"Beyond reason"

The planned 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero in New York City is expected to cost -- are you ready? -- nearly $1 billion.

I'm not making this up.

Rebuilding officials concede that the new price tag is breathtaking — "beyond reason" in the words of one member of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation board — and it is sure to set off another battle over development at the 16-acre site, with calls to cut costs, scale back the design or even start over.

This is just the memorial, not the commercial development going up at the site. And that's not counting an $80 million visitors' center being built by the state.

The new estimate, $972 million, would make this the most expensive memorial ever built in the United States.... It is likely to draw unfavorable comparisons to the $182 million National World War II Memorial in Washington, which opened in 2004; the $29 million Oklahoma City National Memorial, which opened in 2000; or the $7 million Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, which opened in 1982.

Much of the problem is that the memorial would be underground, necessitating lots of expensive steel, concrete and labor. But that's hardly an excuse. Some of these estimates are dramatically higher than they were just a few months ago.

The report estimates the cost of just the memorial and its related museum at $672 million, up 36 percent from $494 million only four months ago. In addition, the latest projections include $71.5 million for an underground cooling plant, up from $41.5 million four months ago.

How does a cooling plant's cost go up 72 percent in just four months, except through really bad planning?

If the memorial foundation were able to raise that kind of money privately, then no problem. I'd still think it reflected seriously misplaced priorities, but it's private money. However, in perhaps a sign of good sense among the American public, the foundation has collected just $130 million so far.

New York's mayor and the governors of both New York and New Jersey have said the memorial shouldn't cost more than $500 million. That's still a bit mind-boggling, but as an upper limit it seems quite reasonable.

We need a memorial, and it should be tasteful, impressive and thought-provoking, as befits such a history-changing event. But turning its construction into an enormously expensive boondoggle would not do justice to the memories of the victims. Set a reasonable price tag, and then design the best memorial that fits the budget.

New York, WTC, memorial, Ground Zero, politics, midtopia

Catch a criminal, catch some flak

In the "no good deed goes unpunished" category, the bartender that turned in escaped rapist Michael Benson has been suspended from her job.

Some people have even called her "a snitch," said Nina, who asked that her last name not be published for safety reasons.... Nina said that on Wednesday she was told not to come back to her job of nearly 14 years at Gates Bar-B-Q for a while.

"I don't know why. They told me if I need anything to call them," she said.

Excuse me? "Snitch?" For turning in a convicted rapist? Yeep.

The suspension is more murky. The "call us if you need anything" aspect suggests the suspension is merely for safety reasons, or to make the publicity go away more quickly, rather than some underlying disapproval of her actions. But what a hamhanded way to do it. I hope the suspension is with pay, including what her tips would have been.

America's Most Wanted, Michael Benson, crime, midtopia

Bribery investigation closes in on La. Democrat

Following on the heels of the Mollohan case, here's another demonstration that Republicans don't have a corner on the corruption market:

A while back, Brent Pfeffer, an aide to Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., pleaded guilty to demanding bribes and implicated his boss.

A couple of days ago, a contractor pleaded guilty to paying Jefferson more than $400,000.

Vernon Jackson, 53, chief executive of the Louisville, Ky.-based telecommunications firm iGate Inc., admitted to bribery of a public official and conspiracy to bribe a public official during a plea hearing in US District Court.

Court records make clear that the congressman whom Jackson admits bribing is Jefferson, who represents New Orleans in the House. ... Prosecutor Mark Lytle said Jackson paid $367,500 in checks and wire transfers over a four-year period to a company controlled by the congressman's wife in exchange for help promoting iGate technology in Africa. Jackson also gave the company a 24 percent stake in iGate and paid for $80,000 in travel expenses on the congressman's trips to Africa to promote iGate, which uses technology to transmit data over traditional telephone lines.

Jefferson denies wrongdoing. But prosecutors say he is the target of the investigation. And two solid convictions of other players, both of whom implicate Jefferson, spell bad news for the Congressman.

Congress, bribery, corruption, Jefferson, politics, midtopia

Making policy on the fly

Didn't get to this yesterday:

One might wonder why Senate Republicans haven't yet formally killed their gas tax proposal, given the near-unanimous condemnation it's receiving.

Besieged with complaints about political pandering, GOP lawmakers now say the rebate idea is a non-starter. As Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) explained yesterday, "When my own daughter harasses me, you know you're in trouble."

