Dole to McClellan

Senator Bob Dole sent an e-mail to Scott McClellan that addresses in a frank way the question of resigning when you recognize that evil is being done. Here's what Dole said.

"There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues. No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, and spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique.

"When the money starts rolling in you should donate it to a worthy cause, something like, 'Biting The Hand That Fed Me.' " Another thought is to weasel your way back into the White House if a Democrat is elected. That would provide a good set up for a second book deal in a few years."

"I have no intention of reading your 'exposé' because if all these awful things were happening, and perhaps some may have been, you should have spoken up publicly like a man, or quit your cushy, high profile job. That would have taken integrity and courage but then you would have had credibility and your complaints could have been aired objectively."

The Christian Way

The Buddhists monks in Burma are practicing the Christian way. They are helping their neighbors with food, medical care and supplies. They are not screaming about the politicians although they may have the worst leaders in the world. They are doing their best to relieve suffering.

What is a non-profit?

When I was a young man, I thought a good a career move would be to start a church. A church is a non-profit organization which, if you were a good salesperson, could pay you a lot of money. The church would pay no taxes and you would get tax benefits by being a minister. Of course, I was never really serious about this, but it was an interesting speculation.

However, over the past decade or two, the non-profit world has changed. Some heads of non-profits are paid in the millions. And, there are some organizations that have gotten 501(c)3 status with the IRS that, in the judgment of most rational people, are not providing any of the social benefits that one expects from an organization that does not have to pay taxes. I've written about many of these organizations over the past few years. They range from hospitals to technology companies to counseling firms to veterans organizations to ........

Today, it got even stranger when I learned of the 501(c)4 organization. This is an organization that is created by a 501(c)3 to donate to political candidates and engage in lobbying as long as the primary purpose is not to engage in political activity. Huh? You can give money. You can lobby. But it's okay as long as political activity is not your primary purpose. If you can contribute and lobby, what is your primary purpose but political activity?

The Weather Is Not Improving

Fascinating article by Charles Blow in today's NY Times. This chart plots the number of weather-related disasters over time. There have been four times as many in the last thirty years as in the previous seventy-five. Blow and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change attribute much of the increase to us.

What does his church have against him?

First it was Reverend Wright. Now it's Father Michael Pfegler. Who's next?

How long can you hold it?

The toilet system on the International Space System has a problem. It can't handle urine. Fortunately, feces are fine. They've got a temporary work-around and, we are told, they can always use plastic bags.

Spend More, Audit Less

As we are all well aware, our defense budget has grown dramatically in the past several years. In fact, it's just about doubled since 2000. Despite this meteoric growth, the audit staff of the Pentagon's Inspector General has remained more or less constant. The question becomes whether we are maintaining the proper oversight over our defense spending. As you would expect, the auditors say no; they need more people.

A simple increase in the budget does not necessarily mean you need more people to audit these activities, but if you've been reading my outpourings for a while, you're aware that we are not watching our money as well as we should. If you have only read about Stuart Bowen's work as Inspector General for Iraq, you know we're talking billions in waste and corruption related solely to our efforts in Iraq. And DOD's purview is much wider than Iraq. How much have we blown?

Winning Hearts and Minds

This is the coin that some Marines are apparently passing out in Fallujah. On one side it asks, "Where will you spend eternity?" . The answer on the other side is, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16."

Earlier this week we read of the soldier who shot up the Koran. I guess this is what happens in the 'long war'.

When do you resign to save your honor?

That's a question you have to ask the latest author of a White House 'tell all', Scott McClellan, as well as the other ex-sycophants who serve our presidents. McClellan has just published his book, which supports most of the nasty things we simpletons have thought about our executive leaders for many years now. What is it that causes otherwise intelligent, experienced people to accept and sell bullshit which seriously damages this country and the world?

Lord, save us from ourselves.

We're not getting much better

"Injustice, inequality and impunity are the hallmarks of our world today. Governments must act now to close the yawning gap between promise and performance." Amnesty International’s report summarizes some of these injustices – “people are still tortured or ill-treated in at least 81 countries, face unfair trials in at least 54 countries and are not allowed to speak freely in at least 77 countries.” And in their judgment it comes down to leadership and vision.

The report cites some of the nasty things the ‘leading’ nations of the world are engaged in:

• China does not allow free speech and freedom of the press
• The USA does not treat detainees as human beings
• Russia doesn’t countenance dissent and runs roughshod over people in Chechnya.
• Europe has been complicit in the rendition of detainees.

