Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

I am a proud Congress geek. The way that some guys like to talk about sports statistics, I like to cite legislative bill numbers, and cosponsorship levels. Congress is a rich world of competition that’s at a level of complexity that NFL football can’t touch.

Mainstream news coverage of Congress on the other hand, is simple and boring. The articles are written as if they’re still being read in a print newspaper, almost never with links in to the legislation or to original sources. I like reading the Irregular Times congressional niche partner, That’s My Congress, because they don’t talk down to me in that way.

When I want to interact with other Congress addicts, I also use a couple of other sources: Open Secrets, which has all sorts of information about the backroom relationships that explain the apparently crazy decisions people in Congress make. Another is Open Congress, which allows people to rate and debate bills, and follow them with widgets.

Hm. Both of those sites begin with open. I guess that says something about what I’m looking for. I’m looking for sources of information that can help me crack open the tough outer shell that Congress presents to outsiders at first glance, so that I can get to the delicious meat hiding inside.

Oooh. Metaphors make me hungry. Anyone got some walnuts?

Cracked magazine notices our t-shirts for kids, notices that there are political messages on some of them, and calls it “political brainwashing!” I suppose anything that has an idea in it, including Cracked, might influence the kiddies. Wouldn’t that be brainwashing, too?

There’s another possibility, one that Cracked doesn’t seem to have considered. Maybe the editors of Cracked hang out with particularly dull kids all the time, but there are children out there — I’ve even met some of them — who have their own brains, their own opinions, and a desire to express themselves. It’s the kookiest thing…

… but maybe a few of these kids wearing shirts up to size 12 are picking out their own. Stranger things have happened.

I ran into a very curious site tonight called Fairie Talker. It’s a group that talks about real fairies – ones that are supposed to actually exist, rather than the ones we read about in story books.

The site shows a picture of a young looking fairy, but advises that a fairy who looks young may actually be very old. “The apparent age is meaningless since they can appear to be any age. The younger manifestations are common when the fairy wants to assure that he/she is harmless and wants to be your friend. The oldest manifestations are usually because they want you to understand that they are wise.”

And the middle-aged manifestations of fairies take place when the fairies want to let you know that they’re feeling very tired, and could really use a vacation.

Daniel Gardner of Oberlin, Ohio is cool. George Luna of Atascadero, California is cool. John Bork of Grafton, Iowa is cool.

Is your mayor cool? You can check at Cool Mayors.

A mayor is counted as cool if he or she has committed the municipal government of his or her city or village to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the Cities for Climate Protection Campaign (CCP) or the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. In other words, these mayors are trying to get around the inaction of the Bush White House in confronting climate change, and working to make things better where they live.

Cool.

Category Five means catastrophic. Hurricane became a Category Five hurricane overnight. That’s the second Category Five hurricane in the Caribbean this year. Think Hurricane Katrina, only it’s Central America that’s being devastated instead of New Orleans. Honduras and Belize are getting the brunt of this one, and will the Yucatan be ravaged yet again?

A link that we all should become familiar with: The National Hurricane Center.

Not a great day for George. Five more dead Americans, and 57 more dead Iraqis to think about. His right-hand man resigns. Cheney reveals it was all bullshit from the start.

Sunday: 5 GIs, 57 Iraqis Killed; 37 Iraqis Wounded

Although violence remains relatively light, U.S. forces took a heavy hit on Saturday; five American servicemembers were killed and four wounded. At least 57 Iraqis were killed and 37 more wounded during the latest incidents. Also, one security contractor from Fiji was killed, two other Fijians were wounded, and an American was wounded during an attack on their convoy.

Karl Rove Resigns

“I just think it’s time,” Mr Rove said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, adding that he was quitting for the sake of his family.

Dick Cheney ‘94: Invading Baghdad Would Create Quagmire

Transcript:

Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved into Baghdad?

Cheney: No.

Q: Why not?

Cheney: Because if we’d gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn’t have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.

Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein’s government, then what are you going to put in its place? That’s a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it — eastern Iraq — the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you’ve got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

It’s a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families — it wasn’t a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?

Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.

RED DAVE

What Every American Should Know About Iraq

by David Michael Green

Some people think that anyone who disagrees with the American invasion and occupation of Iraq is either a bleeding-heart liberal appeaser, a George W. Bush hater, a blame America firster, an underminer of the troops, a traitor, or a geopolitical naif.

To those who see opponents of the war as fitting into one, several, or all of these categories, I say read this page. I will make no arguments herein, nor even commentary. I will twist no data nor spin any tales. I will even include some of the comments and arguments made by the administration and its supporters.
Instead of arguing against the war, I will try to offer a fairly complete account of the relevant facts one might wish to consider when evaluating America’s policy in Iraq. Especially for those who continually claim that they, more than others, have the best interests of the troops at heart – but actually for all citizens in a democracy – it is incumbent upon us to educate ourselves about this most important of national policies.

Those troops are being maimed and are dying on our behalf every day. The very least we can do is spend a brief amount of our time learning about this question so that we can decide whether their continued sacrifices are justified.

So, in that spirit – and as the Founders themselves said – “let Facts be submitted to a candid world”.

This is the best short summary I know of of US involvement in Iraq

RED DAVE

This morning, I read the news of the death of a rare ocelot, and was determined to find out more. Searching for imformation, I came across an ocelot-dedicated page at a site called Change.org.

Change.org is an activist site that is based on the idea of social networking, but around serious causes instead of forms of entertainment like music and television. The idea is that people interested in an issue come together on a page at Change.org and suggest to each other things that can be done to help on the issue. Politicians and nonprofit organizations can be referred to from each issues page, encouraging members to become active, not just curious or informed.

That’s a great idea, and on some issues, it seems to be working. When it comes to the ocelot, however, interest does not seem to have translated into action. There are four members of the Save The Ocelot group on Change.org. Yet, not one of those members has taken action through the Change.org site, or made a donation, or suggested an interested politician, or added a photograph or video, or even started a discussion. The members just seem to have joined the group, and left it at that.

It’s interesting to me that this inaction would happen on a social network dedicated to change through action. The inaction on the ocelot reveals a social barrier to action: People seem more willing to take action on a subject when other people are taking action already. Of course, if everyone waits for someone else to do something on the subject, then nobody ever will.

Activism needs icebreakers, people willing to be the first ones to take action, while others stand back and look at eachother sheepishly.

I encourage Irregular Times readers to become those activist icebreakers. Of course, it would be just perpetuating the problem of social hesitancy in activism if I just asked other people to become icebreakers without doing it myself.

So, this morning, I’m going to be the icebreaker of icebreakers. I’m going to go on over to Change.org and join up, and become a member of the Save The Ocelot group and not leave it at that. I’m going to start something over there.

Maybe someone else will pick up on that action and join along. Maybe I’ll just be the equivalent of the only person dancing at a party.

There are bigger stakes than just getting a groove on, though. The extinction of a species is a serious enough issue for me to give it a shot.

I would like to create a database of people who are connected.  These people are the ones who feature in our press.  These people seem “connected” and seem to have special treatment.  People like Cherie Blairs relations and friends or Tony Blairs relations and friends.

It would be very interesting to find out information about these people as they are at the top of the tree in our society. We could use them as role models or hate models depending on your particular system of values.

I would like this database to be a visual one with little spidersweb joining each one to others.

Just how connected are the likes of Paris Hilton and Gordon Brown

The people connected through business would be interesting.

What do you think of this idea.  I will be able to contribute to the computing aspect in June (presently enrolled in a study course) but require a connected person to supply the content.

John has a good suggestion:

“I have an idea I like to call Volunteer Russia. It means that those Americans who want to have their postal mail and email read, who will allow themselves to be placed under surveillance, have their phone conversations listened to, those Americans who are willing to give up some of their rights in order to be detained and interrogated and not charged with anything in the name of national security have the right to submit their names to the government as open citizens. If they want to live in the Soviet Union, why should any of us stop them?

I think that’s fair.”

Any takers?