Planet Geek

Orson Scott Card - Totally Nucking Futs.

I usually give authors some leeway in their personal lives and opinions. I mean, particularly SF authors are an odd lot, and entitled to their quirks.

I had heard that OSC had some pretty off the wall opinions regarding gay marriage and the like, but this latest rant, published in the July 24th, 2008 "Mormon Times" as an op-ed piece, takes the 'batshit crazy' to a new level.

I suggest you sit down and steady yourself with something soothing before reading that piece. There's hardly a paragraph that doesn't elicit a "WHAT?!??!" and "That's a blatant lie" and "You have GOT to be kidding me", but here's a taste if you don't feel like wading through the vitriol. The first paragraph pretty much sets the tone;

The first and greatest threat from court decisions in California and Massachusetts, giving legal recognition to "gay marriage," is that it marks the end of democracy in America.

Got that? Democracy's over, kids! Lets head for the caves!

How bout a few more tidbits:

Remember how rapidly gay marriage has become a requirement. When gay rights were being enforced by the courts back in the '70s and '80s, we were repeatedly told by all the proponents of gay rights that they would never attempt to legalize gay marriage. It took about 15 minutes for that promise to be broken.

Wait, who? what? Who promised what where? And I hardly remember laws being passed where it was stipulated "We shall not pursue gay marriage!"

It just goes on. Enjoy the humor value of his ravings, and know that in fact there are many people in the world who think this way. Mores the pity.

Thanks to laist.com and Digg for the pointers.

Clinton Digs Herself in Deeper

In the beginning, I was a fair supporter of Hillary. I thought she had the chops to do the job, and would be professional, honest, and hard working.

But as this race winds down, and for all intents and purposes, it's over, she's getting more vicious, more whacked, and just plain Not Making Any Sense.

I give as the latest example, as reported via ABCnews blogger Jake Tapper:

In Florida today, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., vociferously pushed her argument that the disqualified contests in Michigan and Florida should count, even though the DNC said the contests didn't count, no candidate campaigned in either state, and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., along with many other Democratic candidates, was not even on the Michigan ballot.

"I believe the Democratic Party must count these votes. They should count them exactly as they were cast," she said in Palm Beach County, per ABC News' Eloise Harper, apparently meaning that she should receive more than 300,000 votes from Michigan and Obama should receive zero.

In Sunrise, Fla., Clinton assailed countries "where votes don't count. People go through the motions of an election only to have it discarded and disregarded. We're seeing that right now in Zimbabwe -- tragically an election was held, the president lost, they refused to abide by the will of the people. So we can never take for granted our precious right to vote."

As GC said... "Wait, WHAT?" Not only does this comparison make no sense whatsoever, but as Jake says later in his post, Clinton didn't make an issue of this until she started losing so badly, AND her own advisor, who is on the DNC rules and regulations committee, voted not to count Michigan and Florida's votes. Continuing from there, the states themselves broke the rules, as they themselves say, to try and bolster their position in the election process. The DNS's rules are there for a reason. Break the rules, you don't get seated. Done and done.

Mrs. Clinton, shut the hell up. You're doing a disservice to yourself, the democratic party, and the entire election process. How you can possibly think what you're doing is positive for any American besides yourself (and even then I disagree) I cannot fathom.

The XO Laptop - OLPC comes true.

I rarely get involved in rallying folks to humanitarian causes or try to entice people to donate time any money to charities. When I do, it's generally about something I feel quite strongly about.

About 2 years ago the faculty members at the MIT Media lab launched a project called One Laptop Per Child, the idea being that if a laptop could be built for $100, millions could be produced and distributed all through the developing nations through donations, government support, and other forms of philanthropy. The driving force is to try and make a direct impact on the socio-technological gap that is so apparent across the worlds population.

The result of this project is the XO Laptop, a machine designed by the OLPC team to address the specific challenges that will be encountered by children using the machine where there are no power outlets, or no internet, and where conditions may not be as squeaky clean as they are in your typical home office. The laptop itself, by modern standards, is underpowered, but the design is so open, so green, and so sturdy, you can't help but be impressed.

This is a laptop designed for children to carry around with them, anywhere, anytime. It is waterproof, dirt proof, the battery lasts many many hours, it can network itself to other laptops arond it (a 'mesh'), and it can run off a $10 solar panel (and recharge from it too).

There is an excellent video review of the XO by David Pogue on the NY Times website. Even if you aren't interested in the machine directly, watch the video for an idea of what it's all about.

Now, the XO laptop didn't come in at $100. It actually came in at $183. As things ramp up, they hope to get the price down, but it's still a little more than they anticipated.

So as part of their launch, the OLPC project has a special offer.

On November 12th, you can go to XOgiving.org and enroll in the "Give one, get one" program. You pay $400, and get an XO laptop of your very own. "Wait, $400? That's twice what you said!" - Yes, it is. Because if you purchase an XO laptop for $400, a second laptop will be sent to a child in a developing nation.

My wife and I are seriously considering one of these laptops for our 8 year old son, and the added benefit of benefiting a child elsewhere is just icing on the cake.

If nothing else, watch the David Pogue video for all the details on the machine. It's a remarkably green, well designed, and rugged little machine.

AT&T Blinks...

I try not to just blatantly repost things I see on other blogs, but this one is worth boosting up a little bit.

About a week ago, it came to light that AT&T had truly heinous restrictions in their contracts that gave them the legal right to terminate your account if you said anything bad about them.

AT&T tried wiggle around it, saying they'd never actually prosecute using that clause, but the blogosphere wouldn't let it go.

