Category: The World

Yes, it turns out that most Americans believe that the Bush Administration ought to get a warrant before snooping, even if they are terrorists. For the terminally curious, here’s how they got the numbers.

There are still a lot of people trying to spin this big mess, and here’s some debunking of the spin. The bottom line is this: if they are really bad guys, get a warrant! That’s what FISA is for! If they are not bad guys, get lost! As for the argument that we can’t prove they are bad guys, only linked to bad guys, I invite you to read Molly Ivins’s piece, “Six Degrees of Osama bin Laden”.

Go ahead, think about it, play the game. I bet you’re closer to terrorists than you think.

Whose phones have they tapped, anyway?

In closing, DeLay bows to pressure from his own party to leave position of leadership, Cheney’s health continues to be in question, and Hurricane Season 2005 is finally over.

I Guess We Can’t Call Them “Air Marshals” Anymore

Today it was announced that Air Marshals will also be patrolling — both uniformed and undercover — on busses, trains, and ferries. Here’s a great excerpt: “Rather, the TSA is trying to expand the role of air marshals, who have been eager to conduct surveillance activities beyond the aircraft, and tighten security at public transit stations over the holiday.”

So how about that. We now have a Secret Transit Police. How long until one of them shoots some mentally ill homeless person? And what interesting class warfare implications this has. After all, rich people don’t ride the bus.

Is this about insuring the safety of public transit riders? Then why not put uniformed beat cops on busses? Or is this about — in their own words — “surveillance activities” against American citizens as they go about their business?

Remember when John Bolton was nominated as Ambassador to the UN, and his critics brought out video of his saying stuff like “[T]here is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that’s the United States, when it suits our interest, and when we can get others to go along”?

Today, 150 members of the international community decided they were going to have formal talks about mandatory greenhouse gas reduction, and they decided they would do it without the United States. To put this in perspective, that’s more countries than will be at next week’s World Trade Organization meeting.

So much for how the United States can make the international community go along with whatever we want.

American officials have been trying hard to make the Kyoto Accords go away, and it isn’t happening. They threatened to pick up their toys and go home if Clinton was allowed to speak yesterday (he did, they didn’t). Nevertheless, it is becoming more clear that the weather is becoming more dangerous around the world. Just about the only scientists who think Global Warming is bunk seem to work for big polluters. Even though our government is not on board, a growing number of large businesses and cities are in, and doing what they can to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution.

Unless you really expect the end of the world to be sometime before next summer, the time to act is now. Quick reminder: everyone who has predicted the end of the world has so far been wrong.

Today, the Department of Justice finally charged Jose Padilla with an actual crime. Granted, he is not charged with anything the government had previously said he did or was planning. These charges have nothing to do with dirty bombs and gas fittings in apartment buildings. Let me make one thing perfectly clear about this. If you think that Mr. Padilla is a bad, bad, no-good evil man, this is a good thing, because the evidence will show that and not only will he be convicted and put in prison for the rest of his life, but the doubters will be silenced. On the other hand, if you think that these charges are over-rated if not outright absurd, this is a good thing because the evidence or lack thereof will result in his acquittal and release, to say nothing of shutting up the folks who think that the government wouldn’t possibly hold a man for 3 years without charges unless he was truly evil.

Any way you slice it, this is long overdue.

Let me make a few predictions about the trial. First, the Attorney General’s office will fight like crazy to keep this all behind closed doors on the grounds of national security. His attorneys — whom he will hopefully be allowed to see regularly now — will argue that any sensitive information he could possibly have is 3 years stale, and besides that pesky Sixth Amendment says he has a right to a jury trial. No matter who wins that particular battle of motions, I seriously doubt there will be cameras involved in the courtroom. In fact, there may be gag orders and all kinds of things pending the final outcome. What evidence is released to the public will be convoluted.

If he does get a jury trial, the exact charges notwithstanding, you can bet that nobody on that jury will be a scientist or have any involvement whatsoever with property management.

There is a possibility that this is nothing more than a delaying tactic. You may recall that the Supreme Court has been asked to consider whether the government should either charge him or release him. This move means the Supremes most likely won’t hear the case at all. Oh, and the trial isn’t expected to begin until next September. That’s almost a year from now, and that assumes that all the legal maneuvering beforehand goes smoothly. His trial might not begin before the 2006 elections.

Remember, if the government can hold a man for 3 years on nothing more than “trust us, he is a very bad man,” they can hold you or me or a member of your family on that same basis. The framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights knew this; let us never forget it.

