…He'd sit in the kitchen and cry. The first lines to a song written by Guy Clark that I first heard performed by Jerry Jeff Walker. Desperados Waiting For a Train. It seems appropriate tonight.
Music, Video | Gaius Thursday, 17 May , 2007 | 
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Mitt Romney is out ahead of the other presidential hopefuls. He has just come out as strongly opposing the illegal immigration deal that the Senate hatched.
Boston, MA - Governor Mitt Romney issued the following statement on today's U.S. Senate agreement on immigration reform:
"I strongly oppose today's bill going through the Senate. It is the wrong approach. Any legislation that allows illegal immigrants to stay in the country indefinitely, as the new 'Z-Visa' does, is a form of amnesty. That is unfair to the millions of people who have applied to legally immigrate to the U.S.
"Today's Senate agreement falls short of the actions needed to both solve our country's illegal immigration problem and also strengthen our legal immigration system. Border security and a reliable employment verification system must be our first priority."
He just won a lot of votes. On both sides of the aisle. An enormous majority of people in this country, regardless of party affiliation, who are not career politicians want the border controlled first. If that gets done, a lot of other things can be handled. But not closing the border is a deal breaker for the majority of the American public.
(Someone at the Romney campaign has a close eye on the pulse of blog commentary. They saw the wave against this agreement building early. It will be interesting to see what Fred Thompson comes out with. Incidentally, I suspect a lot of Senators are about to be in electoral difficulties - again, on both sides of the aisle.)
A television station website from Omaha, Nebraska is reporting that Bo Diddley is up and walking around the intensive care unit where he is hospitalized following a stroke. Doctors say that is a very good sign that Diddley, 78, may be able to return to performing.
OMAHA, Neb. — Bo Diddley walked around the intensive care unit at Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha on Thursday, and doctors said they were encouraged that the singer-songwriter-guitarist would be able to perform again.
The update came from his manager, Margo Lewis, four days after he suffered a stroke.
Diddley, 78, did two shows at Harrah's Horseshoe Casino on Saturday night. Lewis said she had the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer taken to the hospital by ambulance Sunday morning when he appeared disoriented at the airport.
Lewis is going to get Diddley a guitar so he can entertain fellow patients. The doctors think that would be good for him. Very good news. (Original post about Diddley's condition, with a video of a performance he gave in 1966 is here.)
A plot to assassinate Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas was discovered in time to stop it today. The industrious Hamas boys dug a tunnel under the road Abbas was supposed to travel on. Then they packed it to the top with explosives. (Isn't it interesting how these folks have all the ordnance they can use and more but live in poverty? Ever make the connection why that is?)
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) - An alleged plot by Hamas militants to assassinate Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas was revealed on Thursday as deadly factional fighting resumed in Gaza and Israeli air strikes targeted the violence-wracked territory.
The plot was claimed hours after Abbas called off a trip to Gaza for talks aimed at reaching a definitive ceasefire between fighters from his Fatah party and Hamas that has left nearly 50 people dead and 100 wounded since Sunday.
"Abu Mazen's (Abbas's) visit to Gaza was cancelled after the discovery of a tunnel under Salaheddine Road full of explosives placed by the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades to blow up (his) convoy," said a senior security official, referring to Hamas's military wing.
"The explosives were found on the route that Abu Mazen takes to travel to Gaza," the source added, speaking from the Palestinian political capital of Ramallah in the West Bank.
An official in Abbas's office confirmed the report but Abu Obeida, spokesman for the Hamas armed wing, told AFP "these reports are aimed at poisoning the atmosphere in Gaza. We deny them completely."
Since Hamas is completely populated with congenital liars, it's a bit hard to accept their denials. Meanwhile, the West continues to flounder around to find a way to blame this all on Israel. Since Israel has responded to the continued rocket attacks from Gaza, that denunciation will not be long in arriving, I'm sure.
War, World news | Gaius | Comments Off
Everything I am reading about this Senate deal to "reform" illegal immigration sounds either rosy as heck from supporters or the end of the world as we know it from opponents. Regardless of which view is accurate, the Republicans just bought a peck of trouble for themselves. The media is describing it it glowing terms (frankly, a bad sign). But any presidential candidate who comes out in favor of this is in instant trouble with a lot of people - on both sides of the political aisle.