Yesterday, AT&T revised their contract:

5.1 Suspension/Termination. AT&T respects freedom of expression and believes it is a foundation of our free society to express differing points of view. AT&T will not terminate, disconnect or suspend service because of the views you or we express on public policy matters, political issues or political campaigns. However, AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes (a) violates the Acceptable Use Policy; or (b) constitutes a violation of any law, regulation or tariff (including, without limitation, copyright and intellectual property laws) or a violation of these TOS, or any applicable policies or guidelines. Your Service may be suspended or terminated if your payment is past due and such condition continues un-remedied for thirty (30) days. Termination or suspension by AT&T of Service also constitutes termination or suspension (as applicable) of your license to use any Software. AT&T may also terminate or suspend your Service if you provide false or inaccurate information that is required for the provision of Service or is necessary to allow AT&T to bill you for Service.

As someone who is seriously considering an iPhone sometime in the not too distant future, seeing activism generating a positive response from the vendor is heartening.

Score one for the good guys.

(Thanks to boingboing for the article.)

A View of Truth

In Friday's Swift, James Randi's weekly column, he cited a remarkablebook by Andrew Keen called "The Cult of the Amateur".

I'm reproducing the block that Randi mentioned - I believe his selection is excellent and states much of what I feel is at issue in internet commentary, and indeed, the way people perceive 'truth' today...

Truth… is being "flattened," as we create an on-demand, personalized version of the truth, reflecting our own individual myopia. One person's truth becomes as "true" as anyone else's. Today's media is shattering the world into a billion personalized truths, each seemingly equally valid and worthwhile. To quote Richard Edelman, the founder, president and CEO of Edelman PR, the world's largest privately owned public relations company:

In this era of exploding media technologies there is no truth except the truth you create for yourself.

This undermining of truth is threatening the quality of civil public discourse, encouraging plagiarism and intellectual property theft and stifling creativity. When advertising and public relations are disguised as news, the line between fact and fiction becomes blurred. Instead of more community, knowledge, or culture, all that Web 2.0 really delivers is more dubious content, from anonymous sources, hijacking our time and playing to our gullibility.

Need proof? Let's look at that army of perjurious penguins – "Al Gore's Army of Penguins" to be exact. Featured on YouTube, the film, a crude "self-made" satire of Gore's pro-environment movie An Inconvenient Truth, belittles the seriousness of [his] message by featuring a penguin version of Al Gore preaching to other penguins about global warning.

But [this film] is not just another homemade example of YouTube inanity. Though many of the 120,000 people who viewed this video undoubtedly assumed it was the work of some SUV-driving amateur with an aversion to recycling, in reality, the Wall Street Journal traced the real authorship of this neo-con satire to DCI Group, a conservative Washington, D.C. public relationships and lobbying firm whose clients include ExxonMobil. The video is nothing more than political spin, enabled and perpetuated by the anonymity of Web 2.0, masquerading as independent art. In short, it is a big lie.

Trying to navigate the information overload we have today to try and get 'reality' out of the morass is a challenge I personally face every day. Aside from the deep philosophical overtones, I have a firm faith (if that is the proper word) in reality and truth. Superstition and fantasy masquerading as fact has no place in my worldview. To me, spin, misdirection, and deception, like the video mentioned above, are no better.

Idiot AP Reporters

What is it with supposedly 'technical' reporters? They apparently haven't clue ONE about the material they're writing about.

Take for example an article appearing in the Herald Tribune - Europe. The subject is a good one, Tim Berners-Lee discussing research into the future of the 'net. A worthy topic, but the short article contains this little gem:

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist who is credited with creating the Internet, said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. that the way the Web is used should be examined by a broad spectrum of experts.

NO. WRONG. TBL had nothing to do with the 'Invention of the Internet'. TBL is credited with first linking hypertext documents with a mechanism for linking these documents to remote servers. He wrote the first webserver, and the first web browser, and coined the term 'World Wide Web'. This is an application that runs OVER the internet.

How is it possible this man is still trusted?

Congress passed a recent law that stated it was important that whomever gets put into the job administering FEMA had better know what the hell he was doing. To wit:

(Courtesy of ThinkProgress)

Sounds great, right? Nope, says Bush. I disagree, so I'm going to ignore you. From the signing statement :

Section 503(c)(2) vests in the President authority to appoint the Administrator, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, but purports to limit the qualifications of the pool of persons from whom the President may select the appointee in a manner that rules out a large portion of those persons best qualified by experience and knowledge to fill the office. The executive branch shall construe section 503(c)(2) in a manner consistent with the Appointments Clause of the Constitution.

Bush has said, flat out, that laws made by Congress need never be adhered to, need never be followed by the executive branch. In essence, Congress has lost control of the president. This man has to be removed from office. There's simply no two ways about it. If even the Congress cannot make laws to oversee and limit bad decisions by the commander in chief, then the basics tenets of our government structure have already been destroyed.

The office of the president has only one tool it can use to moderate laws passed by Congress. He can pass them in full, or he can veto them. That is how our constitution is written. He cannot choose to 'pass them into law' but choose not to obey them.

Per Article 1 of the Constitution:

Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it.

I am at a loss how to accomplish this removal. Moreover, I am at a loss to understand why any member of our government still supports this man and his actions.

Clinton's Interview on FoxNews

Sometimes it's easy to forget what it's like having someone in power that can actually make an intelligent, reasoned argument. Someone who makes informed, intelligent decisions, and thinks before acting, as opposed to acting, then justifying.

