The Price of Political Progess

Is it possible that Benizar Bhutto's admirers and detractors are both correct?

Those who have not spent residential time outside of the U.S., may be unaware that peaceful, lasting change only occurs in older cultures, such as Pakistan's, by means of extreme baby-steps. All else typically results in horrendous violence and eventual regression. Further, in most such cultures it is impossible to work from within existing systems without accepting a certain level of corruption; and working outside of those systems can mean almost certain death (either politically or literally).

For a true Mr. Smith going to Washington--or Ms. Bhutto going to Islamabad--politics is as much a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation as one could expect to find.

Even in the U.S., we see this.

Ron Paul, running as a Libertarian (outside of the system) received little attention, but his current campaign, as a Republican (within the system) is having a significant impact on the American political debate. Ron Paul, when campaigning on his non-corrupt voting record, is often accused of being ineffective; at the same time, in the few areas where he has worked within the system (for instance, on securing earmarks for his districts), his detractors accuse him of corruption.

Compared to Pakistan, the level of corruption found in Washington is only slightly greater than that found in the checkbook of a church organist.

No American can comprehend the danger and difficulty of a political career in Islamabad, especially for a woman. Nor can we appreciate what may be necessary in order to survive. When the vast majority of those around you are accepting of a belief that it is god's will that you to be owned, or stoned, because of your gender, one cannot afford to be squeamish about defending yourself against threats.

Not having your enemies killed is a luxury one can only afford in a society where your enemies are not allowed to kill you. This is a luxury that Bhutto clearly did not enjoy.

The Bhutto family has certainly paid the price for their efforts to modernize Pakistan. Yes, they have probably done some nasty things along the way, possibly some very horrible things, but it is the way in which they are headed that is important. In this regard, Benazir Bhutto may have been as close to a Thomas Jefferson as one could expect to find in such a backwards, repressive, and violent culture.

There is no purity in the world of successful politics, most certainly not in a place like Pakistan. The only “purists” are the fundamentalist religious fanatics who have had historical control in Pakistan, and we can only be grateful for the degree to which they are corrupt. As America heads into an election season with the possibility of religious leaders on its own presidential tickets, Americans would be wise to remember Pakistan.

Is there a place for those who support more radical modernization than Benazir Bhutto? Certainly there is. They make politicians such as Bhutto seem moderate, and therefore more acceptable. However, in societies where moderation and toleration are considered dangerous sins against god, those who take such stands, outside of the system and beyond cultural tolerance, are rarely effective--or even long-lived.

Even in the U.S., there is no possibility of being elected, or of effecting change, if you are marginalized because your platform is too far beyond the mainstream of cultural acceptance. The powerful momentum of cultural institutions, even of those that have lost their evolutionary purpose, is a part of the human condition. It is indeed a tragedy that most of us are not capable of making a logical choice to evolve beyond the anachronistic behavior of our past. None-the-less, we do have to deal with such cultural physics.

Perhaps there is a better way than Benazir Bhutto's, or even Ron Paul's, however learning what there is to be learned of that better way can only be accomplished from the playing field. Criticizing from the safety of the sidelines accomplishes less.

William of Ockham on Politics

Far too many Ron Paul supporters think that the "mainstream media" is out to get Ron Paul. They take examples of distortions, such as reports that Paul doesn't believe in evolution (after Paul, who has a PHD in science, stated that evolution is a theory) as evidence that media is intentionally smearing Paul at every turn.

There is a simpler explanation, that being that many Americans are simply too poorly educated by our pubic schools to understand that real science asserts no facts. Such cognitive abstraction is simply beyond them.

Another example of this limited intellectual discernment is this week's press revelation that actor Will Smith believes Adolf Hitler to have been a "good" person. What Smith acually said was, "Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'let me do the most evil thing I can do today. I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.'"

Shockingly, even amongst the educated, many can't discern the difference between either of the two statements.

Will Smith proves that some actors are much smarter than we give them credit for, when he insightful observes that the incident, "... speaks to the dangerous power of an ignorant person with a pen." That is true, as far as it goes, but the journalistic freedom that the Internet provides to the masses is a big part of what is driving the Ron Paul "r'evol'ution."

In a free society one has to accept the sweet-with-the-sour, although that is probably of little consequence to Mr. Smith this week.

From the Modesto Bee, letters to the editor...

Where are others' backers?
December 26, 2007

Why Guiliani, Duncan, Tancredo, Romney, Huckabee, McCain, Keyes or Thompson? I have seen so few support letters for the other Republican candidates compared to those for Ron Paul. I urge The Bee to solicit letters from supporters of these other candidates, if any there are.

What is it that supporters of these gents deem worthy of support?

Being a member of the Stanislaus GOP myself, I know a number of my fellow Republicans favor Fred Thompson (a former actor). Good Lord, please write and tell us all why. If you are unwilling to do so, then how deep and genuine does your support really run?

This election cycle we, as a nation, stand at a crossroads. Surely, all politically astute Republicans understand this. I refuse to believe we have that many "globalist elite" in our wonderful county. Why so silent?

Try to explain how your candidate's appeal is sufficient to be able to defeat Ms. Clinton or Mr. Obama in the general election vs. Ron Paul.

ARTHUR MURRAY
Modesto

The Penny Ante Candidate

Most candidates receive their contributions from a collection of big corporations and wealthy contributors. You can bet that Ron Paul isn't getting a lot of corporate contributions consider his comments on Meet the Press (see below).

It hardly matters, in the fourth quarter Ron Paul is leading all the candidates with over $18.5+ million received 200,000+ donors of mostly small ($100 or less) contributions. This is real grass roots stuff folks.

Crumbling Foundations

CNNMoney reported last week that home prices fell 6.7 percent in October, the largest drop in 16 years and the 10th consecutive monthly drop. Some U.S. cities are experiencing declines in single family home values of as much as 30 percent. Only three cities in the entire country are showing positive growth.

But hey, the economy is fine -- just ask the Bush administration.

Merry Christma...

Many commentators are pointing out the hypocrisy of a "Christian" nation spending hundreds of millions of (inflated) dollars on commercial items to celebrate the birth of a man who advocated poverty and charity as first principals. Least we forget, it was not so long ago that Christians celebrated the Prince of Peace in quite a different fashion. Mere crass commercialism is something of a relief.

According to historians, while on their nine Crusades, Christians slaughtered well over a million people, perhaps as high as five million. During the first capture of Jerusalem alone, an estimated 40,000 men, women, and children were murdered -- basically for sport. There are chronicles written by the Crusaders themselves boasting of ankle deep blood in some areas of Jerusalem.

Most of history's victims of Christianity were Muslim, gays, indigenous peoples, or uppity women who refused to be taken as property, but also many were Jews. Many also were simply too young to conceptualize religion at all. The number of children slaughtered in the Jerusalem massacre alone would have been over 10,000. And yes, slaughtering the "Christ Killers" has been a popular Christian sport throughout the centuries -- one that only, sorta, ended during the lifetime of your parents or grandparents.

The Crusaders killed an estimated 8,000 Jews in the Rineland before they even left Europe, which was probably a bigger percent of the European Jewish population at the time than Christians would slaughter in another few centuries after they changed their attire from cross-ed tunics to swastika-ed brown shirts. Between the two events, the incidence of Jewish massacres at the hands of Christians throughout Europe and western Asia are too numerous to list. Even the incidence of synagogue burning, with the worshipers still inside, is too frequent to recount.

So, was 9/11 really blowback for CIA involvement in the Middle East since the 1950s? Or due to U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia since the 1980s? Hardly. The blowback originated centuries earlier. It continues to originate today as the "Christian" president of the "Christian" nation with the support of the nation's pulpits continues to attacks a Muslim country that had no connection to 9/11, no weapons of mass destruction, or indeed any provable connections to terrorism on our shores.

So, on this bright, sunny Christmas day, as Americans greedily open the millions of gifts they give to each other, the death count in Iraq continues to climb. Given the millions of dead throughout history, a mere 100,000 non-combatent men, women, and children killed in the name of Christiani.., (oops) I mean, Democracy, doesn't seem likely to produce any moral pause on the way to the wrapping and the bows.

So, Merry Christma, (oops) I mean, Happy Holidays.

Our so-called free society...

Why did it take 57 years for America to find out that the FBI has had a secret, unconstitutional plan to intern American citizens that is deemed political threats?

Have Grandpa & Grandma and Pa & Ma been asleep at the wheel for the last five decades, or have they been complicit?

Who says, "It can't happen hear"? Apparently it has -- or at least it's been planned for.

What happens when you waterboard yourself?

