Copyright © 2007 Frank Lynch.
Copyright © 2007 Frank Lynch.
Me: Frank Lynch Home These are my mundane daily ramblings. Email: |
Just in case you missed it... It's
final now for the U.N., too: Iraq had no WMD's.
Weird way of going about it, though: rather than let the U.N.
deliver its own independent determination of this, the U.S.
forced a statement that the U.N. would basically accept the 2004
determination by the U.S.'s Iraq Survey Group that there weren't
any. I have no idea why the U.S. conclusion would rule;
does having the work rely on a U.S. conclusion mean that we might
have greater flexibility to restart it if we question our own
conclusions? This is pure speculation, a backflip for an
explanation... I can't figure out why the U.S. wouldn't let the
U.N. draw its own conclusion.
No "there" there. Not yet, anyway. Fred Thompson, who has been long hyped as the savior for Republicans dissatisfied with the 2008 Presidential field.
I know it's early for 2008, but really... nine minutes?
Advances in color-blindness. A town in Ireland has elected a black mayor, Rotimi Adebari, the first black mayor in all the republic. Prejudice is all around, and those of us who've read Joyce's Ulysses will never forget Mr. Deasy's explanation to Stephen of why Ireland had never persecuted the Jews: "Because they never let them in." (Maybe the line was "because we"...) But the Irish have long been reputed to be a clannish sort: I remember reading an Irish history book by P. J. Lee where he ironically complained that the Catholics in the North had the bad graces to have looked, breathed, eaten, and shat just like Protestants, thus making themselves indistinguishable. (His words didn't go as far as all that, but the thought was among the funniest, blackest sentences I'd ever read in a history book. Sorry I can't give you the page number; the recollection has stuck with me for many years, you should just be grateful for that much.) Port Laoise's new mayor ("First Citizen" seems to be his title) doesn't seem to be vulnerable to any such accusation. It may be due to his accent, as he is from Nigeria. I'm not sure who to applaud more: Rotimi Adebari, or the local
citizenry. It's a breakthrough nonetheless. I still remember the
post-Oscar interviews after Denzel Washington and Halle Barry had
won best actor and best actress. A reporter asked Washington how
long he thought it would be before the press could write about
two blacks winning best actor and best actress without mentioning
their race, and Washington said something along the lines of "You
can write that article tomorrow."
Too bad we can't put Mike Bloomberg in a Time Machine. This has nothing to do with Presidential politics, more to do with his plan for congestion fees: drive your car into congested parts of Manhattan during the day, fine, but pay a fee. From my perspective (I haven't owned a car here since 1982 and have relied on mass transit always, except for the occasional car rental for a weekend). The value of the idea is obvious: tax you for what you do. You contribute to pollution and so on by driving your car into Manhattan? Compensate. This is not a new idea. Everyone who wants to talk about an ownership society should buy into this. But then there's implementation. NJ Governor John Corzine has said that New Jersey doesn't have enough mass transit capacity to accommodate the ripple effect; at a meeting at NY's MTA yesterday, it was pointed out that several NYC subway lines are well (far) over capacity during rush hours; it's also expected that many outer borough neighborhoods will suffer an even greater parking crunch, when people who are only served by buses choose to drive to neighborhoods with subways. Nobody is suggesting short term, successful ways to accommodate the ripple effects: those subway trains can't easily extend their platforms to accommodate longer trains. Light rail won't happen quick enough, and buses are a drag, seeing as how traffic lights hit them just as bad as all others. Further out, I guess park and ride lots will help, but only to an extent: the glut (pig in the python) still has to go somewhere. Let me be very clear: this is kind of a third-rail in NYC, and Bloomberg has wisely confronted it. The confrontation had to happen, and while earlier would have been better than now (for all the agencies in the tri-state, not just those in NYC), later is worse. Perhaps there are alternatives still to be taken advantage of, such as forms of flex time (four ten hour days, or moving shifts earlier or later) which will also help, as well as more telecommuting. (I'm not sold on complete telecommuting: The Social Life of Information sold me on the importance of spontaneous peer communication.) I think Bloomberg has mapped out a tough road. I think it would have been easier if he went into a time machine and did it 30 years ago. But he didn't, and that doesn't mean we shouldn't hunker down and address this now. We really need to.) UPDATE: I had a number of stray thoughts which didn't
make it into this original post, for one reason or another. One
of them is that it's worth asking whether or not NYC has gotten
too big. NYC in the sense of "Manhattan," that is. NYC is five
boroughs, and real estate is cheaper in the outer boroughs.
