liberties.

There is no evidence that a person's private sexual activities has any impact on mission readiness or

unit cohesion. If anything, it is the military's incessant snooping in our private affairs which is

destructive to morale. Our desire to keep our private lives private and out of the all-seeing military's

eye does not make us undisciplined or immoral. It simply makes us American.

The rationales for continuing to defend these restrictions in court do not carry any Constitutional

validity. Rather than feeling bound to uphold a bad law, would it not be possible to file suit challenging

the Constitutionality of the law yourselves? Its legal grounding seems dubious, especially in light of

the Lawrence ruling and subsequent findings by military courts that it does apply to military members.

DADT seems like it's just waiting to be knocked down by somebody big enough.

One final point of contention: the “Rule of Construction” in U.S.C. Title 10 § 654 paragraph (e)

explicitly gives the Secretary of Defense broad authority to determine through regulation whether or

not a member should be separated on account of homosexual conduct. To wit:

“(e) Rule of Construction.— Nothing in subsection (b) shall be construed to require that a member of

the armed forces be processed for separation from the armed forces when a determination is made in

accordance with regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Defense that—

(1) the member engaged in conduct or made statements for the purpose of avoiding or terminating

military service; and

(2) separation of the member would not be in the best interest of the armed forces.”

It strikes me that if challenging DADT in the courts is too drastic, the SECDEF could simply determine

it to be in the best interest of the armed forces to suspend all separations stemming from homosexual

conduct until such time as the Congress has fully reviewed the policy and passed legislation changing

or even outright repealing the law. If you asked Secretary Gates to make such a finding, would he not

do as the Commander in Chief asked? You have the authority under the very statute you say you are

bound to uphold to suspend it. Why have you not done so?

I hope that this letter will find you well. As a heterosexual who has had to watch homosexual friends

struggle with their hidden identities over the years, it pains me to see them still having to wait for

action which was promised to them and which could, in all reality, be carried out today. I hope you

will give this full consideration.

Thank you for your time.

Public Healthcare? (follow up)

2009-06-24T09:05:00.001+10:00

A follow-up point which I neglected to mention: Medicare provides health
coverage for the elderly and disabled, who typically have higher health care
costs. Again, this is an apples and oranges comparison, since the linked
article compares all private health insurance costs against patient costs
for a program designed for the elderly and disabled.

-----Original Message-----

A friend recently sent me an article to read about public health care.
Names and e-mail addresses have been deleted, but otherwise the exchange is
presented without edits. The link to the article is at the bottom. My
analysis is cursory and actual research is limited. Feel free to dissect my
analysis, as it is incomplete and I would enjoy a more full discussion on
this issue.

-----Original Message-----
From: (CarbonDate)
Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 8:34 AM
To: xxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Subject: RE: Public Healthcare?

One point I'll concede is that I fail to see how a public option would
actually address the real cost of health care, which is the real problem, as
opposed to simply easing the burden on consumers. I like the public option
where people buy into Medicare (which doesn't appear to be the Obama plan,
but oh well) because of its potential to bridge the gap for people between
jobs (which there are a lot of these days), provide an affordable
alternative for people who don't qualify for Medicaid, and provide a new
revenue source for Medicare without raising taxes.

That said, I would like to discuss the article further. A couple of points:

1) The out-of-pocket expenditure change isn't something that happened in a
vacuum. There's a reason for it. That the article doesn't discuss the
reason leads me to believe that it's inconvenient for the point the author
is trying to make. Could it be that out-of-pocket health care is no longer
something average Americans can afford, where as it was back in 1970?

2) "Only 35%"? In nine years? Am I the only one that thinks that's a
rather sizable increase?

3) Comparing the rise of out-of-pocket costs to the rise in total Medicare
expenses is apples and oranges, and in any case, the reason is easy to
deduct: Medicare likely has a lower deductible than most private insurance
plans. That's just speculation, of course.

4) "From a policy perspective, this would suggest that the key to lowering
costs is to let consumers control more of their own resources - that when
they have the freedom and incentive to pursue value, they know how to keep
costs down."

Translation: "Let them eat cake." You're right, the article does speak for
itself.

Seriously, is he suggesting that all health care be paid for out of pocket?
Who can actually afford that?

5) I do have a problem with an author citing his own "study" as an
authoritative source. At a minimum, he should explain where he compiled his
numbers from. The fact that the study was published by the Pacific Research
Institute (of which he is a senior fellow) doesn't really lend it any
additional credibility; this is an agenda-driven group. I'm not saying the
numbers are necessarily inaccurate, but it's not a scientific study. They
found a way to make the numbers work in their favor, and even then they have
to concede that out-of-pocket health care costs have risen 35% over the last
nine years.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pacific_Research_Institute

A former senior speechwriter in the Bush administration is, of course, free
to write articles about health care and can even contribute constructively
to the discussion, but he shouldn't cite himself as his source, especially
since a layman like me can easily point out that he's a political animal,
not a public health care expert.

But at least you know I read the article ;).

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 2:01 AM
To: xxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Cc: xxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Subject: Public Healthcare?

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=480067

This article speaks for itself.

Public Healthcare?

2009-06-24T08:49:00.001+10:00

-----Original Message-----
From: (CarbonDate)
Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 8:34 AM
To: xxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Subject: RE: Public Healthcare?

That said, I would like to discuss the article further. A couple of points:

2) "Only 35%"? In nine years? Am I the only one that thinks that's a
rather sizable increase?

Translation: "Let them eat cake." You're right, the article does speak for
itself.

Seriously, is he suggesting that all health care be paid for out of pocket?
Who can actually afford that?

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pacific_Research_Institute

But at least you know I read the article ;).

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 2:01 AM
To: xxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Cc: xxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Subject: Public Healthcare?

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=480067

This article speaks for itself.

Arlen Specter and why the Republican party is dying

2009-04-29T08:22:00.003+10:00

As most of you have heard by now, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) has announced his intention to become Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA). This has had a predictable reaction among D.C. circles: Republicans hate him and Democrats love him. Sen. Specter clearly read the writing on the wall and saw that he was going to lose in the Republican primary because the modern Republican party has no room for moderates such as himself. In age when elected officials are kissing the ring of a radio talk show host, the Republican party is clearly in dire straits.

Sen. Mitch McConnell stated that this increasingly unipolar political landscape is bad for the country, and I would have to agree. However, it is Republican policies which have pushed the nation in this direction. The answer isn't for voters to throw the Republicans a bone and vote a few of them in to hold back the changes Democrats will bring -- changes which, by the way, the American people are voting for in large majorities -- but rather for the Republican party to go back to the drawing board and come up with some better ideas. As it stands, the Republicans have been absolutely pathetic since 2005. The marginalizing of the Republican party didn't begin with Hurricane Katrina -- that's just when it was solidified. It began with Terry Schiavo.

