Wahhabi War of the Worlds Comes to Seattle

"only the United States today has a Muslim community from which pluralism in leadership and theology is lacking. This is not an exaggeration or a joke. Every other Muslim community in the world is divided between jihadists and antijihadists. Apologists for religio-ideological aggression -- Islamofascism -- now enjoy predominance only in American Islam." The Saudi Wahabi form of Islam is extreme; ask any Moslem. There are non-Wahabi Muslims in the US, but they are dominated by the extremists. How is Seattle involved? Stephen Schwartz has the story on Tech Central Station

A microcosm of the Wahhabi War of the Worlds was seen in the Emerald City on July 23, when one of the preeminent Iraqi Shia clerics in America, Sayed Mustafa al-Qazwini, Imam of the Islamic Educational Center of Orange County, California, stopped for afternoon prayer at the Idriss Mosque, located at 1420 NE Northgate Way in Seattle. Idris in Arabic is the name of a Prophet, but considering the behavior that occurred there recently it might better be called Iblis or the Devil's Mosque. For when Sayed Mustafa al-Qazwini appeared at the sacred house to pray on American soil, he was rudely insulted and ordered to leave by two Wahhabi thugs, identified as an Algerian and Egyptian, who called him an "unbeliever" because he is a Shia Muslim!

He continues...

The abuse directed at Sayed Mustafa al-Qazwini embodies an irony, in that on July 28 the so-called Fiqh Council of North America, a section of the Wahhabi lobby concerned with Islamic legal doctrine, issued a widely-advertised fatwa against terror. The apparent purpose of the fatwa was to reassure non-Muslim Americans about the peaceful nature of Islam. The real aim was diversionary -- to provide cover for the Wahhabi lobby while it continues to accommodate the ideology that promotes extremism throughout the Sunni community.

So the peaceful members of "a religion of peace" are overrun and controlled by the violent Wahhabi Jihadi extremists. The article has much more. Update. Brag. The talk radio shows picked this up on Monday. You saw it here early Saturday afternoon.

Back from St. Louis

I just got back from a business trip to St. Louis, Missouri for a company technical conference. The Gateway Arch is great. It is an engineering marvel, completed in 1966. It is very impressive. For us Seattleites, compare it to the Space Needle. The top of the Arch is 630 feet high. The opening is 600 feet high, so the Space Needle would fit under it!! The Space Needle claims to be 600 feet high, but it's just a tiny tower on the top that reaches 600; the building is about 590. At its base is a small national park, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Park. St. Louis has a single-line light rail. MetroLink -- MetroLink. And theirs actually goes to the airport. So many cities talk about serving their airport by rail, but few actually do it. St. Louis has a large, beautiful, in-city park. Forest Park Other major draws - the Mississippi River is the east border of the city and downtown. The confluence of the Missouri River is just out of town to the north. Barge traffic on the Mississippi is ever present. And it is a huge hub for rail traffic. They are very, very big on the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team and the Rams football team. And, sad to say, gambling has a large presence at the focal point of the city - the riverfront. Editorial: gambling is a lie. Its premise is: You can be a winner, not a sucker. You can enjoy a life of leisure while other people work. The sucker will work while you, the winner, go from resort to resort. Our State of Washington takes out ads on radio and TV telling people not to work. This is especially stupid for the state to do. The State depends on people working and producing, but it takes out ads against its interest. Well, it has a short-term interest in people buying state lottery tickets. But success at selling lottery tickets injures the state in the long run.

Zimbabwe chooses China

Robert Mugabe kicked out the productive farmers because they were white. But he didn't give the land to farmers, but to his cronies. So Zimbabwe that used to export food, especially when it was Rhodesia under colonialism, is now starving. Western countries are willing to give aid, but they expect Mugabe to do things he can't do, like have elections or stop killing his own people. But Mugabe has found a country that likes him as he is - the Communists of China. This New York Times/International Herald-Tribune article is a lesson in avoiding the real issues. The reporter blandly covers the friendship of China and Mugabe without managing to mention the murderous actions of Mugabe. Rather than mention what Mugabe did, he is interested in the blue tiles on the roof of Mugabe's 25-bedroom $13,000,000 palace. To Michael Wines Mugabe is a "canny autocrat," not the known killer of his own people. Highlight: the people of Zimbabwe find the influx of China-made goods to be substandard. Their term for the problem: "zhong-zhong." For Mugabe the highlight is "... Atop the list is for China to train Zimbabweans in managing prisons.

