For the next two days I will be attending a conference on US Army III Corps staff operations. (I served on the Corps staff in Iraq.) It’s a non-classified conference and a chance for me to see many of my friends and fellow soldiers (most of III Corps has now returned from Iraq, replaced by XVIIIth Airborne Corps). I doubt I’ll have time to post, so, see you Friday.
Well, it’s a political bog– so we’re getting somewhere, it’s a political bog (quagmire?) instead of a military swamp. Will we hear the term “political Vietnam”? (Link is to the Washington Post, March 30.)
You have to read through the article to get to the quagmire implication (albeit rendered softly with the term”bogged down”):
The session was closed so Iraq’s newly minted politicians could once again find a way out of an embarrassing failure to start forming the country’s first freely elected government. Two months after the assembly was elected, negotiations among the various religious and ethnic groups appear to be increasingly bogged down, as politicians bicker over who will fill top posts.
[Quick note: I was on a radio show this morning and the hosts asked me specifically about this article–quoted the headline and the “grabber” bogged-down sentence.]
Faliure, quagmire, or difficult political process in a nation emerging from brutal dictatorship? I think this is another example of “minutes versus months” — the police blotter minute by minute report mentality that obscures or ignores long-term context.
I’m going to be a little bit harder on this Washington Post article than it deserves– the reporter, Caryle Murphy, does a fine job of capturing individual character and color. However, critiquing it serves to reinforce a point I’ve made regarding media coverage in Iraq, ie, police blotter and bomb by bomb versus operational and strategic achievements. The “time lens” can impart a “spin.”
For instance: On March 30, 2003 did the Washington Post anticipate covering a democratic Iraqi constitutional convention in Baghdad? Here’s a sentence that gives the report useful historical context. “Two years ago Iraq was under the control of a ruthless dictatorship where dissent was punished by prison or death.” A sentence like this would add geographic and historical context: “In a region where democracy is rare, in a nation with no democratic tradition, the give and take in Baghdad is a difficult but exciting experiment.” Does anyone disagree with the facts in that sentence? Democracy is rare in the Middle East, Iraq lacks a democratic tradition, the process is difficult? Perhaps quibblers will attack the word “exciting.” Yes indeed. For some the give and take new politics in Baghdad isn’t exciting, it’s threatening– like, mullahs in Iran, thugs in Syria, and DailyKos readers.
The closest the article comes to providing the deep context is this:
In Washington, President Bush told a group of Iraqi law students and religious figures: “The free people of Iraq are now doing what Saddam Hussein never could — making Iraq a positive example for the entire Middle East.”
That’s a hint of deep context– though it’s rendered as “Bush says” versus what the reporter sees.
The report’s big theme is “embarassing failure” and “bogged down.”
But is that where the Iraqis are? Or are they negotiating carefully and relentlessly, paying particular attention to the issue of Sunni participation?
The Post story includes this:
Hoping to form a government that would capture the loyalty of Iraq’s disaffected Sunni Arabs, a minority that largely boycotted the elections, the Shiites and Kurds have reserved some posts for Sunnis in the government, most notably the assembly speakership.
After the leading candidate abruptly withdrew Monday, Sunni parliamentary members could not agree on an alternative in time for Tuesday’s session. “We have to come up with a nominee for that position” by Sunday, Hasani said. He is not interested in the job, he said, because he prefers to be defense minister, another post widely expected to go to a Sunni.
If the Sunnis do not produce their own candidate by Sunday, the assembly will elect a speaker anyway, several lawmakers said.
Recall my earlier post about Allawi’s “add don’t subtract” approach to the Sunnis and former Baathists. Addition is tough, particular when terrorists intimidate with bombs and beheadings. Democratic political processes are slow– it’s difficult fixing potholes in Austin, Texas. The job in Baghdad is of course many quanta more difficult, delicate, and significant.
But the big words are “failure” and “bogged down.”
In its on-line edition (apparently A9 in the paper), the Post does include a report quoting President Bush on Baghdadi politics.
President Bush said yesterday that Iraq is on the verge of creating a diverse government that respects the country’s deep religious and ethnic divisions, despite the turmoil and delays.
