YAY America!!!!

This is one of the defining moments of "YAY America" and "everything is totally fucked" that I've ever seen. GG (bold mine, italics his):

But there is something rather extraordinary taking place. Presidential candidates of the political party that has dominated our country for the last two decades are competing with each other to prove who will most aggressively embrace policies such as torture and indefinite detention well beyond even what the Bush administration has ushered in. And this is occurring in the midst of still new extraordinary emergency presidential powers, along with allowing the Bush administration's radical framework of presidential omnipotence, constructed over the last six years, to remain largely undisturbed. The tenor of our political discourse becomes increasingly unrecognizable -- mainstream presidential candidates openly and happily advocate torture and life imprisonment with no charges while the audience wildly cheers.

Seriously, what the fuck is going on? Every decent person needs to wake the fuck up and do something about this.

end the fucking war

Petition calling on the U.S. Senate to filibuster and end the war in Iraq

We the undersigned call on each and every United States Senator to participate in a filibuster to end the war in Iraq. It only takes 41 votes to sustain a filibuster and prevent funding requests from the Bush administration from coming to debate or a vote. The Bush administration would then have to return with a funding request that is satisfactory to the 41. That bill should include funds to bring all U.S. forces home quickly and safely but no money to prosecute the war in Iraq. Pro-war Senators used this tactic twice in February to stop non-binding resolutions condemning the so-called "surge." If pro-war Senators can use this tactic, then anti-war Senators should use it also. Right now the filibuster is the only way to end the war in a veto-proof fashion. We call upon each and every Senator to join a filibuster effort to end the loss of life and save our country.

Baseball isn't really a sport

This is an interesting read for anyone who is interested in baseball and the history of that game. I'm not, so I don't have much more to say about it.

I'm blogging it because I wanted to share this quote:

The philosopher/commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti wrote that baseball was "not a territorial game; it is not about conquering; I do not send a team out to capture the other team's goal or ground. Baseball may not even be truly a team sport; it may really be a game an individual plays with a group."

For over a decade now I've been saying that baseball isn't really a sport, at least in the purest sense of the word. I define (pure) sport as an athletic contest in which a team or individual tries to advance a ball towards a goal while preventing opponent(s) from doing the same. You have to really stretch to fit baseball into that. This isn't to demean baseball in any way; at the time I first made this argument I was a huge baseball fan. It just isn't like the other athletic games that we call sports. I had always considered my position somewhat unique, but I'm glad to see that Giamatti said it long before I did.

simpler life

We're down to one car between the two of us, with no plans to replace the deceased. My old commute was driving 15 minutes to park at the DC Metro station and taking the train to work. Kira's office isn't conveniently Metro accessible, so now she takes my car and I ride the bus to the train station. It takes maybe 5 minutes longer with all the stops, and it only comes every 25 minutes, but in spite of those minor inconveniences, so far I'm actually preferring things this way. All that driving time is now replaced by reading, and we're saving on gas and parking (it costs $1.60 round trip to ride the bus, compared to a $4 parking fee plus gas), and insurance ($130 every 6 months).

Not having to drive also reduces stress. I used to love driving. I imagine it is just the sudden freedom that comes from getting your license and having semi-regular access to a car. My high school was a 45 minute drive from my house, so I did a LOT of driving back then, and greatly enjoyed it. But now I avoid driving as much as possible. I dislike almost everything about the experience of going somewhere in a car, and I find I'm more relaxed when I'm not driving. I've even let go of the imaginary gender role nonsense where driving was equated with masculinity. Kira can drive me anywhere she wants.

I would love for us to not need a car at all, but I also don't really want to live in a big city, so I'm not sure how that would work out. Maybe we'll end up some place where some combination of public transportation and bicycles are all we need to get around, but where I still have some open space and trees near by. The biggest challenge I envision with that would be grocery shopping. But there are grocery delivery services that might work.

Aside from all that, I feel guilty about driving, in terms of the environmental effects. If we do ever buy another car, it will be the most environmentally-friendly vehicle we can afford.

Al Gore

Al Gore is one of the few political figures that I find the least bit interesting, probably because lately he's been saying things that politicians just don't say. He's also dealt with crushing injustice in a very dignified way. Sometimes I find myself hoping he'll run in 2008, but I think there's a good case that he might be able to do more good from outside the system.

I just ordered his new book. I'll report back when I finish it.



While I'm talking about books and politics, I've been meaning to write up something about a pair of books I finished recently on the subject of impeachment. Although I lent one of them to a coworker, so I might have to wait until I get it back.

complete failure

Congress = Idiots

We're going to have troops in Iraq forever.

POOR FORM

Another follow-up to this post would be noting another example of the "poor form" diversion.

cutting through the standard torture obfuscations

Continuing this discussion with some friends, the following scenario was posed, essentially as a response to this argument against torture by former Marine Corp commandant Charles Krulak and former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command Joseph Hoar. (This was part of a longer message, and I'm quoting it directly with light editing).

So you're on patrol in Iraq. Three of your service
members are kidnapped and two more killed in an ambush. You survive with
a few of your men, and are joined b[y] another platoon to search. You soon
find the body of one of the kidnapped, burned alive and almost
unrecognizable. You are able to capture an insurgent who was involved in
the attack and who is your only chance to find the other two before they
meet the same fate. He won't talk though. He spits in your face when you
interview him. Time is ticking. His family was never murdered by
the .001% of US soldiers who are criminals, so there is no sympathy for
him. What do you do? Grant him a lawyer? Call the President and say we
need to leave Iraq so these people won't do this?

You're so quick to grant these people the civil liberties we have here
in the US, but I'd like to have you consider this.

There are so many things wrong with the scenario itself, but more importantly this scenario is in no way an appropriate response to the issue at hand. As the Anonymous Liberal put it recently:

The political debate over the acceptability of torture and extreme interrogation techniques almost always devolves into a completely irrelevant discussion of hypothetical scenarios and the moral and ethical questions raised by them.

He goes on to explain the irrelevance of these scenarios:

Are there certain hypothetical scenarios under which the use of torture can be morally justified? If you construct the right scenario (nuclear bomb about to go off, suspect knows the target, etc.) just about anyone will answer yes to this question. But that's not at all surprising or informative. After all, it's possible to construct a hypothetical scenario where you'd be morally justified in shooting a little girl in the head (you're in a cave running out of air, there are four other younger children, they'll all die unless you off yourself and the oldest kid, etc.). The bottomline is that all of us are capable of simple utilitarian moral reasoning. If you are presented with a choice between something very bad and something even worse, the moral logic is pretty clear.

