Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

U.S. Representative Phil Gingrey got up on the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday in order to praise the work of the National Association Management Group.

The sensation I had when I read about the name of the NAMG was like how it feels to look at one of those optical illusions that contain two pictures, depending on the perspective of the viewer – like the one where a woman sitting at her mirror can also be seen as a skull.

Is the National Association Management Group concerned with the management of national associations, or with the national association of management?

Congressman Gingrey said of William Patterson, the Chairman of the National Association Management Group, that his “service has been marked by a dedication to the growth and continued development of the organization while providing steadfast leadership and direction”. So, does that mean that Patterson’s job is to provide leadership and direction to the dedicated development of a group that manages associations?

Well, that makes it more clear.

For a bit of perspective on the revelations from former NSA employee Russell Tice, which corroborate reports from a former AT&T employee about the scope of the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance of the American people, let’s compare it to Watergate.

The NSA spying program makes Watergate look like small potatoes. Watergate was a politcally-motivated break-in to just one office in just one building for just a few files. The National Security Agency warrantless wiretapping program, authorized retroactively through the FISA Amendments Act, on the other hand, is a break-in to every home and every office in every building in America. The NSA spying against Americans didn’t just gather a few files – it’s gathered every single file, every single telephone call, every fax, every text message, every bit of information about everywhere we go on the Internet.

The NSA seizure of our private records is not just bigger in scope than Watergate, it’s also much more free of oversight. The Democratic-led Congress in the 1970s responded to Watergate with investigations and hearings that forced Richard Nixon to resign. The Democratic-led Congress in this decade has responded to the NSA program to spy on Americans’ private lives by helping George W. Bush to cover it up, with retroactive immunity granted through the FISA Amendments Act.

Barack Obama voted for the FISA Amendments Act as a senator, and now President Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder say that they want to keep the program to spy on our electronic communications without any search warrant, without real congressional oversight, and without any external controls. It’s essentially a resurrection of Total Information Awareness, and yes, Barack Obama supports it.

That’s enough to shake that Obama change loose from your pockets, isn’t it?

So why haven’t you heard more about this? Well, it’s because the story has been forgotten. Why? Well, journalists who have been targeted by the National Security Agency’s spies have become strangely silent about the program. Also, the story about Russell Tice came out last Wednesday, the day after the Obama Inauguration, when almost precisely nobody was paying attention.

This forgotten story is something you need to pay attention to, however, if you care about the future of American freedom. That’s what Chester A. Arthur says in the following video. Why Chester Arthur? Chester Arthur is America’s most forgotten President – who better to warn about the perils of our nation’s short-term memory?

Is David Paterson’s choice of Kirsten Gillibrand to succeed Hillary Clinton in the U.S Senate a choice for inaction? Given Gillibrand’s enthusiasm for right wing legislation, we can only hope so.

You might think that, with strong Democratic control over Congress and a new Democratic President, Representative Gillibrand would have been enthusiastic to craft legislation in the 111th Congress. So far, however, Gillibrand has not introduced a single bill – not even one to rename a post office somewhere in her district.

Did Paterson want a do-nothing senator representing New York?

One of the consequences of global warming is rising sea levels. There is no rational debate about whether sea levels are rising – this change has been measured worldwide.

At the end of last week, the EPA issued a new report on the likely implications of sea level rise. The report goes into a good amount of detail, making it a useful resource if you’re truly interested in the subject, but not a thrilling read if you’re only casually tracking the issue.

The report confirms that “Rising water levels are already an important factor in submerging low-lying lands, eroding beaches, converting wetlands to open water, and exacerbating coastal flooding.” In comparing the social and environmental costs of trying to preserve current shorelines and managing a retreat to higher ground, the report concludes that attempting to preserve current shorelines will have a lower social and environmental cost in the short run, but will have a higher cost in the long term.

I’ve winced over the last week as I’ve watched colleagues announce, in professional situations, “Well, so much for global warming! Do you know how cold it’s going to be tomorrow?”

They’re reacting, of course, to the strong cold front that has been active in the upper Midwest and East Coast of the United States. These prophets of instaclimate don’t seem to be aware that, at the same time as there’s been a cold front in some parts of the country, the Pacific Coast has had a strong heat wave. What would they suggest, that global warming doesn’t count in the East, but it’s stronger than ever in the West?

It’s uncomfortable to watch people exhibit such sloppy thinking in professional settings, forgetting that global warming is a global, not local, phenomenon, and failing to understand the difference between a day’s weather and changes in climate. Would these people suddenly believe in the reality of global warming again, if only they encountered a hot summer day where they live?

I’d love to send these people to meteorology school, but failing that, I’ll give them the reminder that December was one of the warmest Decembers on record, and 2008 was one of the top ten hottest years ever recorded.

One chilly week of fluxuating weather doesn’t undo the kind of trend that climatologists have been tracking for decades.

It’s become fashionable for big businesses to deride us little itty bitties, but here’s something to keep in mind in terms of business patterns: The big fall big. While the small keep on keeping on.

Irregular Times was here before Circuit City, and now we’re here after Circuit City. That’s a clue to where the true tech staying power lies.

It’s amazing how many people have found ways to apologize for Israel’s white phosphorus attacks against Gaza. White phosphorus is an incendiary weapon, which causes objects it lands upon to catch fire – even burning human flesh.

Now, Israel has been caught in a white phosphorus attack against a United Nations compound. Confronted by the UN after the attack, Israel called it a grave mistake.

A grave mistake? How do you accidentally attack a United Nations compound with an incendiary device?

If this attack truly was a mistake, then it only proves that the Israeli military is completely incompetent, and cannot operate in a manner that is safe to civilians.

Sending such a military to attack a territory thick with civilians, one can expect massive civilian deaths. In such a case, those deaths cannot be called mistakes, because they are sadly predictable.

This is NO COVER to Hamas, which purposefully attacks civilian areas just as Israel does. It’s to point out that neither Hamas nor Israel is in the right.

Homeland Security has reached the inside of the Hilton hotel in Woodland Hills, California, where the Guest Services Directory instructs visitors to “study the layout of the room, and determine anything that might help or hinder emergency exiting”. An engrossing documentary on PBS? That might hinder emergency exiting, if you just have to find out how string theory is related to the philosophy of the Southern Indian dynasty of the first millenium of the Common Era.

A particularly useful instruction is found next to the elevators on the first floor: “ALARM SOUNDS LIKE WHOOP”. Remember: Alarm does not sound like DING or OOOOOOO. Alarm sounds like WHOOP.

Practice that sound now, before you go to sleep.

Why attend an Inauguration demonstration? This pro-Constitution demonstration is a good pick, because as much as Barack Obama has inspired the trust of the American people, we know that the power brokers are waiting for him, with tools of persuasion that are difficult to resist.

Attend this demonstration on the route of the Inaugural Parade to send Obama a message: The American people want their full constitutional rights restored.

Please, President Obama – follow your Oath of Office. Uphold the Constitution.

January 20, 2009, corner of 9th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington D.C. – Noontime – Be there.

Want to know what’s wrong with proposition 8? Ask Simon the Political Tiger.

It’s a matter of the Constitution, see. The Constitution guarantees equal protection under the law to all people. That means that the law has to give everyone equal status, without discrimination. That includes same-sex couples. If heteros get to marry, then homosexual couples need to be given that same right.

No state has the right, through its legislature or through an electoral proposition, to overrule the Constitution’s equal protection clause. Prop 8 tries to do just that – and that’s what makes it an insult not just to same-sex couples, but to all Americans who believe in the freedoms and rights that the Constitution guarantees.