First Capitol Pundit's Union

And now for a look at the "How Sweet It Is! column

2007-02-11T23:51:00.000-05:00

Hey Gents:
You have perhaps managed to tear yourselves away from coverage of Anna Nicole Smith's timely, yes timely demise to note that the Dixie Chicks won five, count 'em FIVE Grammy Awards for their latest album which includes the powerful anthem, "Not Ready To Make Nice."
Natalie Maines is a class act. She has shown that patriotism, used as a cudgel becomes just another brutish tool in the hands of a despot when it's used to stifle dissent. She is the true patriot. She stands at the head of a long line of celebrities who've risked their careers in turning their notoriety to a higher purpose. Jane Fonda, Neil Young and others...........heady company.
Ankh

rock, hard place

2006-11-29T12:43:00.000-05:00

Trudy's columns (and this one) make me really wish there was a better way. A way we could keep Iraq from devolving into an anarchic mess. A way we could keep it from becoming a new Afghanistan With Oil.

But it's a dead end. The administration's known since August that they can't win, yet they say we should increase the troop levels. Fallujah's as big of a mess as it ever was. It's all Al Qaeda's fault, or the Iraqi's fault, not ours.

What to do? Imagine another another country started this mess, then left. How would we react? Would we try to play peacemaker (Balkans)? Push for NATO to jump in (Afghanistan, Pakistan)? Try to establish rule of law (Haiti)? Were those endeavors as hopeless as this?

AARRGGHGHHQ$*(!^#!

What a difference a day makes.......................

2006-11-09T02:47:00.000-05:00

or, the Republican house of cards.
Amazing. And Rumsfeld on top of the heap. Though it seems Dubya was prepared for his departure(witness Gates' speedy appointment). Gates is an unknown entity to me. Interesting that a former spook is now Pentagon chief. Hopefully, it signals some concerted effort to steer military culture to the task of dealing with guerilla/terrorist entities vs. conventional armies(as Rummy self-purported to do).
Of course, what we should be about is reversing the conditions we have created that have created the current world order and its terrorist spawn. I despair at this nation ever becoming self-actualized to the point where we can accomplish this. Instead, we're mired at the bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy.
I have to admit to an immense satisfaction at what a stinging personal rebuke this is for Bush. Not to mention Santorum(Sanctimonium). His excision was very timely(the medical terminology is intended here). He was a cancer in the body politic. Invasive. Metastatic. Dangerously powerful for so malignant a personage.
Word to the newly empowered Democrats. Tread carefully. Be what we all found so winning in the best of "The West Wing".
Ankh

Scarier than Kim Jong-iL

2006-11-06T12:59:00.000-05:00

From the friends across the pond. And these are our closest friends.

Not sure why this comes out now, not when it was declassified in 2004. More evidence that logic was trumped by idealism.

Stay and fail

2006-11-01T12:09:00.000-05:00

O'Reilly asked Letterman if he wanted the US to win. Letterman's response was good (whatever it takes to get our boys home in one piece), but didn't go quite far enough. He should have asked what it meant to win. Does that mean repressing all insurgency? Does anyone think that is ever going to happen? The "year of the police" has turned out to be "the year of the police committing sectarian murder". Reports in the last week referred to accelerating training, like that wasn't already maxed out. Does anyone not see through that, a week before the elections? Barricading the slums of Sadr city surely didn't help win the hearts & minds of the locals. Many areas in Anbar are, and have been, under insurgent control.

It's not going to get better. The trend of the "Index of Civil Conflict" chart says it all, in plain enough language even a drunk bonehead could see it.

We're fighting for the right to stay in a country whose people don't want us there. To win is to force the submission of a hostile people, at the same time keeping mortal enemies from each other's throats. To win is to establish order so we can leave. I'll say that again. To win is to let our family, our loyal soldiers, and our $1b/week, come home. That is our current exit strategy. So blood, guts, sweat & tears, and enough cash to make Medicare solvent, are squandered to do something 10 years from now, when the same results could be achieved today.

Cut'n'run...............sounds like a plan

2006-10-28T18:40:00.000-04:00

"If the U.S. leaves before the job is done, the enemy could follow us here." Quoted from a speech the president gave recently.

Fuck you, Mr. President................................let them follow us.........................

They've kicked our ass to a stalemate on their turf long enough. They control most of the battlefield. They pick away at our young service members with relative impunity. They die martyrs..........deluded, but happy to do so. We die for our "cause". A far less fulfilling fate.

So...................fuck you Dubya. Bring 'em home. Let's defend the Homeland from home. Let them be the strangers in a strange land.

Ankh

What I believe

2006-10-01T00:55:00.000-04:00

Seems this blog has become somewhat of a backwater. Doesn't mean I'm thinking about things any less, just less time to indulge myself in writing about them.
Venezuelan President Chavez is a loose cannon, a buffoon. He'll probably ultimately end up hurting his country, but he's right in his criticism of the U.S. , and specifically the Bush administration. To be fair, the Bush administration didn't create the foreign policy that's gotten us to this point geopolitically, but the administration is guilty of actively devolving U.S. foreign policy to its current blunt and hegemonistic state.
We should be about a foreign policy along the lines of the Bono/Gates/Buffet/Sauros model. Instead, we've spent the last few decades banging around the world in a bull-in-a-china-shop, petrocentric frenzy, trying to spread democracy to cultures not disposed to practice it or adopt it on our timetable.
We have, in large part, created the terrorists we're currently fighting.
On a related, and far more personally scary note, does anyone else see reinstatement of the draft on the horizon?
Ankh

Ariel Sharon revisited

2006-08-14T13:23:00.000-04:00

Can you say...........Generalissimo Francisco Franco? This is soooo NOT right:

JERUSALEM -
Ariel Sharon' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Ariel Sharon's condition has deteriorated, the hospital where the ailing former Israeli prime minister is being treated announced Monday. A spokeswoman wouldn't say whether Sharon's life was in danger, but said doctors were treating him with broad-spectrum antibiotics and steroids.

A new scan showed a deterioration in his brain function, his urine output has decreased significantly and a chest scan showed that he has a new infection in his lungs, according to Anat Dolev, spokeswoman for the Chaim Sheba Medical Center.
Sharon, 78, has been in a coma since suffering a massive stroke Jan. 4. He underwent several extensive brain surgeries to stop cerebral hemorrhaging, in addition to more minor procedures.
After spending months in the hospital where he was initially treated, Sharon was transferred to the long-term care facility at Sheba hospital in May.
Sharon was rushed into intensive care July 26 to undergo dialysis because his kidneys were failing. Hospital officials said they also noticed changes in his brain membrane.
In December, Sharon had a small stroke. He was put on blood thinners and then suffered the severe brain hemorrhage in January.

Papal/Presidential infallibility

2006-07-20T05:15:00.000-04:00

I can laughingly ignore the concept/doctrine of papal infallability. But the concept and(according to this article) doctrine of presidential infallability is very troubling. What am I to think and how am I to act though when the large volume of alarmist opinion on the present administration's sins has had no effect? Everything in this piece basically makes sense to me, but I despair of Bush and his cronies ever being brought to account for their abuse of power.
Ankh

YouTube - Robin Williams

2006-06-30T06:29:00.000-04:00

YouTube - Robin Williams

21 minutes and 24 seconds you'll never get back. You won't mind though........

media bias

2006-06-29T12:16:00.000-04:00

WaPo's lead sentence -

The Supreme Court today delivered a stunning rebuke to the Bush administration over its plans to try Guantanamo detainees before military commissions, ruling that the commissions are unconstitutional.

FoxNews' lead sentence -

The Supreme Court delivered a blow to the Bush administration's anti-terror policies Thursday when it ruled that the president was out of line when he ordered military war-crimes trials for some Guantanamo Bay detainees.

random thoughts, brain farts............

2006-06-21T01:58:00.000-04:00

'Lo all;
Time to crank this machine over a time or two. It's been three months that we've been otherwise occupied;^)
The automotive industry is trying to put independent garages out of business. Was talking to my garageman today and he was describing to me how ridiculously difficult they have made what would otherwise have been routine repairs by how they engineer cars. I.E., accessing the gas tank assembly on many new cars requires either dropping the entire rear drive assembly or lifting the entire body off the chassis. Dealers are equipped to do this in a cost effective manner, while independents are left to offer only pricey roundabout approaches.
We were also talking about the allure of living off the grid in some manner. My garageman has not paid an oil/electric/gas company to heat his home or business for 17 years now. He heats his home with a wood stove, and will start burning corn next year. The advantage of corn is that it's cheaper than wood($70 a ton vs. +/- $180 a cord), and more easily manageable. Also burns very clean. He heats his business with waste motor oil that he would otherwise have to pay to recycle. His furnace is equipped with catalytic converters to comply with EPA regs. Rather inefficient as a fuel source, so he is now using machining cooling oil(you know, the stuff they squirt on metal lathes to keep machined pieces from overheating). According to him, the stuff burns much hotter and more cleanly than motor oil, it's free(machining businesses are eager to get rid of it instead of paying to recycle it),and all he has to do is sign a paper stating what he's using it for. We also discussed running cars on either pure ethanol or recycled cooking oils. Being able to use my automotive fuel for margueritas and/or having my car exhaust smell like french fries(is it P.C. to call them that again?) are both attractive prospects. Not to mention it's a totally renewable(internally) energy resource. What could be the hold-up with converting the automotive industry to this?......................that's a rhetorical question;^).................though I'd bet CT could answer it in ways that never crossed my mental radar:^)
I have often thought about putting an array of solar collectors in the field opposite our home. The thought of putting energy back into the grid is tantalizing. Too many other pressing things to use the $ for though.
Lots of other stuff knocking about my cranium, but that's all I have time for now.
Ankh

mad, mad, mad, mad, mad world

2006-04-05T11:57:00.000-04:00

Bushy in a band called "Deficit Attention Disorder"? That's rich, coming from this fiscally reckless administration. You couldn't make this stuff up.

Hope Mr. Bolton's band doesn't cover The Clash or Zeppelin. My god, have we completely lost it? Hope they don't catch me listening to this. Or this. Or this. Or this.

As usual Keillor has a synapse-scratcher. Not sure I care for the defeatism, but then what are we really going to do about it?

This speaks volumes

2006-04-05T08:59:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I know what I said, but this shit just keeps welling up from the cesspool of our political backyard.
Mr. Bolton, the new chief of staff at the White House is in a band called "Deficit Attention Disorder". Political correctness would seem to dictate that you keep a fact like that out of the press. Is political correctness now passe too?
Ankh

Sorry, just couldn't resist..............................

2006-03-30T05:49:00.000-05:00

...................this, excerpted from Salon:

At one point, speaker Herb Titus held up a copy of Kevin Phillips' "American Theocracy," offering it as evidence of the putative war on Christians. It was an audacious move, given that Sara Diamond, the preeminent scholar of the Christian right, reported in a 1998 book that Titus was forced to resign his post as dean of the law school at Pat Robertson's Regent University because he refused to renounce Christian Reconstructionism. Christian Reconstructionism is a theocratic sect that advocates the replacement of civil law with biblical law, including the execution of homosexuals, apostates and women who are unchaste before marriage. Christian Reconstructionists used to be politically radioactive, but a new generation of religious right leaders like Scarborough have embraced them, and some members of today's GOP apparently see no problem associating with them. This does not mean that America is on the verge of theocracy, but it signals an important shift. The language of religious authoritarianism has become at least somewhat politically acceptable.

THESE people are the Antichrist......................and I'm only half kidding:^~

Ankh

Notice of inactivity

2006-03-29T08:26:00.000-05:00

Haven't dropped out, but current events(personal and local) will distract me from opining here for the forseeable future.
Ankh

conversation starters

2006-03-07T12:25:00.000-05:00

and the requisite Gitmo whinings.

How many places could you go with this story? 2 at least... (left and right? oops, no that brings the total to 4+). Although you would think kidneys and hearts would be a higher priority.

Nice idea, but you have to wonder how much heat & pressure had to be added to turn cow crap into gas (modern alchemy?). Is it a net energy loss, like ethanol?

Unrelated topic, just a nicely written essay on immigration.

Interpersonal skills - left wanting.

Cronkite on the insanity of the other war.

Can't you just picture this guy on a snowboard? That'll turn that frown upside down.

And turning it back into a frown. Tears optional.

Now turning to Guantanemo Bay -
For those paying attention, these stories are nothing new. Stories of abuse and unjust imprisonment have been in the public for many times, a few linked to in posts months ago. It still sucks, maybe now that it's getting more visibility the average ignorant American will wake up... yeah, whatever. But stuck in Cuba sleeping on a sheet metal bed (albiet with thin mattress) for 3 years because of a geek watch?

