HorsesAss.Org

We’ve had enough of those pesky poppies in Afghanistan:

The U.S. military bombed about 300 tons of poppy seeds in a dusty field in southern Afghanistan Tuesday in a dramatic show of force designed to break up the Taliban’s connection to heroin.

The air strike occurred mid-day in Helmand province and was observed by CNN’s Ivan Watson, who is embedded with the U.S. Marines operating in that province.

The military dropped a series of 1,000-pound bombs from planes on the mounds of poppy seeds and then followed with strikes from helicopters.

That’s right, we dropped “a series” of half-ton bombs on a pile of seeds. Then, apparently because those stubborn seeds hadn’t learned their lesson yet, the helicopters were brought in to completely break their will. Kidding aside, here was the real explanation for this exercise in elaborate destruction:

Tony Wayne, with the U.S. State Department, said the strikes on poppy seeds, that can be used to make opium and heroin, is part of a strategy shift for the military to stop the Taliban and other insurgents from profiting from drugs.

Uhhhh, ok.

So there have been changes recently to our strategy for combatting the opium trade. We’re no longer eradicating opium fields – a move that has done nothing more than impoverish farmers and drive them to the Taliban. Instead, we’re targeting more high level traffickers and trying to root out corruption. We’re also attempting to get Afghan farmers to grow alternate crops.

These strategies will have various levels of short-term success. Those successes will be highly publicized in the media, even as very little will change in the overall picture. As we take out traffickers and corrupt officials, new traffickers will take their place and raise enough money from the heroin trade to be able to corrupt more government officials. And as we are successful at moving some farmers away from growing opium, new ones will take their place (often forced by traffickers and corrupt government officials). In a country where the opium trade is small and the state has some semblance of centralized power, a strategy like this might make a difference over time. In a country like Afghanistan, where the trade in poppies is over 1/3 of the national GDP, and where the central government of Hamid Karzai (whose own brother is involved in the trade) has little power over much of the nation, it likely won’t work for decades, if at all.

So I’m not sure what Wayne thinks this bombing exercise will accomplish. Did they take a bunch of captured drug traffickers to the bombing site and taunt them by saying “look what we’re doing to your precious seeds!”? And even if they did, so what? I’ve occasionally seen news reports that try to equate participating in the opium trade as being a similar dynamic to an actual addiction to heroin, as if people who make money from the trade aren’t people making rational decisions to violate the law to make shitloads of money, but people with a drug problem who can’t help themselves. But there’s no chemical or psychological attachment to those seeds. It’s a commodity that the traffickers have to replace. To them, once American forces confiscate those seeds, it doesn’t matter whether we blow them up or put them on our bagels. They’re gone and they’ll have to find new ones.

There just isn’t a logical explanation for why you would rain massive bombs from the sky like this onto plant matter. It’s just a sign of utter frustration. It reminds me of the scene in Office Space where the three fed-up mouse jockeys take a baseball bat to the printer that never worked right:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfCYzJAgwrw[/youtube]

The frustration is certainly warranted. Afghanistan will remain a no-win situation as long as international drug policies (which have been overwhelmingly dictated by the U.S. over the years) continue to keep the demand for heroin so high and as long as our fragile relations with nations like Iran and Pakistan force us into this failing strategy. But it would be hard to think of a single thing that’s more strategically backwards than this. The Afghan population already thinks we’re too eager to employ aerial bombings. I don’t think bombing a pile of seeds in air raid fashion is a good way to reverse that image. In fact, it makes us look crazy. And perhaps we are.

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As Jon points out in the previous post, Boeing’s “no-strike clause or else” threat to its unions comes across as a bit shrill and hollow considering Washington’s reputation for having one of the most favorable business climates in the nation. I mean, “or else” Boeing will move 787 production where?

Much has been made of Boeing’s recent purchase of Vought Aircraft Industries’ Dreamliner plant in South Carolina, speculating that Boeing might leverage its investment to build a second 787 assembly line there. But this speculation ignores the reality of the deal, which is that it was only made necessary by the utter failure of Voight, like many of Boeing’s other outsourcing partners, to meet the quality and delivery standards necessary to keep the 787 project on time.

Boeing’s purchase of Vought’s facility was, in effect, an admission that Boeing’s outsourcing strategy, the “systems integrator” approach, is not working. There may be a flaw in Boeing’s overarching corporate strategy of dumping costly assets and globalizing production.

