Recently in Politics. Category

The folks over at the Texas freedom Network decided to attend the Texas Board of Education as it debated revisions to the school curriculum regarding political history. What they saw was a board dominated by extreme right wing politics. TFN comments:

These board members clearly haven't got a clue how to craft a curriculum document that's streamlined, coherent and focused. They are far more interested in seeding the standards with whatever ideological pet causes they have. Pity the students and teachers of Texas for the foolishness they must endure.

Some choice bits noted from the meeting:

The board's far-right faction has spent months now proclaiming the importance of emphasizing America's exceptionalism in social studies classrooms. But today they voted to remove one of the greatest of America's Founders, Thomas Jefferson, from a standard about the influence of great political philosophers on political revolutions from 1750 to today.

During a debate regarding capitalism and free enterprise, several of the board members object to the term 'Capitalism' because it is considered a negative term. One member states, regarding using the word, "I do think words mean things. . . . I see no reason, frankly, to compromise with liberal professors from academia." When it is pointed out that the person who recommended the terms 'capitalism' and 'free enterprise' be used is actually a republican professor at Texas A&M, the information is ignored, and the board passes the measure:

The Texas State Board of Education has stricken from the standards references to "capitalism" and "free market" because the board's right-wingers think "capitalism" is a negative term. The only permitted term for such an economic system will be "free enterprise." We wouldn't believe this if we hadn't just watched it happen. This is so stupid it makes our head hurt.

It's this sort of subtle manipulation of curriculum, particularly in public schools, that has the greatest effect on the political positions of children and young adults. If ideology is allowed to triumph over fact (and in many points in this discussion, fact is trumped in favor of personal stance), how can people trust their public schools, and by inference their local governments? I ask that folks pay close attention to their local school boards, and when they see absurdity like this, raise the roof and call it out - that is the only way this sort of ideological undermining of education can be stopped.

According to this article on BusinessInsider.com :

Health insurance industry trade groups opposed to President Obama's health care reform bill are paying Facebook users fake money -- called "virtual currency" -- to send letters to Congress protesting the bill.

Sort of puts to bed the entire notion that the health care industry has a single care for your personal well-being.

On my way home from work I frequently tune to WTKK in Boston to get an idea about what the far right is saying. I think it's good to hear "the other side" of things. In the spectum of social policy, I'm frighteningly liberal - so it's good to hear what the conservative wanks are going on about.

This leads me to listening to Jay Severin, who is about as far into radical politics as you can go. He's a foaming-at-the-mouth Libertarian, from which you can get an idea where his politics are.

I listen to him because it gives me perspective on how twisted a view of reality can be generated. This is the fellow who consistently refers to the president as Barack Hussein Obama, well known Muslim and Communist, etc etc etc.

Apparently WTKK had enough of him during a show Severin did on April 30th. I happened to be listening to this when it aired, remember going "Yep, it's Jay completely off the deep end again. Ah well" - but here's his words:

Now, in addition to venereal disease and the other leading exports of Mexico -- women with mustaches and VD -- now we have swine flu... When we are the magnet for primitives around the world -- and it's not the primitives' fault, by the way, I'm not blaming them for being primitives, I'm merely observing they are primitives -- and when you scoop up some of the world's lowest of primitives in poor Mexico and drop it down in the middle of the United States -- poor, without skills, without language, not share our culture, not share our hygiene, haven't been vaccinated... Millions of leeches from a primitive country come here to leech off you.... Now, at this particular moment in history, they are exporting to us a rather more active form of disease, which is the swine flu.

Now, after hearing, er. commentary like this, before I get all indignant, I ask myself "Does he really think this? Or is he affecting a persona that believes this?" - Jay is very eloquent - he could easily be presenting this image and these ideas deliberately to push folks into the red.

TKK wasn't having anything to do with it, and has indefinitely suspended him.

Maybe there is some sanity in the world.

As I'm sure folks know by now, the US House of Representatives has defeated the bailout bill.

What follows is my own personal opinion. Disclaimers are put forth - I am not an economist, a financial investor, or particularly savvy in us world markets. I have, however, spent a lot of time reading, listening to level-headed reporting and commentary.