This quote from the Israeli supreme court's decision on torture says it all -

Such interrogation led Wilkerson to cite Aharon Barak, the chief of the Israeli
Supreme Court, which ruled against the torture of prisoners in 1999. "This is
the destiny of a democracy, as not all means are acceptable to it, and not all
practices employed by its enemies are open before it," Barak wrote in the
decision. "Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its
back, it nonetheless has the upper hand."

shut it down

2006-02-19T20:13:00.000-05:00

already. Even the Brits say so now. If this country is going to reclaim it's moral high ground, then that has to happen first. And even George Will thinks something is wrong in the White House. If you can get past his obfuscating vocabulary.

But Gibson is still a butthead. Negative comments aren't allowed, because the Pres can do whatever he wants anyways. GAFC. Just made up that acronym. Any guesses?

Gotta love this quote -
The Day I Don't Look at Pretty Girls, I Die'. True so as it goes. Too bad he goes a lot farther - like having the "little girl" walk back in and out of the room so he can watch her.

Here's an interesting column. Wonder what the evangelists would think of this Einstein nugget - "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." They give religion a bad name.

More quotes from Einstein. For a geek, he had some profound insights.

From NOW on PBS this evening(2/17/06)

2006-02-17T22:43:00.000-05:00

The main story was related to the practice of "earmarking" bills in the process of passing them. This allows lawmakers to appropriate obscene amounts of pork barrel funds for pet projects without any effective oversight.
Of note, Sen. Bill Frist(powerful Republican, self-styled hero and presidential hopeful) inserted a provision into a bill that(in broad language) basically protects the pharmaceutical industry from any and all lawsuits. This is an alternate form of earmarking. Interestingly, Mr. Frist has received $270,000 in political funding from the drug lobby.
While I'm enumerating Mr. Frist's virtues, it should be remembered that he was one of the prime posturers in the path of Mark Sciavo's efforts, on his wife's behalf to shuffle off her mortal coil.
These things bear remembering come election time.
Ankh

At Least 10 Killed in Libya Cartoon Riot

2006-02-17T21:51:00.000-05:00

Y'know, it strikes me(and this is decidedly unPC) that if we keep publishing cartoons, all of the radicalized, militant Islamists will eventually kill themselves off.................................without need for further intervention.
Ankh

Oh.......................this is rich;^)

2006-02-12T21:26:00.000-05:00

Sorry, I tried the link thing............................bad kharma. Check out any news service.
Dick Cheney peppered one of his hunting buddies with buckshot whilst quail hunting.
D'Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Picture Sid Caesar's vintage skit of the spazzy hunter waving a shotgun about. Knowing the victim will be okay permits a hearty belly laugh:^)
Such comic relief from the Bush administration is all too rare.
Ankh

The flogging continues.................

2006-02-12T11:03:00.000-05:00

Ariel Sharon is this generation's Generalissimo Francisco Franco. What a terrible fate, when nationalistic reverence and the embodiment of a national identity unite to negate individual and familial suffering.
Some politico/medical mouthpiece declared that the surgery was routine. Done every day in hospitals worldwide. True, but about as truthful as Dubya saying to good citizens in the hinterlands at a town meeting a couple of years ago that all wiretapping indulged in by the administration required(and had) federal warrants. But I digress. I'll bet the price of a new snowblower that Sharon infarcted his bowel. This is an emergency that(if not caught and remedied quickly) is invariably fatal. Indeed, it's frequently fatal even when it's caught fairly early in its course.
The point of all this is that it's not Sharon's welfare that hangs in the balance. His personal welfare is moot. It's the welfare of the current Israeli power structure that's on life support.
My thoughts are with Ariel Sharon and his family.
Ankh

Unleash Nerd Fury

2006-02-10T11:54:00.000-05:00

That title isn't really doesn't have anything to do with this post, but the quote from Colbert's "The Word" segment was too good to not steal. I can't imagine how they write "The Word", but it's f'ing brilliant.

Anyways, back to the Reality Based Community... Or not. As we posited long ago, facts have nothing to do with politics -

"None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged"

Intelligent critiques from both Patrick Buchanon and Garrison Keillor.

Unfortunately facts decide the fate of the world, not our emotional whims. As we long suspected, and as has been argued with evidentiary support on more than one occasion, the rush to war was not based on facts, instead facts were fabricated or doctored to support policy. Any doubt is dispelled in today's WP. Full article here. Not only was the justification fabricated, the accurate prediction of the aftermath was ignored.

"If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a policy implication," Pillar wrote, it was to avoid war -- or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath."

Pillar describes for the first time that the intelligence community did assessments before the invasion that, he wrote, indicated a postwar Iraq "would not provide fertile ground for democracy" and would need "a Marshall Plan-type effort" to restore its economy despite its oil revenue. It also foresaw Sunnis and Shiites fighting for power.

Pillar wrote that the intelligence community "anticipated that a foreign occupying force would itself be the target of resentment and attacks -- including guerrilla warfare -- unless it established security and put Iraq on the road to prosperity in the first few weeks or months after the fall of Saddam."

Pillar wrote that the first request he received from a Bush policymaker for an assessment of post-invasion Iraq was "not until a year into the war."

That assessment, completed in August 2004, warned that the insurgency in Iraq could evolve into a guerrilla war or civil war. It was leaked to the media in September in the midst of the presidential campaign, and Bush, who had told voters that the mission in Iraq was going well, described the assessment to reporters as "just guessing."

Rain sucks!............miscellaneous musings

2006-02-04T16:04:00.000-05:00

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience." Susan St. James

The administration's(and in particular, Rumsfeld's) vilification of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is eerily reminiscent of their prewar treatment of Saddam Hussein. Will we finally withdraw from Iraq only to turn our bellicose attention to Venezuela? Is Bush's (covert) plan to wean us from our addiction to Middle East oil ultimately a smokescreen for toppling another detractor and seizing his (considerable) oil reserves? I'm only a little more sanguine about our posturing toward Iran. The thought of tactical nukes in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists is terrifying. Hell, look what WE did with them, and we're civilized(no Truman bashing intended).

Mortality was buzzing about my brain at work last night. Not the overt, traumatic kind. The quiet, sucker-punch kind. I'm caring for a late, middle-aged person who, since November has been dealing with a particularly malignant brain tumor. Salt-of-the-earth kind of human. Vital, active, loving, intact family(a rarity in my line of work). This will likely be fatal within a few months. How does one reconcile that? Even from my there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I vantage point, after 20+ years, I can't.

Hook me up Ne'er(or any of you other silent souls),
Ankh

Addendum: How'd we(the U.S. of A.) manage to stay out of the fray over the violently disputed cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad? I must side with muslims in general on this one. It's no less irresponsible, offensive or wrong than flying the swastika, the rebel colors or any other White Power drivel. It's incitement in the guise of freedom of speech. With freedom comes responsibility.

Local/global

2006-01-27T02:22:00.000-05:00

Oi mates!;
As conceived, this blog's intent was to discuss local as well as global politics. We never seem to have anything to say about local stuff, and while I admit I'm much less well versed in local than global matters, I sometimes feel I should be better acquainted with local matters.
Perhaps it's the deniability factor. It's much easier to say "there's nothing I can do about the situation in the Middle East." Because if I whine about my local school board, or the York city stadium issue, there really is something I can do about that. I can easily get involved in local politics. But ya know what?, my limited involvement with politics(YAMBA board and committee involvement at work) has shown me that I'm not good at politics. I tend to say what I think(which is a liability) and when there's more talk than action(when action is needed), I get really frustrated.
Rationalization? Copout? Yeah, perhaps, but there are already too many bad pols.
Additionally, local issues seem so obtuse, so much less important to my life. What effect would the stadium issue have on me? Or the Lauxmont issue? Or whether York city gets its garbage picked up once a week?
Punditry has its detractors too, but it's a lot more fun and a lot less frustrating;^)
Ankh

Pan to Fire, part 2

2006-01-25T12:13:00.000-05:00

The pan to fire reference in the preceding post was regarding health care. Part 2 is the precarious position of the military, seguing off of Ankh's comment to the aforementioned post. Is scaring off the potential volunteer recruits leading to a draft? My eldest is 15, 16 in April. By the time he hits 18... He wouldn't make a day of boot camp.

I was close to throwing in the towel on this whole blogging gig, since we seemed doomed to throw away our liberties in pursuit of mythical "freedom", when a discussion about Anger (in the context of the "deadly sins" - now there's blogging material) reminded me that Anger has a purpose, in this case as a motivator. In the words of Fat Mike (NoFX)-

It's OK, allow yourself a little hate
Hatred is not so bad when directed at injustice
You can turn the other cheek,
Just don't turn the other way.
- American Errorist

Giving up is turning the other way. Plenty of motivation left.

From Frying Pan to the Fire

2006-01-24T13:21:00.000-05:00

Been buried w/ actual work lately. Some of this stuff is a little stale, but noteworthy nonetheless.

The Md Walmart bill is the latest evidence that the health insurance complex needs reform - no sane person would ever have intelligently designed an employer based sytem like we have (allegory for unguided evolution?). But then the leading candidate alternate system of a Canadian-style single payer would surely be doomed if it was implemented with twice the competency as the medicare fiasco. Maybe that was the plan - like a husband screwing up the laundry once so he'll never have to do it again. If Congress totally f'd-d up the Medicare drug plan, surely we wouldn't dare do that to all private insurees.

Joined the TiVo world post-Christmas. Now I can watch educational shows like this (aired 11:00pm on Sundays on Toon if you must watch it live)
2 quotes -
"The truth hurts, Jasmine. The world is a hard and lonely place, and no one gets anything for free, and you know what else? One day, you and everyone you know will die."
And a quoted quote -
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - MLK, from the excellent MLK day episode.

Theorem - Homo sapiens has an emotional need to feel threatened. Supporting evidence. One of many similar stories.

Garrsion's typical well-written essay.

Vietnam deja-vu? Until now no one dared say this. Is this an anomoly or a watershed?

The regular Mess-O-Potamia links -
Mess 1 - duh. Enlistee-age young men aren't necessarily the most empathetic. Whatever.
Mess 2 - if only
Mess 3 - Finance re-construction through oil revenues? Not if the troops use it all up first.
Mess 4 - "it didn't go particularly well."
Mess 5

And lastly, Wolfowitz predictions are starting to materialize. Finicky link, the gentle reader may need to try it a few times.

Autocracy

2006-01-05T12:26:00.000-05:00

(Cartooon from This Modern World.)

This level of cynicism might be too much for even me. It can't possibly be true, can it? More.

Some justice - Letterman vs. O'Reilly. Helps (a little) to take the sting out of this reality check.

And finally, I read this (unrelated) editorial while waiting for a plane in Seattle. Well said.

Imperialism

2005-12-27T15:17:00.000-05:00

From the "he said it better than I ever could" department. Although I think autocracy is more appropriate than Imperialism. Imperialism is "The policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations". That is so 2003.

And again -

Of course an autocrat has to control the media, too. Or at least try. Must be killing him to not be able to control the free press.

Here's a story that pre-dates the NSA leak by about a week. I was thinking big bro' then. How I misunderstimated the situation. NYT version.

So the question of the day is impeachment. Next year if the Republicans lose the majority, it could be a political possibility. The problem is if you chop of the head, a new one grows. Cheney is obviously the dark soul in the White House - why else would Rockefeller be writing to him instead of, say, Conde or Ashcroft (btw, love that last paragraph)? Check out the line of succession:

Dick Cheney
Bill Frist
Dennis Hastert (nee DeLay)
Conde Rice
John Snow
Donald Rumsfeld
Alberto Gonzalez
Gale Norton

That's a long way to go to find an improvement over the current situation. Happy New Year!

The good news is that the people and the courts have woken from their stupor. My working theory, based on the last few 2-term presidencies, is that there is a 5 year system lag before the calls of "the emperor has no clothes" call is finally heard.

As ye sow...........................

2005-12-19T22:54:00.000-05:00

"Bush said it was "a shameful act" for someone to have leaked details to the media. " (From Yahoo News)

I guess it's a matter of perspective. I view it as a patriotic act. This remark relates to his authorization of wiretapping and other spying activities without oversight or confirmation by any other branch of govenment.

"I am doing what you expect me to do,"...............................(From Yahoo News)

Obviously he wasn't speaking to at least 50% of the American public.............the 50%, or so who DIDN'T vote for him. I count myself in that vast group. I admit to a fatalistic view of how things would play out following his election. I knew in my heart that bad things would happen. Bad things of historic proportions. Sadly, my expectations have been fulfilled. Do his clandestine activities rise to the level of impeachability? If so, what would that mean? America has a history of acting without fully considering the consequences(see: Iraq/Saddam). We're not alone in this geopolitical hubris. No politician or government can grasp the nuanced complexity of the international geopolitical landscape, and yet all try to.
Sorry, I realize this is scattershot. I'm asking a lot of questions and not necessarily rendering coherent opinions. Kind of illustrative of my take on the state of the nation at this juncture.
Ankh

Another reason torture is bad

2005-12-10T20:12:00.000-05:00

Ankh's post below is a well-said argument of the barbarism of inhumane treatment. There's another reason that even those with no barbarism barometer. Coercion can start unjustified wars.

