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Bush is sounding like an impotent rock in a tin can, threatening Iran by saying there “must be consequences” for Iran’s “defiance and delay” to demands it stop enriching uranium.

Bush seems to forget that you actually need to hold some cards in your hand if you’re going to bluff. What cards does he hold?

The US is militarily and financially over-extended in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran knows better than to leave its nuclear facilities on the surface for the US to bomb with planes. Any military intervention would likely require “boots on the ground,” and there’s just not lots of boots to go around these days–absent a draft, of course.

The US is also addicted to Iran’s most precious resource–oil. Iran has lots of oil..enough to radically affect world markets if it shut off the spigots, and it knows that fully well. That threat takes the bloom off the rose when it comes to any meaningful economic sanctions.

Finally, Iran is cozy with China and Russia, and that too is likely to blunt the effects of any sanctions.

So what exactly are these consequences Bush is talking about?

In the face of an inexcusable lack of action on the part of the federal government, the onus of reducing global warming emissions has fallen on the individual states. California is leading the way, first by requiring auto emission reductions, and now by requiring industry to lower emissions 25% by 2020. An emissions trading market will assist in that endeavor.

The bill was was negotiated between the Democratic-controlled Assembly and Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, further cementing his credentials as one of the rare Republicans who act as responsible stewards of the environment. Not all Republicans were so sanguine: “This bill is the road to economic ruin for California,” screamed Chicken Little Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth.

Whatever. California has always led the way in instituting public policy reforms that are later adopted throughout the rest of the country. Its example is already being heeded in some measure by many other states. California’s insistence on auto emissions caps and refusing to enter long-term contracts with out-of-state utility companies who don’t reduce emissions will also have incidental benefits for other states, as companies are more likely to adopt a uniform stricter standard than to keep a patchwork of products by state.

Keep up the great work, California..the rest of the country will eventually heed you, despite Congress’s inane inaction.

Donald Rumsfeld was clapping his yap trap today before a group of veterans, saying war critics suffer from “moral or intellectual confusion” about what it takes to defeat terrorism, and that opposing the war is akin to people who tried to appease the Nazis. Given that a majority of Americans now oppose the war, I suppose that means that most of us are unpatriotic sympathizers of terrorism.

Who is it that war critics are trying to appease? How is the war in Iraq in any way related to the war on terror, except insofar that it has CREATED terrorists by the bucketload where none existed before?

Opposition to the war in Iraq has nothing to do with being tough on terrorism. Nobody is advocating that we expose ourselves to terrorist attack, and nobody is suggesting we not aggressively fight terrorist threats. What war critics contend is that the war in Iraq was wrong and unrelated to terrorism, and in fact makes the nation more vulnerable to terrorism because of the misallocation of resources that could be better spent on security measures.

Rumsfeld’s argument relies on the continuing fallacy that September 11th and Saddam Hussein were linked, when they were not. If you admit they are not linked, as you must given the weight of the evidence, then words like Rumsfeld’s become nothing more than stupid empty rhetoric from an incompetent bureaucrat, and show that he is indeed morally and intellectually confused.

Several weeks ago I read an excellent article that made the argument that conservatives had successfully made a bad word out of the term “liberal” over the course of the past thirty-plus years–despite the fact that liberalism was responsible for many of our societal advances in the mid-20th century. The article argued that it was time to fight back against that perception and to show the world just what a bad word conservatism can be. Unfortunately I did not bookmark the article and have not been able to find it despite my best effort to Google for it–if anyone knows the article I’m talking about then please reference it in a comment.

While some of my politics are centrist, I identify far more with the Left than the Right. In keeping with the spirit of taking back the word “liberal” as a good thing, I present the top ten reasons why liberals are better than conservatives:

10) Liberals prefer to be sensitive to the issues of various groups of people, while conservatives deride sensitivity as “political correctness.” (”Macaca,” anyone?)

9) Conservatives prefer cutting taxes on the wealthy even if it creates deficits. Liberals believe in paying for what you spend.

Conservatives prefer to thumb their noses at the rest of the world. Liberals remember that America is the leader of a community of nations.

7) Conservatives prefer to shoot first and ask questions later. Liberals prefer to ponder the long-term consequences of their actions before using force.

6) Conservatism cares most about what is best for the individual, and is therefore inherently a selfish philosophy. Liberalism cares most about what’s best for society and the environment as a whole.

5) Conservatives prefer to prey on the environment for the sake of industry. Liberals understand that without a healthy planet and environment there can BE no industry.

4) Conservatives want to legislate morality to other people who may not share their views. Liberals prefer to live and let live.

3) Conservatives believe that majority rules. Liberals understand that the Bill of Rights was crafted to protect minorities from the predations of majorities.

2) For conservatives, religion and politics are like bread and butter. For liberals, they are like oil and water.

And the top reason in my mind why conservatism is backwards and Luddite:

1) Conservatives prefer looking to the past for guidance on solving today’s problems. Liberals understand that times change and often require new approaches to problems not envisioned by our forefathers.

I also can’t help but toss in one last one for the sake of humor:

0.5) Have you ever known anyone “hip” who was a conservative?