"They have a fairly advanced prison system," Zimbabwe's minister of justice, Patrick Chinamasa said. "We would like to tap into their expertise."

Yes, China's prison system is world reknowned for imprisoning and torturing political opponents. Mugabe can learn from the Chinese Communists.

My Apple email is broken

I use Apple's .mac for email. But I haven't been able to receive mail since Friday. Apple's suppot is nonexistent. I use pair.com for web hosting at a very reasonable cost. If I have a problem with my account I send pair email and they respond. Apple has no way to handle an individual problem. Oh, they have help files that tell how to hook up to your server. But I am OK there. If you send me email you will get it thrown back at you with "mailbox is full." Yes, it had two 5 MB emails in it; it deleted them. But it is still broken. (I can view all my mail folders and send mail.) BTW, this is not a free account. I pay for my email account; I also get online backup and I can keep my address book and calendar online with automatic synchronizing. But I can stop paying Apple and just use pair.com if Apple won't support me. Another offline weekend. I might have to get my own access at our cabin. But it was beautiful weather.

Attack on Roberts

President Bush's nominee for Supreme Court Judge John Roberts is respected throughout the legal profession. He is the top star among attorneys who argued cases before the Supreme Court. When he was nominated for the 5th Circuit Court (Washington, DC) the vote in committee was 14 to 3 and on the floor it was unanimous - unanimous. So why would esteemed Senator Schumer oppose him? Because he is not an extreme liberal. On what basis could not-esteemed Senator Patrick Leahy oppose him? None. So they have to cook something up. Hugh Hewitt is my favorite source for the legal system - law prof and supreme talk radio host. He says they will (1)Ask question that they know he shouldn't ask, then oppose him for being nonresponsive. Clinton nominee Ruth Ginsberg didn't answer questions about court decisions and the Republicans didn't complain; most of them voted for her. But no, "this is different" - esteemed Ted Kennedy. (2) His dirty secret: he is a Catholic, like tens of millions of Americans. So he has "deeply held beliefs." They will oppose him for this? Yes, they have nothing else. (3) Get silly. Hewitt:

It is going to get ugly, and how ugly depends upon how desperate the left is, and it looks pretty desperate. Charmaine Yost's post here makes me think there is no bottom to the left's lows.

So don't get too worried. Watch what they do and remember that the people who know his work honor him without exception.

Race-based government for Hawaii gets closer

There is action this week in the Congress to establish a race-based government in Hawaii -- "the Akaka bill." Today it is being held by one senator, but action is expected. This bill breaks the agreements made at Hawaii's statehood and changes the law to treat native Hawaiians as Indians. Opponents say that in the statehood agreement the federal government gave Hawaii 2.5 million acres to give to/use for the Hawaii natives. But it was not to be another Indian reservation; the state had flexibility. But the state has done little with the land. And this would return the land to federal control. Strange. And it is race-based. It breaks out the people of Hawaii according to race and gives privileges only to those of one race. There are Hawaiians of other races with ancestors who were in Hawaii when Hawaii acceded to the US. Why don't the Caucasian and Japanese Americans get the same privileges? Race. As much as I love Hawaii, I wish I had studied this development more thoroughly. The Republican Governor Linda Lingle is working hard for it. But why? On principle? Or does she have higher ambitions? Senator Kyl's (Arizona) objections Hawaii Reporter
Stop Akaka.com

Bio Future or Boondoggle?

There is unlimited energy bombarding earth from the Sun. It's just a matter of how we capture it and put it to use - hydroelectric from water running down; growing wood; solarvoltaic are available immediately. Coal, oil and natural gas take longer. We won't run out of energy until the Sun burns out in about 9 billion years. But we have to find new ways of converting that energy so we can use it. Seattle Biodiesel is a leader at making diesel fuel from plant oils, the Seattle Times reports. They sell to several wholesalers and the retailer Dr. Dan's Alternative Fuel Werks in Ballard (Seattle). SB produces 4,000 gallons per day and sells out every day.

Customers find it very "self-empowering" to reduce the impact on global warming and that "they don't have to support foreign oil," Freeman said. He claimed Seattle has more biodiesel customers per capita than any other city in the United States.

