The Worst Congress Ever

While reading Rolling Stone's "The Worst Congress Ever" I decided to pick out some of the most disturbing quotes, and I ended up quoting most of the story. Here are my top 9.

9.
What this means is that the current Congress will not only beat but shatter the record for laziness set by the notorious "Do-Nothing" Congress of 1948, which met for a combined 252 days between the House and the Senate. This Congress -- the Do-Even-Less Congress -- met for 218 days, just over half a year, between the House and the Senate combined.


8.
To ensure that Democrats can't alter any of the last-minute changes, Republicans have overseen a monstrous increase in the number of "closed" rules -- bills that go to the floor for a vote without any possibility of amendment. This tactic undercuts the very essence of democracy: In a bicameral system, allowing bills to be debated openly is the only way that the minority can have a real impact, by offering amendments to legislation drafted by the majority.


7.
Instead of dealing with its chief constitutional duty -- approving all government spending -- Congress devotes its time to dumb bullshit. "This Congress spent a week and a half debating Terri Schiavo -- it never made appropriations a priority," says Hughes. In fact, Congress leaves itself so little time to pass the real appropriations bills that it winds up rolling them all into one giant monstrosity known as an Omnibus bill and passing it with little or no debate. Rolling eight-elevenths of all federal spending into a single bill that hits the floor a day or two before the fiscal year ends does not leave much room to check the fine print. "It allows a lot more leeway for fiscal irresponsibility," says Hughes.


6.
Thomas is also notorious for excluding Democrats from the conference hearings needed to iron out the differences between House and Senate versions of a bill. According to the rules, conferences have to include at least one public, open meeting. But in the Bush years, Republicans have managed the conference issue with some of the most mind-blowingly juvenile behavior seen in any parliament west of the Russian Duma after happy hour. GOP chairmen routinely call a meeting, bring the press in for a photo op and then promptly shut the proceedings down. "Take a picture, wait five minutes, gavel it out -- all for show" is how one Democratic staffer described the process. Then, amazingly, the Republicans sneak off to hold the real conference, forcing the Democrats to turn amateur detective and go searching the Capitol grounds for the meeting. "More often than not, we're trying to figure out where the conference is," says one House aide.


5.
Translation: The Defense Department can no longer account for its money. "It essentially can't be audited," says Wheeler, the former congressional staffer. "And nobody did anything about it. That's the job of Congress, but they don't care anymore."

So not only does Congress not care what intelligence was used to get into the war, what the plan was supposed to be once we got there, what goes on in military prisons in Iraq and elsewhere, how military contracts are being given away and to whom -- it doesn't even give a shit what happens to the half-trillion bucks it throws at the military every year.

4.
At this very moment, as the torture bill goes to a vote, there are only a few days left until the beginning of the fiscal year -- and not one appropriations bill has been passed so far. That's why these assholes are hurrying to bag this torture bill: They want to finish in time to squeeze in a measly two hours of debate tonight on the half-trillion-dollar defense-appropriations bill they've blown off until now. The plan is to then wrap things up tomorrow before splitting Washington for a month of real work, i.e., campaigning.

Sen. Pat Leahy of Vermont comments on this rush to torture during the final, frenzied debate. "Over 200 years of jurisprudence in this country," Leahy pleads, "and following an hour of debate, we get rid of it?"

Yawns, chatter, a few sets of rolling eyes -- yeah, whatever, Pat. An hour later, the torture bill is law. Two hours after that, the diminutive chair of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Sen. Ted Stevens, reads off the summary of the military-spending bill to a mostly empty hall; since the members all need their sleep and most have left early, the "debate" on the biggest spending bill of the year is conducted before a largely phantom audience.

3.
From the McCarthy era in the 1950s through the Republican takeover of Congress in 1995, no Democratic committee chairman issued a subpoena without either minority consent or a committee vote. In the Clinton years, Republicans chucked that long-standing arrangement and issued more than 1,000 subpoenas to investigate alleged administration and Democratic misconduct, reviewing more than 2 million pages of government documents.

Guess how many subpoenas have been issued to the White House since George Bush took office? Zero -- that's right, zero, the same as the number of open rules debated this year; two fewer than the number of appropriations bills passed on time.

2.
It is clear that the same Congress that put a drooling child-chaser like Mark Foley in charge of a House caucus on child exploitation also named Cunningham, a man who can barely write his own name in the ground with a stick, to a similarly appropriate position. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the former chairman of the House Subcommittee on Human Intelligence Analysis and Counterintelligence:
"As truth will come out and you will find out how liablest [sic] you have & will be. Not once did you list the positives. Education Man of the Year...hospital funding, jobs, Hiway [sic] funding, border security, Megans law my bill, Tuna Dolfin [sic] my bill...and every time you wanted an expert on the wars who did you call. No Marcus you write About how I died."

How liablest you have & will be? What the fuck does that even mean? This guy sat on the Appropriations Committee for years -- no wonder Congress couldn't pass any spending bills!

1.
"The 109th Congress is so bad that it makes you wonder if democracy is a failed experiment," says Jonathan Turley, a noted constitutional scholar and the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington Law School. "I think that if the Framers went to Capitol Hill today, it would shake their confidence in the system they created. Congress has become an exercise of raw power with no principles -- and in that environment corruption has flourished. The Republicans in Congress decided from the outset that their future would be inextricably tied to George Bush and his policies. It has become this sad session of members sitting down and drinking Kool-Aid delivered by Karl Rove. Congress became a mere extension of the White House."

The end result is a Congress that has hijacked the national treasury, frantically ceded power to the executive, and sold off the federal government in a private auction. It all happened before our very eyes.

so right

Yes yes yes paulp (and to the Greenwald post he references):

I know I should only be writing (or writing about) the book, but this makes me so sick I have to post it: The Military Commissions Act in action. Do you still have those rosy feelings about the MCA, howard treesong? Is it time to dispense with the entire system of criminal justice and just skip straight to the guilty verdict and detention? This guy was in the US legally and was snatched out of his home, taken away from his family, and has been held incommunicado for years.

I can't take the shame anymore! Stop it, stop it, you weak, WEAK motherfuckers. The Bush administration is "strong" in the same way the most vile bully is strong, in the same way a mob enforcer is strong, in the same way the alpha monkey is strong. The strength that matters, the strength that means something - that being strength of character - does not exist in our leaders. It only took 3000 dead people for them to throw their hands up and surrender everything they've been elected to defend.

In every speech the president reminds us that his chief duty is to protect the American people. Wrong, fuckhead! Did you not listen to your own oath of office? Because I did.

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

See that? It's not to preserve, protect, and defend people in tall buildings. Your job is to protect the CONSTITUTION.

I can't wrap my head around the fact that Clinton was impeached while Bush almost certainly won't be (if only because he's too close to the end of his term.) If you guys want a good belly laugh, look around for quotes from prominent Republicans about why it was so all-fired important to impeach Clinton. For instance, consummate Republican Tom DeLay:

I believe that this nation sits at a crossroads. One direction points to the higher road of the rule of law. Sometimes hard, sometimes unpleasant, this path relies on truth, justice and the rigorous application of the principle that no man is above the law.

Now, the other road is the path of least resistance. This is where we start making exceptions to our laws based on poll numbers and spin control. This is when we pitch the law completely overboard when the mood fits us, when we ignore the facts in order to cover up the truth.

Shall we follow the rule of law and do our constitutional duty no matter unpleasant, or shall we follow the path of least resistance, close our eyes to the potential lawbreaking, forgive and forget, move on and tear an unfixable hole in our legal system? No man is above the law, and no man is below the law. That's the principle that we all hold very dear in this country.

Kinsley has an okay article that makes one point that I think needs extensive belaboring:

The biggest flaw in our democracy is, as I say, the enormous tolerance for intellectual dishonesty. Politicians are held to account for outright lies, but there seems to be no sanction against saying things you obviously don’t believe.

Increasingly they're not even held to account for the outright lies, but yeah, this is a big fucking problem. Hypocrisy ought to be the universal sin - the thing that everyone can agree is wrong, no matter how much their other beliefs clash. Instead, not only is it widely tolerated in politicians, it's taken as a given. I don't think we can operate any more backwardly than that.

The comments are worth reading too.

I'm especially glad that the Democrats have control of Congress because I'm hoping it means they'll use their power to investigate the Bush administration's conduct, especially in regards to the Iraq War. But it might not matter if they do investigate:

It is worth reminding ourselves -- as the Vice President just made quite clear again-- that the pathological individuals who occupy the White House do not recognize the power of the law or the power of the courts to limit what they can do. Therefore, the fact that Democrats now control the Congress will be of little concern to them, because the most the Democrats can do is enact little laws or issue cute, little Subpoenas --- but, as the Vice President just said, they think that nothing can "tie the hands of the President of the United States in the conduct of a war." And he means that.
G. Greenwald

Something I don't quite understand is why Nancy Pelosi has said that impeachment is off the table. Why would you want to take that option off the table? But I don't understand exactly how impeachment works, so maybe that's my problem.