While the president was speaking optimistically about Iraq’s future, first lady Laura Bush flew to Afghanistan to award $21 million in education grants as part of the U.S. effort to spread democracy in Muslim countries.
I’ll add this, too:
He did not specifically discuss the bitter disputes between Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions that surfaced at yesterday’s meeting, which are complicating efforts to choose a speaker and get the new government up and running.
Any differences, Bush said, “will be resolved through debate and persuasion instead of force and intimidation.” While Iraqis are debating the specifics of the new government, Bush said political leaders there “are determined that the government will be representative of their country’s diverse population.” Sunni Arabs, a minority that did poorly in the January elections, have complained about being left out of a process dominated by the majority Shiite population.
The new nationally elected assembly plans on writing a constitution by October and holding new elections by year’s end.
Problems aside, Bush said the Iraqis are a “positive example” to others in the Middle East and are inspiring others who desire democracy to pursue it though protest, elections and governmental reforms…
A editor would make the case that one story provides context for the other– and I don’t disagree. I’m glad to see both stories. However, the on line Washing Post places the “floundering” story first, renders the headline in large type, and expands on it with the bogged-down “push quote” . It is — to appropriate a phrase– “sexed up.” The link to the Bush story appears in small type– suggesting a visual after-thought. (My copy doesn’t capture the type differential, but does illustrate the arrangement. Here’s a link to the WP’s World page with the headlines, though I doubt that it’s a permanent link.)
————————————————————————–
Two Months In, Iraq Is Still Foundering
Negotiations among the various religious and ethnic groups appear to be increasingly bogged down, as politicians bicker over who will fill top posts.
? Bush Predicts Rifts Will Mend——————————————————————————–
Here’s the link to StrategyPage’s version of this week’s column.
How will the UN be policed, who holds it accountable? Here’s part of the answer: off the kleptocrats and ego-crats. My column advocates a democratic takeover, with Havel as Secretary-General, France stripped of its permanent Security Council seat, and a few other bitter pills for the feckless and corrupt.
Richard Halloran looks at Secretary of State Rice’s recent Asian trip –Halloran characterizes her style as “tough-minded yet temperate.” (From the Taipei Times.)
Note the US supports adding Japan as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. (I’ll comment on that in this week’s Creators Syndicate column.)
Key quote:
She was almost effusive on the US alliance with Japan. In a speech, Rice addressed an issue important to status-conscious Japanese:
“Japan has earned its honorable place among the nations of the world by its own effort and by its own character. That is why the United States unambiguously supports a permanent seat for Japan on the United Nations Security Council.”
In South Korea, where anti-American and anti-Japanese sentiments run high, Rice was guarded as she tried to put a good image on the troubled alliance. With Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon standing beside her, Rice said: “We will continue to coordinate very, very closely” on ways to react to North Korea’s refusal so far to give up its nuclear arms.
Rice sought to be upbeat on the contentious US decision to reduce its forces in South Korea, which some South Koreans lament while others applaud. She noted the realignment would “return valuable urban land to the Korean people, while we continue to modernize the alliance.”
As for China:
In China, the emerging power of Asia, Rice was even more cautious. She said, “US-China relations have developed remarkably and in ways that would have been thought unthinkable a few years ago” but then laid out American differences with China.
She criticized a new law giving Beijing justification for attacking Taiwan, over which China claims sovereignty but whose people wish to remain apart. Rice reiterated Bush policy that this dispute must not be settled unilaterally.
Rice called on China to undertake political reform: “We believe that when China’s leaders confront the need to align their political institutions with their increased economic openness, they will look around them in Asia and they will see that freedom works.”
Without naming China, Rice brought up a long-standing irritant: “American businesses lose US$200 to US$250 billion a year to pirated and counterfeit goods. Innovation stimulates economic growth, but innovation will suffer without proper protection for intellectual property rights.”
(Thanks to RCP for the original link.)
Zimbabwe has another election this coming Thursday. Here’s a very safe prediction: Zimbabwe’s dictator, Robert Mugabe, will cheat. Why not? He’s done it before and gotten away with it.
