When the Stakes are Gold

In a wonderful piece of synchronicity, the following was my mailbox today:

"In an archery contest, when the stakes are earthenware tiles a contestant shoots with skill. When the stakes are belt buckles he becomes hesitant, and if the stakes are pure gold he becomes nervous and confused. There is no difference as to his skill but, because here is something he prizes, he allows outward considerations to weigh on his mind. All those who consider external things important are stupid within."

That's from the Zen version of the Page a Day calendar. Yes, Bush didn't bother to surprise us but made a straight play to his base, thumbed his nose at mainstream America and pretty much ensured a Constitutional crisis later this year. The outward considerations weighing on Bush's mind: The loss of his base to his decision to nominate Harriett Meirs and the loss of the political center to just about every major decision he's made since 9/11. To my Democratic allies in the Senate, all I have to say is if the judge is as much of a Wingnut as he seems, filibuster. If they exercise the "nuclear option," shut down the Senate.

Indications are that Scalito is a complete wingnut, starting with the concept of women as chattel as indicated by his vote in the Pennsylvania abortion law case. He voted to uphold a law requiring women to get approval of their husbands before having an abortion. In his arguments, he noted that the lawyers opposing the law didn't give statistics about how many women this would help. In my humble opinion, one is all that should have been required. Of course, there are also cases where I'd agree with Scalito and even indications that he may not be a Christian wingnut but just a wingnut. He upheld the right of a college newspaper to make money off of beer ads, citing a first amendment justification for it. To me, the matter is clear: Beer is legal, the paper is read by those over 21; therefore, advertisements for beer in the paper have their place. But then, I'm not a judge, nor a justice of the Supreme Court.

The Wingnuts are crowing. Bush is going to be strutting and preening again, smirking and winking, secure that his Wingnut base is once again behind him. Pat Robertson is calling this a "Grand Slam." I haven't heard from Colorado's Wingnut in Chief, James Dobson, but I'm sure he's willing to put down his family paddle and jump for joy over this. As a strategic move, I'd give the Shrub the long ball but it hasn't cleared the fence. This country is moderate, something our Democratic party strategists should remember while forming their response to this. If we can get enough Moderates to start writing their Senators, we can kill this abomination without exercising the filibuster or opening ourselves to nuclear warfare. America doesn't consist of Wingnuts. Keep the pressure on the Shrub - there's enough going on to keep him steppin' and fetchin' while trying to press his Wingnut through the Senate - and even if we lose on Scalito, we could still win.

Notable on the day the Shrub nominated Scalito to the bench: Seven American soldiers died in Iraq, making October the fourth most deadly month since the war began. Last legs indeed, Mr. Cheney. Rosa Parks was honored for her stand (sit, actually) on civil rights even as a man determined to undermine those rights was nominated for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. The White House clamped the lid on talk of Libbey, Rove and the other unindicted co-conspirators in l'affaire de Valerie (I hate "Plamegate"). McClellan was called an "artful dodger" by the White House Press Corps.

Trick or treat.

To Bush: Pick Best Person for the Supreme Court

Dear President Bush;

I realize I haven't been too complementary to you in my postings in the last few weeks. In fact, I've hardly been able to bring myself to write your name, much less address you. Now, with Harry "I know her heart" Miers out of the running for Associate Justice to the Supreme Court, I'd like to encourage you to nominate the best person for the job.

I realize that it would create a battle for you at a time when it seems the windmills are closing in on all fronts. Your Right-Wingnut base would never go for the best person for the job, instead they will hold out for a justice who will abolish our civil liberties, deny us the right to privacy, fair and speedy trials and death with dignity, further the Right to Birth agenda by overturning Roe v. Wade and demand Evangelical Christianity become the law of the land. Their candidate would favor big business over individual rights, would be a Dispensationalist believing that it doesn't matter how much we foul up the Earth, the Rapture is coming as soon as we cut the last tree, would give you the right to torture or imprison as you will and would decree Pi to equal three, exactly as it states in the Bible. We'd have creationism in public schools, no need to mess around with that half-baked Intelligent Design hypothesis, public prayer would be required, and we'd have a nice little right-wing dictatorship going, the dictatorship of the majority, I believe, is how Jefferson put it.

Instead, Mr. President, I encourage you to appoint first someone of utmost intelligence. There's a reason justices tend to move to the middle in their political views: Age brings wisdom and intelligence is a prerequisite. Second, appoint someone from outside of the White House, someone you can release papers on without embarrassing yourself or implicating your aides in perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators. Someone far away from your inner circle would be the best choice. It would even avoid charges of cronyism. Finally, appoint someone from the political center, in your case, a bit right of center would be forgiveable. Gonzales comes to mind, although we do have to keep the politically-correct gender balance of the court in mind. Would it be so hard, Mr. President, to appoint someone who represents the country, not just your Right-Wingnut base?

