Saturday, December 31, 2005

At Years End

Just a few quick comments to top up your tank for the trip into 2006. Have a safe journey!
The Bush administration, in another of its now standard responses to real world events, is having the Department of Justice investigate the illegal leak informing us about the illegal wiretaps the President was using to ... Well, I'm not really sure what he was using them for. In general, the 'security agencies' attract a large percentage of paranoid psychotics - those who think doing secret stuff is neato. Much like the all-male 'celibate' Catholic priesthood is attractive to men who feel dirty about their sexuality. Don't hold your breath waiting for the DOJ to investigate the real crime. I wouldn't wait for the Congress to do much either.
In a parallel activity, someone outed the NSA regarding their illegal tracing of visitors to their website by way of cookies. The NSA responded by saying it was all a mistake. Apparently they'd rather be thought of as bozos than as crooks. I once had a sort of NSA-related job, and I'm quite ready to believe in their bozo-dom. They're still engaged in a massive criminal conspiracy, though. It's the nature of the beast (see paragraph 1 above).
Bill Frist is running for President. I guess I should have included him here


Just to let you know that corrupt politics isn't restricted to any single continent, here's what happened last week in S.E. Asia:
The effects of the Boxing Day Tsunami here in Thailand are where the rich Bangkokians are forcing out the survivors. Redefining land ownership so there'll be places to build new 5-star hotels where there used to be bamboo shacks. Put up seawalls to protect this area, thus wiping out the beach in that area. The actual people who lived in Phang Na, and the people who went there to help, had a memorial on the 25th, because they couldn't go to the festivities on the actual anniversary, where the politicians and the businessmen were showing off the newer bigger better tourist area to tourists. Lots of nice (read expensive) hotel rooms, lots of fine (read expensive) restaurants, lots of stylish (read expensive) shops. There was no room at the memorial. A fitting Christmas story.
Again, have a safe journey into 2006, and watch out for icebergs.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

The President Keeps Making News

I have so many other things to write about, but I keep getting intercepted by the most incredible news from the White House.
The latest, though so closely interwoven with the past as to seem an inevitable outgrowth: "Then came The New York Times report Friday that said Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to intercept overseas phone calls and e-mails from people in the United States. Bush's actions, which he maintains are justified under his powers as commander in chief, nonetheless violated a 1978 act of Congress and set the stage for a full-scale power struggle between the executive and legislative branches.
"
(Boston Globe, Dec. 18).
Or, as Bradford Berenson, the President's associate counsel between 2001 and 2003 put it "After 9/11, the president felt it was incumbent on him to use every ounce of authority available to him to protect the American people,..."
Now, I completeley agree that the primary job of the President, indeed of the government, is to protect the people. This however is so evocative of the classical question: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, that I now ask, who is seeing to it that the people are being protected from the President?
This is so close to the concept of destroying the village in order to save it that it almost seems that the President was in fact paying attention to the Vietnam War, only it looks like he got every lesson backwards-to.
George - You Aren't Supposed To Destroy The Village (the United States in this case) In Order To Save It! Bad!
While I'm in the neighborhood, so to speak; George - Torture! Bad! Also, the incredibly bogus argument about the hidden nuclear bomb that we can only find if we are just permitted to torture twice the usual suspects, just a teensy little bit - get real! If you're willing to argue that you have failed to prevent such a situation, why are we supposed to presume you can find the right person to torture, and why do we think you can get the truth by torture, famously a way to get the answers you want rather than the truth; also famously a way to make yourself feel powerful as hell.
Christmas approaches, so I'll try to find something Christmassy to say next time.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Lets Wring Our Hands

...about...
...No...
Not about the United States operating secret torture facilities.
Lets protest about
  • ..."Last week (UK Foreign Secretary Jack) Straw wrote to
    (US Secretary of State Condoleeza) Rice asking for clarification about some 80 flights by CIA planes that have passed through the UK. European politicians and human rights groups claim the flights and use of a network of secret jails breach international law." (The Observer (UK), December 4, 2005). OH! NO! Flying prisoners over our airspace! Go ahead, bust 'em; torture 'em; kill 'em. Just don't involve US! We here in the UK (and elsewhere) have to maintain "plausible deniability" after all, or the voters will just do terrible things to us.
    How weenie is that? Don't concern yourself with what's real, just what people can see. Very British. "Just don't do it in the street; it might frighten the horses."

    Apparently, Ms. Rice is planning to tell the frightened europols to pound sand. Remind them they are co-conspirators now, and we (the current administration in Washington DC) have the goods on them. If they try to back out now, they'll be shifted from the Friend-O-Bush list to The Not-With-Us-Against-Us list. We'll fire their asses.
    Knowing this lady's propensity for hyperbole (mushroom cloud; remember?), I would guess she'd be whispering in their ears about their own little lapses in the strictest upholding of human rights. And I hope, for the multiple billions we spend in intelligence activities, and considering we didn't have the goods on Iraq, we surely must have some interesting intel on the UK, and other "Coalition of the Willing" countries. Probably have stuff on France and Germany, too, but since they made the decision not to throw in with the bellicose G.W Bush, they can consider themselves well out of it.

    Speaking of the President - I wonder if he still has this banner. If so, when does he plan to fly it above the podium again? Oh, that's right; when Iraq is a peaceful democratic country - or when pigs fly. Whichever comes first.

    Saturday, November 26, 2005

    Proving...

    That not all the idiots are in Kansas: "On September 25, 2005, in a startling speech at the University of Toronto that caught the attention of mainstream newspapers and magazines, Paul Hellyer, Canada’s Defence Minister from 1963-67 under Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prime Minister Lester Pearson, publicly stated: "UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head." Mr. Hellyer went on to say, 'I'm so concerned about what the consequences might be of starting an intergalactic war, that I just think I had to say something.'"
    Perhaps it's not that Mr. Hellyer is an idiot; perhaps it's just the natural ageing process. Or, perhaps he was once abducted and probed. That can affect the mind. Just ask any of the apparently millions of people, most of them seemingly living in New Mexico or Abu Graib prison, who have been subjected to that unpleasant procedure.
    Or, as a friend of mine once said - As we all know, a complete lack of evidence is proof that the conspiracy is working.
    There is something here though; I'd be willing to bet that if there were wierd little alien beings flying around in old pietins, George W. Bush's response would be to "bring-em-on".

    Sunday, November 20, 2005

    Rarely...

    Breeds In Captivity.I have been trying to write this one for a few months, but just haven't been able to figure out how to present the idea in a coherent way. Some might say "so what else is new?" Well, that to you...


    In fact, it appears pretty clear that the reason why Humans "rarely breed successfully" in the developed world is that the environment in which they find themselves is simply not a healthy one. Insalubrious - much like the situation that poor Lion ("King of the Beasts") finds itself. Hardly seems worth the effort to copulate.

