Link: http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050713/news_lz1ed13bottom.html

An interesting article which points out that the formula for allocating spending on Homeland Security does not appear to take into account such fundamental attributes as population density and exposure to risk.
The result: sparsely populated landlocked states such as Wyoming get pretty much the same funding as densely populated coastal states like California.
It results in wyoming swimming in DHS cash to the extent that the state has spent money on all sorts of boondoggles, while only a very small percentage of coastal container traffic can currently be inspected.
This is absurd. Sensible safety management governance allocates resources on the basis of need and exposure to risk, not according to a variant on the "one state, 2 senators" formula. Electors need to start asking their elected representatives why brain-damaged distribution approaches like this are in use. This is not Homeland Security, folks. It's a recipe for Homeland Insecurity.

Link: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article298786.ece

This report today strongly suggests that none other than Karl Rove may have been the leaker of the information that was used to "out" Valerie Plame...Bush once stated that he would fire anybody in his administration who was found to be guilty of "leaking". He may have to make good on that promise...

Enough has already been written about the events in London, but the best comment I heard came from an elderly Londoner who grew up in the WW II Blitz and was also caught up in the Canary Wharf boming incident in the late 1980's:

"I've been blown up by a better class of bastard than this".

The bombings may give fresh impetus to the creation of a national Identity Card system, but that won't stop incidents like this. Terrorists typically operate in "sleeper" mode where they blend into the population and keep a low profile. Any professional terrorist operation will have legitimate IDs for all of its members, or will have high-quality fake IDs. There are several possible uses for a national Identity Card system, but this is not one of them.

Link: http://republicofdogs.blogspot.com/2005/06/on-supporting-our-troops.html

An interesting collection of quotes from some of our leading governmental figures, culled from an earlier period in their lives when they apparently, er, thought rather differently...

Link: http://www.alternet.org/story/23240/

Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8409124/

Welcome to the latest instalment in the saga of "Mad Cow" disease, US-style.
I sat through the lengthy and painful "Mad Cow" disease saga in the UK, and believe me, given what I'm seeing right now, the USA can expect a re-run of the UK saga unless a number of politicians and government officials wise up PDQ.
The saga is already unfolding like this:

1. Cow behaving weirdly is suspected of having BSE.
2. Cow is tested for BSE. Results are positive.
3. Cow and everything living within 250 yards of the cow is slaughtered and destroyed. Government issues bland statements to the effect that "no parts of the cow entered the food chain....yada yada....eating beef safe....yadayada" (this is the equivalent of the police at the accident site moving people along with the famous cry of "move along folks..nothing to see here"). NOTE - No changes are mandated to the slaughter, preparation, transport, storage and permissible usage of cattle.
4. Human in another part of the country dies. Autopsy reveals that the human died of CJD (believed to be the human equivalent of BSE).
5. Government officials repeat earlier pronouncements. (see 3). A series of half-assed measures are introduced to "assure safety". No convincing explanation is offered by any health offical of how the half-assed measures are going to "assure safety". (Translation - Trust Me, I'm a serious-looking well-dressed government representative).
6. Another cow is found behaving oddly. Cow slaughtered. Tests show that cow was suffering from BSE.
Go to 3.
Repeat until enough of the general public stops buying the story, at which point beef consumption plummets, farmers panic, any human with mental disease is assumed to be suffering from CJD, etc. etc.

Now...all of this nonsense would be totally unnecessary if we all learned a little bit about statistics and reality, and were a little less credulous when confronted by people in sharp suits working for "government".

Uncomfortable Fact: No food is totally safe to eat. There is always a chance that something we eat will kill us. The statement "eating beef is safe" is a piece of statistical nonsense.

More Uncomfortable Facts:
(a) prion disease is already inside the USA
(b) it will be extremely difficult to eliminate prion diseases given our current medical state of the art
(c) based on other countries' experiences, we can expect fo find other cases of BSE in cattle in the next few years

#1 Uncomfortable Fact: A major contributor to the spread of prion diseases is our perversion of the natural food chain ss part of the economic optimization processes of capitalism. A normal food chain is one where higher-order organisms consume lower-order organisms (cattle eat grass, humans eat cattle etc.). However, in modeern cattle production, there is a perversion of the food chain, where cattle are fed cattle feed, some of which is made from the remains of slaughtered cattle. And here's the really bad issue - the cattle feed is made from the parts of the cattle that we humans don't eat, like brains, bones etc. In other words, the very parts of the animal where prions reside.

