Colbert King, columnist for the Washington Post, writes in his column this week that he wants Colin Powell to start providing the proof for his claims of a threat from Iraq, in particular, those claims made during his February 5th UN presentation. He also offers a short list of things Powell could arrage for the public to have access to, as a way to start offering this proof:
Am I now off the reservation? Not yet. But if at the moment Powell can't put his hands on those weapons, it sure would be helpful if he and his administration colleagues produced for public viewing the sources of his vaunted intelligence on making the case for a U.S.-British preemptive strike. For starters, I have in mind:I, of course, would like to see more than just that, but that would be a good start. I would prefer that they actually find and show us some of the physical weapons of mass destruction they so solomnly swore that Saddam had. Not programs - not plans, not trailers that produce hydrogen for artillery balloons, not pieces of old, dismanteled equipment that have been buried in someone's back yard for a decade or more, not accusations and not speculation - but actual, useable, dangerous weapons.Whatever the circumstances at the time, those sources have nothing to fear from Hussein today. Produce them.
- Proof that Hussein's late son, Qusay, issued an order directing the removal of all prohibited weapons from Hussein's palaces.
- Evidence that Hussein directly participated in efforts to prevent interviews with Iraqi scientists.
- Public appearances by:
- first, the Iraqi chemical engineer who allegedly witnessed a biological agent production run and saw an accident at a production site in 1998;
- second, the Iraqi civil engineer knowledgeable about the biological agent program who confirmed the existence of transportable facilities moving in trailers;
- third, the human source who corroborated the movement of chemical weapons in May 2002;
- fourth, the eyewitness who saw prisoners being experimented on to perfect biological or chemical weapons;
- fifth, the sources that said a missile brigade outside Baghdad was disbursing warheads containing biological warfare agents to various locations in western Iraq.
President Bush had intended to promote his plan for thinning forests to prevent forest fires in Camp Sherman, Oregon, but those plans had to be changed when two fires sprang up and threatened the area.
Can it be pure coincidence, locals are asking, that two wildfires sprang up in view of the spot where President Bush planned to promote his plan to thin forests for wildfire prevention?Personally, I'm going with coincidence. Hard as it may be at times, I don't want to think that he or his aides would be capable of doing something this foolish and reckless (though the whole situation with Iraq gives me reason to think otherwise...), and I honestly don't think he expects enough of a fight against his proposal that such drastic measures would be considered necessary.And that they both appeared just as his plans emerged?
"I think everyone in the community here is wondering that," said Judy Wattier, who works at the KOA Campground just east of Sisters, where business is in the doldrums because of the blazes that have covered almost 40,000 acres in the nearby Deschutes National Forest. "Everyone I've mentioned it to can talk about it for hours."
What does give me pause, though, is that enough people do view him in such a poor light that the idea that this isn't a coincidence - that the fires were deliberately set to give the President's plan that little extra bit of oomph - came so easily to people's minds.
We've heard a lot about "Astroturf" in the last several months. The term refers to "artificial grassroots" support for the President's plans and policies. Typically, GOP Team Leaders are sent a copy of a letter for them to sign their own name to and send to their local paper to see if they can get it published in the "Letter's To The Editor" section. The goal is to make it look like there are a lot of people out there who support the President's aims strongly enough that they are willing to take the time to compose and send their own letter to their local paper - except it's not their words, or their time that went into writing it - it's just a "sign and send" thing, more akin to the petition letters used by many activist groups that are sent directly to politicians.
Why does who it's sent to make a difference in how one might feel about these practices? Well, one crucial difference is that the Astroturf is being sent to hundreds of different papers around the nation, all over different signatures. The different publishers may not know (at least not until or unless they start getting several copies of the same letter over and over again) that this is a piece of pure propaganda and not the actual thoughts of one of their citizens. As a result, the GOP essentially gets free advertising from the paper. Rather than having to buy ad space to make their point in their own specific words, they just get supporters to send those same specific words in to the papers and see how widely they can get them printed.
When a group of people send identical letters to a single politician or even a group of politicians, however, the effect is different. While these letters come in on individual sheets of paper or as individual emails, the effect they have is more like a petition - where you would have one sheet of paper with a single message on it, and tons of signatures under it. More important, however, is the fact that these letters, which are sent to the politicians who's views the senders are trying to sway, aren't being used to try and pitch any group or party's "party line" to the general public, and the group or party that organizes the campaign doesn't get the free advertising out of it. If they want their message in a newspaper, they'll have to go out and pay for it like everyone else, rather than just trick a newspaper editor into running it for free.
As I mentioned earlier, I've been re-reading "All the President's Men" recently, and have been stunned, angered and depressed by some of the similarities I've seen between the Republican party of the early 1970's and the one I've seen in the last several years. I even found what looks like an early attempt at "Astroturf" - though in this case, the Republicans did actually pay for the space - they just made it look like it wasn't them doing it.
[Woodward is speaking to a "well-placed Committee to Re-Elect the President (CRP) officer] "Remember the decision to mine Haiphong about 5 months before the election? Some of us felt that decision could make or break the President. We spent $8400 on false telegrams and ads to stir up phony support for the President's decision. Money was used to pay for telegrams to the White House, to tell the President what a great move it was, so that [Nixon Press Secretary Ron] Ziegler could announce that the telegram support was running some large percentage in support of the President. Money also went to pay for a phony ad in the New York Times"Of course, the first thing that I thought of when I read that passage was the phony little "riot" staged by GOP staffers from DC who were flown in to Florida to intimidate Date County into ending their recount of the ballots during the 2000 Election.He took a copy of the ad out of his desk and handed it to Woodward. Headlined "The People vs. the New York Times," the advertisement criticized a Times editorial that had opposed the mining.
"Notice," the man from CRP said, "it is signed by about ten supposedly independent people, leaving the impression that citizens are up in arms about the editorial, and are willing to fork over several thousand dollars of their own money to express their opinion. Not so. The ad was paid for by CRP with forty of those $100 bills from the pile in [CRP Finance Chairman Maurice] Stans safe."
A line in the advertisement ran: "Who can you believe -- the New York Times or the American people?"
Old habits die hard, I guess?
UPDATE: Reading a bit further, I find that the CRP also rigged a poll that station WTTG was running on the mining issue. Apparently, the station put "ballots" in the Washington Post and the Washington Star - and according to James Dooley, a 19-year-old who worked in the CRP newsroom at the time
"The Press office ran the project, " Dooley said, "and work ground to a halt. Everyone had to fill out fifteen postcards. Ten people worked for days buying different kinds of stamps and cards and getting different handwriting to fake the responses.... Thousands of newspapers were bought from the newsstands and the ballots were clipped out and mailed in."When Woodward called the McGovern campaign for what, if anything, they had done, they said the idea of rigging the poll had not occurred to them at all.At a minimum, Dooley said, 4000 ballots supporting Nixon's decision were sent from CRP. WTTG reported that 5157 ballots agreed with the President and 1158 disagreed. Had the CRP ballots not been sent in, the President would, at best, have lost by one vote - 1158 to 1157.
"When all the ballots were clipped," Dooley continued, "people became afraid the newspapers might be discovered, so someone said, 'Shred them.' McCord was in charge of the shredder and he was upset about a tun of newspapers all over the shredder room .... But all the newspapers were destroyed as directed."
Woodward called CRP spokesman Devan Shumway and asked if they poll had been rigged. "When you're involved in an election, you do what you can, " Shumway replied. "We assumed the other side would do it also. On that assumption, we proceeded. I don't know what the other side did." [Emphasis mine]
Obligatory Disclaimer: I have no doubt the Dems have pulled some similar tricks. However, I am unaware of any examples, nor have I seen anything so far that leads me to believe that the intent to create the image of phony public support by the Democrats comes anywhere close to reaching the same scope as that demonstrated by the Republicans.
Chicago Tribune | U.S. failures in Iraq set stage for deeper trouble
Perhaps the only hope lies in the story going around town that President Bush has told the Pentagon he wants "no more American dead" after next March. By then, the electoral campaign will be well under way, and perhaps zealotry will give way to reality--or at least to a change in administration.Read the rest of the article as well, as it points out just how badly - and how stupidly - we're going about this.
Rolling Stone just informed me I have no taste in guitarists. (Which wouldn't really matter if I weren't already feeling crappy). I'll tell you, though, if I hadn't decided long ago that Rolling Stone is full of shit, this list would have done it for me.
Ok. Whenever a magazine puts together a list of the top 100 guitarists of all time, I don't necessarily expect Alex to make the top 10 - but I certainly DO expect him to make the top 100 - and, even more than that, I expect him to outrank Joan Jett, who came in at 87. That's right, Alex didn't make the list at all. I'm sorry, but there's little argument that when it comes to drummers and bassists, Geddy and Neil are easily in the top 10 - and there's no way that a guitarist who has not only kept up with them musically for over 30 years with them, but has always blended in perfectly and helped keep the overall sound of the band top notch shouldn't rank up there pretty damn high! If Alex was truly worse than all these other guitarists they picked for the list, believe me NO ONE would complain about Geddy's voice, because the guitar work would stick out like a sore thumb. Maybe he doesn't shine as brightly as Geddy and Neil, but damnit, he's fucking GOOD!
Oh, as for the rest of my favourites? Well, Clapton made #4, David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) is #82, but Trevor Rabin (Yes - 90215/Big Generator Era), The Guy from Savatage, Yngwie Malmsteen and John Petrucci (Dream Theater) were all left off the list.
Fuckers.
Salam Pax, author of the blog from Baghdad, Where is Raed ?, details what happened when 20 American soldiers raided his family's home on the basis of some bad information.
Sorry about the page being such a disaster earlier. It's amazing what one unclosed "div" tag in a blog entry can do to your layout. Yeesh!
Oh, and for anyone like me who has incredibly stubborn dogs - a reminder of that magic word that works like a charm....
Eugene Volokh has posted an excellent analogy at his blog The Volokh Conspiracy. To tell you what it's about would ruin part of the punch, so just go read it. Trust me, it's worth the time.
Link via Mark Kleiman
Given the debate about the Ten Commandments monument and the attempts at justifying it by claiming that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of American law (in spite of the fact that it is clear that American law was based upon English common law), I found this quote from Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Major John Cartwright entitled "Saxons, Constitutions and a Case of Pious Fraud" to be most illuminating:
I was glad to find in your book a formal contradition, at length, of the judiciary usurpation of legislative powers; for such the judges have usurped in their repeated decisions, that Christianity is a part of the common law. The proof of the contrary, which you have adduced, is incontrovertible; to wit, that the common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet Pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced, or knew that such a character had ever existed.In other words, the proof that neither American laws nor English common law (from which our laws are derived) were founded on the basis of Christian beliefs, principles or tenets is found in the fact that English common law was developed by the Anglo-Saxons during a time when they were not only still Pagans, but were totally unaware of the existance of Christanity or of Christ, for that matter. They simply could not have based laws on something they were totally unaware of.
Maybe this isn't the best time to be doing this, since it so easily gives rise to thoughts that could be described as "paranoid", but I've been re-reading "All the President's Men" lately, and it's both amazing and sad how much the attitude held by the Nixon administration as described in the book is similar to what I see in the Bush administration. I'm not suggesting that the Bush campaign is engaged in any of the same kinds of activities, necessarily, but both camps come across as having a sense of entitlement when it comes to the office, and a willingness to stoop fairly low when it comes to getting what they want. Neither seems to have any sense that maybe the people have a right to know what their government is up to, and both Nixon and Bush seem to believe they should be beyond questions. They both demand extreme loyalty. Mostly, though, there a sense from both administrations that truth that doesn't match their ideas, plans, goals or is otherwise inconvenient is simply irrelevant and need not be told.
One of the things I'm finding most interesting reading the book this time around is that the Washington Post has an extensive "Watergate" section posted at their website with copies of many of the original Woodward and Bernstein articles. Being able to read what was originally published, as opposed to excerpts from the articles, really helps connect all the pieces of the narrative together.
Reading one of their articles tonight - the October 21, 1972 piece "FBI Finds Nixon Aides Sabotaged Democrats" I came across this quote:
The investigators said that a major purpose of the sub rosa activities was to create so much confusion, suspicion and dissension that the Democrats would be incapable of uniting after choosing a presidential nominee.Now, I'm going to give the Bush campaign the benefit of the doubt and try not to assume that they would actually try to use similar dirty tricks to the same end this year (though I do have to admit that between Bush's frat boy mentality and the fact that he's raising $200,000,000 for a primary campaign season in which he's running virtually unopposed, that sometimes seems to be asking a lot of myself), but confusion, suspicion and dissension can come about from forces that have nothing to do with Republican deceit.
There are aspects of the Democrats campaign this year that sometimes make it feel like a strong split from a hard-fought primary season could be a significant factor in the coming election. Because there are so many candidates starting out, they have to find ways to distinguish themselves from each other. Unfortunately, this can easily lead to rancor between backers of the different candidates - sometimes to the point where when one candidate finally wins the nomination, supporters of one or more of the other candidates won't want to transfer that support to the party nominee.
This year, though, more than ever, it's important that Democratic voters be willing to unify behind a single candidate when the time comes. I'm not saying not to push hard for your favourite candidate during the primaries - that's important because we need to make sure that whomever the nominee is, he or she is fire-tested and ready for prime-time. I just hope that when the convention is over and the nominee has been named, that the other candidates will give whole-hearted support to the nominee and that those who voted for them will follow the candidates' lead.
We can't let Bush win in 2004. Letting him win because we couldn't manage to pull ourselves together behind our nominee would be worse that foolish, it would be nearly suicidal. Even if the Republicans aren't doing a thing to create such a situation this time around, I think we need to all keep in mind that it's probably exactly what they want. Let's send them home empty handed, eh?
This is an exceprt from a letter send today by President Bush to the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, in which he seeks to reduce the percentage rate of raises Federal employees will be eligible for, due to the "National Emergency" that has existed since the 9/11 attacks.
I am transmitting an alternative plan for across-the-board and locality pay increases payable to civilian Federal employees covered by the General Schedule (GS) and certain other pay systems in January 2004.In other words, $11 billion in 2004 for pay raises to Federal Employees would cost too much an impede our ability to fight the nebulous "War on Terror™", but $350 billion over the next 10 years in tax cuts for rich people is just fine.Under title 5, United States Code, civilian Federal employees covered by the GS and certain other pay systems would receive a two-part pay increase in January 2004: (1) a 2.7 percent across-the-board increase in scheduled rates of basic pay derived from Employment Cost Index data on changes in the wages and salaries of private industry workers, and (2) a locality pay increase based on Bureau of Labor Statistics' salary surveys of non-Federal employers in each locality pay area, which would cost about 10 percent of payroll for the calendar year. Including increases for blue-collar and other workers, the total Federal employee pay increase would cost about 13 percent of payroll in calendar year 2004. For Federal employees covered by the locality pay system, the overall average pay increase would be about 15.1 percent.
For each part of the two-part pay increase, title 5, United States Code, authorizes me to implement an alternative pay plan if I view the adjustment that would otherwise take effect as inappropriate due to "national emergency or serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare." For the reasons described below, I have determined that it would be appropriate to exercise my statutory alternative plan authority to limit the January 2004 GS pay increases.
A national emergency has existed since September 11, 2001, that now includes Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Full statutory civilian pay increases costing 13 percent of payroll in 2004 would interfere with our Nation's ability to pursue the war on terrorism. Such increases would cost about $13 billion in fiscal year 2004 alone -- $11 billion more than the 2 percent overall Federal civilian pay increase I proposed in my 2004 Budget -- and would build in later years.
Such cost increases would threaten our efforts against terrorism or force deep cuts in discretionary spending or Federal employ-ment to stay within budget. Neither outcome is acceptable. Therefore, I have determined that a total pay increase of 2 percent would be appropriate for GS and certain other employees in January 2004.
Link via Atrios
Oh, this is good!
From Atrios, we learn that the LA Times are reporting that intelligence officials are now looking into the possibility that Saddam may have used "double agents" and defectors to trick us into thinking he had weapons even though he didn't.
Although senior CIA officials insist defectors were only partly responsible for the intelligence that triggered the decision to invade Iraq last March, other intelligence officials now fear that key portions of the pre-war intelligence may have been flawed.The article discusses some of the thoughts as to why Saddam might have tried to maintain such deception and notes that so far, there has been no evidence that any chemical or biological weapons were produced at any time after 1991. It also talks about concerns that some intelligence officials had about the use of defectors - in particular, defectors associated with the Iraqi National Congress run by Ahmed Chalabi.As evidence, officials say former Iraqi intelligence operatives have confirmed since the war that Saddam's regime sent "double agents" disguised as defectors to the West to plant fabricated intelligence. In other cases, Baghdad apparently tricked legitimate defectors into funneling phony tips about weapons production and storage sites.
"They were shown bits of information, and led to believe there was an active weapons program, only to be turned loose to make their way to Western intelligence sources," said the senior intelligence official. "Then, because they believe it, they pass polygraph tests . . . and the planted information becomes true to the West even if it was all made up to deceive us."
There is growing concern, said another U.S. intelligence official, that "people were just telling us what we wanted to hear."
The CIA and State Department, in particular, distanced themselves from Iraqi defectors handed over by the Iraqi National Congress, a London-based umbrella group headed by Ahmed Chalabi. CIA and State Department officials repeatedly warned that the group's intelligence network had proved unreliable in the past.Chalabi has been one of the prime promoters of the idea that Saddam had weapons of mass destructions, and was cited by Judith Miller as the source for several of her stories trumpeting the worst of the pre-war fears. He is also currently a fugitive from Jordan, who tried him in absentia, found him guilty of fraud and have sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Of the defectors he provided, one named a bio-weapons location, but no weapons have been found there, one is the person who first described mobile biological labs, none of which have been conclusively shown to exist yet, and the third was dismissed as a fraud. I can see why the CIA and others may have been wary of him and any information he might provide. What I can't see is why anyone would have considered him to be reliable.Senior Pentagon officials, however, supported the former Iraqi banker's bid as a possible successor to Saddam. Chalabi, who now sits on the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council in Baghdad, has said his group provided the Defense Intelligence Agency with three defectors who had personal knowledge of Saddam's illicit weapons programs.
Jessica (age 15) left the following comment on one of my posts about the Ten Commandments monument controversy:
The people who decided to suddenly remove the monument are a little late, don't you think? The monument has been in the building's rotunda for two years already, right? Why are these people waiting until now to remove it? The monument has never done any harm to anyone ( My gosh, it's just a 5,300 pound monument). It's not like it's going to start killing anyone or hurt anything! These people could start by taking away stuff that will really make a difference, right? Taking away somthing that is good to remember and does no harm to man-kind or pollutes our air or anything is senseless. This world does not need to be destroyed by hatred (evil), so please put the monument back where it belongs; reminding everyone that God is still in the world today, and evil will not intervene.I thought I'd go ahead and share my response:age 15
Well, Jessica, you should know that being young doesn't get you off the hook for not having your facts straight. The removal of the monument is not "sudden". The people removing the monument are working within the legal system to do it properly, with the support of the courts. It's only been there for 2 years because that's how long it's taken for the court case to get to a point where someone can legally order it to be removed. This isn't a new thing - it's been underway for a while.When Judge Moore installed it, he did so KNOWING it would be wrong to do so - that's why he did it in the middle of the night when only he and the people helping him were around. He also did this without consulting with or informing the other Justices on the Alabama Supreme Court - another indication he knew what he was doing is wrong. If it was such a great and noble thing to do, why not do it in the light of day with everyone watching and knowing what you're up to?
Besides, it's not "harmless". As a symbol of only the Judeo-Christian faiths, that monument makes it clear that people who follow other faiths - which they're allowed to do freely in this country - are going to be looked upon differently than Jews and Christians, and that the state is perfectly fine with this. That monument says to every person who comes in that only the Christian and Jewish faiths are revered. In a country that holds the principle that the state cannot establish an "official" religion or hold one religion to be better, more important, more "right" or just more highly looked upon, having that monument in the middle of the State House is simply unsupportable.
Also, keep in mind that its not uncommon for governments that are run hand in glove along with a strong commitment to a specific religion - with the idea that "God's laws" are to be enforced by the government - usually end up with a great deal of blood on their hands. There are reasons why we've said that even if the Iraqi's want to democratically elect a theocracy, we won't allow them to have one. The mixing of government and religion is at the heart of far too many of the wars in the world. As such, its important in a country like our to put down any attempts at making this nation a theocracy - even a Christian theocracy - because theocracies are generally very bad for the people who live in them. Maybe this seems like a small thing now, but if we don't fight the small things, then those who want a theocracy will start on bigger ones, and we can't let that happen.
As to the popular claim that the Ten Commandments are the foundatinon of American Law, keep in mind that only 3 of those commandments appear in ANY form in our laws (prohibitions on killing and stealing, and a prohibition on lying while under oath - though lying at any other time is allowed), one is outright contradicted by the First Amendment to the Constitution (by granting Freedom of Religion - meaning that people can follow any faith or any God they choose - the First Amendment contradicts the First Commandment), and following one (no coveting) would pretty much destroy our entire economic system, which is based on the idea that people will work hard or be innovative in order to earn enough money to get those things they want. So there's no way to support the contention that the Commandments are somehow fundamental to our legal system.
The monument doesn't belong in the State House. It never did, and it should never be returned. The State House should be for people of all faiths who are there to seek justice, and the law is what matters.