I'm back. Catching up...

I'll have a recap and pictures of my trip to the Philippines up soon, but for now I'll just say that it was an awesome experience. I've spent my waking portions of the last couple days catching up on everything that happened while I was away. Here is some of it.

Election

Obviously I'm quite glad that the Republicans lost control of both houses of Congress. I spent several hours yesterday reading everything that Glenn Greenwald wrote about the election and other political matters while I was gone, and I'm repeatedly amazed by how he gets everything exactly right. I can't emphasize my respect for this guy strongly enough. He published top-quality commentary almost every day. One of many great things about his writing is that he's scathingly critical of the media's inept and corrupt coverage of politics, not just the ineptness and corruption of politicians.

I probably have 20+ of his links saved because I want to blog about them, but here are a few samples just from the time I was gone:

Hugh Hewitt shows how Bush followers literally deny reality
Extremely odd behavior from the Washington Post re: the President's Rumsfeld lie
The Military Commissions Act in action
Our wise national security guardians


Television - Lost, The Office, The Wire, Prison Break (spoilers warning)

I also spent some time catching up on tivo.

My first comment is to express relief that they brought Jim back to Scranton on The Office. I complained about the way the season started, but bringing a few new characters back with Jim seems to have a lot of potential. The new guy competing with Dwight is pretty funny, and the new chick is turning out to be way better for the show than Pam alone.

Next, I'm not sure what to think about the format for this season of Lost. No new episodes til February, but then we get 16 in a row. In the first 2 seasons of the show whenever Kate had a romantic moment involving Sawyer, I didn't like it. But I was surprisingly quite comfortable with the recent development. Meanwhile Jack is a fucking badass again, I'm glad that Mr. Eko is dead, and I really hope that Sayid and Desmond start to take some control away from Locke.

Prison Break is my guilty pleasure, but I'll admit to liking it. I think they've been doing a decent job this season with everyone out of prison and on the run. The FBI search guy and the asian Secret Service dude are good additions.

And I'll mention the best show on television last. The Wire is so good in every regard I don't even really know what to say about it. I can't believe what a great job they're doing with the school kids especially, and the scenes with the "corner kids" class have been brilliant. I loved their night out at a nice restaurant.

Sports

It is always nice when you have a few Sports Guy articles available that you haven't read yet. I enjoyed the recent mailbag especially. His NBA column was also good for getting caught up. I'm disappointed with how my NBA fantasy team is looking while I've been away. Looks like buying into the hype on Josh Smith, Steve Nash's bad back, and my lack of frontcourt depth behind Chris Bosh is going to hurt me pretty bad.


Poker

Ugh, the poker world continues its death spiral as Iggy is retiring Guinness and Poker, and Luke is applying to business school. Best wishes to both of them. Life away from the felt is good. I don't really miss Party Poker at all, but I do admit that I miss those $10 buy-in dealer's choice games we played all night in college. That was the poker I loved, and that I never really found while clicking a mouse.

my very own creationist

Check out the comments on links adspar likes 7. I made fun of someone named Alice Benbow who said dumb things about evolution, and now someone claiming to be Alice is saying more dumb things about evolution. She's probably a nice lady, but I have no tolerance for lies and ignorance, so I'm taking a harsh tone.

ps - while I'm gone, feel free to respond to her weird ideas

near-death experience = rededication to atheism

Here's a great essay written yesterday by philosopher Daniel Dennett after a near-death experience.

I was going to quote some of the better excerpts but they're all so good that I'd just recommend reading the entire thing. He touches on the emptiness of good intentions, excuses his religious friends for praying for him, reflects on the rigors of science and medicine and how they represent a higher moral code than any faith-based standard, and explains how "thank goodness" is much more appropriate than "thank god."

I'm glad he made it through the ordeal and hopefully he'll keep writing for us for many more years.

Corrupt Congress, I love America

Remember how I was all pissed off because Bill Frist slipped legislation about online gambling into a bill about port security? Remember how he did it at the last minute before Congress took a recess for elections so that nobody would have time to change the language, and everyone would have to vote for it because the security parts were too important to vote against?

Well maybe you can't get yourself worked up about that because you don't gamble online and you don't care if the government is acting more and more like your nanny. So how about this story (NY Times, login required, just use www.bugmenot.com) to piss you off?

There was an office in Iraq called the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction that monitored corruption in the way US funds were being used and the way contracts were awarded.

"Investigations led by a Republican lawyer named Stuart W. Bowen Jr. in Iraq have sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces."

And a couple weeks ago some huge sprawling bill was signed into law by President Bush, legislation that Congress passed without anyone bothering to read it, and it contained an obscure clause that shuts down that office and their investigations. Somebody, and nobody seems to know who, secretly slipped that provision into a bill knowing that it would never be noticed or debated.

The investigations kept embarrassing the administration by uncovering the rampant corruption in Iraq, so they quietly shut it down. This is how America works. I'm swelling with patriotic pride.

Glenn Greenwald wrote:

"That is as good a snapshot as any of the incomparably destructive one-party Republican rule to which we have been subjected. This small story has virtually every element of how they function."

And goes on to point out that "A Democratic takeover of the House is the one thing that can ensure that Americans will learn of what has been done." He wrote an excellent entry a couple weeks ago on that subject:

In my view, more than anything else, this will be the value of a Democratic takeover of at least one of the houses of Congress. As much wrongdoing as we have learned about on the part of Bush administration already, it is almost certainly the case that there is much, much more that we don't know about, but ought to.

...A Democratic takeover of one or even both houses of Congress is unlikely to result in any new affirmative legislation or policies, since their control will be by only a small margin, dependent on conservative lawmakers in their majority, and subject to a presidential veto. With some exceptions (such as the power to control appropriations and cut off funding), the real power they will have will be to investigate and expose the conduct of the Bush administration and to reveal to Americans what has really been going on.

I really hope that the Democrats win control of Congress on Tuesday, not because I have any love or even respect for their party, but because I know they'll at least be an adversary to the rampant corruption of the Republican regime that has been operating unchecked for the last 6 years.

It just makes me want to sing the national anthem.

Oh yeah, I got married

I got married on November 1, 2006.

Here's the new family.



While I'm off on the honeymoon, feel free to use the comments of this thread to discuss amongst yourselves how ridiculous it is that I was able to lock up such a lovely girl for the rest of my life.

Unfinished

I've been blogging for almost 2 years now. In that time I've occasionally started writing something and never finished it, an occurrence that seems to be increasing lately. Here is the list of topics of unfinished posts sitting in my queue, from oldest to most recent. If you'd like to see what I have to say on one of these topics, feel free to try to heckle me into finishing it.

not smart enough - 5/16/06 - A rant about how on multiple occasions involving different people, I've encountered "I'm not smart enough to debate you" as a cop-out way to avoid an intelligent discussion. I feel like it is a dirty tactic but struggled to express it and didn't want to do a half-ass job on it because I'm afraid it will be too likely to come across as me saying I'm smarter than everyone.

oblivious - 6/1/06 - After reading an O'Reilly column about how various entertainment technologies have everyone avoiding reality, I was writing something about how that seems like an inevitable consequence of the American way. If I were to finish this, I'd probably point out that O'Reilly often seems just as oblivious as those he's criticizing.

influencer - 7/12/06 - This will be a nice one if I ever do it. I want to highlight to a few people who have had a major positive influence on me. It started as a list of my favorite teachers/professors but I felt like I had to include a few others that changed the way I think about the world, hence "influencer." Anyway the idea was to write a little tribute to each of them and then email them to tell them about it. Kinda sappy but I figured they'd appreciate it.

What if I was good at poker? - 8/8/06 - Pretty simple idea for a post but I haven't written anything about it really. I wanted to imagine what my life would be like now and in the future if I was a lot better at poker.

Poker Manifesto - 8/30/06 - Another idea for a poker post where I haven't actually put my thoughts together at all. I wanted to expound on an idea I threw out briefly, of poker as a crappy shortcut for life.

Pat Tillman - 10/21/06 - I want to finish this one more than any other, and yet I think this will be the hardest to finish of any of them. I have a lot I want to say about Pat Tillman, but I always feel like he deserves better than what I've written so far, and I keep trying to hold myself to an impossible standard.

Liberal Bias: Media and Academia? - 10/23/06 - Since I started working on this one, Glenn Greenwald has covered some of the media bias topics that I'd want to address, but I also want to address a general topic of anti-intellectualism. I'll get to this eventually I hope, but there's a lot more work to put in to this.

