Monday’s Mini-Report

June 23, 2008

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* Conditions in Zimbabwe are spiraling quickly: “Police on Monday raided the offices of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change party, arresting about 60 people — including women and children — on a day that world leaders condemned the actions of Zimbabwe’s government in increasingly strong terms.”

* On a related note, Tsvangirai fled to the Dutch Embassy in Zimbabwe for his safety.

* Also in Zimbabwe, the ruling party has a new slogan: “WW – Win or War.” They mean it literally.

* Oh my: “Was the State Department involved in a shoddy and potentially illegal ammo shipment that led to the arrest of a 22-year-old Miami arms dealer last week? That’s what Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) now says. The House oversight committee says it has evidence that the U.S. embassy in Albania helped Albanian officials keep the allegedly illegal shipment of Chinese-made ammunition to Afghanistan under wraps and then failed to disclose that information when Waxman’s committee asked about it.”

* I usually mock Bill Kristol on Mondays, but I ran out of time this afternoon. Today’s column was actually legitimately provocative — Alex Koppelman argues that Kristol “actually makes some decent — if obvious — points,” while Steve M. has a slightly more critical take.

* Maureen Dowd went after Hillary Clinton with such ferocity — and frequency — during the Democratic presidential campaign, I just gave up on reading Dowd’s columns altogether. I was glad to see, then, NYT public editor Clark Hoyt take Dowd to task yesterday.

* So much for the “ownership society.” Bush’s drive to promote home ownership, at all costs, was not only a flop; it was a disaster.

* Ten months ago, Congress mandated that the White House name a coordinator for preventing nuclear terrorism. Despite the federal law, Bush hasn’t done anything about it.

* The Armed Forces discriminate against gays, but they really discriminate against gay women: “The Army and Air Force discharged a disproportionate number of women in 2007 under the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy that prohibits openly gay people from serving in the military, according to Pentagon statistics gathered by an advocacy group. While women make up 14 percent of Army personnel, 46 percent of those discharged under the policy last year were women. And while 20 percent of Air Force personnel are women, 49 percent of its discharges under the policy last year were women.”

* For the rest of this election year, Tom Brokaw will host “Meet the Press.” NBC will now be able to take its time looking for a new, permanent host.

* Remember that fake presidential seal at an Obama event last week? You won’t see it again.

* I trust that everyone watched the first season of “Mad Men,” right? It’s brilliant.

* Know the joke about all news, no matter how good for Dems, is actually good news for Republicans? It’s true — the Scaife paper in Pittsburg proved it.

* I find it hard to believe Don Imus could be insane enough to make racially-charged comments (again), on the air (again), about an African-American athlete (again). What could he possibly be thinking?

* And finally, a Quote of the Day: “Republicans say Rove is the architect,” said one GOP insider on the Hill. “He’s the architect of our demise.”

Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

Whatever happened to the war czar? It occurred to me recently that we haven’t heard anything about that guy, whatever his name was, since right after he was announced as the cure to all of our war-related difficulties.

  • “Republicans say Rove is the architect,” said one GOP insider on the Hill. “He’s the architect of our demise.”

    Tom Tomorrow did a great cartoon that showed how Bush and Rove were actually two radical hippies who planned back in the 60’s the perfect way to destroy the GOP once and for all. I’ll see if I can find the link…

  • What’s really incredible about that Imus article is the number of comments saying that the racist we should REALLY be worrying about is Al Sharpton. Or that it was a neutral question. Seriously, people?

  • I’m glad you commented on Kristol’s column today. (Obviously you read my email to you).

    I agree with Kristol about the “creepyness” of the ad. (First time – and probably last – that I agree w/Kristol). That ad has bothered me since I first saw it, and I couldn’t quite figure out why til I read Kristol today. I thought that I didn’t like the ad because I really don’t like the use of children in political ads. But, I think Kristol hit it on the head.

    Oh, and thanks god Obama’s deep-sixing that stupid “presidential seal”. It really looked arrogant.

  • Gotta disagree about Kristol making any sense. The woman in the ad was saying McCain can’t have Alex for his bullshit war of unnecessity. When’s the last time we had a necessary war?

    One of the travesties of the 60’s was that parents gave up their 18 year old sons way too easily for a bullshit military adventure (a massive failure of politics).

