BLF in SF

The Billboard Liberation Front commandeers a billboard in the Mission District of San Francisco. And they did a pretty good job; matched the font perfectly.

That’s some fun shenanigans right there.

Ignorance of the Law

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022808K.shtml :

Liberal House Democrats are pushing for a closed session to discuss the legal underpinnings of President Bush’s intelligence surveillance program.

They believe that the more members know about it, the less likely they will be to support Bush’s wish to make it permanent.

“I haven’t heard anything in closed session that makes me think we need the Protect America Act,” said Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), an Intelligence Committee member, referring to a White House-backed interim wiretapping bill that lapsed this month. “Or that FISA [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act], with modest modifications, isn’t the way to go into the future.”

[They] want all members [to be] allowed to see documents that outline the administration’s legal opinions on the program. So far, only Intelligence and Judiciary Committee members have been allowed to see them.

[They] believe it is impractical to have all members go to the secure offices of the Intelligence Committee to review the documents. Instead, they want a presentation before the whole House, but in a closed session because the information is classified.

“It’s hard to make a decision on something like immunity when you don’t even know what it’s for,” said Schakowsky. “I think everyone should learn the highlights.”

So let me be sure I have this right. This whole fight about FISA has been going on in Washington, with Bush threatening to Veto and bawling No Compromise – no telecom bill without immunity – and the Congress at large hasn’t even seen his legal arguments.

I tell you, kids, our government is completely FUBAR.

The solution is simple: if the government wants to tap a phone, they get a warrant. Or is that too hard too? … oops, stupid question.

Our Declining Years

Time to take a break from Squelch’s rants and consider the words of an elder.

In the youth of a state arms do flourish; in the middle age of a state,learning; and then both of them together for a time; in the declining ageof a state, mechanical arts and merchandise.

-Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

Delist This

Gray wolves to lose endangered status

Federal officials act after a 20-year effort to reestablish populations in the northern Rockies. Critics call the decision shortsighted.

By Tami Abdollah, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 22, 2008

Gray wolves will be fair game for hunters in parts of the northern Rocky Mountains after federal officials announced Thursday that they would be taken off the endangered species list.

The decision, which is expected to face lengthy litigation, comes after a 20-year effort to reestablish gray wolf populations in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

“The wolves took the opportunity that Fish and Wildlife Service, the states and the tribes gave them and ran with it,” Deputy Secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett said. “Wolves are back.” [LA Times]

I’ll tell you, ladies and gents, it’s always one step forward, two steps back with these people.

Lynn Scarlett used to live here in my part of the country. She was well liked. We didn’t know she buttered her bread with the likes of the American Forest and Paper Association, the American Petroleum Institute, American Plastics Council, Chevron Corporation, and Dow Chemical. [Per Wikipedia.]

If you’re going to side with the corporations, fine. Work for them, as Scarlett has. I believe in a level playing field. But the government works for We The People – not phreaking Dow Chemical. Our public servants should be able to lay some plausible claim to objectivity.

As for the wolves, they’re probably doomed. 1500 of them in 3 states is nothing. How anyone could call that a viable population – y’all go ahead and hunt ‘em – is beyond indefensible. Shame. Shame and sadness. The only hope for wildlife in this country – beyond a radical change in government – is the still small voice of organizations like the Sierra Club, Earthjustice, and Care2.

People at those organizations seem to understand what’s going on. I just don’t get it at all: What do we gain from killing off our wild animals and letting our environmental legacy be nothing but wasteland and extinction?

Out Of The Caldron, Into The Fire

If you arrived here Googling for information on noise reduction in radio harmonics; if you sidled in seeking tips on squelching citizen journalism; if you have any proclivity disposing you to believe Bush, his party or their ostensible nominee, that the surge in Iraq is anything by dismal and bloody failure and evil pretense, you damn sure don’t want to read this.

The United States is funding and in many cases arming the three ethnic factions in Iraq – the Kurds, the Shiites and the Sunni Arabs. These factions rule over partitioned patches of Iraqi territory and brutally purge rival ethnic groups from their midst. Iraq no longer exists as a unified state. It is a series of heavily armed fiefdoms run by thugs, gangs, militias, radical Islamists and warlords who are often paid wages of $300 a month by the U.S. military. Iraq is Yugoslavia before the storm. It is a caldron of weapons, lawlessness, hate and criminality that is destined to implode. And the current U.S. policy, born of desperation and defeat, means that when Iraq goes up, the U.S. military will have to scurry like rats for cover.

Which begs these questions:

• How could we not have learned better than to arm our once and future enemies against each other and against US?
• When He said When they stand up, we’ll stand down, how did we believe Bush meant a theoretical legitimate Iraqi Army, and not a ragtag herd of the very fractious factions we’ve been fighting?
• When He said When they stand up, we’ll stand down, how did we not see that standing down meant getting caught in the middle of a ginormous clusterfuck, and getting our ten gallon Uncle Sam hat handed to us, along with our red white and blue ass?

Comments? … Anybody? … Bueller?