HorsesAss.Org

***Note to Goldy: Sure, go ahead and do radio bits, but don’t do this one.

***File this under “Things That Will Never Happen”:

George Bush is preparing to make a historic shift in his position on global warming when he makes his State of the Union speech later this month, say senior Downing Street officials.

Tony Blair hopes that the new stance by the United States will lead to a breakthrough in international talks on climate change and that the outlines of a successor treaty to the Kyoto agreement, the deal to curb emissions of greenhouse gases which expires in 2012, could now be thrashed out at the G8 summit in June.

***More Republicans are freaking out about boys kissing each other.

***Evergreen Politics is extra wonky today. Transit and roads will be on the ballot this fall, and both have to pass for either to be law:

There are those in the environmental community who oppose the coupling of Sound Transit 2 and RTID into a single ballot measure. Opposing this marriage is a fight not worth fighting. The Legislature took the action to put the former adversaries of highways and transit in bed together just last year.

I think the fight is worth it. Transit funding is more popular than roads funding. Polls have been done showing the roads package may actually drag the transit element to defeat. Methinks Ezra Bason short changes us transit dweebs.

***I’ll just link to the blog (there’s too much good stuff). Make Erica C. Barnett a daily stop on your blog wanderings.

***New blogger in Central Washington!!! It’s Darci (no, not that Darcy) and she’s opened up shop at McCranium.

Presidential candidates have a way of poking their noses where they don’t belong:

Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democratic presidential hopeful joining fellow Sen. Christopher Dodd at Martin Luther King Jr. holiday events, said Monday he thinks the Confederate flag should be kept off South Carolina’s Statehouse grounds.

“If I were a state legislator, I’d vote for it to move off the grounds — out of the state,” the Delaware senator said before the civil rights group held a march and rally at the Statehouse here to support its boycott of the state.

Oh jeez… There’s more:

Jim Hanks stood across from the Statehouse with about 35 Confederate flag supporters.

“We love this flag. We love our heritage,” said Hanks, of Lexington.

Some carried signs saying: “South Carolina does not want Chris Dodd,” referring to the Connecticut senator who, along with Biden, attended the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People rally at the Statehouse.

Hanks said that Dodd, Biden and other Democrats running for president “would probably say most anything if it would get them votes.”

I’m not a fan of the “stars and bars,” but I think it’s incredibly silly for candidates to inject their views in what is a very sensitive state issue. Whether a flag is flown on the dome or on state grounds, it’s up to the residents of South Carolina to decide. Jim Hanks is a racist; that’s clear enough. But that’s not his worst sin. You see, folks in the South are supposed to be considerate. The southerners I know would never display a flag that would make folks feel unwelcome. It’s called “manners,” and Jim Hanks would do well to learn some.

It’s a candidate’s right to pander like a “mofo” on the campaign trail (remember this?), but it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to do it. Senators Dodd and Biden should pay attention to getting the American flag out of Iraq and less to getting the Confederate flag out of Dixie.

Whoops…

As Tikriti fell to the gallows, his head was taken off by the rope noose, and the body and the head fall to the floor while Bandar swings on the rope.

My only hope is that when Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney are held accountable for their war crimes, that they be punished more humanely.

…I am as deeply concerned about our troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create hell for the poor.

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.

This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words:

“Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.”

[…] The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways.

In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war.

— Martin Luther King Jr., April 4, 1967

(Hat tip to The General.)

After years of fawning coverage in local media, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was backpedaling last week. It had help.

The reason was a two-part investigative story by the Los Angeles Times, begun on Sunday, 1-7-07, and reprinted on the front page of the Seattle Times, which reported that

“…the Gates Foundation has holdings in many companies that have failed tests of social responsibility because of environmental lapses, employment discrimination, disregard for worker rights, or unethical practices…. hundreds of Gates Foundation investments – totaling at least 41% of its assets – have been in companies that countered the foundation’s charitable goals or socially concerned philosophy.”

The practices of many of those companies, we learned, “are hurting many of the people its grants aim to help….”

The high-powered local executives running the world’s largest charitable organization, with some $70 billion or more in existing or pledged assets, might not have paid much attention to bad ethical investing. But they act quickly when bad publicity strikes. Wednesday, in an exclusive interview, we learned in the Seattle Times that:

“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is planning a systematic review of its investments to determine whether it should pull its money out of companies that are doing harm to society…”

So far, so good. Only one problem: the Seattle Times pulled a major punch. It made no mention of one of the major threads of the L.A. Times stories:

“…investing in destructive or unethical companies is not what is most harmful….Worse is investing purely for profit, without attempting to improve a company’s way of operating.”