Here’s a quote from a column that ran in the San Antonio Express-News in April 2000 (before my column went national with Creators Syndicate). I wrote this when some sectors of the US Left still considered Mugabe to be someone worth lauding. Pshaw– they knew little about sub-Saharan Africa.
He’s an ethnic cleanser, a “former Marxist,” and a savvy, cynical thief whose grip on power is slipping.
His greed and mismanagement have wrecked his nation’s economy.
His scheme to retain power involves the dictator’s usual routines: stoking ethnic strife, inciting economic envy, and physically intimidating his domestic opposition.
Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic? No, this time the scoundrel is Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. The regional context is a central (Democratic Republic of Congo) and southwestern (Angola) Africa already aflame, with Zimbabwe –thanks to Mugabe’s malfeasance –teetering.
Over the past month, international press coverage has focused on Mugabe’s brutal Afarm occupation@ policies and his domestic failures.
In February, after the defeat of a “land reform” referendum that would have given Mugabe power to take white-owned farms without compensation, gangs under his control occupied the farms. The defeat of the referendum clued Mugabe that his regime, in power since 1980, was at risk. The opposition, black-led Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had strength throughout Zimbabwe, through all economic classes and in all tribes.
Mugabe’s “farm occupation policy” utilized two themes that have been political ace cards for numerous African leaders: “combating colonialism” and “fighting racism.”
There’s a good argument that the land rights of some white farmers are at best tenuous. Many 19th century British settlers in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) acquired land via steel — the steel of British bayonets.
However, in the early 21st century, these farms, on one quarter of the farmland, produce two-thirds of Zimbabwe’s food. They also employ thousands of black Africans.
However, early on the MDC realized it was Mugabe’ real target…
That column from 2000 goes on to describe what Mugabe is up to– ie, stealing an election.
If you’re proud of Ukraine’s democrats, then pray for Zimbabwe’s MDC– Movement for Democratic Change.
Over at TechCentralStation, AEI’s Roger Bate has a look at Robert Mugabe’s thug dictatorship and its policy of robbery.
…the real reason that Zimbabwe has collapsed is that there is no protection of private property. The executive rides roughshod over the judiciary in all matters of property. The result is “dead capital” — a term invented by Hernando de Soto — and total economic annihilation. The economy is now worth barely more than one percent (in US$ terms) of its value in 2000, when the Mugabe regime’s “land reform” program, in which they appropriated farms and land-holdings from private owners, really started.
In short, Zimbabwe provides the reverse of the good news offered by De Soto. In The Mystery of Capital, De Soto exhaustively demonstrated that where private property rights are delineated and enforced, economies can grow rapidly. When someone can borrow against his one large asset (for nearly everyone this is his home) he can establish a business, buy supplies, establish marketing programs, sell products and make a profit and thrive.
For some countries the vast majority of capital is dead — one cannot prove one owns it outright, and hence no capital market will lend against it. For example in the mid-1990s when De Soto was asked by President Hosni Mubarak to assess the situation in Egypt, De Soto found that 90% of the capital was dead. Today the situation is slowly improving as more and more people can prove they own their property.
Not long ago, Zimbabwe had all the rights and rule of law one could have wanted. It had a decent titling system, a judiciary that upheld rights of landowners in the face of an executive branch that was largely Marxist in orientation (like so many African economies). And this same judiciary continued to try to do this in the face of mass expropriation of land rights in 2000. Even as late as 2003, as the final major swathe of white farmers were thrown off their property and their land left idle, some judges tried to uphold the constitutional rights of these farmers…
Read the whole thing. Also, Tuesday morning StrategyPage should have a Zimbabwe update with some more details.
UPDATE: From Instapundit, a recommended Zimbabwean web log.
The Associated Press needs to read Roger Simon’s post on what Oil For Food investigators are discovering (see the post and link from this morning).