That’s right, Boeing bought the plant, responsible for assembling large sections of the 787’s fuselage, because it couldn’t rely on Vought to fix the facility’s endemic problems. Do you really think that’s a signal that Boeing is eager to entrust even more responsibility to South Carolina workers and managers when it already has a large, highly trained workforce available here?

Indeed, not only does Boeing have an ample supply of trained workers available in the Puget Sound region, it also has an assembly facility available that could be converted to 787 production with minimal capital investment and in little time. Of course, I’m referring to Boeing’s existing, 767 final assembly line in Everett.

Think about it. The 787 was always meant as a replacement for the 767, whose production has long been scheduled to be phased out one way or another. Remember, the main attraction to our region of Boeing getting the Air Force tanker contract was that it was based on the 767, and thus would keep production going at the Everett facility years beyond the model’s life as commercial passenger liner, and saving thousands of good-paying local jobs in the process. But in response to the Air Force’s obvious preference for a larger tanker, Boeing has resubmitted its bid with a tanker based on the larger 777. Win or lose, that’s a death sentence for the 767 assembly line.

But once (if) the 787 flies and Boeing swings into full production, that makes the 767’s Everett plant the obvious location for a second 787 assembly line.

Last year’s machinists strike my provide useful rhetoric for Boeing as the aerospace giant seeks concessions from legislators and labor, but even management understands that the bulk of the 787’s production woes have had little to do with local workers, and apart from the recent design flaw, have mostly stemmed from production problems from Boeing’s many out-of-state partners like Vought. In that context, what could possibly make more sense than starting a second assembly line at an existing Boeing facility with a highly-trained workforce that has proven track record of delivering quality product on time?

And if that’s not reason enough to keep 787 assembly here in the Puget Sound region, no amount of tax or labor concessions will be enough to convince Boeing management to change its mind.

Unsurprisingly, it isn’t at all terrible, in fact it’s rather good, if you look at rankings from a wide range of groups that aren’t hired by Boeing.

The first thing that has to happen to our discourse is that people stop equating unionization with “bad for business.” Yes, the bidness guys and gals (and certain newspaper owners) want everyone to think that, but that’s only because it’s easier for management to blame unions than to look in the mirror. A highly trained, skilled and well compensated work force is an asset to any region.

Sounds to me like the Labor Council is perfectly willing to entertain constructive suggestions, but I’m guessing “no strike clauses or else” may not be considered constructive. It’s called “bargaining,” not “the unions should give in because they’re unions.”

I truly do not understand why everyone on the right gets to act in their self interest and celebrate it, while anyone to the left-center who does so is vilified. I guess thirty or so years of neo-liberalism permanently reduced the capacity of traditional media and political leadership to do anything but get down on bended knee when the magic word “jobs” is incanted to protect policies that benefit only the business side of the equation.

For the umpteen millionth time, business should have a seat at the table, but problems inevitably arise as they always want to own the table, the chairs, the room and everyone in it, and then attack anyone who objects. It’s ridiculous, and hopefully labor’s new-found voice will start to plow some new ground in this state.

In gloating over the refusal of both the King and Pierce county councils to put tax hike measures on the ballot this fall, the Seattle Times editorial board congratulates council members for their political cowardice:

It is remarkable how the fear of losing an election concentrates the political mind.

I understand the Times’ knee-jerk, ideological opposition to tax hikes (unless, of course, we’re talking about driving tens of thousands of entrepreneurs out of business by forcing on them the expense of quarterly filing sales taxes in 45 states… that, they’re for), and they’re entitled to that, but their obvious pleasure over politicians bowing to fear, just comes off as unseemly.

Yes, we want our elected officials to listen to the people, but there’s a difference between representing the interests of voters and pandering to them. Editorialists can howl all they want about the budget crises facing nearly every single state and local government in the nation being crises of these governments’ own making (instead of, you know, being largely the result a nearly unprecedented economic downturn), but that doesn’t make the real life impact of the resulting budget cuts any less painful or the anti-stimulative effect of slashing government spending and jobs any less dangerous.

The bold and responsible move would be to temporarily raise taxes slightly to help soften the blow, so that we don’t have to, say, dramatically cut back our public health budget at a time we’re preparing for a potentially devastating swine flu pandemic. And with opinion leaders like the Times working hard to cultivate a climate of political fear, it’s no wonder such a proposal came from interim King County Executive Kurt Triplett, a non-politician free to act on what he believes is best for King County rather than what is best for himself at the polls, only to be quickly shot down by council members with opposite incentives.