Bush gave another speech full of tough-talking rhetoric and platitiudes yesterday at the American Foreign Leigon in St. Louis, MO, including the following gem:
Our military is confronting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan and in other places so our people will not have to confront terrorist violence in New York, or St. Louis, or Los Angeles.This sounds like a basic restatement of what's been called the "Flypaper" theory of war: Create a big target (say, a standing army) in the Middle East and draw all the terrorists there, so our military can kill them off and they won't have the manpower or other capabilities to attack us on our own soil.
Nice theory as far as it goes, I guess, but it has one major, fatal flaw. It seems to presume that there's a finite number of terrorists - that somehow we can get them all to focus on our troops in Iraq so we can kill 'em all, and then they won't be a threat. But that's just not how it works.
Everytime we do something that pisses off more Islamic extremists - stay in Iraq, fail to restore electricity, adequate food, water or security services, kill innocent bystanders or talk about them like they're some sort of barbarians we need to domesticate - we help create more terrorists. The number of terrorists is only limited to the number of people we can sufficiently piss off - and some days it seems like pissing people off is the only thing this administration can do well.
Saying in effect "we're going to keep you busy in Iraq so you can't come get us at home" is little better than outright daring them to come get us here, and we all know how well Bush's last little bit of rhetorical taunting went. Of the 163 people who have died since Bush announced the end of "major combat" operation, 76 of them have been killed since Bush made his "Bring 'em on" dare. The UN headquarters and Jordanian embassy bombings have also happened since his dare.
Richard Perle, one of the most rabid "lets attack Iraq"ers there is, is even now admitting that we've handled things poorly and says that we should turn over Iraq to the Iraqis as soon as possible. Since he's one of the main proponants of the PNAC's "domino theory", for him to be advocating that we get our butts out of there is pretty serious stuff.
In the meantime, we can only hope Bush's mouth doesn't get us into even more trouble. He may think that by waging this war, he's helping to defeat terrorism, but that's only because he fails to understand that new terrorists are created on a consistant basis - and right now, some of the main things helping create them are his policies and his words.
Many of you have probably already heard about this, but I needed to wait on posting about it until I was a bit calmer.
I've posted before on Bush the pretender, but I think this one really takes the cake. Rather than provide people with accurate and necessary warnings about the air quality in areas of New York City following the 9/11 attacks, the White House pushed the EPA to put on some rose-coloured glasses and take a second look
The White House Office of Environmental Quality "convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones" from news releases, said the report, released late Thursday by the EPA's inspector general office, an internal watchdog.Bush? Let business interests take precedence over actual people? Nah, couldn't happen! (pardon me whilst I go barf)For instance, a draft EPA news release for Sept. 16, 2001, warned that the air near the attack site could contain higher levels of asbestos, a carcinogen, than is considered safe. After input from the White House office, the news release issued by the EPA two days later said the asbestos levels met government standards and were "not a cause for public concern."
A New York lawmaker charged that the White House hid crucial information that could have helped residents and workers protect their health.
"EPA officials lied when they initially were telling people that the air was safe," said Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler, whose district includes the attack site, which became known as Ground Zero. "That's an outrage."Nadler suggested that the White House allowed economic concerns, such as the desire to reopen Wall Street, to take precedence over public health.
Senator Hillary Clinton has called for investigations into the report and it's conclusions.
"I don't think any of us ever expected to find out ... that our government would knowingly deceive us about something as sacred as the air we breathe, outdoors and indoors," she said in a speech on the steps of City Hall.I remember looking at the plume of smoke from the attacks and collapse and wondering how anyone could say that air would be "ok" to breathe, and its infuriating to learn that it was because the White House wanted a more reassuring report that warnings were taken out of the information being given to the people of New York City by the EPA. Doesn't that qualify as some kind of a "high crime or misdemeanor"? It should."They knew and they didn't tell us the truth, and the White House told them not to tell us the truth," Clinton said, adding that she wants to find out who was responsible for pressuring the EPA.
As some of you may have gathered from my blog name, I'm something of a serious Rush fan. As a severely-amateur guitarist, Alex Lifeson (nee Zivojinovich - which I think is a really cool sounding name, but I do understand why he'd change it... from what I understand, though, "Zivojinovich" translates roughly to "Life's Son", explaining where his more well-known surname comes from) has long been one of my favourites. It was bad enough that when I used to work for a company that has too many people who's names started out "Kris..." I got nicknamed "Alex" to help keep us all straight. I think in some ways he almost got a bum deal out of the whole "Rush" thing - he's a phenomenal guitarish, but he ended up in a band with Neil Peart, without a doubt one of the best drummers ever - rock or any other style; and Geddy Lee, probably the most well-respected bassist there is. Alex just sort of gets a bit lost back there sometimes, but even if he's not gotten all the acclaim I think he should, I'm still glad I've had a chance to hear him play over the years.
At any rate, today's his 50th birthday, and I just wanted to wish him a happy one (like he'll ever see this, I realize, but still... *g*)
Cheers!
The Ten Commandments display at the Alabama State House has been removed from public view as per the judicial order. It was supposed to have been moved late last week, but logistics held it up a bit. They had to find a place to put it that was well enough reinforced that it wouldn't fall through the floorboards.
Imagine John Ashcroft meets Spinal Tap.
Now, go read it.
[Posting may be slow for a bit while I try to recover from laughter-induced side cramps...]
Be sure to read Dana Milbank's beautiful column today on potential legal violations by President Bush - flag desecration (for signing a flag, in violation of Federal statutes forbidding the "marking" of a flag) and misappropriation of the official White House website for political purposes (or, worse, a possible violation of anti-bribery statutes, if the White House tries to claim that speeches given at fundraisers are "official" activities and not political ones).
Speaking of Bush and websites, Milbank points out the changing of the headlines on articles at the official White House website about Bush's declaration on the USS Abraham Lincoln in May, and notes that on the "compassion" photo gallery of the Bush/Cheney '04 campaign site, Bush is photographed mainly with minorities, yet in some of the other galleries on the site, he's photographed mainly with whites. Bush may not be totally colourblind, but I'd have to say he's rather tone-deaf.
Milbank also discusses how Bush is trying to get over the minor flap he caused by calling his wife "the lump in bed next to me", though I suppose it's good to know that Laura Bush has found the key to making a marriage stronger.
In an interview for the October Ladies' Home Journal, the two described their marriage as stronger than before their ascent to the White House. "All the things that might've irritated me, like not hanging up his towels, I don't have to worry about anymore," Laura Bush said. "Someone in the White House hangs up the towels."Milbank has written some of the best articles that call Bush's actions and policies into question, and it's fun to see so many bits of true Presidential crap in one place, but, Dana? Think you can get anything more on the really big stuff, too? We need someone who's willing to look past the image Bush and most of the rest of the media have tried to cultivate, and I think you might just be the right person for the job!
The New York Times has an editorial today that looks at whether Bush's alleged "compassionate" conservatism may end up being more of a liability in 2004 than a benefit. It lays out several of the ways in which Bush's "compassion" agenda has been more hat than cattle:
...some religious supporters of Mr. Bush say they feel betrayed by promises he made as a candidate and now, they maintain, has broken as president."After three years, he's failed the test," said one prominent early supporter, the Rev. Jim Wallis, leader of Call to Renewal, a network of churches that fights poverty.
Mr. Wallis said Mr. Bush had told him as president-elect that "I don't understand how poor people think," and appealed to him for help by calling himself "a white Republican guy who doesn't get it, but I'd like to." Now, Mr. Wallis said, "his policy has not come even close to matching his words." [Emphasis mine]
The White House is promising we'll see more progress on the "compassionate" part of Bush's agenda when he returns to work in September, but I'll be surprised if the progress is anything more than just talk followed by no action as has been the pattern thus far. The President seems to think its enough to make big, splashy, photo-op announcement about what he intends to do, it doesn't matter if it doesn't ever quite work out the way he promised.
Bush's phony compassion is yet another point that needs to be hammered home in order to get people who really are compassionate out to the polls and vote him out of office next November.
Eric Gilson has some good points in a comment he left to an earlier post on the Ten Commandments. I thought they were worth posting up front.
My feelings on Ray Moore's decision NOT to remove the Ten Commandments from a public building.Our founding fathers introduced the idea to separate church and state, NOT the separation of GOD and state. It is perfectly acceptable to acknowledge God, we do so on our currency, but it is NOT acceptable to force one's persoanl beliefs onto others. The Ten Commandments is a referrence to Christianity NOT God himself. Does a Buddhist not receive the same treatment within our judicial system? Does a Muslim have to accept the Ten Commandments to hear his/her case in a US court of law? Rev. Ray Moore is so far out of line with his cause, it makes me sick. The guy should be thrown in jail for defying the courts, and the statue removed on the principle that Christianity is not a universal religion, and symbols of that religion have no place within our public buildings.
There's a new "meme" in the tradition of "Friday Five" (though it's neither on Fridays nor set at 5 questions per week) called the Witches Weekly. The questions it asks are from a Pagan spiritual perspective. While this blog is mostly political, I've also often made reference to my how my spiritual beliefs influence my views, and my spirituality is a very important part of who I am.
So, once a week, I'm going to share some of my thoughts on my spirituality by answering the Witches' Weekly. It sounds like a fun way to do it, and hopefully, it'll help you to understand how it is my faith relates to my life as a whole, and to my social and political views.
First thing I want to do is briefly (well, briefly for me - which may not be very brief at all, but...) explain why I sometimes use different terms to describe myself. I've referred to my spiritual category various as "Norse Witch", "Norse Pagan", "Pagan" and "Heathen".
"Pagan" is a very generic term for non-mainstream theologies that take their foundation from the pre-Christian Indo-European beliefs, and are generally "modernized" to take into account the 2,000+ years of development humanity has managed to make since most of the old ways were displaced (i.e. Pagans don't engage in human sacrifice. Humanity - for the most party, anyway - has figured out that it doesn't make a lot of sense to thank the Gods for their gifts by killing one of them, so we just don't do that anymore, even though our ancestors did.)
Pagans work with a variety of Gods depending on what tradition (similar to "denomination") they belong to. Some worship a male and female pair referred to as the Lord and Lady, some worship only the Goddess, some worship all the Gods and Goddesses of a certain pantheon (for me, it's the Norse Pantheon) - frequently developing a special relationship with one particular member of the Pantheon (for me, it's Thor). There are probably some who worship a single male God, though I have to admit I've not run into many. And then there are some who mix and match from various cultures. When I was first starting out, I developed a strong relationship with Isis, who is Egyptian (though she was widely worshiped thoughout much of the Indo-European lands - a temple to her was even found in a part of London, IIRC), and for a while, worked with both her and Thor. She's since let me know I've learned from her what I needed to, and I now work exclusively with the Norse Gods. This kind of transitioning isn't unusual in Paganism, especially when you consider most Pagans were either raised as Christians or even were Christians at one time themselves.
Mind you, that's not a perfect definition - there really isn't one (believe me, I've seen debates on this that have lasted years... but for general purposes, it's fairly workable). "Pagan" would be roughly akin to how the term "Christian" is used to refer to all of the various Christian denominations, including Catholicism.
"Witch" and "Witchcraft" refer mainly to a specific style of practice. Many people use the terms "Wicca" and "Witch" or "Witchcraft" interchangably, but it doesn't really work that way. "Wicca" is a specific kind of Witchcraft, developed by Gerald Gardner in the 50's which he said was based on traditions that originated in ancient times and have been handed down over the generations before he codefied it and began initiating others into the practice. In my own work, I do incorproate many aspect of general Witchcraft, but I am not Wiccan.
"Heathen" is a term used specifically for people who practice a spirituality based on the ways of the ancient Norse people (nee Vikings). Much as there's a distinction made within Christianity between Catholics, Protestants and Orthodoxy, there's also distinctions with Paganism, though some Heathens might get a bit testy if you try to lump them in with other Pagans. A lot of it, I think, has to do with the regretable image that seems to have coalesced around some aspects of Paganism, making it seem more akin to the "New Age" movement than actually tied to the beliefs our ancestors held.
Since I follow the Norse ways, I am, for all intents and purposes, a Heathen. I will sometimes use "Pagan", "Norse Pagan" or "Norse Witch" to describe myself because more people understand what a "Pagan" or "Witch" is right now than they do "Heathen", so I kind of toss around all three and hope most get the general idea.
Keep in mind, these are MY definitions and how I've found best to explain what I've seen and heard in the Pagan community. The old saying goes, as 3 Pagans for an opinion, get 5 answers. They're not exaggerating. But at least this gives you an idea of what I mean when I use various terms.
So, there's your basic "alternative theologies" lesson for the day :) On to the questions!
The first week's questions - Animals
1. What animal do you feel best represents your personal totem/spirit, and why?
I've never really used Totems in my personal practice - no particular reason, I've just never felt a need to... but if there's any particular animal I seem to connect with the best, it's horses. I can't remember a time (and neither can my mom, for that matter) when "A horse" wasn't on my Christmas list as a child, and before we got married, I made my husband promise me that if we ever get rich and famous he's buying me one! One of my absolute favourite memories has to be the time my parents took me to Montana so they could visit an old friend of hers, and I got to spend the day riding his horse across the land he owned. It was just me, the horse and nature around us, and I don't recally any other time when I felt so free or at peace.2. Who was your first familiar?
Acyl :)3. If you could reincarnate into a creature, what creature would you be?She's your perfect black cat, too. (If you want to see her, there are pics of her up at http://www.thunderhaven.net/photos/acyl.shtml).
She went into "retirement" a few years ago and now lives with my parents. She's almost 16 years old now, and when we got the dogs, she wasn't at all sure what to make of them, or terribly comfortable around them. When my parents had to put their dog to sleep, I knew they would be loney and that Acyl would be much happier at their house where she could be the center of attention, so it worked out well for the three of them. But when it was just she and I, she always seemed to know when I was working on spiritual matters and would just come and sit beside me, quietly. She's a really great cat...
I'm often asked if her name is Greek for something (why "Greek", I've never understood, but....). Anyway, it's not. When I first got her, I was a huge Pink Floyd fan (still am, actually), and since black is what you get when you mix every colour together, I named her for their song "Any Colour You Like" - ACYL.
Oh, probably a horse. Of course, my mom used to joke that she thought I was a horse in a previous life, so maybe next time I should pick a zebra or something - horselike, but still a bit different. :)
CNN.com - Fox drops lawsuit over Franken book - Aug. 25, 2003
Monday, the cable news network withdrew the underlying lawsuit in a one-page court filing.It's only logical that Fox would drop the suit after the drubbing they took in court the other day, but it sure feels good to get to post about it :)"It's time to return Al Franken to the obscurity he's normally accustomed to," a Fox spokeswoman later told CNN.
Floyd Abrams, the lead attorney for Franken and his publisher, Penguin Group, told CNN, "Fox's decision to abandon its efforts at interfering with the sale of Al Franken's new book is welcome, if overdue. The case never should have been brought."
As for the effects of the suit? Penguin, Franken's publisher, now has 510,000 copies of the book printed - up 210,000 from the initial 300,000 it had shipped for the speeded-up release.
A friend of mine - Witchy - and I were recently talking about our domain addictions, when she decided to start a webring for those of us who have a compulsion to buy domain names, even if we don't always have an immediate use for them. Well, when I signed up for the ring, I posted a comment listing the 9 domains I currently own - and then discovered a 10th I'd thought had lapsed but which was, in fact, renewed and, thus, still mine.
She decided that this makes me a special kind of addict, in need of special help, and has give me the first "Hug Me" award - (as in needing a special "hug me" jacket to help control my addiction). I just had to post it here - it's too cute not to :)
If you, like us, have a domain addition, be sure to join the Domain Addicts webring at http://glossolalia.com/daring.php! We al need to help each other, eh?
Yesterday, I had posted a screenshot that appeared to show that Fox News had used an archival photo to illustrate and article about the black out, and that the photo used had included an image of the World Trade Center in it. I have since been informed by a visitor that the buildings in the image are an office complex under construction and that the WTC would be much taller. Another reader also mentioned that the antennas on the WTC should have been visible.
Since I was wrong in posting the picture originally, I have removed the picture and replaced the original entry with a notice that the information was incorrect. I wanted to post this here so anyone who had visited yesterday would also be aware that the post was in error without having to scroll down to find the info.
I'm sorry for having gotten it wrong.
Remember this picture?
Ah, yes. The drone of death. When Bush needed terrifying weapons to scare people into supporting the war, they brought up the idea of Iraq's drone planes, which they indicated might just be able to fly all the way to the US and release chemical or biological horrors on American soil. Mention of the planes was even included in Colin Powell's presentation to the UN.
I remember, though, when the pictures of the planes first came out a short while later, that it was pretty clear there was no way they could fly those planes very far, and the planes would be capable of carrying much in the way of a payload. Of course, I'm no expert, so my opinion probably doesn't count for much, but the people in the Air Force are experts - and their opinion certainly should carry some weight.
But this is the Bush administration we're dealing with, and if an opinion doesn't support their goals, it gets ignored. It's real no surprise, then, to learn that even though the Air Force's opinion that these drones posed no threat the US was included in the National Intelligence Estimate, the Bush administraiton preferred their own version - one based on the CIA's finding that Iraq had renewed their attempts at developing sophisticated drones. (Note, however, that the drone pictured above his hardly 'sophisticated', and that the Air Force's opinion was based on their expertise in aeronautics and as the controllers of America's own drone program.)
Huddled over a fleet of abandoned Iraqi drones, U.S. weapons experts in Baghdad came to one conclusion: Despite the Bush administration's public assertions, these unmanned aerial vehicles weren't designed to dispense biological or chemical weapons.It's interesting to note that the Bush administration tended to prefer any opinion that might support their desire for war over that of experts in the field in question on several issues regarding Iraq's weapons capabilities. The Department of Energy's in the field of nuclear weapons said that the tubes being purchased by Iraq were not suitable for use in gas centrifuges to enrich uranium, but the Bush administration continues to insist otherwise. The experts in the State Department who know about international trading said that we should not rely on claims that Saddam was trying to obtain uranium from Africa, but the Bush administration made that a central point in the State of the Union address. And Defense Intelligence Agency engineering experts said that the trailers found in Iraq were not suitable to have been used as "bio-weapons" lab, but Bush, on a trip to Poland, not only claimed they were used as bio weapons labs, but that they were proof that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.The evidence gathered this summer matched the dissenting views of Air Force intelligence analysts who argued in a national intelligence assessment of Iraq before the war that the remotely piloted planes were unarmed reconnaissance drones.
[...] "We didn't see there was a very large chance they (UAVs) would be used to attack the continental United States," Bob Boyd, director of the Air Force Intelligence Analysis Agency, said in an AP interview. "We didn't see them as a big threat to the homeland."
Boyd also said there was little evidence to associate Iraq's UAVs with the country's suspected biological weapons program. Facilities weren't in the same location and the programs didn't use the same people.
Instead, the Air Force believed Iraq's UAV programs were for reconnaissance, as are most American UAVs. Intelligence on the drones suggested they were not large enough to carry much more than a camera and a video recorder, Boyd said.
Postwar evidence uncovered in July in Iraq supports those assessments, according to two U.S. government scientists assigned to the weapons hunt.
Well, at least their consistent, eh?
I've removed the image and my comments on it, as I've been informed that the image was, in fact, valid. The buildings that looked like the WTC are an office complex under construction. Visitor Bob (in comments) pointed out that the WTC would have been much taller against the skyline.
I sincerely regret the error.
This is just a part of an essay a Slate reader named Geoff posted in response to someone asking why people hate George Bush. You should really read the whole thing, but this section really sums up a lot of why I despise Bush as both a man and as our President.
People love to fulminate about character. My standards are not those of everyone. I don't really hold any feelings against those prone to sins of the appetite, as Bill Clinton was. I have trouble holding poor judgment against those who demonstrate it. All I ask is some evidence of a fundamental respect for the dignity of people. And I don't think George W. Bush has that respect.I've long had a very visceral reaction to Bush's smug little smirk and the way he talks so casually about the taking of human lives. We may be at war with the Iraqis, and many of them probably have done things that we would consider worthy of the death penalty. Yet there should still be a certain amount of respect for the fact that a life has been ended - a certain solemnity to the situation. We hear often about how our all the blood, gore and death in our media desensitizes people to violence and murder, yet I think watching a President who seems to think that enforcing the death penalty or the killing of thousands during a war is a time for a bit of macho swagger, boasting, offering wisecracks or otherwise making light of the entire situation is potentially even more damaging to those who are impressionable and tend to be influenced by such things. As Geoff says, Bush is visibly gleeful when he talks about the deaths we've caused and it is something that should sicken every American.The evidence by which I come to this conclusion is unlikely to be compelling to most, gleaned as it is from countless observations of subtle tell-tale signals. The lies obviously bother me. There are those who believe that all politicians lie, and that Bush's are nothing exceptional. I don't know how to rebut such a charge, other than to state firmly and forcefully that I disagree. Watching Bush tell the nation with a straight face that they will receive an "average" tax cut of $1000 when he knows what the average person will actually receive is one of those little acts of disrespect. Sneeringly dismissing the protests of hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions worldwide at his instigation of a war abroad as mere "focus groups" is a telling indicator of the disrespect which created the frustration that propelled them to the streets in the first place (may I remind you, that neither his father nor his immediate predecessor faced anything on a comparable scale). Putting out word that he believed Air Force One to be the target of a terrorist attack to account for his shameful disappearance on September 11th of 2001… that's a kind of falsehood which makes my stomach start to churn in disgust. Untruths and misrepresentations abound in this President's public discourse, when he even bothers to show himself in public. More than usual, even for a politician. And, frankly, more than should be acceptable in the America I thought I knew.
