Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Conditions in Southern California are truly scary: “More than a half million people had been ordered from San Diego County homes Tuesday as wildfires rage from the Mexican border to north of Los Angeles. Across Southern California, more than 1,300 homes had been reduced to ashes, officials said Tuesday. Fears grew north of Los Angeles that the winds may fan three wildfires into one monster blaze, with too little resources available to fight it. Those fires threaten more than 56,000 homes.”
* On a related note, many of those who were forced to leave their homes seem to be better off than, say, Katrina victims: “Like Hurricane Katrina evacuees two years earlier in New Orleans, thousands of people rousted by natural disaster fled to the NFL stadium here, waiting out the calamity and worrying about their homes. The similarities ended there, as an almost festive atmosphere reigned at Qualcomm Stadium. Bands belted out rock ‘n’ roll, lavish buffets served gourmet entrees, and massage therapists helped relieve the stress for those forced to flee their homes because of wildfires. ‘The people are happy. They have everything here,’ Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared Monday night after his second Qualcomm tour.” (thanks, Sarabeth, for the tip)
* On the ongoing tensions along the Kurdish-Turkish border, “Iraqi officials said today that they would move to halt the activity of Kurdish rebels who have been striking across the border from northern Iraq, a promise delivered amid a flurry of international diplomatic efforts to prevent a widening conflict between the two countries.” And if Iraqi officials actually had any control over the situation, that might actually mean something.
* Responding to intense Republican whining and demands for a censure, Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) offered a teary apology on the House floor this morning, following his criticism of the president during last week’s S-CHIP debate. Minority Leader John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) drive for a reprimand was tabled after a 196-173 vote. Greg Sargent makes the case that today’s developments were at least somewhat encouraging.
* Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey couldn’t say last week whether he believed waterboarding constituted torture. So, today, eight Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Mukasey a detailed primer on the torture technique, so he’d be better able to answer questions on the matter.
* If you read conservative blogs, you may have heard about the Law of the Sea (LOS) Treaty. Kate Sheppard explains why the measure deserves to be ratified, far-right hysteria nonwithstanding.
* Must-see TV, Part I: CNN’s “Planet in Peril” starts tonight at 9pm eastern. It’s a four-hour mini-series covering looming environmental crises, and it looks like it’ll be worth watching. (thanks to R.K. for the reminder)
* Must-see TV, Part II: PBS’s “Frontline” will focus on Iran’s strengthened position in the Middle East since 9/11, with unprecedented access to insiders on both sides of the current US-Iran stand off. It airs tonight at 9pm eastern, with online streaming video immediately following the broadcast.
* The White House is offering the Senate Judiciary Committee a ridiculous deal: the Bush gang will share materials about its warrantless surveillance program, but only if the senators agree in advance to telecom immunity. That’s not a negotiation; that’s a hostage situation.
* Have I mentioned lately just how badly the Bush administration has undermined the quality of the State Department: “A State Department review of its own security practices in Iraq assails the department for poor coordination, communication, oversight and accountability involving armed security companies like Blackwater USA, according to people who have been briefed on the report. In addition to Blackwater, the State Department’s two other security contractors in Iraq are DynCorp International and Triple Canopy. At the same time, a government audit expected to be released Tuesday says that records documenting the work of DynCorp, the State Department’s largest contractor, are in such disarray that the department cannot say ‘specifically what it received’ for most of the $1.2 billion it has paid the company since 2004 to train the police officers in Iraq.”
* Christopher Hitchens defends the use of the term “Islamofascist.” Steve M. isn’t persuaded.
* Jed Rubenfeld, a professor of constitutional law at Yale Law School, can’t defend Michael Mukasey’s approach to the presidency and the rule of law: “As a minimum prerequisite for confirmation as attorney general, a nominee should be required to state plainly whether the executive branch or a federal statute is supreme when the president and the Congress, both acting within their constitutional powers, clash…. If Judge Mukasey cannot say plainly that the president must obey a valid statute, he ought not to be the nation’s next attorney general.”
* I was on Bill Scher’s LiberalOasis Radio Show last week, a podcast of which is available at Bill’s site.
* And finally, David Horowitz claims that 200 colleges and universities are hosting events as part of “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” but there are some lingering troubles with the claim. First, Horowitz provided a list of participating schools, and there are fewer than 100 on the list. Second, some of the schools on the list aren’t actually hosting events — and don’t want their name associated with this nonsense. After seeing the “clownish” background of “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” I can’t say I blame them.
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.