  • The GOP insider’s guide to watching your party crumble:
    1. Admit that you have a problem.
    2. Do nothing to fix the problem.
    3. Repeat.

    It’s like an AA meeting where everyone is stuck on the First Step.

  • McCain looks old enough now to be Bob Dole’s dad (at the time of his candidacy) He is not 72 years young

  • phoebes in santa fe

    And I really liked the MoveOn ad! Maybe it appeals mostly to mothers? My three sons were born during the Vietnam era, and at the time I recall thinking fiercely that I did not give birth to my sons so they could be used as war-fodder when they were 18, and I thought that if anyone tried to force them into military service through the draft for such a war, I’d get a gun and shoot them dead. Though my first choice would have been to take them and leave the country. It’s a purely visceral thing. It also extends to the children of other mothers (like the Iraqi children who are dead).

    So I think it taps into something pretty strong in a lot of people, maybe mostly women or those who are viscerally anti-war.

  • I liked the Moveon ad. I have a son who will be 18 in 9 years and I think about stuff like that and no way do I want him going to the Mideast. I have a daughter in highschool and I have to sign a special form to prevent recruiters from approaching her…shouldn’t it be the other way around? I think it’s a fine way to underscore McBush’s approach to Iraq..100 years…make it a 1000…thanks much!

  • Kristol’s specific objections are ridiculous. McCain wants to tie us up in Iraq indefinitely no matter what happens, whether it’s peaceful ultimately or not, so projecting Alex out beyond his term is not unreasonable. Secondly, Iraq has strained our military to the point that another conflict would almost certainly require a draft, and Alex might wind up there, in a war that never should have been fought. I assume Kristol is smart enough to think of this, so it’s his smarmy dishonesty that really makes my skin crawl. These guys don’t care about anything but winning.

    As for creepiness, well, what can I say? If he found it creepy, then he did. But I bet he didn’t. I bet he’s lying again. I bet he just found it annoying, because it’s effective, as #9 aristesdes points out, to women. I could tell a story about Vietnam – I was of age then, but didn’t serve – and my mother, but it would take too much space. Suffice it to say I can vouch for the fact that mothers do not want their sons being sacrificed in useless, unjust wars. I can tell you that that arouses a fury in a woman worse than being scorned.

    So in my opinion, Kristol, as usual, is all wet.

  • And I really liked the MoveOn ad! Maybe it appeals mostly to mothers?

    And fathers. I have a three year old daughter and found the ad to be moving. Since she was born, I think about the war’s casualties in much more personal terms. Every person killed in this awful, foreign adventure is somebody’s son or daughter.

  • I don’t agree with Kristol (thank goodness…I would have to reevaluate my values should I ever agree with him). Sustainable troops for this fodder is going to require either more mercenaries or a draft. Period. The men and women there are not going to survive being stop lossed again and again and again. If they don’t wind up dead or maimed, they will become completely mentally unstable to server any longer. At which point, we will either have to get more thugs in Blackwater, Dynacorp, etc., or we will have to instill a draft.

    And that is a fact. It will be one or the other or both. It will not be none of the above.

    So I see this as very relevant. To any parent of any child of any age. 50 or 100 years of peaceful coexistent, like we have with Germany, is because of our relationship with Germany. Does anyone think we will have that relationship with Iraq? After all that has happened in the last eight years?

    I don’t.

  • I don’t think they are discriminating more against women with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, but less against men (than usual), probably because of their recruiting difficulties. Women, because they do different jobs, may be more expendable right now.

  • It appears that the cable tv show pundits are playing obtuse in order to give McCain’s drill, drill, drill idea some validity, so they can go about their business of creating controversy instead of informing the American people.

    How tough can it be to understand that drilling offshore or in ANWR won’t produce a drop of fuel at the pump for at least ten years? It’s a non starter as a short term solution. Period. Move on. Forget about what a bad idea it is from every other angle. At least McCain’s gas tax holiday, as silly as it was, had the right time frame.

  • Um… hello? Isn’t Bill Kristol the one who’s creepy? Would you let that smirking reptile anywhere near yours or ANYONE’S children?!

  • McCain thinks we can invent our way out of the energy crisis. (300 million prize for a new battery). But we can’t, not in the short term. And we can’t drill our way out. But we might be able to implement our way through if we just maximize the wind and solar technologies we already have in the works. That and conservation.