I think we're in deep doodoo.

My opinion is that the US lawmakers just took the side of localized petty politics, instead of doing what is right for the nation. And we're not talking about this whole "main street vs wall street" BS that's been bandied about. To me that's a distraction away from the real issues.

Most people don't understand how the larger financial markets work. They think 'credit' is a bank loan to buy a car. It isn't. The global credit market is about the hundreds of billions of dollars that are exchanged every night in short term credit between banks and businesses. This is about a production plant in Wisconsin that normally needs $1,000,000 a day to operate. The night before, the bookmakers say "We're short $100k. We need a loan". They call up their broker, say "Gimme $1,000,000, I'll pay you back on Thursday". They get the loan, the plant functions another day, they bring in $1.1million on Thursday, and pay off the loan. Done.

That is how industrial and business credit works. It is the lifeblood of our economy.

If that loan can't happen, that plant either operates at a loss, or they shut down for the day. That daily shutdown means instead of making $900,000 that day, they make zero.

Which is worse?

This credit cycle is what this bill is... er... was... designed to protect. It was to keep the markets alive and ease the credit tensions so the banks wouldn't continue jacking up the interest rates on those short-term loans, thereby making it very difficult for a business to make money on a day to day basis. There's already stress on this market, already 'credit freezes' going on. Businesses unable to get the short term loans necessary to function. Now it'll just get worse.

Unfortunately, the politicians and the general US population doesn't understand this. They just see fat cat Wall street folks getting zillion dollar paychecks, and other people getting foreclosed on houses. They vote down what might have been the only thing that could have kept the banks in business, and the credit flowing.

IMHO, we are now in serious danger of a depression. And frankly, I'm scared.

Thank you Washington. You may have killed us all.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

... 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.

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!!!!!"

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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!

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.

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.

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?

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.

... 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.

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.

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).

... 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.

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.

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 (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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

My friend Michael got a wonderful editorial published in the Boston Globe railing at evangelical christians...

THE PORTRAIT of the Wilkersons (''For family, religion shapes politics," Page A1, March 29) is an appalling study in the hypocrisy that has subsumed modern Evangelical Christianity. Michael Wilkerson is quite happy to wave First Corinthians 6:9-11 around to justify his bias against gays. For the Wilkersons, who rake in $120,000 a year and own a BMW, I have the words of Jesus, as written in Mark, 10:25. ''It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."

Definately take a few moments to entire commentary.

Scientific American will be publishing their new policy of "Fair and Balanced Science" in the April edition. They do detail some of the reasoning for this change...

In retrospect, this magazine's coverage of so-called evolution has been hideously one-sided. For decades, we published articles in every issue that endorsed the ideas of Charles Darwin and his cronies. True, the theory of common descent through natural selection has been called the unifying concept for all of biology and one of the greatest scientific ideas of all time, but that was no excuse to be fanatics about it.

I have to give great marks to Scientific American for their outstanding use of the written form to set things right.

More bad news from the runaway policies of the Bush administration.

A report by the TSA itself has said they were "not entirely accurate" when they were asked point blank about security issues. They're not saying they lied, but every indication in the report says they did, in fact, lie through their teeth repeatedly.

Every time I find myself going "Okay, this is normally wavy stuff in politics, it'll all correct itself, and things will balance out", things go further and further off kilter.

Did you know it's virtually impossible to find a currently-available sex-ed school book that is not "abstinence only"?

Did you know that piece by piece the US government is curtailing the first amendment?

Seriously, how much further to the right can this country go without a popular uprising?

As usual, The Onion hits the nail right on the head. Bush managed to get approval for oil exploration in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge.

The Onion did one of their wonderful What Do You Think mock surveys on what people think of drilling in Alaska. One of the best responses:

"They're drilling in the Alaskan wilderness? That's too bad. Someone really ought to look into passing laws to put such places under federal protection so this doesn't happen again."

I used to think that there was only so far stupidity could push politics, but it just goes further and further and further. IF oil were found in Alaska, and IF it were ramped up to full production:

• a 1 percent increase in the amount of oil available to the US.
• 12 years until that oil is actually available in the US.