    Well, not really - for humans, like the lovable but soon-to-become-extinct Bonobos, are always ready for 'recreational sex'. It's just that human children (in the developed world) have become too great an inconvenience! If you watch the animals in the zoo, in many cases (typically where the animal is confined to an artificial, or cubicle-like area), the newborns are like-as-not to be abandoned. Left for the zoo docents to raise. Well and good for the little cute ones - the Pandas and the great cats and such. But bottle feeding a hyena? A Gila Monster (well, but they don't take milk, do they)? You get my point though.
    An environment that is too different from that of the unevolved ancestors of Man is an environment in which 'modern' man feels pretty much continual discomfort. When it comes to cubicle life, trust me, I know!
    So, the birthrate declines, the demographics change. We acquire more stuff to fill the emptiness of spirit. We (or rather, some of the truly unevolved) rant and rage against the immigrants who fill the empty niches in society - fearing that they are here to steal our 'stuff'. It's actually a fascinating sociological lab experiment. Where will it end up?
    Here's some actual numbers;

    If you notice (it's hard not to), the highest rates are in the poorest countries, while the lowest rates are in the richer countries. Except for a few very rich countries where they have lots of babies - the countries where they pump a lot of oil. I can't account for it; perhaps it's the symbol of those wells endlessly pumping...pumping...pumping. Perhaps it's the free money and freedom from the capitalist/consumerist imperative we face in the U.S. and similar places. Anyway, if you live in one of the low-birthrate countries you had better hope that there will be plenty of foreigners willing to come work in your country. To make money for your social security system, to fix your house, to give you spongebaths when you're too feeble to do for yourself.
    I heard a part of a speech, or a press conference, or somesuch last week, by a Singapore government Minister (Assistant Prime Minister perhaps? - I came in late). The gist, as best I can restate it, is that Singapore society can no longer sustain itself; Singapore must encourage foreign workers to come to Singapore, work and live in Singapore, and raise their children to be Singaporeans. He went on to say that this means that the face of the Lion City will change, and people had best get ready to accept that fact. I was amazed to hear such a clearly stated and honest appraisal. Hard to see a United States politician willing to say something like that, in the face of all the rabid immigrant-bashing going on (perpetrated primarily, one might note, by offspring of recent immigrants). The fact that the Singaporean Minister was stating is the same for the U.S., Europe, Japan; in fact this is the way it is for the 'Developed World', Ready-Or-Not!

    Friday, November 18, 2005

    I Did Not Think I Would Hear This!

    "It's time to bring them home," said Rep. John Murtha.
    Congressman Murtha is entirely correct - but I never expected to hear it from someone who has to face an election! In fact, the Bush administration's recent pugilistic attack rhetoric has been pretty much based on the assumption that no prominent politician would be willing to speak the truth that dare not speak its... Well, that's not really a good simile but...
    "We have to stay the course..." "We can't abandon our friends..." "If we leave Iraq now, it will descend into a state of civil war..."
    Guess what? Iraq is right now in a state of civil war. And so it will remain as long as we are there to prevent it running its course. If we stay six months, if we stay six years, if we stay decades, or - if we leave right now; the only difference is the time at which the immiscible factions in Iraq will be forced to settle their grudges - in whatever way they are going to do. When we leave, of course, though the Iraqis will begin to kill each other in grater numbers, we will no longer be killing Iraqis (and they will no longer be killing us), so the death rate may actually go down. However, it is pretty obvious that Iraq is not going to be that Prosperous Middle East Democracy (and U.S. puppet) so dearly wished for by George W. Bush and his coterie. It never was going to be. It never was going to be. Now, without deposed strongman and brutal thug dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraq is bound for a period of chaos and civil strife, until a new strongman takes charge. We can hope the next one will be more statesman than murderer; more philosopher king than opressive autocrat. We however, lack the power to determine this outcome. We always did. It was always just the pipe-dream of a petulant self obsessed accidental Commander-In-Chief, whom even the most ardent United-States-As-The-Only-Superpower-We-Must-Police-The-World advocates are now seeing is not up to the job.

    More John Murtha: "Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency. They are united against U.S. forces and we have become a catalyst for violence," he said. "The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion."

    Amen, John Murtha. And thank you.

    Sunday, November 13, 2005

    We Do Not!

    "We do not torture"; G. W. Bush
    But - if the Congress passes a law against torture, the President will veto it!

    Because..., well..., because, as some have said, we can't tie our hands in the matter of defending our nation against terrorism. Some have said sending the greatest part of our military power to Iraq, frittering away a winning position in Afghanistan, making American soldiers targets throughout the Middle East, killing and imprisoning people because they look like Muslims; these things have created a nurturing environment for terrorist violence and a wonderful nightly see-it-live-on-al-Jazeera Islamic Militant recruiting infomercial. Facts are stubborn things (though not, perhaps, as stubborn as George Bush). Bush continues to mistake doing what he wants to do (mainly, attacking Iraq) for fighting terrorism. Here are two famous pictures: Which one do you think the people of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, indeed much of the world now believes represents the real picture of the United States?

    We do not torture - that's right. We presume 'Scooter' Libby is innocent until proven guilty. We presume Tom Delay is innocent until proven guilty. We presume the internees in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and those wonderful little Black Holes around the world ("The CIA is holding an unknown number of prisoners in secret detention centers abroad. In violation of the Geneva Conventions, it has refused to register those detainees with the International Red Cross or to allow visits by its inspectors. Its prisoners have 'disappeared,' like the victims of some dictatorships." -- The Washington Post.) are... What?

    Friday, November 11, 2005

    How Intelligent?

    In the state of Kansas, the school board seems to favor the idea of "Intelligent Design". Meanwhile, in Dover PA, the Intelligentdesignistas (ID-ers) have been summarily dismissed. Always nice to see thse issues being considered thoughtfully throughout the nation.
    I personally have some questions to ask. First, and very topically, I read almost daily that we are facing a major massacre, potentially in the hundred-million-plus range, should the H5N1 strain of Avian Flu infect a human-flu carrier and mutate(!) into a human-transmittable bug. Apparently, those shameless viruses (virii?) will swap DNA with anything that moves - absolutely the ultimate in sexual deviancy - no wonder the Godly Set wants such knowledge suppressed!
    At last, The Question: Would these good Kansas folk consider this to be an example of ID, or, would they prefer to let Darwin take credit for this particular instance of life-as-it-actually-is?
    Yesterday I was chatting with a colleague and the subject meandered onto the topic of inherited (that is, genetic) diseases - the most commonly mentioned being Sickle-Cell Anemia. It's an interesting example of adaptation. It's most prevalent in malarial areas of Africa where, interestingly enough, carriers of the Sickle-Cell gene (allele S) have an immunity to Malaria. If they carry the S allele in one chromosome only, they will generally suvive Malaria, while the Sickle-Cell trait will be largely innocuous. If they carry the S allele in both chromosomes they will (probably) eventually die from the progressive blocking of capillaries by their overly viscous blood. Generally, they will die very protracted and very painful deaths.
    Thus, as a professor of mine once described it to me; in the worst malarial areas of Aftica, most adults are heterozygous carriers of the S allele. Because, in the normal course of events, just as shown by Gregor Mendel with Sweet Peas, about 1/4 of the children in these areas die from Malaria, about 1/4 of the children die from Sickle-Cell, and the other 1/2 of the children survive.
    Sounds like a pretty intelligent design to me!
    My colleague, however, said he didn't think it was very intelligent to kill half of the children just to accord the survivors some protection against Malaria.

