Wampum

Tariq Aziz and Rehman Malik have been meeting for months, negociating on behalf of their principals. Yesterday their principals, President and General Pervez Musharraf and former Prime Minister and leader of the PPP, Benazir Bhutto, flew from Islamabad and London, respectively, to meet in Abu Dhabi yesterday. The meeting was unannounced and follows eight years of extreme hostility between them.

I expect a Constitutional amendment to change the current two-term limit to three, and Musharraf to surrender command of the Army, contemporanious with Bhutto's return from exile and standing as the PPP's candidate for President, with the actual intent to be re-appointed as Prime Minister under the (less unitary executive) third-term Musharraf presidency.

Posted by EBW at 09:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Mel Watt (NC-12) offered an amendment to H.R. 3002 that restricts the Cherokee Nation (of Oklahoma) from access to funds authorized by H.R. 3002 until such time that the Secretary of Interior certifies to Congress that the Cherokee Nation (of Oklahoma) is in full compliance with the Treaty of 1866 and recognizes without reservation all Cherokee Freedmen and their descendants as citizens of the Cherokee Nation (of Oklahoma).

House Committee on Financial Service's (voice vote of the full committee) voted in favor of the Watt amendment. The full text of H.R. 3002, "Native American Economic Development and Infrastructure for Housing Act of 2007", is available at thomas.loc.gov.

Congressional Black Caucus 1, Chad Smith and his coterie 0, and the co-sponsor count on Diane Watson's bill has gone up from 11 to 17, with endorsements by the NAACP and the National Congress of Black Women.

Posted by EBW at 06:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Carville still gets gigs.

Adam Cote is the only Democratic candidate with the experience in Iraq necessary to keep our battleground district in Democratic hands and lead Congress to a solution on the issue.

Restated, only a guy with a penis, the necessary qualification for a Combat Arms assignment, and then only one dumb enough to have volunteered for the Romance with Colonial Cordite, chasing non-existant WMDs rather than do his tours facing the former, now re-arming Russian Federation, or nuclear-capable North Korea, can beat one of this cycle's sacrificial Republicans we can't actually name off the tops of our heads. Charlie Summers and Dean Scontras.

Adam served in both Bosnia and Iraq and knows that a peaceful outcome in Iraq will require a political, rather than military, solution that separates the warring factions throughout the country, much like the Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia.

Restated, the rest of the candidates, most of whom we know personally (Chellie, Mark, Michael, Jill and even (urk!) Ethan) don't know that peace in Iraq, a country of 20 million with the third highest average literacy and education levels in the Middle East, after Israel and Lebanon, can't, let alone shouldn't, be obtained by force by 300,000 armed foreigners, half of whom are mercenaries, with a logistical tail that streaches half way around the world.

Adam has the leadership experience to win in 2008 and to help Congress move forward with positive solutions to the situation in Iraq and to the problems facing all Americans.

Restated, prior campaign experience, winning and losing, Maine legislative districts and state-wide, is not as important as ordering around a platoon from Maine's 133rd Engineer Battalion, who were "repurposed", like the crews from Pease AFB, to gun truck and transport truck duty on runs up and down Main Supply Route Tampa, with little more than ballistic glass and hobo armor, and the threat of being on charges like the 343rd Quartermaster Company if they blinked at the dumbest bit of "leadership".

In Chris Miller's primary challenge to incumbent John Baldacci, we messaged Dems that the primary did matter -- that Chris would order the Maine Guard (and violence and social promotion happy morons like Cote) out of Iraq. Cote has the converse problem -- to convince Dems that the general election that won't matter should determine their choice in the primary.

The full idiocy is in the extended area. But the full import of "war to liberate women" is that (a) it doesn't work "over there", and (b) it just means we get a crop of shoot'em upers of the brown skinned in the banana republics, the next-gen of the VFW crowd, cluttering up retail politics "over here", and driving out women who just may not think the fundamental security interests of one third of North Americans is well defined by doing high-tech drive-by shoot-ups south of Mexico or east of the Azores.

by: Mainers for Adam
Fri Jul 20, 2007 at 09:17:50 AM EDT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Portland, ME — In a recent survey, the research and polling organization Democracy Corps identified Maine's First Congressional District as one of the “seats most likely to be in play in 2008." Democracy Corps, led by Democratic strategists James Carville and Stan Greenberg, is an independent, non-profit organization devoted to protecting government accountability.

Carville and Greenberg explain that battleground districts hinge on the issue of Iraq, and that Democrats will need strong leaders on the issue in order to win. "Make no mistake, Iraq is central to the changing battlefield," they declare. "Some conclude, wrongly, [that Democrats should] step back from Iraq and focus on other issues." Instead, Democracy Corps concludes that "Democrats should remain on the offensive with bursts of engagement on Iraq," noting that "the Iraq debate and engagement has helped Democrats, particularly in the suburban Republican districts"

Adam Cote is the only Democratic candidate with the experience in Iraq necessary to keep our battleground district in Democratic hands and lead Congress to a solution on the issue. Adam served in both Bosnia and Iraq and knows that a peaceful outcome in Iraq will require a political, rather than military, solution that separates the warring factions throughout the country, much like the Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia. Adam has the leadership experience to win in 2008 and to help Congress move forward with positive solutions to the situation in Iraq and to the problems facing all Americans.

Posted by EBW at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This was taken today at Nahr Al-Bared, where the "Lebanese Army" was using 155mm artillery this morning.

Recall, the "hot pursuit" of Fatah Al-Islam for a botched bank robbery in Beruit, and some 200 nominal "fighters". At least 31,000 people lost their homes, and between the attackers and defenders, the KIA total is closer to 500 than zero.

Posted by EBW at 08:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

MB had a live feed from the House Judiciary on while I was washing dishes this morning. At first I was irritated with listening to paint dry, after all, I get enough "news" to not care very much what doesn't happen in Washington each day -- 15 seconds glancing at two ag blogs will suffice tomorrow for today's non-events.

But through the suds and sponging off and rinsing the dishes I started listening. Each roll call. What was the amendment being voted? Are they actually ... ? I was listening by the time the final vote was taken.

I remember Watergate.

