to do to me. How soon can we get rid of this idiot and get a decent
president and when will those who voted for this creep ever admit they
screwed up:
Pseudo-Random Thoughts
[Back to Main Politics Page]
<http://www.seanet.com/%7Ejimxc/Politics/index.html>
*Kudos To Cynthia Tucker: *For admitting error, and for coming out
against race-based districting
<http://blogs.ajc.com/cynthia-tucker/2011/06/01/voting-rights-act-i-was-wrong-about-racial-gerrymandering/>.
I won't procrastinate. I'll get the most difficult part of this
column over right now: I was wrong. I was shortsighted, naïve and
narrow-minded to endorse the concept of drawing Congressional
districts to take racial demographics into account.
. . .
Unfortunately — like so many measures designed to provide redress
for historic wrongs — those racially gerrymandered districts also
come with a significant downside: They discourage moderation.
Politicians seeking office in majority-black or -brown districts
found that they could indulge in crude racial gamesmanship and
left-wing histrionics.
I've opposed this kind of districting for years, though not as
vigorously as I should have, because I knew that it helped my party,
net. But I have always thought that it was wrong, and that it had many
bad side effects.
By way of Jay Nordlinger
<http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/272213/obama-and-reagan-c-jay-nordlinger>.
(There is talk here in Washington state of creating a
"majority-minority" congressional district. We need one, some say, even
though we elected Norm Rice <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norm_Rice>
mayor of our largest city, Ron Sims
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Sims> head of our largest county, and
Gary Locke <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Locke>, governor.
Perhaps those who support that district hope it would give us more
"crude racial gamesmanship and left-wing histrionics".)
- 9:03 AM, 20 July 2011 [link]
<http://www.seanet.com/%7Ejimxc/Politics/July2011_3.html#jrm10093>
*Wikileaks Versus Hacky Leaks: *Bret Stephens says that they are
"largely the same story"
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303795304576453722472758028.html>.
In both cases, secret information, initially obtained by illegal
means, was disseminated publicly by news organizations that believed
the value of the information superseded the letter of the law, as
well as the personal interests of those whom it would most directly
affect. In both cases, fundamental questions about the lengths to
which a news organization should go in pursuit of a scoop have been
raised. In both cases, a dreadful human toll has been exacted: The
British parents of murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler, led to the
false hope that their child might be alive because some of her voice
mails were deleted after her abduction; Afghan citizens, fearful of
Taliban reprisals after being exposed by WikiLeaks as U.S. informants.
Both, in short, are despicable instances of journalistic
malpractice, for which some kind of price ought to be paid. So why
is one a scandal, replete with arrests, resignations and
parliamentary inquests, while the other is merely a controversy,
with Mr. Assange's name mooted in some quarters for a Nobel Peace
Prize?
Good question.
But you shouldn't expect anyone at the /New York Times/ or the
/Guardian/ to answer it.
- 7:36 AM, 20 July 2011 [link]
<http://www.seanet.com/%7Ejimxc/Politics/July2011_3.html#jrm10092>
*Mt. Rainier Has A New Web Cam: *This one
<http://www.nps.gov/webcams-mora/muir.jpg> at Camp Muir
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Muir>.
Naturally, I've added a link to it, over on the right, with the rest of
the Rainier links.
So far, I haven't seen any spectacular views, and you won't either —
most days. The higher that you go on Mt. Rainier, the more likely you
will be in, or under, a cloud.)
(Years and years and years ago when I climbed the mountain, it was sunny
on the top, but we were under a cloud cap so that we could see down
slope, but not out from the mountain.)
- 1:07 PM, 19 July 2011
*But when you can see,* the view will be interesting and, very
occasionally, spectacular. This morning I can see the top of Mt. Adams
and most of Mt. St. Helens. (Adams is on the left, St. Helens on the
right.) On the rare clear day, you will be able to see Mt. Hood in
Oregon, and perhaps farther.
The camera does not update very often. They are probably using solar
power to run the system, since batteries would have to be brought in by
backpack, which is tiresome, or by helicopter, which is expensive. And
those running the park would not want a diesel generator at Muir, I
suspect.
- 7:54 AM, 20 July 2011 [link]
<http://www.seanet.com/%7Ejimxc/Politics/July2011_3.html#jrm10091>
*Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard Is In Trouble* with her voters
<http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/national/national/general/labor-hits-record-poll-low/2229271.aspx>.
