NYT editorial on electronic voting machines

Adam Cohen has an excellent editorial in today's New York Times on the controversy over electronic voting machines. Cohen notes that while many of the allegations being made about possible voting fraud in recent elections cannot be proved, the crux of the problem is that the states involved can't prove that there wasn't any voting fraud, either.

A healthy democracy must avoid even the appearance of corruption. The Georgia and Nebraska elections fail this test. Once voting software is certified, it should not be changed - not eight times, not once. A backup voting method should be available, so if electronic machines fail or are compromised shortly before an election, they can be dropped.

Votes must be counted by people universally perceived as impartial. States should not buy machines from companies that have ties to political parties, and recent company executives should not be running for elections on those machines.

And every voter should see a paper receipt. This "voter-verified paper trail" should be retained, and made available for recounts - a low-tech check on the reliability of electronic voting. Most Americans would not do business with a bank that refused to provide written statements or A.T.M. receipts. We should be no less demanding at the polls. [Emphasis mine - K.]

Put simply, trust should not be an issue in any election. If fraud is alleged, then the state should prove that the vote was counted properly. When we allow our ability to verify that a vote was fairly cast and fairly counted, we start to hand our right to choose our own leaders over to others, who may not have the country's welfare at heart.

Every machine used to vote should produce a hard copy of that vote that can be verified by the voter as being accurate and which can be used if a recount is necessary. Each candidate should have the right to demand a paper recount if there are questions regarding the election, and the state should be able to prove that the votes were counted properly.

PFAW Petition to Congress

People for the American Way are collecting signatures on a petition to send to Congress urging them to reject a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The text reads as follows:

"We, the undersigned, strongly oppose the adoption of an amendment to the Constitution that would require discrimination against any specific group of Americans. The Federal Marriage Amendment is a betrayal of the American principles of equality and fairness. We oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment."

Outrage

"Today, I call upon the Congress to promptly pass and to send to the states for ratification an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of a man and woman as husband and wife."

— President George W. Bush February 24, 2004

It's not often that a politician pisses me off so much that it actually makes my Tourette's ticks act up, but I'm twitching like crazy over here. I honestly do not understand how anyone can say that this is not an attempt to mix church and state in an unimaginable affront to the freedoms that America is supposed to provide her citizens!

There simply are no valid secular arguments that support the idea that allowing gays to marry will cause anyone any harm. Saying that "society" defines marriage as the joining of a man and woman doesn't change the fact that the definition only exists because of the religious belief that homosexuality is an affront to one deity or another. There is simply no evidence that allowing gays to marry would have ANY effect at all on healthy heterosexual marriages.

If the conservative busybodies who are promoting this discriminatory - and unAmerican - agenda were truly concerned about the "sanctity" of marriage, they would be out there doing everything they could to eliminate the current causes of divorce.

Its kind of ironic that most of the people who wail about the "sanctity" of marriage being violated are the same people who seem to think it's good for society to have business trying to get every last minute of work it can out of its employees as cheaply as possible, without taking into account the toll that financial difficulties and/or working long hours can take on a marriage. How many marriages in America have been destroyed by one partner's effective absence because their company demanded that they work 60 hour work weeks or spend most of their time on the road, away from their families? How many have been destroyed by the financial upheaval that the last few years of constant job losses have created? I'll wager far more than have been destroyed by Vermont's civil unions law.

Adultery is another marriage killer that not only do the conservatives ignore as a legitimate social issue, but often engage in themselves. How often do we hear about one conservative leader or another who has engaged in extra-marital hanky panky, or who is on to a second, third or fourth wife? How many families in general have been destroyed because someone couldn't keep a promise they made - one typically made in a sacred ceremony?

And what's being done to combat other causes of marriage failures, such as alcoholism, drug abuse, gambling addictions or other compulsive behaviours? Anything? You'd think that those who are interested in preserving the alleged "sanctity" of marriage would have some interest in addressing those issues, but they don't. And domestic violence is another marriage killer (sometimes, sadly, in an all-too-literal sense) that they have little interest in combating.