Three hours later this lands in my inbox:

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:

HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE ISSUES CONTEMPT CITATION FOR WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF JOSH BOLTEN AND PRESIDENT BUSH'S FORMER LEGAL COUNSEL HARRIET MIERS

I heard it happen. Just like it was July 27th, 1974, when the House Judiciary Committee voted 27 to 11 to recommend the first article of impeachment against President Nixon: obstruction of justice. The second (abuse of power) and third (contempt of Congress) articles were passed on July 29, 1974 and July 30, 1974 respectively. Only the date is July 25th, 2007.

Posted by EBW at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Marcy sent me a reminder of Randall Luthi's appointment as head of Minerals Management Services, but I've been too lazy to post about (I actually heard rumors of it last week.) Maybe ambivilent is a better word. It's clear that this Administration has absolutely no shame. Luthi is a complete clone of former MMS head Johnnie Burton, and a top Wyoming GOPer to boot. Should we be surprised at all that he served with Tom Sansonetti in the Reagan-Bush I Interior Solicitor's office?

POGO has more, and maybe I'll de-funk enough to expound more on the subject later today.

Posted by MB Williams at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From the Hill (via Indianz.com)

Former Sen. Campbell pays law firm $20,000
By Mike Soraghan
July 24, 2007

Former Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.) paid his law firm more than $20,000 after his ex-chief of staff Ginnie Kontnik pleaded guilty in connection with a kickback investigation.

According to campaign finance records, Campbell paid $21,257 on May 11 to Patton Boggs, the firm he retained after the Department of Justice began investigating allegations that Kontnik overpaid a Campbell staffer and demanded $2,000 back for herself.

Campbell's payment came out of unspent campaign funds. He'd already paid more than $150,000 to the firm.

Indianz added a line not in the original article: "Campbell retired in March 2004."

For those who need a bit of reminding of the events of late winter, 2004, at the time, Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO) was the chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. During the last week of February, the Washington Post did its big expose on Jack Abramoff and his tribal clients. Abramoff was a long-term foe of John McCain, viewed by many as having been, with friend Grover Norquist, behind the dirty anti-McCain campaign in the 2000 South Carolina GOP primary. McCain is nothing if not a man of vengance: On Thursday, February 26, Senator John McCain, member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee (but not, yet, the Chairman), announced that he would hold hearings on Abramoff and his cronies. That evening, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, checked himself into a Washington hospital with chest pains. Turned out to be heartburn. But it didn't stop him from deciding, only a month after his splashy kickoff to his re-election campaign, to retire from the Senate due to "health concerns." It also didn't stop Campbell from picking up a very lucrative gig with the big lobbying firm, Holland and Knight.

Campbell's connections to indicted and soon-to-be sentenced CREA executive director Italia Federici are very clear, though seldom discussed. Campbell was on the board of her other GOP project in Colorado, promoting private funding of the Arts. I've always suspected his was one of the two names redacted as attendees for a party for Gale Norton in an email between Federici and Abramoff in March, 2001, a party Abramoff also attended.

Campbell still may need his high paid Patton Boggs attorneys, so he better make sure his balance is current.

Posted by MB Williams at 09:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

There was no one else at the 2pm screening of Ratatouille, so we could have brought Jonah and let him have the run of the room, but instead it was just the Birthday Girl, Sam, Gracie and I, with Jonah and MB doing cake acquisition duty someplace where A/C was optional.

Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head made a delightful couple, and Jonah and Kezzie were very happy. As Jonah was in on the secret, for the hour or so before pizza and presents, he was asking me for "Mashed Potatoes" again and again. Not only were there the usual Potato Head elements, there was a Pyrate Potatoe Heade kit too, and a few minutes after unwrap Kezzie and Mrs. PH were in one corner, and Jonah and Mr. PH were in another, happy with their respective tot tuber toys.

Who knew that Potatos preyed upon unfortunate vessels in the Spanish Main?

Hedwig also came to live with our birds, so now we've our first owl.

Posted by EBW at 01:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A few weeks ago, when the Agura fire put South Lake Tahoe at risk, I mentioned to MB that Charlie Brown's CM should be prepared for a snap election, not just a leasurely stroll up to an uncontested 06/08 primary and a run against an electoral corpse in 11/08, in a 10+ margin red district.

Mike Holmes just announced an exploratory committee for another run. He lost a primary challenge against John Doolittle in the last cycle by a 1 to 2 margin. He positioned himself as the "ethically sound Republican" in yesterday's presser in Sacramento.

Eric Egland hasn't announced, but he'd be an idiot to pass up the chance that there will be a snap election and Doolittle's name won't be on the primary ballot. He's not a "political newcomer", but he is a talking head who hasn't (yet) done doors.

The day Doolittle is indicted, Charlie Brown will need CA-04 money, CDP money, netroots money, DTRIP money, Indian money, Democratic primary national campaign(s) monies, and DNC money, because (a) its 10+ red, and (b) it will fall before the rest of the calendar, and (c) if Maj. Egland (R-Freeper) beats the councilman from a town of 12,500 that lives on Gold Rush ephemera and the last Denny's before chains-manditory on I-80 in the Republican primary, it will be a referendum on the Iraq War, and (d) if not (c), then it will be a referendum on "clean" Republicans vs " clean" Democrats,

With Bush polling at 25%, losing a race that only has a 10+ red margin, for whatever reason, before the '08 cycle's general calendar, would really sting. It would be like losing the Hackett race again.

Posted by EBW at 10:49 PM | Permalink

Movement: Dodd, Edwards, Gravel, Kucinich, and Richardson

Waiting: Biden, Clinton and Obama

Not too surprisingly, the standard narrative is that our choices are limited to Waiting or Waiting.

Posted by EBW at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Over at Susie Madrak's place, I wrote in comments last week:

MBW Says: July 18th, 2007 at 12:22 pm

I was thinking one or more of the trio would die (including Harry) until Universal announced in June that it was pouring billions into a Hogwarts theme park. There's no way they'd agree to that without knowing the ending, which, clearly has to be a happy one for millions of fans to want to visit such a place.