Another example of man's inhumanity to man. More proof that insurgents don't have a monopoly on being the bad guys.

Apparently Condi wasn't as honest or well recieved after all.

Russ Feingold for president - hope his fillibuster threat is not just bluster.

Once again The Onion has the scoop. Not as funny as it could be - too close to the truth.

Minority Report

2005-12-09T01:26:00.000-05:00

Excellent previous post Ne'er. Welcome back and congrats for having survived the gauntlet. What was your favorite beer?
I trust we've all seen the eponymous movie and remember the premise. It is my opinion that the U.S. Government currently operates under those same principles vis-a-vis terrorists and terrorism. These pre-emptive operating principles are at legal and ethical odds with the precepts on which this country was founded.
With a few notable exceptions, European governments are much more mature in their handling of situations involving terrorists and terrorism. I believe that terrorist entities, be they dictatorial governments or individuals must be allowed to declare themselves to some demonstrable degree before we bring force to bear. Would I be willing to place myself or my loved ones in harm's way for this cause?..................................That's a qualified "NO". No, but I accept and can live with a degree of unpredictability in life. In a war with no boundaries, we are all combatants. If we are willing, as a country to countenance our young men and women being IED fodder, then we should, by extension be willing to risk domestic violence in order to allow our enemies to declare themselves. We had no legitimate casus belli for invading Iraq. The degree to which we are risk averse in this arena is untenable. We want clean wars. Surgical strikes. Ignorable covert ops. These are all basically oxymorons.
Ankh

the enemy is us?

2005-12-07T13:43:00.000-05:00

I got into the car after work last night and caught the middle of a report about abuse of a prisoner - clothes torn, drug around, drugged up, blindfolded, etc. Out of context I couldn't tell if it was from Saddam's trial or a CIA rendition. Turns out it was about the CIA's treatment of Al Masri. Similar to this kidnapping story. Or the "black" prison sites. This article has a lot of meat. Can't tell the good guys from the bad without a playbook. At least Condi admitted it, and the ACLU has drawn it's sword.

Any doubt that the whole thing is a mistake?

Mistreatment doesn't only happen outside our borders. If your not a U.S. citizen, you don't count. That Daniel Zwerdling puts together one hell of an investigative report.

Still an asshole.

Still a moron.

On the brighter side, of course unrelated to politics. If you get G4-TechTV (62 on SUSCOM) - you have to watch this show. "Science abuse" is one tag line. Brits having fun with physics, appealing to school-boy maturity level. LMAO.

Cycled through the CD player last night - The Clash, "Death or Glory" -
Every cheap hood makes a bargain with the world
Ends up making payments on a sofa or a girl....

stuff

2005-12-06T07:48:00.000-05:00

Despite my weak grasp of personalities, I just wanted to mention a hilarious interview I saw last(Sleepless in Craley)night. The talk show belongs to the guy who used to play the boss on The Drew Carey Show. He was interviewing Maureen Dowd, the columnist. Brilliant repartee on subjects ranging from Dubya to feminism to male orgasms.
I like Maureen Dowd, but it struck me as I watched her................she's basically Ann(she whose name must not be spoken)Coulter's Democratic mentor.
Are we slow for news and opinions, or is it just the Christmas Rush?
Ankh

Holy King of Giant Monsters

2005-11-22T22:22:00.000-05:00

I have no idea what that means, probably some reference to Magic or Yu-Gi-Oh. This is my 11 yr old tween's "persuasive" essay - pretty good, he almost had me convinced. Maybe this chronic sleep deprivation is doing me some good after all.

Thanks are given for the creative minds of the young ones (anybody find a DVD of that "classic" series?) . So come on, don't let those big, fat, mean bedtimes get to you, have fun this holiday weekend!

Holy King of Giant Monsters! 43% of pediatricians say that T.V. mostly helps learning. I can say that myself, too, because I watch two shows a day and I’m in Distinguished Honor Roll. If I went to bed at 8:00 I would even decrease my eye-hand coordination. I am an extensive video game player.

This is for the major T.V. watchers. As I said earlier 43% of children’s doctors say that T.V. mostly helps learning. Only 27% of pediatricians say that T.V. hurts
learning. 21% say there wasn’t much of a difference, and nine percent say I don’t know. So why go to bed when you can watch television and learn something, even from a sport!

Who wants to go to bed when they can play video games? What would the world be like if no video games were allowed after 8:00? With video games, if someone saw a punch flying at their face, they’d instantly know to block it. Without video games after 8:00, if someone were in the same scenario, they even have to wait until the punch hit them to know to block it. I may have fine motor delay (a little something that causes people who have it to write sloppier), but heck, look at my eye- hand coordination! I play lots of video games. Preteens (tweens as I will later refer to them as) only need about 8.5 hours of sleep. My parents make me go to bed at 8:15 P.M., but it takes me a half hour, minimum, to go to sleep. Those are usually the nights I have nightmares. My mom gets me up at 6:00 A.M., but I’m usually awake a half hour before that. You can gain a ton of brain cells from long lasting board games; you can stay up really late on those.

So come on tweens, stay up late, have fun, and gain brain cells, all at the same time! Don’t let those big, fat, mean bedtimes get to you, have fun! Also, a note on T.V., I watch it a lot, and I’m pretty smart. A note on strategy games, play them, they’re fun and educational. In fact one of my favorite board games is a strategy game.

Three-peat? I don't think so!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2005-11-16T21:30:00.000-05:00

Sorry y'all;
I'm a little late with this. Seems Jeb "Florida is your's bro' ;^)" Bush is considering a run for the White House. Thankfully not this next term. Don't have a pulse on how rank and file Republicans feel about the prospect, but they should feel scared............very scared about what their party has to offer them. With a rogue's gallery including Santorum and Frist, and a cheering section manned by Pat Robertson, they look to be in for a rocky ride for the next few years. Can the Dems get their feces compacted and in chronological order enough to capitalize on this opportunity? I despair. Whither go we?
Ankh

Bad Apple

2005-11-07T12:07:00.000-05:00

Detainees were abused by a few bad apples. From the WP this morning, implication that the bad apple that started the bushels rotting resides in the WH. We don't torture, but we need to have the flexiblity... With logic like that you could start a war.

Then this additional nail in the coffin, via the Huffington Post. If there were any Democrat spine, this would be impeachment material.

Random link, first saw this in Rolling Stone. Check out the 9/26 strip. Mcgruder would be proud.

Friday dump

2005-11-04T15:24:00.000-05:00

Heard this on NPR this morning. Between President Carter and John Danforth, there may be hope for us after all. Carter was pitching this book.

Once again, nutcase Gibson completely misses the point. I guess he's saying not having Saddam in power is worth 30,000 lives and $300 billion dollars. And the world being a more dangerous, with al Queida setting up a new base camp. And by the way Afghanistan's a mess and we can't do squat about Iran and North Korea. A little more time and Saddam could have been exiled. Oops.

So is the avian flu a big deal or not? If we didn't have Tamiflu available, what would we do?

And finally, Garrison makes his point in his typically unique style. Ankh, thought of you when I read this.

Have a good weekend.

Phase Shift

2005-10-27T14:58:00.000-04:00

Moving from SCOTUS politics to a different universe - Global economics and health care. I started to copy the highlights of this article (originally linked to from All Spin Zone), but that turned out to be 99%. So read the whole thing.

As a pragmatist employed by a global consumer products company and at the same time always looking for the least expensive cheapest stuff, I see shifting all our manufacturing to low-wage countries as inevitable whether we like it or not. My biggest fear is the loss of expertise - if we no longer make things, we won't know how to design or engineer them, so our sole edge of intellectual property will also drift offshore. That leaves businesses like finance, advertising, retail and distribution, which do nothing but shift money from one pocket to another without creating any tangible goods. I blew off macroeconomics, but that can't be good.

Hack and Hacker

2005-10-27T14:46:00.000-04:00

Hack (Ms. Miers) - Assuming she wrote this. What are the odds she had a ghost writer?

"I have been greatly honored and humbled by the confidence that you have shown in me, and have appreciated immensely your support and the support of many others. However, I am concerned that the confirmation process presents a burden for the White House and our staff that is not in the best interest of the country," Miers wrote.

"honored and humbled" ??

The scariest part of the situation is that she was canned because she wasn't willing to push religious principles on the masses -

Hacker (Mr. Perkins)-

You see, the final straw was Miers’ apparent rejection of big government theocracy. Tony Perkins of the right-wing fundamentalist Christian Family Research Council makes it fully clear, reacting to a Miers quote:

“When science cannot determine the facts and decisions vary based upon religious belief, then government should not act.” This is very disturbing.

The slings and arrows...............observations.

2005-10-27T03:00:00.000-04:00

"It's not the large things that send a man to the madhouse, "Charles Bukowski has written. "No, it's the continuing series of small tragedies . . . a shoelace that snaps, with no time left."

I was recently reading a synopsis of a book about Abraham Lincoln's melancholic tendencies and came across the preceding quote. Perfectly encapsulates how life wears us down.
God is in the details.
The Devil is in the details.
Don't sweat the petty stuff.
Pay attention to the details and the big things will take care of themselves.

"The notes, I can play. They are easy. But the spaces between the notes, ah, that's where the artistry resides." Artur Schnabel, pianist/composer.

It's the spaces between life's notes that frequently trip me up. On rare occasions, I handle them with great virtuosity and I cherish those times. But more often than not, I come up empty handed and fulfill the "stupid male" stereotype I hear touted at work all the time by my more harpy-ish female coworkers.
I'm in a rather black frame at the moment. Must..............ride...............bike...........MORE!
Peace, out,
Ankh

2005-10-27T01:25:00.000-04:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House is not amused by The Onion, a newspaper that often spoofs the Bush administration, and has asked it to stop using the presidential seal on its Web site.
The seal was still on the Web site www.theonion.com on Tuesday at the spot where
President George W. Bush's weekly radio address is parodied.
With headlines like "Bush To Appoint Someone To Be In Charge Of Country" and "Bush Subconsciously Sizes Up Spain For Invasion," The Onion is popular with readers looking for a little laughter with their politics.
White House spokesman Trent Duffy said people who work in the executive mansion do have a sense of humor, but not when it comes to breaking regulations.
"When any official sign or seal is being used inappropriately the party is notified," Duffy said.
"You cannot pick and choose where to enforce that rule. It's important that the seal or any White House insignia not be used inappropriately," he said.
Duffy said while he does not personally read The Onion, he admitted knowing others in the White House who do. "Like everyone else, we like a good laugh."
Scott Dikkers, editor-in-chief of the satirical newspaper, said its lawyer disagrees with the White House assessment.
"I've been seeing the presidential seal used in comedy programs most of my life and to my knowledge none of them have been asked not to use it by the White House," Dikkers said.
"I would advise them to look for that other guy Osama (bin Laden) ... rather than comedians. I don't think we pose much of a threat," Dikkers said.

Hey all;
The last line says it all. I'm gonna be decidedly impolitic.......................FUCK 'EM IF THEY CAN'T TAKE A JOKE! When did the White House insignia become a sacred object? Can you say, First Amendment?!
Ankh

Winning Powerball Family in Seclusion

2005-10-23T04:42:00.000-04:00

Sounds like the guy has his head screwed on straight. If my wife and I woulda won? mmmmm, it would really be hard not to go apeshit on buying a few bikes and electronic doo-dads. Other then that, I'd have fun making sure all my relatives were taken care of.

Wilma winds intensify to 175 mph as it becomes possibly worst storm ever

2005-10-19T05:58:00.000-04:00

Newsday.com: Wilma winds intensify to 175 mph as it becomes possibly worst storm ever

Forget history? Who, us?

2005-10-18T12:08:00.000-04:00

From the NYT last weekend, registration required. Some excerpts:

One of Mr. Bush's most senior aides, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject, said that so far American military forces in Iraq had moved right up to the border to cut off the entry of insurgents, but he insisted that they had refrained from going over it.

But other officials, who say they got their information in the field or by talking to Special Operations commanders, say that as American efforts to cut off the flow of fighters have intensified, the operations have spilled over the border - sometimes by accident, sometimes by design.
...
Increasingly, officials say, Syria is to the Iraq war what Cambodia was in the Vietnam War: a sanctuary for fighters, money and supplies to flow over the border and, ultimately, a place for a shadow struggle.

Never mind that the insurgency is home-grown, not imported -

According to a new study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, intelligence analysis and the pattern of detentions in Iraq show that the number of foreign fighters represents "well below 10 percent, and may well be closer to 4 percent to 6 percent" of the total makeup of the insurgency.