Political - 10/28/06 - In my recent post I covered a tiny bit of what I want to address here. Back when I avoided all politics out of a combination of laziness and disgust, whenever I heard someone criticize a politician or a political party, my instinctive response was "well the other guys are just as bad." I understand why I made that ignorant generalization, but sometimes it just isn't true, and now I think it is pretty important to recognize differences. This post by Glenn Greenwald was the inspiration to finally make me want to write more about it.

I hope she writes back!

From: %%%%%% <%%@marketology.net>
To: adspar
Date: Oct 31, 2006 5:52 AM
Subject: How can I advertise MyLotto on your site?

Hello,

How are you? I hope everything is fine. I'm happy to inform you about new project that we are launching - MYLotto.com.

MyLotto Is the widest global lottery agent Online, where users can check lottery results and participate in all kinds of lotteries form all over the world. MyLotto is the only service providing you with the free and unlimited purchase of tickets from all the world's official lotteries through the web.

MyLotto is the most perspective project ever launched. No law restrictions, no age limitation, hundreds lotteries available to chose and measureless opportunities for making business.

I will be very happy to see you joining our growing community of partners.

Thank you and looking forward,

%%%%%
MyLotto.com
%%@marketology.net

-----

From: adspar
To: %%%%% <%%@marketology.net>
Date: Oct 31, 2006 1:35 PM
Subject: Re: How can I advertise MyLotto on your site?

%%,

I'm doing pretty well, all things considered. I've been ill recently, but I'm recovering from the nasty infection that ravaged my throat and lungs. Hopefully I'll be at full health for my wedding tomorrow and my honeymoon trip to an exotic Asian location. I think we all know how important full health can be in such situations!!!

MyLotto.com sounds like quite an interesting project indeed! Free lottery tickets from all over the world? Oh my. And you provide them to me for free? How do I get the free lottery tickets sent to me at my office? Do you have lottery tickets from exotic Asian countries? Do they print the numbers in English, or are they written in a fancy glyph script?

I'm curious about your claim that MyLotto is the most perspective project ever launched. I recently launched a project to repair damaged grout in my shower that I think had a great deal of perspective, possibly more than MyLotto. How would we measure which project had more perspective? My project also had no law restriction and no age limitations of any kind. Unlike MyLotto, the opportunity for making business in my shower grout project was measurable and small, but I feel this is balanced by the opportunity for personal hygiene provided by the completed project. Perhaps we should find an impartial arbitrator to settle this for us, and see which could truly claim to be the most perspective project ever launched.

Once these questions are resolved, I hope you'll tell me how to join your growing community of partners.

Thank you and looking forward,

adspar, Reagent of Perspective

p.s. - Does our growing community of partners include anyone from exotic Asia? I hope so!

An email exchange about free speech and altruism

I mentioned recently that I'd like to publish some conversations I've had on email recently. A friend of mine who has political views that differ from mine recently wrote a very long and thoughtful email to a group of our friends summarizing and defending his positions on various interrelated issues that we'd been discussing recently. Tonight I responded to 1 of his 5 sections, and I post it here with his permission.

Date: Oct 30, 2006 9:56 PM

Subject: Re: Presidential Powers discussion

I love it that you wrote all this, and I'd like to respond to all of it, but that's going to take a lot of time. Much respect for the effort it took, and for your desire to make a positive case for your side of important issues. I disagree with some of it, and I'd like to respond to all of it, but that's going to take a lot of time.

Tonight I'm addressing the part that I think is easiest to respond to, your 3rd section called "Trying to bridge the gap to countries/cultures that hate us." As I've put this response together, it turned out that it took a lot longer than I thought it would, but all of my ideas flowed pretty easily as I'd done most of this analysis before. I think I've got a tight case here, but we'll see what you all think.

Your section 3 is fairly short compared to the rest, so I'll reprint it all here:

For my next trick, I would like to speak about trying to win the favor
of countries or cultures who do not like us, or who we piss off.
You've mentioned before that we should be more altruistic to win the
favor of other nations. Especially those who hate us or have
grievances. Well, here I would like to bring into discussion the
recent scandal involving the cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed
in the Danish newspaper. If we (America) were to try and use this
situation to our advantage, then it seems plain as day what we should
have done. We should have publicly spoken very harshly about the
decision to publish such insensitive cartoons. We should have
criticized the Danish newspaper's disregard for Sharia law and
proclaimed our own acceptance of such a proclamation of said law.
Now, I think its pretty obvious my point here centers around pleasing
Muslims around the world while keeping the freedom of the press.
Afterall, I wanted to see the cartoons to see what the fuss was about,
should I have been able to see them? This was/is an affront to
Muslims everywhere. And around the world, there were protests saying
that this was an Isreali and US plot to humiliate Muslims. These
cartoons were clearly an insult to Muslims, and here we are, not
listening to their gripes or making amends. And not only that, many
newspapers here in the States were reprinting those cartoons. How
much more insensitive can you get? We were rubbing salt on the wound.
So now we have angered even more Muslims and reinforced in their
minds that America is anti-Islamic, and all by just practicing one of
our most defining freedoms, Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the
Press. What's the long term answer to be found in this situation? I
think it's safe to say there isn't any one solution that will solve
all these cultural differences. Not even with a trillion dollars to
throw at the problem, but that doesn't mean we aren't trying to made
headway in extending our hands. Look at all the money we give to
Egypt, we influenced them to have democratic elections two years ago.
We don't get oil from Egypt, but here we are sending billions of
dollars to them to help stabilize their country and bring democracy to
its people. Why? Probably because they are an influential nation who
doesn't hate us too much, so that we can actually change some opinions
there.

plus:

Also, the whole Egypt thing, here's a link detailing a little about
what we're doing there.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0412/p07s01-wome.html Yes I know its
from the Christian Science Monitor website, but the facts are still in
there damnit!

My values, America's values, and Danish Cartoons

First I'd just like to voice my own personal opinion about the Danish Mohammad cartoon issue, which leads into how I think the US should respond.

I strongly believe that the right to free speech should be jealously protected and staunchly defended. Voltaire is (falsely I believe) attributed with saying "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." I think that is the attitude a free country should have. People must always been given a safe environment in which to express their opinion, because suppressing the voice of dissent is a powerful tool for tyranny.

But there are situations where "speech" can and should be regulated, the classic example being you can't loudly yell "fire!" in a crowded room. We don't want to endanger lives with what people say, but we do want to allow people to voice their opinions. But it isn't as if the prankster's opinion is that there's a fire and he's being repressed from voicing an opinion.

I think that is what tends to confuse people on the Mohamed cartoon issue, is that peaceful, mildly pro-free-speech, aware people know that printing such a cartoon will lead to violence. But there is a huge difference between yelling "fire" and printing a cartoon, and that difference I think leads to very clearly different appropriate responses to each situation.

Yelling fire causes undue panic, which can result in harm, and it also could lead to a "boy-who-cried-wolf" effect of numbing people to the sound of alarms. Regulating such "speech" is acceptable because while it is a vocal deliverance, there is no actual content to that speech - it is simply a verbal act of violence. There's no opinion, no political commentary, no complaint, nothing. It is just vandalism. Yelling fire in a crowded place is condemnable.

But, drawing a satirical cartoon has a message. There's a political point, a criticism, being made, and violent reaction to it has one logical purpose - to silence that criticism. As a religion, Islam has built into it these mechanisms to silence opposition, calling for the death of anyone who insults their prophet. They might call it pride or honor or religious expression, but its only logical purpose is to stifle dissent. Islam is intolerant and repressive in this regard (as was Christianity in the middle ages, so I'd speculate that it could be possible for a similar liberalization of Islam to happen, where they start to see the more violent parts of the Koran as metaphors or something. Of course you know I think we'd all be better off if all religion was forgotten.)

Consequently, I condemn anyone who calls for violence in response to a peaceful expression of an opinion, including anyone who does it in the name of a religion. And I think that as a nation, one of our defining core values is freedom of speech. And so as a nation, we should uniformly voice our condemnation of violent response to an cartoon.

Similarly, I will never condemn someone for the act of expressing their opinion (except when they're loudly expressing their own opinion to drown out the voice of another - like protesters storming a stage recently at Columbia University. Or when they disrupt a quiet solemn occasion, like when the God Hates Fags people hold up anti-gay hate signs and yell nasty shit at military burials. Both of those groups have the right to express their opinions in some other way, just not in the manor they've chosen - a manor that interupts other people's rights. Muslims who call for violence in response to cartoons offer no opportunity for criticism of Islam. I think there are clear principle differences that make these cases unacceptable while other hurtful speech is acceptable, so if you think I haven't adequately made that case, please tell me why.) even if I find their opinion in poor taste. And I admire the courage of someone who has the courage to express a reasonable message even when they know it might bring unjustified violence in response.