Bush's response to this?

"Developing a small section of ANWR would not only create thousands of new jobs, but it would eventually reduce our dependence on foreign oil by up to a million barrels of oil a day."

Well galldang. Ain't he the man. *spit*

I've tried not to post too much political drivel here lately, but this one really pegged my buttons.

Apparently the Bush administration, in true show of how religion, opinion, and personal agenda is affecting state policy, has announced they will intervene in the Terry Schiavo case.

Ignoring the fact that all the courts, all the doctors, and the state legislature of Florida has sided with the legal guardian (the woman's husband), the Bush administration has decided they will intervene and pass emergency legislation against the wills of the husband, the courts, and the doctors in this case.

What bothers me the most about this is that it flies in the face of all that the Republican party is supposed to believe in. The rights of states to manage and legislate their own issues. The rights of an family to pursue their lives without intervention by the Federal regime, etc. Toss all that out the window. Bush feels that he knows better than the courts, the husband, and the doctors, and will force this woman, who everyone -but- the parents agrees is basically dead, to continue breathing and twitching in a horrible mockery of life.

The woman has died. Her collapse and later heart attack has destroyed most of her brain. The husband is not some 'money grubbing relative looking to slurp up the insurance' - in fact the husband has publically stated :

Raising the issue of a possible conflict of interest is the fact that Michael Schiavo stands to inherit the remainder of Terri's malpractice settlement upon her death. Michael Schiavo has publicly responded to this charge by claiming that, of the original $1,050,000 awarded in the malpractice suit, less than $50,000 is left, the rest having been spent under a judge's supervision on medical care for Terri and the ongoing legal battle. He has also stated that, if he does receive this money, he will donate it to charity.

So the only thing we can interpret from the administration is yet another attempt to foist Bush's skewed morals on a country, regardless of law, public commentary, or even consistency within the their own party.

A Brick Township teacher lashed out at a student who wouldn't stand for the national anthem. The teachers rant was caught in a cell phone video. The result? The student was suspended for 10 days, and the school is considering banning all cell phones from the school. The teacher has had no reprimand, and the school is considering pressing charges against the student.

Jay's friend who was in the class at the time, Corey, says that their teacher had been strict in the past in demanding that students stand for the national anthem and pledge of allegiance. That's why they brought in a camera - to expose the teacher in case he did anything again. "The teacher and school principals wanted him (Mantel) to press charges against us...they tried to blame it on us like it was premeditated, like we did it just to get him on tape, which is false. We knew he was gonna go nuts because he frequently used to" said Corey.

Link to the story, complete with video.

Update: - The full article at the Independent Media Center of Philadelphia has many more details. The commentary section is particularly interesting.

Once again, Radio Paradise hits my music button right on the head. This morning it was Less Mccann and Eddie Harris doing their version of the song "Compared to What", originally written by Eugene Daniels and performed by Roberta Flack more than 35 years ago. This version, performed live in Montreux, Switzerland in 1969, is truly outstanding, with masterful jazz piano driving the piece. It's impossible to keep still listening to talent like this.

But it wasn't just the tune that got me going. The lyrics, at the time written to protest the Vietnam war, come in as oh so appropriate today:

The president he's got his war
Folks don't know just what its for
Nobody gives us a rhyme or reason
Have one doubt they call it treason
We're chicken features all without one nut
Goddammit! — Try to make it real! Compared to what???"

Why are we destined to continually repeat the failures of the past?

Somehow, I feel this is just inkling of things to come as the Radical Right is emboldened by recent endorsements of the Right Way of Life in our nations capital...

According to this article in the Palm Beach Post, a senator may introduce a change to the state constitution to remove the seperation of church and state clause.

TALLAHASSEE — Christian conservatives frustrated by court rulings that have found a school voucher program unconstitutional may have hit upon a possible solution: changing the constitution.

Sen. Daniel Webster, a former House speaker and now the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday he is exploring the possibility of a citizens initiative to repeal the 136-year-old wording that separates church and state in Florida.