Chris Wallace interviewed Bill Clinton on Fox News recently, and tried, as Fox will do, to spin the conversation into simple little "groupthink" boxes - "Democrats are weak on terrorism", "Clinton should have gotten Bin Laden when he could have" etc etc.

Clinton completely smacks Wallace down with details, facts, and truth. The video is fantastic, but the transcript needs to be printed and mailed to household that thinks GW Bush and the neocons are doing the right things for the future of the US and the world.

Update: Fixed some broken HTML. Sorry.

9/11 a year later. Politics win, people lose.

Think the US is in better shape than it was 5 years ago? Think that the 9/11 commission actually answered any questions or was an impartial inquiry? Really think that President "It's a criminal act. NOWAIT! It's a WAR! YEAH! Get the tanks out!" Bush has done ANYTHING to help the US in the last 5 years?

Think again.

My disgust with the state of US political scene continues apace. And people still think Bush is good for the country.

Busted for wearing a t-shirt.

Not sure where I first found this link, but:

"Hey, listen. I'm a veteran. This is a V.A. facility. I'm sitting here not talking to anybody, having a cup of coffee. I'm not protesting and you can't kick me out."

"You'll either go or we'll arrest you," Adkins threatened.

Smacks of the whole "Free Speech Zone" BS.

Full story on OnlineJournal.

And now for something REALLY offensive.

Welcome to Massachusetts
Originally uploaded by eidolon.

StopLiberalJudges.com is a ministry of the American Family Association, a leading conservative, pro-family organization
committed to motivating and equipping citizens to change the culture to reflect Biblical truth in today's culture war.

Is Gore an alarmist?

There's no secret I'm one of those pinko lefty anti-bushies. No question there. I see Bush and his cronies as a wave of darkness engulfing the US political system, tainting not only our own lives, but affecting the world with their ideological ultra-conservative mores.

So I've been following Al Gores An Inconvenient truth with interest. It's gotten a lot of attention and support, with not just a little haranguing from the right. A lot of the chatter has been "Why didn't we see this Gore in the election?", but there's also been support for the ideas he's presenting in the movie. Is global warming a real threat, and are CO2 levels from carbon emissions precipitating a global temperature change? Surely it must be right. Environmentalists agree, the Bushies disagree and cast doubt on it, so it must be true, right?

Right?

Maybe not. An article on Canada Free Press states that there's a ton of misleading and flat out wrong information in Gore's film.

I went into reading this article with a typical skeptical attitude. "This must be just a few anti-ecologists. The few 'scientists' drummed up by the right to counter Gore's arguments, to cast doubt on the whole thing." But, reading it, no, this isn't. These are the people who really do make the climate predictions, and they're saying... Gore is completely off the mark. Read the article all the way through, and you'll see what I mean.

So, who to believe? I don't know now. I don't believe Gore's 'imminent death of the world' scenario. I believe our activities on the planet are having an impact, but we're not about to turn stretches of the US into desert, nor are we looking at a 30ft change in ocean levels. But, I do believe what we do changes the environment around us, and we need to make sure our ecological footprint is as small as possible.

What's your ecological footprint?

	CATEGORY 	ACRES
	FOOD 		4.7
	MOBILITY 	1
	SHELTER 	5.2
	GOODS/SERVICES 	5.7
	TOTAL FOOTPRINT 	17
	
	IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 ACRES PER 
PERSON.  WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 4.5 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE ACRES PER PERSON. 	
IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 3.7 PLANETS. 

Thanks to Slashdot for the initial link.

Update 13:30pm - Kai has pointed out that the Canadian Free Press hardly an objective, balanced journal. Their front page articles are filled with judgemental and biased commentary. While the article linked is well written, the rest of the content of the site seriously calls into question any of the 'facts' stated. Regardless, the ecological footprint information IS valid and interesting.

If you weren't angry before...

... there's no reason to hold back now.

I've avoided political discussion for a while, mostly because the world pretty much knows how awful Bush is, and commenting on it just makes me angrier. But this article from the Boston Globe has to be read by anyone who thinks that Bush is still acting in any way fairly, legally, or morally in the right...

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

How can anyone possibly defend the actions of this man, who has taken on the role of sole arbiter of what is 'right' and what is 'wrong', no matter what the Constitution or the laws say? The Signing Statements have never been abused to this level before in the history of United States. No wonder Bush has never vetoed a bill. Had he followed the law and vetoed something he disagreed with, the Congress could have overruled him. These notes have no oversight. He can choose what laws he wants to obey that CONGRESS HAS PASSED, and which ones he doesn't feel like enforcing.

This is not the way the US Government should act, folks. Congress makes the laws, the President approves them or vetoes them, he doesn't get to pick and choose which ones he likes or dislikes. That's called a Line Item Veto, and the Supreme court in the 90's rules that that was unconstitutional, even WITH congressional oversight.

A tragic day! NOT!

As announced via the Washington Post :

Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), a primary architect of the House Republican majority who became one of the most powerful and feared leaders in Washington, told House allies last night he will step down from the House rather than face a reelection fight that appears increasingly unwinnable.

Okay, everyone together now. "Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!"

Flat out documentation proving Bush Lied. Again.

Just have to share this one.

According to the Washington Post, A tape has surfaced documenting FEMA officials warning Bush directly that this storm could very well be "the big one". The one to break the levees, destroy the superdome, wreck the city. Bush's response? "We are fully prepared".