The nation watched national Republican officials all the way up to the President of the United States directly inject themselves into a decision which should have been a private family affair: whether or not to keep alive by artificial means a woman who had been in a permanent vegetative state for fifteen years. Prior to that, Republicans had held the nation in fear over terrorism and managed to manipulate a portion of the population over the issue of gay marriage. The gay marriage issue tied in with abortion on a broader "bedroom police" platform. Not wanting to dispense with a winning strategy, the next natural step was to inject themselves into life or death medical decisions other than abortion. Whether or not it was right to pull the feeding tube of Terry Schiavo is not, and never was the issue. The issue was whether this was a decision for her family or for Washington politicians. At that moment, all the fear-mongering about socialism with regard to universal health care lost its bite. The Republicans, not the Democrats, were the ones injecting themselves into private medical decisions. The Republicans, not the Democrats, were the ones telling people who they could and could not love. The Republicans, not the Democrats, were the ones telling women that if they had their way, they would have to carry all their children to term, regardless of their circumstances.

And now, as it turns out, the Republicans were the ones rounding people up and putting them in camps to be tortured. Not for intel purposes, but for propoganda purposes. They wanted somebody to tell them that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda in order to justify invading Iraq. The Republicans were the ones listening to our phone calls without warrants. It goes on and on: the Republicans became the party of Big Brother. They became the party of aggressive war. They became the party of torture. They became the party of homophobia, xenophobia, and Pax Americana. They became the party of a nationalist political philosophy which good manners dictate we not mention in civil debate. So I won't. Their actions speak for themselves, and we need not look to the past to find a label to which to attach these philosophies. We need only call them what they are: the Republican party platform. And these days, people understand well enough what that means in order to reject it out of hand. Republicans, when calling Democrats socialists, only serve to stir up their fringe base. The label doesn't have any affect on people's perceptions of the Democratic party platform. If anything, it only serves to soften the image of socialism in the minds of Americans. So when the Republicans loosely accuse the Obama administration of "tyranny" for the heinous act of governing as they promised to during a Presidential campaign they won by sweeping margins, it really does sound like a classic case of projection.

Republicans, if they wish to survive, need to denounce the policies of the Bush administration forcefully and declare a new day for the Republican party. As it stands, they seem to believe that the current political climate is simply a passing storm rather than the sea of change it actually represents. They need to do this for the good of America, because they're not entirely wrong: single party rule does make for bad government. Just not as bad as Republicans do right now. If they cannot change, then they need to dissolve and allow a new party to take their place. Right now they're in their last throes, and their choice is simple: evolve or die.

The 20th century is over. America is moving into a new day. Perhaps the Republican party has simply outlived its usefulness. But if a viable conservative party does not soon emerge to take its place, then a party which sits to the left of the Democratic party will. Then we really will begin moving toward socialism. It's incumbent upon conservatives to find ways to make capitalism continue to work in the 21st century, not to simply assert that it does. And they need to give up on their imperial ambitions. The future lies in global partnership, not world domination. It's not just the pragmatic way: it's the American way.

The future is leaving the Republican party behind.

Cell phones are tracking devices

2009-04-26T01:54:00.003+10:00

And, according to the Obama Department of Justice, should be used as such.

A bit of context: the actual brief requesting that law enforcement officials not be required to show probable cause before seizing cell phone records tracking your movement was filed by U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, a Bush holdover who has refused to tender her resignation under the new administration. President Obama has not seen fit to terminate her, despite the fact that her philosophies are quite divergent from his own. As such, by choosing to keep her on, he is responsible for any briefs she files. Her most notorious case has been the prosecution of Tommy Chong for shipping drug paraphernalia through the mail. Now she wants access to your where-abouts by tapping into your cell phone records. Awesome! Somebody's been watching too many movies:

But if you're a law-abiding citizen, you've nothing to worry about, right? Unless, of course, you're engaged in constitutionally-protected free speech which upsets the establishment, such as an anti-war demonstration or a tea party demonstration. Say they want a list of names of people at that demonstration. Anybody with a cell phone (which is most people these days) can be tracked. Say they start a police riot and want to press trumped-up charges against anybody at that demonstration, both to discredit the demonstration and to send a message to anybody who gets any ideas about standing against them. You see where this is going.

The real people who would need to be concerned would be the organizers of such a rally. Some of these things can get quite large, and without some sort of organized presence behind them, can get unwieldy, potentially chaotic. What better way to communicate than by cell phone? Well, I'd recommend purchasing a pre-paid cell phone. They can track that, but they'd have to know who they're tracking. Some require you to register in order to use it; these are a bad deal and defeat the purpose. You want use of the technology without having to have your movements tracked. For your average Joe Protestor? Leave your cell phone at home, or else pull the battery if you want to keep it on hand in case of an emergency. Even if you turn it off, the phone still transmits and receives signals. Only pulling the battery stops the signals.

Best bet for those who don't actually have a need for a mobile phone but just keep it out of convenience: get a land line. It's cheaper, and these days if you really need a cell phone for a specific purpose, you can pick up a cheap disposable pre-paid phone for $30. It's what I do any time I go back to the states. I've already discontinued my GuamCell service and will be picking up a land line when I get back to Guam.

That's a tip for activists, not average folks who don't represent a threat to the status quo.

This is why I always did my X-Mas shopping Dec. 24:

2008-11-29T14:35:00.002+10:00

I know they call it "Black Friday", but this is outrageous. There's a deep sickness in America that it won't be easy to address, but it's going to be up to our new President to at least try to put down this out-of-control culture of greed in our country. It goes from the top to the bottom, whether it's a shopper stepping on a worker to save a few bucks on a TV or a President sending a nation to war over billions of dollars in oil. Republicans talk a good game about establishing a "culture of life", but this culture of greed we've established stems from the same principles that drove the Reagan revolution: greed is good. I don't know if our new President can do anything about this, but I'm hopeful that his call to service may stem the tide. We can hope.

A Wal-Mart worker died early Friday after an "out-of-control" mob of frenzied shoppers smashed through the Long Island store's front doors and trampled him, police said.

The Black Friday stampede plunged the Valley Stream outlet into chaos, knocking several employees to the ground and sending others scurrying atop vending machines to avoid the horde.

When the madness ended, 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour was dead and four shoppers, including a woman eight months pregnant, were injured.
...

Even officers who arrived to perform CPR on the trampled worker were stepped on by wild-eyed shoppers streaming inside, a cop at the scene said.

"They pushed him down and walked all over him," Damour's sobbing sister, Danielle, 41, said. "How could these people do that?

"He was such a young man with a good heart, full of life. He didn't deserve that."
...

"I look at these people's faces and I keep thinking one of them could have stepped on him," said one employee. "How could you take a man's life to save $20 on a TV?"

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/11/28/2008-11-28_worker_dies_at_long_island_walmart_after.html?page=1

Future of the Republican party

2008-11-19T15:26:00.000+10:00

I want the Republican party to get back on its feet, for the same reasons I was so distressed with the idea of them running everything: echo chambers are not conducive to good governance, and a variety of ideas and points of view are necessary in order to pluck the best ones from the crop.

For the future of the Republican party, I like what I see from Gov. Pawlenty of Minnesota:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-11-18/governor-cool/

Not because of his specific policy proposals, which are rather vague in this article, but because he gets it: he understands that if a hammer is only making things worse, the answer isn’t a sledgehammer. Just because the hammer got the job done when the job was to nail some plywood to a 2 x 4 doesn’t mean that the hammer is the right tool for setting glass plating.

Basically what I’d like is to have two political parties who both have a number of good ideas hashing them out together and coming to a consensus on which ones are best. Seemingly what we have now are the Republicans, who believe that every problem can be solved by cutting taxes or blowing up another country, and the Democrats, who believe that every problem can be solved by some new government program. Neither view is correct.