What Should Happen: What an honest governmental representative ought to be saying (but won't, because we, the general population, aided and abetted by the media, will crucify him/her if they say it) is that eating beef is a relatively safe activity (certainly safer than crossing the street) and the government intends to keep it that way. The representative then needs to present a cogent explanation of what the government intends to do to minimize the chances of prion disease proliferating in the food supply. (If that official talks about eliminating prion disease, they should be given a really hard time - this will likely be impossible). Measures that are essential include:

- Ending the "revolving door" relationship between the USDA and the cattle industry, where leading governance officials have close professional and personal relationships with cattle and dairy industry leaders (can you say Conflict of Interest?)
- Banning all re-use of animal components in cattle feed
- Investing real money in research of prion diseases, which are still poorly understood by scientists and medical researchers

Of course, absent sufficient understanding of reality in the general population, plus an unwillingness on the part of government to actually tell the truth and manage expectations, what we are already seeing is a replay of the total mess that the UK BSE outbreak turned into. We will see a massive cover-up by the beef and cattle industries, finger-pointing between the cattle industry, the government and scientists, cheap point-scoring by politicians, and other countries banning imports of beef from the UK.

Reality Check: No amount of huffing and puffing and running to the WTO by the US Government will stop a beef ban. A lot of the countries that will ban imports of beef have no compelling reason to be nice to the USA right now, since BushCo are behaving like a bunch of horse's asses towards a lot of leading beef-consuming countries (i.e. France) on all sorts of international issues.

Kick off your shoes and enjoy watching this saga unfolding, folks. It's going to be long-drawn-out, tragi-comic (and sometimes tragic) and an object lesson in how to fuck up governance big-time.

On Eric's Blog at MSNBC:

The Bush speech, reminding me of Vietnam, also reminded me of a list we reprinted here back in March, 2003, which originally appeared on something called “Mediawhoresonline Watch.” I never bothered to find out what or who was behind it (or why), but it sure does look prescient today. Here it is:

VIETNAM 2 PREFLIGHT CHECK

Cabal of oldsters who won’t listen to outside advice? Check.
No understanding of ethnicities of the many locals? Check.
Imposing country boundaries drawn in Europe, not by the locals? Check.
Unshakeable faith in our superior technology? Check.
France secretly hoping we fall on our asses? Check.
Russia secretly hoping we fall on our asses? Check.
China secretly hoping we fall on our asses? Check.
SecDef pushing a conflict the JCS never wanted? Check.
Fear we’ll look bad if we back down now? Check.
Corrupt Texan in the WH? Check.
Land war in Asia? Check.
Right unhappy with outcome of previous war? Check.
Enemy easily moves in/out of neighboring countries? Check.
Soldiers about to be dosed with *our own* chemicals? Check.
Friendly fire problem ignored instead of solved? Check.
Anti-Americanism up sharply in Europe? Check.
B-52 bombers? Check.
Helicopters that clog up on the local dust? Check.
In-fighting among the branches of the military? Check.
Locals that cheer us by day, hate us by night? Check.
Local experts ignored? Check.
Local politicians ignored? Check.
Locals used to conflicts lasting longer than the USA has been a country? Check.
Against advice, Prez won’t raise taxes to pay for war? Check.
Blue water navy ships operating in brown water? Check.
Use of nukes hinted at if things don’t go our way? Check.
Unpopular war? Check.

Vietnam 2, you are cleared to taxi.

Link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/29/9300/04524

An excellent line-by-line analysis of the speech last night in Fort Bragg.

Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0506230236jun23,0,1250714.column?coll=chi-ed_opinion_columnists-utl

Courtesy of the Chicago Tribune...

Link: http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/news/062105_local_govperry.html

In which Rick Perry utters an insult and claims it was not meant as an insult...sure., Rick, and the moon is made of green cheese and there are fairies and elves at the bottom of my garden.
This guy sure is a class act.