Conflict Resolution

I'm pretty sure you're not saying that the US should have been condemning the Danish newspapers, but what you're saying is that if America is supposed to be out there trying to mend strained relations, than condemning the Danish and sympathizing with the Muslims would have been in line with that intention. Given my stance on free speech, I think the US would be dead wrong to criticize Danish papers for publishing those cartoons.

My general approach to conflict resolution is to find common ground. There is always common ground, and you really can't resolve any differences between people or groups unless you both start from the same place.

So you find a few quotes in the Koran about valuing peace or something, and then you say how Americans also value peace. Then you build a reasonable and logical case why, given the value of peace, violence in response to a cartoon is wrong. Then you say that America values free speech, but that doesn't mean we endorse every view that is allowed to be said, etc.

Reasonable, logical people would respond positively to that message.


Sad Reality

Of course, there's no guarantee that people will be reasonable and logical, but you have to start there. If people refuse to respond reasonably, then they become a problem, and you have to figure out how to deal with them. (And one way you have to deal with them is to understand WHY they aren't being reasonable and logical, which I'll get to shortly.)

There's no guarantee that our message will reach people in its proper form. We''ll probably be quoted out of context and our position would be distorted. We'd say "we support the free expression of Danish papers" and they'd report "Americans hate Mohamed" and "America insults Islam." (But if a sacred tenant of Islam is that you kill people who say bad things about Islam, then the United States is and absolutely should be, against Islam. And we should say that, as should every other free country. And we should also say that if Islam would just drop that one part, we'd be cool again, at least on this issue.)

And yes, there is a reality that voicing a reasonable opinion is likely to make an insane person behave violently. But we can't live in fear of that, and we can't cave in to bullies. We're strong enough to stand up to such bullying. If ragtag colonists can stare down the British Empire, the free countries of the modern world can stare down some insane desert lunatics.

Beyond Common Values

If I read your views right, I think you probably agree with most of what I've said, and probably are agreeable to the part about finding common ground as a key to acceptance between different cultures. But a problem with stating that you share common values is that if what they see of you in the world doesn't fit with your message, they have no reason to believe you.

So, to use your Egypt example, what do Egyptians see of America? (I'm going to start speculating wildly here. If you don't think these speculations are reasonable, please explain why. Keep in mind I'm describing what people see, not necessarily what is real, although I think the people have very legit reasons to see it as reality. Some of these ideas are supported by the link at the end of your message.) They see American corporations working with the few rich Egyptians who own the oil fields to suck as much oil out of the ground as possible. They see that the vast majority of that wealth doesn't benefit the Egyptian people, instead going to a tiny elite class. They see us helping the rich controlling class to set up a sham of a democracy, with rigged elections that make it seem like they rule with the consent of the people, when everyone knows that it was all bullshit to begin with, and that the same people would stay in control. And they see that America is the most prosperous nation in the world, that we're fat and happy and drink a glass of refined oil with all our meals, oil that they break their backs working 12 hours a day to pump out of the ground and get paid only $5 a week.

They see us sucking up to the people with the oil, and spitting on the peasants. They see us oppressors and vultures and opportunistic greedy bastards.

I think there might be an important reason that the 9/11 hijackers were Egyptians and Saudis, and it is because those governments work with the US to do business that doesn't benefit the people of those countries. If you're in Saudi Arabia, and you're pissed about being poor and you think America is to blame because of all the stuff you see them doing, you probably think your only option to fight America is to join Al Qaeda. A pissed-off poor Iraqi who hates America could always join Saddam's army because they know Saddam hates America too (although pissed-off poor Iraqis are more likely to blame Saddam than America, in the Saddam era of course). So a person whose government doesn't represent him against a perceived oppressor is more likely to go the terrorist route.

[That's the end of my speculation about what's going on in a place like Egypt, an Arab country that we purportedly are "helping" or reaching out to bridge a culture gap, but that you could much more realistically/cynically make a case that all we're doing is trying to prevent the poor from rebelling against the rich and compromising our oil supply.]

I have this general idea that I haven't expressed much in these emails because I don't have it quite worked out yet, but the general idea is that uneven (more specifically uneven which is seen as unfair - you can say "fair" is subjective, but people more readily identify when they've been slighted than they identify when they've slighted others , so there's always going to be a disparity in perception of "fair") distribution of wealth, economic inequality is the main driver of most human tension (with religious ideology being a primary enabler - offering a way for otherwise good people to justify to themselves the bad things that they do - "kill the dirty infidel" is noble because you're defending the honor of god, instead of defending your right to profit from your nation's oil). Countries where anti-American sentiment is highest are probably countries where our "imperialist" international policy is harming local people, somehow perpetuating economic inequality, perhaps without most of America even being aware of it (not to mention that there is a positive relationship between poverty and religiousness).

The trillion dollar idea

Getting back to cultural differences, the reason I sometimes have juxtaposed spending a trillion dollars on a war vs using that money for undeniably humanitarian purposes is that you really can buy friendship in most cases. If you give water to a thirsty man, you become his friend. If you give food to a starving family, they love you. If you heal the sick and clothe the naked, you've got friends for life, assuming you don't proceed to rape their wives and burn down their homes. If you've crossed them in the past, they might refuse your aid, and you should respect that refusal and don't insist. But you help their neighbors if they accept it, and you help everyone else around them. And soon the hold-outs are fewer and farther between and more powerless, and hopefully their grudge doesn't last into the next generation.

There's some saying about how America has never had a war against a country with a McDonald's in it, or something like that. The point being that if you do business with people, you're much less likely to fight them, because fair economic transactions are supposed to create value - both sides win. So to the extent that we're out there internationally doing fair business where both sides win, we're generally going to make friends, or at least avoid making enemies. But if we do unfair business, we don't make those friends, and probably make enemies.

I've never said that we SHOULD have spent a trillion dollars on humanitarian aid, I've simply posed that we'd probably be better off if we spent the money that way than by fighting the war (but I'll address the Iraq war portion of your comments another time, so for the purposes of this discussion I'd ask you not to engage the merits of my comparison.)

So in regards to our cultural differences, the ones where finding common ground would be helpful in resolving, it is a lot easier to establish that common ground if we're conspicuously doing those people some good and aren't conspicuously doing them harm. You're a lot less likely to hate me for saying things you disagree with than to hate some random loudmouth for saying the same things, only because you know me and we have a history of being friends. We've had good times together, so you'll cut me a lot more slack than a stranger, and way way more slack than someone you're already prone to hating, like a fat chick wearing a yankees hat.

Some have pointed out that some forms of aid would be criticized as culturally inappropriate, as trying to advance some agenda, and I agree. You probably can't offer a starving Muslim a BLT and expect gratitude. But there has to be some kind of aid that they'd like. Give them clean water and penicillin and band-aids. Or give them pencils and math textbooks. Do your cultural homework and give aid that won't offend. Teach them how to build bridges or plumbing. And then you work the diplomatic side, offering incentives to government that is fair to its people. You be a good friend to the people of the country.

This isn't to suggest that winning the affections of different cultures is easy, but I think there is a reasonable way to proceed. There will be challenges along the way, and some of them will relate to other aspects of what you've written about. Hopefully my response to some of your other points will address some of these issues (like what if they just don't want anything to do with you and then they seem like they probably have nukes that they want to use.)

I'd conclude with a specific response to the problem you've identified, which I think summarizes this rant of mine. You wrote: "You've mentioned before that we should be more altruistic to win the favor of other nations. Especially those who hate us or have grievances." and then you went on to highlight problems with cultural differences related to free speech. I think we'd agree that sticking to our values in the face of opposition is the right thing to do. And hopefully I've shown that the relationship between altruism and cultural differences is that people are more inclined to peacefully resolve their cultural differences when they have a good relationship, and that altruism is a powerful first step towards establishing good relationships.

Peace.

on shifting views

A thoughtful comment from Dan on my last post raised an issue that I'd like to explore further. In fact I meant to get more into it during that rant, but I guess I lost track of it.

Dan wrote:

On top of that, we can't even rely on our own preferences and views to remain static. I can still remember with astonishing clarity the days when you used to argue with me that religion did more good than bad, fuck the earth because technology will always overcome and what do i care I'll be dead anyway, and that siding with one party of a 2-party system was probably good just because it's probably better than siding with the other party. It's been interesting seeing your viewpoints shift.

Dan wonders, as do I, how much I can be sure that my current perspective will last, given how much it has changed in the last few years. But another question would be are the changes random or are they moving in a certain direction? And I think there's a clear direction to my changes.

I did make the arguments Dan mentions, arguments that are somewhat embarrassing to me now. But I understand why I made them at the time, I understand why I make different arguements now, and I understand why I moved from one to the other. That same understanding makes me think I'm not likely to revert to the previous state, and relates to these career choices.

