An Embarassment in Congress

What is this farce that is going on in the House of Representatives? 2,175 minutes of debate on a non-binding resolution that says little and means less? What is it's point? Who does it benefit? Why are they doing it? Is there anyone other than the most pathological Bush hater that is not thoroughly chagrined by this cheap piece of political theater?

I find it not just embarrassing, though. I find it offensive. Pelosi came to power on a wave of genuine anguish about a war that seemed to be going nowhere and to have no foreseeable end. Actually grappling with that issue is difficult, though. So they decided to use the power given them to embarrass Bush. The charade now going on in the House has no other purpose. But, like all such empty and obvious political hatchet jobs, the result is to embarrass the Congress and, to a degree at least, rehabilitate Bush.

If I am any indicator, the Democrats are doing themselves enormous damage by trivializing the public's anguish over this war.

Snow Day!

We had our first real snowfall of the winter over the last 36 hours -- about 8 inches or so -- and the City has taken the opportunity to declare a holiday. All the schools are closed of course, afraid as they must be at this point that they will end up holding the bag on their snow days for the year. And the County declared a Level 3 snow emergency, which provides everyone with a nearly ironclad excuse not to go to work. Technically, a Level 3 Emergency" means "all roadways are closed to non-emergency personnel," and "anyone caught driving during a Level 3 without a good reason might be subject to arrest."

My Minnesota relatives (to say nothing of the poor sods in the Redfield, NY) would doubtless find such a reaction to less than a foot of snow to be both preposterous and an occasion for ridicule, but I suspect they are just jealous. Be that as it may, though, the citizens of Lucas County are a law abiding bunch, and never more so than when the Sheriff tells them to take the day off.

I myself have succumbed to the temptation. I didn't stay home; the wife shooed me out of the house. But I didn't get far. I'm at a coffee shop about a mile from my house that has free hi-speed wireless and free coffee refills.

Given that this is the information age and that I work in an information business, it is not the total day off it would have been even 10 years ago. Truth be told, I can do what I do anywhere that has cell phone coverage and hi-speed internet connection. So, I have spent a couple hours actually working. But the lure of the blog has been calling, so I intend to play a little hookie between e-mails.

There is certainly enough going on!

Update: After I posted this, I went back and read more of the article linked above about Redfield, NY. This is just mind-boggling: Redfiled has gotten 12 feet of snow over the last 10 days or so. That is 144+ inches. But this year is nowhere close to a record. In 1996-97, they got a total of 420 inches. That's 35 feet, which I am pretty sure is taller than the peak of my house.

Gene Patents? Can This Possibly Be Right?

Michael Crichton, the sci-fi author who brought you such science-gone-wild pot boilers as Coma and Jurassic Park had an op-ed piece in today's NYT entitled "Patenting Life. If the article is to be believed, it is possible for compnaies, universities, etc. to obtain patents on genes. In fact, not only is it possible, Crichton claims that some 20% of the genes in human DNA have already been patented.

The fact that it is Michael Crichton writing this makes me skeptical. But if he's right, I would really like to understand what possible bases there could be for granting patents on human genes.

"An Inconvenient Truth" About Al Gore's Movie

John Tierney is fast becoming one of my favorite journalists. He's the op-ed columnist for the NY Times who represents the non-ideological pragmatist point of view. He also periodically writes a sort of "myth-buster" column called "Findings" in the "Science Times" supplement each Tuesday.

Today he takes on "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's movie and book about global warming. The hook for the piece was the fact that Al Gore was sitting beside Virgin Airlines founder Richard Branson when Branson announced that he is offering a $25 million dollar prize to anyone who can figure out how to remove a couple billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere each year. Tierney uses the prize idea as bookends between which he contrasts the hysteria of Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" with the reality of the recently released findings of the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change. Here is one example:

Whatever happens, you can stop fretting about the Gulf Stream scenario in Mr. Gore’s movie and that full-fledged Hollywood disaster film "The Day After Tomorrow." Mr. Gore’s companion book has a fold-out diagram of the Gulf Stream and warns that "some scientists are now seriously worried" about it shutting down and sending Europe into an ice age, but he must have been talking to the wrong scientists.

There wouldn’t be glaciers in the English shires even if the Gulf Stream did shut down. To understand why, you need to disregard not only the horror movies but also what you learned in grade school: that the Gulf Stream is responsible for keeping London so much warmer than New York even though England is farther north than Newfoundland.

This theory, originated by a 19th-century oceanographer, is “the earth-science equivalent of an urban legend,” in the words of Richard Seager, a climate modeler at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. He and other researchers have calculated that the Gulf Stream’s influence typically raises land temperatures in the north by only five degrees Fahrenheit, hardly enough to explain England’s mild winters, much less its lack of glaciers.

Moreover, as the Gulf Stream meanders northward, it delivers just about as much heat to the eastern United States and Canada as to Europe, so it can’t account for the difference between New York and London. Dr. Seager gives the credit to the prevailing westerly winds — and the Rocky Mountains.

When these winds out of the west hit the Rockies, they’re diverted south, bringing air from the Arctic down on New York (as in last week’s cold spell). After their southern detour, the westerlies swing back north, carrying subtropical heat toward London. This Rocky Mountain detour accounts for about half the difference between New York and London weather, according to Dr. Seager.

The other half is caused by to the simple fact that London sits on the east side of an ocean — just like Seattle, which has a much milder climate than Siberia, the parallel land across the Pacific. Since ocean water doesn’t cool as quickly as land in winter, or heat up as much in summer, the westerly winds blowing over the ocean moderate the winter and summer temperatures in both Seattle and London.

