Now, I don’t mean to obsess with The Line, KNME’s local news analysis roundtable. Still, as one of the four people who watch and are not related to the participants, I feel a right to respond (and, there, my friends, is the force that powers most blogs).
Fellow blogger Chantal Foster was the guest participant this week. At about the same time that I founded www.edgewiseblog.com as a blog collective and host, Chantal founded the more widely viewed www.dukecityfix.com, of which I am a lapsed contributor. Chantal writes about her experience on theFix, of course.
It was interesting to hear Steve Lawrence’s somewhat pointed question to Chantal of “what can one get from a blog that one can’t get from, say, the Albuquerque Journal?” (Ignoring that the Journal itself has several blogs.) Interesting, in part, because Lawrence’s own alternative paper, Crosswinds Weekly, folded and was not particularly lamented by most of theFix’s commenters. Chantal mentioned timeliness and community dialog with diverse views. I might add that bloggers preserve links to various sources of information and opinion. Tomorrow’s Journal may not have any connection to today’s outside of the comics page. Miss a story and it sinks forever in the paper sea. Bloggers paper our houses with the little shiny bits you might have missed. We are archivists extending the life of topics beyond our own short attention spans.
What can you get from blogs that you can’t get from newspapers? Relief from whole pages of nothing but ads. More bluntly, most of us do this for free while the Journal expects you to pay to see the ads that accompany the content you can read elsewhere. (Yeah, yeah, “you get what you pay for,” etc.)
Dimdahl reminded us of the overthrow of Dan Rather in the blogosphere’s version of a Swift Boat drive-by. He may want to read the more contemporary (The Left, Online and Outraged By David Finkel).
I notice that Steve Lawrence spends too much time emulating Charlie Rose, though he’s not nearly as obnoxious. Rule one in all conversations: shut up and listen. If you can’t do that, then start a blog instead of a talk show. But Steve disdains blogs.
In a nice bit of synchronicity, a letter I wrote ended the Line. Calling me “MH” (it’s “MJH”, thank you very much) and failing to mention my own blog, Steve read a portion of my letter (leaving out the more intellectual part). I asked why no one on the panel the week before had challenged Dimdahl’s distortion of the ACLU’s position on languages other than English in the workplace. Amazingly, rather than answer why no one had anything to say — even in agreement with Dimdahl — Lawrence gave it to Dimdahl to respond. Johnny sputtered about how he wished he could speak several languages and “I don’t think I was wrong.” Strong words, indeed. I would ask Dimdahl if he really believes the ACLU supports my right to speak German at work 8 hours a day or, rather, opposes my employer claiming the right to punish me for ever using German at work. Just as my views of Dimdahl’s Rio Grande Foundation should be suspect, so, too, are Dimdahl’s views of the ACLU. More so, since no one pays me for my biases. mjh
Monthly Archives: April 2006
1,000 Shotguns in Every Room of Your House
Why do we need thousands of nuclear warheads — what are we accomplishing with them? Why do we need to ramp up production so that we have a pool of nuclear engineers capable of redesigning these weapons in 18 months and producing those new weapons in four years? This is like stashing 1000 shotguns in every room of your house and working round the clock on how to make new shotguns. Why? It took two nuclear weapons (some would say one was sufficient) to end World War II in the Pacific. It won’t take 2 to destroy Iran. What do the other 6,000 get us? mjh
U.S. Prepares to Overhaul Arsenal of Nuclear Warheads By Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writer
By the end of the year, the government plans to select the design of a new generation of nuclear warheads that would be more dependable and possibly able to be disarmed in the event they fell into terrorist hands, according to the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration.
The new warheads would be based on nuclear technology that has already been tested, which means they could be produced more than a decade from now to gradually replace at lower numbers the existing U.S. stockpile of about 6,000 warheads without additional underground testing …
The new warheads envisioned as part of the [Reliable Replacement Warhead Program] are expected to be larger and heavier than those now deployed and in reserve, which originated from the Cold War years ….
The competition between Los Alamos and Livermore replicates what happened beginning in the 1950s as each laboratory developed different nuclear warheads for the Air Force, the Navy and the Army. “The process is providing a unique opportunity to train the next generation of nuclear weapons designers and engineers,” D’Agostino said last week.
During the Cold War years, from the 1960s through the 1980s, the U.S. nuclear weapons complex constantly designed, developed, produced and tested different warheads depending on military needs, D’Agostino said. Beginning in the 1990s, as the Cold War ended and a test ban pact between the United States and the Soviet Union was reached, a decision was made to halt U.S. development of new warheads and, instead, to shift to supervising the already enormous stockpile, to make sure that those deployed were still reliable and to begin dismantling those that were no longer needed.
The notion at that time, during the administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, was that the stockpile would go through a life-extension process every 20 to 30 years. The current Bush administration’s Nuclear Posture Review changed that. Instead of just extending the life of older warheads with new but similar parts, the aim now is to make totally new components that are more robust, easier to manufacture, safer and more secure, while at the same time not requiring new underground testing.
By constantly upgrading the parts, D’Agostino said, a second goal will be accomplished. By 2030, he said, the “weapons design community that was revitalized by the RRW program will be able to adapt an existing weapon within 18 months, and design, develop and begin production of a new design within four years of a decision to enter engineering development.”
mjh’s blog — Safety does not erode
Richard Garwin, a physicist who helped design the first U.S. H-bomb, said during his UNM talk: “The Reliable Replacement Warhead is the rage this year” …
Garwin said there was also no reason to think aging weapons posed greater risks of accidental detonation.