Recently I went back and reread some of my old blog posts, because I've been aware how much my views have changed on some subjects. This old post was particularly awkward for me to reread. But at the same time, I was somewhat proud of the reasonableness I displayed. The fatal flaw of my argument was that I was using reasonableness to defend an viewpoint I reached from a place of unreasonableness.

In a very general way I was arguing that Bush's warrantless wiretaps weren't so bad, not because I understood the issue, but because I simply made bad assumptions about the issue, and this was I think the basis of all of my argument:

"It seems likely to me that what the President did was not illegal either because it was suffiently in grey area or because it was explicitly legal."

In other words, I had no idea, but I just made an assumption rather than try to erase my own ignorance. I just figured that both sides of the political debate had their own partisan agendas (which they of course do) but I didn't realize that having a partisan agenda doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong.

In spite of my spirited argument from ignorance, I said some things I'm proud to have said, and that in some ways predicted my shift in stance:

• "the reason he cites for his objection is the reasonable idea that if you give someone a power with the understanding they'll use it for good, eventually they'll use it for bad."
• "Hopefully your point in 5 is that we should be wary of granting powers that we can't monitor for misuse. That is a good point. When we quickly grant powers in response to an immediate threat, and those powers might not be able to be monitored, we should weigh the benefits those powers provide against the potential negatives of their misuse, and also factor in that we can develop a way to monitor them while they are already in use."
• This entire list of 14 points, which now I would probably still use as a tool to argue the exact opposite side (actually not the exact opposite, since my argument wasn't really that warantless wiretaps were good. My point then was more like "people arguing warantless wiretaps are bad are just partisan anti-Bush people who'll jump on any cause to go against a Republican.")
• "You sell yourself short, calling it futile, after making a great point that it all boils down to a subjective worth of something."

Walt took most of the aversarial role in that conversation (I love you Walt), and I pounced on some of the less logical things he said, while simply conceding his better points, which had the effect of magnifying his more debateable points since I could devote more time to refuting them. Paradoxically, simply conceding his good points almost had the effect of dismissing them.

Anyway, the point of this whole flashback was to illustrate that many of my old views/ideas that are different than my current views/ideas were different because they were based on ignorance. I had preconcieved notions that I wanted to be true, and I argued fairly persuasively (at least persuasively enough for myself at the time) in favor of those preconceived notions. But somewhere along the way, something happened and I let go of a lot of those preconceived notions.

My progression of views follows a logical structure, when you look at it that way. At least some of my transitions from

math --> finance --> econ --> psychology --> philosophy --> anthropology

also make sense in this way. I started with math because I was good at it and liked it. I liked economics because it was based in math but it was a tool to try to understand how humans behave. Pyschology is a classic discipline devoted to understanding how humans behave, and the evolutionary psychology I was reading helped me to understand myself better. My interest in philosophy was specifically in philosophy of science, because I realized that the scientific method rigorously seeks to eliminate the biases that preconceived notions cause, a powerful idea to me at the time since I had just gone through a process of ridding myself of such biases.

And my latest focus on anthropology is again touching on my theme of interest in human nature. I also realize that part of my academic interest is in pursuing subjects that will help me understand myself. I also see Anthropology as giving me the freedom to pursue a very wide range of scholarly study of humanity, and also the option of a wide range of enviroments in which to study it. There are anthropologists in university classrooms, in corporate boardrooms, in government institutes, in jungles of South America, in African plains, on beautiful Islands, or in poverty-ravaged third world countries. They work with microscopes, or with fossils, or with chimps, or with college students. They're all studying human nature, but they're all doing it in very different ways, and presumably they gravitate towards locations and lifestyles that they personally enjoy, while trying to find an intellectually satisfying theme to their work.

Thanks to everyone who is responding to this stuff. It means a lot to me. But not enough that I'm going to run the spell checker.

long uneditted brainstorm about school

I'm going to revert to the tried and true blog form of the unedited (mildly edited) rant. I've let a few rants fly in emails this week and it felt pretty good, so let's see if it helps with this.

The topic at hand is my career, or more specifically my lack of career, and hypothetic musings on what kind of career I'd like to have. If you've been following along in this stupid blog of mine, you'll know that I entertain the notion of going back to school for a PhD, and I think of myself as some kind of scholar wannabe. In spite of the idea of school being in my head for years now, I haven't made a lot of progress towards actually getting there. Here's my current situation.

Most PhD programs have application deadlines between December 1 and early January for admission to the following fall semester. If I were to want to apply, I'd need letters of recommendation, which would require me giving a least 1 month notice to anyone who'd be writing on my behalf, meaning I'd need to ask them by November 1st for the early schools or December 1st for the later schools.

In other words, I'd need to know tomorrow that I definitely want to apply for a program that would occupy the next 5~8 years and basically define the rest of my life. I just don't think I can pull that off.

Moving away from the practical side, and back to the theoretical side, my most recent field of interest is Anthropology. When I wondered what my undergrad major would be as I was transitioning from high school to college, I thought I'd maybe do math. But I didn't register as a math major, I just registered as a "letters and sciences" major or something like that, which basically meant I didn't know what I wanted to major in. I took a very hard math class my first semester (real analysis) that I was definitely not prepared for, and it made me think I shouldn't be a math major. So then I was back to having no idea. I took a couple intro-level psychology classes, but they weren't very interesting. I had a friend who was majoring in finance, and he told me that being a finance major meant lots of easy classes and you could still make a lot of money with that degree. I didn't even know what finance was, aside from his description of "it is about how to make money with money, kind of like accounting, stocks and that stuff." So I became a finance major. What a terrible reason to pick a major - because it wouldn't be challenging. Eventually I added an economic degree as well, since I had liked my high school economics class, and there were some economics requirements for finance anyway. So I spent 4 years of college getting a double degree (150 credits) in 2 subjects that I really didn't care too much about, aside from some vague interest from my high school days. But the economics I took, I didn't even really like most of it, except for game theory.

The whole point of this rant was to illustrate that my early career/academic interests were math, psychology and economics, but I made no real effort to develop those interests. I just took the easy way out.

Since college, I've explored other areas of intellectual interest. I remember shortly after I graduated I decided to reread an archaeology textbook from a class that I enjoyed but didn't put a great deal of effort into. I reread some books that were part of a class I took my freshman year called 'Science and Pseudoscience' that was probably my favorite college class - books about skeptical thinking: "Why People Believe Weird Things" (Michael Shermer), "Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions" (James Randi), and "How We Know What Isn't So" (Thomas Gilovich). I read Stephen Hawkings' books (A Brief History of Time, The Universe in a Nutshell) and a few other books on string theory (Brian Green - The Elegant Universe, . I finally read Ayn Rand's masterpieces - "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged". Then I stumbled onto a book called "NonZero: The Logic of Human Destiny" by Robert Wright. That turned me on to evolution and evolutionary psychology and I really got hooked. I read his earlier book "The Moral Animal" and then I started reading Dawkins (The Selfish Gene, maybe others I don't remember right now) and Pinker (The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate). I was fascinated by this stuff, and I think that was about when I started blogging. I started reading other people's blogs about that time too, which eventually reopened my eyes to two topics that I'd avoided for a long time: religion and politics.

I finally had the interest and the courage to admit that I'm an atheist - an emotionally charged word that I had avoided for a long time for no good reason. It was quite liberating, and a lot of the world started to make a whole lot more sense once I flipped that switch. I also realized that I'm not politically conservative like I always thought I was, and I've taken more interest in politics and from a much more open-minded perspective. I got a subscription to Skeptic Magazine and read Shermer's "Science Friction," and even went to a meeting of a local skeptic group, though I haven't gone back yet.

I read Jared Diamond (Guns Germs and Steel, The Third Chimp, Collapse) and his books really made me start to see how good science can and should inform responsible modern living. I read very recent politically charged books (Sam Harris - The End of Faith, Chris Mooney - The Republican War on Science, Glen Greenwald - How Would a Patriot Act) and those made me realize how political movements, especially when fueled by religious fundamentalism, can just disregard good science and responsible political values and lead to human tragedy. And that re-opened my interest in understanding people, and making sense of religion. Recent reading included "Stumbling on Happiness" by Dan Gilbert, "Religion Explained" by Pascal Boyer, "A Devil's Chaplain" by Richard Dawkins. Continuing to explore politics, especially in light of understanding human nature and how the American system isn't all it seems to be, I read John Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" and now I'm reading "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn.