Gates, in responding to the bad publicity, made no mention of whether it would join the movement in American philanthropy to push companies to change their business practices. By their silence, we could presume the foundation would continue to keep its highly influential hands off the companies it invested in. And the Seattle Times let Gates get away with it.

And, it turns out, there was another problem: talk is cheap, and, it quietly emerged, fully retractable. Two days after that, on Friday, the web site NewsCloud.com broke a story bluntly headlined “Gates Foundation Revokes Pledge to Review Portfolio.” Our beneficent local philanthropists got their message out, and then changed it. Or, as NewsCloud put it:

“Shortly after that [Seattle Times] interview, the Gates Foundation took down their public statement on this [from their web site] and replaced it with a significantly altered version which seems to say that investing responsibly would just be too complex for them and that they need to focus on their core mission: ‘There are dozens of factors that could be considered, almost all of which are outside the foundation’s areas of expertise.’…”

The Seattle Times, however, was not done making up for the error of its ways. Yesterday, our local apologist for all things Bill Gates featured what seemed to be something like an official’s makeup call in sports: a makeup feature for having reprinted the L.A. Times expose the previous Sunday. Sympathetically titled “Gates Foundation faces multibillion-dollar dilemma,” the article literally let our heroes have it both ways:

“As the Gates Foundation embarks upon a review of how its $32 billion endowment is invested, officials insist they won’t change their basic investment philosophy.”

Aside from greatly understating the Gates’ endowment, this sentence raises a rather basic dilemma of its own: what’s the point of “a systematic review of investments” if foundation officials “won’t change their basic investment philosophy”?

Let’s review, then: caught in a well-researched investigative piece, published by one of the nation’s most prominent newspapers, that looked (and was) really bad, a beloved local institution scrambles to put a good face on things. It announces this good face through the ever-pliant hometown paper, which already has probably fired an editor or two for reprinting the expose in the first place. It then promptly issues a meek, Gilda Radneresque “Never mind!,” which our local paper utterly ignores in a makeup feature devoted to those hard, hard, hard choices wealthy philanthropists must sometimes make.

What we have, then, is a massive investment firm (embedded in a multi-billion dollar philanthropy) smoothly reassuring the public while changing its odious practices not a whit; and the hometown paper first publicizing the odious practices and then, obediently, helping make it all right and sunshiney again.

The only losers are the millions of people around the globe victimized by the practices of firms invested in by the Gates Foundation; and local news consumers who think that the Seattle Times, for once, cast an unfettered, critical eye on a feelgood local institution. In both cases, it’s bad news.

The American Constitution is a heck of a thing. The power it guards for the power is great. Like this:

“the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”

Regular people get to have guns! What’s more:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The state doesn’t get to mess with the church(es)! Journalists are protected by name, as are lobbyists! Amazing!

When it comes to military power and the use of it, an especially large amount of power is vested in the executive branch. The President is also the commander of the military. This means that when President Bush decides to deploy US forces, he can do so with little conversation with Congress.

When folks cast votes in 2004, I don’t think a great many folks who were concerned by the “homos” getting married in San Francisco were thinking about the lengths Bush would go to extend our involvement in Iraq. With Saddam executed and no WMDs found, even those who never identified with the “anti-war Left” now see the mission as “accomplished.” There is a heavy majority of people in nearly every state who are now against the war and favor bringing home troops with the end of the year.

Do so-called “NASCAR dads” of the ex-urbs now see their votes against gay marriage, stem cell research, and other phantoms as votes that support President Bush’s goals in Iraq? What about Naderites? Is John Kerry still as “pro-war” as they said he was in 2004?

The truth is, elections matter. Congress has a limited role in changing the facts on the ground in Iraq. Presidents get to send more troops; Congress can fund them or not. There is limited appetite by folk like Rep. Adam Smith and others to deny troops the ammo and armor they need should they be deployed. President Bush, being so out of touch with reality, is unlikely to blink should Congress throw down the gauntlet. He’s so far down the rabbit hole, so divorced from what’s happening, I don’t see any rational argument penetrating the White House. Perhaps our best chance to make a big change will come in 2008, when the GOP will hopefully be crushed in the House and Senate. Any GOP nominee for president will be forced to answer for the Bush agenda.