It won't happen. It would be a fight, I know, and you're quite weakend at this point. If only those damned crises would stop coming, you could go back to smirking and spouting the same tired rhetoric guaranteed to appeal to your base. Without the crises, you could get back to leading what you oppose: Government. You could sit in blissful ignorance in a White House without a newspaper subscription, get your news from Fox and your opinions from Rove, your spiritual guidance from Pat "Sixth Commandment" Robertson and James "Abuse 'em until they capitulate" Dobson, your talking points from Rush and all would, once again, be well in the Bush White House. You could do something right, Mr. President, about the first thing since the Afghan War, and appoint someone with the best interests of the country in their mind.

I'm betting on a wingnut.

Sincerely,
A Colorado Progressive

Bush's Retrenchment

After a week of continual bad news, Bush took off to Camp David this weekend to try to save his presidency. I personally don't think he should be allowed that luxury.

I'm fully expecting the Shrub to dust off some of his standards, tax cuts for the wealthy, terrorism, privatizing social security, terrorism, 9/11, terrorism, stay the course, terrorism, restoring honor and dignity to the White House, terrorism, cutting taxes for the wealthy, terrorism, tax breaks for billionaires, terrorism, cut spending on domestic programs for the poor, terrorism, renew the Patriot Act, terrorism, veto the bill to prohibit the U. S. from torturing prisoners and detainees, terrorism, the war on terror, terrorism, terrorism and did I mention terrorism? Now he has another card to play, bird flu. After getting tough on Roche and demanding that they produce Tamiflu in the states, he can claim to have the upper hand, to be winning the war on bird flu, a disease that has yet to be transmitted from human to human. Not to worry, the Shrub will find some sound science to indicate that jawboning a Swiss pharmaceutical company to produce more of the needed stuff will somehow cause God to intelligently redesign the virus so that it prevents contraception from functioning effectively, thereby creating more little Republican babies and securing the future for Pat Robertson and James Dobson while causing little more than a sniffle in your average conservative.

Of course, the Swiss company Roche just stopped selling Tamiflu in the states because of the building hyseria here. Seems Bush's jawboning of the Swiss was about as effective as his jawboning of the Saudis.

If ever there was a good time for Democrats to act, it's now. We would have the initiative if we were to announce some part of our plan (I hope there is one) to win back the independent voter and, hopefully, the Senate next year. I fear this won't be the case. We're too fractured a party to react, to take the initiative, to present a unified front even when faced with the best opportunity to do so in at least five years. We should be howling about Scooter Libby's involvement in a deliberate cover-up, we should be marching in the streets demanding a full accounting of the lies and deceit in Plamegate and in the run-up to the Iraq war. We should be presenting part of the Democratic Contract with America, a Contract we should be committed to keep. But we aren't. We're throwing away a perfectly good opportunity to take the political initiative. By Monday, the Bushies will have talking points. Turd Blossom will have sprouted again from his cow patty and will once again be whispering into the President's earphone. We'll be fighting Social Security reform and the next Neocon Supreme Court nominee and Tax Simplification, whining about the Patriot Act and unable to admit we were wrong on Iraq, once again on the defensive, once again victims of our own timidity.

I Want To See a Perp Walk!

Thirty years of life with some real sweethearts, that's what Scooter has facing him. Thirty years of living in a world where those physically bigger than you have their way, thirty years of confinement, of living with bad food, of discomfort, of walls and gates. Doesn't sound like trivia to me, Senator Hutchinson. It sounds like some of the trumped-up charges you and your like never managed to have stick to the Clinton administration. I guess getting a blow job in the Oval Office from a woman not your wife is a much larger crime than endangering national security by lying about your knowledge of the revelation of a CIA agent (they're referred to as agents, not employees). That is commonly referred to as a cover-up, Senator Hutchinson. A cover-up implies there's something that needs covering, in this case, something a bit more important than a spooge stain on a blue dress. The amazing thing, Senator Hutchinson, is that we're hearing exactly the same lines come out of the morally superior Bush White House as we heard come from the inferior Clinton White House, the only difference here is that your party refuses to impeach a failed President who desperately needs it because he's one of your own!

By that, I don't mean a fellow Texan, Senator. Your fellow Texan Tom Delay is in a bit of a pickle due to win-at-all-cost tactics and the lack of a moral compass. Borrowing a page from the Ken Lay playbook, your Senate Majority Leader also is in a good deal of hot water over his sale of family stock just before it tanked. The cover-up trail is going to lead somewhere. Scooter Libbey didn't just lie because he felt like it. At the end of the cover-up trail there's someone to be covered. I wonder who?