Which part of control the border first is so hard to understand? The agreement says it controls the border, but cuts the amount of fence in half. The agreement supposedly has "triggers" that have to be met before the illegals in this country are given amnesty (which is what it is, there isn't enough lipstick in the world to disguise that). But the triggers are not being described. So are they real or are they things that can be declared good enough and let go? My guess is the latter since they are not describing them.
I have been saying all along that if - and only if - the border is controlled, then a lot of other things are possible. This agreement does not appear to fit the bill.
Immigration Reform | Gaius | Comments Off
On how the Great Pyramid of Giza was constructed. This time, it is a French architect who claims it was done using internal ramps. The problem is that the folks in charge of the pyramid itself won't allow his theory to be tested.
Now French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin has reopened this conversation with a controversial proposal that the giant tomb of the pharaoh Khufu (Cheops to the Greeks), who reigned from about 2589 B.C. to 2566 B.C., was built from the inside out with the use of internal ramps.
The theory challenges decades of archaeological thought about how the pyramid was built, and graces the cover of the current Archaeology magazine, published by the Archaeological Institute of America. But Egypt's chief archaeologist isn't impressed. "I receive a theory every day," says Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus reckoned around 2,500 years ago that 100,000 slaves worked for 20 years to achieve this near-perfection. More than 2 million stone blocks, 5.5 million tons of stone, are placed atop one another inside the pyramid, Romer says.
The Great Pyramid has long hinted at some sort of numerological secret in its construction. Its four sides, if added together by length, would equal the diameter of a circle with a radius equal to the original 481-foot height of the structure.
In Cairo last week, Hawass heard Houdin's presentation of his belief that the pyramid builders constructed a series of ascending internal ramps to lift the blocks from the ground and into place. The ramps remain inside the pyramid, detectable by sensors, Houdin says.
In May's Archaeology, Long Island University archaeologist Bob Brier outlines the conventional ideas of how workers built the pyramid:
• A massive ramp outside the pyramid led straight from a limestone quarry to the pyramid.
• Simple wooden cranes hoisted the blocks up step-by-step, removing a need for a ramp.
• A spiral ramp was built outside the pyramid.
All have problems, Brier says: Too much labor and stone would be needed for the outside ramp; there's not enough available wood for cranes; and a spiral ramp would ruin external sightlines.
Hawass has no interest in allowing the experiments that would potentially prove Houdin's theory. Which is, of course, completely wrong anyway. We here at Blue Crab Boulevard know exactly how it was actually built.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes…
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave.Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria.
(Ghostbusters, 1984)
Uh oh. Who knew that a comedy film was actually a Nostradamus-like prophecy? We got the dog and cats thing happening over in China.
BEIJING - It's a dog's life for three newborn tiger triplets in eastern China. The cubs, whom officials at the Jinan Paomaling Wild Animal World in Shandong province are so far just calling "One," "Two" and "Three," have been nursed by a dog since they were rejected by their tiger mother shortly after birth, said Paomaling manager Chen Yucai.
The trio's adoptive mother, a mixed breed farm dog called "Huani," is expected to nurse them for about a month or until their appetites outpace her supply, Chen said.
Chen said it is common for Chinese zoos to use surrogate dog mothers to nurse rejected tiger cubs and that Huani has nursed tigers before.
If your refrigerator begins talking to you, you know it's the end. There is no Gaius, only Zuul.
In yet another column that will surely elicit howls of outrage from the left, David Broder lays out the case for lowering trade barriers globally. The left, of course, has demonized Broder and would find something to screech about if he wrote a column on daffodils. But Broder is pointing out the obvious here.
The issue of trade policy — as critical to the nation's future as Iraq and every bit as divisive — is now squarely before the Democratic Congress. It will almost certainly provide a huge challenge to its leadership.
The stage was set by a painfully negotiated deal between the White House and Democrats, announced last week, on the terms of trade in pending agreements with Peru and Panama. Those agreements with two small nations are just the overture for a much larger debate involving tariff-cutting deals with Colombia and South Korea. And then comes the monumental question of whether to give President Bush the same free hand that his predecessors have enjoyed in negotiating global and regional trade agreements, not amendable by Congress but subject only to an up-or-down vote.
Before last week, there was no chance that a Democratic Congress would trust Bush to look out for the interests of American firms and workers in any such negotiations. Now there is a chance — but only a chance — that the United States will be able to take its usual leadership role in moving the world toward an open trading system.
What created this opportunity was that after months of saying no, the lead negotiators for the White House, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab finally said yes to the inclusion of labor and environmental guarantees in the body of the trade agreements.