A couple of places where I think the Republicans can start:

1. Universal health care is something that Americans want, whether Republicans do, or not. However, I don’t necessarily think that a big new government bureaucracy is the way to go, especially with our massive existing federal deficit. The Republicans could fashion something workable that would be free market-based and managed at the state level. The problem with many of the Republicans’ health care proposals to date have been that they’re either designed to fail or don’t address the actual problems. If the Republicans could come up with something like that, they’d be competitive again by 2012.

2. The inequitable nature of public education is a long-standing problem in this country, dating back to segregation. The Democrats have largely tried to bail out the Titanic with a Dixie cup on this issue, and Republicans’ sole policy proposal has been to man the lifeboats by giving out vouchers. However, once again, manning the lifeboats doesn’t address the actual issue: there is no reason that public education cannot be as high quality as private education. I’ve seen that in Green Bay: we had high quality public schools in that city, mainly because the people and the government made it a point to deliver high quality education in their schools. The Republicans can take the lead on this issue by discontinuing their efforts to simply abandon the public school system and begin to work at the local level to fix the system. Once again, I don’t think a massive federal program can fix this: it has to be the people on site doing the job, but the Department of Education can coordinate by studying school districts like Green Bay to figure out what they’re doing right and then studying school districts like Milwaukee to figure out what they’re doing wrong and then providing actual guidance (not just testing) to those failing school districts to get them back on track.

3. The programs of the Great Society failed to fix the problem of poverty and have instead institutionalized it. Kudos to LBJ for trying, but it didn’t work. Unfortunately, the Republicans have offered little more than “let the churches handle it” as an alternative solution to the problem. This is a messy issue, and no one big sweeping program will fix it. It’s going to take a number of approaches, and I really do think the Republicans do have some potential to offer some constructive input on this front. The Republicans are terribly fond of telling people to pull themselves up by their boot straps. They should take it a step further and show people how. Work with the business and religious communities to change people’s mindsets from one of dependency to one of empowerment. Take the “homeless shelter” model and take it a step further: help those who want it, even those who are not homeless, to overcome drug and alcohol addictions. Offer work to those want it in exchange for a minimum wage, shelter, food, and job training. Don’t just hand it out to them: make them earn it. There is always litter to pick up and graffiti that needs to be painted over. If they do good work, provide letters of recommendation for prospective employers. Don’t just feed them hand to mouth: make them productive citizens. I think everybody wins in that arena. And give the churches and private charities the freedom to operate as they see best, with some bare minimum standards in place to prevent unlawful discrimination. Each community’s needs are going to be different, so too stringent of standards will only ensure failure.

4. The Republicans need to address the perception that they are a “whites only” and “Christians only” party. The percentage of people in this country who are other than white or other than Christian is growing, and if the Republicans don’t get on board with that reality, they’re going to be left in the cold. The first step in addressing that perception would be to shun the racist and Christianist elements of their party. In the short term, that will cost them some votes in the south, but one thing I’ve learned is that one need not be white or Christian in order to be socially conservative. I’ve met atheist Republicans and black Republicans. It’s the people who are saying, “you’re not like us, you’re not welcome here” who are creating this problem in the Republican party. Following the nomination of Barack Obama, we had a number of closet racists in the Democratic party (“PUMAs”) bolt for McCain. Good riddance, I say. Let the Republicans and Democrats once and for all say to these people, “You have no place in our party. Make your own party.” And here’s the thing: the Republicans don’t have the monopoly on racists. There were plenty of racists in the Democratic party, but the Democrats didn’t try to pander to them the way the Republicans have with their “southern strategy”. Well, the southern strategy has come full circle: the Republicans are now officially the Party of Dixie, since they weren’t able to consistently win outside of the old CSA and flyover country in the Midwest. New England, the Great Lakes states, and the west coast are all lost to them. The first step to fixing a problem is admitting that you have one. If the Republicans keep trying to act as though this is a simple question of marketing or that “those darkies are too stupid to know what’s good for ‘em”, then they’re going to continue losing ground with minorities, and thus with the country as a whole.

5. Finally, having a firm hand on the world stage doesn’t mean slapping everyone who looks are you cross-eyed. Not everybody who says mean things about us is automatically our enemy (France and Venezuela come to mind) and we should be receptive to at least saying, “Okay, I’m not saying you’re right, but let’s talk about this.” If Nixon could go to China… if Reagan could talk to the Soviet Union… then there’s no reason Obama shouldn’t be able to meet with the Iranian president, is there? Finally, if the Republicans can finally make a distinction between world leadership and world domination, then I think that would go a long way in making them credible on the world stage again.

Republicans are going to have a choice in 2012, and I think it’s going to boil down to Pawlenty vs. Palin. Will they be a party of substance or will they become, as it was put in The Economist recently, the “stupid party”?

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12599247

I’ll be frank: Pawlenty in 2012 doesn’t guarantee a win for the Republicans unless Obama’s first four years are marked by a Katrina-like disaster for which Obama takes the blame. Barring that, if Obama’s first term is even marginally successful, I think he has a good shot at getting re-elected in 2012. However, it would be an important first step in the right direction for the Republicans and set the stage for a Jindall candidacy in 2016 (I regard him as too young to be a credible candidate in 2012). I believe that a Palin candidacy would solidify the Republicans’ “stupid party” label and set the stage for a generation of Democratic presidents and Congresses. I don’t think Palin has the good sense to lay low and brush up on her understanding of world and national issues to be a credible threat to Barack Obama in 2012, even with a Katrina-like disaster. She’s going to keep running her mouth in the press to try to get face time with the American public, and the press will continue handing her the rope with which to hang herself.

As to the question of whether the Republicans have been “too conservative” or “not conservative enough”, I think the real answer is that they need to dispose of the “left vs. right” paradigm and start thinking in terms of pragmatism and good government. The modern Republican party is simply too caught up with labels and dogma to govern effectively, which is why they haven’t and why it was best that they lost this election resoundingly. However, if the Republicans are left to lie in the gutter for too long, then the Democrats will simply become what the Republicans have been. We need a viable opposition party in this country to keeping the majority party in check, and the Republicans right now are a complete mess. Their ideology is morally, intellectually, and (of late) financially bankrupt. They need to go into the back room and do some serious re-thinking of their platform. Hopefully the ideas I’ve presented above can help.

What if history isn't repeating itself?

2008-11-15T07:35:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I went home after a very frustrating day at work of inventories and a futile search for a computer which nobody has used for over a year. It's been sitting in a corner gathering dust in somebody else's work center and somebody finally moved it somewhere where I cannot find it. Such is life for an equipment custodian. I went down for an hour nap around 6:30 last night and just woke up twenty minutes ago, at 5:30 this morning. I did some rather intense dreaming, but for all its vividness, it was remarkable mostly for its absurdity. It featured Homer Simpson using a magic beard to propel himself over a wall. Finally after things went badly, we all started running, but I found myself trapped in a cage with a large guard dog with security guards bearing down on me with rifles. I realized there was only one way out: I woke up.