The amount of sanctimonious bullshit that's being shoveled around on this issue is staggering. No one cares about preserving marriage, they just don't like gays and don't want to see any indication that gays actually have the same rights, needs, and desires that any of the rest of us do. Well, guys, here's the deal. You need to clean up your own houses before you tell someone how to maintain their own. If you want marriage to be sacred, get out there and start working to make business family-friendly, so that people are paid a fair wage and have adequate time to actually BE with their families. Work to make adultery socially unacceptable again. Work to help make sure that addicts and their family members can get the help they need to get the addiction under control before it breaks the family apart. Do everything you can to put an end to domestic abuse in this country. That's where the problems are - not in allowing gays to get married.

Thoughts on 'marriage'

Brad at Oh great one who is never wrong has an interesting post providing a number of definitions of marriage, and then asks why can't gays just have civil unions, but "code-word" it as "marriage." I've heard that kind of a suggestion a few other times, and I always come back to the same question: Why should they have to?

In a wonderful bit on "The Daily Show" tonight, Jon Steward and Stephen Colbert made an excellent point about just how ridiculous the idea of an "anti-gay marriage" amendment - based on the idea that letting gays marry would somehow "ruin" the institution of marriage - really is. Stephen was acting like a sanctimonious conservative claiming that gays shouldn't be allowed to marry, and that an amendment was absolutely necessary to protect the sanctity of marriage, at which point Jon said something to the effect of "So, you'd also support a constitutional amendment banning adultery?" I didn't quite catch Colbert's response because I was laughing so hard, but it was along the lines of "ABSOLUTELY NOT! The government has no business being in my bedroom!" I thought it was a GREAT comeback to those who claim they oppose gay marriage on the "sanctity" principle.

Maybe some of the gay groups should consider making noise about wanting something like an anti-adultery amendment, and start talking about how much damage adultery does and how may marriages end because of it. It wouldn't go anywhere, but it could be an excellent tactic to point out just how idiotic the whole thing really is...

Personally, thought, what I think would be an idea solution would be for the government to stop using the term "marriage" in regards to the legal joining of two individuals - set that aside as a term used solely to describe a spiritual joining of two individuals, blessed by any church of their choice. Marriage would not confer any special rights, benefits, responsibilities, status or penalties. It would be strictly a religious institution.

The government could then sanction "Legal Unions" (or "Civil Unions" if people prefer that term), and all of the rights, benefits, responsibilities, status and penalties that are currently associated with "marriage". This would be strictly a legal concept.

Couples could then choose to be "married" in a church, "legally joined" by the state or both - depending on their own preference and beliefs. To help maintain the separation, if a couple wanted to be both married and legally joined, they would have to arrange for a spiritual service and then also make an appearance before a justice of the peace to formalize the legal arrangement.

That way, the religious conservatives who are having a fit can have their word with its "sanctity" in no more danger of defilement than it is now, the government would be out of the business of granting legal benefits based, in many cases, on a religious ceremony, and any two people who want to be legally bound to each other can be, without threatening any "sacred" institutions.

Sadly, it's probably too rational of an idea to ever get anywhere.

Not "moving on" about the Guard

Recently a visitor suggested in comments that I "move on" in regards to Bush's military record. I thought I'd go ahead and post my response where it would be easy for others to read because I consider this to be an important issue.

Move on? No. Moving on is the last thing we need to do when it comes to Bush's National Guard service.

The president, his administration and their supporters have made a habit of accusing anyone who disagrees with their policies - and in particular with their war - of being "unpatriotic," yet when Bush had an opportunity to show his own patriotism when the US was at war in Vietnam (which was also an unpopular war fought on the basis of reasoning VERY similar to that used to justify the Iraqi war - the idea that changing one government in a region could lead to changes in many - if not all - of the other governments), he neither volunteered to serve in the active duty army nor choose to face the same risk of being drafted that most other men of his generation faced. Instead, he made use of his father's connection in order to get a slot in the Texas Air National Guard, and then failed to fulfill his commitment.

Even if you want to argue that his actions in regards to his guard duty were "youthful indiscretions" rather than an actual indication of his dishonourable character, his promise during his interview with Tim Russert to release ALL records related to his service went unfulfilled - only portions of his record were released, and some of those were redacted.

This incident speaks volumes about the true nature of President Bush. During his term, he has announced the creation of or support for a number of programs and then failed to include funding for them in the budget. Hell, he did that with the war in Afghanistan - ousting the Taliban, but then failing to include any money for rebuilding the country. It also demonstrates his attitude that the American people don't really have a right to know what out government - which is supposed to be BY the people and FOR the people - is up to, or what he has done and is doing as our leader. And it shows his tendency to use his family connections for any advantage he can.