I'm particularly amused by the response from the ACLU:

"So if the constitution stands in the way of their radical agenda, don't change the radical agenda — change the constitution," said Howard Simon, head of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

Webster should include in his ballot initiative language to abolish the public school system, Simon said, "because that's what its real effect would be. Maybe a little bit of honesty is what's needed."

Yet another block in the foundation of Jesusland.
Thanks to Aroraborealis for this link.

A judge in Alabama has had the 10 commandments embroidered on his robe :

McKathan told The Associated Press that he believes the Ten Commandments represent the truth "and you can't divorce the law from the truth."

"The Ten Commandments can help a judge know the difference between right and wrong," McKathan said.

Good thing the judges in our great judicial system are basing their decisions on the rule of law in our country, eh?

An interesting sidebar is commentary from former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore:

"The recognition of the God who gave us the Ten Commandments is fundamental to an understanding of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. I applaud Judge McKathan. It is time for our judiciary to recognize the moral basis of our law," Moore said.

"I don't know what the facts are but somebody's certainly going to sit down with him and find out what he knows that they may not know, and make sure he knows what they know that he may not know, and that's a good thing. I think it's a very constructive exchange,"

Update: There's further coverage of this exchange and others here. I have to read Rumsfelds commentary and go "Can he possibly be any more arrogant?" His 'suck it up and deal' attitudes have to be pissing off more than just these few soldiers.

Being fairly active in the web-news-blog-chat-whatever community, it always amuses me to watch the general public spin itself into ever more complex and improbable situations, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. I guess people just have a hard time accepting that sometimes things are just what they seem to be.

Case in point. On November 22nd, 1963, John F Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas. This one event has been the target for ceaseless analysis, arguments, theories and other bruhaha. The question that always comes up is "Did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone?"

LOS ANGELES, November 9, 2004 - At 7:50 PM two armored tanks showed up at an anti-war protest in front of the federal building in Westwood. The tanks circled the block twice, the second time parking themselves in the street and directly in front of the area where most of the protesters were gathered. Enraged, some of the people attempted to block the tanks, but police quickly cleared the street. The people continued to protest the presence of the tanks, but about ten minutes the tanks drove off. It is unclear as to why the tanks were deployed to this location.

Video is available here: 5.8meg Quicktime (MOV) format

The video is disturbing to say the least. This was a peaceful protest. Why was the military called for a political rally? The only possible answer is intimidation. The question is, by whom? National Guard members? The local government? The police? The federal government?

Original article via LA Indy Media

From: 	Order Notification (orders@TheMan.com)
To: 	unsuspecting populace (minions@unwashedmasses.com)
Subject: 	Your order has shipped (#011-412-1515) (fwd)
Date: 	Wed, 3 Nov 2004 11:50:38 -0500	
Greetings from The Great American Experiment.

We thought you'd like to know that we shipped this portion of your
order separately to give you quicker service.  You won't be charged
any extra shipping fees, and the remainder of your order will follow
as soon as those items become available.

You can track the status of this order, and all your orders, online by
visiting Your Account at http://tinyurl.com/6272p
 
There you can:
        * Track order and shipment status 
        * Review estimated delivery dates 
        * Wonder how the rest of the world sees this
        * And do many more things except materially affect the election outcome

The following items were included in this shipment:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Qty      Item                           Price  Shipped  Subtotal
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1        Fear                           $11.20   1      $11.20 

1        Nausea and Incredulity         $13.95   1      $13.95

1        5 Stages of Grief              $19.99   1      $19.99 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
               Item Subtotal:  $47.14
         Shipping & Handling:  $5.25 
 
            Shipping Savings: -$0.99 
 
                       Total:  $51.40

                Paid by Visa:  $51.40

--------------------------------------------------------------------

You have only been charged for the items sent in this shipment. 
(Per our policy, you only pay for items when we ship them to you.)
The following items will ship separately, as soon as they're available:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Qty      Item                           Price  Not Yet Shipped 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
   1     Presidential Inauguration      $49.99      1

   3     Supreme Court Nomination       $24.99      3

This shipment was sent to:

        Americans and Concerned Friends Worldwide

via USPS (estimated delivery date: January 20th, 2004).

