Rainy Day in Houston - Quickhits
It's been a rainy day in Houston as you might have heard, so I'm spending a bit more time at the computer today. (Oddly, all the scenes of flooding are about 7-10 miles from my house, but my street, which floods in normal rain, is completely clear.) So, just a few quickhits from the afternoon's reading.
A very interesting tease making the argument that the rise of state oil companies in the US's challengers, Russia, China, Venezuela, etc., allows a closer coupling of energy and foreign policy, and that these levers may be a main point of restraint used on the US shaping the geopolitics of the next 50 years. I know, not shocking, but well constructed.
A blogger out of Baghdad tells the story of a cousin's kidnapping, negotiations, and release. I think it's the lack of trauma, the seeming commonness that strikes me most. (I don't know the bonafides of the site.)
There's an interesting piece by Randall Balmer questioning the association of his fellow evangelicals to the Republican party, but it's long. QuakerDave will probably find the whole piece worthwhile as it's right in his wheelhouse, but for the rest of us, Talkleft has excerpts.
Check out Tony Snow today. (Apparently, the President "cares about the troops," but not in an actual individual sense.) Q Now that these missing soldiers have been ID'd, has the President made any attempt at all to reach out to their families that we know of? MR. SNOW: I don't know.
Flag burning is close to passage. Cheney is still spouting his crazy lies. We may be on the front edge of the ARM collapse.
Finally, what's with all the Bush hugging/touching lately. Did the focus groups say he needed to seem more human? (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
A very interesting tease making the argument that the rise of state oil companies in the US's challengers, Russia, China, Venezuela, etc., allows a closer coupling of energy and foreign policy, and that these levers may be a main point of restraint used on the US shaping the geopolitics of the next 50 years. I know, not shocking, but well constructed.
A blogger out of Baghdad tells the story of a cousin's kidnapping, negotiations, and release. I think it's the lack of trauma, the seeming commonness that strikes me most. (I don't know the bonafides of the site.)
There's an interesting piece by Randall Balmer questioning the association of his fellow evangelicals to the Republican party, but it's long. QuakerDave will probably find the whole piece worthwhile as it's right in his wheelhouse, but for the rest of us, Talkleft has excerpts.
Check out Tony Snow today. (Apparently, the President "cares about the troops," but not in an actual individual sense.) Q Now that these missing soldiers have been ID'd, has the President made any attempt at all to reach out to their families that we know of? MR. SNOW: I don't know.
Flag burning is close to passage. Cheney is still spouting his crazy lies. We may be on the front edge of the ARM collapse.
Finally, what's with all the Bush hugging/touching lately. Did the focus groups say he needed to seem more human? (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
posted by mikevotes at
4:38 PM
4 Comments:
I can't believe they're this close to passing the flag burning amendment. It's insane.
Meanwhile, what's up with the Establishment of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument in the East Room? Like they couldn't make a monument to the whole chain at once?
By
Anonymous, at 8:49 PM
Libby, I think they chose to make an underwater sanctuary because no political doners wanted to log it or mine it. It's the only space not coveted by Bush supporting industries.
And I don't know why it's not all the islands, but I would guess it has something to do with the above. (or maybe avoiding restrictions on military/sub use.)
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 9:12 PM
I'm glad to hear you didn't get flooded out. When I saw the Houston flood story briefly on CNN this morning at my coffee shop, I thought "Uh, Oh...doesn't Mikevotes live in Houston?"
7 inches of rain in 4 hours is a helluva lot of rain!
By
Reality-Based Educator, at 9:49 PM
Yeah, that is alot of rain, but we are subtropical. We had huge flooding about ten years ago that was followed by a massive public works program to fix the drainage. My area was done, and the difference was amazing. Where it flooded poor, "mixed neighborhood," not done yet.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 7:11 AM
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