And the new owner software entrepreneur Martin Tobias says he is an addict.

"We have to deal with corrupt and horrible countries because of this heroin dependency on fuel that we have," he said. "Here we are a drug addict."

Does it make economic sense? It takes 7.3 pounds of soy beans to make one gallon of biodiesel. The soy costs 20 cents per pound, which makes it $1.46 of soy for one gallon. Diesel is now selling for $2.59. The costs of production and distribution make it unprofitable with the current economics. There is a federal subsidy as well. Tobias intends to bring costs down by scaling up.

"You can't do it on an economic basis without a government subsidy," said Bruce Finlayson, a chemical-engineering professor at the University of Washington. "That needs to be there if we're going to have biodiesel."

As well as reducing production costs Tobais hope to develop better plants - the ones that grow - that produce more oil for a better price. I hope he will succeed. Without the subsidies.

Wilson says Plame not covert

I sent this letter to the editor of the Seattle Times this morning:

From: ron_lfp@mac.com Subject: Headline error on Wilson story Date: July 17, 2005 7:24:24 AM PDT To: opinion@seattletimes.com Editor, Seattle Times, Valerie Plame was not a covert operative for the CIA when Bob Novak told Karl Rove his name. Your Friday headline is in error. The Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News on July 17 says that Wilson said so this week:

The icing on the cake was Wilson's own admission, made Thursday, that "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity."

We have known for a long time that Plame was working a desk job, driving to the office every day. Now Wilson himself admitted it. Ron Hebron

First: The Seattle Times is still repeating the fiction that Karl Rove blew the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame. They know it's not true. They seem to think that repeating it will make it so. Second: Rove didn't blow her cover. He heard her name from journalist Bob Novak. There are emails that establish this. Third: Bob Novak's publisher notified the CIA that he was going to publish Plame's name. The CIA did not object. If she were covert they would certainly have objected. What's the big deal about this? Only one thing: the Dems thought they could blow out Rove and "everyone knows" that Rove is Bush's brain and he can do nothing without Rove. There's no coon up the tree they barked at all night. And the Seattle Times is playing their part on the team. They are knowingly printing false headlines. Tip to Lucianne.com Update. On Sunday the Seattle Times first downgrades their verbiage, then upgrades it, but doesn't correct their errors. Rove "was part of the conversations that outed a covert CIA official..." That's an improvement. Now the fall back. "Somebody else ought to be assessing Rove's ability to handle classified information." What? Bob Novak told Rove that Wilson's wife recommended Wilson for the Niger investigation. That's not handling classified information and it's not mishandling classified information. Classified information wasn't involved. But the charge is serious. We have seen when Demos make an unfounded charge against a political enemy it just matters that the charges are serious. Not that there is no evidence. Also. Now the Democrats care about the CIA? They have been trying to make it ineffective for 40 years. In the past year Senator Kerry has blown the cover of a covert agent. They don't care about our intelligence services.

Land ungrab in Wa, DC

President Bush proposes the federal government give land to the city of Washington, DC. 200 acres, mostly waterfront. This would produce tax revenues for the city. I support the resources being controlled by the people involved. Though in the case of DC there is a history of the city government being involved only in corruption. Still, the principle stands. Washington Post Will the Democrats oppose this opportunity to revitalize our capital? They seem to always oppose local control.

Ireland is the 2d richest in Europe

Ireland was one of the poorest countries in Europe, well known for the 19th Century potato famine and emigration to America, tragic poets and murderous civil wars. But Ireland made a change of direction starting in the lake 1960s. Thomas Friedman reports in the International Herald Tribune

... the government made secondary education free, enabling a lot more working-class kids to get a high school or technical degree. As a result, when Ireland joined the EU in 1973, it was able to draw on a much more educated work force.   By the mid-1980s, though, Ireland had reaped the initial benefits of EU membership - subsidies to build better infrastructure and a big market to sell into. But it still did not have enough competitive products to sell, because of years of protectionism and fiscal mismanagement. The country was going broke, and most college grads were emigrating.

They were still on the line.