One former United States official with access to recent intelligence on the insurgency added that American intelligence reports had concluded that 95 percent of the insurgents were Iraqi.

Those who forget history........................

2005-10-18T00:20:00.000-04:00

Nothing too coherent here, just some ruminations. A coworker's daughter(freshman-HS) interviewed me last evening concerning my memories of the Iran/Contra Affair. In preparation, I read a synopsis on http://wikipedia and followed links where my curiosity led. Oh, what a tangled web we weave.............................:^(
Then, later, I happened on a documentary about the Vietnam War. More specifically, the Nixon Vietnamization policy that resulted in incursions into Laos and Cambodia, the carpet bombing of Cambodia which indiscriminately killed hundreds of thousands of Cambodian civilians, our perverse support of the Khmer Rouge which allowed them to kill over a million more of their countrymen/women/children.
Emma Lazarus' words(http://thenewcolossus) at Liberty's feet are obscured by the blood spilt in our efforts to proselytize "democracy" to the world. In general, I am not proud to be an American.
Ankh

Sanctimonium co-opting U2's good name

2005-10-13T21:05:00.000-04:00

Santorum's press secretary, Robert Traynham, said Thursday that the decision by the Senate's third-ranking Republican to hold a fundraiser during Sunday's Philadelphia show is based on his "deep respect and admiration for Bono and their work together over the last few years to fight the global spread of
HIV' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> HIV-AIDS
Hey Gen'lmen;
How galling it must be(as an artist) to have anyone, for any reason co-opt your artistic endeavor for political gain. But to have it be someone of Sanctimonium's ilk would make me want to vomit. The axiom, "politics make strange bedfellows" is particularly apropos here. If he hasn't actually said it, Sanctimonium surely believes HIV is god's(notice the lower case, because only a "small g" god would behave in such a manner) divine retribution against gays. The devil is in the details..........................and in the deals we make to effect change in the world around us.
Ankh

tyranny of the majority

2005-10-06T12:38:00.000-04:00

Narrowly averted (for now). But what happens when the referendum is defeated?

And what happens if Iran really is involved? Holy crap!

no words

2005-10-06T12:37:00.000-04:00

Scary on so many levels

2005-10-06T12:14:00.000-04:00

Georgie picked the best person he could find. The best person in the building, maybe, except for that Gonzalez guy.

George (will) on Georgie -

He has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated
judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. Few
presidents acquire such abilities in the course of their pre-presidential
careers, and this president particularly is not disposed to such
reflections....
In addition, the president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the
Constitution. The forfeiture occurred March 27, 2002, when, in a private act betokening an uneasy conscience, he signed the McCain-Feingold law expanding government regulation of the timing, quantity and content of political speech. The day before the 2000 Iowa caucuses he was asked -- to insure a considered response from him, he had been told in advance he would be asked -- whether McCain-Feingold's core purposes are unconstitutional. He unhesitatingly said, ``I agree.'' Asked if he thought presidents have a duty, pursuant to their oath to defend the Constitution, to make an independent judgment about the constitutionality of bills and to veto those he thinks unconstitutional, he briskly said, ``I do.''

So when did "Christian" change from peaceful, neighbor loving, merciful custodian of the planet to fundamental extremist? Never mind most mainstream denominations have no issue with evolution as science, now everyone that is opposed to I.D., faith-based initiatives, and government control of our bodies is labeled "non-Christian".

Al Gore might be have part of the answer - from his speech to the Media Conference

It is not that we no longer share ideas with one another about public
matters; of course we do. But the "Public Forum" in which our Founders searched
for general agreement and applied the Rule of Reason has been grossly distorted
and "restructured" beyond all recognition.
And here is my point: it is the destruction of that marketplace of ideas that accounts for the "strangeness" that now continually haunts our efforts to reason together about the choices we must make as a nation.
For these and other reasons, The US Press was recently found in a comprehensive international study to be only the 27th freest press in the world. And that too seems strange to me.

No civil war here.

2005-09-30T15:32:00.000-04:00

Administration denials of civil war aside. After all, they were the same ones that the insurgency wasn't organized. No worries, thought, the Iraqi's will be taking care of themselves soon. "Soon" measured in geological terms.

Plan Balboa. Plausible deniability in action.

The terrorists didn't take our freedom. We beat them to it.

And finally, from a conservative friend -

This is a poem made up entirely of actualquotations from George W.Bush, arranged for 'aesthetic'purposes, by Washington Post writer Richard Thompson.

MAKE THE PIE HIGHER!

I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
and potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked
is our children learning?
Will the highways of the internet
become more few?

How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I'm a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.

I know that the human being
and the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope.
Where our wings take dream.

Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!

Thoughts and outrage III

2005-09-22T05:42:00.006-04:00

"The down side of capitalism" or "strange bedfellows".
When did we lose control of our government? As a business savvy entity, WalMart is a ferocious negotiator. It uses its huge bargaining power as a tool to force its vendors to lower prices. Now, it makes sense that the U.S. government which represents 20% of the GNP of the U.S. economy should be in a killer position to negotiate best prices when making deals with subcontractors. Yet, when the last Medicare bill was passed, the government somehow caved to the drug lobby, rather than dictating the terms government drug purchasing policy. Consequently, we pay billions more dollars for prescription drugs than we might.
Or look at the companies which are subcontracting to the government to provide services in the Persian Gulf, and yes, now New Orleans(and soon Galveston). These contracts were awarded through no competition bids...........................go fuck yourself Mr. Cheney;^)
Now to the oil refiners who suddenly discovered several years ago that they could increase profits by depressing production. They have been steadily decreasing production even as demand has risen. Recently, the government stepped in to stop the closure of a refinery. Actual oil reserves and OPEC machinations have little effect on the daily price of petroleum products in the U.S.
In many critical ways, our government no longer supports us.
Ankh

God's Dilemna (Part I)

2005-09-21T10:03:00.000-04:00

SO... There is this big (and getting bigger) hurricane in the eastern Gulf of Mexico (Rita)... And it's projected to get even more powerful... And it could wipe out whatever coast line it hits... And, interestingly enough, impact the oils rigs and refineries that were not affected by Katrina...

And, it's currently projected to hit close to Houston... Where many of Katrina's evacuees have currently relocated...

And the system of levees on the ocean side of New Orleans were wiped out by Katrina - so that New Orleans could only withstand about a 3-foot storm surge - if any at all...

God's dilemna - one of many...

Does He/She/It answer the prayers of those good and God-fearing Christians in and around New Orleans, and send Rita further to the West?

Does He/She/It answer the prayers of those good and God-fearing Christians in and around Galveston and Houston, and send Rita further to the East (Lousianna), or to the South (Mexico)?

Does He/She/It, in His/Hers/Its supreme benevolence, dissipate the hurricane without hitting anything?

Does H/S/I send it roaring into Houston, bringing further death and destruction to those who escaped Katrina's a month before?

Is this truly the wrath of God - is this how the "fear of God" was born.

For, certainly, if God is all-powerful, and all-loving, this impending disaster could be prevented, simply through a wave of God's hand...

No babies would drown, no newborns would die because they couldn't be provided with adequate care, no elderly patients would bake to death in the sun, no children would be separated from their parents, none of the infirmed would die to a simple lack of medication or treatment, thousands of pets would not drown or die of starvation, hundreds of thousands would not lose their homes, no one would be raped and/or beaten to death by marauding gangs...

No environmental disaster of never-before-seen-proportions would occur in the Gulf of Mexico...

Show me where the meek, the weak, and/or the poor were not the most devestated by Katrina... Show me where the God-fearing, and the God-less fared any better or worse than the other...

In fact, show me that Katrina's devestation and destruction and death-mongering were anything but random, arbitrary, and chaotic...

For, it is in these times that you would expect to find evidence of the merciful hand of God - not just in individual cases, but in broad, overarching sweeps of his hand - holding the wind, and the waves, and the water back so that His lambs could escape their wholesale slaughter...

Don't show me individual "miracles", which are just the inevitable outliers on some Poisson distribution curve... Show me that the entire outcome, the integral over the curve, has been shifted impossibly to the right - that the hand of God cradled His creatures from nature's fury...

That would be a miracle...

And then, I would believe...

THE news source

2005-09-15T22:23:00.000-04:00

After The Daily Show, of course.

Kurt Vonnegut's list

2005-09-15T21:38:00.000-04:00

LIBERAL CRAP I NEVER WANT TO HEAR AGAIN
Give us this day our daily bread. Oh sure.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those wh trespass against us.Nobody better trespass against me. I'll tell you that.
Blessed are the meek.
Blessed are the merciful. You mean we can't use torture?
Blessed are the peacemakers. Jane Fonda?
Love your enemies - Arabs?
Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. The hell I can't! Look at the Reverand Pat Robertson. And He is as happy as a pig in s**t.

The Daily Show

2005-09-14T10:37:00.000-04:00

Omigod!;
I finally got to watch the show this A.M. Content was good. The great part was the special guest. Just a little preamble here. We've been cleaning out some stored stuff recently. Among the refuse, a few boxes of my old books. Notable authors include Kurt Vonnegut and Jerzy Kosinski.
Jon's guest was Kurt Vonnegut. I worshipped this man in my adolescence. As Jon said, he opened my forming mind to a whole world of thought I would not otherwise have encountered. Vonnegut loosed his lacerating wit on the current administration and gave a synopsis of the history of democracy in the U.S. that appears to be serving as an abbreviated framework for its nascence in Iraq......to include: after the first 100 years, you have to let your slaves go free. After 150 years, you have to let your women vote. There must be a period of genocide and ethnic cleansing and so on. Wickedly funny stuff rimmed with sadness.
He had a list of "liberal crap" to read which they didn't have time for, which Stewart said would be posted on the website under Vonnegut's name. I plan to check it out.
G'day all,
Ankh

picture with caption

2005-09-12T22:33:00.000-04:00

is still worth a thousand words.

Thoughts and outrage II

2005-09-12T03:51:00.000-04:00

Why is it that the only economically painful thing we are willing to do, as a nation, is wage war? We will spend anything to try to prevent the loss of even one life on the battle field. And nothing to try to prevent deaths from predictable disasters.

Contingency plans for dealing with a "Katrina" type disaster were formulated over twenty years ago. Too economically painful. Not politically comfortable, so we suffer what, in hindsight we now know we could have prevented or mitigated.
During the gas crunch of the '70s, we started to realize that we must develop alternate energy sources. But.................................too economically painful. So we suffer the consequences of our continued dependence on a dwindling energy source: pollution, global warming, terrorism.
Locally, I'm an optimist. I'm raising two good kids. I work to make my community better. I have a good marriage and I think I'm basically a good person.
Globally, I'm more pessimistic. There is a widening gap between the "haves" and the "have nots". I'm not totally comfortable being in the "have" camp. Our bad habits and lack of courage will ultimately lead to our demise................................only in generations too far removed for me to contemplate. Complacency is still morally affordable for me, sadly.
Ankh

Jon's back

2005-09-07T21:29:00.000-04:00

from vacation. He hit the ground running, unlike another recently rested vacationer. The difference between Jon and George is that Jon is good at what he does.

Graphic via the invaluable web resourse Crooks and Liars - the disaster checklist for the administration. They're up to K.

Bonus feature - Marc Seigel, author of False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear.
Check out the video from The Daily Show's site. Bingo.

Imagine

2005-09-03T10:16:00.000-04:00

London's drowning, and I live by the river....

The obvious topic these days is the natural disaster, and the man-made disaster that followed. But that doesn't help the suffering souls, and it's best to deconstruct the events when we can be more objective.

Brought back from the neuron depths when Jordis performed it this week, more timely today then ever.

Thanks, John.

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
No religion too
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...

Imagine no possesions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say Im a dreamer
but Im not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one.

Thoughts and outrage

2005-08-31T03:31:00.000-04:00

I do SOOOOOOOOOO love it when whack jobs trip up. Like Jimmy Swagart caught ho'in around. Pat Robertson obviously forgot the First Commandment;^)
Now on to outrage. The whack job preacher from Kansas who goes around the country with his little cult of homophobic followers has adopted a particularly egregious new tactic. He's been showing up at military funerals to inform the assembled mourners that their loved ones who have died in the line of duty were actually killed as divine retribution for America's tolerance of homosexuality. Now, if we could just get Pat Robertson to redirect his attention to the preacher......................
Ankh

Flying Spaghetti Monster

2005-08-24T12:29:00.000-04:00

First saw this on All Spin Zone. He said "noodly appendage" :-0

The FSM's appendage could go a long ways in explaining the Double Slit Experiment. Wonder if he likes his cats dead or alive?

Venezuela next?