Now that I've gone off and listed a lot of the books I've read in the last few years, I should bring it back to the point I've tried to make. The point of the book list which I may or may not have made obvious as it went was to track my intellectual interests as they've developed. To greatly simplify, if I had to summarize what direction my academic career would have been likely to take at each of a few points in time over the years, here is what it would look like:

math --> finance --> econ --> psychology --> philosophy --> anthropology

And so now here I am, thinking I'd probably like to be a professional academic, thinking that anthropology is most interesting field right now, and seeing application deadlines in the very very near future. But I also see that my interests have changed a lot in the last few years, and it seems reasonable to think they'll change again. But still, I think I feel more confident about anthropology now than I ever felt about economics, even when I was accepted to those programs, so... so... I don't know what that means.

In the next month I'm getting married and I'm turning 26. My life is moving in a direction where I need to start being more responsible, whether I'm ready for it or not. Anthropology tends to take 6~8 years to get a PhD.

So, to get back to practical, what do I do now?

One idea is that I could try to apply to a few anthropology programs that look interesting to me and that have later (Jan 1+) deadlines. That leave me enough time to apply, and gives me a few more months after applying to try to figure out what research are of most interest to me (I have general thoughts on this. Topics of interest: cognition, human evolution, evolution of human behavior, religion, rationality, laziness/productivity, tradition. Models that I think I'm most interested in: modern first world nations, non-human primates, and hunter-gatherer tribes. Over-arching research themes: humans not made for the modern world, persistence of irrational belief and behavior.) and how various programs fit with those interests. If after getting into a few places I realize there are others schools that might be better fits, or even other disciplines that might be more appropriate, I can decline the acceptance and apply next year.

Or I could just accept that I don't have enough time to apply the "right way" if there is such a thing, and spend the next full year really devoted to the mission of figuring this out once and for all. I could either keep doing the job I'm doing (I'm pretty sure they'd hire me full time) or maybe try to get a job teaching high school or middle school for a year. That would give me enough time to get in contact with professors at various programs and get a better feel for how I'd fit in at different places and maybe visit, versus applying now based mainly on the website information and maybe a few email exchanges if I get ambitious.

I'm genuinely not sure the best way to proceed, and I'm also handicapped by my own weaknesses, specifically laziness and introversion. I'm bad at working without imminent deadlines, and I'm shy about reaching out to strangers to express interest in their work. I'm also going to be travelling and not able to devote much if any energy to this from November 7 to 16 (our "honeymoon" in the Philippines) and I feel like that is another looming obstacle to proceeding with these matters (even though I'm very excited about the trip).

Applications are all going to require a personal statement, where I make my case about why they should let me into their program. So in order to write that I'd need to have a good understanding of why I'd want to get in, and why they'd want to have me. And I feel like I'd have to have that statement ready before I ask anyone to write me a letter of recommendation, so those people know why I want to do it. So I'd need to come up with that statement, or a good rough draft, pretty quickly, which is partially what this rant is hoping to get me thinking about. So if nothing else, I've gotten some brain dump out onto this screen and it might have something for me to draw from for such a statement.

Another obstacle is that many applications require a writing sample. I don't have a writing sample. I didn't have to write any respectable papers in college, at least not as the sole author, and my professional work has yet to require any writing that would be appropriate either. I could maybe find a way to turn my work that I'm doing now into a paper, but I'd have to figure that out pretty quickly too. Or maybe I'd just have to write a 10 page paper on some academic subject, which would take a lot of time, but could be fun I guess. Some programs don't require the writing sample though, so maybe that would be another criteria that eliminates schools from consideration for applying this year.

I think this is the end of my rant for tonight, and I think I'll stick with my plan not to go back and edit it. If you actually read this far, I'm impressed, and if you have any advice I'd be grateful.

EDIT 1: I am going to go in and edit parts of this. My first edit is to get all the book titles and authors right, and to include references to some books and other ideas related to skepticism that I forgot to include initially. They roughly correspond to the philosophy part of the timeline, as my specific philosophical interest was the philosophy of science.

Atheist Blogroll

I joined the

links adspar likes 8 (biological edition)

Here is the 8th installment of a recurring feature, creatively titled links adspar likes. These should keep you busy with good reading material while you're bored at work, and it makes me feel productive because most of the links are educational and/or thought-provoking.

This is the biological edition of links adspar likes.



How Global Warming Disrupts Biological Communities - a Chronobiological Perspective
by A Blog Around the Clock

adspar's quick summary:
Several examples of animals, mostly birds, whose behavior patterns have been altered by global warming.

why you should read it:
The Pizzlie: polar bear/grizzlie hybrid. Wow.


The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online
by Chucky D

adspar's quick summary:
pretty self-explanitory

why you should read it:
Dude, Darwin!


Elephants Gone Wild
by Jonah Lehrer

adspar's quick summary:
This is mostly just a link to a NYTimes piece about how elephants are going crazy and killing and raping rhinoceroses. Yes, you read that right.

why you should read it:
Stress makes animals do weird things.


That's all for links adspar likes 8 (biological edition). Just a quicky to get some links off my massively growing list of links to blog about. Links here. Preview of future links here.

gambling ban stuff

A pair of articles about the internet gambling ban fiasco

George Will, Newsweek

Radley Balko, FoxNews

Also, check out this protest from Downsize DC.

UPDATE: another one

another must-read

From Dispatches:

Writes Jerry Taylor, who initially supported the war in Iraq, at the Cato blog, "This is jaw dropping stuff. If I were a Congressman and this information had crossed my desk back in 2003, I would have submitted articles of impeachment of President Bush right then and there. This is criminal negligence and incompetence so amazing that words can't do the matter justice." I couldn't agree more.

email and politics

I've been having a lot of political discussions over email with friends and family lately. I've somewhat neglected my blog in the meantime, and I'm hoping to find a way to post a lot of the political thoughts I've expressed in that private correspondence in this public forum.

The last post about the airline pilot was an easy example of how to do it since it was just a forwarded message. For more my responses in more personalized discussions, I do want to respect the privacy of my friend who have expressed their views to me over email, so I'm planning to edit what I've written in such a way as to respond to "a friend who argues this" as opposed to directly quoting them.

War thoughts of an airline pilot

I received the following in a forwarded email tonight. My response is included below.

- adspar

email forward:

Sent: Sunday, October 22, 2006 4:38 PM

Subject: Captain's Blog

Subject:
Pilot's blog
Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 16:31:32 +0000

This is from a retired Delta pilot in response to questions about whether he was planning to see "United 93."

I haven't seen the movie, yet, but I intend to when I get the chance. Retirement has made me busier than ever, and I haven't had the chance to see many movies lately.

As a Delta B-767 captain myself at the time of the attacks on 9/11 I was in crew rest in Orlando that morning. I had just turned on the TV in my hotel room only to see the World Trade Center tower on fire, and then saw the second airplane hit the other tower. My immediate reaction was "Terrorists...we're at war", followed by the realization that we airline crew-members had all dodged a bullet; it could have been any one of us flying those planes. As soon as the news stations flashed the first pictures of the terrorists I knew just how close and personal the bullet I dodged was. There, on the screen for all to see, was a man who had sat in my jump seat the previous July. His name was Mohammad Atta, the leader of the terrorist hijackers.

Atta had boarded my flight from Baltimore to Atlanta on July 26, 2001 wearing an American Airlines first officer uniform. He had the corresponding AA company ID identifying him as a pilot, not to mention the required FAA pilot license and medical certificate that he was required to show me as proof of his aircrew status for access to my jumpseat.

An airline pilot riding a cockpit jumpseat is a long established protocol among the airlines of the world, a courtesy extended by the management and captains of one airline to pilots and flight attendants of other airlines in recognition of their aircrew status. My admission of Mohammad Atta to my cockpit jumpseat that day was merely a routine exercise of this protocol.

Something seemed a bit different about this jumpseat rider, though, because in my usual course of conversation with him as we reached cruise altitude he avoided all my questions about his personal life and focused very intently upon the cockpit instruments and our operation of the aircraft. I asked him what he flew at American and he said, "These", but he asked incessant questions about how we did this or why we did that. I said, "This is a 767. They all operate the same way." But he said, "No, we operate them differently at American." That seemed very strange, because I knew better. I asked him about his background, and he admitted he was from Saudi Arabia. I asked him when he came over to this country and he said "A couple of years ago." to which I asked, "Are you a US citizen?" He said no. I also found that very strange because I know that in order to have an Airline Transport Pilot rating, the rating required to be an airline captain, one has to be a US citizen, and knowing the US airlines and their hiring processes as I do, I found it hard to believe that American Airlines would hire a non-US citizen who couldn't upgrade to captain when the time came. He said, "The rules have changed." which I also knew to be untrue. Besides, he was just, shall I say, "Creepy"? My copilot and I were both glad to get rid of this guy when we got to Atlanta.

There was nothing to indicate, though, that he was anything other than who or what he said he was, because he had the documentation to prove who he was. In retrospect, we now know his uniform was stolen and his documents were forged. Information later came to light as to how this was done.