    Now fine Christian Pat Robertson, an embarrassment to Christians everywhere, says Dover PA is going to suffer The Wrath Of God for throwing Him (God, not Pat) out of the classroom. Thus tipping off the formerly clueless that the Intelligentdesignistas goal really is to replace actual investigation of actual observable facts with, as the bumper sticker says: "God Said It; I Believe It; That Ends It", a prerenaissance sentiment so antagonistic to learning that I think such sentiments should be banned (outside of Kansas). Of course, it has been clear for some time now that Pat is quite demented. Even while reading the script on his teevee show, his mental state is frightening to see.

    Tuesday, November 08, 2005

    This Has To Be...

    The Understatement Of The Year- Or possibly the decade, or at least the biggest understatement so far in this century: "...Cheney's predictions about how Iraq would play out have proven optimistic." (New York Daily News November 9; Dubya-Cheney ties frayed by scandal by THOMAS M. DeFRANK).
    Now, this isn't exactly news, and it was always clear to anybody who ever read a history book that "They'll throw flowers at us" was such a misreading of the possible ways human beings act that, right then and there, Dick Cheney should have been permanently sealed inside his bunker-at-an-undisclosed-location. Alas, it was not to be; as here we see...( A simple but apparently overlooked fact about the way humans are.).
    If Mr. Cheney had simply listened to his inner demon, and acknowledged that there are others who respond in ways similar to the way he does (that is to say; subdue, kill or enslave), he would have better understood the dynamic in his chosen vassal country and perhaps been dissuaded from continuing the Vietnamization of Iraq. As Senator, then war protester, John Kerry famously said: "Who will be the last soldier to die in Vietnam (Iraq)?"

    Tuesday, November 01, 2005

    What Kind of a Worldview?

    So, now there's an indictment - one "Scooter" Libby, a power player of some sort in the administration, backstopping Dick Cheney mostly, I guess. The indictment says he lied repeatedly (and stupidly) to the FBI and to a Grand Jury. There's some speculation as to why he did that. Two possibilities immediately come to mind. One - the lies became the truth in some sort of internal transmogrification. That can happen. Two - "I'm too smart for you to lay a glove on me!"
    Well,in the event neither one of those concepts proved out, nor whatever other "interesting" kind of thinking Mr. Scooter actually used.
    I'm still bedevilled though. Just what kind of worldview must one have to believe that, somehow, letting it be known that someone's spouse works for the CIA is going to discredit the person??? I'm sorry, I just can't figure this one out!
    Now, if you were to tell me that someone's spouse worked at The White House, that would go some ways to discrediting that person in my estimation. But - "Be careful what you write, Joe Wilson's wife works for the CIA." -
    sorry, that is just such a huge non-sequitur that it just can't stretch far enough to slime Mr. Wilson. I guess it stretched far enough to slime Mr. Libby, though, huh? So it ended up working to the benefit of the country after all, didn't it?
    Democracy is awesome. Sometimes.
    I ask again: Has George W. Bush restored honor to the White House yet; as he promised to do in his 2000 presidential campaign?

    Tuesday, October 18, 2005

    A Yes Vote In Iraq!

    In the news: Apparently, the proposed new constitution for Iraq won in an overwhelming plebiscite by the voters of that poor country. No surprise, since the whole procedure was "supervised" by the same people who organized the voting in the last two presidential elections in the United States! These are truly experts at getting the right result (though not with the same near-unanimity achieved by the pollers of the former Brutal Thug Dictator of Iraq).
    I think it also interesting, in a bizaare sort of way (I was going to use the word outre', but I think it comes from that "Old Europe" somewhere), that people were voting for/against a document that most had not had a chance even to see, much less try to understand. Sort of like the U.S. Congress voting for the end-of-session spending authorization bills. "Can't take the time to read the @#$% things; I have to get back to my district and do some serious campaigning!" Convince the voters that I'm a responsible and trustworthy legislator. Pay no attention to the fact that I'm voting to enact laws I haven't bothered to read.
    So, anyway, the People Of Iraq have voted Yes, or at least the Yes votes have been counted in greater number than the No votes.
    In other news from Iraq -
    Democracy is on the march!
    The insurgents are in their last throes!
    We can expect more violence in the days ahead!
    We don't do body counts!
    We killed 70 terrorists!


    A sort of a theoretical/mathematical/statistical/human factors question: If we are killing insurgents faster than we are spurring new recruits, How Long before the violence actually goes down?

    Saturday, October 15, 2005

    Why Does It Freeze?

    Way long ago on a warm summer day when I was about 5 or 6, I was playing at a friends house. Sometime around the middle of the afternoon Benny's mom came out of the house with a contraption. She said "We're going to make some ice cream." Well, I was highly skeptical. I figured "making ice cream" was pretty much like "making potatoes", or "making milk". I was one of those who thought food came from the market. Anyway, we (she) poured some stuff into the middle part of this Ice Cream Maker,

    Ice Cream Maker and put ice and rock salt in the surrounding bucket. And told us to start cranking the handle. After what seemed like a long time (but probably wasn't) and a lot of work (and probably was), the cranking got difficult. We stopped; took the thing apart; opened the cannister in the middle, where we'd poured the cream, sugar, and things I don't have any idea about, and Voila'! Ice cream! Just as advertised. How? On a warm day, with the two of us sweating over the crank, and the ice melting; How? How did the liquid in the cannister freeze?

    At last, the point - If you can't figure out how this happened, you shouldn't be allowed to talk about Global Warming. The simple answer is: heat transfer. You could look it up, to quote the late great Casey Stengel.
    Now Steven Milloy, adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, says HERE, global warming claims are contradicted by the fact that at one point on the Earth the temperature indicates we are making ice cream.

    Earth OOPS: I mean, rather, that thermometers aren't indicating a temperature increase in that locale. Therefore, the heat content of the system is not increasing! An incredible and totally unbelievable argument. Such illogic is stunning in its scope! There are still a number of people who, like Mr. Milloy, are finding local cold spots that they can point to in order to support a claim that the energy (heat content) of the Ice Cream Maker - I mean the Earth - is not increasing. You would suppose that any sensible person would be embarrassed to make such a fool of himself, and in public too! I suspect Mr. Coal and Mr. Petroleum are spending a lot of money to ease the embarrassment of these people.