Hagrid will die, as will Snape, Voldemort, and one or more of the Weasleys (Ginny, Percy or the Twins are my bets.) Possibly Wormtail (saving Harry to pay his debt) and Lupin.

Rowling was once asked which five she'd invite for dinner, and after mentioning the Trio, she asked if she could invite dead characters. I think she's always planned on the Trio to live.

Now, I'm not writing spoilers here. In comments, feel free to post your pre-release predictions.

And, yes, I've now finished (as has Eric - Grace has about 100 pages left.)

As a post-modernist historian/post-processualist enthnohistorian-archaeologist, I began to view the whole series from what many might view as a rather different perspective, beginning in about the fourth book. Five and six cemented that view, and eight, well, we'll talk about that soon enough...

Posted by MB Williams at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Four years ago this week a group of Rhode Island State Police executed a Rhode Island warrant on the premises of a Narragansett Tribal business. The RISP force inflicted injuries upon the person of the elected executive and seven members of the Narragansett Tribe. The order for the raid was issued by Rhode Island Governor Don Carcieri.

You may not remember this, but we do, and Joe Trippi does, as does Dr. Howard Dean, former governor and leading presidential candidate at this point in the previous cycle ("the Sleepless Summer", replacing Senator Joe Lieberman, then a Democrat, as the candidate to beat), and now Chairperson of the Democratic National Committee.

This is were the bones are ... Inyo County v. Bishop Paiute Tribe.

Can States physically seize documents from Tribal government offices under some "evidence" claim arising in a State court action? It is a question everyone in Maine knows, and we know the answer too, where the tribes are jurisdictionally mere townships of the State. We posed the general question, and failing to elicit the required response, we set out to ... ensure that authors of the wrong response did not advance.

Today the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Carcieri v. Kempthorne, joining the 8th Circuit, the 10 Circuit, and the 2nd Circuit on a fundamental test of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.

Narragansett 1, Rhode Island 0.

You have to wonder if all those DNC Dems who are lining up behind the junior Senator from New York and her constituent pleasing stands against Native land claims in that state are as full of themselves as the Deaniacs of the Sleepless Summer, right up to the post-Iowa nails in their campaign's coffin in Oklahoma, Washington, and New Mexico, or if they are taking their "inevitability" to novel heights.

Making nice to some Nevada Chiefs last week doesn't really offset most of a decade of making ugly to all Native land claims.

Posted by EBW at 02:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The IHT is running copy by Anne Nivat, a french journalist who spent two weeks in Iraq. Ms. Nivat doesn't mention Riverbend, and her writing isn't as good, but it is in the OpEd section of a major daily.

I hope Riverbend and E and the aunts and cousins are safe. I wish Dennis and others would stop going on how they'd fix Iraq, since there can't be an "out now" until "conditions improve", and January 20th, 2009 may come and go without an substantive "improvement in conditions", but there could be bills to appropriate money for the needs of two million refugees moving to the floor today.

Friday the Danish government disclosed they'd just secretly evacuated all 80 Iraqi interpreters and their families, a total of 200 Iraqi nationals -- note well that Denmark has the most restrictive immigration policy of any of the EU states. The policy of evacuation to Denmark with immigrant status was announced as a humanitarian duty of the Danish state owed the Iraqi employees of the Danish Army in Iraq. Only the extreme right wing political party was opposed, and the Danish Army will exit Iraq in 30 days.

Posted by EBW at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The libros en español section at Wal-Mart in Visalia is smaller than the same section at Borders in Santa Fe, but the odd thing about the Borders in Santa Fe, is that you can't find anyone speaking Spanish in the store, and other than myself, in the half-dozen-plus visits that Sam (dino lit reviewer) and Jonah (DVDs and chocolate cookie reviewer) and Gracie (waiting-for-Potter alternatives reviewer) and Kezzie (picture book and pre-literary Potter ephemera reviewer) inflicted upon me, I never saw anyone browse there either. Other than me, and I don't count, being a mathematician, meaningfully beyond "0" and "1".

There are no shortages of browsers of libros en español at Wal-Mart in Visalia, and that was where we bought v7. Just two years ago we bought v5 at a Wal-Mart in the Upper Peninsula.

We're reading one text in turns. Grace pulls ahead with a 10 chapter start (car time going to the Big Trees), and MB and I swap the book between kitchen turns, picking up a chapter each, having done most of the first chapter while waiting for our turn on the one-lane section of highway that drops down a mountain side.

I read v1-v5 while walking behind Jonah and his blue pony tricycle on the trails and roads of the camps we stayed at two summers ago in the Upper Peninsula. Not too long ago Jonah mentioned his blue pony tricycle, lost since last August, on our return trip to the U.P. to write the now "historic" campaign plan for DraftGore 2008 PAC. Jonah's memory for places was established on that return trip when we got to Black River, and he took off like a shot at the first opportunity to run down the remembered path to cross the remembered bridge over the remembered river and climb up the remembered hill to the remembered forest and on to the remembered lunch spot on the banks of the Black River a mile up the harbor footbridge.

Yesterday we got to Big Trees after taking the twistiest roads, we made more turns in a few hours than a year's worth driving in Maine. Jonah was more interested in rock hopping and hanging on the split rails that protect the shallow roots of the Sequoia trees from foot traffic than he was in the wicked big trees, but eventually I cornered his chin and forced him to look up at the largest living thing on earth and whispered in his ear "big big tree". Later that day when I asked him what we did he said "big b... big b... big big tree", which is the first time I've ever gotten an answer, a narrative of experience remembered.

Jonah likes the Potter films, and he's singing a mean Beatles accompaniment, and were it not for Michael Bérubé's review of HP and his son as an HP reader, I'd never have picked up v1, then v2, then v3, ...

Posted by EBW at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Madame Pratibha Devisingh Patil (attorney) replaces Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam (missile engineer) as President of India.

Posted by EBW at 02:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Le Monde reports today that the Parliamentary Report (UK) released today on the maritime border incident of last March is substantially in agreement with the material I and others posted then. The HMS Cornwall was in Iranian waters, Blair was lying or negligently uninformed, and the process could have been shortened by a week if London had used their heads and talked with the Tehran.

