The bird has left the nest

For the previous two weekends, as we ate breakfast and then a late lunch on our front patio, Jen and I have been enchanted by the growth of a baby bird. We're not sure what kind of bird, but they're a brilliant yellow and black, with a little white. They built a nest on the bottom of a palm frond (attached I do not know how) that we can see when we lean back and look up. It's almost a bag nest, with the hole near the top, all very light-colored straw -- they must have been quite picky when gathering materials. At any rate, for the previous two weeks the mother and father have been incredibly busy feeding the young one, who would stick its head out when neither was around -- not more than a couple of minutes at a time. We've seen the baby get progressively bigger and noisier.

And then this weekend, there was no frantic back-and-forth and no baby in the nest. We did not find, as we sometimes do around this time of year, a baby bird corpse on the ground, so I have to presume that the little bird tested its wings and found them sufficient to facilitate flying. We still see flashes of yellow and black flitting through our oleanders, and I like to think these are our leaning-back acquaintances. It has been fun to observe this little drama in the circle of life.

Sotomayor to the left but not the Apocalypse

We've just begun the process of going through Sonia Sotomayor's record on the bench to see what's up. As this Register editorial suggests, at this point it's pretty clear that she's not exactly a rightist in the Sam Alito mode but she doesn't seem to be a raving radical -- or a racist, despite a few unguarded remarks and despite the conservative attack machine's desires. I suppose we're in for a contentious confirmation process. Both the official right and the official left have an interest in justifying the millions they've raised. But I'm a little sick of the half-truths and distortions from both sides already.

The US-Israeli-Palestinian Kabuki

I didn't blog nor did I write last week when Israeli prime minister Netanyahu came to Washington last week, but maybe with Mahmoud Abbas, the "approved" Palestinian leader in town today a word of explanation might be in order.

If the Israelis and Palestinians ever do get sick of the confrontation game and work out a way to live together peacefully in the same neighborhood, they might prove to be remarkably compatible partners. After all these years they know one another so well that if they were inclined they could get along quite well. As it is, what they know is how to push one another's buttons. Whenever some ambitious U.S. president tries to secure what he conceives of as a place in history by pushing them to negotiate, they each demand something they know good and well the other won't accept. Both do it and blame one another when it dfoesn't work out.

The U.S. plays make-believe as well. It is officially committed to a two-state solution, but that is about as likely as elephants flying. Even besides the fact that there are two Palestinian entities (with Hamas, to worse of the two, having arguably a better claim on legitimacy), the geography of the region would make any Palestinian state almost completely reliant on Israel, and no Palestinian entity could guarantee various elements wouldn't lob missiles into Israel. Israel is almost as fractured politically as the Palestinian entity. Besides, the "moderate" Arab states, whatever lip service they might pay, have no interest in seeing a Palestinian state. I have been observing and writing about Israel-Palestine for going on 30 years and while the players and some of the peripheral issues may change, the fundamental issues don't. Yet the U.S. has a certain interest in keeping the political theater going, maintaining the fiction that it's working on peace, which it expects to break out any time as soon as a few loose ends can be cleared up.

It's more than a bit tiresome. I thought Obama was being fairly shrewd appointing the peripatetic George Mitchell as special envoy so he could create the appearance of action. I'm surprised he agreed to meet with Netanyahu and Abbas. I hope it's just part of the game of pretending to care and he doesn't start getting the idea that maybe his unique qualities can accomplish what Reaagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush failed to do.

Lakers finally take over a fourth quarter

I had been worried about the Lakers and I'm still not feeling complacent. (I'm atavistic; I've been rooting for the Lakers since the Baylor/West/Goodrich days when they were terrific except in ther final games against the Celtics, and I don't plan to break the habit.) Still, it was terrific to see a team effort including strong defense (and some luck; the Nuggets missed some open shots) to take over the fourth quarter, win and take a 3-2 series lead.

Now it's the games on the other side of the country I'm concerned about. I think lots of NBA fans looked forward to a Lakers-Cavaliers match-up, with Kobe and LeBron, probably the two best players in the league, going after one another. With Orlando leading the Cavaliers 3-1, however, that's becoming a long shot. Still, all of their games could have gone either way, so I'm looking for a miracle.

And for some consistency from the Lakers. This habit of falling apart in alternate games isn't a sustainable strategy as the opposition gets better and better. And they haven't won the Denver series yet.

Jumping all over Sotomayor a big mistake

I can't monitor everything, but from the excerpts and bits and pieces I see or hear about on the Net, the right-wing talk radio/blogosphere universe is in the midst of a huge tactical/strategic mistake over Supremes nominee Sonia Sotomayor. But it's almost as if they can't help themselves. Supreme Court nominations have been so contentious lately that both sides have huge attack/defend machines in place and millions invested in the process. Both sides are convinced that nomination fights "energize the base." At this point it means that Rush/Hannity et. al. are falling right into the trap Obama has set for them. The best thing the base could do in this instance, is to shut up, as most Senate republicans who have a modicum of actual responsibility are doing.