So, no, I won't move on. Bush needs to be seen for the kind of person he really is, and this speaks volumes about why he is unfit to lead this nation.

...and it's huntin' season!

Gays sure can't debase the 'sacredness' of marriage any more than the straights already have...

Marriage is love.

In search of....

A new use for outsourcing

Denigrating the guard

Bill Press has a good editorial in today's newspapers reviewing what we know about Bush's record with the National Guard. Bush and the Republicans are trying to portray those who question Bush's service record as being somehow 'unpatriotic' (just as they've tried to portray anyone who has questions anything else about Bush or his policies), but as Press points out, that's really not the case at all.

George Bush himself left no doubt why he joined the National Guard: to get out of Vietnam. In May 1984, he told the Houston Chronicle: "I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes."

So Bush, a son of privilege, used his congressman father's connections to get into the Guard. After learning to fly, he used his father's political connections to get assigned to a Republican Senate campaign in Alabama. Then he used his father's connections to get out of the Guard five months early, so he could attend Harvard Business School.

And now President Bush has the audacity to suggest that anyone who questions his military record is denigrating the National Guard. No, Mr. President, the person denigrating the National Guard is not the one asking the questions. It's the one who says he did his duty, but didn't.

I also have to wonder, while I doubt that the draft will be reinstated anytime soon (or at least not before the election), if it were, would Bush and his administration allow deferments or special placements for other young men (and women) who aren't willing to shoot their eardrums out or go to Canada? Or is that just another benefit for the wealthy and well-connected?

The effectiveness of Clinton's bombing

Not too long ago, I recieved the following comment in regard to a post I made, in which I mentioned that one of the reasons that Saddam didn't have any WMD when we invaded was that the bombing run Clinton ordered in the late 1990's may have destroyed whatever WMD remained after Gulf War I and the deterioration of the intervening years:

K, this is about the 3rd time I've seen you mention President Clinton's cruise missle attack against Saddam Hussein. You imply that the one little attack wiped out any remaining WMD stocks and capabilities of Iraq. Come on. Just because the missiles may have WJC engraved on the side doesn't make their aim any better or their blast radius any bigger. If current events have proved anything, it is that the truth -- and therefore the target -- is elusive

I had responded by pointing out that even if Clinton's missiles had missed their targets, at the VERY least, they let Saddam know that we had some idea of where he was hiding them, making it quite likely he would have moved any remaining WMD - and rendering any intelligence we had regarding their whereabouts useless (especially given that both Bush and Rumsfeld have said that we were working from the same intelligence Clinton had and had no new intelligence regarding Saddam's WMD).

It seems, however, that I'm not the only one who thinks that Clinton's bombing run might have played a part Saddam's lack of WMDs.

...[I]n an interview conducted late Saturday and published in today's New York Times, Kay says, "I'm personally convinced that there were not large stockpiles of newly produced weapons of mass destruction. We don't find the people, the documents or the physical plants that you would expect to find if the production was going on."

Iraq's weapons and facilities, he says, had been destroyed in three phases: by allied bombardment in the 1991 Gulf War; by U.N. inspectors in the half-decade after that war; and by President Clinton's 1998 bombing campaign. (Clinton's airstrikes, by now widely forgotten, were even at the time widely dismissed as a political diversion; they took place during the weekend when the House of Representatives voted for impeachment. But according to Kay, they destroyed Iraq's remaining infrastructure for building chemical weapons.) Kay adds that Saddam tried to resuscitate some of these programs, but - due to sanctions, fear of inspections, and lack of resources - he was not able to do so.

So, maybe there is something to it after all...

aWol

If you want to get caught up on the questions surrounding President Bush's military service, take time to visit Kevin Drum's "CalPundit. He's been on top of this story and is providing some excellent anaylsis.

Is anyone surprised that, after telling Tim Russert that he would "absolutely" "authorize the release of everything to settle this", we're now getting dodges on what, apparently, constituted "everything"? In an article pubished by USA Today, Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, is quoted as saying "The issue is about the president's service in the National Guard. The president said he was committed to releasing any records we have to show that he served."

Notice how carefully that statement is phrased. They will release anything that would "show that he served" - meaning, of course, that if there are any documents showing that he did NOT serve, those will remain hidden as much as possible.

