Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:25:57 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/ PostNuke Powered Site en-us http://www.val-l.net/images/ http://www.val-l.net/ cdell@earthlink.net http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2274 The mother of my sons James and Christopher lost her fight against cancer this a.m. She had battled for five years, and only in the last couple of weeks did it gain an edge on her. Although we were divorced 35 years ago, we had managed to be friends these past twenty years even though I rarely ever saw her. Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:25:57 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2273 A small clippit for the rest of the universe.... Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:23:44 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2272 _The World Without Us, written by Alan Weisman, was published 1 September, and I had acquired and read it by 7 September after hearing Weisman interviewed that day on NPR's "Talk of the Nation." The book is a fascinating look at what would happen to houses, nuclear plants, cities, forests, fauna, climate, the oceans, bronze, petro-chemical complexes and plastics, amongst even more than that, over time (stretching out to three or four million years for plastics and the 441 nuclear power plants extant in the world). Sat, 13 Oct 2007 13:06:57 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2271 President Putin's dismissal of his entire government just under three months before parliamentary elections on 2 December is eerily like Yeltsin's manuevers in his last years in office. His choice for Prime Minister was startling to both Russian political insiders and observers of the Russian political scene outside the Federation - one Viktor Zubkov, presently the head of the agency that investigates money laundering (hard to say how well he's been at *that* job, as a sizable amount of money coming out of Russia is laundered somewhere by somebody). Sat, 13 Oct 2007 13:04:41 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2270 I read this morning that President Bush had made his third visit to Iraq, and it imeediately struck me, how much did that cost the American taxpayer? One has to think that such a visit runs into millions of dollars in costs, mostly for security, to what end? Such a visit gives the pResident a platform to continue his fallacious reasoning that the war is going well? His visit will buoy up troop morale? Is that worth the costs involved? Sat, 13 Oct 2007 13:01:36 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2269 Over the months of this year and last, I've taken a fair amount of heat for repeating stories by a variety of folks about US (and/or Israeli) plans to get at Iran by one process or another, usually ending with those critics blasting the source as full of so much bushwa. I saw another one today out of the Sunday Times (UK) by a lady named Sarah Baxter claiming that the US Pentagon had a plan that they weren't too far from activating to destroy in 1200 similtaneous sorties over three days *every* military installation in Iran. Sat, 13 Oct 2007 12:59:24 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2268 Yesterday, bitter fighting broke out in Karbala, one of the Shiite "holy cities" presently full of several "hundreds of thousands" of pilgrims. Apparently, from fragmentary reports both yesterday and today, the clashes were started by a tussle between members of Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army and members of the Badr Brigade, a rival Shiite militia. The fighting reportedly spread quickly, not only in Karbala with at least fifty plus killed, but elsewhere in the country, most notably in Baghdad. This morning, al Sadr reportedly "commanded" his militia to "stand down" for six months, although whether this will really happen remains in doubt. The leaders of the Badr Brigade, whoever they are, made no such call. Sat, 13 Oct 2007 12:55:08 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2267 The bombing last Tuesday against the Yazidi minority that killed 400-500 has been described by some commentators as Al Qaeda's "last gasp," and an "act of desperation," and this writer believes that could be a misreading of what happened. I do not believe that either the insurgency, Al Qaeda or the various militias are"'weaker," despite losses that I know have occurred. Mon, 03 Sep 2007 13:06:45 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2266 My friends on the American right continue to insist that the war in Iraq is going well. However, there are certain signs that continue to make me wonder how true that it is in the larger scheme of things. The New York Times is reporting today that al-Maliki has lost considerable support from the "Sunni bloc," his Shiite allies, the tribal leadership, and the Kurds. He is also reported to be quite "paranoid." The last leaders I've heard described in that manner were the late Shah of Iran, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, the late Mao Zedong and the late Joseph Stalin - not exactly sterling company. It also suggests that very few actually support the guy. Mon, 03 Sep 2007 13:03:40 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2265 This was the breathless report from a local reporter in Lincoln NE thirty years ago this afternoon, which is where I was living when Elvis' death was reported. I was both shocked and saddened by the news, especially when it was reported he had died of a drug overdose. I didn't know that much about his personal life, although musician friends had reported that he lived as much on the edge as the Rolling Stones, and I knew that he was tremendously overweight but didn't know why. *The* pop singer of my youth was gone, and he wasn't much over 40 when he died. What a waste. Mon, 03 Sep 2007 12:59:22 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2264 The claim last week by a Russian submarine to “own” the Arctic Ocean, and the North Pole, plus Russia's stated renewal of flying military missions with airplanes in both a “spying” and “offensive mode” posture are both worrisome and deplorable. One nation cannot claim a whole ocean or region, and the Arctic should have the same status as the Antarctic – shared by everyone, owned by no one, agreed upon by treaty amongst all the nations of the planet. Mon, 03 Sep 2007 12:55:03 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2263 Japan affirmed again today its committment to being a non-nuclear state as it commemorated the 62nd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. This event killed about 150,000 people in almost an instant, and is now pretty much forgotten save by the historians and the Japanese. Mon, 03 Sep 2007 12:50:53 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2262 I have spent the past day or so meditating on how it is that some of us can see Iraq as being a better situation while others of us are fairly pessimistic - and I think I've arrived at a partial answer. Mr. Smant and others on POLITICS see the surge as having lowered the incidence of violence, reconstruction having partially worked, and more bad guys killed. I think of this as "the military outlook." I don't know about the reconstruction part, but other reports would indicate *some* progress militarily. I'm not as optimistic about that as my friends to the farther right but would concede a small amount of military steps forward. Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:31:20 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2261 While I can agree that American casualties are down from the previous three months, and by *some* accounts sectarian murders are down, there are still some really critical things not working very well in Iraq besides the malfunctioning government. One of these according to AP is the electrical grid. The grid is "on the brink of collapse because of insurgent sabotage, rising demand, fuel shortages and provinces that are unplugging local power stations from the national grid," local officials reported Saturday. Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:26:37 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2260 The Washington Post reporter Robin Wright, a fairly knowledgable soul on Middle Eastern affairs, wrote a piece yesterday that discusses in some detail a complex arms deal from the United States that is proposed to give some $20 billion to Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain that includes "advanced satellite-guided bombs, fighter aircraft upgrades and new naval vessels" to these six nations in an effort "to contain Iran." Congressional reaction is reported to be "mixed," while the administration "cautions" that this is part of an even larger deal stretching over ten years that would also give $30 billion in military aid to Israel and $13 billion to Egypt. Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:23:08 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2259 Russia appears on a course that grows in hostility towards the West, and leans to greater and greater authoritarianism and militarism at home. Many analyses seem to suggest that Russia's boom in oil wealth has brought about their willingness to re-arm, as they announced two weeks ago that they would resume production of heavy weapons - tanks, planes, artillery and helicopter gunships "without limits." At the same time, they renounced the CFE treaty limiting conventional forces, and, presumably, plan a big buildup in this direction also. Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:17:52 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2258 Here's a place in the world most of us, myself included, have not given much attention to and, in light of recent events, that perhaps we should be watching more closely. Pakistan, one of only nine probable nuclear states, is in a state of flux, perhaps disintegration, that bodes ill for both its neighbors and the whole of central Asia if that disintegration occurs. Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:13:50 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2257 Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's beleaguered Prime Minister, announced Saturday that US troops could leave "at any time" and Iraq's police and military could maintain the country's security. I suggest without attempting to malign the PM that he is operating under a great delusion, or just chooses not to recognize that without those American troops he would probably be dead within days. I suggest that al-Maliki's government only has nominal control of *parts* of Baghdad, *parts* of some regions of the country, and that "control" is weak at best. Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:14:11 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2256 Yesterday I was watching the network (NBC) news, something I don't do a lot, but they had a feature piece about the Iraqi police complete with an animated reconstruction of how the incident early yesterday occurred. It buttressed what I had been saying for months about not knowing, really, who is on what side in Iraq. Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:10:30 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2255 "- Deaths caused by sectarian violence in Iraq are down 75 percent from January to June" (quote from post on POLITICS by K. Smant 7/11/07) Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:05:08 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2254 My companion, her daughter and I heard a great little band from western Australia on the 7th at a venue I only get to visit once in awhile - a small coffeehouse called Fiddler's Dream on the grounds of the Phoenix Friend's Meeting in the southeast part of town. There weren't but a couple of empty seats, and the audience, some 50-60 strong, really flowed with this group. Sun, 29 Jul 2007 14:56:26 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2253 I've been to a number of places that I would consider spiritual places - my late father's place in Virginia, the rain forest on the Olympic Peninsula that Renny and I visited in 1999 (and the Pacific beach at Ocean Shores Washington), the Grand Canyon with my then-wife and three children in 1991, Yosemite National Park with Renny last week, the redwood forest with Renny also in 1998, the property of my father's friend M. Chandler that we camped on from 1954 to 1961 outside of Waterford MI, Waterford Lake in Michigan where I once spent a blissful day on a boat with a childhood friend in the late 1950s, Port Sanilac MI where my late Uncle Harry had a cabin right next to Lake Huron that I spent one weekend at in 1959, the Rose Garden in Kansas City that I've spent many a happy hour in throughout the 1970s through the 1990s (and the Park - Loose Park - that encloses that garden), Oak Creek Canyon in northern Arizona, the Arboretum in Ann Arbor that I visited several times in 1966-1967, the San Fransisco Arboretum that I visited in 1967 and again in 1995, the Friend's Meeting House in Ann Arbor in the fall and winter of 1966-67, Kolomenskaya in Moscow in 1993, a cave in southern Missouri I went to with two of the Testerman brothers (one from Joplin, now deceased, and the other from KC) and two of their friends in 1985 and sometimes, but not always (my flaw, not the place's) the Friend's Meeting House in Phoenix AZ that I've been going to since 2002 or so. All of them profoundly affected me at the time, and many continue to do so now despite a distance in time and space.. Sun, 29 Jul 2007 14:53:19 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2252 The full title is _Commander in Chief: How Truman, Johnson and Bush Turned a Presidential Power Into a Threat to America's Future by Geoffrey Perret (2007). Perret has written books about Grant, MacArthur, Eisenhower and then Lincoln in his role as commander-in-chief, and now this book about three of our more modern presidents in that same role. Fri, 06 Jul 2007 22:00:30 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2251 Although we were away this last week, I heard bits and snippets about the Vice President's alleged claim that he is not part of the executive branch, although most of his constitutional functions save for a single line in Article One, Section 3 wherein it says, "The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided" are in Article Two, considered the executive article by most constitutional scholars. What seems to me to be a part and parcel of the tying of the VP to the executive branch, along with Amendments XII and XXV, and specifically sections 1 and 4 of Article Two of the Constitution (the so-called "executive branch" section), is a line that follows the above line from Article 1, Section 3, which is as follows, "The Senate shall chuse their other officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States." So, is he an "employee" of the legislative branch or the executive branch? Fri, 06 Jul 2007 21:55:51 -0600 http://www.val-l.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2250 This law passed in the Senate 43 years old today. It took a lot of doing for this piece of legislation to emerge, as I discovered reading the legislative history earlier today. I know a few on the POLITICS list still believe the law to be unconstitutional, although SCOTUS doesn't agree with them. Fri, 06 Jul 2007 21:48:51 -0600