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Buyer's remorse !* Shailagh Murray in The Washington Post: "The highway bill seemed like such a good idea when it sailed through Congress this summer. But now Republicans who assembled the record spending package are suffering buyer's remorse." Really ? So the Republican members of the Congress are having second thoughts after ramrodding the "Bridge to Nowhere" appropriations bill which the president signed....and probably smirked while doing it. They gleefully ate their cake and are now having problem digesting it. Comments Anonymous — 2005-11-05 I followed the trail back to here from your post to saynotopombo. There are even Republicans who are revolting. I had a call from retired congressman Pete McCloskey who is seeking a Republican to run against Pombo, note expecting to beat him, but to bruise him a bit so that someone else will deliver the KO. McCloskey feels that DeLay and Young and Pombo are destroying the Republican Party while they are destroying our national heritage and the American economy. BTW, I listen to "Latin Jazz" on KCSM FM every Sunday. musafir — 2005-11-05 Thanks. I remember Pete McCloskey when he served as a congressman representing the San Mateo district. He was a marathoner. Wonder if he still runs; I do, creaking bones and all. Lily — 2005-11-06 Well maybe they can build a bridge from Capital Hill to REALITY. All we need in the aftermath of Katrina, mounting debt, and war is even more ridiculous spending. But the contractors we pay to do everything rip us off as well, with no accountability. The American people have essentially given the government a credit card with no spending limit. Hey, talk more about the "Latin Jazz".

*"PILLAR ROCK, Wash. -- Ocian in view! O! the joy." William Clark, who scribbled these words in his field journal on Nov. 7, 1805, was not a man to get carried away with exclamation points. He was a woodsman, a waterman and a sober-minded maker of maps." As I read Blaine Hardin's great article "Lewis & Clark Mapped it - And then the Nation Remade the West" in the Washington Post, I thought of my own feeling of wonderment when I arrived in San Francisco about 35 years ago. It was not the west that members of Lewis & Clark expedition saw but my travels through the western states created a feeling of love and respect for the land which has not diminished over the years. The vibrancy, the natural splendors--from rugged high desert to lush valleys--make the west incomparable and I am fortunate to be a part of it. *"Go West, young man, and grow up with the country."Thus wrote John B. Soule in the Terre Haute Express in 1851 although the quotation is attributed by some to Horace Greeley.

Down with the inavders*Splogs. Aargh. Began noticing them in "Comments" section of my blog about a month ago. Yuki Noguchi's report in the Washington Post, "A New Place for Spam's Same Old Pitches is cause for alarm. Just as spams in e-mail were beginning to be fewer here come sploggers. Damn nuisance. I wonder if anyone actually clicks on the links that the sploggers leave. Let's hope that the search engines act quickly to deal with this threat. Yahoo has done a great job in preventing spams in their web mail. Google's Gmail has room for improvement.

Not going to be a cakewalk for our unpopular president*He does not care as long as his "core support groups" are behind him. That is all that counts. Keep the large corporate donors happy, promote the causes of fundamentalist Christians, start another war. El Jefe is thinking about how to engineer another tax cut for his friends, and protect Dear Karl from the nosy prosecutor . Enough to keep him busy for the rest of his term. But it warmed the cockles of my heart to read in the Washington Post that in a recent poll 58% questioned "his integrity". The report by Richard Morin and Dan Balz, under the caption "Bush's Popularity Reaches New Low", is based on a Washington Post-ABC Poll. People are waking up. How sweet it is!"On almost every key measure of presidential character and performance, the survey found that Bush has never been less popular with the American people. Currently 39 percent approve of the job he is doing as president, while 60 percent disapprove of his performance in office -- the highest level of disapproval ever recorded for Bush in Post-ABC polls."Amazing, how our president has made himself one of the most despicable persons on earth in five short years. The summit at Mar del Plata is not going to do him much good. "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men Couldn't put Humpty together again."---Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes

