I'm glad someone else cares about the Constitution!

From The New York Times:

Republicans have already started blowing hot air about any naysayers trying to stop spies from tracking terrorists. No one is doing that. The question really is whether Congress should toss out chunks of the Constitution because Mr. Bush finds them inconvenient and some Democrats are afraid to look soft on terrorism.

Let's do something about al-Qa'ida and our other enemies, but we can do that without shredding our Constitution. For that matter, Bush has shredded the Constitution without going after al-Qa'ida very much. That he won't move against our real enemies makes his talk of military necessity obviously hypocritical.

I kind of miss the old days

As far back as the 1960s you could have an honest debate about race with racists. They would come on TV and say that black people were racially inferior and had to be segregated. They didn't pull any punches about it. You could discuss it with them and try to change their minds. Eventually enough minds were changed that it was no longer acceptable to say such things in public. Of course the opposite has been happening with homosexuality, but that's another story, maybe for another diary.

This is about racism, and how racists are now shouted down by the public reaction. «You have not converted a Man because you have silenced him» as the Twentieth Century artist Ben Shahn famously quoted John, Viscount Morley's "On Compromise", 1874.

Let's look at the notorious recent remarks by Nobel Prize winning scientist James Watson. What did he reportedly say?

inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa. . . . All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says not really.

Now there's his apology, and his explanation, but no real discussion about whether what he said was true, or even the extent that it might be true, or the ways in which it might be true, has appeared in the press to date.

No, don't for a minute think that I think he's right about race and intelligence. Even disregarding the important questions "What is race?" and "What is intelligence?" I'm just not even convinced that intelligence is really hereditary. His explanation kind of hints at that, but doesn't really say it. Most people think, or just assume, that intelligence is hereditary because they were told when they were young that it is, and the generality of the population who don't follow this don't realize that Sir Cyril Burt faked his data, although he still has defenders.

I would like the press to honestly report the controversies about intelligence and the effects on it of heredity and environment, including prenatal environment. I would like people to understand that this is not a simple issue. I wish I had saved the link, but I read some time ago that blonds exposed to blond jokes before taking IQ tests scored 8 points lower than a control group of blonds. Sounds suspiciously similar to the famous 11 points difference between blacks and whites in the US, doesn't it? But there are all kinds of other explanations that should be debated. The role of caste in American society particularly needs to be considered. African Americans are not just an ex-slave group, they are the traditional undercaste group, Untouchables.

There are even more controversial ideas that no one will even mention. Most testing of blacks has been in the US. Not only have there been pressures on them to act dumb, coming not only from the white community but from other blacks who accuse intelligent blacks of "acting white".

African Americans are a distinct gene pool. If they score lower on intelligence tests than whites, what does that have to do with Africans, even assuming that intelligence is hereditary? Maybe the intelligent ones were doing the catching, and the 'slow' ones were caught and sent to the Americas? There have been claims that Igbos and other African ethnic groups are even more highly intelligent, on average than white Americans. To extrapolate from one group of blacks to all blacks is no less racist than to extrapolate from a single black to all blacks.

Most damning to the heredity theory is the fact that Igbos made a large contribution to the African American population. The word "okra" (for example) is an Igbo word in American English. The simplest (and therefore the most likely) explanation for the differential success of Igbos over African Americans is cultural. African Americans have lost their original Igbo culture and therefore are not as entrepreneurial (and not as successful) in America's highly competitive entrepreneurial society. Maybe we should forget about Swahili and get African Americans back to their real African culture.

But most of all, let us have an honest debate about race and intelligence. Let us remember that each individual is an individual, and that even if blacks, as a group, score lower on intelligence tests than whites, there are still extremely intelligent blacks.

I got that last link from a high IQ society I belong to, that W. R. Jones also belongs to. No, it's not Mensa, it's 20 times as selective as Mensa. There is no shortage of extremely, highly intelligent blacks in the world, even in the United States, where intelligent blacks were systematically killed during slavery and where blacks have been pressured to act stupid, sometimes even by their own people. Shouting people down who say blacks are less intelligent doesn't convince blacks who are unsure about their own intelligence. Facts might.

How the mighty are fallen!

Daniel Pipes used to be an expert on the Middle East. Whether you agreed with him or not you had to respect his opinion and his command of the basic facts about the region.