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for bringing this to broader attention. Click here for the entire post; the highlights are below. Posted by Scylla on The Straight Dope:

So much talk of waterboarding, so much controversy. But what is it really? How bad? ...I determined to give this a try... Torture, or not? ... These are the results of my research and experience: ... The idea is that you wrap saran wrap around the mouth in several layers, and poke a hole in the mouth area, and then waterboard away. ... It took me ten minutes to recover my senses once I tried this. I was shuddering in a corner, convinced I narrowly escaped killing myself.Here's what happened: The water fills the hole in the saran wrap so that there is either water or vaccum in your mouth. The water pours into your sinuses and throat. You struggle to expel water periodically by building enough pressure in your lungs. With the saran wrap though each time I expelled water, I was able to draw in less air. Finally the lungs can no longer expel water and you begin to draw it up into your respiratory tract. ... I have never been more panicked in my whole life. Once your lungs are empty and collapsed and they start to draw fluid it is simply all over. You know you are dead and it's too late. Involuntary and total panic. ... At the time my lungs emptied and I began to draw water, I would have sold my children to escape. There was no choice, or chance, and willpower was not involved. I never felt anything like it, and this was self-inflicted with a watering can, where I was in total control and never in any danger. And I understood. Waterboarding gets you to the point where you draw water up your respiratory tract triggering the drowning reflex. Once that happens, it's all over. No question. ... So, is it torture? I'll put it this way. If I had the choice of being waterboarded by a third party or having my fingers smashed one at a time by a sledgehammer, I'd take the fingers, no question. It's horrible, terrible, inhuman torture. I can hardly imagine worse. I'd prefer permanent damage and disability to experiencing it again. I'd give up anything, say anything, do anything. The Spanish Inquisition knew this. It was one of their favorite methods. It's torture. No question. Terrible terrible torture. To experience it and understand it and then do it to another human being is to leave the realm of sanity and humanity forever. No question in my mind.

Bill Kristol Says Many Americans Don't Matter

Are you a disaffected voter? Do you think both parties have been corrupted and captured by corporate interests? Unhappy with how America has been governed over the last century? Against the war and for peace? Are you Ron Paul supporter?

Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, says in this Fox News interview that what some Americans think doesn't matter at the end. He means you.

In light of such a comment, Ron Paul's concerns about the rise of fascism in America appears decidedly less academic.

More from Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis was the first American to receive a Nobel Prize for literature. He is little read today, largely because his writing is incomprehensible to those educated under the current American education system. That Lewis was a widely read popular author in the 1920s, tells us something about just how far the U.S. education system has fallen.

Awhile back (see post below), a Fox & Friends reporter put Ron Paul on the spot regarding Mike Huckabee's Christmas "cross" video. Paul, who is amazingly erudite, quoted Lewis on fascism and the cross, and left the reporter stammering. It was quite impressive.

Facism in America wasn't the only concern of Lewis' that is appropriate to the contemporary dialog.

From It Can't Happen Here, 1935:

I know the Press only too well. Almost all editors hide away in spider-dens, men without thought of Family or Public Interest or the humble delights of jaunts out-of-doors, plotting how they can put over their lies, and advance their own positions and fill their greedy pocketbooks by calumniating Statesmen who have given their all for the common good and who are vulnerable because they stand out in the fierce Light that beats around the Throne. -- Sinclair Lewis

It is as though Lewis were writing about the media's treatment of Ron Paul from a vantage point seven decades distant.

The war on Big

Disappointingly little has been written in follow-up to the Russert-Paul interview. Most of it hasn't even been interesting: whining about fairness from Paul's supporters and gnashing of teeth from mainstream media apologists for the status quo. Only one article has highlighted what was significant about the interview, that being Paul's declaration of war on the corporations. One might expect The Hill to be this astute, but it is rather sad that everyone else seems to have missed it.

Paul: Country is moving toward fascism
By Klaus Marre
December 23, 2007

White House hopeful Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said Sunday that the U.S. is moving toward fascism, stating that corporations are increasingly “running the show” and citizens are being deprived of their liberties.

Paul clarified that he did not refer to the type of fascism that Adolf Hitler practiced in Germany. “We’re not moving toward Hitler-type fascism, but we’re moving toward a softer fascism,” Paul said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “Loss of civil liberties, corporations running the show, big government in bed with big business.”

The lawmaker said the U.S. is moving toward “corporatism.”

Meet the Press

Tim Russert hosted Ron Paul on Meet the Press this morning. It was vintage Russert, hard hitting, relentless, not entirely fair. Paul held his own quite well though, better than might have been expected given the radical nature of Paul's positions within a corrupted culture. Paul made a master stroke at the end of the interview, by equating big corporate control of Washington politics with a "soft" form of fascism -- and thereby appealing to disaffected liberals who are disgusted with the Democrats for having climbed into bed with big business, big media, and big money. Unlike many libertarian apologists for big business, Paul sounds like he may actually understand that being pro capitalism and being pro corporation are not the same thing.

The Green Fairy's Return

After being outlawed for more then a century, the wormwood-based liquor absinthe is once again being legally manufactured and sold in America, sort of.

Recent studies have demonstrated that absinthe's reputed hallucinogenic effect, which had lead to its ban almost a century ago, are purely the psychosomatic effect of absinthe drinkers' expectations. As a result of the studies, absinthe bans in many countries have been overturned outright. (Switzerland even amended its constitution to legalize the stuff. A few of the more rational countries, including Great Britain, Australia, and, surprisingly, Spain, Portugal, never banned the stuff in the first place.)

Is outright legalization the case in the U.S.? Unfortunately not. (America isn't a country often willing to admit its mistakes.) For the time being, U.S. sales are limited to absinthe that can be shown to contain less than 10 parts per million of thujone -- which is the ingredient from wormwood that the studies have shown to be non-hallucinogenic.

For reference, nearly half the weight of sage oil, a dietary supplement commonly used to boost short-term memory, is thujone -- however sage oil is perfectly legal in the U.S. What is the effect of thujone that justifies the continued restriction on absinthe? Supposedly reduced attention span.

R.A.H.

...secrecy is the keystone of tyranny. Not force, but secrecy... censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything - you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him. -- Robert Anson Heinlein (If This Goes On)

Reconstucting Huckabee

The mainstream media (MSM) has been hollering about Ron Paul having refused to return an isolated contribution from Don Black, a white supremacist with a website. Paul is clearly not a racist and has never had any association with Mr. Black.

The media gave quite a different treatment to Mike Huckabee following the discovery that he had at one time suggested that AIDS victims should be "isolated" (i.e., quarantined (e.g., interred in camps)). That news was treated as passé, even though Huckabee refused to recant the statement and it is not at all clear that Huckabee is not a homophobe. Quite to the contrary, he has been hanging out with homophobes as recently as this week.

On Tuesday, December 18, Huckabee flew to Houston to attend a fund raising event hosted by Steve Hotze, a leader in the Christian Reconstructionist movement. The Reconstructionist are decidedly scarier than any of Don Black's friends, largely because they have real organizations and real followings. (Many are probably white supremacists as well though, so perhaps they contributed money to Don Black -- who foolishly then sent it on to Ron Paul. That would be a great amusement to the rest of Paul's famously tolerant libertarian supporters.)

Who are the Reconstructionist? They are a movement founded by Rousas John Rushdoony (Gary North's father-in-law), with the aim to make America literally a Christian nation. How's that you ask? How is indeed the question. Of course they typically avoid discussion of methods, however their ends could only be accomplished by replacing the Constitution and establishing a police state to impose their version of "god's law" onto the rest of our pluralistic culture. They are, in short, a home-grown, Christian-variety of the Middle East's Islam-o-fascists. The Reconstructionist are all about implementing a society based on Biblical (Mosaic) law. For just a hint at what this would mean, imagine an America that allows for the keeping of slaves, beating of wives, stoning of homosexuals, and a lot of other scary things approved of by the god of the Old Testament.

What has been the reaction from the mainstream media in response to this revelation? So far, not much. Robert Novak wrote about it yesterday, and Brink Lindsey blogged about that on Cato@Liberty, but so far it hasn't made the front pages. By the standards of the mainstream media, a $500 check from a lone racist is news, but participatory fund raising efforts in cooperation with people intent on overthrowing the Constitution is barely worth a mention. And we foolishly think of the media as "liberal"!

There have been isolated rumors and reports that the Christian Reconstructionists already have their tentacles in Washington, perhaps even in the White House. What is interesting about this week's news is the open manner in which the Huckabee fund raiser took place, and that Huckabee himself felt that it politically safe to attend. Apparently the Reconstructionist are feeling secure enough to come out into the open. That may indeed be a safer place for us to have them, however it doesn't speak well of the current social climate in America.

The Reconstructions, no matter their beliefs, do have a right to participate in the political process. There is a big difference, however in a candidate's acceptance of donation and the candidate's active participation in a fund raiser. The latter clearly implies some degree of reverse endorsement. Imagine if Ron Paul had attended a neo-Nazi fund raiser to benefit his campaign, rather than merely cashing a single check from one individual? That news would rightly be plastered all over America's editorial pages. Instead, we have Mike Huckabee attending fund raisers hosted by the Christian Taliban.