So unless the westerlies reverse direction or the Rockies crumble, London and the rest of Western Europe will remain relatively mild.

Tierney is not a global warming denier. He accepts, or at least appears to accept, the findings of the IPCC. But what I find refreshing is that he recognizes the realities as well:

The I.P.C.C. considers options for reducing greenhouse emissions, but projects that even the most radical (and politically painful) policies wouldn’t make much difference the first two or three decades. To politicians worried about the next election, especially in poor countries, 2030 sounds like eternity.

It’s always possible that something will galvanize people around the world into taking short-term pain for long-term gain. But I suspect there’s a better chance of someone claiming that $25 million prize. Whether it’s carbon-dioxide-gobbling nanobots or something else, it’d be good to have a backup plan when 2030 rolls around.

Opposing The War But Supporting The Troops?

William Arkin, a national security/military affairs blogger for the Washington Post kicked of a regular firestorm with a January 31 column taking American soldiers to task for complaining about domestic opposition to the Iraq war. After quoting three soldiers who in various ways argued that you can not oppose the war and still claim to support the troops, Arkin unloaded:

These soldiers should be grateful that the American public, which by all polls overwhelmingly disapproves of the Iraq war and the President's handling of it, do still offer their support to them, and their respect.

Through every Abu Ghraib and Haditha, through every rape and murder, the American public has indulged those in uniform, accepting that the incidents were the product of bad apples or even of some administration or command order. . . .

So, we pay the soldiers a decent wage, take care of their families, provide them with housing and medical care and vast social support systems and ship obscene amenities into the war zone for them, we support them in every possible way, and their attitude is that we should in addition roll over and play dead, defer to the military and the generals and let them fight their war, and give up our rights and responsibilities to speak up because they are above society?

That wasn't the worst part. The line that gained the most attention was this one:

[This complaining by the troops] is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary - oops sorry, volunteer - force that thinks it is doing the dirty work.

The response to this was swift and ugly and personal and overwhelming. After two more columns one attacking his critics and another defending himself and half apologizing, Arkin finally threw in the towel with an embarrassingly maudlin effort, in his words, "to make sense of the worldview of those who have responded."

There were well over 3,000 "comments" posted on the first three of these columns; yet this was just the tip of the iceberg of e-mail and blog reactions that the columns generated. The Post had finally had enough, as Arkin acknowledged in his final post:

On the advice of my editors, this is the last column I will post for awhile on this subject. My impulse would be to continue to fight back and answer the critics, but I see the wisdom in their observation that nothing new is being said here and the Internet frenzy is adding nothing to the debate or our understanding of our world. I also see that I cannot continue to write about humanity and difficult questions if indeed what I wish is to vanquish those who attack me.

But that was not quite enough. Yesterday, in a self-confessed effort to insulate the Post itself from the "Blast Damage" caused by Arkin, the Post's ombudsman published what amounted to a public rejection of its own columnist:

The fact that The Post and washingtonpost.com are interlocking yet separate is lost on most readers, who do not care that the two are miles apart physically and under different management. A great example is the recent firestorm over a column that never appeared in The Post -- but for which The Post was blamed. . . . Did one online column irreparably damage Post national security journalism? No. But it does show that an online column rubs off on the newspaper. . . .

What's the difference between opinion writing for the newspaper and for washingtonpost.com? The writing can be similar, but the editing is more intense at the newspaper. More experienced eyes see a story or a column before it goes into the paper; The Post has several levels of rigorous editing. There is "less of an editing process" for blogs at the more immediacy-oriented Web site, Brady said. . . .

Arkin's column did not meet Post standards, but then, newspaper editing isn't perfect, either. But "mercenary" surely is live ammo; such an incendiary word should have popped out in flames to Post editors.

I am not about to defend Arkin's language or the entirely unwarranted anger it seems to betray. But I do think there are a couple of important issues buried in all of this.

Is it possible to support the troops but oppose the mission? At one level, the answer is an obvious "yes." I can certainly oppose the war and yet have and manifest pride in our troops, their efforts, and how they go about the job they have been assigned. In fact, in some ways, the more important it is to me to support the troops, then the more urgently I need to oppose the war since it is the war that is killing them.

But at another level, I guess I can see what the "support the troops, support the mission" crowd means. These guys and girls have left family and friends, homes and jobs, comfort and safety and are over in a hell hole the scope of which we cannot even imagine, and they are fighting and in some cases dying. How can I say I "support" them if I also say that their sacrifices are meaningless if not reprehensible. I know if I were doing something that entailed that amount of risk and suffering I would have mixed emotions about people who claimed to be proud of me but who thought what I was doing was a crime or worse. If you want the troops to believe that you are proud of them, you almost have to tell them that what they are risking their lives for is worth it. I think it is worth it, for now at least, but that is a story for another time.

The other question Arkin raises is even more difficult and certainly more important. How does a democratic society relate to an all-volunteer army? Do soldiers who volunteered give up the right to bitch about how they are used? Do they give up the right to complain about those who don't cheer for them? Do they have any right to anything more than what they were promised as an inducement to sign up?

And, what do we civilians owe to such an army? Aren't they just the "the hired help?" Do we owe them any more (or less) respect, any greater pay, benefits and support, than we do policemen, or firemen, or any of the other people we have hired to protect us from what we see as dangerous? Do we owe these men and women the same type of support we gave the GIs in WWII?

I think the answer is no. But I'm not sure. And, if the answer is "no," I'm even less sure what the right answer is.