I hope that voters are paying attention to how on Sunday, Bush can promise he would authorize the release of "everything", but come the next week, the administration starts to qualify "everything" as being only those documents that support their side of the story. Many of us have been watching this same pattern for the last several years.

All means all, Mr. President

Valerie Plame investigation update

Mark Kleiman has an excellent post summarizing the current status of the investigation into who revealed Valerie Plame's status as a covert CIA agent. In it, he also notes that another investigation is also underway - this one looking into who created the forged documents indicating that Iraq was trying to get uranium from Niger.

It looks like there's maybe some actual progress being made, and that the prosecutors working on the case are doing more than just making a 'show' of an investigaion while trying to avoid actually finding anything. There may be hope that someone will actually be held accountable for these crimes - though, as always, I'm not exactly holding my breath.

Bill O'Reilly lives up to his promise

I've criticized Bill O'Reilly on more than a few occasions, so it's only fair to give him props for actually keeping his promise to apologize if no WMD were found in Iraq. O'Reilly appeared on "Good Morning America" and offered his apology, noting also that he is more skeptical now about the Bush administration that he had been previously.

I'm still not a fan by any stretch, but its good to see him honour his promise. Thanks, Bill!

Uh, right! That's the ticket!

Rock the Vote

Get registered and VOTE!

More boobs poking out...

Thanks to Mark Hoback at Fried Green al-Qaedas for passing this along!

I shouldn't be surprised...

but for some reason, I am. I guess I just never realized that being offended was an actionable offence.

Knoxville native Terri Carlin filed a proposed class action lawsuit in a U.S. District Court on Wednesday, charging the accused with causing her and "millions of others" to "suffer outrage, anger, embarrassment and serious injury." The suit reportedly seeks billions of dollars in compensatory and punitive damages.

You know, if this thing actually goes anywhere, some of us liberals may want to get together, higher a lawyer, and see if we can't sue, say, President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice and the rest of the gang. Surely, they've caused millions to suffer outrage, anger and serious injury in the process of prosecuting their little war.

You know, I have no idea what kind of 'serious injury' unexpectedly seeing a naked breast on TV can cause - unless you were walking through a room at the time and were so stunned by the sight that you tripped and fell or something - but if seeing Janet's boob causes 'serious injury' and makes for a suing offense, then the nearly 600 American deaths so far in Iraq (plus the thousands of soldiers who have been injured, and all of the dead or injured Iraqis) should easily qualify.

Even better - how about we sue Ralph Nader for his role in helping get Bush elected in the first place? I mean, were it not for his "so what if I can't win?" candidacy, Gore might actually have gotten enough electoral votes to beat Bush in a few more states and think of all the outrage, anger and embarrassment THAT would have saved our country.

Or, if we want to stick to media and "entertainment" figures (since trying to sue the President could get rather messy), surely folks like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Bill O'Rielly have caused at least as much outrage and anger as Janet and Justin. I'm pretty sure they've had - at times - a negative impact on my blood pressure.

I could go on, but you get the picture. If we're going to start suing over everything that upsets us or makes us feel angry or embarrassed, the courts won't have time to actually deal with the suits where people have REAL injuries and REAL issues that are truly worthy of the courts time. We already have more than enough frivolous suits as it is, and this kind of litigious grandstanding isn't going to help matters. If you really can't handle seeing a momentary medium-distance shot of a naked-but-decorated breast, you probably shouldn't be watching TV in the first place.

More on the ER breast shot

Ok, this is kind of weird - I could have sworn that they just aired the repeat of the ER episode in which an elderly woman's breasts were shown last Thursday, but apparently it's actually scheduled to be repeated tonight - but with the shot of the elderly woman's breasts edited out. I'm sorry for any confusion about that.

The network said Wednesday it had "unfortunately concluded that the atmosphere created by this week's events has made it too difficult for many of our affiliates to air this shot."
NBC's decision was criticized by John Wells, the executive producer of the popular and long-running medical drama, who said such "affiliate overreactions" have a "chilling effect" on dramatic integrity.

In a statement, Wells called the Jackson incident at last Sunday's Super Bowl "inappropriate and deplorable on a broadcast intended for viewers of all ages."

But "the incidental exposure of an elderly woman's breast in the context of a medical trauma is not comparable," he said.
Viewers advised of a show's adult content are capable of "making the distinction and adjusting their viewing habits accordingly," he said.