Not a good day

Who can you trust? Apparently, you can't trust some of the 200,000 UN Peacekeepers nor could you trust all members of any group that large. However, some of these peacekeepers have sexually abused kids, some as young as 6. Because the victims are kids much of this abuse goes unreported, yet in almost every year the media reports on sexual abuse by UN Peacekeepers.

It's just very sad.

It looks suspicious

The latest report from the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) gives one pause as to the progress of Iran re producing nuclear weapons. First of all, Iran is not forthcoming with information. (Of course, Saddam wasn't either and we expected the worst). They are getting better at producing low-enriched uranium: this year they've produced twice as much in half the time as they did last year. One of the manuals supplied by A Q Khan of Pakistan has shown up; this manual can only be used to produce nuclear weapons.

Mars from the Phoenix Lander

It looks like the desert to me. For more photographs, go to the NY Times.

Talk about sensitivity

In this video Liz Trotta, formerly of the estimable Washington Times, appeared on Fox to discuss Hillary's latest gaffe. In the course of the discussion she actually said "and now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Os--Osama--um, uh--Obama. Well, both, if we could...".

It's Hard To Believe

Today was such a beautiful day here on the Vineyard - bright but not hot sun, no wind, temperature around 70, not much traffic. But there was an 'aftershock' (magnitude of 5.8 is now considered an aftershock there) in China and an earthquake of 5.6 magnitude in Colombia. We never acknowledge how lucky we are.

I Like Ike

I can't say that I did like Ike when he ran for and was elected President. But that's not the only mistake I've made in my life. Here are some quotes from Ike that were relevant 40+ years ago and are relevant today. They were compiled by Michael Beaver, a reader of The Washington Note.

How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?

I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

I believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension. . . would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.

If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking. . . is freedom.

In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

Only Americans can hurt America.

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.

Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.

War settles nothing.

We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom.

We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.

More Questions for Rating Firms

If you're paying the bill, you have some say in who does the work. That's what issuers of securities and the firms that rate the securities seem to believe. Yesterday's Wall Street Journal reported that the three major ratings firms switched analysts at the behest of their clients. True, the reason for the switch could be as simple as the analyst not doing the job fast enough for the client. Or, it could also be that the analyst was not giving the customer's securities a high enough rating. What do you think?

Republicans and Our Enemies

Joe Biden tells it like it is in Friday's Wall Street Journal. My emphases.

On Wednesday, Joe Lieberman wrote on this page that the Democratic Party he and I grew up in has drifted far from the foreign policy espoused by Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John Kennedy.

In fact, it is the policies that President George W. Bush has pursued, and that John McCain would continue, that are divorced from that great tradition – and from the legacy of Republican presidents like Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Sen. Lieberman is right: 9/11 was a pivotal moment. History will judge Mr. Bush's reaction less for the mistakes he made than for the opportunities he squandered.

The president had a historic opportunity to unite Americans and the world in common cause. Instead – by exploiting the politics of fear, instigating an optional war in Iraq before finishing a necessary war in Afghanistan, and instituting policies on torture, detainees and domestic surveillance that fly in the face of our values and interests – Mr. Bush divided Americans from each other and from the world.

At the heart of this failure is an obsession with the "war on terrorism" that ignores larger forces shaping the world: the emergence of China, India, Russia and Europe; the spread of lethal weapons and dangerous diseases; uncertain supplies of energy, food and water; the persistence of poverty; ethnic animosities and state failures; a rapidly warming planet; the challenge to nation states from above and below.

Instead, Mr. Bush has turned a small number of radical groups that hate America into a 10-foot tall existential monster that dictates every move we make.

The intersection of al Qaeda with the world's most lethal weapons is a deadly serious problem. Al Qaeda must be destroyed. But to compare terrorism with an all-encompassing ideology like communism and fascism is evidence of profound confusion.

Terrorism is a means, not an end, and very different groups and countries are using it toward very different goals. Messrs. Bush and McCain lump together, as a single threat, extremist groups and states more at odds with each other than with us: Sunnis and Shiites, Persians and Arabs, Iraq and Iran, al Qaeda and Shiite militias. If they can't identify the enemy or describe the war we're fighting, it's difficult to see how we will win.

The results speak for themselves.

On George Bush's watch, Iran, not freedom, has been on the march: Iran is much closer to the bomb; its influence in Iraq is expanding; its terrorist proxy Hezbollah is ascendant in Lebanon and that country is on the brink of civil war.