Thanks to powerline for the lead to this NY Sun article on the search for Osama bin Laden in Pakistan– and how a State Dept bureaucratic decision undermined the effort. The article backgrounds the senseless failure to make use one of the key tools in law enforcement: publicity and reward money. Apparently an embassy official decided wanted posters and matchbooks with bin Laden’s face and ads for the reward “were ineffective.” The ambassador appointed in August 2002 kept the policy, despite advice to the contrary from staff and from intel pros.
I have a couple of Zarqawi matchbooks from Iraq featuring Z-Man’s picture and a reward notice in Arabic– for me they’re interesting souvenirs. But “white info ops” like the matchbook –even if there is no immediate increase in tips– get locals talking. They are easy PR, and you never know who is going to see the poster and ultimately respond. The Sun’s story essentially concludes the US lost two years of PR after the embassy “impounded” the matchbooks and wanted posters.
UPDATE: Tigerhawk posts a couple of thoughtful comments– and disagrees with my take on the Sun article. Click the comments button (comments 2 and 3).
Roger L. Simon has his hands on a report that suggests Kofi Annan “had more knowledge of, or was closer to, his son Kojo’s activities with Cotecna - the company whose role in the scandal seems so pervasive - than previously thought.” Roger analyzes the information and speculates on what tomorrow’s Volcker investigation may reveal.
Roger says the source who provided the report is “close” to the UNSCAM investigation. If the allegations prove out this is absolutely devestating news. I suspect it will take a lot ofpolitical and media pressure to move from Annan’s resignation to UN reformation. Roger is helping provide the media pressure–with a real Internet coup. Read the whole thing.
If Colin Powell is unacceptable as a replacement for Kofi Annan as UN Secretary-General — who should replace him? I’m looking for serious nominees– someone with the spine, personal clout, vision, experience,and integrity to begin and sustain the necessary institutional and political reforms. A commenter on my Kofi’s Depression post suggested no American was acceptable (the commenter thinks that any citizen of one of the permanent Security Council members would be a no-go for Secretary-General). Okay, Michael Moore and Barbara Boxer might get Jacques Chirac’s blessing, but remember, I said I want nominees with spine, personal clout, vision, experience, and integrity.
In my view the Secretary-General who will “lead the reformation” has to be dedicated to democracy. He/She must not only prosecute the corrupt officials behind the Oil for Food scam, but work closely with the World Bank to reform the entire developmental aid process. He/She cannot wither and dither in the face of Chinese, Russian, and French shenanigans. Does this unique individual exist?
I meant to link to this superb Victor Davis Hanson essay on Ward Churchill. Hanson sees Churchill as the perfect left-wing academic con man– which he is. Read the whole thing. Then go read Wretchard’s comments on Hanson’s essay at The Belmont Club.
On March 2 I posted on the advent of fifty dollars a barrel (or more) oil. (The post was about $53 a barrel oil.)
Here’s the link to that particular post.
That post’s lede went like this:
Last October, while chatting with two friends, I did my own back-of-the-envelope analysis of oil prices. Both of my friends wanted to know what the ?bottom? price of a barrel of oil would be over the next four to five years. ..I suggested $33 to $35 a barrel was the bottom. Based on increasing Chinese and Indian demand it was reasonable to bet that oil would stay at or above $40. Another ?qualitative factor”: Saudi Arabia is cash-strapped. Forty bucks a barrel or better is what it needs to fuel its strange, feudal welfare state. Though the rumor mill says there?s a lot of big time oil exploration going on, Saudi Arabia remains the key ?swing producer? and its economic and political needs have a lot to do with how it swings. There are two wild cards: the first is Russia and what it can produce? I have no guess as to Russia?s ultimate production potential. The second wild card is Iraq: if and when Iraq gets its oil act together it could pump a lot more than 2.3 million barrels a day.
Robert Samuelson has an interesting take on the rise in oil prices and why higher prices are likely to stay (Newsweek via MSNBC).
Here’s Samuelson’s argument:
The interesting question about the advent of $50-a-barrel oil is whether it signals a new era in the economics and politics of energy. To sharpen the question: have we entered a period when, owing to consistently strong demand and chronically scarce supplies, prices have moved permanently higher? We don’t know, but the answer could be “yes” for at least one reason: China.