Over the past month, [opposition leader] Tony Abbott has opened an
11-point lead as preferred prime minister - the first time he has
been ahead of Ms Gillard. The government would be wiped out in a
huge landslide if an election were held now.
In results that will send waves of fear through the government,
approval for Ms Gillard's performance has tumbled another 3 points
to 34 per cent, while her disapproval rating has jumped 3 to 62 per
cent.
Why? Because, to put in terms most Americans will understand, she
believed Al Gore.
And because she didn't tell Australian voters the truth about her plans
before the election.
Gillard believes, like Gore, that we are facing a possible climate
catastrophe, and that it can be avoided only by reducing our production
of carbon dioxide. So she has proposed a complex "carbon tax" in an
effort to reduce Australia's contribution to the problem. (Incidentally,
many economists would favor something like her plan, because it would be
an /efficient/ way to reduce carbon dioxide.)
There are, however, two difficulties with her plan: First, though
Australia has a high per person CO2 production, it has a small
population (about 23 million), so this policy change would have almost
no effect on the world's climate.
Second, during last year's election campaign
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_2010>,
Gillard promised
<http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/is-it-possible-to-salvage-the-labor-wreck-julia-gillard-has-delivered-asks-andrew-bolt/story-e6frezz0-1226097883556>
not to introduce a carbon tax.
Everyone knows it. "There will be no carbon tax under a government I
lead," the Prime Minister said, just days before the last election.
This is Labor's original sin. As a result, Gillard lacks legitimacy,
and so does Labor.
More dangerously, even government itself seems to some to be suspect.
All this damage was recklessly inflicted by Labor, whose urgent job
now is to admit to it, apologise for it and fix it as best it can.
Since she stayed prime minister by the narrowest of margins
<http://www.seanet.com/%7Ejimxc/Politics/September2010_1.html#jrm9119>,
it is reasonable to conclude that she would have lost the election if
she had been honest about her plans.
Why wasn't she honest? Why did she propose this tax, after promising not
to? It is hard to say without knowing more about her than I do, but I
would guess that she thought she could pass it and have enough time to
placate voters before the next election.
And that — and here is where I think she may have been listening to too
much Al Gore — this is so important that she should take this step, in
spite of the political risks. Voters should be saved from this
catastrophe, she may think, in spite of themselves.
- 10:09 AM, 19 July 2011 [link]
<http://www.seanet.com/%7Ejimxc/Politics/July2011_3.html#jrm10090>
*Obama's "Curious" Foreign Policy: *Jackson Diehl is puzzled
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/if-we-retreat-from-iraq-will-iran-take-over/2011/07/14/gIQA4ZscKI_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions>.
(Or says he is, for the sake of an effective lead paragraph.)
One of the most curious features of the Obama administration's
foreign policy is the contrast between the silky,
non-confrontational public diplomacy it employs when dealing with
dictatorships and adversaries, such as Russia, China and Venezuela —
and the brusqueness with which it often addresses U.S. clients and
allies.
Others are less puzzled
<http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/272087/road-obama-runs-through-libya-stanley-kurtz>.
For the unhappy details of the foreign-policy outlook Obama is
advancing, consult Feith-Cropsey yourself. There you will find
material, not only from the writings of Samantha Power, but from
other key Obama aides like Anne-Marie Slaughter and Harold Koh.
Feith and Cropsey summarize by claiming that Obama's goals amount to
a fundamental break with seven decades of American foreign policy,
Republican and Democrat, realist and idealist. That divide, after
all, is what the many presidential apologies for our past policies
are meant to signal. In sum, say Feith and Cropsey, Obama "cares
more about restraining America than about accomplishing any
particular result in Libya. . . . The critics who accuse Obama of
being adrift in foreign policy are mistaken. He has clear ideas of
where he wants to go. The problem for him is that, if his strategy
is set forth plainly, most Americans will not want to follow him."
If Obama "cares more about restraining America" than traditional foreign
policy goals, we have an explanation for the language that puzzles
Diehl, and much else about Obama's foreign policy, including his odd
halfway policy toward Libya.
That goal, restraining America, has been popular on the far left in this
country for decades. (And even more popular in Europe.)
But it has never been popular with the American people, who alternate
between reluctant engagement and isolationism. And so Obama is forced to
conceal his long-term foreign policy goals from us, and even to take
actions, from time to time, that conflict with those goals.
- 8:02 AM, 19 July 2011 [link]
<http://www.seanet.com/%7Ejimxc/Politics/July2011_3.html#jrm10089>
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