But this is all an exercise in irrelevance because that's not how rational people make policy decisions. Just because you can construct a hypothetical scenario were shooting a girl in the head is the "right" thing to do, that doesn't mean that we should do away with the legal prohibition against murder. When it comes to acts that are sufficiently bad--such as murder and torture--you need categorical rules.

The so-called "ticking bomb scenario" is simple-minded nonsense. It assumes two things that never happen in real life: 1) that you know for certain that a bomb is about to be detonated, and 2) that you're positive the person you have in custody has information that will allow you to stop that bomb from going off. I'm fairly certain that in the entire history of mankind, that scenario has never yet presented itself. Moreover, even if it did, the odds are slim, at best, that the suspect would divulge the necessary information under duress (as opposed to simply giving you disinformation).

As McCain and others have pointed out, if a sufficiently dire situation presents itself, those officials who would contemplate the use of torture need to do so with the knowledge that it is a practice so disgusting and heinous that we have seen fit as a society to ban it categorically. If they are to engage in torture, they need to know it is illegal and that they are likely to be punished if they are wrong. Then and only then can we have any hope that our soldiers and intelligence officials will be sufficiently judicious in their use of this horrible practice.

In a true ticking bomb scenario (which I'm convinced is like saying "when you meet a real unicorn"), people will do what they think they have to do, regardless of what the law says. And in that kind of extraordinary situation, no one would be prosecuted for resorting to extreme, even illegal tactics.

But you can't let highly unlikely hypothetical scenarios dictate policy. Regardless of whether there are conceivable situations where torture could be justified, it has to remain illegal.

So what about the hypothetical patrolman in Iraq? It should be pretty clear that it is just a reformulation of the time bomb, except substituting two American Soldiers for a large civilian population, and with an element of personal connection thrown in. The emotional element introduced by the relationship with the likely victim in no way changes the logic of the right policy, and the response to generic time bomb scenario is fully applicable here.

What do I think of the patrolman in the hypothetical scenario? I think that we as a nation have failed him profoundly. How someone responds to a situation is the heat of a moment is based on a number of factors. Some of those factors are his training, his experience, his commander, the culture of his unit and the military as a whole, the reward or punishment structure he knows to be in place, and characteristics of his individual mental state.

We all know that we're constantly lowering our military recruiting standards, extending deployments, deploying tired and injured troops, and sending them with inferior equipment. In contrast to previous wars where troops typically faced shorter times on the front lines and then rotated to a more stable position, everywhere in Iraq is a front line, because there's no unified enemy. These guys are under constant stress at all times in Iraq, and that takes a huge toll.

We just aren't sending highly-trained, well-prepared people to face these difficult situations and make good ethical decisions. As Krulak and Hoar said, "Complex situational ethics cannot be applied during the stress of combat." That is why you need clear, unambiguous rules.

As to the idea that only .001% of American troops are criminals, the troops themselves say criminals are 4,000 to 7,000 times more prevalent than that:

Of surveyed soldiers, 4 percent reported hitting or kicking noncombatants when it was not necessary; among Marines, 7 percent reported doing so.

And those are only the people who were willing to admit it, albeit anonymously. At least 1 in 25 of them have knowingly abused civilians, in violation of international law. And about half of the people working with them wouldn't report such an abuse. This is a culture where abuse is rampant, and that is known and condoned from the highest levels.

We have failed our troops profoundly. We've put them in an unnecessary war with no imaginable definition of achievable victory. We haven't trained them adequately; we haven't given them good equipment; and they're carrying the burden (and bullseye) of a century of vicious and destructive American foreign policy without even knowing it because all they're ever taught is how wonderful America is. Everyone around them has ample reason to hate them, and many have nothing to lose, making it all but inevitable that they'll resort to desperate violence. And we ship our kids in there to absorb the blows.

The idea that this wild scenario somehow addresses the issue of torture policy is insane. It is sociopathic. The only thing this scenario does is create sympathy for the soldier who might be tempted to shame himself by abusing a prisoner. Such sympathy might influence our decision about how to punish his criminal behavior, but it should in no way stop us from trying to prevent abuse with clear guidelines.

hard work

I have a lot of political ideas that many people regard as extreme. I of course don't seem them as extreme; I seem them as logical and fair. The only way I see to ever improve things is by convincing people of the need for change, which is really fucking hard.

Recently, I sent a group of friends this article, by two retired military leaders (generals or admirals or something way at the top), about how using torture as a tool in the "war on terror" is a terrible mistake. One of my authoritarian friends replied to all of us essentially with 3 points (I'm respecting his wishes not to use his name or exact words). Here are those 3 points and my responses.

1.) That's crap. It makes sense in theory but isn't practicable.

Yeah those retired generals are crap! But what do you expect from elite military leaders? They're known for thinking in the clouds; certainly after decades of distinguished military service at the highest levels they have no idea what is practicable.

2.) Their ideas hinge on the notion that changing the way we deal with people will change how those people think of America. But those people won't change how they think because their religion dictates their opinion of America.

Yeah some people have this rigidly dogmatic view of America that is instilled in them from a young age. And no matter how much evidence you present those people about the role that America really plays in the world, no evidence could ever change their true-believing religiously-warped minds!

What facts might possibly convince these people to change their minds about America? How about these:

1953 -- Allen and John Foster Dulles, using the spectre of Communism, had convinced President Dwight Eisenhower to authorize the CIA and its operatives to overthrow the immensely popular and democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh of Iran (the US, of course, was after Iran's oil, and Mossadegh had nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in an attempt to get fair payment for his country's resource). The CIA installed the dictator Reza Shah. This action did provide the US with oil, but it turned Iranians against the US: it radicalized whole sections of the population. The authoritarian government allowed radical (and anti-American) segments of Islam to flourish. During the coup, some estimates are as high as 10,000 of number of civilians killed; more were killed during the Shah's regime. Read Stephen Kinzer's book All the Shah's Men for more information.

1954 -- Jacobo Arbenz, the democratically elected reformist leader of Guatemala is overthrown by the US. Arbenz had incurred the wrath of the US owned United Fruit Company when he overthrew the corrupt Ubico government (the UFC made a lot of money while Ubico was in power because it was allowed to fix prices, avoid taxation, and exploit its workers). The CIA, in collaboration with the UFC, installed the military dictator Colonel Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in his place. During the overthrow and the subsequent bloody regime of Guzmán, 200,000 civilians were killed.