Without a doubt, the tape provides evidence that the White House received ample warning of the catastrophe. Yet within days of that videoconference, Mr. Bush would excuse the federal government's extraordinarily poor performance by telling an interviewer that "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." Moreover, at the time of the conference the White House had no idea whether federal emergency services were truly prepared. On the tape, the president doesn't ask any questions about preparedness, and there is no evidence in documents since released that he was any more engaged before or after the conference. Had anyone called the Defense Department? Was the National Guard en route? Were local Army bases prepared to help? Were emergency food and water supplies in place? The president, like everyone around him, appears to have assumed that everything would run like clockwork, just as it was supposed to on paper.

Why is it no surprise that no one trusts anything this man says anymore?

Jon Stewart rocks my world.

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal roundup of the late night comedy commentary:

Jon Stewart: "I'm joined now by our own vice-presidential firearms mishap analyst, Rob Corddry. Rob, obviously a very unfortunate situation. How is the vice president handling it?

Rob Corddry: "Jon, tonight the vice president is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Wittington. According to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush.

"And while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Whittington's face."

Jon Stewart: "But why, Rob? If he had known Mr. Whittington was not a bird, why would he still have shot him?"

Rob Corddry: "Jon, in a post-9-11 world, the American people expect their leaders to be decisive. To not have shot his friend in the face would have sent a message to the quail that America is weak."

Jon Stewart: "That's horrible."

Rob Corddry: "Look, the mere fact that we're even talking about how the vice president drives up with his rich friends in cars to shoot farm-raised wingless quail-tards is letting the quail know 'how' we're hunting them. I'm sure right now those birds are laughing at us in that little 'covey' of theirs.

Jon Stewart: "I'm not sure birds can laugh, Rob."

Rob Corddry: "Well, whatever it is they do … coo .. they're cooing at us right now, Jon, because here we are talking openly about our plans to hunt them. Jig is up. Quails one, America zero.

Jon Stewart: "Okay, well, on a purely human level, is the vice president at least sorry?"

Rob Corddry: "Jon, what difference does it make? The bullets are already in this man's face. Let's move forward across party lines as a people … to get him some sort of mask."

Thanks to aqeldroma for the pointer.

A Brilliant summary of the Danish cartoons

There is an outstanding roundup and summary of the details and issues surrounding the backlash against Denmark following the publication of some cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed in an unflattering light. As should come as a surprise to no one, the situation is filled with inaccuracies, lies, and misinformation on all fronts, but primarily in the details about what was actually published. Unfortunately, there's very little a sane world can do to stem the tide of hatred and violence that seems to be following this situation, even though the theoretical 'reasons' for this not only should not warrant such reactions, but are based on false information spread by those who are theoretically educated and knowledgeable.

It's a sad sad story on the state of freedom of expression and extremism in the world.

A good shirt for Kansans

Barb pointed me to this image available on T-shirts from Prickwear.com. This site appears to be even more directly and unabashedly offensive than Tshirthell.com, which I have to admit has some pretty funny stuff on it.

Anyway, this is available on a tshirt I wonder if I could get Cafepress to make a bumpersticker, something that will assure me of being beaten in Kansas.

Coming as no surprise to anyone...

OkCupid hosts another good 'where are you on the political / social spectrum' quiz here. I took it, and came out, unsurprisingly:

• You are a SOCIAL LIBERAL (76% permissive)
• You are an Economic Liberal (21% permissive)
• You are best described as a: Socialist

Shocking. The entire results (With splufty display graphs showing how I show up on the grid), is available here.

What is up with Garison Keillor?

Apparently the extremely liberal and well spoken host of Prairie Home Companion is suing a blogger for making a parody t-shirt.

The blogger tried to make simple amends with the lawyer, saying this is a ridiculous lawsuit, but Mr Keillor apparently wants to pursue legal action against this guy.

Does this make ANY sense?

A great summary of the position of the Left

Here is a great exchange between an online comic artist and someone who disliked that he was using his comic for lefty commentary. The resulting email exchange is fascinating.

Mad pr0pz to Fraterrisus for this link.

DC Pastor Channels 400yr Old Puritan Values

People complain about the "Left Wing Bloggers" spreading misinformation and bias, and the "Right Wing Bloggers" giving skewed and incomplete viewpoints. Ta heck with all that, here's a DC Pastor preaching that "Lesbianism is On the Rise" because "Sisters makin more money than brothers and it's creating problems in families... that's one of the reasons many of our women are becoming lesbians!"

According to this article in the Washington Blade, Rev. Willie Wilson, a Baptist Minister in DC, used these very words in a sermon delivered on July 3rd.

Some choice quotes:

"Lesbianism is about to take over our community. I ain't homophobic because everybody here got something wrong with him," he said. "But ... women falling down on another woman, strapping yourself up with something, it ain't real. That thing ain't got no feeling in it. It ain't natural. Anytime somebody got to slap some grease on your behind and stick something in you, it's something wrong with that. Your butt ain't made for that.

Lesbianism is about to take over our community. I'm talking about young girls. My son in high school last year, trying to go to the prom, he said, 'Dad, I ain't got nobody to take to the prom because all the girls in my class are gay. There ain't but two of them straight and both of them are ugly. I ain't got nobody to take to the prom.'

You got blood vessels and membranes in your behind. And if you put something unnatural in there, it breaks them all up. No wonder your behind is bleeding. It's destroying us. Can't make no connection with a screw and another screw. The Bible says God made them male and female. The Hebrew word "neged," which means complementary nature - there is something unique to man and unique to woman and it takes those two things to complement each other. You can't make a connection with two screws. It takes a screw and a nut! (shouting)."

To top it off, this sermon was titled "You've Got To Fight To Be Free". Why bother trying to put a 'spin' on a topic. Come right out with your hate, fear, and 1600-era's morals and slap them onto a crowd in a place of worship. Yeah!

