Not for the lack of news

Ok, the holiday is over and summer is officially here. Not by the seasons, but by the calendar. And here in paradise it's still spring with cool, overcast weather in the morning warming to partly cloudy and sunny afternoons and evening into the cool night where the clouds roll back in from the ocean, and it's been throughout the week too. Summer hasn't arrived yet, but then we don't really get summer until after July 4th.

Ok, onward to the news.

What appears good is really bad? Beside George Bush? How about his decisions?

The White House has put a deadline on any new proposed regulations, June 1st, and any afterward will require exemptions from the White House to be issue, rewiewed and approved. This sounds good as they can't do more harm to government, us or the environment in the name of corporations or their friends. But they've already done most of their damage.

This deadline is so they have an excuse not to do anything for anyone anymore. With six-plus months left, they don't want to be obligated to act on a long list of requests for regulations changes, many, or most, of which are actually beneficial. They've been delaying requested changes as "under review" for 7-plus years now, and this allows them to ignore them and pass them to the next President.

Talk about a lame duck President, we now have a lame duck government too.

While we're on the topic of govenment. The US is the world's largest producer of cluster munitions, mostly known as cluster bombs, the ones we gave Isreal when they used in southern Lebanon in the summer of 2006. And so we won't sign the new cluster munitions treaty ban on these weapons being adopted by 111 other nations. We even asked Britain not to sign it but they've designed to sign it.

So, we'll be one of the few nations that actually believes in these weapons which have injured far more innocent civilians than their target enemy. Yes, we're not for human rights after all.

It's only three years late, but the White House released the Climate Change Report, as much as they kept delaying it's release and hoped not to have to. Except the courts said the law is the law and demanded they release it, only three years late. And it's written in the vague style the White House is noted for, using "likely" and similar ambiguous words scientists have long since proven with certainty.

Let's hope the next President is less ambiguous. But I'm not holding my breath either.

This one really sucks. A small number of Palestinians with Fullbright scholars live in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Isreal. Well, the State Department has revoked their scholarship because Isreal can't grant them an exit visa in time to attend the college in the US. Here we have some very bright students and we're denying them an opportunity for the sake of international politics.

So what does that say about our view of human rights?

Ok, I wrote the above late in the week and this is Sunday. The flu intervened, but I'm kinda' back enough to think out loud some more.

I hear ya', "Damn, doesn't he ever shut up?" No. This is my blog, if you want to comment, feel free if you have an account on Blogger. Sorry, I don't allow anonymous or non-Blogger users. If you have an opinion, then stand behind it. Or else, you're the voice in crowd no one knows, and I don't want to hear shouting for the sake of shouting. Stand up and stand behind your opinions.

Ok, onward.

I like what Scott McClellan said about the war in Iraq. "It was a war of choice." That's a good explanation of the runup to the war, and all the lying. They weren't lying to us so much as to themselves to believe it wasn't a choice. It was and it's a wonder they don't take responsibility for their action.

Why? Because Robert Kennedy did in 1968 when he ran for President. He voted for the Vietnam war and funding, and then changed his mind. He admited it was his mistake to support the war. It wasn't a political statement but a personal statement by him. And it's why the Bush, Cheney, Rumsfelt's, etal are cowards to stand behind a lie as a reality.

I also like what Maureen Dowd wrote today (Sunday), when she said that Bush, etal mistook clarity of thought and expression for the truth and reality. They kept changing the reason for the war because that reason was clear to them. But through all the reasons, they never understood the reasons were and his was always wrong.

Completing believing in your decision and thinking it as the clear truth isn't certainty for the being right. You can be thoroughly convinced of your views and still be completely and thoroughly wrong. And Bush has proven it with Iraq over and over again. They've never been right except in their falsehoods about themselves. That's the one thing they got right, being so wrong.

This one I like. John McCain. The supposedly staunch advocate against lobbyists and Political Action Committees (PAC's) in politics and campaign. It turns outs he has had quite a few lobbyists on his staff, both as advisors and doers. And it turns out he's used PAC to do the attack ads he complains about.

When it was discovered that he lobbied for EADS to get the contract with the USAF for the new air refuelers instead of Boeing, he refused to say he did and then Citizenss Against Government Waste (CAGW) started putting out ads defending the contract, attacking its critics and subversely supporting McCain. Except that his staff has contacts with CAGW, meaning it's wasn't a nonpartisan interest CAGW was expressing. And CAGW has made several contributions to McCain's campaign.

And McCain? He maintains an independence from the whole matter, but sorry, the dots are there Mr. McCain. The very advocate against something can't use for their own gain and still be above it. True, it's the nature of politics, but to say your neutral and shown you're not, you can't dance around it or away from it.

You're on the dance floor when the music was playing.

Ok, that's it for last week and weekend. The snow is melting and the trails are opening, so it's he semi-official opening of summer here in paradise, so I'm not sure how often I'll post here through the summer, but I'll work only at least monthly rants and vents against the political tide.