Where is the ink?

The Editorial Between the News Lines

On December 19 the Associated Press put an article on the wire by Brian Skoloff regarding Ron Paul having refused to return a campaign donation from a contributor with white supremacists affiliations. The piece not so subtly implies that those with unpopular beliefs should not be allowed to participate in the political process. This is an idea that normally could be dismissed to the ranting of a fascist crank, if it had been presented in an opinion editorial. The Associated Press item was released as a news story however, and therefore its editorial subtext demands a bit more scrutiny.

The campaign contribution was made in late October. Ron Paul's position on the issue was made public and has been widely discussed since November. So here at the end of December, why does the Associated Press even consider the issue to still be news? Is the AP merely a month behind everyone else? Are they trying to influence the electoral process by repeatedly broadcasting old news? Or are they simply not paying attention to what is going out under their name?

It is annoying enough that journalist of the day don't seem to grasp the difference between reporting the news, creating the news, or waxing on about their own opinions. When their employers start letting them mix the three, we should start paying very close attention.

Unclear on the Concepts

During one of the Republican debates, Mike Huckabee both claimed to have theology degree and also refused to (or couldn't) provide an answer to the question of whether Jesus would support the death penalty. Now it turns out that Huckabee doesn't have a theology degree, but rather an undergraduate Bachelor of Arts in Religion (he majored in speech and communications). He apparently dropped out of seminary after only a year in order to go to work for a televangelist.

Since he is presuming to be the candidate of America's Christians, we should be asking ourselves: other than "thou shalt not kill" and "thou shalt not bear false witness," how many other of the Commandants is MIke Huckabee unclear on?

Talk about quick on the draw...

STEVE DOOCY: Mike Huckabee has started running an ad in Iowa, where you're at right now, also in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and in the back, it's a windowpane but it also looks a lot like a cross. And, and, we had a guest a little while ago who said it was inappropriate to be using religion for political purposes. Congressman, I'm just curious what you think?

RON PAUL: Well, I haven't thought about it completely, but you know, it reminds me of what Sinclair Lewis once said, he said 'when Fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.' I don't know whether that's a fair assessment or not, but you wonder about using a cross like he is the only Christian, or implying that subtly. So, I don't think I would ever use anything like that.

Thank you Mr. Sullivan

Over at The Atlantic, Andrew Sullivan has endorsed Ron Paul for the Republican presidential nomination. Sullivan's endorsement comes in the form of a thoughtful post explaining his conversion from a pro-war McCain supporter. It is inspiring to see a man put his reputation on the line for the good on the nation. It's equally depressing to notice that so few of our home-grown journalists are still willing to risk as much.

Insight from the Forums

The Authoritarians have Giuliani, the Capitalists have Romney, the Evangelicals have Huckabee, the Libertarians have Paul, the Zombie-Reaganites have Thompson, the Militarists have McCain. And they all hate each other. Is good, is good. -- Posted by MattF

Whose big government?

In response to Huckabee's growing poll numbers, the best thing that could happen for America would be for Huckabee's GOP competitors to paint him as a tax-and-send liberal. That might convince voters that if they are stuck with a choice between a tax-and-spend liberal Republican (in the Bush mold), or a tax-and-spend Democratic (in the Clinton mold), that they may as well vote for the Clinton. The economy was in a lot better shape under Clinton, and it was Clinton, after all, who declared the era of big government to be over. Bush has only done his best to undo that.

If This Goes On

Over sixty years ago, Robert Heinlein warned of the consequences of mixing politics and theology. There is no reason to think that Heinlein was less prescient about the dangers of putting a preacher in the White House than he was about the other things. Let's hope that before the election someone in Hollywood can produce a television or film version of If this Goes On. Are the Wachowski brothers available?

Not really a computer at all...

Over at Salon.com, on the Machinist blog, they are trying to figure out which political candidates are Macs and which are PCs. It is hard to justify equating any politician to something as useful as a computer. They simply don't provide the same utility. Perhaps a better analogy would be with a computer program?

• Given the recent news about Huckabee's desire to "isolate" AIDS victims, he is clearly an anti-virus program with a quarantine feature.
• Mitt Romney would definitely be a word processor. That's exactly the program you need if you need to keep editing your positions.
• Clinton would be one of those old programs that has been rebranded with a new interface --but which still does exactly the same thing.
• Giuliani would be a version of SimCity that has a really bad infinite loop bug.
• Obama might be one of those trendy productivity packages that sounds really great until you get it installed, after which you discover you can't figure out what it actually does.
• McCain would be a game of solitaire.
• It is not clear what Thompson would be. (He probably doesn't knows either.) Whatever it is, it would have shipped late. I'd suggest Vista, but Vista looks better than Thompson and runs faster too.
• And Ron Paul? He is a system integrity utility with a full "Constitutional" restore button. You know, one of those really great programs you never think to buy until after your system has already crashed.

Aping Mitt

Mitt Romney may assert for the fundamentalist crowd that he is now a born-again pro-lifer, but he is likely counting on more liberal Republicans to remain convinced that his change in position is merely political pandering. There could be more than one candidate who is hoping to convince voters that what he really believes is different than what he is publicly stating on the campaign trail.

To that end, the Huckabee campaign may have themselves strategically leaked the information about Huckabee's 1992 questionnaire answer suggesting internment for AIDS victims. Huckabee is safely in the future, where he can protest that society now knows it can afford to be compassionate, but he has still sent the message to the homophobic base of the fundamentalist movement that he is the kind of man who wouldn't hesitate to put fags in a pen. This would explain Huckabee's surging poll numbers in Iowa and the southern states.

A Huckabee nomination is likely to ensure that the Democrats take the White House, however, if it doesn't, gays better be ready to move to Canada.

What did Maher have to say?

Alan Takes a Shot

As Alan Reynolds observes in the Wall Street Journal, the markets sure seemed to think that Bush's plan was a bailout. Yet Reynolds' editorial doesn't clearly elucidate any obvious transfer. For everyday people to understand this "fix" to be just another corporate welfare bailout, and not an example of big government successfully working successfully, it has to be reduced to a simple black-and-white illustration of government stealing from Peter to pay Paul. Reynolds doesn't really accomplishes that. Of course, the everyday people weren't who Reynolds was writing for in the Wall Street Journal. Has anyone else successfully undertaken the task for a broader outreach? The Snarkmeister wants to know.

The Essence of Class

"The recent attacks and insinuations, both direct and subtle, that Gov. Romney may be less fit to serve as president of our United States because of his faith fly in the face of everything America stands for. Gov. Romney should be judged fairly, on his record and his character, not on the church he attends." --Ron Paul

IBG-YBG

Bush's Teaser-Freezer plan is more of what caused the problem in the first place: the "I'll be gone-You'll be gone" (IBG-YBG) approach that collects payments in the present and pushes costs into the future. The underlying weakness has not been addressed, it is merely being deferred through obfuscation and subsidy until the current generation of political and business leaders is able to retire without having to bear responsibility for a coming reevaluation that remains inevitable.

The Jena Millions

U.S. attorneys say there is little chance of proving a direct link between the nooses hung by white students outside a Louisiana government high school in Jena, Louisiana, and the alleged beating of a white student by black teens there. That is probably correct, especially given that the events occurred three months apart. It is unfortunate that the African-American students involved in the latter incident had been so poorly educated by the government high school in Jena that they were apparently unaware of the consequences of responding to race-baiting with violence. 

While a miscarriage of justice seems inevitable in application of the law,  the citizens of Jena could more successfully rally to address the root of the incident, which was a school administration that was unwilling to take strong measures against racist white students. The administrator who gave the white kids a pass with only three days of suspension is directly responsible for this mess. It was irrefutably that miscarriage of justice which lead to this chain of events. That grossly poor decision has placed a large and non-refundable cost on the beaten white boy, on the six black students, on the seven families, and on the taxpayers; indeed, on the entire nation. It is too bad such idiots can no longer be tarred, feathered and ridden out of town on a rail, but at least they can be be fired.

Do you think?

CNN, in their report on O.J. Simpson's recent arrest in Las Vegas for armed robbery, states that, "No reason was given for denying bail to the Hall of Fame running back." Well duh! Isn't it kind of obvious that an infamously fleeing white Bronco might have something to do with it?

Something worth celebrating...

