Secret Agreements

In the face of increasingly bellicose statements from Venezuela and Ecuador, Colombia is reporting that they have evidence of secret agreements between FARC and those two governments. They also have another bombshell:

BOGOTA (AFP) - Colombia on Monday accused Ecuador and Venezuela of colluding with its FARC rebel foes in an escalating regional crisis sparked by a cross-border strike that raised the specter of a military confrontation.

Ecuador angrily rejected Bogota's allegations and severed diplomatic relations with its neighbor, citing "a succession of events and unfriendly allegations," according to a message to Bogota from Quito obtained by AFP.

Venezuela, meanwhile, ordered the immediate expulsion of Colombia's ambassador and embassy staff, "in defense of homeland sovereignty and the dignity of the Venezuelan people," its foreign ministry said.

Bogota said computer records from a FARC camp inside Ecuador it hit with an air and ground assault Saturday proved the allegations, and would present them to the United Nations and the Organization of American States (OAS).

Colombian police chief General Oscar Naranjo told reporters the data suggested the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) had acquired 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of uranium.

A gang of kidnappers and drug dealers may have uranium? Not good, not good at all. While it is not specified whether this is weapons-grade or not, they should not have it at all. If Colombia actually has this information - and I have no reason to think they would lie, given the circumstances - then Hugo Chavez has been allied with FARC - nothing more than criminals - for some time. His already low regional stock is going to drop still further.

Introducing The Whooping Crane-O-Matic!

There are only about 360 or them left - which is actually a huge improvement from the 15 that were left in the mid-20th century - but whooping cranes now face a new extinction mechanism. Or rather a whole lot of mechanisms. Specifically, wind generation towers.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - More than 60 years after it was pushed to the edge of extinction, one of North America's rarest birds, the whooping crane, faces new danger from environmentally-friendly wind farms, conservationists warned.

"Companies want to put their farms where the best wind is, and that overlaps with the migration corridor of the whooping crane," Tom Stehn, the whooping crane coordinator of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, told AFP.

"There are areas where we know large numbers of whooping cranes stop (during migration) and we would like wind companies to avoid those areas, with a good buffer zone," Stehn said on the eve of a key business-to-government conference on renewable energy, the three-day Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC).

The majestic whooping crane, which stands around five feet (1.5 meters) tall, was pushed to within 15 birds of extinction last century.

Since 1941, conservation groups have painstakingly built the whooping crane population back up to around 360 in the wild and 150 in captivity.

The birds migrate between Texas and the Canadian Northwest Territories. Groups like Audubon are caught between their own rhetoric here. They support wind energy yet they also realize the turbines are likely to become abattoirs for the very species they have been trying to save.

I keep pointing out the realities of wind power - versus the spin of the true believers -  and will continue to do so. Proponents of this point to the "free" source of power. As a very, very wise man once said: TANSTAAFL. There are always costs to anything. In this case, the costs could well be some things we really can't - and should not - spare. Other species like the prairie chicken will not nest near the tall towers, so habitat is being lost.

These are whooping cranes. I've never been lucky enough to see one. But I've seen other, wonderful migratory birds. There was a bald eagle not far from my house just yesterday. 

How much is this "free" lunch going to cost us? 

Legs

The story about Barack Obama's staffer meeting with Canadian officials to assure them that Obama didn't really mean what he was saying against NAFTA has achieved that most important thing in politics: the story has legs. The wire services are reporting it and Hillary Clinton is bashing heck out of Obama over it.

TOLEDO, Ohio (AFP) - Hillary Clinton on Monday accused Barack Obama's campaign of savaging a key North America trade pact for political gain, while assuring Canada his attacks were just election-season rhetoric.

A day before key nominating contests in Ohio and Texas which could go a long way to deciding the Democratic White House race, the ex-first lady pounced on a row over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to frame a new attack.

"It raises questions about Senator Obama coming to Ohio and giving speeches about NAFTA, and having his chief economic advisor tell the Canadian government that it was just political rhetoric," she told reporters here.

Free trade, and NAFTA in particular is a fiercely contentious issue in midwestern Ohio, which has been badly hit by the flight of blue collar jobs abroad, and increased global economic competition.

"I don't think people should come to Ohio and tell the people of Ohio one thing, and then have your campaign tell a foreign government something else behind closed doors," Clinton said.

I may get a surprise from the Ohio results at any rate. This story just might damage Obama in that state. Interesting times, indeed. If Hillary does manage to pull out a win in Ohio and Texas, it could prove bad for Obama - as Michael Goodwin pointed out earlier today. This is just as much his last chance to knock Clinton out as it is her chance to stay in. 

Words Matter - Slogans Not So Much

Today's chuckle from Donklephant:  "If you buy Nike because you feel like just doing it, you’re an idiot." That's a snark in the body of a serious discussion of the descent of political discourse into catchphrase hell. It's worth a read. 

Words matter a lot. At their best, they can inspire monumental acts and change millions of minds. But they are also bluntly utilitarian, simple tools we use for most of our daily communication. Political discourse must walk the divide between language as art and language as hammer. Politicians are expected to raise us up while also detailing the 24-steps to social security solvency – and they get no more than a short speech or a catchy phrase in which to capture their full essence. The distillation process rarely creates a smooth result.

Political slogans like corporate taglines should never be considered the end-all, be-all of communication. If you buy Nike because you feel like just doing it, you’re an idiot. Likewise, any voter who chooses a candidate based on their slogans is already living in their own idiocracy. I have a little more faith than Hitchens that, beneath the gauze of banality, real discussions are happening – not everywhere and maybe not even by the majority, but by enough voters and enough politicians to keep the abuse of language from becoming an abuse of governance.