"We went on a borrowing, spending and taxing spree, and that nearly drove us under," said Deputy Prime Minister Mary Harney. "It was because we nearly went under that we got the courage to change." And change Ireland did. In a quite unusual development, the government, the main trade unions, farmers and industrialists came together and agreed on a program of fiscal austerity, slashing corporate taxes to 12.5 percent, far below the rest of Europe, moderating wages and prices, and aggressively courting foreign investment. In 1996, Ireland made college education basically free, creating an even more educated work force.

The results have been phenomenal.

Today, 9 out of 10 of the world's top pharmaceutical companies have operations here, as do 16 of the top 20 medical device companies and 7 out of the top 10 software designers. Last year, Ireland got more foreign direct investment from America than from China. And overall government tax receipts are way up.   "We set up in Ireland in 1990," Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computer, explained to me via e-mail. "What attracted us? (A) well-educated work force - and good universities close by. (Also,) Ireland has an industrial and tax policy which is consistently very supportive of businesses, independent of which political party is in power. I believe this is because there are enough people who remember the very bad times to de-politicize economic development. (Ireland) also has very good transportation and logistics and a good location - easy to move products to major markets in Europe quickly."   Finally, added Dell, "they're competitive, want to succeed, hungry and know how to win.

An educated work force. Cooperation among owners, labor unions and farmers on economic policy that encourages foreign investment. Low taxes that are simple and transparent.

"It wasn't a miracle, we didn't find gold," said Mary Harney. "It was the right domestic policies and embracing globalization."

Reducing Washington's Health Care Costs

The State of Washington has high health care costs. Particularly because the State has many requirements on what health insurance plans must offer; each additional requirement narrows what health care providers can do and together they raise the costs. In 2003 President Bush signed legislation that creates a new alternative to health insurance - medical savings accounts. An MSA combines a tax-free account to pay for routine medical expenses with an insurance policy for catastrophic health expenses; the insurance is cheap because it has a high deductible, since the account pays for routine expenses. Liv S. Finne of Washington Policy Center authored The How-To Guide to Health Savings Accounts. The full policy brief is 20 pages. There is a 2-page policy note Read the 2-page version to get an overview of what we can do today and some changes that will save Washington State a bundle of money. If you find it valuable then get on their mailing list and send them a donation. WPC does excellent work.

Wilson disclosed his wife

Joseph Wilson disclosed his wife's identity. So she clearly was not a covert agent; she drove to work every day for an office job at the CIA like you and I do. Wilson's online biography disclosed his wife's name. John Podhoretz at the New York Post shows that Karl Rove's motivation was to bring Wilson down to his place, not to out his wife who was not covert anyway. But the LSM is after Rove's head and will continue to repeat the charge that we see disproven. They are irate at Rove because it is his fault that Bush got reelected by 3,000,000 votes over John Kerry. They will repeat it until everyone "knows" it is true.

Aid for Africa?

Offline again. Now the wifi signal shows, but the router must be off. So I had no access for the past four days at the beach. We used the one beautiful day to paint our old tool storage shed. That's OK; we had to get it done. "For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!" The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. An interview in Der Spiegel:

SPIEGEL: Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa... Shikwati: ... for God's sake, please just stop. SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty. Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor. SPIEGEL: Do you have an explanation for this paradox? Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

So what can be done?

SPIEGEL: Even in a country like Kenya, people are starving to death each year. Someone has got to help them. Shikwati: But it has to be the Kenyans themselves who help these people. When there's a drought in a region of Kenya, our corrupt politicians reflexively cry out for more help. This call then reaches the United Nations World Food Program -- which is a massive agency of apparatchiks who are in the absurd situation of, on the one hand, being dedicated to the fight against hunger while, on the other hand, being faced with unemployment were hunger actually eliminated. It's only natural that they willingly accept the plea for more help. And it's not uncommon that they demand a little more money than the respective African government originally requested. They then forward that request to their headquarters, and before long, several thousands tons of corn are shipped to Africa ... SPIEGEL: ... corn that predominantly comes from highly-subsidized European and American farmers ... Shikwati: ... and at some point, this corn ends up in the harbor of Mombasa. A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unscrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN's World Food Program. And because the farmers go under in the face of this pressure, Kenya would have no reserves to draw on if there actually were a famine next year. It's a simple but fatal cycle.