Americans consume almost 21 million barrels of oil a day, a quarter of the world total of 84 million barrels a day, reports the International Energy Agency. But China is now second at 6.4 million barrels a day, and its demand could double by 2020, various analysts told a conference held last week by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. Moreover, China will import most of its new needs; its domestic output is steady at about 3.5 million barrels a day. It’s unclear how much China’s extra demand?and that of other developing countries, especially India?will stimulate extra oil production.
Oil markets do undergo seismic shifts. Until 1974, the United States was the world’s largest oil producer. Supplies were plentiful; Americans controlled their own oil prices, as Daniel Yergin explained in his 1991 book “The Prize.” With surplus production capacity, the Texas Railroad Commission?which, despite its name, regulated oil?limited output to stabilize prices while maintaining a “security reserve” for times of crisis, wrote Yergin. In March 1971, the commission allowed all-out production to meet rising demand. America’s oil surplus had vanished. Worldwide prices rose, and OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) became more powerful.
Here’s a good bet: Sustained fifty dollars a barrel oil will fuel more alternative energy research.
Kofi Annan is depressed?good, many of us have been both unimpressed and depressed by his performance as UN Secretary General. According to this
Times of London article Annan is so depressed he just might quit his job.
He needs to stay long enough to take the heat for the Oil For Food scandal– but that’s precisely what resignation avoids.
It?s time to replace Annan and with a leader who will attack the UN?s corruption and incompetence. Colin Powell might be the one American (at least among Americans who would jail the corrupt and fire the incompetent) who could get the job.
Here’s part of the London Times’ story:
KOFI ANNAN, the United Nations secretary-general, is said to be struggling with depression and considering his future. Colleagues have reported concerns about Annan ahead of an official report this week that will examine his son Kojo?s connection to the controversial Iraqi oil for food scheme.
Depending on the findings of the report, by a team led by the former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, Annan may have to choose between the secretary-generalship and loyalty to his son.American congressional critics of the UN are already pressing him to resign over the mismanagement of the oil for food programme, and even his supporters have been dismayed by the scandals on his watch, including the sexual abuse of children by UN peacekeepers in Congo.
One close observer at the UN said Annan?s moods were like a ?sine curve? and that he appeared near the bottom of the trough.
Kojo, 29, was employed by a Swiss company, Cotecna, but left before it won one of the contracts under the oil for food programme. Last week it emerged he received up to $400,000 from the company. The UN confirmed that Kofi Annan three times met executives of the firm, twice before the award of the oil for food contract and once afterwards.
Methodist minister Rev Donald Sensing has a thoughtful and at times provocative post on the human soul– if the soul exists, what is it? Read the comments, too. Happy Easter.
The Internet is suddenly rife with reports that Iraq?s pro-Saddam holdouts seek an ?exit strategy? ? a deal to put down their arms, enter the political system, and not go to jail. (Link is to the Financial Times article: “Iraq’s insurgents ?seek exit strategy’ “.)
From July 2004 forward part of Iyad Allawi?s plan was to ?add not subtract? Iraqis. The Interim Iraqi Government wanted to bring Sunni Triangle holdouts into the political process. The door to was open to discussion with all but the most senior members of the Baath leadership. The IIG insisted, however, that murderers wouldn?t go unpunished?which admittedly adds an uncomfortable rub.
The holdouts have always had two hole cards. The first is agreeing to quit fighting. This meant submitting to the democratic judicial process, but turning in your arms and asking for amnesty would lay the groundwork for a ?deal with the prosecutor.?
The second card is turning in Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the Al Qaeda internationalists..Fact is, turning in Zarqawi would be the Baghdad equivalent of Monopoly?s ?Get Out of Jail Free Card? for the lower-level holdouts who engineer it.
The Saddamites who turn in Zarqawi would give the Iraqi government a tactical military victory ?the terrorist kingpin is off the streets– and a major political victory. Sunni Muslims turning in the Islamist terrorist would be another strategic coup for the United States.