There's no question but that decentralizing into NJ or Staten
Island would make it more difficult for the bigwigs coming in
from Fairfield CT. And so there would be trade offs: the choice
set, for them, would be: should I pay congestion pricing,
decentralize to someplace convenient for me, or decentralize to
some place convenient for my staff? Can I telecommute a couple
days to make it work? Admittedly these are hard questions to
answer, but when you look at the Manhattan skyline from a distant
place in New Jersey like Ridgewood, and see a grey haze hanging
over Manhattan, you have to agree that something has to be done.
Maybe it's time to break the concentration up. Lord knows
that suburban commuters don't do much to pay for the local police
and fire departments: I think there's a strong argument here.
Lest you be discouraged that all the good ideas have been taken... I know how you feel, it's too late to come up with any significant innovation... The 3M Post-It Note is already with us, as is Nutella and satellite TV. And in the information age, collaborative filtering has already been done Nothing left, right? Nope, not by a long shot. (Hat tip to Seeing The
Forest.)
Damned good question. If the media is
liberally biased, why would the Right oppose a Fairness Doctrine?
Senator Lugar will not get us out of Iraq. Even though he's a high ranking Republican senator with a broad base of respect, his early call to start the troop drawdown is not going to get us out of Iraq. Bush isn't listening. And no matter how many more Republican senators will feel released to distance themselves from Bush's failed policies, Bush will not cave. It's just not going to happen. (Bush has spent so much time in the last four to five years telling such a wide variety of falsehoods, such an incredible range of spin, he probably is genuinely convinced of what his handlers have fed him, be it the idea that Iraq is a "comma" or that to leave would disgrace the sacrifices of those who have already died. You don't have to take my word for it that Bush is easily spun: in the Ron Suskind-Paul O'Neill book, O'Neill recalled a meeting where out of thin air Bush blamed an overly aggressive SEC for the latest economic issue, and O'Neill wondered who'd fed him that winner.) That having been said, there's plenty of positive outcomes which can occur, they just won't be in Iraq. One of the positive byproducts could be that Republicans, once they stop thinking about Iraq as a Democrat-Republican point of disagreement, start to look at other issues in a more bipartisan fashion. (Remember how they filibustered the "no confidence" vote on Alberto Gonzales?) This country could do worse than have a few more displays of statesmanship, doncha think? Another possible positive is this: Bush may not succumb to
pressure over Iraq, but he's cagey enough to understand what an
albatross he's wearing for the historians. (If I were writing
like Gore does in his book, I'd do more than just say
"albatross," I'd mention the Rhyme and Coleridge, too. Yeeesh,
how I cringed when he told me who George Orwell was.) Bush may
try to forge some other legacy. That's some of what you hear
about the immigration bill. I personally don't think that a
compromise which few like is the stuff of a very positive legacy,
but if it floats Bush's boat, he might decide he likes the value
of compromise. Of course, he already vetoed the stem cell bill,
but you never know what might be next. Appointing moderate judges
for lower tier federal positions probably isn't flashy enough, so
this does take some imagination. Minimum wage?
"We should get someone out here who can answer our questions." That sterling remark was made today regarding White House spokesperson Dana Perino's daily press briefing. As you might suspect from the tone of the remark, she was having a difficult time satisfying questions. Most of her difficulties were around Cheney: questions like, why he can avoid executive branch restrictions over classified documents due to his "dual branch" status putting himself also in the legislative branch, when he mentioned nothing of the kind when shielding himself from scrutiny as a member of the executive, and why, if that were the case, the President needed to give him a blanket; and questions regarding the Washington Post's new series on Cheney and his end runs around the cabinet ("We don't do book reviews," was her first attempt to avoid the questions there...) The shifting back and forth from one foot to the other is
pretty astonishing, and reinforces my feeling that she doesn't have a leg to stand on.