Yeah, “fear of losing an election,” or of losing a majority, or of merely losing a reliable source of campaign money, that’s what tends to motivate politicians. But if that’s such a good thing, it’s hard to understand why the Times isn’t more satisfied with government we’ve got?

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The panel is joined by Mike Lux of Open Left to discuss his new book The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came To Be. Some introspection about bloggers, journalists, and progressive politics happens.

Next, the panel collectively holds their nose and looks at the “situation” in California. Has Prop 13 lived up to its promise? What does the California situation tell us about the future in other states with pending TABOR-like legislation? Would a successful I-1033 turn Washington state into a dysfunctional disaster, à la California?

The conversation turns to pork. And how did your state’s Senators vote on the F-22s that both Obama and the Military didn’t want? At least we received money for ferry system infrastructure. Speaking of transportation infrastructure, Seattle’s light rail service started this week. Will people ride it and actually enjoy it? Or is there a telling (one-day) trend toward low ridership?

Goldy was joined by Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly, Mike Lux of Open Left, and Effin’ Unsound’s & Horsesass’s Carl Ballard

The show is 48:41, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_jul_21_2009.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the Podcasting Liberally site.]

Martin at Seattle Transit Blog witnessed a car vs. pedestrian collision this morning on MLK Jr. Way. His conclusion?

We really ought to elevate or bury the traffic on MLK, to avoid this kind of thing. Anything less would be gross negligence.

Martin was, of course, being sarcastic (just in case you trolls couldn’t figure it out), and in so doing illustrates the absurdity of the cynical argument from anti-rail crazies that at-grade light rail is inherently unsafe, and thus Sound Transit should always be legally and financially liable for any collision with a train, regardless of who is at fault. You know, when a pedestrian runs in front of a train, that’s Sound Transit’s fault, but when a pedestrian runs in front of a car, well, that’s natural selection.

Oddly, unlike similar accidents involving trains, the Seattle Times and the rest of the local media have ignored this morning’s collision. Huh. I wonder why?

Both Crosscut’s Skip Berger and HA’s Carl Ballard took advantage of light rail to explore South Seattle. Both got off at Othello Station, both walked around the surprisingly active and distinctive neighborhood (surprising, at least, to outsiders), and both stopped for a bite to eat at one of the many Asian restaurants that dot the area.

And both came away with the same impression of how light rail will open up the once hidden neighborhoods along its path to the rest of the city.  First Carl:

The point of this (admittedly overindulgent) post is that light rail opens up a piece of the city for those of us without roots there and who make most of our trips without a car. Sure, this is something I could do yesterday if I’d wanted to. But it’s much easier to just get on a train than it is to figure out the bus schedule or to find parking if I’d wanted to drive. And I know exactly how to get home: hop on one of the trains that come every few minutes.

And then Skip:

For Seattleites who rarely get down to this part of the Rainier Valley, I predict Othello become a destination, even a place for a quick lunch for downtown workers who need a break. You can get there, have lunch, and be back downtown in less than an hour. I got off here and popped into the Huong Viet Cafe and bought a delicious pork sandwich. If I worked downtown, I might do that regularly.

[…] That’s one of the intriguing social prospects of the light rail line: it makes visible parts of the city that are often ignored. The trek down MLK, passing the new housing development, the old junkyards, the heavy machinery, the chain-link fence neighborhoods with “beware of the dog” signs and cars parked in the yard, the immigrant enclaves, the strange ethnic churches, the decaying strip malls — it helps put a big chunk of Seattle onto the visible map, at the very least for the tens of thousands of folks who will be taking light rail to the airport and might never otherwise see this part of the city.

As for me, I had the opposite experience, embarking from Othello Station, and suddenly finding myself in the middle of a bustling downtown Seattle street scene…a trip I am likely to take more often, now freed from the irritation and inconvenience of traffic (by car or by bus) and the hassle and/or expense of downtown parking. And at either end of the line, local merchants will benefit from the traffic of folks like Skip, Carl and me.

I was tempted to describe our explorations as intra-city tourism, but in fact, it is much more than that. Tourism implies a visit from outside, whereas light rail will ultimately serve to tie our city (and our region) closer together in a way that freeways and buses never have. Light rail, through its speed, comfort, reliability and permanence contracts the landscape, changing the dimension by which we experience distance from space to time, much in the same way as a high-rise elevator: nobody thinks of the fifth and fifty-fifth floors as being separated by fifty flights of stairs, and nobody plans their travel within the building accordingly. Likewise, when downtown Seattle, or any other stop along the way is always, say, 20 minutes away—not sometimes less, sometimes much, much more, depending on traffic—the boundaries between our neighborhoods will begin to blur, not in distinctiveness, but in distance.