I talked to UCI law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky for this Register editorial, and as has often been the case in the past Erwin, God love 'im, had the politics down pat. Obama nominates a Hispanic woman. The Republicans know they can't win a national election without about a 40% vote from Hispanics (about what Bush got in'04), so doing a balls-out attack job on Sotomayor risks making the GOP something like a permanent minority in national elections. But Rush etc. can't resist the bait. Sotomayor is not just to the left, as she is -- what did you expect from Obama? -- she's the worst nominee ever, devoted to identity politics ueber alles, proclaiming that she routinely makes up law and will ruin the Supreme Court within a week of donning a robe. TheApocalypse is upon us if we don't make the most flamboyant case possible against her. The Republic hangs by a thread.

Take a chill pill. She'll vote almost exactly the same way Souter did so she won't tchange the balance of the court, and with the Dem majority in the Senate she's going to be confirmed even if you convince the "base" that she's the devil incarnate. The "outrageous" quotes (wise Latina woman better than white male et. al.) are nowhere near so outrageous in context. There are certainly valid criticisms to be made of her approach to jurisprudence, but this kind of hysterical attack will only discredit those who made it except in the eyes of an ever-diminishing choir.

The hysteria isn't all on one side. Look at the comments and not that a reasonably balanced piece with some mild criticism is dismissed as nothing but part of the evil Republican attack machine by the other side.

North Korean nukes: big whoop!

All kinds of people are terribly concerned that North Korea apparently conducted an underground test of a possible nuclear weapon, along with some missile tests in the last couple of weeks. The ability of various pundits to conjure frightful dangers to America from the antics of pipsqueak nations is fascinating (and a little frightful in itself) and would probably make a good subject for a book. North Korea is exhibiting learned behavior -- that it gets the attention of the rest of the world only when it does something outrageous. Are we -- or South Korea, with an economy many times as large and a capable military -- supposed to tremble in fear when the Hermit Kingdom tests a weapon in a way that probably exhibits that despite its ambitions and posturing it probably doesn't have a workable nuke yet?

There's no sense needlessly provoking the little dictator, but paying so much attention to him gives Kim Jong-Il (who may be courting the military in an internal dispute over succession, given his apparent stroke last summer) the kind of attention he craves. Leave him to China.

Prop 8: California Supremes change tune

Even though I (along with the Register) opposed California's Proposition 8, outlawing same-sex marriage, last year, in the belief that if the state is going to sanction marriages it should sanction all that people choose to enter into, I'm not as unhappy as some that the Supreme Court chose not to invalidate the measure today. The argument used by Prop. 8 opponents -- that this was a change so momentous that it needed to be designated a "revision" to the California Constitution, requiring a 2/3 legislative approval, rather than a mere amendment, of the kind that get voted on almost every election -- was always a big reach, if not without at least some justification. The differences between a revision and an amendment turn out to be rather subjective.

It's fascinating how much the court had to contort itself to get to this decision, however. Last year it was forceful in saying that marriage, including use of the world, was so fundamental and basic a right that denying it to same-sex couples was not just unconstitutional but downright indecent. This decision said, in effect, "it's only a word, after all, and through civil unions gays have virtually all the legal rights heterosexual couples have," an argument it rejected with force (and, I thought, some eloquence) in last year's decision legalizing gay marriage.

I consider this a temporary setback for the cause of gay marriage. Today's decision brought out protestors in West Hollywood, but a right to marriage granted by the courts in the face of majority opinion against it was politically (if not necessarily intellectually) vulnerable. I think, of course, that the State should have nothing to do with marriage, that it shuld be up to individuals to deciude if they want to marry and churches to decide if they want to solemnize marriages. But the State, the great imperialist aggrandizer of power, is so intertwined in so many aspects of marriage that the best practical approach is equal treatment.

The strongest (politically speaking) way to earn this privilege is through the ballot box, not the courtroom. I think it will happen in California, and reasonably soon. Most observers expected Prop. 8 to lose last November, and there's an argument that it would have without the heavy intervention of the Mormon church (and all those evangelical blacks who came out in droves to vote for Obama while opposing gay marriage, ironically enough). I don't know if 2010 is too soon to put it back on the ballot or 2012 would be more appropriate. But gay marriage will get onto and eventually it will prevail.the ballot and

Dueling speeches, similar philosophies

Most everybody else wrote about the "dueling speeches" of Cheney and Obama, set up by Obama. last Thursday, so I did so for this week's Antiwar.com column. I suspect mine was a little different than many. After acknowledging rhetorical differences, I think I made a pretty good case that the foreign policies the two embrace and advocate are remarkably similar despite the anger Cheney wants to vent and the tendency of the two establishment "sides" to view one another as as tools of Satan if not the devil incarnate.