For now, I'd be satisfied to see someone perp walked out of the White House. Libbey's resignation has already robbed me of that pleasure. Perhaps Rove? Maybe Cheney? You can't arrest a sitting President, so that leaves my favorite candidate for handcuffs behind the back out but hey, can't have everything. Scooter will probably get a Club Fed anyway and Bush may get the even greater punishment of three years of irrelevance, unless, that is, the Dem's can sweep the Senate next year. Can I hope? I'd still like to see the lies leading up the Iraq war adequately investigated. It would be interesting to me to see how an impeached President leaves the White House.

Anyone want to bet he takes some china?

Political Capital Spent: Harriet Miers Withdraws

When the Prevaricator in Chief won his three-point victory over one of the weakest Democratic candidates I can remember, he claimed in that no-stutter voice, the one with the arrogant tone usually accompanied by the "turtle smirk", "I've earned political capital." He has since wasted that capital. "Trust me" just didn't seem to work where Harriet Miers's nomination as Associate Justice to the U. S. Supreme Court is concerned. His base rebelled, doubtlessly disappointed that the Shrub hadn't nominated someone with an agenda of 1) Overturning Roe v. Wade, eliminating all forms of contraception and dictating that sex is only legal between a man and a woman using the missionary position and not in excess of that required to establish pregnancy, 2) manditory readings of the Ten Commandments (as appended by Pat Robertson who seems to find the sixth one a bit of an inconvenience), the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord's Prayer prior to every school day, court case, NASCAR race, high school graduation and public execution, 3) unlimited right to keep prisoners without charge forever with no access to a lawyer or the courts at the whim of the President and 4) complete abolishment of all civil rights legislation, rights to privacy, emminent domain and anything else not contained in the Christian Right (neither, nor) playbook, i. e. the Bible as amended by Pat Robertson, James Dobson and cronies, i. e. the modern Prophets.

Now I don't know if Harriet Miers is qualified for a job on the Supreme Court or not. There's no paper trail, at least none the White House is willing to release. What I do know is that the Shrub can no longer reckon that when he says jump, the radical right will ask how high. This marks the second Republican defection in a short time. Some time within the last week or so, a group of moderate Republicans in alliance with Democrats brought pressure on the Shortchanger in Chief to revoke his suspension of the Davis-Bacon Act and return fair pay to those rebuilding the Gulf Coast. If we get indictments of Rove and/or Libbey tomorrow, I'm sure there will be more defections as Republicans seek to distance themselves from the failing Administration. Perhaps that's why Miers so graciously withdrew. Had the Senate gotten their hands on the White House's sensitive documents, the link between the two potential Plamegate perpetrators (can I see a perp walk! Please!) and the upper levels of the Administration, the Shrub and the Dick, would have been exposed. Better to take the fall now than have to take the fifth later on.

For now, it would seem that Bush's political capital resembles the national budget - in deficit and sinking deeper in the hole. A caution for us progressives: Don't be too jubilant about this. The next nomination will surely represent an attempt to regain his standing with the Right Wingnuts and Christian Theocratists. We may get something worse than merely unqualified. We may get what the Radical Right wants and that will mean a fight, most likely the Constitutional showdown over filibuster of judicial nominations the group of thirteen avoided this spring. Hopefully Bush will see this as an opportunity to play to the middle of the field and appoint someone in the spirit of Sandra Day O'Connor. I fear we'll get a Janice Rogers Brown instead.

That could be worse than a completely unqualified Harriet Miers.

Under Pressure, Bush Does the Right Thing

Today, according to a Denver Post article, the Bush Administration will lift its suspension of wage protections under the Davis Bacon Act for those helping rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. I would love to be able to congratulate our administration for doing something right but only extreme pressure led the Cheapskate in Chief to lift the suspension.

"It was always intended to be temporary," the Administration cries in its own defense, unable to entertain the idea that it was wrong. Additionally, they claim they only suspended the provisions of the Act to reduce rebuilding costs.

Suspending the act reduced the prevailing wage to the point where those who would be rebuilding the Gulf Coast would be big corporations employing vast numbers of illegal alien workers. American workers and local companies would have been priced out of the market. The work would have attracted more illegals through the sieve we call the border with Mexico and, hopefully, they would remember the nice President Shrub and his Republican lackeys when their children, citizens by U. S. birth, started to vote some years from now. Now all this is a bit of a stretch but you can bet, if it occurred to me, it occurred to Rove. Social engineering at the expense of Gulf Coast workers?

In all fairness, the last paragraph was unfair. All the conspiracy theorist has to do is to pose questions, not offer answers. One thing is clear: This administration favors the wealthy - in this case, the corporations and mega-homebuilders and the McMansion owners - over the American working class - in this case, the local companies and workers trying to rebuild their own communities. They'd rather see a half-million underpaid Mexicans on the job than ten thousand well-paid Americans, particularly of the union variety. Looking at the spending cuts the Republican-controlled congress is contemplating and thinking that the Administration still wants more tax cuts favoring the wealthy - I spend the $23 per month I get from the Obfuscator in Chief's great tax relief on gasoline and home heating now - while cutting programs for the less fortunate demonstrates what the party of Lincoln has become. The word "Bought" comes to mind.

