Grab bag Tuesday Morning

Posted on July 27th, 2010 by ecthompson md

Steve McCurry's famous 1984 photo

  • When Kodak gives you the last roll of Kodachrome film, what do you do with it? Famous photojournalist Steve McCurry tells us exactly what he did with the last roll. Sometimes, I am really amazed at how things have changed.
  • Another no-hitter? It seems like 15 years ago we couldn’t keep the baseball in the park (tons of home runs). Now, pitchers rule. What happened?
  • I’ve never been a fan of Tom Tancredo. I think he is reckless and dangerous. I think he is taking the politics of divide and conquer to a new level. When he decided not to run for reelection, there was the question of whether he was going to run for president. That lasted about 10 minutes. Now he’s running for governor of Colorado, sort of. The craziness continues.
  • It appears that a minor military contractor is up to his luxury cars in trouble.
  • I guess there was a time when I was more enthusiastic about Afghanistan than I am today. I thought that continued military engagement was necessary. I also thought it was critically important that we help them build infrastructure and an economy (not based on poppy seeds). It looks like thousands of pages of secret documents have been leaked to the press. There is a suggestion of a link between the Taliban and some within the Pakistani military force. No surprise there.
  • BTW, are we still in Iraq? Militants stealing blood?
  • I’m not sure that Elizabeth Warren is the right person to head up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It isn’t that she isn’t smart enough. She’s plenty smart. I’m afraid that putting her in charge of a minor agency buried deep within the bowels of a Department of the Treasury will give her little or no opportunity to really speak up for the American people. She needs a bigger stage. Then again, maybe she can make that stage bigger.
  • More Americans are moving. This does not look to be a good thing.

Anything to add?

Tags: Afghanistan, Economy, Iraq, Party Politics, Sports // 6 Comments »

  • Joe White

    As part of your link purporting to show Tancredo is 'reckless and dangerous', you note “he (Tancredo) said that we should eliminate the Congressional Black and Hispanic caucuses because they weren’t needed any more”

    Just curious, how would you feel about a Congressional White Caucus that excluded minority members?

  • ecthompson

    Joe –

    As far as I know, there is no evidence that the Congressional Black Caucus or Congressional Hispanic Caucus excludes other members. Please show me any evidence to the contrary. If these caucuses are exclusive than they should be eliminated. I suspect that they're not exclusive.

    The Congressional White Caucus is called the House of Representatives. I don't know how you didn't see that coming.

    Thanks for your comments.

  • Joe White

    As a white liberal running in a majority African American district, Tennessee Democrat Stephen I. Cohen made a novel pledge on the campaign trail last year: If elected, he would seek to become the first white member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

    Now that he's a freshman in Congress, Cohen has changed his plans. He said he has dropped his bid after several current and former caucus members made it clear to him that whites need not apply.

    “I think they're real happy I'm not going to join,” said Cohen, who succeeded Rep. Harold Ford, D-Tenn., in the Memphis district. “It's their caucus and they do things their way. You don't force your way in. You need to be invited.”

    Cohen said he became convinced that joining the caucus would be “a social faux pas” after seeing news reports that former Rep. William Lacy Clay Sr., D-Mo., a co-founder of the caucus, had circulated a memo telling members it was “critical” that the group remain “exclusively African-American.”

    Other members, including the new chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., and Clay's son, Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo., agreed.

    “Mr. Cohen asked for admission, and he got his answer. … It's time to move on,” the younger Clay said. “It's an unwritten rule. It's understood. It's clear.”

    http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0107/2389….

  • Joe White

    Dr Thompson wrote:

    “BTW, are we still in Iraq?”

    Yes, and in an interesting interview, Tariq Aziz confirms the account given by Saddam himself shortly before his death.

    In summary: Saddam lied, people died.

    Saddam purposefully led the world to believe he had or was developing WMDs in order to keep Iran, with whom he had recently fought an 8 year long war, at bay. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/05/ira…

    If a madman goes into the street waving a gun, and the police shoot him only to find the gun wasn't loaded, are the police somehow the bad guys? I don't think so.

  • ecthompson

    Joe –

    Do you really want to go down this road?

    Okay, you open up this can. Let's use your analogy of the madman waving a gun in the air. Now, to make your analogy more complete, within a group of detectives to search the madman's house and his records and find out that the madman has no bullets. As a matter fact, we send operatives to every store that the madman frequents. We find out that the madman has not purchased any bullets in more than a decade. As a matter fact, he's had his gun dismantled and only has a toy gun. Finally, to make your analogy more complete, the madman is not running down the street but instead is in his house hollering with a megaphone that he's a big bad man with a big bad gun. Now, the analogy is complete.

    Hans Blix's book, Disarming Iraq, really lays out the efforts that the weapons inspectors made in order to “prove” that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. Both England and the United States through their covert operations found Iraqi scientists, in Iraq. These scientists had intimate knowledge of their nuclear program because they worked on their nuclear program in the early 90s. The United States went so far as to find an anesthesiologist in Cleveland whose brother had worked on the nuclear program. Both sources said there was no nuclear program. The Uranium from Niger was bogus from the start. The aluminum tubes were also bogus. Scientist from the Department of Energy declared that story bogus almost immediately.

    Yes, Saddam Hussein was a madman. He was a madman with a toy gun and no bullets. We had the information prior to the invasion that Saddam Hussein harbored no weapons of mass destruction.

    I've written extensively on this. I'm sure you can find it with just a little effort on my blog.

    Thank you for your comments.

  • Joe White

    Tariq Aziz correctly summarizes the situation. Saddam purposefully led Iran (and by extension, the West as well) to believe he had or was pursuing WMDs. Tariq's impossible mission was to prove a negative, i.e that there werent any plans to produce WMDs.

    Of course , in addition to this, WMDs were only one of many reasons for the resumption of hostilities in Iraq. Iraq existed under a cease fire agreement from the end of the first Gulf War until 2003 when Saddam's continual breaches of the terms of the cease fire brought consequences which he clearly could've avoided.

    Saddam played chicken, and his country paid the price when he took it over a cliff.

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