Here’s a quick sample of the Financial Times report. I’dd add that members of the Interim iraqi Government and the Coalition forces have been in contact with various holdout groups since July 2004.:
Many of Iraq’s predominantly Sunni Arab insurgents would lay down their arms and join the political process in exchange for guarantees of their safety and that of their co-religionists, according to a prominent Sunni politician.
Sharif Ali Bin al-Hussein, who heads Iraq’s main monarchist movement and is in contact with guerrilla leaders, said many insurgents including former officials of the ruling Ba’ath party, army officers, and Islamists have been searching for a way to end their campaign against US troops and Iraqi government forces since the January 30 election.
?Firstly, they want to ensure their own security,? says Sharif Ali, who last week hosted a pan-Sunni conference attended by tribal sheikhs and other local leaders speaking on behalf of the insurgents.
The huge NATO airbase complex at Incirlik, Turkey, played a key role in the Cold War, in the Persian Gulf War, and in enforcing the northern “no-fly zone” against Saddam.
Now it’s being prepared to provide logistical support for potential “operations” to the east. The article says Afghanistan and Iraq. But other nations may read this quote from Defense News in different ways– peacekeeping requires logistical support (eg, the UN faces a huge logistics burden when it deploys 10,000 peacekeepers to Sudan later this year). Iran will read it as a building military threat. Kyrgyzstan may see it as either a peacekeeping lifeline– or the launchpad for western troops. Syria is only “slightly east” of Adana (more south, actually).
What the report means is that Turkey and the US are preparing “operational options.” It also says the contretemps –wrought by Turkey’s refusal to allow US troops to base out of Turkey in the March 2003 attack on Saddam– is now history.
Here’s the report from Defense News (March 24), by Umit Enginsoy:
Turkey is planning to accept ?very soon? a U.S. request to use the critical air base at Incirlik in southern Turkey as a logistical hub for operations east of the country, a Turkish official said late March 23.
?I expect a Turkish government decision on Incirlik very soon. I don?t know exactly when, but very soon,? said Murat Mercan, deputy chairman of Turkey?s ruling party. He spoke at a panel of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington.
Mercan did not elaborate, but other Turkish officials in Washington said that Ankara was preparing to accept Incirlik?s use as a logistical hub for U.S. missions in Iraq and Afghanistan…
…Incirlik?s future has been under discussion between Ankara and Washington since early last year. Ankara earlier rejected informal U.S. requests to deploy two Germany-based squadrons of F-16 fighters to Incirlik and to conduct training flights for U.S. fighters in central Turkey.
Built in 1954 in Turkey?s Adana province on the eastern Mediterranean coast, Incirlik has been hosting U.S. military aircraft for nearly five decades. But after Turkey refused to allow U.S. forces to deploy on its soil for use in the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the U.S. military removed its fighter jets.
VDH looks at Syria’s shaky situation. (Version from the Chicago Tribune, hat tip RealClearPolitics. ) As usual, Hanson covers –with class– the ins and outs of the issue.
Kudlow asked me about Syria on Monday. There’s a classic National Defense University study on Syria titled “A Fragile Mosaic.” That’s superb poli-sci poetry– a phrase that says a lot. Syria rides an uneasy collection of ethnic and religious groups. Another phrase gets tossed about to describe the potential powderkeg: “Syria is a big Lebanon.” That’s using Lebanon as a pejorative, as in the Lebanese civil war.
Hanson makes the point that Syria has a democratic Turkey to the north and a democratic Iraq to the east. Lebanon (to the west) demands democracy.
Key quote:
Syria’s worst nightmare is not an American invasion, but an Arab League that is dominated by nascent democracies.
Thugocracies and kleptocracies, however, die hard. So will that of Assad. His henchmen probably assassinated former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, in fear that the Westernized entrepreneur dreamed of an open Arab Singapore or Monaco on the border.
Until 1970, Beirut was that Middle Eastern entrepot.
Glenn Reynolds elaborates over at Glennreynolds.com on the Republicans’ looming political troubles. Deficit spending has fiscal conservatives astir. Glenn’s picked up on why the Republicans a risking a coalition crack-up:. The Bush international agenda is paying off. He quotes me but I’m only one of many who’s noticed it.
