Gas prices start to pinch

The Star Tribune today had a big A1 centerpiece on how higher gas prices are affecting homeowners and commuters.

The main revelation to me is that some people spend $500 a month on gas alone, not to mention the hour or two spent in traffic each day. That doesn't count the cost of buying, maintaining and insuring a car or two.

Are they insane?

It also cites a couple of studies that try to measure the transportation cost of living in various parts of the Twin Cities. One is by the Center for Neighborhood Technology; the other is by the Brookings Institution.

A lot of people decided to buy in the far-flung exurbs because the houses were a lot cheaper there. But there's a reason they're cheap, and many homeowners are now figuring out why.

If gas prices remain high, home prices will rise in the central cities and decline further in the sticks. But they're not going to fall enough to totally offset the ongoing cost of commuting, year after year.

The long-term implications could be interesting.

For starters, the "sweet spot" -- where combined housing and commuting costs are the most affordable -- will move inward somewhat. If mass transit gets a renewed lease on life, it will move in even closer, as those "expensive" homes in the city turn out to be cheaper in the long run. Even far-flung development will be affected, as it follows bus and rail lines rather than highways. That's one reason communities along the proposed Northstar commuter line strongly support its creation.

Meanwhile, businesses may seek to reduce transportation costs by locating near a rail line in the exurbs. That will allow residents to stop commuting into the city and instead drive to a local workplace. The small-town downtown may flourish again, creating a ring of minicities around the large central ones.

High gas prices may, in the end, achieve what government could or would not: curbing sprawl and the inefficient use of resources that goes with it. Yet another example of how dealing with the true cost of gasoline helps society as a whole make more rational choices.

Separately, MPR's Midmorning show had an interview with Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer, who's in town to take part in the Great Conversations series at the University of Minnesota. Blumenauer helped develop the Portland, Ore., transit system and is something of an expert on urban management and growth. They discussed several things, but Blumenauer made two points that resonated with me:

Zoning laws need to change. As long as we require people to drive to the mall or strip mall to shop, car usage remains necessary. A better idea is to have local stores within neighborhoods for small needs, and transit-linked shopping destinations for more regional draws. Right now, though, that's almost impossible because many zoning laws -- most of them drawn up decades ago and altered little since then -- still require sharp separations between commercial and residential districts.

Commuters deserve options. Blumenauer noted that the Twin Cities are less densely populated than Portland and have far more miles of highway. Yet we have more traffic congestion. That should be a flashing red sign that more highways are not a solution.

He expressed surprise that the Twin Cities is so far behind the rest of the country in the adoption of light rail, when even once-adamant opponents such as Phoenix, Denver and Houston now have systems. He said the goal should not be to force people to use mass transit; it should be to give them options, so they can decide what to use. Over time it leads to fewer roads, less traffic and less sprawl.

We have high gas prices to thank for the re-emergence of this sort of conversation. And it's yet one more reason why we should not be trying to lower those prices.

light rail, mass transit, Blumenauer, energy, oil, transportation, gas prices, sprawl, politics, midtopia

Ann Coulter watch

30 days ago, Ann Coulter was given 30 days to respond to allegations that she knowingly voted in the wrong precinct -- or knowingly listed an incorrect address on her registration form.

No word yet on what that response was, or if she met the deadline. As soon as anything comes to light, I'll post it here. Not because it's important, but because I can't help enjoying the sight of Ann Coulter on the defensive.

Coulter, politics, midtopia

Senate Republicans get an earful

Some days I'm quite hopeful that the American people are paying attention.

The Senate Republican plan to mail $100 checks to voters to ease the burden of high gasoline prices is eliciting more scorn than gratitude from the very people it was intended to help.

Aides for several Republican senators reported a surge of calls and e-mail messages from constituents ridiculing the rebate as a paltry and transparent effort to pander to voters before the midterm elections in November.

"The conservatives think it is socialist bunk, and the liberals think it is conservative trickery," said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, pointing out that the criticism was coming from across the ideological spectrum.

Angry constituents have asked, "Do you think we are prostitutes? Do you think you can buy us?" said another Republican senator's aide, who was granted anonymity to openly discuss the feedback because the senator had supported the plan.