So the UN aid causes the local prices to drop to the point that Kenyan farmers cannot compete. The aid kills the indigenous agriculture. And the UN bureaucrats, as much as they care about the starving in Kenya - I am sure they do - the reward structure in the bureaucracy they are in rewards actions that cause more dependency, rather than building up local agriculture toward self sufficiency. Update. Scott Cummins pointed me to Blake Lambert of Kampala, Uganda's "Sub-Saharan African Blues" blog and the following:

Nicky Oppenheimer, chairman of De Beers Group, explains why a hand up is much better than a handout. Here's the core of his argument: "Over the last 50 years, sub-Saharan Africa has received more than $1 trillion worth of aid, or more than $5000 dollars in today's terms for every man, woman and child on the continent. And yet today many African countries are poorer than they were 50 years ago. At the time of independence, many African states had a higher per capita income than much of Southeast Asia. Today, however, more than 300 million Africans are living on less than a dollar a day, while South Korea, to take one example, which was much poorer than many African countries around the time of their independence, is now 37 times richer."

Vacation - Dreams of Iron and Steel

I have been offline and will continue to be. We went north along Puget Sound first - Sunday through Wednesday. Passing through town today. Then we go south, also Puget Sound, until Sunday July 10. I quickly read Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury.

From Booklist The lengthy subtitle tells the story of this fascinating look at technological triumphs in the nineteenth century. (The book complements a five-part television series scheduled to air in 2004 on the Learning Channel.) Cadbury begins with the story of the largest oceangoing vessel in the history of the world, the Great Eastern, which was envisioned by its creator as "a floating city, majestic by day and a brilliant mirage at night," a ship that would carry 4,000 passengers across the seas. It was a mammoth project with massively disappointing results, but the Great Eastern was indeed a wonder. Other nineteenth-century wonders, such as Hoover Dam, the Panama Canal, and the North American transcontinental railroad, proved more successful, but what all seven wonders have in common is this: they were born of big ideas. The nineteenth century, Cadbury emphasizes, was the dividing line between the old world and the new, between a world that hadn't changed much in centuries and one in which rapid change, especially in technology, would become a way of life. David Pitt Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

After the French spent a fortune trying to build a canal across Panama from the Atlantic to the Pacific - they tried a sea-level route - the Americans took it up. The French were first-class in their engineering and no slouches on management. But the key difference was that the Americans tackled yellow fever which was killing workers by the thousands. And they put in locks and built it about 85 feet above sea level. This is a fascinating book. Every project was incredible. And most still are.

Ethanol folly

We need to find another silver bullet. Ethanol is not it. The US is subsidizing the growing of corn to make ethanol and is providing tax relief of 4.5 cents per gallon. Without these subsidies there would be no market for ethanol. Even its producers can't afford to burn it without the governement subsidy. Scientists studying the life cycle of ethanol have found that it takes more energy to produce and use it than it provides - far more. Ethanol is alcohol made from plant material, usually corn. The San Francisco Chronicle reports today that University of California Berkeley geoengineering professor Tad Patzek found that up to six times more energy is used to make ethanol than the finished fuel actually contains.

The fossil energy expended during production alone, he concluded, easily outweighs the consumable energy in the end product. As a result, Patzek believes that those who think using the "green" fuel will reduce fossil fuel consumption are deluding themselves -- and the federal government's practice of subsidizing ethanol by offering tax exemptions to oil refiners who buy it is a waste of money. "People tend to think of ethanol and see an endless cycle: corn is used to produce ethanol, ethanol is burned and gives off carbon dioxide, and corn uses the carbon dioxide as it grows," he said. "But that isn't the case. Fossil fuel actually drives the whole cycle." Patzek's investigation into the energy dynamics of ethanol production began two years ago, when he had the students in his Berkeley freshman seminar calculate the fuel's energy balance as a class exercise. Once the class took into account little-considered inputs like fossil fuels and other energy sources used to extrude alcohol from corn, produce fertilizers and insecticides, transport crops and dispose of wastewater, they determined that ethanol contains 65 percent less usable energy than is consumed in the process of making it. Surprised at the results, Patzek began an exhaustive analysis of his own -- one that painted an even bleaker picture of the ethanol industry's long- term sustainability. "Taking grain apart, fermenting it, distilling it and extruding it uses a lot of fossil energy," he said. "We are grasping at the solution that is by far the least efficient."

Even though Patzek's research was published in a peer-reviewed journal, There are scientists who disagree.

