It’s not unusual for a Supreme Court Judge not to have been a Judge before appointment and although in the Bush Administration it’s not unusual for any appointee to have no background whatever in any related field, the performance of Bush insiders is enough to scare me when thinking of what kind of Judge Harriet Miers will make. I’m assuming of course that she will be confirmed by the Senate, since there appears at this time to be no controversial record other than her having resigned from a scandal-ridden Texas Lottery Board. We just don’t have a Judicial record to inspect, but will she be a Presidential lackey in the mold of Karl Rove or I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby?
Noon update:
It appears that Miss Miers is more of a puzzler than I thought, having made $1000 donations to the DNC and to Al Gore's campaign back in 1988 according to AMERICAblog. Of course she's apparently changed sides since then, donating only to Republicans. She seems to be on record as saying George W. Bush is one of the most brilliant people she's ever met. Maybe she doesn't get out much.
For those who groaned aloud when her affiliation with Exodus Ministries was announced, no it's not Exodus International, the organization that attempts to "cure" gays through Jesus - something Jesus never seems to have had any interest in doing. Exodus Ministries seems to be there to help ex-convicts re-integrate into society. The Daily Curmudgeon speculates as to her sexual orientation, something which will undoubtedly get him into hot water with feminists. There has been of course similar speculation regarding Chief Justice Roberts' orientation as well but Capt Fogg is not fond of sailing into uncharted waters without good reason.
Monday, October 03, 2005
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Another Red State Sunday
Only in a Red State, so proud of it’s Christian Supremacist Heritage would you find something like Hammerfest 2005, an annual gathering that features white supremacist rock bands held appropriately and rather pathetically at the Georgia Peach Restaurant and Museum, which sits along Georgia 120. Even if the Police outnumber the participants and the protesters from the NAACP combined, it’s an Only-in-a-Red-State sort of thing.
Not in one of those effete pseudo-intellectual snob States like Massachusetts will you find such festivals, not from those French speaking, Mozart loving, Volvo driving people whose houses hardly ever have wheels and whose only reason for living is to tax poor, white confederates.
But nobody was hurt, at least physically, no supremacists got so supreme they had to be handcuffed and no Black people were lynched or beaten up.
Progress marches on, even in the South.
Not in one of those effete pseudo-intellectual snob States like Massachusetts will you find such festivals, not from those French speaking, Mozart loving, Volvo driving people whose houses hardly ever have wheels and whose only reason for living is to tax poor, white confederates.
But nobody was hurt, at least physically, no supremacists got so supreme they had to be handcuffed and no Black people were lynched or beaten up.
Progress marches on, even in the South.
I love the taste of Maalox in the morning
As usual, the bottle of Tums is opened before 9:00AM on Sunday morning. Contrary to my best interests, I turn once again to the letters section of the Stuart News to see locals raving about how Ray Nagin and the Governor of Louisiana didn’t notice Katrina until after it hit, which falsehood is now becoming truth through the miracle of the oft-told lie. I read about how the Liberal Press is printing nothing but criticism of poor President Bush and it’s wrong to criticize a President like that (unless he’s a Democrat.) We should, he says “get over it and get a life.”
While I’m sure that these letters don’t represent a large majority of what the paper receives, I’m also sure that they feel obligated to print a series of idiotic, illogical and lie-ridden responses as a “balance” to the heavy criticism of the last few weeks; another case of distortion in sheep’s clothing.
And then there is the Newsweek poll which seems to show that on all important issues, Bush is seen as doing a terrible job, yet he’s “tough on terrorism” in some magic sense that requires nothing but faith to see. His overall ratings are up over the last weeks during which time he’s done virtually nothing but travel around grandstanding for the faithful. To be sure, a support level of 40% is low, but when 43% think he’s a good manager who delegates well, when 51% think he’s doing a great job handling terrorism and homeland security (up 5 points in the last month, something is rotten.
Frankly, I’m sure that by the mid-term elections, all Bush’s ineptitudes and failings and all the corruption and incompetence of his administration will have been transmuted into gold.
Maybe Maalox would work better.
While I’m sure that these letters don’t represent a large majority of what the paper receives, I’m also sure that they feel obligated to print a series of idiotic, illogical and lie-ridden responses as a “balance” to the heavy criticism of the last few weeks; another case of distortion in sheep’s clothing.