Beautiful.

And guess which senator has the tinniest ear? Hint: he'd like to run for president in 2008.

Eric Ueland, chief of staff to Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Republican leader, whose office played a main role in pulling the proposal together, said the rebate was an important short-term step in a broader array of measures that began with last year's energy bill. Constituents "believe government ought to step up to the plate rather than loll around in the dugout," Mr. Ueland wrote in an e-mail message on Sunday.

Uh, no. Congress should do things that actually address the long-term problem of oil dependency, not continue that dependency with election-year bribes. "Lolling around in the dugout" precisely describes the rebate plan, as well as the Democratic proposal to suspend the gas tax.

I'm glad that a lot of Americans appear to realize that. Frist is once again demonstrating why he will not be president in 2009.

gas tax, gasoline, energy, oil, politics, midtopia

Did Bush let Zarqawi live for political reasons?

We start off Monday with a potentially explosive report: Confirmation from a CIA official of long-standing reports that George Bush held off on trying to nail al-Zarqawi back in 2002.

The revelation came on an Australian TV show called "Four Corners." The source? Former CIA man Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA's Osama bin Laden effort for six years. He's been talking about the war on terror for a while now. His words:

Mr Scheuer claims that a July 2002 plan to destroy the camp lapsed because "it was more important not to give the Europeans the impression we were gunslingers".

"Mr Bush had Zarqawi in his sights almost every day for a year before the invasion of Iraq and he didn't shoot because they were wining and dining the French in an effort to get them to assist us in the invasion of Iraq," he told Four Corners.

"Almost every day we sent a package to the White House that had overhead imagery of the house he was staying in. It was a terrorist training camp . . . experimenting with ricin and anthrax . . . any collateral damage there would have been terrorists."

The "not wanting to cheese off the French" explanation seems quite weak, given Bush's general indifference to French opinion. But that could well be what the administration told the CIA.

A seemingly more plausible reason, and what makes this confirmation potentially important, is this:

During the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, Zarqawi's presence in the north of the country was used by US officials to link Saddam Hussein to terrorism.

In other words, Zarqawi's continued presence was convenient in helping to build the case for war against Iraq. Never mind that the camp was in Kurdish-controlled territory and thus well outside the part of Iraq that Saddam controlled.

If Bush really held off nailing a known terrorist for political reasons, he has a lot of explaining to do. Maybe he didn't consider Zarqawi and his group important; but then he shouldn't have been citing the group as evidence of Saddam's support for terror.

For more viewpoints, the story is being heavily discussed on Kevin Drum's blog at the Washington Monthly.

Zarqawi, Bush, Iraq, terrorism, politics, midtopia

FBI probes 3,500 without warrants

In a report required as part of the renewal of the Patriot Act, the Justice Department said Friday that the FBI secretly sought information on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents last year. The report covers some but not all National Security Letters, which let the government obtain records without a judge's approval or a subpoena.

3,500 is fewer people than had been feared, although the report doesn't count "requests for subscriber information", so the true number is substantially higher. But I continue to be mystified why we would grant our government permission to spy on whomever it wants whenever it wants. It's not just that it invites abuse and is inimical to liberty. If there's not enough substantiation to get a warrant or a subpoena -- which aren't very hard to get in the first place -- that's reasonably good evidence that the surveillance is unwarranted.

Further, if we know enough about a suspect to demand their records, then we know enough about them to investigate them through other, less violative means. This isn't like warrantless wiretaps, which in the Hollywood scenarios favored by supporters offer at least the possibility of preventing an imminent attack. As the Washington Post explained in November, NSLs are investigative tools, not emergency interventions.

A national security letter cannot be used to authorize eavesdropping or to read the contents of e-mail. But it does permit investigators to trace revealing paths through the private affairs of a modern digital citizen. The records it yields describe where a person makes and spends money, with whom he lives and lived before, how much he gambles, what he buys online, what he pawns and borrows, where he travels, how he invests, what he searches for and reads on the Web, and who telephones or e-mails him at home and at work.