"This type of network behaviour is one of the primary reasons that so many of today's producers and viewers are increasingly turning to HBO and other cable outlets that do not censor responsible storytelling," Wells said.

In its statement, NBC agreed that the scene, in which an 80-year-old woman receives emergency treatment, is "appropriate and in context" and noted it would have aired late in the evening, after 10:30 p.m. EST.

But the network said it couldn't ignore the furor that followed a musical number in which Justin Timberlake pulled off part of Jackson's costume, exposing her breast to 89 million viewers.

When I first watched the episode, I wasn't sure why they had felt it necessary to include the shot of the patient's breasts. In the scene, the woman is receiving emergency medical care and her granddaughter become quite agitated when the woman's clothing is removed, exposing her naked chest to the doctors and nurses. The little girl tells the doctors to stop what they're doing, saying her grandmother is DNR and then saying her grandmother wouldn't want to be seen naked.

While I suppose the nudity helps make it clear that the girl knows her grandmother would be horrified at being seen naked, it wasn't at all necessary to make the point. The scene could have easily been shot from a different angle, or one of the actors could even have been instructed to reach their arm across the patient (like to hand a doctor or nurse an instrument they'll need or something) at the moment that the clothing is removed to cover the actual view of her breasts but still making it clear that she was exposed. These kinds of techniques have been used many, many times and don't really have any effect on how the scene is perceived. The first time I saw this episode, I was so surprised by the nudity that I ended up having to rewind the show a bit so I could catch the dialog from that scene again.

At any rate, it's now been cut. There's something oddly amusing about the idea that it was ok to show it before Janet did her little striptease, and would still be considered ok to show it later in the evening, but right now it has to go. I seriously doubt NBC would have removed it if the re-airing weren't in such close proximity to the Superbowl dust-up. Had it not been scheduled to be repeated until a month or two from now, I'm have a feeling it would have been left in, given our nation's ADD when it comes to scandals.

UPDATE - 3:18 am 2/6/2002: Ok. Well. It looks like I was wrong about being wrong. The episode tonight is a brand-new episode, and was supposed to include a shot of an elderly woman's naked breasts, but the scene was cut. This means that there are at least TWO episodes this season - one that has already aired twice, and the episode tonight - which were filmed to include nudity. No wonder I was a bit confused. It's intersting, though - is using naked, elderly breasts a new "thing" for ER? Seems kinda weird, if you ask me.

More on the 'Iraq Intelligence' Commission

Earlier this week, President Bush announced that he will be putting together a commission to investigate the intelligence failure surrounding the war against Iraq. And apparently, that's quite literally what he plans to do - create the commission via executive order and appoint the people who will head the commission himself. This, of course, gives him the ability to select commissioners who will be more inclined to look at things in a more favourable light - a huge boon to a President who's trying to get re-elected.

In addition, there are reasons to be concerned regarding the scope of the investigation.

A draft of the executive order Mr. Bush is preparing to sign this week to create the commission makes no explicit reference to a study of how the intelligence assessments were used. Instead, it only directs the panel to compare intelligence findings about Iraq produced before the war with the absence of stockpiles of unconventional weapons found by American inspection teams on the ground.

This means that the commission may not be required to look at both how the intelligence was gathered and how it was used in the formation of US policy. Both issues are of critical importance. There is always a risk that any intelligence we obtain may be faulty, so how it's used - including how heavily its relied upon, what other factors are given consideration, whether policy makers are trying to push the analysts to make determinations favourable to their viewpoint, and other such issues - is critical. Good intelligence plus bad policy can generally lead to an overall negative outcome. Bad intelligence plus bad police almost inevitably leads to outright disaster.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and several other Democratic Congressmen and women have sent a letter to the President urging that the commission be appointed by Congress, so that it will truly be independent of the White House.

While we support the need for an independent commission, this commission should not be one whose members are appointed by and report to the White House. One of the major questions that needs to be addressed is whether senior Administration officials, including members of the Cabinet and senior White House officials, misled the Congress and the public about the nature of the threat from Iraq. Even some of your own statements and those of Vice President Cheney need independent scrutiny. A commission appointed and controlled by the White House will not have the independence or credibility necessary to investigate these issues.