Nothing succeeds like success! Not sure if you remember this — back in the Spring of 2003, when the statue toppled (OMG, a statue TOPPLED!!) and Iraq was firmly under our control, a little before Bush announced that "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended," the U.S. was rumored to be thinking about where best to next rattle its sabers: Syria. Remember that? Iraq was a done deal, been there done that,
what's next kind of thing. We are truly governed by fools.
The good news is, they're thinking hard about troop requirements. The bad news is, they might draw conclusions to increase the escalation rather than decide Iraq's not worth it.
The problem with the dire assessments is that they'll do nothing. Bush will stay the course, and do so as he's done in the past, trying to do the war on the cheap: he won't institute a draft (which would broaden the American sacrifice) and he won't pull back. So in the end, we, who are listening, feel like we are on a runaway train. If Bush is really going to seek out other opinions, I think there's even less
room for optimism: if you'll remember, he got his advice on
global warming not from leading scientists but from an author of
thrillers, Michael Crichton. I have little doubt in my mind that
he'll seek out advisor after advisor until he finally agrees
someone who confirms his gut and makes him feel better about one
of our greatest foreign policy catastrophes. They're out there
somewhere; we all know it.
I really had hopes for Arrowhead
Stripper. Or whatever it's called. We're all tired of the
news that our troops are dying in Iraq, in what for years has
seemed like a futile exercise, a battle with a hydra where we
can't seem to cauterize the necks before the snake heads double.
The idea of the But nooooooo! Shades of Tora Bora, the biggies got away beforehand.
The old joke goes, "Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?" I don't doubt for a moment that our forces are doing their damnedest in these operations: hell, their lives depend on it. But when 80 percent of the targets get away in advance? Can anyone tell me why we should be optimistic about future operations? Aren't we kidding ourselves? Mr. President: it's too bad you own the bank. Otherwise, the
house would tell you you're out of chips.
Seeing a shell game going on? A little Three Card Monte? Bush's nomination for the number three position at the Department of Justice has asked to have his nomination withdrawn, figuring it unlikely he will pass muster. It's interesting to see how the midterm change of power in Congress is having an effect: Gates (Secretary of Defence) didn't renew Pace because he didn't want controversy in Congressional hearings, and a number of people report into Attorney General Alberto Gonzales also resigned, with testimony coming up. Add all that onto the way the Bush administration has shuffled detainees from one court system to another in order to avoid judiciary decisions that it's gotten too big for its britches. And then think about the way it behaved prior to the
party change in the legislative branch: Cheney's hard work to
keep his meetings over energy policy secret (I think the excuse
was executive privilege, yet now he's arguing that because he's
not completely in the executive branch he needn't adhere to policies for the executive branch - -
he is the secret fourth branch!!), the actuary who was threatened
if he shared his estimates of the cost of a Medicare funding bill
with Congress... Am I wrong, but isn't it vampires who
fear the sunlight? Why on earth would the administration which
was supposed to bring honesty and integrity back to the White
House act as if it doesn't want accountability? I just don't get
it. Do you?
Rudy ran NYC like a business?
Giuliani has tried to fire a pre-emptive salvo (the GOP seems to
be into that pre-emptive thing, if you haven't noticed) against
Bloomberg, who denies he's running for President. (Hmmm, I think
I see another addition to that GOP metaphor: attack those who
aren't a threat...) Rudy is trying to tell us that he ran
NYC like a business before Bloomberg did. Seriously. Well, to be honest with you, my recollections of Giuliani's
mayoralty suggest this: if Giuliani thought that was how to run a
business, you'd better be prepared to spend a lot on advertising
to counter all the negativity you create in your market. Giuliani
was a tyrant compared to Bloomberg, a complete jerk. 9/11 made
Giuliani's career, and he knows it. (And it's not like Rudy was
the brightest bulb even then: his "go shop" recommendation was
like Nero playing a fiddle. This City needed a little time to
lick its wounds, and to suggest we should bypass that was
ridiculous, as well as his suggestion that maybe it made sense
for him to extend his term while we recovered. Uh, no thank you.)
This was a business? Geez, you'd be forgiven for selling your
stock.
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