July 4th, 2007 is the 231st anniversary of the Declaration of American Independence. Sadly there isn't much of it left to celebrate; subsequent generations and their politicians have mostly abandoned its principals in their hearts and gutted its consequence with their laws. It is also the 181st anniversary of the deaths of both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third Presidents of the United States. The lives and memory of those men is worth celebrating. Jefferson is the man to which we owe most, as it were his eloquent words that inspired a loose collection of colonies to undertake a bloody revolution for independence. Those words embodied Jefferson's enlightenment philosophy and guided the young American nation as an inexperienced champion of individual liberty against centuries of entrenched feudal authority. Adams, as a Federalist, had earlier in his life been a fierce political opponent of Jefferson's views on democracy, however he later became an equally fierce friend and admirer. On his deathbed in Quincy, Massachusetts, his last words of solace to himself were that, "Thomas Jefferson survives." He was unaware that many miles to the south, on a beautiful hilltop in Virginia, Thomas Jefferson had preceded him in death by only a few hours. John Adams was age 92 and Thomas Jefferson, 83; it was the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

-----

Thomas Jefferson's obituary, as printed in the New-York American newspaper...

"This paper is again arrayed in sables, and another of the sons of our heroic age has passed to the tomb. By a coincidence marvellous and enviable, THOMAS JEFFERSON in like manner with his great compeer, John Adams, breathed his last on the 4th of July. Emphatically may we say, with a Boston paper, had the horses and the chariot of fire descended to take up the patriarchs, it might have been more wonderful, but not more glorious. We remember nothing in the annals of man so striking, so beautiful, as the death of these two "time-honoured" patriots, on the jubilee of that freedom, which they devoted themselves and all that was dear to them, to proclaim and establish."

The Vermont Senate, a few steps ahead...

The upper house in Montpelier voted last Friday to call for the impeachment of both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Their resolution stated that the Administration's actions have raised "serious questions of constitutionality." Like duh. Do you think? Well, at least someone is finally waking up.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) takes the lead?

Can an impeachment occur for incompetence, for lack of good judgment? The Constitution may be unclear on that point. Other countries disband governments based on votes of no confidence; it seems like a good idea. Perhaps it is something the Constitution should address. However, the Constitution is clearer on the point of high crimes. Treason is just about the highest. It is at this point that Cheney and Bush should be scared, very scared. Given the evidence as revealed over time, either the American military and intelligence services, amongst the most well funded and well trained in the world, are totally incompetent -- or Bush and Cheney manipulated the data from those agencies to present a reality that suited them. In which case, they intentionally put America, and Americans, in harm’s way for their own purposes. That is about as close to a perfect definition of treason to a democracy as imaginable. Impeachment is only the first step.

What the Founders envisioned

Venus Ramey, 82, who in 1944 was America's first redhead Miss America is in the news again. This time for toting a pistol. Did Ms Ramey mass murder a bunch of innocent students? or shoot up a post office? No, Ms Ramey, who uses a walker, defended herself from theives who were robbing her property, and she even managed to capture one of them.

You go girl!

More evidence

Another police station in rubble, a fourth chairman of the Fallujah city council assassinated (like the three before him), more evidence that we can't even keep the authorities safe in Iraq, let alone the civilians, and ourselves. In the meantime, American tax dollars continue to be poured like water into the Iraqi sand. Work continues on the billion dollar U.S. embassy in Bagdad.

Alternatives

President Bush may object to the idea of being impeached for incompetence. I suppose that is understandable, however it is a better option for him, for all concerned, then the other reasonable conclusion regarding his performance. That would be that he intentionally lied and manipulation the situation in order to put America in harm’s way to his own advantage. However, since that borders on the definition of treason, I don’t think we as a country want to go through that trail. I doubt that George does either. Perhaps he should talk it over with his friend Saddam? A verdict of competence and an entry in the annals of bad presidents would likely be a more comfortable alternative for young George.

Parallels

Nick Leeson brought down Barings bank. Will George Bush bring down the United States of America? Only if we let him. But dear readers, please do not for moment doubt that the United States of America can be brought down. Such over confidence is the first prerequisite for making such an occurrence possible. Just ask the Barings family.

Time for a poll…

Raise your hand if you think the American military is incompetent?

I thought not. I don’t either.

So please explain to me why we can’t even keep the Iraqi Parliament building secure? (Eight people were killed there last week when a suicide bomber walked right in and blew them self up during lunch hour.)

The reason we can’t maintain control in Iraq is that the situation is uncontrollable. It is a civil war between religious sects in a foreign land whose culture and language we literally cannot understand. Reports vary on the actual numbers, but there is generally agreement that, of the thousands of U.S. employees in Iraq, only a handful is fluent in Arabic. Is it any wonder we can’t figure out what is going on? Not to put to fine a point on it, but this is Iraq’s problem, not ours. It is just making us look like fools, or rather, at this point, even more like fools.

Looking like fools is what George Bush did to us, when he suckered us into believing in weapons of mass destruction, when he convinced us that the tin-pot dictator of a third-rate third world country was a threat to the most power nation on earth. It turns out the biggest threat to the most powerful nation on earth was, the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. "we have met the enemy and he is us." Where have I heard that before? (Thank you Pogo.)

We should withdraw from Iraq now. Cut our losses and come home. Not next August, not next month, or next week, but now. It is costing precious American lives, valuable tax dollars, and scarce diplomatic credibility. At this point, all of that is being spent with nothing nobler as a possible outcome then to salvage the reputation of an incompetent chief executive. A peaceful, democratic Iraq is no longer an option on the table and George Bush knows it. In our hearts, we all know it.

Salvaging George Bush’s reputation is that last thing on which money, let alone lives, should be spent. Rather the opposite should be on the agenda, presenting the bill. As soon as we are clear of Iraq, we should forthwith get about with the business of impeaching, for gross incompetence, the man who has brought America to the brink in so many ways.

For those of you who haven’t been paying close attention, our country – the sole remaining superpower on the planet – is perched on many precarious precipices…

The value of the U.S. dollar has collapsed in world currency markets. Don’t plan on traveling to Paris or Tokyo anytime soon. You can no longer afford it. Besides, you won’t be welcome. Americans are pretty much persona non grata anywhere these days. … At home, inflation is skyrocketing. I was in a Burger King the other day that had “value meal” on the menu priced at $7.95! Iraq is costing us – our children, and grandchildren – a fortune. However, with all those, “ I won’t raise your taxes promises,” the only way to pay for the war is to simply print new money – which is exactly what the government is doing. Reports are circulating that the military has been flying crate loads of freshly minted dollars to Iraq to pay for things off budget, under-the-table, in cash. All that new currency is causing significant unreported inflation, and inflation is just a hidden tax – which you pay every time you check out at the register. … America’s diplomatic credibility has evaporated. We were once the most listened to nation in the world. Now, to put it politely, even our allies only might invite our Secretary of State to dinner if they needed to avoid thirteen at the table. We are no longer welcome. Six years ago the world was laying wreaths and tears on the steps of our embassies, today our tourist money isn’t even welcome.

In the event of a real crisis, we have no reserves: no military reserve (they’re all in Iraq, on their third extended tour), no financial reserve (in the black seven years ago, but deep in the red now), and no diplomatic reserve (everyone is tired of the lies, even our friends).

And we have primarily one man to thank for this, George W. Bush.

Who is Nick Leeson?

Nick Leeson was the young trader who single handedly destroyed Barings Bank, one of the oldest merchant banks in England. As noted on the Wikipedia, America didn’t buy the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon; we bought it from Barings, the bank that underwrote the sale.

Leeson managed to convince Barings that he couldn’t be make a mistake, and consequently oversight was suspended on Leeson’s trading activities. He then proceeded to loose $1.4 billion(!) through speculation in futures contracts. By the time anyone realized what had happened the bank was already bankrupt. The whole collapse happened within the span of only a few days. When it was over, one of the most respect financial institutions in the history of the world was sold to a competitor for the nominal figure of only $1.

Nick Leeson is a cautionary example of how one man can make a difference – the wrong difference. And how, even the oldest, soundest, and seemingly most solid institutions can be destroyed through naïve over confidence. More on this in a moment…

Anonymity

An explanation: It is said that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. I’m not so sure of that. A corollary statement might appear to be that in the land of the color blind, the color-enabled man would be da Vinci, or at least Michelangelo. I suspect though, that if the poor artist were foolish enough to talk about hues, tints, and shades, to people who could not see them, he more likely would be declared a whack job than the monarch. And that, my dear readers, is why I write anonymously. The Snarkmeister sees the world through different eyes; he sees things that other people do not see, or chose not to see. Given that, he knows that he is just as likely to be considered a whack job as a genius, and, quite frankly, he doesn’t want to be considered a whack job, at least not publicly. It is nice having the respect of friends and neighbors, being able to get credit at the store when needed, and being able to walk down the street without having to look over his shoulder. So, at least for the time being, he publishes his observations discretely.

Where have all the white hats gone?

Didn't Apple tell us just a few weeks ago that the rumors of a Leopard delay were false? That Mac OS X 10.5 was, in fact, on schedule. Doesn't this mean, pretty clearly, that Apple lied?

