Posts by Hines Brian

Now that the 9,400 acre Black Crater fire near Sisters, Oregon is nearly contained, the local weekly is asking why the fire wasn’t stopped when it was 50 to 100 acres in size, before it threatened residential communities. The Nugget newspaper’s answer: lack of resources. Sisters District ranger Bill Anthony is quoted: “The fix is, obviously, to make more resources available,” said Anthony. And that would take a considerable ramping up of funding. “I would say that that discussion needs to be between the citizens and the public representatives that represent them,” Anthony said. My wife and I are part…

It’s no wonder things are going so bad in Iraq. The U.S. military can’t even count. Images taken from drones flying over the recent massive pro-Hezbollah rally in Baghdad supposedly showed that 14,000 people attended the demonstration. The organizer of the march, Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, said the crowd totaled one million. So who are you going to believe? I’d say, “none of the above.” An Iraqi working for the Los Angeles Times estimated there were at least 100,000 demonstrators. Tellingly, the story in which this estimate appeared said, “American military officials, eager to play down support for Hezbollah, put…

If I was the parent of one of the 37 children killed by the Israeli bomb that hit the Lebanese town of Qana last night, the least I’d expect from the citizens of the country whose President and Secretary of State see no need for a cease fire that would have saved the lives of those innocents is this: A tear. Better, lots of them. Have we forgotten how to cry? Sometimes it takes a talented writer to remind us of what it means to be human. (Are you paying attention, George and Condoleezza?). I’ve just finished reading “God Laughs…

This morning I was drowsily watching President Bush and Prime Minister Blair answer softball questions lobbed at them by a passive press corps when NBC’s David Gregory woke me up with a fast ball pitched right over the plate. “Mr. President, three years ago you argued that an invasion of Iraq would create a new stage of Arab-Israeli peace. Yet today there is an Iraqi prime minister who’s been sharply critical of Israel. Arab governments, despite your arguments for criticizing Hezbollah, have now changed their tune. Now they’re sharply critical of Israel. And despite, from both of you, warnings to…

Bush spokesman Tony Snow told us that Bush believes embryonic stem cell research is murder before he told us that it isn’t. Today at the White House press briefing Snow backed off the “murder” word, retreating to “The President has said that he believes this is the destruction of human life.” Hmmmm. So Bush vetoed a bill that would have allowed federal funding of embryonic stem cell research because this entails destroying human life. Yet it is OK if private funds destroy human life. I’m with Steve Young on this one: murder is murder no matter who’s paying. Oh, except…

Take a look at this eight-cell human embryo. Does it look like a person? Would using it for stem cell research, rather than destroying it, be murder? President Bush believes so. That’s why he’s going to veto the stem cell legislation passed by Congress. Today White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was asked by a reporter, “Can you remind us why the President believes that it is more appropriate for stem cells to be thrown away than to be used in this case for medical research?” Snow’s answer: What the President has said is that he doesn’t want human life…

The sort of yellow ribbon magnet that I’d be willing to affix to my car would need really small lettering: “Support the troops, but not if they’re committing atrocities, or acting as if the Iraq conflict were a war rather than the occupation that it really is.” Yes, it’s getting harder to support the troops. What bothers me the most is the attitude, promulgated from the President on down, that we’re engaged in an “Iraq war.” That was only briefly true. Now its an Iraq occupation. Most of the insurgents that we’re fighting are home-grown, a nationalist reaction to a…