1963 -- US first assists in installing Ngo Dinh Diem as president of South Vietnam. When he made decisions that were "too independent" and strayed from the US vision of the region, the US backed his assassination. The war that resulted in part from this meddling killed 4 million people in southeast Asia.

1977 -- US backs military rulers of El Salvador. 70,000 Salvadorans killed.

1981 -- The Reagan administration trains and funds contras in Nicaragua, who target civilians in their attacks. 30,000 civilians die.

There are *many* more examples listed here:
www.wordiq.com/definition/List_of_U.S._foreign_interventions_since_1945

Wait those don't sound like the actions of the land of the free do they? The people with a warped view about America are Americans.

For over a hundred years now, starting with the Philippines in 1898, through all those listed above and more, and into Iraq, America has routinely invaded countries for any reason we see fit, which are usually reasons that tend to make our rich people more rich, killing many thousands of non-white poor people in those countries, ruining millions of lives, destroying their homes and resources and farms, and telling them that it is for their own good!

Why don't they love us? Why do they hate us with a religious passion? I can't fucking imagine.

3.) All the hype about torture is going to make the public think that thousands of people are being tortured every day, which isn't the case.

How would we know what is the case when our government won't tell us? They say such information is secret because of national security interests! They refuse to allow any oversight of their behavior, stonewall investigations, ignore Congressional requests, and issue signing statements to reserve their right to ignore laws they don't like.

So what do we know? Quick hits:

• In Iraq as of March 2005:
• As of this week, the military is holding at least 8,900 detainees in the three major prisons, 1,000 more than in late January. Here in Abu Ghraib, where eight American soldiers were charged last year with abusing detainees, 3,160 people are being kept, well above the 2,500 level considered ideal, said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for the detainee system. The largest center, Camp Bucca in the south, has at least 5,640 detainees.
• Wikipedia says there are 775 detainees in Gitmo.
• We know that there are secret prisons all over the world but we don't know how many people are held there.

So in 5 minutes of Google searching, we're probably holding over 10,000 people related to our actions in the war on terror. And that doesn't even start to count people being held here, like Jose Padilla, who has be held without trial or access to lawyers and tortured for the last 5 years (he got limited access to lawyers about a year ago I think).

Many of these prisoners are being held by a military force where over a third condone torture, and less than half say they'd report unethical behavior of a team member. And commanding this military force is an administration that has explicitly reserved the right to torture, who brag about their use of "aggressive interrogation techniques," and who have repeatedly apprehended and abused innocent "suspects" on the flimsiest of evidence. Other prisoners are shipped to countries known for their human rights violations to be tortured there.

But he assures me that it is "isn't the case" that we're torturing thousands of people a day. Rest easy! We sure wouldn't want to let the generals and their "somewhat crap" opinions give anyone the idea that America is torturing any more than just a few hundreds of people per day!

His response was to tell me how oversimplified and naive my views are. This is from the guy who says that changing how we treat people won't change what they think of us since they hate us because of their religion. Certainly there is a religious aspect to people's opinions, but flatly rejecting the idea that treating people better would improve their opinion of us is about as "oversimplified" and "naive" as you can possibly be.

He also said I "blindly" accepted the ideas I argued for. I presented evidence and reasoning; he simply asserts his beliefs. Yeah, I'm the blind one.

This inevitably degraded into a personal attacks, which led to everyone discussing what an asshole I am. While I regret my inability to ignore personal attacks and understand that it would often be preferable to ignore them, I'm constantly amazed how effectively one can avoid discussing the substance of an issue by criticizing your opponents' form (even when your side initiated the downslide into that poor form). This doesn't just work well in group emails with your high school friends. It is a pervasive technique that I recently mentioned in the lightning rod part of this entry.

Don't want to debate the war? Attack your critics' poor form! Questioning a war is insulting to the troops!

Here's an excellent example of Fox News trying to use this tactic on Christopher Hitchens, and his impressive ability to thunder away despite of it.

Trakker gets it right

I'm so sick of assholes attributing their own religious ideas onto our founding fathers. Trakker is too:

Opening page on GOP Presidential candidate Duncan Hunter's website:

Only god knows the number of a man's days. Those days are fleeting. Jerry Falwell did not waste a moment of his alloted time. He spent his life laboring for God and country and for the next generation. Like our first President, George Washington, Jerry Falwell made it clear our country could not survive without religion and morality. They were both right. He leaves a long lasting legacy. He will be sorely missed.

When hiring workmen for Mount Vernon, George Washington wrote to his agent, "If they be good workmen, they may be from Asia, Africa, or Europe; they may be Mohammedans, Jews, or Christians of any sect, or they may be Atheists."

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Jerry Falwell said on the 700 Club, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

Yeah, they both left a legacy, but only one is missed.

Forgive me Trakker for quoting your post in its entirety. Everyone should check out the rest of his blog.

I don't either

Read this. This is a sad world.

The administration has engaged in violations of the Anti-Torture Statute and the War Crimes Act; classified the evidence of these violations; invoked the state secrets privilege to prevent victims from suing for civil damages for their treatment; suspended the writ of habeas corpus; and used their control of the Department of Justice to ensure that these violations are not prosecuted in civilian courts. The military has prosecuted more people, but their track record isn't exactly impressive either. The higher level officials who are ultimately responsible are still in power, or they have retired with medals and generous book deals.

And now it seems that a soldier who turned over a list of prisoner's names to some civil rights lawyers, so that they couldn't be held indefinitely without trial, may go to jail for longer than a number of soldiers and CIA agents who beat prisoners to death. And it's barely even news.

I don't want to live in this kind of country. I don't.

god is not good

so much to say, so little time to say it

Here come a bunch of links with commentary.


My boy Richard Dawkins takes on critics of The God Delusion. The Courtier's Reply that he mentions is here.

---

Here's one about how paternalistic our culture is becoming. I'm not sure that is expressed the right way, but you get the point. In other paternalism news, the Pope recently said this mind-blowing bullshit:

Benedict said Latin American Indians had been "silently longing" to become Christians when Spanish and Portuguese conquerors took over their native lands centuries ago, though many Indians were enslaved and killed.

"In effect, the proclamation of Jesus and of his Gospel did not at any point involve an alienation of the pre-Columbus cultures, nor was it the imposition of a foreign culture," he said.