But the final mark of disrespect… the gut-level intuition that leads me to label him an EVIL man, rather than a merely despicable one is his casual contempt for human life. There aren't words to describe the horror I feel when I see Bush look into the nation's television cameras with that sadistic little smirk and tell us euphemistically, as if half-choking on a stifled snort that our enemies… "let's put it this way: they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies." The barely-suppressed, no not really suppressed at all, look of GLEE at the thought of the death America has inflicted upon it's enemies. I recognize that it is necessary to kill human beings. I recognize that our security demands it. That every president must hold the lives and deaths of strangers in his hands. But the fact that we MUST kill NEVER excuses taking delight THAT we kill. You probably don't believe me. I don't know if you believe Tucker Carlson when he describes Bush's mockery of Karla Faye Tucker: "Please," Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "don't kill me." Maybe some of you don't believe it. Worse, maybe some of you feel the same way, and consider Bush's response… virtuous? I don't know. I look at Bush, taunting the camera, daring America's enemies to "bring it on" and I see a sick and disgusting man - the worst face of America sneering in the spotlight. A man who doesn't bother to care about the enormity of his job, the enormity of its consequences, and the enormity of this glorious Republic we've brought forth.
When campaigning for the Presidency, Bush promised to bring honour and dignity back to the White House. What he's delivered, however, is far from that. He's snide, sarcastic, petty and flippant, even when discussing the most serious of topics. One might think that he learned all he knows about acting like a "leader" from watching John Wayne westerns and Arnold Schwarzenegger action flicks. It's about as dishonourable and undignified as you can get.
My husband, Matt, has started his first blog. At 31, he's finally figured out what he wants to be when he grows up - a professional musicial. Not a rock star, but able to earn a decent living working with and around music. It's a modest, but attainable goal, and I'm really proud of him - and pleased with the direction he's heading. Matt has always had a lot of creativity in him, but not always a clear way to channel it - and while he's enjoying and doing well at his "regular" job, he's not really ever been someone who's cut out for the corporate world.
Anyway, as part of his goal, he's decided to start taking classical guitar, and is keeping a blot about his experiences with that and I suspect he'll add other stuff that crosses his mind from time to time. If we've lucky, maybe he'll decide to post some of the short fiction he's written (it's pretty gorey - he's a horror nut - but very good!). At any rate, if you think of it, you might stop by, drop him a note and wish him well. I think he'd be totally chuffed at that :)
Dave Neiwert has a solid piece looking at both the "Clinton-haters" and the "Bush-haters", and how differently the two groups are viewed and treated. As part of his piece, he includes a look at some of the anti-Clinton propaganda that was spread immediately after the Bush inauguration, particularly in regards to the alleged destruction, looting and pilfering of "gifts" by Clinton and his staffers. One quote he cites from an apperance Josh Marshall made on "Reliable Sources" really stood out at me:
Not at all. I think when I looked at that, when I looked at that story for the first few days, the charges escalated and escalated, more and more things, destruction of property, trash everywhere. And at a certain point, journalists started asking for some actual proof, some pictures, someone to go on the record and actually say this happened. And over and over again Ari Fleischer said, "Well, it's, yes it's true, but we're going to rise above it" and so forth. And at some point, you say, when are we going to get some proof that this happened.Of course, it later came out that there simply was no proof because there'd been no vandalism. But even from the earliest days, the Bush administration has expected the American public to accept their word on things without any proof - the same pattern we've seen repeated throughout this administration, especially in regards to the Iraqi war.
It's too bad that none of us - liberals included - paid enough attention to this "we don't want to talk about it anymore" attitude of the White House to realize that rarely is the true reason they don't want to talk about it that they are "above it" or feel it's time to "move on", but simply that they're lying and don't want to be challenged on it. We know that now, of course, and there's a good chance that even if we'd been able to point out more examples like this one of the Bush Administration's duplicity we still wouldn't have been able to sway those who, after the shock of 9/11 felt a strong need to believe in the President, but reminding people of more of this kind of obfuscation might have made a bit of a difference. In any event, I think it's important that we keep re-discovering examples like this to make use of in the upcoming election campaign.
MoveOn.org's drive to raise $1,000,000 to help the exiled Texas Democrats has been underway for less than a week and as of 9:30 pm Central time, Saturday 8/23/03, they're 86% of the way there! Even if you can only give $10 or $15, please help support these state Senators as they fight not just for the Texans they were elected to represent, but for all of us.
Remember: If this redistricting plan goes through, Republicans will have a very good chance of holding on to the National House of Representatives for the rest of the decade, and Tom DeLay has his sights set on becoming Speaker of the House.
An excerpt from an analysis by Clare Short, the former British International Development Secretary (who resigned in protest over the way the government was handling the situation with Iraq) of what has been learned, so far by the Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr. David Kelly.
We know through emails revealed by Hutton that Tony Blair's chief of staff made clear that the dossier was likely to convince those who were prepared to be convinced, but that the document "does nothing to demonstrate he [Saddam Hussein] has the motive to attack his neighbours, let alone the west. We will need to be clear in launching the document that we do not claim that we have evidence that he is an imminent threat. The case we are making is that he has continued to develop WMD since 1998, and is in breach of UN resolutions. The international community has to enforce those resolutions if the UN is to be taken seriously."I agree completely with Jonathan Powell's conclusion. But it follows from this that there was no need to truncate Dr Blix's inspection process and to divide the security council in order to get to war by a preordained date.
If there was no imminent threat, then Dr Blix could have been given the time he required. He may well have succeeded in ending all Iraq's WMD programmes - just as he succeeded in dismantling 60-plus ballistic missiles. Then sanctions could have been lifted and a concentrated effort made to help the people of Iraq end the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein - just as we did with Milosevic in Serbia.
Or if Blix had failed, we would have been in the position President Chirac described on March 10, when the issue would have come back to the security council. And in Chirac's view, this would have meant UN authorisation of military action.
The Kansas City Star has a well-reasoned editorial today in opposition to Judge Roy Moore's refusal to remove the Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building's rotunda.
His request that the U.S. Supreme Court stop a federal judge from enforcing the removal order was a waste of time and money — as were two earlier pleas to an appeals court. All of these requests have been rejected.It's good to see someone pointing out that this man's personal, religious crusade is costing our courts' time and money - not just the courts having to hear his appeals, but also his own court, which has surely been at least somewhat disrupted by his activities.
The article also notes that Moore's arguments carry some undesirable overtomes:
Earlier, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled against him. The panel noted that Moore's arguments about states' rights echoed claims of segregationists such as George C. Wallace, the state's governor in the 1960s.In the days of Wallace, the goal of the states' rights arguments was to allow segregationist states be able to treat blacks (and other minorities) as second-class citizens rather than equals - and deny them the basic rights that whites take for granted. Moore's goals aren't that much different, when you get down to it, though he wants to engage in discrimination based on religious beliefs rather than skin colour. This is something that has been forbidden by the Bill of Rights straight from the off, and the idea that it's still open to question over 220 years later speaks volumes about the refusal of some people to accept that the world does not revolve aorund them and their ideals.
The Ten Commandments serve as the foundation for the religious beliefs for many Americans. But placing them in a court building that serves everyone is a clear violation of the constitutional ban on government championing specific religious beliefs.This ban has served the country well, sparing the United States much of the terrible religious strife that has plagued other societies throughout history.
Yet, to a great extent, that is what Judge Roy Moore and his supporters are claiming they do want - a government founded on their interpretation of the Bible, in which believers are granted special rights and privileges, and non-believers are viewed as, at best, inconsequential and undeserving of equal treatment. Ironically, it seems that some of those who are most opposed to the extremist Islamic theocracies in the Middle East are also the ones pushing the hardest for what in essence would be an extremist Christian theocracy. They are so blinded by their quest for political and religious confluence that they fail to see that the problem isn't what religion a theocracy is based upon - the problem is with the concept of Theocracy in and of itself.
[Kynn of Shock and Awe has two excellent articles on Christianism here and here - give them a read - they've quite eye-opening.]
Moore has abused his high state office, squandered tax dollars, encouraged public ignorance about the Constitution, insulted the federal judicial system and held his state up to ridicule. It's time for him to start showing the respect for the law that he no doubt expects from those who appear before him.Couldn't have said it better myself.
Here's a story that just reeks to high Asgard. Donald Rumsfeld engaged in a 'photo-op' today when a 9-year-old girl, who says she wants to be a reporter, got to ask him a question after a press conference. What wasn't made clear until later is that the girl in question is the neice of one of Paul Wolfowitz' speechwriters, and her aunt told her what question to ask. Kynn at Shock-and-Awe has a great analysis of the story. Talk about stage managing a situation!
Governor Perry managed to pull his head out of the redistricting controversy long enough to issue pardons for 35 people convicted in the Tulia, Tx drug scandal (for background on the Tulia cases, see here and here)
This is excellent news, and about damn time.
Gov. Rick Perry on Friday pardoned 35 people who were arrested in the 1999 Tulia drug busts and convicted based on the testimony of a lone undercover agent later charged with perjury.
"I believe my decision to grant pardons in these cases is both appropriate and just,'' Perry said in a statement.The governor said he was influenced by questions about the testimony of Tom Coleman, the only undercover agent involved in the busts. In June, Perry signed a bill allowing the release of the 12 Tulia defendants who were still in prison. The father of a man sentenced to 20 years in prison on Coleman's word called Friday's pardons "fantastic.''
"We've been waiting for this for four years,'' said Freddie Brookins Sr., whose son was released in June.
Fox lost it's bid today to obtain a preliminary injunction against the release of Al Franken's new book, "Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right." Part of Fox's contention had been that, since there was a picture of Bill O'Reilly on the cover and the subtitle was one of Fox's trademarked slogans, consumers might be confused and think that the book was somehow affiliated with Fox News or endorsed by them.
[US District Judge Denny] Chin appeared skeptical of her argument, interrupting her to say, "The president and vice president are also on the cover, are they not? Is someone going to think they're also affiliated with Fox?"Chin also noted that he found the case to be "wholly without merit, both factually and legally."
So, Franken's book can go ahead and be sold. Apparently, because of the additional publicity the suit generated, Franken's publisher has ordered an extra 50,000 copies for the first run and moved the release date up by several weeks.
Today was Not Geniuses' "Flood the Zone" Friday. The theme was Bush's Financial Irresponsilbity. While I'm late posting this to the site (sorry!), I thought I'd go ahead and share my letter with you all:
The Bush campaign is urging people to write their local papers, commending Bush for his "strong leadership on the economy" and claiming "[h]e has taken bold action to create lasting economic growth." Their suggested talking points include claims that "[t]he President's economic growth agenda creates jobs" and that his "plan puts money back into the pockets of working Americans."I'll let you know if I hear of it being published anywhere.Reality, however, suggests none of these claims are true. This year alone, the deficit will be in excess of $455 billion, and the Fed is concerned about "deflation", something that they've not spoken of since the Depression.
The tax cuts the President is so proud of are largely responsible for the huge deficit, and do nothing to help the economy in the short-run. They are set to kick in primarily in the future, and they target the wealthy and those with stocks, the classes of people least likely to quickly spend the money. In addition, because Bush's tax cuts are so heavily weighted to the wealthy, their claim that taxpayers will receive an "average" of over $1,000 in tax relief this year is highly misleading. Remember that if you give one person a $5,000 a year tax cut and another no tax cut at all, you can still claim that both of them are getting an "average" tax cut of $2,500 a year.
As for his record on jobs, Bush has presided over the first job-losing Presidency since Herbert Hoover, with over 3 million jobs lost since he took office - and unemployment now stands at 6% with 8.8 million Americans out of work. Since Bush took office, the economy has lost an average of 69,000 jobs a month. During the previous administration, however, the economy gained an average of 239,000 jobs per month.
When considering President Bush's claims about the economy, the best question to ask yourself is if you, and the country, are better off now than you were before he took office. The clear answer is a resounding "no".
Judge Roy Moore, the Alabama chief justice who has refused to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments that he snuck into the state judicial building's rotunda in the middle of the night two years ago, has been suspended by the Judicial Inquiry Commission pending investigation of alleged ethics violations.
Chief Justice Roy Moore’s actions next face a hearing before the state Court of the Judiciary after the Judicial Inquiry Commission found merit in a complaint by Montgomery lawyer Stephen Glassroth that Moore violated ethics rules by ignoring U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson’s order.While I doubt anything will ever convince Moore that he's wrong in having established the monument and in refusing to remove it, it's good to see that the Judicial Inquiry Commission agrees that there is at least reason to review his actions and that he may be held accountable for his ethical violations.Moore, who was suspended with pay, had no immediate comment. He has 30 days to respond to the Court of the Judiciary, which holds trial-like proceedings and can discipline and remove judges.
[...]
Moore said he told the commission that he upheld his oath of office by acknowledging God. Moore has said Thompson has no authority to tell the state’s chief justice to remove the monument.
Moore’s eight associate justices on the state’s high court ordered the granite marker taken away Thursday after Thompson’s deadline passed. But court officials were still trying to determine Friday where it might go in the building — it weighs 5,300 pounds — and whether the area would allow proper security.
The LA Times has an article this morning on US efforts to get other countries to send troops to Iraq, without giving up any of our authority there. In the process, the article also provides a look at just how completely out of touch with reality our government is. The article notes:
Although there has been a swell of support to send troops or money to help secure Iraq in the wake of Tuesday's bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, few governments want to be subject to the control of the U.S.-led occupation authority, and prewar fault lines seemed to be reappearing.And I'd have to say that's pretty much what we're saying. The Bush administration is starting to feel the heat from having so many of our soldiers dying, and the best solution they seem to be able to come up with is to find other countries' soldiers to die in their stead.Pakistan's ambassador, Munir Akram, hinted diplomatically that the coalition should bolster its own force before asking other countries to make up the difference. Others were more blunt.
"It sends us the message, 'We don't need to spill more American blood, we need foreign blood,' " one European diplomat said.
Yet even though we want them to share the burden and the risks with us, we've made it clear we're not interested in letting them share in any of the authority we current have over how the country is run, or in any of the benefits (if there ever are any) that we might gain from running Iraq.
I've often heard conservatives explain part of their objection to the US participating in any UN missions is that they don't want out troops to be under the command of any other nation's leaders, as often happens in multinational forces. While such a view is understandable to a certain extent, it puts us in the position of saying that we always have to be in charge if we're going to participate at all, and that can make international cooperation difficult to achieve. Just as we're touchy about our troops being under another nation's command, those other nations are undoubtedly uncomfortable at times with their troops having to be under our command. In the case of the Iraq war, that specific concern has been part of why it's been difficult to get a multi-national force together to help secure the country and get it back on its feet.
This doesn't seem to have registered with the Bush administration, however.
Asked how he would resolve the apparent conflict, Powell said, "I don't think there is a problem." He added that he believed that anyone sending their young men and women into harm's way would want them under competent military leadership provided by the U.S.I honestly have no idea how anyone could make that last assertion - that we have "competent military leadership", especially given how poorly we've done in handling the Iraqi occupation.
Military leadership implies that we have a clue what the hell we're doing, and it's been obvious for a while now that we simply don't. Our great military leaders went into Iraq with too few people and pie-in-the-sky expectations that the Iraqis would be overjoyed at having us overthrow their government and occupy their lands. We had - and still have - no exit plan or strategy, and even though Bush declared major combat operations over, our troops have faced combat situations regularly - even though, technically, Iraq has no army for us to be engaged in combat with. To top it all off, our military leaders have been unable to prevent the attacks on either the Jordanian embassy or the UN headquarters in Baghdad or to make headway against the growing anti-American sentiment that so often leads to just more and more dead American soldiers. What country in their right mind would want their troops to be commanded by our "competent" military leaders?
Currently, we're trying a few different ways to try and get other countries to help us. We're trying to get a resolution from the UN Security Council so that countries that do want to help out can go back to their citizens and say, essentially "See? The UN says it's OK if we do this!" Given the general disdain we've shown for the UN, especially in regards to the Iraqi war, I don't know how much weight that's going to carry - or how likely we are to actually get it.
And then there's this option:
Looking for ways to make it politically palatable for nations to deploy troops, U.S. officials linked Tuesday's bombing to other terrorist incidents, providing a framework for reluctant supporters to say their soldiers would be fighting terrorism, not supporting the occupation.The irony in this, of course, is that acts like the bombing of the Jordanian embassy and UN headquarters in Baghdad are unlikely to have occured if we had not invaded the country and then failed so miserably at helping the Iraqis get back on their feet again after we overthrew their government.
Think about it. If we'd gone in there with enough troops and a decent plan for getting everything up and running again, and if we'd been able to get services restored, an effective patrolling force to help prevent the looting and other violence that's been occurring, started arranging for democratic elections for local leaders and put together a council made of both of people elected by the Iraqis and some appointed by the US to start working as a national administration as well as a body to help draft the new Iraqi Constitution, we just might have been able to garner enough support from the Iraqi people that they'd be helping us with putting down the resistance. As it stand, though, the anti-American sentiment keeps growing, the people keep getting angrier, and both the remnants of those loyal to Saddam and terrorist groups that simply want us out of Iraq are not only able to operate more freely, they're also more likely to find recruits to help them achieve their goals. So, sure, we can tell other countries that they're not supporting the occupation, they're fighting terrorism, but I have a feeling they'll realize that the specific terrorism we want them to fight is occurring because of the occupation, which will probably make it a much more difficult "sell".
Perhaps the greatest disconnect between reality and the administrations fantasy world comes, as usual, from Donald Rumsfeld.
As the U.S. asked for troops from other countries, the message was undercut by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's statement Thursday that the 146,000 U.S. and 21,700 multinational troops in Iraq were enough and that the U.S. wouldn't be sending more.Somehow I don't think Powell and Rumsfeld are even speaking anymore. Its the only way I can explain this. We've got our Secretary of State out there trying to finesse troops out of these other countries, and Rumsfeld decides that's a good time to announce that we're doing OK troop wise and don't need to be sending any more, thank you very much.
The article does list some other tactics we're looking at, and points out that some countries, like India and Pakistan, have indicated that they may be willing to send us some troops, though it sounds like they would like at least some kind of UN 'blessing' on the project. But it also shows that the folks in Washington still don't really get it. We got into this mess because they insisted on being bullheaded, and now even though they (well, some of them, anyway) are now having to admit we just might not be able to pull this off with just us and the Brits (with a bit of help from Australia, Denmark and Poland, IIRC), they're still not willing to give up control. Powell may think that other countries would want their troops under the "competent military leadership" of the US, but after what we've accomplished so far, I don't see how.
While federal laws may not provide for the legal ability to actually hold a recall election (which, in many ways, is probably a good thing), the Fair and Balanced PAC is funding a Recall Bush campaign. The campaign cleverly latches on to the main reasons given by Republicans in California for recalling Governor Grey Davis and shows how the same allegations apply to President Bush. It may not be possible to actually recall Bush, but efforts like this may help people understand why, come next November, we need to let him know his time is up.
MoveOn.org is throwing their weight behind the Democratic Senators from Texas who are fighting to prevent the Republican redistricting plan from being passed. One of those Senators, Rodney Ellis, has written a letter and essay explaining the background of the dispute and what's at stake if the Republicans win. One thing he mentions points out why this is truly a national issue, and not just a matter for the Texans.
If the Republicans succeed in redrawing the Texas Congressional lines to guarantee the election of five to seven more Republicans, it will ensure that Republicans hold the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives for the entire decade and will likely result in Tom Delay becoming Speaker of the House.(6)To help give some perspective to the issue, he provides some background information:[Footnote 6] Republican party activist Grover Norquist, head of the Washington D.C.-based Americans for Tax Reform, was quoted as follows in the August 17 Fort Worth Star Telegram: "Republicans will hold the House for the next decade through 2012 if Texas redistricts…It depresses the hell out of the Democrats and makes it doubly impossible to take the House and probably depresses their fund raising…Anything that helps strengthen the Republican leadership helps DeLay become speaker someday if he wants it."
During the 2001 session of the Texas Legislature, the legislature was unable to pass a Congressional redistricting plan as it is required to do following the decennial Census. A three judge federal panel was forced to draw the plan. Neither Governor Rick Perry or then Attorney General John Cornyn, both Republicans, objected to the plan, which was reviewed and approved by the U.S. Supreme Court.Josh Marshall also notes that there's more to this story that many have known. He points to a Dallas Morning News article about Bill Ratliff, the one Republican Senator who is opposing the redistricting, who says that he was approached while he was acting-Lt. Governor in 2001 by Tom DeLay about the redistricting plan.The 2002 Congressional elections, the first held under the new redistricting plan, resulted in a Congressional delegation from Texas consisting of 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans. However, five of the 17 Democrats prevailed only because they were able to win the support of Republican and independent voters. All statewide Republican candidates carried these five districts. Most experts agree that the current plan has 20 strong or leaning Republican districts and 12 Democratic districts.
Meanwhile, the 2001 redistricting of Texas legislative seats (which was enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislative Redistricting Board, after the legislature again gridlocked in its efforts) resulted in wide Republican majorities in both the Texas House and Texas Senate. Now Tom Delay has made it his priority to force the Republican-controlled Legislature to enact a new redistricting plan to increase the number of Republican-leaning Congressional districts. Republicans believe they can manipulate the districts to elect as many as 22 Republicans out of the 32 member Texas Congressional delegation. They achieve this by packing minority voters into as few districts as possible and breaking apart rural districts so that the impact of independent voters will be reduced and suburban Republican voters will dominate.