So declare it dead already, and let's move on.

The reason they haven't might be that lawmakers haven't come up with something equally pandering to replace it. But the real problem, which is the linked article's main point, is that legislators were making this stuff up on the fly.

The response so far has been profiles in panic. Some conservatives dropped their philosophical opposition to tax hikes and business regulations and began complaining loudly about oil companies and the auto industry. ... A few days earlier, Bush backed diverting crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, an idea he dismissed less than two years earlier as a political stunt. ... Republican lawmakers likewise have responded with a mishmash of solutions -- some barely vetted, others with little chance of becoming law.

The Democrats get points for at least being consistent, even though their ideas are no more effective or on point than the GOP's.

Memo to all of our elected leaders: Calm down.

The thing about high gas prices is that it is not a crisis. It is (hopefully) a new chronic condition. So hasty, temporary measures to deal with it are ill-conceived at best.

Forget the attempt at short-term, short-sighted fixes. You can't do much anyway. Instead, take a deep breath and do the things that need to be done to assure our long-term energy security -- which means taking steps to reduce our oil dependence.

Do a good job at that -- show that you are sober, smart and willing to take risks to do what must be done -- and maybe your prospects in November will improve.

gas tax, gas prices, oil, energy, politics, midtopia

San Diego ordered to take down giant cross

A cross that has stood atop a city-owned mountaintop in San Diego for decades may have to come down after a 17-year legal battle.

A federal judge moved to end a 17-year legal saga yesterday by ordering the city of San Diego to remove the Mount Soledad cross from city property within 90 days or be fined $5,000 a day.

“It is now time, and perhaps long overdue, for this Court to enforce its initial permanent injunction forbidding the presence of the Mount Soledad Cross on City property,” U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson Jr. said.

The 29-foot cross was dedicated in 1954 at the site of a Korean War memorial. A resident sued in 1989 to have it removed. Several attempts to transfer the land under the cross to private groups have been disallowed. So now the cross will likely be moved to nearby private land.

The mayor of San Diego has indicated a willingness to continue fighting the case, but the city is strapped for cash and can ill-afford the fines.

This has become a cause celebre for conservative groups, in part because the original plaintiff was an atheist, and he received assistance from the ACLU. But the legal reasoning seems very clear:

In his ruling, Thompson said he has spent years hearing arguments over the cross, as have other courts.

“Consistently, every court that has addressed the issue has ruled that the presence of the Latin cross on Mount Soledad, land which is owned by the city of San Diego . . . violates Article I Section 4 of the California Constitution,” he said in his order.

I'm not the sort to get all offended by a giant cross overlooking a city -- I actually think the big statue of Jesus that overlooks Rio de Janeiro is pretty cool. But this is about the law, not my personal lack of offense. And the law makes sense. It is wrong for our government to have a cross represent all Korean War vets, as if they were all Christian or even believers. And it is wrong to use city property to promote one religion above all others.

One could argue that the cross has historic significance. After all, we wouldn't move the cross if it was hundreds of years old. Southwestern states operate old Spanish missions as historic sites, for example, and the religious symbols are part of the presentation.

But presenting religion in a historic context is clearly distinct from promoting it. More to the point, the San Diego cross has scant historic value, being less than 60 years old. That is not enough to overcome the importance of the government being seen as neutral on belief -- and nonbelief.

The solution is simple, and has already been planned: move the cross to nearby public land. The cross is preserved and it is still highly visible. But you will no longer have one religion using the levers of governmental power to promote itself.

ACLU, San Diego, religion, politics, midtopia

A general's inside take on Iraq

Fred Kaplan over at Slate reports on a memo that retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey wrote about the situation and prognosis in Iraq. McCaffrey supports the war and now teaches at West Point.

The assessment won't surprise anyone who has been paying attention. Our troops are doing a professional job, and the Iraqi army is coming along. But the security situation is worsening, the Iraqi police and army units are underequipped, underfunded and unable to fight on their own and reconstruction aid is dwindling to nothing.

He estimates it will take 10 years and about $100 billion in economic aid alone to achieve what we set out to achieve in Iraq. Add another $700 billion or so to that total for military operations, if you look at our current rate of spending.