The Administration's suspension of Davis Bacon was an affront to every American worker. Democrats and a few Republicans with consciences pressured them to relent. I'm sure they would have anyway at some future point, aren't you?

Two Thousand Dead

Many of us who lean to the left will be marking this occassion. As a veteran who has seen friends and colleagues sent to their final rest to the sound of taps (in fairness, never in wartime), my heart goes out to each of those who have fallen in Iraq and to their families and loved ones.

That holds particularly today, when for the first time, a majority of Americans said we shouldn't have gone to war in Iraq. We as a nation are seeing that we went to war under false pretenses. Plamegate, the outing of a CIA agent because her husband disagreed with Administration policy, is not the result of someone who is convinced of the rightness of their position. It's the actions of someone with something to hide - you don't shoot the messenger unless you are afraid of the message. Two thousand Americans have died due in part to the prevarications and deliberate actions of those who wanted to cover up the true story behind Iraq's nuclear weapons program - there wasn't one. We are due our outrage. We are due our anger. We are due our disgust with the administration, its lies and its abuses of power.

The men and women who fight in Iraq are due our respect. Those who have fallen, their families and loved ones are due our sincere gratitude and our compassion. The fifteen thousand men and women wounded and maimed by this war deserve treatment for their wounds for the rest of their lives and they deserve the title of hero.

Those who started the war, the ones with more pressing agendas or influential fathers, the ones who never sat in a Vietnamese prison wondering whether their next breath would be their last, they deserve our revilement. The ones whose daughters and sons are too valuable to give their lives or their time to their countries, those deserve our disgust. The syncophants, the blind followers of both parties who gave a megalomaniac absolute power to fight this war deserve unemployment at our hand. The failed leaders hiding behind a wall of cocksureness and secrecy deserve their place in history as architects of one of the United States's darkest times. The spinners and the deceivers who, without adequate explanation other than I said so, should be the ones far away from home fearing for their lives.

Men and women of the U. S. Armed Forces, I salute you and I support you the best way I know how: By writing to get you home as soon as possible and to hold the bastards who put you in harm's way for no good reason accountable. Far more than any yellow ribbon accompanying a Bush for President sticker on the back of an SUV, my position is one of direct support for you, not the flawed decisions and decision makers that put you in harm's way. Brothers in arms, I want you home. More suppport than that I can't give.

So Now It's Serious

Last Thursday, Lawman in Chief George W. Bush called the current events in Washington "Distractions", "Chatter" and "Background noise." At some point over the weekend someone must have told him that securities fraud, perjury, obstruction of justice, money laundering and revealing CIA agents' identities are felonies and that he, as Lawman in Chief, is obligated to prosecute these via the office of Attorney General. Bill Frist is under suspicion for securities fraud and insider trading. With the Senate Majority Leader playing on the same field, no wonder we can't get meaningful legislation on white collar crime. Tom Delay is under investigation for money laundering. Given that tactic, I suppose campaign finance legislation is dead in the House. Scooter Libby and Karl Rove will most likely face at least perjury charges. Bodes ill for honesty in government, doesn't it.

To the Prevaricator in Chief, this counts as chatter. Background noise. A distraction. Of course, he once said anyone involved in the Plame affair would be out of his administration. Once he realized that someone very close to him in the administration was involved, it became if anyone is convicted in the affair, they would no longer be a part of his administration. I can see what happens if Rove is indicted. Anyone taking bets on the next quote being "Anyone convicted of outing a CIA agent will not have a place in my administration"? Notice perjury, the crime Clinton was impeached over, is not mentioned in the quote I predict? It's referred to as shifting or managing expectations, one of the primary tactics of our current government.

Over the weekend, it became serious to Bush. To Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas, perjury, the crime Clinton was impeached over and for which she twice voted for impeachment, is a technicality. Thanks to Chris Paulitz for telling us what the senator meant once she found out that the balloon didn't fly: Someone who lies to a Grand Jury should be prosecuted but they're concerned that the perjury charge has become something to be used when there's not enough evidence to convict of an underlying crime.

Anyone remember what Al Capone was finally convicted of? Tax evasion. No one could find enough evidence to convict him of the underlying crimes so finally Elliot Ness had to convict him on the lesser charge. Mr. Fitzgerald has been compared to Elliot Ness. Should he indict on the lesser charges of perjury, the comparison only becomes more valid.