Mr. Ratliff, who had declined to comment on the redistricting fracas until Tuesday, also disclosed that in the summer of 2001 he was asked by Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land and current U.S. House majority leader, whether he, as acting lieutenant governor, would suspend the Senate's two-thirds rule so the GOP could push through a favorable congressional redistricting plan during a special session.In other words, DeLay has been planning for this since the redistricting was initially addressed two years ago, even though no one objected to the court-supplied redistricting map at the time it was enacted."I said, 'No,' I would not agree to that," he said, adding that the subject was not brought up again while he was the state's No. 2 officeholder.
With Colorado and Ohio also pushing Republican-oriented redistricting measures, it becomes even more important that people all over the country stand up to this attempt by Republicans to diminish the voice Democrats and independents in our Democracy. Sen. Ellis also outlines what the Democrats need to help with their fight:
The Democratic Senators currently in Albuquerque have two critical needs. The first is to generate increased public awareness of the situation. By all reason, every day the Senators are out of the state this story should get bigger. Instead, news media have gradually lost interest in the story. The California recall has dominated the attention of the national media, and the Texas media has largely lost interest in the story -- out of sight, out of mind. Without public attention to this story, the Republicans have all the leverage -- if it does not cost them politically, it costs them nothing(8) to continue calling special sessions until the Texas 11 are forced to come home.Keep in mind that the Republicans are doing more than just redistricting to try and grab power wherever they can - and historically, the Republican party has shown that there are few, if any, limits to how low they will go to keep whatever power they can get.The second critical need is funding. The cost of hotels, meeting rooms, staff support, and public relations efforts is mounting. In addition, the Senators must defend themselves legally against Republican efforts to compel their return, while also filing legal claims against the Republican power play. The Senators are actively raising money for the Texas Senate Democratic Caucus Fund to offset these costs and prepare themselves for a stay of indefinite duration in Albuquerque.
Keeping Nixon in office was the whole point of everything surrounding the Watergate scandal, during which Republicans were doing everything from two-bit "pranks" like changing reservations for Democratic meetings or forging scandalous letters and attributing them to Democratic candidates, to using the FBI and CIA to not only keep a lid on their activities but to also keep track of those whom the President considered his "enemies". Getting Clinton out of office was whole point of the Whitewater investigation and impeachment. In the Florida debacle, the Republicans used a wide variety of tactics - including flying in a group of paid Republican staffers to stage a fake demonstration in order to intimidate the Dade County election board into stopping their recount. And now they've financed a recall election in California in order to overturn the legitimate election of a Democratic governor. The redistricting schemes fit in nicely as part of their overall patter.
The important thing to note, though, is that they neither want fair elections (else why try to rearrange the districts of the state to your advantage after having already accepted the results of the required redistricting following the census) nor do they care about the will of the voters. Tom DeLay is one of the worst of the breed, and this Texas redistricting plot could help make him the Speaker of the House - third in line for the Presidency (and if a Democrat is elected in 2004, what do you want to bet he and his Vice President come under heavy fire or threat of impeachment if DeLay manages to get himself into that position? Maybe that sounds a bit paranoid, but I honestly wouldn't put it past him to try and pull a stunt like that).
Visit MoveOn.org today and do what you can to help support the Texas Democrats. They're not just fighting for their jobs - they're fighting for our Democracy.
The Supreme Court today rejected an appeal by Alabama's Cheif Justice Roy Moore, refusing to put a hold on a federal court's order that Moore remove the monument from the state capital's rotunda.
The high court was Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore's last hope to avoid a federal judge's midnight deadline to remove the display. It was unclear if Moore would comply. Other state officials have said the monument would be moved.Ironically, part of Moore's argument has been that a federal judge shouldn't have the authority to rule on his monument - that it should be a state issue - but he's indicated that if he "has to", he will fight all the way to the Supreme Court.Moore's lawyers told justices in a filing that Moore should be allowed to "establish justice by acknowledging the guidance and favor of Almighty God, placed upon him by his oath of office and the Constitution of Alabama."
Moore installed the 5,300-pound stone monument in the rotunda of the judicial building two years ago after being elected chief justice amid publicity of his support of the Ten Commandments.
The Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutionality of such indoor and outdoor government displays. In 1980, the court barred Ten Commandments from classroom walls in public schools.
The justices' refusal to intervene was not a surprise. An appeals court had twice refused to give Moore a stay.
Today's decision has no bearing on whether the Supreme Court will ever hear the case or not. Moore had just filed an appeal with them seeking to keep federal appeals court judge Myron Thompson's order that the monument be removed from being enforced while Moore continues his fight to keep the momument. The Supreme Court, at this point, did not see a need to intervene.
Moore has anounced that he intends to block the removal, but given that Thompson is threatening to fine the *state* $5,000 per day until it is removed, Moore may find he doesn't necessarily have that option.
Rob Salkowitz of Emphasis Added had posted a comment to an earlier entry I'd made on the Ten Commandments, and I think it bears repeating here:
I think this story is even worse than it appears on the surface - e.g., someone's sincere but misguided religious views in opposition to church-state separation. This appears to be a deliberate attempt by the Right to stage a "worst-case scenario" of National Guard troops fighting through good, churchgoing folks to tear down the Ten Commandments by force. They hope that the power of this image will discredit the whole idea of the secular state and consolidate public support for encroaching theocracy. It's not a matter of rights - it's a matter of power and propaganda: right out of the Goebbels playbook. The ACLU and its allies (myself included, BTW), need to play this very carefully.I think Rob's dead on with this - and if it does come to people having to go into the building and removing it in the midst of a protesting crowd, they need to do so without any imagry suggesting violance (in other words, if they can leave the guns behind, that would be best), and they need to do whatever they can to avoid letting Moore look like some kind of a martyr.
It's ridiculous that the situation has gotten this far. It should never have been up to Moore to put a monument in the rotunda, and the governor should have had it removed immediately when it went up. But now that it has gotten this far, any attempt at rectifying the situation needs to be handle with care.
From the Monster Limo Web Log we learn that movie executives have figured out why movies this years have bombed so badly. Eschewing any notion that bad plots, poor acting, over-dependence on sizzle rather than actual story "steak", lack of originality or other such practical matters, they've settled for blaming it on kids and their damnable text-messaging.
"In the old days, there used to be a term, 'buying your gross,' " Rick Sands, chief operating officer at Miramax, told the Los Angeles Times. "You could buy your gross for the weekend and overcome bad word of mouth, because it took time to filter out into the general audience."Right. Because those hand-held voice-message devices (more commonly called "telephones") weren't fast enough.But those days are over, because the technology of hand-held text-message devices has drastically cut down the time it takes for movie-goers to tell their friends that a heavily promoted summer action movie is a waste of time and money.
Reader dwain posted a link to this article by Gail Sheehy in comments, and I think it's worth recommending. It's a very interesting look at what 4 of the 9/11 widows have been up against trying to find out just what happened that day.
Four 9/11 Moms Battle BushI personally have a hard time believing some of the conspiracy theories out there - I don't think our government is anywhere near competent enough to coordinate everything necessary to have either pulled something like this off by themselves or to have known about it and deliberately allowed it to happen - but I have to admit, the Bush administration is being FAR to secretive about this, and there is simply too much weird stuff that happened that day to not at least ask questions and try to understand exactly how this happened.In mid-June, F.B.I. director Robert Mueller III and several senior agents in the bureau received a group of about 20 visitors in a briefing room of the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. The director himself narrated a PowerPoint presentation that summarized the numbers of agents and leads and evidence he and his people had collected in the 18-month course of their ongoing investigation of Penttbom, the clever neologism the bureau had invented to reduce the sites of devastation on 9/11 to one word: Pent for Pentagon, Pen for Pennsylvania, tt for the Twin Towers and bom for the four planes that the government had been forewarned could be used as weapons—even bombs—but chose to ignore.
After the formal meeting, senior agents in the room faced a grilling by Kristen Breitweiser, a 9/11 widow whose cohorts are three other widowed moms from New Jersey.
"I don’t understand, with all the warnings about the possibilities of Al Qaeda using planes as weapons, and the Phoenix Memo from one of your own agents warning that Osama bin Laden was sending operatives to this country for flight-school training, why didn’t you check out flight schools before Sept. 11?"
"Do you know how many flight schools there are in the U.S.? Thousands," a senior agent protested. "We couldn’t have investigated them all and found these few guys."
"Wait, you just told me there were too many flight schools and that prohibited you from investigating them before 9/11," Kristen persisted. "How is it that a few hours after the attacks, the nation is brought to its knees, and miraculously F.B.I. agents showed up at Embry-Riddle flight school in Florida where some of the terrorists trained?"
"We got lucky," was the reply.
Kristen then asked the agent how the F.B.I. had known exactly which A.T.M. in Portland, Me., would yield a videotape of Mohammed Atta, the leader of the attacks. The agent got some facts confused, then changed his story. When Kristen wouldn’t be pacified by evasive answers, the senior agent parried, "What are you getting at?"
"I think you had open investigations before Sept. 11 on some of the people responsible for the terrorist attacks," she said.
"We did not," the agent said unequivocally.
A month later, on the morning of July 24, before the scathing Congressional report on intelligence failures was released, Kristen and the three other moms from New Jersey with whom she’d been in league sat impassively at a briefing by staff director Eleanor Hill: In fact, they learned, the F.B.I. had open investigations on 14 individuals who had contact with the hijackers while they were in the United States. The flush of pride in their own research passed quickly. This was just another confirmation that the federal government continued to obscure the facts about its handling of suspected terrorists leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks.
So afraid is the Bush administration of what could be revealed by inquiries into its failures to protect Americans from terrorist attack, it is unabashedly using Kremlin tactics to muzzle members of Congress and thwart the current federal commission investigating the failures of Sept. 11. But there is at least one force that the administration cannot scare off or shut up. They call themselves "Just Four Moms from New Jersey," or simply "the girls."
A special message from Not Geniuses (found via Skeptical Notion):
Flood the Zone Fridays, brought to you by Karl RoveI'll admit, when I first heard about the project, I was a bit skeptical but you know, if the Bush Campaign wants to let ordinary folk make their thoughts about Bush's accomplishments as President, why not take them up on it? Besides, we've all heard how much money Bush is raising for his campaign - he might as well spend some of it to support our candidates and agenda, no?Posted by Ezra Klein
George W. Bush has a new website up, and upon seeing it, you have to admit -- this is a campaign that "gets" the web. Their website consolidates many of the tools that the Democratic challengers and their supporters have been experimenting with, and they are well implemented. Particularly impressive is their Action Center, which has one the the coolest, most useful tools I've ever seen:
If you scroll about halfway down the page, you'll see a field where you can input your zip code -- once you do, you'll be given a large list of newspapers and radio shows in your area, complete with contact information for each of them. It's mighty impressive.
Well, George Bush might have some good tools, but we have the online organization -- and tools mean nothing without good, motivated activists. However, we can do a lot with those tools, and we mean to.
Matt Singer and I originally conceived of this as a project for the DDF, but we quickly realized this wasn't candidate specific -- this is for every lefty in America. So here is what we propose. We want to get a coalition together -- every influential and non-influential lefty site with the ability to direct readers and members over to the Bush action tools. And every Friday, we want to use those tools to write letters and make calls highlighting a different part of the Bush disaster. This Friday will be fiscal irresponsibility day -- where we blanket the media with calls and letters about Bush's absurd fiscal policies. We're even going to get you the info, for instance, behold the Bush Record (if you're not a Dean supporter, just ignore the stuff about Dean).
But this week, we have to pull together the players. That's where you all come in. This needs to move through the blogosphere in much the same way that the "Fair and Balanced" day did. Matt and I can get to a lot of people, but we don't know everybody and we don't have the manpower to do it on our own. So E-mail this around, or simply E-mail your favorite blog-owners and ask them to be part of "Flood the Zone" Fridays, brought to you by Karl Rove and the good folks running the Bush Campaign.
Come Friday, Matt or I will post up some talking points and sample letters, and then watch the fun begin. Lets show Rove who owns the 'net.
P.S - I am so getting audited.
At any rate, it sounds like it could be interesting and it might even make something of an impact. So, I'm in - and would like to invite anyone who reads here to join us in Flood the Zone Fridays. If you have a blog and decide to support this project, be sure to let Not Geniuses know!
Sometimes, its kind of scary to be reading the old Bloom County strips (available at My Comics Page.com) and see just how little things have changed in, what, 20 years? ::whistful sigh::
Drug Abuse Can Happen To Your Teen.
I know, I know... they're trying to counter the mentality that "Drug Abuse can't happen to my child", but by phrasing it this way, they're reallly sounding kind of silly. I mean, how does Drug Abuse happen? Does it sneak up on an innocent child, and jump them like a mugger? Is it like a virus that gets passed from one kid to the next? I suppose in a metaphorical sense, both of those could be considered valid examples, but sending a message to parents that "Drug Abuse Can Happen To Your Teen" sure makes it sound like they're implying that the teen has no part in whether it happens or not.
A fun little commentary about the George Bush "Action" Figure was published in the KC Star today. Here's a bit - read the rest. It's good.
Dear Blue Box:With great disappointment, I am returning the George W. Bush "action figure," which you will find enclosed in this package. I am seeking a full refund for this defective toy for the following reasons:
- Despite its billing as an action figure to pair up with my GI Joes, it was obviously not made to be a soldier. Never mind the lack of any scar on its face. The bigger problem is that I cannot find any weapons of mass destruction
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank notes that Bush is once again trying to revise history.
In an interview with the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service given on Thursday and released by the White House yesterday, Bush interrupted the questioner when asked about his announcement on May 1 of, as the journalist put it, "the end of combat operations."Want proof? Screenshot 1 shows the National Security page at http://www.whitehouse.gov/response. Highlighted down at the bottom, you'll see a link to an article titled "President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended" which links to http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030501-15.html (I've also highlighted the URL for the link in the status bar of my browser that shows up because my mouse is hovering over the link, so you can verify that this is really where the link goes.)"Actually, major military operations," Bush replied. "Because we still have combat operations going on." Bush added: "It's a different kind of combat mission, but, nevertheless, it's combat, just ask the kids that are over there killing and being shot at."
In his May 1 speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln, Bush declared: "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country." The headline on the White House site above Bush's May 1 speech is "President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended."
Screenshot 2 shows the Popdex page for the http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030501-15.html URL, and shows it having the title "President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended".
Screenshot 3 is of the actual page you find at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030501-15.html. Note that the word "major" has been added to the title.
Adam at "The Likely Story" has some additional screenshots showing just how many articles related to the USS Abraham Lincoln trip and announcement that now have "Major" in the title AND were most recently updated on August 18th.
And in case there was any doubt that the White House did, in fact, use the "Combat Operations" title as opposed to the "Major Combat Operations" title, here's Screenshot 4, of article from the White House website that apparently hasn't been updated yet. Might be fun to check back in a day or two, eh?
Sadly, this isn't the first time this week the Bushites have engaged in such historical revisionism. A couple days ago, I posted about how their rationale for having the Republican Convention so close to the September 11th commemerations has apparently changed from taking advantage of the commemeration (as stated in April) to "only" trying to avoid a conflict with the 2004 Summer Olympics (as stated in May).
By the way, since it's miserably hot (105 degress as I write this) and, as a result, I'm feeling rather grumpy, let me just say that I love how Bush says to ask our "kids that are over there killing and being shot at" whether its "combat" or not. Now, granted, it would be a logistical impossiblity to ask our kids that have been killed about it since, not to put to fine a point on it, dead people can't exactly speak, but does anyone really think the phrasing was actually predicated on the logistical issue? I mean, that would involve nuancing, right, and we all know it's not Bush's job to nuance, right? Besides, how often does someone say "you want to know if XYZ is dangerous? Ask so-and-so!" even though so-and-so is actually dead? Its a very common rhetorical tactic to emphasize just how bad a situation is - you know, ask the dead guy, he'd tell you if he wasn't dead. No, I think Bush just didn't want to have to actually admit, yet again, that our kids are being killed. As he put it back in December, he may be the "...one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the kids on the death of their loved ones," but near as I can tell, he doesn't give much thought to the casualty count beyond that. If he does, he could sure do a better job communicating that!
Someone recently posted a question about having kids to one of the Heathen lists I'm on, wondering if it was considered "unHeathen" to choose not to have children. It's led to some interesting debate. Heathens, being about as agreeable as any other group of religious people, don't have only one view on much of anything - including, it seems, childbearing. There's no question that family ties - both to your ancestors and to your descendants - are a major theme in much of the lore that we have to guide us, as well as what's been found in many archaeological digs at Nordic and Viking sites, but there's a lot more to Heathenism than just that.
As with most tribal societies, the need to have children was very strong, especially in a land where harsh and long winters could easily kill. Children are, without a doubt, vital to the survival of the tribe as a whole. Even now, that is one of the main reasons cited by those who feel that someone who refuses to have children is not fulfilling his or her religious or spiritual duty. There are several different branches of Heathen faith (all based on the ancient Norse/Viking lore and ways, but which, like the different Christian denominations, vary in the details), but even taken all together, Heathenism as a whole isn't a huge religion at this point. And, since we don't proselytize in order to gain new converts (if someone is interested in learning more, we'll gladly talk to them about it - but it's rare you'll find someone trying to tell you to accept Odin if you want to go to Valhalla or that Heathenism is the One True Way™,) Heathens having children and raising them in the faith is one of the best ways for Heathenism to continue through the next generations.
There are, however, a couple of realities that I think people - even religious people - need to keep in mind when it comes to deciding how important it is for other people to have children. First and foremost is that Jord (the Norse Goddess who embodies the Earth) doesn't have an infinite capacity for humans. Overpopulation is a genuine concern, and its known that where people are plentiful and resources are scarce, violence is a likely result. While Jord periodically takes matters into her own hands and will bring about famine, earthquakes, fires, storms and other natural disasters to thin out the population, I firmly believe that humans need to help out by not necessarily reproducing quite so frequently.
Secondly, it is very clear that there are some people who are well-suited for parenthood, and some who quite simply aren't. Sadly, because religions often put a heavy focus on the idea that having children is a religious obligation, and because even when religion doesn't lay the "obligation" guilt-trip on someone, society often will, we end up with a lot of people who probably would choose not to have children if they thought that was an actual choice open to them.
Now, granted, we're not going to solve the overpopulation problem by making it easier for people to voluntarily opt-out of the gene pool, but it is a good place to start, and it doesn't require government involvement, unfair or inequitable restrictions or other draconian measures to enforce it. All it requires is for people to start understanding that having children is a personal decision, and one that only those who would be responsible for raising said children are qualified to make.
I can understand why different faiths want people to have kids - and why some even encourage people to have lots and lots of kids. It is a good way to help ensure the propagation of the faith. Most people stay in the faith they're raised with, and raise their own children the same way. I would think, however, that it would be in most religions' best interests to go for quality over quantity. Rather than focusing on raw numbers, it would be more logical to make sure that the kids who are born into the faith are ones who have every opportunity to become people who can contribute not only to society at large, but to the faith community as well. It's true that people from bad homes can, and often do, become very valuable members of society - but it seems that by allowing people who think that they have the potential to be abusive, neglectful or otherwise "bad" - as well as those who just don't want kids for whatever reason - to remain childless, you'll have more kids with a good chance for success - making for a stronger community overall.
Now, if, along with finding a way to change societal attitudes so that there is less pressure on people who wish to remain childless to go ahead and have kids anyway, we could also find a way to effectively help people who have kids without having first given any serious thought to whether they should or not, we might actually start making some good headway on the population issue. I'm not saying we don't need kids. Obviously, as a species, and within our faith communities, we do. There's no question about that. But the goal shouldn't be to have as many kids as possible and spend time, money and other resources trying to fix the problems caused by avoidable bad parenting, but rather on making sure that every child that is born is one that is loved and wanted, and will be raised by parents (either their biological ones or an adoptive family) who are willing to undertake the task.
Xantippe has apparently ganed access to the report being released by the Center for Covert Knowledges about last week's blackout, and the shocking truth as to the cause: [gasp!] Heterosexuals!
"There is reason to believe that as many as 90% of those involved with the causes behind this recent disaster are committed heterosexuals," says the report's introduction. "While none of the persons interviewed for this report have admitted to engaging in specifically heterosexual behaviors precisely at the time of the power outage, nearly all of the interviewees spent extraordinary amounts of time advertising elements of heterosexuality -- speaking either adoringly or dismissively about husbands and/or wives, wearing wedding rings and cultured pearls, listening to radio broadcasts celebrating heterosexual rituals and -- perhaps most shockingly -- displaying framed family portraits in their places of work."You know, if stuff like this doesn't help people see just how stupid the "Homosexuality is the cause of all the evil in the world" assholes are, probably nothing will - but at least we can have fun laughing while we tear out our hair and bang our heads against the fundamentalist wall...
I had mentioned a while back that there is a guy on the One Life to Live mailing list who's work I tend to admire. He's not only wise, but frequently amusing, too.
At any rate, I (among others, apparently) told him he should start blogging or journaling - and he has. The title itself tells you pretty much all you need to know about him... O great one, who is never wrong.
He's just getting started so there's not a whole lot posted yet, but stop by and drop him a note (and maybe drop a note here, too, while you're at it, why don'cha?!?) *g*
MSNBC is reporting that many who were directly affected by the 9/11 attacks are putting the Republicans on notice that they will not sit idly by if the GOP tries to turn Ground Zero into a political backdrop during the 2004 Republican convention which is being held in New York City.