It's an excellent and balanced piece, and points up what I've said for a long time: had the benefits, perils and costs of invading Iraq been fairly and openly debated, the American public would never have signed on. Whatever you may think about the morality of invading -- and I'm generally okay with the idea of taking out bad guys -- I'm pretty sure we could have found better ways to spend $2 trillion.

Go give it a look.

Iraq, McCaffrey, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Specter to hold hearings on Bush conduct

Sen. Arlen Specter said Wednesday that he would hold hearings on the Boston Globe report that Bush has simply ignored 750 laws he disagrees with.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, accusing the White House of a "very blatant encroachment" on congressional authority, said yesterday he will hold an oversight hearing into President Bush's assertion that he has the power to bypass more than 750 laws enacted over the past five years.

"There is some need for some oversight by Congress to assert its authority here," Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said in an interview. "What's the point of having a statute if . . . the president can cherry-pick what he likes and what he doesn't like?"

Specter said he plans to hold the hearing in June. He said he intends to call administration officials to explain and defend the president's claims of authority, as well to invite constitutional scholars to testify on whether Bush has overstepped the boundaries of his power.

Good. That's a first step. Bush has dared Congress to rein him in; if Congress has any concern at all for its relevance as an institution, they should call that dare.

Specter makes the same point:

Specter said that challenging Bush's contention that he can ignore laws written by Congress should be a matter of institutional pride for lawmakers. He also connected Bush's defiance of laws to several Supreme Court decisions in which the justices ruled that Congress had not done enough research to justify a law.

"We're undergoing a tsunami here with the flood coming from the executive branch on one side and the judicial branch on the other," Specter said. "There may as well soon not be a Congress. . . . And I think that most members don't understand what's happening."

The founders envisioned three branches of government, each jealously guarding their prerogatives, as a way to prevent any one organization from dominating the country. The party system has distorted that; Congressional Republicans now have first loyalty to the president as the leader of the party, as Congressional Dems did under Clinton. Bush has played that for everything it's worth; perhaps now Congress will awaken and push back, once again taking up the Constitutional responsibility that the founders envisioned for it.

checks and balances, Specter, Bush, politics, midtopia

"20th hijacker" gets life

Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced to life in prison today, the jury still split after seven days of deliberation.

Edward Adams, a court spokesman, announced the verdict outside the courthouse and said the 12 jurors "were not unanimous" in favor of a death sentence for Moussaoui, meaning that he automatically gets a life sentence without possibility of parole. He said the verdict does not indicate how many jurors voted for a death sentence and how many opted to keep the defendant in prison.

Works for me. The guy is a nutter, IMO. Not in the legally defensible sense of not knowing right from wrong, but certainly in the colloquial sense of not being rational. He was clearly guilty, so a death sentence would have been defensible. But life in prison serves justice. And as I'll argue below, it has other benefits, too.

"America, you lost. I won!" Moussaoui yelled as he was escorted from the U.S. District courtroom in Alexandria after the verdict was read. He clapped his hands as he left.

He's mistaken. We won. Anyone can execute a widely hated criminal. Only a free and democratic country gives that criminal a fair trial and then spares his life. The fact that he cannot understand that speaks volumes about the gulf between his worldview and ours.

But speaking of nutters:
"A travesty of justice"
"I hope this ends our little experiment in judicial trials"
"Imbecilic asswipes."

And then there's the illogical:
"Moussaoui just made a chump out of the United States"

These folks don't understand the difference between strength and savagery. All execution takes is fear or vengeance. But it took confidence and strength to let him live. Today we made clear that we do not fear him or his ilk, which is a powerful message to send to a watching world.

Moussaoui, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Hamas blames U.S. for lack of funds

The Palestinian prime minister is blaming the U.S. for its money troubles, saying we're blocking various attempts to get money into Palestine to pay employees.

Haniyeh appealed to Arab leaders to face up to the Americans "to stop the siege imposed on the Palestinian people and to stop the political blackmail against the government." He also called on Palestinian bankers to "show the necessary patriotism."

Uh, no. The real problem here is that Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist, and attempted to justify suicide bomb attacks against civilians as recently as last month. They're free to do that, but such positions carry consequences. And those consequences can be severe when you're almost entirely dependent on Western aid for your economy. But it's silly to think you can bite the hand that feeds you and expect the feeding to continue.