For your reference, the number you can use to track your package is
07041776.  You can refer to our Web site's Help page or:

http://www.csmonitor.com/
                
to retrieve current tracking information.  Please note that tracking
information may not be available immediately.
        
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Please note: This e-mail was sent from a notification-only address
that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message.

Thank you for shopping with us.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Great American Experiment

(Thanks to Adam Hirsch for this)

I actually saw this on a bumper sticker this afternoon. Everytime I try and figure out what is trying to be said here, I get a headache and move on to something else.

Let me see if I can summarize these things a bit. First, who the heck is the ACLU, and what do they really do? According to their "about" page:

The ACLU is our nation's guardian of liberty. We work daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States. Our job is to conserve America's original civic values - the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Okay, sounds pretty good. So, these guys are there to defend the rights of the individual vs the centralized authoritarian government by providing a check and balance against unquestioned dictates. So, I suppose in some ways an argument could be made that they are in fact the enemy of the "state", in that they are there to counterbalance it. Note I say counterbalance, not overthrow, but I digress, which to me is an important distinction... but I digress.

Now, this particular bumper sticker replaces the 'C' with the symbol of the former soviet bloc, the 'sickle and hammer', representing, we assume here, the tenets of communism. The implication here is that the ACLU is a communist front, bent on overthrowing the US through it's anti-authoritarian (and, by implication, it's anti government) policies.

Okay, so lets look at what that means...

According to wikipedia, the definition of 'communism' is:

Communism, or communist society, is the name of the social formation that, according to Marx, would be a classless society in which all property is owned by the community as a whole, and where all people enjoy equal social and economic status.

I'm having a hard time connecting these two concepts, at least in the methodology that is implied in that bumper sticker. "Enemy of the state", okay, someone who wants to bring down the state power. ACLU, a body that opposes centralized authoritarian rule when checks and balances aren't in place... er, that's a stretch, but I guess I might see that...

But... this bumper sticker is offered up as emblematic of the views presented by the 'right wing' crowd. The ones who detest central authority over local issues and personal details. The very private rights tha the ACLU is sworn to defend.

I'm so confused.

This isn't related -directly- to Politics, but it seems to be to be applicable to the current situation, where otherwise sane people still think George Bush is fit to lead this country...

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous.

- Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection

I predict next Tuesday will not in fact decide who will be the next president. What will happen is we will see the largest voter turnout as a percentage of registered voters ever recorded. The vote will be close enough that there will be an immediate challenge in the courts. The fight will simply get uglier and for 2 weeks the election will be undecided. During this time stories of gross voter fraud will surface, be reported in the media, commented on, and either discarded as false, or simply lost in the shadow of "Oh yeah? Well [other side] did [this unsubstantiated rumor!]", thereby removing any weight to the story. Wash, rinse, repeat.

In the end, no matter who wins, the public will be disillusioned with the voting process even more so than usual. Unless there is a viciously polarized populace for the next election, I see a third party rising again in 2008.

And of course, The Onion has a perfect take on the whole schpiel. (Click on the image for the full banner). Make sure you also check out their election day guide, which includes helpful hints such as:

• Tip for those on the go: Voting a straight ticket can save you up to 15 seconds.
• If you are black and a resident of Florida, work out two or three alternate routes to your polling place to avoid police checkpoints.
• If you are a Flintstone, make sure to put the granite slab arrows-first into the dinosaur's mouth.
• If you live in Florida, for Christ's sake, look at the ballot very, very carefully this time.

Happy electoral college day, everyone!

"A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief," Bush told more than 17,000 supporters at an airport rally as he began a day of campaigning in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.
Yahoo news

Thanks to Steam for this pointer.

The November 8th, 2004 issue of The American Conservative, a magazine that has as an editor the likes of Pat Buchanon, is publishing commentary stating the positions of the staff on the upcoming election. Normally, this would be a no-brainer.

But not this year.