(snip)

Since the Patriot Act, the FBI has dispersed the authority to sign national security letters to more than five dozen supervisors -- the special agents in charge of field offices, the deputies in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, and a few senior headquarters officials. FBI rules established after the Patriot Act allow the letters to be issued long before a case is judged substantial enough for a "full field investigation." Agents commonly use the letters now in "preliminary investigations" and in the "threat assessments" that precede a decision whether to launch an investigation.

In other words, agents use warrantless snooping to decide if they're going to launch a full-scale investigation. Warrantless searches have become a first and routine step, instead of a narrow and extreme exception to the law.

I am appalled.

terrorism, Patriot Act, FBI, warrants, politics, midtopia

Limbaugh arrested on drug charges

Sounds sexy, doesn't it? Well, there's a bit less here than meets the eye.

Rush Limbaugh reached a settlement with prosecutors Friday in a fraud case involving prescription painkillers, though the conservative radio commentator maintains his innocence.

Limbaugh turned himself in to authorities about 4 p.m. on a warrant for fraud to conceal information to obtain a prescription, the first charge in the nearly 3-year-old case, said Teri Barbera, a spokeswoman for the state attorney. He was released an hour later on $3,000 bail.

Limbaugh’s attorney, Roy Black, said his client and prosecutors reached a settlement on a charge of doctor shopping.

Under the deal, Limbaugh would eventually see the charge dismissed in 18 months if he continues treatment for drug addiction, Black said.

In addition, here's the news release from Limbaugh's attorney.

Limbaugh agreed to pay $30,000 to help cover some of the costs of investigating him. I've always found such payment deals a little weird, and ripe for abuse: what's to stop a prosecutor from shaking down wealthy defendants? What's to stop a wealthy defendant from buying off a cash-strapped local government? But I digress.

Limbaugh's claims aside, it seems pretty clear that the prosecutor had a reasonable case because otherwise Limbaugh wouldn't have settled. But I think justice is served here. And anyway, the main damage to Limbaugh -- his reputation -- has already been done. I obviously don't agree with Limbaugh's politics, but what I always found most obnoxious about him was his breezy, self-righteous moralizing. Between his addiction and his multiple marriages, I hope he has learned something about life and will be humbler and less judgemental from now on.

Hey, a guy can dream.

addiction, Limbaugh, politics, midtopia

The problem with parties

Diverse and Contradictory has a post discussing why political parties are congenitally incapable of governing.

The Republicans and Democrats have tried so hard to be the party of everyone, that it's impossible to gain any real consensus among their members.

Republicans have fought this weakness by creating polarizing issues and then standing for them. The Democrats haven't fought that weakness, which leads to a muddled message and no clear direction. The only thing this leads to is the ability of the opposing party to point out the weaknesses of the other's strategy.

Parties are literally unable to do this and remain the large, overarching, all-issue, conglomerates they want to be. They squabble internally, and rip themselves apart by overindulging in the stands they think they want to take. There can actually be no strategy for them to implement.

The solution is the obvious one: vote for the individual, not the party.

The problem, of course, is that doing so takes a bit more work than simply walking into the booth and voting the straight party ticket. And as economists point out, there are no tangible cost-benefit incentives to go vote. Thus a lot of people don't bother to vote, and many of those who do don't bother to educate themselves. It's quite rational, if a little sad, and destructive to democracy in the aggregate.

So let's make things easy on voters. Specifically:

Make election day a holiday, so people don't have to take time off work to vote. And what about holding them earlier in the year, when the weather is better? Then we could put on ice-cream socials or something at voting stations, making going to vote an event rather than the rather beige experience it is now.

Implement instant-runoff voting, so voting for the individual has more meaning.

Make ballots easy to read. I'm not a big one for micromanagement of local elections, but it's high time we paid a competent graphic designer to create a standardized, easy-to-understand ballot that can be adapted for use in every race. Think of the nutrition labels on food as a model: the same information presented the same way no matter what product you're buying, making it easy to understand and compare.

Lower barriers to voting, notably by not forcing people to stand in line for hours to cast their ballot.

We could also try lots of little things to help people vote and vote intelligently: street signs with "Election Day today!" and arrows pointing to the local voting site; standardized reference sheets at voting stations, listing the candidates and their positions on key issues so people can refresh their memory; things like that.