After eleven hours of sleep, I got some water and went outside. The sun is just now rising and I can see the full moon to the west from my balcony. Sitting out here on my twelfth story balcony, seeing the full moon and two planes passing in the night over my tropical island paradise, I decided it was time for blogging.

I've given a lot of thought to this past Presidential election, and sentiment aside, I always try to place these things in some sort of historical context. You can usually look back at history and see when something similar has happened in the past, no matter how new and unique a particular event may seem at the time. I've been trying to contextualize the 2008 Presidential election, and while a number of past elections seem to fit on the surface, the comparisons fall apart upon further analysis.

Is it like 2000? In all senses, no. Then Governor Bush and Vice President Gore were running during a time of economic prosperity. Bush ran against Clinton's character and Gore ran on his and Clinton's record. Gore's margin of victory was so narrow that he actually lost. What followed was eight years of mismanagement and strife that set the stage for 2008.

Is it like 1992? Again, no. We were in a recession, but Americans didn't want to fundamentally change the way we did business; they just wanted someone they thought could do it more competently than President Bush did, so they elected then Governor Clinton.

Is it like 1980? In some ways, yes. Reagan represented a fundamental shift in how the government did business. He wasn't simply running to the right of President Carter, but also to the right of President Nixon, and that's how he governed. Reagan set the stage for the next twenty-eight years. Even President Clinton was forced to govern to the right of himself as a consequence of the political climate of the time.

But upon further analysis, 2008 is actually the antithesis of 1980. What Reagan represented was a turn away from responsibility and service. You shouldn't have to pay high taxes, he said. You shouldn't have to worry yourselves about what's going on overseas, he said. Those Soviets are the Evil Empire, and you shouldn't have to think about it any further than that. We're Number One. Reagan simply asked Americans to trust him to do the right thing, whatever that may be. The Reagan presidency marked the beginning of America's great apathy toward its government. After Watergate, Americans simply concluded that “they're all a bunch of crooks” and voted for the guy they found personally likable – the guy who wouldn't ask anything of them, but who would take care of things himself while they turned on the TV and tuned out of their government: seemingly forever.

2008 can be likened to a great awakening of the body politic. Suddenly, everybody's paying attention. Suddenly, everybody is greatly concerned about the future of their country – even those who don't support Obama. I'm not just talking about the millions of people who either donated to or volunteered for Obama's campaign, although that's significant enough in of itself. I'm also talking about the disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters who for a time refused to vote for Obama because they believed so strongly in her candidacy. I'm also talking about the disaffected Republicans who, although they may not have liked the performance of their current standard-bearer, believed enough in Republican ideals that they still supported McCain. I'm talking about disaffected Republicans who were so fed up with the direction their party has taken that they chose, for the first time ever, to vote for a Democrat for President of the United States. And, of course, I'm talking about evangelical Republicans who'd almost given up on being relevant in politics, only to find their new standard-bearer in Sarah Palin.

America isn't tuning out like they did in 1980. They're finally tuning in. And while I have no idea what kind of changes this sort of resurgent democracy will bring, I do think that I can safely say that the days of the next American Idol commanding more attention than the next President of the United States are drawing to a close. People are really paying attention, and what that means for our next President is that he's going to have to govern accordingly. Gone are the days when a President can pull a fast one on the American public and simply ask them to trust him. Bush saw to that when there were no WMD in Iraq.

There were other historical comparisons made. There was fear of a repeat of 1968. That hasn't happened. There were no riots in the streets, there were no assassinations of major public figures. 1968 was the year America lost the last vestiges of its innocence and gave up on hope. 2008 is the year that, just based on the mere fact of an African American being elected President, America has begun to realize that hope never actually died and that fundamental change really is possible. It's like America blacked out for forty years and is suddenly asking itself, “wait, how did I get here?”

It's not 1960. 2000 was really a lot closer to 1960. Kennedy ran to the right of Nixon on foreign policy in order to appease the Cold War fears of the day. Obama actively ran against an on-going war (note of caution: Nixon also ran on a promise to end the war in Vietnam in 1968, so Obama supporters hoping to see an end to the war in Iraq will need to remain vigilant, even during an Obama presidency. Now, Nixon ran on a “secret plan”, while Obama made his plan public. But the point remains: stay on top of this. We haven't won this fight until the last man is out.)

You could make a case for 1952. General Eisenhower ran against Governor Stevenson, who was burdened by being from the same party as the very unpopular President Truman. There was an unpopular war in Korea from which the public was largely disengaged. Neither candidate was a sitting President or Vice President, and that's actually the last time that has happened. Mostly, however, Stevenson was burdened by the simple fact of not being Eisenhower, much the way McCain was burdened by the simple fact of not being Obama. But ultimately, Eisenhower's election was an affirmation of people's approval of his performance in World War II and an easing of their concerns of having a dovish Adlai Stevenson as President in the midst of the Cold War. In 2008, the American people have simply said, as the Wisconsin state flag does, “FORWARD”. Obama's election is not about what he has done, but about what people hope he will do. Indeed, that has largely been the greatest criticism of his campaign. What's he done? What's he accomplished? The answer really is, “not much... yet.”
I'll end with another year people have compared it to: 1932. In that year, people voted Herbert Hoover out of office in favor Franklin Roosevelt. This has mostly been based on the economic issues of the day, which even a superficial analysis will show are not as dire today as they were then, mostly thanks to the safeguards which were put into place by Roosevelt in the years following. People have raised the possibility of a generation of Democratic Presidents similar to the generation of Roosevelt and Truman. But again, this is faulty. What we're seeing is not a rejection of Republicans per se, but a rejection of politics as usual, which is to say a rejection of, once again, “trust me” politics. If Democrats expect the American people to simply go back to sleep after this election and simply go along with everything they do, they're in for a big surprise. The Republican party will return as a legitimate force in national politics within the next eight years. I'll caveat that by saying that it will be longer if the evangelicals manage to make Sarah Palin the standard-bearer of the party. The Republicans can no longer cheaply win elections by appealing to the worst in people. The gratuitous use of Obama's middle name to score cheap political points didn't work this time around. That in of itself should send them a signal: they can't use those types of dog whistles anymore. They're going to have to stop being lazy and win on the merits of their ideas, and that means they're going to have to actually come up with some new ideas. Supply side economics isn't a winning policy position anymore. They're going to have to retool and come up with something new. If they don't, then yes: we'll see a generation of Democratic Presidents. If they do, then I think we'll see a purge of the business-as-usual Democrats who've only managed to stay in power because they're not Republicans. That means you, Harry and Nancy. You're on notice: if you don't recognize the winds of change all around you and adapt to them, you'll be swept away by them eventually, too.

And let that serve notice to our President-elect, as well. We're not looking for another Clinton administration of small, incremental change. We're looking for fundamental change: a new New Deal. Think big. Act bigger. And most importantly, listen to the people. I'll give you a name of someone who's been really good about that: Russ Feingold. Bring him into your administration. He's been in the Senate for sixteen years and hasn't lost touch with the reasons he came to Washington in 1992. You can learn a thing or two from him if you're really interested in changing Washington instead of being changed by it.

But what of the historical context? How do we place this election in the larger scheme of things? Has a man who belongs to a race of people who were once enslaved by his nation ever been elected its leader? When viewed in that context, this election is almost Arthurian. But we can't afford those types of mythical comparisons. This isn't a story book we're reading: it's real life. That means that we simply have to admit that we have no idea where this is going, and if for no other reason than that, we all must stay engaged in the navigation of our ship of state for the next four years.

