mjh's blog

Governor Attacks Dendahl

Anybody who knows anything about John Dimdahl can think of many avenues of attack against him. Just quote any of the many outrageous statements he has made over the years. How difficult can it be to malign someone widely known as an attack dog — even by the media and Dimdahl himself.

So, how it the world did Richardson and his crew decide to attack Dimdahl on how he got the nomination? The references to the Third World, etc, are right up there with Republicans’ nonsense about banana republics and socialism.

This campaign must be aimed at one audience in particular: pissed off Republicans against Dimdahl, of which there are surely many. But if there is anything that would get the Dimdahl-haters to vote for him it’s an attack by Bill Richardson. This guy has more money than sense. He needs to fire whoever planned this as the first ad. mjh

ABQjournal: Gov. Starts Ad Attacks On Dendahl By Jeff Jones, Journal Politics Writer

Gov. Bill Richardson’s re-election campaign on Wednesday launched its first advertising attack on Republican challenger John Dendahl— 11 days after Dendahl got into the race.

The one-minute radio bombing run questions the manner in which Dendahl replaced Santa Fe radiologist J.R. Damron as the Republican candidate for governor. …

The ad features an ominous-sounding voice saying: “A secret meeting … the order is delivered … and the political candidate quietly goes away. Is it the Third World? The Middle East? Eastern Europe? No— it’s the New Mexico Republican Party Central Committee and John Dendahl.”

“Forget about elections. Forget about the voter,” the narrator says. “That’s the way John Dendahl wants it, and that’s the way it is.”

Bush Sharpens His Attack on Democrats

Bush Sharpens His Attack on Democrats By Peter Baker, Washington Post Staff Writer

President Bush attacked congressional Democrats and the news media at a Republican fundraiser Wednesday night….

“There’s a group in the opposition party who are willing to retreat before the mission is done,” he said. “They’re willing to wave the white flag of surrender. And if they succeed, the United States will be worse off, and the world will be worse off.”

This week on BILL MOYERS ON FAITH & REASON

Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason | PBS

Friday, June 30, 2006 at 9PM on PBS (Sat, 7/1, 5am in Albuquerque)

How is it that two reasoned minds can come to such different conclusions on faith? Provocative authors Mary Gordon and Colin McGinn bring their views on religion to this week’s Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason. Gordon, the well-known American writer, brings her viewpoint as a Christian. “I like a religious perspective,” she says. “It seems to create a language that explains more things about human beings than other languages do.” McGinn, a philosopher, who talks about his own journey from belief to disbelief, sees the world differently. “I think there’s too much tolerance of faith, and there’s not enough respect for reason,” he says. “For the last 30 to 50 years reason has been under attack.”

An Alert Press

An Alert Press Washington Post Editorial

Oversight of the government’s national security policies is needed now more than ever.

THE DECISION on whether to publish information that government officials assert would damage national security is one of the gravest choices a newspaper can face. There may be times when editors get it wrong, either printing material that proves harmful or withholding information that should have come to light. But these are risks that the Constitution contemplated and that the Framers were persuaded were worth tolerating to ensure a free and vigorous press.

Justice Potter Stewart stated this trade-off well in a concurring opinion in the Pentagon Papers case 35 years ago. “In the absence of the governmental checks and balances present in other areas of our national life, the only effective restraint upon executive policy and power in the areas of national defense and international affairs may lie in an enlightened citizenry — in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can here protect the values of democratic government,” he wrote. “For this reason, it is perhaps here that a press that is alert, aware, and free most vitally serves the basic purpose of the First Amendment. For, without an informed and free press, there cannot be an enlightened people.”

The wisdom and perspective of Justice Stewart have been conspicuously lacking in the recent uproar over reports about secret government programs. …

All administrations jealously guard secrets, often for important reasons. But this administration, more than any since the one that prosecuted the Pentagon Papers case, has resisted disclosure and effective oversight, whether by Congress or the press. This across-the-board aversion to scrutiny makes it all the more difficult for responsible media organizations to separate the legitimate claims of national security from the overblown.

Those who complain about disclosures assert that the war on terrorism has changed the calculus of risk. They would prefer a media meekly obeying official demands for secrecy. But in the end, as Justice Stewart understood, the nation stands to benefit far more than it could lose from a press that is “alert, aware and free.”

You Are Welcome to Disagree As Long As No One Knows What You Think

President Bush ordered the disappearance of the editors of the New York Times to Guantanamo and the appointment of Fox editors in their place. “We cannot allow the Fatherland to be threatened by the Press and other traitors,” he said. mjh

Surveillance Disclosure Denounced By Peter Baker, Washington Post Staff Writer

The president used a White House appearance with supporters of troops in Iraq to lash out at newspapers that revealed the program, which has examined hundreds of thousands of private banking records from around the world. His remarks led off a broader White House assault later amplified by Vice President Cheney and Treasury Secretary John W. Snow.