Beyond Iran, al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan – the people who actually attacked us on 9/11 – are stronger now than at any time since 9/11. Radical recruitment is on the rise. Hamas controls Gaza and launches rockets at Israel every day. Some 140,000 American troops remain stuck in Iraq with no end in sight.

Because of the policies Mr. Bush has pursued and Mr. McCain would continue, the entire Middle East is more dangerous. The United States and our allies, including Israel, are less secure.

The election in November is a vital opportunity for America to start anew. That will require more than a great soldier. It will require a wise leader.

Here, the controversy over engaging Iran is especially instructive.

Last week, John McCain was very clear. He ruled out talking to Iran. He said that Barack Obama was "naïve and inexperienced" for advocating engagement; "What is it he wants to talk about?" he asked.

Well, for a start, Iran's nuclear program, its support for Shiite militias in Iraq, and its patronage of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

Beyond bluster, how would Mr. McCain actually deal with these dangers? You either talk, you maintain the status quo, or you go to war. If Mr. McCain has ruled out talking, we're stuck with an ineffectual policy or military strikes that could quickly spiral out of control.

Sen. Obama is right that the U.S. should be willing to engage Iran on its nuclear program without "preconditions" – i.e. without insisting that Iran first freeze the program, which is the very subject of any negotiations. He has been clear that he would not become personally involved until the necessary preparations had been made and unless he was convinced his engagement would advance our interests.

President Nixon didn't demand that China end military support to the Vietnamese killing Americans before meeting with Mao. President Reagan didn't insist that the Soviets freeze their nuclear arsenal before sitting down with Mikhail Gorbachev. Even George W. Bush – whose initial disengagement allowed dangers to proliferate – didn't demand that Libya relinquish its nuclear program, that North Korea give up its plutonium, or even that Iran stop aiding those attacking our soldiers in Iraq before authorizing talks.

The net effect of demanding preconditions that Iran rejects is this: We get no results and Iran gets closer to the bomb.

Equally unwise is the Bush-McCain fixation on regime change. The regime is abhorrent, but their logic defies comprehension: renounce the bomb – and when you do, we're still going to take you down. The result is that Iran accelerated its efforts to produce fissile material.

Instead of regime change, we should focus on conduct change. We should make it very clear to Iran what it risks in terms of isolation if it continues to pursue a dangerous nuclear program but also what it stands to gain if it does the right thing. That will require keeping our allies in Europe, as well as Russia and China, on the same page as we ratchet up pressure.

It also requires a much more sophisticated understanding than Mr. Bush or Mr. McCain seem to possess that by publicly engaging Iran – including through direct talks – we can exploit cracks within the ruling elite, and between Iran's rulers and its people, who are struggling economically and stifled politically.

Iran's people need to know that their government, not the U.S., is choosing confrontation over cooperation. Our allies and partners need to know that the U.S. will go the extra diplomatic mile – if we do, they are much more likely to stand with us if diplomacy fails and force proves necessary.

The Bush-McCain saber rattling is the most self-defeating policy imaginable. It achieves nothing. But it forces Iranians who despise the regime to rally behind their leaders. And it spurs instability in the Middle East, which adds to the price of oil, with the proceeds going right from American wallets into Tehran's pockets.

The worst nightmare for a regime that thrives on tension with America is an America ready, willing and able to engage. Since when has talking removed the word "no" from our vocabulary?

It's amazing how little faith George Bush, Joe Lieberman and John McCain have in themselves – and in America.

Musings on Energy

I’m almost always surprised at John Q. Public’s behavior. Sometimes we do very stupid things, sometimes we are a lot smarter than you’d think. The current media brouhaha about gas prices is an example of the latter. Just about all of the interviews I’ve heard with the public with regards to gas prices demonstrate that people are using their brains. Some are taking public transportation, some cutting back on their driving, some planning to buy a more efficient vehicle. What are our leaders doing?

Bush and company want more oil from Saudi Arabia and the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. Saudi Arabia says no. But is that because it wants to keep its profits high? Or maybe it does not have as much oil as we think? Drilling in the pristine Arctic wilderness would result in a savings of 75 cents per barrel, according to the Department of Energy. And that would happen 10 years from now.

Our leaders are giving tax breaks and spending money on biofuels, much of it corn-based which is increasing the price of food around the world. But they are also keeping the import tax on ethanol from Brazil, which uses sugar for the fuel and, as a result, produces much cleaner emissions. I wonder whether we will have an import tax on Brazilian oil, as they are becoming a major force in oil production.

