Our Awful Situation

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President Bush pardons himself against potential war crimes

Posted by Charlie Kilo on July 24th, 2008

“…at least Nixon had Gerald Ford to do his dirty work.”

While Congress goes on vacation…

Top 25 things vanishing from America: #1 — The family farm

Posted by Charlie Kilo on July 22nd, 2008

This series explores aspects of America that may soon be just a memory — some to be missed, some gladly left behind. From the least impactful to the most, here are 25 bits of vanishing America.

When Gas Stations Run Out of Gas

Posted by Charlie Kilo on July 6th, 2008

Consumers aren’t the only ones getting squeezed at the pump. Many gas station owners can’t afford to buy gas either:

Don’t be surprised to see more filling stations with empty pumps. But don’t panic either. There isn’t a gasoline shortage like there was in the 1970s.

What’s happening is that filling stations have had their margins squeezed. Credit-card companies charge by the dollar, pushing up costs per gallon that filling stations pay to work with banks. And forget about sneaking in a few pennies’ worth of profit. Consumers are bargain-shopping like never before. The upshot: Some filling stations either can’t stay in business or are just barely hanging on.

Plenty of filling stations have already gone under. Last year, 3,184 of the nation’s 164,292 gasoline stations closed their doors and went out of business, the biggest drop in five years…

Hirsh: An Unnatural Disaster

Posted by Charlie Kilo on May 15th, 2008

America bears much of the blame for its waning global clout:

In a month of horrific natural disasters—the China quake, the Burma cyclone—it’s instructive to consider what one of the biggest unnatural disasters in memory looks like. That is the decline in America’s position in the world from where we were when George W. Bush inherited power on Jan. 20, 2001, to what he will bequeath to the next president eight months from now.

In many articles and in book after book American “declinists” nowadays tend to portray America’s reduced stature as a largely natural phenomenon. Never mind that on the eve of the Bush presidency we were still seen as the most powerful nation in the history of the world. Decadent powers always wane in influence, and it seems we’ve just been doing a lot of waning very quickly. As other countries around the world partook of the ideas we pressed on them in the post-cold war era—free markets, democracy—they started to prosper and catch up to us. Meanwhile we grew fatter (literally) and more spoiled. It was all very organic.

Hirsh concludes:

Had we handled things right, what is now deemed American “decline” could have played out very differently. We will never know, of course. And we won’t know for a long time whether the next president can begin the titanic task of raising us up again. All is hardly lost: despite the rise of China and India, and Russia’s rumblings, there is still no credible rival to superpower status. But let’s not kid ourselves about the cause of our problems.

US Navy significantly increasing presence in Persian Gulf

Posted by Charlie Kilo on May 15th, 2008

US Navy is deploying SIX carrier battle groups to the Gulf. Iran is hording oil in anticipation of an attack:

MSNBC: Legal questions follow polygamist raid

Posted by Charlie Kilo on April 26th, 2008

Broad sweep of FLDS children raises constitutional questions; critics cry foul.

Interesting to see questions about the legality of the FLDS raid finally hitting the mainstream media:

The state of Texas made a damning accusation when it rounded up 462 children at a polygamous sect’s ranch: The adults are forcing teenage girls into marriage and sex, creating a culture so poisonous that none should be allowed to keep their children.

But the broad sweep — from nursing infants to teenagers — is raising constitutional questions, even in a state where authorities have wide latitude for taking a family’s children.

The move has the appearance of “a class-action child removal,” said Jessica Dixon, director of the child advocacy center at Southern Methodist University’s law school in Dallas.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” she said.

Rod Parker, a spokesman for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, contends that the state has essentially said, “If you’re a member of this religious group, then you’re not allowed to have children.”

Attorneys for the families and civil-liberties groups also are crying foul. They say the state should not have taken children away from all church members living at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado.

Here’s some additional analysis from Joel Skousen of World Affairs Brief:

I waited a week to comment on the Texas case, separating 437 children from their FLDS parents, to see if any substantive evidence of abuse would emerge. It hasn’t. Even if it had, those could have been handled individually. But no, Texas plans instead to make every member of the group pay the supreme price: to strip away their beloved children. This case is about group punishment. In spite of a search warrant tainted by a false witness (the “Sarah” who doesn’t exist), no actual specific evidence of abuse, or any unwilling participants in this polygamous compound, a self-righteous Texas judge had decreed that all 400 + children will not be returned to the custody of their parents. Texas has gone too far to rid itself of this awkward religious sect that built the “Yearning for Zion” (YFZ) ranch in order to evade persecution in Utah and Arizona. As this tyrannical order clearly meant separating even nursing children from their mothers, a wave of outrage began to sweep the nation. The media-sensitive judge immediately changed her order (allowing children under 1 year of age to be nursed) in order to keep the tide of public relations on the side of the authorities. But this should not deter the nation from realizing the danger of the tenuous legal proposition that mere membership in a group (that may have isolated examples of marrying underage girls) makes all unworthy of possessing any children at all—ever. That is wrong, especially when legal remedies exist to prosecute specific wrongdoers.