    I have two utopian dreams. One, is that a person could work hard on solutions to problems right up to Nov 6 and then get elected president instead of all this politics bullshit. The other is that a race of children will arise that can actually read those Captchas you have to type with your password.

    Here’s a joke that reminds me of Bush and the media:

    I was a very happy man. My wonderful girlfriend and I had been dating for over a year, and so we decided to get married. There was only one little thing bothering me – it was her beautiful younger sister.

    My prospective sister-in-law was twenty-two, wore very tight miniskirts, and generally was bra-less. She would regularly bend down when she was near me, and I always got more than a nice view. It had to be deliberate. Because she never did it when she was near anyone else.

    One day her “little” sister called and asked me to come over to check the wedding invitations. She was alone when I arrived, and she whispered to me that she had feelings and desires for me that she couldn’t overcome. She told me that she wanted me just once before I got married and committed my life to her sister. Well, I was in total shock, and couldn’t say a word.

    She said, “I’m going upstairs to my bedroom, and if you want one last wild fling, just come up and get me.”

    I was stunned and frozen in shock as I watched her go up the stairs. I stood there for a moment, then turned and made a beeline straight to the front door.

    I opened the door, and headed straight towards my car. Lo and behold, my entire future family was standing outside, all clapping!

    With tears in his eyes, my father-in-law hugged me and said, “We are very happy that you have passed our little test. We couldn’t ask for a better man for our daughter. Welcome to the family.”

    And the moral of this story is:

    Always keep your condoms in your car.

  • The major problem I see with the Alex ad (at least here in the MD suburbs of DC) is that it’s been on a zillion times. By the third time, I found it playing into the stereotype of Dems as weak and weepy. In fact, I find most of what moveon.org does plays into negative stereotypes of liberals.

    I do understand those readers who saw it through a parent’s eyes. Even though our daughter is 19, ever since she came along I’ve seen the future in terms of her lifetime, not mine. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have the stamina to pay attention to all this craziness.

  • Oh, that ad. (I don’t bother to read Kristol.) Looks like he, and the rest of his rapethecountry friends, are upset because it’s unanswerable.

    Hit song of 1916: “I Didn’t Raise My Boy To Be a Soldier.” Of course we know what happened after the re-election of “the President who kept us out of war.”

  • Too bad Clinton wouldn’t have been any better on this FISA thing than Obama, because this would have been the moment she was waiting on to make her move.

  • we dont need a contest to build a better battery. we had one (see Who Killed the Electric Car). a component company with ties to the Big Three bought out the rights – and then didn’t use it. McCain could award his 3 mil only to see the same thing happen again.

    The Tesla Roadster can go 220 miles on a single charge while delivering sports car performance. sounds like a pretty good battery. Maybe McCain should just give the 3 mil to Tesla to adapt their tech to a more practical, affordable model.

    hark at #15 – if it restores any of your faith in NPR, this evening they had a “neutral expert” on saying it would (a) take 8-14 years to get new production on line and (b) that the mere thought of it wont impact the futures market because the futures markets have a shorter time horizon than 8-14 years.

  • A super-duper battery, eh? Cool. Except for the fact that batteries need to be charged. In a nation where big-city grids routinely crap out under the load of Summer air conditioning adding the burden of charging electric car batteries is going to require some serious upgrades both in power sources and the grid itself.
    It takes a certain amount of petroleum energy to move cars, trucks, trains, etc. Changing to electric or anything else means only that you have to come up with that same amount of energy in a different form. You want a 200HP electric vehicle? Cough up 150 kilowatts.

  • In a nation where big-city grids routinely crap out under the load of Summer air conditioning adding the burden of charging electric car batteries is going to require some serious upgrades both in power sources and the grid itself.

    Actually, no. Part of the beauty of electric vehicles is that they generally charge at night, when loads are less. I’ve seen estimates that we could add a decent percentage of the auto fleet as electrics without having to add more generating capacity. Further, thanks to the fact that central generation plants are more efficient than hordes of small internal combustion engines, we’d be putting out less CO2 even if we charged the cars from coal-fired plants. Last of all, we can augment the national electric grid with wind turbines and photovoltaics, something you can’t do with ICE-powered cars.