The Senate wants to tax the oil industry for excess profits but they never say what profits are excess. They also assume that the oil companies are the real culprits in this mess, never mind the facts – we are not a conserving nation; the new world economy has increased demand significantly; supplies are uncertain; our weak dollar, driven in some measure by the war and our greed, is a very important factor in the price of oil.

The House has the brilliant idea of suing OPEC. Talk about intelligence and pandering! How stupid do they think we are? This idea may be even more stupid than the gas tax holiday of Clinton and McCain.

Why have our leaders not pushed harder for conservation and efficiency? Why have they not pushed a fuel, natural gas, we have in abundance?

Why don’t we throw the bums out?

Try to Remember

Demand is no longer king....

at least when it comes to the forecasts of the International Energy Agency (IEA). Their widely respected forecasts have been based on the demand for energy; they assumed that the supply was close to infinite in that it could always meet demand. Now, the situation has changed so much that they are embarking on a major study to analyze the supply of oil.

I suppose that their reliance on demand made sense for a fair period of time. But, when you have Saudi Arabia and other countries unwilling to reveal their reserves and the only output numbers come from a small consulting company over a grocery store in Geneva that looks at shipment of oil by tankers, I'd say it's about time that the IEA started looking at both demand and supply.

Possibilities

Apparently, Israel and Syria have begun talking. True, they are not talking directly with each other, Turkey is being used as the intermediary but both countries have indicated a possibility that Israel will return the Golan Heights to Syria. Syria, in turn, will sign a peace treaty with Israel and keep its nose out of Lebanon and Iraq. Word is that Syria's motivation is the growing dominance of Iran.

On the One Hand

Leila Fadel, McClatchy's lead Iraq correspondent, reports that the ports surrounding Basra are now almost totally free of corruption and are able to work for the good of the country. This is due to the government's taking over of the ports in March. (This, by the way, is the Maliki government we are talking about.) There is more trade flowing through it which means more revenue and most of the corruption seems to have been exterminated; the British estimate that revenue and activity has doubled, productivity has increased and corruption dramatically fallen.

On the same day Fadel's article was published the Pentagon appeared before the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform to tell us that their auditors - not those of the Special Inspector General - had found some irregularities. In the words of the Pentagon's Deputy Inspector General, "we were giving or providing a payment without any basis for the payment." What we were giving was $8.2 billion of our money.

University for Sale

Philip Morris has bought Virginia Commonwealth University. They didn't actually sign a bill of sale with the state of Virginia; they just gave money to the university for research purposes. Exactly how much is unknown, but Phillip Morris definitely controls whether and what the university publishes about their research into tobacco. The university must inform the company of any inquiries about the research.

Perhaps the citizens of Virginia, who have been financing this university for decades,might want to ask why this contract with Philip Morris breaks most of the rules the university had established with regard to research projects.

A Warning Sign?

Water has seeped from under a newly repaired levee in New Orleans. But the Army Corps of Engineers says it's just a "little wet spot" that means nothing. However, the Corps is spending $100,000,000 to find out whether it really does mean something - like maybe they should accept reality and not rebuild part of the city.

Lo-Fat, Lo-Cal

More and more restaurants are pushing their lo-fat, lo-cal meals. The ABC affiliate in Phoenix tested the claims of some national chains - Applebee's Chili's, Cheesecake Factory, Taco Bell and a few others and lo and behold most of the meals exceeded the advertised claims of low fat and low in calories.

The Quiet War

Anthony Cordesman has a lengthy analysis on the status of the Afghanistan War. In many ways he is relying on his judgment, connections and experience as he begins his piece by lamenting the dearth of information put out by the parties involved, noting that the situation has gotten worse as conditions have worsened.

The little information that is available does not look at a key issue - the interaction between the battles in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Cordesman believes that the war is being waged by Pashtun Muslims in both countries.

In Cordesman's view the Taliban is fighting a different war than is the West. The West wants to win the military battles, the Taliban want to expand their influence within Afghanistan both politically and economically. And it looks like the Taliban is winning. The fact that NATO needs more troops and equipment and that there really is not much unity within the NATO forces does not help the situation.

And the old bugbear separating words and actions makes the job much tougher. Many countries have not paid their pledge, others have taken eons to cough it up and, when all is said and done, 40% of the aid money is spent outside Afghanistan.

The report has a number of maps, most of which show just how little control the central government have over the rest of the country.

All in all, the report is a downer as I suspect that, despite the availability of really good information, Cordesman has highlighted a very difficult situation.

Another Brilliant Solution to the Gas Problem

Steve Kagen, the esteemed Congressman from Maryland, has introduced the Gas Price Relief for Consumers Act of 2008. He proposes to get relief by suing OPEC.