Obama's emphases may be different, but he believes the U.S. needs to be involved -- if only to make a decision about how actively to be involved -- in every conflict and potential conflict in the world. He might emphasize Afghanistan over Iraq, and he may really have believed at the outset that the Iraq war was a mistake. But he embraces the empire and revels in being its commander-in-chief. As his domestic ambitions are frustrated -- and many will be -- he will turn increasingly to foreign affairs, as every president since WW II has.

More Pakistan nukes a third-order concern

There were several stories last week about the likelihood that Pakistan is building more nuclear weapons, and a number of congresscritters have wondered whether the military aid extorted from U.S. taxpayers was going to build more nukes rather than for building up counterinsurgency capability -- the mission the U.S. wants to impose on Pakistan though India remains Pakistan's major military concern. As this Register editorial notes, however, money is fungible, and if the U.S. really wants Pakistan not to use our money to build nukes it should cut military aid to zero -- not a bad idea anyway. But truth to tell, whether Pakistan is building more weapons is a silly thing to worry about. They have them and so does India, and a few more won't change the balance of terro.

I worry less about nuclear weapons than most people largely because I was influenced by the eminent political scientist Kenneth Waltz, who made a strong case some decades ago that possession of nuclear weapons is not only possible only in a fairly advanced country (technologically), but it imposes constraints as much as it opens temptations to use them aggressively. I explained myself in more detail a few years ago here. India and Pakistan has behaved as Kenneth Waltz predicted nuclear powers would -- two countries that had had three wars since 1947 and for the most part really despise one another have managed to avoid war despite the ongoing border clashes in Kashmir and plenty of temptations.

Memorial Day: No more dying for nothing

I feel a little strange most Memorial Days. It is appropriate to honor those who gave "the last full measure," especially when they did so in what they honestly believed was the service of their country and were volunteers rather than conscripts. But all of our wars since WW II -- and I have my doubts about that one -- were so unnecesary, impelled by the miscalculations and false pride of incompetent political leaders. You can't help but feel doubly sad -- without doubting, as this Register editorial notes, the courage and devotion of those who sacrificed so much -- that so many young peoiple have died for the delusions and false pride of old fools like me.

Pawlenty vetoes Minn. medical marijuana bill

Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, who, you may remember, was on a number of "short lists" for the Republican vice presidential nomination, has vetoed the medical marijuana bill passed by the state legislature. His veto message said he was concerned about medmar production without federal supervision. He doesn't seem to be much of a states-rights Republican; in fact he sounds like a bit of a moron -- that hasn't been a concern or problem in any of the13 states with medical marijuana laws. Apparently some Minnesota voices are expressing dismay.

Quote of the Day

"A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground." -- H.L. Mencken

The cars government wants us to have

President Obama's little love-fest this week as he announced higher CAFE fuel-economy standards was hailed by most observers as a long overdue triumph of goodheartedness over greed and careless neglect of the planet. The Register, not surprisingly, begged to differ today. The standards and various other government actions will mean more expensive and less desirable (from the perspective of what consumers by their patterns have lately shown that they want) automobiles. If you're thinking of buying a new car in the near future, I'd suggest doing it soon, before the government screws them up royally.

The CAFE standards, of course, will probably kill more people each year than the Iraq war has, because the most efficacious way to get to higher mileage is to build lighter and smaller car4s, which fare poorly in accidents and tend to kill passengers more foten.

We tend to forget that the SUV craze, though it was certainly welcomed by a lot of Americans, was intensified by previous CAFE standards. SUVs were classified as trucks, which had lower CAFE requirements, so the car companies started building and marketing them, found people liked them, and also found they yielded a higher profit margin. Of course the U.S. car companies have also become bloated and topheavy, unable to move nimbly as consumer tastes change, so the fact that they have essentially become wards of the state is largely their own fault. Still, it's a shame.

California's sad situation

Obviously, I don't always agree with George Will, but the times I have met him he seems a genuinely decent person, and when he's right he's right. In this column on California's fiscal mess, he is right.

I think Cheney's lying -- but let's find out

Barack Obama and Dick Cheney had their dueling speeches on interrogation and national security today. I printed them out but still haven't been able to bring myself to read them in their entirety yet, though I saw excerpts on TV. I'm inclined to agree with Glenn Greenwald on what I know of Obama's speech -- nice words, but we haven't seen much action yet. I'm still unclear on whether he reserves the right to torture, he plans to use military commissions for some prisoners, he sure seems to be declaring a right to use indefinite detention without charges, and he's escalating atotally unnecessary war in Afghanistan. Perhaps for understandable reasons -- domestic policy seems to be what really interests him -- he has followed Bush's lead in almost every area of foreign policy. Not much change I can believe in.