If Apple will lie to the public through its public relations agents, will it also lie to its stockholders, or to the SEC? Maybe we should be more suspicious about those stock options. Where is Apple drawing the line?

If Apple's executives find it expectable to lie about business, do they also find it acceptable to lie to their spouses and children about other things? If they can’t be trusted at work, can they be trusted at home?

If Apple's employees find it acceptable to work for a company that lies about business, do those same employs follow that example for their own purposes? Do they lie to Apple on their resumes and expense accounts? Once the line starts getting moved around, who is to say who gets to move it?

Does anyone in America tell the truth anymore?

Wordpress

Readers,

This is in follow up to my post below regarding problems with Blogger. Please consider this version of Snark's Review on Word Press.

http://snarksreview.wordpress.com/

If you can give me your comments and feedback as soon as possible, and if you are happy with it, completing migration would require nothing more then registering a DNS (domain name system) change.

--TSM

Transcendency

Throughout history there have been thousands of works of fine artistry, whether on canvas, or paper, in marble, or on celluloid. Sprinkled amongst those are hundreds of masterpieces, but within those are yet another subset even more transcendent. These are the sine qua non pieces, the peerless moments, singular passages, and sole individuals who embody inspired genius. "Me thinks the lady doeth protest too much," as a metaphor for the guilty over-protesting their innocence is perhaps one of history's truly inspired turns of phrase. This from a man who turned out masterwork turns of phrases as casually as Fords. Thank you Mr. Shakespeare.

I bring this up because I'm starting to think that a particular "lady" is perhaps protesting too much. In this case, the lady in question is the Grand Old Party, who is letting herself be spoken for by hirsute conservatives such as Jonah Goldberg and Bill O'Reilly. The other lady involved in this story is Rosie O'Donnell, who dared to question the veracity of the official 9/11 story on open mic television the other morning. Apparently open, unscripted discussion is more then the GOP can risk any longer because both Mssr. Goldberg and O'Reilly, and a lot of lesser known Right-wingers, are screaming for Ms. O'Donnell's removal from the public discourse.

What was Ms. O'Donnell's crime? She brought up her concerns, concerns shared by millions of other Americans. Like millions of other Internet users, Rosie had finally seen the 9/11 "conspiracy" sites, most notably loosechange.com (video) and 911weknow.com (video), and she wanted to talk about them. That is what they do on The View, it's a womens' morning show, they talk about their concerns.

The videos, by the way, are famous for making the point that in the history of high-rise construction that prior to 9/11 no steel-framed building had ever collapsed due to fire. It's a valid point. (Watch the videos. They will leave you wondering.) But if a fire couldn't have brought down those buildings, what did? That's what a lot of people have been asking. That's what O'Donnell dared to ask.

And, that's what certain segments in the Right-wing are objecting too. They are screaming that anyone who watches these videos is anti-American, anti-Christian, not-supporting out troops, etc. The government is so innocent we are told, that such discussion of possible guilt cannot even be tolerated. Well, that to me, sounds suspiciously like the lady protesting too much.

Mr. O'Reilly and Mr. Goldberg, I've got some news for you.

Long before you two troglodytes dragged yourselves out of the slime there were principled Americans on this continent who actually believed in something other then imperialism and theocracy. Some of them, even now, are Republicans. They're not about to let you two tell them that they are anti-American just because they are starting to wonder if George Bush and his theocrat buddies might have pulled a fast one on America. Yes, it may simply be a wacky conspiracy theory, or it may be the truth, but how dare you call them anti-American for using their god-given minds to make their own analysis! That's their prerogative. And that goes for Ms. O'Donnell too.

Market Response...

Readers,

Please see the thread below from the Blogger support forums, regarding a support issue that has been left dangling since last November. Blogger is the Google company that currently hosts the Snark's Review.

As you can see, Google isn't exactly providing great service to it's customers. Now you might object that it is a "free" service, but that would be a simplistic analysis. Writers provide content for Google through services like Blogger. Google in turn indexes that content and makes billions of dollars in advertising sales on the hit pages from searches of that indexing. So Google really isn't giving anything away anything for free, it is a fair exchange -- and as part of that exchange Google should provide a satisfactory level of customer service; they aren't.

As a result, the Snark is probably going to move the Snark's Review to another hosting service, such as TypePad, OpenPress, etc. What I'm asking readers is, do you have a preference? I know that many of you are sophisticated consumers of the blog-o-sphere, and, some of you, bloggers yourselves. What service have you found to provide a high quality of service and a good quality of technical sophistication? Please post a comment or write to the Snarkmeister.

Thanks for your input,

--TSM



1. Dreadful
Feb 14, 11:45 am
I've always posted from the Mac Dasboard (Blogger Widget) but since have upgraded to the New Blogger I cannot login. I've tried again and again but it doesn't work and now I gotta do it from the Blogger Dasboard (website). I've searched for the same problem on this group and have found 3 users with this problem without solution, so it would be great if someone give us a solution. Thanks in advance... :-)

2. Dreadful
Feb 16, 6:18 pm
I cannot post from the widget, from the email and gotta go to the Blogger Dasboard to post! :-(

3. BuddyBoy
Feb 25, 2:42 am
I am having the same problem. Has anyone come up with a solution? It seems to be impossible to contact Google directly on this point.

4. Dreadful
Mar 1, 9:39 am
Welcome to the same problem, you're the fourth, we are not alone. We need help! : (

5. TheSnarkmeister
Mar 5, 12:33 am
It's been almost a month since this was first posted here and this still has not even been acknowledged by Google? That is pathetic. Yahoo has made some major advances on Google technology wise, if service and support isn't going to be any better, maybe there isn't any real reason to stay here.

6. Dreadful
Mar 11, 8:54 am
Does anybody read us? I hope this will be fixed soon because I don't like Yahoo as I like Blogger, understand it as a full configurable weblog service. Why things cannot work as great as before? If the widget doesn't work why is still downloadable from the Apple's Dashboard site? Please fix it!

7. Dreadful
Mar 16, 6:59 am
I just have read this:
"The Blogger Dashboard widget for Mac OS X cannot be used to post to the new version of Blogger. - latest update on Monday, November 13, 2006"

http://knownissues.blogspot.com/search/label/macintosh

Why Blogger doesn't alert about this BEFORE encourage to migrate???
Why Blogger doesn't fix the widget as SOON as detect the problem???
Why Blogger doesn't ALERT or REMOVE the widget from the Apple site???

Just three questions easy to reply... if somebody from Blogger would read this... : (

8. Dreadful
Mar 23, 7:02 am
Please, fix it. Just trying to keep it live to keep the faith.

9. TheSnarkmeister
Apr 11, 12:09 am
It has been another month and Google, with all their billions in resources, has still not bothered to fix this. I'll be migrating my blogs ASAP. Blogger had already fallen behind in the technology curve since Google snarfed them up anyway. In the real world the market moves on, Google is going to have to learn that lesson. They can't coast on their name. Anyone have a particular favorite or recommendation in regards to possible alternatives?

Easter Sunday

Like a lot of heathens, I got dragged to church on Easter Sunday. This one, in the small Midwestern village where I grew up. The place was packed, even though I know that normal attendance is low enough to worry about the church's future. Since it took three adults and two children to drag me, I suspect the dragged heathen count was insufficiently high to explain the variable. Most likely garden variety lazy Christians made up the difference.

Somewhere through a much too long, pedantic, and dismal sermon -- something topical about having to ask forgiveness for dreadful sin -- an auditory flapper jostled me fully awake. Something to the effect of, 'You have to ask forgiveness! I should know; I'm a dreadful sinner! I've broken every one of the 10 Commandments!' I turned to my cousin sitting next to me and whispered, "Your minister has broken all ten of the 10 Commandments? That's a little alarming." She whispered back, "Given the rest of the sermon, I doubt he knows what the Ten are."

I'm not certain which is more disconcerting, that Christian standards have gotten so low that churches are hiring parentally disrespectful, murderous, thieves as preachers, or that these sin hounds don't know even know the 10 Commandants.

R E S P E C T

Admittedly, this would create a hierarchy of legitimacy; a cast system of sorts and that might not be ideal--certainly not in a free society. But let's be honest, we don't live in a free society. And while we work on getting to a free society, we have to get by in the one we live in now. The society where we have to cope with far too many ignorant fundamentalist who are afraid to leave their children in the same room with us because we're gay (and porn obsessed). The society where we have to deal with web sites being censored by content filters merely for their references to this or that artist or historical figure as being gay, or for mentioning health information that could be vitally important to gay teenagers. Such things are partly the result of the public's perceived connection between gays and pornography. The .xxx domain would help unplug that connection, and in the process gets us a little more respect.

