March 11, 2009 archive

Unbe-fraking-leavable! Just when you think you know what the hell is going on and have some idea what it will take to get things back in shape, a new shite storm comes sailing along to bring you a new life-time supply of manure. What has the Dog so spun up this afternoon? Well, are you sitting down, gentle reader (duh of course you are, you’re on the internet)? The FDIC is going asking to be able to borrow $500 billion (as in five hundred thousand million) dollars, because it is does not have enough money to do the heavy lifting of taking over a bank like Citi or B of A.  

 

Last month, U.S. President Barack Obama ordered 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan without setting clear goals and an exit strategy. “This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction, and resources it urgently requires,” Obama said at the time.

Since the announcement three weeks ago, signs are beginning to emerge to what Obama’s Afghanistan strategy will be. Obama mentions three tools – the military, economic development, and diplomacy – he has available to eliminate the threat to the United States.

“We’ve got to recast our policy so that our military, diplomatic and development goals are all aligned to ensure that al Qaeda and extremists that would do us harm don’t have the kinds of safe havens that allow them to operate. At the heart of a new Afghanistan policy is going to be a smarter Pakistan policy,” Obama told the NY Times on Friday.

1. The Guardian reports the U.N. climate chief saus U.S. CO2 cuts could spark ‘revolution’. “Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said domestic political constraints made it impossible for the US president to announce ambitious short-term climate targets similar to those set by Europe. And he questioned the value of a new global climate deal without such a US pledge.” The cuts that scientists say are needed are politcally ‘impossible’ for the United States to make.

   Pachauri said regarding President Obama’s climate policy: “He is not going to say by 2020 I’m going to reduce emissions by 30%. He’ll have a revolution on his hands. He has to do it step by step.”

2. McClatchy reports the U.N. expert says U.S. rendition policy broke international law. “Martin Scheinin, a U.N. special rapporteur and expert on international law, issued his annual report to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday.” His report accuses the U.S. and some of its allies “of breaching international law for the so-called extraordinary renditions and subsequent alleged torture of terrorism suspects during the Bush administration’s global war on terrorism, and is launching a probe into the detention of suspects.”

   According to the report, the U.S. masterminded “a ‘comprehensive system’ of rendition and detention of suspects as well as creating “an international web” of intelligence sharing, his report notes that it was possible only through collaboration with many other countries.”

3. The Hill reports President Obama lays out five steps to mend earmarks. “Obama’s reforms are five-fold. First, Obama said, lawmakers must post their spending projects on their websites ‘so the public and the press can examine them and judge their merit for themselves.’ Second, those earmarks must also be open to scrutiny at public hearings… Third, earmarks that go to for-profit private companies would be subject to a competitive bidding contract structure like the one used for other federal contracts… Fourth, Obama said that earmarks should never be traded for ‘political favors.’ And fifth, he noted that his administration will review each spending project and, if it is deemed unworthy, will work to eliminate it.”

4. The Guardian reports Amazon could shrink by 85% due to climate change, scientists say.

   Global warming will wreck attempts to save the Amazon rainforest, according to a devastating new study which predicts that one-third of its trees will be killed by even modest temperature rises.

   The research, by some of Britain’s leading experts on climate change, shows that even severe cuts in deforestation and carbon emissions will fail to save the emblematic South American jungle, the destruction of which has become a powerful symbol of human impact on the planet. Up to 85% of the forest could be lost if spiralling greenhouse gas emissions are not brought under control, the experts said. But even under the most optimistic climate change scenarios, the destruction of large parts of the forest is “irreversible”.

There are times for ideological fights, this the Dog believes with his entire heart. The issue is when to pick these fights. There is an argument that it is the best time when things are in crisis. The thinking on this, such as it is, is that when things are bad you need to be most correct in your actions. Of course this is what we are seeing from the Republican Party in general right now, and from anti-stimulus Governors in particular. It is also a complete fallacy. In times of crisis you need to have already decided the plan of action and act on it. If you are wise you will have planed and thought and argued prior to the crisis, but that is a rare trait in the America of the early 21st Century.  

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