Efforts to destroy the parks as we know themYou wouldn't be wrong if you believe that this administration has not met a polluter it does not like. Details about the new rules for off-road vehicles issued by Forest Service Chief Dale N. Bosworth are now available. Report in The Washington Post by Juliet Eilperin reads: "The Bush administration yesterday gave local managers the authority to decide where visitors can use off-road vehicles in national forests, a move that could reshape how Americans experience the country's 155 forests and 20 grasslands." The bottom line is bad news. Bad for the environment, bad for wild life, bad for those who visit the wilderness areas to get away from noise and polluted atomosphere.Privatization of the parks is the ultimate objective. It is working hard to reach the goal. The point man for the administration is Paul Hoffman, Dy. Assistant Secretary of the Dept. of the Interior. Congressman Richard Pombo (R-CA), chairman of the House Resources Committee is another who supports destruction of the national parks.Following excerpts are from an editorial in The New York Times on October 21, 2005:The National Parks Under Siege This new policy document doesn't go as far as the earlier version. But it would eliminate the requirement that only motorized equipment with the least impact should be used in national. It would lower air-quality standards and strip away language about preserving the natural soundscape - language that currently makes it hard, for instance, to justify allowing snowmobiles into Yellowstone. It would also refer park superintendents to other management documents that have been revised to weaken fundamental standards and protections for the parks. Mr. Hoffman and National Park Service officials have tried to argue that this new policy revision offers greater clarity. What it really offers is greater flexibility to interpret the rules the way they want to. The thrust of these changes is to diminish the historical, and legally upheld, premise that preservation is the central mission of the park system. One of the most troubling aspects of this revised policy is how it was produced. Instead of being shaped by park service professionals thinking in a timely way about how to do their jobs better, this is a defensive document that was rushed forward to head off the more sweeping damage that Mr. Hoffman's first draft threatened to do. It is a tribute to the National Park Service veterans who worked on it that they were able to mitigate so much of the harm, even though they, too, were working directly under Mr. Hoffman's eye. They risked their jobs to protect the parks from political appointees in the Interior Department. This is a measure of how distorted the department's policies have become. There is more potential damage on the way. At least two deeply worrying new directives have been handed down. One allows the National Park Service to solicit contributions from individuals and corporations instead of merely accepting them when they're offered. This is another way to further the privatization of the national parks and edge toward their commercialization. Privatizing the government's core responsibilities - like the national parks - is unacceptable, and so is the prospect of any greater commercial presence in the parks." *Bill Moyers, in his essay "Welcome Doomsday" wrote in the Axis of Logic March 23, 2005:"I read that the administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency has declared the election a mandate for President Bush on the environment. This for an administration: that wants to rewrite the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act protecting rare plant and animal species and their habitats, as well as the national Environmental Policy Act that requires the government to judge beforehand if actions might damage natural resources; that wants a new international audit law to allow corporations to keep certain information about environmental problems secret from the public; that wants to drop all its New-Source Review suits against polluting coal-fired power plans and weaken consent decrees reached earlier with coal companies; that wants to open the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to drilling and increase drilling in Padre Island National Seashore, the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world and the last great coastal wild land in America; Comments Matt — 2005-11-03 We're not going to stop these attacks on the environment until we remove the man leading the charge, Richard Pombo. The bills he's championed recently do a lot more to damage National Parks than simply allow vehicles. For example, he's pushing for a law that would allow mining companies to buy land right next to many National Parks. See this post for more info. Anyway, there are some of us who are committed to ousting Pombo from Congress. Check out my blog if you're interested. musafir — 2005-11-03 Visited the "nationalparkstraveler" site as well as your blog "saynotopombo". Wish you success in your efforts to stop Pombo.

Jolly good idea provided the candidates are frisked to remove "mysterious bulges"*The tongue in cheek article, "Commander in Disbelief", by Andy Borowitz in Newsweek made me chuckle. I am all for a debate between the president and Ms Geena Davis. No electronic prompting devices are to be permitted. May the better person win.