And then there is the Newsweek poll which seems to show that on all important issues, Bush is seen as doing a terrible job, yet he’s “tough on terrorism” in some magic sense that requires nothing but faith to see. His overall ratings are up over the last weeks during which time he’s done virtually nothing but travel around grandstanding for the faithful. To be sure, a support level of 40% is low, but when 43% think he’s a good manager who delegates well, when 51% think he’s doing a great job handling terrorism and homeland security (up 5 points in the last month, something is rotten.
Frankly, I’m sure that by the mid-term elections, all Bush’s ineptitudes and failings and all the corruption and incompetence of his administration will have been transmuted into gold.
Maybe Maalox would work better.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
The dogs of dogma
A popular political tactic is to make a leap across the gap between “might happen” and “has happened.” This is often not so much a leap of faith as a leap of fraud.
An advertising campaign is set to start to day in Great Britain, paid for by the Brady Campaign to Control Gun Violence. The ads are quoted in today’s Independent as cautioning tourists:
"In Florida, avoid disputes. Use special caution in arguing with motorists on Florida roads. Police and prosecutors are concerned about the potential for unnecessary violence."
Any Floridian over 21, of sound mind, without a police record or record of alcohol abuse and who submits to fingerprinting, can be licensed to carry a concealed weapon. It has been that way since 1987 and since 1987 gun violence has been on the decline in Florida. What has recently changed in Florida law that takes effect today is the requirement to let the attacker shoot first or to first attempt to run away. If an armed bandit breaks through your front door, you were required to climb out the window rather than to use deadly force. These requirements make it fairly easy for anyone to kill you before you are allowed to respond. Someone like me, who has on more than one occasion been confronted by hostile groups of trespassers in the chaos after a hurricane, might take some comfort in not being required to abandon home and family and to run away.
But the bottom line is that Gun related Crime is not on the increase and is decreasing and police and prosecutors are not united in opposition. The legislation that the Brady Campaign has pushed can’t be shown to have had any effect and the incidence of gun crimes in places where the laws are highly restrictive seems as high as or higher than in areas where they are no so. If Gun crimes are declining for reasons other than the Brady Campaign cares to admit, I can only conclude that their mission is to approach a problem in their way rather than to solve it. To me this seems as bone headed and dogmatic as the Republicans’ insistence on solving all problems with tax cuts.
An advertising campaign is set to start to day in Great Britain, paid for by the Brady Campaign to Control Gun Violence. The ads are quoted in today’s Independent as cautioning tourists:
"In Florida, avoid disputes. Use special caution in arguing with motorists on Florida roads. Police and prosecutors are concerned about the potential for unnecessary violence."
Any Floridian over 21, of sound mind, without a police record or record of alcohol abuse and who submits to fingerprinting, can be licensed to carry a concealed weapon. It has been that way since 1987 and since 1987 gun violence has been on the decline in Florida. What has recently changed in Florida law that takes effect today is the requirement to let the attacker shoot first or to first attempt to run away. If an armed bandit breaks through your front door, you were required to climb out the window rather than to use deadly force. These requirements make it fairly easy for anyone to kill you before you are allowed to respond. Someone like me, who has on more than one occasion been confronted by hostile groups of trespassers in the chaos after a hurricane, might take some comfort in not being required to abandon home and family and to run away.
But the bottom line is that Gun related Crime is not on the increase and is decreasing and police and prosecutors are not united in opposition. The legislation that the Brady Campaign has pushed can’t be shown to have had any effect and the incidence of gun crimes in places where the laws are highly restrictive seems as high as or higher than in areas where they are no so. If Gun crimes are declining for reasons other than the Brady Campaign cares to admit, I can only conclude that their mission is to approach a problem in their way rather than to solve it. To me this seems as bone headed and dogmatic as the Republicans’ insistence on solving all problems with tax cuts.
Conservative press is liberally paid
By now you know that the GAO has ruled that the Administration broke the law by paying for favorable “news” stories and disseminated "covert propaganda" in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban. The bad news is that there doesn’t seem to be any penalty. The good news? Is there ever any good news about anything this administration does?
Friday, September 30, 2005
Good news is no news
Maybe Sponge Bob or the Teletubbies will turn your kids gay, but never fear, the I Pod can turn them into soldiers. Sign up to have a recruiter call on you and get three tunes to load into the electronic equivalent of thumb-sucking.
Raw Story reports that a veteran’s group is starting a “letter drive” to allow soldiers to tell the “good news” about Iraq. I hope the good news isn’t that their body count is higher than ours, because I’ve heard that joke before. Here's some particularly good news from Spc. Richard Murphy, back from a 15 month tour.