    Of course it's simple logic that the Earth is always either warming or cooling, so it's about 50/50 that at any given time we are in a warming part of the cycle (epicycle, or epiepicycle, etc.). The science regarding the Greenhouse Effect is simple, well understood, and clear. It's been known for decades. Without the Greenhouse Effect, the Earth would be uninhabitable by creatures such as ourselves. It's also been known, since the '50's anyway, that the release of Carbon Dioxide, Methane, and other greenhouse gases by humans increases the atmospheric concentration of these gases, magnifying the effect. Thus, the warming/cooling cycles are shifted toward increased warming. Can it get any simpler than that?

    What seems toxic to me about the debate over this is that there are some who deny that warming is occuring, others who deny it could be a problem, and still others who say we really shouldn't pay any attention to the situation unless and until we are absolutely certain that there will be negative effects! OH!, I'll think about it tomorrow!, said Scarlett.
    Now NOAA says that we are setting yet another record HERE.
    I realize NOAA is a part of the US government, and therefore not to be trusted (heck, George W. Bush says not to trust a buncha bureaucrats), but I personally will take what the scientists there, using a lot of data, over what an "adjunct scholar" at a near-fanatical reactionary Cato Institute says, using his select subset of thermometers.

    Once upon a time, the United States Government (and some local governments also) was preeminent in taking steps to reduce pollution, reduce impacts of human actvites on the environment, and generally led efforts to clean up and improve the health of the world environment. What Happened? Why is the government in a state of paralysis here? How do people (like the President) get away with claiming that reducing human impact on the Earth is A Bad Thing for the economy? This is belied by past experience; in general, reducing the release of industrial waste products has always been an economic boost, as well as improving the health of the population and the country (and the world) generally. I think we lost our compass.

    Monday, October 10, 2005

    A Stark Comparison

    As we all know (or perhaps believe we know), the United States military is the best trained best equipped best supported and most capable military force ever in the history of the whole wide world. Therefore, there is nothing our armed forces cannot accomplish. Except, apparently, to force other combative types to stop fighting. Also, it appears the military cannot kill its opponents fast enough to bring a halt to the fighting. Now, in addition to training our own forces, the DOD has long made it a practice to train selected groups of fighting men from other countries as well - though sometimes this has been embarrassing, as the trainees returned home only to become, in essence, the palace cohort for a brutal thug dictator (anticommunist though!) in one of our many puppet bananna republics. That said, here is a visual comparison of the training our soldiers undergo at the storied Ft. Huachuca, Arizona, and the training we are giving to the Iraqi insurgents, who will end up, the survivors anyway, as the enforcement arm of one of the fundamentalist states we are creating in the former Iraq.



    Soldiers Training at Ft. Huachuca



    Insurgents Training at "Ft. Baghdad"

    Saturday, October 08, 2005

    Congratulations!


    Mohamed ElBaradei
    To Mohamed ElBaradei, and to the IAEA, winners of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2005. I haven't read the pronouncement, but I'm guessing the award was at least partly the responsibility of the Bush administration, which helped immensly by demonstrating that Mr. ElBaradei was dogged in pursuit of the truth about Iraq's 'reconstitution of nuclear weapons programs' in spite of all the harrassment he recieved from the United States government for not simply agreeing to the distortions and lies ('We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud') used to promote the war in Iraq.


    IAEA


    I think Mr. ElBaradei owes the Bush administration a hearty thanks for propelling his formerly obscure United Nations office into such prominence.
    And congratulations also to the United Nations for the many services it performs throughout the world in the face of continuing efforts by the current (and also past) US administration to make the institution into a rubber stamp for its retrograde social agenda.

    Thursday, October 06, 2005

    The New Supreme?

    The latest Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, and her twin Bette Davis.
    Harriet&Bette
    Sorry, I just couldn't resist. The resemblance is, of course, completely irrelevant to anything at all. In fact, if Ms. Miers were to prove as talented as Bette Davis (hopefully in a different venue though), she would certainly leave a serious imprint on the Court, and the nation as well. I guess there's a lot of complaining going on about her lack of relevant experience. Considering the performance of the current members of the Court, and of many recent Justices, I find this not to be a compelling reason to reject her. In fact, the Court hasn't been up to snuff (in my opinion) since the incredibly muddleheaded "Money Equals Speech" decision. A claim that is certainly true de facto, but for the law to say that the person with the biggest megaphone has the right to shout down an opponent is easily the worst decision since Chief Justice Taney's Dred Scott decision.

    A small diversion, sorry.

    xxxHere's a much more chilling (to me) photo; the first public picture I have seen of new Chief Justice John Roberts, with his philosophical soulmates President Bush and Archbishop John McCarrick.
    Understanding that pictures are the best means of transmitting code messages, it's pretty clear what the message here is: forget the idea of "A Wall Between Church and State." We're going to make this christian nation into a Christian Nation. Roe V. Wade? History. This will be a much better place when we can return to the back-alley abortions of the past. All this conveyed in a sort of a "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" manner.

    Wednesday, September 28, 2005

    Constitution Day

    We, the People of the United States...



    On September 28,1787 (218 years ago!) the Constitutional Convention meeting in Philadelphia sent what was to become the Constitution of the United States of America to the "several states" for ratification. The necessary ratification of nine of the thirteen original states was complete by June 21, 1789. In theory, this document has guided the federal government ever since...
    I remember in my elementary school days (admittedly a millenium ago) we used to recite such things as the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution at the beginning of the school day. Learning about such things is what is known as "Civics". Today, the violence that has been done to the Constitution, indeed to every basic law and convention of this country, is such an embarrassment to the federal government that they show far greater interest in having the children recite good Christian prayers rather than learn anything about the basic principles of our country. Promise them glory in the hereafter in hopes they won't notice how you're stealing their heritage in the here-and-now.
    The picture of the actual Constitution is a little hard to read, so here is the preamble - the statement of purpose, asit were, of our government:

    "We, the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America".

    Union. Justice. Tranquility. Welfare. Blessings of Liberty.
    Which of these (capitalized) purposes has the President advanced during his tenure?
    Happy Constitution Day!

    Monday, September 26, 2005

    Which One Is In Denial?

    Denial is one of the stranger human traits, but it is one I believe we all share, at least from time to time. Sometimes, Like with Scarlet, it's better just to "think about it tomorrow". However, sometimes denial becomes a usual part of one's thinking. This can be bad.
    Here's a test for you: Which one of these is an example of denial at work?

    a.)