Hamas has two choices: assume a more responsible stance on Israel, or get used to being strapped for cash. Palestinian voters have their own choices: to pressure Hamas to change, to support Hamas and accept the attendant economic problems, or vote them out.

My sympathy is with the voters, because the main alternative -- Fatah -- has failed them repeatedly over the years and is notoriously corrupt. We should show good faith by pressuring Fatah to reform, as hard as we've pressed Hamas to recognize Israel. That way the Palestinians would have at least one reasonable choice instead of two bad ones.

Palestine, Fatah, Hamas, politics, midtopia

Lip service

Given my previous post about Bush ignoring laws, this would seem to qualify as unintentional comedy.

My question for Bush would be: how do you envision the "balance of powers" operating when you arrogate for yourself the right to decide whether a law is constitutional or not and when you shroud your actions in secrecy -- even, at times, from Congress?

Bush, politics, midtopia

New taxes dead, pander still on life support

Senate Republicans can act quickly when necessary -- such as when their business allies object to proposed new taxes.

Senate Republicans on Monday hurriedly abandoned a broad tax proposal opposed by the oil industry and business leaders, another sign of their struggle to come up with an acceptable political and legislative answer to high gasoline prices.

Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, said he had decided to jettison the provision, which would have generated billions of dollars by changing the way businesses treat inventories for tax purposes. Instead, he said the Senate Finance Committee would hold hearings on the plan "later this year, so the pluses and minuses of the provision can become well known."

I actually think the proposal should never have been made in the first place: oil company profits are the least of my worries. But it shows once again how clueless Frist is.

Meanwhile, the $100 rebate plan has not yet had its plug pulled. But sweet merciful death can't be far away, especially because income from the tax provision is supposed to pay for the rebate.

The centerpiece of the leadership proposal, a $100 rebate check to compensate taxpayers for higher gasoline prices, continued to receive a rough reception. Members of the public have telephoned and written to ridicule the idea, and even Republican lawmakers are finding fault.

"Political anxiety in an election year is to blame for a lot of the bad bills Congress passes," said Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, who on Monday called the rebate a "knee-jerk populist idea" that voters would see through.

The rest of the bill has some other elements:

The measure includes new protections against price gouging, incentives to expand domestic oil refinery capacity, support for new energy initiatives and tax incentives for buying hybrid vehicles.

Ditch the price-gouging protections, because I have yet to see evidence of it being a widespread problem and anyway I want gas to be more expensive. Expanding refining capacity is fine, because refining is the main bottleneck in our energy supply line. But tax incentives are less important than overcoming political and environmental opposition to their construction.

Support for new energy initiatives is fine as long as it's different sources of energy, not just drilling in ANWR and other such measures that will have no short-term effect and in the long-term will just provide an excuse to continue our oil dependence -- all while incurring lasting environmental damage.

Tax incentives for hybrids is nice, but misses the point. Target the tax incentive at fuel efficiency, not one particular type of motor. I don't care if the car is a hybrid design or not; all I care about is that it gets 50 miles to the gallon.

I'll also note, yet again, that all of these tax incentives and funding options and so on and so forth would be totally unnecessary if we do one thing: keep the price of gas high. Do that, and people will pursue the other options on their own, out of naked self-interest.

oil, Frist, energy, gas prices, politics, midtopia

Police intelligence units stage comeback

In conjunction with yesterday's report that Bush is simply ignoring laws he doesn't like, this all starts to sound like variations on a theme. From U.S. News & World Report:

Since 9/11, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have poured over a half-billion dollars into building up local and state police intelligence operations. The funding has helped create more than 100 police intelligence units reaching into nearly every state.

To qualify for federal homeland security grants, states were told to assemble lists of "potential threat elements"--individuals or groups suspected of possible terrorist activity. In response, state authorities have come up with thousands of loosely defined targets, ranging from genuine terrorists to biker gangs and environmentalists.

Guidelines for protecting privacy and civil liberties have lagged far behind the federal money. After four years of doling out homeland security grants to police departments, federal officials released guidelines for the conduct of local intelligence operations only last year; the standards are voluntary and are being implemented slowly.

I'm okay with the police being on the lookout for terror suspects. But basic standards of evidence and conduct need to be followed, or any such system is guaranteed to be abused.

U.S. News has a sidebar on why pervasive police surveillance is troublesome.