AlterNet reports that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats on Thursday demanded that former Education Secretary William Bennett apologize for remarks on his radio program linking the crime rate and the abortion of black babies. “You could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down”
Bennett responded that the comments, made Wednesday on his "Morning in America" show, had been mischaracterized and that his point was that the idea of supporting abortion to reduce crime was "morally reprehensible." And what Hitler really meant to say was. . . .
The 1994 Republican "contract with America" claims: "That historic change would be the end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public's money." Now did 9/11 change all that or did Greed, and a lust for power change all that?
Speaking of th epublic's money, today's Miami Herald reports that down in Katrina country, "The government is paying contractors an average of $2,480 for less than two hours of work to cover each damaged roof -- even though it's also giving them endless supplies of blue sheeting for free." You see, windfalls for corporations are OK as long as the workers themselves don't get minimum wage.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
No one's gettin' fat but Halliburton
Juan Ponce de Leon wasted a lot of time looking for a fountain of youth in Florida. You don’t have to look long or hard to find a fountain of sleaze. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo gives the high points of yesterday’s Washington Post story about how Florida’s latter day Ponce, Senator Mel Martinez organized a "Katrina Reconstruction Summit," at the Senate Office Building, sponsored by – you guessed it – Halliburton. Some 200 lobbyists, corporate representatives and government staffers lined up like pigs at the trough to get advice on "opportunities for private sector involvement."
As today's Dunesbury says: "There's no business like no-bid ness."
Mardi Gras in New Orleans next year may be a subdued event, but someone will be getting fat – I guarantee.
As today's Dunesbury says: "There's no business like no-bid ness."
Mardi Gras in New Orleans next year may be a subdued event, but someone will be getting fat – I guarantee.
Support the fallacy
Amongst the small group of war supporters that gathered in Washington last Sunday were the predictable signboards with “Freedom isn’t Free” and “Arrest the Traitors.”
I’m struggling to think about how many wars of the last century had anything to do with preserving constitutionally guaranteed freedoms in the United States. Certainly backing a corrupt puppet government in Viet Nam had little to do with promoting freedom of speech in the US – in fact the need to preserve that war was a major setback to personal liberty as is this one. The fact that we failed and that today our former “enemies” have a peaceful country rapidly embracing a free market economy while we move toward increased government intrusion into private lives seems to be a lost lesson. Yet the need to believe that whatever military adventure is promoted by the Executive branch is substantially about preserving freedom is still a major bulwark of the fortress of fallacy the dwindling group of defenders still live in.
The need to believe in our Government’s various crusades produces the inevitable “Arrest the Traitors” contradiction we remember from the 60’s and 70’s which somehow makes the freedom we’re allegedly fighting for into treason. That such slogans directly contradict the notion that we are fighting for anything but fighting’s sake is always lost on the Rabid Right,
Indeed blindness to contradiction seems to be the definition of right wing politics. CNN quotes one warmonger as saying "Our troops are over there fighting for our rights, and if she [Sheehan] was in one of those countries she would not be able to do that." Funny that she would not be able to do that in the countries we call allies and staunch supporters either and in light of her arrest, perhaps she really can’t do that here.
True enough that there is little freedom of speech in many countries, like Saudi Arabia, yet a great many countries have civil rights as great as or greater than ours and they don’t seem to have so much trouble trying to preserve them by conquest. There is hardly reason to stifle it here while conducting a war that you’re trying to promote as saving that right.
And then there is the “Support the Troops” argument which seems to be saying that we need to pretend that they must be fighting for something worthwhile because if they aren’t, they will be demoralized. War then, exists mostly to make the Army feel useful. That argument of course would support any horror at all and makes any military action self-legitimizing. Can we conclude that to its supporters, this war is anything but a war on truth and reason? We, I predict, will continue to pretend that it’s about freedom abroad while making freedom the enemy at home and this war and the next war will go on forever.
I’m struggling to think about how many wars of the last century had anything to do with preserving constitutionally guaranteed freedoms in the United States. Certainly backing a corrupt puppet government in Viet Nam had little to do with promoting freedom of speech in the US – in fact the need to preserve that war was a major setback to personal liberty as is this one. The fact that we failed and that today our former “enemies” have a peaceful country rapidly embracing a free market economy while we move toward increased government intrusion into private lives seems to be a lost lesson. Yet the need to believe that whatever military adventure is promoted by the Executive branch is substantially about preserving freedom is still a major bulwark of the fortress of fallacy the dwindling group of defenders still live in.
