A solar victory & military defeat at the White House
Five things are certain about solar panels going back on the White House roof:
These new panels go far beyond what Jimmy Carter installed and then Ronald Reagan tore down. Carter's $30,000 rig was installed in 1979 to heat water, which it did.
Reagan's 1986 tear-down defined his assault on the green power industry on behalf of King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes & Gas).
We at Greenpeace marched with many others in 1991, at the launch of the first Gulf War, demanding George H.W. Bush reinstall the panels. He wouldn't.
- They won't generate nuclear waste;
- They won't be targets for terrorists hoping cause an atomic holocaust;
- They'll be working many years before any new atomic reactor could be built;
- They'll deliver usable heat and electricity far more cheaply than new nuclear plants;
- They'll make the US that much freer from the oil addiction that fuels our disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These new panels go far beyond what Jimmy Carter installed and then Ronald Reagan tore down. Carter's $30,000 rig was installed in 1979 to heat water, which it did.
Reagan's 1986 tear-down defined his assault on the green power industry on behalf of King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes & Gas).
We at Greenpeace marched with many others in 1991, at the launch of the first Gulf War, demanding George H.W. Bush reinstall the panels. He wouldn't.
Obama-Men: Innocents Abroad; Politicos at Home
Paging through Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars, I should not have been surprised that the index lacks any entry for "intelligence." The excerpts that dribbled out earlier this week had made unavoidably clear that there was, in fact, no entry for intelligence in the disorderly process last fall that got the Obama administration neck-deep in the Big Muddy — to borrow from Pete Seeger’s song from the Vietnam era.
Before reading through Woodward’s book, the excerpts already published had left doubts in my mind that the Obama White House could be host to such an amateurish decision-process-without-real-process. I had seen a lot of White House fecklessness in my 30 years in intelligence analysis, but it was, frankly, hard to believe that it could be so bad this time.
Could it be true that, after going from knee-deep to waist-deep in the Big Muddy by his early 2009 decision to insert 21,000 additional troops, the President would decide to plunge neck-deep without a comprehensive intelligence review of the impact of the earlier reinforcement and a formal estimate of the likely impact of further escalation?
Before reading through Woodward’s book, the excerpts already published had left doubts in my mind that the Obama White House could be host to such an amateurish decision-process-without-real-process. I had seen a lot of White House fecklessness in my 30 years in intelligence analysis, but it was, frankly, hard to believe that it could be so bad this time.
Could it be true that, after going from knee-deep to waist-deep in the Big Muddy by his early 2009 decision to insert 21,000 additional troops, the President would decide to plunge neck-deep without a comprehensive intelligence review of the impact of the earlier reinforcement and a formal estimate of the likely impact of further escalation?
Hey Tea/GOP: Ben Franklin's NOT your guy!
This is a Greco-Roman nation, gathered in a Hodenosaunee longhouse.
As they wrap themselves in the Constitution they mean to shred, that is the self-evident Truth the Tea/GOP Party ultimately cannot face.
Our legal godfathers---the ones Glenn Beck loves to conjure---were Deistic liberal humanists whose core beliefs he hates.
They dumped that tea because they despised the corporation that owned it and the idea of empire it (and today's corporate-military right) stood for.
The very first phrase of this nation's defining document, the Bill of Rights, says:
"Judaeo-Christian? Not a chance."
The grassroots farmers that made the Revolution were free-thinking hemp growers. Their favorite scribe, Tom Paine, was the son of a Quaker whose Age of Reason assaulted the church with unsurpassed fury. Today's Tea/GOP would have it burned.
Our greatest genius, Ben Franklin, was a proud and joyous sexual adventurer. His very presence today would induce howls of (envious) outrage from the religious right.
As they wrap themselves in the Constitution they mean to shred, that is the self-evident Truth the Tea/GOP Party ultimately cannot face.
Our legal godfathers---the ones Glenn Beck loves to conjure---were Deistic liberal humanists whose core beliefs he hates.
They dumped that tea because they despised the corporation that owned it and the idea of empire it (and today's corporate-military right) stood for.
The very first phrase of this nation's defining document, the Bill of Rights, says:
"Judaeo-Christian? Not a chance."
The grassroots farmers that made the Revolution were free-thinking hemp growers. Their favorite scribe, Tom Paine, was the son of a Quaker whose Age of Reason assaulted the church with unsurpassed fury. Today's Tea/GOP would have it burned.