    Wayne McLaren


    A
    smoker (like former Marlboro Man Wayne McLaren, shown here) who says "I can quit anytime I want."

    b.)


    A
    gambler (like former star quarterback Art Schlichter, shown here) who says "I'll quit just as soon as I make one more big score."

    c.)


    A
    President (like ... George W. Bush, shown here) who says "... we see a situation in Iraq in which the Iraqi people at every opportunity have chosen to pull together in the political process," (quote from State Department spokesman Sean McCormack).


    ... Give up?

    The answer is: All Of The Above!
    Now, you might be thinking my main idea here is to point out the incredibly destructive kind of thinking denial can bring about. You are correct. The destructiveness is of course much greater if the person happens to be the Most Powerful Man In The World (and determined to prove it). It's not like people didn't try to tell George W. Bush about Iraq. Millions of people marched against his war. I tried to tell him here ( Don't Gaff That Shark!). To no avail. I really just wrote that post as a sort of memory-lane piece anyway. I understand that the President pays no attention to any information that doesn't conform to his own personal (that is to say, wierd) worldview. Heck, he doesn't even pay attention to his own father, who understood back when he invaded Iraq that the only options there were a secular brutal thug dictatorship (Saddam Hussein) or a group of ungovernable brutal thug theocracies (what we are about to see now). He (G.H.W. Bush) opted for a Hussein-without-fangs, as the best of a bad situation. Ahh; it's enough to make one yearn for the Good Old Days. If Only We Had Known!

    Sunday, September 11, 2005

    Four Years Later:

    September 11: Four years now since a group of terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Four years since the President found "my meaning and my mission." Four years since the President became the "War President." Four years since the President "hit the trifecta."
    In those four years terrorism has burgeoned throughout the world.
    In those four years the United States' ability to deal effectively with disasters - natural or man-made had been seriously degraded.
    What Has George W. Bush been doing in these last four years? Where is Gerorge W. Bush leading the country? Why is George W. Bush still the President?
    In yesterday's radio address, the Compassionate President compassionately said "We will honor the memory of those we have lost..." One hopes he will not honor the memory of the Katrina dead in the same way he "honors" the dead in Iraq; by endlessly creating more of them.

    Tuesday, August 30, 2005

    The President Buffs Up

    George W. Bush is fiercely riding his trail bike through red state after red state, determined to lose those unsightly love handles. I can easily relate to this, since I am faced with the same corporeal situation. It takes a lot of exercise to buff up/slim down. And I have reaffirmed yet again that ice cream is definitely not a substitute for exercise. Ahhh, would that it were.
    Consider, please; if the president is all pudged up, how can he woo all those Iraq war widows whose husbands he sent off to die. How can a fat president convince the dead soldier's families that they died for a really truly honestly good reason? Whichever reason that may be, this week?
    Oddly, in his remarks on the disastrous Katrina, he emphasised his desire to 'save lives'. He seems to talk a lot about 'culture of life', 'valuing life', 'saving lives', but every action he takes appears to be aimed at the taking of life. Making the world a far more dangerous place.

    Friday, August 19, 2005

    Intelligent Design?

    There must be some Intelligent Design around here somewhere. Or that is what presidential wannabe Bill Frist says now( Frist Backs 'Intelligent Design' Teaching).

    Bill Frist
    First, he put himself outside the herd by advocating for embryonic stem cell research, hoping to look more intelligent than the President. Now he seems to be taking that back, and wants to look as intelligent as Mr. Bush.
    In all of the foofarahw, it appears that the most basic tenet of scientific inquiry appears to have been banned from mention in this quasi-pseudo-debate. A hypothesis is a scientific theory if-and-only-if it is testable. Merely asserting a desire to be intelligently designed fails this test. Totally. Completely. C'mon Mr. Frist; describe for me the experiment you contemplate to test your "Intelligent Design" hypothesis. No? Don't have one? Then shut up about the "theory", and let rhetoric about ID (hah!) be confined to the philosophy department and the debate society. Keep it out of medical school for God's Sake!
    And quit pandering to the boobocracy, despite that its the natural constituency of the Grand Old Nineteenth-Century-And-Holding Party.
    Oh; And tell your president to think of an Intelligent Reason to keep killing people in Iraq, or get out of there.

    Thursday, August 11, 2005

    A Special Day In June

    Question: What was special about June 29 2005?
    Answer: It is the only day so far this year when no American soldier was killed in Iraq.

    Here is the Casualty Count;

    Here is the day by day list

    Of course, that's just numbers. Nice and convenient. Nice and sanitary.

    Here are their pictures

    My God they look young! And not a one of them a relative of the warhawks who sent them to Iraq to do... What? What are they dying for? Please remind me, if you can remember, Mr. President.

    Monday, August 08, 2005

    God Said...

    "Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth...
    ... and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so." And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. (Gen. 1:29-31)
    Sorry; I saw this on a childs sampler in a local church, and I just couldn't resist!
    I wonder if God will be unhappy if we disdain HIS/HER gifts?

    Saturday, August 06, 2005

    Littleboy turns 60

    August 6, 1945. Enola Gay, a B-29 bomber flew over Hiroshima Japan and dropped the first Atom Bomb, the first of only two (so far) in war. To this day debate goes on as to the necessity of this attack, the morality of this attack, what the ultimate result will be in terms of future wars.

    The event was, blessedly, before my time, but the debate seems likely to span a lot of generations. I'm going to duck out on the issues themselves, and instead just say that Things Have Changed since then. And a good thing, too. Something often not mentioned in the debates/arguments surrounding this event is that in 1945 it was acceptable to bomb cities. Cities full of people. Cities full of noncombatants, women, children, babies! Today, that is no longer an acceptable tactic. Unfortunately we still do it, those of us who have bombs and airplanes to drop them from, but we say we don't. We use terms like Surgical Strike, and Selective Targeting. We claim that our ordnance is now smart enough to tell the difference between a terrorist and a child. Now if only we could just keep those photographers from taking pictures of the dead children, maybe we could get on with our war.
    In any event, despite the hypocrisy, total wars are more restrained than they formerly were, and the death toll is consequently less.
    Before I got sidetracked, the point I was trying to make is that when the arguments pro/con/middle/decline-to-state/whatever are made, the fact that bombing civilians was, at that time and place, a normal tactic. The rightness or wrongness wasn't part of the decision to drop the bomb.
    One hopes it is part of the decision today.

    (1) Tail Cone (2) Stabilizing Tail Fins (3) Air Pressure Detonater (4) Air Inlet Tubes (5) Altimeter/Pressure Sensors (6) Lead Shield Container (7) Detonating Head 8) Conventional Explosive Charge (9) Packing (10) Uranium (U-235) (11) Neutron Deflector (U-238) (12) Telemetry Monitoring Probes (13) Receptacle for U-235 upon detonation to facilitate supercritical mass (14) Fuses (inserted to arm bomb)

    Thursday, August 04, 2005

    Now This Is Important!

    WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress isn't through with Rafael Palmeiro.


      A House committee will investigate whether the Baltimore Orioles slugger committed perjury by testifying under oath that he never took performance-enhancing drugs.


    Yet another splinter group of drug warriors is trying to stamp out abuse of its own particular favorite devil's brew. Surely, if only professional athletes (and their emulators, and people with obsessions to look/play/feel better) would just stop using this one kind of chemical, we'd all be better off. We could relax with a beer or six and watch major league baseball on the TeeVee, secure in the knowledge that nobody was 'cheating' us out of our pollyanna belief in the virtue of the 'American Game'. Unless of course you prefer football (no, not real football, American Football), in which case I leave it to you to believe that those 400 pounders did it all with hard work and a full training table.
    Meanwhile, while we pretend we're stopping our pure innocent young men from following professional athletes down the road of chemical degradation, we're preparing to send them to Iraq, to be killed or wounded for no achievable goal. Except to stoke the fancies of a reality-challenged president.
    Thanks Congress. Thanks Congressman Tom Davis.

    Saturday, July 30, 2005

    I don't know...

    I don't know, not being a structural or materials engineer, but I suspect the reason the foam insulation on the Space Shuttle's exterior fuel tank keeps breaking off is that it doesn't have sufficient structural integrity to withstand the launch stresses.
    But then, I'm not a structural engineer.

    Wednesday, July 13, 2005

    Blair is "Shocked!...Shocked!"

    Tony "The Poodle" Blair is shocked to find out that there are people in England who act just like people do in the rest of the world.

    LONDON, England (CNN) -- Prime Minister Tony Blair has expressed his shock that the four men believed to have carried out last week's deadly terrorist attacks on London's transit system were British nationals.

    As shocked, I presume, as were Americans when we found out that the "Arab Terrorists" who blew up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City were named Timothy McVeigh.
    Meanwhile, some of the cast-of-thousands of "Terrorism Experts" are happily bloviating about what a large and sophisticated al Quaeda cell it must have taken to have performed such a coordinated attack on the London underground. Piffle! How sophisticated do you have to be to call your friends on your mobile phone when it's time to set off an explosive? How sophisticated do you have to be to look up how to make a bomb, in a book or online? How many disaffected suicidal bipolar adolescents are going to take direction from anybody? Believe it or not, McVeigh did not have an al Quaeda handler teaching him how to blow up a building.


    Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, did not have an al Quaeda handler when they shot the hell out of Columbine HS


    Sasser Virus Creator Sven Jashan

    Sven Jaschan, did not have an al Quaeda handler when he created the Sasser Virus. Only "experts" who have managed to avoid learning anything about what real people are really capable of can manage to claim a huge complex monolithic doomsday cult is responsible for every explosion that happens in the world. Excepting, of course, the explosions set off by the United States military in the furtherance of peace and democracy. Those explosions are, I suppose, being set off by a huge complex monolithic doomsday cult - a cult that believes it can install its neocolonialist vision of society throughout the world. Or, at least, the oil-bearing part of the world.

    That Rascal Rove!

    Apparently (according to all the president's men that is), Karl Rove, the jovial White House assistant chief of staff, has done no wrong in the Valerie Plame case.

    The reasoning? He didn't mention her by name! What he seems to have told several reporters is that the wife of former U.S. diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV was the CIA undercover agent who got him sent to Niger to check out the yellowcake uranium story.

    Plame&Wilson
    Imagine his shock that anyone could figure out who he was talking about from such sparse information! It's also being said that, while he might have mentioned all this in passing, it may have been another person who leaked the story. In other words, while Karl tried like hell to leak the story, he might not have succeeded before another source managed the trick.

    HenryII
    I think pretty soon we'll see that he in fact is completely innocent.
    In the same sense that Henry (will no one rid me of this troublesome priest) II was innocent of the murder of Thomas Beckett. In modern terms, "Plausible Deniability". The Bush White House is big on deniability. Or is it just big on denial?
    When Sherman Adams was found out (he was flat out selling access to President Eisenhower; hey, it was a simpler time), Ike fired him without comment, without fuss. I would urge the same for this president, except that I like to watch the hullaballoo. Remember this? I will restore honor to the White House; G. W. Bush, 2000.

    Tuesday, July 12, 2005

    Whilst We Fight This Heroic War...

    It might be good to remember that not everybody enjoys the combat as much as the President and his warhawks seem to. Heres the original of the rousing Revolutionary War marching song that the President seems to be marching to. With, of course, God On His Side...

    "With a peculiarly American style of optimism, the tune of Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye was played at a quicker tempo, and the words changed to portray the homecoming that every soldier and his loved ones would like to experience: When Johnny Comes Marching home Again, hale, hearty, and victorious, honored by the entire population of his hometown. Ah, if only 'twere always so!" Quoted from:
      Songbook

      You can listen to the tune here

    Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye

    While goin' the road to sweet Athy, hurroo, hurroo
    While goin' the road to sweet Athy, hurroo, hurroo
    While goin' the road to sweet Athy
    A stick in me hand and a drop in me eye
    A doleful damsel I heard cry,
    Johnny I hardly knew ye.With your drums and guns and drums and guns, hurroo, hurroo
    With your drums and guns and drums and guns, hurroo, hurroo
    With your drums and guns and drums and guns
    The enemy nearly slew ye,
    Oh my darling dear, Ye look so queer,
    Oh Johnny, I hardly knew ye.
    Where are your eyes that were so mild, hurroo, hurroo
    Where are your eyes that were so mild, hurroo, hurroo
    Where are your eyes that were so mild
    When my heart you so beguiled,
    Why did ye run from me and the child?
    Oh Johnny, I hardly knew ye.
    Where are your legs that used to run, hurroo, hurroo
    Where are your legs that used to run, hurroo, hurroo
    Where are your legs that used to run
    When you went for to carry a gun?
    Indeed your dancing days are done,
    Oh Johnny, I hardly knew ye.
    I'm happy for to see ye home, hurroo, hurroo
    I'm happy for to see ye home, hurroo, hurroo
    I'm happy for to see ye home
    All from the island of Sulloon,
    So low in flesh, so high in bone,
    Oh Johnny, I hardly knew ye.
    Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg, hurroo, hurroo
    Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg, hurroo, hurroo
    Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg
    Ye're a helpless shell of a man on a peg,
    Ye'll have to put with a bowl out to beg,
    Oh Johnny, I hardly knew ye.
    They're rolling out the guns again, hurroo, hurroo
    They're rolling out the guns again, hurroo, hurroo
    They're rolling out the guns again
    But they never will take our sons again,
    No they never will take our sons again,
    Johnny I'm swearing to ye.

    Friday, July 08, 2005

    Those Terrorists ~ Them!