Some have suggested that the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President Kennedy, and the Pearl Harbor Commission, which investigated the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, are precedents for a presidentially appointed commission on Iraq intelligence. The Warren Commission, however, was not investigating allegations of potential misconduct involving senior administration officials, including White House officials. And the conclusions of the Pearl Harbor Commission had little credibility with the public, leading Congress to appoint a joint committee to conduct a new investigation.

For these reasons, we urge you to call upon Congress to enact a truly independent commission to examine the collection, analysis, dissemination and use by policymakers of intelligence on Iraq. This commission should be given unrestricted access to all relevant information and its members should be appointed on a bipartisan basis by the congressional leadership.

I agree with the sentiments expressed in the letter. I know I will have a much harder time accepting the results of an investigation headed by people personally appointed by President Bush. He has shown time and again that if there's a way for him to duck responsibility, he'll find it and use it.

Undoubtedly, there will be areas in which our intelligence gathering operations must be improved. But we can't look only at how the intelligence was gathered. How it was used is every bit as important, and I have little doubt that there's more than enough blame to go around in this case. We need to make sure that it gets applied fairly to everyone who misled us into this war.

The implications of overexposure

Ray Richmond at the Hollywood Reporter has a great editorial on the implications of the exposure of Janet Jackson. Below is an exceprt, but take a minute to read the whole thing.

Let's not waste a lot of time overanalyzing whether this little improvisational diversion may have done emotional harm to any kids who were watching. It was there and gone in a mere few fleeting seconds.

If anything is going to damage the moral fiber of America's youth, it's the indignation and fallout in the moment's wake, the high-voltage, far-out-of-proportion reaction of grown men and women.

This naturally isn't about the children. It never is. It's about re-election-minded public officials who won't rest until they work the indecency-outrage angle as much as possible to show that they're not really in bed with Big Media.

Of course, the FCC is already in obscenity crackdown mode. This simply gives the censorheads more fodder. Meanwhile, it's apparently just fine during the game for Bud Light to run a spot that appears to endorse a monkey's being intimate with a woman and another ad (plugging Budweiser) that shows a woman ranting and raving shrewlike at her husband.

The message would seem to be this: It's permissible to demean women, and even to look at them as sexual playthings. God knows football telecasts are chock-full of phallic imagery. But just let one female make the sexuality itself overt and there's hell to pay. Because that's different, you see. That's pornography.

...those who know what's best for us must rise and save us from ourselves...

One of the worst aspects of being a rape victim is the way it leaves you feeling like you have no ability to be in control of your own life. The sense of powerlessness it leaves is staggering. In my own experience as the victim of a date rape, even though I spent years trying to deny to myself what had happened before I started dealing with it, the loss of control over with whom, where and when I would share that part of myself had a devastating effect. I'd always had issues with control, but they became significantly worse following the rape. I can only imagine how much worse it would be for someone who is the victim of a "stranger" rape, where there's no way to try and rationalize that maybe you were sending mixed signals or any the other excuses we come up with to try and blame ourselves for what someone else has done to us.

Even worse, I imagine, would be the fear that such an attack might have left you pregnant. While some women are able to carry a child conceived in such a way to term and even lovingly raise the child, may women simply can't. Even if she were to plan on giving the child up for adoption, each day she's pregnant is yet another reminder of what was done TO her.

That's why this next story infuriates me so much. A woman in Texas was raped, and her doctor gave her a prescription for "morning-after" pills that can be taken to prevent a pregnancy. She's already been through a harrowing ordeal and is trying to do what she feels is necessary to start regaining some feeling of control over her life, when she goes into a pharmacy to get her prescription filled and is told by the pharmacist that because HE morally objects to the use of the morning-after pills, he's not going to fill the prescription for her. True, she was able to go elsewhere to get the pills, but the point is, she shouldn't have to. Fortunately, it appears that the pharmacy's corporate parent agrees.

According to CNN, there were protesters outside the pharmacy today, and Eckerd's spokesman has said that the pharmacists actions were in violation of their corporate policy, and that the pharmacist will be disciplined for his actions:

"Apparently there was a request for a prescription to be filled and the prescription was denied based on a moral or ethical decision made by the pharmacist, and that's not in accordance with our corporate policy," said Joan Gallagher, vice president of communications for Largo, Florida-based Eckerd Corp.