Ever since her sister, Lorraine Lee, died in the World Trade Center 23 months ago, Patricia Reilly has lobbied to preserve the Ground Zero site as a memorial. In that time, she has come to resent politicians who make promises and use Ground Zero as a backdrop but who appear to lose interest once the cameras have gone. So when Reilly heard that the Republican Party had chosen New York for its presidential convention in September 2004, she was outraged. “I and other 9/11 family members will do picketing if the Republicans use Ground Zero for political purposes,” she says.Nor, presumably, would they want it used as a political base for the Democrats, but that's a whole different matter.Survivors say they are concerned about rumors that the party intends to schedule some kind of political event at the site during the convention, which will take place a week before the third anniversary of the attacks.
Neither the Republican National Committee nor the New York City host committee, headed by former Mayor Rudolph Guiliani, would comment on the rumor. But Reilly and others like her are taking no chances, registering their concern with Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the Democrat who represents lower Manhattan, city council members and other local officials.
"We have heard complaints from constituents about this," says Jennie McCue, an aide to Nadler. "Tens and thousands of our constituents were affected by 9/11 and they do not want Ground Zero to be a political base for the Republicans."
Something I found in this article, though, that I found very interesting was the following statement:
While it is not clear if the Republicans would actually use Ground Zero or any of the downtown 9/11 symbols during their convention, there were complaints about the timing of convention when they announced. In early May, the Republicans responded to the criticism saying that they only wanted to avoid a clash with the 2004 Olympics, which is to be held in Athens, Greece from Aug. 11-29.And it may well be that they did make this claim in early May. In late April, however, the Republicans were making a different claim - one that shows exactly why the families and survivors of 9/11 have just cause to be worried. In an entry dated 4/27 entitled "Exploiting 9/11" I wrote about the following quote from an article I'd found in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
The president is planning a sprint of a campaign that would start, at least officially, with his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, which is now set for Sept. 2.The P-I story has disappeared behind the archive wall, but I was able to find this same story in the Charlotte Observer, still available on the net at: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/5686610.htm.The convention, to be held in New York City, will be the latest since the Republican Party was founded in 1856, and Bush's advisers said they chose the date so the event would flow into the commemorations marking the third anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks.
The back-to-back events would complete the framework for a general election campaign that is being built around national security and Bush's role in combating terrorism, Republicans said.
That's right - before anyone had complained about the idea of politicizing the 9/11 commemerations, the Bushites had no problem admitting that they deliberately chose the date so they could capitalize on the proximity to the anniversary of the attacks. It looks like the May claim that they "only wanted" to avoid a conflict with the Olympics is a bit of that good old "revisionist history" that Bush so deplores.
Amusing (to me, anyway) story: I had remembered reading at one point that the Bush Admin had admitted they were timing the convention to coincide with the 9/11 commemerations, so I did a Google search to see if I could find any reference to it. The first two that came up weren't really relevant (I was using a fairly broad set of search terms) - the third was my own entry on it. Doh!
Over at The Hamster there's an entry about how some conservatives are crowing that Al Franken is a hypocrite because he allegedly sued the author of a parody of one of his earlier books. The LA Times, however, has a bit of light to shed on the subject.
Franken may indeed know something about satire; in 1996, his book "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot" was itself parodied by J.P. Mauro (actually two Mauro brothers) in the book "Al Franken Is a Buck-Toothed Moron," which features a doctored Franken photo on the cover. The introduction to the book consists of letters purporting to be from Franken's lawyers, attempting to deny the authors the use of Franken's picture. Later in the book, the letters are described as fictitious.In other words, Franken never actually filed a suit against the authors of the parody, nor, apparently, did he threaten to. Dr. Squid notes in the comments section at The Hamster that Franken's book "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot" starts out with fictitious letters allegedly from Jeanne Kirkpatrick, so the fictitious letters from Franken at the beginning of "Al Franken is a Buck-Toothed Moron" are, essentially, a parody of Franken's own satire in the book. (I can only note this as reported by Dr. Squid, however, as I've not read the book myself.)
At any rate, the conservatives who are prattling on about Franken's hypocrisy need to make themselves a bit more aware of the facts. Franken didn't sue, and there's no indication he planned to. Just a bit more BS to shovel through....
(There's just GOT to be a pony in here SOMEWHERE!)
You know, it's bad enough that the Texas Republicans are trying to force this redistricting map idea of theirs through, but now they're getting ridiculous. Apparently, they're planning to try and levy fines against the Democrats that have taken flight (to prevent a vote from being taken on the redistricting), even though technically, there's no rule on the book at this time that allows for such fines, and they're supposed to need a quorum to make any changes to the rules.
Keep in mind, the whole point of the Democrats leaving the state is to prevent a quorum, so no votes can be taken. So, if there's not enough Senators present to take a vote on the redistricting proposal, there's also not enough Senators present to vote on rule changes.
The Democrats say they feel pretty confident that the fines can't be enforced, though some of the Republicans are now saying that if the Dems won't pay the fines, they'll just take it out of their postage and travel budgets, and there's also been talk of refusing to allow the Dems to use conference and meeting rooms, cutting off their state-provided cell phones and eliminating their parking priveleges, among other restrictions. Basically, if the Dems won't pay the fines - which the Repubs most likely don't have the authority to impose in the first place, the Repubs are planning to pretty much make it impossible for the Dems to do their jobs. I can't remember where, right now, but I read that there has at least been talk of even refusing to allow them to vote - as punishment for their refusal to come back to the capitol to vote. There's a certain irony in that, I think. I also have to admit, I find the fine proposal rather amusing in its own way - the fines start at $1,000 per day and keep doubling until they reach $5,000 per day. Just think about the math for a second...
On top of that, the Republicans are now taking about possibly postponing the - get this - primary elections next spring, if the Democrats don't come back and allow the redistricting to go through. Apparently, some of the Democrats had hoped to be able to hold out enough that any map approved by the Republicans (because even if all the Dems vote against it, there are enough Republicans to get it passed anyway) would go through late enough that the Department of Justice wouldn't have time to approve it for use in the upcoming primaries.
"I don't know whether there is a practical deadline or not," Gov. Rick Perry said, reiterating his intent to call as many special sessions as it takes to get a new map. "There are so many options on the table relative to moving primaries so that you can get the DOJ's approval."The current plan, apparently, is to just keep calling special session after special session until the petulant Republicans get their way, and if they don't, they'll throw a major-league hissy and not let the people of Texas hold their primary elections until they do.
I think I'd prefer that they just hold their breath until they turn blue and go stomping off like the little children they seem to be imitating.
Link via dailyKos
Kynn at Shock and Awe has an excellent evisceration of the claim that the Ten Commandments are the "moral foundation of law" in the US as claimed by Judge Ray Moore of Alabama (among others). Moore, as you probably know, erected a 2.5 ton monument to the Ten Commandments in the the rotunda of the Alabama state judicial building.
Moore had the monument placed in the building without the knowledge or consent of his fellow justices in the middle of the night on July 31, 2001.Even though the court ruled against him, Moore has refused to remove the monument and so the case continues, and both sides expect it will eventually end up before the Supreme Court.Privately raised funds paid for the sculpture, but Moore allowed a film crew from Coral Ridge Ministries -- the Religious Right organization run by Florida-based television evangelist D. James Kennedy -- to tape footage of the monument's construction and placement. Coral Ridge later sold the videotape as a fundraiser, and has paid for Moore's legal defense.
Moore has said he acted secretly to protect his fellow justices from being named in the lawsuit he was certain would result from his actions.
Moore's expectation became reality shortly thereafter, when Montgomery lawyer Stephen Glassroth filed suit in federal court. Two other Montgomery attorneys joined Glassroth in the suit.
Lawyers from three civil-rights groups -- the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State -- represented the plaintiffs in the October trial.
"The Ten Commandments monument, as the Chief Justice made clear both at the unveiling ceremony and at trial, is a granite reminder to Alabama judges and justices and all other state citizens of the ultimate sovereignty of the Judeo-Christian God over both the state and the church," Judge Thompson said in his opinion that accompanied the ruling.
Thompson said Moore's intent in having the monument installed thus violated the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, which prohibits governments from endorsing or promoting a religion
In a fiery speech given just six days before a federal deadline to remove the monument, Chief Justice Roy Moore said he would take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.Now, personally, I think the question is whether or not he will disobey a court order and whether or not he will remove the monument. He does not have to deny God to do so. His personal faith should be in no danger from the removal of the monument. Removal of the monument, in fact, should have no effect whatsoever on his faith. If it does, then Judge Moore has a much bigger problem then a 5,300 pound piece of rock that he's been ordered to get rid of."I have no intention of removing the monument of the Ten Commandments, the moral foundation of our law," he said. "To do so would, in effect, be a disestablishment of the justice system of this state.
"The question is not whether I will remove the monument," Moore added. "It is not a question of whether I will disobey or obey a court order. The real question is whether or not I will deny the God that created us."
This is part of what puzzles me sometimes about extreme fundamentalists like Judge Moore. While my decisions are guided by the tenets of my own faith, whether those tenets are posted somewhere for someone else to see is irrelevent to my dedication to them or to the Gods whom I serve. I don't need to see them displayed each time I enter a place to be reminded of the place they have (and should have) in my heart and in my life. I'm quite capable of keeping them as a priority without an outside reminder, thank you very much.
Moore said he will file the motion "to preserve our rights as a state and nation to acknowledge God."It was meant to keep the government from tell us what religion we had to follow and to prevent them from interfering in our religious lives. When the state of Alabama puts a huge rock in their justice building with the Ten Commandments on it, claiming that they are the "moral foundation of our laws", the state is, in effect, telling people that they consider Christianity to be the only religion worth upholding - which, while perhaps technically different than saying someone must follow Christianity, makes it clear that those who choose not to follow Christianity will not be treated with the same respect as those who do. It creates the impression, if not the legal actuality, of a dual-tier system based on what religion a person follows."Separation of church and state never was meant to separate God from our government. It was never meant to separate God from our law," he said.
This is precisely the kind of thing the First Amendment was intended to prevent. Our Founding Fathers wanted people to be free to follow their conscience in matters of religion.
The First Amendment's "very purpose is to allow us the freedom to worship Almighty God. That freedom is being taken from us by federal courts who misuse the First Amendment to take away our rights instead of as a shield to preserve them for us."The problem, of course, is that what Judge Moore says is the state's and nation's right to acknowledge God is a right that the state and national governments don't have. They are barred by the Constitution from establishing any kind of a state religion.
The Freedom of Religion is not a "states' rights" issue. It is an issue of personal freedom. The state and federal governments have to treat my religion exactly the same as it treats yours or anyone else's. It can't just go and decide that it likes one faith better, and so is going to make everything in the state more "friendly" or "accessible" (or anything else) to that particular faith.
As a Heathen (the "technical" term for a Norse Pagan, I've learned), I would never feel the least bit comfortable attending court in a building with the Ten Commandments emblazoned on a piece of statuary, hung on a plaque or otherwise posted about the place. I would feel like if the topic of my religion came up, I wouldn't be able to get a fair shake - that the court people, in accord with their Christian faith, and as sanctioned by the system that established and maintains such monuments, declaring the state's decision to hold that particular faith in a higher regard, would consider me, at best, some kind of fruit loop, and at worse view me as some kind of lesser being. And granted, I could provoke that same response in people even if the state didn't endorse their particular faith - but the difference would be that without the state's endoresement, they would likely feel less free to act on their religious bias, and I would feel like if I were subjected to religious discrimination, I'd at least have some kind of recourse in which to pursue my grievance.
At any rate, Kynn's article is great - he not only takes a look at what the monument says compared to what the actual Ten Commandments are, but he also examines each commandement individually to see if it actually holds up as a "moral foundation" for our laws. Give him a buzz.
From Secular Blasphemy, we learn that there have been three possible sniper-style shootings in West Virginia which authorities think may be the work of a new serial killer copycatting the DC snipers from last fall.
Kanawha County Chief Deputy Phil Morris said he was concerned that the Charleston shootings resembled last year's sniper shootings in the Washington, D.C., area. The FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives joined state and local authorities in the hunt for the shooter.There are reports from at least two of the crime scenes of a black pickup truck racing out of the area immediately after the shootings, but its important not to forget the lessons of the non-existant white van and get too hung up on the black pickup truck concept.In the West Virginia slayings, two victims were shot in the head and another was hit in the neck, Tucker said. The shooter was more than 30 yards away from each victim, officials said, and they believe a rifle was used in the attacks.
All three were gunned down outside convenience stores, including a man killed while talking on a pay phone and a woman killed while pumping gas.
In addition, authorities are not ruling out a possible connection to a March killing in which the victim was shot twice in the chest outside a supermarket.
Police advised residents yesterday not to travel alone to convenience stores and to be watchful.
From Morat at Skeptical Notion I found this editorial by the editors at the Washington Post, who seem to be a bit callous to the problems Europeans are having with the extreme (for them) heat they're experiencing. I usually don't copy an editorial or other piece whole like this, but this one is short, and I think it should be read in full to make sure the context is clear.
To listen to the fuss Europeans are making about their weather, anyone would think that it was actually hot over there. In Paris, shops have experienced a run on electric fans. In Sweden, a male bus driver showed up for work in a skirt after his company informed him that he was not allowed to wear shorts. In Amsterdam, zookeepers are giving iced fruit to their chimpanzees to cool them off.I am a notoriously bad driver (don't worry - I've been homebound for about 5 years now, so no one's at any risk from me). I mention this because when I lived in Seattle, my friends all knew just how bad of a driver I am, but they also knew I came from Kansas. They also knew that in Kansas we have snow. Whether the streets were bone dry or if it had been raining, my friends would not let me anywhere NEAR the wheel of the car. It was strictly off limits to me. Put even the lightest dusting of frost on the ground, however, and they were BEGGING me to drive, because "You know how to drive in snow!"Okay, so maybe it's a bit warmer than usual. Temperatures across the continent have shot up into the 90s and once or twice have topped 100 degrees in London and Paris. But is this really hot -- hot enough to close businesses, hot enough to cancel trains (the tracks might buckle), hot enough to wax nostalgic for the summer rain to which some Europeans, notably residents of the British Isles, are more accustomed?
Last time we checked, the weather here in Washington was in the upper 80s, which is average to low for this time of year. Temperatures in Houston and Dallas in the past couple of days have topped 100, as they usually do in summer. Yet somehow, no one's talking about extraordinary measures being taken by Texans or Washingtonians. On the contrary, President Bush, who qualifies as both, by some measures, is currently mocking the press corps by pretending to enjoy jogging in the Texas heat. Not all Europeans may want to go this far -- but maybe they will now at least stop turning up their noses at those American summer inventions they've long loved to mock: The office window that doesn't open, the air conditioner that produces sub-arctic temperatures and the tall glass of water, served in a restaurant, filled to the brim with ice.
Of course, what they failed to comprehend is that there's another difference between Kansas and Seattle - Seattle has hills. Hills, snow and bad driving tend not to mix very well.
Even after I pointed this out to them, however, they STILL wanted me to drive.
I find it repugnant that we've got major newspapers making fun of countries who are having trouble dealing with high temperatures they aren't accustomed to. Just as my Seattle friends were so unused to driving in show that they'd let me drive instead, people in Europe just haven't had to deal with temperatures like this and have to go to extremes to cope. That people are dying from it makes their callousness even worse.
A couple weeks ago, Slipshod over at Morons.org posted a piece about how the State of California was refusing to allow him to give his daughter the name he wanted.
Now, granted, the name was a little on the unusual side - he wanted to give her the Peace Symbol as a middle name - but it was, in a sense, following a family tradition; his own middle name is also a Peace Symbol.
The hospital and the vital records office had a problem with that, though. They claimed that, according to the California State Constitution, Article 3, Section 6, only the 26 characters of the English language could be used on a birth certificate. This, however, created a bigger problem than just the hospital refusing to allow Slipshod to give his daughter the name he wanted - it also meant, they said, that Slipshod himself could not sign his own daughter's birth certificate because he is required to use his full, legal name, and, well, there's that pesky peace sign again.
Well, he decided to fight the situation, and yesterday reported he'd had success - his state representative, Sally Leiber, had her staff attorney look into the situation and he determined there was no reasonable basis for the vital records office to have turned him down and spoke to the State Registrar on Slipshod's behalf. After a bit more discussion, the State Registrar's office backed down, and Slipshod can now give his middle name to his daughter for her middle name - which is all he ever wanted.
Be sure to stop by Morons.org and read Slipshod's accouns (part one and part two) of what all he went through, and maybe drop him a note of congratulations in the comments thread. There's a lot more than what I just summarized up there, and it's well-told. I'm just glad to see the "little guy" (or girl) win one now and then.
Mel Gibson's new movie, "The Passion" is getting a lot of that pre-release publicity - also known as controversy - that's been known to take movies that might have appealed to a limited audience and make them the subject of curiosity to many more paying ticket-goers.
The focus of controversy with this film - which is Gibson's attempt to portray the final hours before the crucifixion of Christ - is that some percieve it as being anti-Semetic.
Some Jewish groups, like the Anti-Defamation League, are charging Gibson with promoting anti-Semitism. According to a variety of reports, Abraham Foxman, ADL national director has said, "The film unambiguously portrays Jewish authorities and the Jewish mob as the ones responsible for the decision to crucify Jesus."The Simon Wiesenthal Centre has also commented on the film.Foxman also added, "We are deeply concerned that the film, if released in its present form, will fuel hatred, bigotry and anti-Semitism that many responsible churches have worked hard to repudiate."
Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Wiesenthal Center's office in Los Angeles said in a statement issued overnight that the centre had received hate mail accusing it "of being Christ killers" after the group publicly expressed reservations about the film.I've not seen the movie, so I can't comment on whether the concerns are valid or not, nor am I familar enough with Gibson's beliefs to know if he would be likely to include an message that could be taken as anti-Semetic or not, so this isn't about the movie itself, per se, or about Gibson's views. It's about the issue that seems to be at the heart of the controversy - the belief by some Christians that the Jews were responsible for Christ's death, and the fact that much of the hatred of Jews throughout history has stemmed from the anger of Christians who consider them - as a race - to be the murderer's of Christ."For 20 centuries, the false charges ... have been the core reasons for anti-Semitism, causing the death and persecution of millions of Jews," Hier said.
Here's the problem I have with that line of reasoning: If, as Christians believe, Jesus is the Messiah who was promised in the Old Testament, and if salvation was made possible by his ability to overcome death when he was resurrected following his crucifixion, doesn't it stand to reason that - regardless of who ordered the crucifixion, his death was not only necessary to save humankind, but was also an integral part of God's plan.
See, the way I look at it (and the way I looked at it when I was still a Christian), it shouldn't matter one whit who - on earth - brought about the circumstances of Jesus' crucifixion because his crucifixion was required for God's plan to be fulfilled. If you think about it, in fact, the whole purpose of Christ even coming to earth in the first place was so that he could die and be resurrected again, thus providing a means for God's salvation to his followers. If (and I'm not saying I think this is necessarily the case, but if the allegation is true) the Jews (as a race) were the earthly agents of Christ's crucifixion, I would think that the Christians should be grateful to them for doing Gods will rather than hating them for it. I mean, if Christ hadn't died, they wouldn't be saved, would they?
It brings to mind one of the questions I had when I served as a missionary disc jockey at my church's radio station in Nome, KA, that led the church's minister to ask the station manager to have me on the air during church services so I couldn't "cause problems". I just could not understood why Judas was condemned to hell for his betrayal of Christ, since that betrayal was a necessary part of God's plan. In order for Jesus' crucifixion to occur, he had to be betrayed to the authorities, so logically, someone had to betray him. In betraying Christ, Judas was doing exactly what God needed him to.
Maybe there's something fundamental I'm not grasping here, but it just doesn't make any sense.
A Fair and Balanced list of other Fair and Balanced blogs participating in the Fair and Balanced Friday project can be found at the extremely Fair and Balanced Blah3 blog. Be sure to give them a few minutes of your time!
In case you've been asleep for most of the week (and since I've had a few weeks like that myself, I know it's quite possible *g*) and don't know what the Fair and Balanced hoopla about being Fair and Balanced is, well, it turns out that Fox News, having trademarked "Fair and Balanced" as one of their slogans, have decided that it's unfair and imbalanced for someone to try and use it as part of a work of satire making fun of them (despite the laws that generally allows such usage, even of trademarked terms). And, since Al Franken had the Fair and Balanced balls to title his new book "Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right", Fox News sued him.
Well, we (me and all the others participating in this protest) feel that Fox's reaction is, well, fairly unbalanced. Franken is a satirist. His job is to make fun of people, organizations and others who do stupid things while making a sharp point at the same time. How well he does that is open to interpretation. Personally, I'm not a big fan of Franken or his work. But I am a fan of satire and our right to engage in it. When Fox - one of the most blatantly biased news organizations there is, started calling themselves "Fair and Balanced", it became an immediate joke - because they're anything but. Franken's title takes legitimate aim at the target Fox presents.
When the news of Fox's suit again Franken broke, several blogs, including different strings, added the "Fair and Balanced" slogan to our blog in some way as a sign of solidarity with Franken in his position that his use of the phrase was legitimate satire. Currently there are approximately 250-300 blogs who have joined the protest which started with Atrios at Eschaton.
So, that's a brief (well, brief for me, anyway) history of this Fair and Balanced project. Like I said, take some time to visit the other Fair and Balanced sites - and I hope you have a very Fair and Balanced day. Me? It's time for my Fair and Balanced nap.