2005-08-23T22:33:00.000-04:00

Last week on The Daily Show, Seymour Hersh said the next stop on the oil crusade would be Venezuela. Now Pat Robertson thinks assasinating Chavez is a Christian act.

The NY Times ran a piece (registration req'd) about scientists and religion. It was fairly balanced, safe article, but it had quite a few interesting quotes, like

Belief in the supernatural, especially belief in God, is not only incompatible with good science, Dr. Hauptman declared, "this kind of belief is damaging to the well-being of the human race."

Some scientists say simply that science and religion are two separate realms, "nonoverlapping magisteria," as the late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould put it in his book "Rocks of Ages" (Ballantine, 1999). In Dr. Gould's view, science speaks with authority in the realm of "what the universe is made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory)" and religion holds sway over "questions of ultimate meaning and moral value."

As scientists compare human genes with those of other mammals, tiny worms, even bacteria, the similarities "are absolutely compelling," Dr. Collins said. "If Darwin had tried to imagine a way to prove his theory, he could not have come up with something better, except maybe a time machine. Asking somebody to reject all of that in order to prove that they really do love God - what a horrible choice."
In the book [Mere Christianity] Lewis, an atheist until he was a grown man, argues that the idea of right and wrong is universal among people, a moral law they "did not make, and cannot quite forget even when they try." This universal feeling, he said, is evidence for the plausibility of God.

And there's the connection with the Robertson story. What universal idea of right and wrong does Pat Robertson share with me? How does the universal moral argument apply to Buddhists and Muslims? For that matter, how does one reconcile the Old and New Testament's contrasting moralities? Admittedly I need to read Lewis' book, but the argument seems fatally weak.

As a reminder of one reason not to treat Venezuala like just another oil-rich invasion site - war is hell.

Which brings us to Fox News' belated realization that the Energy Bill was anything but a step towards energy independence. But then their solution is drill, drill, drill. My favorite line -

"It was a major failure of leadership", Toby Chaudhuri, a spokesman for the Apollo Alliance, a coalition of labor, business, civil rights and environmental interests seeking better energy solutions.

She nails it again

2005-08-17T22:24:00.000-04:00

Once again, Wendy McElroy of ifeminists hits it square on. She doesn' t fit in with the Foxnews editorial crowd.

And here's the previous essay. I support the Boy Scouts' right of association, but of course disagree with this choice. Not to dis the organization as a whole, as my boys were scouts and got a lot of good out of it. Wendy's absolutely right - private is private, public is public. If you want to partake of public resources, you gotta play by public rules.

Frazz

2005-08-17T22:16:00.000-04:00

Love Frazz. This one struck a chord - maybe because it's been so damn hot lately. But then I would take 20 deg in the snow over Death Valley. Follow the title link to a cornucopia of comics.

"shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning"

2005-08-16T20:44:00.000-04:00

Reality sucks. It's just that for some people it takes a long time to sink in.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."
"We set out to establish a democracy, but we're slowly realizing we will have some form of Islamic republic," said another U.S. official familiar with policymaking from the beginning, who like some others interviewed would speak candidly only on the condition of anonymity. "That process is being repeated all over."
"The most thoroughly dashed expectation was the ability to build a robust self-sustaining economy. We're nowhere near that. State industries, electricity are all below what they were before we got there," said Wayne White, former head of the State Department's Iraq intelligence team who is now at the Middle East Institute. "The administration says Saddam ran down the country. But most damage was from looting [after the invasion], which took down state industries, large private manufacturing, the national electric" system.

From Sunday's Washington Post.

Gaza............whazzup?!

2005-08-16T17:24:00.000-04:00

Hey gents;
This is such a complex and fraught situation. Surely we can get a lot of mileage out of it. I'm curious about the U.S. government's support of Isreal from a Christian perspective. It's naive to think our interests are purely geopolitical. I've mistakenly stumbled into discussions about this perspective before with people(read devout Christians) who have an emotio/religious attachment to the situation. Can anyone explain the Christian perspective dispassionately?
Ankh

Drinking Liberally

2005-08-12T14:31:00.000-04:00

Seen regularly on All Spin Zone, but also posted in Irregular Times today too. Note the anomalous concentration of PA sites - including one in Lancaster. Is a trip to Lancaster Brewing Company a Moral Imperative, (7:30 Tuesdays)?

A toast to my hero. She's taking one for the country by putting herself in the slime-gun sights of the conservative media mania of the likes of O'Reilly and Malkin.

Maybe pounding back a few Negro Modello's or Bushmill's will help take the mind off the impending doom. Unfortunately, the morning after will still be hot as hell.

My new favorite CD - Drunken Lullabies. Take traditional Irish drinking songs, add punk bass line and guitar, add angst to taste. Not a big fan of the website design, though.

Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Five hundred years like Gelignite
Have blown us all to hell
What savior rests while on his cross we die
Forgotten Freedom burns
Has the Shepard led his lambs astray
to the bigot and the gun

Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

Minutiae, errata

2005-08-12T08:10:00.000-04:00

Just bits and pieces of mental detritus, flotsam and jetsam;
Kansas(atajim: since you and your folks left, the place just ain't the same;^) is the first state to legislate intelligent(small "i" demonstrates my contempt) design into it's school science curriculum. Toto's looking off into thin air and whining. Thinking individuals among us can only hope this will gain as much traction as previous efforts to slip "creation science" into the curriculum in the same state some years ago.
The potential Republican presidential candidate pool is lookin' pretty shallow and murky. Forgive me, I can only come up with two in my sleep deprived state. First and most egregiously, is Senator Rick Sanctimonium, closely followed( a little too;^) by Jeb"Ya owe me one Dubya" Bush. Is Catherine Harris' continued ascendancy in politics any surprise?
S'all fer now,
Ankh

AVAM

2005-08-06T21:44:00.000-04:00

Hey y'all;
Wife and I spent a very enjoyable evening south of the border at the American VisionaryArt Museum near Inner Harbor. Lots of fantastic nonconformist art. The capper appeared in the museum's gift shop. Among other interesting and entertaining things was a picture of Dubya wearing a sandwich board which said, "Will kill for oil". Made me smile. I tried to recreate it using the computer, but am just not savvy enough. Anyone care to give it a try............Geo?
Also, I immensely enjoyed the snippet of the interview show I saw yesterday where James Carville got Robert Novak to self-destruct. Don't particularly love Carville, but I admire his style. Don't particularly hate Novak, but I dislike his pole-up-the-ass conservativism(hope I'm characterizing him right).
Ankh

update: The Education of Shelby Knox

2005-08-06T01:05:00.000-04:00

'lo;
I had posted on 30 June 'bout a P.O.V. show on PBS called "The Education of Shelby Knox".
I finally, by chance got to watch it the other night. What a tremendous show. The best part was the superintendant of the school district, who ultimately blocked all the kids' efforts to get Sex Ed. into the school curriculum, was discovered to have been carrying on a torrid affair with a female staff member, complete with graphic emails on the school's computer system. He has since left his post and disappeared.
But the dynamic tension created by the opening of this girl's mind(coming from a conservative Christian, Republican background) is amazing. Y'all must watch if you get a chance.
Ankh

Is this a good thing?

2005-08-05T12:19:00.000-04:00

Remember when Karzai asked for his citizens in Gitmo to be transferred to Afghanistan? Rumsfeld said in no uncertain terms "fuggetaboutit".

If a civilized nation such as the U.S.A can't be trusted to treat prisoners humanely, will they be better off somewhere else? It's a move in the right direction, for sure, but scarey nonetheless.

Guess the election was a year too early. Has it only been a year? Time flies when your having fun, so I guess if it drags...

A new AP-Ipsos poll puts George W. Bush's approval rating at its lowest point yet.
Only 42 percent of the public approve of the president's job performance; 55 percent don't. The same poll shows that, by a 50-48 percent margin, Americans now believe that their president is dishonest. Only 38 percent of them approve of the way in which he's handling the war in Iraq.
As bad as those numbers are, it's important to keep them in perspective. Things could be worse. Iraq could be, say, Plamegate. According to the latest CBS News poll, 77 percent of the American public believe that the Bush administration is either lying or hiding something about the outing of Valerie Plame. Only 12 percent say the White House is telling "the entire truth."

Wouldn't it be a trip if Roberts was gay? I think they're making way too much of it , but the far right sure is in a tizzy about his pro bono support of a gay rights case. Actually I think our fearless leader missed a great opportunity. He should have nominated a Muslim.

Pop culture

2005-08-05T12:07:00.000-04:00

Continuing the pop culture riff, I happened to have The Offspring's "Americana" in the CD player on the way to the trails. Couple that sentiment with Sony's latest payolla scandal, and it's no wonder we "give the people what they want", and what they want is crap. Fair warning, they aren't shy about dropping the f-bomb.

Well, I’d like to tell you all about my dream, it’s a place
Where strip malls abound and diversion’s mere moments away
Where culture’s defined by the ones least refined
And you’ll be left behind if you don’t fit in
It’s all distorted in americana, my way
Well, fuck you

Now, give me my cable, fast food, four-by’s, tat’s right away
I want it right now, ’cause my g-ggeneration don’t like to wait
My future’s determined by thieves, thugs, and vermin
It’s quite an excursion, but it’s ok
Everything’s backwards in americana, my way
Well, fuck you

I’m a product
Of my environment
So don’t blame me
I just work here but
I wanna fuck it all!

My rights are denied by those least qualified
Trading profit for pride, but it’s ok
Everything’s backwards in americana, my way
Well, fuck you

My nightmare has come true
Yeah, it’s all coming true
Yeah, it’s all coming true

Ne'erdowell carries the blog

2005-08-05T06:27:00.000-04:00

Gentlemen;
Are we mice or men?! Ne'erdowell has been carrying the weight here. Speaking for myself, I've been suffering from a lassitude regarding posting on things which stick in my craw. My craw's full to overflowing and emptying it doesn't seem to help. I've taken refuge in concentrating on things which I can do something about, like building stone walls, diddling with my bike and living with my family. Hoping this passes though, 'cause I do likes to bloviate on things worldly;^)
Ankh

Guilty pleasure

2005-08-03T12:34:00.000-04:00

Way, way, way off topic.

Rockstar.

I never watched American Idol, since it seemed to worship everything that is wrong with the pop music industry: Merchandisers take any attractive young person with a good voice, have them sing mediocre cookie-cutter tunes, and the natives will by records by the millions. Then there's that celebrity judge panel....

So I was pleasently surprised when the clicker paused at Rockstar a couple weeks ago. In spite of the specious premise, I'm hooked. These singers are way talented, and songs are great. The best of the bunch, Jordis, has killed on "Heart Shape Box" and "Gimme Some Lovin'", but sculpted the soundwaves in tragic beauty last night with Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World". Words fail. Watch the video for yourself and be awed. Week 4, Performances, #7.

Make it stop!

2005-08-03T12:21:00.000-04:00

A 5 page article in the WP today. Read about the formal escalation procedure and tell me it was just a few bad apples. Bad apples in the DoD, maybe. More detail, if you really need it. And again.

In case you didn't get around to following all the links in the below post, here's the gist of the 2 Chinese currently in Gitmo -

1. They left China to escape religious persecution, being Muslims, attempting to make it to Turkey.
2. Pakistanis turned them over to the US to get the $5000/head bounty.
3. 3 years later the tribunal determines they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
4. Unable to contact the outside world for 4 months, they stayed in confinement.
5. Finally they were able to get word to lawyes, but it's been 2 more months and they are still imprisoned, because China might persecute them, and they were exposed to some very bad influences.

kangaroo court

2005-08-02T12:47:00.001-04:00

This is what we expect from Russian courts. Same story, different source. And again.

When is someone's head going to roll? Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, all should be going down. Can you imagine the history texts 20 years from now? Instead, Carter is being vilified for his remarks made in the spirit of the founding fathers.

For balance, here's the rebuttal.

Did I mention the Secretary of Defense authorized using dogs to soften up detainees?

And just posted in Salon, with the first sentence
"Do you ever feel like you don't recognize your country anymore?"

That's nothing compared to this story in the Guardian. Suppose you'll see this story on Fox? When I was younger and more naive, say 3 years ago, I thought the USA was the defender of human rights. What an idealistic idiot. Turns out we're bad guys too. The real meat is in this companion article.

"Throughout, he was accused of being a senior al-Qaida terrorist and accomplice of Padilla. He denies these allegations, though he says that while tortured he would say whatever he thought his captors wanted. He signed a statement about the dirty bomb plot. At one point, he says, interrogators told him his GCSE grades, and asked about named staff at the housing association that owns his bedsit and about a man who taught him kickboxing in Notting Hill.

After 18 months, he says, he was flown to Afghanistan, escorted by masked US soldiers who were visibly shocked by his condition and took photos of his wounds.