The debate over light rail has largely focused on whether or not it is an efficient means of moving commuters, and no doubt commuters will always comprise the bulk of its ridership, but its impact on our region will be much greater that which could be achieved simply by giving commuters a better bus. Because it changes the way we view our region and use our various neighborhoods, light rail will make Greater Seattle both larger and smaller at the same time, an apparent paradox future generations will come to take for granted.

From an editorial in today’s Seattle Times (the emphasis is mine):

California’s tax structure is more aggressive. In addition to a sales tax it has a personal income tax. California designed its income tax to lay heavily on the wealthy, so that in good times it had a bountiful harvest of capital gains.

I think the the word they were looking for was “progressive,” but even an accidental description of an income tax as “aggressive,” because, unlike our system, it taxes the wealthy at higher rates than the poor, speaks volumes about the Times’ attitude toward tax fairness.

Join us tonight at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. The festivities take place at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at 8:00 pm.

Author Mike Lux will stop by Drinking Liberally tonight (around 8:30) to discuss his new book The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came To Be.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n0AqdxstI0[/youtube]

Not in Seattle? The Drinking Liberally web site has dates and times for 332 other chapters of Drinking Liberally for you to get lost at.

So I make a tiny change in my template today to facilitate an ad. It works in Safari. It works in Firefox. It works in Opera. So I didn’t bother launching Parallels to check it out in the latest version of IE for Windows.

Of course, IE chokes on it. And that’s why IE users couldn’t read HA for a couple hours today.

It was a coding error, sure (a missing closing tag), but still, IE can be such a temperamental little baby.

UPDATE:
Speaking of goddamn Microsoft, Apple announced record non-holiday quarter revenue, profit and unit sales today for the second quarter in a row, despite the Great Recession. Looks like all those Microsoft ads touting how expensive Macs are, aren’t making much of a difference.

At the risk of setting off an even larger partisan tiff, I suppose you could say that a Mac is light rail, while a Windows PC is a smelly old bus.

Mike Lux of OpenLeft and many other progressive organizations will be at Drinking Liberally tonight, chatting it up with the locals, and plugging his new book, The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be. From the inside flap:

The next time you hear a conservative accusing progressives (a.k.a. liberals) of being unpatriotic and anti-American, tell them this: “Progressives invented the American ideal and inspired the American Revolution. Conservatives, then known as Tories, opposed it. Since then, every major advancement in American freedom, democracy, social justice, and economic opportunity has been fostered, fought for, and won by progressives against conservative resistance. Now who’s anti-American?”

That’s my kinda rhetoric.

Join us at the Montlake Alehouse, 8PM onwards.

UPDATE:
You can listen to Mike on the third hour of today’s Dave Ross Show:

[audio:http://icestream.bonnint.net/seattle/kiro/2009/07/p_Dave_Ross_Show_20090721_11am.mp3]

Crosscut’s David Brewster punks Seattle, giving 13 reasons for our “slug’s pace” at making tough decisions like building light rail. And you know what? I can’t really disagree with him.  For example:

7. Complacency. Seattle really is (was?) a favored city, so it’s not easy to feel a compelling need to make tough decisions, even if we feel some embarrassment about our procrastination. Our politicians reflect this by becoming “garden-tenders,” comforting the constituencies that elect them without having to make hard decisions that might alienate them. And, with only Democrats in office, there’s little fear of losing a job, once elected.

I’ve got a few quibbles here and there, but it’s worth the read.

I’ve had trains on the brain recently, what with the triumphal opening of the Link light rail (and given Seattle’s history, it was a triumph), which may help explain why I just booked a 7 hour and 20 minute train reservation from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh.

Now, at first glance, that might seem a little crazy, considering a non-stop flight on US Airways clocks in at under 1 hour and 20 minutes gate to gate. But on closer examination it’s not as nutty as you might think, an examination that speaks to the many competitive advantages of intercity rail… advantages, alas, that most American cities aren’t able to enjoy.

The cost comparison is fairly easy. For example, the airfare (with tax and fees) would come to $133 round trip, plus $15 each way to check my bag, and $20 each way for the airport shuttle in Pittsburgh. That’s $203 to fly, versus the $91 I just payed to book on Amtrak.