Not any more. Here's what he wrote on October 9 this year:

preemption justified the invasion of Iraq before Iraqis had attacked the United States

If he doesn't get up to speed with what's happening in the world outside his bubble he's going to be the only guy left in the country who doesn't know that we were lied to about Iraq and its WMD. No one is going to pay any attention to him anymore. Which is a shame. He used to be a great scholar, but I guess he got seduced by Republican money. Mammon. He's willing to criticize Republicans like Grover Norquist, but can't say anything nice about Democrats, even repeating the lie that Bill Clinton never did anything about Al-Qa'ida. He was strangely silent about Obama's wanting to invade Pakistan if necessary. This is still the only page that turns up if you search his site for Obama.

I know most people here don't like him, but he did used to be worth reading.

He's not really anti-Muslim, in fact his "fans" often take him to task on his site for not being anti-Muslim, and when he wrote that Muslims believe the same God that Christians and Jews do most of them really tore into him for it.

I don't know what we should do about him now. Anything? Nothing? Everything?

Poll at DailyKos.com

It's going beyond surrealism

Bush is definitely disconnecting from reality. He also doesn't realize that Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison for terrorism by the apartheid regime. Here's a link to a right wing site about Mandela's terrorism. Here's Mandela's statement at his trial, courtesy the ANC website. Mandela never renounced violence (what head of state could?). He thought violence was necessary to free South Africa. It turned out that sanctions woke up the South African government, and the fall of Communism left them without their justification for suppressing the South African people. But no one in a struggle like the South African freedom struggle should have to renounce violence. It they do, as Gandhi did, and as Solidarnosc in Poland did, that's powerful, and a potent weapon, but they are under no moral obligation to do it.

Nelson Mandela didn't become the "Mandela" Bush is referring to until the South African government changed policy and became willing to talk to him. In the case of Iraq there are simply no Iraqis who are willing to talk to other Iraqis. Unlike the case in South Africa there simply are no democratic forces to talk. The people who want majority rule (Shi'ite extremists) want to kill the minority Sunnis. Everyone seems to want to kill the Christians, Yazidis and Mandeans. The Jews are lucky. They already got out. Of course all the Iraqi factions most want to kill Israelis. That's who the Iraqi Jews are now. Israelis.

Too much to post about

so I haven't posted, but I've got to post this.

General Clark endorses Hillary!

No, I'm not about to endorse her myself. I think she will learn a lot from General Clark. I hope she makes him Vice president, or at least makes him National Security Adviser or Secretary of State. She needs his expertise on those questions. She's not the devil some people portray her as, and I have long said that I will vote for her whenever she wins the nomination (sames goes for all the other Democrats) but I'm just not ready to endorse her, or anyone else, for the nomination.

I'm still numb, though. I'll get back to the blog, maybe with a report on what's been keeping me away. I'm backing whoever gets the Democratic nomination, but with General Clark out of the race, I'm not backing any candidate for the nomination, even at the urging of General Clark himself.

Surprisingly good analysis of Nigeria's constitution

Apparently, the contradiction of prescribing party supremacy for the presidential model of democracy seemed to have been lost on the framers of the 1999 Constitution.

Read more from the Daily Trust via AllAfrica.com. Highly recommended.

Just up on Kos!

Dick Cheney the first knew why we shouldn't overthrow Saddam Hussein.



Here's the Kos diary it's from.

Darfur: it's not just about resources

Yes, there is a shortage of water, that may be alleviated by new discoveries of underground aquifers. But there are always shortages. Scarcity is the essential problem of economics.

As the linked article notes, if the government in Khartoum tries to centralize control of the new water supplies (and as it doesn't note, if it continues to be an Arab nationalist government) further conflict is almost a given, no matter how much water was found.

Ethnic conflict occurs when the inevitable resource conflict cannot be solved by mutually agreeable means. The US has multiple ethnic groups, but as long as there is a political system, including a court system, acceptable to everyone, conflict won't spill over into the streets. That's one major reason why the Civil Rights Movement to integrate minorities into the system was so important.

As long as the government in Khartoum is Arab nationalist there will be a disaffected minority. But as a matter of fact, Arabs themselves are a minority in the Sudan, so there will be a disaffected majority. Until Khartoum accepts African nationalism, and realizes that Arabs are just another ethnic group, not THE acceptable, legitimate group, there will be ethnic conflict in the Sudan. That's one reason the ultimate responsibility for policing Darfur must become the primary responsibility of the AU.