Geronimo.

Tears of joy.

2008-11-05T15:09:00.002+10:00

I didn't expect it to come on so quickly. I was sitting in my hotel room here at Keesler AFB in Mississippi, in the heart of the old Confederacy, on the base where I watched the nation begin its long downward spiral, watching Obama's 30 minute video on my laptop and then turned my eyes up at the TV, which had the volume down, and saw a name and a number:

BARACK OBAMA 284

I stared in disbelief. Was I really reading it? Had it really happened? Am I really here, on this night, watching the end of this long national nightmare? Good god in heaven, have I really come full circle to the place where I watched the sun begin to set on my country only to watch day begin to break? Then it came on. Waterworks. I'm not ashamed to admit it; it was such a relief. More than one person in my life was talking about leaving the country if McCain won, and I was one of them. Looks like I'll be sticking around after all.

Goodbye to all of that.

Goodbye to Vietnam. Goodbye to our nation's original sin, to the permanent sense of fear which has gripped our nation since the planes struck the Twin Towers. Goodbye to the war on the middle class, to the excuses for not doing better for our citizens, to the notion of patriotism being a Republican value. Goodbye to the notion that a young man with the wrong colored skin being raised by a single mother doesn't have a chance in this country. Goodbye to the Confederate States of America, to Jefferson Davis and to George Wallace.

Goodbye to our past. Hello to our future.

But what does that future hold? We don't know, and that's the beautiful thing about it. Our future is wide open. We're no longer bound by the limitations of the past. What's past is prologue, but it's been gone over so many times. Tonight we've gained back something that we seemingly lost forever when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy died 40 years ago:

Hope.

Down to the wire.

2008-11-05T08:50:00.002+10:00

Today is Election Day, but I'll not share my thoughts on this day until the final results are in. It's bittersweet for me; I'm back here at Keesler AFB, MS: the same place I was eight years ago when everything went terribly awry. Today presents an opportunity for America to show how far they've come and how much farther we are capable of going, to show that our best days have yet to come and that while we may stumble on occasion, we will always get back up stronger than before. Or else we can accept the status quo and push out an entire new generation because of our inability to let go of our petty fears and hatreds. That's the choice we face today: the future or the past. For the first time in a while, I have faith in my countrymen to make the right decision.

We'll see if that faith is reinforced.

What I want to share with you right now is my experience in the city of New Orleans over the weekend. Those of you who know me know that I am very fond of that city, and those who know me well know that I play hard when I'm there. On Halloween, I played very hard and blacked out for four hours. I discovered myself wandering around in a strange part of town (Gentilly) which I didn't recognize, thinking I was somewhere else. The reorientation process was disconcerting to say the least, and I wasn't exactly in the best neighborhood.

To the extent which anybody had any reaction to me, it was fear. I was obviously out of my mind, and they felt threatened by me. Some people were hesitant to help me because I was so obviously out of place, but one finally called me a cab so I could get back to the Garden District where my dear friend and fellow contributor Queen Elizabeth lives. The only thing I was missing was her spare key, and I initially believed that someone had slipped me something in my drink and had stolen her key because they knew who I was and where I was staying. Hey, if you find yourself wandering around in a strange neighborhood with no idea where you are or how you got there, you'll get paranoid too, believe me.

What struck me is that for all that people make of the high crime rate in New Orleans, nothing happened to me. I was essentially helpless as a babe in a situation of my own making, and yet nobody saw fit to take advantage. In fact, I get a feeling that some bartender along the way told me that I'd had enough to drink and told me to go home. Now, maybe (s)he could have called me a cab? But really, I was left alone as I wandered for miles after dark. What does that tell me?

Not so much that people are fundamentally this or that, but that they're never as bad or good as you might assume they are. They didn't exactly jump out of their seats to help me after I started regaining my senses, but they didn't lift my wallet or steal my clothes, which they easily could have in my state. They mostly just let me alone, from beginning to end. It also tells me that true friends are invaluable, because aside from them, you're on your own, and that having a friend around not only helps you stay out of trouble, but helps you get through it when it finds you. Simple stuff, but I'd become overly self-reliant over the years, and it's nice to find friends who are willing to let you rely on them.

I'll have comments about the implications of tonight's election results after they come out.

I'm back.

2008-10-25T14:22:00.002+10:00

I've decided to make this my primary personal blog and post here what I'd been posting on MySpace. It's not going to be strictly a military blog or a political blog or a travel blog; it's going to be sort of "all of the above".

In the past, I tried promoting this blog, and while I am proud of some of the writings on this blog, I think I can still deliver the same stuff I delivered before, but without the self-promotion or self-restriction. In short, you'll be getting me, no more, no less. I have some online readers whom I've never met and some close personal friends and family who've perhaps never seen me really get into the political stuff.

Keeping the different sides of myself segregated into different websites hasn't worked so well for me. Darrell, CarbonDate, and SSgt K (sorry, no last names here) aren't different people, no matter how much I tried to keep the three separate. Instead, I'll just let my writing speak for itself, and if people don't always like what they see, then that's life.

But yes, I'm back, and I'll be seeing about getting other contributors to come on board and actually contribute ;).

Nothing from me for weeks.

2008-05-17T18:40:00.002+10:00

It's going to be slow going for a while, just as it has been for the past few months. Despite my best intentions, my personal life keeps getting in the way. That's a good thing, overall. Last week I was in Japan and Diego Garcia, the week prior I was prepping for that trip, and this week I've been prepping for my trip to Australia tomorrow. So as you can see, I've been kind of busy, but in a good way.

Those of you who may be worried about me need not worry. If I get deployed again I'll be blogging about that. I've made arrangements which will allow me to blog from Iraq more regularly even without commercial internet access. It's just that, right now, my life has been interesting enough to keep me from engaging in any deep analysis of current affairs. It's not that I don't care; I just don't have anything interesting to say about them (as evidenced by my poor effort to talk about a congressional race in Wisconsin from Guam).

When I have something worth saying, I'll say it. In the mean time, it'll be slow going here.

Gard to challenge Kagen for WI-8

2008-04-29T21:53:00.005+10:00

John Gard (R-unemployed) will be challenging Rep. Steve Kagen (D-WI) for the 8th Congressional district seat. Gard unsuccessfully ran against Kagen for the same seat two years ago when now-Ambassador Mark Green (R-Tanzania) unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Governor Jim Doyle.

From the Press-Gazette:

Former speaker of the state Assembly John Gard officially announced his plan to challenge Rep. Steve Kagen, D-Appleton, for the seat this fall, saying he offers a "clear contrast" with the freshman congressman.

Loser, winner. Unemployed, congressman. Yup, clear contrast.

Gard, now a resident of Suamico, officially announced his intention in Green Bay and Appleton on Sunday, although he has been raising money for a possible run for several months.
Promising fiscal order, Gard drew a distinction between the two by saying he would have "voted differently than Steven Kagen did" on a number of issues including immigration, tax relief and abortion.

If I woulda won, I'da voted like a Republican! See, you voted for a librul!!!11!