There was only about two of us, Craig Murry and myself, at the time who were posting on the substantive issue. Anyway, the other shoe finally dropped.

Posted by EBW at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

BIA Regional Director Jeanette Hanna wrote to Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith that the Region "... has recommended approval of the vote on removal of Secretarial oversight."

For those not watching closely, this means Regional Director Hanna does not see any Federal issue in an election for Principal Chief, under the Principal Chiefs Act of 1970, which did not contain a substantive issue until after the absentee ballots had been sent via US Mail to a substantial number of actual voters (more than one third of the actual votes cast were absentee), necessitating a second ballot precipitously close to the date of the election, in the larger context of a substantial number of voters having been unconstitutionally (Cherokee Constitutions of 1839 and 1975), and illegally (Principal Chiefs Act of 1970) having been disenfranchised, then reenfranchised, and some number of them only allowed to vote by polling-place challange and disenfranchised in fact (mandatory absentee ballot requirements).

This election is the "hanging chad" of Federal/RNC/Abramoff/gaming elections in Indian Country, and each time the Administration fails to exercise the oversight authority, Congressional action on the RNC/Abramoff/gaming corruption becomes less and less avoidable.

Chad Smith may think he's going to go down in Indian History as the Chief who ended Plenary Powers, but I don't know of anyone who really shares his vision and is willing to put their tribal interests (other than Chad's faction on the CNO Tribal Council) in front of Congress.

The Congressional Black Caucus is not as good as many would like it to be, but its likely to be good enough to hang Chad.

Posted by EBW at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today was a court and travel day, so this is half-a-day-old "news". Red Player holds a presser. This is as big an Intel delta as you or I can get for less than a dollar. Click and read.

Posted by EBW at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today was a court and travel day, so this is half-a-day-old "news". Lawyers beat Army one nill in the playoffs today. The net is that Musharaff have to figure out an alternative to standing (legally) for re-election in the next general election.

Coup or exile?

Posted by EBW at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Since the US press is chock-a-block with AQinPAK noise, for the usual indiscriminate value of AK and PAK, I thought it would be useful to post this snippit from Dawn's coverage of the persistent armed friction between the periphery and the center of the always problematic Pakistani (or Punjabi) Military State.

Militants have intensified attacks on the security forces since a local Taliban Shura announced last week that it had scrapped a peace agreement with the government.

As attacks on security forces mount in the troubled region, the government has convened a 45-member inter-tribal jirga in Peshawar on Thursday to launch a fresh bid to revive the now defunct September 5 [2006] peace agreement in North Waziristan.

Fata Additional Chief Secretary Javed Iqbal said that he was confident that negotiations would help revive the 10-month-old peace agreement.

"It is in the collective interest of us all. It is in their (tribal people's) interest and it is in our interest. Tribesmen are very pragmatic people and I am confident they will return to negotiations," he said.

The militants said they would not revive the peace agreement unless the government withdrew troops from checkpoints and stop military operations.

However, just as "Homeland Security" threat levels must rise when the domestic political tides of the RNC fall, AQ is now the proud owner of some (or all, depending on which paper and pundit are taken as gospelkoranic truth) of PAK.

Posted by EBW at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On my way to court yesterday NPR ran a story about a nuclear (non-native, non-african, non-{east, south, west}-asian) family which spent the past year not buying anything made in China. It was slightly enlightening to learn that most drip coffee makers and blenders sold in the US are made in China, we don't use either as we're off-grid, and her family's "adaptations" to avoid replacing each sounded odd, childish.

We avoid all food products which contain gluten, when shopping for Sam, and that provides us with a "unique multi-year consumer shopping story", and as gluten makes Sam ill, not a made up one. But the NPR story was a made up story. A "Nothing from China" preference isn't a personal necessity, and it isn't an academic necessity.

What could motivate such behavior?
Why would NPR give it air-time?

To find out, read Zuky's Food, Racism, Capitalism.

Posted by EBW at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

This went by on Courtney Sieloff's "jobsthatareleft" mailing list today. Courtney takes job postings for good jobs, and for bad jobs. This is one of the latter. To hold it, you'll need to hold your nose and ignore the possibility that the candidate is ... well ... a better Republican (lower taxes for owners) than he is a Democrat, and a midget in Maine's ranks of public servants, coming in below the knees of Chellie Pingree and Mike Brennan, both of whom are running -- as Democrats -- for Maine's 1st Congressional District, and will both be around when the polls open next June.

US Congressional campaign in Maine seeks an experienced and innovative Finance Director to lead the finance and fundraising teams.

The Finance Director will be responsible for creating and implementing the finance plan, planning and executing call time, direct mail and fundraising events.

Applicants must have excellent communication skills and be able to balance and prioritize multiple projects.

Our finance director will be well organized, computer savvy, and can handle fast-paced working environment.

This position is a full-time, on-the-ground position. The position opens August/September based on search. Salary is commensurate with experience.

Please send cover letter and resume to corey@ethan08. com

On the up-side, every upper-income bracket card in the rolodexes will thrill to Ethan's hokey lower-taxes-makes-jobs Demowoblican message. The down-side is that many Portlanders, regardless of income bracket, will already have an idea if Ethan's "Fighting for Portland Strimling" accomplished anything in Augusta, but the money, if not the votes, are south of Portland.

It is a fair enough piece of work for FD's who don't mind having a scatterbrained lightweight to mind during call-time, but anyone who cares about their work in the only competitive Democratic primary in Maine in several cycles could find better work for Chellie or Mike.

N.B. I attended, as the CM with a candidate for one of Portland's seats in the Maine legislature, the Portland Press Herald's candidates interview, and watched with interest Ethan slide off the table towards the conservative position on taxation, leaving Mike Brennan, my candidate, and even the one little-r Republican behind as discredited socialists on his trip to uber-libratarian unfettered management. He also left the PPH's editorial board behind, but I don't think he noticed.