Broder notes that there are certain elements (*cough* the left) that refuse to cooperate and have vowed to fight the agreement. Broder mentions David Sirota by name in particular. (I also saw several items recently indicating that organized labor isn't at all happy with the negotiated deal.) A retreat into protectionist trade policies is not in the best interest of this country or the world. Failing to reach trade agreements with our strongest South American allies will be abandoning the entire region to the communist aspirations of (T)Hugo Chavez and his pal Fidel.
UPDATE: Predicted howls, with amusing lack of understanding. Sirota replies - and demonizes, villainizes and generally attempts to minimalize - Broder with a very, very, very, very,very long post that starts out by invoking the classic Who song Won't Get Fooled Again - with an apparent complete miss on the real meaning of the song.
I am always amused when folks in Washington resort to their sad, tired, utterly transparent tactics of years passed and nonetheless present themselves as astute experts and political Machiavellis whose brilliance is of national significance - a critical force to herd us supposedly lowly stupid masses like a pack of barn animals. What these people forget, however, is the old song from The Who: “We won’t get fooled again.”
What Pete Townshend was saying when he wrote that was not even close to what Sirota is trying to imply:
There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnightI'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!
(Pete Townshend, Won't Get Fooled Again)
Of course, the ultimate line is: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
Seriously bad choice as a theme song.
Politics, World news | Gaius | Comments Off
The Chicago Tribune appears to have finally woken up to the danger of a nuclear armed Iran. The question is, are they too late?
Iran appears to have solved most of its technological problems and is beginning to enrich uranium on a far larger scale than before. Tehran may well have passed the critical point, at which its scientists have mastered the technological feat of keeping thousands of delicate centrifuges spinning at terrific speeds. If so, that means all the assumptions about when Iran might be capable of enriching enough uranium to build a bomb would need to be recalculated. Tehran's ability to build a bomb — estimated by various intelligence officials to be five to 10 years off — is likely to be moved up.
Here's the math: International inspectors reportedly found that Iran has about 1,300 centrifuges running. If the Iranians can sustain that progress, their next milestone comes when they've got 3,000 running. At that point, nuclear experts said, Iran would be able to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb within nine months or so.
"We believe they pretty much have the knowledge about how to enrich," International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei told The New York Times. "From now on, it is simply a question of perfecting that knowledge. People will not like to hear it, but that's a fact."
No, we don't like to hear it. But the sooner that fact is acknowledged, the sooner the Security Council can drop the pretense that the slow ratcheting of sanctions will force the Iranians to freeze their enrichment efforts. Incremental pressure won't budge Iran. The only sanctions with even the faintest hope of stopping the Iranians are also the ones that would require the greatest international cooperation and cause the most economic pain worldwide.
They are urging real sanctions with real teeth. But is the West awake yet? More importantly, can our internal disarray be put aside long enough to actually accomplish anything to help secure an agreement on real sanctions? That is the real question. Or is it too late to stop the new Persian Empire without a horrendous butcher's bill? The anti-war elements in the West have made a real war more - not less - likely by blocking action early.
We here at Blue Crab Boulevard are dismayed when we read headline like this from the Associated Press: "Wayward whales to be lured back to sea". While we are the very voice of reason and calmness about the Animal Uprising™ around here, we do not approve of the old methodology of whale catching. In fact, we boycott Whale Pro Shops® and refuse to have anything to do with them or their merchandise. Especially the Whale Wobbler 2000™, a particularly nasty, yet amazingly effective whale lure. (That lure was used by the winner of the last legal Pacific Whale Derby, a gentleman named Ahab, we believe.) We think the attempt to lure the whales should be denounced by all.
</humor> Real story:
WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Biologists hope the salty waters and ample food of the Pacific Ocean will speed the recovery of two humpback whales injured on a 90-mile detour up the Sacramento River.
To get them to the ocean, the biologists plan to play the underwater sounds of humpbacks from a boat as the tide goes out, said researchers with the Sausalito-based Marine Mammal Center, which has taken the lead on the attempted rescue.
More boats will line the channel to try to prevent them from turning around, they said.
"Plan B is herding the animals out using a platoon of boats," said Frances Gulland, director of veterinary science at the center.
Whales have had to be led out of the Sacramento River before.
UPDATE: Funniest thing yet today: they changed the headline! It now reads: "Songs to lure wayward whales toward home".
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