Another reason is that any foreign peace-keeping mission is only temporary. You cannot expect a Kashmir or Cyprus style UN force to be there indefinitely without cease fire lines. This is more like Bosnia.

That means either an African Union force, or more realistically a federal force from some kind of a United States of Africa, has to stay there to police the area, because we know the Sudanese government is one sided in their approach. They have to be, as long as they are committed to Arab nationalism, which is ethnically specific in content from the beginning.

Beyond even my parannoid fears!

Watergate went beyond my paranoid fears when John Mitchell admitted to the Congressional investigators as part of the "White House Horror Stories" that the administration had plans to blow up the Brookings Institution and blame it on leftists terrorists, thus both getting rid of the voice of opposition and providing the excuse to crack down on dissent in the name of fighting terrorists.

Pat Tillman wasn't shot accidentally. He was murdered, and the administration covered it up.

Musharraf's contradictions

General Musharraf has little base of his own. Having replaced the civilian politicians he was first forced to fall on the Islamists for support. These same Islamists were never able to attract more than 10-15% of the vote in a free election, but they became Musharraf's base.

Then he was pressured by the US after 9/11 to support the "War on Terror" against the Taliban and al-Qa'ida. He did. But this left him on shaky ground. He had to mollify the Islamists, especially those in the military and military intelligence, and he faced assassination attempts, and possibly attempted coups d'etat. Now even the Islamists have turned against him.

More lately the majority of the Pakistanis have rallied around the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Chaudhry. The Supreme Court has ordered him reinstated. General Musharraf is getting more and more alienated from the society as a whole. He more and more needs the backing of the Islamists. But he more and more needs the support of the Americans, who are putting more and more pressure on him.

If I were him I would try to negotiate a transition with the democratic forces. If I were running US foreign policy I would try to make overtures to the civilian political leaders to get their support against the Islamists. But I just have a blog, that's all.

So what's the point of Africom?

from the ever rambunctious Nigerian Press:

the launching of AFRICOM has raised a number of questions and concerns about U.S. interests in Africa. Its mode of operation, its very existence in Africa, some say, resembles a spying mission and will possibly attract terrorists to the Continent. AFRICOM, according to Henry, will have no new troops, no bases, but will have a staff and "a distributed approach where the staff is located. And that will be both on the continent and off the continent."

Meanwhile, the Liberian government has been lobbying and has recently offered the country for AFRICOM headquarters. According to President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf who is a frequent visitor to Washington DC, "If AFRICOM aims to use its "soft power" Mandate to develop a stable environment in which civil society can flourish and the quality of life for Africans can be improved, African nations should work with AFRICOM to achieve their own development and security goals...".

But what is the Bush administration planning? Do they even know? Will this effectively be left to the succeeding administration to decide what to do with the African command in the military? Congress should ask some oversight questions, but Congress is too busy asking other oversight questions to bother with this little problem, especially when the administration might honestly have no real answers to the questions.

I'll be back

I'll be back. I've been having someworkplace issues, and a lot of other things are keeping me busy, but I haven't abandoned this blog. I shall return.

Was W ever a Boy Scout?

"Be prepared" doesn't seem to be his motto.

Here's the latest on what he's doing to the military:

As wildfires, floods and tornadoes batter the nation, the readiness of the National Guard to deal with those disasters, as well as potential terrorist assaults, is so depleted by deployments to foreign wars and equipment shortfalls that Congress is considering moves to curtail the president's powers over the Guard and require the Defense Department to analyze how prepared the country is for domestic emergencies.

"Have I ever heard of a dead president?"

Sure, they're all over the money. Every bill except the $10 and the $100. What is it with those denominations? But I digress.

Someone seems to have thought that the quote I made the title of this blog entry was a threat against Hillary Clinton. I certainly hope they don't think this blog is a threat against Hillary. I'd vote for her over any of the Republicans. However, I think, or at least I hope, that there is more to this story than they have made public. I will wait for evidence at the trial before making up my mind. There will be a trial, right?

Police said the student reported Wargo to the university after a second conversation, in which Wargo allegedly made a second remark indicating he planned violence against Clinton.