Tweaking the righties.

Fun and fun. I'm having a nice exchange over on Jay Reding's blog. It really does amaze me that people still think Bush's position of pre-emption is a good and current policy.

Jay trotted out the old argument "Oh, so you think the Iraqi people would be better off under Saddam, eh?"

This argument is getting so old now. We'll never know now, will we? Since Bush decided to level the country to rubble and put us in a totally untenable situation.

Do I think they'd be better off than the current situation? I don't know, it's pretty bad. Do I think there were better ways of doing it than Bush's 'shoot now, make plans later' scenario? Absofuckinglutely.

Reinforces my latest summary of US politics:

Liberals think, then act.
Conservatives act, then justify.

Declaration of Repudiation

I sat down and read the Declaration of Independence document that Adam Shostack posted on Emergent Chaos. It's a fascinating document, and I don't believe I've ever read it straight through beginning to end.

Along those lines, Will Frank has created the Declaration of Repudiation, which summarizes, ala the Declaration of Independence, the injustices performed by our government over the last 5 years.

A wonderful piece of work.

Words from the Right, how blind they are.

I enjoy listening to America Right on XM radio. It's populated by the more rabid, but well spoken of the right wing pundits (folks like Michael Medved and Laura Abraham), but it brings into focus where the right is, and what they're thinking. It helps me get perspective on my own positions in politics, and how they relate to the rest of the world.

For balance, I also listen to Air America Radio. There's some wonderful commentary there, and well stated positions that for the most part I agree with, but I have to admit - though Al Franken is a helluva writer, and I love his views, he's boring as dirt to listen to in free-form commentary. He just doesn't have the pace needed to keep folks latched onto the conversation.

At any rate, America Right had Medved prattling on as he does, and banging the drum in his usual tunnel-vision way. He was taking a series of callers on the topic of the Iraq war, and caller after caller kept commenting "The democrats and the left just whine and complain no matter what! Why don't they come up with a concrete solution to win the war, instead of just bashing the right personally, and saying what a bad idea it was! What have they come up with? Nothing! Not a single concrete plan to win the war on terrorism". Medved, predictably, kept the rah-rah's going, with "You said it!" supportive chitchat.

What boggles me about this is... well, it's missing the point. Of course there's a lot of complaining about the war. It was unjustified, pigheaded, and disasterously executed. At the moment absolutely NO ONE, not on the right, nor on the left, has a plan to get out of it with anything approaching dignity or sanity, and cut right to the chase, the 'war' is completely, directly unwinnable.

"Unwinnable?!" you cry? Yes, unwinnable. The president has stated we are in the middle of a "War on terrorism". You can't declare war on a concept or an idea. Terrorist tactics have been around since the dawn of conflict, and will continue long after Bush has planted this country's reputation in the toilet (oops, too late). No matter how much money is spent, no matter how many troops die, no matter how many countries are invaded, you can never 'win a war on terrorism'. What exactly are the terms of victory? We kill every last terrorist? Okay. Define for me who a terrorist is, and we'll line 'em up and shoot them. Gosh, that may make some other people unhappy, and they may consider bombing one of our embassies. Okay, they're terrorists too, kill them as well. See where this is going?

The right is doing a wonderful job of whitewashing the public about the 'whining democrats', while still avoiding the main issue. Bush has no clue what he's doing, or how to get out of what he's created. He's spending a billion dollars a day fighting something he created, with no plan for an end. In fact, when confronted with this seemingly no-win scenario, his number one answer, his prime defense is "Stick it out. Don't give up now. We'll win in the end."

The cold clear facts here are that we are in an unwinnable war. A war of Bush's creation, and his only. The reasons for going to war were thin at best, and now things are worse.

The only answer here is for Bush to take 30cc's of humility and admit "okay, there were no WMD's. There is no tie between Iraq and 9/11. Maybe this was a bad idea, and I'm not sure how to get out of it. Help?"

Fat chance of that, eh? In the meantime, servicemen are dying or being maimed on a daily basis. And can anyone tell me...

Why?

Man grabs girls arm, now he's a sex offender.

Chicago Sun-Times article...

While acknowledging it might be "unfair for [Barnaby] to suffer the stigmatization of being labeled a sex offender when his crime was not sexually motivated," the court said his actions are the type that are "often a precursor" to a child being abducted or molested.

Apparently now, it's not a matter of committing a crime, nor a matter of planning to commit a crime, but now if you behave loosely like someone else who MIGHT commit a crime, you are now guilty of that crime.

The court system marches on, and more and more civil liberties are lost. What was lost here? The man did nothing wrong, and now he is labelled as a sex offender, and has to broadcast to everyone that he is a sex offender. Do you think the reactionary mobs who like to pillory 'sex offenders in the neighborhood' are going to read about the details of this man's case before throwing bricks through his window? I doubt it.

innnnteresting...

No greater damnation...

... than a man's own words.

These are the words of Karl Rove, at a New York Conservative Party get-together. There's nothing that makes me more nauseous, or underlines the horror that the conservative party represents in our government, than this man's characterization of Liberalism vs Conservatism.

Conservatives believe in lower taxes; liberals believe in higher taxes. We want few regulations; they want more. Conservatives measure the effectiveness of government programs by results; liberals measure the effectiveness of government programs by inputs. We believe in curbing the size of government; they believe in expanding the size of government. Conservatives believe in making America a less litigious society; liberals believe in making America a more litigious society. We believe in accountability and parental choice in education; they don't. Conservatives believe in advancing what Pope John Paul II called a "culture of life"; liberals believe there is an absolute unlimited right to abortion.