“There’s no question of safety,” he said. “Safety does not erode.”
over my head
I was crawling around in some bright space that prevented me from standing up. A radio was playing a motivational speaker who had been breathlessly talking about facing our fears. Someone mentioned the short lives of moths and I thought “we don’t know the fate of every moth — there must be some that live longer than others and they would pass that longevity on to their descendants.” I crawled forward and found myself stuck like in a rose bush. I crawled backwards and tore myself free from this minor trap. Now I realized that I was in an area deep with dried leaves almost over my head. “Well,” I thought, “at least I came prepared,” thinking of my long sleeves and pants. As I struggled, the leaves around me settled and in front of me the upper part of a reclining body was revealed: it was the skull and upper torso of a mummified or dessicated person only shiny brown like leather or jerky. I knew I was in trouble and woke up. mjh
You’re Doing a Heckuva Job, Rummy!
General knowledge By Trudy Rubin
Retired Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold, a three-star Marine who was the top Pentagon operations officer before the invasion, wrote last week that the decision to invade Iraq “was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions – or bury the results.”
[mjh: “swagger” is what folks in Texas call “walking like a jackass”]
Bush rejects calls to replace secretary
By Tom Raum, Associated Press
Pulling rank, President Bush yesterday rebuffed recommendations from a growing number of retired generals that he replace Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. “He has my full support,” said the commander in chief.
I like David Brooks’ interpretation that Bush will never fire Rumsfeld because Bush has been involved in every misstep and can’t blame or punish Rumsfeld for mistakes Bush supported completely. mjh
Bush Speaks Out for Rumsfeld By Peter Baker and Josh White, Washington Post Staff Writers
Bush and his advisers [believe] that attacks on Rumsfeld by prominent former military commanders strike at the heart of his presidency. As Bush’s choice to run the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Rumsfeld serves as his proxy, and most of the judgments that have come under fire were shared by the president and Vice President Cheney as well. …
The defense of Rumsfeld in effect was the first act of new White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten, who took over as Andrew H. Card Jr. left the West Wing yesterday afternoon for the final time as Bush’s top aide. …
A poll of 944 troops serving in Iraq released by Zogby International and LeMoyne College did not ask about Rumsfeld but found that 72 percent think the United States should withdraw within a year and more than a quarter think it should leave immediately.
CeNeMeCoCo
God help us if CNN reports on CNM — no one will be able to follow the discussion. That is, until we all start calling it CeNeMeCoCo, or maybe CeNeMe for short. Those without pride will call it CeNeMeCaCa. mjh
ABQjournal: Goodbye, TVI; Name Change Is Effective June 2 By Olivier Uyttebrouck
Central New Mexico Community College.
Like it or not, that will be the Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute’s new name come June 2.
Board members voted 4-3 at a special meeting Wednesday to abandon the school’s 40-year-old moniker.
Faculty member Alan Pope said he has warmed up to the new name quickly.
“CNMCC. Say it a few times and it’s not so bad,” Pope said.
Poll Finds Bush Job Rating at New Low
Poll Finds Bush Job Rating at New Low By Richard Morin and Claudia Deane, Washington Post Staff Writers
Political reversals at home and continued bad news from Iraq have dragged President Bush’s standing with the public to a new low, at the same time that Republican fortunes on Capitol Hill also are deteriorating, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The survey found that 38 percent of the public approve of the job Bush is doing, down three percentage points in the past month and his worst showing in Post-ABC polling since he became president. Sixty percent disapprove of his performance.
With less than seven months remaining before the midterm elections, Bush’s political troubles already appear to be casting a long shadow over them. Barely a third of registered voters, 35 percent, approve of the way the Republican-led Congress is doing its job — the lowest level of support in nine years. …
Bush’s job approval rating has remained below 50 percent for nearly a year. Perhaps more ominous for the president, 47 percent in the latest poll say they “strongly” disapprove of Bush’s handling of the presidency — more than double the 20 percent who strongly approve. It marked the second straight month that the proportion of Americans intensely critical of the president was larger than his overall job approval rating. In comparison, the percentage who strongly disapproved of President Bill Clinton on that measure never exceeded 33 percent in Post-ABC News polls. …
[M]ore than four in 10 Americans — 45 percent — favor censuring or formally reprimanding Bush for authorizing wiretaps of telephone calls and e-mails of terrorism suspects without court permission. Two-thirds of Democrats and half of all independents, but only one in six Republicans, support censuring Bush, the poll found.
All the President’s Leaks
All the President’s Leaks By E. J. Dionne Jr.
What’s amazing about the defenses offered for President Bush in the Valerie Plame leak investigation is that they deal with absolutely everything except the central issue: Did Bush know a lot more about this case than he let on before the 2004 elections? …
In its issue of Oct. 13, 2003, Time magazine quoted Bush as saying: “Listen, I know of nobody — I don’t know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information.” Then the magazine’s writers made an observation that turns out to be prescient: “Bush,” they wrote, “seemed to emphasize those last two words as if hanging on to a legal life preserver in choppy seas.”
The key words here are classified information. Did Bush at the time he made that statement know perfectly well that Cheney and Libby were involved with the leak, but that it didn’t involve “classified information” because the president himself had authorized them to act? Talk about a legalistic defense.
Could it be that Bush — heading into what he knew would be a difficult election — was creating the impression of wanting the full story out when he already knew what most of the story was?
Which leads to another question: What exactly did Attorney General John Ashcroft know when he recused himself from the leak investigation? Did he know the investigation was getting dangerously close to Bush, Cheney, Libby and White House senior political adviser Karl Rove?