David Morris, an economist and vice president of the Minneapolis-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance, has attacked the Berkeley professor's analysis because he says it is based on farming and production practices that are rapidly becoming obsolete..... Hosein Shapouri, an economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has also cracked down on Patzek's energy calculations. "It's true that the original ethanol plants in the 1970s went bankrupt. But Patzek doesn't consider the impact new, more efficient production technologies have had on the ethanol industry," he said.

But there are also others who agree:

Cornell University ecology Professor David Pimentel, however, sides with Patzek, calling production of ethanol "subsidized food burning." "The USDA isn't looking at factors like the energy it takes to maintain farm machinery and irrigate fields in their analysis," he said, adding that the agency's ethanol report contains overly optimistic assumptions about the efficiency of farming practices. "The bottom line is that we're using far more energy in making ethanol than we're getting out."

CAFTA: Good for state, nation, Central America

I am very in favor of trade. All parties gain, except for a few vested interests that oppose change and growth. The opponents always frame their interest in nice words of concern for the environment or claiming that third-world people aren't happy to work for pay that is low to us, but is double what they can otherwise get. The Tacoma News Tribune discovered a Democrat who favors growth - Congressman Norm Dicks of Tacoma; we old timers recall him as a lineman on the UW Huskies football team that won upsets in the Rose Bowl twice over 40 years ago.

[Dicks] recognizes that enacting CAFTA is the right thing to do, both for the country and for this trade-dependent state. But it is far from clear that he will be joined by enough lawmakers to secure the approval of CAFTA, which would ease trade barriers between the United States and six Central American nations. It would be a shame if the treaty ultimately failed to win approval.... What'’s deceptive and disingenuous is the way the arguments against CAFTA are being couched in terms of protecting the very poor workers of Central America. Union leaders and their congressional allies, for example, complain about the fact that the treaty doesn'’t guarantee Central Americans the right to organize. Actually, CAFTA is probably the single best thing this country could do for those workers. If markets were to expand for Central American goods, Central American labor would be worth more, paid more and treated better. Workers would gain more leverage and find it easier to unionize if their employers persisted in exploiting and abusing them.... As Dicks understands, Washington has a big stake in free trade, in Latin America and elsewhere. At least one in four jobs in this state is tied to international trade. Washington farmers and software manufacturers especially stand to gain from free and fair access to Central American markets. But the national payoff transcends commerce. This country'’s poverty-stricken, Central American neighbors have long been opportune targets for anti-yanqui demagogues. The United States has a vital interest in helping build a prosperous Central America that views it as a valuable trading partner. Looking at Dicks' anti-CAFTA colleagues, you have to wonder: Is it really that hard to vote the interests of our state and nation?

I agree!

Democrats prefer Guantanamo

The two Demo US senators actually went to the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, instead of just talking about it. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Ben Nelson of Nebraska changed their minds after seeing the evidence. Washington Times They say the condictions are excellent - no abuse. And it is preferable to keep prisoners there rather than send them to other nations for interrogation. Let's see how the evidence affects Dick Durbin and Nancy Pelosi.

Government Taking Property - Washington State

The US Supreme Court made a decision this week that extended the Constitution and shrunk our property rights. No longer does "for public use" mean for public use. It now means for public or private use. The constitutional protection against the government taking our property has limited the government to taking property for public use. We all understand that that means for a street or other public right of way or building. But cities discovered that they could get more tax revenue by taking homes to make a large parcel of land for a major retailer. But that's taking the land to sell it to a private company. Unconstitutional. Until this week. I have heard several places that Washington is one of the few states that has stronger wording in our constitution and so we will be protected from this decision. That sounds good to law professors who look at our laws and constitution from the distance. But here we see a history of ignoring the constitution so the powerful can do what they want. The Washington Supreme Court hasn't been limited by the Washington Constitution any more than the US SC seems to be. I thought I remembered a recent case here on this very point. But after doing some research it was a different point of law, but still of great concern. In the 1998 time frame in downtown Seattle a new shopping complex was being developed - Pacific Place. The city of Seattle bought the parking garage and gave it to the developer - taking tax revenue and giving it to a private party. That's also a violation of our WA Constitution. OK, I looked for it and couldn't find it - this is my memory. And a giveaway of $50 million wasn't enough for then-mayor Norm Rice. The city paid $73 million even though it had just been built at a cost of $50; Rice threw away another $23 million. I bet he made some friends for life by that give away of public funds. The state Attorney General investigated and found this to be OK, despite violating the wording of the Constitution. Then the state Auditor Brian Sontag also OKed it. And they cited WA Supreme Court decisions on the Mariners' baseball stadium and something else. So I accept small consolation in knowing that our state constitution has the right words. Power talks in this state. Update 6/26. The Castle Coalition is an organization that is publicizing eminent domain takings by governments and how to fight one.