.XXX

In case anyone is interested...

A large portion of what we perceive as the Internet is administered by a non-profit organization called ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). As you might guess, they don't do a very good job at what they are assigned to do, and this is largely the result of their unwillingness to confront controversy. Case in point, their ongoing struggle with the question of whether to establish the .xxx domain. This issue is hot again, as another review of the proposal is scheduled for today (Friday).

The Internet uses a system of domains to divide up the addresses of its computers and users, such as .gov (for government), .com for business (commercial), .mil (for military), and so forth. This is what ICANN does, it decides what to call these domains and how many of them to have. What ICANN is considering is to create a new domain, ".xxx," to be used by businesses hosting adult content.

Perhaps gays ought to be supporting the creation of the .xxx domain, and here is why.

On two separate occasions, friends (one gay, one straight) have commented about how gays aren't as respected as they could be because they don't set clear boundaries between themselves and the sleazier elements within their community. In both cases this was in response to the friend reading over my shoulder and noticing either sex-content or sex-related ads in a mainstream gay publication that I was reading (one printed, one on the Internet).

Many straights make a connection between gays and pornography, and gay publishers appear to have a tolerance (or maybe even a preference) for sexual content that reinforces this perception. In the straight world, publishers have fairly strict standards about what kinds of content can go into a mainstream publication or website; in the gay world, less so. Gays are a tolerant lot and it shows. In a mainstream, publicly distributed, straight publication you will seldom see risqué copy, photos, or ads; in similarly distributed gay publications, such content will be featured predominately. A side effect of this tolerance is the perceived connection between gays and porn.

As currently structured, the Internet domain setup reinforces this association; mainstream sites and adult sites are all lumped into one domain (.com). This isn't such a such a problem for straights, but for gays, who are already confronting a world of social stigma, would it not be better if people were able to more clearly distinguish between the educational purposes of independentgayforum.com and the explicitly adult purpose of gays4men.com? Moving gays4men to a .xxx domain would accomplish that.

The current ICANN proposal is only a step in that direction though, as it wouldn’t make adoption of the new .xxx domain mandatory. But should it be? Is it not reasonable that any website that requires a "you must be 18" login to enter, also be required to use the .xxx domain? That will likely be a question for Congress and the courts to decide, but only if ICANN first creates the .xxx domain.

In the meantime, the adoption of .xxx could help establish gay sites with .com and .org domains as more legitimate then gay sites with .xxx domains -- and in the process help disconnect the public's association between gays and pornography.

Ethnic Cleansing in Oklahoma

The Cherokees, like the Seminoles in 2000, have voted (with a 76 percent majority!) to renege on their tribe's 1866 treaty guarantying citizenship to the descendants of their slaves (yes, you read that correctly, their slaves).

It seems that after old Abe said that the Red man couldn't own the Black man any longer, that they decided to adopt their former property into the tribe so as to retain the wealth. The Red man back then wasn't exactly flush enough to be letting an investment just evaporate because some White guy said so. 150 years later the tribe is a bit richer, but still just as thrifty. In an effort to ensure that all those gambling profits stay in the real family, the tribe has decided to do a little ethnic cleansing of their own by ignoring their treaty and sending a a couple thousand "unpures" packing.

Seem like maybe all us White folk don't need to feel so guilty about all that treaty breaking we initiated.

Ford, humbug...

Ayn Rand commented that it is a far greater evil to teach a man self-sacrifice as a form of virtue then to simply take from him outright. I couldn't agree more, and that thought kept coming to my mind over and over again in the last month as I listened to the endless drivel praising Gerald Ford's heroics in ending "our long national nightmare" with his pardon of Nixon. What Gerald Ford did was to establish the precedent that Presidents are above the law, and not accountable for their actions. Using Watergate as an excuse, he paved the road to make Contra-gate, Monica-gate, and so forth possible. Horrible, yes, but Rand would have considered the greater evil to lay elsewhere--with two generations of school teachers and journalists who have suckered the American public into believing that what Ford did was done in their best interests, for having convinced us that sacrificing our equality before the law was somehow a virtue in the national interest.

Marriage, by any other name

I continue to be disappointed in gays and libertarians for their lack of integrity when it comes to the polygamy issue. Their contortions to trying to come up with a reason why polygamy is different than same sex marriage would be amusing if it wasn't such a sad display of failed character. It’s not at all dissimilar to African Americans flailing about trying to come up with reasons against gay civil rights. Pathetic really. Marriage was, is, and always will be a religious institution and in a secular democracy the government has no business advocating any form of it, let a lone picking and choosing based on the whims of currently popular opinion, religious or otherwise. If a church wants to sanctify polygamy, it should be allowed to, if it doesn't, it shouldn't have to. We should have enough integrity to say out loud though that Christians have no right to manipulate society through government and that conversely the government shouldn't be giving religious institutions, such as marriage, it imprimatur. As for secular joint-legal contracts, by any name, there is little of substantive difference between one form and another. Its just a contract and should only involve its signatories.

Surpising

The most surprising thing for me about blogging, and yes, this is my first, is that no one leaves comments. I had expected just the opposite, especially with a site that is rather political. Anyone have any ideas on this?

Death by government?

In response to the crash of Comair Flight 5191 (47 dead), the government-run air traffic control system is saying it isn't responsible for being sure that a plane is on the right runway. Mmmmm, let's think about that. Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration is admitting that only a single traffic controller was staffed at the time of the accident, even though their safety policies require a minimum of two. I wonder if a private firm, one that could be sued by the families of 47 dead passengers, would be so blithe about cutting corners and shirking responsibility? Until someone figures out who is responsible for putting a plane on the correct runway, I'm thinking it might be wise to minimize flying in the US.

You go girl!

BERLIN, Germany (AP) -- Prosecutors plan to keep an eye on Madonna's weekend concert in Duesseldorf to see if the pop diva repeats the mock crucifixion scene that has drawn fire from religious leaders. Johannes Mocken, a spokesman for prosecutors in Duesseldorf, said Tuesday that a repeat of that scene during Sunday's concert could be construed as insulting religious beliefs. (ed.: ...which is apparently against the law in Germany!)

I don't know whether to be relieved or panicked to discover that America doesn't have a monopoly on religious nut cases influencing government. If offending all the right people is a reliable measure of one's worth (and I suspect it is), then Madonna continues as the gold standard.

State-of-the-art Liberal thinking

I recently came across this amazing quote in an online profile...

"Activism, Books/Reading, Camping/Outdoors, Collecting, Computers, Politics, Travel, 40 hr work week? Child labor laws? Collective bargaining? Safety regulations? Employee healthcare? Social Security? Medicare/Medicaid? Gay rights? Civil rights? Environmental protection? You like? Then... THANK A LIBERAL!"

What amazing delusional arrogance. As though thousands of years of global travel, literacy, the "outdoors," and computer technology all happened because of Democrats! No wonder the donkeys can't manage a candidate of sufficient credibility to win an election. (It's interesting that the writer neglected to mention public education--where he undoubtedly learned his critical thinking skills.)

Dark age attitudes

"The straightforward truth of the matter is free unmoderated chat isn't safe," Geoff Sutton, MSN's European general manager, told Reuters.
-- Thank goodness Microsoft isn't running the world quite yet.

Editors humor

You have to appreciate the humor of the editors at the Ventura County Star, who placed an article on Mac-hating Windows user on the same page as a glowing review of Apple’s amazing new Mac Pro workstation (VNC-8/28/06).

Those charitable Christians!

The First Baptist Church of Watertown, NY has fired a female Sunday school teacher, citing Timothy 2:11-14, which says, “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” Mary Lambert had taught Sunday school for First Baptist for 54 years. (Leonard Pitts, Jr., VNC—Ventura County Star 8/28/06) – Isn't it strange how much Timothy sounds like an Islamic fanatic? And people wonder why I have no positive interest in religion! I can’t think of a better example to support my belief that the chief threat to the future of America isn’t Islamic fundamentalism, but rather Christian fundamentalism, or rather religious fanaticism in general. You have to wonder if these so-called Christians have ever actually bothered to read the words of Christ in this book from which they are so fond of quoting.