“What we did was fully authorized under the law,” Bush said in an angry tone as he leaned forward in his chair and wagged his finger. “And the disclosure of this program is disgraceful. We’re at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America, and for people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it, does great harm to the United States of America.” …

“Some of the press, in particular the New York Times, have made the job of defending against further terrorist attacks more difficult by insisting on publishing detailed information about vital national security programs,” Cheney said at a Republican fundraiser in Nebraska.

Referring to the NSA program, he added: “What is doubly disturbing for me is that not only have they gone forward with these stories, but they’ve been rewarded for it, for example, in the case of the terrorist surveillance program, by being awarded the Pulitzer Prize for outstanding journalism. I think that is a disgrace.” …

Neither Bush nor Cheney raised the prospect of investigating journalists, as proposed by Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), who called on the Justice Department to prosecute the New York Times for “treasonous” action. …

“It’s not designed to have a chilling effect,” White House press secretary Tony Snow said. “If the New York Times wants a spirited debate about it, it’s got it. But certainly nobody is going to deny First Amendment rights. But the New York Times and other news organizations ought to think long and hard about whether a public’s right to know, in some cases, might overwrite somebody’s right to live.”

Critics said Bush was trying to divert attention from his own actions. Bush, Cheney and other Republicans “have adopted a shoot-the-messenger strategy by attacking the newspaper that revealed the existence of the secret bank surveillance program rather than answering the disturbing questions that those reports raise about possible violations of the U.S. Constitution and U.S. privacy laws,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.).
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Press Conferences of Ari Fleischer

“Americans,” Fleischer warned, “need to watch what they do and watch what they say” (in 2001)

A Poke in the Eye with a Sharp Stick

It seems I misunderestimated Don Harris. Somehow, I had the impression he is a Right Wing whacko out to “Take Back The Courts.” He seemed to be a student of Karl Rove when he smeared his opponent last fall. And, yet, here he is, doing something I don’t find disgusting — in fact, I thank him for his efforts.

In my own tiny way, I’ve been waging this battle for a while. I’ve posted a few pictures of the grotesqueness businesses will shove in your face — ah, the beloved unfettered Market. Recently, I’ve gathered a few photos under the category “alBAHquerque” (here and at Flickr) — so far, I am the only one to use that tag. With luck, it will become historical documentation of just how stupid we were and how we sometimes stand up to the Market. mjh

ABQjournal: Councilor Wants Cell-Phone Towers to Blend With Their Surroundings Journal Staff Report

Irritated by massive cell-phone towers?

City Councilor Don Harris wants to do something about it.

He said Friday that he plans to introduce an ordinance requiring that towers in Albuquerque be concealed to limit their impact on the environment.

“One of the things that makes Albuquerque great is our vistas,” Harris said in a written announcement. “We must act now before our landscape is forever changed.”

Under his bill, new wireless telecommunications towers would have to be concealed when they are constructed. Existing towers would have five years to comply with the ordinance.

ABQjournal: Can You Hear Me Now? Hide That Cell Tower Abqjournal Editorial

Nobody ever comes back from vacation saying “you should have seen the cell-phone towers.” Nobody flashes photos of their kids standing next to one. Nobody lobbies to get one in their backyard.

Why would they? While most of us use a cell phone [mjh: I do not], we don’t want to look at all the hardware that makes it work. A New Mexico sunset loses a little something when viewed through a forest of metal poles.

Albuquerque has a chance to become the cell-tower city different, a place where towers are heard and not seen, under a proposal by City Councilor Don Harris.

America is quite a place these days

ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor
The Post 9/11 World Has Changed

ANN COULTER screams calculated insults at 9/11 families and makes a million dollars.

I make one inadvertent remark on 9/11 and receive hate mail, death threats and am compelled by the University of New Mexico to sign a confession.

America is quite a place these days.

RICHARD M. BERTHOLD
Albuquerque

Is That a Bottle of Viagra in Your Pocket Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

Can there be a better poster child for the Radical Right than Lush Limbaugh? I’m not talking about his impotence — there’s no shame in that, unless you’ve built your entire culture around your “strength.” I’m not talking about his repeated drug abuse — we’re all one pill away from that, which is precisely where the Drug Industry wants us. I’m talking about deception, both self- and public. It’s not just hypocrisy, which is what we call flexibility we can’t stand. It’s LYING, endless lying. It’s like Wm Bennett berating us all for our declining morals but having no trouble excusing his own gambling addiction. It’s like Tom DeLay moralizing and genuflecting while filling his own pockets and subverting democracy. This isn’t just “A Culture of Corruption,” this is a gang of out of control thugs and thieves. It’s the Puritans At Tammany Hall. It’s disgusting.

