Sometimes events arrive with such stunning poetic symmetry the Stiftung wonders (even if only for a nanosecond) whether the Universe speaks to us every moment of the day with mischevious humor. Usually such thoughts come unbidden when a flat tire occurs on the way to a family holiday gathering. But not always.



In the WaPo Book World today, a review of the new Extinction, How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago by Douglas Ervin caught our eye. Joshua Foer, the reviewer, says:

Though the dinosaurs might find it crass to say so, the late Cretaceous cataclysm that did them in was a planetary bad hair day compared to the mass extinction that occurred some 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period. The Permian event is probably the closest that life on Earth ever came to being completely extinguished . . .

Just what caused this apocalypse is one of science's great unsolved riddles. Over the years, a cottage industry of Permian speculators has pointed the finger at just about every conceivable culprit. The list of indicted suspects includes — take a deep breath — plate tectonics, volcanoes, glaciation, a meteor, a supernova, a massive methane burp from the depths of the sea, oxygen-deprived oceans, an overly complex global ecosystem that collapsed under its own weight and, most fantastic of all, a buildup of cancer-inducing dark matter in the Earth's core. Dream up a way of killing off life on Earth, and chances are some reputable scientist has already proposed it as a cause of the Permian extinction.

The Stiftung was intrigued enough to venture out and examine the book in the wilds of a strip mall Barnes & Noble. And then the Universe spoke later this evening.

On television there was this quite compelling CSPAN AfterWords with Jim Pinkerton interviewing Bruce Bartlett about Bartlett's new tome, Imposter: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy.



Pinkerton, as you may know, in addition to his column for Newsday and Tech Central Station, is a Fox News Contributor, and served in the Reagan and Bush Administrations. As Director of Research for the Bush '88 campaign, Pinkerton and Lee Attwater are credited with steering Bush 41 to victory (and working closely with a certain namesake son).

Bartlett was a domestic policy advisor to Ronald Reagan and served in the Bush 41 Treasury Department. Bartlett, also a syndicated columnist, was associated with the National Center for Policy Analysis, a free market think tank in Dallas, Texas. That is, until he was fired in 2005 for criticizing President Bush. Apparently writing this book was a 'firing offense'.

So together, these two have serious street cred in the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. And for one glorious hour, the fossil record of what happened to 'rational conservative thought' since 2001 and to the Reagan legacy was examined with calm and almost forensic care.

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Appropos of the item below, Scooter's website is up and running:



And lest we forget, here is a close up of the Advisory Committee (emphasis added):

David Ignatius says some important things today in the WaPo. Stunned, the Stiftung glanced out the window to see the Porcine Southern Air Force All Star Review flyby. The sun positively glinted off them as they soared in performance. (As all fans of the Pundit Almanac [online edition] know, this presages another month and half of winter.)

Ignatius is less sycophantic to his Community sources than usual today. So let's take advantage and see what he says. Here, he correctly notes that how the NSA issue is resolved will determine whether we remain a nation of laws or of men.

But from this promising insight, he backslides, perhaps reflexively, into the old canard of the utterly bogus strawman. He constructs false equivalence between the WH and some unspecified liberal groups. This strawman allows him the critical distance to tut tut all involved.

As quickly as you can say the words “Karl Rove,” the debate over the National Security Agency's anti-terrorist surveillance programis degenerating into a partisan squabble. Rather than seeking a compromise that would anchor the program in law, both the administration and its critics are pursuing absolutist agendas — insisting on the primacy of security or liberty, rather than some reasonable balance of the two. This way lies disaster.(emphasis added)

In Ignatius' world, 'quickly degenerating' as a modifed gerund has a weird time lapse quality to it. The White House attacked its critics (of both parties) immediately when the story broke in December. It said critics were aiding the enemy. Almost 60 days ago. One wonders what color sky the Porcine Southern Air Force All Star Review sees out the cockpit.

But this logical and rhetorical error aside, Ignatius recovers. He notes that the Adminisrtation demands an “absolutist” position of Executive omnipotence. And he acknowledges that Cheney and Addington are the malignant force driving this position.

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