The need to believe in our Government’s various crusades produces the inevitable “Arrest the Traitors” contradiction we remember from the 60’s and 70’s which somehow makes the freedom we’re allegedly fighting for into treason. That such slogans directly contradict the notion that we are fighting for anything but fighting’s sake is always lost on the Rabid Right,
Indeed blindness to contradiction seems to be the definition of right wing politics. CNN quotes one warmonger as saying "Our troops are over there fighting for our rights, and if she [Sheehan] was in one of those countries she would not be able to do that." Funny that she would not be able to do that in the countries we call allies and staunch supporters either and in light of her arrest, perhaps she really can’t do that here.
True enough that there is little freedom of speech in many countries, like Saudi Arabia, yet a great many countries have civil rights as great as or greater than ours and they don’t seem to have so much trouble trying to preserve them by conquest. There is hardly reason to stifle it here while conducting a war that you’re trying to promote as saving that right.
And then there is the “Support the Troops” argument which seems to be saying that we need to pretend that they must be fighting for something worthwhile because if they aren’t, they will be demoralized. War then, exists mostly to make the Army feel useful. That argument of course would support any horror at all and makes any military action self-legitimizing. Can we conclude that to its supporters, this war is anything but a war on truth and reason? We, I predict, will continue to pretend that it’s about freedom abroad while making freedom the enemy at home and this war and the next war will go on forever.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Under Iraq
Slate is a low-grade metamorphic rock of foliated texture, composed of minute mica flakes and formed at relatively low pressure and temperature. Slate is used for many things including paving stones, which make an ideal hiding place for worms, grubs millipedes and other invertebrates. Slate is also an on-line magazine that publishes people like Christopher Hitchens.
Hitchens’ take on last weekend’s anti-war rally in Washington is that the entire movement is composed of "phony peaceniks" because the two sponsoring groups he credits for the entire event are, according to “one who knows the sectarian makeup of the Left very well,” United for Peace and Justice and International Answer.
International Answer, says Hitchens, is: “the group run by the ‘Worker's World’ party and fronted by Ramsey Clark, which openly supports Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, and the ‘resistance’ in Afghanistan and Iraq, with Clark himself finding extra time to volunteer as attorney for the génocidaires in Rwanda.”
United for Peace and Justice is likewise impugned through an unspecified connection with former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and the Worker’s World Party:
“. . . the product of a split within the Trotskyist movement. These were the ones who felt that the Trotskyist majority, in 1956, was wrong to denounce the Russian invasion of Hungary.”
Of course he managed to connect Michael Moore with these “phony peacenik” groups as though to put another plum in the pudding and of course he relies on the standard practice of telling you what they will say and then condemning them because the words they haven’t actually said come straight from Chairman Mao.
I’ve been through it all before and so have the dwindling generations that were adults during the Viet Nam years and remember the same stupid arguments. The gravamen of Hitchens’ argument is not the false identification by association, but the fact that his rabid diatribes are meant to distract us and hide the significant point that the nation now has turned against Bush’s war, a majority believing that we were deceived about the purpose, lied to about the cost and mislead as to the possibility of any of the goals or the time needed to carry them out. We have been robbed and cheated; we have been tricked into selling our freedom, our sons, our daughters, our wives and husbands and all for the profit of a few. The majority of Americans now believe this and it’s not because they sleep with Jane Fonda, go bowling with Michael Moore or even know who Leon Trotsky was.
Regardless of how many secret motivations and sordid connections anyone there on the street may have had, it was the voice of the majority out in the street in Washington. We did not lose the fight to press an unwanted government on Viet Nam because of Jane Fonda and the hippies and we are not stymied in our efforts to press an unwanted government on the Iraqis because of Michael Moore, Leon Trotsky, Mao Zedong or anyone else in Christopher Hitchens’ pantheon of demons. This is George W. Bush’s war, based on George W. Bush’s lies and George W. Bush’s propensity to ignore good advice while listening to war profiteers.
Hitchens’ take on last weekend’s anti-war rally in Washington is that the entire movement is composed of "phony peaceniks" because the two sponsoring groups he credits for the entire event are, according to “one who knows the sectarian makeup of the Left very well,” United for Peace and Justice and International Answer.