But is a $112 savings really worth 12 hours extra traveling time round trip? No, probably not. But then, what with all the time spent wandering around the airport, flying doesn’t really save me 12 hours, does it? After all, with frequent logjams at the TSA checkpoints, most airlines recommend arriving an hour and a half before a domestic flight, so subtract three hours there. And, of course, while flight time is measured gate to gate, you still have to account for deplaning, walking to baggage claim, waiting for your baggage, and then getting to (and on) ground transportation, so subtract another hour of airport time at either destination, and we’re down to a seven hour advantage.

Then there’s the airport shuttle to and from the hotel in Pittsburgh, maybe a half an hour each way to cover the 20 miles, depending on traffic, plus additional time if we’re not the only stop. Throw in the wait for the shuttle at both ends of the line, and that shaves another hour and a half from our total, bringing the air travel advantage down to five and a half hours, because oh yeah, rather than being on the outskirts of town, Pittsburgh’s Amtrak station is right across the street from my hotel.

On this particular trip, getting to 30th Station in Philadelphia will be just as much a hassle as getting to the airport, as I’m coming from the Jersey shore, so there’s no time saved there due to its central location, but on the way home, the train stops in Ardmore, PA, just a 10 minute drive from my sister’s house, whereas the flight would leave me inconveniently at the airport. So I save at least another 30 minutes travel time by rail.

So… is $112 in savings really worth twelve five hours of my time? Well, it is for me when you consider that instead of going through the hassle and stress of getting to and from two airports and on and off two flights, I get to sit on a train with ample leg, elbow and head room, walkable aisles and a convenient cafe car… all the while knowing that when I get to my final destination I’ll actually be at my final destination. Yeah, its an extra two and a half hours traveling each way, but I spend much more time than that writing each day, and with power outlets liberally scattered throughout each car, I’ve got no concern about draining the batteries on my laptop or iPhone.

And then, of course, there’s the added bonus of not having to hand even more of my money over to the despicable US Airways, which on my last flight set a new record for poor customer service by actually threatening to have me arrested. (It’s a long story.) I know, I know… at least my daughter and I arrived safely, eventually… but should the bar really be set so low that the standard for acceptable service is a flight that doesn’t end with you standing hip deep in water on the wing of a plane floating in the middle of river?

Of course, not everybody holds the same visceral hatred for US Airways, unfortunately the only airline to fly nonstop between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh or Seattle, so perhaps your calculus would be different from mine, and perhaps the bizarrely slow train between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh (7 hours, 20 minutes to travel only 300 miles? Really?) isn’t the best example of intercity rail’s inherent advantages. I mean, why would anybody fly the shuttle from DC to NY when even the non-Acela trains can get you downtown to downtown in less total time, and at two-thirds the cost?

Yeah I know, we’re different out West, where the distances are longer and the right to a single occupancy vehicle is written into our state constitutions. But the distance between Seattle and both Portland OR and Vancouver BC is actually less than the distance between Philadelphia and DC, so imagine a Cascade route upgraded to mere NE Corridor speeds (which is itself, substantially less than European standards) cutting up to two hours off the current three and a half hour trip in either direction. Yeah, at current gas prices you could drive for less… but would you really want to?

One of the stupidest arguments against rail—light, heavy or otherwise—is that it is an antiquated, 19th Century technology, whereas the automobile, itself more than a century old, is the transportation of the future. Puh-lease. Different technologies make sense for different purposes and in different circumstances. For short and medium intercity trips from downtown to downtown, nothing beats heavy rail (at least rail done right), whereas even a bullet train wouldn’t make sense coast to coast compared to modern air travel. And as much as I love the new Link light rail, and plan to use it extensively between my neighborhood and downtown Seattle, I’m the first to admit that I’m not ready to give up the convenience of owning a car.

Our nation has been on an airport and road building binge over the past half-century while neglecting or even tearing up our aging rail infrastructure, and the persistent anti-rail bias is based on little more than ideology… a lazy, free market tirade against government subsidies. But government has long subsidized transportation, from canals to railroad right of ways to the interstate highway system. You think the airlines picked up the cost of building SeaTac? Think again. Those are your tax dollars at work.

So if heavy rail between cities and light rail within them can efficiently divert traffic from the roads and the air, doesn’t it make sense to spend some of our tax dollars providing travelers with more choice, not less? And should it really require “trains on the brain” to recognize the value of such investments?