September 10, 2007 archive

“Mapping Claims to the Spoils of Global Warming”

If you read some newspapers, you’ll find global warming is good for business. No, strike that. Global warming is GREAT for business. This is how the “science” journal at the Wall Street Journal enthusiastically describes what Global Warming means to its readers.

Icebreaker HealyResearchers aboard the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy are mapping claims to the spoils of global warming.

North of Alaska, the 23 scientists of the Healy are gathering the data legally required to extend national territories across vast reaches of the mineral-rich seafloor usually blocked by Arctic ice. Fathom by fathom, multibeam sonar sensors mounted on the Healy’s hull chart a submerged plateau called the Chukchi Cap, in a region that may contain 25% of the world’s reserves of oil and natural gas.

In an era of climate change, these frozen assets are up for grabs, as melting ice allows detailed mapping and, one day perhaps, drilling.

The faster the ice goes, the sooner the oil flows. And vice versa. The faster we burn oil, the sooner the ice goes. Where there’s oil, there’s money to be made. The stunning, accelerating loss of the polar ice cap merely opens up the Arctic for oil and gas exploitation. If the polar bears go extinct along the way, then sobeit — no cost to doing business.

Speaking Your Mind vs. Manipulation

A few days ago at Talk Left Big Tent Democrat wrote a piece on his take on Matt Stoller’s and Glen Greenwald’s position on the Iraq war. In short he characterizes the position if not as defeatist, then somehow improperly resigned pessimism.  Big Tando Dem quotes their willingness to cede the issue to a post-Bush world optimistically also known as “2009”. I agree with him on various things here: that Stoller is an ineffective activist and pundit both, except to be fair, I’m not paying attention, he could be brilliant and I wouldn’t know, I do not follow him at all except as he arises from time to time regarding things like Townhouse List or the “More $$$ for Bloggers! Movement”™.

Glen defends himself with this reply that leads to the point here:

Feel free to cheer for the war’s end.  I do the same.  But that doesn’t make it likely to happen. 

And if Democrats are failing to stop the war – as they are – why should anyone refrain from being honest and saying so?

To which BigTentDemocrat replies:

But the question is why? To pressure them to react and do the right thing? OR to just say so?

We all have eyes. The question is what we want them to do and how to make them do it, if we can.

The Meaning Of Petraeus

At Talk Left, I wrote a piece describing what I believe would be the most effective manner for Democrats to deal with the Petraeus Show coming to a Congress near you this week. I’ll post the text on the flip.

But I wanted to make a point first. To wit, Petraeus and his Surge is nothing but bullshit. I assume we all know this but we have seen and will see a lot of “serious” discussion about it. Let’s be clear, there is no hope for a good ending for the United States in Iraq. It is a Debacle and there is nothing that will change that, short of, perhaps, a reconquering of Iraq, conscription of a million Americans and World War III in the Middle East. Of course such an approach would not only be lunacy, it will never happen (just as war with Iran UNCONNECTED to Iraq will never happen).

So all this “serious” talk is unserious and ridiculous in the extreme. Take for instance, via Yglesias, this discussion by two of the more foolish “serious” people we encounter in these discussions, Packer and Dodge:

Dodge’s grim vision does not make an irrefutable case for staying in Iraq. But it’s a reminder that the illusions and naïve hopes with which America started the war shouldn’t accompany its end. [WTF? We should persist in illusions and naive hopes as a basis for foreign policy? Quintessential idiocy from Packer.]

. . . This doesn’t mean keeping large numbers of troops in Iraq indefinitely; that has become impossible. David Kilcullen argued that next summer, when the surge is scheduled to end, American forces could be reduced to a level-say, eighty thousand-that might allow most of the core interests to be protected. . . . [W]hen the surge ends, there will have to be a strategic turn, away from Americans in the lead. An indefinite war in Iraq “costs us moral authority across the world,” Kilcullen said. The occupation of Iraq remains hugely unpopular with America’s democratic allies and throughout the Arab and Muslim world. “We need that moral authority as ammunition in the fight against Al Qaeda,” he added. “If we’re not down to fifty thousand troops in three to five years, we’ve lost the war on terror.”

(Emphasis supplied.) Can you believe this shit? Can you believe these idiot “serious” people make a claim for the US having moral authority in the war on terror? After torture, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo and the the rest? These are the elites of this country we are told. If you wonder how we came to this end, just think of WHAT THESE PEOPLE SAY NOW!! If we can not defeat these “elites” politically, we are simply fucked as a country.