Posted by EBW at 06:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today's was the third time I've made an appearance at Department 3 at the Malibu Court, in the Western Division of Los Angeles County, and I've sat through most or all of four cycles of 50 cases per half-day. These are my personal observations:

1. the inability of Mexican nationals to obtain a California driver's license causes Mexican nationals to have to pay several hundred dollars more in fines and penalties than US nationals,
   
2. the fines levied for offenses are much, much less than the total monetary cost of accepting a reasonable plea offer, every overt amount should be multiplied by three or four, without taking any other form of cost into account,
   
3. the overwhelming majority of Mexican nationals processed in any session at the Malibu Court were operating vehicles that were either not currently insured, or otherwise cited for a vehicle defect, for vehicles registered themselves or to an employer, and are plead out in one appearance,
   
4. the overwhelming majority of US nationals processed in any session at the Malibu Court were operating vehicles while under the influence, or at speed or some similar form of dangerous recklessness and their cases, between alcohol treatment progress hearings, community service hours progress hearings, run to an order of magnitude more appearances,
   

The hidden cost of penalty assessments is a policy that should also be discontinued. Each person accepting a plea should be told not just the amount of fine, but also the amount of penalty assessment, and the use of secondary fines, the penalty assessments themselves, should be discontinued. Defendants accepting plea agreements which benefit the State vastly more than it benefits the defendants should not be told the full cost of "no contest" after they have entered a plea, at the clerk's office, when this knowledge could have been provided to them before they accepted the Court's standard offer for the offense charged.

John Edwards knows about poverty and he knows about courtrooms, though perhaps not the retail criminal court side as well as the complex civil litigation side. He's doing a poverty tour this week. So have I. I hope we can compare notes some day. I'm looking at people who are working to pay fines in the company town called ... Malibu, California.

Posted by EBW at 05:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Susie emailed me the link this morning, and being three hours behind here in sunny California, I had not yet seen it. Of course the general question of which "White House official" leaked the list is always relevant too. I've only had a short time to glance over the article and list and am not surprised to see 1) the WaPo make the mistake that Gale Norton actually founded the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy with Grover Norquist (it was Italia Federici's project from the beginning - Norton was just a figurehead), and 2) that CREA had one of the earliest meetings with the task force, on February 22, 2001. The latter date, btw, was a full five months before Federici's romantic partner, Steve Griles, was confirmed as Dep. Sec. of the Interior, so it's clear Federici's pull is not a product of that relationship. In fact, I suspect that it was Federici who smoothed the way for Griles' with her old friend, Gale Norton.

I'll write up more, but this morning is busy with personal legal stuff, so all this will have to wait.

Posted by MB Williams at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Islamabad District Bar Association was engaged today with a man-packed munition 20 minutes before Chief Justice Iftikar M Chaudhry was scheduled to speak. The bomber detonated his payload underneath the speaker's dias, killing at least 10 people and wounding another 35.

The question of the moment is was the CJ the target, or was Benizer Bhutto's party, the PPP, the target. Most of the killed and wounded are PPP, but had the payload been detonated 20 minutes later, the CJ would have been a casualty.

Bhutto is the only opposition leader to have welcomed the July 11 attack on Lal Masjid and expressed unqualified support for Musharaff.

Updates as they come in.

Update: U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher: We all recognize that the agreement in North Waziristan hasn't worked, because the government doesn't have direct control., and [the U.S. will help Pakistan boost its Frontier Corps] so they become a different kind of force that's able to deal with the severe problems, but also stabilize the area.

If the Punjabi state had direct control over North Waziristan, no agreement would be necessary. As for making the FC able to deal with the severe problems (more firepower) and stabilize (less firepower), at $2bn/yr already, what does Assistant Secretary Boucher have in mind? Booster chairs?

Posted by EBW at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

via the Native American Times

As my car left the red clay hills which make up the Mississippi Choctaw reservation this past Saturday, a collective sigh of aiali (justice) and relief overtook me. It was the same feeling that was plainly visible in the expressions of many of the Mississippi Choctaw people who I had spent the last two days with. The reign of Phillip Martin and his administration composed of numerous non-Indians had ended. In its place was change and renewal. A break from the lobbyists in Washington D.C. was talked about. More jobs for Choctaw community members were expected.

To understand the effect one individual could play on the larger Choctaw Nation, most people have only to think about where the Choctaw Nation extends. The majority one talks with may remark about the Choctaw Nation being located solely in Oklahoma, while some others offer up Oklahoma and Mississippi. Very few talk of the communities outside of these areas. Of course, the communities outside of these areas don't currently own and operate gaming facilities, the seeming prerequisite for publicity these days in Indian Country.

So the question becomes who is the Choctaw Nation? The Choctaw Nation is comprised of those descendants of the Choctaw people who were dispersed following the signing of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830 and some previous migrations. These current communities cover 6 states and are comprised of eleven bands with varying degrees of interconnectedness.

The MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians are located in southwestern Alabama near the Mississippi state line. This reservation based community of approximately 3,600 tribal citizens has remained on lands held by their ancestors since the Choctaw treaties extending from 1803 to 1830. The main reservation lands are surrounded by ten smaller communities which compromise the homes of 93% of the tribal population. The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians are located in 8 communities and one additional uninhabited community (Ocean Springs) spread out across the state of Mississippi. These communities including Bok Chito, Standing Pine, Conehetta, Crystal Ridge, Bok Homa, Red Water, Pearl River and Tucker are home to over 9,000 Mississippi Choctaw Citizens. The West Tennessee Choctaw live on 172 acres of reservation land in Eastern Tennessee and are enrolled citizens of the Mississippi Choctaw. This community formed in the middle part of last century as Choctaw families moved to the area in search of employment. The Bayou Lacombe Choctaw are located not far from the Mississippi State line near Lacombe, Louisiana. This particular group was heavily studied by anthropologist David Bushnell in 1910 and again by other academics in 1953. A group of approximately 100-300 tightly knit descendants of these Choctaws studied still remains in the marginal and previously isolated lands of this Southeastern Louisiana community. South of this community lies a Choctaw related community which was devastated by the recent Hurricanes. The United Houma Nation with a population of 17,000, has continued their lives in the southern bayous of Louisiana for many generations. To the northwest, the town of Clifton, Louisiana is home to approximately 500 Choctaw Indians who are known for their basket making skills. A little further north, the Jena Band of Choctaw Indiansmake their home near Trout, Louisiana. Their population stands at around 250. On the far western side of Louisiana, near the town of Zwolle, is the Choctaw-Apache of Ebarb community. These people of mixed Choctaw, Apache and Spanish descent number nearly 2,000. Occupying 10 counties in the Southeastern Oklahoma, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma with a population approaching 200,000 is by far the largest contingent of Choctaw in the United States. Within their midst are also communities of Choctaw Freedmen who stood side by side with one another throughout the tribe's history. In California, due to relocation programs aimed at Choctaws in Oklahoma, the Okla Chahta Clan of California was formed to bring together these families which number over 20,000 individuals. Other related communities to the Choctaw include the Coushatta of Louisiana, Alabama-Coushatta of Texas and Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma.