National security is the glue that has held Bush’s coalition together. The war isn’t over, and we haven’t won yet, but it’s going well — Austin Bay notes that it’s a war that we are winning — and this is allowing the divisions to show. All of the people I’ve quoted are on the right, and they’re all unhappy. One may argue that libertarians and small-government conservatives aren’t a big part of Bush’s coalition, but his victory wasn’t so huge that the Republicans can surrender very many votes and still expect to win. So this is a real threat.
Glenn is dead right. I hear similar chatter from libertarian friends and classic fiscal conservatives — one friend at church has been complaining since early 2002 about the Bush Administration’s spending habits. He hates taxes but he would have accepted a tax increase to pay for the war. Glenn says that Jim Geraghty thinks there aren’t very many voters in the libertarian camp, etc. I’m not sure — but I think Republican leaders could be underestimating the discontent.
I love John Noble Wilford’s science reports — the Tuesday “Science Times” is a weekly delight and Wilford’s work is featured prominently there. Here’s a fun story on a favorite topic, dinosaurs. Check out the pictures of the T-Rex bone framents.
Here’s the exciting discovery:
A 70-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex recently discovered in Montana, scientists reported today, has apparently yielded the improbable: soft tissues, including blood vessels and possibly cells, that “retain some of their original flexibility, elasticity and resilience.
Are birds dinosaurs? Well–
The scientists said that an examination with a scanning electron microscope showed the dinosaur blood vessels to be “virtually indistinguishable” from those recovered from ostrich bones. The ostrich is today’s largest bird, and many paleontologists think birds are living descendants of some dinosaurs.
As for a Jurassic Park renaissance:
But in a separate article in Science, Dr. Lawrence Witmer, a paleontologist at Ohio University, who had no part in the research, said: “If we have tissues that are not fossilized, then we can potentially extract DNA. It’s very exciting.”
My post on Michael Barone’s “trust fund leftist” column received a number of angry comments. This NY Times article mentions a couple of the “economic clusters” Barone examined. It adds an interesting fact to the discussion — the comparative dearth of children in these upscale, avant garde enclaves.
It’s a complex phenomenon.
Sample quote:
It is a problem unlike the urban woes of cities like Detroit and Baltimore, where families have fled decaying neighborhoods, business areas and schools. Portland is one of the nation’s top draws for the kind of educated, self-starting urbanites that midsize cities are competing to attract. But as these cities are remodeled to match the tastes of people living well in neighborhoods that were nearly abandoned a generation ago, they are struggling to hold on to enough children to keep schools running and parks alive with young voices.
San Francisco, where the median house price is now about $700,000, had the lowest percentage of people under 18 of any large city in the nation, 14.5 percent, compared with 25.7 percent nationwide, the 2000 census reported. Seattle, where there are more dogs than children, was a close second. Boston, Honolulu, Portland, Miami, Denver, Minneapolis, Austin and Atlanta, all considered, healthy, vibrant urban areas, were not far behind. The problem is not just that American women are having fewer children, reflected in the lowest birth rate ever recorded in the country.
Officials say that the very things that attract people who revitalize a city - dense vertical housing, fashionable restaurants and shops and mass transit that makes a car unnecessary - are driving out children by making the neighborhoods too expensive for young families.
UPDATE: Commenter 1 and 2– your anger betrays you. My observation says that the article mentions a couple of the enclaves Barone discusses. And they are experiencing a child shortage. Those are facts. I personally doubt the childlessness has anything to do with trust funds–but it may say something about the locales’ age demographics and certainly says something about lifestyles. Lifestyle choices (”avant garde” Seattle and San Francisco) –as Barone intimated and many others have documented– shade into political leanings. It certainly applies to Austin, Texas.
UPDATE TO UPDATE: Commenter 1 and 2 needs to move to the DailyKos. This site has rules about comments– including no wild name calling. Other sites allow that, but this site tries for at least a degree of civility. Further comments will get deleted.