Tax "Simplification" According to Bush

Read anything about the proposals for tax simplification? You probably should. If you're a homeowner, pay health insurance or if you pay State and Local taxes, you stand to lose big. Of course, if you're a trust fund baby or other fat cat getting most of their income from dividends, you stand to gain. Once again our Obfuscator in Chief protects his base and his ass(ets) at the expense of the middle- and lower-class.

In return, you get a simpler tax form.

The increases are designed to offset the elimination of a true abomination, the Alternative Minimum Tax. The abominable thing about it isn't its intent, to snare those who can afford enough tax shelters to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, but its execution. There was no adjustment to the AMT for inflation; therefore, more and more middle-class taxpayers are being snared by the tax. So instead of adjusting the AMT threshold upward to go after the would-be cheats, they're throwing it out in favor of.... You got it, taxing those of us who don't make multi-thousand dollar contributions to Republican campaigns and Neocon issues.

The right to bitch carries with it the obligation to act so here are some of my ideas: Keep the State and Local exemptions to avoid double taxation, paying Federal income tax on money paid in taxes. Keep the mortgage interest and student loan deductions but phase both out as incomes pass a threshold. I don't see giving someone an exemption for interest on their $500,000 McMansion but someone paying a $200,000 mortgage probably could use the money. Likewise, health insurance premiums should be kept deductable while being phased out in favor of something more like the German health care system. Tax dividends and capital gains as ordinary income. If you're getting a significant portion of your income from either, you can probably afford it and if you really want to avoid cheating retirees, make a portion of dividends and capital gains free of tax to those over their full Social Security retirement age. To avoid the so-called "double taxation" of business, eliminate the corporate tax instead. The profits of the corporation go to the shareholder and the corporate taxes are paid by the user of the corporation's products and services. Of course, this would remove an entire parasitic class, tax accountants, from business payrolls but it should lower prices. Repeal the Bush tax cuts. All they've done is finance more McMansions, SUVs and Exurban sprawl. Finally, close up the loopholes, for example, the ones that pay people to drive gas-guzzling SUV's.

I don't believe any of us really object to paying our fair share of the tax load. What we object to is the perception that we're being unduly burdened while those with the means are being freed of tax liability. The proposals being considered simply shift more of the tax burden farther down the income ladder, unfairly taxing the middle class while benefiting the rich. I have nothing aginst the rich, I would like to be rich some day, but the rich should not get a free ride at the expense of the middle class.

Saddam and Jose: Two Criminals, Two Countries

Tomorrow the trial of Saddam Hussein begins in Baghdad. Jose Padilla sits in a brig in South Carolina with no hope of ever having a trial. The contrast is stark: Padilla is a citizen of the country that claims to be the model of democracy yet he does not get a trial because the country's leader, by edict, has declared him a non-person. This is in direct violation of the Constitution the leader is sworn to support and defend. Padilla does not have access to a lawyer, another violation of the Constitutional right to legal counsel. By edict, our President has stripped the man of his civil rights, the same man who holds people indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay without trial and who promises to veto legislation to prevent his country from torturing captives.

Padilla's alleged crime: Conspiring to construct a so-called dirty bomb.

By contrast, Saddam Hussein's trial will begin tomorrow. He is being tried in a country that, as yet, has no Constitution. He is allowed to consult with attorneys. He can confront his accusers in a court of law. He is the former dictator of the country in which he's being tried, a country with no prior tradition of democracy or fair courts.

Hussein's alleged crimes are legion, among which are dropping nerve gas on a village in his own country.

Hussein, the alleged mass murderer, gets a trial in a country that's never had a tradition of freedom while Padilla, alleged conspirator and citizen of the United States, can be held indefinitely by edict of the President. If this doesn't bother you, you probably need to reevaluate what the Constitution says and what liberty really means.

Swift Boating Ronny Earle

A bit of trivia about Ronnie Earle, the prosecutor who brought the indictment against Tom Delay: He has brought charges against fifteen political figures. How many of them have been Democrats (his own party, by the way)?

Did you answer thirteen? I got that figure from the Houston Chronicle, not exactly the most liberal of rags, days after Delay was indicted. Now, poor little Tommy, caught with his hand in the cookie jar, is responding by attempting to trash the one who caught him. Delay, long known for his ethics (investigated how many times by the House ethics committee before he tried to change the rules so he couldn't be investigated?) is claiming that it's all a political smear and using the entire affair to raise funds for his campaign.

I'm just glad the judge in the case didn't let poor little Tommy get by with a drive-by booking. I was hoping for a perp walk but I guess some things are just too much to hope for, like a winning ticket in Wednesday's Powerball drawing. "Join thousands of conservatives across the country in the fight against liberal DA Ronnie Earle," recipients of a Delay e-mail are asked, even though thirteen of his fifteen indictments against political figures have been against members of his own party. The swift boating continues: I didn't do it and even if I did, my opponent is worse.