Our greatest genius, Ben Franklin, was a proud and joyous sexual adventurer. His very presence today would induce howls of (envious) outrage from the religious right.
On voting for bad Democrats: the Perriello predicament
What if you told your local congress critter you'd oppose them if they funded more war, and they funded more war, but their opponent is even worse and a Republican?
Tom Perriello, first-term Democratic congress member from Virginia's Fifth district, is widely expected to lose his reelection bid, in part because he voted for a healthcare bill. Right wingers in the district hated the bill for doing anything at all. Others of us who want to eliminate the health insurance corporations, as other wealthy countries have done, thought it was a terrible bill and quite possibly worse than nothing, as it empowers and entrenches the problem even while imposing some reforms.
Tom Perriello, first-term Democratic congress member from Virginia's Fifth district, is widely expected to lose his reelection bid, in part because he voted for a healthcare bill. Right wingers in the district hated the bill for doing anything at all. Others of us who want to eliminate the health insurance corporations, as other wealthy countries have done, thought it was a terrible bill and quite possibly worse than nothing, as it empowers and entrenches the problem even while imposing some reforms.
Inspector General criticism doesn't faze FBI raids on midwestern anti-war activists
The war on dissent, rather than terrorism, continued full steam with FBI SWAT teams breaking down doors at 7 am Friday (Sept 24) morning and raiding the homes of several anti-war leaders and activists in Minneapolis, Chicago and possibly a couple other Midwest cities. Members of the FBI's "Joint Terrorism Task Force" spent a few hours at each Minneapolis residence, seizing personal photographs and papers, computers and cell phones as well as serving Federal Grand Jury subpoenas on the various activists.
Stoned on righteousness
It’s not just about us. If Californians legalize marijuana on Nov. 2, maybe Mexico will end its horrific drug war.
The “war on drugs,” like the war on terror, is a simplistic and brutally stupid solution imposed on a complex, multifaceted human problem, born out of the notion that you can take evil out of context and eradicate it with the firepower of righteousness. Science and the arts have long ago moved on to new realms of awareness, but we’re still playing politics the way we did in the 19th century — or the 12th or 1st — with the primary difference being that we have the capacity to do far more harm these days.
And righteousness, indeed, all too often becomes a far greater cause of harm than the original problem; in tandem, problem and solution may combine to turn chronic trouble into unfathomable disaster, especially for innocent bystanders.
The “war on drugs,” like the war on terror, is a simplistic and brutally stupid solution imposed on a complex, multifaceted human problem, born out of the notion that you can take evil out of context and eradicate it with the firepower of righteousness. Science and the arts have long ago moved on to new realms of awareness, but we’re still playing politics the way we did in the 19th century — or the 12th or 1st — with the primary difference being that we have the capacity to do far more harm these days.
And righteousness, indeed, all too often becomes a far greater cause of harm than the original problem; in tandem, problem and solution may combine to turn chronic trouble into unfathomable disaster, especially for innocent bystanders.
Petraeus Cons Obama on Afghan War
One thing that comes through clearly in Bob Woodward's new book, Obama's Wars, is the contempt felt by Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, toward President Barack Obama.
One of Woodward's more telling vignettes has Petraeus, after quaffing a glass of wine during a flight in May, telling some of his staff that the administration was "[expletive] with the wrong guy." No need to divine precisely what may be the "expletive deleted." Petraeus's Douglas-MacArthur-style contempt for the commander-in-chief comes through clearly enough. But Obama is no Harry Truman, facing down a popular general who may fancy himself a future president.
Pity poor Obama. Journalists favored with an advance peek at Woodward's new book, like Peter Baker of the New York Times, report that Obama last year pressed his advisers to come up with ways to avoid a major escalation in Afghanistan.
Baker notes that at one meeting the President "implored" them. "I want an exit strategy," Obama said.
One of Woodward's more telling vignettes has Petraeus, after quaffing a glass of wine during a flight in May, telling some of his staff that the administration was "[expletive] with the wrong guy." No need to divine precisely what may be the "expletive deleted." Petraeus's Douglas-MacArthur-style contempt for the commander-in-chief comes through clearly enough. But Obama is no Harry Truman, facing down a popular general who may fancy himself a future president.
Pity poor Obama. Journalists favored with an advance peek at Woodward's new book, like Peter Baker of the New York Times, report that Obama last year pressed his advisers to come up with ways to avoid a major escalation in Afghanistan.
Baker notes that at one meeting the President "implored" them. "I want an exit strategy," Obama said.