Starting in the 1970s, lawsuits and grand jury investigations uncovered all kinds of abuse by these units: illegal spying, burglaries, beatings, unwarranted raids, the spreading of disinformation. Americans engaged in constitutionally protected free speech were routinely photographed, wiretapped, and harassed--all in the name of national security. In Memphis, the police department spied on the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and gathered data on political activists' bank accounts, phone records, and close associates. In New Haven, Conn., police wiretapped over a thousand people. In Philadelphia, then police chief Frank Rizzo boasted of holding files on 18,000 people. The list of "subversives" grew to include the League of Woman Voters, civil rights groups, religious figures, and politicians running for office.

If you want even more history and examples of how police powers can be abused, I heartily recommend Geoffrey Stone's book "Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime." It traces the history of free speech law from the founding of the Republic.

The FBI did all sorts of heinous things under its COINTELPRO initiative, including arranging for antiwar activists to be fired, sabotaging the campaigns of antiwar candidates, mailing anonymous letters to their spouses suggesting the activists were having affairs, causing activists to be evicted, disabling their cars, intercepting their mail, planting derogatory information about them in the press.... the list goes on.

Then there's the blurry line between infiltration and agitation:

1. A state undercover agent served as co-chair of the Students for a Democratic Society chapter in Columbia, S.C.

2. Another became chairman of the SDS chapter at the University of Texas.

3. Agents infiltrating the SDS chapter at Northwestern led a sit-in in 1968 and then actively participated in a 1969 Weatherman action.

4. Other Chicago undercover operatives provided explosives to the Weathermen, encouraged them to shoot the police, and led an assault upon a uniformed police sergeant during a demonstration, which was widely publicized as "proving the violence" of the New Left.

Supporters of this resurgence in police activity say that the police have learned the lessons of history and will be more careful this time. I'm not reassured, especially given the examples in the U.S. News story.

In February 2006 near Washington, D.C., two Montgomery County, Md., homeland security agents walked into a suburban Bethesda library and forcefully warned patrons that viewing Internet pornography was illegal. (It is not.)... Similarly, in 2004, two plainclothes Contra Costa County sheriff's deputies monitored a protest by striking Safeway workers in nearby San Francisco, identifying themselves to union leaders as homeland security agents.

Union leaders and Web surfers. Well, I suppose they could cause trouble. But how about this one, from here in Minnesota?

In Minnesota, the state-run Multiple Jurisdiction Network Organization ran into controversy after linking together nearly 200 law enforcement agencies and over 8 million records. State Rep. Mary Liz Holberg, a Republican who oversees privacy issues, found much to be alarmed about when a local hacker contacted her after breaking into the system. The hacker had yanked out files on Holberg herself, showing she was classified as a "suspect" based on a neighbor's old complaint about where she parked her car.

Scary on two counts: the absurdness of the classification system and the insecurity of the data.

Or how about the lead example in the story:

[In Atlanta], two agents were assigned to follow around the county executive. Their job: to determine whether he was being tailed--not by al Qaeda but by a district attorney investigator looking into alleged misspending. A year later, one of its plainclothes agents was seen photographing a handful of vegan activists handing out antimeat leaflets in front of a HoneyBaked Ham store. Police arrested two of the vegans and demanded that they turn over notes, on which they'd written the license-plate number of an undercover car,

DAs and vegan protesters. Not good.

The fight against Al Qaeda is morphing into an intimidation campaign against the same old "troublemakers". We've been down this road before; it will be shameful if we go down it again.

civil liberties, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Bush: I AM the law!

The Boston Globe has a piece that you would swear was satire. Except it's not.

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, "whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Now, on one level Bush is correct: he's as free to ignore laws as the next guy. But there are consequences to doing so. The President is generally not at risk for criminal prosecution, but Congress is free to impeach him.

In addition, his general attitude has been shared by many presidents -- none of whom, for instance, have ever recognized the authority of the War Powers Act even as they complied with it.

What sets Bush apart is, as always, his method and the sheer scope of his reach. His method is to simply ignore the law and hope nobody notices. And the scope is of truly historic proportions.

Far more than any predecessor, Bush has been aggressive about declaring his right to ignore vast swaths of laws -- many of which he says infringe on power he believes the Constitution assigns to him alone as the head of the executive branch or the commander in chief of the military.