It has been one year since much of New Orleans was destroyed, and initially defiant cries of survival and rebuilding have been replaced by an eerie silence. Mile after mile of urban abandonment stretches across much of the city and the Gulf Coast, a magnitude of devastation impossible to fully capture on camera. Block after block of decaying homes lie dark and vacant, their doors creaking in the wind.

It’s really something unimaginable, a microcosm of what the remains of our civilization might look like should we ever be struck collectively dead by some virus or manmade catastrophe.

Ever since Katrina I’ve always believed that plans to rebuild this city were foolish. You can’t just plop down roads, houses, schools, police stations and firehouses and expect people to move in like some kind of “SimCity” simulation. Building a living, breathing city takes time and the creation of a virtuous economic cycle: jobs bring people, which bring more jobs, which bring more people, and so on. The economy of this city has been destroyed, with more than a third of its jobs eliminated. Economically there is nothing to bring people back.

What reason do people have to uproot whatever lives they may have built elsewhere and come back to New Orleans? Who would want to move back into an empty block, being the only person there surrounded by ghostly houses, with no shopping centers, supermarkets, or other amenities nearby?

Why should we spend federal money building things that nobody may use, in an area that cannot be guaranteed to flood again if hit by another Katrina-type hurricane?

The answers are becoming painfully obvious one year later. It is highly unlikely that New Orleans or the nearby Gulf Coast will return to their former glory anytime soon, and it is far more likely that vast areas will remain abandoned. Rebuilding should be focused in and near the areas that were more minimally affected and which still contain populations. If the remainder is to come back at all it will do so organically, over time, in the way all cities and populations have grown.

The truth is sad and marks yet another decline of the American Empire, but it is what it is.

The Providence Journal is reporting today that GOP Republican primary challenger Stephen Laffey, who is running against incumbent Lincoln Chafee, penned several anti-gay columns during his college years, 1983 and 1984. Excerpts:

“I have never once seen a happy homosexual. This is not to say there aren’t any; I simply haven’t seen one in my lifetime. Maybe they are all in the closet. All the homosexuals I’ve seen are sickly and decrepit, their eyes devoid of life.”

and

“Why is the pop music of today so bad? Because it is communist to the very core. It’s turning the children of America into sissies and preying on the minds of every American, making them weaker and weaker.

“And how about this humanoid (I’d hesitate to say person, and I would never use the word MAN) Boy George. It wears girl’s clothes and puts on makeup. When I hear it sing, ‘Do you really want to hurt me, do you really want to make me cry,’ I say to myself, YES, I want to punch your lights out, pal, and break your ribs.”

Confronted with the comments, Laffey had this to say–asked if the columns reflected his views, he said:

“No. Not now, nor then, or ever . . . Do I regret writing some of these things? Sure. But at the time, we were just having fun. We thought it was funny.”

So Laffey thought that advocating violence towards a gay singer was “funny.” Mind you, this came at a time when gay men were being decimated by a mysterious new disease that ended up killing hundreds of thousands….and this pathetic excuse of a politician saw fit to find amusement in holding gays up to scorn and ridicule. Is this the kind of person Rhode Island wants representing the state in the US Senate?

I hope Chafee knocks him on his ass the way he deserves in the upcoming primary.

Florida Republican Senate candidate Katherine Harris–the Secretary of State that certified the state for Bush in the 2000 debacle–is embarrassing religious conservatives…for being too religious:

“If you’re not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin…we have to have the faithful in government [because that is God's will. Separating religion and politics is] so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers. And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women, we’re going to have a nation of secular laws. That’s not what our Founding Fathers intended, and that certainly isn’t what God intended.”

The Religious Right is recoiling from her remarks:

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said she was “disgusted” by the comments “and deeply disappointed in Representative Harris personally.”

Harris, Wasserman Schultz said, “clearly shows that she does not deserve to be a representative.”

Ruby Brooks, a veteran Tampa Bay Republican activist, said Harris’s remarks “were offensive to me as a Christian and a Republican.”

“This notion that you’ve been chosen or anointed, it’s offensive,” Brooks said. “We hurt our cause with that more than we help it.”

I don’t understand why these religious conservatives are so up in arms over what this crazy old bat is saying. At least she has the guts to show the Religious Right’s true colors and say aloud what they all believe but keep to themselves. They all act like they’re the Anointed Ones and final arbiters of morality.

Israel seems to be giving more thought to that which it should have considered before its disastrous military campaign in Lebanon. The Jerusalem Post reports Israel is abandoning all thought of disarming Hezbollah as it belatedly realizes how difficult that goal is to achieve against a guerrilla organization deeply rooted in its home territory. Instead, Israel will focus on enforcing embargoes to ensure Hezbollah is not outfitted with offensive weaponry.

Israel is in a difficult position, no question about it. It ended its war no better off than it began, and has suffered deep damage to both its image around the world and its reputation as an adversary. That’s what happens when you shoot first and ask questions later.

You’d think Israel would have learned a thing or two from the blunders of its “big brother” America.

A Louisiana school district suspended a school bus driver after the driver, who is white, ordered nine black kids to sit in the back of the bus so that white students could sit in front. She also forced black kids to stand or sit on the laps of others so that white students could be seated.

Is this the year 2006 or 1966??!

I will be moving to a new residence over the next few days. As a result my posting here may be light to nonexistent. Depending on my Internet availability I should be back to normal by this weekend.

I appreciate your patience and your readership.