At the same time, the only thing that makes incipient American Fascism tolerable is seeing Conservatives fall victim to it. Gotta check every prescription — you could be an Enemy Combatant in the War On Whatever. Anything you do can and will be used against you. mjh

PS: I don’t really want to know, and yet, I can’t help but think about the missing pills and Lush’s time in the Dominican Republic. Anybody know where Ann Coulter was this weekend?

MiamiHerald.com | 06/27/2006 | Rush Limbaugh halted over Viagra at airport BY CASEY WOODS, The Miami Herald

A Customs inspector going through the baggage of conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh on Monday afternoon found 29 small blue tablets — a supply of the impotence drug Viagra.

Trouble is, the name on the bottle wasn’t Limbaugh’s.

”Limbaugh said it was for his own personal use and that the name on it was his doctor’s,” said Sgt. Pete Palenzuela, a spokesman for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

Possession of drugs prescribed to someone else is a second-degree misdemeanor.

Limbaugh, 55, arrived on a private plane at Palm Beach International Airport from the Dominican Republic at 2 p.m. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents discovered the drug while making a routine inspection of his bags. The agents turned the investigation over to deputies from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

Dendahl Is For Drilling Valle Vidal — And Out of Touch With Most of Us

Valle Vidal Vote
House Panel Votes to Protect Valle Vidal

A key House committee voted Wednesday to protect the Valle Vidal— 102,000 acres in New Mexico’s Carson National Forest— from gas drilling.

“This is a huge step forward in the process to protect one of New Mexico’s most precious gems,” said Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., who authored the measure. “Protecting the Valle Vidal means preserving for New Mexico and the nation a land rich in history and culture and abundant in wildlife.”

The U.S. Forest Service, which manages the Valle Vidal, has been considering whether to open 40,000 acres of the land to coal-bed methane drilling.

The Forest Service solicited public opinion on the proposal and received 54,000 responses, only nine of which supported drilling in the area, according to an analysis by the Coalition for the Valle Vidal, which opposes opening up the Valle Vidal to gas drilling.

The Valle Vidal, located in Taos and Colfax counties, is home to one of the largest elk herds in the state and has been described as an outdoorsman’s paradise.

Udall also said the Valle Vidal was home to some of America’s earliest inhabitants— including Native Americans, Spanish settlers and myriad forms of wildlife.

“I believe we have a responsibility to protect it for future generations,” he said.

The Valle Vidal tract was donated to the Forest Service in 1982 by Pennzoil Co., which never drilled in the area.

Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., who sits on the resources committee, said Wednesday he supported the protection.

Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., became a co-sponsor of the measure after it passed the committee Wednesday. She had previously declined to publicly support or oppose the legislation, saying she wanted to study the matter and hear public feedback.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M, has sponsored similar legislation in the Senate, but Sen. Pete Domenici, chairman of the Senate Energy Natural Resources Committee, has not yet declared a position on the Valle Vidal Protection Act.

With so many in favor of preserving and protecting Valle Vidal, read what John Dendahl thinks. mjh

mjh’s blog — Perspectives

Dendahl wrote:

There are myriad reasons familiar to nearly all of us why we should develop domestic sources of oil and natural gas. Despite dated, obstructionist hype, the needed development can — and will — go hand-in-hand with sound environmental protection.

If Ted Turner and the Audubon Society can write contracts with producers that protect their land and water, so can the U.S. Forest Service and the BLM.

Richardson needs to tell his “environmentalist” pals to take a long, enjoyable hike…

mjh’s blog — I’m not laughing with Dimdahl, I’m laughing at him

Dendahl wrote:

Laugh of the Month: Richardson remains obstinate. Despite environment-friendly natural gas production on super-enviro Ted Turner’s Vermejo Park Ranch next door, drilling for natural gas in the Valle Vidal is vigorously opposed by some special interests. Vowing to do all he can to prevent Valle Vidal drilling, Richardson recently told the opponents, “We are not going to stand for special-interest management of the public domain.” Say what?

mjh’s blog — we know 21st-century technology guarantees the land’s protection

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski said:

But if Arctic oil development was going to harm the environment or wildlife, then I would agree opening it would not be worth the cost. But the vast majority of Alaskans, including Alaska’s Eskimos who know it best, support ANWR’s development because we know 21st-century technology guarantees the land’s protection.