Reuters has published a quicky bit about how blogs have become a real force in politics, opinion, and commentary:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. presidential campaign between George W. Bush and John Kerry (news - web sites) has prompted a frenzy of gossip and conspiracy theories among Internet bloggers, hybrid online sites that blend news, gossip and opinion.

In particular, I like how the debunking of the CBS memo is attributed to bloggers who aggressively attacked the authenticity of them. Initially, I was very skeptical of the criticism being levelled at the article, but in this case, the skepticism was valid, the memo was indeed a fake.

The current bruhaha is about George Bush's 'bulge' that showed up in one of the debate pictures. It looks as if GW is wearing something under his jacket, and people are speculating wildly that this was a 'wire', and he was being prompted off-stage by Karl Rove. Personally, I think this is pushing it, but who knows how this will pan out.

The New York Times is reporting that one of the administrations bits of 'irrefutable evidence' that Saddam was starting his nuclear program up, that being the acquisition of thousands of high stress aluminum tubes, was considered implausible by most of the top nuclear consultants, and that the administration routinely ignored all the arguments and evidence that showed these tubes were most likely being aquired for small artillery rockets:

But almost a year before, Ms. Rice's staff had been told that the government's foremost nuclear experts seriously doubted that the tubes were for nuclear weapons, according to four officials at the Central Intelligence Agency and two senior administration officials, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity. The experts, at the Energy Department, believed the tubes were likely intended for small artillery rockets.

It'll be interesting to see how this one pans out. I'm sure the bushies will immediately cry "The liberal media is trying to get us again! This is just more fabricated stuff!" Yeah, this the same liberal media that , without even a modicum of fact-checking, posted that Kerry had made off color remarks. FoxNews later retracted the story with what amounts to a shrug. "Oh, it's okay, we posted a retraction, so no harm done, right?". The author of the article was simply reprimanded.

There's so many 'interesting' articles on the net, and rarely do I forward along articles that don't have a lot of bearing on things I'm normally going on about. But over at the BKO Lounge, Brian posts a link to a Wikipedia article about Stanislav Petrov, a Russian Colonel who, in September 1983, was on missile duty in the Soviet Union when he received a series of alerts showing that US missiles had been launched against his country. All the available systems showed that indeed, multiple ICBM's were en route, and his orders and procedure state uncategorically that the proper response is to launch the Soviet missiles in retaliation.

He didn't. He reasoned there was no reason for this type of launch, and make the decision not to launch, reasoning this was a computer error in the notoriously unreliable Soviet monitoring system.

He was right. There was no missile launch from the US, and his single decision in that bunker in the middle of the night in September, 1983, most likely stopped a nuclear exchange that could have immediately resulted in World War III.

We were -that- close.

Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to the spirit of international harmony.

A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.

HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.

Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

A president lying about a blowjob is an impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.

Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's cocaine conviction is none of our business.

Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness, and you need our prayers for your recovery.

You support states' rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they are allowed to adopt.

What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.

Via MadScience who got it via born_stubborn

This page just showed up on MSNBC. The poll question just boggles the mind. I bet some news site will happily use these results, no matter what the outcome. "62% of those polled said that Guiliani's speech reassured them in the upcoming election!"

Canadian Member of Parliament Carolyn Parrish had said she hated "damned Americans" and called them bastards in the run-up to the Iraq war. She found a new moniker, idiots, on Wednesday in discussing the planned U.S. missile defense system.

"We are not joining the coalition of the idiots. We are joining the coalition of the wise," the Liberal legislator told a small group of demonstrators.

Full story on Yahoo news

This has been all over Livejournal, but folks in the blogger world should definately check this out.

Tired of your civil rights being trampled? At least let people know there -IS- a constitutional law that bans the types of illegal searches going on nowadays in New York and in Boston.

Pick yourself up a Fourth Amendmend Totebag from HandsOffMyBag.com!

Saw this tale of lost freedom referenced all over the place in Livejournal, I'm passing it on. This, my friends, is where we're headed. Not only are you being searched illegally, the 'arbitrary' nature of the searches puts you under the whim of the searcher. If they don't like something you have, not for any 'safety' reason - they just don't like it, they can remove it from you. These laws (at least in boston) can allow that person to have you removed from the premeses or arrested if you disagree.