‘Have you ever heard of a dead president?’
That remark "was something along the lines of, 'Have you ever heard of a dead president?'" Adams said. "That's language that should be of concern to anyone. Thank goodness the classmate reported it."

Why (else) we STILL need Wes Clark for president

From The Nation's coverage of the Democratic debate in South Carolina:

There has been this idea going around that the Democrats have a fabulous, unstoppable array of candidates this year. We can't lose! This debate gave the lie to that comforting notion in any number of ways.

But they think it's only economics that will win the debate.

They still don't know--not after tonight--that the Democrats are their best bet to heal the economic fissure between the ever-fattening haves and the vast, anemic mass of the rest of us. Out in the hinterlands, local and state politicians are stirring souls and winning elections by reviving the old spirit of Huey Long and Share Our Wealth. But among the national Democrats, there appears to be scant recognition of the bleeding obvious: People are hurting, and not just those who've been unfortunate enough to land in Iraq or have family members there. A full one-eighth of Americans now officially live in poverty, we learned this past week, just as the Dow ding-dinged its way to 13,000. On this issue, among the folks I've been talking to, the anger and frustration are mingled with heavy doses of mystification: Doesn't anybody get what's happening to us out here?

It's not just economics. Besides, Democrats always have the edge on economics with the majority of Americans. It's also national security, and that's where Wes Clark has the edge on just about anybody, Democrat or Republican. He's not so well known for his positions on economic issues, but let's go to his website and see what he has to say about the issue. It's not easy to find what he has to say, so let me find it and bring it to you here:

I taught economics and political philosophy. I’ve worked in the civilian side of the Office of Management and Budget in the White House, I’m a businessman. I have, like, four different businesses. I consult for various different companies and I’ve been around the block a few times. So I’ve got strong ideas.

I believe we need to raise the minimum wage. We need to help small businesses in this country. We need to fix the access to the healthcare system. We’ve got to stop the unfunded mandates, that are running out for the No Child Left Behind Act. We’ve got to raise and enhance teacher pay and morale and performance. We’ve got to get preschool education for every child in America.

In America we’ve got to take a much more proactive role in helping Americans help themselves. Families need help. Families need leadership. Families need an advocate. I’m not talking about someone who hands out dollars or food stamps in a program and who says “Oh, I’m sorry, you don’t meet the criteria for the program.” I’m talking about people who know that family and will stand up and argue for that family. And if the programs don’t work to help our people, they’ll get those programs changed. So, I think we’ve got to really have a broad front program to help this country. If we don’t, we’re not going to be competitive in the larger, global environment. And ultimately, America’s strength, as General Eisenhower said is not our Armed Forces. It’s America’s economy. It’s the men and women who work and the men and women who put those companies together and lead those companies. And it’s teamwork. And it’s about teamwork.

I think our labor unions have a vital role in this. Our labor unions have to be strengthened. We need the ability to do real training,

(Applause)

And real education through the unions.

(Applause)

I think the union movement is the real secret weapon of the American economy. We just have to turn it loose.

Unions are the only real, effective, market method of bringing greater economic equality into society. Support them. Wes Clark does. He understands the economy better than any of the announced Democratic candidates, and they aren't even in the same league with him when it comes to foreign policy and national security. He has to be the next president. Write to him and ask him to run for president. He has to know people support him. Go to the Clark Community Network and make your voice heard.

Spread this around

I couldn't put it better myself.

racial progress?

Remember when white women would falsely accuse black men of rape? I'm sure they still do, but it doesn't lead to lynchings and outrageously unfair trials the way it used to. But I'm also sure most people alive today can't remember the kind of fear the possibility of a false rape allegation kept most black men in. Americans are much more mature in the 21st century.

Or are we? Well, nobody was murdered over the false rape allegations recently filed by a black woman against several white men on the Duke University Lacrosse Team. Despite the lynch mob mentality of several politically correct commentators who assumed the guilt of the young men in question, and the even more outrageous mentality of Ann Coulter, who not only assumed their guilt but who even justified their alleged behavior, it turns out to have been just another false rape allegation. I guess that's racial progress of a sort. Now there is enough racial equality that a black woman can make false rape allegations against white men and be believed. It's not gender progress, though, and it doesn't speak well of the human race. It especially doesn't speak well of the people who believed the allegations without waiting for the evidence and weighing it.

from the Associated Press, via the Winston Salem Journal:

As word spread yesterday that all remaining charges had been dropped against three Duke lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting an exotic dancer, there was at least one point beyond dispute: This case was poison for everyone touched by it.