    When bombs go off in London, it's a terrorist attack.


    When bombs go off in Baghdad, it's us defending ourselves against the evildoers.

    Don't mistake me; I am very well aware that the methods used by al Quaeda and its fellow travellers are intended to harm and kill innocent (well, uninvolved) civilians. Our interest is to harm and kill armed opponents. The uninvolved civilians we kill are just the unfortunate "collateral damage" any war creates.
    Do you believe the people in Iraq understand that difference? Or the people in the middleast who get their news from al Jazeera? I think what they see is people who look and sound like them attacking people who look and sound different and who invaded and are occupying their country. I think that most Americans would probably side with American "insurgents" who would take up arms against an invading and occupying foreign army. Except possibly people like Dick "Other Priorities" Cheney and likeminded archcons, or neocolonialists.
    I was watching Newshour a little while ago. At the end of each newscast they spend a few moments in silence while showing photos of the American servicepeople killed that day in Iraq and Afghanistan (remember Afghanistan?). I was struck by the sense I felt of how my country had betrayed the trust of those dead soldiers. The way we cynically and unjustifiably sent them to Iraq to pursue an unjust cause. A cause, furthermore, that cannot succeed. I recall a recent presidential candidate, whose name I believe was George W. Bush, who pledged not to engage in "nation building". I wonder how things would have gone had he been the one appointed to the presidency?

    Sunday, June 26, 2005

    Has The War Ended?

    I read a lot of newspapers, and I watch a lot of TeeVee news. God only knows why, I suppose it's an addiction. In my recent channelsurfing, I've noticed that Fox News (an interesting conflation of words indeed) is reporting well-nigh nonstop on the overwhelmingly important events in Aruba (BBC Report)
    I think what they say is true; if a missing person report gets a lot of news coverage, odds-on the missing person is young, blonde, and pretty.


    Natalee Holloway
    Others, sorry, just not newsworthy!
    Iraq has fallen, so to speak, off the map. To listen to and decide, based on FNN reporting, would be to conclude that the war in Iraq is over. I presume we won. However, looking around on the web, or in the (back pages) of the newspapers, I find that US military people are dying in Iraq at a higher rate than ever before, and that Iraqis are certainly doing the same (Yahoo News). I suppose all this increased destruction has to do with the increasing numbers of Operations taking place in that poor benighted country. If we keep operating on Iraq at this rate, pretty soon the patient is likely to expire completely.
    One wonders; after thumping the drums for the war for so long, has Fox News decided to declare victory and go home? Or are they simply hoping it will go away if they stop reporting it? Sort of a solipsist view that seems to be pretty much inline with their normal operation.
    In another cute story, House whip Tom (The Hammer)DeLay defended Karl Rove's pugnacious comments about spineless liberals. And I suppose it helped, considering that no one in recent history has been able to state things as competely incredibly astoundingly as Tom DeLay (with the possible exception of Anne Coulter of course).
    Still, being defended by Mr. DeLay

    seems to me a bit like being kissed by Don Corleone.
    I am personally enjoying it all.
    Except for the senseless stupidity of the war(s).
    Parenthetically, I have to say that when George (W.) Bush set out to restore the luster of his father George (H.W.) Bush's legacy, I didn't believe it possible. But he has certainly succeeded at that! His father's incumbency now seems like a veritable golden age, compared to his son's.

    Thursday, June 23, 2005

    What Last Throes?

    The vice president, Dick Cheney, in spite of evidence, in spite of the testimony of his own military commanders


    Abizaid and Rumsfeld


    continues to insist that the Iraqi insurgency is "on its last legs", "in its last throes", "there is no guerilla war".

    Its kind of reminiscent of


    William Buckley
    William Buckley
    in the time of Vietnam, who for years cited the evidence of
      Captured Enemy Documents
    to claim that the VC (Viet Cong, for the young among you) were in their last throes. It seemed unlikely at the time, and history has shown it to be wrong at the time. In fact, the successor to the leader of the VC was just in Washington DC, meeting with the President. Something I don't believe Bill Buckley has managed lately.
    The last time Buckley's column cited the captured enemy documents, his column was followed (in the Los Angeles Times, anyway) by one of my all time favorite columns by Art Buchwald. In Buchwalds column, he interviewed the manager of North Vietnams Captured Enemy Document Factory Number 1. The poor manager was in a terrible state. It seems the demand for Captured Enemy Documents was surging, as more and more US officials and newsmen wanted them, while at the same time the US military kept bombing his factory and shutting down production. He was talking to Buchwald in hopes of getting him to intervene with the military so that they'd stop bombing his factory, which had by that time assumed a critical function for North Vietnam, as their primary source of foreign money and was also critical for the US, as providing propaganda cover to keep the war going.
    I think it was too much for Buckley, and he went on to other things, like going sailing.
    A good thing, in my opinion.
    Perhaps Dick Cheney has been reading some of those old Captured Enemy Documents. Or, since we have progressed a great deal since the 1970's, we are getting our information directly from Captured Enemies themselves. Note: We do not torture them; we aren't like that, we don't do that, and if we do, they deserve it anyway.

    Our Leaders In Iraq

    Abu Graib - Model of American Military Justice
    Its more important to believe everything your President tells you than the evidence in this picture, no?

    Monday, June 20, 2005

    Tom Friedman's Visionary Car

    Tom Friedman, the Pulitzer-winning columnist for the New York Times, is one of my favorite reads. He is articulate, knowledgeable, and literate. Qualities I think not sufficently prized in these times. He is however, perhaps not entirely numerate. Here he talks about a visionary automobile which will save us from energy dependence:

    I think Thomas has been shopping in the Something-For-Nothing aisle of the supermarket.
    Like most, I am not one to let facts get in my way, but the facts here are a little too large to ignore.
    . Electricity Generation (US): 3,870 gigawatt/year
    . Power to move a car 1 mile: 2 KW (highly approximate)
    . Oil Consumption (US): 20 million barrels/day
    . Gasoline Consumption (US): 12.5 billion gallons/year
    . Theoretical yield of ethanol from corn: 120 gallons/ton
    . Water required to process biomass: 25 gallons H2O/ gallon C2H5OH
    Thus;
    1. To charge 100 million cars that have travelled an average of 20 miles would place a load on the electric grid of 4 gigawatt/day, 1400 odd GW/year. To put it poetically, What Is The Sound of 100,000,000 Cars Plugging Into The Grid? Answer; The Sound Of Silence (as every circut breaker in the country flips).
    2. To replace eighty percent of the gasoline currently consumed with ethanol would require us to produce 10 billion gallons of ethanol (assuming ethanol produced the same energy per gallon as gasoline, which it doesn't; it produces about 2/3 the energy) would require 80 million tons of thirsty corn which would take 30 milion acres to grow along with some amount of irrigation water which I didn't look up. After harvest, shipment, delivery; generating ethanol from the corn would require 250 billion gallons of water! Most of this water can be reclaimed, but it would take some amount of energy to purify it, in addition to the energy required to process the corn to begin with.
    In fairness to Thomas, and everyone who spotted my primary assumption here; ethanol can be made from any biomass. It Thailand, there's a village school that's generating cooking gas (CNG) from elephant ummm, byproduct. Two elephants can supply a village of 200 people! Mixed paper, a common recyclable, can produce about 90% as much ethanol/ton as corn.
    Still, looking at the numbers (found in these locations):


    I think Thomas should stick to Iraq. He's wrong there too, when he talks about a way to "do it right", because there is no way for us to impose rightness (whatever that means) on that country, but it is his area of expertise.