Presidents have power, that’s clear. Elections matter and their consequences are clear.

Both the Eagles and the Seahawks have been eliminated from the playoffs, so what better way to distract yourself from your sorrows than to tune in tonight to “The David Goldstein Show” from 7PM to 10PM on Newsradio 710-KIRO. Subject to change, here are the topics for tonight’s show:

7PM: Are Eastern WA taxpayers getting screwed? Boosters of the Black Rock Resevoir out in the Yakima Valley are asking for $4.2 billion in state and local subsidies on project the Bureau of Reclamation says will only return 30 cents on the dollar. And yet we constantly hear complaints from Eastern WA legislators that tax dollars flow East to West. Are Eastern WA taxpayers getting screwed? Or deceived?

8PM: Sweet Relief. Author Jennifer Abrahamson joins me to discuss her book“Sweet Relief: The Marla Ruzicka Story. Ruzicka was a relief worker who championed the cause of civilian victims of war, and was tragically killed by a suicide bomber along Baghdad’s notorious Airpport Road. Abrahamson chronicles the life of her friend and the people she championed.

9PM: Who is your fallen hero? We all have ’em. Contemporary or historical figures who we hero worship… until we learn they’re only human… and then some. I’m going to share a couple of mine, and ask you to call in with some of yours.

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

In writing about the Black Rock project it wasn’t really my intent to trash the notion of a new Yakima basin reservoir. Mainly, I saw the $2 billion miscalculation as an opportunity to chide Eastern Washington voters for constantly complaining about tax dollars flowing East to West (they don’t) when in fact the irrigation, electrification and transportation infrastructure that makes their economy possible was large built courtesy of huge state and federal subsidies.

I understand the imperative to maintain the Yakima region as a productive agricultural center in the face of the increasing strain placed on the water supply by climate change and population growth, so I don’t want to dwell on the negative side of this project without sufficiently educating myself on the details. But an astute observation by HA regular Roger Rabbit deserves broader consideration. In the comment thread Roger asks what should have been an obvious question: “Is Black Rock a Perpetual Motion Machine?”

One of the alleged “benefits” touted by Black Rock promoters is hydroelectric generation. Apart from the 600% error in calculating power sales, let’s examine where the water that generates the power will come from in the first place.

It will be pumped UP to Black Rock Reservoir, elevation 1778 feet, from Priest Rapids Dam, elevation 390 feet. Then it will flow through turbines at Black Rock dam and into the Yakima River, which flows into the Columbia River below McNary Dam, elevation 340 feet.

Someone please explain how you get net power generation from pumping the water that generates the power uphill in order to generate the power? Are these folks saying the water in Black Rock Reservoir will generate more power than is consumed getting the water up there?

[…] When they talk about Black Rock hydropower generation, all they’re talking about is recapturing a small percentage of the energy that was used to get the water up to the reservoir.

The Yakima Basin Storage Alliance originally touted revenue from power generation at $2.4 billion over forty years, but after discovering a calculation error, revised that figure downwards to only $412 million. But if the Black Rock Reservoir sits at a higher elevation than its source, then any power generated by Black Rock’s turbines could only amount to a fraction of the power it takes to pump the water into the reservoir in the first place. Indeed, the Bureau of Reclamation estimates the annual energy costs alone for operating the pumps at $62 million — that’s $2.48 billion over the same forty year period. (I asked my 9-year-old daughter, and she assures me that $412 million is indeed less than $2.48 billion.)

But this post isn’t really about math. It’s about honesty.

Understand that whatever their accuracy, the YBSA’s power revenue projections were put forth within the context of a discussion over recouping the estimated $4.2 billion cost of construction. But since the laws of physics dictate that it will take more energy to pump the water into the reservoir ($62 million annually) than could possibly be generated drawing the water out ($10.1 million annually,) any discussion of energy “benefits” within this context is entirely bogus. And always has been.

Yet it took the sometimes rabid Roger Rabbit to do the minimal legwork necessary to dispel the YBSA’s misinformation — legwork that consisted of little more than browsing the source documents and applying a little logic. For even after the YBSA admitted a 600 percent miscalculation, the journalists covering this story never bothered to challenge the underlying assumption that energy revenues could be used to offset the cost of construction.

I thank my friends in the legacy media for calling this story to my attention. But chalk one up for the blogosphere for setting the record straight.