As one can see, the Choctaw Nation, is much more diverse than what many imagine. And this diversity has caused decades of cultural sharing as well as infighting. Battles over issues of blood quantum, federal recognition, cultural & language retention, historical alliances and of course gaming, have caused lines of division not unlike those faced by communities across Indian Country. The architect of many of these divisions, Mississippi Choctaw Chief Phillip Martin watched his meteoric rise and pronouncement as an economic powerhouse crumble in recent days due to his close association with non-Indian lobbyists, politicians and anthropologists who reeked havoc on neighboring Choctaw communities by overturning federal recognition petitions and postponing land in to trust applications.

So last Friday, on the day he conceded victory to his challenger Beasley Denson, we watched the opening rounds of the annual stickball tournament across the street from the tribal complex and office where he led his tribe for 7 terms. While standing there, numerous community members approached me with outstretched hands and words of greetings and thanks in our Choctaw language. Many people in the Mississippi Choctaw & MOWA Choctaw communities, as well as numerous Indian people from various tribes across the nation, had spent a great deal of time over the past few years, advocating for the rights of the Mississippi Choctaw people and exposing the fraud committed against the MOWA Choctaw community 120 miles to the southeast who were thought to be possible competition in the gaming industry. For years, the same tactics were played against the now federally recognized Jena Band of Choctaw Indians in Louisiana. Twelve years after their federal recognition, they are just now being able to take land into trust for the purposes of economically and socially growing their community.

While Jack Abramoff, J. Steven Griles and a host of others associated with Chief Phillip Martin's administration are now serving jail terms or awaiting trial, Mr. Martin has been able to use the tribe's federal immunities to ward off investigations into his role in the matter. Of course, little of this matters now as power has been rested from his hands.

And so the stickball games ended and we headed back to our hotel room for the night in preparation for day two of the Choctaw Spirit Language & Culture Seminar, which we had been invited to speak at. The theme of the conference discussed the unification of Choctaw people. As I sat down with one of the Mississippi Choctaw's current council members and we discussed a new future for our two communities, the theme seemed only too fitting.

You see, sometimes the unification power of one man's leadership is only found ... through his absence. Chata hapia hoke.

Cedric Sunray serves as Advisor to the Chief of the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians

We've no regrets at having worked hard to replace Chad Smith and his allies in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma election last month.

Posted by EBW at 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I wrote about North Waziristan yesterday but it appears that either (a) I wrote it in my dreams, or (b) the USENET line eater bug evolved out of cyberia and manifested as a MT feature. Anyway, the gist of what I wrote was that I'd not been writing about the standoff at a mosque in Islamabad because I didn't think that situation very relevant to the question "Is Pakistan?" Compared to the questions of which political parties and leaders are allowed to contest the next election, of whether Musharaff will run again, and if so, again as head-of-army and head-of-state, of whether there is an independent judiciary, of whether Baluchistan or the Waziristans or ... even the Sind have greater or lesser access to the real centers of military and civil power in the Punjabi Military and its State, a firefight between dozens of bearded suicides and several reinforced companies of infantry, with air and armor executing some fire missions is ... well ... absurd.

In fact, it is something of a distraction from the real problems faced by the Musharaff regime within the Punjabi Military, serving to legitimate the current notion of "Pakistan" and its dominant institutions. One actor or another, whether Musharaff or Bush or Bhutto or ... will use it as a pretext.

Over the weekend the truce between Islamabad and the North Waziristan ended. The September 2006 peace agreement between center (labeled "legitimate") and periphery (labeled "Taliban") called for the removal of military checkpoints in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), which the military unilaterally imposed while conducting defense reduction operations at the Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsa (Red Mosque) in Islamabad, resulting in at least 75 KIA.

Predictably, there was a response. A military convoy traveling into North Waziristan was engaged with a vehicle-transported munition which killed 24 soldiers and the following day Taliban men distributed pamphlets in Miranshah, the main town in the tribal agency, announcing that the Shura [trans: council] had scrapped the September 2006 peace agreement with the Government. Another convoy was targeted with three vehicular-transported munitions in the Swat district, which killed 10 soldiers, and a paramilitary recruitment center in Dera Ismail Khan was engaged with yet another vehicular-transported munition, which killed 18 paramilitarys.

The net of the weekend is that the government employees and their families left the provincial capital of Miranshah Sunday, and the government radio station there went silent for want of staff.

The Chief Minister for the NWFP is trying to keep the military from treating every school, hospital and public building as targets for search-and-seize (or destroy) missions, and the district's jirga of notables, representatives of different political parties and district nazims (chiefs and sub-chiefs) criticised the provincial government for calling out the army, finding no urgency sufficient to justify the deployment of thousands of troops in Swat and Lower Dir.

Your pick for which actor(s) used the stand-off at the Lal Masjid as a pretext. The Pakistani Foreign Office went on record that it was "absurd" to suggest that the government had taken action against the Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsa administration to appease the United States, and "as far as the government of Pakistan is concerned, it has not scuttled the deal and negotiations with the tribal elders are continuing."

In other news, yesterday the charge of judicial misconduct against Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry was withdrawn. The exercise of over charging a targeted political figure, in this case the Chief Justice, is now reduced to just allegations that the Chief Justice Chaudhry abused his office for securing a government job for his son and privileges/protocol for him -- a slightly absurd charge given the nepotism of the Musharaff regime. Recall that the Constitutional issue is whether General-President Musharaff may legally exercise both the head-of-army and head-of-state authorities, and whether he may legally stand as a candidate in the next election for head-of-state. Chief Justice Chaudhry is of the view that the Constitutional answer to both questions is "no".