But perhaps the most important difference between conservatives and liberals can be found in the area of national security. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban; in the wake of 9/11, liberals believed it was time to… submit a petition. I am not joking. Submitting a petition is precisely what Moveon.org did. It was a petition imploring the powers that be" to "use moderation and restraint in responding to the… terrorist attacks against the United States."

I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt as I watched the Twin Towers crumble to the earth; a side of the Pentagon destroyed; and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble.

Moderation and restraint is not what I felt - and moderation and restraint is not what was called for. It was a moment to summon our national will - and to brandish steel.

MoveOn.Org, Michael Moore and Howard Dean may not have agreed with this, but the American people did. Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said: we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said: we must understand our enemies. Conservatives see the United States as a great nation engaged in a noble cause; liberals see the United States and they see … Nazi concentration camps, Soviet gulags, and the killing fields of Cambodia.

Has there been a more revealing moment this year than when Democratic Senator Richard Durbin, speaking on the Senate floor, compared what Americans had done to prisoners in our control at Guantanamo Bay with what was done by Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot - three of the most brutal and malevolent figures in the 20th century?

Let me put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts to the region the words of Senator Durbin, certainly putting America's men and women in uniform in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.

Some slightly good news

From the ACLU :

Late Wednesday afternoon, the House of Representatives took perhaps the most significant vote in the nearly four year debate over the USA PATRIOT Act. They voted 238 to 187 to amend the CJS spending bill by exempting libraries and bookstores from the scope of foreign intelligence records demands under Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

A small step forward.

National Academies Sets up pro-evolution website

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The National Academies, the flagship of U.S. science, said on Friday it had set up a Web site to battle attempts to portray evolution as mere speculation about how life developed on Earth.

The Web site, http:/nationalacademies.org/evolution/, carries links to various reports on evolution, which some U.S. religious groups want to be taught in schools only if their own views of a divine creator get equal credence.

(Via Reuters, thanks to Keyne).

It amazes me...

... how so many people who...

• did not sit on the 14 weeks of evidence presentation...
  
• have never met, seen, talked to, or interviewed the parties involved...
  
• have never had one day of legal schooling...
  
• were not in the jury...
  
• in fact, have not seen anything of the evidence other than what has been filtered through chat boards, CNN, and the rest of the 'media'
  

...can decide, point blank, the guilt or innocence of a man in a court case.

Is it so hard for people to say "I do not have enough information to be able to say one way or the other. I wasn't there."?

Because, for 99.9% of the people shouting at the top of their lungs about miscarriages of justice, or whatever, that's exactly the situation they're in.

A view of Iraq

From MSNBC, Newsweek's Baghdad bureau chief Rob Nordlund is leaving his post there, and has some choice commentary. (Linked to from DailyKos).

Living and working in Iraq, it's hard not to succumb to despair. At last count America has pumped at least $7 billion into reconstruction projects, with little to show for it but the hostility of ordinary Iraqis, who still have an 18 percent unemployment rate. Most of the cash goes to U.S. contractors who spend much of it on personal security. Basic services like electricity, water and sewers still aren't up to prewar levels. Electricity is especially vital in a country where summer temperatures commonly reach 125 degrees Fahrenheit. Yet only 15 percent of Iraqis have reliable electrical service. In the capital, where it counts most, it's only 4 percent.

The most powerful army in human history can't even protect a two-mile stretch of road. The Airport Highway connects both the international airport and Baghdad's main American military base, Camp Victory, to the city center. At night U.S. troops secure the road for the use of dignitaries; they close it to traffic and shoot at any unauthorized vehicles. More troops and more helicopters could help make the whole country safer. Instead the Pentagon has been drawing down the number of helicopters. And America never deployed nearly enough soldiers. They couldn't stop the orgy of looting that followed Saddam's fall. Now their primary mission is self-defense at any cost—which only deepens Iraqis' resentment.

The four-square-mile Green Zone, the one place in Baghdad where foreigners are reasonably safe, could be a showcase of American values and abilities. Instead the American enclave is a trash-strewn wasteland of Mad Max-style fortifications. The traffic lights don't work because no one has bothered to fix them. The garbage rarely gets collected. Some of the worst ambassadors in U.S. history are the GIs at the Green Zone's checkpoints. They've repeatedly punched Iraqi ministers, accidentally shot at visiting dignitaries and behave (even on good days) with all the courtesy of nightclub bouncers—to Americans and Iraqis alike. Not that U.S. soldiers in Iraq have much to smile about. They're overworked, much ignored on the home front and widely despised in Iraq, with little to look forward to but the distant end of their tours—and in most cases, another tour soon to follow. Many are reservists who, when they get home, often face the wreckage of careers and family.

I can't say how it will end. Iraq now has an elected government, popular at least among Shiites and Kurds, who give it strong approval ratings. There's even some hope that the Sunni minority will join the constitutional process. Iraqi security forces continue to get better trained and equipped. But Iraqis have such a long way to go, and there are so many ways for things to get even worse. I'm not one of those who think America should pull out immediately. There's no real choice but to stay, probably for many years to come. The question isn't "When will America pull out?"; it's "How bad a mess can we afford to leave behind?" All I can say is this: last one out, please turn on the lights.

Psychedelic Republicans!

The latest in the Collectible Cardgame craze!

That's right – your world is finally complete! It's amazing wacky fun time with all-new Psychedelic RepublicansTM trading cards! Collect them all, and gaze on in helpless, pupil-dilating wonder as your favorite C-SPAN stars morph into groovy explosions of technicolor conservatism!

Ruben Bolling on the Creationism wonks...