Very few of these ideas are attractive to parties in general or incumbents in particular. So they won't happen without serious pressure from below. But since elections are implemented by local governments, a small number of voices can make a difference.

Election Day, instant-runoff voting, parties, voting, politics, midtopia

The UN finds its spine

Well, not the UN just yet, but the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday that Iran had enriched uranium and persists with related activities in its nuclear program in defiance of the U.N. Security Council.... The finding set the stage for a showdown in the U.N. Security Council, which is expected to meet next week and start a process that could result in punitive measures against the Islamic republic.

Good. This means the UN will have to take some sort of action.

Iran's reaction was to continue painting targets on itself.

Just before the report was released, Iran's president said the country "won't give a damn" about any U.N. resolutions concerning its nuclear program.... Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said no Security Council resolution could make Iran give up its nuclear program.

The great thing about Iran is the clarity. Oh, there's the question of whether their intent is for peaceful or military use. But that's not much of a question, since they were caught redhanded with a secret enrichment program and have hardened their nuclear sites against attack. You don't really need to do that if you're just pursuing electricity.

No, with Iran there are none of the uncertainties that surrounded Iraq's WMD program. Iran is pursuing nukes, they admit it, and they're daring the world to do something about it. They didn't even bother responding to the Security Council demands for information, a direct diss of the organization.

If the Security Council is to remain relevant, such defiance cannot be tolerated. The question now comes down to what sort of punishment Russia and China will permit -- and whether that will be enough to dissuade Iran from its pursuit. Because that's the bottom line. Try every diplomatic option first. And I mean every diplomatic option. But the only acceptable outcome is for Iran to abandon its nuclear program. We cannot accept a result short of that and call it victory.

Security Council, nuclear, Iran, politics, midtopia

The Smithy Code

Turns out the judge in the recent "DaVinci Code" copyright infringement case has a code of his own.

Parts of London's legal establishment ground to a virtual halt yesterday with lawyers turning into aspiring code-breakers as they tried to decipher a hidden message inserted into The Da Vinci Code trial judgment.

With the revelation Judge Peter Smith inserted a secret code of his own into the April 7 judgment that cleared The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown in his copyright-infringement case, lawyers have been hustling to solve the puzzle.

The code didn't hold up very long, thanks to broad hints from the judge. Here's how one lawyer cracked the code.

code, Dan Brown, DaVinci Code, midtopia

Let the panderfest begin

Republicans and Democrats are vying to see who can come up with the stupidest pander to motorists -- all part of a short-sighted election-year reaction to $3-a-gallon gas.

President Bush eases environmental standards for refineries, trading long-term environmental damage for short-term price relief. Republicans say "drill in ANWR!" and suggest sending every taxpayer a $100 rebate, which at least gets points for honesty as a direct money-for-votes proposal. Democrats talk of temporarily suspending the federal gasoline tax.

Then there's the ever-popular "let's investigate the oil companies for price gouging", along with the related "let's make the oil companies pay higher/lower taxes."

None of these "solutions" are more than drops in the bucket, and the oil companies aren't the problem: the problem is ever-rising demand for oil, nervousness in the futures markets and refining bottlenecks.

Frankly, the only rational move thus far was made by Bush, who decided to stop putting oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But he did it for the wrong reason: to try to lower prices at the pump. The real reason to stop putting oil into the reserve is that it's needlessly expensive to buy and store oil you don't need at peak price. Let it drop a bit before resuming purchases.

Here's an idea, guys: stop messing with a good thing. Get up there and lead, and have the courage to explain the real problem with $3 gasoline: it's not expensive enough.

Current "high" gas prices have already had all sorts of salutory effects: renewed interest and investment in alternative fuels, energy-efficient transportation and mass transit. People are carpooling or biking or walking. They're trading in gas guzzlers for Priuses. And there's growing acknowledgement that our oil addiction is a Really Bad Thing, both economically and politically. Imagine how much those effects would intensify if gas got even more expensive.

What we actually need is a hefty increase in the gas tax to drive home the real problem: an economy built on artificially cheap imported oil. Until the pump price of gasoline starts to accurately reflect the true cost of an oil-dependent culture, people will continue to make irrational decisions about energy use. And we will continue to be beholden to despotic oil-rich dictators whose people blame us for their woes.