Actually, I regard Kagen as a rather nondescript, run-of-the-mill Democrat. Being the successful allergist (Dr. Millionaire, they called him) he is, I imagine his views are a bit more nuanced than he lets on, but then again, maybe not. It really could be that he holds the simplistic party-line views he espouses. It's clear to me that he's in a holding pattern right now for Sen. Herb Kohl to retire so he can run for the seat Kohl will be vacating, but then, I imagine that's Gard's ambition, as well. Could we see a Kagen/Gard match-up at the state level? If Gard can remain unemployed for two years and still have the resources to stage another congressional bid, then he apparently has no other ambitions than politics.

Still, at least Gard and Kagen are both better options than the insipid Chad Fradette, currently angling for a state senate seat (not that you could tell from his website; he hadn't updated it for two years, and now it appears that he only decided to update it well after he announced his state senate bid. Tip for Chad: have your shit together before you make the big announcement; that way you can roll it out all at once in a big show. You just look disorganized this way.)

Guam: An object lesson on the U.S.'s designs on Iraq

2008-04-26T21:04:00.002+10:00

Rolling blackouts. Serious environmental issues. Resentment of an obtrusive U.S. military presence. An impotent "elected" government consisting of local oligarchs with no legal standing against the U.S. government. An infrastructure facing buy-out by outside investors. Am I describing Iraq? No, I'm describing the island territory of Guam.

The parallels between Iraq and Guam have recently become apparent to me. The glaring difference is the lack of organized resistance against the U.S. military's presence on Guam. The people here largely welcome us here, if begrudgingly at times, whereas in Iraq they were more inclined to shoot rockets at us on their way home from work.

(An aside: even the protesters here are friendly; the first time I saw a group of protesters outside the main gate on my way home from work, I waved at them, and they waved back. It's all good; we know that we're both pawns in this big game, so a healthy perspective on the big picture tends to diffuse any hard feelings which might exist. It's the people with delusions of self-determination who generally get all worked up about these things. Frankly, if anybody should understand the frustration of having their lives dictated to them by an over-reaching, seemingly omnipotent and impersonal bureaucracy, it's a member of the United States military. But I guess some people like being serfs; it's certainly easier than thinking.)

Here's an article from the Pacific Daily News:

The Defense Department has been considering a $1 billion road that would link Andersen and the Navy base on the other side of the island.
But the U.S. military buildup's draft master plan does not include the billion-dollar road.
Bordallo said military planners still are considering whether to build the Andersen-Navy roadway.
Retired Maj. Gen. David Bice, executive director of the Joint Guam Program Office, which oversees the buildup efforts on Guam for the Defense Department, said yesterday the proposed Defense Access Road is not off the radar screen, Bordallo said.
But the road, Bordallo said, "will be considered in the context of decisions yet to be made on housing, training, storage and maintenance areas."
The proposed Defense Access Road could be a helpful way to mitigate traffic with a new, north-south corridor, but the road will have a major environmental impact, too," she added.

You think? As of right now, the drive from Andersen to Big Navy takes nearly an hour during peak traffic times, and significantly less when the roads are clear. It's not abundantly clear whether this "Defense Access Road" would be open to the public or not; I'm betting not. If you look at the history of these major build-up plans, you'll see that GovGuam's role in this has not been "advise and consent", but rather, "Would you like fries with that?"

Shift to Iraq. Anybody who's been there and been briefed at all on the long-term plans for Iraq knows that the U.S. government has no aims on leaving. I think it would be unrealistic to expect any of our Presidential candidates to completely withdraw our troops out of Iraq (including my candidate of choice), mainly because the plans for Iraq are much like our plans for Guam: it is to become the central hub of all U.S. military activity in its part of the world.

When I was at Baghdad International Airport (BIAP), there was a big push to build up the base as a long-term presence. Sather AB was transitioning from tents to trailers. While I can't go into too much more detail than that, the larger push was to build up, not draw down. Let me be clear: from my observations on the ground, any talk about troop draw-downs are political theater. There was no talk of turning the bases over to the Iraqis at any point. Period. Those bases are for us.

Let's look at some of the other similarities. The government of Iraq is incapable of keeping the peace on its own. Indeed, that very inability is pointed to as the main reason we have to stay. Similarly, the incompetence of GovGuam is pointed to as a big reason why Guam needs to remain a U.S. territory, since clearly they'd be lost without us. I've gotten the impression that many of the locals believe it, too. That, in addition to the horrible treatment they received at the hands of the Japanese during WWII, is a big reason why so many are happy to have us here. But who taught GovGuam how to manage itself? The U.S. Similarly, the U.S. went into Iraq and disbanded all of its existing government infrastructure, even scattering its army to the winds to join on with various militias. Mistake? I don't think so. I think it had its desired intent: justifying our presence in the country by pointing both to its lack of an organized army and to the threat posed by the roving militias. And, of course, neither Iraq nor Guam have a reliable power grid.

Part of self-government depends not only on having people with the management skills necessary to run the government, but also the technical skills to maintain infrastructure. Indeed, it's a truism of any institution that the wrench-turners are and always will be more important than the bean-counters. While Guam does have a number of good technicians (the military bases couldn't run without them), there aren't nearly enough for the island to effectively run as a sovereign nation, or even as a state. Most of the employment opportunity on the island is either on the military bases or in various shops and bars around the island (such as the one I'm typing this blog from now). Just from looking around, there's a lot of wasted potential here, and it's clear to me that the U.S. has intentionally created a cycle of dependency here by never fully enabling the people to take care of themselves.

You want to put Guam on the path to self-government (we know the U.S. government doesn't, but let's just say for the sake of argument)? The first step is a major push to provide children with quality schools. The schools I've seen on island are a disgrace, and that's largely because they're managed by the money pit known as GovGuam. The Department of Education needs to step in and say, "Okay, this is how you run a school district. This is how you maintain a school." Build schools which are conducive to a quality education. Southern High School has been without full air conditioning for 480 days (yes, you read that correctly; nearly a year and four months). Can you imagine trying to pay attention in class in a tropical environment without A/C? It would be unthinkable back home, but it's come to be accepted as the status quo for GovGuam. But this is how the U.S. government wants it. They've even come to building schools on the bases rather than sending the children of military personnel to the local schools.

The next step is a major push for technical education not only in high school, but at the post-secondary level. Two years vocational programs should be offered free of charge to all high school graduates, and they should offer the type of training that would be offered at a technical college in the mainland U.S. I can't speak to the quality of the vocational training at Guam Community College, but based on the major infrastructure problems I see on the island, it's clear to me that GCC isn't adequate to the island's needs.

Meanwhile, individuals looking for a quality liberal arts education should not have to leave the island to find it. The University of Guam nearly lost its accreditation in 2002, and while it's made strides since then, more work will continue to be needed.

Of course, this is all common sense, and nobody needs me to point all of this out. I'm certainly no expert on Guam, having lived here less than two years. But my point is that these problems, and their solutions, are apparent even to somebody like me, who's been here all of 22 months (minus four spent in Iraq). There can only be one conclusion: the powers that be don't want Guam to stand on its own two feet -- neither the federal government, nor the local power brokers who have a vested interest in facing no meaningful challenge.