UPDATE 3: I think Comment 8 makes an interesting point. My wife and I lived on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for almost eight years, the last two with our first child. Raising children in a huge, intense city is a challenge. It is easier in the’burbs or a smaller city. As I said in my first post, the comparative childlessness is a complex phenomenon– and personal mobility is one aspect of the complexity, ie, “we have two kids let’s move to the suburbs to raise them.” But now you have to commute…
REALLY BELATED UPDATE, FROM APRIL 8: Commenting on a website is a privilege, not a right. It’s that simple.
Texas City and the entire Houston Ship Channel complex of refineries and petro-chemical plants form one of America’s most dangerous industrial zones. Sure, it’s a terror target, oil is an Al Qaeda icon target, but danger is a fact of life when you’re making gasoline, fertilizer, and plastics. Here’s a wire service report with the details on the March 23 explosion that killed at least 14. Texas City is the site of one of the US’s all-time worst industrial disasters. As the article mentions, that took place in 1947. A fire on a ship led to an explosion that killed 576. I remember studying the Texas City disaster in Texas History class in junior high school. In fact, I wrote a short paper on the incident. April 16, 1947– “Texas City just blew up” is how it’s described.
Here’s a link to a website with the basic information on the 1947 fiasco.
The article begins with:
Just before 8:00 A.M., longshoremen removed the hatch covers on Hold 4 of the French Liberty ship Grandcamp as they prepared to load the remainder of a consignment of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Some 2,300 tons were already onboard, 880 of which were in the lower part of Hold 4. The remainder of the ship’s cargo consisted of large balls of sisal twine, peanuts, drilling equipment, tobacco, cotton, and a few cases of small ammunition. No special safety precautions were in focus at the time.
Several longshoremen descended into the hold and waited for the first pallets holding the 100-pound packages to be hoisted from dockside. Soon thereafter, someone smelled smoke. A plume was observed rising between the cargo holds and the ships hull, apparently about seven or eight layers of sacks down. Neither a gallon jug of drinking water nor the contents of two fire extinguishers supplied by crew members seemed to do much good. As the fire continued to grow, someone lowered a fire hose, but the water was not turned on. Since the area was filling fast with smoke, the longshoremen were ordered out of the hold.
It took an hour for the fire to spread. The narrative picks up at 9 AM:
Around 9:00, flames erupted from the open hatch, with smoke variously described as “a pretty gold, yellow color” or as “orange smoke in the morning sunlight…beautiful to see.” Twelve minutes later, the Grandcamp disintegrated in a prodigious explosion heard as far as 150 miles distant. A huge mushroom like cloud billowed more than 2,ooo feet into the morning air, the shockwave knocking two light planes flying overhead out of the sky. A thick curtain of steel shards scythed through workers along the docks and a crowd of curious onlookers who had gathered at the head of the slip at which the ship was moored. Blast over pressure and heat disintegrated the bodies of the firefighters and ship’s crew still on board. At the Monsanto plant, located across the slip, 145 of 450 shift workers perished. A fifteen-foot wave of water thrust from the slip by the force of the blast swept a large steel barge ashore and carried dead and injured persons back into the turning basin as it receded. Fragments of the Grandcamp, some weighing several tons, showered down throughout the port and town for several minutes, extending the range of casualties and property damage well into the business district, about a mile away. Falling shrapnel bombarded buildings and oil storage tanks at nearby refineries, ripping open pipes and tanks of flammable liquids and starting numerous fires. After the shrapnel, flaming balls of sisal and cotton from the ships cargo fell out of the sky, adding to the growing conflagration.
I’ll add an update to this once we’ve more details on the March 23, 2005 accident.
UPDATE: The death toll is now 15. What’s amazing is the coverage. I listened to an ABC News radio report about an hour ago. The death toll is confirmed then a senior oil company official says that the accident won’t affect oil or gasoline prices. Okay, a logical question. but still a bit crass. Approximately 25% of America’s petro-chemical and refining capacity is crammed into a rather compact triangle of the Texas Gulf Coast.
UPDTE 2: Comment 1– yes, that’s been thought of–and feared.
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