It seems that Mohammad Atta and his cronies had possibly stolen pilot uniforms and credentials from hotel rooms during the previous year. We had many security alerts at the airline to watch out for our personal items in hotel rooms because these were mysteriously disappearing, but nobody knew why. Atta and his men used these to make dry runs prior to their actual hijackings on 9/11. How do I know? I called the FBI as soon as I saw his face on the TV that day, and the agent on the other end of the line took my information and told me I'd hear back from them when all the dust settled. A few weeks later I got a letter from the Bureau saying that my call was one of at least half a dozen calls that day from other pilots who had had the same experience. Flights were being selected at random to make test runs for accessing the cockpit. It seems we had all dodged bullets.

Over the years my attitude towards the War Against Terrorism and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been known to be on the red neck, warmongering, rah-rah-shoot-em-up side of things. I've been known to lose my patience with those who say the war in Iraq or anywhere else in the Muslim world is wrong, or who say we shouldn't become involved in that area of the world for political correctness reasons. Maybe it's because I dodged the bullet so closely back in 2001 that I feel this way. I have very little patience for political rhetoric or debate against this war because for a couple of hours back in July 2001, when I was engaged in conversation with a major perpetrator in this war, I came so close to being one of its victims that I can think in no other terms.

I don't mind admitting that one of the reasons I retired early from Delta last May, other than to protect my disappearing company retirement, was because it became harder and harder for me to go to work every day knowing that the war wasn't being taken seriously by the general public. The worst offenders were the Liberal detractors to the present administration, and right or wrong, this administration is at least taking the bull by the horns and fighting our enemies, which is something concrete that I can appreciate. Nobody was taking this war seriously, and it seems everyone found fault with the US government rather than with those who attacked us. I found that incomprehensible.

I also found myself being scrutinized by TSA screeners more and more every day when I went to work, and suffered the humiliating indignity of being identified about half the time for body searches in front of the general flying public who looked at the entire process as being ludicrous. "They don't even trust their own pilots!" accompanied by an unbelieving snicker was the usual response. Here I was, a retired USAF officer who had been entrusted to fly nuclear weapons around the world, who had been granted a Top Secret clearance and had been on missions over the course of 21 years in the military that I still can't talk about without fear of prosecution by the DoD, who was being scanned by a flunky TSA screener looking for any sign of a pen knife or nail file on my person.

It wasn't until six months after my retirement when my wife and I flew to Key West, FL last November that I was finally able to rid myself of the visage of Mohammad Atta sitting behind me on my jumpseat, watching my every action in the cockpit and willing to slit my throat at the slightest provocation. I missed being a headline by a mere 47 days, and could very well have been among the aircrew casualties on 9/11 had one of my flights on my monthly schedule been a transcontinental flight from Boston or New York to the west coast on the 11th of September. Very few people know that, while only four airliners crashed that day, four more were targeted, and two of them were Delta flights. The only reason these four weren't involved is because they either had minor maintenance problems which delayed them at the gate or they were scheduled to depart after the FAA decided to ground all flights. Theirs are the pilots and flight attendants who REALLY dodged the bullet that day, and my faith in a higher power is restored as a result.

I will see United 93 when I get the chance, and I will probably enjoy the movie for its realness and historical significance, but forgive me if I do not embrace the Muslim world for the rest of my life. The Islamic world is no friend of the West, and although we may be able to get along with their governments in the future, the stated goal of Islam is world conquest through Jihad and it is the extremist Jihadists, backed and funded by "friendly" Muslim governments, whom we have to fear the most. We must have a presence in the Middle East, and we must have friends in the Middle East, even if we have to fight wars to get them. Only someone who has dodged a bullet can fully appreciate that fact.

Best to all,
Pat Gilmore

Editor's Note: For some reason which is beyond me, some people do not want to believe this. Perhaps they do not want to believe that Jihadist terrorism actually exists, because if someone doesn't believe it yet, they never will. Capt. Gilmore himself posted this comment, in our comments below, but I will put it here for all to see:

I assure you this letter is true. As to the fact that I wrote that a holder of an Airline Transport Pilot rating (ATP) must be a US citizen, I admit that I was mistaken here. I had always assumed so, because that's what I had heard, so I looked up the requirements for an ATP just now. There is nothing that says that US citizenship is required. Okay, I'll bite the bullet on that one. I received my ATP back in 1975 and now that I think of it I do not remember having to prove my citizenship. However, the rest of the story is true. As for my airline career, I worked for Western Airlines (who merged with Delta in 1987), Jet America Airlines (who was bought by Alaska Airlines in 1988), and Delta Airlines, as well as a few "fly by night" cargo airlines during my furlough period from Western from 1981 - 1985. I also flew in Vietnam as a transport pilot and retired from the USAF Reserve in 1991 after the Gulf War. I have 21,500+ flight hours in T-41, T-37, T-38, C-141/L-300, CE-500, CV-440, MD-80/82, B-727, B-737, B-757, and B-767 aircraft, all logged between 1970 and 2005 when I retired from Delta.

Trust me, folks, this was real. I must admit I am quite surprised that my letter made it this far on the internet. The letter was nothing more than an innocent reply to a group of friends, one of whom sent me a similar letter from another Delta pilot who had been flying the morning of 9/11 and who had experienced the flying that day for himself. His letter had detailed his thoughts as he viewed the movie "United 93", and he also told in detail how he had been diverted to Knoxville when the FAA shut down the airspace. My friend had asked me if I had known of any other similar experiences, so I wrote him what I had encountered myself a few months before. This was my letter to him.

Another retired Delta captain contacted me yesterday after reading this blog and related an experience his wife had on a flight from Portland, OR to Atlanta in August 2001, just a week or so after my experience with Atta. She was riding on a company pass and seated in First Class. A person of "Middle Eastern" descent had sought permission to sit on the cockpit jump seat, but was denied access by the captain because he did not have an FAA Medical certificate. She said he ranted and raved because he couldn't ride the cockpit jump seat, even though there were three empty seats in First Class, which the captain offered him. What pilot in his right mind would refuse a First Class seat over a cramped cockpit jump seat? He stormed off the aircraft and they left him at the gate. You see, mine wasn't the only experience leading up to 9/11.

Delta Airlines Corporate Security even contacted me a few days ago to ask if I had, indeed written this letter. I wrote them back that I had. They were worried that someone was using my name without my knowledge. I assured them I was the author.

Keep the faith, and don't let the bastards get you down.
Pat Gilmore

adspar response:

I had never heard about the 9/11 hijackers doing these kinds of dry runs. Interesting stuff, thanks for forwarding it!

I want to respond though to the political points this pilot discusses. This was an emotional story even just for me reading it, so I can't even begin to imagine the emotion the pilot must feel about the situation he's been through, and terrorism in general. He has his feelings and his opinions, and he's entitled to them.

But I can't help but notice that nothing in what he writes is actually an evidence-based argument in favor of the Iraq war as the most appropriate strategy for combating terrorism. The pilot simply writes that because of his traumatic experience, he has taken a "rah-rah-shoot-em-up" approach and that he appreciates that the "administration is at least taking the bull by the horns and fighting our enemies, which is something concrete that I can appreciate." He even acknowledges that maybe its because of how he dodged a bullet that he has no tolerance for debate of the issues.

In other words, he says that he's angry about how he could have been the one killed, angry at having to be humiliated, and he wants to hit someone back. I certainly understand that emotion, and I think we all can understand it.

But hopefully we also understand that reasonable foreign policy shouldn't be formulated by someone in a state of anger wishing to hit back. Making decisions about how to use our military, how to risk the lives of our soldiers, shouldn't be made in a state of anger, in a thirst for revenge. Calm, rational minds are needed to make difficult decisions.

Interestingly, the pilot even writes "right or wrong, this administration is at least taking the bull by the horns and fighting our enemies." Right or wrong? He seems to be saying that even if what they're doing is wrong, he's just happy they're doing something concrete. While I respect the man for what he's been through, I can't respect an attitude that doing something wrong is preferable to doing nothing at all.

He makes the point that "political correctness" is no reason to oppose a war, and I strongly agree. But there are many other reasons to oppose the war, and there aren't any serious politicians, pundits, or other commentators who would genuinely argue that a reason not to be at war is because we should respect Islam or because we shouldn't unfairly target Middle Eastern people, or any of those kinds of sensitivities we usually call political correctness. I don't know if this pilot thinks that political correctness is the only reason people oppose war, but if he does, he's wrong. And those other reasons for opposing war need to be strongly considered, not just dismissed because we're (understandably) angry about what happened.