My Philadelphia Eagles are in New Orleans battling the Saints, so tune in to hear a very distracted and anxious Goldy tonight on “The David Goldstein Show” from 7PM to 10PM on Newsradio 710-KIRO. Subject to change, here are the topics for tonight’s show:

7PM: Who wants to tax a millionaire? No doubt I’ll be a little distracted watching the second half of the Eagles-Saints game, so I’ll just fall back on an old standby, and rant and rave about why we need an income tax in Washington state. State Senator Rosa Franklin has introduced an income tax bill, so at least one state legislator is willing to talk about real tax restructuring. Anybody else?

8PM: Can the Republican Part save our nation? That’s what I suggested yesterday both on HA and Huffington Post, arguing that only overwhelming opposition from his own party can force President Bush from leading us into a broader conflict in the Middle East. Yet co-blogger Will argues that the same kind of bipartisanship I’m urging nationally should be avoided at all costs in the state legislature. Will we join me hash this one out.

9PM: Has the US committed war crimes in Iraq? That’s the question a panel of experts will explore next week in Tacoma, holding a war crimes tribunal of sorts. Organizer Lietta Ruger joins me to discuss the event.

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

Oops…

Supporters of the proposed Black Rock reservoir near Yakima are admitting they made a $2 billion error in estimating how much money would come from electricity produced by the project.

[…] Charlie de la Chapelle, a Yakima Valley fruit grower who is vice chairman of the alliance, said the grass-roots group regrets the mistake.

“We apologize for the error. We vow to scrutinize numbers we release more carefully and stand behind our other public statements,” de la Chapelle said.

Chapelle should run for President.

The Yakima Basin Storage Alliance now estimates that power sales will generate $412 million over forty years. Due to a calculation error an initial report had estimated power benefits at $2.4 billion.

Correcting the error reduced the current projected Black Rock benefits to $3.8 billion, an amount that is less than the estimated construction cost of $4.2 billion.

Of course, the US Bureau of Reclamation estimates that the reservoir would only return about 30 cents on the dollar, but I wouldn’t worry about the over $2 billion discrepancy because, you know… the YBSA has vowed to “scrutinize” its numbers.

Hmm. I don’t know enough about the environmental and economic impact of the Black Rock project to take a position one way or the other. The Yakima Basin is a crucial agricultural region to our state and our nation, and with global warming threatening the Cascade ice pack, water shortages could reach crisis proportions within decades. But it’s stupid-ass shit like this that makes taxpayers suspicious of all big, public infrastructure projects.

Overestimating the power revenues by 600 percent. Gimme a break.

Let’s be clear. Whatever the reservoir’s merits, the YBSA and its political supporters in Benton and Yakima counties are seeking to finance this project primarily through huge state and federal subsidies. If the project makes economic and environmental sense, fine. I could support it. Just be honest about the numbers.

And while you’re at it, why not be honest about the flow of tax revenues in this state, and stop lying to your constituents by perpetuating the myth that dollars flow East to West? Your dams, your irrigation projects, your freeways and your universities were built primarily with state and federal tax dollars. Nobody’s asking for any “thank you’s” — we’re just tired of all the “fuck you’s.”

State Rep. Maureen Walsh (R-College Place) has resigned as chair of the committee Democrats offered her as a show of bipartisanship:

Rep. Maureen Walsh stepped down Thursday as vice chairman of the House Committee on Early Learning and Children’s Services, The Associated Press reported. Walsh, R-College Place, was one of two Republicans selected by Democrats for top committee posts in December, in a nod to bipartisanship. Rep. Tom Campbell also was named chairman of the newly formed Select Committee on Environmental Health.

“Maybe it was naive of me to not think it would cause any problems,” said Walsh, who also cited family concerns as part of her decision. Her husband died in April, and she has a 14-year-old son attending school in Olympia during session.

“When it boiled right down to it, the fact that I had some folks in my caucus who would view me a little different or not see me as a team player … I don’t need that. I don’t need that at all,” she told The Associated Press.

There has been lots of hand wringing about how this is bad sign for bipartisanship. Nothing could be further from the truth. For Republicans, Walsh’s resignation makes Democrats responsible for whatever is passed from that committee. The GOP can now fire at will at Democrats without putting Walsh in the position of defending the Democrat’s agenda. Democrats need to realize that they are the choice of most voters. Democrats won in ’06! Frank Chopp and others can say nice things about working together with the GOP, but committee chairs need to be on the team and share our values.