International Answer, says Hitchens, is: “the group run by the ‘Worker's World’ party and fronted by Ramsey Clark, which openly supports Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, and the ‘resistance’ in Afghanistan and Iraq, with Clark himself finding extra time to volunteer as attorney for the génocidaires in Rwanda.”
United for Peace and Justice is likewise impugned through an unspecified connection with former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and the Worker’s World Party:
“. . . the product of a split within the Trotskyist movement. These were the ones who felt that the Trotskyist majority, in 1956, was wrong to denounce the Russian invasion of Hungary.”
Of course he managed to connect Michael Moore with these “phony peacenik” groups as though to put another plum in the pudding and of course he relies on the standard practice of telling you what they will say and then condemning them because the words they haven’t actually said come straight from Chairman Mao.
I’ve been through it all before and so have the dwindling generations that were adults during the Viet Nam years and remember the same stupid arguments. The gravamen of Hitchens’ argument is not the false identification by association, but the fact that his rabid diatribes are meant to distract us and hide the significant point that the nation now has turned against Bush’s war, a majority believing that we were deceived about the purpose, lied to about the cost and mislead as to the possibility of any of the goals or the time needed to carry them out. We have been robbed and cheated; we have been tricked into selling our freedom, our sons, our daughters, our wives and husbands and all for the profit of a few. The majority of Americans now believe this and it’s not because they sleep with Jane Fonda, go bowling with Michael Moore or even know who Leon Trotsky was.
Regardless of how many secret motivations and sordid connections anyone there on the street may have had, it was the voice of the majority out in the street in Washington. We did not lose the fight to press an unwanted government on Viet Nam because of Jane Fonda and the hippies and we are not stymied in our efforts to press an unwanted government on the Iraqis because of Michael Moore, Leon Trotsky, Mao Zedong or anyone else in Christopher Hitchens’ pantheon of demons. This is George W. Bush’s war, based on George W. Bush’s lies and George W. Bush’s propensity to ignore good advice while listening to war profiteers.
Anything goes
In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything Goes.
In 1982, the Republicans ran an ad boasting that President Ronald Reagan had provided a cost of living allowance (COLA) increase to federal workers "in spite of those sticks-in-the-mud who tried to keep him from doing what we elected him to do."
Alas, it was soon pointed out that Reagan had in fact opposed the increase. "Since when," a Republican official asked by way of explanation, "is a commercial supposed to be accurate?"
I remember when the media had to give equal time for someone to rebut charges, but that was before the Reagan Renaissance. Now you can lie about anything without much fear of contradiction: freedom of speech, Republican style.
Perhaps because they feel the election of ’04 wasn’t sleazy enough (trust me, it was) Florida's top elections officials have concluded that most campaign finance restrictions don't apply to third-party groups as long as they don't directly tell people how to vote. According to today’s Miami Herald, the decision from the Florida Division of Elections means that special-interest groups or wealthy donors could pay to air completely false claims or completely false and scurrilous condemnations of opposing candidates, without having to abide by the state's campaign finance limits. The Sept. 21st decision comes on the heels of a recent ruling by the division that points out that state law no longer bars these same third-party groups from coordinating their ads with individual candidates. In other words, a political Party can advertise, using private funds, that their rivals have regular sex with the Devil after performing Human sacrifice and worshipping Jane Fonda - and nobody can do a damn thing about it. Of course they have come close to doing that much already and nobody could do a damn thing about it.
Apparently it’s not enough to use political connections on the Court to unconstitutionally stop votes from being counted or using your connections with Diebold to secretly alter vote counts, they want a license to lie. Hardly shocking. What’s really astonishing is that so few people seem to care. Maybe we should have saved ourselves all that trouble and remained part of the British Empire where a King called George claimed divine approval, because that’s exactly where we are today.
The world has gone mad today
And good's bad today,
And black's white today,
And day's night today,
When most guys today
That women prize today
Are just silly gigolos
And though I'm not a great romancer
I know that I'm bound to answer
When you propose,
Anything goes
Monday, September 26, 2005
Cindy Sheehan arrested
Cindy Sheehan has finally joined the club; she was arrested and taken away in handcuffs during a protest in front of the White House today. In other news, Iraq is still a vast quagmire of chaos and carnage and her son Casey Sheehan is still dead.
Some idiot from the pro war demonstration yesterday was quoted by an AP reporter as saying Sheehan's protest "can affect the war in a really negative way. It gives the enemy hope." The "enemy", of course is the country we were supposed to "liberate."