What is the true cost of a gallon of gasoline? It can be hard to calculate. But for starters we can throw in the $400 billion we've spent in Iraq, and arguably the $1 trillion or so we'll eventually spend in the overall fight against terror. I'm not saying we invaded Iraq for the oil. But we wouldn't give a rat's ass about the Mideast -- or have spent so much time and money backing regional dictators whose oppression and economic mismanagement is part of the longstanding root of the problem -- if it weren't for oil and our desire to maintain a steady and cheap supply of it.

This 1998 study predates Iraq. But it puts the externalized cost of gas at between $4.60 and $14.14 per gallon. If they're right, we should be paying at least $7.60 a gallon for gas. I don't vouch for the validity of all the factors they use, but I think the general point -- that what we pay at the pump reflects only part of the true cost of gasoline -- is valid.

Why are there so many hidden costs? Because assumptions about energy availability and price underly everything we do. As individuals it affects where we live, how we work, the size and construction of our houses, the price and quality of everything we buy. As companies it affects where we locate, what we produce and how we produce it. As a nation it affects who we trade with and what our diplomatic and military priorities are. Change those assumptions, and you change the fabric of the country.

So I don't see a hefty gas tax as social engineering or punitive or anything like that. I see it as true-cost pricing, allowing us to finally start making smart decisions about energy use and start down the road to true energy independence. EThe extra revenue could be used to defray the cost of the Iraq war. Or support the development of alternative energy. Or build giant space billboards that say "Screw you, Iran!" in letters readable from the ground.

A 2002 study by the Congressional Budget Office examined three ways to reduce gasoline consumption: increased fuel economy mandates, gas taxes, and "cap-and-trade" schemes. It concludes that raising the fuel tax is the most cost-effective way to reduce gas use, as well as having positive effects elsewhere. They didn't contemplate a tax anywhere near as large as what I'm suggesting, but it still demonstrates the validity of the idea.

Like any addiction, kicking our cheap oil habit will take time. We'd have to phase in the tax so as to avoid serious economic dislocation, and we might want to provide exemptions or discounts to efficient users. But the sooner we start, the sooner we can tell the oil despots to perform anatomically impossible feats.


gas tax, gasoline, energy, oil, politics, midtopia

Secrecy for the sake of secrecy

A National Archives audit has found that a controversial CIA reclassification program -- in which previously public documents are reclassified and withdrawn from view -- improperly classified about a third of the records.

Auditors for the Archives who reviewed a representative sample of thousands of formerly public records found that 24 percent were pulled despite being "clearly inappropriate" for reclassification, and another 12 percent were "questionable" as candidates for reclassification.

"In short, more than one of every three documents removed from the open shelves and barred to researchers should not have been tampered with," said Allen Weinstein, the archivist of the United States, who ordered the audit and imposed a moratorium on the reclassification efforts last month.

The effort was also far larger than previously disclosed:

In February, the Archives estimated that about 9,500 records totaling more than 55,000 pages had been withdrawn and reclassified since 1999. The new audit shows the real haul was much larger -- at least 25,515 records were removed by five different agencies, including the CIA, Air Force, Department of Energy, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Archives.

But that's not the best part. This is:

Auditors also found that the CIA withdrew a "considerable number" of records it knew should be unclassified "in order to obfuscate" other records it was trying to protect.

Some of the reclassification effort makes sense -- an otherwise innocuous document that contained the name of a still-active CIA agent, for example -- though that raises the question of why they couldn't have simply copied the document, redacted the name and left the copy public.

But much of it was nonsensical and some of it involved information that was merely embarrassing to some person or agency. And classifying nonsensitive records merely to conceal exactly what you are classifying is both indefensible and an open invitation to abuse.

J. William Leonard, who oversees classification efforts at the Archive, puts his finger on the problem:

"We hold people accountable, and rightfully so, when they engage in unauthorized disclosures of information," said Leonard, who led the audit. "But we also have that affirmative responsibility, each and every one of us, to challenge inappropriate classification decisions. And it's not done. It's simply not done with any degree of regularity in this government."