---

And speaking of mind-blowing, here is a story about Tom Delay excreting pure authoritarian self-blindness.

---

Here's a story about how the only bias that CBS is concerned about is anti-Bush bias. Pro-Bush bias is quite acceptable. Damn that liberal media.

---

Chuck is a smart man.

---

And to sum it all up:

The situation is now so godawful, so completely coo-coo, and so totally out of control that future historians will shake their heads in amazement trying to figure out why, by the spring of '07, the US politicians and the public haven't demanded the immediate removal of the Bush administration from office and their incarceration in the Hague to stand trial.

We live in very strange times.

Spader!

such is life

Tomorrow morning I'm flying up to Providence to help clear out my Great Aunt Mary's house. Her health has been deteriorating ever since she was hit by a car while walking across the street a couple years ago, and she's going to need to be in an assisted living situation for the rest of her life (she's 89) so we sold her house. Nobody tell her that I'm posting a picture of her in her nightgown. She'd be mortified.

Great Aunt Mary, me, and my sister Megan
Mary's house in Providence, RI
Summer 2005

Her sister, my Great Aunt Agnes died Tuesday night at the age of 96, so there might be a similar trip to New York City soon to clear out the apartment where she's lived by herself since the 1950s up until a few days ago. With whatever NYC's rent control laws are, she was paying like $800/month for a great apartment in a nice Manhattan neighborhood with a view of the Hudson. I imagine her death will be a celebrated occasion for her landlord.

For the family, it was obvious that it was coming soon, and she was at peace with facing the end, so everyone is okay with things. The only sad part is that she wanted to die at home instead of in the hospital, and didn't make it back to her beloved apartment. She had a pretty amazing life, and was very sharp until the end.

It would appear I don't have any good pictures of Agnes on my computer. Here's the best I can do.

Great Aunt Agnes, Aunt Patty, and Wife Kira
Annapolis, MD
Christmas 2006

In other news, this post should partially explain my lack of blogging lately. We've been very busy preparing to put our house on the market. The good news is that today the new carpet was installed. With the freshly painted walls, this place looks pretty good. Now a few minor fix ups and some cleaning and we're ready to sell.

I want to mention this excellent post by PZ, which in no way fits with the rest of this entry. It is his list of 12 objections to religion. All twelve are important, though his last one resonated most strongly with me:

Faith. Faith is the greatest sin of religion. I despise it; I'm particularly appalled that it is so universally regarded as a virtue. Listen, if I ever call someone a "person of faith", you should be aware that I have just insulted them terribly. It's astonishing how easily that sails over people's heads, though.

Faith is this amazing idea that it is a good thing to hold incredible beliefs in the complete absence of evidence to support them; the more outrageous the belief and the weaker the logic behind them, the stronger your faith and the more virtuous your conduct. It short-circuits everything that works in the world and puts ignorance on a pedestal.

Faith is the opposite of science, yet it is also one common element that you will always hear valued in religion. It is the number one most common excuse for holding peculiar superstitious beliefs in spite of the evidence against them, their violations of sense, and their foundation in wishful thinking and rhetorical vapor—it's the one word non-answer to every criticism of religion. Faith. You might as well just say "gullibility" or "ignorance" or "delusion"— it's all the same thing.

Another good point on his list that seems particularly relevant to me right now is this one:

Theft. Atheists know this one on a daily basis: Tornado demolishes home, tearful survivor comes before news cameras and "thanks God" that she was spared. Football player scores goal, drops to knees and praises god for his touchdown. Cancer patient goes into remission, lies in bed surrounded by his expensive, highly trained medical team, calls it a miracle. What religion does is steal human accomplishment and bestows it on a fickle imaginary being. Modern medicine is not a product of religion, it's the highly refined outcome of years of empirical science, yet people still babble about miracles and prayers.

The one thing PZ might have added was that religion tends to steal the deceased's thunder at the memorial service. I don't know what the plans are yet for Agnes' memorial, but she wasn't a religious person and I hope I don't have to sit through a bunch of Catholic crap just because her family is religious. She considered herself an agnostic ("I don't say there's no god. I just say that I don't know, because I don't."), but I would call her an atheist because she lived life without any belief in god. For a woman from her era, coming from her ultraconservative and ultraCatholic family, hers is a pretty impressive position by any name. The worst thing about religious funerals is how they manage to spend so much time talking about god and reciting ancient text passages instead of talking about the person that died. I don't want to be numbed into submission by boring chants and the empty consolation of "God's purpose." Agnes had an interesting life and I hope we take the opportunity to talk about her and not try to force the occasion into a belief system she rejected.

Now that I've morbidly featured her aunts, criticized religion, and linked to my wife's blog with the subtitle "blogging is just masturbating without the mess," I suppose this is as good a time as any to wish my mother a happy Mother's Day! Grandma too! So why not complete this with an awkward picture of both of them?

Grandma (paternal) Joan and Mother Anne
Bel Air, Maryland
Mother's Day 2005

And Happy Mother's day to my wonderful new mother and grandmother, Nanay and Lola!

Kira and Nanay
Calamba, Philippines
11/15/2006

adspar and Lola
Pagsanjan, Philippines
11/13/2006

cool tricks

I just started using Google Reader instead of going to each site on a long list of bookmarks and feeds. Like any other bit of technology, my admitting to using it immediately makes you think I'm either a futuristic computer geek or a woefully behind-the-times idiot. Either way, I like this tool and plan to continue using it.

Google Reader lets me share items of interest, and a cool widget lets me put a few of those in a sidebar to my blog. So now instead of making a new post just to share a few links with thin commentary, I can just share them and anyone who cares can check out the sidebar, the entire list, or even subscribe to the feed.

guess I got carried away

When I said that Denver could beat the Spurs. Oh well. Hopefully the Suns will.

fuck the democrats too, by the way

Republicans actively do terrible things, and the Democrats stand by and watch. Pathetic.


update: Or in some cases they lead the charge. Ugh I don't think I can vote for any of these fucks.

It occurs to me

It occurs to me after reading Glenn Greenwald's piece today that there's an element of evil genius to the far right lunatics running this country that I hadn't previously considered. Glenn writes:

The notion that citizens should refrain from questioning, criticizing or objecting to their country's war is -- aside from being patently undemocratic -- also incomparably destructive, as it eliminates (by design) a crucial mechanism for ending a misguided war: namely, the citizenry's demands that its government cease pursuing a failed or pointless war. Despite how destructive is the notion that war criticisms are illegitimate, that idea is widespread among American political leaders and our most "serious" and respected opinion-making elite.