Some have theorized that Delay is attempting to queer the pitch with his ads. By constantly appearing as the long-suffering, innocent, wronged jerrymanderer of Texas, he can influence the jury pool in his favor or at least prejudice enough thinking people that he gets a jury that can't understand the phrase white collar criminal. And trying to raise a buck in the process.

Allard the Torturer

Wayne Allard, R-Colorado, was one of nine U. S. Senators to vote against a proposal by John McCain, a fellow Republican, to outlaw the torturing of anyone by U. S. Military personnel. Apparently Senator Allard stands with the Bush adiminstration in thinking there are circumstances where torture is acceptable as long as we're doing it to "enemy combatants" (euphemism for non-person). We've already established that Constitutionally guaranteed civil rights (Habeas Corpus re Jose Padilla, the Patriot Act, etc.) are meaningless to this administration. Now, at least according to nine Senators, bamboo shoots and bare lightbulbs seem to be acceptable interrogation techniques.

All nine of the Senators voting against the bill were Republicans.

Does Intelligent Design Belong in the Classroom?

Unlike many of my bretheren on the left of the political spectrum, I have no objection to intelligent design being taught in schools, as long as it's being taught intelligently. See, intelligent design is a great opportunity for an enlightened science teacher to teach what science is all about.

Reviewing the basics of science, science is based on observation, testing and prediction. To qualify as a theory, an hypothesis must go through rigorous testing, must be measured and observed and its predictions verified. All science is based on the observable, the measureable and the predictable. Science is not the body of knowledge commonly taught in schools, it is the methodology, the way of thinking, that led to that body of knowledge.

Without a boring dissertation, evolution meets the criteria of observability, testability and prediction. It predicts change, something we've seen in the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and pesticide-resistant insects. We can't predict the how life will change from its current state - the change is random - but we can with assurance predict it will change. We can observe it even over the short time we've had antibiotics and chemical pesticides and in the fossil records over millions of years. We can see its fingerprints when comparing DNA between species: Man is ninety-six percent chimpanzee or vice-versa. The same snippets of DNA are found in the genome of man, mouse, bacteria. In an observed world, that would imply that all are related. The fossil record would demonstrate the order of appearance in the biome.

Intelligent design does not fit the criteria of a scientific theory and that is the teaching opportunity it presents. The first postulate of intelligent design disqualifies it as science: There is a Designer we can't observe. No observation, no science, it's as easy as that. Continuing, if we embrace intelligent design, there can be no change without intervention of the Creator, again disqualifying Intelligent Design as a theory because it can make no predictions. Finally, if there is a Designer, it has intentionally muddled the fossil record and genome so that we can only conclude the Designer doesn't exist, thereby perpetrating the largest hoax ever perpetrated on the scientific community. The Designer has designed the system so that it appears exactly as if there were no need for the Designer to exist. In that case, using the logic the Designer gave us, we must assume the simpler of the hypotheses, that the Designer, who we can't observe anyway, doesn't exist.

The word "evolution" is an unfortunate choice and reflects the culture at the time of Darwin. "Evolution" involves somehow an ascension, a progression from lower organisms to what in Darwin's time was considered to be the pinacle of evolution, Man. Hence the misfortune of the word: Man is a step along the evolutionary path, an accident in a random sequence of change through time that saw the ascendancy of the dinosaurs and their replacement by more adaptable, furry little creatures. Evolution itself implies purpose, a goal that species change in an effort to reach. There is no goal. We can use intelligent design to teach biological science but only if we teach it intelligently and understand what science is.

Was it Staged? Damn Right!

In the discussion over whether the conversation between ten soldiers in Iraq and President Bush was staged, there seems to be a misconception among our press. With my experience as an Air Force officer for eight years, I can say with complete assuredness it was - all events of this nature are planned, rehearsed and scripted. Whenever the commander of whatever command I was attached to came to the base to speak, all questions were vetted, all answers rehearsed, a rent-a-crowd was assembled from anyone with empty hands, the grass was mowed, the sound system checked and hair was cut. I never had the experience of a conversation with the POTUS, but had it happened, I can guarantee that there would have been a public relations officer, not just a mere major, mind you, but someone with real clout, looking at us the entire time so no one would say anything that could embarass the CINC or the command. In short, it would have been staged.

This is not to defend the Shrub or his handlers. What is amazing about the story is that the administration even bothers to deny it. The film of the time before the conversation with the Prevaricator in Chief shows a woman briefing a captain to take the mike if anyone should venture off-topic. The only way that anyone could venture off-topic is if there were a topic, i. e. talking points or even a script. There was an officer for every enlisted man in the group when the actual ratio in Iraq is probably closer to one to five. Looking at the crowd, I have the distinct impression that the soldiers came straight from the barber shop and cleaners. From my experience, I can guarantee there was a colonel hanging around somewhere to end the brilliant career of anyone who said anything to embarass the POTUS on national television. I can also guarantee these soldiers were selected for their loyalty, not their point of view on the war and its progress.