This person didn't allow it to happen. How many others did?

[edit - btw, as this person did, I've added the ACLU direct number into my phone . I don't want to be caught without some someone to call if I ever get into this situation]

When the Bushies were pushing for an all out offensive against Iraq, Senator Byrd, in the congressional debate, kept using the phrase 'Why now?' - to ask the administration why it was so critical that the US attack Iraq immediately.

The answer back from the administration was that Iraq posed an 'immediate threat' to the US with it's Weapons of Mass Destruction. Neither the immediate threat, nor the WMDs were ever found, and in fact, if you ask anyone in the administration now why we went to war and overthrew a foreign power, they will say "To combat terrorism!" or "We had to remove a dangerous dictator from power" - they'll be guaranteed to trot out the phrase "Do you think Iraq would be better off with Saddam still in power?"

I find myself harkening back to Senator Byrd's comments nowadays. Over the last 24-36 hours, Tom Ridge has raised the security alert in the US. The reasoning is that Al Qaeda is purported to be ramping up the threats against US targets.

Why now?

I find it funny that this heightened alert happened mere days after the DNC, when Kerry is in the 'bubble' that follows any convention. This gets more interesting when it turns out that much of the information is not new. It is YEARS old. It has only come to light because of recent interrogations of captured individuals in Pakistan who (so we are told) mentioned things that are in these documents. Note that nothing has changed, it's just that we just captured some folks, and they said the same things that are in these YEARS OLD documents.

Why now?

Quick! MY GOD! Someone rememberd something they wrote 2 years ago! We have to plaster the media with more unidentifiable, non-specific, absolutely WORTHLESS security alerts! Yeah baby!

Why now?

Because it's good politics. Pure and simple. Raising the terror threat alert does nothing to help the US. It doesn't help the military prepare for an attack (they theoretically already know about it). It doesn't help the investigative or intelligence agencies any (they already know about it). It sure as SHIT doesn't help the public (now we know about it, thanks. Now what?). The only reason this is done is politics.

Owait, that's right. The police and civil agencies are supposed to do something too. Do you know they still don't have the money, manpower, or guidance to do ANYTHING? And what exactly are they supposed to do anyway? "We might or might not have an attack on an undisclosed location, somewhere in the US, sometime this year.

Sometime this year.

Golly. And lets tell everyone about this the week after the DNC, when the campaign for the presidency is really getting rolling.

If I'm wrong? Great, I'm wrong. Are my words going to make one whit of difference one way or another? No. Because there is no defense against this kind of threat that is possible in this world, other than assuming everyone is a terrorist. Owait too late.

This is one of the funniest things I've read in a long time....

FAFBLOG: Well Dr. James Dobson it has been a while since we had our last interview an in between the Ban Gay Marriage Amendment Amendment failed. How you been since then? JAMES DOBSON: Just terrible, Fafnir. Because of the weakness and corruption of the United States Senate, I have been forced to become gay. FB: Oh no! JD: I'm afraid it's true, Fafnir. I now spend my nights in a ball gag and a chastity cage while Gary Bauer whips me from behind in his skintight leather bodice. FB: That is terrible news Doctor James Dobson! Not only has gay marriage forced you to become gay, it has made you a bottom! ...

Enter article available on Fafblog, link ourtesy of boingboing.

I'm pretty tired of hearing constant yammerings from the right about how 'liberal' the media is and that 'the new york times is just the mouthpiece of the Democratic party'. What utter crap.

In a brilliant show about just how lopsided the media is, I refer my happy readers to this article from Reuters wherein it is reported that a 'a new web worm spreads'. In the entirety of the article, where the writer talks to McAfee, Google, and Symantec, nowhere is it mentioned that this virus can ONLY infect MICROSOFT platforms. The only reason this is happening is because of Microsoft's crap security model.

This is the 'liberal media'? Gosh, we dont want to upset BIG BAD MICROSOFT now do we? Better plug the virus scanner companies though, they're making money off this!