They took the scalpel to my right chest. It was only a small cut. Maybe an inch. At first I just screamed ... I was just shocked, I wasn't expecting ... Then they cut my left chest. This time I didn't want to scream because I knew it was coming.

One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute, watching my reaction. I was in agony. They must have done this 20 to 30 times, in maybe two hours. There was blood all over. "I told you I was going to teach you who's the man," [one] eventually said."

There's more.

Wonder why the DoD doesn't want to release all the material from Abu Ghraib? Have anything to do with women prisoners asking to be killed so they didn't have to listen to young boys scream?

Relieving the pressure

2005-08-02T12:47:00.000-04:00

Still here. Just not much to post about lately, other than the usual complaints. I tried putting something together that was positive, instead of bitching about the state of the universe, but that proved to be futile. The post above this motivated my ass to release this blog blockage-

Tom Tomorrow.

Gee, we knew there were no WMD's? Shock my monkey. Invading muslim territory radicalizes the population to fight back. Whoda thunk?

Oil consumption bill. And do we need any more proof that DeLay's a crook?

The senate's refusal to confirm Bolton is embarrasing to him. If the shoe fits, ...

And the President is weighing in on teaching I.D. The horse's mouth, technically speaking.
From Wonkette -
Teaching it as "alternative" to evolution is a little like teaching "magic" as an alternative to physics, which at least would at least explain the president's belief in the missile defense program.

Garrison Keillor has a different angle on Plamegate.
But shares my thoughts on Roberts.

And lastly for this post, the media has reached a state where the Comedy Channel is relied upon to challenge Senator Sanctimonium. Jon's strength is not his interviews and I appreciated his civil approach, but others disagree. At least Stephanopoulus came through.

dry eyes?

2005-07-22T13:54:00.000-04:00

This will take care of 'em.

Pharisees

2005-07-18T21:44:00.000-04:00

Saw this article several linked in several places, including Bike Riding Donut Guy's blog. Pragmatically there isn't much harm, since this agency is one of 24 agencies and only got $7053 out of the $244,000 collected. It is, however, and excellent example of the logical error of the admin's Faith-Based plan. While it may sound good to the average Christian citizen, most of them don't fully appreciate their real and intense denominational differences. I was brought up Lutheran, but ELCA Lutheran, not Missouri Synod. You wouldn't catch me anywhere near a MS church because their values are vastly different from mine - mysoginist, anti-choice, anti-ecumenical. And they wouldn't let me commune there anyways. In fact, even within denominations there are huge theological splits - Homosexual Bishop, anyone?

Scary Faith-Based Lunacy:

From Salon's War Room, 7/15 -
"Predictably, some of those who lined up behind mainstream science nevertheless kept their politics to the far right. "I don't believe that anything that offends nine-tenths of the American public should be taught in public schools," said David Frum, putting his logic and math skills on display. "Christianity is the faith of nine-tenths of the American public ... I don't believe that public schools should embark on teaching anything that offends Christian principle."

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life puts the number of Americans who are Christian at roughly 75 percent, not 90 percent, while a Gallup poll from 2004 indicated that not every Christian is offended by evolution. According to the poll, about one-third of Americans believe in evolution, while 45 percent believe God created humans created 10,000 years ago. "

That last sentence explains a few things. The husband of my pastor, who is a pastor himself, related to me a story about one of his fellow men of the cloth. This other minister, otherwise intelligent and lucid, firmly believed the earth was 6,000 years old. The pr's husband could not believe an educated man would NOT support evolution, with all the scientific support, especially since it is NOT in conflict with the bible (in fact, our bible explictly says that there is no conflict). Read that passage lately? Reads much more like a fairy tale to explain things outside our comprehension. There was a slight discrepancy about the order -

1. Light, including day and night
2. Sky & water
3. land and vegitation
4. Sun, moon, & stars -
etc.

And when a Mormon testifies in front of Dover's school board, she is told that "her God" is not "our God", so her opinions were irrelevant.

clarification

2005-07-09T13:35:00.000-04:00

My comment about terrorists hating freedom in the post below was meant to be sarcastic. Here's a more articulate position statement. It' s a comment to this conservative blog posting -

Comments:
Let's see. The US fuckes up Muslims in the Middle East. Muslims hate the US for that and cause 9/11. The US attacks Muslims for 9/11. British join the US. Muslims now hate British and attack them. I see no anomalies here. The rhetoric that Muslims hate the US for its prosperity and freedoms that is perpetuated by the neocons is for really stupid people (and there are plenty of them in the US).As for Israel, it is a fascist theocratic state with massive concentration camps that has nothing similar to the US democracy. Care to read actual sources.Cheers.Highly educated jewish atheist.
# posted by Anonymous : 5:27 PM

I encourage you to read the entire post and comments in entirety. The anonymous "Highly educated jewish atheist" makes some solid points.

A safer world

2005-07-08T13:49:00.000-04:00

Joe Conason does an effective job making my point for me (Salon.com). I'm not sure getting out of Iraq now would help much though. The damage has been done, now we can only reap what we sowed. Irregular Times captures the essence from another angle - Condemn All Violence.

The terrorists are ultimately to blame, and if they are found guilty through due legal process by a jury of their peers then they should be suitably punished. But if it weren't for the administration's actions, the 50+ Britons would be alive today. The politicians pick the fight, but leave the payment to the rank and file.

Not only would those Britons be alive, so would Trudy Rubin's interpreter, along with a multitude of anonymous Iraqi civilians - from her 7/1 column: (Philly Inquirer, reg req'd) - because a roadblock was not put on the 5th street into the area, her interpreter drove into the wrong place at the wrong time -

"As Yasser drove toward the intersection, a U.S. sharpshooter apparently fired a warning shot at his tire. Perhaps the shooter thought he was a suicide bomber. Yasser couldn't stop fast enough; he put his hand in front of his face as if for protection. Then the shooter fired one bullet through the windshield, hitting his fingers and penetrating his skull.

The U.S. military keeps no statistics on the mistaken killing of civilians. But every Iraqi I know has horror stories about episodes they have witnessed, where civilians were killed or nearly killed by U.S. troops

....On my last visit, my driver Salaam saw a contractor convoy of black SUVs do a U-turn on a median strip and shoot a driver in the oncoming lane who had failed to get out of their way quickly enough. The driver had a small child in the passenger seat."

We all know terrorists attack us because they hate freedom. They can't stand that in our free society, we don't have to worry about things like government surveillance. Oops. Lost that round too.

The curse of free speech. Asshole. 2 theories for his attitude -
1. He's trying to prove he's more of a man than Ms. Coulter
2. He had a bad Garp-esque tooth experience with a French woman.

I realize the neo-con's rationalization of the Old Europeans opposition is that they were on Saddam's payroll. Face it Gibson, France was right, you were wrong.

That's My Word.

A mind opens

2005-06-30T16:29:00.000-04:00

Just created my first link(crudely but effectively, I hope). I was just browsing last night and came across this piece. Very arresting, particularly the part where this young woman talks about the type of believers (her) God wants. If a mind can open in that kind of environment, after having been nutured in the way this woman's was, there is some small hope for humankind.
ankh

Political science, part 2895

2005-06-24T23:36:00.000-04:00

Chuckle (Mark Fiore flash comic).

No chuckle. A science center didn't show the movie becuase it upset the Creationists.

Or here.

Or here - see LA Times link for the whole story. "Adverse to wildlife" was edited to "beneficial to animals". Harmless stylistic edit.

"This is a whitewash. They took all of our science and reversed it 180 degrees," Erick Campbell, a former BLM state biologist in Nevada told the Los Angeles Times. "They rewrote everything," Campbell said. "It's a crime."
Campbell retired recently after 30 years at the agency. Here's more on how he was thanked for his years of service: "The original draft of the environmental analysis warned that the new rules would have a 'significant adverse impact' on wildlife, but that phrase was removed. The bureau now concludes that the grazing regulations are 'beneficial to animals,'" the Times reported.
"Eliminated from the final draft was another conclusion that read: 'The Proposed Action will have a slow, long-term adverse impact on wildlife and biological diversity in general.' Also removed was language saying how a number of the rule changes could adversely affect endangered species."

where to go from here

2005-06-24T23:25:00.000-04:00

I received this link from my Pastor, who is well aware of my views on the war. Actually, the e-mail came with a long introduction

"In October 2002, as the U.S. drive for war in Iraq was building,Sojourners organized a joint statement by church leaders fromthe U.S. and the U.K. In it, we noted that "To initiate a majorwar in an area of the world already in great turmoil coulddestabilize governments and increase political extremism.... Itwould add fuel to the fires of violence that are alreadyconsuming the region. It would exacerbate anti-American hatredand produce new recruits for terror attacks against the United States...." yada yada

Until recently, my opinion was that we needed to clean up this Messopotamia, and not turn tail & run to show the "bad guys" they could win. That opinion is back on the table, as the situation seems to have normalized into a bad one, and our presence is only encouraging further death & destruction wrought on Iraqi civilians. What say you all?

Interesting asides - Notice that there has been no lack of connecting the Iraqi conflict to 9-11? Seems the numbed citizenship and limp media have once again forgotten that there is no connection.

And - overheard a couple neo-cons at work discussing how there has never been a short occupation - post war Germany and Japan took years to stabilize. Note the lack of concious irony. Note the word "occupation". Does no one have a memory that lasts 2 years?

Eminent Domain - how is this possible?

2005-06-23T12:17:00.000-04:00

OK - This is wrong on so many different levels...

1) To claim, by eminent domain, private property for the sole purpose of advancing private enterprise... Demolioshing someone's home so that someone else can make money off of the land it stands on...

2) To claim that local governments know what's best for the use of private land... Doesn't the home owner know what's best - it's their land and their home?

3) What does "ownership" actually mean?

4) And what really sticks in my gut - Thomas, Scalia, and Rhenquist were all on the dissenting side - as I am. I wouldn't even agree on the time of day with that crew...

Public school and teaching to the "middle" common denominator

2005-06-23T10:54:00.000-04:00

OK - I'll bite on the public school issue. My parents were both public school teachers at one time. My Dad taught at Dover, Red Lion, and Dallastown, and then moved into the LIU and CAIU and then onto director of gifted programs for the state. My Mom taught at Dallastown and then Suburban (for over 30 years)...

They both received their educational masters degrees in counselling.

TO say that I was immersed in the inner workings of the public school system in the 60's, 70's, and 80's would be a gorss understatement.

Anyway - my parents, as may be obvious from my typical bents and rants, fostered and encouraged free and critical thinking, with a healthy dose of skepticism thrown in. They fostered those "values" not only in our family, but also in their classrooms. And it was that approach that got my Dad in some trouble at Dover. As part of his 6th grade science class, he would incubate chicken eggs, and would open them up a various stages in their development. The students could then observe how the chicken embryo developed over time. Dad pointed out that birds, reptiles, and mammals all have very similar embyos at the early stages of development - the skeletal structure, the nervous system, the gastroentestinal system, and the cardio-pulmonary system all seem to develop in the same order, and like quite similar to each other when they start forming. This was a lesson in biology that those 6th graders that weren't fortunate to have my father didn't receive. Anyway, two problems arose.

First, other members of the faculty objected, because many of the kids that did have my Dad though the class was cool, and those that didn't have my Dad felt left out - which also got back to the parents.

Second, there were parents who objected on religious grounds that the biology lessons were conflicting with their religious beliefs.

Now, what Dad was demonstrating was observation and fact - the embryos do start out the same, they do develop the same, and they all have the same systems, and they diverge later in their development into their respective species. A simple lesson in the scientific method... And something that was above and beyond the basic requirements of the course. He spent his own money on the incubator and the eggs, invested his own time on researching the lessons, etc...

Yet, because he chose to go beyond the minimal requirements of the course, and actually introduce intriguing, envigorating lessons and material, he was ostracized by some of the faculty,some fo the parents, and eventually the school board.

Remember, this was Dover - in the mid-60's...

It's 2005, 40 years later, and they are still fighting the same damn level of self-imposed ignorance as then...

On a more important note - the biggest thing that we are missing in public school is the teaching of skepticism. Of course, how would public school continue to exist with skepticism? How do you teach a kid to behave, to conform, to listen, and to cooperate, while also teaching them to question, to doubt, to think for themselves, to draw their own conclusions, to stand up, stand out, and defend themselves?

How would our public school system function?

The demands on the teachers would be even more tremendous then they are today. And many (dare I say most) would not be capable of handling such a task. How do you tend to 25-30 kids, of varying intellectual, emotional, and environmental backgrounds... How do you reach each one of them, on their own terms? You don't - you attempt to make the outliers conform to the "common" middle, regardless of their ability to fit into that space.

There is another factor that works against skepticism, and it comes into play earlier in a child's development. That would be the indoctrination of children with supernatural religious dogma. Ya gotta get to them early, before the Devil does.