More.

Ritter: What Katie Couric Should Be Asking About Iraq

At Truthdig former UN chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter writes:

There is no reason to believe that the compliant war facilitators who comprise the “anti-war” Democratic majority in Congress will do anything other than give the president what he is asking for.  No one seems to want to debate, in any meaningful fashion, what is really going on in Iraq.

Why would they?  The Democrats, like their Republican counterparts, have invested too much political capital into fictionalizing the problem with slogans like “support the troops,” “we’re fighting the enemy there so we don’t have to fight them here,” and my all-time favorite, “leaving Iraq would hand victory to al-Qaida.”

Oral Exam

I would so enjoy the day that the following questions are asked of every presidential candidate, every senator and every representative. Care to speculate on anyone’s probable answers?

Republicans: Out Loud, in Front of Microphones

In the ongoing struggle to pretend that, despite long-standing poll results, there is some sort of debate in America as to whether we should leave Iraq, the Republican nominees for President are coming up with the most laughable rationales for staying. 

That no one is pointing out that these statements, made on the record, out loud and in front of microphones, virtually guarantee a rout for the Democratic nominee in the 2008 national debates, is curious.  The Democratic nominee merely needs to quote some of this stuff, and ask whether anyone wants the quoted Republican near the nuclear button, or, for that matter, near large boards with nails in them.

Democrats in Washington either haven’t realized this or don’t want to admit that they have, for fear that the admission would then require them to stop worrying about “tactics” and to move aggressively in the direction of their constituents.

Which Side Are You On?

Many of you have met my son Daniel.  He is my only child and means everything to me.  He and I along with a few hundred thousand of our best friends are marching on Washington D.C. this coming Saturday, September 15th, 2007.  We are going to demand an end to the madness in Iraq, and justice and accountability for the criminal scum in the White House.  The war may not end and there may never be any justice – but no one will ever be able to say that we didn’t demand it – and no one will ever be able to say that we didn’t put ourselves on the line to make it happen.

Which-side-are-you-on

Joe Biden is a Liar

In an article about the ostensible Democratic prebuttal to the Petraeus testimony, Senator and Presidential candidate Joe Biden is quoted as saying:

Unless we get 67 votes to override [Bush’s] veto, there’s nothing we can do to stop this war

This of course, is a lie. It does not take 67 Senators to stop funding.

Ask A Kossack

One of the most impressive things about YOU, fellow Kossaks, is the breadth of knowledge YOU have accumulated.  Smarts spanning from aardvarks to Zymurgy.  If you ask a question on Dkos, ANY question, it WILL be answered, at the very least with a link or a clue!
The Daily Kos is truly a cornucopia of information.  So much so that it can be like Sipping from a firehose!.  I don’t want to try to tell you how to use it!!!  So here is Not buhdydharma’s New User’s Guide to dKos!.  The best guide to Dkos ever written IMHO!  And for a list of GOOD series on Dkos have a look at this part of the FAQ!  Yes dkos is Wunnerful and with these few extra gems of wisdom in hand, you may peruse its pulchritude at your pleasure!

Any Questions?

Final thoughts on look and feel

Have to say it was a surprise to see the maroon blox,  but when OTB changed the banner, they worked great!!! And the color of the eyes with the maroon, and both the dark and light blues now all work well together… here are two things i thought of about the banner: make the sky dark blue and see if there isn’t some reddish gases swirling faintly somewhere… and spread the blue over the keyboard, as it is in the left of the picture… then i think it’s captured and is in harmony with the other elements on the page…  one last thing… is there anyway to soften the bottom edge of the banner? LoE knows what i mean, i think

0. The line default line separating main from extended text: i would flush left it as well as have more space between the line and the main and extended text…you can see it here… it just hangs there and has NO relationship to anything… you may want to just make a thin maroon line the length of the column to divide…but that line in the middle doesn’t always hit center, depending on how paragraphs break

1. First line of essay need more space between it and the link above it:

[subject promote]
Every time Osama bin Laden’s vile visage reappears on America’s television screens,


2. Same with the last sentence of the essay, which needs space between it and the tags line:

possibility anymore?
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PONY PARTY… barn’s open… neigh neigh neighbors

Hey kids… you asked for it, here you go

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