By loudly shouting that anyone who questions the war is a traitorous terrorist-lover, war supporters have brilliantly (and disgustingly) added an extra layer of protection to their beloved war. Now war opponents have to spend extra time and effort and political capital fighting for the idea that war criticism is acceptable and valid and non-traitorous, instead of directing that energy against the war itself. It is chilling to the core that an idea so absurd could be such an effective lightning rod, but that's our America.

Now that I think of it, there are probably lots of other brilliant lightning rod strategies these creeps are using. I mean, Alberto Gonzales is a human lightning rod. And when it was a front page story that Bush had authorized widespread domestic surveillance in clear violation of federal law, he simply asserted that he has the right to break the law. Rather than discussing how he broke the law, we waste time debating if the President has the right to break the law. And Bush keeps saying that refusing to give him a blank check to fund the war is "not supporting the troops." And so everyone wastes time explaining that they support the troops that they could be using saying how Bush's war is a fucking disaster.

Absurd. Brilliant.

---

It occurs to me that it should be abundantly clear to everyone that Jesus didn't actually ever exist. The gospels are fiction, myths composed to fulfill prophesies of ancient texts. None of it makes sense as a real story.

It occurs to me that the tortured logic and absurdity used to defend Christian mythology is remarkably similar to the tortured logic and absurdity used to defend the far right lunatics running the country. C.S. Lewis wrote:

"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg - or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us."

Which blowhard Christians have condensed into an in-your-face "LIAR, LUNATIC, OR LORD!? WHICH IS IT???!! HUH?? HUH???" There are so many flawed premises there that it stuns an unprepared rational thinker into temporary submission. Kinda like how wanting to bring soldiers home from war is failing to support the troops. Up is down. Black is white. Liar, lunatic, or Lord?

Absurd. Brilliant.

update: It occurs to me that this is the perfect intersection.

---
It occurs to me, after reading this outrageous article (courtesy of paulp) about a 66 year old psychologist who has been permanently banned from the US for writing about taking LSD 40 years ago, that it is entirely reasonable for me to be concerned about having publicly written some of the things I've written. Things like... how our far right overlords are insane... or how Jesus never existed.

boring personal updates

This weekend was insanely busy as we're preparing for a move and to put our house on the market. We've got a guy starting tomorrow repairing drywall and painting most of the inside, so all the walls had to be bare and accessible. As soon as he's done, we'll have someone come replace the carpeting throughout the house. Between the demands of both of those, plus a desire to reduce clutter for a staging effect, we decided to rent a storage unit and dump a bunch of stuff there, so that was a lot of packing and lifting. On top of that we're fixing up various plumbing and electrical issues. One plumbing issue in particular has been vexing me for way too long, but I'm cautiously optimistic that I might have finally figured it out. I'll put the finishing touch on that tomorrow, or I'll descend to a new level of frustration if it doesn't work. Once all that stuff is done, hopefully it will just be a few more minor repairs and spuce-ups and then we'll put out the FOR SALE sign. That will be a big day.

Happy birthdays to my mother (52 on Sunday) and grandfather (83 on Saturday).

3 related links

1
2
3

Bloggers do matter, and things are starting to change for the better. I'm glad to have been paying attention to all this.

The weekend cats

Is this a movie?

The Dean of Admissions of M.I.T. resigned after working there for 28 years because she falsified her resume and doesn't actually even have a college degree.

That article mentions she wrote a book called Less Stress, More Success.

"Less Stress, More Success" addresses not only the pressure to be perfect but also a need to live with integrity.

"Holding integrity is sometimes very hard to do because the temptation may be to cheat or cut corners," it says. "But just remember that 'what goes around comes around,' meaning that life has a funny way of giving back what you put out."

It seems that she was a very well-liked and well-respected character on campus. It is hard to imagine someone living a lie for so long, while doing such good work, wondering if one day it would all come back to haunt her.

It is kind of like that Leonardo DiCaprio flick Catch Me if You Can.

look

Continuing with the 'America = Cho' thing, here is Arthur Silber on the matter.

I don't even know how to describe his writing, which I've said before. I guess one thing I'd add is that Silber is the guy who says something that absolutely nobody wants to hear, but that many people deep down somewhere know is true. Rather than deal with that disturbing truth they find a way to put it out of their mind. Everyone has their own way, but every time someone ignores Silber's message, it kills a little piece of him. It makes for very compelling writing, heartbreaking and maddening.

Tillmans in Congress

If you only watch one, watch the first.

followup on Rudy

Olbermann tears into Rudy.

At least there are a few decent people on TV.

Ok I'm ready

I haven't blogged about the Virginia Tech lunatic yet, but I'm ready now.

America is an entire nation of Cho Seung-Hui. Cho Seung-Hui is our President. He is us. That is who we are. And for those of you who laugh at this, I hope one day you wake up and realize it is true.

Apathy and denial

I'm sure we can just ignore this story. Bad things can't happen here, right?

Pat Tillman was a hero

I've mentioned before that I want to write a blog entry about Pat Tillman; I've wanted to for years now. Actually I want to write a hundred blog entries about Pat Tillman, but I just can't bring myself to write about him. It is just too hard. Today I'm going to try again.

Simply, Pat Tillman was a hero.

That's a word, hero, that gets thrown around so much that it is almost devoid of meaning most of the time it is used. I'm not using that word lightly here. I think I'm using it in a way meant to convey almost the same sense as when religious people speak in wonder and awe about their personal deity. But like Pat Tillman I'm an atheist, and as people without supernatural perfect beings for inspiration, we only have principles and ideals of our own choosing. We tend to think of these ideals as pure and good and right, just as religious people think of their gods as pure and good and right. (I mention this here not to start an argument against religion as I often do, but to relate my emotions to something that maybe more people can understand.) I call Pat Tillman a hero, and he inspires a childlike sense of awe, and writing about him is so hard, because he was a man who lived up to his ideals, and died for them.

Just thinking about him in that regard is an emotionally powerful thing for me. How many people could do what he did? There are hundreds of thousands of people in the military, and this shouldn't take away from their honor, but I wonder how many of them would have given up everything that Pat Tillman gave up. This was a man who left behind what most people would consider a dream life, a hero's life - professional athletic career, wealth, fame, a beautiful wife - to fight for what he believed was right. He had everything anyone could want, and his conscience compelled him to walk away and fight for his ideals. That is what made him a hero, and what inspires such strong feeling. I'm typically not emotional on a visceral level, but I get choked up thinking about it.