Far from being a well cared-for territory, what I see around me is poverty reminiscent of East St. Louis with all of the prime real estate being gobbled up either by the military or outside investors. Tumon Bay is hardly visible for all of the hotels which have lined up along side it. Simply put, the island does not belong to the islanders in any meaningful sense, and the only reason I can think of that there isn't more organized resistance to this state of affairs is the amount of crystal meth floating around. (I'm amazed there hasn't been more of a push to drug the population of Iraq; this would be the quickest way to shut down the insurgency. Or are they? See, and I thought it was just the troops we were drugging.)

Of course, the U.S. is a much-more entrenched power on Guam than it is in Iraq. The island is much more accustomed to colonial rule than Iraq, having been a Spanish colony for hundreds of years before the U.S. took over, whereas Iraq had been a sovereign (if emasculated following the Gulf War) nation for a while after shaking off British colonial rule. And, of course, Guam does not possess the means to stage a military resistance against the U.S., but they some are attempting to stage a civil resistance to their subordinate role through the United Nations, although it is doubtful that anything meaningful will come of that.

Rather, I would implore local activists to take advantage of the upcoming Guam caucuses to highlight their dubious political status to the rest of the nation, and to the two Democratic candidates vying for Guam's four pledged delegates. With the amount of press attention on every contest, Guam has a unique opportunity to grab some national press attention. Most Americans do not even know that Guam is part of the country, and I think a lot of people would be stricken by the inherent lack of fairness in this group of U.S. citizens not even having a vote in Congress or a say in selecting our President, despite the fact that many have fought in this President's war in Iraq.

I'll close by apologizing for the many digressions in this particular blog, but there were a number of issues I wished to highlight beyond similarities between Guam and Iraq. That particular topic is fairly self-explanatory, and I think it's clear that if you examine those similarities, you'll also start to see them popping up in other U.S. foreign endeavors: create a facade of democracy without helping the local government become self-sufficient and use that lack of self-sufficiency as an excuse to remain in place. In truth, the governments of Guam and Iraq will never become truly self-sufficient until Uncle Sam either helps toward that end or at least gets out of the way.

Change of direction on The Command Post.

2008-04-25T18:47:00.002+10:00

Rather than focusing on national issues, the emphasis will be on local issues. Now for me, "local" is relative. For me, "local" could be any number of places I've spent a significant amount of time. Green Bay, where I grew up, or Guam, where I now live, but also St. Louis and South Dakota, where I've spent two and three years respectively, and also, on occasion, Iraq, since my life is now inescapably intertwined with that country.

Here's a taste of something Michael Lujan Bevacqua posted; much more at the link:

In 2005 and 2006, we appeared before the UN Special Political and Decolonization Committee, alerting the UN organ of these two frightening facts: 1) it was recently discovered that the U.S. Department of Interior purposefully killed a presidential directive handed down in 1975, which ordered that Guam be given a commonwealth status no less favorable than the one the U.S. was negotiating with the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands at that time; and 2) a campaign of the Guam Chamber of Commerce (primarily consisting of U.S. Statesiders) to privatize every one of Guam's public resources (the island's only water provider, only power provider, only local telephone provider, public schools, and its only port, on an island that imports 85-90% of its food and where private monopolies of public goods would truly make us captive to the forces of the market) is undermining our ancient indigenous civilization with violent speed. Eating us whole.

Not much has changed since we last were here in New York. Our power provider has been privatized, our telecommunications sold. Our only water provider and one port are under relentless attack. The meager, questionable victories we have had to stay this mass privatization are only the result of indigenous Chamoru grassroots activists who, on their own—with no financial, institutional, or strategic support—holding both their hands up, holding the line as best they can. At great personal cost.

Your Excellencies: Know this—the indigenous Chamoru people of Guam are neither informed nor unified around this military buildup despite dominant media representations. For all intents and purposes, there is no free press in Guam. Local media only makes noise of the re-occupation, not sense of it. The Pacific Daily News—the American subsidiary newspaper that dominates the discourse—has cut off the oxygen supply to indigenous resistance movement. Rather than debating this buildup's enormous sociopolitical, environmental and cultural consequences, it has framed the conversation around how best to ask the U.S. (politely) for de facto consideration of our concerns. Without appearing un-American.

We are not Americans. We are Chamorus. We are heirs to a matrilineal, indigenous civilization born two thousand years before Jesus. And we are being disappeared. Off your radar.

For the last three years, we have appeared before the UN Special Political and Decolonization Committee, alerting the UN organ of a campaign of the Guam Chamber of Commerce (primarily consisting of U.S. Statesiders) to privatize every one of Guam's public resources (our island's only water provider, only power provider, only local telephone provider, public schools, and its only port, on an island that imports 85-90% of its food and where private monopolies of public goods would truly make us captive to the forces of the market). This is undermining our ancient indigenous civilization with violent speed. Eating us whole.

Not much has changed since we last were here in New York. Our power provider has been privatized, our telecommunications sold. Our only water provider and one port are under relentless attack. The very small victories we have had to stop this mass privatization are only the result of indigenous Chamoru grassroots activists, fighting at great personal cost.

All this, and only two years until the end of the Second International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism. And no midterm review by the Special Committee on Decolonization. No designation of any expert to track Guam’s progress, or lack thereof, toward progressing off the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories. Not one UN visiting mission to Guam.

Going on vacation....

2008-04-20T16:27:00.000+10:00

I won't be posting for a while. Life's going on the front burner. That is all.

Primary battle wearing on you? It's wearing on me. A solution, if I may.

2008-03-31T17:44:00.002+10:00

Senator Clinton, Senator Obama:

Stop it. Just... stop it. Right now. This is getting you no where.

Senator Clinton, your kitchen sink strategy has your approval rating at Bush-like numbers.

Senator Obama, attacking Senator Clinton betrays your earlier words about a different kind of politics.

Enough already. Distinctions have been drawn. There's nothing left to talk about, except...

Oh yeah. Senator McCain. Remember him? The presumptive Republican nominee? The one who's going to be the next President of the United States if you keep it up?

Senator Clinton, you said you're going to take your campaign all the way to the convention. Well, that's fine. Really.

Senator Obama, you have the lead in pledged delegates, popular vote, and number of states won. Well, goody on you. That does you absolutely nothing if you lose in November.

Let's talk about a radical concept which would benefit both candidates in the long term: stop campaigning against each other. To the extent which you even mention each other at all on the campaign trail, make it positive. Focus your attention on Senator McCain. Let the primaries play out as they will. Introduce yourselves to constituents in the remaining primary states and talk about what you'll do as President and how you're a better choice than Senator McCain.

Super delegates? Jockey for them all you wish. Just keep it on the down low. Don't attack super delegates who endorse your primary opponent. Congratulate your opponent and move on. There are more important things to talk about.

Keep your surrogates on a leash. No talk of Rev. Wright or Ms. Ferraro. Keep it classy. Pledge to support your opponent no matter who ends up with the nomination. Encourage your supporters to do the same. We should be together, not fighting.

What does this benefit you? Well, Senator McCain will have to fight a two-front war until the Democratic National Convention while you two will be campaigning both for yourselves and for each other. Let's even agree in advance that one of you will be the nominee and the other will return to the Senate. No joint ticket; leave that final element of surprise -- the running mate -- until the convention. Honestly, do either of you want to be reduced to that status? You have more power in the Senate -- period.