Sometimes I have to look around carefully to be sure I haven't somehow fallen through some time warp into 1968. We're fighting for freedom of speech, but you're a traitor if you speak. Sometimes I wish I had been born yesterday like these morons so I wouldn't have to watch history repeat itself. We were held hostage for 15 years with that argument in the 60's and 70's and we are fool enough to fall for it again, only don't plan on there being a "Democracy" in Iraq that soon.
Some idiot from the pro war demonstration yesterday was quoted by an AP reporter as saying Sheehan's protest "can affect the war in a really negative way. It gives the enemy hope." The "enemy", of course is the country we were supposed to "liberate."
Sometimes I have to look around carefully to be sure I haven't somehow fallen through some time warp into 1968. We're fighting for freedom of speech, but you're a traitor if you speak. Sometimes I wish I had been born yesterday like these morons so I wouldn't have to watch history repeat itself. We were held hostage for 15 years with that argument in the 60's and 70's and we are fool enough to fall for it again, only don't plan on there being a "Democracy" in Iraq that soon.
Intelligent Math
Mathematics? I think it’s time we stopped teaching a bunch of unproven theorems to kids or we should at least give them the other side of the debate.After all, if math had been designed intelligently, as everything else has been, it would be easier to understand. If I don’t understand it, if it looks too complicated to be true, some other conjecture must equally be valid – as long as it conforms to my religious beliefs.
You know, many mathematicians no longer believe there is any such number as Pi – they’ve been trying to calculate it exactly for centuries and they still have to admit it’s not rational. I mean, you even hear them admitting that they just imagine some numbers. Really, things like String Theory just don’t explain the solid, simple and eternal nature of everything. Has anyone actually seen 11 dimensional Kalabi-Yao space? I don’t think so.
And what about Fourier Transforms and LaGrange multipliers? French ideas meant to corrupt American children.
Mathematics leads to things like Relativity and the Uncertainty Principle, which are morally reprehensible ideas - responsible for things like school shootings and hurricanes. There can only be one truth after all and there are no problems that cannot be understood by reading the Bible or solved by giving a tax cut to Halliburton.
No Mathematics is just another kind of Faith and there is no reason to believe in it any more than the idea that the universe is ruled by miracle.
Sunday, September 25, 2005
From Flipper With Love
Dolphins are a delight to watch. They chase boats for sport, it seems and they will swim along side with effortless grace so you can look them right in the eye. Often you see them just jump out of the water for no apparent reason. For the sake of the landlubbers who don’t know better, I’m talking about the Bottle Nosed Dolphin, a marine mammal and not the popular sport fish served in all the local restaurants on Florida’s Atlantic coast. These are often sold as Mahi Mahi to avoid having to explain to each and every tourist that no, they are not being served a slice of Flipper. Everyone loves Flipper – except maybe for the Navy.
Apparently, despite the protests of animal rights groups of all sorts, the Navy continues to train these intelligent cetaceans for military service, such as protecting US warships while in port. A story in Today’s Guardian claims that the Navy has been training these creatures in a facility near New Orleans that has been compromised by hurricane Katrina and armed dolphins, trained to shoot terrorists with tranquilizer darts and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Leo Sheridan, 72, a respected accident investigator who has worked for government and industry, said he had received intelligence from sources close to the US government's marine fisheries service confirming dolphins had escaped.”
Who says James Bond movies are over the top?
Presidential wisdom
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
--Theodore Roosevelt, 1918—
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
--Abraham Lincoln—
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
--Thomas Jefferson—
"We look forward to analyzing and working with legislation that will make—it would hope—put a free press's mind at ease that you're not being denied information you shouldn't see."
--George W. Bush 2005--
--Theodore Roosevelt, 1918—
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
--Abraham Lincoln—
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
--Thomas Jefferson—
"We look forward to analyzing and working with legislation that will make—it would hope—put a free press's mind at ease that you're not being denied information you shouldn't see."
--George W. Bush 2005--
Ben Stein's Brain
I used to watch Win Ben Stein’s Money and to some extent bought into the role he played as an intelligent man. Intelligent is as intelligent does and perhaps smart people are just better at being stupid than others. Yes, I knew he had been a speechwriter for Richard Nixon, but somehow his wit seemed to show that he had somehow recovered from a youthful indiscretion. I guess not.