The event was staged from the outset. That isn't of itself anything unusual, all events of this nature involving the Military are. What's laughable is Mclellan trying so vigorously to deny it. To paraphrase Cheny, I think we're seeing the last throes of a dying administration.

Happy weekend!

Bush Numbers Fall and the Press Grows a Backbone

I was thrilled to read a headline today: "Bush Teleconference with Soldiers Staged." No punches pulled, no euphemisms, just the plain, bold statement that his supposed conversation with troops was a propaganda event, reminiscent of his attempt this week to earn the hearts and minds of Americans by flying two big airplanes to New Orleans to drive nails while the Energy Hog was debuting to remind the rest of us to save energy. Rove must really be distracted to allow this kind of ham-fisted politics from his frat boy boss. His boss must be dismayed. The press is no longer resorting to pretty phrases and politically correct statements about the administration antics and his poll numbers continue to fall.

I'm sure it's true that the Administration doesn't pay attention to poll numbers. If I were in the Propagandist in Chief's position, I wouldn't want to know that my last month of photo ops and carefully staged compassion had only deepened America's disgust. An NPR report mentioned the poor response to Hurricane Katrina as a catalyst of what Americans had been feeling about this admininstration for some time. I have another hypothesis: Delay is under indictment, Frist is under SEC investigation, Rove and Libby are under some rather strong suspicion, Blount is associated with Delay's campaign finance mastermind, Bush's domestic agenda is dead and the Iraq lies are in the public consciousness. People are finally becoming disgusted at Republican rule, at having less while the likes of Gates and Buffett have more. It's about time.

I just hope my party has enough courage to put forth an agenda to right the wrongs of the past five years, that its members have enough sense to keep their collective noses clean and that we have the intelligence to select better candidates than we have the last few rounds. Forty eight percent of Americans would prefer to see Democrats in power. Seven in ten would prefer different policies from the next administration. We have an opportunity here. Some direction from Democratic leadership would be nice.

With Your Background, Why Aren't You a Neocon?

An excellent question. For those of you who haven't read my profile, let me introduce myself. I'm a 47 year old white male, college educated, from the South, an ex Air Force officer and a businessman. I own a gun and know how to use it, having scored expert marksman in the military. I grew up in a fundamentalist church and was baptized. I snow ski. I was a Reagan Republican, in fact, it's his name on my commission. I'm an investor. With these factors in mind, one might think I'd be one of those who believe Bush is the second coming. Instead, I think our President needs a tin-foil hat and a good dose of some anti-schizophrenic drugs.

I lost the religion part rather early on. As I became educated and thought more about God and religion, it became apparent to me that if God were what I was taught, I probably didn't want to spend eternity with him. The Air Force indoctrination burnt away after the force reductions of 1992 - I was one of those laid off from service of my country. My German ex-wife and I decided to go back to Germany and there, I learned about socialism.

I can hear the hiss from any neocon reader at mention of the S-word. It's evil, right? Well, in some instances I'd agree with you. Germany's socialism and economy both began to feel real pain when the unions, backed by the socialistic government, forgot that their relationship with business was symbiotic. Once they learned from American unions and became obstructionist parasites, both the economy and the social system began to crumble. The things I liked about socialism was free education for any who could qualify for it, an educational system that acknowledged that not all were college material and educated those who weren't going to college appropriately and the low-cost health care for all. At some point I'll write about the German version of universal health coverage, one I was disappointed the Clintons didn't decide to model, but not now.

When I returned from Germany, I could see both the positives and the negatives of socialism and the positives were on the winning side. Not long after my return, Bush came to power. For reasons described by others elsewhere, I lost all faith in the Republican party to the point where I even went out stumping for Kerry in the last election. I didn't like Kerry from the start but to me, as to 48 percent of us, he was the lesser of the two evils.

All this has left someone who can see some of both sides of the liberal-conservative argument. I believe a vast number of Americans share liberal values but that the Democrats in leadership positions have done a poor job of communicating what our values are. Instead, they allow the right to "rebrand" us as the party of fringe groups, spinning our support of civil liberties in a perverse way. The marketing of the Right has been a long, painstaking process, one we have to understand for as Sun Zu wrote so many centuries ago, "Know your enemy and know yourself and in ten thousand battles you will always be victorious."

Another New Orleans Photo Op

Today the Energy Hog debuted as the President, the First Lady, a Boeing 747 and an oft-overlooked C-17 load of communications equipment and bullet-proof SUV's once again flew to New Orleans to be seen doing something about the situation. This time it was construction of a Habitat for Humanity home and an interview with Matt Lauer of Good Morning America. Bless you, Matt, for some rather un-photo-opish questions. I love to watch the Prevaricator in Chief squirm.