I'm sure he'll have no problems getting recompense.

Straight Talking

Go here for more.

People Helping People

The woman in the photograph is a police woman, the child is not hers. In the past couple of days she has breastfed a couple of children.

It sound sounds crass and insensitive, I know, but this earthquake will really boost China's reputation in the world. The government really has worked very hard to ameliorate the situation. They have been unbelievably open compared to their attitude re SARS and other recent catastrophes. And, as I tried to illustrate over the weekend, you know that the leaders are really involved in things. It may be - and probably is - PR, I know. But think of how involved Bush was re Katrina.

In Every War....

...it seems as though there is an organized mass murder of the "enemy", be he or she an actual soldier, someone suspected of being in league with the enemy or just someone who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And in just about every case the perpetrators try to keep the murders quiet.

The latest incident, as reported by AP Impact, goes back more than 50 years, to the days of the Korean War. Apparently South Korea was worried about what the people in their prisons would do as the North Koreans got closer to Seoul. The problem was solved by killing all the prisoners. No one knows how many were killed but some have estimated 100,000 and more.

These killings were kept quiet by both the South Korean government and our government. Our Army reports of the killings were stamped 'secret' and filed away. In recent years these documents are being declassified and the truth has come to light.

Some Thoughts on Medical Care in the U.S.

Our Men's Group speaker this month discussed our health care system and made some interesting and, in retrospect, rather obvious yet sensible points:

• The diversity of this country has to be taken into account when comparing our medical results against those of other countries.
• Administrative costs could be significantly reduced by fiat from the government in a few areas, such as having all insurance companies use the same forms.
• A better medical records system coupled with looking at a patient's complete medical state would improve results and lower costs.
• The success we have had in improving health care and thus extending life spans means that there are more people using the health care system.
• The costs of a medical education should be subsidized by the government in exchange for some form of national service.

Helping Kids, Women and Old Folks

The couple who started this are truly amazing people.

Send your check to
Child Haven International
P.O. Box 5099
Massena, NY 13662-5099

Spring Comes to Upper Makonikey

A New Face at the Olympics

Oscar Pistorius, the South African sprinter, will compete in the Olympics. The Court of Arbitration for Sport has overruled the IAF and concluded that Pistorius' artificial legs do not give him an advantage.

I and millions more will be very interested to see how he does.

Don't Spend It All In One Place

Maybe you can buy a couple of cups of coffee.

Leadership

Sometimes natural disasters give one good insight into a country's leader.

Than Shwe and the cyclone








Bush and Katrina






Wen Jiabao and the earthquake

The End Days - Part 2

A few days ago I wrote about the end days partly in jest. Today in another end days scenario, the BBC reports that the wildlife population is declining at the rate of almost 1% a year. From 1970 to 2005 the population declined more than 25%.

Of course, world leaders signed the Convention on Biodiversity in 1992 and agreed in 2002 to reduce the loss of the wildlife population significantly by 2010. But, hey, what can you do about pollution, expansion of farms and cities, over-fishing and hunting?

We get the leaders we deserve.

Hugo Denies It

Interpol claims that it has definitively established that the computers Colombia discovered in a raid on a FARC camp were, in fact, property of and used by FARC. Colombia asserts that the documents on these computers show a definite connection between FARC and Venezuela and Ecuador. One document described a meeting with a member of the Venezuelan cabinet, another spoke of Chavez offering FARC $300,000,000 last year.

Suffer the Little Children

In Gaza they are really suffering, even before birth. Due to the lack of food and medicine because of the Israeli blockade, an alarming number of pregnant women are anemic. They pass on this anemia to fetuses that never come to fruition and children who do. More than three-fourths of the residents of Gaza are anemic because of malnutrition and a dearth of medicine.

Things have gotten so bad there that the poverty rate is now 67%.

The Nation's Business

Arlen Specter believes that whether or not the Patriots taped opponent's practices is a subject worthy of his time and that of his staff. While he may be a rabid fan of the Philadelphia Eagles, he is being paid by us to be a U.S. Senator. Start doing your day job, Arlen!

Keeping our country safe

Aren't you glad that we don't allow people who are HIV-positive into this country? Only eleven other countries - Iraq, Libya, Armenia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea among them - are as smart as we are. We know how dangerous this can be; that's why it's the only medical condition that the immigration law forbids. Leprosy and TB sufferers can be admitted by the secretary of health and human services.