Ruben Bolling (author of Tom the Dancing Bug) totally nails it on the head in the 5/14 strip

"Religious activists held a news conference to promote their demand that schools stop teaching that water freezes at 32 degrees fahrenheit."

Thanks to Tom for this pointer.

'Downing Street' War Memo

During the runup to the british election, a memo was referenced repeatedly referring to documents detailing a series of high intelligence meetings between british intelligence (MI6) and the Administration in 2002:

the documents help prove that the leaders made a secret decision to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein nearly a year before launching their attack, shaped intelligence to that aim and never seriously intended to avert the war through diplomacy.

What's been most appalling is the lack of attention this document has gotten. House democrats wrote to Bush on May 6th:

In a letter to President Bush on May 6, 89 House Democrats expressed shock over the documents. They asked whether they proved that the White House had agreed to invade Iraq months before seeking Congress' approval

Both Bush and Blair have denied that a decision on war was made in 2002, and maintain that they were preparing for military operations only as an option. A Blair spokesman said the report added nothing significant to the record of the run-up to the war.

Broadcast Flag struck down

As reported on Boingboing and sites everywhere, today...

This morning, the DC Circuit of the US Court of Appeals struck down the loathsome Broadcast Flag, ruling that the FCC does not have the jurisdiction to regulate what people do with TV shows after they've received them.

This is outstanding news. Means the schmucks who tried to kill digital video recorders just like they tried ot nix VCRs back in the days lost big time, and projects like Myth TV shall continue.

One more nail in DeLay's coffin.

Yes, the masses can make a difference. Apparently the GOP yahoos have bitten off more than they can chew. Three months ago, as I had mentioned before, the house Ethics committee republicans made a set of 3 rule changes that were basically designed to protect Tom DeLay from further investigations.

The Daily Kos points to a Washington Post article saying the GOP, realizing they had really pushed things too far, are rescinding one of the rule changes.

The rule being rescinded basically says "If the ethics committee is at an impasse, and cannot resolve it in 45 days, then the complaint is dismissed.

The proposal will include a reversal of the January rule that would automatically dismiss an ethics complaint after 45 days if the committee is deadlocked.

"It's gone," an official said of the automatic-dismissal rule as he emerged from the negotiations.

Since one of the other rule changes is that an ethics complaint can't be moved into an investigation without a majority vote, this isn't really a major victory, but it is a step in the right direction.

So, let me get this straight.

In 1997, 2 years after the Republicans gained control of the house, they changed a key rule in how the ethics committee could start an investigation of a house member. The rule change was that if 50% of the committee requested a probe, then it would happen. That change was so that a single party could not 'block' the investigation of someone in another party.

Sounds good, right? Almost makes sense.

But Tom Delay just changed the rules again. NOW it takes a majority. This rule was put in place when, shockingly, the 10 member committee voted 3 times in 2004 to admonish DeLay, and talk of a probe into more ethics violations by him was rumored. DeLay took decisive action:

After the 10-member committee admonished DeLay three times in 2004 and talk of a possible probe by the committee grew, Republican leadership in the House changed a central rule. The committee can now launch an investigation only if a majority of members support the idea.

DeLay, of course, responded quickly with a rebuttal of these allegations:

DeLay has called himself the victim of "just another seedy attempt by the liberal media to embarrass me" and has lashed out at Democrats for a "strategy of personal destruction."

I think Dianne Feinstein, Democrat from California, says it best:

"What bothers me is the Republicans, when things aren't going their way, tend to try to change the rules."

and Barney Frank continues...

"The Republican Revolution came in [and] changed the rules so that one party couldn't block an investigation of its own member," Frank told NBC. "And when that began to bite, they've changed them back again. That's the pattern, by the way, that the Republicans have engaged in on a whole lot of things."

Frank said he and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich were reprimanded by the committee.

"The difference between us and Mr. DeLay is, I think, we changed our behavior," he said. "Mr. DeLay changed the Ethics Committee."

We've seen this over, and over, and over again. We saw it in Texas with the totally idiotic re-districting.

What does it take to bring this man, and the rest of the Republican party, under control?

Which ten commandments?

In a time when there are judges demanding the 10 commandments be displayed in public venues of justice, it's interesting to ask the question "WHICH 10 commandments?"

Oh, didn't know there were several? Each branch of judeo-christian theology has a slightly different set (some are dramatically different).

This page has a great summary of the various versions.

The proposal for the DST changes

This made the rounds on IRC this morning, and I'm glad to see other forums have picked it up. The gist is there is a plan in place to extend daylight savings time an extra 2 months. The rational behind this is it would decrease usage of oil by 10,000 barrels a day.

I think there are some horrific fallacies and misleading suggestions in this presentation. First, the only rational for this change is energy savings. There's no other argument.

Okay, so we save 10,000 barrels. That estimate came from the Transportation Department (no cites have been given for this). It doesn't take into account other factors, such as increased air conditioning usage in the summer, etc.

Even still, this change would result in a decrease of only 0.05% in daily oil usage. (The US is stated as using 20 million barrels of oil a day.)

This article was posted in Slashdot, and the resulting forum commentary has (oddly enough) brought up some fantastic commentary about the goods and the bads of this proposal. The short answer is, there's almost nothing good about it.

One great suggestion is, if this change is in place, clocks would change within 3 1/2 months of each other. That's 15 weeks between an hour change back and an hour change forward. That's a very tight time schedule.

Why not make the change permanent? Replace the whole process and fix the clocks on Daylight Savings Time and we'll just call it quits there. The folks in Indiana sure would like that (there are sections of Indiana that have no time-shifting at all. Neither does Arizona.)