*And a bad beginning for November. A report by William Branigin and Daniela Deane in Washington Post mentions deaths of six servicemen killed in separate attacks in Iraq.Edited 1:48 PM Nov.2, 2005They Were Valiant: Names and dates Joshua J. Kynoch, 23, Army Specialist, Oct 01, 2005 Jens E. Schelbert, 31, Army Staff Sergeant, Oct 01, 2005 Marshall A. Westbrook, 43, Army National Guard Sergeant, Oct 01, 2005 Timothy J. Roark, 29, Army Staff Sergeant, Oct 02, 2005 Roberto C. Baez, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Oct 03, 2005 Bryan W. Large, 31, Army Sergeant, Oct 03, 2005 Jacob T. Vanderbosch, 21, Army Specialist, Oct 03, 2005 Sean B. Berry, 26, Army National Guard Sergeant, Oct 03, 2005 Larry Wayne Pankey Jr., 34, Army Reserve Sergeant, Oct 03, 2005 John R. Stalvey, 22, Marine Corporal, Oct 03, 2005 Andrew D. Bedard, 19, Marine Private 1st Class, Oct 04, 2005 Brian K. Joplin, 32, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class, Oct 04, 2005 Jeremiah W. Robinson, 20, Army National Guard Specialist, Oct 06, 2005 Shayne M. Cabino, 19, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 06, 2005 Nicholas O. Cherava, 21, Marine Corporal, Oct 06, 2005 Jason L. Frye, 19, Marine Private 1st Class, Oct 06, 2005 Patrick Brian Kenny, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 06, 2005 Daniel M. McVicker, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 06, 2005 Carl L. Raines II, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 06, 2005 Eric A. Fifer, 22, Army Sergeant, Oct 07, 2005 Nicholas J. Greer, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Oct 07, 2005 Sergio H. Escobar, 18, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 08, 2005 Gary R. Harper Jr., 29, Army Staff Sergeant, Oct 09, 2005 Leon G. James II, 46, Army Lieutenant Colonel, Oct 10, 2005 Leon M. Johnson, 28, Army Sergeant, Oct 10, 2005 Brandon K. Sneed, 33, Army Sergeant 1st Class, Oct 10, 2005 Jerry L. Bonifacio Jr., 28, Army National Guard Staff Sergeant, Oct 10, 2005 Jeremy M. Hodge, 20, Army National Guard Specialist, Oct 10, 2005 Matthew A. Kimmell, 30, Army Staff Sergeant, Oct 11, 2005 Donald D. Furman, 30, Army Sergeant, Oct 12, 2005 Lorenzo Ponce Ruiz, 26, Army Sergeant, Oct 12, 2005 James T. Grijalva, 26, Army National Guard Specialist, Oct 12, 2005 Kenneth E. Hunt Jr., 40, Marine Master Sergeant, Oct 12, 2005 Robert W. Tucker, 20, Army National Guard Specialist, Oct 13, 2005 Samuel M. Boswell, 20, Army National Guard Specialist, Oct 14, 2005 Bernard L. Ceo, 23, Army National Guard Specialist, Oct 14, 2005 Brian R. Conner, 36, Army National Guard Sergeant, Oct 14, 2005 Thomas H. Byrd, 21, Army Specialist, Oct 15, 2005 Jeffrey W. Corban, 30, Army Specialist, Oct 15, 2005 Richard Allen Hardy, 24, Army Specialist, Oct 15, 2005 Vincent E. Summers, 38, Army Staff Sergeant, Oct 15, 2005 Timothy D. Watkins, 24, Army Specialist, Oct 15, 2005 Mark P. Adams, 24, Marine Reserve Sergeant, Oct 15, 2005 Paul J. Pillen, 28, Army National Guard Chief Warrant Officer, Oct 17, 2005 Daniel Scott R. Bubb, 19, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 17, 2005 Chad R. Hildebrandt, 22, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 17, 2005 Christopher M. Poston, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 17, 2005 Lucas A. Frantz, 22, Army Specialist, Oct 18, 2005 Daniel D. Bartels, 22, Army Specialist, Oct 19, 2005 Arthur A. Mora Jr., 23, Army Sergeant, Oct 19, 2005 Russell H. Nahvi, 24, Army Specialist, Oct 19, 2005 Jose E. Rosario, 20, Army Specialist, Oct 19, 2005 Tommy Ike Folks Jr., 31, Army National Guard Staff Sergeant, Oct 19, 2005 Kendall K. Frederick, 21, Army Reserve Specialist, Oct 19, 2005 Norman W. Anderson III, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 19, 2005 Jacob D. Dones, 21, Army Sergeant, Oct 20, 2005 Dennis P. Merck, 38, Army National Guard Staff Sergeant, Oct 20, 2005 Richard T. Pummill, 27, Marine Staff Sergeant, Oct 20, 2005 Andrew D. Russoli, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 20, 2005 Steven W. Szwydek, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 20, 2005 Kenneth J. Butler, 19, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 21, 2005 Benny Gray Cockerham III, 21, Marine Corporal, Oct 21, 2005 Tyler B. Swisher, 35, Marine Captain, Oct 21, 2005 Seamus M. Davey, 25, Marine Reserve Corporal, Oct 21, 2005 Christopher W. Thompson, 25, Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class, Oct 21, 2005 George T. Alexander Jr., 34, Army Staff Sergeant, Oct 22, 2005 Jonathan R. Spears, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 23, 2005 Michael T. Robertson, 28, Army Sergeant, Oct 25, 2005 Benjamin D. Hoeffner, 21, Army Reserve Corporal, Oct 25, 2005 Christopher T. Monroe, 19, Army Reserve Specialist, Oct 25, 2005 Ramon A. Acevedoaponte, 51, Army Sergeant 1st Class, Oct 26, 2005 Lewis J. Gentry, 48, Army Staff Sergeant, Oct 26, 2005 Thomas A. Wallsmith, 38, Army Master Sergeant, Oct 26, 2005 Evan S. Parker, 25, Army Reserve Sergeant, Oct 26, 2005 James Witkowski, 32, Army Reserve Sergeant, Oct 26, 2005 Michael J. Mackinnon, 30, Army Captain, Oct 27, 2005 William W. Wood, 44, Army Colonel, Oct 27, 2005 Daniel R. Lightner Jr., 28, Army National Guard Staff Sergeant, Oct 27, 2005 Robert F. Eckfield Jr., 23, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 27, 2005 Jared J. Kremm, 24, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 27, 2005 Dillon M. Jutras, 20, Army Private 1st Class, Oct 28, 2005 Debra A. Banaszak, 35, Army National Guard 1st Lieutenant, Oct 28, 2005 Kenny D. Rojas, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Oct 29, 2005 Shaker T. Guy, 23, Army National Guard Sergeant, Oct 29, 2005 Raymond D. Hill II, 39, Army National Guard Captain, Oct 29, 2005 Michael Paul Hodshire, 25, Marine Sergeant, Oct 30, 2005 William J. Byler, 23, Army Specialist, Oct 31, 2005 Jeff Derrence Jack, 0, Army Specialist, Oct 31, 2005 Adam R. "A.J." Johnson, 22, Army Private, Oct 31, 2005 Wilgene Lieto, 0, Army Sergeant, Oct 31, 2005 David J. Martin, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Oct 31, 2005 Jonathan Tessar, 36, Army Sergeant 1st Class, Oct 31, 2005 Robert C. Oneto-Sikorski, 33, Army National Guard 1st Lieutenant, Oct 31, 2005 Matthew R. Kading, 32, Army Reserve Sergeant 1st Class, Oct 31, 2005Source: Iraq Coalition Casualties