Open Government

The House will pass the farm bill today, encumbering $280 billion of our money. What the average representative knew about the bill is open to question. Just yesterday Joe Congressman was given access to the conference report and an explanatory statement. These two documents totaled almost 1100 pages. How could Joe possibly understand the bill in even a shade of its complexity? Is this the way to enact sensible legislation?

Return to Sender - Iraq Veteran Gets the Call Again

This article by Colby Buzzell appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle last Thursday.

When I voluntarily enlisted in the Army, I remember asking my recruiter about the fine print on the contract about being called back up to active duty once my enlistment was completed. He assured me not to worry, that every contract said that and it would only happen if "World War III" broke out.

That was a little over five years ago. After serving in Iraq, I elected to use my GI Bill to enroll in a photography course at San Francisco City College. I felt good, and I had a feeling that the days to come were all going to be good as well.

On way out of my building two weeks ago, I checked my mailbox and found a letter from the Department of the Army with "Important Document" printed in all caps on the middle. I immediately felt sick, so I went back to my room, locked the door, grabbed a beer from the fridge and stared out my window for a while. People outside were all wearing sunglasses and walking about enjoying the sun. I took a picture.

I got out of the Army three long years ago, and since then I've never really talked ill of the military, the people in it, or expressed any regrets at all about enlisting. If I had to do it all over again, I honestly would have. Granted, I got lucky and made it back with all my body parts intact. If I hadn't, my answer might be a little bit different than what it is now.

As terrible as this might sound, whenever someone asks me about enlisting, I'm tempted to encourage them. I figure that the more people who enlist, the slimmer the chances that I'll get called back up. But of course this is ridiculous: No one in their right mind would enlist now, whereas I've already signed the papers. I'm now going back to Iraq for a second time because people like me - existing service members - are the only people at the Army's disposal.

Looking back, would I have joined the military if I were doing something that I loved? Or had a job that paid $100,000 a year? Probably not. Those are the men and women I feel that we need to mail these letters to. Let's see what happens when they receive letters telling them to put on a uniform and ship out immediately to the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Many people believe that the draft ended the Vietnam War. I'm convinced that reinstating the draft would definitely end this war. Rich, connected people will always find a way to evade mandatory service, but what about the rest of America? The middle class - people with good jobs and nice lives - would perhaps riot if the government even suggested that it expected from them what the Army expects from veterans.

What if there were a war and none of the veterans who were called up showed up?

Every time when I hear about a soldier's death now - which is always reported very briefly - there always seems to be a short mention that it was the soldier's second or third deployment, and now my name might be among them.

I know I won't get any sympathy at all from the "you dumb ass you signed the contract!" crowd, which is fine, but I really was looking forward to applying my GI Bill to photography classes so I could learn how to take pictures. But now, thanks to not enough Americans volunteering for military service, I now have to worry about my picture appearing on the second or third page of my hometown paper with the words, "it was his second deployment" in my obituary.

Colby Buzzell proudly served as an infantryman in the U.S. Army and participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom 2003-04. He lives in San Francisco and spends his free time going on long walks with his camera. This will be his second deployment. Buzzell blogs at http://cbftw.blogspot.com

Transformation

Kevin Siers, The Charlotte Observer

The Telephone Is Ringing

From the Christian Science Monitor:

"I want to talk to Mr. George Bush. What are you doing? United Nations, what are you doing? We have no food, no water. This is the worst government in the world. Same as Saddam Hussein. Why you cannot help us?" Myo Khin, a Burmese trader.

The End Days

I'm surprised that there has not been more mention of our being in the end days. Cyclone in Burma, tornados in the U.S., food riots, the volcanic ash in Argentina, the Iraq war, the earthquake in China. I've mentioned more than four recent catastrophes that some knowledgeable person could translate into War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death.

One Healthy Market for Newspapers

I have not read the print edition of the Boston Globe for quite a while. When I read today's Globe I was quite surprised by the death notices. It used to be that obituaries were five or six lines of facts - name of the deceased, town of residence, names of spouses and children, name of funeral parlor and date and place of internment service. That's not the case any longer. Many obituaries are much like those in the Sunday NY Times - a brief biography and sometimes a photograph.

It's ironic that the increased revenue from obituaries (they are not free) is helping to slow the revenue decline of the Globe and perhaps other newspapers.

Is a lottery a smart recruiting tool?