Pat Tillman risked and lost his life for his ideals. And before his body was cold, terrible people began using his death as a cynical weapon against the pure and good and right ideals for which he fought.

The first part is enough to make me want to cry. The second part is enough to make me want to rip the beating hearts from the chests of the the disgusting pigs who make a mockery of the ultimate sacrifice. They are the self-serving politicians who cynically throw the word hero around to suit their political agenda, but try to destroy a real hero. They are the credulous reporters and media organizations who mindlessly and gutlessly regurgitate the politicians' propaganda and lies, and then congratulate themselves on their tremendous work. They are the parasitic pundits who collect fat checks to scream about how we're in the ultimate war to end all wars, but make no sacrifice of their own, and certainly aren't putting on a uniform. They are the soldiers who betrayed their fallen brother's memory by allowing the lies, and by insulting his family.

It is maddening to contemplate. I can't imagine that I'll ever be able to reflect calmly about Pat Tillman until Bush and his entire disgusting administration are impeached and prosecuted for their crimes; until every media outlet runs front page stories about their own pathetic failings and implements serious policies to make sure they never repeat their mistakes; until every fat pathetic pundit who cheered on the war that Pat Tillman knew was "so fucking illegal" and defended the Bush administration's inexcusable offenses has been shamed into obscurity; until every soldier who spread the lies they were ordered to spread has apologized; and until the officer who smeared the Tillman family is dishonorably discharged.

I can at least take a sliver of hope from seeing that the Tillman family continues to fight for Pat's memory. I can take a bit of hope that honorable political commentators are showing how the media has failed us. And I can take a bit of hope that the Democratic Congress is beginning to exercise some oversight of the Bush administration.

That's all I can write about it now. This is too much.

Thanks Rudy!

MANCHESTER, N.H. —- Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.

But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.

Jaw agape.

“This war ends when they stop coming here to kill us!” Giuliani said in his speech. “Never, ever again will this country ever be on defense waiting for [terrorists] to attack us if I have anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense!”

Giuliani said terrorists “hate us and not because of anything bad we have done; it has nothing to do with Israel and Palestine. They hate us for the freedoms we have and the freedoms we want to share with the world.”

Giuliani continued: “The freedoms we have are in conflict with the perverted, maniacal interpretation of their religion.” He said Americans would fight for “freedom for women, the freedom of elections, freedom of religion and the freedom of our economy.”

Addressing the terrorists directly, Giuliani said: “We are not giving that up, and you are not going to take it from us!”

They hate us for our freedoms!! (So if we take away our freedoms they won't hate us any more!!!! Right? Ok cool!) You'll never take our freedoms (wink wink)!!!

“I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense,” Giuliani continued. “We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.”

Cut back on illegal anti-American things that reduce our freedom? Only those pussy-ass defensive Defeatocrats do that!!! I'm RUDY!!! I WAS THE MAYOR ON 9/11! I'm not a fucking pussy defender because I play offense and offense is awesome and defense is for little girly Democrats who are not as big and manly as me. RUDY!!!!! RUDY!!!!!!!

froth

"Modern-day spin has vanquished substance so thoroughly that even the most well-grounded charge of deliberate deception is often considered more despicable than the deception itself."
- Elizabeth de la Vega, UNITED STATES v. GEORGE W. BUSH et al.

case #740834.

life

I've made a lot of big decisions over the last 3 years.

I bought a house knowing that there was a good chance I'd be quitting my job. I quit my job. I didn't get another job for a year and a half, and played poker to support myself in the meantime. The job I finally took paid a whole lot less than the one I had quit. I invited my girlfriend to move in with me when she dropped out of college, after we'd only been dating for a few months. A few months later we got married. We visited the Philippines, my first trip abroad. I started eating sushi all the time. We adopted a cat. Then another. Now we're selling the house and move to Ohio for her to finish school, presumably leaving both of our jobs behind. We have no idea where we'll be going after that.

The only choices I'm sure were good were Kira and the cats. The rest might have involved varying degrees of stupidity, but I don't think I could have done it any other way.

a minute is over

"I ain't been in the playoffs in a minute."
- Iverson explaining his slow start tonight

I love it. I love that playoff basketball is here, and I love that Allen Iverson said that and I love this game!

Going into the first round it seemed like the outcomes were fairly certain for most of the series, including the assumption that the Spurs would beat the Nuggets. But after watching Denver pull off the upset tonight, I think they can win this series. I never fully appreciated Carmelo's game until tonight; Camby is a beast; my Terp brother Steve Blake is a solid role player, as is Nene. And A.I. is A.I. and he ain't been in the playoffs in a minute, but he's back now. Awesome.

I definitely have to root for them because they're way funner to watch than San Antonio, and I have to support Blake (by passively cheering him on from 2,000 miles away). I love it!

Selling my HDTV

I'm selling my television in case any DC-area readers are interested. It is a 57" Toshiba HD, bought it from Best Buy 2.5 years ago. It works perfectly, we're just downsizing to prepare to move. $1200 or best offer. Leave a comment or hit adspar at Gee-Mail.

Bill Kristol = fucking idiot

In 2003 Bill Kristol said "There's been a certain amount of pop sociology in America ... that the Shia can't get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There's almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq's always been very secular."

Today he said that admitting what a irredeemable disaster the Iraq War has been is worse than saying America would be better off if we still had racist segregation policies.

I don't doubt that he believes it. Dude is a war-mongering fucking idiot, and Fox News and the rest of our retarded media continues to treat him as if his opinion is worth hearing. And I guess there's perverse justification for it since our fucking idiot President clearly listens to fucking idiots like Bill Kristol.

Protecting us from evil

I feel safe from the bad guys now

excellent

holy shit

Who the fuck are these people and who the fuck is electing them? What the hell is going on?

Yay Green!

I take the D.C. Metrorail to work every day and am always handed a copy of Express, the Washington Post's free daily paper. Usually it is full of dreary shit that pisses me off (news), but yesterday it had a whole section about "going green." Somehow that section managed to grab my attention. I'm now filled with enthusiasm for environmental causes.