How about it? Can I get a witness?

The Great McCain vs McCain Debates

2008-03-25T00:07:00.004+10:00

The DNC has come up with a great idea!
...
DNC Announces New Round of Debates as Senator McCain Squares Off Against Senator McCain

WASHINGTON, March 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --
The Democratic National Committee announced today that Senator John McCain will appear in a series of debates to be broadcast on http://www.mccaindebates.com. The one candidate in this debate who could beat John McCain, is John McCain himself. As the two McCains square off, the American people will have the opportunity to hear the old McCain and the new McCain for themselves. McCain the Maverick, the come-from-behind phenom whose Straight Talk Express sped into New Hampshire eight years ago and knocked Establishment Candidate George W. Bush off his feet, has agreed to debate 2008 Republican Nominee McCain, the third Bush termer and pandering politician who will say or do anything to win and has no qualms selling out his principles to score some votes.

The McCain vs. McCain debates will be held over the coming weeks, with the first debate to be held today on Iraq. Fresh from a trip to Iraq and the Middle East in which McCain sought to burnish his foreign policy
credentials, the first spirited exchange is not to be missed as questions about the threat of Saddam Hussein, the ease of success in Iraq, true feelings about Don Rumsfeld and the strategy on the ground are posed. The additional debates will focus on other issues in this campaign. Additional details regarding specifics for the coming debates will be announced at a later time.
...

Check it out....

Update: ALL THREE Presidential candidates' passport files were breached.

2008-03-22T10:03:00.004+10:00

This is bigger than I thought: Now, McCain's and Clinton's files were breached, as well:

March 21 (Bloomberg) -- Confidential passport files of all three presidential candidates were improperly breached by State Department employees, a department spokesman said.

The private data of Democratic Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Republican Senator John McCain were accessed in separate incidents, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said today.

``We're going to do a full investigation,'' McCormack said. ``We take very seriously the trust that is put in us'' to safeguard personal data, he said.

State Department officials are visiting the Capitol Hill offices of all three senators today in Washington to explain the incidents. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke by phone with Obama and Clinton to apologize and she plans to call McCain today, McCormack said.

As I said in my last post, this story is still developing. We'll see how it plays out.

McCormack cited an incident last summer when a trainee had unauthorized access to Hillary Clinton's passport file. It was part of a training seminar in which people usually ``are encouraged to enter a family member's name,'' McCormack said today in Washington. The individual was ``immediately admonished,'' he said.

The State Department also detected earlier this year that one of the people who accessed Obama's file also accessed McCain's, McCormack said. That individual was disciplined.

The State Department's inquiry began yesterday after a reporter inquired about the breach of Obama's records. After senior management researched the incidents surrounding Obama, they decided to check whether Clinton's and McCain's records also were breached. This morning, it became clear that they had, McCormack said.

They explain the circumstances behind Clinton's breach, but not behind any of the others.

On edit: I've decided it's too early to point fingers just yet. There are a few coincidences which seem to point to Clinton, but nothing anywhere near definitive, or even circumstantial. Sometimes I have to check myself to make sure I don't let my biases distort my view. This story is still developing, so I'll stick to the facts from here on out. My apologies for jumping the gun.

Obama's passport file breached

2008-03-21T18:58:00.002+10:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7308098.stm

The US Department of State has fired two contractors and disciplined a third for accessing the passport file of presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
A spokesman for the department, Sean McCormack, said the cases were probably the result of "imprudent curiosity".
But he said it was not clear what the employees may have seen or what they were looking for.
A spokesman for Mr Obama suggested that the government could be using private information for "political purposes".
The BBC's North America editor, Justin Webb, says it is an extraordinary lapse in security which allowed temporary state department employees access to personal information on a man who is guarded by the secret service day and night .

Extraordinary indeed. Consider the timeline of the breaches:

8 January: New Hampshire primaries
9 January: First breach of Obama's records

19 February: Wisconsin primary and Hawai'i caucus (last day of Obama's February streak)
21 February: Second breach of Obama's records

12 March: Clinton campaign sends attack memo with the following text to reporters: "As voters evaluate you as a potential Commander-in-Chief, do you think it's legitimate for people to be concerned that you have traveled to only one NATO country, on a brief stopover trip in 2005, and have never traveled to Latin America?"
14 March: Jeremiah Wright's sermons capture nation's attention... and third breach of Obama's records.

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.

Consider further:

After the news broke Thursday that two employees of the State Department had been fired and a third disciplined for accessing passport records of Sen. Barack Obama, MSNBC noted a Clinton connection to the story. The network reported that Maura Harty, the State Department official in charge of the Bureau Of Consular Affairs during the first two breaches of Obama's passport, had served as an ambassador under Bill Clinton.

And further....

"That is one of the things we are obviously investigating," said Patrick F. Kennedy, head of bureau of consular affairs. "I have no reason to believe they did, but I am certainly not going to be dismissive of what is a serious and valid question. On the basis of fast work this afternoon [I don't believe they did]."

Patrick F. Kennedy? That's Patrick F. Kennedy, Assistant Secretary of State for the Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001. Also Chief of Staff for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

This story is still developing. There might yet be a revelation that doesn't point right at the Clinton campaign. Watergate, anybody?

Just listen.

2008-03-20T19:32:00.002+10:00

If you have any questions on why I support Obama, this speech should answer them. Right here he says the things that people have been saying for a long time, but never to each other.

This man will be our next President.

Solution to Florida and Michigan

2008-03-18T11:17:00.001+10:00

Barack Obama can bring an end to the impasse with Florida and Michigan with a simple compromise measure: seat Florida and Michigan's delegates as is under one condition: all of Michigan's "Uncommitted" delegates become pledged to him. Given that Sen. Clinton was the only major candidate on the ballot, it only strikes me as fair that the people who showed up to vote against her have their votes count, as well. Seems simple and fair enough, except for one problem for Sen. Clinton: seating Michigan and Florida "as is" only nets her a 44 delegate gain, which chops Obama's pledged delegate lead from 169 to 125. She would need to carry Pennsylvania with 95% of the vote to overcome that lead (there aren't enough delegates in Pennsylvania for her to overcome his present pledged delegate lead), or else carry every remaining state (including Pennsylvania and all the way up to Puerto Rico) with an at least 64% of the vote. That's with Florida and Michigan added to the tally. Without them? She has to win every remaining state with at least 69%. In other words, Florida and Michigan don't aid her cause as much as she'd like us to believe, unless she insists on some "winner take all" standard for those states which hasn't been applied to any other state and she's not in a position to demand. Absent that, adding Florida and Michigan moves her chances from just this side of impossible to... just this side of impossible.

Obama should agree to seat Michigan and Florida (with the one caveat I specified above regarding uncommitted delegates), then he should show this math to the press and call on Sen. Clinton to bow out gracefully. If she won't, then the remaining superdelegates need to put this one to rest. It's all over but the crying, but if I know Sen. Clinton, there's still a lot of that to be had.

Music break

2008-03-17T20:59:00.002+10:00

My friend Katie Scovell has some new music up on her page. Click on the link and choose "Ode a Mon Frere". It's MySpace music, so I can't post it directly, sorry:

http://www.myspace.com/ktscovell