If you have a surplus of qualified applicants for a particular type of job, it may very well be. But that is not the case when it comes to immigration to the U.S. via the H1B visa. We issue 85,000 of these visas every year but we issue them via a lottery. So, someone with the background to be a cleaning person has the same chance of entering the U.S. as a possible Nobel Prize winner and over 20% of the U.S. Nobel prize winners have been immigrants. Immigrants have started a lot of our technology leaders, such as Google and Sun. 40% of the PhDs issued in science and engineering in June will go to foreign-born students. Can we afford not to be more selective in who we admit to this country, particularly in this time of challenges to our world leadership in many areas? Canada can. Australia can. New Zealand can. Britain can. What will happen if we don't? Will we still be among the elite?

Democracy at work

Most observers, including many Senators, agreed that the airline safety bill passed by the House was a good one. It would give the FAA more money to improve the air traffic control system, give passengers some rights regarding stalled flights and enable airports to generate more revenue.

But the bill did not pass in the Senate largely because the Democrats tried to insert extraneous issues - money for the highway trust fund, a subway station under Ground Zero - into the bill.

Is this responsible representation?

The New Cuba

It seems like a less serious country already. They have just set a record for the longest cigar - 148 feet!

The Good Soldier

You can't say that George Gray, EPA assistant administrator for R&D, doesn't know which side his bread is buttered. He testified yesterday that transparency is the watchword at EPA. Don't they hold closed meetings with the Office of Management and Budget about the risk of toxic chemicals? Oops, Gray has a different interpretation of transparency!

Gray also has a great deal of confidence in his scientific abilities. He advised the head of the EPA, Stephen Johnson, to reject 1,700 peer-reviewed studies and the unanimous recommendations of an advisory committee Johnson appointed with regard to setting new ozone standards.

What is Burger King Thinking?

They hired an unlicensed private investigator to spy on the Student/Farmworkers Alliance, a group that is helping immigrant workers to obtain a living wage. Burger King is doing so in order "to prevent violence", although the group is committed to non-violence ala Ghandi and King.

What is fascinating to me is that the firm that was hired is owned by a 25-year old woman with whom Burger King has been working "for years". I guess they hired her when she was a teenager. Perhaps, then she had a license and maybe that was before one of her subcontractors was accused of murder.

More than a dream

You wouldn't believe that someone would build or plan to build a $500,000,000 amusement park in Baghdad. Would you? Yet, C3, an LA company claims that it will be starting on it very shortly as the skateboard park will open this summer. The park will be joined by a 5-star hotel soon.

Most Iraqis would prefer a return to normalcy without the fripperies of the Western world.

What catastrophe do we have to wait for?

It's been written about for years, but our infrastructure still sucks. Have our leaders said anything about that other than proposing a gas tax holiday?

John Gapper in the Financial Times echoes feelings I've had for a while,

"At times I wonder whether the world’s biggest economy has the will to solve its challenges or will end up wandering self-indulgently into the minor economic leagues. I expect it will get serious when the crisis is too blatant to ignore, but it has not done so yet."

"The bigger problem is that, unlike European countries including the UK, the US shows little sign of finding the will or the funding mechanisms to maintain what it has or to build anew."

When will we start attacking our problems instead of other countries?

Fear of AIDS

That was one of Saddam's worries in jail. His clothes were hung on the same wash line as those of the soldiers guarding him. Saddam was concerned that the soldiers were young and hence sexually active. His clothes might pick up the AIDS that was on the soldier's clothes.

14 minutes, 42 seconds

That's how long Ravel's "Bolero" runs on the CD I have. Today I played it as I drove home for lunch and it was 14 minutes and 42 seconds of unalloyed pleasure. The weather was sunny and warm enough to open two car windows. There were no cars on Lambert's Cove Road, which is a pretty road even if the trees are not budding and the grass is brown. But, today the grass was green, bushes were sprouting, flowers peeping up, trees budding and the volume was way up (which is how Bolero sounds best).

Underestimating the enemy?

Malcolm Nance, an ex-spy, answers "yes" to this question in the current Foreign Policy. He argues that we are focusing our counter-terrorist activities on "military-aged Arab males", while Al Qaeda, for one, is using women, children, husband-and-wife teams, Caucasians and who knows who else as suicide bombers. They are spending a lot of time recruiting in Europe and using the Internet as a recruiting and training tool. So, the idea that the next bomber is a "military-aged Arab male" is likely false at this point in the game.

Nance contends that we are underestimating the intelligence and sophistication of the enemy. We are not training our counter-terrorism people in trying to understand the enemy and his culture. We are not fully understanding the connection of the terrorist to his society and his dependence upon that society.

In short, he's advocating that we wage a "hearts and minds" campaign, which is something that I've been advocating for quite a while.

A lawyer's bonanza?