    The biggest obstacles to widespread adoption of electric vehicles will be the charge time (i.e. you can’t charge a battery in a couple of minutes the way you can fill up a tank) and the cost of the more advanced battery types. (Batteries of whatever sort are generally only good for x number of duty cycles, so you’ll need to count on replacing them one or more times during the vehicle’s life.) Also bear in mind that battery performance degrades a lot in cold weather.

  • * The Armed Forces discriminate against gays, but they really discriminate against gay women: “The Army and Air Force discharged a disproportionate number of women in 2007 under the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy that prohibits openly gay people from serving in the military, according to Pentagon statistics gathered by an advocacy group. While women make up 14 percent of Army personnel, 46 percent of those discharged under the policy last year were women. And while 20 percent of Air Force personnel are women, 49 percent of its discharges under the policy last year were women.”

    At least have the courtesy and respect to use the correct terminology. It isn’t “gay women.” it IS lesbians! Calling lesbians “gay women” is insulting to most lesbians because it implies that we’re something in-between gays (men) and “real” women. only without penises. It’s also so retro as to be completely out-of-touch with the current LGBTQ philosophy and community.

  • It would seem that the best solution to the car battery problem would not be a quick recharge, but rather an easy and clean replacement like the propane tanks on a barbecue. Or perhaps some kind of ionized liquid that you can replace at a gas station. The biggest problem with plug in batteries is that you can’t use them for long trips.

  • That $300m prize is another distraction. Why aren’t we FUNDING research instead of offering a stupid prize?

    As for the ad – I’m the mother of a soldier who is about to deploy to Iraq for a second tour and it resonates with me big time…I was also listening to NPR and they have had a story going on for the last two mornings about “Section 60 mothers”. Section 60 is that part of Arlington National Cemetery that is for Iraq and Afghan soldiers. I have wept the whole way to work for the last two mornings. These are real people that are dying and having their lives irreparably changed by wounds suffered in these wars. It’s about more than testosterone!

  • A super-duper battery, eh? Cool. Except for the fact that batteries need to be charged.

    The solution for that is quite easy: Get a solar panel on the roof of your house or, for apartments (or similar) several of them. Some sort of dedicated solar charging station could also work. Granted, not sure the costs right now, but if we as a nation made the effort, we could do it in an affordable manner.

    Personally, I’d love an electric car since my driving style is perfect for it — I drive about 60 miles round trip, and rarely take a road trip longer than a couple hundred miles.

    But other people drive much more, and they’ve brought up the two issues they see: more mileage out of a charge (400 miles would be about right) and speeding up the charging process to around 10 minutes or so (not sure about that one).

    If they can get those two issues dealt with, no one would have any excuse to be against electric cars.

  • Maybe he recharging issue could be dealt with strategically.
    1. Have three batteries for each car. One running the car. One to replace that one on a long trip. And one at home charging al the time.
    2. Service stations become battery replacement stations. Standardize batteries and when you stop to “refuel” they simply put a charged batter into your car and take yours. You don’t own a tank of gass so why would you have to own your battery? (Batteries are actually getting to be cheaper than a tank of gas.

  • Dale–
    I like that idea a lot, but a few issues:

    1. That would mean we’d have to make more batteries.
    2. What do we do with all the batteries once we’re done with them?

    Again, I see where you’re going, but we have to remember that electric cars are great in terms of carbon emissions, but have other drawbacks (leaky batteries that spill toxic materials, recycling of the batteries, etc.).

    What I’d like to see — and think would work great IF they can get the technology to work effectively — are mini wind turbines built into the car, and/or making the roof out of solar panel-like materials.

    On the former, the cars own movement would cause the turbine to turn and, thus, keep a constant charge when moving (in theory, at least). On the latter, it may not be enough to charge the entire battery, but could provide longer distances between charges.

    Of course, if either of those were feasible, you’d think someone would have already come up with the ideas. Hell, perhaps they have already (I don’t get to read everything ever produced, after all).

    Just thought I’d share one of the gazillion ideas I have for stuff. (I have a notebook chock full of inventions and ideas that are either too dumb to do, too expensive to do, already actually done, or that someone else much, much smarter than me has to do. There are those two, and my personal fave: a type of privacy fence that fits over an existing chain link fence, making it easier to install and, theoretically, for less cost. Sorry for the digression … I’ll stop now. 🙂 )

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