McCain Self-Destructs

I've written about John McCain a few times before, but reading this today is my breaking point. What's weird about this is that I don't really know very much about him, and I don't seek out information about him, but he just keeps astonishing me with his stupidity.

I honestly wonder if maybe he's got some kind of brain damage. He's an elderly man at this point; maybe he's in the early stages of Alzheimer's or something. Seeing what he says and does makes me think that somewhere deep in his brain he has a few core values like "America = good" and "must win war" and "I will be President" but then the parts of his brain that process information and govern rationality are malfunctioning.

So he gets in front of a certain audience, has a few ideas about what that audience values, and tries to spin his own core ideas and the audience's values into a message. But he long ago abandoned any hope of his message being consistent with anything he's ever said before. And now he's at the point where he's abandoned logical coherance as something important in his message.

It is like McCain is a caricature of a pathetic pandering politician, except real. I'm basing all of this off basic reporting of what he says and does, and I'm not sure that it puts me in a position to evaluate this next statement, but I do think that he is almost totally genuine. I don't think he's a diabolical schemer. I think he genuinely believes everything he says at the time he says it, and is genuinely unable to comprehend the contradictions and inanity.

End rant/

Today I am a man

This weekend I replaced a bathroom faucet. That was something I never imagined I'd do, and I'm not sure I've ever been more proud of myself. I had to do all kinds of crazy things like shut off the water and use a basin wrench, and there was clear caulk involved as well. I realize that normal people do this kind of thing fairly regularly, but I'm not normal, so this is a big deal for me. It was a team effort, so Kira gets much credit too.

Here are 3 good links to celebrate my victory.


1) Here's an interview with a recently retired DOJ attorney. Lots of insights like this:

Q: You began in the Justice Department during the Watergate years. How would you rank Alberto Gonzales in terms of politicization of the department in comparison to the other AGs you have worked for?

A: Actually, I began earlier, in the first Nixon administration, as a college intern in 1971. But I was there again in the Watergate era, when I worked in part of the Attorney General's Office during my first year of law school in 1973-1974, and then continuously as a trial attorney and office director for nearly 30 years. That adds up to more than a dozen attorneys general, including Ed Meese as well as John Mitchell, and I used to think that they had politicized the department more than anyone could or should. But nothing compares to the past two years under Alberto Gonzales.

To be sure, he continued a trend of career/noncareer separation that began under John Ashcroft, yet even Ashcroft brought in political aides who in large measure were experienced in government functioning. Ashcroft's Justice Department appointees, with few exceptions, were not the type of people who caused you to wonder what they were doing there. They might not have been firm believers in the importance of government, but generally speaking, there was a very respectable level of competence (in some instances even exceptionally so) and a relatively strong dedication to quality government, as far as I could see.

Under Gonzales, though, almost immediately from the time of his arrival in February 2005, this changed quite noticeably. First, there was extraordinary turnover in the political ranks, including the majority of even Justice's highest-level appointees. It was reminiscent of the turnover from the second Reagan administration to the first Bush administration in 1989, only more so. Second, the atmosphere was palpably different, in ways both large and small. One need not have had to be terribly sophisticated to notice that when Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey left the department in August 2005 his departure was quite abrupt, and that his large farewell party was attended by neither Gonzales nor (as best as could be seen) anyone else on the AG's personal staff.

Third, and most significantly for present purposes, there was an almost immediate influx of young political aides beginning in the first half of 2005 (e.g., counsels to the AG, associate deputy attorneys general, deputy associate attorneys general, and deputy assistant attorneys general) whose inexperience in the processes of government was surpassed only by their evident disdain for it.

Having seen this firsthand in a range of different situations for nearly two years before I retired, I found it not at all surprising that the recent U.S. Attorney problems arose in the first place and then were so badly mishandled once they did.

2.) Here's a nice metaphor from PZ. Religion is an obstacle, and there are pictures!

3.) Deter bank robbers by being super-friendly.

People who look a bit different getting together more often

Do I count? Bah, stupid question. All this race stuff is stupid. Race is all in our heads, a weak shortcut to thinking you know something about someone before you know them. I guess we're making some progress if more people are (openly) mating outside their tribes.

Apparently though, I might be a source of friction:

In some categories of interracial marriage, there are distinct gender-related trends. More than twice as many black men marry white women as vice versa, and about three-fourths of white-Asian marriages involve white men and Asian women.

C.N. Le, a Vietnamese-American who teaches sociology at the University of Massachusetts, says the pattern has created some friction in Asian-American communities.

“Some of the men view the women marrying whites as sellouts, and a lot of Asian women say, ’Well, we would want to date you more, but a lot of you are sexist or patriarchal,”’ said Le, who attributes the friction in part to gender stereotypes of Asians that have been perpetuated by American films and TV shows.

Should I wonder how my wife is viewed in the half-Asian community? Or should I wonder if she's half as much of a sell-out as her mother? Actually, half a sellout would be pretty generous, judging by the bottom line on our joint tax statement.

Greenwald pwns ABC News

While the media is obsessing about Anna Nichole's baby-daddy and some racist bigotard who said some stupid shit, Glenn Greenwald is busy doing actual journalism. And wow, did he ever bring the thunder down on ABC news.

It all started with this piece about how ABC recently made a huge deal out of a story about Iran's nuclear capabilities without giving any information about the sources of its information. That led to an exchange with an executive at ABC who basically says that people should just trust ABC because of what a great news organization they are. There was no way Glenn was going to let them get away with that, and so a few days later he came out with a story showing how ABC has yet to retract their irresponsible and erroneous reporting where they linked Iraq to the anthrax scares here in 2001. Both the Iran nuclear story and the Iraq anthrax story were from ABC's Brian Glenn, and both were based on anonymous sources.

After an ABC exec sent Glenn an absurd response to the anthrax story, he unleashed this brutal shredding of ABC News today. Amazing work.

Blogs I read, in case it isn't obvious yet

A significant proportion of my blog posting the last several months has consisted of me referencing someone else's political news or commentary, with maybe a little bit of my own interpretation to dress it up. I figure we might be at the point now where anyone who is still reading this blog would probably just be better off going directly to my sources rather than getting them through the Sparks filter. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop posting them; I usually post something when I'm so pissed off about it that I don't know what else to do. But I feel like I'm starting to do less posting and more reading, so here's what I read and what I recommend:

Glenn Greenwald - Glenn's brilliant blogging has gotten even better since his move to Salon. He puts up a new post almost every day. He is a fierce critic of the political media and the Bush Administration and its supporters. I can't say enough good things about his writing.