Underneath the roar of “Scooter” Libby’s legal problems, Judge Alito’s unpopularity, several pockets of civil unrest, details of “a bad spy novel” turning out to be true, and the great bird flu panic, there is a quiet crisis bubbling throughout America.

It would be real easy to lose track of illegal immigration as a problem in this country. And no wonder: our policies are convoluted and downright contradictory.

Job growth is anemic, but employers claim they need low-cost H1-B and undocumented workers. GOP lawmakers in one state want to crack down on illegals while GOP voters in another state want to help illegals become citizens. We want a guest worker program and yet we want a fence across the Mexican border. We have The Secretary of Homeland Security saying we will get rid of every illegal while the courts point out this little thing called “due process” And finally, certain GOP lawmakers say that just because somebody was born here doesn’t mean they should be a citizen. Now, be careful with this one. They say it’s because they don’t want pregnant illegals deliberately giving birth here, but it sets a very dangerous precedent: the idea that citizenship can be taken away from Americans born in this country.

Of course, the vast majority of illegal immigrants are here because — however bad things may be here — it’s better than where they came from. This of course brings us to the fact that if we want to tackle illegal immigration, we have to work on improving conditions beyond our borders.

Employers tell us they need these undocumented workers. They tell us they can’t find Americans who are willing to work in terrible conditions for minimum wage or less. Imagine that! They tell us that — oh the horrors — prices might go up if they had to hire Americans to do the work. It makes me wonder what other laws they just can’t be bothered to follow.

I’m going to say this again, because apparently there are people who haven’t figured it out: we don’t know who illegal immigrants are. They might be just another person trying to escape crushing poverty or even persecution in their homeland. However, they might also be Bad Guys: smugglers, drug dealers, slavers, hit-men, and yes, terrorists. If illegal immigrants can get jobs in this country cleaning our buildings, processing our food, and sometimes even getting security clearances to work in sensitive places like military bases, then so can terrorists.

Illegal immigration is bad for American workers, bad for governmental budgets, bad for security. It’s even bad for immigrants, who often have little or no legal recourse should Bad Things happen.

In closing, a must-read article from Bruce Schneier on how the State Department wants to make Americans less safe overseas, Wal-Mart discovers the hard way what statisticians have known for years, poor people — their potential employee pool — are generally sicker than middle class people, Get Rid Of Your Junk! and even the Vatican thinks people should listen to science over “fundamentalism” so what’s Kansas’s problem?

Another grim milestone has been reached. Over 2000 American soldiers have died in Iraq — 2001 at this time. You can learn more about these brave men and women of the American armed forces at CNN’s alphabetical listing, or the Washington Post’s list by date. You can see the places and dates they died mapped out or you can see their hometowns mapped out.

This figure does not include Iraqis. The death toll among Iraqis is even worse, most of them innocent civilians.

If you wanted to have just one second of silence for each of the fallen American soldiers, it would take you 66 minutes and 20 seconds. That’s longer than an episode of your choice of evening TV drama, about as long as any 3 half hour shows without commercials. You could perform John Cage’s 4″ 33″ over seven times. If you prefer more traditional music — say, with notes — you could listen to almost any recording of Anton Dvorak’s New World Symphony and probably have time left over for his Academic Festival Overture.

No surprise, support for the war is waning despite commentators who call the death toll historically low (and then going on to point out that nobody knows exactly how many amputees there are) and military officials who call the figure an “artificial mark on the wall” only discussed by “individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives.”

Specific agenda? Ulterior motive? My only “agenda” is that we remember these people were human beings.

So, the New York Police Department is trying to figure out if any of the people who were allegedly involved in a plot to do Bad Things in the subway system are actually in the United States at all.

Shouldn’t that have been something the FBI and/or DHS did last week before publishing the alert? Seriously, why has this been left to the local cops, and why wait until now?

I hadn’t planned on posting today, let alone posting on Hurricane relief issues, but I have some Must Read Links

I have seen some reports over the last few days that were first dismissed as anecdotal that Katrina Evacuees are being held in remote locations, surrounded by “security.” This security will not allow them to leave, nor will they allow outsiders in. A caller to the Ed Schultz Show told a similar story about his attempts to get assistance to people in camps located in several locations, including Arizona and Texas. He was turned away, not even allowed to say hello to the evacuees behind barbed wire.