Large parts of the northeastern United States, as well as parts of the Midwest and Canada are currently experiencing a major blackout, which MSNBC (TV) is now reporting appears to have been caused by an overload in the Niagra Mohawk Power Grid. Even before a cause had been ascertained, however, were were told that
[o]fficials of the Homeland Security Department said there were no indications that terrorists were responsible for the blackout, which remained unexplained.Yes, it was important to reassure people, but I have to admit I sometimes find it amusing when people say, in essence, "we don't know what happened, but it wasn't..." X, Y or Z (in this case, terrorists).
As for the extent of the outage, here's the MSNBC (web) description of it:
The blackout stretched over huge areas of the Northeast, the Midwest and Canada. Affected cities included New York, Buffalo, Albany and Syracuse, N.Y.; Hartford, Conn.; Detroit, Lansing and many other smaller cities in Michigan; Cleveland, Akron and Toledo, Ohio; and Toronto and Ottawa in Ontario.Much of New England, however, including all of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, southern Vermont and eastern Connecticut, were unaffected, as were other areas of Canada, including Montreal and Quebec City. Washington D.C. was also not impacted.
The Federal Aviation Administration shut down Newark, John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia in the New York area. Otherwise, however, it said its facilities were operating normally on backup power and that planes in the air were in no danger.
FAA officials told NBC News that individual airport terminals could be affected, however, and Detroit Metropolitan Airport was temporarily closed.
Yesterday, news broke that a British man had been arrested in a potential terrorism plot involving the smuggling of a shoulder-mounted surface-to-air missile into the United States. A missile of that nature could be used to try and shoot down aircraft - including passenger jets.
At the time, I'd said that it sounded like this was a sting operation, and that it might be good to keep an eye on it. My concern was that people who take the news of this arrest - and the presumed thwarting of a possible plot - as an indication that the new law enforcement powers are working, and possibly increase support for expanding such powers in the future. Well, today, ABC News (the same place I found the original story) reports that the arrest was, indeed, part of a sting operation, and that there's much less to the possible "plot" than initially thought.
According to law enforcement officials, administration officials are leaving out details and making the alleged plot - and subsequently the arrest of Hemant Lakhani - sound far more significant than it really was.
Lakhani had no contacts in Russia to buy the missiles before the sting and had no known criminal record for arms dealing, officials told ABCNEWS.I hate to sound cynical, but when I saw that the law enforcement officials were say that the administration was trying to minimize some details and exaggerate the importance of the arrest itself, I wasn't the least bit surprised. It's only exactly what I've come to expect from the Bush administration. ::sigh::[...]
Court documents show much of the case is based on the government's key cooperating witness, an informant seeking lenient treatment on federal drug charges, officials told ABCNEWS. He was the first person who led the government to Lakhani.
The missile shipped into the New York area last month was not a real missile — just a mockup — also arranged entirely by the government. The government also arranged the meetings at a New Jersey hotel and elsewhere, where Lakhani allegedly told undercover agents posing as al Qaeda terrorists about his support of bin Laden.
[...]
Government officials said the case will show that Lakhani went along with the scheme willingly and was not entrapped. But the question remains whether any of this would have happened if the government had not set it up.
Here's some of how Fox News describes Al Franken in their lawsuit against him.
Fox said in the suit that Franken flew into a rage near a table of Fox News personalities at a press correspondents' dinner in April and acted "either intoxicated or deranged."My understanding is that lawsuits should be based on legal issus. To the best of my knowledge, there is nothing in copyright or trademark laws - both of which allow the use of copyrighted or trademarked material for the purpose of satire - that actually requires the satire to be funny, or the presenter of the satire to be well-respected, un-shrill, stable or, for that mater, even sober. These comments bring nothing to the case other than a chance for Fox News to smear Franken and make themselves look even smaller and pettier than usual.It said Franken has become "increasingly unfunny."
"Franken is neither a journalist nor a television news personality. He is not a well-respected voice in American politics; rather, he appears to be shrill and unstable," the suit said.
While I don't think their suit has any merit (not that I'm a legal expert or anything), if they were going to sue, it would have been far better for them to stick to the actual legal issues involved, rather than trying to slime Franken with the ectoplasmic residue of their inhumanly thin skins.
From the Interfaith Alliance:
August Recess Update: Bush to Side-Step Senate to Appoint Daniel PipesThey'll put you through to the White House Comment Line - you can either leave a recorded message or, if you stay on the line, an operator will come on. They only asked for my home state and my comment - not my name or anything else. The Comment Line can also be reached directly by dialing 202-456-1111.The Interfaith Alliance has learned through Congressional sources as well as Reuters and the Associated Press that President George Bush will side-step the normal Senate confirmation process and appoint Dr. Daniel Pipes to the U.S. Institute of Peace through a “recess appointment” sometime in the next two weeks. The “recess appointment,” that is, an appointment made during a congressional recess of a presidential nominee normally requiring confirmation by the Senate, will allow Pipes to serve through next year.
The nomination of Daniel Pipes, an outspoken critic of Islam, who has made divisive and destructive comments toward the Muslim-American community, was brought before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee for confirmation on July 23. During the committee hearing, several senators expressed great alarm over the disparaging anti-Muslim remarks that have become a defining theme in the public record of Daniel Pipes and managed to postpone the confirmation vote.
By side-stepping the Senate committee, President Bush will install Pipes regardless of the divisive nature of the nominee and the legitimate concerns expressed in the Senate hearing. Further, by choosing this highly controversial and highly selective method to place Dr. Pipes on the Institute, President Bush is sending a message to Muslim Americans throughout the nation that their concerns over this nominee are being dismissed.
Today and tomorrow, thousands of people of faith and good will across the nation will call the White House and register their opinions on the comment line regarding this latest move by the administration. If you would like to join this effort, the number to call is 202-456-1414.
Ok, I just saw an ad saying that if you buy food from Taco Bell you can win free gas....
...not that this is any big surprise, I think that's how it's always been - I've just never heard it referred to as a "prize" before....
[I'm beginning to think that advertising and PR firms should hire professional comedians to help them avoid ideas such as this that just lend themselves far too well to jokes....]
This is one of those stories that I think is important enough to at least let you know about, but I'm not yet sure what my own position on it is - so excuse me while I think "out loud" a bit.
There are currently two proposals that will be raised in Washinton this fall that would eliminate the Constitutional requirement that the President and Vice President of the US be American-born.
One of the proposals, by Schwarzenegger political friend Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, would allow anyone who has been a U.S. citizen for 20 years and has resided in the country for 14 years to be elected president. Hatch denies that he proposed the amendment on July 10 with Schwarzenegger in mind, but it turns out that the 56-year-old actor-businessman was naturalized in 1983.I just have to note that I find it amuzing that Schwarzenegger would just meet the qualifications for this law.... I still think, though, that Hatch has just watched "Demolition Man" a few too many times....
The other proposal, by a bipartisan group in the House whose ranks include conservative Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista (San Diego County) -- who spent more than $1.5 million to put the recall election on the Oct. 7 ballot -- would allow anyone who has been a naturalized citizen for 35 years to be eligible to become president. The House legislation, whose co-sponsors include liberal Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., was proposed long before the recall movement blossomed in California.The first thing to be worked out, of course, is what the concern is with having a foreign-born President. Conflict-of-interest is an obvious answer to that. The idea that even after having spent 20 to 35 years being a citizen of the US and having lived here for at least 14 years, someone might still have loyalties to their birth country isn't entirely unreasonable. Sometimes it seems we can't even be entirely sure that the loyalties of a American-born President are entirely with the US (especially when his actions seem to indicate he's trying to protect a foreign government, even though that country may have been instrumental in the commission of a crime against our nation), so questioning the loyalties of a foreign-born President would be natural.Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, drafted in 1787, says that only natural-born Americans at least 35 years old who have lived in the country for 14 years can serve as president or vice president.
Aside from basic conflicts-of-interest, though, the big question would be if someone would be patient enough - and lucky enough - to be able to move here, become a naturalized citizen, work their way up through the political ranks for however long it takes for their eligibility to kick in, get elected President - and then, somehow, betray our country to our enemies. Is it possible that could happen? Well, technically, at least, yes, it would be (and it would make for a great spy novel concept, too, wouldn't it?). But realistically? I don't know.
It certainly wouldn't be easy - electoral politics are notoriously unpredictable. Here we are, a bit over a year to the next election, and we can't even predict who the Democratic candidate will be, much less who's going to win. To imagine someone would try to engineer an entire career and spend that many years of their life on a plan that probably has a better chance of failing (in that he never gets elected President) than succeeding could only be charitably called far-fetched.
So, of the two, I think the potential for a conflict of interest is the stronger concern, and it one that we should seriously consider. In all honesty, I would have less problem with someone who was born in another country, but moved here before they were out of their childhood and had lived here since then - not so much because of the length of time they'd have been here, but because they wouldn't have had a long time to "bond" with their native land. People who've lived here since they were children and have become naturalized citizens tend - in my experience - to think of themselves as Americans first and have few strong ties to the country of their birth.
Right now, I'd have to say that I'm less than comfortable with the idea of a foreign-born President. Maybe it's just that all of my life I've lived with the notion that the President must be American by birth. Maybe it's some latent xenophobia. Maybe it's just that the idea of Schwarzenegger as president bugs the hell out of me. And it may be that my opinion will change as the pros and cons of the idea are debated more in public forums (at least I hope it'll be debated). As it stands, though, I don't think it's a change we should be making.
ABCnews.com is reporting that a British man has been arrested in connection with an apparent plot to smuggle a surface-to-air missile into the US.
The person arrested allegedly sought to smuggle a Russian-made surface-to-air missile into the country and believed he was selling missiles to would-be terrorists, sources said. The name of the person has not been disclosed.Because the news is just now "breaking", the available details are very sketchy. From the phrasing of the above quote, though, it sounds like the man may have been grabbed in some kind of a sting operation ("Sources said the man thought he was dealing with terrorists..."), which, of course, will leave open many questions - including whether or not there's reason to be concerned that terrorists might actually be thinking of trying to smuggle such SAMs into the country and actually use them to try and shoot down a plane.Sources said the man thought he was dealing with terrorists in the United States who wanted to shoot down a passenger jet.
The reason I bring this up is that when people hear that someone has been arrested for possibly smuggling in a SAM weapon to shoot down an airplane, they are, by nature, going to become more worried about the possibility that such an attack might actually happen. More importantly, though, the idea that law enforcement may have prevented an attack tends to make them more likely to support the expanded powers law enforcement has been given - believing that they've been shown to be effective at stopping an actual crime - and possibly more willing to accept an even greater expansion of those powers in the future.
If, however, this was part of a sting operation, then it tells us little about whether those expanded powers are actually doing anything to reduce the threat of actual terroristic attacks. Sting operations, by their very nature, may show that someone has a pre-disposition to willingness to commit a crime, but they don't really tell us much about the likelihood of a crime being committed. In other words, we may know that there's one less person out there who would smuggle such a weapon in, but we still don't know if anyone here is actually looking for one.
Keep in mind, though, that all of this is speculation based on my interpretation of a comment in a very sketchy, early report. It may well be that a genuine tragedy was prevented, and if so, that's wonderful! My concern is just that I don't want to see something like this turned into propaganda used to cut back our rights even further than they already have been. I don't know right know if it will or not, but I think it's at least worth looking into.
Blogcritics started publishing a year ago this week. They've got a few stats up on what they've accomplished this last year in addition to all the great content they have to offer. Stop by if you get the chance!
I got this today from MoveOn.org - if you can go, please do! I'm going to see if I can draft someone from around here to go on my behalf. (This is one of those times being homebound is a real bitch!)
Join us to meet with key Members of Congress to demand an independent investigation of the intelligence used by the Bush administration to justify the attack on Iraq.According to the Working Assets sign-up page, these are the ground rules that you are asked to agree to if you decide to go.Working Assets, Women's Action for New Directions, True Majority, and MoveOn are setting up these critical meetings in elected officials' home districts during the August recess.
Members of Congress respond to pressure. They need to hear that constituents like you insist they take responsibility for America's tradition of democracy and fair play and ask tough questions about the White House justification for the ongoing catastrophic war in Iraq.
The American people have a right to know the true reasons behind this war, which has cost taxpayers billions of dollars and cost hundreds of soldiers their lives.
To meet with your Representative or Senator and demand an investigation, go to: http://www.workingassets.com/citizensfortruth3
Members of Congress must examine the validity of the intelligence used to justify the attack on Iraq. They should ask probing questions and demand that any answers be subject to verification. In the run-up to war, an array of administration officials claimed sources that provided justification for the attack were secret. Now, that secrecy seems to have been a screen to hide flaws in the evidence.
We hope you will join us in this powerful campaign to establish an independent investigation of administration claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
- These meetings are intended to be respectful discussions, not rallies or demonstrations. The purpose of these meetings is to allow constituents to raise the pressure on our elected officials to examine the validity of the intelligence used to justify attacking Iraq.
- The tone of the meetings is constructive, not adversarial.
- If the Congressional Member is not available, we will meet with senior staff. Gaining a staff ally is just as important as meeting with the elected official.
- Please register for the meeting with your local Representative or Senator only. You may see options for multiple meetings in your area. Please be courteous and allow activists who live in a particular district to sign up for that meeting.
- Our message is:
“Members of Congress must examine the validity of the intelligence used to justify attacking Iraq. They must ask probing questions and demand any answers be subject to verification. An array of administration officials claimed sources providing justification for the attack were secret. Now, that secrecy seems to have been a screen to hide the flaws in the underlying evidence. The American people have the right to know whether the information used to justify the war and the deaths of our soldiers is accurate. Legislators must demand that they and their constituents be told the truth. “House Representatives should support the asking of questions by cosponsoring House Resolution 2635 or House Resolution 307 or both.”We all have many concerns, but we'll be the most effective if we rally behind one message.
Jan over as Secular Blasphemy pointed out yesterday that Daypop has blog statistics that include a list of blogs similar to the one you're reading about. Interestingly, mine apparently came up as the one most similar to his. I say "interestingly" because, even though he and I do blog about a lot of the same topics, we don't always agree (he does make a lot of good points, though, which is one of the main reasons he's long been one of my daily reads), and also because we each started our blogs at roughly the same time (different strings was born September 17, 2002; Secular Blasphemy on September 25, 2002).
At any rate, if you've not checked it out yet, do yourself a favour and head on over.
Oh, and if you're curious, Secular Blasphemy actually comes up as the third most similar to mine on my list. Road to Surfdom and The Mind of Man are one and two... sad to say, I've never read either, but I will have to check them out.
[Of course, it's probably good to keep in mind that a computer's idea of "similar" can be interesting in and of itself... MusicMatch Jukebox analyzes what I listen to and tells me I should like Pantera, Megadeth, Iron Maiden and Bing Crosby.]
With a tip of the hat to the Sexuality Information and Education Council's ''Ten Tips for Talking about the Starr Report with your Children, '' the Nation's Katrina Vanden Heuvel offers a set of tips for talking to your children about the Bush administration's lies. Her tips include:
Think about your values as they relate to this situation. What are your family's values about telling the truth? What would you do if your child lied to you and when you scolded him or her, he or she replied: ''I am not a fact-checker.'' Or added, ''Isn't it time to move on?''The article is clearly written with tongue-in-cheek, yet at the same time, some of the advice is pretty good. Kids do need to understand that telling the truth is actually rather important - as well as being the right thing to do. Sadly, it seems that most Presidents - from either party - serve as negative role models - people you can point out to your kids as example of what not to do.Ask your children to tell you what words mean to them. Explain that words have consequences and lies can come in two, six or 16 words.
Clarify facts. Give short, age-appropriate answers. Explain that shifting strategies at damage control only lead to more unanswered questions. Make clear that even if facts are malleable for President Bush, they're not malleable in your home. Explain that even though the White House strategy may be to say whatever is necessary, even if they have to admit later that what they said the first time wasn't exactly true, you don't do it that way yourself.
There's a "Viral Interview" going around, and I seem to have caught it from Norbizness. The basic concept here is that the Interviewer (in this case, Norbizness) asks each Infected Interviewee from his site 5 questions, and the Infected Interviewee answers the questions at his or her own site. There are some basic rules for participating, which are as follows:
Today's Kansas City Star is running an Associate Press analysis of Colin Powell's February presentation to the UN. There's too much good stuff to do any effective quoting - you need to read the whole thing. Just as an overview, however, here is a list of the topics the article reviews - and shows how Powell's evidence was either known to be weak, tainted or incomplete at the time he gave the presentation, or has, since the time of the speech, been either unverifiable or shown to be wrong.
The Two Trailers
Back in May, there had been reports of two trailers found in Iraq that some believed might have been used by Iraq as mobile biological weapons labs. This claim was made in spite of there being no trace whatsoever of any biological contamination of the trailers and concerns raised by scientists that the trailers were unsuited for bio weapons manufacturer since they could not have regulated the temperature properly for the biological weapons agents to grow, nor would they have been able to contain contamination given that they were cloth-sided, rather than fully metal enclosed. In addition, there would need to be two or three other trailers available to perform necessary functions that the discovered trailers could not do, and so far, no additional trailers have been found. (I did a previous post on the Slate report, which can be found here if you're interested in more about it.)
President Bush, however, was undeterred, and, while on a visit to Poland, stated "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories." He also said ''They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, we found them."
Two days earlier, the administration has release a "white paper" by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) that purported to show that the trailers were for use as mobile bio weapons facilities. Originally, the report had been available on the web at http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/iraqi_mobile_plants/index.html, but when I just checked for it a few minutes ago, I got a 404 error. This may, of course, be a temporary problem with my connection or with the CIA's server, so it may be available again later.
At any rate, the white paper was the administrations justification for claiming that they had found "biological weapons" (a claim that was dubious even at that time, since they had not, in fact, found any weapons, but had, instead, only found something they claimed was evidence that Iraq could produce biological weapons). And they've clung to this white paper analysis ever since, even though on June 15th, the Observer (UK) published a story about a British scientist who had actually examined the trailers and reported that they were unsuited for the creation of biological agents:
Instead, a British scientist and biological weapons expert, who has examined the trailers in Iraq, told The Observer last week: 'They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were - facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons.'This view of the trailers got another boost this week with the revelation Friday that the majority of the DIA engineering experts believe the trailers were used for hydrogen production and not bio weapons manufacturing. Worse - when the white paper was released in May, the DIA engineers had not finished their inspection nor filed a report of their findings.
The Defense Intelligence Agency's engineering teams had not concluded their work in Iraq at the time the white paper was drafted, and so their views were not taken into account at that time, the government officials said. They said the engineering teams had discussed their findings in meetings in Washington in June and again last month.As always, though, there are those who disagree.[...]
Since the white paper was made public in May, new information suggesting that the trailers might have been used for making hydrogen has come from Iraqi officials interrogated by American military officers in Iraq, a military officer said today. Those Iraqi officials have repeated the claims of Iraqi scientists that the trailers were used to fill weather balloons, said the officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Another government official from a different agency said the issue of the trailers had prompted deep divisions within the Defense Intelligence Agency. The official said members of the engineering team had been angry that the agency issued the joint white paper with the C.I.A. before their own work was completed.
Officials at the C.I.A. and the Defense Department said today that the two intelligence agencies still stood by the May 28 finding, which President Bush has cited as evidence that Iraq had a biological weapons program. The engineering teams' findings, which officials from the Defense Department and other agencies would discuss only on the condition of anonymity, add a new layer to disputes within the intelligence community about the trailers found by allied forces in Iraq in April and May.The Aluminum TubesThe State Department's intelligence branch, which was not invited to take part in the initial review, disputed the findings in a memorandum on June 2. The fact that American and British intelligence analysts with direct access to the evidence were disputing the claims included in the C.I.A. white paper was first reported in June, along with the analysts' concern that the evaluation of the mobile units had been marred by a rush to judgment.
But it had not previously been known that a majority of the Defense Intelligence Agency's engineering team had come to disagree with the central finding of the white paper: that the trailers were used for making biological weapons.
Another piece of administration evidence that has long been disputed is Iraq's attempt to purchase aluminum tubes that administration officials have said could be used in gas centrifuges to enrich uranium and which scientists and weapons experts have long said aren't suited for that purpose at all. In an article published today by the Washington Post - which does a great job of showing how the administration made Iraq look like more of a nuclear threat than the evidence they had indicated - notes that while the tubes Iraq ordered were the wrong length, diameter, thickness and material for use in a centrifuge, they matched exactly the dimensions of an Italian made rocket that Iraq was trying to copy.
At issue was Iraq's efforts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes. The U.S. government said those tubes were for centrifuges to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb. But the IAEA, the world's nuclear watchdog, had uncovered strong evidence that Iraq was using them for conventional rockets.The post even provided a handy graphic to show the tubes usually used for centrifuges, the ones Iraq had ordered and the ones used for the Medusa.Joe described the rocket story as a transparent Iraqi lie. According to people familiar with his presentation, which circulated before and afterward among government and outside specialists, Joe said the specialized aluminum in the tubes was "overspecified," "inappropriate" and "excessively strong." No one, he told the inspectors, would waste the costly alloy on a rocket.
In fact, there was just such a rocket. According to knowledgeable U.S. and overseas sources, experts from U.S. national laboratories reported in December to the Energy Department and U.S. intelligence analysts that Iraq was manufacturing copies of the Italian-made Medusa 81. Not only the Medusa's alloy, but also its dimensions, to the fraction of a millimeter, matched the disputed aluminum tubes.