TPM Café gives us some fascinating insights into the Brain of Ben Stein with these quotes:
"Bush's response has not been unusually bad, but amazingly powerful and swift."
"George Bush... does not attack those who falsely accuse him of the most horrible acts and neglect. Instead, he doggedly goes on helping the least among us."
Stein still feels Nixon is a hero and professes not to know what Nixon did wrong. His vision of Bush seems to be similarly wish-driven if not completely divorced from reality. Stein writes a column for the American Spectator, a publication whose title is as much of an example of Orwellian antinomy as Stein’s portrayal of Bush as a powerful and swift leader.
I once had faith in human intelligence. I thought it much less likely that a brilliant person could be fooled or be irrational. Stupid is as stupid does.
Friday, September 23, 2005
Go down Moses
“Your women – how much for the women?”-Jake Blues-
I’m most interested to watch the kinds of things Bush is up to while our attention is fixed on the game of Hurricane Dodge-ball we are playing on the Gulf Coast. I think his decision Wednesday to waive any financial sanctions on Saudi Arabia, billed as Washington's closest Arab ally in the war on terrorism, for failing to do enough to stop the modern-day slave trade in prostitutes, child sex workers and forced laborers was well timed to take advantage of the distraction. In fact Bush has quietly waived sanctions on several other countries like Bolivia, Jamaica, Qatar, Sudan, Togo, the United Arab Emirates, Ecuador and Kuwait.
As many as 800,000 people are bought and sold across national borders annually or lured to other countries with false promises of work or other benefits, according to the State Department. Most are women and children. Some are born into slavery, generation after generation.
Back during his “debates” with John Kerry, Bush brought up the Dred Scott decision, either at the behest of the infamous box between his shoulders or to show that he knew at least one item of history. The irony of this decision, which seems to confirm that once again, the Federal Government will do nothing about Slavery is stunning.
Countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, for whose liberty we have gone to war, have horrific records regarding the treatment of women both in terms of their lack of rights and grotesque punishments meted out to them at the whim of male family members. We will all recall how Kuwait promised to make progress in human rights after we gave their country and its oil wells back to them in 1989 and we will all notice that nothing whatever has been done and the country remains essentially an autocracy. Any evidence that any progress has been made is not being shared with us and Darla Jordan, a State Department spokeswoman offered none to Associated Press reporters.
That this country owes too many billions to foreigners and needs too much oil to risk alienating some of the world’s worst régimes seems a likely explanation, as glaring a contradiction as the fact makes with Bush’s current rationale for being in Iraq. George just doesn’t give a damn and perhaps it is our patriotic duty to supply him with damns so that he can afford to give them – so to start the ball rolling: here’s a great big damn for you George.
No heretics need apply
Our Republican leaders have never been particularly happy with giving Federal funds to educational institutions which allow students to protest the actions of the Government, but giving money to schools who will only hire members of a certain religion is a different matter.
I read AP’s Ben Feller in the Miami Herald who writes that the House approved a bill yesterday allowing Head Start programs run by religious organizations to hire only those who share their “faith.” The House passed the bill 231-184; only 23 Democrats voted for it.
"This is about our children, and denying them exemplary services just because the organization happens to be a religious one is just cruel," said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C.
If we ignore the fact that such programs are run by organizations that already receive support in the form of tax exemption and if we don’t look at the contradiction in authorizing such “cruelty” to teachers, assistants and janitors who don’t belong to the proper religion and if we remain oblivious to the obvious fact that no child is being denied anything but the opportunity to be proselytized, then the argument makes sense. If the alleged “right” to hire only coreligionists with taxpayer money weren’t about exposing children to a particular religion at the taxpayer’s expense, then there would be little reason to exclude Catholics, for instance, from teaching at Methodist schools.
Americans aren’t good at making rational judgments; after all we buy 8000 pound paramilitary vehicles to drive to the grocery store and elect leaders who don’t lead but steal from us, so this kind of emotional con, based on sectarian partisanship will surely succeed.
Without a change in law, said Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the Republican chairman of the House education committee, "Faith-based organizations are forced to relinquish their protected rights to hire individuals who share their beliefs."
No they won’t, they will be forced to use their own money to promote their own beliefs. If it becomes law, we will be forced to give our tax money to organizations that won’t hire infidels like us.
Breitbart.com quotes another AP story this morning about a 14-year-old student expelled from a Christian school because her parents are lesbians who have been together for 22 years and have three children. Do we need a better example of why we should not be giving public funds to an institution that punishes innocent children out of outright, unmitigated, faith-based bigotry?