Many legal scholars say they believe that Bush's theory about his own powers goes too far and that he is seizing for himself some of the law-making role of Congress and the Constitution-interpreting role of the courts.

The Constitution requires the president to "faithfully execute" the laws. If he thinks they aren't Constitutional, there's a way to check that: take the case to the Supreme Court and get a ruling. Instead Bush imposes his own interpretation on the Constitution, which would appear to be unconstitutional and clearly unethical.

The story also gets into the effect of his "signing statements":

Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Instead, he has signed every bill that reached his desk, often inviting the legislation's sponsors to signing ceremonies at which he lavishes praise upon their work.

Then, after the media and the lawmakers have left the White House, Bush quietly files "signing statements" -- official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law. The statements are recorded in the federal register.

In his signing statements, Bush has repeatedly asserted that the Constitution gives him the right to ignore numerous sections of the bills -- sometimes including provisions that were the subject of negotiations with Congress in order to get lawmakers to pass the bill. He has appended such statements to more than one of every 10 bills he has signed.

"He agrees to a compromise with members of Congress, and all of them are there for a public bill-signing ceremony, but then he takes back those compromises -- and more often than not, without the Congress or the press or the public knowing what has happened," said Christopher Kelley, a Miami University of Ohio political science professor who studies executive power.

Another seemingly clear-cut example:

The Constitution grants Congress the power to create armies, to declare war, to make rules for captured enemies, and ''to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces." But, citing his role as commander in chief, Bush says he can ignore any act of Congress that seeks to regulate the military.

Bush is wrong. As Commander in Chief, Bush is solely responsible for the conduct of the war; you do not want 480 Congressmen playing general. But he is merely the executor of the will of the people as expressed by Congress; the rules he operates under and even the strategic direction are ultimately Congress's responsibility. His relationship to Congress in this regard is a bit like the relationship that the Joint Chiefs have with the President: they conduct the operations, but they do so at the President's direction.

Bush is pulling what amounts to a dare: he does what he likes, and if Congress doesn't like it they can either drag him before the Supreme Court or cut off funding for his activities. Congress is reluctant to take so explosive a step in most circumnstances, and is even less likely to do so with Republican majorities in both houses. And so Bush is able to run roughshod over everyone.

There's a lot more to the story, with many more examples. I recommend reading it all.

What does it say about Bush's personality that he will sign a bill, then quietly add a statement saying he doesn't have to obey it? Are those the actions of an ethical, brave, stand-up, straight-talking leader? Not even close. To me they are more reminiscent of the little boy who breaks the rules and hopes he won't get caught.

What does it say about the balance of powers when Bush plainly states he will ignore any law he doesn't like, even laws he signed? It's a rather breathtaking act of political brinksmanship, daring Congress to impeach him or fold. Each individual dare might not be worth a Congressional challenge. But it sure seems worth it in the aggregate.

As long as there is a Republican Congress, any such challenge will be slow, halting and weak. It's yet one more reason to hope for a change of control in November: so that Congress can once again fulfill it's mandated role as a check and balance on the power of the executive branch.

Constitution, Bush, politics, midtopia

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

Russia backs Iran, Palestine... and Israel?

Russia has refused to support serious sanctions against Iran. It has pledged to send aid to Palestine's Hamas-led government. It was one of the leading opponents of the invasion of Iraq, and remains friendly with Syria and other such regimes.

But yesterday it launched an Israeli satellite that will be used to spy on Iran.

Politics and economics sure make strange bedfellows.

Israel, Iran, Russia, politics, midtopia

Shouldn't this be a slamdunk?

So Al-Zarqawi has released a video in which he attacks the United States and all of his other enemies. And who are they?

"Any government that will be established in Iraq today, whoever is in it, whether they are the rejecters (Shiite Muslims) or the secular Zionist Kurds or the agents who are Sunnis in name, it will be a puppet government that will owe its allegiance to the (Western) crusaders," he said in the videotape. He likened the new government to "a poisonous dagger in the heart of the Islamic nation."

Let's see. He hates Shiites, Kurds, Zionists, "false" Sunnis, nonMuslims, anyone associated with the Iraqi government, and democracy. By my reckoning that includes about 99% of the world's population and probably 80% of Muslims.