Exactly. The system is biased toward secrecy, with only weak remedial options. Not only is this corrosive to democracy; it devalues the entire classification system. Knowing that much of what is classified does not deserve to be, it's hard to get worked up when people leak classified information.

Make classification mean something. And the best way to do that is to put an end to stupid abuses of the "top secret" stamp.

National Archives, reclassification, politics, midtopia

More billable hours

Not surprisingly, the judge in Scooter Libby's perjury trial denied Libby's motion to dismiss the charges on specious technical grounds.

[Judge] Walton said Thursday he did not need to "look far" in the law to reject the claim by Libby's defense team. The judge said there is no question the attorney general can delegate any of his functions.

"There was no wholesale abdication of the attorney general's duty to direct and supervise litigation," he wrote.

I wrote previously that such a maneuver was worthy of Saddam Hussein's defense team, but not that of a former vice presidential aide. Maybe now they'll stop attacking the source and start addressing the charges -- and maybe some of my lingering questions will be answered.

If you really can't get enough of this sort of thing, Jurist has the judge's concluding statement as well as links to pdfs of many of the filings in the case.

terrorism, Plame, Iraq, Libby, politics, midtopia

Construction begins on Freedom Tower

New York has begun construction on the 1,776-foot replacement for the World Trade Center.

Cheesy name and design critiques aside, I agree with Gov. George Pataki:

"We are not going to just build low in the face of a war against terror," New York Gov. George Pataki said. "We are going to soar to new heights and reclaim New York's skyline."

The tower and four other high-rises are scheduled to be finished in 2011 and 2012. There's some prosaic concern that it will glut the office-space market, and there will certainly be some such effects: the loss of the WTC has been something of a bonanza for New Jersey building owners, for example. But the benefits of rebuilding -- psychological, if nothing else -- outweigh such temporary and unpredictable side effects.

I disagree with this assessment:

Pataki symbolically laid the first stone on July 4, 2004, just ahead of the Republican National Convention in New York. The moderate Republican is considering a run for U.S. president and his legacy from three terms as governor will depend largely on his stewardship of rebuilding "Ground Zero."

Rebuilding Ground Zero was going to happen no matter who was governor, and Pataki is not solely responsible for its success or failure; the mayor of New York City and the Port Authority, among others, have as much if not more influence over the project. I surely hope that Pataki has been doing far more -- and will be judged on far more -- than simply playing Donald Trump.

I look forward to seeing the tower rise over the skyline.

New York City, World Trade Center, Pataki, terrorism, Ground Zero, Freedom Tower, politics, midtopia

Bird language

A researcher has found that birds understand complex linguistic structures. If the findings hold up, it demolishes yet another ability that supposedly is unique to humans, joining "tool use" and "abstract thinking".

Researchers trained starlings to differentiate between a regular birdsong ''sentence" and one that was embedded with a warbled clause, according to research in today's issue of the journal Nature.

This ''recursive grammar" is what linguists have long believed separated man from beast.

(snip)

While many animals can roar, sing, grunt, or otherwise make noise, linguists have contended for years that the key to distinguishing language skills goes back to our elementary school teachers and basic grammar. Recursive grammar -- inserting an explanatory clause like this one into a sentence -- is something that humans can recognize, but not animals, researchers figured.

This news will probably present some conservatives with a cognitive problem. On the one hand, it directly attacks the notion that humans and animals are somehow separate. On the other hand, it debunks a major linguistic assertion by many conservatives' favorite punching bag, Noam Chomsky. So do they accept the former in order to jump on the latter, or defend the latter in order to attack the former?

As an aside, while in Chicago we visited the Field Museum. They have an outstanding exhibit on the evolution of life, which I urge everyone to go see if you have the chance; it's a hugely informative and multilayered explanation of what scientists know, how we know it, and the conclusions drawn from that knowledge.

But what struck me most was the exhibit on Sue, the almost complete T Rex skeleton that is the centerpiece of the Field's collection. The skull was in such good shape that they were able to do a scan of her braincase and build a picture of her brain structure, showing the sinuses, olfactory bulbs and other regions. Judging from the scan, Sue had an excellent sense of smell.