I read AP’s Ben Feller in the Miami Herald who writes that the House approved a bill yesterday allowing Head Start programs run by religious organizations to hire only those who share their “faith.” The House passed the bill 231-184; only 23 Democrats voted for it.
"This is about our children, and denying them exemplary services just because the organization happens to be a religious one is just cruel," said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C.
If we ignore the fact that such programs are run by organizations that already receive support in the form of tax exemption and if we don’t look at the contradiction in authorizing such “cruelty” to teachers, assistants and janitors who don’t belong to the proper religion and if we remain oblivious to the obvious fact that no child is being denied anything but the opportunity to be proselytized, then the argument makes sense. If the alleged “right” to hire only coreligionists with taxpayer money weren’t about exposing children to a particular religion at the taxpayer’s expense, then there would be little reason to exclude Catholics, for instance, from teaching at Methodist schools.
Americans aren’t good at making rational judgments; after all we buy 8000 pound paramilitary vehicles to drive to the grocery store and elect leaders who don’t lead but steal from us, so this kind of emotional con, based on sectarian partisanship will surely succeed.
Without a change in law, said Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the Republican chairman of the House education committee, "Faith-based organizations are forced to relinquish their protected rights to hire individuals who share their beliefs."
No they won’t, they will be forced to use their own money to promote their own beliefs. If it becomes law, we will be forced to give our tax money to organizations that won’t hire infidels like us.
Breitbart.com quotes another AP story this morning about a 14-year-old student expelled from a Christian school because her parents are lesbians who have been together for 22 years and have three children. Do we need a better example of why we should not be giving public funds to an institution that punishes innocent children out of outright, unmitigated, faith-based bigotry?
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Tough choices
It’s fascinating to read the list of proposed budget cuts by the Republican Study Committee just released. I haven’t had time to wade through all of it, but when I saw the section about ending corporate welfare, my heart skipped a beat. Then I read the details. No, it’s not about handing out huge no-bid contracts and tax breaks to fabulously profitable corporations; it’s about cutting things like Renewable energy research, clean coal technology research, the program to develop alternative energy automobiles, etc.
“Now is the time for us to begin to make the tough choices,” RSC Chairman Mike Pence (Ind.) says. These are tough guys, beyond a doubt.
Citing the introduction of fuel cell hybrids by Toyota and Honda as a reason to stop research in this country is a stunning example of Republican genius – after all what interest do we have in competing with Japan? Again, we’re told there is no further need to research methods of cleaning up emissions from coal burning power plants because GE is running TV commercials advertising their advances in clean air technology.
I could go on, but the tears in my eyes are making it hard to see. See a copy of the document at Raw Story and join me in sorrow.
“Now is the time for us to begin to make the tough choices,” RSC Chairman Mike Pence (Ind.) says. These are tough guys, beyond a doubt.
Citing the introduction of fuel cell hybrids by Toyota and Honda as a reason to stop research in this country is a stunning example of Republican genius – after all what interest do we have in competing with Japan? Again, we’re told there is no further need to research methods of cleaning up emissions from coal burning power plants because GE is running TV commercials advertising their advances in clean air technology.
I could go on, but the tears in my eyes are making it hard to see. See a copy of the document at Raw Story and join me in sorrow.
Non Sequitur of the day
Bunny
Art isn’t dead, even if the “isms” it leans on have been beaten to death and even if some of the people who like to wrap it in convoluted academic jargon have taken so many art theory courses that they can no longer see a difference between what is art and what looks like art. The notion we’ve been given since the Pop Art era that anything can be art has a hard time standing on its own two feet – or any other number of feet, if you’re a surrealist. The weakness of the idea is that as an academic theory it spawns art that serves only to substantiate that art is anything. What is art has never been an interesting question for me anyway. I’m more concerned with what is worth looking at, worth owning or worth preserving. So when I look at a 200 foot long pink, knitted rabbit draped on an Italian mountaintop and designed as the perpetrators say, to remain there for 20 years, my only thought is to be thankful that I don’t live near that mountain and have to look at what is soon to be a filthy, sodden, foul smelling, fungus encrusted health hazard. Some Viennese group calling themselves Gelatin designed it and group member Wolfgang Gantner said: "It's supposed to make you feel small, like Gulliver. You walk around it and you can't help but smile." Maybe it’s just the altitude Wolfie.
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