So, now we have multiple generations having come up through the public school system, and they haven't been taught to think for themselves. To input data, process it, analyze it, make comparisons, and draw conclusions... Observe, Hypothesize, Predict, Test, Analyze, Conclude, Refine, Repeat - that is the scientific method...

Indoctrinate, Shield, Protect, Propagandize, Obfuscate, Ostracize, Squelch, Ignore, Exaggerate, Lie, Adnauseum - that is the way much of the U.S. has been raised (is being raised)... By parents, by priests, by politicians, by peers, by propagandists, and by the state (too bad there wasn't an alliterative word that came to my mind)...

No wonder we have the president and the congress that we do... The truth has truly lost credibility... If the facts and/or conclusions don't conform to my beliefs, deny the facts, hide the facts, change the facts, draw different conclusions, squash dissent, outlaw dissent, shout louder and longer... But, god forbid, don't let the truth be known if it conflicts with what you believe... That's dangerous...

A least it was in Galileo's time - and continues to be to this day...

My Mom is now retired and is teaching a home-schooled kid in science. She loves teaching science and math, and comes up with all sorts of interesting and active ways to demonstrate the scientific method. There isn't any reason she couldn't handle 5-10 kids at a time (I asked her about that). And there is an opportunity that I think is being missed - retired teachers, who had enjoyed teaching but got fed up with the system, returning to teach small groups of home-schooled kids, in their topic(s) of interest. This would be sort of a return to the one-room school house, but with individual attention payed to the students, and with the students seeing the same teacher for several years, allowing for a continuity of experience between the student and the teacher.

Of course, there are still bound to be conflicts between the parens and the teacher over content and approach - but the parents and teachers get to work these things out directly - with know interference from the school board or the principal. And, there could be learning experience for all involved - the kids, the teacher, and the parents.

Free speech

2005-06-23T01:45:00.000-04:00

Since 1789, there have been more than 11,000 attempts in Congress to amend the Constitution; only 27 amendments have won ratification. (from the YAHOO newsboard)

The most recent of a spate of attempts to amend the Constitution to prohibit flag burning seems destined to pass. Post 9/11 pressure, and some strategic Republican electoral wins have given this initiative the necessary oomph to prevail over sensible legislative scrutiny that has prevented 10,973 other misguided attempts to change the fabric of our national identity.
Emotion prevails, pundits wail and an impressionable public that never seems to learn from past abuses opens wide and swallows. Let's all stop being whores to manipulative, self-serving pols(to follow the dirty joke vein I'm mining). Let's be nice girls and spit the jizz of spurious, nonvalid legislative efforts right back on their collective laps!
We defend far worse things(IMHO) in the name if First Amendment protection than the act of flag burning. This smacks of cold war, red scare, commie hunting behavior, that we should have outgrown. The flag is a symbol(albeit a powerful one) pure and simple. If someone defaces or destroys it as an act of protest or defiance, I may not appreciate the gesture, but I don't take it as a personal affront. We're wasting far too much valuable time exercising ourselves over things of no consequence.
ankh

Political science

2005-06-22T20:39:00.000-04:00

First, another glaring injustice. AFI's top 100 movie quotes, with one glaring oversight. Not one mention of Gilliam & crew. No "Don't like her?! What's wrong with her? She's beautiful, she's rich, she's got huge... tracts of land.", no "I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headedanimal food trough water! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!" No "Help, help, I'm being repressed", no "It's just a flesh wound",.... No doubt at least 100 candidates from that movie alone, never mind "Always look on the bright side of life".

The scientists are at it again, but rest assured the administration will prevent them from achieving their goals. The situation is so out of control now that the ACLU is calling it governmental interference of protected speech.

Seguing a bit here, to education. Here's Wendy McElroy's (of ifeminist) latest column. It's a little incendiary, but the basic concern is valid. An aside - a trusted source informs me that teenagers often answer anonymous surveys like this with, um, exaggerated answers, just to shock the establishment (surprised?), so any data must be suspect. The comment that struck most was the quick jab on privatized education. That fits with Ms. Mcelroy's libertarian platform, but the thought stuck more this time than it has in the past. I have always been a strong supporter of the ideal of public education, and our family has done well so far in that system. But there are many areas of the country where the public schools are such a disaster that sending your kids to public schools isn't a real option. Maybe money is part of the problem, maybe not. But even with an unlimited checkbook, some school district are a lost cause. What then? Home school works for many, but there are also many moms and dads that are not suitable to teach their fish, much less their kids.

Thoughts, comments, epiphanies?

Land of the free

2005-06-17T23:05:00.000-04:00

These bastards have gotten completely out of control. We've all heard stories about immigrants deported because of expired visas, often due to INS beurocratic incompetence. Here's another. This is the continuing saga of the 2 NY Muslim girls, whose crime was to practice the wrong faith, have a class that included a discussion of suicide in the curriculum, and watching an admittedly inflammatory cleric's sermons on the internet. Seer Orwell.

It's not good to be a Muslim in Lodi, CA either.

Or exercise your 1st Amendment rights in Cambridge, MA.

Holy freakin' civil liberties, Batman. Alien and Sedition Act anyone? Settle for a flag-burning amendment?

Sleep tight. Don't let the Feds bite.

for president

2005-06-17T22:47:00.000-04:00

John Danforth.

NYT link, registration required. I lived in St. Louis when Danforth was in the Senate. He earned my utmost respect with his community involvement and compassionate, respectful actions, overcoming my severe cynicism of a minister practicing politics.

Exerpts from his editorial (select paragraphs quoted in whole and in sequence, but other whole paragraphs omitted) - but there's much more that's worth the read. This is hands-down the most articulate essay on the issue I have ever seen:

It would be an oversimplification to say that America's culture wars are now between people of faith and nonbelievers. People of faith are not of one mind, whether on specific issues like stem cell research and government intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, or the more general issue of how religion relates to politics. In recent years, conservative Christians have presented themselves as representing the one authentic Christian perspective on politics. With due respect for our conservative friends, equally devout Christians come to very different conclusions.

People of faith have the right, and perhaps the obligation, to bring their values to bear in politics. Many conservative Christians approach politics with a certainty that they know God's truth, and that they can advance the kingdom of God through governmental action. So they have developed a political agenda that they believe advances God's kingdom, one that includes efforts to "put God back" into the public square and to pass a constitutional amendment intended to protect marriage from the perceived threat of homosexuality.

Moderate Christians are less certain about when and how our beliefs can be translated into statutory form, not because of a lack of faith in God but because of a healthy acknowledgement of the limitations of human beings. Like conservative Christians, we attend church, read the Bible and say our prayers.

For us, living the Love Commandment may be at odds with efforts to encapsulate Christianity in a political agenda. We strongly support the separation of church and state, both because that principle is essential to holding together a diverse country, and because the policies of the state always fall short of the demands of faith. Aware that even our most passionate ventures into politics are efforts to carry the treasure of religion in the earthen vessel of government, we proceed in a spirit of humility lacking in our conservative colleagues.

Rock on.

mind growing, mind blowing

2005-06-14T20:16:00.000-04:00

Mind growing. What an interesting time to be alive. The only problem is that someone has to pay for it.

Mind blowing, part 1. Once again, the human race has proven that it is incapable of sustaining critical thought. Perhaps some gene therapy combined with the "mind growing" concept.... I remember when Mr. Limbaugh admitted he was an entertainer, not a journalist, that's why his tenuous grasp of the facts was O.K.

Mind blowing, part 2. "There's a new strain of tuberculosis (search) that has shown up in southern California among what the politically correct call the "foreign born" population.... Granich tries to keep from offending by not labeling the "foreign born" TB carriers "illegal immigrants," but what else could they be? Most are from Mexico and most lived in this country less than five years when they were diagnosed." So any non-citizens from Mexico must be illegal. Faultless logic. And closing the borders is remotely possible.

Of course I am as much of fan of Mr. Thomas as any Fox commentator.

As promised, an excerpt from Ted Koppel's column - In summary, the scope of information gathered on us by private parties is astoundingly large, and uncontrolled. The first paragraph introduces the passing of the Patriot Act, then...

There is no end to what we will endure, support, pay for and promote if only it makes our lives easier, promises to save us money, appears to enhance our security and comes to us in a warm, cuddly and altogether nonthreatening package. To wit: OnStar, the subscription vehicle tracking and assistance system. Part of its mission statement, as found on the OnStar Web site, is the creation of "safety, security and peace of mind for drivers and passengers with thoughtful wireless services that are always there, always ready." You've surely seen or heard their commercials, one of which goes like this:
Announcer The following is an OnStar conversation. (Ring)OnStar OnStar emergency, this is Dwight.Driver (crying) Yes, yes??!OnStar Are there any injuries, ma'am?Driver My leg hurts, my arm hurts.OnStar O.K. I do understand. I will be contacting emergency services. Announcer If your airbags deploy, OnStar receives a signal and calls to check on you.(Ring)Emergency Services Police.OnStar This is Dwight with OnStar. I'd like to report a vehicle crash with airbag deployment on West 106th Street.Emergency Services We'll send police and E.M.S. out there.Driver (crying) I'm so scared!OnStar O.K., I'm here with you, ma'am; you needn't be scared.
Well, maybe just a little scared. Tell us again how Dwight knows just where the accident took place. Oh, right! It's those thoughtful wireless services that are always there. Always, as in any time a driver gets into an OnStar-equipped vehicle. OnStar insists that it would disclose the whereabouts of a subscriber's vehicle only after being presented with a criminal court order or after the vehicle has been reported stolen. That's certainly a relief. I wouldn't want to think that anyone but Dwight knows where I am whenever I'm traveling in my car.
Of course, E-ZPass and most other toll-collecting systems already know whenever a customer passes through one of their scanners. That's because of radio frequency identification technology. In return for the convenience of zipping through toll booths, you need to have in your car a wireless device. This tag contains information about your account, permitting E-ZPass to deduct the necessary toll - and to note when your car whisked through that particular toll booth. They wouldn't share that information with anyone, either; that is, unless they had to.
The State Department plans to use radio frequency identification technology in all new American passports by the end of 2005. The department wants to be sure that we all move through immigration quickly and efficiently when we return from overseas. Privacy advocates have suggested that hackers could tap into the information stored on these tags, or that terrorists might be able to use them to pinpoint American tourists in a crowd. The State Department assures us that both concerns are unfounded, and that it will allow privacy advocates to review test results this summer.
Radio frequency identification technology has been used for about 15 years now to reunite lost pets with their owners. Applied Digital Solutions, for example, manufactures the VeriChip, a tiny, implantable device that holds a small amount of data. Animal shelters can scan the chip for the name and phone number of the lost pet's owner. The product is now referred to as the HomeAgain Microchip Identification System.
Useful? Sure. Indeed, it's not much of a leap to suggest that one day, the VeriChip might be routinely implanted under the skin of, let's say, an Alzheimer's patient. The Food and Drug Administration approved the VeriChip for use in people last October. An Applied Digital Solutions spokesman estimates that about 1,000 people have already had a VeriChip implanted, usually in the right triceps. At the moment, it doesn't carry much information, just an identification number that health care providers can use to tap into a patient's medical history. A Barcelona nightclub also uses it to admit customers with a qualifying code to enter a V.I.P. room where drinks are automatically put on their bill. Possible variations on the theme are staggering.

interstitial spaces

2005-06-13T20:48:00.000-04:00

Little bits that fill in the gaps between the bigger, clunkier thoughts like how the middle class society is going bye-bye- and here (NYT, reg req'd) - and Ted Koppel busted one out too that will scare the crap out of anyone paying attention (also in the NYT). I'll post the highlights of Mr. Koppel's column tomorrow, deference to copyright & all that. The headline is "Take my privacy, please!".

From the Daily Show, Colbert covering the Deep Throat story - "The truth has lost credibility". Chew on that.

From the NPR series "This I believe" - Jazz is the sound of God laughing. I like jazz well enough, but it usually doesn't reflect my mood. My retort - Punk is the sound of God smashing his fist on the table in frustrated rage.

From Sunday's paper -
"SENIOR OLYMPICS
A Tennessee man who was in Pittsburgh to take part in the Senior Olympics died Friday, two days after he broke his neck during a crash while warming up for a race, officials said.
Paul V. Haase, 77, from Waverly, Tenn., died at UPMC Passavant Hospital Friday of a broken neck he sustained when he crashed into a barricade during warm ups for a bicycle race on Wednesday, teh ALlegheny County Coroner's Office said.
In a statement by UPMC, the official medical provider for the 2005 Summer Gamesbiking across Indiana starting the 18th. I taught him Taekwon Do until he got his black belt a couple years ago. Great kid, great family.

Politcal stuff -
Parents rights vs. states rights is an important issue. Surely parents have right to withhold unnecessary radiation treatment, and the state likewise has a responsibility to see that children are not neglected. Too bad the best John Gibson's stand-in can do is interview a fellow reporter about what's in the news. Original research? Who needs it.