Here's some choice comments from the forums:

From Wikipedia

There is also a question whether the savings in lighting costs (people just home from work don't turn on the electric lights because there is enough sunlight through the windows) justifies the increase in summertime air conditioning costs (people home from work do turn up the air conditioning during the late-afternoon peak load times, because it's still warm outside). When air conditioning was not widely available, the change did save energy; however, air conditioning is much more widespread now than it was several decades ago.

SeanDuggan sez:

I can't remember where I saw the statistic, but I remember reading that the number of accidents involving motor vehicles sharply increases the week after either DST change. Basically, on the day that people "spring forward," drivers and pedestrians are more exhausted and less likely to be reacting quickly enough. *shrug* And honestly, doesn't the "10,000 barrels of oil" sound like an exact rehash, right down to the amount, of the original DST proposal?

There's a great commentary over at the National Review about this as well. A choice quote from it:

"We're also informed that DST helps conserve energy, apparently because people arriving home when the sun is still up don't switch on their lights. Didn't it occur to anybody that maybe they compensate by switching them on earlier in the morning? Moreover, people who arrive home from work an hour earlier during the hot summer months are probably more prone to turning up their air conditioners. According to Downing, the petroleum industry once was "an ardent and generous supporter" of DST because it believed people would hop in their cars and drive for pleasure -- and guzzle more gas.

But the very worst thing about DST is that it's bad for your health. According to Stanley Coren, a sleep expert at the University of British Columbia, the number of traffic accidents and fatal industrial mishaps increase on the Monday after we spring forward. The reason, presumably, is because losing even a single hour of sleep over the weekend makes a lot of people a bit drowsier on what we might usefully call Black Monday. Unfortunately, there's no compensating effect of a super-safe Monday as we go off DST and "fall back" in the autumn."

And Supernova87a states it succinctly and to the point:

why doesn't congress stop tapdancing around the real issue, and instead pass some well-thought out legislation to reduce wasteful energy use, implement a rational gasoline use tax, and other things that would actually address the real problem? Hm?

So what is the reasoning behind this thing? Oh right. It's politics.

My first political bumper sticker.

I was cleaning out the back of my car today, preparing to install a new antenna and new dual band ham radio, when I came across a bumper sticker I had gotten SOMEWHERE, and never really got around to putting on the car.

I'm not a big fan of bumper stickers. They tend to look trashy. This one however is black with white lettering, and fit on the plastic fascia on my bumper, so in the future if I want to remove it, at the very worst I'd replace that piece of plastic.

I can't find the graphic online for it, but here's roughtly what it looks like. On the black car, it's fine, and it really pushed my political "Yeah, this is EXACTLY what I think..." buttons, so I went ahead and put it on.

I like it.

Update - Rosa has the helpful hat today, and reminded me that those stickers came from her mom. Thanks Rosa's Mom!

The end. Or is it?

Terry Schiavo dies in hospice

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (AP) — Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman who spent 15 years connected to a feeding tube in an epic legal and medical battle that went all the way to the White House and Congress, died Thursday, 13 days after the tube was removed. She was 41.

My initial reaction was "Okay, I'm so glad THAT's over with." But, given all the idiocy and ranting going on around this case, I'll lay odds that sometime in the next 4-6 weeks, either another single PVS case will come to the fore, or legislation or some other 'big visibility' process will start, keeping this issue burbling.

Bob Parsons goes off the deep end

Recently I was pointed to a series of postings on Bob Parsons blog regarding some decisions made by the company that administers the .US domain (that being Neustar).

Mr. Parsons, who is the founder of GoDaddy, a very successful domain registrar, goes on to comment that the recent decision by the NTIA made it 'illegal to have a private registration' of a domain.

While the decision by the NTIA may be poorly founded, and Neustars interpretation of the decision flawed (nowhere in Mr. Parsons postings, nor on Neustars site, nor on the NTIA's site did I find a link to the rule change that is being talked about), I feel Mr. Parsons reaction to be overly dramatic and in fact harmful to the clear and informed process that should be followed when things like this arise.

From Mr. Parsons posting on March 29th :

But Mr. Parsons doesn't stop there. This is not a poor decision by a government beaurocracy. This is an ASSAULT on our RIGHTS to PRIVACY! I will quote here:

It's ironic that we lost our right to privacy on the one domain name that says we are Americans! I find it ironic that our rights to .US privacy were stripped away (without due process) by a federal government agency that should be looking out for our individual rights. For them to choose the .US domain name is the ultimate slap in the face. .US is the one domain name that is specifically intended for Americans. Think about this for a moment: These bureaucrats stripped away the privacy, guaranteed by the first amendment and that you're entitled to as an American, on the only domain name (.US) that says that you are an American. I am outraged by this --- you should be also.

Let me be clear here. I think the NTIA's decision was a poor one, and should be addressed, but I feel that Mr. Parsons has gone off the deep end equating a poor decision by a government agency with an all out assault on our rights as US citizens.

Domain registrations are a process of creating a space in the public forum where you wish to voice or present information that is uniquely associated with yourself. It is not an anonymous forum. "Private Registrations" are a false workaround to publishing Whois information, by registering the domain through a secondary proxy (in GoDaddy's case, they are using DomainsByProxy, an affiliate website. The legality of this form of registration is already questioned, since the ownership of a domain could already be perceived as being misrepresented.

I wholly support the process of calling the NTIA and/or Neustar to task for this decision, but it should be pursued in a sane, intelligent way, not via rants and handwaving in the style Mr. Parsons seems to prefer.