Without Feathers

This may not fit your narrative of death and despair, but it is good news regardless of how much you hate/hated George Bush.

(from The Economist website)

“LOCAL elections can often pass unnoticed by the world beyond. But Iraq’s provincial elections on Saturday January 31st are of greater importance than most. The polls are a first test of strength for Iraq’s political factions since a flawed vote in 2005 and should also give some guide to a general election that is due before the end of the year. If the polls on Saturday attract a decent turnout and pass off fairly and peacefully, Iraq will have taken a big step towards becoming a functioning democracy. But much could go badly.”

The major “flaw” in the 2005 elections, by the way, was not that the process was noticeably corrupt or incompetent but that Sunnis Arabs boycotted the balloting.

I just didn’t want to comment upon until we were done with Geek-o-Rama.  Simon believes that AI will “find someone truly great this year.”  But he says something along those lines every year.  Next week we should begin to get some inkling of what the competition will really look like.  Apparently this year there will be 36 semi-finalists instead of 24, and there will also be a “wild-card” round.  Well, OK, anything to shake up an aging formula.

Unusually this year I am willing to go out on a limb and pick my personal favorite very early in the process.  I predict that Casey Carlson will go all the way…er, I mean, will be in the finals.  I missed her audition, but I heard she can sing.

I wasn’t thinking what you’re thinking I was thinking.  I was just thinking that she has that “x-factor” that Simon is always talking about.

I am really of two (possibly three) minds on this one.  On the one hand, I firmly believe that there should be no arbitrary restrictions on otherwise legal activity.  On the other hand: What the hell is the government doing paying for abortions anyway? 

Is there a Constitutional right to abortion that must be protected at all costs?  No, there isn’t — don’t quote Roe v Wade to me which decided only the rather narrow issue of state governments intervening to impede lawful activity.  For better or worse, you have a legal right to an abortion in this country.  However, it is not apparent (to me, anyway) that you have a right to make me pay for it.

So how should a simple conservative boy, such as myself, view this?  A victory for liberty or a defeat in the struggle against pervasively paternalistic government?  I’m leaning towards the latter.

Oh wait, my mistake.  This is an entirely different matter altogether.  This is not about some Americans paying for abortions for other Americans.  This is about American taxpayers paying for abortions for people in other countries.  Foolish me.  There’s no civil liberty issue in this at all.  It’s all about sending my money out of the United States to support (admittedly legal) activity that a substantial portion of my fellow U.S. citizens find morally reprehensible.

I’m going to give the President the benefit of the doubt on this one, not just because I said I would give him the benefit of the doubt for his first 100 days, but also because this is, in principal, a genuine moral dilemma for me — except the part about sending the money to other countries, but that too, for better or worse, has been deemed legal by our very own Congress.  Have I mentioned today how much I loathe most of the members of the current Congress (but not the Congress itself)?

I’ve been hearing for the last seven and a half years that President George W. Bush “banned” human Embryonic Stem Cell (hESC — the preferred abbreviation) research late in 2001.  Now I find this article from Reuters reporting on “the world’s first study of human embryonic stem cell therapy[.]“  How could that have happened if Bush had banned it?  Well, as it turns out, everyone who’s been saying that Bush banned hESC research has been — how can I put this diplomatically — um, lying.  That’s a damn lot of liars — no, I’m not giving anyone (Except President Obama, to whom I pledged to give) the benefit of the doubt on this one.  Anyone who said that President Bush banned hESC research is a damned liar.

In any event, this is good news and should be hailed as such — I just wish that Reuters hadn’t gone and spoiled my good mood by taking one more dig at W with this little bit of dishonesty: “Former President George W. Bush had been at odds with Congress, researchers and advocates for years over the issue and by executive order restricted federal funding of work involving human embryonic stem cells.”  No, he didn’t restrict federal funding by executive order. 

What he did, by executive order, was lift the total ban on federal funding put in place by President William Jefferson Clinton in 1998.  It was Bill Clinton who stood athwart science and said NO, nada, not one cent of federal money to go to hESC. Clinton’s stated reason: The Dickey ammendment prohibited it.But President Bush thought otherwise and found that funding could be offered, albeit, with limitations on what hESC material could be used. 

Restrictions, you say?  Limitations? How can science function in the straight-jacket of restrictions on funding?  Well, as a matter of fact, not one penny of federal science funds is dispersed without cables attached to it, let alone strings. 

That’s just the way federal funding works: You want federal dough?  You toe the federal line.  Ever has it been such and ever shall it be.  Don’t believe me?  If Bush was able to impose restrictions with the flourish of a pen on an executive order; Why can’t The One simply undo that restriction with just another flourish?  The reason: Because, as you well know, Bush didn’t impose restrictions on hESC research, he loosened restrictions of federal funding on such.  And, of course, for any president, there will be a significant political price to pay with a radical change in policy on this issue.

So, how did Geron Corporation accomplish this breakthrough in the face of the overwhelming impedement of no federal funding? “Geron and some other companies have been pursuing the goal without the use of federal funds.”  That’s right: They used private money.

Believe it or not that admonition is intended not for my cousins of the blue state persuasion but for my brethern conservatives and that handful of brave souls who still adhere to the Republican banner (a white elephant lying feet up, trunk akimbo on a field of deficit red).