Oh, man, ya gotta like this site. Here's where the definition in the upper left of that site comes from. Caution - not appropriate for those easily offended by tasteless sarcasm. Not me - ROFLMAO.

About damned time. But is it too little too late?

Enough politics.
Found a CD that the whole family can agree on - and that is quite an achievement, since good music (mine - I like both kinds, Punk AND Ska ;-0 ) physically hurst my wife's brain and my sons listen to country and Star Wars soundtracks. A User's Guide to They Might Be Giants practically jumped into my hands at Border's last weekend (as did Cake's Comfort Eagle). "They call me Dr. Worm / I am not a real doctor but I am a real worm ." How can you not love that?

false witness

2005-06-02T21:28:00.000-04:00

Watergate was a little before my time, as was Vietnam. (I didn't come into political maturity until after I had voted for Reagan, and a friend sat me down and introduced me to the ACLU, and why it was important). My only memories of that time were that after my dad left the Air Force, including a tour in 'nam, my parents decided that they wouldn't tell anyone about his vet status because of the extremely harsh climate. Let's all hope & pray the current quagmire doesn't end up like with us treating our soldiers like that.

The point I am getting to is that I have difficulty placing the Watergate events in context. I am not qualified to comment on the accuracy of these claims, but sure as hell Gibson shouldn't throw out -
"But it is reasonable to assume that W. Mark wanted to continue the Hoover legacy — the power and fear of a domestic KGB and Nixon got in his way." - without some kind of backup. "It is reasonable to assume that..."???? OMG. And Newsweek got in trouble for not being able to back up a story that turned out to be true - in general if not in specifics. The WP took a little more mature approach in their article.

There are more jumping down Deep Throat. Apparently it was his fault we bailed out of Vietnam - millions of lives are on his shoulders. From Salon.com -

"There's something deadly serious here," Buchanan said on MSNBC's "Harball" with Chris Matthews. "People that brought down Nixon also resulted in the fall of South Vietnam, the death of hundreds of thousands of people. ... Nixon was brought down by people who were a hell of a lot worse than he was."
Buchanan got some solid backup from fellow history wiz Rush Limbaugh, who added that Woodward, Bernstein, Felt and company were also responsible for the genocide in Cambodia that left approximately 1.7 million dead. "Had they not brought down Nixon, we wouldn't have lost Vietnam," Limbaugh affirmed during his Wednesday broadcast. "Had [they] not brought down Nixon, the Khmer Rouge would not have come to power and murdered two million people in a full-fledged genocide."

Anybody that can remember those years want to help fill in the context?

Dynasty?! I'm movin' to Canada

2005-06-02T00:49:00.000-04:00

This is gonna be short, 'cause I only heard it in passing. I heard the other day that Bush, Sr. wanted to see Jeb elected to the presidency to cement his family's dynasty. Talk about royalist tendencies in the Republican Party, sheesch! That would be the final insult, electing the man who presided over one of the most egregious voter frauds in U.S. history to the presidency:^(
'Scuse me while I hurl.....................................
Hank

Spreading the wealth

2005-05-26T01:29:00.000-04:00

From: "hank smeltzer" Date: Tue May 24, 2005 11:54 pm Subject: Thoughts on tropical paradise, social responsibility, my religion, cynicism vs.
goodnightnur... Offline Send Email
hope, skepticism............................"First, let's be fair to cynics. Cynicism is the place ofretreat for smart, critical, dissenting and formerly idealistic proplewho are now trying to protect themselves. They are not niave. Theytend to see things as they are, they know what is wrong, and they aregenerally opposed to what they see. These are not people who view theworld through rose-colored glasses, the ones who tend to trustauthority or who decide to live in denial. They know what is goingon, and at one point, they might even have tried for a time to changeit. But they didn't succeed; things got worse, and they got weary.Their activism, and the commitments and hopes that implied, made themfeel vulnerable. So they retreated to cynicism as a refuge fromcommitment."And later..................."And if you have middle-class economic security(as many cinicsdo), things don't HAVE to change for YOU to remain secure. That isnot intended to sound harsh, just realistic. Cynics are finally freejust to look after themselves."The above is excerpted from the book "God's Politics: Why theRight Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It. A New Vision forFaith and Politics in America", by Jim Wallis, an evangelical,preacher, theologian and faith-based activist.Part of my rededication to serious reading is an effort toclarify my thinking, and my positions on some issues that are veryimportant to who I am and how I relate to the world.In the past, when I haven't been sure of my feelings about athing or idea, I generally try to immerse myself in it. Not by tryingto absorb information just from my orientation to the issue, but byusing sources that make me uncomfortable. I definitely approachedthis book with more than a modicum of discomfort. The passages Iquoted above really struck me. I don't necessarily consider myself acynic.........more of a skeptic. But then, maybe that's justrationalization on my part. The definition sure as shit fits me. Icould never again embrace mainstream Christianity. I am just as sureof the validity of my particular religious philosophy as the author isof his, but I could work with this man. The vast majority of his bookresonated strongly with me. Much of the content regards our moralresponsibility to work to provide an improved standard of living tothe world's poor. I was reading this as we were travelling from theairport at St. Lucia, past squalid housing to our posh resort.Much of the rest of the content involves politics in America, itsdysfunctional relationship with those it is supposed to serve, and itsabuse and fear of communities of faith. This man is very balanced inhis analysis. Despite my initial reticence, his sense andevenhandedness won me over. Not to faith, but to the realization thatI could work with him DESPITE his faith, and accept that if weprevailed, we might both end up in the same place.It's an endless source of frustration to me that my ruminationsnever sound as clean, concise and coherent as Dr. Don's, but then, Igenerally start with much messier premises;^)My next selection is, "The Bottomless Well: The Twilight ofFuel, The Virtue of Waste, And Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy".Friend Don, this is one for you. The first pages alone havefired my thinking a quantum leap past the rudimentary energy exchangeswe've had here and on the blog in that past.More to come. I feel invigorated, frustrated...............gawd,it's a beautiful, fucked-up world.Hank

back home

2005-05-18T21:21:00.000-04:00

Hey all. Just back from a 1/2 cross-country trip to KS (flying) and back (by Penske truck), slowly merging back into the e-world. My parents are eschewing the "stuff-centric" world that is living in a house today, and becoming nomadic full-time RV-ers. So they had to download their stuff that accumulated over 24 years in that house, along with wedding gifts from their grandparent's union. Moving all that stuff was a pain in the arse, but the all-to-short visit with the family was worth the arse-ache. Watch out world, when my 2-year old nephew comes of age. And I got to check out my brother's I-Pod - Cake, KMFDN, White Zombie, ... Good stuff.

Jumping into the shallow water -

You have to check out the video of this Congressional testimony. The Brits must have kept all the rhetorical skills when we left the fold. Pow.

Wendy McElroy of ifeminists.com raised her bar in today's column.

And then.... Must be more to the story. What did her mother and aunt get escorted out by cops at a Catholic school graduation? The kicker is the last line - it's OK to father a child out of wedlock, but not carry the fetus in your womb. Guess she should have had the abortion instead. Or at least used a condom.

And don't forget to check out drunkencyclists Ann Coulter rant. Banners/ads NSFW.

This Modern World

2005-05-11T22:22:00.000-04:00

This comic is posted weekly on Salon, then the next day on Working for Change, which has a comics page. Here is this week's, it's worth a look. Tom Tomorrow's blog is worth a hyperlink, too.

Mark Fiore's animations are pretty good too.

justice prevails

2005-05-09T21:09:00.000-04:00

Remember the 2 girls arrested in NY for plotting bombings? Did I say ther were Muslim? See the "home of the free" and "war on checks and balances" posts below for a memory jog.

Buried on page A6 of the York Sunday News was a story bylined by the NYT. One of the girls was freed, no charges pending. The other is being deported with her family. "Asked if she understood why she had been detained, the girl replied "Honestly, no" ", and was then promptly sushed by her attorney - major gag order in effect. Daily Kos has another take, the surprise there was that the poster wasn't aware of the original arrest!

Why didn't the story get picked up by the leftblogosphere? Anything to do with the release happening on a Sunday? Coincidence? I didn't hear any whisper until I was reading the day-old paper this evening.

And then there's this shining example of judicial activism. Only it's OK, because it supports traditional family values. OK, dissing the Baptists' theology in a school text is uncool, but it sure seems like a constitutional stretch to say that including acknowledgement of homosexuality and condoms in sex. ed. infringes on First Amendment rights. Seem backwards? Why is it you can never find a Hammer when you need it?

Gratuitous Bush bash.

heretical observations

2005-05-01T22:10:00.000-04:00

In an interview with Salon.com, Richard Dawkins had some lucid, articulate comments about religion & society. Re-posted here to instigate commentary and discussion. Follow the link for the complete interview. Some highlights -

Still, so many people resist believing in evolution. Where does the resistance come from?
It comes, I'm sorry to say, from religion. And from bad religion. You won't find any opposition to the idea of evolution among sophisticated, educated theologians. It comes from an exceedingly retarded, primitive version of religion, which unfortunately is at present undergoing an epidemic in the United States. Not in Europe, not in Britain, but in the United States.
My American friends tell me that you are slipping towards a theocratic Dark Age. Which is very disagreeable for the very large number of educated, intelligent and right-thinking people in America. Unfortunately, at present, it's slightly outnumbered by the ignorant, uneducated people who voted Bush in.
But the broad direction of history is toward enlightenment, and so I think that what America is going through at the moment will prove to be a temporary reverse. I think there is great hope for the future. My advice would be, Don't despair, these things pass.
You delve into agnosticism in "The Ancestor's Tale." How does it differ from atheism?
It's said that the only rational stance is agnosticism because you can neither prove nor disprove the existence of the supernatural creator. I find that a weak position. It is true that you can't disprove anything but you can put a probability value on it. There's an infinite number of things that you can't disprove: unicorns, werewolves, and teapots in orbit around Mars. But we don't pay any heed to them unless there is some positive reason to think that they do exist.
Believing in God is like believing in a teapot orbiting Mars?
Yes. For a long time it seemed clear to just about everybody that the beauty and elegance of the world seemed to be prima facie evidence for a divine creator. But the philosopher David Hume already realized three centuries ago that this was a bad argument. It leads to an infinite regression. You can't statistically explain improbable things like living creatures by saying that they must have been designed because you're still left to explain the designer, who must be, if anything, an even more statistically improbable and elegant thing. Design can never be an ultimate explanation for anything. It can only be a proximate explanation. A plane or a car is explained by a designer but that's because the designer himself, the engineer, is explained by natural selection.
Those who embrace "intelligent design" -- the idea that living cells are too complex to have been created by nature alone -- say evolution isn't incompatible with the existence of God.
There is just no evidence for the existence of God. Evolution by natural selection is a process that works up from simple beginnings, and simple beginnings are easy to explain. The engineer or any other living thing is difficult to explain -- but it is explicable by evolution by natural selection. So the relevance of evolutionary biology to atheism is that evolutionary biology gives us the only known mechanism whereby the illusion of design, or apparent design, could ever come into the universe anywhere.
So why do we insist on believing in God?
From a biological point of view, there are lots of different theories about why we have this extraordinary predisposition to believe in supernatural things. One suggestion is that the child mind is, for very good Darwinian reasons, susceptible to infection the same way a computer is. In order to be useful, a computer has to be programmable, to obey whatever it's told to do. That automatically makes it vulnerable to computer viruses, which are programs that say, "Spread me, copy me, pass me on." Once a viral program gets started, there is nothing to stop it.
Similarly, the child brain is preprogrammed by natural selection to obey and believe what parents and other adults tell it. In general, it's a good thing that child brains should be susceptible to being taught what to do and what to believe by adults. But this necessarily carries the down side that bad ideas, useless ideas, waste of time ideas like rain dances and other religious customs, will also be passed down the generations. The child brain is very susceptible to this kind of infection. And it also spreads sideways by cross infection when a charismatic preacher goes around infecting new minds that were previously uninfected.

Fifty years ago, philosophers like Bertrand Russell felt that the religious worldview would fade as science and reason emerged. Why hasn't it?
That trend toward enlightenment has indeed continued in Europe and Britain. It just has not continued in the U.S., and not in the Islamic world. We're seeing a rather unholy alliance between the burgeoning theocracy in the U.S. and its allies, the theocrats in the Islamic world. They are fighting the same battle: Christian on one side, Muslim on the other. The very large numbers of people in the United States and in Europe who don't subscribe to that worldview are caught in the middle.
Actually, holy alliance would be a better phrase. Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil. Each believes that when he dies he is going to heaven. Each believes that if he could kill the other, his path to paradise in the next world would be even swifter. The delusional "next world" is welcome to both of them. This world would be a much better place without either of them.