The hollow man lived up to his record*Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing in the Washington Post, Oct.31, 2005, covered it well. "All The Prosecutor's Hints" summarizes the situation for those who have not paid close attention to Patrick Fitzgerald's press conference last Friday, October 28th. It is not going to make the Bushies happy but the bottom line is that for Karl Rove and others there are uneasy days and nights ahead. Fitzgerald is not done with the investigation, not yet. So, the president's move to deflect attention and resurrect his support with his core support group bought him some time but nomination of Alito is not going to protect the White House from issues that Bush and his staff would rather see buried.Casualties in IraqThe October death toll for American soldiers in Iraq reached 94....the highest since January of this year. It was reported by Radio Free Europe that 26 Iraqi civilians were killed during an air attack near the Syrian border. Many American don't give a damn about Iraqi civilians but let us bear in mind that the deaths of innocent civilians (collateral damage according to our non-combatant officials) have an impact on reaction of the Iraqi people. Comments Unknown — 2005-11-01 I think we can safely call the first supereme court nominee a red herring at this point.

What now, Democrats ? Bush reenergizes the base. Battered by the Harriet Miers fiasco,the indictment against "Scooter" Libby, and dwindling support for his war, the president reacted quickly to deflect attention. As expected, his weekend at Camp David resulted in a decision about the nominee to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. He could not afford to take any chances and he did not. The report by Fred Barbash and Peter Baker in The Washington Post covers the announcement about Judge Samuel A. Alito,Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.The Democrats must oppose Judge Alito. Unlike Harriet Miers, Judge Alito comes with a paper trail--long, detailed and clear about where he stands. The president deliberately picked a candidate who would cause an uproar. Facing declining support, he badly needed an issue to rally his conservative base. He created one. Divisiveness pays. One can see the smirk. "What does your duty demand? What does your honor demand? And what does your country demand? It is hard enough to answer the first two questions, but harder still when the nation's elected leaders are silent about the last."--Justice Sandra Day O'Connor at U.S. Military Academy,West Point, Oct.20, 2005

The monster in the basementIt has been written about, talked about and condemned but brides are mentally and physically abused, sometimes killed by greedy in-laws in today's India. This barbaric practice continues despite the fact that in many respects India today is a far cry from the India that V.S. Naipaul and others wrote about. "Indian Middle Class Grows, But Ugly Tradition Persists", John Lancaster's report in today's Washington Post is about one unfortunate young woman who died at the hands of her husband and father-in-law. "NEW DELHI--Charanpreet Kaur, 19, had been married less than nine months when her husband and his family decided it was time for her to go. Trapping her in the bathroom, her husband clamped his hand over her mouth while his father doused her with kerosene, according to a police document. The father then lit a match, setting his daughter-in-law on fire. She died five days later. " In some instances, the crimes do receive publicity and those charged end up being punished. But there seems to be a general lack of concern about the shameful system under which a bride's parents are required make payments, in cash and kind, to the groom. It is illegal to demand dowry but the custom continues unabated among all classes--rich and poor. Many highly educated young men tacitly approve of it. One gets the feeling that if it were not for some women's organizations actively involved in exposing and fighting the abuses related to dowry system the Indians would prefer to ignore it. Comments Unknown — 2005-11-01 I saw a woman on television not too long ago that suffered this horrific fate. She was burned when the m.i.l. to be or hubby to be (can't recall) threw acid on her b/c her family wouldn't pay up and up and up... She was positively beautiful before the incident, but even more so with all her bravery and strong spirit after. Bharat — 2005-11-15 Here's the real picture about wide-spread misuse of dowry laws by today's Indian daughters-in-law: Misuse of Dowry Laws