One of the things you can examine is Sue's wishbone. It's a lot bigger and cruder than the one you pull apart after Thanksgiving dinner. But the exhibit notes that there are only two groups of animals that have wishbones: birds and meat-eating dinosaurs. And that is one of the reasons we think birds are the only living descendants of dinosaurs.

Likewise, humans are clearly descended from earlier animals. I don't see why people think this somehow lessens our humanity, disproves God or makes us less amazing. No other species has accomplished what we have in our short existence. And our having emerged from earlier species is far more wondrous than the idea that we were created as is.

dinosaurs, linguistics, language, evolution, politics, midtopia

Branching out

For a week or so now I've been a regular contributor over at Donklephant. It's a centrist site that gets as much traffic in an hour as Midtopia gets in a day, so it's a much higher-profile platform, and I'm honored and pleased to be invited on board.

That shouldn't set any alarm bells ringing. Midtopia is my baby, and I'm committed to seeing her grow and thrive. I'll usually put up one or two things a day at Donklephant, and everything I post there will be posted here first. So if you want the full Midtopia experience, this is still the only place you can get it.

But Donklephant is well worth checking out on its own merits (a bit like the flea praising the elephant, that). Give them a look, then come back here for that cozy, honored-guest feeling only Midtopia can provide.

politics, midtopia

The oil alternatives

Popular Mechanics has done what it often does best: break down an issue into the basic facts. In this case, they tackle alternative fuels.

It's long, and the good information is in the downloadable pdfs. But the executive summary is that, in the short term, "alternative fuels" will mean mixing other things with gasoline in some fashion. And most alternatives are more expensive per mile than gasoline. The exceptions are biodiesel (running cars on used vegetable oil) and electricity (which uses plentiful domestic coal instead of oil).

The alternatives have their problems. In cold temperatures biodiesel turns to a waxy solid (though fuel additives could fix that). Electrical cars take a long time to recharge and have limited range, rendering them unsuitable for distance driving. And the coal we'd burn to produce the electricity is both a fossil fuel and has pollution issues of its own. Still, when couched in terms of energy independence, it starts to look very good.

The holy grail, hydrogen, is some ways off technologically, and will initially be four times as expensive as gasoline. But the DOE projects that hydrogen will fall to the equivalent of $2/gallon by 2012. After that the major obstacle is infrastructure: having hydrogen-capable filling stations, as well as developing safe ways to transport and store the highly-pressurized explosive gas.

Anyway, check it out.

alternative fuels, oil, energy, politics, midtopia

Allies? Who needs allies?

EU investigators have uncovered more than 1,000 secret CIA flights in Europe, and accused several governments -- notably Italy, Bosnia and Sweden -- of knowing about the flights and doing nothing, in violation of European human rights treaties.

The flights were part of the practice of "extraordinary rendition", in which terror suspects are transferred to countries where they are likely to be tortured.

This doesn't answer the question of whether the CIA secret prisons exist:

The investigation began in January after news reports that U.S. agents had interrogated al-Qaida suspects at secret prisons in eastern Europe. But the focus shifted after people gave detailed accounts of being abducted by U.S. agents in Europe and whisked away to jails in the Middle East, Asia and North Africa.

Few of those who testified at the committee hearings touched on the alleged secret prisons in eastern Europe first reported by The Washington Post in November. Italian lawmaker Giovanni Fava, who wrote the report, said the committee would look into those allegations later.

So as part of our war on terror, we (and possibly a few European countries) ignored European law and the niceties of sovereignity. With the result that now we have a freshly cheesed-off Europe. And all for what? So we could torture some terrorists.

Scratch that. Some suspected terrorists:

The officials, who agreed to discuss the operations only if not quoted by name, said the action was reserved for people considered by the CIA to be the most serious terror suspects. But they conceded mistakes had been made and were being investigated by the CIA's inspector general.

"Gee, we're sorry we mistakenly rendered you for torture. Please accept our apologies for the pain, suffering and lifelong disabilities. You can take comfort in the fact that some of the people responsible might be secretly reprimanded."

When will the administration learn that successfully fighting terror involves courting allies instead of alienating them? And that winning the "war of ideas" means living our ideals and values, instead of violating them in secret and hoping we never get caught?