Think Progress - A daily news blog that seeks to advance progressive ideas. They're very quick.

Hullabaloo - Digby and friends crank out several insightful posts every day. They tend towards more of a partisan Democrat approach, but this isn't a bad thing as they are very fair-minded. The writing takes on a kind of casual feel, but is very serious.

The Daily Howler - Absolutely an awesome site with a new article around noon every weekday. Their focus is mainly media criticism, with a primary ongoing theme that the media mindlessly passes along flawed conservative talking points while liberals watch and do nothing. The writing explodes with a burning sense of righteous indignation, especially about the way the mainstream media savages prominent liberal politicians, Al Gore most of all.

Pharyngula - The ScienceBlog of biology professor and Man Beard PZ Myers, this self-described "godless liberal" churns out several posts a day on a variety of topics, mainly focusing on biology, religion/atheism, and politics. He's an especially vocal opponent of Intelligent Design Creationism.

Dispatches for the Culture Wars - My other regular ScienceBlog reading is Ed Brayton's blog. He also tends to churn out several posts every morning. He does a lot of social commentary and legal analysis, usually from an ACLU-type perspective, and he's an active opponent of Intelligent Design Creationism. He also mixes in some sports and music commentary on a fairly regular basis.

TomDispatch - "A regular antidote to the mainstream media" is a perfect way to describe this site. A few times a week Tom posts a feature story that takes an angle you'll rarely encounter in the major media. He is very critical of the war and the Bush Administration, and often tackles tough social issues.

Once Upon a Time - I think this is the most unique blog on this list. Arthur Silber posts a few times per week, but I'd have a tough time describing his posts. They are intensely personal to him, and he often seems unable to contain his passion. His topic is usually America's imperialistic foreign policy, so you might think this is another political blog, but his writing is more about morality. My crude summary of his central thesis would be that the world is an incomprehensibly cruel and unfair place, so much so that we use false narratives to shield ourselves from it, and that America's behavior, when properly viewed, is astonishingly hypocritical and immoral. I don't know if that description does justice to his work. You really have to go read it for yourself, and plan to spend a lot of time going back through his archives to see the support that he often self-references.

Media Matters - They relentlessly and astutely document the mainstream media's promotion of conservative misinformation.

Nit Pick - This guy posts irregularly about political matters. I just dig his style. He's into the whole brevity thing.

Crooks and Liars - Media critique and liberal politics. Lots of posts every day, usually built around video clips.


UPDATE: If you have an blog recommendations, please comment!

Homeless people

A couple weeks ago I was sitting on the D.C. Metro reading about how they were planning to remove the carpeting from the floor of the trains as a cost-saving measure. The carpets had originally been included to convey a "sense of luxury" to the subway system of the nation's capital. I looked around the train car I was sitting in. Across from me sat a homeless woman who I suspect gets on the train with all of her possessions and rides it all day for a warm safe place to sleep. Sitting next to me was a regular-looking man who must have had some kind of mental disability, as he was loudly talking to himself. The rest of the rush-hour passengers pretended not to notice, or they were too busy basking in the luxury of thin, ugly orange carpet.

My encounters with homeless/mentally ill people on Metro are becoming more common. Today a totally insane homeless women loudly wandered (in the middle of the train ride when normal people are sitting or standing still) into my general area, forcefully plopped herself down on a seat, sending a poof of putrid air out in a cloud around her. She then turned to the woman next to her and unleashed a viciously profane, racially-charged verbal attack, that included threats of physical violence. The woman got up and ran away in horror, as other people scattered from the area out of fear and disgust. Her stench was so overwhelming that I got out at the next stop and took the next train. I feel like the smell is still clinging to all of my clothes.

Here's a rather disturbing and heartbreaking piece on TomDispatch about how the nation's library system is basically day care for homeless people. I don't know if the author's math is right, but he argues that "we could solve the problem for less than it costs to manage it," meaning the entire existing system of managing the related problems of homelessness and mental illness:

The cost of this mad system is staggering. Cities that have tracked chronically homeless people for the police, jail, clinic, paramedic, emergency room, and other hospital services they require, estimate that a typical transient can cost taxpayers between $20,000 and $150,000 a year. You could not design a more expensive, wasteful, or ineffective way to provide healthcare to individuals who live on the street than by having librarians like me dispense it through paramedics and emergency rooms. For one thing, fragmented, episodic care consistently fails, no matter how many times delivered. It is not only immoral to ignore people who are suffering illness in our midst, it's downright stupid public policy. We do not spend too little on the problems of the mentally disabled homeless, as is often assumed, instead we spend extravagantly but foolishly.

consider it

Whacko lefty crazy person Noam Chomsky (via Tomgram):

Doubtless Iran's government merits harsh condemnation, including for its recent actions that have inflamed the crisis. It is, however, useful to ask how we would act if Iran had invaded and occupied Canada and Mexico and was arresting U.S. government representatives there on the grounds that they were resisting the Iranian occupation (called "liberation," of course). Imagine as well that Iran was deploying massive naval forces in the Caribbean and issuing credible threats to launch a wave of attacks against a vast range of sites -- nuclear and otherwise -- in the United States, if the U.S. government did not immediately terminate all its nuclear energy programs (and, naturally, dismantle all its nuclear weapons). Suppose that all of this happened after Iran had overthrown the government of the U.S. and installed a vicious tyrant (as the US did to Iran in 1953), then later supported a Russian invasion of the U.S. that killed millions of people (just as the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran in 1980, killing hundreds of thousands of Iranians, a figure comparable to millions of Americans). Would we watch quietly?

It is easy to understand an observation by one of Israel's leading military historians, Martin van Creveld. After the U.S. invaded Iraq, knowing it to be defenseless, he noted, "Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy."

A Song of Ice and Fire

I recently read all 4 books that have been released in George R. R. Martin's series A Song of Ice and Fire. I've rarely read anything but nonfiction since high school, but a few friends talked me into reading the first book of the series, and I was hooked from there.

They're in the fantasy genre like Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia or Harry Potter, but these are very much not children's books. Aside from the violence and sex and politics, they're also full of very complex characters and there is rarely a clear good or clear evil. The series is supposed to go to 7 books in the next few years, and HBO and Martin are developing a television series.

I can't recommend them highly enough.

Clueless Political Whore leaves a trail of destruction

Way to go, McCain

too good to pass up

Stupid Fox