I am begging, pleading that my conservative chums and right-wingmen allay their partisanship through the next few days and join there adversaries in celebrating the most historic Presidential Inaugaration since the first in 1789.  Left or right, red or blue, black or white, Tuesday, January 20, 2009 will be a day for the ages.  And the oath sworn at noon today will mark a great turning point in the history of U.S. politics — if not the history of the U.S. itself.  So don’t spoil it by acting like a Democrat.

Barack Hussein Obama was elected fairly and squarely and by substantive — though not landslide — majorities in both the popular and Electoral College votes cast by the largest voter turnout in history.  For those who are not taking my point, let me more direct: Barack Hussein Obama is our duly elected President, the head of the Executive Branch of our government, and “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States” (so, please Will Smith and Oprah, stop refering to him as your Commander in Chief unless you have taken up a uniform of the U.S. armed forces). He is neither the pResident Select nor the Commander in Thief.  Like every other president before him (except probably JFK) he will become president legitimately and lawfully.

He will be my president as much any Democrat’s and I intend to give him a fair shot at it.  And I am asking my conservative and Republican comrades to do the same.  For the 100 days following the Inaugaration, he will have my unqualified support.  I will continue to give him the benefit of the doubt for the remainder of this year, but if he hasn’t solved all of my problems by the 2010 election, well, I will consider all Democrats indelibly tainted.

My bill of particulars is drawn in large measure from the criticism of the 43rd administration, much of which — it might surprise you to learn —  I agree with, to a degree.  But these should be no-brainers for the incoming administration:

• Put an end to the morally indefensible “Don’t ask don’t tell” policy governing the participation of homosexuals in the U.S. military. Why this is an issue is simply beyond me. Either homosexuality is such an impediment to discipline and good order that there shouldn’t be the least compunction about prohitibiting it. Or, more likely, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference as long as unsolicited sexual advances are strictly off limits. In either case, this issue could and should be resolved with a simple and swift executive order.
• Close the Gitmo detention center – don’t just order it closed; don’t just lament its existence; close it.  Personally, I have always believed that it was a lousy response to a lousy situation, regardless of how bad the detainees are or were — and they were.
• Bring the troops home — don’t send them to the sinkhole of Afghanistan.  That war was lost the moment the Bush administration decided to engage in nation building.  Focusing on Iraq has had nothing to do with the failure of Afghanistan.  The misbegotten Afgan adventure — I mean beyond the routing of the Taleban — was doomed from the start no matter how many lives and how much treasure we squander on it.  Afghanistan, as a country, never existed before the 20th century and it never will.  The recipe for success there? Let it simmer in its own juices; bomb from time to time as necessary to remind them that there are consequences to bad behavior.
• Cure Parkinson’s, Cancer and AIDS. You can do it now that science will once again be unfettered and solidly on the public dole.  I don’t remember who, exactly, but I remember someone saying during the 2004 Democrat convention that “Christopher Reeves would be walking by [then] if Al Gore [had been] elected in 2000.”  Well, maybe not, but I’m expecting miracles from the scientific community now that there will no longer be restrictions on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research.  I expect Obama to reverse the Bush administration and return to the Clinton policy on hESC more or less immediately…er, um…maybe not the Clinton policy of no funding regardless of restrictions, but, you know, the policy Al Gore maybe, might have implemented had he been elected in 2000.
• End Gobal Warming! Well, the man-made part of it anyway.  The solar and geophysical trends of the last 20,000 years will just have to work themselves out.  Hopefully, once petroleum exhaust and cow farts are under control, all the other warming that’s been going on remorselessly since the last ice age will kind of work itself out, or won’t matter…or something.
• Save us from economic ruin.  Why should anyone have to suffer the consequences of their own irresponsible actions?
• If you can’t give us all free health care, at least make someone else pay for it, just like the Europeans and Canadians who get all the health care they can handle without ever seeing what percentage of their tax bill goes to “free” medicine.
• And while we’re on the subject of Europeans: Can we please let them pay a little more for their own defense?  I mean, does it seem right to you that these people should be forced to ally themselves with a corrupt empire like the U.S. just to keep the ayatollahs and Russians at bay? Think how much better they will feel about themselves if we just let them take care of their own security problems.

The list could go on, of course, but I’ll settle for just that little to-do list.  I would, however, like to remind the incoming administration of something that should not be overlooked:

Al-Qaeda is determined to attack inside the United States.  They might use airplanes or truck bombs or suicide bombers.  They might highjack airplanes and hold the passengers hostage or they might crash the airplanes into buildings or into other airplanes or for find some other nefarious purpose.

They might use the truck bombs against public or private buildings or just explode them in public places with a lot of people around.  They might do something similar with suicide bombers.  Or they might place cell phone triggered bombs on commuter trains or in hotel lobbies.  They might have guys with machine guns, hand grenades and satchel bombs attack airports, hotels and restaurants.

I don’t know how I can be more specific than this — I mean I’ve just detailed several scenarios that must surely be on AQ’s drawing board right now.  And anyone can imagine this happening at any time.  So President Obama, if any of this happens on your watch: It’s on you buddy — just like Bush is saddled with 9/11.