CIA, rendition, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Roving through the Snow

So conservative pundit Tony Snow is the new White House press secretary.

Surely I'm not the only person who doesn't actually care?

The guy was a commentator. He was a speechwriter for Bush the Elder. So the "this proves Fox News is biased" line doesn't really ring true.

And press secretary is not a particularly powerful position; the major job qualifications are a titanium hide and the ability to verbalize thousands of words without actually communicating anything. Saddam Hussein would have been perfect. In fact, had Bush hired Saddam Hussein to be press secretary I would have approved, because that's one less dictator traveling the conquest-and-slaughter circuit and a hundred grand a year is a bargain for dictator-toppling.

Meanwhile, Karl Rove reappeared before a Plame grand jury to address new evidence that has popped up since his last appearance.

It'll be interesting to see if anything comes of this. There are clear discrepancies, but Rove's defense -- "I forgot" -- is rather hard to disprove. Besides, it's still not clear that any crime was committed in the first place.

This may just be a matter of Fitzgerald tying up loose ends. If he's got something on Rove, I want to see it as much as anyone. But I don't think there's much to get excited about just yet.

Plame, Fitzgerald, Tony Snow, Karl Rove, politics, midtopia

DNA tests free man after 18 years behind bars

yet another example of the fairly high error rate in our criminal justice system:

Based on a second round of DNA tests, the convicted killer of a restaurant manager may be granted a new trial -- or possibly even cleared of the crime -- after spending nearly 18 years behind bars.

In 1989, Drew Whitley was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to life for killing Noreen Malloy, 22.

Our justice system will never be perfect, of course. But the large number of cases like this highlight just how error-prone the system can be. Perhaps we can never totally fix that, but we can limit the damage.

For example, I don't have a big ethical problem with the death penalty. But I have all sorts of practical problems with it, from the expense to racial and economic bias to the error rate I mention above. For all those reasons there should be a requirement that the death penalty can only be applied if there is unequivocal evidence of guilt. And by that I mean an uncoerced confession, videotape or (preferably) DNA evidence. Eyewitness testimony, other forensic evidence, circumstantial evidence -- it's all too unreliable. If that's all the prosecutor has, they can still go for life in prison. But the death penalty should be off the table.

We should reserve the death penalty for truly heinous crimes in which there is no credible doubt about the defendant's guilt. I'm talking Timothy McVeigh here, or serial killers, or cold-blooded executions. Because the true crime would be if we executed an innocent person (as we undoubtedly have done). Life behind bars is cold comfort to the wrongly imprisoned, but at least they're still alive and able to continue challenging their conviction.

If that means that executions almost entirely cease, I'm okay with that. The success of the death penalty should be measured in how accurately it is applied, not how often.

We should also have a compensation program for the wrongly convicted. We stole their life from them; the least we can do is try in some small way to make it up to them.

death penalty, Drew Whitley, DNA, crime, politics, midtopia

Egyptian backlash

The Eqyptian bombings, which killed 21 Egyptians and three foreigners, has provoked a large Muslim backlash.

The leader of Egypt's banned Muslim brotherhood condemned the bombings as "aggression on human souls created by God." The militant Palestinian Hamas organization called them a "criminal attack which is against all human values."

(snip)

Arabs throughout the Middle East also expressed outrage, signalling a growing backlash against al-Qaida-linked groups as fellow Muslims increasingly bear the terrorism brunt.

"I don't think these people care" if Muslims or Arabs are killed. "They'll carry on at any price," music teacher Lara Darwazah, 31, said in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Even if this causes a drop in support for Al-Qaeda and other extremist groups, we still have the problem that a lot of people think such tactics are just fine when aimed at Israel or Western targets. But this sort of incident may serve as a starting point for dialogue. If this is an outrage, surely all similar attacks are outrages, too. And if we accompany such dialogue with actual concret change -- dropping support for repressive regimes, actively pushing for democracy and civil liberties among our Middle Eastern allies, foreign aid to help improve economic prospects -- people may well come to the conclusion that we actually mean what we say.

terrorism, Egypt, politics, midtopia