Are we descending into an idiocracy? Well, probably no. But there are a lot of people who will "just do it" and cast their vote based on a slogan. Yes they can. After all, they've been waiting for themselves. Or something. Read it all, it's a good post.

By the way, isn't 'Nike' Greek for 'overpriced'? (Yes, I know what the word actually translates as.) 

UNSC Imposes Additional Sanctions On Iran

The United Nations Security Council has just imposed a third round of sanctions on Iran for refusing to shut down its nuclear program. The vote was 14-0 with Indonesia abstaining.

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Security Council approved a third round of sanctions against Iran on Monday with near unanimous support, sending a strong signal to Tehran that its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment is unacceptable and becoming increasingly costly.

For the first time, the resolution bans trade with Iran in goods which have both civilian and military uses.

Iran has already stated that it will not comply with the latest sanctions. Undoubtedly, a mildly worded letter of protest will be forthcoming from the UN on that. The problem with sanctions in general is that they require the sanctioned country to comply - which is rarely the case. As the "tough" sanctions on Saddam Hussein's Iraq showed, they also tend to be avenues for corruption.

Adding “Eco” In Front Doesn’t Make It Better

Investigators in Seattl, Washington are investigating the burning of three model homes as acts of terrorism. Evidence found at the scene indicates that the arsons were committed by the Earth Liberation Front.

WOODINVILLE, Wash. - Fires gutted three multimillion-dollar model homes in a Seattle suburb on Monday, and authorities found a sign purportedly left by eco-terrorists that mocks claims that the homes were environmentally friendly.

"Built Green? Nope black!" said the spray-painted sign that bore the initials of the radical environmental group Earth Liberation Front.

Crews removed explosive devices found in the homes, said Fire Chief Rick Eastman of Snohomish County District 7. The FBI was investigating the fires as a potential domestic terrorism act, said FBI spokesman Rich Kolko in Washington, D.C.

No injuries were reported in the fires, which began before dawn in the wooded subdivision and were still smoldering by midmorning. The sheriff's office estimated damage at $7 million. In addition to the three homes destroyed, two sustained smoke damage.

Of course, the terrorists did considerably more damage to the environment than the homes were doing. But nobody ever said that adding the prefix "eco" made the people any smarter, either. It is literally only a matter of time until someone is killed by these people. One of the alleged ELF members is currently facing 35 years in Federal prison - the people who pulled this off should face even more time.

The worst aspect of the entire incident is that the builders were genuinely trying to use all the latest environmentally-friendly construction techniques and features. The terrorists burned them anyway. "Eco" doesn't help with logical skills, either. 

Who’s Last Chance?

An interesting take on the Texas and Ohio primaries from Michael Goodwin today. He points out that the focus has been on Clinton and her must-win status in both contests. Goodwin points out that it may just as well be Obama's last chance to knock Clinton out - if he cannot do it now, he may not be able to before the convention. Or at all.

You hear it everywhere: Tuesday is Hillary Clinton's last stand. If she can't win Ohio and Texas, she's history.

True, mostly. But it's not the whole story. The rest goes like this: This is Barack Obama's third chance to knock her out. If he can't close the deal this time, maybe he can't close the deal, period.

Either the third time is the charm for him, or it could be strike three against him. Any result tomorrow that doesn't finish her off lets her argue that Democratic voters' love affair with Obama was just one of those flings. She'll say buyer's remorse has set in, and it's time to get serious about winning the White House.

She'll also bring up her wins in the disputed Michigan and Florida primaries and repeat her vow to fight for those delegates.

Given the wacky past two months, those arguments would keep her alive. They start with the claim that even a split decision tomorrow would fit a pattern showing voters can't commit to the Illinois rookie. 

True enough, I suppose. But the campaign funds might become scarce if Clinton barely ekes out a win in one or both states. But it would give her a pretty big club if Obama cannot stop her. (I still think Clinton will get pounded, but this is an interesting mental exercise, anyway.) 

Oopsie - I was Misquoted

It turns out that that flap about an Obama advisor privately assuring a Canadian diplomat that the candidate's anti-NAFTA  rhetoric was all for show is a little more complicated than first thought. When a Canadian television network first reported it, both the Obama campaign and the Canadian  embassy denied - vehemently - that a meeting had occurred.

Except the Associated Press has now obtained notes taken by a diplomat taken at the meeting. And the notes appear to back up the contention that the Obama staffer did assure the Canadians that Obama didn't really mean what he was saying to voters.

SAN ANTONIO - Barack Obama's senior economic policy adviser said Sunday that Canadian government officials wrote an inaccurate portrayal of his private discussion on the campaign's trade policy in a memo obtained by The Associated Press.

The memo is the first documentation to emerge publicly out of the meeting between the adviser, Austan Goolsbee, and officials with the Canadian consulate in Chicago, but Goolsbee said it misinterprets what he told them. The memo was written by Joseph DeMora, who works for the consulate and attended the meeting.

Goolsbee disputed a section that read: "Noting anxiety among many U.S. domestic audiences about the U.S. economic outlook, Goolsbee candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign. He cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans."

"This thing about `it's more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans,' that's this guy's language," Goolsbee said of DeMora. "He's not quoting me.

"I certainly did not use that phrase in any way," Goolsbee said.

The meeting was first reported last week by Canadian television network CTV, which cited unnamed sources as saying that Goolsbee assured the Canadians that Obama's tough talk on the North American Free Trade Agreement is just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously. The Obama campaign and the Canadian embassy denied there was any inconsistency between what the candidate was saying publicly and what advisers were saying privately.

The normal political ploy: When caught, claim you were misquoted at the meeting you originally claimed never took place. This sort of thing is known as "getting caught."