But this is the one thing you must read and tell people about today: American citizens are being held in remote camps, unable to contact the outside world, unable to get their lives together. And she has pictures. We have transcended anecdote and are in the world of eyewitness account. Are they being held against their will? Who can say, since they have no contact with the outside world. They aren’t allowed to go to church; they aren’t even allowed to have a preacher visit them. They aren’t even allowed to have a bowl of cereal. There is every indication that they will be held incommunicado for at least 5 months, unable to get new jobs, unable to pay the bills, unable to process insurance claims, unable to declare bankruptcy before the new rules take effect, unable to get their kids into school, unable to so much as have a cold glass of milk. Some of these people have relatives who would like to take them home. Remember, as Howard Dean said just the other day, “They are not refugees. They are Americans.”

People want to help the evacuees displaced by Hurricane Katrina, but they are not being permitted to do so. Why? These pictures are of course sanitized for your protection, but even the media-safe pictures make it clear that they are in the middle of nowhere. There are no jobs, apartments, schools, cell phone towers, internet connections for miles around. It’s a great place to seek inner peace, but a lousy place to start rebuilding a shattered life.

At least there are potential employers near the Astrodome.

Escape is possible from the Astrodome.

Maybe you’ve seen it on a bumper sticker. Maybe you learned it in Driver’s Ed. “Move to the Right for Sirens and Light” means that when you see an emergency vehicle such as a police car, fire truck, or ambulance with the lights and sirens going, you pull to the side of the road and wait for it to pass. The idea is simple: get out of the way of the people trying to save lives.

I was reminded of this simple rule this morning. Two kids were hit by a car while waiting for the bus, although I didn’t know it until later; all I knew is there were two school busses and lots of emergency equipment on the main road and I was going the other way. More emergency equipment was converging on the scene, so I ended up pulling over a bunch of times. One fellow got impatient and passed me as I followed the law. I can only hope that his karma catches up with him and he reaps what he sows.

What is so hard about get out of the way of people trying to save lives?

They even seem to be having a problem with this very basic concept in New Orleans.

The authorities are too busy preventing photojournalists from showing us what is really going on. Specifically, they don’t want us seeing pictures of the dead. Forgive me for saying that horse has left the barn. Why don’t they want us to see the pictures? Are they afraid to put a human image on this tragedy?

A thousand firefighers showed up. Are they putting out the fires we keep hearing about? Are they triaging the thousands of people who need medical assistance? Are they helping the search and rescue efforts? No, they are passing out fliers.

Medical aid is similarly messed up. Doctors can’t get to people who need them. Doctors who responded to a request for volunteers were met with a web form and and assurance that they might be called in 5-7 days. Pardon me for pointing out that people will die before then.

FEMA is specifically telling first responders not to show up. They have been slow to accept assistance from the business community and even slow to accept assistance from other government agencies. They haven’t even bothered to reply to certain offers of assistance from foreign nations. They responded late despite the fact that a state of emergency was declared even before the storm hit, and have “Turned Away Aid, Rescue Crews, Cut Emergency Communication Lines.”

They are even reprimanding Navy pilots who, having completed their primary mission, stopped to save lives. Foolishly, they thought that was their overriding mission.

The Mayor of New Orleans says there may be 10,000 dead in his city — and remember, that’s just one city in a 3 state area that has been devastated. A mortuary director has been quoted as expecting 40,000 bodies. Since FEMA is actively impeding emergency workers and keeping them from saving lives, expect this number to be conservative.

Move to the Right for Sirens and Light. Get out of the way of people who are trying to save lives.

If this is anything like the way we are handling things in Iraq, no wonder there is an insurgency. “They hate us for our freedoms” indeed.

But why is this being handled so badly? Is it just sheer incompetence? Evacuees are being spread across the country, where they will tell their new neighbors everything that happened. Furthermore, the blame game is already on in Washington. So, political gain is not the goal. Are we looking for an excuse to keep interest rates low? After all this is going to have a negative effect on the economy. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 400,000 jobs were lost. Of course the Administration will use this as an excuse when the official job creation numbers come out. You can count on me to call foul if they claim job creation in positive numbers.

Assuming that there is some plan at work, as opposed to mere stupidity, the only logical reason I can think of is that this is a preface to a huge land grab. Evacuees will be forced to sell or allow foreclosure on any land they have in New Orleans, and inasmuch as there is nothing left habitable on it, many of them will be glad to accept pennies on the dollar. The land will be redeveloped in a manner that is wildly profitable, and you can bet the levees will be fortified. Of course this doesn’t leave any room for the evacuees to return, now does it?

I would like to close with a few happy tidbits for you, so here’s Traditional Crafts of Japan, How to make authentic Sourdough bread, Online textbooks, and “What do those characters on the sign at the Chinese Restaurant mean?”