But British intelligence questioned whether the tubes were intended for a nuclear use. And experts at the Department of Energy, which oversees uranium enrichment and nuclear bomb production in the United States, said the tubes were too long and too thick for such use. State Department intelligence officials backed up that analysis and concluded the tubes were the right size and shape for conventional battlefield rockets.I don't find it at all surprising that the administration has seemed more focused lately on convincing everyone that it will find evidence that Saddam had weapons programs, rather than the actual weapons they assured us he had. True, it is possible that they may yet find something, but it will have to be substantial in order to convince me (and many others) that it actually legitimizes their claims, simply because it's taken so long, there have been so many false alarms, and so much of what they've told us has turned out to be tainted, weak, incomplete, misleading or outright false. They've really got their work cut out for them. Paper trails aren't going to do it. They may show that he was still interested in developing WMD or intended to at some point, but unless you fly a few hundred reams of paper over and drop them from a relatively high altitude on someone's head, papers themselves aren't terribly lethal nor are they an immediate, immanent threat that could show up as a "mushroom cloud" over one of our cities.
IMDb offers a daily poll that is usually good for a few laughts. Today's question is "What Arnold Schwarzenegger movie line do you see best summing up his political philosophy/message?", with several of his more famous catch phrases from his movies for you to choose between.
Well, I don't know which one best sums up his political philosophy or message (I'm still not even quite sure what they are), but THIS one, from True Lies (a movie title that sumes up just about everyone's political philosophy, near as I can tell) is the one that I think is opponants should insist he make his official slogan:
"If I break it, they can take it out of my pay."Hey, he makes enough, and it might be the only way to fix the California economy, eh?
Yet another bizarre and somewhat scary concept from our friends at DARPA - developing implants that can read thoughts and allow at least some functions of the brain to be remotely controlled.
The $24 million enterprise called Brain Machine Interfaces is developing technology that promises to directly read thoughts from a living brain -- and even instill thoughts as well.And no, I didn't get that from the "National Enquirer" - while the source I first read it in is the Charleston, SC based "The Post and Courier", the byline is sourced to The Boston Globe.The research, some of which is being done at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is already surprisingly advanced. Monkeys in a laboratory can control the movement of a robotic arm using only their thoughts. And last year scientists in New York announced they could control the skittering motions of a rat by implanting electrodes in its brain, steering it around the lab floor as if it were a radio-controlled toy car.
[The Globe's copy is already in their archives and can only be accessed for a fee. I did go ahead and purchase a copy, though, to make sure the Post and Courier version was presenting the story in the same context as the Globe originally published it. Some of the quotes below are from the Boston Globe's original version of the article, which was considerably shortened for publication in the Post and Courier.]
While the concept does sound more than a bit scary, it does offer some potential benefits:
More recently, DARPA officials have focused on a subject that captivates science fiction writers and leading neuroscientists alike: Can human knowledge-that is, the information contained in our neurons-be transferred into the kind of information used by computers? If machines could read human thoughts directly, for example, the military could then hook a pilot's brain directly into the controls of a jet, allowing him to maneuver far more nimbly than today.The article notes that as the technology advances, there will certainly be ethical consideration, and several of the possible scenarios that come out of the idea of being able to read or control minds are terrifying in their implications. Yet the idea that this kind of technology could help people who are paralyzed or who have other motor control diseases is tantalizing.At the same time, if computer-coded information could be downloaded into the brain, then commanders, indeed everyone on the battlefield, could keep a stream of the latest intelligence present in their mind. Of course, these are outlandishly ambitious ideas, especially when scientists don't even know how people remember what they are for breakfast. The most ambitious potential applications, which tend to be emphasized when a research program is under fire, lie for now in the realm of only slightly plausible fiction.
[...]
More probable than the military applications is the possibility that the research will yield ways for the severely injured, even those who are locked in a totally paralyzed body, to move around and communicate.
The recent demonstration that a monkey can control a cursor on a screen, or a robotic arm, using only its brain counts as dramatic progress. Before that, ''people really doubted whether anything like this could work,'' said Michael S. Gazzaniga, director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Dartmouth College.
In some ways, I think my interest in that particular possibility comes from my own struggles with Tourette's Syndrome, in which misfirings of the brain may play a significant role. I've been lucky in that I don't have a lot of the worst symptoms of Tourette's that many sufferers are afflicted with such as tics that involve wild arm swings, grotesque facial movements or other severe physical actions. The tics I have generally look and sound like someone who's just been badly startled - I usually make a gasping sound and "jump". If I'm sitting in a chair with wheels, I've been known to propel myself back a few feet, but that's pretty much the worst of it.
I do have to make a few though, in order to "fit in" with the rest of the world. For example, because my tics end up looking and sounding like I've been startled, when I was still able to go out, it was usually a good idea to let me drive, so my acting startled didn't scare the driver and make him or her think they were about to have a wreck. And I once when I was working two jobs and my new boss found out I had Tourette's, I actually had to have my regular boss (who knew about the 2nd job) call the new one to convince her that I actually am capable of working customer service on a phone without swearing at or otherwise making funny noises at the customers. [It is possible for some people with Tourette's to temporarily suppress their tics for a while, though if they do, when they "loosen up" again later, it's like all the "saved" tics come out all at once - not the least bit fun, but sometimes necessary to hold a job.] As for the involuntary swearing that so many first think of when they hear "Tourette's", I never have had that - but I can well imagine how awkward it would be if I did - the gasps are embarrassing enough. Still, it was always possible for me to function as a part of society - something that, unfortunately, many Tourette's sufferers can't say.
The worst part for me has been with the behavioural problems - in particular obsessive-compulsive disorders. Trying to fight those impulses - and failing more often than not - has been the hardest part of my life, and has even pushed me to the point of trying to commit suicide out of frustration.
As you might be able to imagine, the idea of an implant that would give me better control over my thoughts and actions would be like mana from heaven. Knowing how relieved I'd be - and knowing how mild my own problems are compared to some of what other Tourette's sufferers have to deal with, let alone what people dealing with paralysis and other, severe neuro-muscular and neuro-motor disability have to go through - this kind of technology could be an incredible boon.
The problem I have is with the government funding it - especially though a Pentagon agency. The article notes that the research into the Brain Machine Interface is unclassified and will eventually be published in scientific journals. Somehow, I would feel much more comfortable with scientists in charge of the program than the Pentagon. Yes, I know, not all scientists are ethical - there are bad people in all fields - and I know there are good people in the Pentagon. But the Pentagon just seems more likely to abuse any kind of technology would give you the ability to control, well, anything.
Still, I hope this one may get a chance at survival - even if it gets cut down as another DARPA scandal, hopefully the unclassified nature of it will allow academic scientists to continue the research. It will just take a great deal of watching over to make sure it is used only for benevolent purposes. Easier said than done, but I hope humanity has grown up enough that it's at least possible.
During the 80's I tried to pay attention to politics, but I have to admit, I got a bit lost trying to understand the whole Iran-Contra affair. Today's Guardian offers a good overview of what Iran-Contra was about and who the main players were. What's frightening is how many of these names have shown up in Bush's cabinet and administration.
I do have to disagree with one comment the author makes. He says that "[i]t would be wrong to argue that convicted felons should not get a second chance." While I agree that felons should be able to continue on in most ways with their lives once they've paid their debt to society, I don't think that they should be allowed into government service. These are people who've already shown that they have little regard for the public by committing the crime they were convicted of. Why, then, should they be allowed into position of trust where they are supposed to serve the public?
I think this is a particlarly valid question when the felony in question was commited while a person was in government service, and especially if they used their government position in the commission of their crime. I would even consider extending such a prohibition to people who admit to have committing crimes for which they would receive a felony conviction, but are immune from prosecution due to immunity deals, though it is possible that such a rule might make some criminals less likely to testify against their co-conspirators. Those situation might have to be decided on a case-by-case business.
The main point, though, is that once a person has shown that they are willing to commit crimes against the public, violating oaths to uphold the Constitution and breaking laws that help define who and what America is as a nation, there's no reason to trust them to do otherwise in the future. It's axiomatic that power corrupts. Power, itself, provides any temptations. Someone who has fallen for it's siren's call once is likely to do so again. They shouldn't get a second bite at that apple.
Stolen from Atrios:
In addition, as Norbizness notes in the comments section:
There are a bunch of other, similar spots that could be done, focusing on how Bush pretends that the war in Iraq was to prevent Saddam from being a threat to the US, when in reality there's no solid evidence he was; same with the issues on Saddam's links to al Qaeda and the other issues involved there. Using the "Bush pretends...." but "the reality is...." formulation, it wouldn't be hard to start getting the message across that Bush isn't at all what he seems.
Jeremy Heimans and Tim Dixon offer what I think is a great suggestion for how the Democrats can deal with Bush in the upcoming election. Right now, the Dems have two big problems facing them: an ill-defined idea of what a Democrat is or should be, and the perception of Bush as a straight-shooting, tough-talking, "hero-warrior" here to save us from the "evildoers".
The first issue is undoubtedly the biggest of the two - the Democrats cannot and will not survive if they are unable to find an identity and a message beyond just being "the other white meat". Dems are supposed to be the party of the left, but the DLC complains that Howard Dean is "too liberal" - even though he's really a centrist! As a result, the Dems come off looking confused and unsure of who or what they're supposed to be, which makes it hard to build a campaign, much less a mandate.
Of course, it doesn't really help matters much that Democrats actually like to try and play closer to "fair" than the Republicans seem to, which means that when it's time for the race to the electoral finish line, the Repubs can get down in the dirt and just dig their way through, flinging mud everywhere, while the Dems seem to be more likely to lay down a coat so everyone can carefully walk across without getting their feet wet. I think you can see the problem (at least I hope you can, though the tortured metaphor there....)
Anyway, it's not that there's anything wrong with playing "fair", nor do the Dems need to start playing "dirty" - that would actually do a lot of damage to the party as a whole, but they do need to remember that "nice guys finish last" and that - while some may not consider it nice - there's nothing at all dirty in pointing out your opponents faults in the sharpest of terms.
Luckily, with Bush, finding faults to point out isn't that hard to do. From his lies about his own armed service record; to questions about why Gray Davis is facing recall in California for a busted economy, but Ken Lay - who led Enron when it's deliberate and fraudulent manipulation of the California energy markets did a large part of the damage - has yet to face any consequences for what he did; to Bush's proclivity for keeping things secret - including many documents from Reagan's presidency (when his father was Vice President) that, under normal rules would have been made available by now, the names of the people on Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force (which, not coincidentally, consulted with the President and Vice President on the California situation shortly before the administration announced that they weren't going to do anything about it), delaying the Congressional 9/11 report as long as possible, refusing to release the 28 pages of information on the Saudis from that report (even though the Saudis themselves have asked him to do so), refusing to let anyone see the daily briefing from August 6, 2001 which might have contained information that could have clued them in to al Qaeda's plans, and more; to questions about the use - or misuse - of intelligence prior to the Iraq war, including the infamous "16 words", the aluminum tubes, the specific quantities of biological and chemical toxins, the claims of knowing "beyond a doubt" that Saddam had weapons - which has magically now morphed into attempts to prove that he, at any time had a weapons program, and claims of links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein; to the misrepresentation of his tax programs and what effect they'll have on the economy (not to mention is misrepresentation of when the recession actually started); and so on. The list is quite long. As Heimans and Dixon put itBush is a phoney.
The Democrats' greatest danger is to run an issues-based campaign that becomes a ritualized liberal/conservative slanging match. Progressives who are flabbergasted at the audacity of Bush's agenda seem to think that simply communicating Bush's policy failures is enough. But this approach will play straight into Karl Rove's chubby hands and trap Democrats in the defensive, dithering posture that has defined them since the Bush presidency began.Showing that Bush is a phony, rather than detailing how he's incompetent, focuses on a simpler message, and one that's harder to deflect.So no matter how bad Bush's actual record may be, Democrats simply can't count on fighting the upcoming election on substantive policy grounds alone.
The question is what communications strategy will wear down the personal appeal of Bush as effectively as the "weak and indecisive" tag slapped on Jimmy Carter, and the "out of touch" tag on Bush's father. What characterization can the Democrats use to undermine Bush's image and his greatest perceived strengths? The one label that will stick and could work to undermine the positive personal perceptions of the president comes from Gephardt's line last week: George Bush is a phony. It works, because it has a ring of truth about it -- on everything from Iraq, to the economy, to tax cuts, to Bush's character and personal history.
The Bush-is-a-phony message can work because it starts where the average voter already is -- with a positive view of Bush. It recognizes that Bush may very well look tough, decisive, patriotic, responsible and compassionate. But it asks those voters to look beyond the image.
Sound nasty? It is. But expect the same from Republicans, whomever the Democrats nominate. And this time around, the Democrats clearly cannot run on the perception that Bush is not sufficiently experienced, bright or interested in the job. Those issues have been effectively neutralized as Americans have become used to seeing Bush as their commander in chief at a time of deep insecurity and fear.
Bush's image as a regular guy has helped to obscure the fact that he is an insider with close connections to big business and a natural interest in protecting them. To turn this around, Democrats can use the "phony" message as a nexus to explain the contradiction. How can the everyman who stumbles on his words and has a traveling pillow be the same fellow whose tax cuts leave nothing to poor families with kids? How can a champion of personal responsibility and born-again asceticism engineer such unsustainable budget deficits? How can a leader who claims to be the first White House CEO engage in the kind of shoddy handouts to corporate backers in Iraq that shareholders would never tolerate in a business leader? How can a president so determined to wage the war on terrorism be the same president who starves state and local authorities of critical funds for homeland security? How can the commander in chief so concerned about terrorists getting hold of nuclear weapons be the same leader who leaves Iraqi nuclear sites unattended for weeks?I think the idea of simplifying the message and focusing on how the carefully crafted image is just that - an image - with no substance underneath - could be a powerful one that might actually get through. I certainly can't hurt to try it - the Dems need all the help they can get.These contradictions make much more sense when seen through the prism of Bush's utter phoniness. It's stunning that when Bush was making his controversial "Top Gun" flight suit appearance, no major Democrat noted the president's shoddy record in the Texas Air National Guard, where he served his country in the "Champagne" unit with Texas boys of privilege, while his poor neighbors went to Vietnam -- and still had several months of service unaccounted for. Instead Democrats complained about Bush's using public resources for the stunt, which most Americans, proud of the supposed quick victory in Iraq, couldn't care less about.
I found this over at Atrios this morning and am more than just a bit impressed. It's called Persophone Plus, and is a shop exclusively for plus-size Goth women. Not only does the propriatress offer some exquisit designs, but if you need something larger than one of her standard sizes she will do that for only an extra $20 (which is quite reasonable).
I know where I'm telling hubby to shop for my birthday and Christmas this year!
I had mentioned a few days ago about a soap I watch ("One Life to Live") doing a story on a peace activist (Marcie) getting harassed because of her anti-war stance. Since then, they've brought Marcie's brother, Ron, on the show, to try and pressure her on behalf of the family to give it up.
Ron starts by telling her how their business at their father's restaraunt has fallen off in response to Marcie's protests and business at his own shop has as well. Then he lays into her about opposing the military action when their brother is a soldier. Marcie responds that just because she diagrees - strongly - with what the government is doing with our troops doesn't mean that she doesn't support the troops themselves.
I'm on a mailing list with other fans of the show, and one of the, Brad Beam, shared one way he's found of making that same point - and I think it's good enough that I wanted to share it with the rest of you.
We all have our favorite sports teams, whether it's high school or professional. The team may be part of our community or part of our personal history, and we care intimately about the team's members.Given that it seems like many conservatives are also sports fans (why else would someone want to have Rush Limbaugh help give commentary on football games), its the kind of metaphor that might actually penetrate their skulls a bit - though whether they'd admit it or not is a whole different question.But during the course of the season, or even during a game, the coaching staff makes what we deem to be boneheaded plays. We want our team to be respected and to succeed, and we think these plays run counter to the team philosophy.
In some cases, the coaches may not have any personal experience in playing the game, or we didn't agree with the coaches' hiring. But, we care about the success of our team.
In any event, I think it's something that a lot of people may be able to relate to, and I'm glad Brad is willing to let me share it with you.
Maybe this is more common than I realize, but my husband just cracked me up. It seems that there's a site called Screen It! Entertainment Reviews for Parents that actually fills a very useful purpose: It tells parents what kind of potentially objectionable material a movie might have. In addition to providing extremely detailed lists of exactly what kind of objectionable material they find, they also provide a review, called "Our Take", that looks at the artistic merit of the movie without taking the morality of the material into account (which is actually nice to see).
Just as an example of the kind of detail they have on their detailed lists, for the new movie "American Wedding", they make note of 37 separate sexually oriented scenes or scenes featuring nudity, 14 of alcohol and drug use, 3 of blood and gore (though how "wine on the tables at a wedding reception" counts as blood or gore, I'm not exactly sure), 2 featuring disrespectful or bad attitudes, and 10 instances of behaviour that may be imitated by kids or which shows a character imitating someone else (which can give kids the idea of imitate it themselves), plus they have information on jump scenes, scary/tense music, inappropriate music, profanity, smoking, guns, violence, frightening scenes and tense family scenes.
They also offer a list of suggested topics the movie might raise for a family to talk about.
Here's the funny part, though. My husband is a HUGE "gorehound" - he loves horror movies, and is always thrilled when the special effects crew finds a new and dastardly way to dispatch a hapless teenager. Sadly, many of the horror movies put out these days are total crap. Ok, so they've always been total crap, but the more recent crap seems to be getting piled higher and deeper than usual. And with movie ticket prices being what they are, its getting to be important to do your research before committing to a major purchase.
This is where "Screen It!" comes in. Hubby and his fellow gorehounds have found it's a great resource for finding out if the death scenes in upcoming horror films are worth the price of admission. Not exactly what the folks at "Screen It!" intended, but, hey, at least it drives up their traffic, no?
I have to say, though, that I think "Screen It!" is really an excellent service. I'm sure their idea of what's "objectionable" is quite a bit different than what mine would be, but because they provide such detail, they allow parents to make an informed decision based on their own standards. If "bad" words or booze and alcohol don't both you, you can ignore that list. Unlike some of the other "screening"-type services I've seen - which just sort of give you notations like "a lot of bad language", "sex and nudity" and so on, with no idea of what kind of sex, nudity, violence etc., there is or what context its presented in - "Screen It" gives you enough information to understand how that material is being used.
Still, I'm not sure the good folks at "Screen It!" would be too happy with hearing that their lists help people who want objectionable material find exactly what they're looking for - but it is rather funny. :)
I think I've mentioned before about how terminally adorable my hubby is when he's sleeping all snuggled up with our dog, Tasha (well, HIS dog Tasha - she's made it very clear that she's a "daddy's girl"). Well, now you can finally see what I've been talking about. Take a look at this and tell me it's not just too damn cute!
Anyway, hubby may kill me for that, but I had to share it... :)
Uggabugga has a selection of quotes from Sen. Rick Santorum's interview on FOX News Sunday this week. The man is seriously warped. Below is just one example. Uggabugga also has sections showcasing his views on Civil Unions, the difference between Civil Unions and Marriage, the Separation of Church and State, the Vatican's recent instructions to Catholic politicians, and the viability of someone with "deeply held beliefs" serving on the bench. It's a bit nauseating, but well worth reading.
HUME: Now, you just heard Elizabeth Birch set forth a lot reasons why she thinks the current legal situation, as it deals with gays, is unfair; that, you know, hospital visitation rights and these other things are denied. Do you think that's fair?I've said it before, but I'm going to keep saying it. My marriage is no less valid, real or significant than anyone else's simply because my husband and I have chosen not to have children. To be told that marriage should not be used as an affirmation of love, but rather solely for procreation is beyond pathetic. That may be his view, based on his religious beliefs, but that doesn't give him any right to think that they should be accepted as law in a secular nation.SANTORUM: Well, that's a separate issue. I mean, the issue here is marriage. And to me, the building block -- and I think, to most people in America, number one, it's common sense that a marriage is between a man and a woman. I mean, every civilization in the history of man has recognized a unique bond.
Why? Because -- principally because of children. I mean, it's -- it is the reason for marriage. It's not to affirm the love of two people. I mean, that's not what marriage is about. I mean, if that were the case, then lots of different people and lots of different combinations could be, quote, "married."
Marriage is not about affirming somebody's love for somebody else. It's about uniting together to be open to children, to further civilization in our society.
And that's unique. And that's why civilizations forever have recognized that unique role that needs to be licensed, needs held up as different than anything else because of its unique nurturing effect on children.
And there isn't a statistic out there that doesn't show that married couples, in a healthy marriage, is the best environment in which to raise stable children and is the best thing, long term, for our society.
So it's not about not recognizing somebody's love for somebody else. That's not what it's about. It's not being discriminatory against anybody. It's talking about the good that marriage is for our culture.
When I read stuff like this, it makes me angry because I don't appreciate some fanatical busybody denegrating my marriage just because we're childless. But I always know that we are childless by choice. We don't want kids, and we don't have to have them. Thank the Gods for that.
At the same time, though, when I hear that kind of refuse spilling out of the mouth of one of our supposed leaders, I also become infuriated because I can only begin to imagine how those words must feel to couples who want children but can't have them - in many cases even with the help of medical intervention. Everytime some bastard opens his mouth and starts spouting off about how marriage is about the children, yadda, yadda, yadda, it must feel like bullets piercing the hearts of these couple who so desparately want a child of their own, but for whatever reason - be it fate, biology or some even kind of divine retribution - can't.
It seems to me that if Santorum's God wanted marriage to exist, not as a symbol of love, but only as a baby factory, He'd make sure every married couple could have children. Theoretically, it should be well within his power. But in case Mr. Santorum hasn't noticed, that isn't the case. If God doesn't see fit to bless (or curse, depending on your point of view) every married couple with children - or prevent every unmarried couple from producing children - then doesn't it stand to reason that maybe there's more to marriage than just the kids?