Wonderful world

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shakin' hands, sayin' "How do you do?"
They're really saying "I love you"

I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world

Oh yeah

--WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD (George Weiss / Bob Thiele)

The cost of going West

So here in the land of $750,000 “starter” homes, and $500,000 “fixer-uppers,” it’s easy to get nervous when you see reports of home starts falling by 4.3% (LAT 8/25/06). The housing market is definitely cooling off. One can only hope it isn’t yet the first stages of the impending California property collapse that has the potential to destroy the American economy and make the great depression look like the 1980s. It’s basic economics and demographics folks, and it is going to happen—sure as the Big One. To start with, consider that California real estate values were in line with the rest of the country for 120 years--because land is land, and land without water isn't worth more no matter how good the views are. That’s right, clear up to the 1970s, even throughout the massive California population boom of the 1950s, housing costs in California were within a few percentage points of housing costs in Iowa. What changed? In the 1970’s two populist political movement took control of the California real estate market: rent control and growth control – and within two—yes, only two—years, housing costs in California started to out pace the nation by double digits. (See Excluded Americans, William Tucker) Of course, developers and California’s existing landed gentry didn’t complain, they were making out like bandits, and getting to masquerade as caring environmentalists in the process. It was the next generation that had to pay the bill, once California’s housing costs passed 200% (and still climbing) of national average. These poor folks are now spending over half their incomes for housing on which their parents and grandparents had often spent as little as 10% (see Discovery of Freedom, Rose Wilder Lane). So where is the bigger problem? It’s in the demographics. The largest portion of the American population consists of the Baby Boomers, which were the last generation to get a toehold in California real estate—and they are now getting up there in years. When they pass on (on the tail of their parents, who are a bulk holders of California real estate) and all those homes suddenly come onto the market at the same time, the value of California real estate is going to plummet, leaving all those in the younger generations who are holding interest-only mortgages facing certain bankruptcy. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of families going bankrupt all at once. And of course, they will all be lobbying for a bailout, a bailout that will make the Savings and Loan bailout of the last century look like a Republican homeless handout. Guess who’s going to be left holding the bag? It’s you, the rest of America. Californians will have gotten a free ride in Eden for the last 50 years, and you, your children, and grandchildren are going to be presented with the bill. It will be a generational transfer, like the looming Social Security collapse—only with a geographic insult added to the injury.

Go West

So, you may have noticed… I’ve been off line for a few weeks. First, I had to wrap up a beta release of a database development I’ve been working on, then, my laptop’s motherboard self-destructed (which Apple repaired for free within a 5-day turn-around, even though the laptop is over three years old—no wonder Apple is head-and-shoulders above the rest in customer satisfaction polls), and finally I chaperoned my mother to California to see her grandchildren (my sister’s kids)—all of which left little time for snarking. Mom went home Tuesday, and I’m staying on out west for a few more weeks, so you’ll be getting a lot of comments on news from the Los Angeles Times (LAT).

The price of ignorance

And speaking of odd confluences, has anyone noticed that Walmart, the store most popular with red-white-and-blue bleeding Americans, pretty much only sells stuff made in China? No wonder what’s-his-face, Pat Buchanan’s three protectionist-inspired campaigns for President were such flops. Americans are apparently so economically and politically unsophisticated that they’ll buy the cheapest product, even if it means they loose the job they need to buy the product. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely pro-free-market, and don’t support protectionist government policies, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t think Americans shouldn’t buy American. They should just do so voluntarily. Choice without freedom is neither freedom nor choice.

Money for nothing...

I have come across several articles recently on the booming market for luxury good in the United States (LAT, 8/25/06), so it puzzles me that with so much money floating around that we can’t employ Americans to make a decent pocket radio. I tried to find one the other day and was surprised (and disgusted) to find that they are all made in China, and they are all of terrible quality. Yes, you can get them for as little as $2.00, but they don’t work well. So, with all this money floating around, why isn’t there some American company making $12.00 radios that actually work?

Fresh Moments in a Dark World

Surely some of the funniest and most original moments on television this summer have occurred on the SciFi Channel's new hit show, Dead Like Me. Not since Twin Peaks have I had such a good time watching television.

The Cost of War

Israel's defense is hugely underwritten with U.S. tax dollars, which means not only are we dinged for bombs in the first place, we now might be dinged for refunds on the ones that didn't explode. Undoubtedly Israel will get to keep the actually reimbursements, yet another hidden, off-budget subsidy to that war-isom nation. And yet another reason to pay heed to Jefferson's warning against entangling alliances.

Risks

The Lebanese government is warning people against returning to southern Lebanon because the area is littered with unexploded bombs. Now that must be a worrying development for the arms manufacturers. Is Israel going to be demanding a refund for the bombs that didn't explode? And, more worrisome still, this time for the U.S. taxpayers, are the arms manufacturers going to be allowed to write off the expense of payouts for settling on those unexploded bombs?

The Cost of Peace

Poor, pathetic Hezbollah... They are announcing that the Israeli pullout represents a victory. What a laughable, self-delusion! As though Israel had not killed dozens of Lebanese for every single fatality exacted by Hezbollah's pathetically targeted rockets; as though the whole of southern Lebanon wasn't left in total shambles, while most Israelis barely even noticed there was a war going on. Get real, Hezbollah. The Israelis pulled out because the rest of the world, especially those in the West, were horrified, indeed disgusted, with Israel's unconscionable, over-reactive slaughter of innocent Lebanese-the people Hezbollah is supposedly organized to protect, the people that Hezbollah put in harm's way, the people that Hezbollah fighters used as shields to hide behind. Israel pulled out because of the condemnation of the very people that Islamists themselves want to slaughter. Hezbollah, if you have two dimes left over from this debacle, do yourself a favor and buy yourselves a moral conscious-and maybe a clue.

Nuclear thinking

I attended a graduate-student party at one of our huge Midwestern-state universities this past weekend. I had a lot of fun and met many very smart and interesting young people. One particularly delightful young woman turned out to be from Iran. She is here studying nuclear physics. It seems to me that if our government's interest in preventing a nuclear-capable Iran were too terribly sincere, we would not be training Iran's next generation in nuclear science. However, of course, sincerity never has been a strong suit for politics, most especially not for the Bush administration.

National Security

Our right to telephone and Internet privacy has been suspended—because of national security. Americans are being held incommunicado and habeas corpus (in effect, the Constitution) has been suspended—because of national security. American teenagers are fighting in a foreign country’s civil war without even knowing which side they are on—because of national security. YET, we let a foreign company destroy a critical part of our energy infrastructure, affecting between 2.8 and 8 percent of our national oil supply—and that’s not a national security issue???

Captured

Apparently British Petroleum, which operates the section of the pipeline in question has been neglecting maintenance for several years—and they Feds supposedly knew about it. Now BP is admitting that they were overly optimistic about the pipeline’s maintenance requirements – overly optimistic that the problem would not be discovered on their watch, is more like it. This pipeline runs through some of the most environmentally sensitive areas on the planet, and BP let the thing corrode to the point that it was already springing leaks before they decided that maybe it was a problem! And the Feds, under the Bush administration (and to be fair, the Clinton administration also) were regulating the process. Damn! Where is the government when you need them? Oh, wait, I forgot, the oil industry is the government. Talk about agency capture!

Insider Trading

So last week when it was announced that the closure of the Prudhoe Bay-section of the Alaska oil pipeline system was going to cause an 2.6% decrease in the U.S. oil supply, I did what any rational person would have—I went immediately to my local gas station and filled up. Then a curious thing happened; as I watched for the price of gasoline to skyrocket—nothing happened! Excuse me, but isn’t it a basic law of economics that when supply is restricted, price increases to mediate demand? Of course it is! So, what happened, why no change in price? Well it turns out, my local provider informs me, that the stations were told to increase their prices almost two weeks before the Alaska announcement. Huh? Is this a blatant example of insider trading or what? For two weeks, (possibly for several months, based on some reports) the oil industry has been operating on knowledge that was not made public until last week. Where is the government when you need them? Oh, wait, I forgot, the oil industry is the government.

Responsible reporting in an era of lying politicians...

Journalists should be ashamed of themselves for printing – without a shred of skepticism – their reports about the supposed terrorism plot in England. These articles repeatedly state, “It is thought…” or “We believe…” – in other words, it is NOT known. They report the plan, "revolved around liquids of some kind”, and “would have been sophisticated and extremely effective". Yet, if the enactment only “would have been”, it sounds like the so-called plot never got much past the planning stages, if it was technically feasible at all. For the past five years, our governments have been assuring us that such things are not possible, which was the justification for their glacially slow explosives scanning routines at airports. Either, they have been lying to us about the effectiveness of those very expensive security systems, or this so-called plot was not practical at all – but merely another incident of childish fantasy by those not bright enough to realize exactly what they are up against. Truly, the threat must not have been too terrible or the U.S. would have raised its internal threat level, which it has not (only the level that applies to flights from England instead). Even Mr. Blair, who stated that the situation had been tracked for a "long period of time", was, himself, insufficiently concerned so as to stay on holiday in the Caribbean. Maybe he actually is in Miami, taking lessons from our own mad-king George’s men on how to arrest mentally disabled street people and label them as terrorists. Oh, I'm not saying no threat exists, that the Islamists aren't as scary as it comes, only that when you've been lied to as often as we have been lied to by our elected officials – officials with a special interest in keeping us scared – that some degree of skepticism is appropriate from those in a communications role.