Why is that? Nir Rosen wrote an excellent explanation in the New York Times Magazine back in February. Here are the most relevant parts.

Zarqawi belongs to a tiny "purist" sect of Islam, Salafism, that is violently intolerant of insufficiently "pure" Muslims as well as nonbelievers.

Salafism emphasizes the rootlessness of faith. It despises local saints and mystical practices (like those of Sufism) and any other departures from the most rigid Sunnism. It despises Shiites. It commonly despises all other sects or practices that Salafis might consider ''bida,'' or ''innovation.'' Given this intense preoccupation with purity, Salafis are constantly trying to identify and expel the impure. This is called ''takfir,'' often translated as ''excommunication'': an old, disused term that has found new life in Salafism, which permits, even encourages, the killing of Muslims whom Salafis have expelled through takfir. Perhaps the most ferocious embodiment of takfiri Salafism today is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Some of their attitudes are embodied in a book:

''The Creed of Abraham" is the most important single source of teachings for Jordanian Salafist jihadis. In it [the author, a man named Maqdisi] speaks of infidels and tyrants, using the expansive definitions favored by Salafis. ''Tyrants,'' on my reading of the book, could include idols made from stone, the sun, the moon, trees. They could also include graves, a reference to the Sufi and Shiite practice of visiting the graves of saints and imams. And ''tyrants'' could also include the laws made by men. It was the duty of the faithful to expose the infidelity of all these forms of worship and idolatry and manifest their hatred of them.

According to Maqdisi, democracy is a heretical religion and constitutes the rejection of Allah, monotheism and Islam. (He mounted a full-scale attack in his book ''Democracy Is a Religion.'') Democracy is an innovation, placing something above the word of God and ignoring the laws of Islam. It places the people (or the tyrant) above Islam, but in the Salafist view only God can make laws. Maqdisi held that the regimes that ruled Muslims were un-Islamic. Therefore, Muslims did not owe them obedience and should fight them to establish a true Islamic state.

Fun people.

I quote all this to lead up to a question: Why are we in danger of losing the "war of ideas" to this guy? He's like a human version of Ebola: So exclusionary and deadly that while outbreaks are horrible, he ought to burn himself out before he spreads too far.

You can't say it's about Islam, because he considers most Muslims to be the enemy as well. His beliefs are so radical and unpalatable that there's no way he could ever muster meaningful popular support, as evidenced by the fact that Salafists are a tiny, tiny sect of Sunni Islam.

Maybe it's that most people don't know his beliefs, and so project on to him whatever they want to see: a brave jihadi standing up to the American serpent, say. Maybe it's that they hear the rhetoric but dismiss much of it as heat and light.

Or maybe it's because we have made so many missteps -- the invasion of Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, calling the fight against terror a "Crusade", failing to provide decent security in Iraq -- that he doesn't seem so bad by comparison. Sort of the way Hamas won the election in Palestine: Not because of their hard anti-Israel line, but because of their lack of corruption and ability to provide basic services.

Given al-Zarqawi's extremism, we should have won the "war of ideas" long ago simply by publicizing what he actually says and believes. Hell, we should have bought him a gigantic megaphone so that everyone could hear his ideas firsthand. The fact that we think we're in danger of losing the "war of ideas" to a schmoe like him speaks volumes about how badly we have handled things, notably by failing to match words to deeds. Say what you will about Zarqawi, but he's demonstrated over and over again that he really means what he says. We might consider borrowing that page from his playbook.

Iraq, terrorism, Zarqawi, politics, midtopia

Democrat on ethics committee steps down

Missed this while on vacation.

The top Democrat on the House ethics committee, Alan Mollohan, will leave the panel -- at least temporarily -- while he defends his own financial conduct, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday.

(snip)

The Wall Street Journal reported two weeks ago that Mollohan steered millions to nonprofit groups in his district -- with much of the money going to organizations run by people who contribute to the lawmaker's campaigns.

Also, a conservative group filed a complaint with federal prosecutors this year questioning whether Mollohan correctly reported his assets on financial disclosure forms.

Innocent until proven guilty, of course. But it's pretty incredible how fast Mollohan's net worth has grown. And funneling earmark money to nonprofits he set up, and which are run by ex-staffers, is just begging for trouble.

Here's his explanation.

He may be a candidate for the Hall of Shame. We shall see.

Mollohan, politics, midtopia