    Saturday, June 18, 2005

    Just Wandering/Wondering

    I was doing some driving around the state (California) yesterday. Now, California is historically mostly part of Mexico. In school the children are taught about Fr. Junipero Serra, the priest who brought civilization to the primitive indians of the state. The schools don't actually mention the methods used in the civilization process, but the record is there. All that aside, one result of the original exploration is that most place names are religion-based. We have cities such as: San Bernardino ~ Saint Bernard; Santa Monica ~ Saint Monica; San Jose ~ Saint Joseph; Santa Barbara ~ Saint Barbara; San Francisco ~ Saint Francis; Santa Teresa ~ Saint Teresa; San Juan ~ Saint John; Santa Clara ~ Saint Clare.
    A lot of Saints!

    TheresaAndPope

    Recalling this caused me to wonder. If women can be saints, why can't women be priests?
    One person I asked said it was because saints were all dead, so it was safe to include women. Surely, though, that cannot be. A fundamental tenet of the Church is that we all get to have life eternal, albeit in a condition I personally would not care to have to endure. So, again, Why Can't A Woman Be A Priest?
    Just wondering.

    Wednesday, June 08, 2005

    The Downing Street Memo Oh My!

    You know, I spent a considerable number of years trying to find a cure for reality. I never succeeded. I think though that George W. Bush must have found the answer. One thing is certain - If he's aware of reality, he sure doesn't base his actions on it!
    Perhaps if I try a little harder, I, too, can succeed in banishing old reality from my life.
    The latest citation from Chairman W.


    Man of the YearPM Blair

    "There's nothing farther from the truth," Bush told reporters as Blair stood at his side. "Both of us didn't want to use our military," Bush said in response to a question about the memo. "It was our last option." Reuters, June 8 2005.
    There are so many things wrong with this sentence it's hard to know where to start. I think George is hoping the more literate portion of the audience will be distracted by the infelicity (to put it mildly) of the grammar. I personally noticed the bald-facedness of the claim. Sometime in January of 2002 I noted that the war was "on", and that while the president was claiming then as now that "War is our last option", it was also his first and his only option. As was pretty clear to the million people marching in opposition to the fantastically idiotic idea that we'd be a welcome invader in Baghdad.
    Now there's nothing farther from the truth than that!

    Friday, June 03, 2005

    We all need an Eskimo sometimes

    Back in '96 (that's 1996, not 18.. or 17.. or..) I was having a tough time. I was working as a fisherman that year, not exactly getting rich. I'd headed offshore to go for Albacore, on my nice new (1960 vintage) boat, Seabreeze


    Seabreeze


    Somewhere (well, I can look up the exact co-ordinates; I wasn't 'lost at sea', really) about 800 miles west of Eureka I caught an old floating hawser in my prop, blew out my engine. Not much I could do out there, except spend a lot of time checking my bilge pumps, putting out distress calls, the usual thing for anyone floating around the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
    After what seemed forever, but was actually just four days, I caught a lucky bounce off the ionosphere, and got hold of US Coast Guard Station Brookings. It took a few more days, but a Coast Guard ship finally got to me, about the time the weather was getting really iffy. They took me in tow, and in a few more days I wound up tied to an abandoned fishbuyers dock in Eureka California. Having had little-to-no sleep for weeks, I pretty much collapsed. Spent about 15 hours dead out.
    But time has a way of moving along no matter my state of consciousness, so next morning I had no choice but to wake up and try to get things set to rights.
    I was standing in the wheelhouse, surveying the chaos, when a cheerful little woman with sensible walking shoes and a slouch hat, looking perhaps a little like Miss Marple, came striding by along the beatup old dock. She waved and gave me a cheerful "Good Morning!". I growled at her. She said "What a beautiful boat you have!" (she had a remarked tendency to speak in exclamation points). I said it was a piece of junk (well, something a bit stronger than 'junk') with a blown engine, unusable, a disaster, etc. She persisted in engaging me in cheerful chatter until, finally, in exasperation at her impenetrable cheeriness, I said: Look, I wouldn't even have a way to get around, except a friend is letting me use his truck.
    She said, without even a pause "Oh, you have a friend!"
    I must have blinked, or blacked out, or something, because when I looked next, she had disappeared. I wanted to say thank you, or something, but, having delivered her message, she could then depart. That was my eskimo, back in July of 1996.

    Wednesday, May 25, 2005

    Culture of Life!

    The president (the Culture Of Life President) has said he'll veto the stem cell research bill currently being passed by the congress. He's against the destruction of life to preserve life (Unless of course it's foreigners lives). Along with the other right-to-lifers, or rather the manipulators who believe they can get people to give them money and power if they piously proclaim a love of life, the president seems to think its not okay to generate stem cells from human ova to cure disease and save lives. But it is okay to simply destroy the ovum.
    Now, in case 1, the ovum, and the cells created from it, continue to live, participating in the life of the person they assist in continuing to live. In case 2, the ovum is discarded. Dies. Is dead.


    Culture of Life

    This is the Culture of Life!

    Is it the intent of the Culture-Of-Lifers to define the killing of an ovum (a "potential" life) as murder? Consider that women are born with something in the neighborhood of 68,000 or so oocytes, of which some number will become fertile ova. Of those, some number between zero and 60 will become living humans. Note: 60 is the number of children Hecuba legendarily bore Priam. Thus Homer's reference to "Hecuba's o'erteemed womb". I personally think 60 is an unrealistic number of children for any one woman to give birth to. Especially since of that number only one survived the fall of Troy. I guess because the Grecians didn't believe in the president's Culture Of LIfe. All the rest of the eggs will be discarded. Will the normal monthly menstrual process of discarding an unfertilized ovum become an act of murder? Or is it an act of murder to allow the ovum to die rather than to save it, culture it, and use it to save a life? Which is it Mr. President Bush?
    I leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide if letting sperm cells to die rather than making each-and-every-one into a living being is also murder. If so, then certainly men are far more murderous than women could possibly be. Lets face it, Onan wasn't the only one.