Posted by EBW at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The text of the decree "On Suspending the Russian Federation's Participation in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and Related International Agreements" is here (Russian) and here (English).

Every bit of mildly dangerous dumbness, from Tom Allen's vote for Syrian Sanctions to Joe Lieberman's dork on the the curent defense spending bill, adds to the dizzying complexity of what looks more and more like the world of our great-grand-parents.

How far is it to August, 1914? How about those days of diplomacy at Kennebunkport?

Posted by EBW at 09:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

H. Con.Res.21 and S.970 continue to make their way through the lower and upper houses of the Democratic majority federal legislature, along with the IED pretext ... towards eventual worst-use by the Republican Executive.

Sort of makes the point of '06 hard to recall. Thanks Joe! Another Adventure in Cordite for the AIPAC checkbook is what every Dem needs.

Posted by EBW at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We've been off-line while traveling from the Rio Grande just west of Santa Fe to a camp west of Flagstaff to a camp on Colorado River at the Parker Strip a camp just north of Point Mugu. Our Friday, Saturday, Sunday trajectory.

We stayed at the camp on the Colorado River last February, and in the intervening months, all the grasss and shrub ground cover has been replaced with red earth, similar to what is used for clay tennis courts, but not so fine. A camp worker explained that the work had been done to reduce the camp's water consumption, though there are private golf courses and camps adjacent to this state campground, in exuberant shades of green, and as a direct result, the daily surface temperature of the camp was now some 20° greater than the unimproved areas. We spoke with a family that has been using this camp for 30 years for summer access to the Colorado, back when there wasn't even pavment. They run A/C in their tents and, like us, were visibly discomforted by the 115° temps, when the temp just off the new surface was 106°.

The net effect of this particular form of water reduction -- grade and pave -- increassed the camper consumption of 30 amp and 50 amp power to 90% of the camp's operating cost, the consequence of bumping up the summer persistent daily and nightly heat by more than 10°s. Eventually, either the camp will have to be closed to infants and small children when the actual solar and ground reflected and radient heat reaches some number, unless they have access to A/C, or local first-responders will start making heat injury calls into a heat-sink.

The Snowbirds won't be bothered by the pave-and-grade, just the locals who want to go to water in the Summer, and who how have the option of costing the State a million gallons per year less in groundcover and shade tree irrigation and enjoying a substantial increase in the heat, day and night, where they play, eat, mind their kids, read books, and sleep, or going next door to the private camps that run three to five times the day rate, and which cater to the better-off drink-and-drive boaters.

N.B. The reason Arizona isn't using reclaimed water, though the operators of the golf courses and highly watered private camps adjacent are, is that it would require water quality monitoring, which red clay and pavement do not.

It is an interesting trade-off. Take a parcel the size of a school sports field with Sonoran Desert temperatures. How much cooler is the peak Summer temperature for each 100,000 gallons of water used for ground cover and shade trees? How much additional electrical power is consumed to cool some density of standard mix of travel trailers for each 1° increase in the exterior temperature? At what temperatures for what body weights are heat warnings prudent?

Posted by EBW at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday's shelling is reported to have run the entire day, and Nahr Al-Bared is reported today to be totally in ruins. Of the 30,000 people who lived there, only a few hundred remain.

Naturally, some will point out that Fatah Al-Islam, in particular its military operations earlier this year, are the root cause. Some will also point out that the PLO and its successors in interest, modernly, the Fatah vs Hamas split, are the root cause. Some will also point out that the agreement that prevents the Marionite Phalange Militia "Lebanese Army" from entering UN Refugee Camps is the root cause. Still others will point to covert support for Fatah Al-Islam, by foreign actors, a sequel to he 34 Day War, a prequel to the anticipated Summer War ...

Since 1949 American policy has been to maintain hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in UN Camps as "Refugees" from Occupied Palestine. The root cause for Fatah Al-Islam being able to conduct defensive operations, including construction of defensive fortifications, tunnels, trenches, mines, pre-positioned munitions, etc., and force combat at highly advantageous terms for the fortified defense on external forces, aka the Lebanese State ... is the perpetual existance of the "temporary camps" and the "process" that fails to progress.

The choice to run for an open seat in the US Senate for the State of New York by a non-resident in the '04 cycle, the choice to run against the Speaker of the House by a non-resident of the CA-08, the City and County of San Francisco, in the current cycle, got me to thinking about whether races that are in fact national in character, on national policy issues, are best reserved for the highest status local car dealer or local developer or local party hack, or if these races should be contested, not on two competing car dealer's grasps of complex federal issues, but on the best and brightest candidate willing to be the candidate for a competitive campaign.

Should James Imhofe have to run on his record as a global warming denyer, or should he have to go to the voters as the alternatve, not to whoever is "next" in the OK Dem political ladder, but Dr. Jeff Masters, of Wunder Blog, if it ever occurred to Jeff to take a brain to Washington. Oklahoma has "weather".

Should Pete Dominici have to run on his record as a waste-the-Army political profiteer who's only just gotten the smallest amount of basic clue on the actual trajectory and most likely future trajectories, of the Bush Romance with Cordite in Iraq, or shoud he have to go to the voters as the alternative, not to whoever is "next" in the NM Dem political ladder, but Wes Clark, who ran in the '04 cycle Democratic primaries and caucuses, and could take a brain to Washington. New Mexico has "soldiers".

I could go on with examples, but Tom Lantos won't ever have a competitive primary challenge from the car dealers and developers and the Democratic hacks of the Peninsula south of San Francisco. The AIPAC message that what is happening today in Nahr Al-Bared and has happened in other UN Camps in Lebanon or in the Gaza, and will continue in the foreseeable future, has only superficial causes rooted in transient present, not in the decades long policy of the United States, will go unchallenged.

