Category: Everything Else

This isn’t an optimal solution, but if it stops the sectarian mayhem going on in Iraq these days, then maybe it’s worth considering….

“Iraq as a political project is finished,” a senior government official was quoted as saying, adding: “The parties have moved to plan B.” He said that the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish parties were now looking at ways to divide Iraq between them and to decide the future of Baghdad, where there is a mixed population. “There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into [Shia] east and [Sunni] west,” he said.

By way of William Gibson:

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Watching The Planet is feeling Biblical today. Getting a huge dump of rain on your head can do that to you:

And the Lord sent hurricanes to Florida, THE red state of the 2000 elections. But the Bush Administration did not heed the message of the Lord in the storm, and lo, they did not get it.

And the Lord sent hurricanes to Louisiana and Texas, and the people did cry out with much anguish. And the President continued his vacation, and the people suffered. And the Administration did naught while the people suffered, and the Lord made those who care little for the people to reveal themselves. But lo, they still did not get it.

And the Lord sent rain to Washington, D.C. Five inches in one night. And the Lord caused great frustration among the people, for he caused the Beltway to be closed, and 66 to be flooded, and the 9th and 12th Street tunnels under the Mall as well. And along Constitution Avenue, from 6th to 17th Streets, around the White House itself, closed it was, for there was a great lake, and much frustration and gnashing of teeth. And still the Administration did not understand the wrath of the Lord, and lo, they still did not get it.

Thus Endeth The Lesson.

Everyone knows the saying, ‘Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ Maybe we ought to change it to include something about the special corruptive powers of government contracts? Or is this simply another proof that the saying is true as is?

As firefighters searched for survivors after the Sept. 11 attacks, heat from the World Trade Center’s smoldering ruins burned the soles off their boots. They needed new ones every few hours, and Chris Christopherson made sure they got them. The moment that crushed Christopherson’s faith was when his employer dispatched the trucks to the warehouse for those supplies, donated by Americans.

…

Kieger Enterprises of Lino Lakes, Minn., dispatched trucks to a Long Island warehouse and loaded hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of donated bottled water, clothes, tools and generators to be moved to Minnesota in a plot to sell some for profit, according to government records and interviews.

Dan L’Allier said he witnessed 45 tons of the New York loot being unloaded in Minnesota at his company’s headquarters. He and disaster specialist Christopherson complained to a company executive, but were ordered to keep quiet. They persisted, going instead to the FBI.

The two whistleblowers eventually lost their jobs, received death threats and were blackballed in the disaster relief industry. But they remained convinced their sacrifice was worth seeing justice done.

They were wrong.

…

The lead investigators for the FBI and the Federal Emergency Management Agency told AP that the plan to prosecute KEI for those thefts stopped as soon as it became clear in late summer 2002 that an FBI agent in Minnesota had stolen a crystal globe from ground zero.

That prompted a broader review that ultimately found 16 government employees, including a top FBI executive and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, had such artifacts from New York or the Pentagon.

“How could you secure an indictment?” FEMA investigator Kirk Beauchamp asked. “It would be a conflict.”

So… some agent keeps a desk ornament as a memento; that means you cannot prosecute the theft of tons of material for resale? Give me a freaking break!

That this current administration is so wrong in so many ways is no surprise, but even when I think theat I’ve lost the capacity to be surprised or upset by what they do, they still manage to find new ways to piss me off.

Worst. Administration. Ever.