If the pharmacist feels he cannot fill any legally-prescribed medication then he should be in another line of business, or, perhaps, get together with other, like-minded pharmacists and start their own special "pro-life" pharmacy where it's clear from the get-go that no form of contraception or "morning after" protection will be offered. He should not be in a position where he can, essentially, compound a rape victims feeling of powerlessness by trying to prevent her from taking control over this aspect of her life as well.

What do Saddam and Bush have in common?

A breast is a breast?

The world is all a titter about the exposure of Janet Jackson's breast during the Superbowl halftime show yesterday. In fact, the FCC is starting an investigation immediately (it took how long to get investigations started into the 9/11 attacks and the validity of the intelligence used as a basis for the Iraqi war?) into not just the breast exposure, but the entire halftime show as a whole.

Powell said his unhappiness with the halftime show went beyond Jackson's exposure. It "wasn't even the most offensive part," the FCC chief said in an interview. "It was the finale of something that was offensive. The whole performance was onstage copulation." He added, "This really crossed a heinous line."

The FCC has defined broadcast indecency as "language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community broadcast standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities."

Earlier this year, I had written about a scene on ER in which an elderly patient's breasts were fully exposed.

Something threw me for a bit of a loop, though - namely, a pair of naked, on-camera, human, female breasts. Last I heard, those were a no-no on broadcast TV - unless, of course, the show is a nature documentary on PBS. Now, I've never quite understood why, exactly, it was ok to show the naked breasts of women in tribal Africa but not the breasts of white women in America, but it was one of those things I just sort of accepted as being the one exception to the rule.

This week's ER, however, apparently decided that there's a second exception to the rule. If the breasts are over a certain age, it seems, they're safe to show. The woman who's topless shot was included in the show is probably around 75 or so. Interestingly, she, like the African women, is black - and, in both cases, the breasts in question are saggy and what most people would consider unattractive.

Of course, we now know that attractive black breasts are also offensive. Glad that got cleared up. In what has to be a bit of unplanned irony, the ER episode in question was repeated this past Thursday - the breasts were still in plain view, having not caused any kind of a stir following the original broadcast.

Personally, I still think that if people are going to be concerned about the potential negative effects of something shown on broadcast TV, it'd do more good in the long run to focus on the effects of violence rather than nudity (not that I'm in favour of having the government step in and censor either - I'd prefer that viewers make it less profitable for broadcasters to exploit sex and violence to get ratings rather than producing high-quality programming, but that's a whole different rant) - but I find this double standard about women's breasts to be both bizarre and somewhat disturbing. As I wrote in my previous entry on this topic, I can't imagine that it would be considered any less scandalous to show a 75-year-old man's penis than it would be to show a 25-year-old man's penis, yet here we see a clear distinction in how the public reacts to a 75-year-old woman's breasts as opposed to a 37-year-old woman's breast. I still don't get it.

A couple quick notes on the war and the administration

In their article on Bush's agreement to an investigation into the intelligence failures surrounding the war in Iraq, the Washington Post offers a nice summary of challenges to the various rantionales that were offered to try and justify the war.

Just as Kay has undermined the WMD rationale, a report published by the Army War College challenged the notion that the war in Iraq was part of the overall war on terrorism, while the group Human Rights Watch has disputed Bush's notion that the Iraq war was a humanitarian mission. Vice President Cheney has implicitly acknowledged that the Iraq war has not spurred peace in the Middle East, saying peace is not possible while Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat remains in power.

Also, Salon has an interesting look at Dick Cheney and his clear double standard when it comes to leaks - as exemplified by his recent praise of an article in the Weekly Standard that was almost entirely based on leaked information - and which the Pentagon had already stated was inaccurate.

Cheney's remarks about the Weekly Standard article, particularly in light of the Pentagon's firm and public denunciation, angered former intelligence experts. "I just can't find words to describe how horrible it is," says Cannistraro. "For the vice president to undercut the head of intelligence at the Pentagon is unparalleled. It just illustrates the peculiar worldview Cheney has and how distorted it is. And it shows there's a real contempt for the professional intelligence community."

Intelligence professionals are particularly offended by what they see as Cheney's attempt to deliberately mislead and mischaracterize the article. In particular they point to his reference to the leaked information as an "assessment" as though it had been evaluated and judged to be creditable. "That was no assessment. It was a roundup of [unsubstantiated] reports," says McGovern, a steering group member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, which has been critical of the Bush administration's handling of intelligence. "To call that an assessment is a joke and disavows what the Department of Defense said, for God's sake."