Folks voted for Democrats in ’06 because, sure, they wouldn’t mind a little ‘working together’, but they voted mostly because they wanted to fix roads, fund schools, provide healthcare to kids, and pursue government reform. The House Speaker would do well remember why folks gave him that huge majority in the first place.

I’ve written two posts over the past couple days suggesting that President Bush intends to lead us into a broader war with Syria and Iran… you know, the kind of posts my righty trolls like to see because they think it makes me look like a paranoid, crack-smoking nutcase. Well apparently, I’m not the only one smoking crack these days.

Yesterday, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Chairman Joseph Biden (D-DE) — a presidential candidate — specifically asked her if “the president has plans to cross the Syrian and/or Iranian border.”

Sec. Rice couldn’t say no: “Obviously, the president isn’t going to rule anything out.”

This exchange prompted a comment from Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), a conservative Republican who also is purported to have presidential aspirations. You know how it usually goes — a Democrat grills a representative of the Bush administration, prompting a Republican to come to his or her defense with prepared comments and questions.

But these aren’t usual times:

SEN. HAGEL: When you were engaging Chairman Biden on this issue, on the specific question — will our troops go into Iran or Syria in pursuit, based on what the president said last night — you cannot sit here today — not because you’re dishonest or you don’t understand, but no one in our government can sit here today and tell Americans that we won’t engage the Iranians and the Syrians cross-border.

Some of us remember 1970, Madame Secretary, and that was Cambodia, and when our government lied to the American people and said we didn’t cross the border going into Cambodia. In fact we did. I happen to know something about that, as do some on this committee.

So, Madame Secretary, when you set in motion the kind of policy that the president is talking about here, it’s very, very dangerous. Matter of fact, I have to say, Madame Secretary, that I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam. If it’s carried out, I will resist it.

I guess Sen. Hagel is smoking crack too. Or perhaps he’s just put partisanship aside because he cares more about his country than his party?

I can’t prove that the Bush administration is insane — that it is in fact being guided by a kind of group psychosis — but then, I cannot find any evidence to the contrary. If the President directs air strikes or troop movements across the Syrian and/or Iranian borders, our military commanders will follow the orders of their Commander in Chief, with or without Congressional authorization. Short of preemptive impeachment, there is absolutely nothing the Democratic controlled Congress can do to prevent the president from following this disastrous path, regardless of the illegality of such an escalation.

If the President intends to choose this path, only the Republicans can save our nation from a catastrophe of historic proportions. Only a Republican Party unified in opposition to their President can persuade him that the political risks are as real as the military ones.

If you are a Republican, and you oppose escalating this war into a broader regional conflict, it is incumbent upon you to contact your party leaders and elected officials at all levels of state, local and federal government, and plead with them to publicly oppose any policy that would lead to war with Syria and Iran. Follow Sen. Hagel’s lead, and let your party know that if this policy is pursued, you will resist it.

At the height of the Watergate scandal our nation stood on the edge of a constitutional crisis. It was only when President Nixon became convinced that he had lost the support of his own party — that the threat of impeachment was real — that he finally backed down and resigned. President Bush needs to understand that he cannot legally expand this war without Congressional authorization, and that if he does, the political consequences will be brutal, swift and bipartisan.

Frank Shiers is under the weather (as opposed to just being under six inches of snow) so I’m filling in for him tonight on 710-KIRO from 9PM to 1AM — and possibly tomorrow night. (That should be motivation for Frank; he’ll want to get well before I drive away his audience with my lefty rants.)

I’m also filling in Saturday from 7-10PM and doing my usual Sunday 7-10PM slot.

Anyway, anybody has some topic ideas, post them in thread. And please stay up late tonight to call in and chat.

I’d initially missed this nugget in President Bush’s speech last night.

We are also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region.

We will expand intelligence sharing, and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies.

Patriot air defense? To defend us from whose missiles? The insurgents don’t have missiles. Al Quaeda doesn’t have missiles.

Oh. But Iran and Syria do.

Maybe we’ll need those Patriots to defend us from Iranian missiles now that we’ve just invaded sovereign Iranian territory?

The Bush administration is fucking insane.

UPDATE:
Well, at least now I know where we’re going to get all the ground troops to fight this wider, regional war.

Um…

Rep. Cathy McMorris, R-Wash., announced today that she and husband Brian Rodgers are expecting a baby boy in May.

I fully expect all the sexist righties who so callously attacked Darcy Burner — accusing her of abandoning her child to run for Congress — to immediately demand Rep. McMorris’ resignation.

As for me, I congratulate the couple. Kids are great.