Perplexing...

If you are perplexed about today's terror news -- and all the holes and unexplained elements to the story -- then you should definitely get a copy of V for Vendetta. It can serve as your essential primer.

Now this is encouraging...

V for Vendetta is apparently selling like hotcakes. I've been in three Walmarts in the last week and each was sold out. The three copies I had pre-ordered from Amazon have yet to arrive as well, apparently back-ordered. Word of mouth is a powerfully effective marketing mechanism.

Update: Rocky v. PeeWee

Israeli Defense Forces on Saturday announced that Hezbollah has killed 78 Israelis (45 soldiers, 33 civilians, and with 600 wounded) since July 12, when the cross-border conflict began. In Lebanon, the Lebanese Security Forces report that the Israeli’s have done disproportionately more damage, with 683 Lebanese dead (an unknown amount of Hezbollah, 683 civilians--many of them children, and with 2,359 wounded). For the United Nations to fail to respond to this grossly disproportionate use of force on Israeli’s part is unpardonable, and demonstrates clearly the impotency of that failed organization.

V

"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V." --V

V for Vendetta was released on DVD this week. For those who were unfortunate enough to miss seeing it in the theatres (or at the Imax), now is your second chance to see one of the most revolutionary films in recent memory.

Our Own Incompetency

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- Evidence collected on the deaths of 24 Iraqis in Haditha supports accusations that U.S. Marines deliberately shot the civilians, including unarmed women and children, a Pentagon official said Wednesday."

If you are a voter, please contact your Representative immediately to demand that a full-scale review of military training and operations is undertaken such that this sort of thing cannot happen again. In a democracy, it is everyone's responsibility to stand up against such abuses of power.

More on Competency

Hezbollah launched 190 rockets into Israel today -- and only managed to kill one man on a bicycle. While we can only suspect Israeli incompetency in regard to their claims of accidentally targeting civilians, Hezbollah's incompetency seems a bit more clear cut.

This "war" is like watching Rocky Balboa kick the shit out of PeeWee Herman.

Update, 8/3/06: Israel now says Hezbollah rockets killed seven Israelis yesterday, still not a great return on Hezbollah's expenditure in rocketry. To date, 603 Lebanese civilians and non-combatant soldiers have died (the number of Hezbollah unknown), while in Israel the number is 66, only 26 of them civilians. With a civilian kill rate of over 10-times that of Hezbollah's, Israel is looking more like a terrorist then the terrorists.

Not all Barbarism is Middle Eastern

The Chinese government is leading an extermination effort that has reduced the country's dog population by an estimated 50,000. The pets were eliminated in an attempt to control an outbreak of rabies. Not that the Chinese are any strangers to mass exterminations, sick birds and democracy demonstrators come to mind, but the reports indicate a new level of barbarism that is shocking. Thousands of these animals are reported to have been kicked and beaten to death in front of their helpless owners. I can't say it enough, how you do something is always at least as important as what you do.

The Truth is in the Middle

Watching Fox and CNN is like watching reports from two ends of the chain in a children's game of telephone. Can these two organizations really be reporting on the same reality? Of course not. They are both propaganda networks with their own political agendas that color all of their reporting. The only way to discern a shred of truth these days is to channel flip back-and-forth between the various news networks -- and to guess that the truth is somewhere in between.

State Responsibility

I was as appalled as anyone when the Federal Supreme Court ruled that it was okay for local governments to seize the homes of individuals and hand them over to private developers to build shopping malls. Of course, what the Supreme Court really said was that eminent domain rules are an issue for the states to decide. Ohio recently became yet another state ruling that cities may not seize private property to line the pockets of developers, adding evidence that the states can take responsibility for regulating themselves in the fashion that the State’s Rights supporters on the Supreme Court envision. At least I hope that's the case...

According to the Institute for Justice (http://www.ij.org), a Washington, DC-based legal defense group, 25 states have passed laws limiting their government’s eminent domain powers. Six additional states have constitutional amendments to limit eminent domain power on their ballots for November.

Progress in Texas

And speaking of dead children, Andrea Yates, who clearly did kill her five children by drowning them in a bathtub half-a-decade ago, was finally found not-guilty, by reason of insanity. Even Yate’s former husband, father of the dead children, believes she was psychotic. Yates claims that Satan was inside her and that killing the youngsters was the only way to save them from hell. It is surprising justice that hyper-Christian Texas would tolerate the argument that belief in Satan equates with psychosis.

George was Right

Evidence continues to mount that Illinois’ former-governor George Ryan did the right thing in commuting the death sentences of every Death Row inmate in Illinois a few years ago. Though prosecutorial abuse continues in Illinois, justice does occasionally get its day...

Julie Rea-Harper was released from prison in Illinois this week, after a jury overturned her conviction in an earlier trial. She had been convicted of having stabbed to death her 10-year-old son. While no hard evidence was available in the first trial, prosecutors had managed to convince a jury that she killed her son rather then let her husband have custody of the child following their divorce. That conviction was overturned on a technicality; apparently, the jury didn’t know that an inmate in Texas had confessed to killing her son.

Update: Its since been reported that Rea-Harper's defense was handled by the local Public Defender's office. You get what you pay for is an old, but true maxim, so it seems equally true that those accused who have to rely on public defenders will get exactly as much justice as they paid for -- which is to say not much.

Appalling Oppression Reported in Provincetown

Straight people in Provincetown, Massachusetts are issuing press statements and holding public meetings to protest being called bigots because of their opposition to Gay marriage. Rumor has it that the local KKK is forming an anti-defamation league in response to charges of racism.

Responsibility, act II.

Israel is by no means the only one to blame in this skirmish. Not by a long shot. The citizens of Lebanon have long embraced Hezbollah, knowing full well that they are indiscriminate killers. (In addition to attacks on Israeli civilians too numerous to count, Hezbollah killed 241 US peacekeepers and 56 French peacekeepers in 1983, and kidnapped and murdered even more UN peacekeepers in the 1980s.) The Lebanese have essentially been bribed to look the other way by Hezbollah's schools, medical clinics, and aids centers. And in exchange, the Lebanese have sold much of their own moral authority and forsaken their right to claim themselves as innocent bystanders. What's being done by the Israeli's to (the disenfranchised) women and innocent children is abominable, however Lebanese men who have tolerated Hezbollah as neighbors are a lot less innocent then many of us would like to believe. This is not a black and white situation; there are more then two degrees of culpability. If the Lebanese truly wish to wear the mantel of victimhood, then they must disarm the Hezbollah themselves and not tolerate their weapons and violent activities within Lebanon.

Say what? Did that really happen?

In a totally unexpected move, the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia put up a website to publish exhibits from the trial of convicted terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui. This sets a precedent of such magnitude that its affects on American jurisprudence will likely be not be fully known for years. One has to wonder what motivated such as action. Could it be that the case against Moussaoui was so shaky and the arguments against him so weak that the Administration feels a continuing need to lobbying the American public for support? It's not like the posted material, taken by itself, is likely to convince anyone of anything. It's more likely the intention in publicizing the material was simply to dazzle the public with complexity, hoping that an impressive show would shift public opinion in some measurable way.

Of course the awake among you will point out that Moussaoui plead guilty, so what would the quality of the case, or public opinion of it have to do with anything? Well, that's a good question. I can only imagine that someone in the Administration was looking down the road, trying to anticipate challenges in successfully trying those currently held at Guantánamo Bay. If publishing the Moussaoui documents can be demonstrated to effect public opinion, then they'll have identified a potential new tool for the government's arsenal of tools to control public opinion. Sure it sounds perfectly Machiavellian, but hey, it's Washington, could we expect anything less?

More blame...

Another, more controversial Washington-based group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), has issued a statement calling Israel a terrorist state. "Whenever civilians are attacked to achieve a political goal, the charge of terrorism must be applied, whether the terrorist is an individual, a group or a state," said CAIR Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper. CAIR said it is accusing Israel of state terrorism based on statements by Israeli officials who have said "they intend to make the civilian population of Lebanon suffer in order to put pressure on Hezbollah." Despite CAIR's controversial pedigree (they've been accused, possibly by those with axes to grind, of being Islamist at the least and terrorist at the worst), their arguments seems pretty sound.

So exactly how free is the press in the U.S.?

International reports indicated that Condoleezza Rice was told in no uncertain terms that she wasn't welcome in Lebanon; this following the Qana massacre. More interestingly, it was also reported that she was in talks with the Israelis at the time of the Qana incident, but that they failed to tell her about what had happened, and only admitted to it after Rice's own people informed her of it many hours later. With allies like Israel, who needs enemies? They're the walking definition of duplicitous. So what does this have to do with free press? Well, there was little or no mention of this diplomatic embarrassment in U.S. news reports, and the incidents seem too significant to have been casually not covered.