[...]

The Weekly Standard article was drawn from a "top secret U.S. government memorandum" that the magazine depicted as proving bin Laden and Saddam had an "operational relationship" that dated back nearly a decade. The memo was written by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, who also oversaw the unique Office of Special Plans within the Pentagon. This small office of handpicked operatives was created under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to act as a counter to the CIA and other intelligence agencies that were seen as insufficiently loyal in providing material to help make the administration's case about Saddam's imminent threat. Since its inception, the OSP has worked outside established intelligence channels, rarely sharing its intelligence information for peer review, and has been a direct source of information, often faulty, for the White House.

Following Feith's testimony about alleged ties between Saddam and external terrorist groups before Congress last July 10, he was pressed in a follow-up letter from Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., respectively the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to provide the evidence that backed up his assertions. In response, Feith's office cited 50 instances of raw intelligence that suggested ties between the Iraqi dictator and the al-Qaida leader. Meanwhile, Feith's report also found its way to the Weekly Standard.

An investigation into the Iraq war intelligence

Well, I'm sure he's hoping that the demands and contentiousness of an election year will help keep any damaging information from being made public until sometime after November 8th, but President Bush has finally agreed to a bipartisan, independent investigation into the intelligence failures that led the administration, at least, to believe that war in Iraq was necessary. He really had very little choice in the matter, though. There has been growing pressure for such an investigation as the war continues to drag on, casualties continue to mount and the supposed stockpiles of WMD continue to be unlocatable.

The AP reports that the commission will be set up along the lines of the Warren commission that investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

By setting up the investigation himself, Bush will have greater control over its membership and mandate.

[...]

In appointing the members, Bush will draw heavily from intelligence experts who are familiar with the problems in the field, the White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The investigation will be independent and be provided with the resources it needs to do its job, the official said.

Its mandate will be broader than simply what went wrong in Iraq, the official said. It also will look into issues such as gathering intelligence on stateless regimes, such as al-Qaida, and weapons proliferation.

At this point, the White House has not decided on a deadline for the investigation — a sensitive issue since its findings could become an issue in the presidential campaign which will be decided with the election in November.

There was no indication when Bush would sign the order creating the panel.

In the comments that have been made so far by the administration, it sounds like they are hoping to be able to lay the blame for the intelligence failures on the CIA. While I have no doubt that there are a number of issues where the CIA will have to explain their actions (or lack thereof) and analysis, the investigation should take particular note of the Department of Defense's Office of Special Plans.

The Pentagon's innocuously named Office of Special Plans served as a unique, handpicked group of hawkish defense officials who worked outside regular intelligence channels. According to the Department of Defense, the group was first created in the aftermath of Sept. 11 to supplement the war on terrorism; it was designed to sift through all the intelligence on terrorist activity, and to focus particularly on various al-Qaida links. By last fall it was focusing almost exclusively on Iraq, and often leaking doomsday findings about Saddam's regime. Those controversial conclusions are now fueling the suspicion that the obscure agency, propelled by ideology, manipulated key findings in order to fit the White House's desire to wage war with Iraq.

"Everything we've seen since the war has confirmed intelligence community suspicions about its [the Office of Special Plans'] sources of information," says Greg Thielmann, who ran military assessments at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research until he retired in October. "The rosy assumption about troops being greeted with flowers and hugs -- that came from that stream of intelligence. The assurance that they knew exactly where the weapons of mass destruction were, or that Iraq was ready to employ chemical and biological weapons in battle within 45 minutes of an order -- all of those stories have proven wrong."

I would love to be able to say that maybe Bush has realized that going to war on a false pretext is a grave error that needs to be thoroughly investigated so that we can avoid making the same mistake in the future, but I've been paying too much attention over the last 3 years to think that. Bush is undoubtedly hoping that by agreeing to the investigation, he can silence those criticizing him for not "doing" anything about the intelligence failures, and that the amount of time it will take to put a commission together, work out the rules under which it will operate, and let the commission members get organized and ready to really dig in to the meat of the issue will be sufficient for it to prevent any "bombshells" coming out of the investigation that might possibly dampen Bush's chances for re-election. He's not looking for answers. He's looking for a way to pre-empt criticism of how he's handled the war.

Still, there is a chance that we may actually learn something from the comission, and if so, that, at least, will be a positive result.