Please note that nothing I've said here is voicing support for, or opposition to, the Iraq (or Afghanistan for that matter) war. I'm simply pointing out that ____'s email is simply an interesting story about one man's experience. It is in no way is a reasoned argument in favor of war, nor is it a reasoned rebuttal of any serious anti-war arguments.

Olbermann on Bush - Oct 18

read this link

I found this piece so good that I had to post it in advance of my tribute to Glenn Greenwald as the next in my "favorite blogs" series.

O'Reilly + Couric = 0

If you took the time to dig through the history of this blog, which would make you a weird stalker, you'd find that my opinion of Bill O'Reilly has gradually declined after I initially liked him. The following situation continues that trend.

I saw this O'Reilly opinion column. It references a controversial Katie Couric CBS Evening News segment where they let some nutjob named Rohrbaugh on the air (a father who tragically lost his son in the Columbine school shootings) and he said some really ignorant shit about how teaching evolution leads to violence, echoing the moronic thoughts of disgraced criminal former congressman Tom DeLay. Rohrbaugh also made some anti-abortion comments.

Katie Couric was criticized for letting this guy on her show to spew nonsense, and she responded on her blog that she was aware some people would find Rohrbaugh's views repugnant. O'Reilly rants about how it is ridiculous that someone like Couric would call a pro-life view "repugnant." Katie's blog then posted this spineless retort that gave a forum for more anti-evolution bullshit.

Katie Couric and Bill O'Reilly are giants in the media, and they're both pathetic here. What is repugnant about this guy's statement is his anti-evolution ignorance. There is no evidence that widespread acceptance of evolution is harmful to a society, and in fact there is significant support for the idea that rejection of evolution and widespread belief in God is harmful to society****. How does this not get mentioned? I thought that responsible reporters, especially those who claim "no spin," are supposed to give you the relevant facts. "Fair and balanced" means that where there is a reasonable debate, you present both sides, not that you just give air time to insane people who hold views with no basis in reality. Couric might as well give 90 seconds for someone to tell us all that the Earth is flat and that 2+2=7.

Of course the reason they avoid stating the simple truth that evolution is as much a fact as gravity is that they don't want to offend the millions of zealot fundamentalists who refuse to accept reality. Those ignorant masses are a significant base of their viewers (or in O'Reilly's case, the vast majority) and they must be appeased.

**** - update: Mario points out that the study I linked to is complete bullshit. Rather than delete the mention of it, I'll leave it linked as a testament to my own shame. Also, shame on Skeptic Magazine.

another update: I was of course being over-the-top reactionary in my first update. The study has some merit, the problem is if you use it to support conclusions it doesn't actually support. It definitely offers some evidence to refute the absurd assertion that teaching evolution leads to societal ills. It doesn't, as I initially suggested, offer much support for the idea that "rejection of evolution and widespread belief in God is harmful to society." A fine but important distinction that might have gotten lost in my "complete bullshit" dismisal. Also I'm doing this update in a hurry, so I might have gotten something wrong here too.

sleep break

As I sit here at 12:33 unable to go to bed, I figure it is a good time to link to some information about sleep patterns. If you wake up in the middle of the night for 45 minutes, you might be naturaler than me, cause once I fall asleep it takes a lot of loud noise to wake me up within the next 9 hours.

Gay man employed!!!

More excellent stuff from Dispatches:

Not only did they give a gay man a job, but they treated his partner and his family as though they were normal human beings. You don't have to be Paul Cameron to see where that sort of thing leads. One day you're being nice to a gay man's mother and the next thing you know we've got forced sodomy as an activity in elementary school gym class. We've got to nip this in the....well, it clearly needs to be stopped. Bill Frist will now attach a bill requiring everyone to be rude and impertinent to all gay people and their mothers to an omnibus appropriations bill.

BLOG BLOG BLOG all night long

I'm rolling with linkblogging here, and I don't feel like reverting back to links adspar likes format yet. I know this is going to be a bit traumatic for some of you, my dear readers, but that's the way life is sometimes. I'm unpredictable. Deal with it. Stare down your fears and know victory. Actually you might want to avert your gaze. Yeah, cast your eyes slightly away and know victory.

Check this story out. Some homeschool kid has made $35,000 by being really good at some video game and selling the weapons he builds in the video game to other players. WTF?? That sounds way better than poker.

On the subject of homeschooling, UC Berkeley has a bunch of videos of lectures on Google Video. That is free learning that you can watch from home and get smart and use your new smartness to play video games and make $35,000.

The dark side of video games is that someone has to be the worst. Top notch funny shit.

Last link for tonight is this Bloggasm study of the blogosphere, which included responses from adspar.

My favorite blogs 1

Ed Brayton's Dispatches from the Culture Wars is one of my favorite blogs. I noticed I had a growing list of links from there that I've saved to write about. Here are a bunch of them.

• New Anti-Evolution Tactic? - Here Ed shreds a terrible argument that evolution is a religious belief.
• Wiccan Soldier Gets Symbol On Grave - Ed reports that the state of Nevada allowed a Wiccan symbol on the grave of a soldier. I noted this post for the comment thread, which includes a pretty sweet quote from Bush.
• Conservatives Against Republicans - Highlighting how in our 2-party system, it seems like the best we can ever hope for is a gridlocked government incapable of doing anything.
• Why Gay Marriage Matters - A genuinely moving story. I don't know how a human could read this and still oppose gay marriage.
• Anti-Drug Ads Increase Drug Use - The title says it all, but you have to read the rest of this just to see how pathetic our government's 'war on drugs' really is.
• Religious Right Loves Gambling Ban - Ed says that the assholes who seek to ban online gaming claiming that 'we must protect people from the addictions of gambling' are themselves addicted to controlling other people's lives.
• More Bush Signing Statements - President Bush is so fucking ridiculous. He signs a bill into law, then the same day says that he can just ignore it. "Bush is on a zealous mission to destroy any and all limitations on his unbridled authority. It's time for impeachment. Like now."
• And just to demonstrate that he takes positions that I'd probably never take, consider reading this post and the slew of comments, where Ed criticizes my hero, Richard Dawkins, for irresponsible scholarship in his most recent book, The God Delusion. This is just excellent stuff from Mr. Brayton.

Chumped

I'm not sure how to feel about this.

The synopsis is that a guy who was the #2 in Bush's office of faith-based initiatives wrote a book detailing how the administration played the evangelical christian groups for suckers, saying and doing anything to get their votes while mocking them behind their backs and breaking their promises.

~7 minutes each.

Olbermann Part 1

Olbermann Part 2

To lighten the mood but still leave you pissed off, here's a YouTube.

The Office (NBC)

I liked this show a lot for the first 2 seasons.

But they seem to have self-destructed by separating Jim from the rest of the Scranton gang. Why did they feel like they had to have him confess his love to Pam? Could they not see that the tension between them was such a rich source of viewer attraction to the show? They could have stretched that out for at least another 2 seasons before finally confronting the issue.

Now to resolve the sloppy aftermath of the Jim-Pam kiss and rejection, they put Jim in some other office with a hotter but less interesting romantic interest, and a much less entertaining office rival. Most importantly this has revealed how important Jim was as a straight-man foil to Dwight's antics. Dwight has been totally castrated by this move.

Season 3 just isn't nearly as funny so far. I hope they find some way to bring Jim back home ASAP, perhaps in some kind of office merger like they did in the British version.

more

Bill Frist is an asshole, Poker is gone

Ode to Billy Frist (to the tune of Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler")


On a cold Autumn evening,
On an Amtrak bound for Vegas,
I met a politician
He said his name was Billy Frist.

Said he knew life's biggest secrets,
And he'd trade them for my bourbon.
So I handed him my bottle,
And he told me what I'd missed.

He said, "Son, I've made a life
Out of thumping this here Bible.
Knowing how to get your vote
And all that right-wing cash.

I can see by your eyes
You don't like preachin' politicians,
But Christian rich will vote for me
As sure as poor white trash.

(Chorus)
You gotta know how to preach 'em,
Know how to reach 'em.
Know when to scare the rubes,
And when to terrify.
You never count your votes up
'Til you've convinced the suckers
That you're on the same side
As the Big Guy in the sky.

Now every preacher knows
That on any given Sunday
Some reasonable people
Won't believe this rhetoric

Just label them as gamblers,
Perverts, gays, and liberals.
The public won't care what they say
Because they must be sick."

(Chorus)

And when he'd finished speaking,
He guzzled down the bourbon,
Then checked his lottery tickets
And slapped me on the thigh.

"You know, son," he whispered to me,
"You'd have made a fine House pageboy.
Let's head back to the bathroom,
And I can show you why."

(Chorus)
You gotta know how to preach 'em,
Know how to reach 'em.
Know when to scare the rubes,
And when to terrify.
You never count your votes up
'Til you've convinced the suckers
That you're on the same side
As the Big Guy in the sky.