Cheney is really a piece of work. He came right out and said we weren't getting anything useful from some of these guys until we went to "enhanced interrogation." That contradicts what I've been able to discern from the record and what can be inferred from it, as well as from discussions with professional interrogators. Torture simply doesn't furnish reliable information. I think Cheney is lying, but I'll take my chances. Release all the relevant documents and let experts and bloggers have at them. If I'm wrong I'll admit it. But I doubt if I am.

Voters slap Sacramento

The resounding defeat of all the propositions proposed by the legislators and governor who got California into this mess is a fascinating first step. I think it will still be a while before the establishment gets remotely serious about overspending. Here's the Register's editorial suggesting some places to make the first cuts.

Moving toward legalization

I haven't made as much progress yet on my marijuana legalization book as I had hoped (maybe I should do that instead of blogging, but sometimes I can't help myself). Nonetheless, I still feel we're seeing incremental progress that I expect to snowball. As this Register editorial notes, the Supreme Court Monday declined to hear San Diego County's attempt to have California's law nullified on the judicial-supremacy theory that federal law (total prohibition) trumps state law. No dice. Live with it.

A lot of news stories have used that word "trump" when discussing the differences between federal law and the laws of the 13 states that permit medical use of marijuana, but it's inaccurate. The feds will sometimes "occupy" an issue and trump state laws in the area. but it hasn't happened in this case and the feds don't claim it. I was in the Supreme Court press gallery when the Oakland Cannabis Coop case was argued, and Justice Ginsberg specifically asked the government lawyer if the feds were claiming federal supremacy. She said no, that this was simply one of the many instances under federalism when state law and federal law are different. The Supreme decision makes it clear. Local law enforcement's job is to enforce state law, not federal law, so that excuse is simply gone now.

The editorial also notes that the new "drug czar" (gad, what an offensive term in either a republic or a democracy), Gil Kerlikowske, has decided to abandon the term "war on drugs." Nice symbolic gesture, but only warlike actions can try to enforce prohibition. Time to change the laws.

Obama's plans will increase health-care spending

You've got to love a president who thinks he can reduce the deficit by expanding health-care spending to cover virtually every American. But Obama and his supporters have been claiming that they can achieve this magic trick through some reforms that will increase efficiencies and thus reduce spending. The proposals mentioned most often are more preventive care, more use of IT by doctors, better management of chronic diseases, paying for outcomes rather than procedures, and effectiveness ratings that could guide health-care decisions.

As this Register editorial explains, however, while all of these proposals have some merit, none would offer substantial savings or in some cases even any savings at all. The Congressional Budget Office, controlled by Democrats since 2006, has done projections of all, and none promises savings worth noticing. Too bad. We're working on some free-market proposals that might actually lead to better care for more people for less money, using competition rather than top-down regulation and mandates. Stay tuned.

Big suprise! Immigration declines when the economy tanks

For years I have argued that illegal immigration is the result of quotas that were too low, that the U.S. economy could support all those illegals and it was fruitless to try to stop them with stricter enforcement, walls and other such nonsense. One corollary of the argument was that the only effective way to reduce illegal immigration would be for the U.S. economy to go in the tank.

I never wanted to see a real-life test of the argument, but we have one now. And sure enough, as this NYT article explains, "Census data from the Mexican government indicate an extraoedinary decline in the number of Mexican immigrants going to the United States." Specifically, about 226,000 fewer people left Mexico for other countries (almost all to the U.S.) in the year that ended last August, a 25 percent decline. Since the most dramatic economic decline began after August, I'm betting the decline will be even greater in the year ending this August.

Any takers?

Torture concern has a longer half-life than expected

Now some of it was undoubtedly brought on by Nancy Pelosi's clumsy evasiveness about what she knew and when she knew it about torture techniques, and some is driven by a desire in many quarters to punish Bush administration figures, which may or may not be necessary in my view. For whatever reasons, however, the debate over torture is still alive, and I think in the long run that's good for the country. Here's my most recent column for Antiwar.com on the subject. The short-term desire to embarrass Nancy Pelosi may just drive some congressional Republicans to support a more thoroughgoing investigation into what happened and who knew.

At the same time, I'm fascinated by how many conservatives and Republicans, despite the temptation to jump on the anti-torture bandwagon now that it can be used to bash Pelosi, are eager to be seen as ongoing defenders of torture. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, many seem convinced that torture "works" in the sense that it provided reliable intelligence -- even though no specific instance that stands up to scrutiny has been offered, and you know if there was one it would have been leaked long ago. I suspect there's more than a bit of desire to punish bad guys severely verging on borderline sadism regardless of whether it is really effective at producing information or not involved here.

Have any considered whether embracing the stance of the Party of Torture is a good political move, let alone considered the moral implications?