Is it a blog yet?: Bits from Bedlam

If the Congress seems unwilling or unable to pay attention to science and scientists, perhaps rather than try to get them to see the light, we should just elect some scientists to Congress. Is that a sarcasm? For once, no. Scientists are starting to wake up to the disastrous and willful political ignorance that is sending our society and our world on greased skids to the trash dump. Check out this article, "Wanted on the Hill: A Few Good Scientists", and this Q&A session with Representative Vernon Ehlers, "Why Congress Needs More Scientists". There may be a glimmer of hope yet.

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It will not, of course, be a surprise to anyone that the American delegates to the Bali conference on global warming refused to back away from dug-in opposition to mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions; one must, after all, provide continuity of income to the unspeakably rich in the U.S. energy business. What was, perhaps, at least noteworthy, after some 200 expert scientists got together and issued a declaration was the manner in which the American delegate blew it all off. Not even bothering to read the declaration, he dismissed it with the words "There are thousands of scientists involved in the IPCC. This is the opinion of 200." Presumably he also could not be bothered to read the actual Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment itself--which drew on work by thousands of scientists--in which was the conclusion that warming was "unequivocal". Such imbecilic arrogance is, even to veteran observers of the political scene, truly breathtaking.

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Though they have an axe to grind, Hispanic lawmakers who want an end to Democratic support of enforcement-only immigration bills are starting to really hammer on the party to stop playing by the Republicans' game book and show some guts. In fact, the guts needed may not be so great: a survey for the Los Angeles Times showed a strong bipartisan majority--60%--favoring allowing illegal immigrants who have not committed crimes to become citizens if they simply pay fines, learn English, and meet a few other requirements. Sixty percent! In an election, that's a landslide.

The poll indicated that while most of those surveyed viewed illegal immigration as a key concern, it was not the most important issue on their minds; in fact, it was the fifth-most important. Moreover, even the resistance is "curable", in that when those who said immigrants--legal or illegal--had made a negative contribution, were asked in what way, the reasons most often cited were the loss of American jobs (35%), increased crime (30%) and increased cost of social services (19%). Those are all so dead wrong, and easily proven dead wrong by reliable statistics, that even some fraction of the die-hards could be converted.

All in all, as I have been saying for some time, this is an issue where the Democratic gutlessness that has lost the party so many presidential elections in the last four decades sticks out like a sore thumb. It's time for the candidates to meet this head on with some truths and some leadership.

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A proposed hate-crimes bill dealing with attacks on gays was widely supported by Democrats and even some moderate Senate Republicans, but has died owing to its having been attached to a major defense-policy bill that would have authorized more money for the Iraq war, forcing many anti-war Democrats to oppose the combined legislation.

This nation urgently needs a Constitutional amendment requiring that proposed legislation in Congress be limited to one substantive topic. These endless riders on subjects having less than nothing to do with a bill's main thrust are nightmarish folly. The counter-argument is that many good but moderately controversial provisions would never get enacted if they had to stand alone. My view is that so be it: let the Congress accept or reject laws, and let the public understand who accepted or rejected what and why. If we can't pass good laws except by what amounts to blackmail, that's a whole separate issue.

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The Supremes come to television: a "bitterly divided" Senate panel has approved a measure allowing all public U.S. Supreme Court proceedings to be televised. Noteworthy is that the Justices themselves are also strenuously opposed, and not ideological divided, either. Representative was Anthony Kennedy's assertion that cameras would provide "an insidious temptation for justices to get a sound bite on the evening news." For pity's sake, people: if that's the level of talent we have on our Supreme Court, the citizens of this nation are entitled to know about it, and there is no better way than televising the proceedings. To me, perhaps the most startling aspect of the Watergate hearings was how ruthlessly and plainly television made obvious who were the legislators (such as Daniel Inouye) and who were the Mortimer Snerds (such as Joe Montoya). Only dickheads need fear television--which likely explains why a good number of the current Justices should indeed have fears.

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The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency's custody. No, really?

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The Senate continues to play politics with relief for the hideous Alternative Minimum tax. The stumbling block is the announced Democratic policy of "pay-go", meaning no budgetary minuses without counter-balancing pluses, or "pay as you go". There is no way in all the world that Congress can not pass AMT relief, and everyone knows it--to do otherwise this year would be political suicide, as the number of households hit by the AMT seems to increase geometrically from year to year, with this being the year it would really be widely felt. But by playing to the headlines, Congress (both Republicans and many Democrats) makes it more and more likely that the IRS--a textbook model of incompetence at the best of times--would be badly fouled up getting forms, instructions, and their own computers ready for this tax year, meaning that filers will get bad information, perhaps overpay, and inevitably encounter IRS errors. As Casey Stengel famously asked, Can't anyone here play this game?

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The general take on Mitt Romney's speech has been yawning, but as Joan Walsh at Salon (among others) notes, a phrase that deserves close scrutiny is Romney's assertion that "Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom . . . .Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone." Walsh's take: "I happen to be a believer, and I found those words appalling." So should we all.

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What, exactly, does it take for a presidential candidate to be blown out of the water? Rudy Giuliani has been ceaselessly grinding out very, very large and very, very obvious lies, any given lie usually repeated many times, and it scarcely seems to have made a dent in his numbers. Now we see Mike Huckabee, The Man God Wants For President, freely admitting total ignorance of the recent blockbuster Iran-related National Intelligence estimate. Lest you think I exaggerate what "total ignorance means, here is a supposedly verbatim account of an interview with Huckabee (transcript of an on-the-record interview by David Paul Kuhn of Politico):

Kuhn: I don't know to what extent you have been briefed or been able to take a look at the NIE report that came out yesterday ...

Huckabee: I'm sorry?

Kuhn: The NIE report, the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. Have you been briefed or been able to take a look at it -

Huckabee: No.

Kuhn: Have you heard of the finding?

Huckabee: No.

In this place they used to call "the real world", that ought to be the dead end of Huckabee's campaign. What will really happen remains to be seen--but if Rudy Giuliani can get away with hiding from the public the nearly half-million dollars of public expenses entailed (however legally) by his catting around with his mistress, well, who knows?

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Well, we can't say George Bush is not an equal-opportunity budget cutter. He now wants to slash counterterrorism funding for front-line police and firefighters by about half, eliminating grants for port and public-transit security--funds requested by his own Homeland Security agency (and already considered woefully inadequate by most security experts).

What is insanity? Medical, legal, and traditional sources do not perfectly agree, but Dr. Johnson's observation that "All power of fancy over reason is a degree of insanity" is probably in accordance with most people's ideas. And by that--or just about any plausible commonsense definition--King George has now revealed the extent of his madness.

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