Just before this happened:

More than 200,000 gallons of crude leaked from a ruptured transit line onto the tundra in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, making the spill discovered earlier this month the largest ever on the North Slope, according to an official estimate released Friday.

The estimated spill size of 202,000 to 267,000 gallons far surpasses the 38,000 gallons spilled in 2001, officials said. …

new growth

We planted this mimosa
when I turned 50.
Mom always said,
“every man should plant a tree
and raise a son.”

I’ve planted many trees
and this one started out
just right
the mantis in the branches
saying a benediction

But life has its own way
of moving forward
that sturdy little tree
seemed dead in spring
our hopes dashed
until new growth sprang up
from still lively roots
growing its own way
around and past the dead

With luck
I’ll play buddha to this banyan
beneath the birds
an old man nodding in its filtered shade
a book of poetry in my lap
a cold cuppa coffee by my side mjh

06/23/06

mantis in mimosa

(aug 10, 2005)

Picasa Web Albums

I’m playing with the beta version of Google’s Web Albums, a new feature of Google’s image cataloger and editor, Picasa. And, possibly, a Flickr-killer. mjh

April & May photos by mjh

Flickr: Photos from mjhinton

Ignorant of History? Say Anything

In Hungary, Bush Salutes Anti-Soviet Revolt of ’56 By Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post Staff Writer

The president sought to draw parallels between Hungary’s transition from dictatorship to democracy and the U.S. enterprise in Iraq, where the administration is struggling to help launch a democratically elected government. …

Aniko Kellner, a 34-year-old graduate student at Central European University, noted how the Western powers failed to come to the aid of Hungary when the popular rebellion was crushed by the Soviet Union. At the time, the United States was preoccupied with the Suez crisis and had no interest in pressing for a confrontation with Moscow.

For Bush to praise a revolt that the United States did not support “is a very tricky thing,” Kellner observed. “For Hungarians, it could be seen as unintentional cynicism.” …

“There is a contradiction here,” said Tibor Varady, a Budapest lawyer who helped organize protests Thursday while Bush was speaking. “The revolution in 1956 ended with occupation by the Soviets. The problem is today George Bush stands for occupation. He has not represented freedom.”
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World War II and Iraq: Polls Apart? By Al Kamen

White House press secretary Tony Snow , on CNN’s “Late Edition” on Sunday, said: “The president understands peoples’ impatience — not impatience, but how a war can wear on a nation. He understands that. If somebody had taken a poll in the Battle of the Bulge, I dare say people would have said, ‘Wow, my goodness, what are we doing here?’ But you cannot conduct a war based on polls.”

In fact, there was a poll taken by Gallup from Dec. 31, 1944, to Jan. 4, 1945 — three years into that war and right in the middle of the bloody Battle of the Bulge, where U.S. casualties were estimated between 70,000 and 80,000. It found that 73 percent of Americans would refuse to make peace with Adolf Hitler if he offered it and that 86 percent of Americans thought there was no chance that we would lose the war in Europe.

Burn, Baby, Burn

Alter: Flag Burning Ban is a Bad Idea By Jonathan Alter. Newsweek

Our understandable outrage at flag burning shouldn’t turn our brains to mush. “I feel the same sense of outrage, but I would not amend that great shield of democracy [the Constitution] to hammer a few miscreants,” Colin Powell said when the issue last came up (his position has not changed). “The flag will be flying proudly long after they have slunk away.” Powell argues that a constitutional ban on flag burning is a sign of weakness and fear. Note: The other countries that have banned flag burning include Cuba, China, Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. …

Actually, even during the Vietnam War, flag burning was rare. By one count, there have been only 45 such incidents in 200 years, and fewer than half a dozen since it was outlawed in 1989. Should the Constitution be amended, however, the incidence of flag burning is expected to surge as a form of civil disobedience. What began as a phony issue designed to prove patriotism (usually on the part of those who never served, the primary sponsors) could become a real concern. …

Banning flag burning, in the words of Justice Antonin Scalia, “dilutes the very freedom that makes this emblem so revered.” …

Democrats mostly oppose the amendment. But at last count, 13 will support it: Max Baucus of Montana, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Dianne Feinstein of California, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Bill Nelson of Florida, Harry Reid of Nevada, Ken Salazar of Colorado, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. Bob Menendez [of New Jersey] is on the fence and leaning toward supporting the amendment. [mjh: I'm stunned Feinstein is for this constitutional amendment.]

John Prine – Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Lyrics — John Prine

But, you flag decal won’t get you
Into Heaven anymore.
They’re already overcrowded
From your dirty little war
Now Jesus don’t like Killin’
No matter what the reasons for.
And your flag decal won’t get you into Heaven anymore.