Favorite Places - Key Peninsula

My blogging friend Matt Rosenberg has featured the Key Peninsula twice now. It is a quiet place in south Puget Sound, Washington. But aren't all peninsulas quiet? After all, a peninsula is by definition a dead end and you don't pass through a dead end on the way to anywhere - unless there is a bridge off of it. The Key has two state parks. Penrose Point's shoreline seems more interesting to me. But Joemma Beach SP has 3,000 feet of shoreline, which is much longer. Don't walk past the "private property - no trespassing" signs. But if you do the beach continues another half mile and is very, very quiet. The Seattle P-I archive has a short feature article that focuses on an apple press and a B&B. I discovered the Key by going to a YMCA camp with our first daughter. Then the Presbyterians bought a camp there and my wife volunteered to work in the kitchen for 3 weeks one summer. Old impression: while she and our 3 young kids were there I went home to work and returned the following weekend. As I drove down the Key Highway around noon on Saturday I met my wife driving the other way (taking teenage volunteers for ice cream) and she stopped at a place with no place to pull over. I stopped and talked to her, but I was continuously checking the highway both ways for the traffic we were blocking. But we weren't blocking anyone. This was farther south, past Longbranch and the main highway had no traffic! It's not a cultural center, just country. There is a decent restored small hotel - B&B size. But no pack of artists, or anything. The big features are the beaches with park access. The largest town is Key Center. It has a first-class restorer of old stoves; but he is retiring and closing shop. Smaller, but more interesting is Home. It has a grid of streets, accessible, but rocky beach, two stores, restaurant, Laundromat, auto repair. But its Post Office is named "Lake Bay." What other town has the wrong name on its Post Office? Home started as some sort of a commune; the story I have heard is that the Postal authorities refused honor to the anti-establishment communal people by putting their name on an official Post Office. Google map. Your field of view depends on the size of your monitor. Click on "satellite" in the upper right for a dynamite satellite photo. The island on the left is Herron Island; it has on the order of 200 vacation homes on it and a private car ferry. To the lower right are McNeil Island and Anderson Island - a state ferry serves both. Strangely, the towns are not labeled on this map. Home is just NW of Penrose Point State Park on an inlet. Key Center - you have to scroll up and it's east of Vaughn Bay, close to a small inlet, Glen Cove. And Longbranch is no longer a town - the restaurant and store closed - it's on Filucy Bay. We sail our tiny boat in Case Inlet south of Herron Island. Update. Much better aerial photos. The Washington Dept of Ecology has low-level aerial photos of the shoreline done when the sunlight is low enough to add perspective. On these maps click on a red circle to explore the shoreline at that spot. West map - Key Peninsula is the land to the right. Joemme Beach State Park shows.East map - It's on the left here. Penrose Point State Park is not identified; it is the narrow spit above Delano Beach.

Politicians committing politics - Public Funding for Broadcasting

The Seattle Times editors today discovered politicians involved in politics. Shock! They discovered that President Bush appointed his own person to oversee the pork that goes to public broadcasting through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. There was never a problem before because only the Democrats did this. In their stumbling they discover the solution to the problem:

Times have changed since 1967, when Congress birthed public broadcasting. Then, the push was for an alternative to the three commercial television networks. But it was also to take "creative risks" and to serve underserved populations, including minorities and children. Now, with the proliferation of cable TV channels, the need for diversity is not so great. Even some liberal Democrats, such as Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, are suggesting public broadcasting is not providing the cutting-edge programming it was intended to provide and looks more and more like commercial television.

It's clear: cut the funding. But they miss it and continue searching for Republican boogeymen. The editors pretend that funding from the politicians in Congress doesn't involve politics. And if taxpayer funding for broadcasting is a life-or-death necessity, then don't newspapers also need public funding? Then the politicians can have (a more direct) say in what the Seattle Times prints.