Which is why Carpetbaggers are worth thinking about. The DCCC uses paratroopers with nominal district residence and local support in every cycle. Perhaps we're not thinking quite outside the box enough. If Edward Said were alive and healthy, he could put Tom Lantos and AIPAC on the national agenda of the Democratic Party, and the non-Democratic Progressive Left, and we'd have a race with debates that would clarify if cluster munitions deployed agains civilians is our policy, or Republican policy, if permanent exile is our policy or Republican policy, and if control by a foreign government of the United States is our policy, or Republican policy. Professor Said died in 2003, but he's not the only person legally qualified to file papers with the FEC for the California 12th.

Posted by EBW at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

AIPAC has been running Democratic Party policy on the political alignments east of Cyprus since the time of Moses, and Nahr al-Bared [trans: "Cold River"] has been a "temporary settlement" for 31,023 registered Palestinians refugees displaced by US tax dollars at work since 1949. This is what US policy looks like today, 10 miles north of Tripoli. There were 10 UNRWA elementary/preparatory schools for 5,686 enrolled pupils. See if you can spot one.

This morning the Lebanese Army is engaging the remaining Fatah al-Islam cadres still under arms in Nahr al-Bared with artillery.

When I find a photo of the Algerian barracks that was leveled this morning by a one ton truck-mounted munition I'll post it. For the moment, a reefer truck that routinely services the Lakhdaria barracks was captured overnight or early this morning, the cargo replaced with an as-yet undefined explosive payload in the one-ton range. An 18 year old from Lakhdaria who signed up only 10 days ago with the armed organization that planned and organized the attack operated the munition transport to the detonation point, where it killed 10 and wounded another 35 Algerian Army soldiers.

The former "Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat" [trans: "Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat"]conducted the operation, and has changed its brand from the local GSPC to the apparently more popular regional franchise of a global brand -- "Al-Qaida au Maghreb".

Update: Something I missed was the Arab vs Berber dimension of the social conflict, specific to Kabylie province.

Posted by EBW at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ethan Strimling (D-Away), has been flogging the "network neutrality" hobby horse for some time now, as if it -- the abstract relationship between heavily linked sites (away) and network operators (away) and facilities-based last-mile DSL providers (away, except for Verizon and TimeWarner) -- matters more than anything else affecting telecommunications and access to data in Maine and a wicked big bit of New Hampshire and Vermont.

It makes for good bloggers are too dumb to notice rhetoric about evil (abstract and away, except for Verizon and TimeWarner) telcos and cable operators, and good (abstract and all wicked away) network property operators, all of whom are utterly dependent upon consumer privacy rip-off to make ad revenues, and we can ignore the actual MicroSoft monopoly, as well as the suburban preference demographics of last-mile DSL and cable "regulated public" franchises.

For the past five years, that is, all of Ethan Strimling's public life in Augusta, there has been a proceeding at the Maine Public Utilities Commission (ME-PUC) examining how much Verizon charges for phone service. The proceeding was brought by the Office of the Public Advocate (ME-OPA). Last month, the ME-PUC Hearing Examiner finally determined that Verizon was over-charging by about $25 million per year. He invited the parties involved to come up with suggestions on how to rectify the problem.

This is an interesting problem because if the Hearing Examiner's finding is upheld, it calls in to question the viability of the Fairpoint acquisition of Verizon Maine.

The ME-OPA and Verizon reached a deal in which Verizon is allowed to continue over-charging for telephone service, but in return for getting to keep the over-charge they would invest $12 million in the next six months to expand DSL in Maine.

Effectively, there will be a $25 million per year tax placed on phone service and the money will go to a no-bid contract with Verizon to fund their DSL expansion.

The largest ILEC in Maine (and the rest of the North East) is allowed no-cost access to capital (charges to all telephone Verizon subscribers in Maine, most of whom either pay additional charges for broadband, whether provided by a DSL operator or a cable operator, or have no interest in DSL and hence obtain no benefit from investment in Verizon's DSL infrastructure), and uses that revenue to invest in DSL infrastructure. The authority to overcharge all of Verizon subscribers in Maine arises from the Maine Legislature, the body which authorized and exercises oversight of the Maine Public Utilities Commission.

Further, because broadband data (internet) operations of Verizon are unregulated, and plain old telephone service (POTS) operations of Verizon are regulated, this is cross-subsidization of unregulated business by regulated revenues.

Finally, in case it has escaped the notice of People From Away, Verizon is not the only Incumbant Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC) in Maine, we've got a couple of Independent telephone operators, and, in spite of the best lobbying before the Republican controlled (remember Colin Powell's son) FCC that money can buy, there are still Competitive, facilities-based Local Exchange Carriers in Maine, and therefore the measure is anti-competitive.

This is where the bread is buttered, or hit with a stick of Crisco and called "buttered". This is where a candidate who will make a difference, and not a drama queen, needs to work.

Oblig disclaimer: I'm still operating data infrastructure in Maine, and I'd probably make a bit more money if the Verizon and TimeWarner and Adelphia franchises were open to competitive offers for subscriber access to data infrastructure.

Posted by EBW at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

A couple of weeks ago, I finally signed up for Google News "alerts", setting up a couple of keywords such as "Gale Norton", "Italia Federici", "Tom Sansonetti" - names I used to Google every morning, but now, if breaking news story go online for any of these individuals, an alert appears in my mailbox. I highly recommend the service.

So last night, dog tired from picking Eric up at the airport with four hot, tired kidlings, I found a link to an intriguing article from The Hill in my mailbox. It seemed that Mark Limbaugh, Interior's assistant secretary for Water and Science (and a distant cousin to pill-popping Rush,) was leaving the Administration for the Ferguson Group, a lobbying firm which counts among its clients the Friant Water Users Authority (San Joaquin Valley), King County Washington (Seattle), the Imperial Irrigation District (SoCal - largest irrigation district in the nation), the Family Farm Alliance, and Deschutes County, Oregon (borders Klamath County.)

The Hill's article focused namely on Limbaugh's most recent appointment by Secretary Dirk Kempthorne as "ethics czar", leading a "conduct accountability" board formed in the wake of the Abramoff scandal. But who is Mark Limbaugh? According to his DoI biography:

Mark A. Limbaugh is the Assistant Secretary for Water and Science for the U.S.