What struck me most about the visuals was the fact that the President, an all-hat no-cow rancher, obviously hadn't held a hammer in his life. My dad would have called his nail-driving skills "pecking like a chicken." If I'd been working next to him, I'd have been watching my thumbs and my eyes. Still, the President driving nails.... It's not what I'm paying him for. I'm paying him for leadership. Flying two aircraft full of trucks and entourage to New Orleans to rescue his image as a "decisive leader" while asking me to conserve energy isn't leadership. Working on a Habitat for Humanity home while suspending regulations that would have provided workers on the Gulf Coast a decent wage is the height of hypocracy. Pecking ineffectively at nails while denying credit protection to the people needing it isn't my idea of leadership by example.

This is our leader, our Commander in Chief. An overpaid construction worker who doesn't know how to use a hammer. He sure does know how to use a photo op, though.

Rita and the News Media: A Study in Uselessness

My involvement with the evacuation of Houston due to Hurricane Rita was due to my significant other. I live in Denver, she lives in Houston and to explain the distance between us is quite a long story, one I won't tell now. She began her evacuation at 3:00 p. m. on Wednesday. Forty-two hours later, we met in San Antonio. My role throughout the first night of her slow-motion slog west was to keep her awake and talking and to try to find out how she could get out of the parking lot that was the Beltway. At 5:00 a. m. on Wednesday she was stuck on the overpass connecting the Beltway with I-10, forty miles from where she'd started. She'd been on it for two hours moving inches at a time. She was listening to a local talk radio station, her windows were down with the air conditioning off to conserve gas and it was over a hundred degrees outside her car. I was monitoring every news outlet I could find, switching back and forth between the major cable news carriers and the Houston stations on the Web. All the commentators were speaking of the intensity of the storm, of its bulls-eye on Galveston and the effects of twenty feet of water on the island. They spoke of this over and over and over, punctuated with pictures of stop and stop traffic on I-45.

What wasn't available was useful information. The media seemed enamoured of the storm, of its awesome power, of its destructive capability, of its economic impact on the country as it takes out all the refineries along the Houston Ship Channel, of four dollar a gallon gas and how smoothly the evacuation was going compared to that of blue-state Louisiana. Fox News was busy showing President Bush and Texas Governor Perry steppin' and fetchin' and slappin' each other on the back and congratulatin' themselves on a rebound of their collective images, CNN reported there was a big storm a' comin' incessantly complete with radar and satellite images and MSNBC was a confused muddle of the two extremes. The talk radio show Debbie had on in her car was busy debunking global warming as a cause of the increased intensity of hurricanes and the Houston news media web presence was a confused mass of all of the above with PDFs of the evacuation routes available.

Missing were such minor points as where water was available along the evacuation routes. The availability of alternate routes out of Houston was another conspicuous absence despite continuous traffic reports from helicopters: "Traffic on I-45 is at a standstill...." Fuel availability became a serious consideration after twenty hours of idling but there was no information other than reports that the Texas DOT was sending out fuel trucks to help stranded motorists, trucks that Debbie in her forty-two hours on the road never saw. Availability of food, likewise, was completely missing from the airwaves. We got some reports of opening of contra-flow lanes on I-10 from a San Antonio station - it didn't seem important to Houston media. Likewise, we couldn't determine where the entry points to the contra-flow lanes were. In short, the only thing lower than Rita's eye pressure was the vacuum of useful information.

I finally saw Debbie on Friday morning. I'd flown to San Antonio Thursday evening at her request. Her step-father and I met her in Schulenberg, Texas, about half-way between Houston and San Antonio, where she'd finally ran out of gas. We had driven an alternate route running parallel to I-10. Along that route, the gas stations were open and had gas, the restaurants and convenience stores were open, traffic flowed freely, all this eighteen miles south of the Interstate. No media were reporting that the route was open, that gas was available there, that there was food and water. In Schulenberg, the parking lots looked like scenes from a disaster movies. Families sat in their cars, their gas tanks empty, without water or food completely unaware that eighteen miles to the south, food, water and gas were available in plenty.

When we got back to San Antonio, Fox News was still congratulating the President and the Governor, CNN was still babbling about a big storm off the coast of Texas, MSNBC couldn't decide which side of the issue to cover and the local media were reporting receiving the evacuees from Houston. A hundred twenty plus people had died in the evacuation - an accurate figure is hard to find because the counties reported casualties individually. Perhaps knowing where some food or water or gas had been might have saved lives. But the location of food, of water, of gas or shelter, of entrances to contra-flow lanes and of wide-open alternate routes isn't as sexy as a category 5 hurricane. It doesn't make ratings; therefore, in America, it isn't news.