More evidence that Bush is fixing for a fight with Iran

This is from The Guardian:

The US offered to take military action on behalf of the 15 British sailors and marines held by Iran, including buzzing Iranian Revolutionary Guard positions with warplanes,

Luckily the British administration has finally learned to just say NO!

The British declined the offer and said the US could calm the situation by staying out of it. London also asked the US to tone down military exercises that were already under way in the Gulf.

This is the most important, unreported story

THIS IS NOT AN APRIL FOOL STORY!!

and it needs to get noticed, it needs to get immediate attention, and it should get that attention ahead of Iraq, global warming and every other issue, because if the bees die off, we won't be far behind.

Now if you're like most people you probably think of bees as a nuisance, you probably got stung by one when you were a kid, you might even be allergic to one, and you stay as far away as possible from them. Oh, yes, if you think about it, you remember that honey comes from bees, and honey tastes nice, so maybe bees aren't all bad. Still you don't think about them much, and are content to let them remain someone else's concern. You just don't mess with them.

Bees are much more important than most people, at least people who aren't farmers (and it's been a long time since most Americans were farmers) think. Bees pollinate crops. We eat those crops. Many crops we eat require bees to pollinate them so they can reproduce. If bees become extinct, many crops will follow. Some think we will be next into extinction ourselves. Maybe intelligent mushrooms will evolve in a few billion years, but I'm not waiting around to find out.

Here are some stories about the problem:

Illinois Farm Bureau

The Illinois State Beekeepers Association (ISBA) will conduct its 2007 Midwest Beekeeping Symposium June 9th at the McHenry County College Conference Center in Crystal Lake.

"2007 will be a crucial year for beekeepers, gardeners and farmers as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) makes headlines across the U.S. and devastates honeybee colonies," says ISBA president Ken Haller.

Where have all the bees gone?

Researchers are looking for known and unknown diseases, chemicals in the wax and food reserves or pollen and bee bread, which is how bees store pollen. The bees themselves are being probed for gross evidence of disease to make sure they are digesting their food properly, Mr. vanEngelsdorp said. The protein bees store in their bodies also is being investigated.

Colony collapse disorder is the latest name for an ailment that leaves bee hives suddenly empty.

Lewisburg beekeeper Dave Hackenberg is pointing the finger at a relatively new class of insecticide, neonicotinoids. The insecticide weakens an insect's immune system so the bug becomes an easy target for mites, viruses and fungi. It also affects bee behavior; an infected bee leaves the hive and forgets to return home.

Colony collapse malady imperils crops

Colony collapse disorder has been reported in 24 U.S. states, with bee losses of up to 90 per cent in some hives, according to a study. The U.S. agriculture department says $14.6 billion (U.S.) of pollinated crops may be threatened.

Of course the Bush administration has been slow about this. After all, they think the government is part of the problem:

from COX NEWS SERVICE

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has failed to grasp the urgency of a mysterious plague that has killed millions of honeybees, threatening billions of dollars worth of crops that depend on the insect pollinators, the chairman of a House subcommittee charged.

and probably the best article I could find.

Theories about the cause of the so-called colony collapse disorder range from illnesses, stress from traveling all over the country with their keepers to pollinate fruits and vegetables, and mites that feast on them. Or it can be a combination of things, bee experts said.

You can do it to the country

but apparently you can't do it to a private company.

from CNN:

U.S. prosecutors on Monday charged David Stockman, a former chief executive of Collins & Aikman, and seven other former company officials with fraud and conspiracy related to alleged financial misdeeds at the bankrupt auto parts maker.

Stockman, a former Reagan administration budget director, and three others are accused of misleading the company's investors to hide its declining financial condition, according to an indictment brought by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

It sounds rather similar to what Stockman was doing for the Reagan administration, which he allegedly suffered remorse for. Unfortunately we can't prosecute him, or the rest of the Reagan administration, for what they did to the US financially.

More important, we can't prosecute the even more irresponsible Bush II administration. At least we can't prosecute them for this. We can prosecute them for so much more, and we have to, if only to get them out of office before they do further damage.