Needless to say, New Orleans is a disaster area, and our hearts go out to the people who are still trapped there. If you have the means, donate directly to the Red Cross. Do not mess around with FEMA or Fly-By-Nite Disaster Charity Fund; this is too important. By now I think everyone is aware that there are two primary disasters. No, not “hurricane” and “flood.” Rather, there was a natural disaster and a manmade disaster.

A really big hurricane hitting New Orleans was long considered one of the top most likely disasters that FEMA would have to face. This should — in theory — mean that plans should exist for getting people out and getting aid in. You wouldn’t know it to look at the news. In fact, it almost looks like the Administration did everything in it’s power to make the expected disaster even bigger. In sharp contrast to President Bush’s insistence that nobody could have seen it coming, it is clear that lots of people within the Government knew this was likely and the Administration did worse than nothing about it. The amount of money Bremmer “lost” in Iraq could have paid to prevent this a hundred times over.

Let me say that again: the amount of money that our people simply can’t account for in Iraq could have paid for the levee improvements 100 times, chartered busses to get each and every one of New Orleans’s 500,000 residents out, and purchased a stockpile of bottled water for dessert. How disingenuous to say we couldn’t afford it. If the experts are correct that Katrina might mean a $100 thousand million hit to the economy, how could we afford not to do it?

How nice that Congress is willing to pony up $10.5 thousand million dollars in disaster relief. Of course, there goes the President’s insistence that the budget deficit is lower than previously expected, a trend that will continue as long as that pesky Congress doesn’t go spending money.

This brings me to the manmade disaster. Keep in mind, that like many disasters, the groundwork was laid long before a problem became apparent. In this case, the disaster begins within days of Bush becoming President, when he appointed a FEMA head with no disaster management experience. This was followed by budget cuts, downgrading FEMA from a cabinet level position to a part of Homeland Security, changing FEMA’s focus to terrorism response, and who knows what else.

No, seriously, I wonder what other surprises the Administration has done to us while we’ve been concentrating on big things like civil liberties, vote counting, terrorism, Social Security, and the like. What other looming disasters haven’t we noticed?

Now, to give you an idea of how badly this has been managed, this is Friday. The storm was Monday. Just now, as I have been writing, a military supply convoy has arrived. The Mayor of New Orleans has been understandably upset by the slow and inadequate response. The President himself has said “The results are unacceptable.” Well, Mr. President, who is to blame for that?

Part of the current problem is that many of the National Guardsmen who signed up to protect their state are currently in Iraq. In a strange bit of irony, some of them were scheduled to come home in the next few weeks, but nothing is being done to expedite the matter. Instead, Guardsmen from other regions are being called in to help. And although they gladly will, the fact is that a whole lot of first responders who could have been there in a matter of hours are instead overseas.

But do you know what really steams me? In another Let Them Eat Cake moment, the director of FEMA blames the people trapped in New Orleans for not leaving before the storm, and adds that “Things are going relatively well.” I am flabbergasted! Does he honestly think the people in hospitals could have evacuated? Does he have the faintest clue that anybody who could get out has? The entire point of having the Superdome as an emergency shelter is that there are vast swaths of the population that couldn’t go: no money, no transportation, no place to go. The poverty rate is higher in Louisiana than the national average, and as I pointed out earlier in the week, the national average is one in eight people. There are at least 75,000 refugees, or 15% of the population of the city.

Fifteen percent of the population of a major American city have been left to die. He calls that “going relatively well.”

The one take-away lesson from this disaster is that we cannot count on the Federal Government in time of crisis. This being the case, I urge you to join me today in a campaign of preparedness. Write your state, county, and city officials, urging them to review their disaster plans, and modify them to reflect the fact that FEMA is ineffectual. Ask that they seriously examine plans for evacuation, shelters, stockpiles, and rebuilding. Urge your Governor to recall National Guard troops to defend the state, the fundamental duty they signed up to do. Furthermore, persuade your Governor to make alliances with neighboring states and/or nations to provide reciprocal disaster aid. Do not forget to see to your personal preparedness with things like canned food, bottled water, flashlights, battery powered radios, and of course batteries. Plastic sheeting and duct tape are optional, but they can’t hurt and might be useful. Your state may have additional information about likely threats in your region.

In a twist reminiscent of getting news about Czechoslovakia from the Usenet during their revolution, the best way to find out what is really happening in New Orleans in a spin free manner is blogs. I recommend NOLA, run by the local newspaper, and The Interdictor, run by a fellow who is keeping internet communications going from a secure location somewhere in a downtown high-rise.