John Duffy, a law professor at George Washington, has discovered that 46 of the 74 administrative judges sitting on the patent court may not have been legally appointed. The Constitution requires that judges be appointed by the president, the courts or a department head, such as the Secretary of Commerce. in 1999 Congress in its wisdom changed the way administrative patent judges are appointed. The new law had the Director of Patent and Trademark Office appointing the judges.

Can you imagine the chaos that will ensue if this issue is pursued?

Not all mutation is good

For example, some bacteria that were controllable by drugs have mutated into forms that are no longer controllable. In fact, the bacteria are dining on the drugs that were supposed to kill them. And, it looks like tuberculosis, which was prevalent when I was a kid but seemed to have disappeared in the past fifty years, is making a comeback. There re now strains of tb that we cannot cure; it caused 16,000 deaths last year.

Why China?

A couple of years ago it was the SARS virus that was mowing them down in China. This year it's Enterovirus 71, a virus that attacks children. On April 30, the BBC reported 1900 cases, today the number is up to 5151. The number of deaths has increased from 20 to 26.

It's Saturday

Time for another Dan Wasserman cartoon.

Reading Last

The results of the first DOE study on the Reading First program, which has as its goal the improvement of reading skills of grade school students, are in. Despite spending $1 billion a year on the program, it appears as though no improvements were made. Could it be because the competition for the money was structured so that the 'right people' got the contracts?

Reading First is part of No Child Left Behind, which is a catchy name but is turning out to be a program that is moving our educators to focus on students passing tests rather than learning. What has this administration done right?

Who said this?

"We have to broaden our understanding. And let me tell you why—just beyond, you know, you got to speak the language if you’re going to read the message you just intercepted. It’s more—actually, more important than that because we have to guard against viewing the world exclusively through an American prism. We must not rely exclusively on an American or even Western lens in assessing foreign challenges and helping policymakers decide how to respond to challenges. Large parts of the world, and including some of those ones that I’ve mentioned already this afternoon, okay, do not share all of our ideals and values. Now, look; we cherish and live our own values, but we must know and appreciate those of others. Their perceptions and behaviors are driven by motivations and experiences that are sometimes very different from our own, and we have to understand that."

General Michael V. Hayden, Director of the CIA.

Free Trade?

Why can't Brazil sell its sugar-based ethanol here? It produces 800 gallons of ethanol from an acre of sugar, while our corn-base ethanol produces 328 gallons per acre. From every unit of fossil fuel used in producing sugar-based ethanol, 8 units of energy are produced; with corn it's 1.3 units. Plus corn feeds many, sugar does not.

Why do we have a 54 cents per gallon tax on Brazilian ethanol? Are we not in a difficult situation?

Focus on the Smaller Sources of Revenue

In general, such a focus is not good strategy. You're usually better off concentrating on the people who can write big checks, assuming that you have a good shot at getting one of those big checks. Clearly, the IRS thinks that they are better off auditing more small companies than big companies.

In FY2007 the IRS audited half as many big companies (those with assets of $250,00,000 and above) than they did twenty years ago. And it's getting worse; in 1988 62% of these companies were audited by the IRS, in 2007 it was down to 26%. Not only are there fewer audits, but less time is being spent on the audit (1210 hours per audit in 2002, 973 in 2007). As you would expect, these audits are generating fewer dollars; in 2005 these audits generated $30,000,000 in extra taxes, two years later the number was down 20% to $24,000,000.

Apparently the IRS is somewhat sensitive about this issue as it is trying to create rules to prevent the public's access to audit statistics. Further, they have brought suit to bar someone from even requesting this information.

They are expert on everything

Here's another case where the Bush administration thinks they know more about the physical world than scientists do. NOAA proposed a rule protecting right whales from being hit by big ships. The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is charged with approving this rule. The process started four years ago and is still not in effect, as the "scientists" in Cheney's office and at the Council of Economic Advisers has questioned the analysis by the faux scientists at NOAA.

You may recall that the Office of Information is headed by that champion of responsible government, Susan Dudley.

“It’s time to stand up, and we’re doing our part today.”

The words of Bob McEllrath, president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, who went on to say, “We’re loyal to America, and we won’t stand by while our country, our troops and our economy are being destroyed by a war that’s bankrupting us to the tune of $3 trillion.” He was referring to a strike at West Coast ports yesterday. The strike was in protest of the war in Iraq.

Could this be the start of a grass roots movement similar to that which stopped the war in Vietnam?

He's a terrorist

That's what our State Department says.

Sadly, it was not the first misstatement

Nor was it the last.