In the message posted just before this one, I talked about how one of the primary rationales for the Iraq war appears to be little more than the Vietnam era "domino effect", but with democracy as the force toppling governments instead of communism.
The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune has an excellent editorial explaining the neo-con reasoning for the war in Iraq and how they think the domino effect will work in our favour this time around.
Saddam Hussein is a brutal tyrant who routinely thumbs his nose at the United States. His interest in weapons of mass destruction -- if not his possession of them -- is well-established, meaning he may become a threat to the United States and its friends at some point. Moreover, he is in violation of numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions. The United States can make a case for ousting him by military force -- a case that can't be made for any other Middle East leader. So Saddam's the guy.It also talks about what's been called the "flypaper" theory, which is basically that by putting our soldiers in Iraq, we can get all the terrorists to focus on attacking them there, and they'll leave us at home in the US alone. I'm sure the families of our troops will be feeling quite comforted by that idea. (Of course, the "flypaper" concept doesn't take consider whether having troops there might make terrorist organizations angrier and thus more likely to attack than if we weren't there, but I suppose the neocons don't really consider that to be relevant.)Removing Saddam will do a number of positive things. In his place the United States and friends can build a peaceful, prosperous, democratic, secular state in Iraq. That in turn will be a powerful catalyst for promoting change and reform throughout the Islamic world. Oppressive, corrupt regimes will become vulnerable because people across the region will want what the Iraqi people now have. And Islamic reform is key to removing the conditions that breed terrorism.
At any rate, be sure to read this editorial. It's a real gem and does a fantastic job of showing just how the whole war has been a giant "bait-and-switch" pulled on the American people that we now have to live with.
Something else struck me while reading the article on the Pentagon Papers and thinking about the PBS Watergate special. The article has a brief description of the "domino effect" that was predicted if we were not able to keep South Vietnam communist free.
Repeating language from a McNamara memorandum of March 16 to the President (language in part drawn in turn from a memorandum to McNamara on Jan. 22 from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor) the National Security Council document reflects the prevailing belief in what President Eisenhower had called the "domino effect" of the loss of South Vietnam.Watching the Watergate special, Alexander Butterfield, the Deputy Assistant to the President and an aide to H.R. Halderman, made a comment about how Nixon couldn't understand the "young people" and their opposition to the war: "Don't they know we're doing everything we can, that this is a proper mission? There is such a thing as the 'domino theory', everyone believed in that. Now we pooh-pooh it, but if one small nation falls, it's all easier for another to fall to Comunism. So we're over there to help these people to bolster themselves and fend off the North Vietnamese. He thought it was a noble thing to be doing. I mean, truly thought so."Unless the objective is achieved in South Vietnam, it says, "almost all of Southeast Asia will probably fall under Communist dominance" or accommodate to Communism. The Philippines, it was judged, "would become shaky" and "the threat to India on the west, Australia and New Zealand to the South, and Taiwan, Korea, and Japan to the north would be greatly increased.
It makes it sound as though the general concept of a "domino effect" has been discredited - that we no longer think that it holds true, which matches what I remember from my political science classes in high school. Yet when we listen to the most recent excuses given for the Iraqi war, its the same concept, but working for democracy, this time, instead of for communism.
Before and after the invasion of Iraq, proponents of the war evoked the vision of a virtuous ‘‘domino effect’’ toppling authoritarian regimes in the region and replacing them with modernizing, Western-oriented ‘‘democratic’’ ones.This isn't something new, its been in the PNAC plans for years, and even Bush, himself, has been talking about it for a while.
The notion of a free Iraq as a catalyst for change in the region is not new. In a Feb. 26 speech at the American Enterprise Institute, Bush said: "A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions."But if the theory itself has been discredited, what makes them think that it's going to work any better this time? I would think that it would be obvious that even if a "domino effect" were feasible, the idea that our particular version of democracy (as opposed to whatever kind of democracy people in the Middle East may want) is going to be what spreads is highly unlikely, at best.
One of the reasons people were worried about the spread of communism was that the communists weren't afraid to invade any country they wanted to control, and then set up a repressive and functionally dictatorial government to run the nation. People might be allowed to "vote", but there would only be candidates for one part on the ballot, and the winners were pre-determined. With that level of control, it was easy for communism to rapidly spread.
Democracy, however, doesn't have that kind of control, which, while creating a great deal of freedom for the citizens of a democracy, also makes it harder for democracy to spread from one place to another. Communists can actually be democratically elected in a democratic country (and, at least theoretically, once they're in power, they can start closing down the system again to prevent the people from voting them back out), but people who are already living in a communist or otherwise repressive society don't have the ability to "vote" a democracy in. Their leader's just don't allow it. The only way for a democracy to get started is for the people within the country to overthrow the government or for an outside force to do it for them.
Am I missing something here? Is the domino theory not as discredited as I've thought? Please, help me out here, because I'm just plain lost.
After watching the PBS special on Watergate the other night, I've been doing a bit more research into Watergate and the events leading up to it. The Washington Post (natch) has a very nice section that include copies of articles written during that time, so you can see how the stories were intially reported. Typically, we either read or hear about how the stories came about described to us by someone who now has the benfit of hindsight to place the story itself into the overall context. Being able to read the stories as they were written, before the larger context was even known, however, is a real treat.
In addition to the Watergate information, they also have a few stories that sort of help "set the scene" for the scandal. One of them is an article on the Pentagon Papers and the revelation that months before the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the US had already been planning for a war against North Vietnam. President Johnson, however, was able to take the Tonkin incident and use it as a leverage to gain public and Congressional support for the Vietnam War - and once he got authorization from Congress for attacking North Vietnam, he used that resolution to help him be able to take the war even further than initially intended.
It's stunning to sit here, having seen the aftermath of the Vietnam war, and watch as it begins to look like history repeating itself. The 9/11 attacks were used to help gain popular and Congressional support for the war in Iraq (along with the WMD, of course), even though we now know that this war was taked about and planned from long before the attacks ever took place. Bush now has his authorization from Congress, and we keep hearing talk (and thanfully, that's all it's been thus far) of targeting Syria or Iran or who knows who else, which would seem to be an expansion of what Congress said he could do.
Granted, the two situations do have some differences. While the losses in Iraq are unacceptable, they are not nearly as high as they were in Vietnam - something we can all be grateful for. There is also possible reason to hope that the war in Iraq won't last as long as the Vietnam war. And, thankfully, this time, our soldiers have the support of most Americans - both those who are in favour of the war and those who are against it. And, obviously, once you start getting into the finer details, there will be even more differences.
The point, though, is that in both cases, you have a President who's got a serious jones for war with a particular country, and has even made plans about going to war, if he can find a way to get the people and Congress to agree. Both Presidents make questionable claims about an incident deemed sufficiently aggressive as to justify war - but in neither case is the justification what it really appears to be. The Gulf of Tonkin incident may not have happened the way it was described, and worse, it may have been provoked by us in order to create a situation where President Johnson could get the authorization he wanted. With 9/11, there's no question that the attacks took place, or that they were severe enough to warrant a military retaliation. The problem here is that the country we retaliated against - Iraq - wasn't involved in the attacks (at least not that anyone's been able to demonstrate in any meaningful way at all).
Read the following excerpt, and see if there isn't something strangly familiar about it:
The Johnson administration planned for major American military action against North Vietnam nearly five months before the 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident, according to secret government documents made public yesterday by the New York Times.These plans were made, the documents, show, at a time when the United States already was directing clandestine sabotage operations in the North.
Two months before the attack on two American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin on Aug. 2 and 4, 1964, the administration sent a Canadian diplomat, J. Blair Seaborn, on a secret mission to Hanoi where he is quoted as telling Premier Pham Van Dong that "in the event of escalation (of the war) the greatest devastation would result for the D.R.V. (North Vietnam) itself."
It was the Tonkin incident - called totally unprovoked by the administration - which led Congress on Aug. 7, 1964 to pass a resolution declaring that the United States was "prepares, as the President directs, to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force," to assist South Vietnam. It was on this resolution that President Johnson subsequently leaned heavily to widen the war.
We get TV shows, movies, pop songs and romance novels that all have been known to make adultery "romantic". I remember once when I was younger sitting in a mall while Whitney Houston's "Saving All My Love For You" was playing on the speakers. A couple girls - no more than 12 or so - were sitting on the bench right behind mine and started talking about how they couldn't wait until they were old enough to be someone's lover and how exciting it would be to know that the guy was sneaking away from his wife just to be with them. I almost gagged.
If we truly are concerned about keeping marriage "sacred", then we need to make a few more changes than just codifying marriage as the union between one man and one woman. We should start by outlawing civil marriage all together. What's the point of having a marriage if God isn't involved in it, right? I mean, for it to be sacred, it has to be blessed by God, and the Justice of the Peace is no minister, so it has to be a church wedding or nothing.
Then we need to make pre-marital counseling mandatory for all couples. We want to make sure every sacred marriage has the best chance possible to succeed, and that it provides the best home for the kids to be raised in, so make the bride and groom study about how to do just that before letting them get married. We should throw in a test, too, so we can be sure they get it before they get hitched.
Of course, every married couple should be required to have children - and, no, infertility can't be an excuse. We can get around that now, you know. Protecting the sanctity of marriage is so important because marriage is the "foundation" of the family unit - which, obviously, has to include children, or it'd just be called a "couple" - and the family is the "foundation" of our society. So if a couple hasn't produced a child within, lets say, 5 years of getting married (that seems like a reasonable amount of time), then we have to declare that marriage null and void and have them find new partners that they *can* have children with.
With the above exception, we'll also have to outlaw divorce. Can't have something as sacred as a God-blessed marriage getting thrown aside just because you chose badly or decided you can't stand the creep, now, can we? That just wouldn't be right. You get one chance and that's it. Once you're married, you're stuck for life.
As for women who are abused by their husbands, well, we'd probably have to make an exception in the "no divorce" policy for that, but only if there's sufficient evidence that abuse actually occurred and then neither the man or woman gets a second chance at marrying. I mean, if the woman has such bad judgment as to pick someone who would brutalize her the first time around, what's to say her second choice would be any better? As for the man, well, he beat her up - that's not taking the sanctity of marriage very seriously. No need to give him a chance.
Lastly, adultery will have to be criminalized. Cheating on your spouse is, of course, a violation of the sanctity of marriage, and we just can't have that. If you're caught having an illicit affair with someone, you have to be punished because, obviously, you just don't get the concept here. And, of course, it should go without saying that adulterers shouldn't be put into positions of power. We certainly don't want to trust people who can't keep their sacred oath to be faithful to a single spouse to keep their promises to the general public. That would just be foolish.
No, if keeping marriage sacred is as important as the opponents of gay marriage say, then we should be willing to promote "sacred" marriages at any cost. We can't let those filthy gays, blasphemous unbelievers and deviants who don't want children, foul adulterers, and other miscreants mess up what's holy and ordained by God. That would be un-American!
We'd also be likely to see more couple choosing to live together rather than getting married, which would probably increase out-of-wedlock births, and we know conservatives consider that to be a bad thing. To keep in line with the whole "marriage is the foundation of families which are the foundation of our society" thinking, kids born out of wedlock would probably have to be taken away from their parents and adopted out to couples with "real" marriages, which *might* let those couples off the hook on the "breed in five years or go your separate ways" idea.
The thing is, unless conservatives are really willing to go to some extremes (and I admit that some of the above are pretty ridiculous - that's the point) to protect the sanctity of heterosexual marriage, then using the "sanctity of marriage" argument to oppose gay marriage is hypocritical - and, as far as I'm concerned, it's a violation of the First Amendment prohibition on creating a state religion.
If you get rid of all the religious-based arguments against homosexuality or homosexual marriage (which would include ALL variations of the "marriage is sacred" argument), what you end up with is that there really aren't any. Some will argue that it's "unnatural", but that's contradicted by scientific studies that show that homosexuality isn't unique to humans - there are gay members in most (if not all) species. It sound quite "natural" to me.
While I do very much feel that Americans in general should take marriage much more seriously than they often do, I don't see that as any reason to restrict who is allowed to get married and who isn't. If gays want to get married, let them! There's no compelling state interest that I can see in preventing it, and since this nations civil laws aren't based on the tenets of any one faith, I can't see how the Bible's view on homosexuality as any part of being involved in the argument. No church should be forced to marry gays if it goes against their beliefs. I think pretty much everyone agrees on that. But no gays should be forced to remain unmarried just because their relationship goes against some churches' beliefs, either.
Marriage is as sacred as the people involved in it make it. If someone else's marriage isn't "sacred" enough for you, tough. Just make sure your own is.
Take Back the Media has a fantastic Flash presentation called "Army of One" that takes a look at how Bush and the Republican Congress are "supporting" our troops.
For a different take on supporting our troops, check out the "When I'm Gone" video from 3 Doors Down. The song itself wasn't intended as a song about the men and women of our armed forces, but a large part of them seem to very touchingly fit their situation. From the chorus:
(If you've seen the version of the "When I'm Gone" video that shows the band members being "buried" while playing in a graveyard, that's not the video this link goes to. They've got a second version of the video out now.)So hold me when I'm here
Love me when I'm wrong
Hold me when I'm scared
And love me when I'm gone
Everything I am
And everything you need
I'll also be the one
You wanted me to be
I'll never let you down
Even if I could
I'd give up everything
If only for your good
So hold me when I'm here
Love me when I'm wrong
You can hold me when I'm scared
You won't always be there
So love me when I'm gone
This, from Hesiod, is just too cute.
THE BLAME GAME: President Bush admits that he had an "inappropriate relationship" with the truth in his State of the Union speech.Indeed.
Ok, so I'm not entirely sure how many different reasons we've been given now (none of which have stuck long enough to actually be considered "the Truth"), but we're shifting the focus once again. Now, Bush and his aides are stressing that the war in Iraq is just the start of our effort to shape the Middle East into an image we like better than what they've chosen for themselves.
In an interview yesterday, a senior administration official expanded on that theme, saying the United States has embarked on a "generational commitment" to Iraq similar to its efforts to transform Germany in the decades after World War II.Let's look at this one line again: "That goal is to see the spread of our values and to understand that our values and our security are inextricably linked, much as they were in Europe, but they are also linked in the Middle East."The Bush aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, outlined a long-term strategy in which the United States would spread its values through Iraq and the Middle East much as it transformed Europe in the second half of the 20th century. As outlined, the U.S. commitment to Iraq and the Middle East would be far more expansive than the administration had described to the public and the world before the Iraq war.
"The great goal for the United States after 9/11 is worthy of a country of the importance and the power of the United States," the adviser said. "That goal is to see the spread of our values and to understand that our values and our security are inextricably linked, much as they were in Europe, but they are also linked in the Middle East."
The vision described by the official represents a change in the administration's emphasis in describing the U.S. purpose in Iraq. Before the war, Bush at times stressed the limits of the mission, promising to "remain in Iraq as long as necessary and not a day more." At that time, Bush justified the conflict largely by asserting the need to strip Hussein of chemical and biological weapons and disrupt his nuclear ambitions.
The notion of a free Iraq as a catalyst for change in the region is not new. In a Feb. 26 speech at the American Enterprise Institute, Bush said: "A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions."
More recently, in a speech in London a month ago, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice compared the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon to Pearl Harbor. Rice urged Europeans to expand on the defeat of Hussein's government by turning "to the Middle East with the same vision, determination and patience that we exhibited in building a united transatlantic community after 1945."
While that notion was low on the original list of reasons for war, it has largely replaced the "weapons of mass destruction" as justification.
Back when Bush was first promoting his idea of a War or Terrorism&Trade; he made a comment about this being a "crusade" - something that made many in the Middle East angry and uneasy, because it brought up the spectre of the Crusades, where Christians came in and tried to wipe out the religion of Islam and the culture that goes along with it.
When we start talking about how we need to spread "our values" to the Middle East - especially when the President has made it clear that the values he considers to be the most legitimate are so-called "Christian values" (though many of them actually belong to several faiths and other schools of thought) - can we really expect the Muslims who live there to think we mean anything other than another Crusade?
Even if those promoting this idea of spreading "our values" to the Middle East don't put it in terms of spreading Christianity, and even if they talk about respecting Islam and the Islamic culture, they seem to have this notion that, just as the US (supposedly) has a distinction between a secular government and the spirituality of our citizens, the same kind of separation can be made in the Middle East. They don't seem to understand that for Muslims, their religion affects every aspect of their lives, including how the country is ruled.
As big of a probem as that is, though - and its a huge one, there's another one that needs to be addressed as well: Bush can't find WMD (and now he's not even looking for actual weapons any more, just evidence that there once was a WMD program), so they're trying to shift the focus once again - trying to find a way to justify the war in time for the election.
Bush and his administration need to be held to the reasons they gave us before the war - the very specific things he assured us made Saddam a threat that had to be eliminated immediately. They swore he had weapons - actual weapons, not just programs, but vats, barrels, tons, gallons, chemicals, germs, missiles, unmanned planes and reconstituted nuclear weapons (wait... did Dick ever make up his mind on that one?) We need to see them.
Republican Senator Norm Coleman, chairman of the Senate's permanent subcommittee on investigations has launched an investigation into the RIAA's crackdown on music piracy
In a letter to RIAA President Cary Sherman, Coleman criticized the group for issuing subpoenas to "unsuspecting grandparents whose grandchildren have used their personal computers" and others who may not know their computer is being used to download music.The RIAA says that they'll be happy to cooperate with the Senator and hope that this investigation will show that their actions are legal and legitimate.[...]
He asked the RIAA to furnish him with a list of its subpoenas; its safeguards against invading privacy and making erroneous subpoenas; its standards for issuing subpoenas; and a description of how it collects evidence of illegal file sharing.
"I recognize the very legitimate concerns about copyright infringement," Coleman said in a conference call with reporters. "This is theft. But I'm worried that the industry is using a shotgun approach."
I think it's good that someone is at least wanting to look into the RIAA's actions. I understand the concern about piracy, but I also think that the RIAA is making a bigger deal out of this than is warranted.
Not every person who downloads music from the net is attempting to get music without payingfor it. Many downloaders are trying to get music that is unable to be purchased - such as tracks from albums that are out of print or cannot be bought in the US. Others download a few tracks to see if they want to buy the entire album. I've heard from a number of people who've done that and ended up buying CD's that, had they not been able to check out the tracks beforehand, probably would have decided weren't worth the risk. I've even known people who've downloaded music off the net that were tracks on CDs they already owned, simply because it was easier and faster than ripping the CDs they have.
People like this don't usually turn around and offer the songs they have for download to anyone else, so they're neither stealing music nor are they facilitating someone else stealing it, either. The problem, of course, is how can they prove it? And what about people who rip a CD for their own use and don't offer it for download, but then sell the CD to someone else? Is that significantly different than people who used to make a cassette tape of an album before selling it to a 2nd-hand store? And how does someone who's done that prove they ever owned the CD in the first place? It may be that these are some of the reasons that they're more focused on people who offer many songs for download rather than the downloaders themselves.
At any rate, I think it'll be good for them to have someone looking over their shoulder a bit and checking on what they're doing, and how. The fact that it's a Republican is a bit surprising to me, but in a good way. Thank you, Senator Coleman.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a nifty little database with the IP numbers and usernames of people that the RIAA has filed a subpoena for in the DC District court. It's not perfect - they only have information on ones that have already been filed in the CD court, and they note that it's possible that a subpeona has been filed but they haven't gotten the information on it yet. Still, its nice to be able to check in, and it can help offer some peace of mind.
They also note that, from what they've seen, it looks like the RIAA is mainly going after people who have offered a large number of files for downloading or who run a "supernode" that can serve as a part of the backbone for P2P sharing networks.
Just wondering if anyone's heard anything from or about Richard Einhorn at Tristero. His blog hasn't been updated since a week ago Tuesday, and there's no note about him being on vacation or anything. I'm sure everything's fine, but, being something of a professional worrywart, I figured I'd at least ask.
Ok, so being willing to shelter and protect the protesting Democrat state Senators from Texas maybe shouldn't be the sole qualification used to determine who gets to be president, but I gotta tell you, right now I really like Bill Richardson a lot.
Not only has he welcomed the Democrats from Texas to his state, but he's providing him with security while they're there - led by the head of his own security detail. And that's not all.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson vowed that state police here would arrest and charge with attempted kidnapping anyone who tried to remove the Senate refugees.He has made it clear that security details are regularly given to visiting VIPs and that no overtime money is being spent to cover the cost involved.And he also indicated that authorities here might consider filing conspiracy to kidnap charges against those who might send the bounty hunters here, according to several of the legislators who spoke with Richardson, a Democrat.
Still, it's not any governor who would put himself in the middle of this kind of a feud, or that would stand up to Tom DeLay and his desire to get more Republican seats in Texas. For that, Richardson deserves some recognition.
One other thing I've read about him, but have unfortuantely lost the reference to (I'll update this post if/when I find it), is that he - perhaps jokingly, but these days, who knows - suggested that maybe New Mexico should consider it's own redistricting plan if the Texas one goes through, to help balance out the gains by Republicans in Texas and Colorado.
Of course, as sweet as the idea of revenge seat-taking sounds, it would be just as wrong for a Democrat-controlled state government to redistrict their state in mid-decade as it is for Republican regimes to do so, so I do hope he's meant the comment facitiously, but it's still a nice bit of fantasy wish-fulfillment to dream about.
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